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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Sir Stompy said:
Did Hazou spend most of his chakra on something not in the update? Or is this the kind of drain we can expect from a few days without taking more shimmers in?
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It's also possible Hazou lost a bunch of his chakra when the skeleton fiend drained that shimmer of its chakra.
Velorien said:
As birds(?) began to sing strange and discordant songs in distant trees, Hazō realised he couldn't see the veins in his pallid skin at all.
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I want to go into the city to see if there is anyone who knows about either jiraya's novels or the philosophy of Youth, I can't imagine either of them would fail to make waves where they are. Speaking of which did we check the orgy to see if jiraya was there?
 
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Eisenhelm said:
I want to go into the city to see if there is anyone who knows about either jiraya's novels or the philosophy of Youth, I can't imagine either of them would fail to make waves where they are. Speaking of which did we check the orgy to see if jiraya was there?
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We could actually try to spread the story of the last Icha Icha and the gallant man who wrote it for his wife in an attempt to signal to Jiraiya one of his family is here. Stories can go all directions at once, but they travel arbitrarily slow so it's not rushing it, helping us find Jiradad at literally the speed of plot :p
 
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Damn, that chapter was better than my wildest expectations. I admit, I was a little scared that the new direction of the quest would ruin it somehow, but I really should have trusted in y'all's writing skill.

Also, I really wanna check out that giant kanji orb at some point.
 
Paperclipped said:
"Memories you thought you forgot…" Hazō muttered. A descent, darkness, a deafening, clangorous silence…
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Um.
Velorien said:
Chapter 507: Truth in the Dark
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Velorien said:
Hazō followed Shikamaru down, holding tight to the handrail in the absolute darkness of the underworld. Above them, the door shut itself again, leaving him at Shikamaru's mercy to get out of here again.
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Velorien said:
At long last, the descent came to an end. From the sudden shift in the sound of their footsteps, Hazō guessed that they had entered a large, open space.
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Velorien said:
"Forbidden Technique: Crimson Purification."
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I don't have a match for the "deafening silence" part, but otherwise this seems like a fairly clear reference to this April Fool's chapter. It's probably just the QMs teasing, since Hazō didn't have the Consequences afterwards, but in combination with this line from the non-April-Fool's chapter:
Velorien said:
"Oh," Hazō exclaimed, glancing out of the window, "how did it get this late? I could have sworn I'd just arrived. I'm sorry for keeping you so long."
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I'm beginning to suspect that something happened, even if not the precise events we saw. (Unless anyone has a better match for what Hazō could be remembering here?)
 
[X] Action Plan: Pondering the Orb
Word Count: <<299
  • Head out with Miki and Keiji into the Wilds.
    • Travel to the shrine they're interested in, bring an interesting trinket to leave as an offering.
    • Stop at the Sphere on the way there -- see if you can decipher any of the kanji.
    • Refill chakra as necessary from any shimmers in the Wilds, be alert for any skeletal shapeshifting demons.
      • Don't go too far out of the way, however.
    • During the journey, meditate on loose memories.
 
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Paperclipped said:
There's no way to resist the afterlife memory drain. You can only influence what gets taken first.
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Velorien said:
Riakutā Mako. He'd never followed up on Mako-sensei, come to think of it, or the rest of his original genin team
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HAZOU: "Huh? Ma-ko-ri was always my Jonin-sensei"

MARI: "Oh Sage, what did I do!? What did I do to you!?"

*screaming in Mari*

HAZOU: "Time keeping is easy, it's always Fix-Mari-O-Clock!"

*more screaming in Mari*
 
Paperclipped said:
Plus, it's not like you'll be losing memories the whole time. The way your mind go, it has a way of knocking loose memories you thought you forgot."

"Memories you thought you forgot…" Hazō muttered. A descent, darkness, a deafening, clangorous silence…
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Emphasis mine, the relevant quotation to meditate on, likely related to this and Ino's later purging of our mind.

Velorien said:
"Please be careful," Shikamaru said, leaving the lantern where it was. "It's a long descent, and no shade is permitted where we are heading."

Hazō followed Shikamaru down, holding tight to the handrail in the absolute darkness of the underworld. Above them, the door shut itself again, leaving him at Shikamaru's mercy to get out of here again.

Hazō had previously thought that the staircase down to Orochimaru's Basement was deep. He now realised that he had known nothing of depth, as the pair's journey wore on and his legs began to ache.

"How much longer—"

"Shhh!" Shikamaru hissed. "Do not speak unbidden until we are back at the top."

After a second, he added, "You do not wish to accidentally provide information."

Provide information to whom, Hazō wanted to ask, but despite what his Academy teachers might have believed, he was capable of following direct instructions.

At long last, the descent came to an end. From the sudden shift in the sound of their footsteps, Hazō guessed that they had entered a large, open space.

"Walk forward slowly," Shikamaru said. "Hold out a hand so that you do not run into it face-first."

Hazō obeyed, increasingly wary. If Shikamaru wanted to assassinate him, say, for asking too many questions about unspeakable clan secrets, there would be no better opportunity. He had to count on the fact that people had seen them together today, and while Shikamaru had the authority to swear them all to secrecy, there was still a chance that his second-in-command would find out, in which case he'd quickly join Hazō in the afterlife.

Hazō's hand touched stone. Or was it stone? It felt just a little bit too giving, and oddly warm. As his fingers moved across it, he could feel grooves etched into the material, sweeping lines and deep points forming a pattern he could almost but not quite visualise. In fact, if there was one thing it made him think of…

Shikamaru was saying something in the background, but Hazō found himself less and less interested in what he had to say. This was it, he realised, a second example of a 3D seal. With this for comparison, he had what he needed in order to be able to analyse and decode the Great Seal. It was the clue he'd been waiting for all along.

He couldn't see it, and that meant he couldn't store its image in his mind. Maybe that was the real reason for the darkness. Yes, Shikamaru must have found out about the Iron Nerve's greatest secret. It wasn't something Shikamaru, or anyone outside the Kurosawa, could be allowed to know—Hazō had barely escaped being vivisected for it once already. He would have to do something. Here, in the dark, Shikamaru couldn't use his shadows. There would be no better chance. Nobody could blame Hazō if, after such a long walk, the fatigue combined with the darkness led the boy to slip on the endless stairs and break his neck.

No. No, there was no need to be hasty. There was something much more important to do before he risked combat with the heir of the binders. For the sake of defeating the Heralds, Hazō needed to know what lay behind this seal. All the answers to the mysteries of the world were waiting for him to reach out and take them, if he only removed one trivial obstacle.

Hazō reached for his exploding tags.
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Sir Stompy said:
Surely Mari used TLitF on Hazou before she reformed? See if those memories are recoverable.
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eaglejarl said:
She shifted uncomfortably, looking back at where her fingers were idly shredding a blade of grass. "You were feeling cut off from the others. We talked for a while, and I told you what it was like from my side. How I didn't know what to do. How I'm not this elite jōnin that the rest of you see me as, I'm just the gawky teenager from a few years ago who's somehow tricked everyone into believing she's a grownup. That I don't have some great plan for how to keep us alive and make the world better, I'm just making it up as I go along and I'm dropping the ball more and more."

Chills danced along Hazō's spine. "I don't remember this conversation," he said carefully.

Her laugh was grim. "Nope. Truth Lost in the Fog...all the catharsis of personal conversations, none of the ongoing vulnerability. I wasn't willing to look weak in front of my team, so I killed you."
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So like this?
 
Sir Stompy said:
I took this to mean that one of the other things we asked about was Jashin, probably one of the Five or the King of Hell
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Yeah, I was talking about this:

Noumero said:
That would be the surface interpretation, yes. But @Inferno Vulpix pointed out that Hazou literally went line-by-line down the list of questions we voted-in, basically verbatim... with only the question about Jashin being seemingly shifted to the end, and Oro acting as if we'd already asked it.

It's not just Oro being a difficult smartass, the weirdness is on Hazou's end as well.
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I don't think this went anywhere, but I can't remember.

Also, you copied it once :p :
Sir Stompy said:
Priority: Your Orochimaru Q&A. You followed a strict list, then "forgot" about Jashin, apparently repeating yourself.
  • An antimeme?
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Details on possible Jashin anti-meme for linking

Noumero said:
That would be the surface interpretation, yes. But @Inferno Vulpix pointed out that Hazou literally went line-by-line down the list of questions we voted-in, basically verbatim... with only the question about Jashin being seemingly shifted to the end, and Oro acting as if we'd already asked it.


It's not just Oro being a difficult smartass, the weirdness is on Hazou's end as well.
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Noumero said:
Priority: Your Orochimaru Q&A. You strictly followed a list, then "forgot" about Jashin, apparently repeating yourself.
  • An antimeme?
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eaglejarl said:
"It was pretty rough," Hazō granted. "Still, I had this whole list of questions I wanted to ask him. Thinking back on it, I realized that I forgot to ask one of the questions. I went through all the rest but somehow I skipped that one. I thought maybe there was some kind of infoeater chewing the memories out of my skull."

"Is that possible, sir?" Gaku said, his voice the very model of horrified.

Still casually slumped in his chair, feet up on his desk, ankles crossed, Hazō took a bite of his cookie and continued staring at the ceiling. "Yup," he said.
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