Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Being overly dramatic is our defense mechanism against character death!
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I mean, Orochimaru capturing us would be terrifying but it would at least leave us with the questionably comforting notion that there's really nothing we could have done to stop him.
- Location
- USA
I have this image in my head of Keiko and Hazou snarking at Orochimaru when ever he is around and the only reason he has not fully killed us is the insighte we give along with our snarking. And that together Keiko and Hazou could give enough ideas and knowledge to keep the rest of the team alive via the same sort of Deal HPMoR!Harry got.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I feel like Orochimaru would enjoy Keiko's brand of humor and might keep us around just for the amusing shenanigans we get into. Imagine him keeping us alive just so we can tell him stories and entertain him.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's amazing. May I Sig that?
Nope, uh-uh, no siree. Blood in the Water was already way too much for me.
- Location
- The Deep Blue Sea
Hmm... I wonder if this works the other way around...
Vetoed because ick.
Vetoed because ick.
- Location
- USA
You know, I thought you were joking, but the more time passes the more worried I am you were being serious
- Location
- USA
Ok, so... I have a very morbid imagination. Here let me share with you all.
The Severed head of Hazou slowly building a wall with sealess MEW and passing out every time he adds an inch due to him using all the chakra his head contains, with every time being a risk of permanent death through shock of his chakra coils. A respirator that only sends air through the voice box when a switch is flipped by Orochmaru and only Iron Nerve allowing that to work for Hazou to communicate. The eventual collapse of the lab we are held in only to be found years later and acting as a consultant for distant future ninja.
The Severed head of Hazou slowly building a wall with sealess MEW and passing out every time he adds an inch due to him using all the chakra his head contains, with every time being a risk of permanent death through shock of his chakra coils. A respirator that only sends air through the voice box when a switch is flipped by Orochmaru and only Iron Nerve allowing that to work for Hazou to communicate. The eventual collapse of the lab we are held in only to be found years later and acting as a consultant for distant future ninja.
Chapter 80: Horrible Heights and Amazing Ambush
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
All rolls, and massive spoilers, are at the bottom of the update.
"Ah, my young friends have returned," Shintarou said, standing up from the shogi board where he'd been playing against himself. "And you've brought a friend."
Inoue-sensei's henged face glowered. "Yeah. A friend. These are my friends, so don't think you can take advantage of them, you stinker. Try it and I'll—"
Hazou put a hand on her arm. "It's all right, sensei," he said. "Breathe. We're all friends here."
"I'm not," Inoue-sensei grumbled. "Stinker."
"Anyway," Noburi quickly jumped in. "We're here to pick up the drugs." He pulled out a ryo pouch and set it on the table with a faint clink!
Shintaro opened the pouch and quickly counted the money. He nodded, satisfied with the amount, and whisked it into the back room, returning a moment later with an oilskin-wrapped package about one hand length on a side.
"Here you are," he said, laying it on the counter. "Now, were there any rumors you'd like to feed me? When you're leaving, where you're going with the drugs, how much money you're still carrying...anything?"
"Uh...," Noburi said. "No, nothing like that. A couple of business things, though. We need to find a telescope; do you know where we could get one?"
"Hm. Unusual item, and expensive."
Noburi shrugged but said nothing.
Shintarou considered the group for a moment. "I could probably get you one," he said. "It would take some time, though."
"How much time?" Noburi asked. "We're actually leaving later today, and we probably won't be back for about a month, so—"
"A month?" Inoue-sensei said, in the scratchy voice Kagome's alias had used in the alley. "I thought we were coming right—" She cut herself off when Hazou's grip tightened on her arm. "I mean, uh, yeah! A month! Maybe two! Yeah, definitely two!"
Noburi sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Yes, well," he said to Shintarou. "These identities are compromised, so we're leaving fairly soon. How long would it take to get a telescope?"
"Perhaps a month, more likely two," the storekeeper said, pointedly not taking note of Inoue's outburst. "And, as I said, expensive. A quarter million ryo."
Noburi choked. "A quarter million?!"
Shintarou looked down his nose at Noburi. "Stop being dramatic. Yes, a quarter million. Even then I'm giving you the 'good customer' discount. I'll barely make a profit on the sale, I'm only offering it in the interest of maintaining our business relationship."
"Yeah, I'm sure," Noburi said sourly. "Well, we'll get back to you on that. Now, if you'll excuse me, we need to go."
"Travel safe," Shintarou said. "I'll look forward to discussing it more when you get back, many weeks from now. Although, of course, should any other party of four ninja whom I have never seen before walk into my shop before then, I'll be equally glad to haggle with them."
"Of course," Noburi said blandly. "I would expect nothing less. Good day."
"Okay, so now we need to find the ninja from those patrols that we met in the alley," Hazou said. "We let them them know that we're leaving but coming right back under different henge, so that they'll be spreading the word too. That way everyone is sure to hear it. We'll need to split up, though. Six people is too obvious."
"Hang on there, bucko," Inoue-sensei said. "Telling Shintarou should be enough. He took the bait, and he knows that we want the word put around. More importantly, I don't like us splitting up and Arikada could be showing up any time now. We can't afford to let her get into the city or we'll have to wait until she leaves to engage. Best if we just get out there."
"You're really serious about this," Mari said, looking at the pile of apparently random objects that Akane was carefully laying out on the ground. "I have to admit, I thought you were pulling my leg and we were just going to find a hill or something."
Kagome nodded furiously, a giant grin on his face. "Uh-huh! It'll be great! Rock solid—no, better than that! Rocks can roll out from under you, or if some idiot starts poking at the walls they can blow up, or melt into gooey puddles that kinda look at you, or start bleeding or whatever. Not this!"
"Explain it to me again," Mari said, her voice a bottomless well of dubiousness.
"It is a most youthful invention, sensei!" Akane said. "Hazou-sensei conceived of it, Kagome made the seals, and I built the framework. You see, you take one of these wooden blocks"—she held up a chunk of pine the size of her head with a large hole bored into the center of each side—"and you connect them like so." She picked up one of the thumb-thick oak dowels that she'd pulled out of a storage-sealed bag a few minutes ago. One end of the dowel went into one block, the other end into another block. More blocks and more dowels were rapidly assembled into a grid three meters across.
"See, this is the best part!" Kagome said, too excited to wait for Akane to explain. He grabbed one of the extra-long coils of ninja wire off the ground and started running it around the frame, placing a small loop on top of each block and then balancing another block on top to hold it in place. A lifetime of experience as a hasn't-died-yet sealmaster made him check that each piece of the wire was in the middle of its supporting block and firmly anchored.
The precision was obviously pure reflex, because it still left him plenty of attention with which to chatter. "See, the frame is a bunch of different things, but the wire is all one! That's the trick—the seal only works on one object, but a wire is just one object! You can run it around all you want, then on to the next piece, and it's fine. And when you're done with it you just take the seal off and the wire collapses so you can pull it up with you and there's no way for the stinkers to get to you because you're up in the air! It's like being in a tree, except the tree doesn't want to eat you!"
"Go back to that part about the wire collapsing," Mari said. "That sounded like a bad part."
"It's fine, sensei," Hazou said. "As long as the seal is in place the wire is literally unmovable. We'll make sure that the seals are firmly fixed and covered so that they're immune to the weather. There's no risk, I promise."
"Uh-huh," Mari said, eyeing the platform even more dubiously.
Kagome stopped laying out the wire and looked at her, hurt. "You don't trust my seals?" he asked piteously.
Mari ducked her head guiltily. "No, I do," she said. "It's just...well, I mean, we're talking about standing on thin air, supported only by some wire. It's a little daunting." She saw his face and hurried to add. "I'm sure it'll be fine, though! Probably lots of fun too, once I get past the adjustment. Yep, can't wait to try it!"
Akane laughed. "It is most youthful of you to be so open-minded, sensei," she said. "I myself am quite looking forward to it." She looked over and saw that Kagome had finished getting the last of the wire in place and affixing the various components of the Five Seal Barrier. Without waiting to be told, she and Hazou moved to opposite sides of the platform and hoisted it up as high as they could reach. Kagome brushed his fingers across the center seal and pushed a tiny pulse of chakra into it before stepping back and nodding to Hazou and Akane. The two genin lowered the frame down, leaving the wire hanging in midair, unsupported, with a lattice of heavy wooden blocks balanced on it.
Mari absently finger-combed imaginary tangles out of her hair while studying the latest bit of wizardry to come from the warped mind of her students.
"Isn't it a very youthful invention, sensei?" Akane asked happily.
In the silence of her own mind, Mari sat on the first reply that came to mind...and the second, and the third. Outwardly she smiled brightly. "It really is," she said. "Okay, let's do this." With a silent prayer to the gods of fools and teachers of unfortunately inventive young ninja, she leaped up onto the frame. The thing was just as solid as Kagome had promised, without even the tiny bit of sway you would feel on a tree limb. The loops of wire provided platforms wide enough for a ninja to stand on, although a civilian would have plummeted to their death instantly. Still, a little chakra adhesion to hold oneself in place definitely seemed called for.
Mari forced herself to look calm and supportive as Hazou and Akane passed the frame up. Internally, she started preparing to help make the next level of insanity.
Twenty minutes later, they were so high up that the wind was whipping her hair everywhere. It was exactly as awful as she'd expected, and she didn't dare look down at the ground so far below. Gods, she hated heights. If she fell from here she wouldn't just hit the ground, she'd splash. Every bone would shatter like glass, leaving her—
No, she reminded herself firmly. If she fell from here she would just henge into a blanket and float to the ground. Which was good, because that was literally the plan for how to get down. The kids, irrational little monsters that they were, were actually looking forward to that part: pull the seals off so that the wire collapsed and everyone plummeted to their death...or, at least, to their you're-good-at-henge-right-because-you-better-be.
For this final level they'd woven the wire densely enough that it was possible to lie down in something that definitely wasn't comfort but at least wasn't actively painful. Still, it was better after they spread out the blankets (carefully selecting the ones that most closely matched the current color of the sky) and unsealed some some boards to lay on top so that the wire didn't cut into delicate bits.
Or, at least, it was comfortable until that was all done and she had nothing to distract herself from the fact that she was going to need to spend hours, possibly days, lying on mid-air a bazillion feet in the air while looking down at the ground nauseatingly far below in hopes of spotting an incredibly lethal sealmistress that the team would then have to go try to capture. Capture. Admittedly, the emphasis was very heavily on the 'try' part of that; there'd been a lot of discussion and everyone was solidly onboard with the "if it's convenient but let's not go too far out of our way we'll just make sure that we don't smoosh her head yeah that sounds like a better plan" plan).
Well, Kagome wasn't so much onboard with it as he was grudingly willing to grumble instead of flat out oppose. He'd campaigned vociferously for the 'boom, squish' plan but been roundly shot down by Keiko's point that explosives were fairly likely to smoosh Arikada's face which would be fairly likely to make Jiraiya smoosh the team's faces.
So, yes, the team at least needed to try to capture the insane, bioseal-wielding, loves-collateral-damage sealmistress. Why? Because clearly Mari's mother had been right and the kami would take vengeance on little girls who sassed their mothers. The vengeance had been pretty long delayed, but it was all the more evil for the wait.
With a carefully suppressed sigh, Mari settled in to keep watch.
Only the Iron Nerve was keeping Hazou still as he waited for Arikada to arrive at the ambush site. He wasn't sure if things had gone well or poorly; on the one hand, they'd lucked out with the timing. They'd been on watch for no more than a few hours before Hazou had spotted what had to be Arikada's group. They were coming cross-country at a speed that was a lazy amble for ninja, but still faster than any civilian could have maintained. He'd lucked into seeing them from far off; there had been just enough time to signal the others, scramble for the ground, and put together a hastily-prepared ambush.
Well, if you could count "six people lying down under camo blankets" an ambush. Hardly what he—or Kagome!—would have preferred. Where were the seal traps? Where was the giant marsh that would let Noburi drain everyone in the area? Shoot, they didn't even have enough misterator seals to make a decent fogbank before the enemy arrived. (Also, he really needed to figure out a way to wreak horrific vengeance on Inoue-sensei for tagging his brilliant invention with the silly name 'misterator'.)
He silenced his thoughts as he heard the faint sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. Very, very carefully, he lifted one corner of his camo blanket the tiniest bit, just enough that he could see out. The team was scattered around the immediate area—they hadn't known exactly where Arikada would pass through, although they had a pretty accurate guess—so there was no way to coordinate. Whoever ended up being closest was responsible for calling the attack.
Here they came...closer...closer...three of them. Two men, the left-side one broad and stocky, the right-side one wiry with blond hair. In the middle ran a fat woman with patchy skin and hair like bristles.
Hazou blinked and looked again. Her skin wasn't just patchy it was...diseased? He couldn't tell from here, but there was something wrong. Oh, lovely. A strange-looking sealmistress who specialized in bioseals. This was gonna go great.
"Look ou—" the blond ninja cried, pointing to where Keiko hid under her blanket.
Ambush spoiled, the team threw their blankets off and leaped to their feet. A year of practice together and specific prep for this exact encounter allowed them to act as one: Hazou, Akane, Noburi, and Kagome hurling PMYF and misterator (again: vengeance required) seals in all directions, while Keiko and Inoue-sensei dealt with the guards.
Keiko apparently decided that perceptiveness should be its own reward, because she targeted the blond ninja with a pair of kunai. The weapons seemed to vanish from her hands and disappear into a blurred line connecting her to her victim.
The man was fast, but not fast enough. He managed to barely twist aside from one weapon and deflect the second. Instead of blasting straight through his chest and out his back, he turned it enough that it hit his collarbone instead. In the end he might have preferred the instant kill; the kunai sank into his flesh right up to the hilt, the point sticking a full thumblength out his back. He screamed and stumbled as the pain hit, but managed to stay on his feet.
While planning for this encounter, the group had identified a weakness in their team composition: they had only one person with significant ranged attacks. (At least, ranged attacks that didn't demolish the entire landscape.) Everyone agreed on two things about this combat: first, the guards needed to be dealt with immediately so that the whole team could focus on Arikada. Second, for anyone except Keiko, dealing with the sealmistress's guards was going to require getting uncomfortably close to the sealmistress herself. Kagome had loudly advocated that he should 'boom, squish!' the guard while Inoue-sensei shut Arikada down with genjutsu. Inoue-sensei had regretfully turned the idea down; she was not confident that a bioseal expert wouldn't have unusual senses that would allow her to automatically defeat genjutsu. No, they were going to need to take Arikada down the old-fashioned way: by beating her like a drum until she fell down. And before doing that, the guards needed to be gotten out of the way, which meant getting close to Arikada. Finally, Inoue-sensei had put her foot down and declared that she would be the one to bell the cat. After all, she'd laughingly said, she was still the best in the group at "getting up close and personal."
There is something extremely personal, almost intimate, about literally snapping another human being in half.
The stocky guard barely had time to react as a red-haired streak came in from his side, slid behind him, and grabbed him by the collar. Chakra anchored Inoue-sensei's left foot to the ground for leverage as she yanked her victim's head and shoulders back, forcing his body into a convenient arch. Simultaneously, a dainty foot lashed out in a snap kick that took him in the small of the back and sent the fragments of his spine out through his belly. He folded backwards around her foot like a wet rag doll, dead before he could even scream.
Arikada saw it happen and laughed.
An instant later, the dead guard's head exploded, practically in Inoue-sensei's hands.
"Sensei!" Hazou screamed, hurling himself forward. He'd barely taken two steps before his brain caught up with what his eyes were telling him: his jounin was all right. Somehow she had seen what was coming and hurled herself backwards, curling into a ball and rolling away fast as the explosion bloomed behind her. When she stood up she was covered in soot and her hair was singed, but she seemed unhurt.
Which left Hazou with a problem. Namely, he was in mid-charge at a probably-insane sealmistress who could apparently make people's heads explode. And she was turning towards him.
"Nope," he said, vanishing into a kawarimi with one of the logs that the PMYF seals had dispensed all over the battlefield.
The area was hazy with fog from the misterator seals—not enough to block vision, but enough to reduce it. Still, Hazou was able to see well enough to see Keiko slice her thumb on a kunai and slam her hand on the ground.
"Pangolin Summoning Technique: Panchipaama!" Keiko shouted. Purple smoke exploded everywhere as the eight-foot scaled monstrosity that was her combat summon appeared. "We need the woman!" Keiko called, pointing at Arikada.
Panchipaama's massive head swung towards the enemy and locked onto the wounded ninja who had just been implicitly declared unneeded. She dropped forward, curling into a tight ball and racing towards the enemy ninja. Her scales lifted up slightly, turning into bladed scoops that drove her forward at impossible speed and sent a rooster tail of dirt up behind her. Arikada leaped frantically aside, but the wounded guard wasn't nearly fast enough to evade before the massive ball of bladed scales rolled over him.
In that instant, Hazou was forced to reevaluate some of his beliefs. He had met two pangolins so far: Pandaa, and Pankurashun. Pandaa was small and adorable and acted like an excited kid. Pankurashun was massive and had command presence practically oozing off his body, and he had long claws...but he hadn't actually done anything except talk and take Akane aside to teach her a jutsu. The hunched-over posture and wiggly trot that was a pangolin's normal gait had made even the massive warrior seem less threatening than he might have.
When Panchipaama rolled over the unknown ninja, Hazou was forced to abandon any thoughts that even vaguely hinted at "not threatening." The man wasn't crushed by the charge, he was splashed. There was no other word for it. Blood and viscera exploded everywhere, a hand flew off to the south, and when the invulnerable ball of death that was the pangolin went past, all that was left was a red stain well-mixed into badly torn-up soil.
Arikada looked around the battlefield at six enemy ninja, a summoned pangolin the size of a small building, and the dead bodies of her two guards. Hazou could almost hear the woman's thoughts as she decided that this patch of ground was a good place to not be.
"Bye," the sealmistress said with a nasty smile. She crouched slightly and leaped; her legs seemed to explode, the heavy flesh blasting away from her body and hurling her through the air in something that was so far beyond a normal chakra-powered ninja leap that there were no words for it. The explosion tore Panchipaama apart, banishing the immense pangolin back to the Summon Realm with a scream of frustrated rage.
XP AWARD: 13
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends Wednesday, November 2, at 12pm London time.
Current situation: the team is together on the plains, about four miles NW of Sarubetsu. Panchipaama is gone, none of you are wounded. You just heard the 'thump!' of Arikada hitting the ground a hundred yards or so to the north. What do you do?
"Ah, my young friends have returned," Shintarou said, standing up from the shogi board where he'd been playing against himself. "And you've brought a friend."
Inoue-sensei's henged face glowered. "Yeah. A friend. These are my friends, so don't think you can take advantage of them, you stinker. Try it and I'll—"
Hazou put a hand on her arm. "It's all right, sensei," he said. "Breathe. We're all friends here."
"I'm not," Inoue-sensei grumbled. "Stinker."
"Anyway," Noburi quickly jumped in. "We're here to pick up the drugs." He pulled out a ryo pouch and set it on the table with a faint clink!
Shintaro opened the pouch and quickly counted the money. He nodded, satisfied with the amount, and whisked it into the back room, returning a moment later with an oilskin-wrapped package about one hand length on a side.
"Here you are," he said, laying it on the counter. "Now, were there any rumors you'd like to feed me? When you're leaving, where you're going with the drugs, how much money you're still carrying...anything?"
"Uh...," Noburi said. "No, nothing like that. A couple of business things, though. We need to find a telescope; do you know where we could get one?"
"Hm. Unusual item, and expensive."
Noburi shrugged but said nothing.
Shintarou considered the group for a moment. "I could probably get you one," he said. "It would take some time, though."
"How much time?" Noburi asked. "We're actually leaving later today, and we probably won't be back for about a month, so—"
"A month?" Inoue-sensei said, in the scratchy voice Kagome's alias had used in the alley. "I thought we were coming right—" She cut herself off when Hazou's grip tightened on her arm. "I mean, uh, yeah! A month! Maybe two! Yeah, definitely two!"
Noburi sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Yes, well," he said to Shintarou. "These identities are compromised, so we're leaving fairly soon. How long would it take to get a telescope?"
"Perhaps a month, more likely two," the storekeeper said, pointedly not taking note of Inoue's outburst. "And, as I said, expensive. A quarter million ryo."
Noburi choked. "A quarter million?!"
Shintarou looked down his nose at Noburi. "Stop being dramatic. Yes, a quarter million. Even then I'm giving you the 'good customer' discount. I'll barely make a profit on the sale, I'm only offering it in the interest of maintaining our business relationship."
"Yeah, I'm sure," Noburi said sourly. "Well, we'll get back to you on that. Now, if you'll excuse me, we need to go."
"Travel safe," Shintarou said. "I'll look forward to discussing it more when you get back, many weeks from now. Although, of course, should any other party of four ninja whom I have never seen before walk into my shop before then, I'll be equally glad to haggle with them."
"Of course," Noburi said blandly. "I would expect nothing less. Good day."
o-o-o-o
"Okay, so now we need to find the ninja from those patrols that we met in the alley," Hazou said. "We let them them know that we're leaving but coming right back under different henge, so that they'll be spreading the word too. That way everyone is sure to hear it. We'll need to split up, though. Six people is too obvious."
"Hang on there, bucko," Inoue-sensei said. "Telling Shintarou should be enough. He took the bait, and he knows that we want the word put around. More importantly, I don't like us splitting up and Arikada could be showing up any time now. We can't afford to let her get into the city or we'll have to wait until she leaves to engage. Best if we just get out there."
o-o-o-o
"You're really serious about this," Mari said, looking at the pile of apparently random objects that Akane was carefully laying out on the ground. "I have to admit, I thought you were pulling my leg and we were just going to find a hill or something."
Kagome nodded furiously, a giant grin on his face. "Uh-huh! It'll be great! Rock solid—no, better than that! Rocks can roll out from under you, or if some idiot starts poking at the walls they can blow up, or melt into gooey puddles that kinda look at you, or start bleeding or whatever. Not this!"
"Explain it to me again," Mari said, her voice a bottomless well of dubiousness.
"It is a most youthful invention, sensei!" Akane said. "Hazou-sensei conceived of it, Kagome made the seals, and I built the framework. You see, you take one of these wooden blocks"—she held up a chunk of pine the size of her head with a large hole bored into the center of each side—"and you connect them like so." She picked up one of the thumb-thick oak dowels that she'd pulled out of a storage-sealed bag a few minutes ago. One end of the dowel went into one block, the other end into another block. More blocks and more dowels were rapidly assembled into a grid three meters across.
"See, this is the best part!" Kagome said, too excited to wait for Akane to explain. He grabbed one of the extra-long coils of ninja wire off the ground and started running it around the frame, placing a small loop on top of each block and then balancing another block on top to hold it in place. A lifetime of experience as a hasn't-died-yet sealmaster made him check that each piece of the wire was in the middle of its supporting block and firmly anchored.
The precision was obviously pure reflex, because it still left him plenty of attention with which to chatter. "See, the frame is a bunch of different things, but the wire is all one! That's the trick—the seal only works on one object, but a wire is just one object! You can run it around all you want, then on to the next piece, and it's fine. And when you're done with it you just take the seal off and the wire collapses so you can pull it up with you and there's no way for the stinkers to get to you because you're up in the air! It's like being in a tree, except the tree doesn't want to eat you!"
"Go back to that part about the wire collapsing," Mari said. "That sounded like a bad part."
"It's fine, sensei," Hazou said. "As long as the seal is in place the wire is literally unmovable. We'll make sure that the seals are firmly fixed and covered so that they're immune to the weather. There's no risk, I promise."
"Uh-huh," Mari said, eyeing the platform even more dubiously.
Kagome stopped laying out the wire and looked at her, hurt. "You don't trust my seals?" he asked piteously.
Mari ducked her head guiltily. "No, I do," she said. "It's just...well, I mean, we're talking about standing on thin air, supported only by some wire. It's a little daunting." She saw his face and hurried to add. "I'm sure it'll be fine, though! Probably lots of fun too, once I get past the adjustment. Yep, can't wait to try it!"
Akane laughed. "It is most youthful of you to be so open-minded, sensei," she said. "I myself am quite looking forward to it." She looked over and saw that Kagome had finished getting the last of the wire in place and affixing the various components of the Five Seal Barrier. Without waiting to be told, she and Hazou moved to opposite sides of the platform and hoisted it up as high as they could reach. Kagome brushed his fingers across the center seal and pushed a tiny pulse of chakra into it before stepping back and nodding to Hazou and Akane. The two genin lowered the frame down, leaving the wire hanging in midair, unsupported, with a lattice of heavy wooden blocks balanced on it.
Mari absently finger-combed imaginary tangles out of her hair while studying the latest bit of wizardry to come from the warped mind of her students.
"Isn't it a very youthful invention, sensei?" Akane asked happily.
In the silence of her own mind, Mari sat on the first reply that came to mind...and the second, and the third. Outwardly she smiled brightly. "It really is," she said. "Okay, let's do this." With a silent prayer to the gods of fools and teachers of unfortunately inventive young ninja, she leaped up onto the frame. The thing was just as solid as Kagome had promised, without even the tiny bit of sway you would feel on a tree limb. The loops of wire provided platforms wide enough for a ninja to stand on, although a civilian would have plummeted to their death instantly. Still, a little chakra adhesion to hold oneself in place definitely seemed called for.
Mari forced herself to look calm and supportive as Hazou and Akane passed the frame up. Internally, she started preparing to help make the next level of insanity.
o-o-o-o
Twenty minutes later, they were so high up that the wind was whipping her hair everywhere. It was exactly as awful as she'd expected, and she didn't dare look down at the ground so far below. Gods, she hated heights. If she fell from here she wouldn't just hit the ground, she'd splash. Every bone would shatter like glass, leaving her—
No, she reminded herself firmly. If she fell from here she would just henge into a blanket and float to the ground. Which was good, because that was literally the plan for how to get down. The kids, irrational little monsters that they were, were actually looking forward to that part: pull the seals off so that the wire collapsed and everyone plummeted to their death...or, at least, to their you're-good-at-henge-right-because-you-better-be.
For this final level they'd woven the wire densely enough that it was possible to lie down in something that definitely wasn't comfort but at least wasn't actively painful. Still, it was better after they spread out the blankets (carefully selecting the ones that most closely matched the current color of the sky) and unsealed some some boards to lay on top so that the wire didn't cut into delicate bits.
Or, at least, it was comfortable until that was all done and she had nothing to distract herself from the fact that she was going to need to spend hours, possibly days, lying on mid-air a bazillion feet in the air while looking down at the ground nauseatingly far below in hopes of spotting an incredibly lethal sealmistress that the team would then have to go try to capture. Capture. Admittedly, the emphasis was very heavily on the 'try' part of that; there'd been a lot of discussion and everyone was solidly onboard with the "if it's convenient but let's not go too far out of our way we'll just make sure that we don't smoosh her head yeah that sounds like a better plan" plan).
Well, Kagome wasn't so much onboard with it as he was grudingly willing to grumble instead of flat out oppose. He'd campaigned vociferously for the 'boom, squish' plan but been roundly shot down by Keiko's point that explosives were fairly likely to smoosh Arikada's face which would be fairly likely to make Jiraiya smoosh the team's faces.
So, yes, the team at least needed to try to capture the insane, bioseal-wielding, loves-collateral-damage sealmistress. Why? Because clearly Mari's mother had been right and the kami would take vengeance on little girls who sassed their mothers. The vengeance had been pretty long delayed, but it was all the more evil for the wait.
With a carefully suppressed sigh, Mari settled in to keep watch.
o-o-o-o
Only the Iron Nerve was keeping Hazou still as he waited for Arikada to arrive at the ambush site. He wasn't sure if things had gone well or poorly; on the one hand, they'd lucked out with the timing. They'd been on watch for no more than a few hours before Hazou had spotted what had to be Arikada's group. They were coming cross-country at a speed that was a lazy amble for ninja, but still faster than any civilian could have maintained. He'd lucked into seeing them from far off; there had been just enough time to signal the others, scramble for the ground, and put together a hastily-prepared ambush.
Well, if you could count "six people lying down under camo blankets" an ambush. Hardly what he—or Kagome!—would have preferred. Where were the seal traps? Where was the giant marsh that would let Noburi drain everyone in the area? Shoot, they didn't even have enough misterator seals to make a decent fogbank before the enemy arrived. (Also, he really needed to figure out a way to wreak horrific vengeance on Inoue-sensei for tagging his brilliant invention with the silly name 'misterator'.)
He silenced his thoughts as he heard the faint sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. Very, very carefully, he lifted one corner of his camo blanket the tiniest bit, just enough that he could see out. The team was scattered around the immediate area—they hadn't known exactly where Arikada would pass through, although they had a pretty accurate guess—so there was no way to coordinate. Whoever ended up being closest was responsible for calling the attack.
Here they came...closer...closer...three of them. Two men, the left-side one broad and stocky, the right-side one wiry with blond hair. In the middle ran a fat woman with patchy skin and hair like bristles.
Hazou blinked and looked again. Her skin wasn't just patchy it was...diseased? He couldn't tell from here, but there was something wrong. Oh, lovely. A strange-looking sealmistress who specialized in bioseals. This was gonna go great.
"Look ou—" the blond ninja cried, pointing to where Keiko hid under her blanket.
Ambush spoiled, the team threw their blankets off and leaped to their feet. A year of practice together and specific prep for this exact encounter allowed them to act as one: Hazou, Akane, Noburi, and Kagome hurling PMYF and misterator (again: vengeance required) seals in all directions, while Keiko and Inoue-sensei dealt with the guards.
Keiko apparently decided that perceptiveness should be its own reward, because she targeted the blond ninja with a pair of kunai. The weapons seemed to vanish from her hands and disappear into a blurred line connecting her to her victim.
The man was fast, but not fast enough. He managed to barely twist aside from one weapon and deflect the second. Instead of blasting straight through his chest and out his back, he turned it enough that it hit his collarbone instead. In the end he might have preferred the instant kill; the kunai sank into his flesh right up to the hilt, the point sticking a full thumblength out his back. He screamed and stumbled as the pain hit, but managed to stay on his feet.
While planning for this encounter, the group had identified a weakness in their team composition: they had only one person with significant ranged attacks. (At least, ranged attacks that didn't demolish the entire landscape.) Everyone agreed on two things about this combat: first, the guards needed to be dealt with immediately so that the whole team could focus on Arikada. Second, for anyone except Keiko, dealing with the sealmistress's guards was going to require getting uncomfortably close to the sealmistress herself. Kagome had loudly advocated that he should 'boom, squish!' the guard while Inoue-sensei shut Arikada down with genjutsu. Inoue-sensei had regretfully turned the idea down; she was not confident that a bioseal expert wouldn't have unusual senses that would allow her to automatically defeat genjutsu. No, they were going to need to take Arikada down the old-fashioned way: by beating her like a drum until she fell down. And before doing that, the guards needed to be gotten out of the way, which meant getting close to Arikada. Finally, Inoue-sensei had put her foot down and declared that she would be the one to bell the cat. After all, she'd laughingly said, she was still the best in the group at "getting up close and personal."
There is something extremely personal, almost intimate, about literally snapping another human being in half.
The stocky guard barely had time to react as a red-haired streak came in from his side, slid behind him, and grabbed him by the collar. Chakra anchored Inoue-sensei's left foot to the ground for leverage as she yanked her victim's head and shoulders back, forcing his body into a convenient arch. Simultaneously, a dainty foot lashed out in a snap kick that took him in the small of the back and sent the fragments of his spine out through his belly. He folded backwards around her foot like a wet rag doll, dead before he could even scream.
Arikada saw it happen and laughed.
An instant later, the dead guard's head exploded, practically in Inoue-sensei's hands.
"Sensei!" Hazou screamed, hurling himself forward. He'd barely taken two steps before his brain caught up with what his eyes were telling him: his jounin was all right. Somehow she had seen what was coming and hurled herself backwards, curling into a ball and rolling away fast as the explosion bloomed behind her. When she stood up she was covered in soot and her hair was singed, but she seemed unhurt.
Which left Hazou with a problem. Namely, he was in mid-charge at a probably-insane sealmistress who could apparently make people's heads explode. And she was turning towards him.
"Nope," he said, vanishing into a kawarimi with one of the logs that the PMYF seals had dispensed all over the battlefield.
The area was hazy with fog from the misterator seals—not enough to block vision, but enough to reduce it. Still, Hazou was able to see well enough to see Keiko slice her thumb on a kunai and slam her hand on the ground.
"Pangolin Summoning Technique: Panchipaama!" Keiko shouted. Purple smoke exploded everywhere as the eight-foot scaled monstrosity that was her combat summon appeared. "We need the woman!" Keiko called, pointing at Arikada.
Panchipaama's massive head swung towards the enemy and locked onto the wounded ninja who had just been implicitly declared unneeded. She dropped forward, curling into a tight ball and racing towards the enemy ninja. Her scales lifted up slightly, turning into bladed scoops that drove her forward at impossible speed and sent a rooster tail of dirt up behind her. Arikada leaped frantically aside, but the wounded guard wasn't nearly fast enough to evade before the massive ball of bladed scales rolled over him.
In that instant, Hazou was forced to reevaluate some of his beliefs. He had met two pangolins so far: Pandaa, and Pankurashun. Pandaa was small and adorable and acted like an excited kid. Pankurashun was massive and had command presence practically oozing off his body, and he had long claws...but he hadn't actually done anything except talk and take Akane aside to teach her a jutsu. The hunched-over posture and wiggly trot that was a pangolin's normal gait had made even the massive warrior seem less threatening than he might have.
When Panchipaama rolled over the unknown ninja, Hazou was forced to abandon any thoughts that even vaguely hinted at "not threatening." The man wasn't crushed by the charge, he was splashed. There was no other word for it. Blood and viscera exploded everywhere, a hand flew off to the south, and when the invulnerable ball of death that was the pangolin went past, all that was left was a red stain well-mixed into badly torn-up soil.
Arikada looked around the battlefield at six enemy ninja, a summoned pangolin the size of a small building, and the dead bodies of her two guards. Hazou could almost hear the woman's thoughts as she decided that this patch of ground was a good place to not be.
"Bye," the sealmistress said with a nasty smile. She crouched slightly and leaped; her legs seemed to explode, the heavy flesh blasting away from her body and hurling her through the air in something that was so far beyond a normal chakra-powered ninja leap that there were no words for it. The explosion tore Panchipaama apart, banishing the immense pangolin back to the Summon Realm with a scream of frustrated rage.
XP AWARD: 13
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends Wednesday, November 2, at 12pm London time.
Current situation: the team is together on the plains, about four miles NW of Sarubetsu. Panchipaama is gone, none of you are wounded. You just heard the 'thump!' of Arikada hitting the ground a hundred yards or so to the north. What do you do?
Before we get to the actual dice, a few comments and bits of information. These were written yesterday in more-or-less realtime as I was planning and composing the update, so you'll get a sense of where my head was at the time:
With that out of the way, on with the show!
Mari, Deception:
?d100: 1106 Dice, why you hate pretty jounin?
Shintarou, Deception:
?d100: 766
Arikada is arriving either today or tomorrow. Which is it?
1d2: 1
Okay, today. Let's say the last update ended at 12pm. What time is Arikada arriving?
1d24: 17
5pm. Okay that's about enough time for you to do all this stuff and get into position, and it's before sunset so you have a shot at seeing them as they approach. Where are they coming from in relation to Sarubetsu?
?d180 + 180: 327 degrees
327 degrees is about NW. How good are they at not being seen?
Arikada party, Stealth:
?d100: 905
So, does Team Uplift notice the incoming biosealmistress?
Hazou, Awareness + 3d100 (circumstance bonus: up in the air looking over mostly flat plains):
18d100: 912
Okay, not bothering to roll for anyone else. Can you signal the other Team Uplift group without being seen?
1d100 vs Target Number ?: 24
Arikada has no reason to be racing so let's say there's enough time for the team to regroup. (You're welcome.) The plan did not specify what to do if you actually found her, but prior discussion had three plans: full frontal assault, Mist Drain, and poisoning / draining in town. The mayor kiboshed the 'in the town' option and everyone in the group hates the full frontal option, so Mist Drain it is. Note that Pandaa isn't there for this fight at all, and Panchipaama starts the update not there because she is not exactly subtle and would be hard to conceal on a more-or-less open plains.
Since you know where they are and where they're going you can get ahead of them and stage an ambush. (Again, you're welcome.) There's not a lot of time, though, so you're not going to be super well dug in. Also, they're going to know what's going on the minute you pop mist and you don't have enough macerators to make a convincing fogbank before they get there. Let's see if they notice you before the misterators pop.
Team Uplift, Stealth + circumstance bonus for attacking from ambush, lowest dice.
10d100 + ?d100: 589
Team Aaaaagghhhh-It's-Eating-My-Face!, Awareness:
?d100: 673
Hmmmm, that's not good. Still, it's only an A-class success so I'm going to rule that they notice you just before you pop mist. They aren't surprised, but they also don't have time to avoid the ambush.
Noburi, Hazou, Akane, Kagome: throw misterators everywhere
No roll needed.
Keiko, Weapons. No boost, as she's saving chakra for summoning Panchipaama:
30d100: 1535
Guard #1, Weapons:
?d100 + ? chakra boost: 1295
Class B failure: Guard #1 is at -3 dice. One more hit will kill him.
Inoue-sensei, Taijutsu:
?d100 + ?d100 boost: 1957
Guard #2, Weapons:
?d100 + ? chakra boost: 1044
SPLUT! Team Aaaaagghhhh-It's-Eating-My-Face! loses Redsh^H^H^H^H^H Guard #2's MC bonus!
Guard #2's cortex bomb, Sneak Attack!:
?d100: 1037
Inoue-sensei, Tactical Movement to dodge:
?d100: 1116
Panchipaama, Tactical Movement:
?d100: 793
Guard #1, Tactical Movement (-3 dice from wounds):
?d100: 736Dice, why you lurv nasty redshirt?!
Panchipaama, Taijutsu (boosted by Death Roll and multi-combatant bonus):
?d100: 1839
Guard #1, Weapons (-3 dice from wounds):
?d100: 634
SKLRRTCH!
- I'm not actually sure if some parts of this match the plan or not. I had trouble following the section on how to keep watch; it seemed a bit self-contradictory, and part of it depended on having access to Transformation Telescopes, which isn't a thing that works. (That got announced late in the voting process and everyone was scrambling to update the plan based on the discussion, so it probably got lost in the shuffle.) There were a couple versions, one where you were in close to the town and one where you were 10 miles out. The mayor made clear that you weren't to fight Arikada in or near the town so, all things considered, I punted and said that you were doing the 5SB towers 10 miles from town, because (a) that will be fun to write and (b) it seems plausible that the rest of the team would bite on it. You stated that Inoue should be watching the west and the towers should be 60 degrees apart, putting the second one at 330—basically right in Arikada's path (as you'll see below).
- We don't have a mechanic for using mirrors to signal to someone miles away, much less to do it without being seen by someone else—it's not Stealth if you're flashing mirrors around—so for now I'm just rolling a die. We'll sort out permanent mechanics later. (In point of fact I'm not really convinced that signalling across miles like this is feasible without telescopes, but I'll roll with it because this sounds like a fun encounter to write. Likely not to work in future, though.)
- I don't think the method for building the 5SB towers works—as I understand the description it has all the four supporting seals below the center seal when actually all five need to be in a plane. It's been a long time since that was stated though, it's a very cool idea, and there's been prior discussion that did come up with workable ideas so I've patched it here.
- I've got multi-combatant bonuses already figured into all rolls. Technically speaking I probably shouldn't have given the whole team the MC bonus for the first attack since most of them were throwing misterators around instead of actually attacking. Meh, keep it simple.
- Also, I just recalled that some of the team are wounded, but I can't remember who (Hazou and someone, I think) and can't find it quickly. Feh. I'm five hours into this update just doing planning, I've written about 200 words, and I want to get to the good stuff. Congratulations, you're all at full strength for the duration of this encounter. I dunno, maybe you're just that badass that you can temporarily shrug off having been stabbed.
- One final thing: as with 'A Bonfire of Tapirs', I'm having to make some judgement calls on how things should work, and @Velorien isn't around right now to talk with. We will not retcon anything about the fight. If you have issues with anyone's tactical decisions or my judgement calls, please be polite about it but understand that the discussion will only inform the future, not the past.
With that out of the way, on with the show!
Mari, Deception:
?d100: 1106 Dice, why you hate pretty jounin?
Shintarou, Deception:
?d100: 766
Arikada is arriving either today or tomorrow. Which is it?
1d2: 1
Okay, today. Let's say the last update ended at 12pm. What time is Arikada arriving?
1d24: 17
5pm. Okay that's about enough time for you to do all this stuff and get into position, and it's before sunset so you have a shot at seeing them as they approach. Where are they coming from in relation to Sarubetsu?
?d180 + 180: 327 degrees
327 degrees is about NW. How good are they at not being seen?
Arikada party, Stealth:
?d100: 905
So, does Team Uplift notice the incoming biosealmistress?
Hazou, Awareness + 3d100 (circumstance bonus: up in the air looking over mostly flat plains):
18d100: 912
Okay, not bothering to roll for anyone else. Can you signal the other Team Uplift group without being seen?
1d100 vs Target Number ?: 24
Arikada has no reason to be racing so let's say there's enough time for the team to regroup. (You're welcome.) The plan did not specify what to do if you actually found her, but prior discussion had three plans: full frontal assault, Mist Drain, and poisoning / draining in town. The mayor kiboshed the 'in the town' option and everyone in the group hates the full frontal option, so Mist Drain it is. Note that Pandaa isn't there for this fight at all, and Panchipaama starts the update not there because she is not exactly subtle and would be hard to conceal on a more-or-less open plains.
Since you know where they are and where they're going you can get ahead of them and stage an ambush. (Again, you're welcome.) There's not a lot of time, though, so you're not going to be super well dug in. Also, they're going to know what's going on the minute you pop mist and you don't have enough macerators to make a convincing fogbank before they get there. Let's see if they notice you before the misterators pop.
Team Uplift, Stealth + circumstance bonus for attacking from ambush, lowest dice.
10d100 + ?d100: 589
Team Aaaaagghhhh-It's-Eating-My-Face!, Awareness:
?d100: 673
Hmmmm, that's not good. Still, it's only an A-class success so I'm going to rule that they notice you just before you pop mist. They aren't surprised, but they also don't have time to avoid the ambush.
Noburi, Hazou, Akane, Kagome: throw misterators everywhere
No roll needed.
Keiko, Weapons. No boost, as she's saving chakra for summoning Panchipaama:
30d100: 1535
Guard #1, Weapons:
?d100 + ? chakra boost: 1295
Class B failure: Guard #1 is at -3 dice. One more hit will kill him.
Inoue-sensei, Taijutsu:
?d100 + ?d100 boost: 1957
Guard #2, Weapons:
?d100 + ? chakra boost: 1044
SPLUT! Team Aaaaagghhhh-It's-Eating-My-Face! loses Redsh^H^H^H^H^H Guard #2's MC bonus!
Guard #2's cortex bomb, Sneak Attack!:
?d100: 1037
Inoue-sensei, Tactical Movement to dodge:
?d100: 1116
Panchipaama, Tactical Movement:
?d100: 793
Guard #1, Tactical Movement (-3 dice from wounds):
?d100: 736Dice, why you lurv nasty redshirt?!
Panchipaama, Taijutsu (boosted by Death Roll and multi-combatant bonus):
?d100: 1839
Guard #1, Weapons (-3 dice from wounds):
?d100: 634
SKLRRTCH!
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- Location
- Yes.
@eaglejarl Did we not get to see Arikada's die?
http://media0.giphy.com/media/abZ5exGrse0W4/giphy.gif
http://media0.giphy.com/media/abZ5exGrse0W4/giphy.gif
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
Does this mean we're finally going to be allowed to carve seals into our skulls?
- Location
- USA
Well.
Her guards were way crappier than expected.
She managed to outmaneuver us with one Seal.
The piece we were missing about her guards could quite well have been something like "her guards will have suicide seals/explosive seals" type thing, maybe? Seems fitting considering how bad her guards were.
I am concerned our Tactical Movement will not be good enough to catch her at this point. Hrmm.
Also Panchirama is probably going to be pretty pissed considering he got splattered pretty quickly (although I guess she shares the blame?)
How many complex Seals did Kagome have? Like 5?
I guess we can expect her to have a few more up her sleeves
1) bio-explosive on death (seen)
2) rocket-jet (seen)
3) self-protective (allowing her to use the rocket jet?)
4) Some sort of anti-genjutsu perhaps
5) Something to control/enthrall others)
How the hell was Jotouro supposed to pull this off??
Her guards were way crappier than expected.
She managed to outmaneuver us with one Seal.
The piece we were missing about her guards could quite well have been something like "her guards will have suicide seals/explosive seals" type thing, maybe? Seems fitting considering how bad her guards were.
I am concerned our Tactical Movement will not be good enough to catch her at this point. Hrmm.
Also Panchirama is probably going to be pretty pissed considering he got splattered pretty quickly (although I guess she shares the blame?)
How many complex Seals did Kagome have? Like 5?
I guess we can expect her to have a few more up her sleeves
1) bio-explosive on death (seen)
2) rocket-jet (seen)
3) self-protective (allowing her to use the rocket jet?)
4) Some sort of anti-genjutsu perhaps
5) Something to control/enthrall others)
How the hell was Jotouro supposed to pull this off??
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