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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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o-o-o-o​

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XP AWARD: N + L (brevity)

Vote time (not really)! What to do now?

Voting (probably) ends on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, at 12pm London time.
 
T_of_A said:
This is the second time you fall for it this evening. Maybe don't fight for first post before reading a single line ?
Click to expand...
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Now, now, don't talk down my craft like this. This was specifically engineered to fool human pattern-recognition! The big chapter title front-and-center, to instantly prime you regarding what you're supposed to be seeing; a chapter name laden with implications, exploiting our worries and hopes and anxieties, so that the reader's brain is stunned for a split-second processing them instead of thinking critically; the avatar change (now undone), which should be easy to confuse with EJ's if you're looking at it from the corner of your eye (and why would you look at it directly?); and the text formatting which makes it look like actual chapter content, with dialogue and paragraph breaks instead of a monotonic wall of text.

It was pretty well-designed, if I dare say so myself~
 
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Chapter 699, Part 2: Squeezing Water from a Stone New
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    • Most of the camp had already bedded down for the night, though the size of the group left a comfortably-sized watch – faced entirely outwards, thankfully, since Orochimaru had elected to sleep outside the camp instead of forcing Leaf's ninja to be on edge around him. Mari, too, was grateful for the chance at some sleep tonight (though she'd certainly be sleeping lightly, so close to Akatsuki's stronghold).

    Mari approached the blackberry, as some of the other ninja had taken to calling it. The tent was covered in overlapping bubbles of pure inky darkness, but as she slipped inside, she saw that the tent itself was still brightly lit. There was a part of her that wanted to tone it down, to say that any work after nightfall needed to be done by candlelight, but with the Darkness Dome seals, there was no need. No light could escape.

    "Still working?" Mari said, slipping into the tent. Hazou didn't even look up at her as he scribbled.

    "Figuring out where all our chakra should go and when," Hazou said. "We can't summon Manda, Katsuyu, or Gamabunta early, because if we do, then Akatsuki is going to have time to prepare when they see the Bosses at twice the height of the treeline – which means they need to be summoned after the Remote Explosive artillery, which means we need to have chakra sources inside the Force Dome to refill the summoners, so we'll probably need to transport Moon ninja in there in addition to all the Runic Explosives."

    "So Noburi is going to be inside the Force Dome?" Mari asked.

    "Noburi will be inside the Force Dome," Hazou said grimly. "He'll be far from the action and guarded by some of Tsunade's shadow clones – and Tsunade herself, if she doesn't need to join the fight – but he'll be at risk."

    "She'll be a better guard for Noburi than I can be for you," Mari said. She tried to keep her voice neutral, hearing about the risk to Noburi's life. Hazou was making hard calls. She didn't need to guilt him, or make him second-guess.

    "She'll protect him," Hazou said. "She's invested too much in him, I think. The main issue is that there isn't enough chakra. I want to say that my runes are going to kill multiple Akatsuki members, but it's going to be harder to secure kills on the strongest ones. In terms of fighters, we have the Sannin's clones, the five Bosses, the Toad Sages, and probably a handful of jounin-level summons. If all of Akatsuki is here, that might not be enough to win."

    "What else can we do?" Mari asked. "Cut down on the summons and send in shadow clones of me and Kurenai? Send fewer of the Sannin's clones, because they'll be duplicating each others' abilities?"

    "I'm not sure," Hazou said.

    "Honestly, we're using too many shadow clones," Mari said. "They're not a combat technique, and the cost of casting it and refilling it is just too much to handle, especially since only Prime regenerates chakra. There's probably a better way to distribute chakra, but apart from Naruto, no one would know how to run hundreds of shadow clones effectively and fight."

    "It's actually pretty cheap to make shadow clones," Hazou said. "Even Kagome-sensei managed it at the pool. It's refilling them. The chakra is divided between the original and the clones, so there's such a huge gap between the reserves they're summoned at and the total reserves the clone could handle…"

    "Right," Mari said, pausing as she noticed that Hazou had spaced out. She waited for him to think.

    After a minute, he turned to her, finally standing up from the sheets upon sheets of paper he'd been working on. "I have an idea to get more chakra. I need you to find me all the ninja in Leaf's forces whose Shadow Clones last longer than, say, eight hours. I'll go gather up Kei and Noburi, then we'll need Tsunade and Orochimaru-"

    "No can do," Mari said.

    "What do you mean?" Hazou asked.

    "Orochimaru's out of the camp. I assume he's sleeping under whatever layers of stealth techniques would keep him safe from Akatsuki's notice, and that means that none of us have a chance of finding him."

    Hazou scowled. "Fine. I'll get Tsunade, and ask her to find him, or at least keep a lookout. If we're attacking tomorrow, we need to move fast for this idea to work."

    o-o-o​

    "We need more chakra," Hazou said. "Everyone's at full reserves right now – which means their chakra recovery is being wasted. I propose we cast shadow clones – that'll appear with pretty-much empty reserves, drain everyone down, top off the shadow clones, then wait. The clones will store chakra for us until right before the fight, and with everyone's reserves lowered, they'll recover extra chakra for us to use. at which point we can drain them for additional clones, summons, or whatever else we need."

    There was silence for a moment as everyone processed.

    "Clever," Orochimaru said, inclining his head slightly. Faintly, Hazou got a sense of approval and… curiosity from the Snake Sannin.

    "Does that work?" Tsunade asked, frowning. "I… I think it should. We can't start right away – our clones won't last until dusk if we cast them now, but it should let us squeeze out a little extra chakra."

    "Kei can start right away," Hazou said, gesturing at his sister. She nodded stiffly as the Sannin turned their gaze to her. "Her clones can last a full day and night, so they'll let us begin stocking chakra immediately. As to how much this will get us – I think much more than a little. If everyone's reserves of chakra represents a full day worth of regeneration, we'll be able to get another half-day and change. It'll increase our total available chakra by at least half."

    "Less," Tsunade said. "I'm not at my full reserves, so you can't tap my chakra recovery. I had pre-battle preparations to take care of."

    "Likewise," Orochimaru said.

    "What preparations did you do?" Tsunade asked.

    Orochimaru shrugged. "Occasionally, you do manage to invent an impressive technique."

    "Copycat," Tsunade said scornfully.

    "Are there any objections to starting this?" Hazou asked. "If you agree it will work, we should start immediately."

    "No," Tsunade said, waving Hazou. "We're going to need every drop we can get."

    Hazou turned to Kei, who clasped her hands together.

    "Shadow Clone Technique!"

    o-o-o​

    "Shadow Clone Technique!"

    A crowd of eighteen Tsunades appeared and split, stopping by Noburi before breaking into groups of two to carry the nine Remote Explosives Runes that Hazou had crafted. Orochimaru had helpfully produced long bars of steel from the Seventh Path and welded them together with a ninjutsu into stretcher-like frames to help Tsunade carry the things for miles. The runes were too heavy for even Tsunade to carry unenhanced, which meant that this, too, was going to cost them chakra.

    The chance to score an instant kill on between one and six Akatsuki members, as well as wiping out most of the low-level ninja that would bother Leaf's elites in an actual fight, was well worth it. Hazou watched as the score of Tsunades plodded single-file through the forest, taking his weapons of mass destruction along with her.

    o-o-o​

    "Summoning Technique: Shima!" Noburi called out. He bowed to the appearing Toad Sage, then invited the next Leaf ninja to dip her hands into his barrel to let him refill to summon Fukasaku. Shima glanced over Noburi, then turned to survey the operation, before hopping over to a Tsunade.

    "So we're doing summons now?" a different Tsunade asked Hazou. "How many are we planning?"

    "All of them," Hazou said. "We should have capacity for everyone."

    Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "But you're not giving my clones enough for Strength of a Hundred? Screw that. Cut any spare Toads – Noburi's bloodline makes them too expensive. I need the chakra more."

    "If we have any left over at the end, you can have it."

    "Not gonna work, kid," Tsunade said. "It'll take some time for me to set up, so I need the chakra now, not five seconds before the battle starts. I'll go tell Noburi."

    o-o-o​

    Hazou stepped back as the Ninja-Radar rune sprang to life in front of him. Dozens of dots of chakra moved across the surface of the projected sphere, tracking the various ninja nearby. He could see the assault force moving into position, and suddenly felt vulnerable. If Akatsuki had a sensing ability…

    No, they couldn't have anything as long-ranged as runes, surely. Orochimaru had said that Kisame's abilities were long-ranged, but even he didn't think Kisame would have senses miles away.

    A single Tsunade clone was the only accomplice to his infusion. Every spare drop of chakra had gone to the assault force, but she had assured him that she was more than capable of killing any Jashinist cretin with just the dregs in her coils.

    "I see runners already," Tsunade said, looking at the ball. "That direction, right?" she said, pointing.

    "I can't tell yet which direction they're moving," Hazou said. "They'll be outside the Force Dome, though. We'll need to hunt them down."

    "It's closer to point C," Tsunade said. "My clone there should cover it. If she can cover it."

    "Right," Hazou said. Tsunade had wanted to allocate even more chakra to the outside teams, including multiple clones to pass instant messages between the surveillance squad and the battle squad, but Hazou had made his stand – it would take too much chakra away from the fight, and Tsunade couldn't afford to be popping clones to pass messages outside the Force Dome when the rebalancing chakra would drain her clones and Prime body, potentially in the middle of a fight. They had to take risks, and it was either in the dome against Akatsuki, or outside against the Jashinists. Eventually, Hazou had come down on the side of the Jashinists. If Leaf's forces lost against Akatsuki, Hazou would need to Superchiller everyone inside the dome, Leaf and Akatsuki alike. He didn't want that to happen.

    If only it were entirely in his control.

    o-o-o​

    "Summoning Technique: Cannai!" Hazou called out, bringing his hands together. Reality shuddered, the citrine sky above Hazou appeared to bleed blue for an instant, then the Dog Alpha was there.

    "Greetings, summoner," Cannai said. "Leopard is not currently running any offensive. If we move quickly, they will not have time to mount any offensive before I return."

    To his side, Sarutobi Kurenai called out. "Summoning Technique: Enma!"

    "Hey, kid," Enma said. "Hey there, Cannai. Fancy seeing you here."

    Cannai glanced at Enma. "Let's talk on the way. My country is at war, and I can't waste time on pleasantries, Enma."

    "It's a mile that way," Hazou said, pointing. "You'll smell me – there's nine copies of me, and my brother Noburi, who you've met before."

    Cannai barked, then bounded off into the woods. Enma grinned at Hazou, made an odd, three-fingered gesture at Sarutobi, then leaped up to a tree branch and swung off after the Dog Alpha.

    He turned back to his bodyguards. Sarutobi raised an eyebrow at him. "You summoned Cannai entirely from your own reserves?"

    "As did you for Enma," Hazou said, keeping a casual demeanor even though his coils ached slightly at having their entire contents dumped in a fraction of a second. At least the biosealed coils didn't feel pain.

    "I have been a ninja longer than you have been alive," Sarutobi said, "and even after training my reserves in anticipation of signing the Monkey Scroll, I still barely manage it."

    Hazou shrugged. "Maybe there's more to me than meets the eye."

    Sarutobi frowned, but said no more.


    Hazou is now eligible to buy his second copy of the Akimichi Chakra Enhancement.

    Hazou used one FP for rerolls on RER2.0 infusion (he got a -12 on one of his clones).

    @eaglejarl will be posting shortly with the battle.
     
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