Top priority personal research projects for Hazou:
Timed Macerator v2, Tunneler's Friend, Banshee Slayer, Alarm seal (roughly in that order), damagingly-loud (and triggerable) alarm seals, roughly in that order. These will give the team large amounts of power for relatively little research time.
Reasoning is thus:
Macerators have SO many uses, from delivery of shotgun blasts of rock, to Shadow Shuriken Technique, to pepper spray, to napalm. 'Nuff said.
Tunneler's Friend is, admittedly, a selfish pick for Hazou. Stick it on the inside of a facemask, level up Living Roots a bit, and he'll be a perfect blind fighter. Can use charcoal with macerators to create a smokescreen, or any kind of noxious gas, though those would be better off with a more-airtight facemask.
Banshee Slayer/Eardrum-damaging alarm seals is crippling for literally anyone we come across. Very nearly an instant-win button, and better still are nonlethal.
After these, I would
like to work on tacmove augmenting impulse seals, but I'm not sure how to go about that, so it may need to be done in collaboration with Kagome.
We might be able to develop silence mines that autodestruct after their duration is up so that we can just drop them as we move, though that WILL be hard on our paper supplies and not particularly good for E&E, though it will be good for ambushes and approaches.
Combat Training Plans:
This is NOT a skill training plan. We need to take the time to integrate all of these techniques into our fighting styles, and particularly Kei, as she otherwise would likely default to fighting as she normally did. As far as this goes, there are a few things to note.
Keiko
Timed Macerators on shurikens result in an explosive-like aoe spread of the contents at 20 m/s. On Kunai, she can probably make it directional with practice. Do that. Also work on the specific formulation for macerators required to dissolve the glue sticking shuriken together without degrading ninja wire -- this shouldn't require research rolls, but if it does, we can instead use boxes. Not ideal, but either way, it works to replicate Shadow Shuriken Technique, as storage seals release their contents at the speed of the object they're attached to. She can also just release blocks of stone. I call that one Newton's Revenge.
If Kei's good enough, it might be possible to pin weapons so precisely as to be able to activate barrier or multiple-seal techniques attached to them. We can consider experimenting with this.
Noburi
Air Dome seals will be immaculate for him in longer fights; develop a quick-deploy method. The QMs previously confirmed that if mist is existent before they're activated, he is able to drain through them, so we definitely need to test how much damage Air Domes can take, and, if he can drain through multiple of them, if that affects things. Presently, Vampiric Dew drains 20 chakra points per second. That's enough to drain Hazou dry in 5 seconds, Kei in 8.5, and Mari in, uh, probably like 30 or something; I dunno her chakra totals exactly. Still, if someone can't beat their way through the air dome, it's a win condition for us if we can keep them in the area.
Hazou
Practice integrating macerators into his fighting style. I suspect he will get a set of rings for his birthday from Kagome; if not by then, ask for them, but until then he needs to work out how to use macerators most effectively in combat. A few around the waist for smokescreen production would work well, probably.
MEW moves at 5+level meters per second. The fastest recorded punch in this world was 19 m/s. At MEW 12, he can boost to "punch" someone faster than the fastest person in this world, and with a HELL of a lot more force behind it. To be approximate, the momentum behind that is equivalent to
25 times that of a car moving at 60 mph (while boosting). And this at range, and possibly without even needing to see them if he uses Living Roots. I doubt the handseals are particularly fast, but he can probably use it within an air dome, so... yeah.
As I mentioned before, blind fighting will be stellar for Hazou.
Kagome
Can probably afford to integrate macerators into his own fighting style for use when less-than-lethal is appropriate. He won't like it, though. Depending on the power his shaped charge explosives have, they might be able to bust through air domes or earth domes; this would allow us to block them in with Kei and blow them up with him. Should discuss with him putting stupid boxes in PMYF, and safety ranges for that.
Mari
Air Domes are great for her too. They allow her to use genjutsu without having to worry so much about getting murced in the meantime. Although I doubt she will take to using macerators quite so readily as Hazou, she also has use for them in her fighting style. Surprises are always useful.
The Whole Team
Get utility belts for everyone. Misterators on them, smokescreens, whatever we can think of that'd be useful. Work out a way for everyone to use air dome seals quickly for defense; maybe a stick tied to some body part with the seals on both sides of it? Something. Everyone has something they can do from inside air domes. Kei can summon, Noburi can drain, Hazou can summon the fist of god from beneath people, Mari can genjutsu, and I don't even want to think about what Kagome could get up to if given time mid-combat to fuck around with explosives.
With these few simple seals, we will be immensely more survivable in combat.
