Hey guys, I'm new. Just caught up a little while ago. I love the quest. Sadly I've not had the time to read all 1.5k pages, but hopefully I've read enough not to do a Hazō. I've had this on my mind for a few days, but now seems like a good lull to write it out in (not least because I've finally caught up, though).
I'm new here so I'm pushing my luck by starting with a rant. But I really don't want this team to die early, so I'm saying what I think should be said.
You were in the safest environment you've been in since you became missing-nin. You nearly died. Something is fundamentally broken about how you're approaching things. This should not happen.
Kagome makes you put up wall after wall, shield after shield of protection when you want to play with seals. The safer sliver of seals, that is, because anything else is off the table before you even design the things. He just says nope. Can't try that. Too risky.
How many of you think this is a character flaw?
So how about jumping into a house guarded by a ninja of unknown, but terrifyingly high power, with an unknown but undoubtedly significant array of defensive seals? What was the escape plan? Sadly I wasn't there, but I can search the archives.
Would Kagome say "If things go bad, abort sealing and escape the premises" suffices as an escape plan?
But you know what really made it bad? We had a perfectly feasible, relatively safe alternative. We wouldn't have had to abandon our mission, we could have just taken it slow. Don't Be Stupid And Get Rich Quick. We could basically print cash with the amount of ice we could make. And it's safe. At least in the sense that Hazō's Iron Nerve makes sealing safe. For what it's worth, this is still feasible. If ice is rare, there's going to be demand for it everywhere. I'm sure a lot of villages would like food preservation, even if we can't find another quite as rich establishment to split profits with.
Yes, crazy fights with Jōunin are cool and offer a lot of rewards. But so is researching seals that make people fuse into one Uber Ninja. Either you find a way to do it safely or you don't do it at all. When you're lucky, you ace a mission. When you're unlucky, you die. The later costs 100x more, and is no less likely than the former. That is not a trade Kagome would make.
Here's another half-a-plan. You capture someone covered in seals, with skill far greater than your own in sealing. And you let them run next to you. With no plan. Kagome should have killed her then. A certain someone would be a bit healthier for it.
How many of Jiraiya's favours are worth a 10% chance of one of your teammates dying? Because from what I can see it's a hell of a lot, and treating a walking biohazard like a 10% chance of death pretty much guarantees you're under that Happiness Genjutsu. You're making the wrong bets. You *owned* that sealmaster. Imagine what would have happened if you weren't so lucky.
You either have a plan, or you don't take the risk. This should be obvious. Kagome says it all the time, and you've admitted you know full well that his behaviours are well adapted to ninja life.
Then we get to the whole Kabuto business. Remember when Jiraiya soundly beat the team? Remember how that made the next step so much easier? So why, when Kabuto does exactly the same to us, is our first step to make him our enemy. It's not like Kabuto did anything wrong. He demonstrated that he was a good ninja. Woe is us, for Akane's lifeline just demonstrated his competence.
Seriously, why? Best case, everyone ignores us. Worse case, Kabuto gets pissed and actually starts using the massive leverage he has. Note that we basically can't retaliate, because if we win the game and Kabuto finds out then he actually has a reason to kill us, and if we lose the game then all we've done is lost our chance of minimizing the damage he can do.
Then we involve Jiraiya. That's not actually a bad plan, if we treated Kabuto like a threat and approached it like Ninjas. We don't say "here are all the reasons our inferences are unfounded, oh and also we've got all the more reason to be biased about this because of how irrationally we think when our friends are in perceived danger". You say that you feel uncomfortable about the amount of power he has over your team, and that you would appreciate a safety net if Kabuto does end up demanding more than you can muster.
Worst case, Jiraiya takes offence and your team uses up some of his immense generosity. Note how this is both less likely than him taking offence at a full-on conspiracy theory and much less of a terrible outcome than dying.
And let's talk about this generosity thing for a moment, because some of you somehow don't get it. You are missing-nin. Nobody owes you anything. Jiraiya, however, on first contact did nothing but allay your concerns, teach you an extremely valuable diplomatic principle of power (which you've repeatedly soundly ignored) and offer you a lucrative job.
You are now allies with Jiraiya. Many ninja would literally die for a chance at that, never mind missing-nin. Jiraiya lead to you meeting Akane. Who is a missing-nin of the Leaf's. Who Jiraiya somehow never once threatened. Jiraiya lead you to one of your teammates getting a summoning scroll. Which ended up furthering the political bonds between you two. Jiraiya casually accepted being scammed, despite having the knowledge to do most of what you gave him for free. Jiraiya gave you a second chance. The Mist never did.
And yet, somehow you treated this like it was earned, rather than a miraculous fountain of luck, and that somehow Jiraiya was now your piece to play with impunity.
The fuck-up wasn't when you said those dumb words. The fuck-up was much more fundamental, much more intrinsic and a lot earlier than that. Risks can pay off, but they can also fail. And then you die.
Here's how I view your future plans.
You should say that you are going to stay low key for a while, out of both an understanding of your team's naivité and out of concern for making things worse for Jiraiya. You recognize that you are missing-nin and should act like missing-nin, not lighthouses. This should be stated as an expectation, not a specification, since you do not want to claim or exercise any authority.
You offer to do something for Jiraiya gratis, if he can think of something low key where failure is inexpensive and unlikely to become a noticeable event. You do not pressure this point, and should offer on your own behalf, not the team's through appropriate choice of pronoun. Espionage is a perhaps a good idea, as you are deniable assets that sorely need practice in the matter, and espionage generally does not prevent you from working on your own plans in the meantime.
You have broken your team's trust, and have ruined many things for them. They have the right to be pissed. You do not just speak platitudes at them; they are not idiots and they understand the situation at least as well as you do. They will open up to you when both you and they are ready to do so. This is a situation you shall prepare for, but not force. For the immediate future, stick to factual, utilitarian conversation, and be open about the fact you are doing so. Where feasible, you speak to others through your team, until they are able to trust you again to directly be a public face (which, hopefully, will not be all that long).
Your escape plans are terrible. Luckily, they are getting better as time goes on. I believe you are now effectively able to build a near-invulnerable, silent cube in the sky, and any other strategic location, sense through it to a limited extent, and provide it with breathable and clean air for extended periods of time. These cubes, if suitably hidden, can be silenced to aid escape into them (preferably though Kawarimi or similar high-speed techniques), and enemies can be waited out, especially from up high. Your options for handling the worst-case are improving, and considering them should be an immediate concern. Testing these ideas is a valuable short-term goal.
Your new skills seem infinitely abusable, but to follow up on this I will need time to think things over.
What Would Kagome Do? becomes a new personal motto when planning.
