Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[Left-Hand Mutant]

Due to a unfortunate runic incident, Team Uplift as a whole is now permanently incandescent. Thankfully, glowing like a beacon couldn't make their stealth any worse.

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Actually it's a big improvement!

Uplift's stealth kit has great concealment from auditory and olfactory senses, in the form of Banshee Fuckers and Pangolin Pepper Bombs, but most enemies can still observe us visually.

[X] research the continuous coloured strobelight seal

It's the missing piece of the Goketsu-Style Stealth Kit.

 

[Sir Stompy]

I don't think that we should try to keep an eye on Leaf. It introduces additional security concerns, but more pressingly IMO, what if something is happening that's really, really bad? Itachi-is-torturing-Ino bad? We left in the way we did so we couldn't be coerced. But just knowing stuff can be enough in some circumstances.

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I just want a singular "Oro says shit is happening with the Rift now, and you need to get your ass back to Leaf" we don't need anything else.

 

[FaintlySorcerous]

I just want a singular "Oro says shit is happening with the Rift now, and you need to get your ass back to Leaf" we don't need anything else.

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Can you lay out some plausible situations where something is happening with the Rift and our returning in a week-ish would be useful or meaningful?

I'm much more okay with giving Snuncle a big red telephone but I can't think of any situation where it would realistically be useful. I'd much rather trade notes with him and keep away from any news about Leaf.

 

[Sir Stompy]

Can you lay out some plausible situations where something is happening with the Rift and our returning in a week-ish would be useful or meaningful?

I'm much more okay with giving Snuncle a big red telephone but I can't think of any situation where it would realistically be useful. I'd much rather trade notes with him and keep away from any news about Leaf.

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Easy, Leaf gets word that Akatsuki has opened the Rift and is exploring it. They go to attack it, preparations are going to last ~a week.

We show up with Nobs to distribute chakra to the Sannin SC brute squad, overcharge chunin Summoners to summon their Bosses, and runic weaponry to fight Akatsuki.

Naruto is more comfortable taking the fight to Akatsuki since he knows Leaf is defended by runes, allowing him to strip it of more defenses than he otherwise would.

Our contribution is probably the tipping point between victory and defeat

 

[Emstar]

Can you lay out some plausible situations where something is happening with the Rift and our returning in a week-ish would be useful or meaningful?

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We need to get the word out to them to hold the "Go attack them all ninja-like" thing until we get back in a week so that the various OP rune things we've been cooking up actually have an impact on the outcome of events.

 

[ProperAttorney]

The moment the Akatsuki open the rift is the moment the final countdown starts, but... It's not going to be instant. It's going to take some time to develop countermeasures against the Pure Lands chakra drain, and it's going to take even longer to actually locate Nagato. We will likely have... I would say at minimum a month from the date the rift is cracked. Granted we should not give the Akatsuki that time lightly, but it will be fine to use that time to travel back to Leaf and arm them against the coming showdown.

 

[Inferno Vulpix]

Yeah, it's part of our mission parameters that we'll have some time between rift-opening and the final battle:

I wish I could have some way to contact you to tell you to return, but if I can do it, Akatsuki can do it. I have to trust your judgment on this. If you come back, Leaf will fight to defend you from Akatsuki. That could spell the end of Leaf if what you bring back isn't good enough. Come back too late, and we might have already observed Akatsuki at the rift site, waited as long as we thought we could afford to, attacked, and lost. It's a trade-off.

Ideally, you bring back runes and tools ready-to-go and we immediately attack Akatsuki at O'uzu, but who can tell what the future will bring?

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I don't think Naruto would be saying this if it was a "one day" sort of thing. That's barely enough time to get your jounin together. The letter that contains this is specified in part by "We don't have rift technology sufficient to open the rift and pull our people out in less than two weeks.", which to me lightly suggests that that's the order of magnitude Naruto is thinking about: weeks, not days or months. Fortunately for us, a single week is enough for us to get back to Leaf.

 

[CitizenTen]

[X] I want to develop our own capability to create rifts to research Rift Runes sooner than that
[X] Naruto's totally Fucked, we're going beast Mode

For those that want to return, can someone tell me what people think Leaf is like right now?

My general head canon is Naruto's fled Leaf, is massively incapacitated, got his hands chopped off, is no longer Kage, and/or Leaf is basically a puppet state or a smoldering ruin.

And sidenote, remember, Naruto's orders and letters were written based on Naruto plans and ideas that were shown to fail immediately when got hilariously crushed by Itachi. The very first step of his plan failed. Naruto's model of everything was wrong. Following step 2 through N of his plan, after it's been shown to be stupid is suicide. We should ignore the plan.

But I'm genuinely curious what people think happened to Leaf after Hazo's family left?

Just to recap the scene:

Itachi shows up in Leaf to check if Hazo's researching dimensionalism.
Hazo's coincidentally missing.
Itachi asks Naruto where he is.
Naruto evades questions, dodges questions, and looks around. Naruto gets crushed against Itachi here, and acts like a weak little scared child.
Naruto sends a message to Hazo telling him to go missing through the seventh path.
And and to rub it in, Hazo's family happens to immediately go missing after Itachi personally requests Hazo's presence at their compound.


Let's take Itachi's point of view:

Itachi, not being an idiot, realizes Hazo's left to research dimensionalism.
Itachi also knows Hazo's family just got orders to go missing. Probably from Hazo.
Hazo's only comunication been through the 7th path, orchestrated by Naruto.
Andd more importantly Leaf just broke their entire deal with Akasuki?!?! In under a month? Itachi can now demand even more absurd sanctions on anything he wants?? And be more justified and more extreme than last time?? (And remember, just to recap, they killed the Kage, took all of Leaf's land, money and resources, seals, and set the blame on Leaf, all for Asuma hesitating to answer a question)


So let's think, what happens after?


Next scene:

Itachi: *glares* Naruto, did you order Hazo to go missing?
Naruto: *rolls dice*
Naruto: *loses like a bitch*
Naruto: *small quiet voice* yes.

Itachi: motherfucker

OR
Itachi: *glares* Naruto, did you order Hazo to research weapons against us?
Naruto: *rolls dice*
Naruto: *loses like a bitch*
Naruto: *small voice* yes.

Itachi: motherfucker

OR

Itachi: *glares* Naruto, did you give Hazo special orders pertaining to Hazo's mission?
Naruto: *rolls dice*
Naruto: *loses like a bitch*
Naruto: *small voice* yes.

Itachi: motherfucker

OR

Itachi: *glares* Naruto, are you plotting to kill Akasuki?
Naruto: *rolls dice*
Naruto: *loses like a bitch*
Naruto: *small voice* yes.

Itachi: motherfucker

OR

Itachi: *realizes deal is broken and brazenly so*
Itachi: *Kills Leaf's Kage as retribution to install a more "favorable" leader* (again, Itachi is on much more solid ground than when Akasuki last killed Leaf's Kage)

OR

Itachi: Naruto must resign and be exiled from Leaf for such a fuck up and breach of peace.

OR

Itachi: Such crimes and broken words against us can not be taken lying down, we have decided to raze Leaf to the ground and kill half the children and all the ninja genin. You should thank us for being so lenient.


These are literal psychopathic death ninja who have been trained to kill literal children from a very young age, and they're the meanest and most bloodthirsty group of ninja around? They aren't going to let Leaf brazenly break its word in 3 seconds flat, especially when they hold all the leverage.


What do people think "Hazo returning to Leaf" even entails? That Itachi just shrugged his shoulders and did nothing?

 

[Left-Hand Mutant]

I just want to point out that holding the rift puts a giant target on Leaf. Even if we beat 5/6ths of the Akatsuki, the remaining member can/will disclose the rift to the other Hidden Villages.

The rest of the world knows it can't take Leaf if it unlocks Immortality and resurects all of its Essies, so they are forced to start World War Five: everybody vs Leaf.

And even if we hunker down really hard behind Force Domes and treat the rest of Fire as a write-off, that still leaves Leaf in a really tough spot while they wait months or longer for the rift to pay off.

And afterwards, when Leaf will need to beat down everyone at once to establish their control. That's really bloody, and doesn't leave any of the surviving soldiers in an emotional frame ready to embrace World Peace, or even put their trust in Pax Konoha 2.0: Runic Hazoloo.

The best thing for Leaf would be for Hazo/Uplift to solo the rift site with a superweapon, then vanish with the rift scar until they can learn how to exploit it, staying missing the whole time.

As far as anyone knows, a sealing failure blew up Sasori and closed the rift. Akatsuki and Leaf don't have any reason to go to war, and AMITY can continue to hold things together until we're ready to make our play.

 

[Retalnus]

Speaking of Orochimaru:

He's a clever guy, he knows a conflict with Akatsuki is brewing and he knows Hazou just asked him for a list of their biggest weaknesses right after unlocking "build battlefield-shaping weapons and effects: the skill", I'd bet he can put two and two together. So few people know about the discovery of 3D seals that it will probably be less obvious to them what Hazou is doing. Probably it'll just look like Hazou is fleeing for his life with his closest family to avoid Akatsuki's wrath

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Did Orochimaru have weaknesses to disclose? If I understand correctly, that's what you try and do in a setting like this if you can. Find a weakness and exploit it. It's preferable and more realistic than trying to just become more powerful than the Akatsuki.

I am relatively new to he quest. I arrived here from first reading Dungeon Crawler You and have actually been lurking for a while but I have found it daunting to update myself with the story so far, so I may have missed significant discussions related to this in the past.

 

[Buggy]

For those that want to return, can someone tell me what people think Leaf is like right now?

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Okay, I have a few issues with this interpretation that could be boiled down to "I don't think this happened and Leaf is broadly as we expect it, with Naruto in charge and whatnot."

First, basically all of this is contingent on the assumption that Naruto failed a bunch of critical social rolls. We don't know exactly how the confrontation in chapter #666 went down roll-wise, or if there even was a roll. Naruto may have opted not to use FP, for instance. I expect that with more marbles on the line, he wouldn't fold as easily.


Secondly, frankly, Naruto was in a shit position anyway and he knew it. I wouldn't be surprised if he folded in part because he knew the gig was up. Think about it; Itachi is in Leaf, suspects we're doing dimensionalism, and they want us back pronto. How much can we really delay that situation? A week or two? We wouldn't get jack done in a week or two; it's been months and we're still not ready to go back.

The time for delaying was before Itachi is sitting in Leaf asking pointed questions about us. The goal was to slip under the radar.

From the start, this deception was ideally a way for us to avoid going missing, and worst-case it was a delay to keep the hunter-nins off of us for longer. When the time came, Naruto gave us the decision we knew we'd have to make, and we weren't ready. Maybe we could have been ready if we prioritized differently and didn't do time runes, but oh well.


Third, don't be so sure that Akatsuki is eager and looking to kill another Kage. The first one was a accident, and if Akatsuki makes a trend of it then everyone else is going to be mighty nervous. Especially with a flimsy excuse like "They were researching- actually no nevermind, Leaf broke a deal.".

And the club of "people trying to figure out how to kill Akatsuki" is, well, everyone. Probably including some members of Akatsuki! Why would Itachi try to dig deep into every black-ops program aimed in his general direction? He knows they exist, he knows there are plausible excuses lined up for each and every one, and he knows that if he stops taking those excuses at face value then he'll have to bomb half of the EN back to the stone age. Ninja.


Fourth, and finally, the meta. The vibes. It's a bit of a dirty info source, but it is. The QMs leak little bits of information, and my impression from what I've seen is not that Leaf is a bombed out husk.

 

[Kyreneryk]

Speaking of Orochimaru:


Did Orochimaru have weaknesses to disclose? If I understand correctly, that's what you try and do in a setting like this if you can. Find a weakness and exploit it. It's preferable and more realistic than trying to just become more powerful than the Akatsuki.

I am relatively new to he quest. I arrived here from first reading Dungeon Crawler You and have actually been lurking for a while but I have found it daunting to update myself with the story so far, so I may have missed significant discussions related to this in the past.

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This chapter is Oro's Akatsuki dossier. It doesn't contain much in the way of major weaknesses - you don't get to be an S-rank ninja in a deathworld by having those - but there are some potentially exploitable angles, and it contains information about their abilities that's a lot more detailed than we had before. For example, it's why we know that Hidan cannot actually track us clear across the continent, except by Jashin guidance.

Our current plan to beat Akatsuki is to exploit the overwhelming and completely novel power of runecrafting in order to hit them with things too powerful or too esoteric to block (e.g. remote explosive, chakra shredder if it's doable), and then hopefully kill whichever of them we can't get that way with our newly resurrected S-rankers (which may or may not actually work because they may not still be S-rankers after the XP drain in the afterlife, but we'll deal with that when we get there).

Have you read the whole story? If not, I recommend it; you'll be much better informed about the background of everything if you do. (It is quite long, but it's a good story quite apart from its nature as a quest.)

 

[Cariyaga]

I do think we should keep track of how things are going... but I think the easier way to do that is to keep eyes on the rift site rather than Konoha.

 

[Sir Stompy]

I do think we should keep track of how things are going... but I think the easier way to do that is to keep eyes on the rift site rather than Konoha.

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Do you want to physically travel to the Rift to scout it? This seems...risky. Far far far mote risky than a dead drop on the Seventh Path.

My general head canon is Naruto's fled Leaf, is massively incapacitated, got his hands chopped off, is no longer Kage, and/or Leaf is basically a puppet state or a smoldering ruin

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This seems incredibly unlikely to me. Akatsuki is on thin ice with the Amity shit and they know it. Unless they had incontrovertible proof that Naruto ordered Hazou to do dimensionalism research I don't think they would turn Leaf into a crater. I trust Naruto enough not to turn said proof over.

Puppet state is impossible. Leaf would dissolve first.

I just want to point out that holding the rift puts a giant target on Leaf. Even if we beat 5/6ths of the Akatsuki, the remaining member can/will disclose the rift to the other Hidden Villages

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Yeah but remember that information sharing in the EN is shit. We can likely sweep the Rift Site clean if we have good detection runes. Then we'd have ~weeks before word gets back to Rain that we stole the Rift, and then additional weeks while they coordinate an assualt on Leaf to take the Rift back. Enough time to pull our people out.

 

[Cariyaga]

Do you want to physically travel to the Rift to scout it? This seems...risky. Far far far mote risky than a dead drop on thr Seventh Path.

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We have telescopes. Make use of them. Or develop a rune for long distance viewing. Either/or.

 

[Sir Stompy]

We have telescopes. Make use of them. Or develop a rune for long distance viewing. Either/or.

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You understand than the magnification on these telescopes is not all that great? Probably in the 3-5x range. These are not long range by any means and they are horizon limited, we run significant risk of running into a patrol. We'd have to get within a few miles of the Rift at most

As for runes, technically unknown but I highly doubt we can do continent spanning observation without some sort of targeting.

Our best plan would be to develop Telescope runes and physically go to the Rift site to observe it. Annoying with the weeks of travel time, but perhaps we have our next project after Mirror Dragon Runes

 

[Cariyaga]

You understand than the magnification on these telescopes is not all that great? Probably in the 3-5x range. These are not long range by any means and they are horizon limited, we run significant risk of running into a patrol. We'd have to get within a few miles of the Rift at most

As for runes, technically unknown but I highly doubt we can do continent spanning observation without some sort of targeting.

Our best plan would be to develop Telescope runes and physically go to the Rift site to observe it. Annoying with the weeks of travel time, but perhaps we have our next project after Mirror Dragon Runes

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The other alternative is to assign Mari to infiltrate the Jashinists there. It would almost certainly work; it is her exact specialty, if not the way it is usually applied.

But it would also kill her emotionally.

 

[Sir Stompy]

The other alternative is to assign Mari to infiltrate the Jashinists there. It would almost certainly work; it is her exact specialty, if not the way it is usually applied.

But it would also kill her emotionally.

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I really don't think she could. She is very recognizable. And they're ninja in the fucking field, what plausible cover story could she have? She's supposed to do her thing in cities, not a camp in the woods.

 

[Oneiros]

I really don't think she could. She is very recognizable. And they're ninja in the fucking field, what plausible cover story could she have? She's supposed to do her thing in cities, not a camp in the woods.

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Though I'm mostly neutral to slightly opposed to this idea, Mari did successfully infiltrate the Liberators army who were ninja in the field

 

[Sir Stompy]

Though I'm mostly neutral to slightly opposed to this idea, Mari did successfully infiltrate the Liberators army who were ninja in the field

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Were they on high alert for Mari Goketsu?

Also while they were in the field (sort of) they were snapping up any missing-ninja who would sign up with them. Not exactly a high-security environment

 

[Shrooms]

I really don't think she could. She is very recognizable. And they're ninja in the fucking field, what plausible cover story could she have? She's supposed to do her thing in cities, not a camp in the woods.

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Jashinists are notoriously stupid + you can use the Deceit stat for disguises. Dyed hair, chest binder, face makeup, etc. And however the fuck she keeps changing her eye color

Probably she would infiltrate them/get info by when they go into the nearby town (I forgot what its called but it's where we met Hidan originally), not just directly waltzing up to the site. That would be stupid

 

[strange_person]

what plausible cover story could she have?

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Pizza delivery? Lot of delicious food in storage seals, dossiers on Akatsuki's favorites, and there's that whole seventh path trade network thing, so bribery from interested parties in some other Elemental Nation wouldn't be too absurd.

Backdated letter of introduction from Goketsu Hazo, acknowledged high priest of Jashin's fertility-promoting aspect?

 

[Shrooms]

inb4 Mari is abt to infiltrate the Jashinists and bumps into Ami in cultist robes who is like "you'll never guess where I've been"

 

[ProperAttorney]

Though I'm mostly neutral to slightly opposed to this idea, Mari did successfully infiltrate the Liberators army who were ninja in the field

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I get your point but this is a bad example, Mari was discovered rather quickly when she went in the camp.

 

[RandomOTP]

I'd want to do a sanity check with Mari, before anything. On one hand: she's an I&S spec jonin that's been FOOMing for an unknown amount of time. On the other hand: she's lamented before about how high profile her marriage to Jiraiya, and her advisory position to Hazou, has made her.

I could see it going either way, tbh.