Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
What are/should be Hazou's medium term goals? What does he want or need to accomplish over the course of these Exams?

Getting promoted by exams would be nice, but that may not happen given the high quality of opposition. What else can he meaningfully accomplish?

Categories to Consider

Social Connections - Whose opinion should he care about and what does he want those opinions to be?

Knowledge - Is there anything specific that Hazou should try to learn while he is in Mist? Kurosawa clan secrets he needs to know? Specific seals he wants to copy for study? Mist-specific jutsu he needs to acquire? Is it possible that someone in Mist might be able to shed light on Kagome's mysterious background? What about Mari, did she leave anything behind in this village that Hazou should try to learn about or act on for her?

Furthering the Goals of the Clan - Is there anything at all that Hazou could do to facilitate the search for Naruto? Should he be preparing for failure, looking for ways to mitigate the damage if Jiraiya is removed from office as Hokage? Is there anything Hazou can do to maximize the chances the Jiraiya stays in office even in the event of a failure to locate Naruto?

A lot of this is difficult stuff, but the first step is always defining what you want to accomplish and then looking for a series of small steps to take you there. For instance, I think that all this social stuff with the Leaf genin is very important. One of the most controversial things Jiraiya did was adopt an entire clan of missing ninja. If he gets kicked out of office as Hokage, that will be one of the irritants that caused it. The more people who believe that Hazou, Keiko, and Noburi are really, genuinely Leaf ninjas, the more that irritant is soothed. Would that swing anything on its own? Perhaps not, but it's something that Hazou can do that will shore up support.
 
Briefvoice said:
What are/should be Hazou's medium term goals? What does he want or need to accomplish over the course of these Exams?

Getting promoted by exams would be nice, but that may not happen given the high quality of opposition. What else can he meaningfully accomplish?

Categories to Consider

Social Connections - Whose opinion should he care about and what does he want those opinions to be?

Knowledge - Is there anything specific that Hazou should try to learn while he is in Mist? Kurosawa clan secrets he needs to know? Specific seals he wants to copy for study? Mist-specific jutsu he needs to acquire? Is it possible that someone in Mist might be able to shed light on Kagome's mysterious background? What about Mari, did she leave anything behind in this village that Hazou should try to learn about or act on for her?

Furthering the Goals of the Clan - Is there anything at all that Hazou could do to facilitate the search for Naruto? Should he be preparing for failure, looking for ways to mitigate the damage if Jiraiya is removed from office as Hokage? Is there anything Hazou can do to maximize the chances the Jiraiya stays in office even in the event of a failure to locate Naruto?

A lot of this is difficult stuff, but the first step is always defining what you want to accomplish and then looking for a series of small steps to take you there. For instance, I think that all this social stuff with the Leaf genin is very important. One of the most controversial things Jiraiya did was adopt an entire clan of missing ninja. If he gets kicked out of office as Hokage, that will be one of the irritants that caused it. The more people who believe that Hazou, Keiko, and Noburi are really, genuinely Leaf ninjas, the more that irritant is soothed. Would that swing anything on its own? Perhaps not, but it's something that Hazou can do that will shore up support.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Making friends with the Hyuuga would be a big one. IF we can get back in time to have maybe a week or two to get in contact with them before he's removed from the role of hokage, we could just... talk to the hyuuga, see what's important to them, see what we could get Jiraiya to go along with.
 
Honestly, we should focus on making the best possible showing in the Exams. It shows Clan Goketsu wasn't a mistake and gives negotiating room for Pax Konoha, which ultimately gives Jiraiya more breathing room to stay Hokage.
 
faflec said:
Honestly, we should focus on making the best possible showing in the Exams. It shows Clan Goketsu wasn't a mistake and gives negotiating room for Pax Konoha, which ultimately gives Jiraiya more breathing room to stay Hokage.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Does that mean anything in particular other than racking up a high score? Are there any tricks to do so?

I want to be clear about what I'm thinking here. Basically, every plan should have an immediate goal (something concrete we are trying to get accomplished) and also include a set-up for a slightly longer term goal. ABS, "Always Be Scheming". Always be doing something that is going to set Hazou up to better position him to solve other problems down the road, or alternately identify problems before they become problems and nip them in the bud. Always have some balls in the air.

For the Exam, one ball we want to snatch at is finding out what the remaining Events will be so that we can prepare and strategize for them beforehand. I don't have a good idea how to get there yet, but posting some watchers on the proctor hub building is at least a start. An experiment with imitating a proctor is also at least a start. Other ideas:

1. Is there a way we can find out what Mist did the last time they hosted an Exam? While they're not going to reuse everything, there are only so many suitable locations to march a bunch of genin around.

2. Is anything they're doing likely to have required special resource purchases or anything that would require civilian craftsmen?

Be thinking about this stuff now.
 
Briefvoice said:
Does that mean anything in particular other than racking up a high score? Are there any tricks to do so?

I want to be clear about what I'm thinking here. Basically, every plan should have an immediate goal (something concrete we are trying to get accomplished) and also include a set-up for a slightly longer term goal. ABS, "Always Be Scheming". Always be doing something that is going to set Hazou up to better position him to solve other problems down the road, or alternately identify problems before they become problems and nip them in the bud. Always have some balls in the air.

For the Exam, one ball we want to snatch at is finding out what the remaining Events will be so that we can prepare and strategize for them beforehand. I don't have a good idea how to get there yet, but posting some watchers on the proctor hub building is at least a start. An experiment with imitating a proctor is also at least a start. Other ideas:

1. Is there a way we can find out what Mist did the last time they hosted an Exam? While they're not going to reuse everything, there are only so many suitable locations to march a bunch of genin around.

2. Is anything they're doing likely to have required special resource purchases or anything that would require civilian craftsmen?

Be thinking about this stuff now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If anything? I feel that we should ease up on the Pax Leaf plan in favor of giving Team Goketsu the best showing. @eaglejarl pointed out that if we hadn't invited 9 other people for free seals we'd have shit on the Second Event, and I think we should have done so. Yes, there are risks inherent to doing so (like getting attacked by vengeful Mist teams) but there are ways to mitigate this threat while still having enough seals, like trading seals with fellow Rookies for protection. This doesn't mean "don't cooperate with/betray Leaf teams", it just means we should focus more on our team than anything else. Basically be Neji, only more polite.

Beyond that I can't think of much. Most of the things I would have suggested were already suggested and put into plans (e.g., check proctor hub), and others are impossible without information we don't yet have but are trying to get (e.g., Event information).
 
Briefvoice said:
Does that mean anything in particular other than racking up a high score? Are there any tricks to do so?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think we should be trying to get other teams to either quit or be forced to drop out, or find ways to sabotage their scores so that we do better relatively (even if not objectively). Especially the top-tier teams that can actually threaten us in terms of combat dice. If we can get a pangolin psy-ops spec to work over the tournament favourites until they forfeit so as not to go mad then that puts us in a much better position. We could maim one team disguised as another to get both out of our way (let's put that Deceit score to good use!), and we could have Panashe go around stealing word-halves while the events are going on.

(Incidentally, @eaglejarl, XP-cost for summoning Panashe has led to inference that she only has Stealth 40. From what Hazou has seen of her, does this sound too low to him? I'm just trying to reconcile "elite covert operative" with "has min-chunin stealth specialist numbers". The thread's explanation has been "Pangolins are really bad at stealth, their elites are the equivalent of human chunin", does this sound right to Hazou?)
 
Last edited:
Briefvoice said:
Social Connections - Whose opinion should he care about and what does he want those opinions to be?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We obviously care about the Leaf clan heirs' opinions the most, then the non-clan Leaf ninja. I don't think we should currently care much about what Mist in general, or our former clans in particular, think. We should, of course, avoid antagonizing them for no good reason, and respond in kind when offered good will (see Ren's plan to send Hana to Leaf as a special envoy), but your focus should be on relations with our fellow Leaf shinobi.

Our base goal is to influence them to include us in the Leaf in-group, to think of the Goketsu clan kids as their own. Any good impression we make is valuable, but we should focus on acting in line with Leaf's philosophy. In simple terms, I think this means demonstrating loyalty to our comrades and being nicer and more humane than the ninja average.

For Hazou specifically, we want to establish a reputation of an unconventional, but effective thinker and planner. Demonstrating leadership is nice, but not strictly necessary. We want our fellow Leaf ninja to trust Hazou's judgement in the same way they implicitly trust Shikamaru. The reason for this is that most of what we're going to be doing in Leaf after the exams is going to be seen as unconventional at best and crazy at worst. We want to build the impression that Hazou's ideas work, even if they may appear strange at first glance.

Briefvoice said:
Knowledge - Is there anything specific that Hazou should try to learn while he is in Mist? Kurosawa clan secrets he needs to know? Specific seals he wants to copy for study? Mist-specific jutsu he needs to acquire? Is it possible that someone in Mist might be able to shed light on Kagome's mysterious background? What about Mari, did she leave anything behind in this village that Hazou should try to learn about or act on for her?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't think so. I'm sure we could come up with some things if an opportunity landed in our lap, but we have more pressing concerns. Given our somewhat sensitive political position, any action we take in Mist carries a base risk of our enemies messing with us and potentially hampering our important goals. As such, we shouldn't pursue things without good reasons.

Solving our team's personal problems is what we should focus on here. Hazou's mom is out of our hands, and our only influence in her fate is to do what Jiraiya tells us and hope the alliance works out. Noburi has some family issues, though he hides them well - we could follow up on that when we have more time. For Keiko, there's the Ami situation. It would be nice to convince Keiko her sister doesn't hate her, and even nicer to lessen her dependence on Ami, but easier said than done. We should think about this more when we have free time before the tournament.

Briefvoice said:
Furthering the Goals of the Clan - Is there anything at all that Hazou could do to facilitate the search for Naruto? Should he be preparing for failure, looking for ways to mitigate the damage if Jiraiya is removed from office as Hokage? Is there anything Hazou can do to maximize the chances the Jiraiya stays in office even in the event of a failure to locate Naruto?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Trying to seriously meddle in this can really blow up in our faces, I feel. If we could do anything, Jiraiya would've told us. We're already forming connections with our peers, and we're doing our best to place highly in the exam. We could try to pull out another military innovation out of our hat, but without Kagome to speed up the research, I don't think this is realistic. Alternatively, absolutely dominating the exam would help, but I'm not sure how much. If we're going to have to choose between cooperation and domination, I'd pick cooperation every time. What we can do, is ask Jiraiya what he thinks and what he would prefer, though I doubt he'll be eager to put more on our plate.

I'm also not so sure Jiraiya will be forced to step down as Hokage, even if he fails to save Naruto. He is the most natural candidate for the position, both in terms of continuing the legacy of his predecessor, as well as just being the most powerful and famous Leaf ninja alive. His only real negative quality is a lack of connections in internal Leaf politics, and the clans' somewhat cold attitude towards him. If he is forced to step down, it will be a major blow to Leaf's international position, and the clan heads have to understand this. I think it's most likely he will be able to continue, albeit with reduced influence.
 
Roomba said:
If we could do anything, Jiraiya would've told us.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You see... (hesitates) I want to agree... but we're talking about the man who didn't spot what happens when you turn air domes upside down. For forty(?) years. It's entirely possible that he's overlooked something, and it costs us little to devote a bit of brain-time to considering the problem. Even if the most likely result is "we conclude that we can't meaningfully help".
 
MadScientist said:
You see... (hesitates) I want to agree... but we're talking about the man who didn't spot what happens when you turn air domes upside down. For forty(?) years. It's entirely possible that he's overlooked something, and it costs us little to devote a bit of brain-time to considering the problem. Even if the most likely result is "we conclude that we can't meaningfully help".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So are you discussing the issue of finding Naruto, or the issue of keeping Jiraiya-as-Hokage? Because one requires us to have significantly higher clearance than we have RN to even understand the scope of the problem, and the other requires us to do politics.
 
MadScientist said:
You see... (hesitates) I want to agree... but we're talking about the man who didn't spot what happens when you turn air domes upside down. For forty(?) years. It's entirely possible that he's overlooked something, and it costs us little to devote a bit of brain-time to considering the problem. Even if the most likely result is "we conclude that we can't meaningfully help".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The problem here is that we're working off of very limited information. If you really want to help Jiraiya, you'd need to convince him to brief us in full, which won't be easy. He did mention, for instance, that he was working on something big with Nara Shikaku, but very intentionally failed to offer any details. He thinks we don't need to know, and that we should focus on doing well in the exam.
 
MadScientist said:
You see... (hesitates) I want to agree... but we're talking about the man who didn't spot what happens when you turn air domes upside down. For forty(?) years. It's entirely possible that he's overlooked something, and it costs us little to devote a bit of brain-time to considering the problem. Even if the most likely result is "we conclude that we can't meaningfully help".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Here's one thing we can do: Look for a copy of Akatsuki's book. Kagome mentioned it in his 12-XP-in-30-minutes exposition dump a while back.
 
Probably. But what I'm saying is: Jiraiya is far from stupid, but he doesn't think of everything and we shouldn't treat him like he thinks of everything. Even on the limited information we have, it's possible that we'll spot some insight he missed.
 
MadScientist said:
I think we should be trying to get other teams to either quit or be forced to drop out, or find ways to sabotage their scores so that we do better relatively (even if not objectively). Especially the top-tier teams that can actually threaten us in terms of combat dice. If we can get a pangolin psy-ops spec to work over the tournament favourites until they forfeit so as not to go mad then that puts us in a much better position. We could maim one team disguised as another to get both out of our way (let's put that Deceit score to good use!), and we could have Panashe go around stealing word-halves while the events are going on.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

See, one thing I don't like is this tendency the thread is starting to have on farming things out to "get a pangolin who is an expert at this". Especially when it's not even something mechanical. There is no "psy-ops skill" to roll. If you want to mess with other contestants, just brainstorm some ideas in the thread and let's come up with a plan.

Your Panashe idea has some promise, but I urge you not to overestimate her capabilities. Panashe had some success in the swamp because it played to her strengths of having lots of soft ground to burrow through, plenty of natural cover, and any ninja who caught a glimpse of her could easily write her off as a chakra monster. Unleash her in a similar environment and maybe we'll have some luck with her hunting weak teams for word-halves. Unleash her in an urban environment where she's going to be at major maluses to stealth (she can never don a disguise and blend into the crowd, which is a pretty key component of urban stealth) and likely even a weak team will spot her coming and kick her ass.

MadScientist said:
You see... (hesitates) I want to agree... but we're talking about the man who didn't spot what happens when you turn air domes upside down. For forty(?) years. It's entirely possible that he's overlooked something, and it costs us little to devote a bit of brain-time to considering the problem. Even if the most likely result is "we conclude that we can't meaningfully help".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I agree. I think at the very least it deserves the "declare no problem insoluble until you've really thought about it for five minutes by the clock" approach, applied by everyone playing in the thread. Very probably there is nothing to be done, but making some contribuition would be sufficiently important that it's worth doing some brainstorming.'

faflec said:
So are you discussing the issue of finding Naruto, or the issue of keeping Jiraiya-as-Hokage? Because one requires us to have significantly higher clearance than we have RN to even understand the scope of the problem, and the other requires us to do politics.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'd say both problems. Just... take five minutes and think about them. Toss any possible wild idea in the pot without trying to judge them. Then afterwards you we can go back and declare all the ideas non-workable and put it to bed.

But I submit the thread has never tried, really tried, with the same sort of creativity you've applied to seals and science, to look for some flash of inspiration on the subjects.
 
MadScientist said:
Probably. But what I'm saying is: Jiraiya is far from stupid, but he doesn't think of everything and we shouldn't treat him like he thinks of everything. Even on the limited information we have, it's possible that we'll spot some insight he missed.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Cariyaga said:
Here's one thing we can do: Look for a copy of Akatsuki's book. Kagome mentioned it in his 12-XP-in-30-minutes exposition dump a while back.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Like this. I don't recall if there's anything linking Akatsuki-as-Kagome-knows-them and the group that kidnapped Naruto, but either way if we found some information on them in their book it would be handy, especially for negotiations if it comes to that.
 
MadScientist said:
On the other hand, I do kind of expect any reasonably large military force that engages in espionage to have a psy-ops division or equivalent. It's not a skill, it's a job title.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

On the other, other hand you're talking about a non-human sapient coming into this with very little knowledge of human beings in general and the specifics and meaning of the Chuunin Exams in particular. They would have to have literally every assumption explained to them. And then, practically speaking, they're only as smart as the GMs anyway when it comes to coming up with some scheme.
 
The important thing we should be trying to do is acquire information about how the political situation is developing. We can try to find out more about how things are in mist. Try to find out how Ren is doing with the clans. Find out anything about Akatsuki members. See if there are any rumors. Try to find out if lightning and cloud are mobilizing for war. Are there any rumors about the hydra medical group. How do the clan heirs feel about Goketsu. Does Neji hate his uncle? Any rumors about Orchimaru?

Once we complete some basic information gathering then we can consider plotting
 
Briefvoice said:
On the other, other hand you're talking about a non-human sapient coming into this with very little knowledge of human beings in general and the specifics and meaning of the Chuunin Exams in particular. They would have to have literally every assumption explained to them. And then, practically speaking, they're only as smart as the GMs anyway when it comes to coming up with some scheme.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

On the fourth hand of our increasingly anatomically implausible metaphor, Pangolins seem psychologically humanoid, and, if Kagome is to be believed, may very well be humans in animal bodies. So driving children to quit through stress doesn't seem like the sort of thing that wouldn't translate properly.

E: I think we should at least run the idea past Kei. If she shoots it down, oh well, nothing lost. But if it works, then that's another weapon we can use.
 
Last edited:
MadScientist said:
On the fourth hand of our increasingly anatomically implausible metaphor, Pangolins seem psychologically humanoid, and, if Kagome is to be believed, may very well be humans in animal bodies. So driving children to quit through stress doesn't seem like the sort of thing that wouldn't translate properly.

E: I think we should at least run the idea past Kei. If she shoots it down, oh well, nothing lost. But if it works, then that's another weapon we can use.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
*orders another crate of Tylenol*
 
Briefvoice said:
I agree. I think at the very least it deserves the "declare no problem insoluble until you've really thought about it for five minutes by the clock" approach, applied by everyone playing in the thread. Very probably there is nothing to be done, but making some contribuition would be sufficiently important that it's worth doing some brainstorming.'
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I will admit that the idea of Hazou meaningfully contributing to the search for Naruto from the position he's in right now strikes me as ridiculous, like a canon Harry Potter plot. Only way I can see it working is if we leverage OOC canon knowledge, but that way lie madness and tears.

However, on a political level, we can indeed help. Jiraiya's position as Hokage will be bolstered if he can effectively impose Pax Konoha on Mist, and Mist is effectively a collection of clans. If we go out of our way to play nice with our clans, we could help Jiraiya's negotiations. This would be particularly important for Hazou, as Ren appears to be angling for reinstating Hana into the clan, and using that as a connection to Leaf. I can only imagine there's resistance towards this idea within the Kurosawa clan, and Hazou can help here by making a good impression.

This is also another opportunity for our Deceit, as Hazou hates the clan and wants nothing to do with it.

Action here would be to talk to mom whenever we have time and have her give Hazou a crash course in internal Kurosawa politics and etiquette. Learning the faces and poses would help a lot to establish Hazou as a full blooded Kurosawa, at least.

Oneiros said:
The important thing we should be trying to do is acquire information about how the political situation is developing. We can try to find out more about how things are in mist. Try to find out how Ren is doing with the clans. Find out anything about Akatsuki members. See if there are any rumors. Try to find out if lightning and cloud are mobilizing for war. Are there any rumors about the hydra medical group. How do the clan heirs feel about Goketsu. Does Neji hate his uncle? Any rumors about Orchimaru?

Once we complete some basic information gathering then we can consider plotting
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Something we should've done before leaving for Mist is cross-reference Kagome's expose on Akatsuki members against the Leaf Bingo Book. I would be surprised if we come up with any insight unknown to Jiraiya, but it doesn't hurt to try.
 
Last edited:
Oh one thing we can definitely do is have Hazō talk to the Yakuza members he knows in mist. Hit up some of the old gambling dens and try to find out any useful information.
 
faflec said:
Don't they hate him or something?

I mean, yes we could hit the dens up, but don't have Hazou be the one to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Makes more sense for Hazō to go since he knows people there. They only hated him cause he hustled them. We can bury the hatchet. Just think how valuable it would be to the Yakuza to be friends with the son of the Hokage and the nephew of the Mizukage
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top