I think this is probably a bad idea? The Force Dome presumably has some thickness, so when this deactivates, everything inside is going to suddenly fall by about that thickness. Even if it's only a centimetre or so, that's a lot of energy when what's falling is a 500-metre-radius hemisphere of dirt and rock. (Unless you mean a version of Force Dome that just overlaps with matter instead of displacing it, in which case this doesn't apply but it might be more difficult to research.)
I don't expect this to be a problem above ground. It might be an issue if we use this over and over again in the same spot, but I don't for see us even doing that in Leaf.
If it is a problem, it's much less of a problems then leaving Konoha completely open to a three guys with a shovel.
I don't expect this to be a problem above ground. It might be an issue if we use this over and over again in the same spot, but I don't for see us even doing that in Leaf.
If it is a problem, it's much less of a problems then leaving Konoha completely open to a three guys with a shovel.
I think this is probably a bad idea? The Force Dome presumably has some thickness, so when this deactivates, everything inside is going to suddenly fall by about that thickness. Even if it's only a centimetre or so, that's a lot of energy when what's falling is a 500-metre-radius hemisphere of dirt and rock. (Unless you mean a version of Force Dome that just overlaps with matter instead of displacing it, in which case this doesn't apply but it might be more difficult to research.)
Shouldn't be much of a problem unless we do it over Leaf. But I don't see why this is any better than Iron Earth + Force Dome and I don't see any reason to research it if Iron Earth is ...within... or ...maybe...
As far as precedent from Force X seals goes, I don't think that's guaranteed. Force constructs are able to be arbitrarily thin and sharp, it's why stuff like Force Claws and Skyslicers (using a different seal but similarly an invulnerability field) work.
I don't expect this to be a problem above ground. It might be an issue if we use this over and over again in the same spot, but I don't for see us even doing that in Leaf.
If it is a problem, it's much less of a problems then leaving Konoha completely open to a three guys with a shovel.
If Force Dome (or hemisphere) is possible and Force Sphere is possible then it stands to reason that an intermediate between the two might also be possible. I.e something that covers, say, 270°. Or maybe somewhat less if that's better for structural integrity. Point is, it should seem like a full sphere to anyone who is trying to dig under it on the assumption that it's only a dome, while also leaving enough of a foundation to not cause mass droppage when dispelled. Enemies would not know it isn't a full sphere and the likeliness of them thoroughly testing it seems low enough to take that security risk. Especially if the resulting Rune is still called Force "Sphere" by us as we deploy it and explain it to people not covered under highest clearance OPSEC.
If Force Dome (or hemisphere) is possible and Force Sphere is possible then it stands to reason that an intermediate between the two might also be possible. I.e something that covers, say, 270°. Or maybe somewhat less if that's better for structural integrity. Point is, it should seem like a full sphere to anyone who is trying to dig under it on the assumption that it's only a dome, while also leaving enough of a foundation to not cause mass droppage when dispelled. Enemies would not know it isn't a full sphere and the likeliness of them thoroughly testing it seems low enough to take that security risk. Especially if the resulting Rune is still called Force "Sphere" by us as we deploy it and explain it to people not covered under highest clearance OPSEC.
That's betting Leaf's security that the besieging force won't cast Living Roots, scout win HlaM, or do any of dozens of earth techniques that could give up the game.
And if they are in fact besieging, they'll have plenty of time to probe our defences.
Also, sufficiently exotic/powerful chakra sensors like Kisame might be able to sense the shape of the the shield with little effort.
Kei looked over, one eyebrow raised. A smile tweaked Noburi's lips and he tipped his head towards Hazō, who was thoughtfully poking at the fire with a stick. Kei looked; her face went through a rapid series of emotions. Confusion about what Noburi meant, recognition as she figured it out, and a sharp glower at her grinning brother and his extended hand.
"Not yet," she hissed.
"Oh, come on."
"Not yet. There is still a chance."
"Pfft."
Hazō, and the rest of the family, looked back and forth between the quarreling siblings.
"Something I should know?" he asked mildly.
"Nope," Noburi said, his grin getting wider.
"Not a word!" Kei whispered to him, only to be waved off without even a glance.
Hazō eyed them with jaundiced gaze before shrugging it off. "I've been thinking," he said.
Noburi looked at Kei triumphantly.
"Not yet!"
"There's something I need to say to you all," Hazō began.
"HAH!"
Kei glowered at her brother and his newly-reclaimed title as Mayor of Smugton. She also reached into her pocket and tossed him a five ryō coin.
Hazō cleared his throat pointedly.
"We had a bet on that you would be giving an uplifting speech soon," Noburi said. His grin was about to swallow his head. "She thought it would be tomorrow."
"Statistically—" She sighed. "Never mind. Hazō, please continue."
Hazō rolled his eyes.
The family was outside the cave, gathered around a bonfire as the stars spilled across the velvet backdrop of the heavens above them. In the distance, a (probably) coyote howled, and the light of the moon made the stars sparkle. The desert was hot during the day, even this late in the year, but at night the temperature plunged. As a result, everyone was sitting on blankets to keep themselves off the heat-sucking ground, and wrapped in more blankets to ward off the chill in the breeze that kept blowing in fits and starts, all too often driving the fire's smoke directly into Hazō's face.
Noburi and Yuno were sharing their blankets and Noburi had one arm around her shoulders. She was blushing furiously, but she hadn't pulled away. Had, in fact, gone so far as to tip her head on his shoulder. Satsuko was undoubtedly appalled.
Two years ago, they would never have lit this delightful bonfire that threw flames five feet in the air. The land around here was mostly flat, the sightlines miles long, and there would have been too much fear of attracting patrols of Sand ninja, or Akatsuki members that happened to be passing by because that was totally a thing that could happen, or random predatory plants, animals, or skittering things the size of small dogs but with chitin and too many legs. No, there would have been no delightful bonfire with which to warm the toes and the faces while toasting their dinner. Instead, each Gōketsu would have had a hibachi full of coals next to them and told everyone that yes, absolutely, nice and warm yup yup yup—what, are you some kind of pansy who can't handle a little cold?
(Okay, they probably wouldn't have said the last part. The Gōketsu were, after all, decent people and there were clear lines drawn to define topics and levels of acceptable teasing.)
Fortunately, in this enlightened modern era, Hazō had the Scenery Clone Array seals. Anyone standing more than a dozen yards away would see only another empty stretch of frigid wasteland. The same empty stretch that had been here an hour earlier after Hazō set up the array and before everyone started indulging their inner pyromaniac.
"I have something I need to say to you all," Hazō repeated. He looked slowly around the circle, meeting each person's eyes in turn. To his left, whittling on a stick, Kagome-sensei. Then Mari, who had wrapped herself in so many blankets that she had almost disappeared. Beside her, Tenten and Kei were sharing a blanket. They weren't cuddling—perish the thought!—but they were sitting closer than Kei could stand any other human to be and Hazō could tell from the way their green-and-tan blanket bulged up that their feet were touching. It was only the two of them under that blanket; Snowflake had 'gone to bed' an hour earlier, as the team was setting up the fire. Hazō wasn't sure if she had timed out or dispelled herself and cursed himself for losing track of her schedule.
Completing the circle, Yuno and Noburi. Who were now very definitely cuddling as they leaned back against a thick stump that they had padded with pillows. Yuno had slid down a bit so she could lean against Noburi's chest, and he had wrapped both arms around her with a happy rumble in his chest.
"The situation we find ourselves in, it looks bad," Hazō began. "We are away from our home. We have left people behind, people that we love and cherish. We are cut off from the resources that we normally count on and are forced to live in the wilderness, afraid of making contact with civilization because it might lead Akatsuki to us."
"Again, I think you're overestimating that risk," Mari added. He looked at her sourly for the interruption and she raised her hands in surrender. "Sorry. You were saying something about how awful everything is?"
"It looks bad, I know. I want everyone to understand, I want you to know, deep in your bones, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
"Our goal is to kill Akatsuki, but it's more than that. As Kei pointed out to me, we need to kill them while also not ending civilization. Killing them would actually be pretty straightforward: I can make a rune that reproduces the ice storm that hit near Leaf, except with a vastly larger radius. The one near Leaf had a radius of about ten miles. I could make one with a radius of...fifty? A hundred? I haven't done the math, but it would be enormous. I could lure Akatsuki to some unoccupied piece of land in the middle of nowhere, set up one of these runes on a skytower a mile up, and turn it on when my telescope said they were a dozen miles away. I reverse summon the moment I do, but their first warning of what was coming would be the utter destruction of everything. Massive winds that tear up ancient trees and throw around boulders the size of a person. Freezing hell-spit falling sideways, making the blood freeze in your veins and explode your flesh. Could probably get some lightning in there too, just for spice."
He cocked his head in thought. "Actually, probably better to do it the other way. Instead of making it cold, make it hot. I turn the rune on and, a few seconds later, every breath of air within miles is hot enough to melt lead. Turn all of them to ash, and there wouldn't be any clouds gathering to provide warning.
"I have half a dozen ideas like that—things that would cause destruction over areas measured in small nations. Wide enough that I don't have to worry about getting Akatsuki into the AOE because the AOE is farther than they can see or sense or know.
"Of course, if we really wanted to go for certainty, and we were willing to decide that the end justifies the means and therefore it was okay to commit just a little bit of atrocity...well, we don't have to take the risk of luring them anywhere. We know that Konan is the Kage of Rain and spends most of her time there, and we know that the others gather there occasionally. Why not simply destroy the entire country? We can get any stragglers later, if they didn't happen to be at home."
He raised a hand to preempt Kei. "That was by way of example, Kei. I'm not going to do that.
"Because that is the other side of the coin," he continued, producing a fifty-ryō piece and holding it up to the light. It was a gold circle an inch across, carefully polished for exactly this demonstration. He held the coin up, tilting it so that it caught the firelight and clearly showed the face of Senju Hashirama.
"Save the world from Akatsuki's tyranny," Hazō said. He turned the coin around, showing the stylized leaf on the reverse. "Don't commit atrocities, destroy civilization, or kick off another war.
"The 'not committing atrocities' part is the main reason we're still out here," Hazō said frankly. "I want you to understand this, all of you: we can win this. We can kill Akatsuki. The hard part is doing it without losing our humanity in the process.
"We already have tools that will help with this. The Time Runes mean that we literally have more time than anyone else—time to train, to prepare, to research, to do whatever we decide is useful. Whatever will make all of us into the unstoppable badasses that we are going to be." He chuckled. "That we are already well on our way to being."
He gestured to Noburi. "My brother, special jōnin at seventeen. Third in command of Leaf General Hospital, at seventeen. The lynchpin of Leaf's victory in the most recent World War. The only reason that the Seventh Path survived the Drag.n invasion."
"My newest sister," he said, gesturing to Yuno. "Who has been utterly terrifying with her axe since the moment we met her, and is only getting more powerful as time goes on. She too is a special jōnin a year or so before most ninja become chūnin."
"Speaking of testing for chūnin," he said, gesturing to Kei. "Behold the woman so utterly dominant in the Chūnin Exams that Captain Momochi Zabuza himself bowed to her after giving her the winner's ribbon. So utterly brilliant that the Nara begged to bind themselves to our scrappy little new-forged clan of missing-nin through marriage to their clan heir. So desperate that they were willing to open their library." He grinned and was pleased to see when Kei's face softened into the tiniest little hint of a smile in return.
"Tenten, who has had multiple clans begging to adopt her and has refused them all because she prefers her liberty. Who came to Leaf as a child but already so skilled that they didn't know what to do with her. Who devastates monsters without so much as mussing her hair." He smiled. "I'm not sure I've said it in so many words, but I am so very glad that you are here. If you ever decide you want to be clan, the Gōketsu will welcome you with open arms. Because on the one hand you are good for Kei, and on the other hand you are already a ridiculous badass and in a few years you're going to be a legend."
He continued around the circle. "Speaking of legends: Mari, about whom there are already literally songs and stories. The only woman the Toad Sage ever met who he couldn't stop thinking about. To whom he ever used the word 'love' and meant it. The woman who is definitely in the running for being the world's greatest expert on the human mind, whether we look at her genjutsu skills or her social skills. A woman who goes where she wills and cannot be bound even by the will of a psychotic jinchūriki Kage. A woman who changed the shape of modern history not once but twice—once when she selected the diamonds in the rough with whom to found a new Village, and again when she convinced Leaf to accept us, thereby establishing the precedent that missing-nin can come in from the cold and that ninja can repatriate themselves."
He turned to the final person in the circle, and couldn't help that his eyes became watery. "And, last but very far from least, there is my teacher. Kagome-sensei, I'm not sure you realize how grateful I am to you, but I'm quite certain that you don't realize how incredible you are and what an impact you've had on the world.
"You created the skywalker seal. That seal has literally determined the entire shape of modern geopolitics. It gave us the opportunity to set those precedents that I mentioned a moment ago. It determined the outcome at the Battle on the Beach, and again at the Battle of the Gods. It completely altered Leaf's tactical doctrine and threw the Nara clan into a tizzy for months." He grinned. "And it let me and Noburi and Kei make the most badass ever entry at the Conclave." He chuckled, then sobered again.
"Being serious, though... Beyond transforming geopolitcs, you transformed education in Leaf. I pushed for the education of clanless after you and Honoka showed me that clanless only needed a little help to be just as good as clan. A generation from now, unless every other village adopts the same educational policies, Leaf will be the unchallenged dominant power in the world. Every clanless ninja owes you a debt, even if they will likely never realize it.
"And, of course, you trained me. I would have been dead a hundred times over without your safety procedures and training. Any glory I ever achieve with seals or runes will be owed in part to you. You have given me purpose, and hope, and the tools to reshape the world into something better than I found it. I am so proud to be your student." He bowed, a full dogeza, and held it for a moment before sitting up again and looking around the circle. (He carefully paid no attention to Kagome-sensei surreptitiously wiping at his eyes.)
"Yes, we are facing challenges right now. Yes, I suspect that all of us would prefer to be back in our beds in Leaf. And I suspect that many of you have been trying not to think that we will never be able to go back there.
"I tell you now: we will. Once Akatsuki is dead, once we have saved the world from their tyranny, we will return in triumph. One message to Naruto and he will meet us at the gates with a beaming smile on his face, backdated mission orders in his hands, and behind him an entire parade lined up in our honor. We will go down in Leaf's history with the names of its greatest heroes—the First founded the village, Tsunade is the greatest medic in the world, Jiraiya was a ninja without peer...and we are the ones who saved Leaf and the entire world from being ruled by a righteous zealot who wants to make humanity 'better' according to his own twisted standards. A zealot and his psychotic friends who think that the best way to enforce peace is through murder and extortion."
He looked around the circle again, slowly, meeting every rapt eye in turn.
"They are nothing but thugs," he said quietly. "Soon, they will be nothing at all. Nothing but a greasy stain on the dirt and an entry in the list of history's villains. We will do this. Every single one of us stands head and shoulders above our cohort, and we are going to continue to grow. We are going to become the unstoppable badasses whose legends make people say 'oh, the Sannin...yeah, I remember them. They were related to the Gōketsu, weren't they?'
"Trust me, all of you: we have got this. We will stop Akatsuki, we will return home in triumph, and we will be champions. Believe."
For long moments, no one spoke aloud. Their eyes said all that was needed, and those eyes were filled with pride, and with belief.
Day 1
Infuse TR130:
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 - 6 (timeladder down) - 3 = 41
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 3 = 60
Hazō completes the TR130! It lasts for 1 week and covers the same AoE as the TR125, but has a slightly improved time acceleration factor.
Hazō completes the Icarus Rune! Mechanics: This rune prevents the formation of Air Domes (including skywalkers) in a wide radius. Hazō suspects it may inhibit other forms of hardened-air-chakra-constructs (such as the tendrils in the skywalker sealing failure, certain Wind ninjutsu such as Whirlwind Barrier, etc).
Like with explosive runes, this rune can be infused with a variable amount of power, making a larger rune with a larger denial-radius.
5 points of substrate: AoE = 1 kilometer across.
25 points of substrate: AoE = 5 kilometers across.
125 points of substrate: AoE = 25 kilometers across.
Prep Kamikaze Rune. Difficulty Result: This is the Superchiller rune, not a variant. Hazō's prep day of the Superchiller rune included that it would be hardened against heavy winds and cold – he knew about and expected the EM-nuke conditions would happen, and accounted for it in his rune-design process. Difficulty Result, same as previously stated for Superchiller: Easy.
Day 2
DoB rest.
Day 3
Prep Force Domes. Difficulty Result: Medium.
Prep TR150 Unchained. Difficulty Result: Hard. As a result, Hazōpilot decides to switch to a lower TR-rating of 140 (unchained) for future prep days and the infusion roll, figuring that it will split the difference between the relatively doable TR130 and the apparently-challenging 150.
Prep Iron Earth Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks exerting a full 5SB-style freeze on a massive volume would be pretty hard, and instead preps a milder version that merely makes all earth in reach have massively increased inertia, runic-drag style, which wouldn't completely prevent tunneling, but would make it prohibitively slow. In this context 'tunneling' would include anything that causes the earth to move, including shovels, HLAM, Earthshaping, Bones of Creation, and Tunnel Excavation. Anything that made material simply disintegrate would probably not be affected, but Hazō is not aware of any jutsu that does that. Difficulty Result: Easy.
Day 4
Prep Force Domes.
Prep TR140 Unchained. Difficulty Result: Medium.
Prep Kagome's Tears Rune. Difficulty Result: Easy.
Day 5
Prep Force Domes.
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Chakra Shredder Pulse Rune. Difficulty Result: Medium.
Day 6
Prep Force Domes.
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Let's Fuck With Sealmasters Rune. Difficulty Result: Hard. After working on this for a day, Hazou thinks that inhibiting activation might be easier than forcing activation, and forcing sealmasters to pay large amounts of chakra to activate their seals would have the similar effect of nullifying their main advantage. He doesn't know for certain though, and the idea would need a prep day.
Day 7
Infuse Force Domes:
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) + 3 = 55
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) + 12 = 77
Hazō makes major progress on Force Domes. He thinks he's a little under a fifth of the way done. He feels pretty good about this rune, though he's not sure how much of that is due to excellent luck in the research process.
Infuse TR140 Unchained:
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) - 3 = 49
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) - 6 = 59 Hazō spends a FP to reroll!
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) + 6 = 71
Hazō makes huge progress on TR140 Unchained. He thinks he's well over 50% of the way done. However, he's not sure how much value the rune will bring in terms of veterancy for higher acceleration factors, as he thinks he's already getting most of the benefit from his experience on TR103, 125, and 130.
Day 8
DoB rest.
Author's Notes: I could have written more of this plan but this was the big inspiring scene that I was super excited about and I feel that the rest of it can be handled offscreen without more than minimal loss of quality. (Also, I'm not sure how some of it would play out and need to discuss with the other QMs.) We'll get you answers on the rest of it ASAP.
XP AWARD: 40 This update covered 8 days.
Brevity XP: 8
"GM had fun" XP: 5 (capped)
Yeah, badass speeches are my Kryptonite. Thanks for the opportunity
There is considerable discussion amongst the QMs about it or this wouldn't still be unknown. I expect they're split about it and waiting for a consensus to announce the results. Or they just haven't had time to sit down and talk about it.
It's not that we're split, exactly, it's that discussion is happening asynchronously and there's been some backing and filling, changing of minds, re-analysis of events, etc. We haven't managed to have our normal Saturday voice call for a couple weeks before life keeps getting in the way.
To the first: is it a largely true statement that Noburi has largely focused on the practical elements of medicine, e.g. healing people? Not having a shift away from this clearly demarcated hurts intelligibility, or at least doesn't help.
Erm...yes, right. Medical research. Rules for it are totally a thing that we have. Very detailed ones, in fact. They live in Canada but they're amazing.
So in the specific case of Noburi doing bloodline research for SC, a plausible outcome is a stunt with the mechanical effect of letting him cast SC safely?
So in the specific case of Noburi doing bloodline research for SC, a plausible outcome is a stunt with the mechanical effect of letting him cast SC safely?
I'd rather not speculate until the QMs have discussed it. I don't want to set expectations for one thing and then end up disappointing them if we end up going in another.
Hazou SC XP: 7.6 (76 training blocks in the 8 day period)*5 XP/day = 38 SC XP
There's a minor error on the schedule where 5 prep days are specified, but 6 are marked out on the schedule. I'm going to assume Hazou took a day off at the beginning to read notes. This makes my job minorly easier and it doesn't really matter when he takes the day off.
There are 5 days where he can apply 4 blocks to the first set of notes and 2 days where he can apply 3 blocks to the second set of notes. However, this will finish the first set, so instead he's going to be smart about this and distribute the days so that he can read both sets of notes on the infusion days.
Recall that Hazou is working on a project to clear his Sealing Stagnancy, which means his note gains (and his SC XP gains) are unstagnated
I've been worried recently - Yuno's dreams, Tenten's own perspective. The rest of the team has a fire-forged bond with Hazō, tested via Killbox, but even knowing that everyone left Leaf, I've been waiting for... if not a betrayal, then something. Some loss-of-faith problem, similar to what happened with a few of our clan back in Leaf.
If the others were actually listening to that speech, though? Emotionally open to what he was saying? "We can win at any moment, and also we can bend time so Shadow Clones aren't even our greatest advantage anymore" is one hell of a sales pitch. We should be good to go for - given that these are ninja - weeks at least, as long as no one blurts out the whole Isen thing.
After that, parade new goodies - or be ready to kill Akatsuki, given that they're already poking at the Rift.
Hey guys, do you think Noburi could squeeze in a cold or two? We could try convincing him that speeches are a form of training, and give us (silly) reasons to speechify at the rest of team uplift! It's not like speeches every few days are tiring! What could go wrong?
Erm...yes, right. Medical research. Rules for it are totally a thing that we have. Very detailed ones, in fact. They live in Canada but they're amazing.
