But Hazo's just not that competent when it comes to a lot of slick human manipulation stuff. What we've seen of Ami makes me think of her as...well, terrifyingly competent in every way. Like 'I could manipulate everyone into making me the obvious choice for Kage in a few years, but I have better things to do' competent.

So your argument is "Ami has higher Deceit"? That seems to just be a problem of XP allocation. And if Shadow Clone farms work out then we'll have more XP to play with anyway.
 
1. Will result in a sealing failure, most likely. Perhaps we will permanently not have a shadow. Perhaps Shadow Hazou will replace us. Perhaps we'll just be pulled into the Out. Regardless, I don't think we've got the skill for this.
2. Why?
3. Hilarious, though he might not fall for it - yes, he may think we're some devious mastermind, but I doubt he lacks awareness that we can throw down. Of course, no guarantee we'll even end up in a match against him.
Eh, Jiraiya might have a Shadow Slayer seal we can borrow. :p

So that Shikamaru can't tell the difference between us and a basic clone.
 
So your argument is "Ami has higher Deceit"? That seems to just be a problem of XP allocation. And if Shadow Clone farms work out then we'll have more XP to play with anyway.
It's not just about deceit. I think Ami's a terrifyingly effective strategist and social manipulator as well as no doubt being superb at all the traditional ninja skills, including combat. Having mastered the Frozen Skein to the point of mocking the Mori Voice means her ability to analyze and predict is nearly unlimited and she somehow doesn't suffer from the downside of lacking initiative at all, freeing her to pursue whatever goals she wants with all of a Mori's effectiveness and her own natural genius.

To put it mechanically, she's a prodigy with no clear weaknesses who has way more XP than we do and that gap isn't likely to close any time soon.

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I think we really need to get her on our side. How about we pitch her the uplift idea?
 
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1. Will result in a sealing failure, most likely. Perhaps we will permanently not have a shadow. Perhaps Shadow Hazou will replace us. Perhaps we'll just be pulled into the Out. Regardless, I don't think we've got the skill for this.
2. Why?
3. Hilarious, though he might not fall for it - yes, he may think we're some devious mastermind, but I doubt he lacks awareness that we can throw down. Of course, no guarantee we'll even end up in a match against him.
Eh, Jiraiya might have a Shadow Slayer seal we can borrow. :p

So that Shikamaru can't tell the difference between us and a basic clone.
What are the chances are that Shikamaru knows the counter to that "Remove shadows everywhere" jutsu Shikaku was monologuing about his grandfather inventing?( It was during our first meeting with him. He was guilt tripping us about releasing skywalkers without a counter. )

I would say likely.

What are the chances we can make a seal that does something similar while pretending to perform this jutsu?

I would think pretty likely as well. :evil:
 
Wait, what?

I have considered that it could be really useful to find that original variant of the transformation technique that didn't have the safety feature of popping when the user was injured. It does need some other sort of safety feature to keep the user from accidentally getting locked into it, but I was thinking a timer would be better. A 12 hour limit or something. (Even better, a variable one you could set each time.) If you kept it as a secret technique you could 'prove' you weren't henged when you were actually henged. Stupidly useful.

In short, the QMs very dearly wish they had never included Henge in the setting in the first place. The technique seems simple but has been the cause of no end of headaches for them, from mechanical (what's happening when you eat while henged? Does the food get annihilated? Turned into chakra? Does it reach your real body somehow?) to societal (why isn't every ninja henged all the time? Do ninja get to henge into healthy versions of themselves?) and everything in between. Some of these questions they've answered, others they very dearly hope they never have to, and in general they'd be a lot happier if it just stopped existing.

So someone joked that a random sealing failure somewhere could result in a being from the Out consuming the entire technique such that it just doesn't work anymore. The QMs were tempted, some discussion was had, and eventually they held a poll on the issue where the majority of us agreed with feeding Henge to a grue for the sake of the QMs.

The question now is when and how, basically. The QMs have a lot of irons in the fire and don't want to invalidate all the planning they've done for the future of the quest, so doing it during a high-stakes high-tension event like the chuunin exams is a bad idea, and so on and so forth. The current line of thought, I believe, is to wait until a relatively calm point in time and then erase not only Henge, but all memories of it. There's still discussion to be had and some back and forths and all that, especially since it won't be happening anytime soon, but Henge is most probably on the way out.
 
Hm. I thought Henge served an important role in the setting, enabling ninja to do all sorts of important ninja things that would be very hard to do any other way, though?
 
It's not just about deceit. I think Ami's a terrifyingly effective strategist and social manipulator as well as no doubt being superb at all the traditional ninja skills, including combat. Having mastered the Frozen Skein to the point of mocking the Mori Voice means her ability to analyze and predict is nearly unlimited and she somehow doesn't suffer from the downside of lacking initiative at all, freeing her to pursue whatever goals she wants with all of a Mori's effectiveness and her own natural genius.

To put it mechanically, she's a prodigy with no clear weaknesses who has way more XP than we do and that gap isn't likely to close any time soon.

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I think we really need to get her on our side. How about we pitch her the uplift idea?

See all of this is true. Which is why she is interesting and someone I put on our level. Most ninja are incredibly boring and incompetent. Where as Ami has accomplished a lot at a young age. However she falls short when you compare her accomplishments to Hazou's
 
Hazo is helped a lot by having a cadre of brilliant lunatics (us) whispering ideas in his ear from time to time, but he has serious weaknesses to go along with his flashes of genius. He isn't brilliant at political strategy or social manipulation, and he doesn't have the frozen skein to give him supernaturally good analysis skills either. His team helps make up for those deficits. Ami, though? She's the whole package in one person.
 
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Hazo is helped a lot by having a cadre of brilliant lunatics (us) whispering ideas in his ear from time to time,

Oh you don't know the half of it. We have a lot of nonsense in the works that should boost the majority of his important stats as well as his XP-gain. We can't implement it right now because the exams are distracting us, but we're only a few months of free time away from being one of the scariest people in Leaf.
 
Oh you don't know the half of it. We have a lot of nonsense in the works that should boost the majority of his important stats as well as his XP-gain. We can't implement it right now because the exams are distracting us, but we're only a few months of free time away from being one of the scariest people in Leaf.
*WW4 starts*

*Hazou and co. have to go on consecutive long-term missions*

*No research allowed*

MadScientist: ... ... ...
 
Oh you don't know the half of it. We have a lot of nonsense in the works that should boost the majority of his important stats as well as his XP-gain. We can't implement it right now because the exams are distracting us, but we're only a few months of free time away from being one of the scariest people in Leaf.

Could you fill me in on the current plans?
 
Oh you don't know the half of it. We have a lot of nonsense in the works that should boost the majority of his important stats as well as his XP-gain. We can't implement it right now because the exams are distracting us, but we're only a few months of free time away from being one of the scariest people in Leaf.
Source me on this nonsense, friend
 
@MadScientist, a couple additions I'd suggest for the schemes list:
  • Long-term: Printing Press seals (unless you think this is already covered by industrial revolution)
  • Mid-term: Get the seals we copied with Iron Nerve researched (Mountain seals, Rice seals, etc.)
  • Mid-term: Approach Kabuto with a research proposal for measuring chakra.
 
That aside, though, we've got seal ideas in the works for stuff like Kinetic Blast seals that can be used to dodge (we suggested Kagome work on these before we left Konoha), Chakra Sensors (variants of casino seals that trigger on chakra use) to supplement one's awareness, about seven different ways to deal damage...
 
I do feel genuine curiosity towards the hypothetical relationship between Ami and Hazo (which is at least partly my shipping sense tingling).
I am aware that 99% of the dynamics will be both of them (us?) dodging and whirling around all the political consequences and family drama.
But... I just wish to know how this intellectual (and otherwise) titan of a person would perceive Hazo?

He has flashes of alien insight and a valiant philosophy, but he's naive and infamously bad at (dis)honesty.
Then there's the fact of him being a de-facto brother to her dear sister.
And let's not get into Kurosawa family drama and how that might would impact those interactions.

Frankly, I am quite scared of her. I am vaguely aware that smart people exist in this world, and that there are many scarier people, but...
I guess I am afraid of cooties. :oops:
 
Could you fill me in on the current plans?

Sure! :D

Just off the top of my head, we've got...
  • Shadow Clone Farms The big one. Capture and farm a bunch of chakra beasts and drain their chakra to redistribute to the team. The team then uses this chakra to fuel the creation of as many shadow clones as the farm can support. Shadow clones have their memories returned to the creator upon destruction, giving increased XP-gain. The created shadow clones can help with Seal research, speeding it up considerably.
  • Whipguns by FieryStarVictory. Macerators work because objects released from storage are stationary in the seal's frame of reference. If you punch with a macerator on your fist and release during the punch then the chunk of granite is released at the same velocity as your punch. Whips break the sound barrier. Stick a seal on the end of a whip, and keep trying to get the timing right. Hazou only needs to make it work once, and then his bloodline lets him time it perfectly every time.
  • Impulse Seals Explosion seals modified for personal rocketry, boosting Athletics beyond the previous boost that skywalkers give. Kagome seemed very interested in making this, as you can probably imagine.
  • Extrasensory Array A setup of chakra detector seals modified to allow directional sensing that should boost Alertness.
  • Forged In Fire A stunt (again, thank Cari) that leverages Hazou's idealism to boost Rapport and Empathy. Rapport is a dump stat for Hazou, but Empathy is vital to any social build.
  • Force Wall Mobiles Now we get into silly physics exploits. Force Walls do not exert force on their seals. This allows you to put pressure on one side of a wall where the seals are mounted on a special frame to turn the setup into an aircraft. (Ask Radvic, idk... :rolleyes:)
  • And just today, Fire Punching.
Plus lots of stuff I probably missed, and some things I only half remember and would have to look up.
 
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What are the chances are that Shikamaru knows the counter to that "Remove shadows everywhere" jutsu Shikaku was monologuing about his grandfather inventing?( It was during our first meeting with him. He was guilt tripping us about releasing skywalkers without a counter. )

I would say likely.

What are the chances we can make a seal that does something similar while pretending to perform this jutsu?

I would think pretty likely as well. :evil:


There's also one real easy way to reduce shadows: make light. And we know how easy it is to create seals that make light... :evil:
 
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