Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

faflec · Jan 15, 2025

@Sir Stompy We can eliminate Theoretical Jonin #3 and replace them with Mari creating 3 Shadow Clones, which gives a small amount of extra chakra for Summoning (75CP) but lets us save the cost of her casting Shadow Clone (225CP), for a 300CP bonus. I think 300CP is the calculated worth of a Jonin-level Summon, so I would recommend making this change for that one additional Summon. This method also puts us really close to our maximum chakra storage (7CP off!!!) so I'm not sure how much we can optimize things further without pushing time back further to collect additional chakra.

Still thinking about how to include Tsunade and if it would be worth it.

Halberdier · Jan 15, 2025

Velorien said:
"Listen," he said in accordance with the wisdom of Mari, "I want to say up front, in case there was any doubt, that we had nothing to do with this in any way, sort, shape or form. We'd never imagined something like this was even possible, and we sure as hell wouldn't want it to happen. The people who lost families today were our friends."

Naruto gave an eye roll. "Thank you for treating me like an idiot, Gōketsu. Like I don't know that there's a difference between wanting to get Asshat killed, which I'll admit is a pretty good motive as far as high treason goes, and wiping out half of Leaf. That and no way do you have the destructive power to pull something like that off. It probably took half of Rock's army to do, or maybe Akatsuki with their explosions master decided that the best path to world peace is to kill everyone who can fight. Isn't it great to have options?"

This aged well

Don't you love how Naruto's assessment of us has raised over time. He doesn't like us, still, but he thinks we can commit mass destruction and are a terrifying seal master, and competent in that donation. You know what? I think I'll take that over the upside.

Kyreneryk · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
That is correct. One Water/Earth clone that Noburi pumps chakra into, I guess by touch? And the regular hourly drain on the group that he does through water/mist. The single elemental clone just casts elemental clone again by pumping all of their chakra into the cast. Preferably done by a low XP individual so that you only spend 15-30 CP on cast, or 90-180 an hour. When it's go time, Noburi can drain it like normal and distribute it via drinking water to the attack group.

Bear in mind that chakra transfer by touch loses two-thirds of the chakra in the process. See below:

Known Bloodlines said:
It is also possible to push chakra into a cooperating target through skin contact, although the ability is rarely used because it's generally not worth the trouble. Both parties must be relatively still, it must be skin-to-skin contact, it costs 3 CP for every 1 CP infused into the other person, and the transfer rate is limited to (VD Aspect Bonus) transferred per Standard Action. The person in question must actively consent to the transfer; if they do not cooperate then the chakra cannot be transferred.

It might still be worth it, I don't know - but I'd also note that I'd be surprised if the QMs let us get away with the "Elemental Clones have infinite chakra capacity" claim. It seems much more likely that they're capped at their creator's chakra reserves and this fact just doesn't normally come up.

ProperAttorney · Jan 15, 2025

Kyreneryk said:
Bear in mind that chakra transfer by touch loses two-thirds of the chakra in the process. See below:

It might still be worth it, I don't know - but I'd also note that I'd be surprised if the QMs let us get away with the "Elemental Clones have infinite chakra capacity" claim. It seems much more likely that they're capped at their creator's chakra reserves and this fact just doesn't normally come up.

Yeah it's probably DoA since it was ruled elemental clones can't use chakra water. I don't really get why not, considering it's clearly a magical transfer and not being biologically absorbed, but I can't really work up the will to try to debate otherwise.

FaintlySorcerous · Jan 15, 2025

Halberdier said:
He doesn't like us, still

Where are you getting that he doesn't like us? His last few interactions with us have been pretty positive. Either he's handling us and doing so tremendously well or he actually thinks we're cool.

ProperAttorney said:
Yeah it's probably DoA since it was ruled elemental clones can't use chakra water. I don't really get why not, considering it's clearly a magical transfer and not being biologically absorbed, but I can't really work up the will to try to debate otherwise.

My model is this:

Chakra water carries chakra. Once a chakracule or whatever touches part of your chakra network it's instantly absorbed. However, you must swallow the water: if this this wasn't a requirement we'd be able to get around the water poisoning issue by swishing it around in your mouth and spitting it out. I expect this is because there are exposed elements of your chakra system embedded in your esophagus/stomach/other organs - the water flows by and the chakra is sucked out, maybe by some chakra surface tension or capillary action effect.

Elemental clones don't have a chakra system. They don't have tenkutsu or coils or chakra capillaries or whatever. They're made of mud and rocks and water. It makes sense that the mechanisms that humans and Shadow Clones use to absorb water-borne chakra wouldn't work. It's magic, sure, but magic which has always shown to be mediated by a biological mechanism. Elemental clones don't have organs.

On the drain side, Noburi's always been clear that he can't drain jutsu. I don't know if we've ever seen him drain an elemental clone, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he can't do it.

Spector29 · Jan 15, 2025

FaintlySorcerous said:
My model is this:

Chakra water carries chakra. Once a chakracule or whatever touches part of your chakra network it's instantly absorbed. However, you must swallow the water: if this this wasn't a requirement we'd be able to get around the water poisoning issue by swishing it around in your mouth and spitting it out. I expect this is because there are exposed elements of your chakra system embedded in your esophagus/stomach/other organs - the water flows by and the chakra is sucked out, maybe by some chakra surface tension or capillary action effect.

Elemental clones don't have a chakra system. They don't have tenkutsu or coils or chakra capillaries or whatever. They're made of mud and rocks and water. It makes sense that the mechanisms that humans and Shadow Clones use to absorb water-borne chakra wouldn't work. It's magic, sure, but magic which has always shown to be mediated by a biological mechanism. Elemental clones don't have organs.

On the drain side, Noburi's always been clear that he can't drain jutsu. I don't know if we've ever seen him drain an elemental clone, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he can't do it.

Not to channel Oro too hard, but inducing vomiting immediately afterward would prove enlightening. Inventing IV fluids would be a cool side project as well; if the chakra water absorption works though IV, we can then deduce chakra is behaving like a nutrient and needs to be introduced into the bloodstream.

ProperAttorney · Jan 15, 2025

FaintlySorcerous said:
Where are you getting that he doesn't like us? His last few interactions with us have been pretty positive. Either he's handling us and doing so tremendously well or he actually thinks we're cool.

My model is this:

Chakra water carries chakra. Once a chakracule or whatever touches part of your chakra network it's instantly absorbed. However, you must swallow the water: if this this wasn't a requirement we'd be able to get around the water poisoning issue by swishing it around in your mouth and spitting it out. I expect this is because there are exposed elements of your chakra system embedded in your esophagus/stomach/other organs - the water flows by and the chakra is sucked out, maybe by some chakra surface tension or capillary action effect.

Elemental clones don't have a chakra system. They don't have tenkutsu or coils or chakra capillaries or whatever. They're made of mud and rocks and water. It makes sense that the mechanisms that humans and Shadow Clones use to absorb water-borne chakra wouldn't work. It's magic, sure, but magic which has always shown to be mediated by a biological mechanism. Elemental clones don't have organs.

On the drain side, Noburi's always been clear that he can't drain jutsu. I don't know if we've ever seen him drain an elemental clone, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he can't do it.

If you want to work backwards to explain it, sure you can talk about the esophagus being part of your chakra coils and mucus layer and whatever, but that is just an ad-hoc ruling, not a larger part of worldbuilding that we've been able to interact with. It would be just as valid to say "Well, a water clone has no skin to get in between the chakra water and its chakra system, so it can absorb chakra water just by touching it."

And elemental clones do have a chakra system, they are able to cast jutsu. They don't have functional coils, like SC don't have functional coils, but SC have been shown to drink chakra water so... ???

I am relatively sure we've tried having Noburi drain elemental clones and he was able to do so losslessly, but if that is wrong or changed, we can just have the EC caster be someone that knows SC (e.g. Hazo, Mari, Noburi) and have the EC cast SC, then have Noburi drain that.

_The_Bomb · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
That is correct. One Water/Earth clone that Noburi pumps chakra into, I guess by touch? And the regular hourly drain on the group that he does through water/mist. The single elemental clone just casts elemental clone again by pumping all of their chakra into the cast. Preferably done by a low XP individual so that you only spend 15-30 CP on cast, or 90-180 an hour. When it's go time, Noburi can drain it like normal and distribute it via drinking water to the attack group.

You should probably ping the QMs if you want this to be seen. That said, I feel obliged to also point you to this section of the rules which highlights a major drawback of this methodology.

It is also possible to push chakra into a cooperating target through skin contact, although the ability is rarely used because it's generally not worth the trouble. Both parties must be relatively still, it must be skin-to-skin contact, it costs 3 CP for every 1 CP infused into the other person, and the transfer rate is limited to (VD Aspect Bonus) transferred per Standard Action. The person in question must actively consent to the transfer; if they do not cooperate then the chakra cannot be transferred.

_The_Bomb · Jan 15, 2025

Sir Stompy said:
Analysis of SC Hours to Create Extra Chakra Capacity for the Assualt:

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

Given the importance of knowing Mari's SC hours and size of CR reserves, is she finally willing to telling us what she can (within IC knowledge limitations, of course) on the subject? She's been incredibly obscurative in the past. Even knowing how many clones she usually makes for training and how long she keeps them up would help a lot.

eaglejarl said:
In the early evening, Noburi taps the koi pond again, filling his reserves up.

Noburi and Mari go out to the Forest of Death.

Mari makes an unknown number of clones (Noburi is sworn to secrecy) and Noburi fills them up.

Noburi returns home almost dry.

FaintlySorcerous · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
They don't have functional coils, like SC don't have functional coils, but SC have been shown to drink chakra water so... ???

My understanding was that Shadow Clones do actually have functional coils - that's why Noburi's SCs have regular, full capacity. Shadow Clones have actual biology. They eat and defecate and all that other stuff. An elemental clone is a jutsu, like a fireball or MEW. A Shadow Clone is a person. Made of chakra, certainly, but that's a well-established part of the world.

Given that fact/distinction, I don't think this looks like working backwards, but looking at the available facts and reaching a reasonable conclusion. I wouldn't have expected elemental clones to be able to drink chakra water - it's been established that they can't eat, so why would they be able to drink?

In the world where SCs don't have functional coils I agree this ruling would be confusing.

strange_person · Jan 15, 2025

Spector29 said:
Not to channel Oro too hard, but inducing vomiting immediately afterward would prove enlightening. Inventing IV fluids would be a cool side project as well; if the chakra water absorption works though IV, we can then deduce chakra is behaving like a nutrient and needs to be introduced into the bloodstream.

My guess would be the opposite. Chakra-rich water not contained in a Wakahisa barrel loses its charge to the environment much more quickly than the physical water evaporates, so I'd expect when it happens to be inside somebody else's body, it's being picked up by their chakra coils the same way they normally absorb ambient environmental chakra, just faster due to the higher concentration. Straightforward test of that would be putting the chakra water in a nonpermeable container - rubber balloon or the like - then inserting said container into a body cavity. Probably Oro has already tested this at some point.
Shadow Clones have mostly normal coils, but can't pull in normal ambient chakra faster than it leaks out due to flaws in some osmotic-pressure equivalent, similar to the reason shadow clone copies of infused seals become inert blanks.

Halil · Jan 15, 2025

FaintlySorcerous said:
My understanding was that Shadow Clones do actually have functional coils - that's why Noburi's SCs have regular, full capacity. Shadow Clones have actual biology. They eat and defecate and all that other stuff. An elemental clone is a jutsu, like a fireball or MEW. A Shadow Clone is a person. Made of chakra, certainly, but that's a well-established part of the world.

Given that fact/distinction, I don't think this looks like working backwards, but looking at the available facts and reaching a reasonable conclusion. I wouldn't have expected elemental clones to be able to drink chakra water - it's been established that they can't eat, so why would they be able to drink?

In the world where SCs don't have functional coils I agree this ruling would be confusing.

If that were true, SC would also regenerate chakra. Do they?

ProperAttorney · Jan 15, 2025

FaintlySorcerous said:
My understanding was that Shadow Clones do actually have functional coils - that's why Noburi's SCs have regular, full capacity. Shadow Clones have actual biology. They eat and defecate and all that other stuff. An elemental clone is a jutsu, like a fireball or MEW. A Shadow Clone is a person. Made of chakra, certainly, but that's a well-established part of the world.

Given that fact/distinction, I don't think this looks like working backwards, but looking at the available facts and reaching a reasonable conclusion. I wouldn't have expected elemental clones to be able to drink chakra water - it's been established that they can't eat, so why would they be able to drink?

In the world where SCs don't have functional coils I agree this ruling would be confusing.

Paperclipped said:
But that's not the weird part," Hazō said, frowning at Noburi. "The weird thing is that the water doesn't work on shadow clones. They're supposed to be physical clones of us. Is their chakra system different?"

"It has to be," Noburi said. "Clone coils don't generate chakra, but physical chakra coils do. I couldn't tell you what the difference is, but hey, maybe I'll figure it out while I'm investigating whether I can cast shadow clones safely. Speaking of which, I will probably need a stipend out of our chakra budget for that, if only to get to watch someone cast the technique a few times per day and monitor their clones."

I don't think they have functional coils from this exchange.

Edit: And elemental clones likely have the same type of non-functional coils or they would be unable to cast jutsu.

Shrooms · Jan 15, 2025

Halil said:
If that were true, SC would also regenerate chakra. Do they?

They do not

FaintlySorcerous · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
I don't think they have functional coils from this exchange.

Clarification: by 'functional' I mean that they're capable of storing chakra and transferring chakra through a body. Hazo's grafted coils are functional in this sense.

I expect that some sort of animating force is necessary to drive chakra regeneration, which is because of ChakrAI. Shadow Clones are weird, but 'dead body made of elemental Shadow imbued with and piloted by a copy of the caster's consciousness' explains pretty much all of the phenomena I can see. Granted, this is a hypothesis that I expect we'll never get to test, but it fits. We could check if Hazo's grafted coils benefit from cave water - if they don't, it would support the hypothesis. Dead coils can't become smoother or whatever.

I don't think that elemental clones have physical coils - why would an Earth clone be unable to cast Water Whip if this were the case? But we can fill books with what we don't know about chakra or clones.

All of this is to say that I, personally, don't actually find this implausible. Obviously YMMV but I think the ruling fits everything we know.

ProperAttorney · Jan 15, 2025

FaintlySorcerous said:
I don't think that elemental clones have physical coils - why would an Earth clone be unable to cast Water Whip if this were the case? But we can fill books with what we don't know about chakra or clones.

All of this is to say that I, personally, don't actually find this implausible. Obviously YMMV but I think the ruling fits everything we know.

How else are they casting jutsu? Elemental clones don't suddenly know a different way of casting all of these things. They use the same methods Primes use, with internal chakra manipulations, handsigns, and verbal callouts. If they don't have chakra coils, they can't do the internal chakra manipulations.

strange_person · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
How else are they casting jutsu? Elemental clones don't suddenly know a different way of casting all of these things. They use the same methods Primes use, with internal chakra manipulations, handsigns, and verbal callouts. If they don't have chakra coils, they can't do the internal chakra manipulations.

They could have an internal chakra reserve stored in something cruder than a coil, like the difference between an electric eel's signature organ and a manufactured nonrechareable battery.

FaintlySorcerous · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
How else are they casting jutsu? Elemental clones don't suddenly know a different way of casting all of these things. They use the same methods Primes use, with internal chakra manipulations, handsigns, and verbal callouts. If they don't have chakra coils, they can't do the internal chakra manipulations.

My hypothesis would be that the process of casting jutsu goes something like this:

Do a bunch of internal stuff to shape the chakra. This involves some handsigns but no speech.
Release the jutsu: this involves some handsigns but no speech and minimal shaping.

Elemental clones are jutsu, and thus contain a lot of partially-shaped chakra. They only need to perform step two. (This would require that non-elemental techniques can be 'fueled' by any elemental chakra, but that doesn't smell wrong to me.) Step one uses some pieces of your chakra network, and step two uses others. (There's probably some overlap but also some exclusive usage.) As such, they don't require a complete system. They probably have something but it would look stripped-down or alien, in addition to being made of mud/water.

Do we know where chakra manipulations happen, physiologically? If we could hijack Noburi for a bit we could do some of this research. Orochimaru POV chapters would be cool, too. Y'know, other than the medical horror.

(I don't actually suggest we put any of this in plans for a bunch of reasons but it's fun to speculate.)

ProperAttorney · Jan 15, 2025

FaintlySorcerous said:
Do we know where chakra manipulations happen, physiologically?

The Hara? Something like that. Abdomen, iirc.

I don't really agree with the premise that Elemental Clone chakra is already shaped, as different jutsu require different shapes. I would accept that the elemental clone chakra is already earth/water transformed and thus can only be used for that element or non-elemental jutsu, since that logically follows as Prime has to aspect the chakra when casting the original elemental clone. With that premise, you don't need to add an additional detail about the chakra coils being there but different. Makes more sense that the coils are there in the same manner than in Shadow Clones.

FaintlySorcerous · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
I would accept that the elemental clone chakra is already earth/water transformed and thus can only be used for that element or non-elemental jutsu, since that logically follows as Prime has to aspect the chakra when casting the original elemental clone. With that premise, you don't need to add an additional detail about the chakra coils being there but different.

Sorry - I was unclear. What I mean to propose is that because the chakra is already aspected, you can get away with a simpler organ/system.

I expect that only having water/mud available limits the organ systems you can build.

ProperAttorney · Jan 15, 2025

FaintlySorcerous said:
Sorry - I was unclear. What I mean to propose is that because the chakra is already aspected, you can get away with a simpler organ/system.

I expect that only having water/mud available limits the organ systems you can build.

I would argue that you can't make organs out of water or earth at all and it's all just magic. Early in the story, we saw and heard of people using elemental clones for much more complicated tasks than we ever used them for. Zabuza was known to send Water Clones in to negotiate for missing-nin to surrender (who he would then kill), Kagome somehow used a Lightning Clone when we first met him in the woods. It all goes back to what ruling the QMs want and then you work backwards from there. It's not an insult or anything, it's just that there is no actual magic system with hard rules so you can just choose what you want or what you think makes more sense with the given information. I would argue that the fact that elemental clones have some sort of chakra coil with which to cast jutsu makes them similar enough to shadow clones that they can drink chakra water, QMs say nah not close enough and that's that. Can't really argue against it.

Kyreneryk · Jan 15, 2025

ProperAttorney said:
I would argue that you can't make organs out of water or earth at all and it's all just magic. Early in the story, we saw and heard of people using elemental clones for much more complicated tasks than we ever used them for. Zabuza was known to send Water Clones in to negotiate for missing-nin to surrender (who he would then kill), Kagome somehow used a Lightning Clone when we first met him in the woods. It all goes back to what ruling the QMs want and then you work backwards from there. It's not an insult or anything, it's just that there is no actual magic system with hard rules so you can just choose what you want or what you think makes more sense with the given information. I would argue that the fact that elemental clones have some sort of chakra coil with which to cast jutsu makes them similar enough to shadow clones that they can drink chakra water, QMs say nah not close enough and that's that. Can't really argue against it.

Hmm. The whole chakra coil discussion is interesting, but it occurs to me we may have neglected a simpler question - do elemental clones actually have stomachs? It's not like they need them. Plausibly, the reason they can't drink Wakahisa chakra water isn't anything to do with their chakra system, and is just that they can't actually drink - the QM statement was:

Velorien said:
Elemental clones do not have a standard human anatomy that would let them drink and benefit from chakra water.

Which is entirely consistent with "Elemental Clones don't have a digestive system". They might not have any internal organs at all, in fact - I don't think they need to breathe, so the only reason to have lungs would be for speech, which could have been added into the technique separately.

Sir Stompy · Jan 15, 2025

faflec said:
@Sir Stompy We can eliminate Theoretical Jonin #3 and replace them with Mari creating 3 Shadow Clones, which gives a small amount of extra chakra for Summoning (75CP) but lets us save the cost of her casting Shadow Clone (225CP), for a 300CP bonus. I think 300CP is the calculated worth of a Jonin-level Summon, so I would recommend making this change for that one additional Summon. This method also puts us really close to our maximum chakra storage (7CP off!!!) so I'm not sure how much we can optimize things further without pushing time back further to collect additional chakra.

Still thinking about how to include Tsunade and if it would be worth it.

I'm kind of leery about significantly changing this after voting closes.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

Do you guys mind if we change the write up a little to get greater efficiencies at this point? Or should we leave it as is?

Also the assumptions in the write up might be wrong in some cases so it would be good if we had a chance to revise it in case the facts on the ground don't match. I also mostly referring to the assumption that 3/8 jounin know SC at level 40, is that the case? Or do we not have that many? If we have more that's fine, no need to change things.

faflec · Jan 15, 2025

Sir Stompy said:
I'm kind of leery about significantly changing this after voting closes.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

Do you guys mind if we change the write up a little to get greater efficiencies at this point? Or should we leave it as is?

Also the assumptions in the write up might be wrong in some cases so it would be good if we had a chance to revise it in case the facts on the ground don't match. I also mostly referring to the assumption that 3/8 jounin know SC at level 40, is that the case? Or do we not have that many? If we have more that's fine, no need to change things.

IIRC the next update is an Interlude, but we can make the edit after it gets posted.

Cariyaga · Jan 15, 2025

Velorien said:
Elemental clones do not have a standard human anatomy that would let them drink and benefit from chakra water.

I was not aware that a standard human anatomy was necessary to benefit from drinking chakra water. It's fascinating that the human body is capable of instantly digesting it. Sounds like a research project for Noburi!

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

It Only Gets Worse From Here

Handsome Gentleperson