- Location
- Can’t say. I know my momentum.
Anyone want a ^_^ t-shirt?
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
I wonder if we can replicate this with a rune. It seems very useful.
- Location
- United States
You may consider this to be my first attempt! I'm relying on an unbreakable interspecies friendship to drive up the adorableness while simultaneously flirting with the line as for what constitutes a "cat video" to discourage getting the maximum result.
View: https://youtu.be/N2hssAyomdU?si=3xn_PMiBdvjjDlgz
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Did you see the winning plan for this upcoming update
- Location
- Europe
Did you see the winning plan for this upcoming update
TLDR: *screaming in Kagami Yūsuke*
- Location
- United States
Hi all! (@Paperclipped @eaglejarl @Velorien)
Just checking up to see if these questions were still under discussion! Thanks.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
Not urgent, but another relevant TH question that came up on discord: we're still waiting on the medical mechanics for MS8 (which is also fine). Noburi hailed it as a medical miracle even when compared to other similar seals like chakdar or dampeners (boosts surgery by +3) due to how it lets you study internal effects.
With that being said, does MS8 also provide a bonus to TH the way it does mednin? The justification being that the additional info about your internal manipulations would help you modify and create techniques. It would also make sense that Minato, one of the most renowned hackers at such a young age, managed this feat through the help of the seals he was inventing.
Not urgent, but another relevant TH question that came up on discord: we're still waiting on the medical mechanics for MS8 (which is also fine). Noburi hailed it as a medical miracle even when compared to other similar seals like chakdar or dampeners (boosts surgery by +3) due to how it lets you study internal effects.
With that being said, does MS8 also provide a bonus to TH the way it does mednin? The justification being that the additional info about your internal manipulations would help you modify and create techniques. It would also make sense that Minato, one of the most renowned hackers at such a young age, managed this feat through the help of the seals he was inventing.
I'd like to second this question, seems quite useful.
Minato probably had plenty of experience with TH and would have tools that increased it if he could. Using Sealing to do that is quite insightful something I'd expect from him.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Now we just need to figure out how to use TH to improve our Sealing
- Location
- United States
I mean, a lot of Sealing (the skill) represents very precise chakra control. I can totally see that being something you could help aide yourself with using TH!
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
A jutsu stunt that measures various cthonic/heavenly resonances that scales off of THing? More TH, the better you can filter out junk data from relevant?
+THing AB to sealing rolls, only one tag per roll? Since you're measuring readouts from a jutsu, maybe using this precludes research assistants?
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Inb4 we hyperspec on dungeon clearing and Pain shows up again and we're like oh yeah I forgot about that guy
O, what a brilliant day it will be when we are kitted out to stomp the spooky corners of the setting no one steps foot in.
Chapter 673: Choosing Death
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"...and if you think having your skeleton rip itself out of your body and choke you to death is as bad as it gets, that's nothing compared to the risk of rupturing the dimensional insulation layer and having the Leviathans That Punish Cognition come and–"
"Thank you, Kagome," Kei interrupted wearily. She'd started out standing by the fire, reaching over periodically to warm her hands against the chilly desert night. By this point in the tirade, she'd sunk to the ground, trying to maintain proper, upright cross-legged posture even as the life visibly drained out of her.
The entire team, sans Mari and Yuno (still laid up in their bedrolls, at this point needing rest more than treatment), was gathered around the fire. Hazō sat opposite Kei and Snowflake as they identically tried not to sag. Tenten, next to him, had never been exposed to a proper Kagome-sensei rant before, and was drinking in every word with obvious fascination. Noburi, on Hazō's other side, seemed to have zoned out. Hazō himself was alternatingly nodding to show understanding, cringing in humiliation, and taking notes about very real dangers every sealmaster should know to watch out for. As Kagome-sensei had pointed out repeatedly, Hazō's rapid growth in skill was unmatched by a parallel growth in experience, which meant he was still dangerously ignorant in countless domains. He'd never even heard of the Leviathans That Punish Cognition, much less learned whatever lucky dances might stay their wrath.
"No problem, Kei," Kagome-sensei said briskly. "Now, where was I? Right, the sheer pants-on-head craziness of trying to–"
Kei's hand twitched in her lap. "What my expression of gratitude was intended to convey is that I believe you have covered all the essential points, and since the rest of us are already quite au fait with the perils of sealcrafting and how they apply to this situation–"
Tenten raised her hand.
"I am quite certain that Kagome will be delighted to explain the myriad perils of sealing and the absolute need for egregious safety measures, at length, on any occasion of your choosing, which I would emphatically prefer not to be now."
Kagome-sensei nodded enthusiastically. Tenten smiled at him and lowered her hand.
"–and as such, it would be best to save the rest of the ran- lecture for later. Tonight, perhaps, when Hazō has finished with his daily tasks and is preparing to sleep."
"If you insist," Kagome-sensei grumbled. "At least it'll give me some time to put my thoughts in order. I always feel like I run out of stuff to say too fast at times like these."
Hazō would get Kei for this. He wasn't sure how yet, nor how to survive the inevitable re-retribution from at least three vengeful girls (and possibly Noburi, joining in just for the hell of it, and possibly Mari, once she saw how much fun everyone but Hazō was having), but the founder of Uplift firmly believed that where there was a will, there was a way.
"To briefly recapitulate the last half hour, then," Kei said, "professional opinion discourages runic infusion in an unsecure location while surrounded by a variety of unknown chakra beasts and, to use a particularly choice expression from sixteen minutes ago, 'a dodgy stew of blatant eldritch weirdness that could be coming to a boil under our very feet right now'."
"What if we infused it outside the cave?" Hazō proposed. "There has to be a reasonable radius beyond which we think the esoteric effects of the cave won't reach."
"And then very slowly manually drag it around aforementioned unsecure area?" Kei asked.
"Right."
"I'm uncertain whether logistical concerns should be foremost in our minds here," Snowflake said. "Obviously, there will be some degree of risk in any attempt to bait the chakravores, as Hazō has elegantly dubbed them. We do not know whether they have any additional powers they have yet to display, nor what other chakra beasts may be drawn into the process. There is always the risk of Noodle ghouls."
"What do Noodle ghouls have to do with it?" Hazō asked. "I'm specifically proposing to keep the chakravores alive to study, not massacre them."
Tenten gave them a questioning look.
"We got briefed on them before the big mission that started our whole adventure," Hazō explained. "They can smell corpses from a long way off. After any battle in eastern Noodle, you have to seal away or burn the bodies, otherwise you'll be neck-deep in ghouls before you know it. But I'm not sure why that's relevant."
"Ooh, I know this one!" Yuno's voice came from a bedroll, sounding remarkably chipper for someone who hadn't even been conscious last time Noburi checked. "I fought some back when I was a missing-nin. Um, last time, I mean. There's this parasite called a possessor, and what it does is, it sucks your brain out through your ears, and then it lays an egg in your skull. Then the egg hatches into a new parasite, and the new parasite moves the body around like it's driving a cart, and goes off to suck other people's brains out so it can lay its eggs in them."
Kagome-sensei, who'd sat down next to Hazō, went completely stiff.
"But the part Snowflake's talking about," Yuno went on, "is how most of the time, that doesn't happen, because the ghouls find the body while the parasite's still growing, and they think it's dead-dead, so they eat it. That way, the possessor doesn't get to breed. The legends say that the ninja of hundreds of years ago didn't know that, so they hunted the ghouls nearly to extinction, and… you can imagine what happened."
Come to think of it, wasn't there some legend in Leaf about how the Uchiha and their fire ninjutsu once saved the Fire Country from a zombie apocalypse? Hazō had always assumed it was clan propaganda, like the stories about Inuzuka being able to turn into giant wolf monsters with their dog's assistance.
"So in other words," Yuno said, "for all we know, there are other chakra beasts lurking in the chakravore's shadow, waiting to eat the bodies once they've been chakra-drained, and gathering all the chakravores in one place means those chakra beasts will follow. Or the chakravores could be the only thing stopping something even scarier from coming out of the depths. Or… you get the idea. Yuki from my classes says that 'don't make things worse' is one of the iron rules of a true extermination specialist."
There was a pause.
"I wonder if I'll have to kill her."
"I see," Kei said, wisely ignoring the heck out of that comment. "From that perspective, Snowflake's objection makes perfect sense. Of course, weaponising indirect chakra drain would be quite a triumph considering the nature of our opposition, and were we to sensibly prioritise our personal safety over the lure of weapons research, we would not have joined Hazō on this mission in the first place. Thus, before we discuss details of implementation, we must settle the issue of risk versus reward. Noburi, in your judgement as our resident medic, how likely are we to be able to extract useful technology from these chakra beasts should we successfully isolate them for study?"
Noburi zoned back in. "Sorry?"
"Noburi, in your judgement as our resident medic, how likely are we to be able to extract useful technology from these chakra beasts should we successfully isolate them for study?"
Noburi frowned. "Well, as Leaf's best and brightest young–"
He cut off.
Nobody said anything.
"In a word," Noburi said, subdued, "not bloody likely. I haven't done animal research since before we got adopted into Leaf, and back then, I only had basic training, so I was mostly just messing around. I'm guessing none of Hazō's diagnostic seals are meant for scanning living creatures in detail from a safe distance, so it'd be down to my chakra sense and anything I can get from a dissection–and I don't even know if we'd get anything from a dissection, seeing as those things are like half-ghost or something. And even if I did…"
He sighed, leaning back against his barrel. "Even ignoring how all my powers are water-based and theirs aren't, even if their drain is close enough to mine that I can steal their tricks somehow, I can't exactly do bloodline surgery on myself, y'know? Anybody who could is… not available. Whereas, in Team Uplift, nobody knows biosealing, and thank the Sage for that, and Hazō's still on baby's first technique modification, so I just don't see how we can get decent data and have a chance in hell of understanding what it means and do something useful with the result.
"Me and Yuno have talked about it before," Noburi said. "How it would be great if she could hunt down cool chakra beasts for me, and I'd use my miraculous medical ninjutsu to graft their powers onto myself, and hopefully avoid turning into Orochimaru somehow, and then I'd become the ultimate uber-ninja instead of being Leaf's barrel boy superweapon. But it's just a fantasy. I'm not the next Orochimaru. I am–I was going to be–the next Tsunade. You study humans because humans are the ones that need saving. Even he got that, once upon a time."
"Any other ideas?" Kei asked the group. "While my instinct is naturally to conduct a measured risk assessment and then flee screaming in terror from any suggestion that we attempt to contain these jōnin-devouring beasts over an extended duration, we have sacrificed everything to be here, and the racing hourglass forbids us to reject too many opportunities."
"There's still a chance," Hazō said. "Surely. All right, maybe we don't have biosealing or technique hacking or relevant medical theory. But we have runes. There's got to be at least a chance that we'll learn something that I can turn into an Itachi-killing chakra drain rune."
"I'm not a runemaster," Noburi said. "But I've got a vague idea by now of what a rune does, if not how. Supposing I tell you, 'the chakravore'–cool name, by the way–'drains through shadow clones by using its gobbledygook organ to turn shadow clone chakra into magical abracadabra chakra that's all connected so when you tug on one end, it pulls the other'. Have you got the runemaster skills to transform that gobbledygook organ into chakra channels running through a bunch of rock that will then turn somebody's shadow clone chakra into magical abracadabra chakra, and you with zero medical training to tell a gobbledygook organ from your left elbow?"
"I mean," Hazō said, "knowing that you have to turn shadow clone chakra into a different kind of chakra would at least give me a direction to look in."
"Would that level of new insight accelerate your hypothetical Itachi-killer research," Kei asked, "by a sufficient margin to cause you to prioritise it over any of the other possibilities you are exploring? And is that margin worth the as-yet-uncalculated but tangible risk of a TPK?"
Hazō gave it serious thought. He was good. Very good. But his recent experience with prep days showed that runes fell into three broad categories. One he could manage even without existing insights, just by virtue of inspiration followed by sheer brilliance. One was simply beyond him, whether as a limitation of runecrafting itself or of his current skills, there was no way to know. Assuming the Itachi-killer wasn't already in the middle or lower category, was the amount of information Noburi thought he could provide enough to push it down from the upper?
"Fine," Hazō said, allowing his frustration full rein as he switched mental tracks. "We kill them. We kill every last one. If we can't use them, then at the very least we won't let them hurt our family ever again."
Hazō didn't know what his face looked like at that moment, but he could guess from the way Snowflake flinched away.
-o-
You have received 4 - 2 (Loquacity) = 2 XP.
-o-
With the reluctant approval of Experimental Overseer Noburi and Assistant Experimental Overseer Kei, Hazō sent in earth clones to conduct some quick experiments.
- Earth clones are drained into oblivion very quickly
- Real materials created by ninjutsu (MEW, ES) are either undrainable or of no interest to the chakravores
- Construct MEW is drained and collapses; Noburi thinks that draining the Earth chakra does something to the chakravores, but his senses aren't fine enough to tell what
- Experimental Overseer Noburi and Assistant Experimental Overseer Kei reluctantly gave permission for Hazō to use shadow clones of earth clones under extensive safety measures (full on chakra, mouthful of concentrated chakra water which he'll hopefully swallow immediately if he collapses, Noburi touching an open cut for maximum VD effectiveness); both clones were drained and destroyed immediately, with no effect on Hazō
-o-
Kagome is of the opinion that the chakravores could well be gaki; he certainly favours it over the Otter Scroll theory. He notes, however, that gaki are incredibly hard to kill unless you are a damnbeast, since they are not chakra beasts but hunger made flesh. (Further questions regarding damnbeasts, and especially where to obtain one on short notice, were met with screaming.)
-o-
Setting aside your current level of access to contract-buying resources, Kagome suspects he lacks the kind of reputational cachet with the Arachnids that would encourage them to form contracts to be tortured to death for his sake. Among other things, he has yet to prove himself to them, either in combat or by doing anything about the Great Seal (the reason he was made summoner at all).
-o-
Voting is closed.
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Man, I look forward to a year and change from now, when Hazou will be a proper trained expert in 3-4 research disciplines and the best guy in the world at 2.5 of them lol.
Great chapter as always.
Pinging also @eaglejarl @Paperclipped
Just double checking here, the chakravore didn't drain the EC through the ES jutsu effect? There is an open chakra connection there since the jutsu is continuously fueled.
If not, I suspect that non-construct WW would be safe to use on them....
Also, during the testing did the chakravores seem agressive to the ECs or more reactive?
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I can see it now:
QMS: Upon review, we've decided not to give you [shiny] because it would be unsimulationist.
PLAYERS: Is that so? Well, looks like Hazō has some free time now. We're going to go invent... [roll dice] Plutosealing. We'll be needing a full set of rules by next week, and we all know what'll happen if they're not properly balanced. Or maybe you've just remembered some reason why [shiny] is simulationist after all?
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- She/Her/They/Them
That skeleton is not going to have to work hard
Heh. With me, that Leviathan is not going to have to work hard--
The Otters again? No D:
Now is it running out too fast, or does he have stuff to say too fast, and then runs out? (see what I meant about the leviathans having their work cut out for them in my case)
AIIIEEEEEE
If the Uchiha fought, or unwittingly aided, the lupchanzen... maybe through their anti-Karasu campaign, even?
Noburi really is hit hard. Don't wanna step on Mari's toes but talking to her about it might help?
Many good words and compounds here.
DETERMINATION.
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Lol, of course.
(I would probably prefer to think of it as "The character through great effort and time and engagement with various niche aspects of the setting has constructed a clever way that [shiny] can be achieved, perhaps by inventing a discipline all by himself if it is required to do so, and so triumphed over this obstacle", since it is a bit less adversarially-coded but YMMV.)
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- He/Him
What can I say, the rich get richer
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I suppose this is one way to describe what actually happened with 3D sealing. Back when we were first designing the Great Seal, we couldn't have imagined that the players would eventually be merely [big number] away from making their own.
Wasn't the whole point of that plotline that we would eventually have to replace the Great Seal, or at least understand it well enough to replace it? What did you imagine happening that didn't involve Hazō learning Primordial Sealing?
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We assumed Hazō would merely find a way to repair the metaphysical damage with paper sealing solutions. Some questing for lore might have been involved.
Getting eaten by a Dragon, of course
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In reaction to the chapter; yeah, that was pretty much what I expected. Still, we didn't lose a huge amount by consulting the team (though I'm a little concerned by Hazō apparently interpreting the plan as "kill every chakravore" instead of "kill the two remaining chakravores currently in our way", right after Yuno and Snowflake just finished warning him about why killing all the chakravores might be a bad idea:
Hopefully that is in fact just his emotional reaction talking, and he's not actually going to go out of his way to hunt down more chakravores; that would be a pretty weird interpretation of the plan.
Really? Speaking as someone who was following but not participating in the quest when the Great Seal was revealed, I thought it was pretty clear from the outset that Hazō was going to have to learn 3D Sealing to fix it. The whole problem just seemed on a massively bigger scale than paper sealing had ever been shown to be capable of dealing with.
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