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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Jello_Raptor said:
Eh, I think we'll do better if we start with what we want to sell. And if he's already got it, tell him "look at what we've done with simple seals already. Imagine what we could build if you gave us more than just explosive and storage seals to build off of."

There's no point shooting ourselves in the foot if we don't have to.
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Except that last time we talked about a seal design, Jiraiya giggled as he stole it. Telling him about all of our seals, even limiting ourselves to what we consider "simple", runs the risk of giving Konoha something they never would have thought of.

This is why we need to go to a library and check out Baby's First Seals and/or Sealing for Dummies. We know explosions and storage scroll are for beginners, but we have no idea what constitutes difficult work.

There is just so much we don't know we can hardly even speculate on this; we need reference points besides the (properly) paranoid hermit we found in the woods.
 
Cariyaga said:
Good point. How hard would it be to make flashbangs with it? I think I remember something about water and high temperature iron or something?
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The way I remember it, if you get iron into small enough particles it will spontaneously combust -- there is so much surface area compared to volume that the normal oxidation (rusting) with the air ignites it.

@OliWhail: That is a fantastic omake, and I really want to read more of it. I was tempted to say that I wouldn't threadmark it until you added at least another 500 words, but I decided not to be a schmuck. :>

Do me one favor, though? Center your titles. Seeing them left-aligned always makes me itch. I know, it's a silly pet peeve but it still bugs me.
 
OliWhail said:
Omake: Unsuited, Cont.
Hazou was going to scream. He was already well past crying.

He didn't understand what was happening to him. He'd felt fine that morning, if a little more stressed than usual. And then in the marketplace, he'd suddenly just… lost it. All that mattered was getting the team into those suits. He could remember, distantly, what had felt like the pure and shining motivation behind the idea -- It'll be a fun little diversion! Akane will be amused to see it! It will humanize us to the Leaf ninja to see us adopting their traditions! -- but in the cold, harsh light of consequences, those notions seemed pale and feeble.

Nobody had spoken to him since getting mindscanned. He shuddered, remembering the sensation that he figured wouldn't be too different from having his eyes pried open, and started to feel sick again when he remembered all the things Yamanaka had pulled out -- big chunks of his list of sealing ideas, clan secrets his momma had entrusted him with, his plan for building a safe home for momma and all his friends….

He looked down, noticing absently that his fingernails had drawn blood from his palms from the force of his grip, and made a mental note to clip them soon - couldn't have long nails interfering with sealwork or closed-hand strikes.

A soft knock at the door made the whole team jump, except Kagome, who was still laid out unconscious on the bed from Inoue-sensei's strike to his head earlier.

Not waiting for a response, an owl-masked ANBU opened the door and strode in, followed by Jiraiya and a woman Hazou recognized as Agent Black. The ANBU took up a position by the door, while Jiraiya walked slowly over to the room's one large armchair and sat down heavily. Agent Black stood looking over his shoulder.

Hazou opened his mouth to apologize, to try to explain, to beg that the rest of the team be allowed to leave Leaf alive and only he be executed, but Jiraiya raised one hand to forestall any conversation, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other.

After several uncomfortable seconds, Jiraiya sighed. "Hazou... do you have any idea how big of a headache you've caused for me?"

Inoue-sensei tried to cut in. "Sir, Hazou's--"

The Toad Sage's voice came down like a ton of kunai, not even looking her direction. "I didn't ask you, girl."

"I'm sorry," Hazou said in a very small voice. "I don't know what happened. It seemed like the right thing to do."

Jiraiya tilted his head back to look at Agent Black. "This would be so much easier if your little cousin hadn't been so insistent he meant well."

She shrugged unsympathetically. "Spymasters don't get to whine about situations not being black and white. Never too late for a career change."

He snorted and looked back to Team Uplift. "For obvious reasons, none of you are going to be allowed to wander the streets of Leaf for some time. To put it bluntly, until I know you're all stable, you're under house arrest. Your minder team is being swapped out for an 24/7 ANBU watch, and I'm mandating at least three sessions of therapy with Agent Black for each of you, ot be arranged later. Mari can be there for the first two. No mindscans, just talking."

The woman in question gave a delicate cough to interrupt him. "Yamanaka Minako," she said to the team, inclining her head. "I find that starting a relationship with code names and secrecy is counterproductive."

Hazou could feel his eyebrows climbing up his forehead, and glances around the room showed him Noburi and Keiko were similarly shocked. Inoue-sensei was, as always, unreadable.

"I can see you're wondering why I'm not just kicking you out, or possibly why I'm not executing you, or interrogating you more thoroughly. Like I said, this situation would be much simpler if I wasn't confident about your positive intentions," Jiraiya continued matter-of-factly. "Plus, there's this."

Here he produced a small scroll and started to read. "'He is an apprentice sealmaster who has already invented his own seals, the Misterator and the Poor Man's Yellow Flash. The first one is some kind of deliberately broken storage seal designed to work with Wakahisa's Bloodline Limit, and the second one relates to rapid movement. Kurosawa has an incredible library of seal ideas in his head. As someone with no sealing training, I am unable to interpret it properly, though their sheer number and variety suggest that he is generating as many as possible in order to filter out the valuable ones later -- see Appendix A for the limited selection I was able to memorize'."

"In addition to your Poor Man's Yellow Flash leveraging principles I've exploited myself in ways I never thought of, and the fact that the name 'misterator' implies that both that Noburi has achieved what my info suggests is a nigh-legendary feat of applying his bloodline through mist and that you have found a way to design a seal to synergize with that feat, the young miss Yamanaka's assessment is correct - the range of sealing ideas she provided was, frankly, astounding, and some of them were even feasible. Ah, here we go, Appendix A. Dispensing objects high up enough to serve as kinetic munitions. Ranged image and sound transmission. Seals that generate chakra pulses to disrupt genjutsu automatically."

He looked up from the scroll. "Any one of these would be a huge boon to Leaf, and somehow you managed to come up with all of them. That's without taking into account that Ino estimated she'd only memorized a third of your list, or talking about how you came up with a way to construct structures at arbitrary heights using a mid-tier defensive seal, or even beginning to deal with the various contributions I'm sure Kagome could make as a veteran sealmaster."

"You are not putting him in one of your sweatshops!" Noburi yelled. "He fucked up, we all get that, but that doesn't mean we're just gonna just sit here and let yo--"

Owl was suddenly behind him, one hand over his mouth. "Quietly, please," he said simply before stepping away. His voice reminded Hazou more of a lizard than a bird.

"Again, for the record, Leaf has no such facilities," Jiraiya said calmly. "And if we did I would have no intention of putting any of your teammates in one of them. From the descriptions I've gotten in the past, it sounds like they're places where prisoners are forced to draw explosive and storage blanks all day every day. That's not what I'm proposing."

"Hazou, to make up for what you've done today, you and Kagome are going to research two ideas of my choice from your list under ANBU supervision, and provide functional prototypes to me. For every additional novel seal or innovation of commensurate value to the ones I listed earlier, I'm happy to grant your entire team open-ended favors."

Hazou felt his mind churn in the way it sometimes did in crisis situations, and nodded decisively. "Fine. If it'll keep my team safe, I accept -- with one condition."

Jiraiya snorted. "You aren't in a position to be setting conditions, boy."

"You still owe me a favor," Hazou insisted. "Since I'm making up for this mistake later, not killing me doesn't use that up. And I'm cashing it in now: at least for the first seal, you help."

Jiraiya stared at him, one bushy eyebrow raised. Hazou didn't blink until the sage burst out laughing. "Damn it all, I always forget how big your team's collective balls are! Fine. I'll leave you all to take care of Kagome and break the news to him. Expect to be reunited with your gear and head out to a research facility at 0900 hours tomorrow morning."

-o-​

The amenities provided at the 'research facility' were substantially better than Hazou had expected -- a solidly-built, homey little cottage about an hour's travel from Leaf, hidden by a dense copse of trees.

Kagome instantly declared it utterly unfit to live in, and set about directing Hazou to build a series of MEW barriers around and over it for the purposes of trapping the place to hell.

"That's… fairly thorough," their ANBU escort for the day, Bull, admitted begrudgingly.

Hazou and Kagome shared a look to decide who was going to be the one to break the news, settling on Hazou. "We're only halfway done," he said.

…​

With security settled ("For now," Kagome had insisted), gear and supplies were stowed inside the cottage, and the three sealmasters left Noburi and Keiko to train under Inoue-sensei and Bull's watchful eyes.

"Right, here we are!" Jiraiya said, flourishing his arm towards a barren and scarred area of ground almost a hundred yards across, with a small berm of earth off to their left.

"We're… where?" Hazou asked, confused.

"The testing ground, obviously," Jiraiya said, not paying attention to them as he pulled crates of paper and ink from storage seals.

Kagome chuckled. "Heheh. Not bad, I didn't know you Leaf stinkers actually had a sense of humor."

"...Kagome sensei, I don't think he's joking. Maybe they just take down the safety setup whenever they finish researching, to help disguise the area's purpose?"

"Why are you still talking when there's sealing to be done??" Jiraiya called, already sitting down behind the large earthen wall.

"Shouldn't we set up our safety precautions first?" Hazou called back.

"What do you think this is?" Jiraiya asked, pointing to the mound of dirt.

Slowly, very slowly, Kagome covered his mouth with one hand. "Oh, kami, we're going to die."

...​

Eventually they managed to convince Jiraiya that yes, really, they did need the pit, and the MEWs, and the force walls, and the extra MEWs, and the extra force walls, and all the five-seal barriers, and to give their little bunker the same treatment, and to put kawarimi targets everywhere.

After several further hours of debating chakra manipulations, sealing theory, and high-dimensional interactions, they had their first prototype to test. Jiraiya had been the most interested in long-distance displacement of storage seal cargo, since it basically gave any team a long-range artillery option, and could potentially be used to move supplies and intel around between locations if they figured out how to extend the range far enough.

For now, though, they had what they hoped would be a simple modification to the standard storage seal that released its cargo a meter away from the face of the seal. Safety measures triple-checked and clones at the ready to measure the displacement height, Jiraiya grabbed a twig off the ground next to him.

"Um. What are you doing with that?" Hazou asked with a growing sense of dread as he put his protection suit on.

"Well, we need a target to store, right?" Jiraiya answered, looking at him like he was an idiot.

Before the older man could move, Hazou shunshined over and snatched the small branch, burning chakra to chuck the horrible thing as far away as he could. "ARE YOU CRAZY?" he screeched. "WOOD BURNS!" He grabbed a small pouch from his waist and procured a fingernail-sized bit of sticky red glop. "Berry!" he proclaimed proudly.

Kagome wiped away a single tear. "So proud," he mumbled to himself.

...​

Somehow, they survived the week and a half it took to work out all the bugs. As Jiraiya departed, Hazou reflected on what he'd learned, namely, that being the world's best sealmaster apparently made you get really lazy with your safety precautions, and he resolved that when he took that position, it wouldn't happen to him.

But until then, it was time to start plotting revenge.

-o-​

"Hoy, Uplifters! How goes it?" Jiraiya called as he approached several weeks later, the convoluted passcode they had decided on last time.

"Hoy, you horny old toad!" Inoue-sensei provided the countersign. "Hazou's very excited to show you what they've come up with. He's inside making tea."

Hazou schooled his expression as the older man walked in. "Jiraiya-sensei, sir. Would you like any?"

"Never let it be said that the Toad Sage was so rude as to refuse a cup of tea."

Hazou nodded, and carried the cups and pot over. After a brief tea Kurosawa tea ceremony -- #73, "This is Your Final Chance to Apologize" -- they got down to sealing business.

"Kagome-sensei and I have made substantial progress toward producing a one-seal barrier. We have a version now that will activate so long as a single tag is within a hundred meters of it."

Jiraiya grinned. "That's fantastic. Not nearly as well as you would have done with me here, obviously, but still, well done. We'll make a real sealmaster out of you yet."

Hazou nodded demurely. "Thank you. Would you like to come see a demonstration before picking up your samples?"

"Certainly," Jiraiya answered, rising. As he turned towards the door, Hazou's hand lashed out from underneath the tray of the tea set and slapped a tag on Jiraiya's sleeve. The man's shirt immediately froze.

"...Hazou, what the hell are you doing?"

"Inoue-sensei!" Hazou called, pointedly ignoring him. "Jiraiya says he needs you to help him blow off steam."

"Hazou," Jiraiya said flatly.

"Oh, does heeee~~~," her singsong voice came back.

"Hazou don't do this."

"This is what you get for being a demanding prick, Jiraiya," Hazou's said, low and dangerous. "Now, I am taking the thrice-damned day off. Come find me if you convince Inoue-sense I to set you loose." Then he turned back to the door. "Yeah, something about 'extreme restraint' and 'no safe words'?" he yelled, setting the tea tray down calmly and heading for the door of the cottage.

"Parakeet, Code Black!" Jiraiya called out to their current ANBU minder.

"Ah, that's not gonna work," Hazou said, grinning mischievously as he opened the door. "He was the demonstration."

Cackling, he walked out into the camp.
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I think I would find this a lot funnier if the ending didn't boil down to "revenge by rape".
 
Velorien said:
If you have a plausible alternative interpretation, I'm all ears.
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A seal made to restrict the movement and increase the durability of an object it's attached to (Jiraiya's sleeve) is no more likely to actually immobilize Jiraiya if he doesn't want to be than Takao's seal which only intended to do the former, was to immobilize Maaya.

e: An alternate possibility for the location of our dear genin friends: They could be the Village Hidden in the Wilds -- a village that is ACTUALLY HIDDEN and located in the Summon Realm. Just for the references to leopards (which I can only assume is their allied summon clan).
 
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Cariyaga said:
A seal made to restrict the movement and increase the durability of an object it's attached to (Jiraiya's sleeve) is no more likely to actually immobilize Jiraiya if he doesn't want to be than Takao's seal which only intended to do the former, was to immobilize Maaya.
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The seal apparently incapacitates Parakeet the ANBU ninja enough to render him unable to come to Jiraiya's aid. Besides, "come find me if you convince Inoue-sensei to set you loose" doesn't sound like Hazō expects Jiraiya to break free anytime soon, and nor does Jiraiya's behaviour (Code Black, really?).

But all this isn't really the point. I'm not waving a banner saying "ban this sick filth". I'm just giving my feedback as a reader, which is that the ending made me uncomfortable and to a large extent negated the humour of what came before. I do think there would be more people reacting this way if it was Mari immobilised against her will, with her team disabled in advance and Jiraiya advancing on her for some extreme restraint blowing off of steam with no safe words.
 
Velorien said:
If you have a plausible alternative interpretation, I'm all ears.
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To blow off steam can mean to vent one's frustrations. One common way of venting is to use this pent up anger while exercising.

As for the second part of the quoted section, "extreme restraint" could refer to the jonin+ strength of a spar between Jiraiya and Inoue necessitating stringent parameters so that they do not destroy the surrounding landscape. "no safe words" would then mean that this is a spar that will last until one or both of them collapse from exhaustion since neither can yield through normal diplomacy. The spar would be a pure fight; no subtly or misdirection with words allowed. This would help out with the venting process as sometimes people really don't want to talk about their problems but they do want to punch something very hard. For ninja most objects pose little to no resistance (without huge ecological damage), so looking for an approximate opponent is the only way to experience some stress relief.

The only way to imply this is about sex is if Mari is only a sexual character. Seeing as she is a strong independent jonin who also happens to have a sex positive outlook on life, her combat strength should not be forgotten as a sign of respect lest Hazou receive even more head ruffles. When you write Mari, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Now take that a step further by thinking about what goes through your mind when you write about Hazou interacting and thinking about Mari. How does he see her? How does he react around her? When was the last time Hazou thought: "Mari-sensei needs to have her womanly needs satisfied again..."? Contrast that to the most recent time Hazou reminded himself that she is scarily strong.

Furthermore, when has Hazou ever started thinking about sexual thoughts on his own? Sure he has been confronted by it numerous times, but I cannot think of a single instance where he has instigated such a discussion. Hazou is a bit asexual at the moment, but that is mostly due to his age (puberty is such a pain), goals, and the countless voices in his head insisting he has more important work to focus on.

Is that plausible enough? I'm genuinely curious.
 
Velorien said:
The seal apparently incapacitates Parakeet the ANBU ninja enough to render him unable to come to Jiraiya's aid. Besides, "come find me if you convince Inoue-sensei to set you loose" doesn't sound like Hazō expects Jiraiya to break free anytime soon, and nor does Jiraiya's behaviour (Code Black, really?).

But all this isn't really the point. I'm not waving a banner saying "ban this sick filth". I'm just giving my feedback as a reader, which is that the ending made me uncomfortable and to a large extent negated the humour of what came before. I do think there would be more people reacting this way if it was Mari immobilised against her will, with her team disabled in advance and Jiraiya advancing on her for some extreme restraint blowing off of steam with no safe words.
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Oh, don't take me wrong here; I'm not getting on you about your opinion of the omake or anything. However, I will note that they may have gotten Parakeet in on the prank too. It would not surprise me. Although I will agree to some degree of reticence at Code Black myself. :p
 
Velorien said:
The seal apparently incapacitates Parakeet the ANBU ninja enough to render him unable to come to Jiraiya's aid. Besides, "come find me if you convince Inoue-sensei to set you loose" doesn't sound like Hazō expects Jiraiya to break free anytime soon, and nor does Jiraiya's behaviour (Code Black, really?).

But all this isn't really the point. I'm not waving a banner saying "ban this sick filth". I'm just giving my feedback as a reader, which is that the ending made me uncomfortable and to a large extent negated the humour of what came before. I do think there would be more people reacting this way if it was Mari immobilised against her will, with her team disabled in advance and Jiraiya advancing on her for some extreme restraint blowing off of steam with no safe words.
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I would agree if this was any other character in Jiraiya's position, but this is Jiraiya we are talking about here. Jiraiya, the person who single-handedly whooped our team's collective asses and is a registered spymaster, would have had to fail a deception roll from Hazou, and then have no back-up tricks against Mari. I read Jiraiya's behavior as a way to humor Hazou; let the boy think he can pull a fast one on the seal master. Jiraiya does use the Code Black phrase, but it could be construed as a way to later say that he did follow procedure, but those dastardly missing-nin foiled all of his attempts to escape. This would give him and Hazou an afternoon of (separate) fun.

The main difference between Jiraiya and some other random mook is relative power. Jiraiya can choose to play along with Hazou's scheme but if needed he could most likely bust out some crazy technique and murderize everyone around him in a one hundred meter radius. Jiraiya is an S-ranked superhuman even among other superhumans; this is the equivalent of Superman needing a safeword as a sub in BDSM with Lois Lane as his dom. As soon as he wants the game to stop, he can stop it.

I do agree that Code Black is a bit far though; it's what originally made me think Hazou was legitimately trying to escape.
 
Dictator4Hire said:
To blow off steam can mean to vent one's frustrations. One common way of venting is to use this pent up anger while exercising.

As for the second part of the quoted section, "extreme restraint" could refer to the jonin+ strength of a spar between Jiraiya and Inoue necessitating stringent parameters so that they do not destroy the surrounding landscape. "no safe words" would then mean that this is a spar that will last until one or both of them collapse from exhaustion since neither can yield through normal diplomacy. The spar would be a pure fight; no subtly or misdirection with words allowed. This would help out with the venting process as sometimes people really don't want to talk about their problems but they do want to punch something very hard. For ninja most objects pose little to no resistance (without huge ecological damage), so looking for an approximate opponent is the only way to experience some stress relief.

The only way to imply this is about sex is if Mari is only a sexual character. Seeing as she is a strong independent jonin who also happens to have a sex positive outlook on life, her combat strength should not be forgotten as a sign of respect lest Hazou receive even more head ruffles. When you write Mari, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Now take that a step further by thinking about what goes through your mind when you write about Hazou interacting and thinking about Mari. How does he see her? How does he react around her? When was the last time Hazou thought: "Mari-sensei needs to have her womanly needs satisfied again..."? Contrast that to the most recent time Hazou reminded himself that she is scarily strong.

Furthermore, when has Hazou ever started thinking about sexual thoughts on his own? Sure he has been confronted by it numerous times, but I cannot think of a single instance where he has instigated such a discussion. Hazou is a bit asexual at the moment, but that is mostly due to his age (puberty is such a pain), goals, and the countless voices in his head insisting he has more important work to focus on.

Is that plausible enough? I'm genuinely curious.
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It's a clever interpretation, but I think you're stretching.

Jiraiya has expressed no desire to blow off steam, and is no less inclined to struggle after hearing the idiom. If Mari intends to attack him without his consent, that's not really an improvement.

The concept of "safe words" isn't used in sparring - if you want to say "fight to unconsciousness or surrender", that's what you say. Nor do I accept that if a jōnin wished to terminate a spar in progress they could not make themselves understood. Just agree in advance that any form of "stop" means "stop", or if you're desperate, that any attempt at verbal communication means "stop". "Safe words" is, however, standard terminology for BDSM, which includes one person being consensually restrained and dominated by another as a standard practice.

Mari may not be solely a sexual character, but if you're going to cut her role in a scene down to a single facet of her personality, then "combat" is no less reductive than "sex". I accept that it is more in character for Hazō to choose that facet, but then we are already in crackfic territory - the real Hazō would never dare do this to Jiraiya for any reason. And the sexual association between Mari and Jiraiya will be well-established in his mind - he is the only person the sexually-preoccupied jōnin has slept with in the time Hazō has known her (to the best of his knowledge). They've even both referred to the encounter in his presence since.

Also, you're not exactly undermining the rape interpretation when your justifications for Hazō's treatment of Jiraiya boil down to "he wants it really, he just isn't saying so" and "he could fight back if he really wanted to".
 
Velorien said:
It's a clever interpretation, but I think you're stretching.
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Oh, I'm not denying that I'm stretching. :p

Velorien said:
Jiraiya has expressed no desire to blow off steam, and is no less inclined to struggle after hearing the idiom. If Mari intends to attack him without his consent, that's not really an improvement.
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The singsong voice itself implies that Mari is in a playful mood regardless of her overall intentions.

Velorien said:
The concept of "safe words" isn't used in sparring - if you want to say "fight to unconsciousness or surrender", that's what you say. Nor do I accept that if a jōnin wished to terminate a spar in progress they could not make themselves understood. Just agree in advance that any form of "stop" means "stop", or if you're desperate, that any attempt at verbal communication means "stop". "Safe words" is, however, standard terminology for BDSM, which includes one person being consensually restrained and dominated by another as a standard practice.
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This is a new universe with new social norms to us; we the players have no idea about the set rules of spars here in Konoha or anywhere else in MfD. Such phrasing could be common place and we wouldn't even know. Conversely, BDSM here may have different terminology from our universe and I'd rather keep Hazou ignorant of its nuances if at all possible.

Velorien said:
Mari may not be solely a sexual character, but if you're going to cut her role in a scene down to a single facet of her personality, then "combat" is no less reductive than "sex". I accept that it is more in character for Hazō to choose that facet, but then we are already in crackfic territory - the real Hazō would never dare do this to Jiraiya for any reason. And the sexual association between Mari and Jiraiya will be well-established in his mind - he is the only person the sexually-preoccupied jōnin has slept with in the time Hazō has known her (to the best of his knowledge). They've even both referred to the encounter in his presence since.
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Well, if we are going to call it crack-fic it seems pointless to me to bemoan whether or not the work accurately adheres to established character models. Hazou did a crazy thing to try to slap a tag on Jiraiya, but Jiraiya also didn't see it coming from a mile away. Everything is preposterous in terms of characterization but that's humor for you.

Velorien said:
Also, you're not exactly undermining the rape interpretation when your justifications for Hazō's treatment of Jiraiya boil down to "he wants it really, he just isn't saying so" and "he could fight back if he really wanted to".
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Is it rape when the "victim" can choose whether or not the crime happens? Can people give non-vocal consent? Yes; it's stupid to do so since it can lead to miscommunication, but some people do get caught up in the moment. My personal mental image of MfD!Jiraiya is an S-ranked sage who happens to be a pervert in his spare time. Due to his value as a ninja though, he is unable to get as much free time as he would like. Therefore, when an opportunity presents itself to play along with a genin's cute attempt at immobilization he takes the chance because he is a dirty, yet (outwardly) kind old man at heart and the kid could use a break.

Overall though, I agree that in the light of this discussion the ending scene itself needs more fleshing out to clear up all of this ambiguity. *cough* @OliWhail *cough*
 
I must say I'm with Velorien on this one. Whatever else one says, "Mari have sex with Jiraiya without his consent" seems to be the most obvious interpretation.

That said, the Omake became crack-tier towards the end with no one acting in-character, so there's that. Stretched my suspension of disbelief too far. The parts that didn't was really enjoyable though!
 
Velorien said:
I think I would find this a lot funnier if the ending didn't boil down to "revenge by rape".
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Alternate endings I would have been more comfortable with:
"It's time for extreme makeovers, Uplift style. I hear she got a really good bargain on the clown makeup."

"You may remember the presence of a metal pole running floor to ceiling behind you. For the next few hours Inoue-sensei will be practicing a what I have been told are a series of highly erotic dances involving it. You might note that all reflective surfaces have been removed or obscured."

"Did you enjoy the tea? Shame about that persistent drip in the corner. You'd think Wahakisa would be able to do something about that."
 
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@Velorien @Aoditor I understand why you're concerned. I think it didn't occur to me independently because at the back of my mind was the assumption that Mari, for obvious reasons, wouldn't actually *do* that - that instead she would immediately realize what had happened, giggle, and come back later.

@thamuzz OK if I steal one of those to make it less rape-y?
 
OliWhail said:
I see it being useful specifically as a remedy for her feeling better about her contribution to the team, since she specifically mentioned messing up by being too trusting repeatedly.
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But she won't really be that useful with it. She will just play second fiddle to Mari and Hazou, and will still be a liability in a social setting due to her low Diplo and Deception dice.

Besides, the team is made out of bunch of failures and Akane's performance is not uniquely bad. Meaning the problem is somewhere else than her skills, and it is not going to be fixed through skills.

OliWhail said:
Where has she actually needed to roll all 15 of those dice? If she could have gotten away with 14, that's 15XP that could have gone to awareness or whatever.
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That's suboptimal, but it's not like we knew exactly what sort of challenges we would be up against. It's also pretty irrelevant when considering future action. The two main reason we got MechApt 15 were:
  1. Give Akane something she is uniquely good at inside the team
  2. Get her started on a MechApt specialty as soon as we find a trainer
If we need to get inside a position fortified by level appropriate opponents without using explosives, we will need those MechApt dice.

OliWhail said:
Even now, Mari will still probably have her position as Akane's 'jounin-sensei', and thus have authority over her training, which she will defer to Hazou as in the past.
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I think you are basing this more on hope than anything actually present in the updates. We have no idea if how often we are going to get to see Akane and whether she will be joining us on our missions. She is a Leaf-nin now, she can't be seen doing the sort of stuff than deniable missing-nin operatives get up to.
 
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Twofold said:
I think you are basing this more on hope than anything actually present in the updates. We have no idea if how often we are going to get to see Akane and whether she will be joining us on our missions. She is a Leaf-nin now, she can't be seen doing the sort of stuff than deniable missing-nin operatives get up to.
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J has said Akane has the choice of whether to remain on our team, regardless of her being an official agent of Leaf. If she's on it, there's little point to some Leaf jounin micromanaging her training schedule. If she's not, then obviously we won't be in a position to tell us what to do.

@thamuzz I appreciate the suggestions a lot. I implemented the clown makeup one. @Velorien @Aoditor is the current version more comfortable, since apparently my radar for these things is not so well calibrated?
 
OliWhail said:
@thamuzz I appreciate the suggestions a lot. I implemented the clown makeup one. @Velorien @Aoditor is the current version more comfortable, since apparently my radar for these things is not so well calibrated?
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You misspelled my name, but otherwise yes, much better. The image of what must be going through Jiraiya's mind is wonderful.

Also, I didn't mention before, but it is a good omake. I particularly enjoyed the concept of Kurosawa Tea Ceremony no. 73.
 
Very Saturday morning cartoon "That's all, folks!" closing hole transition to it. :lol

Thanks for addressing it and good job as always, @OliWhail
 
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