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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Dictator4Hire said:
Extraction is simple:
  1. Have Jiraiya hire Hana for a solo job via civilian merchant proxy.
  2. Wherever the mission is supposed to take place, Hazou waits to meet her.
  3. Hazou himself convinces Hana to come with us as Jiraiya the spy master fakes her death.
I'd have preferred to have hired her ourselves once we were rich enough via the Merchant Empire, but if we want to do it now we can burn a favor or two.

No need to make this overly complicated involving other Mist ninja.
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All missions go through the MIzukage and/or his army of pencil-pushers. Chances of them wanting Hana specifically is low. We'd need to spend exorbitant amounts of money to get her the mission she needs, OR risk a fuckton pushing the mission to get her specifically. Not worth IMO.

It's a lot easier to wait for her to get a mission outside of Mist, then nab her.
 
faflec said:
All missions go through the MIzukage and/or his army of pencil-pushers. Chances of them wanting Hana specifically is low. We'd need to spend exorbitant amounts of money to get her the mission she needs, OR risk a fuckton pushing the mission to get her specifically. Not worth IMO.

It's a lot easier to wait for her to get a mission outside of Mist, then nab her.
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Which requires an extensive spy network in which we receive information close to real time, analysts who can go through mountain of data, and assets in place.
 
Kiba said:
Which requires an extensive spy network in which we receive information close to real time, analysts who can go through mountain of data, and assets in place.
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Or just a single ninja spy clerk that can figure out how long Hana's missions ought to be and how long it will take for a message to reach us.
 
faflec said:
All missions go through the MIzukage and/or his army of pencil-pushers. Chances of them wanting Hana specifically is low. We'd need to spend exorbitant amounts of money to get her the mission she needs, OR risk a fuckton pushing the mission to get her specifically. Not worth IMO.

It's a lot easier to wait for her to get a mission outside of Mist, then nab her.
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Naturally, we should run every idea past Jiraiya first to see if they are even remotely feasible. Originally the idea was to use our virtually limitless funds to keep hiring Most ninja until Hana's disappearance would just be another statistic to the pencil pushers.

I'm fairly certain that Mist has some way to request rushed missions with a high probability of failure. Since Yagura is so focused on using tools until he no longer has use of them, he probably wouldn't think twice about sacrificing Hana for Mist's benefit. We can request a mission with such criteria until Hana gets assigned to it or we can spam such requests until they have to draft Hana since she is a jonin. This will take a mountain of cash, but that's the whole point of the Merchant Empire in the first place. This is just one such application of oodles of cash.
 
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Dictator4Hire said:
Naturally, we should run every idea past Jiraiya first to see if they are even remotely feasible. Originally the idea was to use our virtually limitless funds to keep hiring Most ninja until Hana's disappearance would just be another statistic to the pencil pushers.

I'm fairly certain that Mist has some way to request rushed missions with a high probability of failure. Since Yagura is so focused on using tools until he no longer has use of them, he probably wouldn't think twice about sacrificing Hana for Mist's benefit. We can request a mission with such criteria until Hana gets assigned to it or we can spam such requests until they have to draft Hana since she is a jonin. This will take a mountain of cash, but that's the whole point of the Merchant Empire in the first place. This is just one such application of oodles of cash.
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Until Yagura thinks for more than a second, concludes that the bullshit-high amount of high-risk missions is enemy action, and promptly explode in rage.

Cue spies being sent out to figure out what the fuck is going on.
 
So the proposal is to hire Mist nins with oodles of cash for missions of all kind, until Hana get hired and we fake an ambush and her death?
 
faflec said:
Until Yagura thinks for more than a second, concludes that the bullshit-high amount of high-risk missions is enemy action, and promptly explode in rage.

Cue spies being sent out to figure out what the fuck is going on.
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We can gradually increase the rate at which we request jonin. What's he going to do, turn down business?

Kiba said:
So the proposal is to hire Mist nins with oodles of cash for missions of all kind, until Hana get hired and we fake an ambush and her death?
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Basically. We can add additional parts as needed with feedback from Jiraiya and our team.
 
Let's not forget our goal of uplifting the world so that there will be no more Hana and Hazo. Hana is important, but we should never focus on extracting her to the exclusion of everything else.

We'll need plans, resources, and skills, and that should be developed in conjunction with our merchant spy network.

Should the opportunity arise, and we're ready, we'll extract Hana.

If not, we should keep working until we completely change the world so that Hazo can come home to Hana and to a different Mist not ruled by that asshole kage.
 
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You know, from the evidence we have so far in-story I really don't get all the hate for Yagura. There's definitely not definitive proof he needs to be killed/removed from power/etc.

The only in-story exposure to him we have isn't necessarily a reliable narrator in all fairness - regardless of how awesome Inoue is, the excerpt is tinged by her perception of it, which does a good job of hand-waving away the insubordination etc. she shows.
 
Kiba said:
Let's not forget our goal of uplifting the world so that there will be no more Hana and Hazo. Hana is important, but we should never focus on extracting her to the exclusion of everything else.

We'll need plans, resources, and skills, and that should be developed in conjunction with our merchant spy network.

Should the opportunity arise, and we're ready, we'll extract Hana.

If not, we should keep working until we completely change the world so that Hazo can come home to Hana and to a different Mist not ruled by that asshole kage.
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Normally I'd agree 100%, but it seems that we need to keep an eye on our avatar's mental health after that random outburst revealing bloodline secrets in the library.

If rescuing Hana will help to alleviate some of Hazou's stress I am more inclined to increase its priority on our to-do list.

Also according to Keiko we need to stop obsessively making lists, so that's yet another thing to add to the...

Well, shit.

We have our work cut out for us.
 
Me: *is sad that nobody is replying on other quests I follow, worries they are dying*

Also me: "Oh, wait, that's because normal people's participation in quests doesn't consume their every waking second. Silly me."
 
Jello_Raptor said:
This completely discounts the geopolitical aspect. We have absolutely no clue whether it's a good or bad idea for Leaf at the political level. There's a huge pile of uncertainty here.
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Just to clarify--this is because you're reading me as assuming the EV calculation generally isn't in our favor, yeah? I'm doing so because our teammates pointed out in-chapter that the geopolitics don't work out unless Leaf is planning on going to war, more or less. And sure, that could happen, but it doesn't seem like there's strong reason to think that a) it will be soon or b) the transition from near-war to war will be such that extracting Hana is a good use of Leaf resources. (Given that capturing a single person imposes significant constraints above "kill/incapacitate as many as possible", and that extracting Hana is likely to significantly worsen relations (unless done well) or at least put Mist on alert (unless done really well).)

But no way does that mean we're giving up. We do have some options--Mari probably has a ton of info on Mist that would make war easier in all sorts of ways, even if it's outdated. Heck, I'm not sure if we've told J about the whole Hidden Swamp deal, but that alone represents a significant reduction in Mist's forces, relative to what J might be thinking they're at. And there are all sorts of variables that could turn out to be in our favor, like current international relations, or large-scale personal politics like Mist harboring a summoner opposed to the Toad Clan. So yeah, we should at least decide on contact methods and broach the subject with J.

I'm just saying, we shouldn't assume it's as easy as grinding favors; if the geopolitics aren't with us, we'd need to be pretty damn high-ranked before J thought it was worth risking Leaf-Mist relations for our continued cooperation, and at that point we'd likely have options besides asking J.
 
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Dictator4Hire said:
Naturally, we should run every idea past Jiraiya first to see if they are even remotely feasible. Originally the idea was to use our virtually limitless funds to keep hiring Most ninja until Hana's disappearance would just be another statistic to the pencil pushers.

I'm fairly certain that Mist has some way to request rushed missions with a high probability of failure. Since Yagura is so focused on using tools until he no longer has use of them, he probably wouldn't think twice about sacrificing Hana for Mist's benefit. We can request a mission with such criteria until Hana gets assigned to it or we can spam such requests until they have to draft Hana since she is a jonin. This will take a mountain of cash, but that's the whole point of the Merchant Empire in the first place. This is just one such application of oodles of cash.
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Before running the ideas past Jiraiya maybe run them past Inoue and our team to ferret out the more obviously unreasonable ones. That way we aren't making us look out of touch or naive or dumb to Jiraiya. Our team already knows us so well.... : D
 
Dictator4Hire said:
Normally I'd agree 100%, but it seems that we need to keep an eye on our avatar's mental health after that random outburst revealing bloodline secrets in the library.

If rescuing Hana will help to alleviate some of Hazou's stress I am more inclined to increase its priority on our to-do list.

Also according to Keiko we need to stop obsessively making lists, so that's yet another thing to add to the...

Well, shit.

We have our work cut out for us.
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Or maybe you're reading too much into things about the state of Hazou.

I am not inclined to increase its priority on our to-do list until we're ready to do it. We want Hana extraction to be successful if it's at all possible. It does us no good to try to rescue her prematurely, because we would be dead, or his mom will be dead, or both.
 
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Kiba said:
Which requires an extensive spy network in which we receive information close to real time, analysts who can go through mountain of data, and assets in place.
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Or an observation tower sufficiently high up and a giant telescope. Certainly not easy, but within the realm of things we can do, even if we might have to borrow-sans-permission the telescope for a month.
 
Moar textwall, this time about the Bonus Update. (We must be doing something right. Remind me to leave out extra cookies and milk next year.)

Velorien said:
Bonus Update: Agency
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Really enjoyed this chapter.. Broken people becoming slightly less broken is the best genre.

Velorien said:
Besides, she had earned this. The others would never know what it cost a Mori, a half-trained Mori, to create an original plan based on individual motivation, to overcome the cognitive inertia, the fear, and the Mori Voice's arsenal of despair for those with the hubris to attempt to initiate change in the world. And yet she had done it, made a plan without being given specifications, instructions or even permission. She had proven her agency. Ami would be so proud.

Kei decided to think about something else.
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Awww. Also heh, easy to see how the whole "wanting to make plans without instructions/specifications/permission" thing made her a little sensitive to Hazou's suggestions.

I wonder if playing strategy games has helped her feel more comfortable coming up with plans, at least without specifications. (I imagine a defined, highly constrained set of game actions more or less counts as "instructions".) I'm really glad she was able to enact this plan; put that way, it really is a lot.

(I wonder how convincing she was when suggesting it. Bet poor Inoue-sensei is wishing she could tease Keiko about totally being in looove with Tenten.)


Velorien said:
Tenten leaned down and patted her own thighs. Abdomen. Chest. Kei's eyes lingered for an instant, then urgently snapped away.
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MfD: giving Konoha Crush a whole new meaning.

Velorien said:
Tenten's shoulders tightened. Her eyes shifted away from Kei's, to the blades of grass on the ground.

She hesitated.

"Not today." Her voice rose slightly, blurring the line between statement and question.
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Velorien said:
Quite the opposite, it was because she somehow felt certain that Tenten would never touch her without her permission.
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Aww.

These two quotes, and the general quietness + kindness + pacifism thing, make me kind of think Tenten's had a traumatic past of some sort, maybe with her family.

(Or, like Hazou, she's an awkward but very compassionate person, and needs some more time before she feels comfortable opening up about it.)


Velorien said:
Why couldn't the girl have an ordinary surname, instead of forcing Kei to imply an unearned degree of intimacy?
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Because the QMs ship it.

More seriously, this is pretty interesting.

Some guesses: She's from a culture that doesn't use last names, maybe an isolated tribe somewhere in Fire. Or a religious group that has its members give up their names and devote their lives to the gods. Other possibilities - she's an orphan. She gave up her name for personal reasons (traumatic family past -> quiet, pacifist?). She's on some sort of fast-track to ANBU that requires ninja to relinquish their clan ties, including their family names (quiet, renowned).


The Naruto wiki has literally zero information on Tenten's family and background, which means the QMs probably felt they had a lot of leeway to come up with stuff. (She is supposed to have tried to learn medical ninjutsu to emulate Tsunade; wouldn't be surprised if MfD Tenten's aiming at Sannin level too.)

ANYWAY we should probably fish around about this instead of in addition to endlessly speculating.

Velorien said:
"Drawing and sheathing is a tool user's weak point. Can be attacked for massive damage."
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Snrk.

Velorien said:
Kei looked to Tenten, a friend not thrown at her by the cruel machinations of fate. A friend made through her own personal choice.

Tenten met her eyes one last time. She tapped her shuriken holster. Again?

Kei tilted her head faintly towards the metropolis of Leaf behind her, towards the Hokage's Office. Then she nodded. If I can.
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Let's just stay in Konoha and make friends forever.

(Also, I ship it.)
 
Jello_Raptor said:
Nope, just that there's not enough uncertainty in the output distribution.
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Hmm. Are you getting that from me calling it an "extreme case"? I didn't mean that quite as strongly as it maybe comes across; more in the sense that it's a case where it's likely the 'currency' model of favors that's reasonable for favors with low cost to Jiraiya breaks down.

My main point was just that it's useful to keep in mind how J presumably decides on favors, so we can see more clearly that we need EV for him (from direct result + improved relationship with us + our improved capacity) to be positive, which suggests different actions than the model where a high enough number of favors gets us good stuff.

(On the object level, I agree extracting Mom isn't 100% a high-J-cost case, but based on our team's analysis it seems likely to me that it is. Even with geopolitics, it's a tricky maneuver and there are plausible better things to do with those resources during war or near-war.)

Edit: Santaa is great! Thank you @Ronan O'Brien, and thanks to whoever nudged you towards drawing us an adorable christmas buddy. c:
 
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The leaf has a printing press. A sealing-quality printing press!
Thanks to our bloodline affinity for survival enhancing motion, we have the ability to make the square of the number of tags the average seal master can before exploding.

With sealing 13, we can infuse the maximum of 100 explosive tag blanks per day in less than an hour, and in almost perfect safety. (99.99% chance of making each explosive tag, and a 99% chance we can make 100 in a scene without falling back on our bloodline.) I'm not sure how safely we can make storage scrolls.

If we can negotiate for a blank and printing run(s) from leaf, we can probably be among the most prolific (and rich) producers of low-level seals in the world.

Relevant quote from way, way back to support that this can be done. We can also check the seal run before we use them them, though I think this would take days(?)

eaglejarl said:
Anyone can produce a blank, but only a sealmaster can produce a seal. The lines of the design have to be extremely precise -- think of it as a long computer program, except if you get it wrong it will exhibit undefined behavior. (That's sealmaster jargon for "HOLY CRAP, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!11!!1!!") A sealmaster will infuse as she goes, which gives her feedback as she works -- she can feel where the chakra is going, so she can tell if she's doing the design right. If you're a civilian or an untrained-in-sealing ninja, then you have no idea if you've messed up or not. Similarly, the person changing the blanks into seals doesn't know if you've messed up or not, because there's no chakra in it so they can't tell until after they put the chakra in. It is possible to verify a blank before infusing it, but it takes longer than it would take the seal master to just produce a new blank herself. (Think "hand-verifying microcode.")
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@Ronan O'Brien That pangolin is amazing!
 
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