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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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On the cheating eyeballs front, he definitely flickers it on at irregular intervals, long enough to get a brief glimpse at the next little while. A question is if he does it often enough/is able to do so enough that they overlap, or if he just has partial coverage. But either way, he had partial coverage, so there's always some percent chance our opening Salva is seen, it's just unclear how high, between (0%,100%]. But that means, at need to plan for what happens if it sees it coming and has time to warn folks. Even one prep/movement turn could be disastrous. And we don't know the range.

It feels like our best plan is to not pre-commit to a given time until right before it happens, but have everything in place, from range, so that all of a sudden the future shifts to "hit it with 3 kinds of not-quite-nukes". Will this best his eyes? No idea. But I doubt it'll hurt.

Honestly, the bigger issue may be how insanely large Samehada's Chakra sending y range is. But same things apply: set up in ways that hopefully don't proc it (maybe low CR clones do set up from range), and then commit all at once?

That's the best I got, anyway. Would vote for plans that talk/suggest these kinds of strategies if Oro doesn't already have them (which I hope he will, but we can still offer sensible suggestions how to integrate our contribution).
 
Kyreneryk said:
He could be a sealmaster without it having come up, but it seems odd. (If you remember something I don't showing that Kabuto is in fact a sealmaster, please do mention it!)
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It doesn't seem that odd to me. Itachi is a sealmaster, basically all the research specs pick up most of the research skills if they want the good shit. Having Sealing 30 is not a high bar with the Jiriaya notes around.
 
If we do directly approach Orochimaru (as seems to be the general preference), I'd like to walk into the meeting with just (SC of) Hazou and Mari.

Tell Oro we're happy to help, and have the runes to protect Leaf, when are we linking up with them?
If he agrees to team up with Leaf, great!
If not, let him explain why. Mari can (hopefully) beat his deceit to keep him honest. If he doesn't have an ironclad reason, insist on contacting Leaf as the condition for our assistance. He can either risk Pain's return by trying to solo it, or the can take the help from Uplift+Leaf and completely stomp Akatsuki. His call.
 
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Left-Hand Mutant said:
If we do directly approach Orochimaru (as seems to be the consensus), I'd like to walk into the meeting with just (SC of) Hazou and Mari.

Tell him we're happy to help, and have the runes to protect Leaf, when are we linking up with them?
If he agrees to team up with Leaf, great!
If not, let him explain why. Mari can (hopefully) beat his deceit to keep him honest. If he doesn't have an ironclad reason, insist on contacting Leaf as the condition for our assistance. He can either risk Pain's return by trying to solo it, or the can take the help from Uplift+Leaf and completely stomp Akatsuki. His call.
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We should bring him a present. Maybe some of the mushrooms Noburi found in the chakra water cave.
 
ProperAttorney said:
We should bring him a present. Maybe some of the mushrooms Noburi found in the chakra water cave
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Considering he's been to the cave before, it would be less worthwhile I think, and also let him in on a route to power that we are actively pursuing. Even if he knows there's a decent chance because he told that to us, that's not the same thing as us confirming that we did go there (and lowering the likelihood we went elsewhere, which we left unexplored)

No sense giving Oro info on us he doesn't need and we'll want to keep secret if (when?) we try to kill him/take power.
 
Halberdier said:
Considering he's been to the cave before, it would be less worthwhile I think, and also let him in on a route to power that we are actively pursuing. Even if he knows there's a decent chance because he told that to us, that's not the same thing as us confirming that we did go there (and lowering the likelihood we went elsewhere, which we left unexplored)

No sense giving Oro info on us he doesn't need and we'll want to keep secret if (when?) we try to kill him/take power.
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There's such a thing as too much paranoia. Like you said, Oro already knows about the cave, it doesn't matter if he knows we went there. He already has chakra hacks.
 
ProperAttorney said:
There's such a thing as too much paranoia. Like you said, Oro already knows about the cave, it doesn't matter if he knows we went there. He already has chakra hacks.
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It's more about him knowing our teams capabilities, and planning against them. I wouldn't have brought it up, if someone wasn't suggesting something that seems likely to be neutral, and can potentially be an unforced error, you know?
 
I don't think giving Oro a gift of cave herbs is a good idea.

I don't think he'll really care about them. For one reason It's pretty small potatoes, and he has super-regeneration anyways, for another, it's weird and off topic.

ORO: Nephew. What relevant runes have you prepared?
HAZOU: "Hi! First off, I got you some medical herbs as a gift!"
ORO: "Hm. Why?"
HAZOU: "Oh y'know, just a random gift for my uncle, to show you how much I appreciate you"
ORO: "Is this a joke to you? Focus on preventing Pain's resurrection, not wasting time on lame attempts to butter me up."

Or maybe he just takes it silently and moves on. Either way, it think I results in him taking us less seriously. It reflects poorly on us that that was the best bribe/gift we could come up with. and given that we didn't have a compelling way to butter him up, it reflects poorly on us that we tried anyway and did a bad job.

Overall, having Hazou make a uncompelling and clumsy attempt to ingratiate Oro sets the opening tone for Hazou being unskilled and unserious.

I think it's much better if we just get down to business. "We're both here to prevent the end of the world, let's get to work" is a much better opening tone,and will get us taken more seriously.
 
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acidshill said:
FAFLEC: Actually watches Shippuden

EJ: "My god, he can see the future!"

EDIT: Sorry, if it wasn't clear, this was making a joke about the QMs not knowing parts of Naruto canon, not mocking you.
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It was a good joke and I wasn't bothered. :>

Honestly, I've always been a bit amused at how much Naruto fanfic I can write without knowing canon very well.

Sir Stompy said:
Yes easily. We lost maybe 33% of total research output by duplicating his work on Rift Runes. Seems like a terrible decision in hindsight but it is what it is.
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Hindsight is always 20/20. You made the best decision you could with the information you had. Personally, I think it was the right call.
 
Left-Hand Mutant said:
Or maybe he just takes it silently and moves on. Either way, it think I results in him taking us less seriously.
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I don't quite think this is the case. I agree that Orochimaru is unlikely to care about the herbs, and that it wouldn't move the needle all that much, even if we offered him some.

That said, I think it might be worth thanking Orochimaru for the Chakra Pool Location. Sure, we bought it, but it we still got quality research data that will affect our research, going forward.

Thanking him for it is open/honest enough not to trip Orochimaru's "all manipulators must die" instinct, but still reflects well enough on Hazou (listens to Orochimaru's advice, pursues research, is willing to go punching) that it might be worth saying.

If Orochimaru expresses an interest in the medical herbs, we can fold some of them in as a freebie/bribe/incentive gift into any wider trade deal that we make with him.
 
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Chapter 8β: The Apocalypse Roll Call New
  • Sidestory
    • Chapter 8β: The Apocalypse Roll Call​

    Morning came. To Hazō's thoroughly-concealed relief, neither Mari nor Kagome-sensei had decided to cut their losses and disappear in the night. Instead, Kagome-sensei was allowing himself to be handled by a Mari-Akane tag team, one pouring on reassurance in spades, with the tiniest hint of seduction, while the other took over with a junior's humble respect and innocent zest for life every time Kagome-sensei started to remember that Mari was a social spec whose every word could be (and, right now, actually was) subtle manipulation. The synergy between their completely non-overlapping skill sets bordered on terrifying.

    Meanwhile, Noburi and Kei helped Hazō with the actual work that needed to be done, checking gear, packing up the camp (how he missed having an unlimited supply of storage scrolls), erasing every trace of their existence, and other such menial tasks. Hazō's loose knowledge of Iron's future affairs suggested that they weren't in direct danger yet, but Jiraiya might well have picked up more competent spies this time round, and while the locals were more than used to the Black Hunter's impossibly loud roars of fury, any passing ninja would have recognised the sound of tag explosions from when Kagome-sensei was doing his last-minute clearout of chakra beast lairs. Also, they were missing-nin, and missing-nin did not survive by taking a single precaution less than necessary.

    The journey south, to the border, proceeded without incident, and when the team stopped for lunch, Hazō decided it was time. Kagome-sensei's recruitment and Mari's initiation had been the penultimate tests. Now it was time to resurrect Team Uplift in all its glory if he could–or lose everything if he couldn't.

    Hazō put his empty bowl down on the grass and rose from the tree stump he'd been sitting on.

    "Inoue. Mori. Wakahisa. Ishihara. Kagome-sensei." Kagome-sensei narrowed his eyes, but didn't tell him off, which Hazō counted as a victory. "I think it's time to discuss our next steps. You've all chosen to stick with me through my implausible stories and plans that don't make sense until they work, and it's time I repaid that trust by telling you exactly what we're up against, and what I consider to be my mission. If you decide it's too much for you and you want to walk away and be ordinary missing-nin instead, that's your right, but know that the opportunities ahead are every bit as big as the threats–and some of the threats won't spare anyone if they're not defeated."

    "Well," Mari said, "that's good and ominous."

    "You deserve the truth," Hazō said. "You especially, after I lied to you. Just remember, as you listen: I'm not just asking you to be part of the fight because it's the right thing to do. I'm asking you to fight because I believe that together, and with the other people and resources we pick up along the way, we can win.

    "There are four challenges ahead of us, and I'm going to start with the biggest. It is this: humanity is dying."

    "Metaphorically dying like our ethics growing worse with every generation like the elders say," Akane clarified, "or literally dying like the disease spirits from the eastern continent coming to sow another plague?"

    "Our ethics were pretty bad to begin with," Hazō said, "but a bit of both. Mori, your people have run the numbers."

    "Do you mean the Kasō-Sensō cycle?" Kei asked.

    "I mean the greater-scope version," Hazō said. "You can probably explain it better than I can."

    Kei shifted on her log, clearly a little uncomfortable to suddenly be the centre of attention. But Hazō also knew that someday education would become her Uplift, and in the meantime, forecasting doom was half her hobby and half her religious duty.

    "During the Warring Clans era and likely before," Kei began, "ninja clans were spread fairly uniformly across habitable territory, as more powerful ones forced their inferiors to the periphery, but lacked the motivation to weaken themselves with more war than necessary when equally powerful neighbours were ever prepared to take advantage. This even distribution meant that every region possessed shinobi both able and willing to defend their income sources from chakra beasts. In fact, lesser chakra beasts were less of a threat to civilisation than they are now, though conversely the weaker clans struggled when aberrant forms like the dreaded chakra pony emerged, or when changes to the environment provoked incursions from hordes of chakra beasts that had been allowed to breed unchecked in unpopulated areas.

    "Then, with the dawn of the Village Era, power became centralised. The superior clans became founders. The inferior clans were either forced to join like the Kani"--Hazō didn't miss the faint twisting of her lips in disgust–"exterminated like the Funato, or driven to the edges of civilisation like the Pirate Lords. This had predictable consequences. The villages became, as far as the wilderness was concerned, impregnable fortresses, and the civilian villages within their patrol radii flourished greatly, to the extent that civilian settlements can flourish without the exceptional protection granted by city status.

    "However, visualise, if you will, a series of concentric circles around every village, beacon lights of civilisation diminishing in brightness until at last all beyond is dark. The brighter the light, the more patrolled those areas are, and the more civilians survive. But the number of shinobi who can be assigned to patrols is finite, and military needs mean some areas must be more densely patrolled even if they are sparsely populated. Furthermore, chakra beast extermination missions feature an escalating risk of losing valuable shinobi as one moves further from cleared zones and mission rank increases, which must be measured against the resource value of the settlements to be defended. The Mori are regularly called upon to provide such calculations.

    "The further from the village, the dimmer the light and the less protection civilian settlements receive. Finally, there is a border beyond which all is darkness. Nothing but the whim of fortune stands between its residents and extinction."

    It was a bright, warm day, but all that greeted Kei's statement was a cold silence. Hazō already knew all of this, of course. Mari was probably worldly-wise enough to have some idea too, though he doubted she'd ever cared enough to think it through in such stark terms. But Noburi, Kagome-sensei, and especially Akane… her face hurt to look at.

    "Naturally," Kei continued, "this is but the beginning. Kurosawa referred to the Kasō-Sensō Cycle, a concept very few non-Mori genin are familiar with, though I suppose by now I must learn to expect such extraordinary erudition. What becomes of the circles of light when war erupts between the villages and shinobi perish by the hundred?"

    Akane had gone pale. "They contract?"

    "They contract," Kei confirmed with a touch of perverse satisfaction. "Or, conversely put, the darkness expands. Naturally, few have the wherewithal or the inclination to calculate civilian losses during and immediately after a war, but the Mori have a duty. To the extent that it is possible, which is admittedly very limited, we run the numbers. During the first year after each world war, the estimated civilian losses are staggering. Of course, the populations of civilian settlements on the periphery, in the dimmer circles, were never so impressive to begin with, and thus their food production and chakra-capable births as well, and so the impact on ninja village function is limited.

    "The Kasō-Sensō Cycle also refers to the second half of the process. Gradually, ninja populations recover. The circles of light expand. New settlements are founded. And eventually, when the ninja populations peak once more… it is time for another war."

    "That's… horrifying," breathed the commonborn Akane.

    "It is the way of the world," Kei said, "and the world is horrifying enough that this is merely representative. As to the point I imagine Kurosawa intends to make, it is that the process is not self-sustaining. Shinobi populations, rarely exceeding even a thousand, and fed partly by intra-village births, recover more rapidly than the uncounted millions in the outer circles do. With every war, the darkness grows emptier forever.

    "But, as I mentioned, the villages on the periphery make a relatively small contribution to the total income. By the time this is no longer so, by the time the beacons of civilisation begin to flicker as the remaining civilian population struggles to fuel them, and our leaders realise that humanity can no longer afford war, it will be too late. We will no longer possess the manpower to restrain the wilderness as it consumes our sources of food and new shinobi, and before long, the beacons will be extinguished."

    By the end of the explanation, even Kei's own face was dark. "We failed," she added. "The villages were meant to have the exact opposite effect. Instead of countless tiny lights struggling against the dark, there were to be mighty beacons steadily expanding the light of civilisation. Instead of the only guarantors of humanity's existence slaying each other through petty strife over a few bags of rice, there was to be an age of peace and prosperity as they joined forces against our common enemy. We failed, and in subordinating ourselves to the cause, crippled our ability to direct and to experiment with alternative solutions."

    "This is what we're up against," Hazō said. "This is the final enemy. It doesn't matter who wins what war, who lives or who dies. We will all perish in the end unless we stand up and fight now, while the course of history can still be reversed. Thank you, Mori. I think you made things clearer than I ever could."

    "Not at all."

    "Jump in to stop me if I'm wrong," Mari said, "but we're talking about global historical processes here. Are you seriously asking us, a rag-tag bunch of missing-nin, to stand up against literally the shinobi world itself? Because I'm guessing the world still has a few world wars in it, certainly enough to cover a missing-nin's lifetime, and all you're making me think is that I should run off and find some way to be happy while there's still time."

    "I can't blame you," Hazō said. "Honestly, I've always wondered how I ended as someone who can't think that way. It certainly wasn't something I got from the Academy, and even my mum just taught me basic human decency.

    "But the question I want you to ask, for now, isn't 'Can I stop it?' It's 'Would I fight to stop it if I could?'

    "Because the answer is, it can be fought. In the alpha timeline, we and our allies were already experimenting with ways to uplift humanity out of this sorry state, and some of those experiments were bearing fruit. Education. Technology. Better logistics. They won't fix the root cause of the cycle, but they are just some of the weapons we can give humanity to fight back against the encroaching wilderness. If civilian prosperity rises, if the civilian population rises, it buys us time, and it also lays the foundations for a better world. We need something better to fight for than just 'not the extinction of humanity', and with enough hard work, that something is within reach."

    "Can it be done?" Kei asked sceptically. "As Inoue-sensei observes, you are challenging global trends. For this, you require global resources. You also require the power to convert or subordinate the Kage and the lesser rulers, a task that is even more difficult than you know. No amount of idealism, nor even a moderate demonstration of success, will prevent them from slaying you in an instant if they ever decide you are more of a liability than an asset–assuming a missing-nin can persuade them to lend an ear at all."

    "It can be done," Hazō said. "Not quickly, but we have some assets that will blow your mind if we can only recover them. I'll get to those later. For now, please just keep asking yourself that question. 'Would I fight to stop this if I could?'

    "The second thing to fight is actually the smallest, and it follows on directly from the first: the Fourth World Ninja War. I don't think it's news to anyone that Mist and Leaf are sharpening their kunai, waiting for the first sign of weakness. In the alpha timeline, the first blow of that war was struck not all that long from now, and the only reason that the second blow never happened was that the first was a double knockout. Both Kage died, for completely unpredictable reasons which I already know and soon you will too. This battle shouldn't be too hard to prevent since Kagome-sensei and I were the reason it happened in the first place, but then we need to figure out how to avert the conflict without it."

    "We what?" Kagome-sensei demanded.

    I'll tell you all later," Hazō said. "Instead, the Fourth War was started by Hidden Rock after Leaf lost an enormous amount of military power in a battle which, again, we can and need to prevent. More importantly, the Fourth War ended in an enforced world peace. A fragile one, to be sure, but proof of concept. We need to recreate that as soon as possible, and then throw ourselves behind reinforcing it, something we weren't able to do in the alpha timeline. This is a major objective, but it's also going to be really hard because the original was founded thanks to a variety of disasters we need to prevent.

    "The third enemy is key to those, and that's Akatsuki. Kagome-sensei can give us a detailed breakdown later, and boy can I supplement it, but for now what you need to know is that they're a mercenary organisation of S-rank ninja with a leader who is whatever's above S-rank."

    Mari gave him a sceptical look.

    "It's unconfirmed," Hazō acknowledged. "But he can do something no other ninja can or should be able to do: consume all nine Tailed Beasts in a ritual powerful enough to cover the entire world."

    "I call bullshit," Mari said. "The end of the world and the coming war are common sense, sort of, but now we're into the realm of fairy tales."

    "No," Kagome-sensei said, "the kid's finally speaking sense. Which ritual are we talking about? Is he going to recreate Arisato's Great Seal? Open the gates to the Dweller at the Threshold? Complete the Sage's and his brother's work and use chakra to telepathically connect everyone?"

    "I don't know," Hazō said. "Possibly that last one, since he thought it would end all war forever. Inoue, I don't blame you for being sceptical, but I will say that all five Kage dropped everything to go stop him, together with whatever armies could get there in time. That should tell you how seriously they took it.

    "Obviously, Akatsuki need to be stopped. We don't know what'll happen if they pull off the ritual, but I don't want to gamble on them getting everything right if the tiniest error in a ritual that's never been done before is going to do something terrible to the entire world. In the alpha timeline, that took a battle in which a sizeable chunk of the world's chuunin and above lost their lives, the geopolitical landscape was a wreck, and, as mentioned, it ultimately triggered the next war. The good news is that all we need to do is warn the villages. Even if they don't believe us, they'll change their minds once the first jinchuuriki gets kidnapped, and Akatsuki needs all nine.

    "The bad news is that Pain, their leader, chose to kidnap the nine as bloodlessly as practical. Akatsuki is a society of S-rankers trained to fight side by side. If they take the gloves off, the death toll could be fantastical. The worse news is that if we prevent the ritual without killing them, they might go away and try something else equally bad, and this time we won't have the foreknowledge to stop them."

    The others exchanged glances.

    "Kurosawa," Noburi said, his bowl uncharacteristically unfinished at his feet, "even if we believe you, this is… a lot. We're not the Sage of Six Paths and his legendary hero allies here."

    "Technically, I am descended from one," Kei said, "but please by no means take this as confidence in my abilities."

    "The Wakahisa are descended directly from the Sage of Six Paths himself," Noburi said. "I wouldn't worry about it."

    So were the Kurosawa, for that matter, and, of course, every other clan. Hazō hoped the clanless half of the team didn't feel left out.

    "Just one more to go, and then we can get to the good stuff, I promise," Hazō said.

    "This one is going to be even worse for my credibility than Akatsuki, but fortunately, none of you have to worry about it until we get the right summoning scrolls."

    "Hazō," Mari interrupted, "summoning scrolls are legendary artefacts that the world's strongest clans have fought wars over since the days of the Sage. All of them have either been claimed by the villages or are so lost that those villages, with all their resources, gave up on finding them. I know you're an optimist, but this is getting ridiculous."

    "The Pangolin Scroll is in Tea," Hazō said casually. "It's being kept by a hidden village that's survived for centuries without contact with the outside world, and it's ours for the taking as long as we can navigate some politics and pass a trial without getting killed. I was going to suggest heading there next. The Porcupine Scroll is in a forest on O'Uzu Island, guarded by a surprisingly manageable giant snake. The Squirrel Scroll is in Neck, on the eastern continent, though I'm less optimistic about finding it with the resources we have now. Ditto the Otter Scroll somewhere north of the Wind Country. The Condor Scroll belongs to a summoner from Bird, but she can summon the Condor Boss, so should leave her be until we can bring firepower to match."

    "Holy shit."

    "Yeah," Hazō said. "At minimum, that's two scrolls we can grab right now. I told you we had assets."

    Finally, Mari was starting to look a little less sceptical.

    Shame about what was coming next.

    "Unfortunately, the reason we need scrolls is that in the Summon Realm, or the Seventh Path as its natives call it, there's an enormous three-dimensional seal known as the Great Seal. That seal is the only thing standing between our two Paths and a horde of nigh-unkillable abominations known as Dragons… and it is failing."

    "When you say nigh-unkillable…" Noburi ventured.

    "SSS-rank, maybe?" Hazō said. "Powerful enough that the classification system breaks down, put it that way, and each with crazy unique powers and immunities. Extinction is humanity's worst threat, but the Dragons are close, because they gain the powers of whatever they consume, and sooner or later, that will include the power to come here."

    "So what are we supposed to do?" Noburi asked.

    "In the short term, get the summon clan bosses to come together and fight," Hazō said. "It's surprisingly harder than it sounds, but it can be done. In the longer term, fix the Great Seal. It's made with a completely different discipline than the sealing we know, but it is still a kind of sealing. It can be reverse-engineered, though I didn't quite pull it off before the sealing failure."

    "You're serious," Kagome-sensei said. "You found a 3D seal. I thought they'd all been destroyed."

    Huh. Alpha Kagome-sensei hadn't known anything about 3D seals. How weird.

    "Deadly serious," Hazō said. "Can you imagine what kind of discoveries we might make while we're busy figuring out the Great Seal?"

    Kagome-sensei stared into the distance.

    "Those are our enemies," Hazō said. "Now, let's talk assets. Remember, these need to be super-classified, just like the scroll locations. They're our only competitive advantages, at least for now, and if we lose them too early, we lose.

    "First, I know how to create a seal that lets ninja walk on air, I know where to get the seal that makes it work, and Kagome-sensei has the skill to make it. Second, it's possible to combine a rare Leaf ninjutsu with Noburi's Bloodline Limit to create a training system that can get all of us to S-rank in a few years, assuming we can secure a stable chakra supply. Third, there is an easily-available ninjutsu in Leaf that can be leveraged for infinite wealth, though with a lot of training.

    "Those are the big ones, off the top of my head, but there are others, like how to use the Five-Seal Barrier to create towers in the sky that can't be reached without the aforementioned skywalker seals, or by ground-based chakra beasts, and that's if anyone can spot you in the sky to begin with."

    He paused to survey his audience, all in various states of lost in thought. Kagome-sensei was scratching his head. Noburi was clutching his barrel strap tight. Akane's eyes were blazing in an expression of resolve. Kei's were distant, as if calculating, or perhaps simply retreating from the madness into the relative safety of her head. Mari was looking straight at him with an expression that suggested that she was trying to read the contents of his very soul.

    "I know I'm asking a lot of you all," Hazō said. "I need you to believe that the threats are real, and that the amazing assets are real, and that one will be enough to help us challenge the other when, right now, we are all just a handful of misfits with only one elite jōnin, only one world-class explosives specialist, and only three Bloodline Limit holders to count on. It's your choice whether to believe me or not. You're allowed to say no. You're allowed to go and lead ordinary missing-nin lives and bet on those world-ending threats not being real. I will fight no matter what, but I won't force you to fight alongside me. All I want you to do first is to answer that question–inside your own hearts, not to me. Would you fight to stop them if you could?"

    Silence. Not the silence of rejection, but an uncertain, wavering silence–except, of course, from Akane, who had long since made up her mind and was just waiting for the others to show their best selves.

    "What happens to me?" Mari asked.

    "I'm sorry?"

    "In your alpha timeline," Mari said, "where the other Mari says yes, how does it work out for her?"

    "Don't get hung up on that," Hazō said. "The whole point of this is that we're going to improve on the alpha timeline in every way possible. Also, I don't think it would be a good idea to prejudice your decisions in this timeline by making you base them on what the other Mari did or didn't do."

    "Hazō," Mari said with iron in her voice, "you promised to trust me. You promised to treat me as an adult who can make her own choices. Are you going to stand by those words or are you going to keep information from me about my other self?"

    Hazō held up his hands placatingly. "Sorry. You're right. That was unreasonable of me.

    "Inoue, in the alpha timeline, you're the matriarch of a small but powerful voting clan. You're not the leader, but you're his widow and the newer leader's trusted confidante. You manage the clan's public relations and espionage, and the whole thing would sink approximately once a week without your talents."

    "I get married?" Mari asked sceptically.

    "It was part of a cunning gambit to earn power and security," Hazō said, "at least at first. I think your feelings changed over time."

    Mari nodded to herself as if this made much more sense.

    "If you don't mind," Hazō said, "I'd rather leave the details for another time. You have every right to know… but only so much to process at a time, right?"

    Mari gave a magnanimous nod.

    "What about me?" Noburi asked." Do I become a badass jōnin with that training system you were talking about?"

    Hazō hesitated.

    "You do get some pretty awesome ninjutsu," he said," but actually, alpha timeline Noburi is a medic."

    Noburi gave a displeased frown.

    "I don't mean for support purposes," Hazō clarified. "Something about medicine speaks to your heart, and you end up working at a hospital as a medic-nin. You get pretty good at it, too, and you invent some unique medical applications for your Bloodline Limit."

    "Huh," Noburi said uncertainly.

    He hesitated. "Do I have a girlfriend?"

    It was painfully obvious to Hazō, with his carried-over social skills, how carefully Noburi avoided looking at Kei.

    Hazō wasn't sure how to handle the Noburi-Yuno issue. They were a great couple, in the end, but their relationship had been an unmitigated disaster the first time round, and there was every possibility that it simply wouldn't take off if Noburi was forewarned. On the other hand, with all the rippling changes flying around, there was a risk that if Noburi wasn't pointed in her direction, he might miss his chance altogether.

    "I'll say to you what I said to Inoue," Hazō said. "It's your right to know. But are you sure you want to hear it, here and now?"

    "Oh. Uh, actually, never mind," Noburi agreed, realising that Kei was right there and might not react well to being told she was fated to date a boy she had yet to display any interest in.

    That at least bought Hazō time.

    "And me?" Kei asked. "What does the future hold for me, in addition to, I dare to hope, the miracle of survival?"

    Ouch. This one was arguably even worse. "I definitely think we should talk about that in private."

    "Why?" Kei asked. "Do I possess terrible secrets not fit for the ears of my long-term teammates?"

    "Let's just say there are things they ought to hear from you," Hazō said carefully, "not from me."

    Kei looked at him blankly, but did not argue further.

    Hazō looked at the others.

    Kagome-sensei shrugged. "I already got the basics. You don't want to know too much about your own future. That's when the fracture elementals come for you, to remove you from the timeline before you cause a paradox. I was there when it happened to… huh, I swear their name was on the tip of my tongue. Some guy I knew, anyway. Or was it a woman?"

    "I don't need to know my future," Akane said. "I'm going to write my own story, and you're going to help me make it better than the other me's could ever be, aren't you?"

    "Sure am," Hazō said with a smile. "So what do you all say? If you need time to think, that's fine too."

    "I've already agreed," Akane said. "Going on a quest to save the world is the most youthful thing imaginable… and I like the sound of the Spirit of Second Chances."

    "If the alternative is to sit in the darkness and silently watch the lights disappear one by one," Kei said, "then I find that a doomed struggle in which my agency is manifested as defiance against the injustice of the world feels unexpectedly appealing."

    Noburi's gaze rested on Kei for a couple of seconds.

    "Honestly, I'm not sold on any of this. Not on the dangers, not on the shinies, and especially not on the idea that we can really just use one to fix the other. And even if the dangers are real, I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of people more qualified to take care of them instead of us throwing ourselves into the fray and apparently getting killed by dragons."

    "You mean Dragons," Hazō corrected him.

    "Whatever," Noburi said. "What I'm trying to say is, you're being crazy and reckless, and I'm two-thirds sure you're talking out of your ass. But, based on everything you've said, it's obvious you're going to need me if you want to make it through the other third–for my common sense alone, never mind my brains, my charm, or the jōnin-level strength I've got simmering inside me. So for now, I guess you can count me in."

    "I'll admit all that Cursed Censor Cycle stuff went a little over my head," Kagome-sensei said, "and I certainly don't think for a moment that the lot of you aren't plotting against me. I'm not that naive. But those Akatsuki stinkers running a conspiracy to take over the world with a secret ritual? The Sage's lousy handiwork threatening to unleash one of his superweapons on the world? After years of idiots sticking their fingers in their ears and calling me crazy, it's like I'm finally hearing someone speak some sense.

    "Of course," he clarified, "that just means you're trying to manipulate me. Too bad I can see right through you. But just this once, I'll play along. Just remember: the second I think one of you's about to stab me in the back–"

    Kagome-sensei flicked his hands open.

    "Boom! Squish."

    Kei flinched.

    Everyone turned to Mari.

    "Well, now I'd just look like a heel if I went for the sensible option," she muttered to herself. "Look, it's not my style to go fighting apocalypses, especially four at a time."

    "Three," Hazō said helpfully. "War doesn't really count, except in aggregate."

    Mari rolled her eyes. "War. Death by Dragon. Famine when all the civilians are dead. Akatsuki trying to unleash some kind of telepathic brain plague. They're all as bad as each other if you're stuck in the middle of them, and that's exactly what you're proposing for us.

    "But… I signed up with you because you promised me loyalty and trust. Eventually, something more. You've delivered on the deal so far, more or less, and if 'something more' turns out to be trying to save the world against impossible odds, well, more fool me for not asking for details up front.

    "All this sounds like a crazy quest that's waiting to go wrong in more ways than I can count. But I'll admit it. You kids are starting to grow on me, a little, and it'd be a waste to disappear into the aether without at least trying Kagome's cooking a few times after Hazō's spent so long hyping it up. I guess I could stick with you a little longer.

    "Prove to me that you've got what it takes, Captain Hazō. If you're really going to save the world, then impressing one little Inoue Mari should be a walk in the park."

    Hazō restricted himself to a satisfied smile, even as his heart sang.

    "Then welcome to Team Uplift, everyone. We're going to save the world, and not die trying."
     
  • New
  • Sidestory
    • DanZapman's Analysis of Plausible Mission Payouts in Leaf​
    Enough time has passed since Radvic's earlier attempt that despite its excellence, some issues have come up in light of what we've learned about how often average ninja of a particular weight class take which missions, how long they take to reach the next weight class given an average XP rate, and what proportion of a weight class typically survives to reach the next one. Here's the info I'm working with sourced from various scattered posts, game rules, and Discord PONWOG:

    1. Average McGenin is a clanless ninja with no dedicated sensei, who graduates at 12 with 1,000 XP to allocate, has a base XP rate of 2 or 3 and thus needs about 5 years to train pyramid to get combat skills to chunin levels, and has a one-year grace period of training and taking D-rank missions before being expected to take a C-class mission every week or two (modeled as one C-class mission per 1.5 weeks for statistical purposes).
    2. Some competition exists for C-rank missions, and most ninja are occasionally assigned jobs by the Tower for lower than market rate.
    3. Mission rewards are normally split evenly between teammates and teams are 3 or 4 people, with occasional jonin being the only ones who operate alone (and even jonin will often have teams for various purposes like spotters or genin deadweight students).
    4. The subsistence level is legally defined as 42,400 ryo per year, after which point the Tower levies a tax of 80% on mission earnings. For the clanless, genin are mostly lower class, chunin are middle class, and jonin are upper class. Clans can do paperwork to get some money refunded. I'm going to define the middle class as earning 1.5 to 3 times the subsistence level, the lower class as less than that, and the upper class as more than that.
    5. Given the relative populations of genin and chunin, roughly 25% of genin survive to become chunin and 20% of chunin survive to become jonin (normal ninja populations for a major village are about 1,000 genin, 250 chunin, and 50 jonin).
    6. The mission ranks are as follows, with some flexibility for having a skillset particularly ideal for a job or being assigned or the like:
      • D-rank missions are literally random village chores like chopping onions, stacking boxes, babysitting, walking dogs, splitting firewood, or guarding the market. They're punishment duty for senior ninja or a chance for fresh Academy graduates to practice their skills and get used to their teammates in a zero-stress environment. They involve 0 risk, don't take you out of the village's area, and they take a day tops. No competition, probably never run out realistically.
      • C-rank missions are lower-risk jobs like guard duty at a specific location, running a message, or escorting a merchant along a mostly safe road. They're bread and butter for genin and chunin, involve tiny amounts of risk, usually take you out of the village's area, and often last around a week. At this point, you're competing for missions and may have to pick a lower rank to make ends meet.
      • B-rank missions are suitable for a chunin trying to challenge themselves or jonin. At this point, mission lengths vary a lot from weeks to months and danger level depends on your own judgment for whether your skillset matches.
      • A-rank missions are suitable for jonin.
      • S-rank missions are weird nationally important shit.
    The problem with Radvic's earlier estimates is that given this information about who does what missions how often, the mission bounties given result in all ninja being excessively wealthy thanks largely to C-ranks being mostly safe and giving lots of money, instead of matching the simulation where clanless genin are poor. For instance, the average genin above? Let's see how many missions they do on the way to chunin.

    A fairly minimal chunin pyramid has one combat skill at 50 and the other two at 40, since a pyramid with three 40s is awkward. That gives three other skills at 30, four at 20, and five at 10. I'm going to pretend these are all singlecost since chakra reserves being doublecost is balanced by lower elemental jutsu being halfcost to train below your highest jutsu of that element. A 50 is 1,275 XP, two 40s are 820 each for 1,640 XP, three 30s are 465 each for 1,395 XP, four 20s are 210 each for 840 XP, and five 10s are 55 each for 275 XP. It all comes out to 5,425 XP. 1,000 of this comes from graduating the academy, and the other 4,425 of this comes from the 2.5 XP/day base rate. A genin is practically never going to be stagnant since they get a combat unstagnation from exterminating chakra beasts more often than once per 200 days, so 4,425 XP at 2.5/day will be 1,770 days, or 4 years and 310 days. Call that 5 years with some downtime. (This turns out to be pricier than the extra columns needed for having three 40s by themselves, which would be 3*820+3*465+3*210+4*55 = 4,705 XP or 3,705 after the academy- see further calculations in edit 4 at the bottom of the post.)

    The first year is a safe grace period, so this works out to 4 years of doing C-rank missions every 1.5 weeks, or about 140 C-rank missions. For tax purposes, that's 35 per year, with income split between 4 genin, which works out to 2.8 million ryo split four ways, or 700,000 ryo in gross income for a genin. The first 42,400 ryo are untaxed, and the rest eats a 80% tax, leaving the genin with 173,920 ryo. Over four times the subsistence threshold.

    This doesn't conflict with the general safety rate given for C-rank missions and retention rates- the 140th root of 0.25 is just above 0.99, giving individual C-rank missions a 99% survival rate per genin and 140 C-rank missions a 25% survival rate per genin->chunin.

    So, my proposed pay scale and their economic impact on Leaf is as thus:

    • D-rank: 150 ryo. Same as before, no change needed. A genin could do one a day or a team could do four a day together and hit subsistence at 283 days with 82 days left over for Tower missions, earning non-subsistence money, or whatever else. Not an attractive lifestyle but it lets career genin/chunin exist.
    • C-rank: ~5,000 ryo. This lets a ninja team hit subsistence with 8 weeks of work per ninja, so a team of three is spending half a year and a team of four is spending a bit more than that to reach subsistence. After that point you get a fifth the pay for your week of work and in theory you could hit the middle class if your team spent the entire year doing nothing but C-ranks with no time off to enjoy being middle class. Remember, subsistence isn't a comfortable lifestyle, it's just barely surviving. So anyone only taking D-rank and C-rank missions is lower class, and the chunin using B-ranks to unstagnate once or twice a year are achieving middle classhood off B-rank pay. This should be realistically doable and still incentivize anyone who isn't a genin to occasionally take bigger missions to have walking around money.
    • B-rank: ~50,000 ryo. A team of average chunin unstagnates once or twice a year and gets their subsistence pay for it, then spend the rest of their time doing C-ranks for reliable pocket money or B-ranks for extra cash and achieve a middle-class existence.
    • A-rank: ~100,000 ryo. I don't really have a good sense for how wealthy clanless jonin are compared to clanless chunin but this still lets them achieve over triple the subsistence income with about four A-rank missions a year.
    • S-rank: Whatever the Tower decides based on the situation. Rare enough to not be a consideration for the day-to-day economy.
    The numbers for B and A ranks are fuzzier and can easily be tweaked to adjust how chunin and jonin have it while still being a relative windfall for the occasional "lucky" genin. I generally expect that anyone with only the average base XP rate and nothing special up their sleeves will end up dead or a career chunin so chunin->jonin retention rates are trickier to model, but for my curiosity, let's see how long Average McChunin needs to become a jonin. They start with 4,425 XP from earlier and has a goal of getting his three combat stats to 60+. For the same reason as above, I'll assume the goal for a newly minted jonin's skill pyramid is one 70, two 60s, and so on, all singlecost. A 70 is 2,485 XP, two 60s are 1,830 each for 3,660 XP, three 50s are 1,275 each for 3,825 XP, four 40s are 820 each for 3,280 XP, five 30s are 465 each for 2,325 XP, six 20s are 210 each for 1,260 XP, and seven 10s are 55 each for 385 XP. It all comes out to 17,220 XP, which means Average McChunin needs to earn 12,795 XP at 2.5 XP a day, resulting in 5,118 days or 14 years and 8 days.

    So an average-to-a-statistically-improbable-degree clanless ninja with no sensei graduates at 12, becomes a chunin at 17, and becomes a jonin at 31. I got PONWOG that chunin are mostly doing C-rank missions, so let's say Average McChunin only takes B-ranks to unstagnate every 400 days, since they should have a secondary domain they can unstagnate with considerably less risk by now. That's about 13 B-ranks between becoming a chunin and becoming a jonin, with an overall chunin->jonin retention rate of 20%. The 13th root of 0.2 is 88.355%, so a chunin has roughly a 10% chance of dying on a B-rank mission if we ignore that most of the ones surviving to jonin are the ones with some extra sauce. I don't have any particular thought on how often jonin are surviving or dying.

    Feedback is welcome.

    EDIT: For the sake of thoroughness: clan ninja have much better access to resources thanks to family money, family members able and willing to train you some, clan secrets, politicking to give you a much higher chance of having a sensei who can save your ass on missions while you're a genin, and the refund that clans get on the 80% mission tax plus extra mission pay. To quote the QM economy post here:
    Up to R258,322 (75% of CP): 50% bonus to mission pay + tax refund. All ninja face an 80% tax on their mission pay above the untaxed R42,400 annual subsistence rate; the tax is paid at the point of payment, meaning that if the client is paying R100 for a mission then you actually receive R20. If you are a clan ninja then the following month's benefits payment to your clan will include an extra R50 (50% bonus on the mission price) + R80 (refund of the tax). This makes it look as though it's fair to both clan and clanless while hiding the fact that clans are getting paid extra and aren't actually paying the tax.
    Click to expand...
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    So very little of my post applies to them and clan ninja will be both richer and safer than the clanless. My understanding is that the major clans produce very few genin each year relative to the clanless, who produce probably half of the total genin population since 1% of civilian kids are born ninja and ninja are 1% of the population but have ninja kids much more often, and the various minor clans who don't have the same degree of clout.

    EDIT 2: Cariyaga and Paper pointed out to me on Discord that my pyramid assumptions were faulty- one option I had for chunin/jonin was one 50/70 and then two 40s/60s, which is valid, but the other option with three 40s/60s didn't necessarily need four 30s/50s below them. The specifics can be found in the rule doc in the quest's original post, but having three stats at 40/60 for newly-minted chunin/jonin is cheaper than I initially thought. The calculation has been redone- having a capstone at 50/70 is still cheaper overall for a newly-minted jonin/chunin.

    EDIT 3: The availability of seals (with prices for sealing elements by difficulty in the QM economy post linked above) was also a concern, so let's see. D-rank is unchanged and should still not be an issue, with explosives and storage seals eating a week of casually doing D-ranks. C-rank gives someone in a 4-ninja team 250 ryo after the post-subsistence tax, so a week of relatively safe work gets one explosive or storage seal. General military indoctrination and Tower assignments ensure most ninja don't start spamming D-rank missions en masse instead of being actual soldiers, but C-rank rewards could perhaps be bumped up some, will consider. B-ranks give 2,500 ryo after subsistence, which is almost enough for a chunin to replace skywalkers. Jonin can afford jonin seals much more readily, and at that point I suspect the bottleneck was already less about having money and more about how willing the Tower is to sell you its limited supply of the good stuff. Overall the proposed payscale stands up to casual inspection for clanless ninja, with clans rolling in dough and laughing at the poors who have to work for their supplies.

    EDIT 4: In edit 2 I mistakenly compared the total XP cost of broader pyramids to the post-academy XP needed for a higher pyramid, not the total XP cost. A broader pyramid is cheaper in both cases. Further calculations:
    Broad Average McGenin needs 3,705 post-academy XP to get three 40s. I would contend that Tall Average McGenin having a 50 is worth the cost increase, but just to reach chunin ASAP, let's see. They now need 1,482 days, of which 1,117 are after the one-year grace period. This makes for 107 C-rank missions instead of 140, and the 107th root of 0.25 is 98.7% instead of 99% to adjust for having the same retention rate.

    Similarly, Broad Average McChunin now starts with 4,705 XP and wants a pyramid with three 60s. Three 60s are 1,830 each for 5,490 XP, three 50s are 1,275 each for 3,825 XP, three 40s are 820 each for 2,460 XP, four 30s are 465 each for 1,860 XP, five 20s are 210 each for 1,050 XP, and six 10s are 55 each for 330 XP. It all comes out to 15,015 XP. Unlike Tall Average McChunin, they started with 4,705 XP and now need to earn 10,310 XP for 4,124 days spent. They unstagnate 11 times with B-rank missions, and the 10th root of 0.2 is a 86.4% survival rate for an average chunin doing a B-rank, which is a more noticeable difference this time but still fairly small.

    Overall, the difference is mainly whether the average ninja would prioritize a broad pyramid when training (and thereby reach pyramid milestones faster) or a tall pyramid when training (and thereby be somewhat stronger at the same pyramid milestones). The difference is 288 days for average genin, or ~16% of the tall pyramid training time and ~19% of the broad pyramid training time. For average chunin the difference is 994 days, or ~19% of the tall pyramid training time and ~24% of the broad pyramid training time.

    Granted, this assumes that the broad pyramids can achieve a 3x3 cube for the top 3 tiers, which is a legal arrangement but it's too late at night for me to figure out the build path needed to result in that, while a tall pyramid is more intuitive.
     
    Last edited:
    Hazo's diplomacy is so intense all the time. The man has one setting, "speech against the apocalypse", and he opens with that every time. Starting with the upsides, summon scrolls, and skywalkers ? Nah, his recruitment speech starts with the four apocalypses they have to prevent.

    Velorien said:
    apparently getting killed by dragons."

    "You mean Dragons," Hazō corrected him.

    "Whatever," Noburi said. "What I'm trying to say is, you're being crazy and reckless, and I'm two-thirds sure you're talking out of your ass. But, based on everything you've said, it's obvious you're going to need me if you want to make it through the other third–for my common sense alone, never mind my brains, my charm, or the jōnin-level strength I've got simmering inside me. So for now, I guess you can count me in."

    "I'll admit all that Cursed Censor Cycle stuff went a little over my head," Kagome-sensei said, "and I certainly don't think for a moment that the lot of you aren't plotting against me. I'm not that naive. But those Akatsuki stinkers running a conspiracy to take over the world with a secret ritual? The Sage's lousy handiwork threatening to unleash one of his superweapons on the world? After years of idiots sticking their fingers in their ears and calling me crazy, it's like I'm finally hearing someone speak some sense.
    Click to expand...
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    This is the most hilarious chapter I've read in a while, tbh. Great stuff !
     
    Big headache. Lovely update @Velorien. Character stuff shines through. Good to see Early-MfD Kei and Mari breaking out of their cycles already. Made me miss Akane. You are a good writer, and this merits analysis... when skull doesn't hurt. Someone pass me Ami's willowbark tea, I'll even take the one that has peppermint in it.
     
    DanZapman said:
    Enough time has passed since Radvic's earlier attempt that despite its excellence, some issues have come up in light of what we've learned about how often average ninja of a particular weight class take which missions, how long they take to reach the next weight class given an average XP rate, and what proportion of a weight class typically survives to reach the next one.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I'm pretty sure Radvic's estimation predated the economics rework by like 2 years and used a different Ryo:USD metric than the one we settled on, so it definitely shouldn't be used as any kind of basis for the present system! Though my impression is that none of the GMs are particularly interested in the gory details of economic modeling and this has been rendered moot by Hazou's gold extraction technique anyway.

    I believe we did model either per-mission or per-annum pay rates for genin / chuunin / jounin in thr spreadsheet, though I don't remember the exact numbers anymore.
     
    Rihaku said:
    Though my impression is that none of the GMs are particularly interested in the gory details of economic modeling and this has been rendered moot by Hazou's gold extraction technique anyway.
    Click to expand...
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    I agree. I mostly typed this up to pass time at my job and see if I could align mission payout details to the general vibe we get for clanless ninja where genin/chunin/jonin correspondingly get to be lower/middle/upper class.
     
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