Anyway, back to what to do. So far, we have plan, "Scatter", and plan "Activate banshee and run straight at the Waka while hurling assorted AOE seals as fast as we can to eliminate the mist (and everything else)."
It's this really where we want to leave it? I mean, the latter certainly appeals, but a one-sentence plan doesn't seem typical of the thread. We'd probably want to add something about digging away after eliminating everything visible/running into something we can't handle.
Everybody else is out of comm range, but they should be able to deduce what is happening really quick and plan around it.
@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail: Hmm, how high can we throw a tag attached to a kunai? Do we have any weapons that are basically a strong, straight, stick?
So, as if this situation wasn't terrifying enough-
What odds do you put on the Lightning and Rock teams having shitty Cthulu-spawning eat-your-face seals on them? The Misties are teaming up with them for an attack, but I don't see why they would tell allies of convenience about the seals.
They're ideally positioned to strike at targets of their choice, but will they prioritize importance (Wakahisa, lightning-AoE, summoner) or vulnerability?
Sounds like Tenten's going for the lightning team, Neji and Lee for the Wakahisa.
What are the other Leaf teams doing?
Keiko probably remembers the enemies' locations okay, and is throwing bombs at whoever makes sense given where she dodged to
What are Sakura and Haru's specialties? Both have decent Tac Move.
Visibility is a major hindrance for Akane and whichever other close-range fighters we have (Choji). If she's going by sound, decent chance she'll head for Noburi?
for Shikamaru and his team, presumably this roughly boils down to "what's the smart thing to do in their situation". Shika's acknowledged the Wakahisa is a priority, and that team has the crab maker to take down too. Decent chance he'd target them, unless he thinks Team Gai can handle it alone.
What's the Wakahisa doing?
Still draining everyone, draining tactically (i.e. when people are about to attack them/valuable teammates), or draining to kill? Is she likely to try and kill Noburi now that he's (apparently) down, or keep targeting people who are still standing?
And here's a longshot thought:
Team Gai's trained in nonlethal combat, including (presumably) things like hostage negotiation. Is that a viable endgame here?
Probably not, unless we get a hostage from each team--which seems like more effort and uncertainty than just winning.
It would help if we could disperse the mist, so the Lightning and Rock teams can see the hostages and the Wakahisa don't have knives at everyone's throats.
Stopping the battle early like this would help prevent us exploding any Night Blight seals.
- Presumably, the Mist affects the enemies nearly as much as ours unless they have sensors (or the Wakahisas ofc).
- Tenten is engaging the Cloud team. She is considered the genius of the year but we may want to consider sending help; that said, we need all of our team + Akane to stay together so at most we could send Sakura and Haru but who even knows their skills (seriously, why do we not know this yet?).
- The Rock team is underground and moving from the North; they should be far enough from us that we can get off some combat rounds with Mist Team 2 before they can help. If we are lucky, they will also trigger our defenses in the base on the way South.
- It wasn't specifically said where Team Asuma was going but Shikamaru took off once they know where the enemy Wakahisa was so chances are they are going for Mist Team 2 as well (we need to coordinate with them or risk friendly fire if we use AoE).
So lets brainstorm stuff:
- Running away is probably no longer an option since we are scattered and a smart enemy could have laid traps so I am assuming combat is unavoidable.
- Make sure Noburi is not compromised; ask for the keyword (PC sure would have come in handy here :S) or try a fakeout by using a fake call sign and see if he responds to it (the enemy should if they are impersonating him) like "Nob... Orca, report status!".
- If we can get Nobby close to us, coordinate with him with as few words as possible to figure out the location of Mist Team 2 members and to avoid friendly fire (priority) or if Mist 1 or Cloud is trying to sneak in. If we can't, use our best guesses.
- Mist Team 2 should be our priority target and we should try to stall Mist Team 1 from helping. I would suggest having Akane throwing Explosive Seals (A or B rank lethality) over Mist Team 2 to the West/South West for area denial to keep Mist Team 1 away.
- Keiko will throw implosion seals into where we hope Mist Team 2 is (How lethal are these? What if she throws it far enough into the air?) to clear the Mist, Hazo will follow up with Banshees as soon as targets are visible (so either immediately if Nobby is around or after Implosion seal does its work). If they are lethal, go with Banshee seals from the get-go. In either case, use the codeword we made up with our allies (Lee and Neji especially) to announce we are doing ranged AoE (and yes, we made up these codewords last during @OliWhail's update; assuming anything else while you are coordinating with allies in a fort or back in Leaf just strains belief).
- Follow up with explosives with strength depending on target (full power vs the summon, A or B against the enemies). Hazo and Nobby should be able to hit a big summon even with their meagre Weapon skills. Keiko should focus on taking out the Wakahisa with precision strikes or her barrel via non-lethal explosives. Akane is still throwing explosives over Mist Team 2 to deny them reinforcements from Mist Team 1/limit their movement.
- If we can incapacitate Aiko, Nobby needs to take over the Mist to drain the enemy. Prioritize the low CP enemy members that are closest if single targeting is faster than AoE draining; if not, AoE drain, keep updating people on their positioning. If the enemy realizes and is smart enough to dispel Hiding in the Mist, do not recast it; we benefit more from visibility than they do, I think.
- If we can take out Mist Team 2, help Team Gai with the Cloud team. If it looks like we are winning (i.e. all our members standing, including allies and we have taken out like two teams), us The Sage's Tongue to intimidate the rest of the teams, i.e. "We just took out your trump card in a minute flat. You sure you want to keep trying your luck when your strength is cut by half?"
I think that covers the immediate combat.
Another point I want to make: Lets keep things non-lethal. Yes, it looks like the enemy is trying to kill us (to hide the Mist drain technique for example) but I am super suspicious. Hide our bodies in the swamp to make it look like an accident? Jiraiya isn't going to buy this shit, we survived in a more dangerous Swamp. So either it's a fake out from the Wakahisa (Aiko or the person that instructed her to do this) to goad us into being the first to kill to get disqualified Notice how they manage to get a team from nearly all major Villages except our Suna allies? Could be coincidence, sure, but it would also maximize the political fallout from killing ninjas of multiple nations - or she is really dumb and didn't think further ahead.
Either way, we cannot know for certain but what we do know is if we keep it non-lethal and take our enemies, we will be adequately dealing with either scenario.
This is something we may have to communicate to our allies considering Shikamaru assumes they enemy went lethal. Unsure if Neji did as well when he called it out or if he instructed his team to kill.
Behind them, a pillar of lightning coalesced, arcing and snapping at everything around it. Yamanaka screamed in agony as one of the arcs caught her between the shoulder blades, hurling her forward in a spasming heap. A wisp of demonic energy, stretching farther than its brethren, caressed Nara's leg and made it lock up. The boy threw himself forward into a series of rolls across the surface of the water as he struggled to get farther awa
Sounds more like a really powerful stun technique, no burns or anything only spasms. So maybe the Cloud team isn't planning on klling us (assuming it's them) or they want to stun us first.
Before he could sort out the sounds around him, Noburi's voice cut through the fog from somewhere at Hazō's two o'clock. "All Leaf friendlies, gather on me! All Leaf friendlies—yow!" Hazō's brother went silent, cut off in mid-sentence.
Also 'yow' isn't really a sound I picture when some get's killed.
The only real 'complain' I have is, why didn't Hazou immediately activate Living Roots to keep track of his allies? He doesn't have PC anymore and so would have a slot open. He would then be able to track Noburi and would know if it's really him or am I misunderstanding how the technique works? I mean it wasn't in the plan, but before this update we had telepathy to keep track fo everyone.
The Cloud and Rock teams, at the least, can be assumed to not violate the Chunin Exams. They literally don't benefit from breaking the truce like this, unlike the Mist team who gain personal satisfaction from killing their cousins.
"—ground!" The pale arm swung farther, now pointing southeast. "Cloud team, thirty meters! Tenten, go!" The tall weapons mistress vanished into the misty night as Hyūga's arm swung south a few degrees. "Mist team, giant crabs inbound! Lee, follow!" He bounded forward, effortlessly clearing the low wall of the fort, and vanished into the mist with his green-clad teammate hot on his heels.
@eaglejarl I'm a bit confused about the positioning of the enemy teams. Neji confirmed the Kani clan (crabs) as being to the south of the base, but Noburi later claims they are to the southeast.
The only real 'complain' I have is, why didn't Hazou immediately activate Living Roots to keep track of his allies? He doesn't have PC anymore and so would have a slot open. He would then be able to track Noburi and would know if it's really him or am I misunderstanding how the technique works? I mean it wasn't in the plan, but before this update we had telepathy to keep track fo everyone.
Eaglejarl mentioned we're in a not-particularly-solid bit of the swamp (notice we're water walking once we're out of the fort), so Living Roots is pretty useless (unless other people are deliberately sinking their feet below the surface). Might work to check if Nobu's fallen into the mud, though I don't think it's sensitive enough to ID him specifically.
ETA:
@Tua I agree we shouldn't go lethal, just because it's really impractical--very little chance we could get away with it, unless we kill all the enemies (which might be difficult and would definitely be unyouthful). I doubt Team Gai will go lethal, since they're trained for nonlethal combat. Good point that this might be a fakeout. (I do think you're somewhat overestimating the chances of it - the Wakahisa/Kani might not want Ren in power, and if they destroyed/sunk our bodies in secret they'd have plausible deniability about it being them in particular, in which case it's just a fuckup that happened on Ren's watch. That's probably untenable now - we've made enough noise and explosions to alert proctors and other ninja, and there's a solid chance at least one of us would get away.) We should stay alert to the possibility they're going lethal, and be willing to kill if there's a high enough chance that we need to to survive.
@faflec It's possible they were moving quickly. Alternately, Neji just mentions crabs, while Noburi mentions the summoner - it's possible they split them up, though that seems like bad tactics given the Wakahisa's their lynchpin.
Somewhat. It doesn't share senses on the active level. You'll see snatches and hear little bits, and might feel that someone got injured, but it's intentionally kept low-key to prevent sensory overload, which is also aided by Chakra Voodoo. If you focused on it (a combat action at least, if not all your actions), you'd be able to, at best, get a sense of perspective, and vague sense of the area.
e: It's also a secret pangolin technique, on a different note, because of its method of functionality: You don't have to have it active to have it used on you, and there are no permissions involved as there are with substitution, so the first time you use it, you are forever more (at least until a removal-technique is created) an acceptable target for it.
I still say just immediately blitz the enemy C&C. Place ye faith in thermobaric carpet bombing. Even if we just force them to scatter we'll disrupt the primary threats of chakra drain and reduced visibility while giving all allies a clear line to a blindingly obvious rally point any enemy is going to hesitate to approach. Hazou plus clones could sweep the whole quadrant in a combat turn or two, and Kai help whomever he finds. Dig out with mole under the cover of a mushroom cloud if we run into more than we can handle.
Remember, everyone, that we don't speak for the other Leaf teams. Shikamaru thinks the enemy is going full lethal and his team may respond in turn. If Mist-nin end up dead after this fight, accidental or intentional, we need to figure out what to do with them. This is of course secondary to making sure we survive the fight but I'm not particularly fond of the idea of Hazou getting distracted dramatically shouting if anyone on our side uses a lethal technique and then grumping about after the fight and making everyone miserable.
In general, though, we have minimal intel and the other teams didn't listen to us much anyways, so things like shouting for Neji to do something or whatnot is most likely pointless and will damage our perceived competence even more. Noburi is in front of us, presumably so is Aiko and we have the stats to go do something about that. If Aiko's down we gain freedom to use alternate strategies like returning to the base and using the Kagome Maneuver, so we should act as if the other Leaf teams do not exist right now because we don't know where they are, how they're doing, or if we can count on them to follow our plans in the first place.
I agree we shouldn't assume they'll follow our instructions, but we should keep in mind that they're smart and will do what seem like reasonable things based on the info they have. Insofar as we have useful info, we should still share it; insofar as we can predictably do things that complement what they're doing, we should.
A faint breeze carried the scent of thunderstorms to Hazō's nose. Ahead and to his right, somewhere off in the fog, what was almost certainly another of the lightning pillars crackled into existence. A second later, a hopefully-unrelated scream came from behind him and to his left, only to be cut off in the middle.
Pausing, he crouched down on the surface of the swamp water, unconsciously regulating the chakra flows from his feet to keep himself from sinking in. He focused on calming his own breathing and trying to listen over the thunder of his own fast-racing pulse.
Before he could sort out the sounds around him, Noburi's voice cut through the fog from somewhere at Hazō's two o'clock. "All Leaf friendlies, gather on me! All Leaf friendlies—yow!" Hazō's brother went silent, cut off in mid-sentence.
"Noburi" 's area (ahead of Hazou and to his right) gets hit by a lightning AoE, which he apparently dodges--but his response is to yell out for everyone to form on him?
This is also in the vicinity of the Mist team with the Wakahisa and the crab summoner--could be a prepared ambush. His cousin might be able to fake his voice. (It's true that those guys would probably prefer to remain out of sight, but they can guess that Leaf might know where they are thanks to our Wakahisa and Hyuga.)
I agree we shouldn't assume they'll follow our instructions, but we should keep in mind that they're smart and will do what seem like reasonable things based on the info they have. Insofar as we have useful info, we should still share it; insofar as we can predictably do things that complement what they're doing, we should.
Also, does this strike anyone else as weird?
"Noburi" 's area (ahead of Hazou and to his right) gets hit by a lightning AoE, which he apparently dodges--but his response is to yell out for everyone to form on him?
This is also in the vicinity of the Mist team with the Wakahisa and the crab summoner--could be a prepared ambush. His cousin might be able to fake his voice. (It's true that those guys would probably prefer to remain out of sight, but they can guess that Leaf might know where they are thanks to our Wakahisa and Hyuga.)
I was more thinking that we don't know what situation the rest of them are in and so anything we call out to any of them makes a dangerous number of assumptions.
As for Noburi, the '-yow!' sounds approximately what would happen with an A-class failure against the lightning pillars. My guess is that Noburi made it to Aiko and called out his location so as to bring people to help take her out, and then got hit by a random arc from the lightning pillar.
We're on a swamp, so earth dome won't work. Not sure Earth Clone would work but it takes up time that we can't afford to waste. Burrowing basically abandons the rest of the Leaf teams, but as you said, last resort.
For what it's worth, Akane has a hard-stop to this headache. The mister is clearly evaporating water from the surface of the swamp until it saturates the cold air and condenses. Raise the local air temperature even a few degrees and not only does the mist evaporate again, but the hot air carries it up and out. It turns into a chakra match between somebody doing the equivalent of heating water 500C and somebody doing the equivalent of heating air 3C.
Of course, fire logs will also heat and stir the local air quite a bit. Explosive shock waves will force condensation of larger droplets and leave drizzle instead of mist in their wake.
I have to believe that the real Nobs would use a codeword even if only his own team would know it, and the allies really should have set some shared ones up while waiting. If that was the real Nobs he deserves whatever he gets.
4) There was a massive AOE attack appearing on top of your position. The fact that it was accurately targeting the group despite the fact that you were visually isolated and speaking fairly softly means that the enemy had a long-range non-visual targeting sense.
It's faster, since the mist doesn't have to dissipate before it stops being dangerous,
It's more reliable, since we have precedent for AOE jutsu being magically stuck in one place (EM being an example), which would negate any effect from heating,
It's prettier, because snow,
Dissipation probably requires turning EM off, since otherwise the air stays where it is, which means we're vulnerable to the jutsu just being repeated. Freezing can be kept on, and and even if it is dispelled, since we've run into combat now and maintaining it is dangerous, the ice should stick around and hopefully interfere with repeat attempts.
