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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Chapter 193.1: Prelude to Breaking Strain
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    • Noburi looked around at the gathered Super Team. "So we're all on board for at least finding the event, right? Keiko's got a pangolin doing some scouting already, so hopefully Team Uplift will have more info to share soon."

    "Yes, Gōketsu, I believe that is accurate. Why? Because if one of your sister's servants is doing the work of scouting, we get more sleep," Aburame answered. Noburi suspected his dark spectacles were hiding equally dark circles, and chose not to challenge the implication that the clan of gigantic scaly war machines were Keiko's 'servants'.

    "Excellent!" he said instead, smiling broadly. "While we're waiting for that, though, anybody have thoughts on what the event might actually be? Hazō certainly had some ideas," he said wryly, pulling a folded list from one of his jacket pockets to be met with sympathetic eye-rolling all around the room. Even Nakano, who had been voted into the Super Team as the first order of business and then been fetched from his team's room, picked up on the joke.

    -o-o-o-​

    "Oh good, you're here! If they'd kept you guys any longer I'd have had to stop eating Gramma Gama's cookies and start knocking over buildings looking for you."

    Keiko nodded hesitantly, unsure of the extent to which Jiraiya was joking. "I apologize for the delay, sir." Wait, should she refer to him as father? They were alone, after all, but she was giving him an official report. And she'd be calling Nara Shikaku father soon enough, so maybe it would be best not to get used to addressing Jiraiya as such? Suddenly she was sure she could hear the distant sound of wedding chimes, and crushed the nascent line of thought like a bug under her heel.

    "As you may already have been informed of through official channels, Teams Gōketsu, Asuma, and Kurenai have made it to the next event, alongside one other Leaf contestant, Nakano Ryouichi."

    "Not optimal, but survivable" Jiraiya said, nodding slowly. "I know the Nakano boy. Good kid, if a little on the serious side. Midrange lightning ninjutsu specialist, with a backup penchant for boosted close combat."

    Keiko filed that information away and continued. "In particular, Team Kurenai scored exceptionally well due to the information-gathering aspect of the event, while Team Asuma made a strong showing thanks to the insights provided by Nara Shikamaru. Our own team was reportedly the worst-scoring of those who were not eliminated, in part due to Hazō having been caught in a trap and rendered unconscious for several hours in the middle of the event, resulting in his identity being revealed and loss of significant operational time."

    Jiraiya raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Oh?"

    Keiko grimaced. "He'd dug a tunnel early on, intended as a space to allow allied nin to recuperate safely outside of the designated rest rooms, which we surmised were likely to be the targets of significant efforts at surveillance. He was ambushed and chakra-drained to unconsciousness when he attempted to make use of it. Noburi was subsequently caught in a trap designed to partially collapse the tunnel when he attempted a rescue operation. I ran interference outside while Noburi went in, and so was unaware of what had occurred."

    "Ouch. Okay, anything else I should know about before someone tries to embarrass me by dropping it on my head in the morning?"

    "Um. At one point the use of Akane's Elemental Mastery jutsu caused large areas of the estate grounds to rise precipitously in temperature, which led to the guests and contestants congregating in a small area, which was then sprayed with alcohol from one of Hazō's misterators. The Leaf teams were, of course, well outside the range of these odd events, having determined that since these mysterious events could be the result of hostile action, we should not be with the central group"

    "Ahaha. Living up to the Gōketsu name, I suppose," Jiraiya said, chuckling but nevertheless raising a hand to massage his temple.

    "There was also something of a confrontation between Hazō and Hyuuga Hinata, in which Hazō expressed confusion and dismay that Hyuuga was unwilling to cooperate to ensure you retained leadership of Leaf. Separately, he described the existence of Elemetal Mastery to all of the grouped Leaf teams as part of getting them on board, which has understandably upset Akane. When I left, he was going to apologize and comfort her after her team's elimination."

    "Ooph. Give him my sympathies when you get back, then."

    After a moment of silence to see if that statement would be given any further context, Keiko continued. "At this point, we intend to focus on making it to the next event without incident rather than work directly on eliminating other participants. We have some indication that it may be related to construction occurring east of the city - I sent one of my summons, the stealth specialist Panashe, to scout the area before coming to report. The fact that so many teams have been broken up leads us to suspect the event may be individually scored, similarly to the last one, and that Mist may take advantage of this to quote-unquote "coincidentally" pit Leaf forces against one another or otherwise place them in suboptimal conditions. For example, Hazō noted that the ratio of failed to remaining contestants is such that Mist could compose scratch teams for each current contestant to lead.

    "We have plans to spend tomorrow gathering additional information from merchant and Yakuza contacts, and to conduct some measure of information warfare against other top contenders. To that end, we would like to request any strategies you feel would be helpful in dealing with the following teams and individuals." She handed across a sheaf with a copy of their Yakuza-supplied information.

    Jiraiya scanned it rapidly. "Watch the hell out for Hazama. We're pretty sure their Lightning Pillar jutsu can come down anywhere they can see, and we're pretty sure they use it as big flashy cover for their actual bloodline, something do do with being able to sense living things. Similar with Ryūgamine. Lightning-enhanced Taijutsu that will mess up your entire day if they even touch you.

    "As for the Rock team, Namazu are perpetually sneaky bastards. Hiding Like a Mole, Headhunter, lots of Doton manipulation and sensing. That plus a Tama is a nasty combination - they'll probably wreak hell on any fortifications you kids try to build, and that's without accounting for the Yakeyama artillery they're sure to be packing.

    "The Hot Springs team… could pose problems. They'll have bigger effective reserves, though not as big as you guys - Minawa reserves tend not to be as large as Wakahisa, as I understand it. The Kotsuzui bloodhound kid is potentially risky to be around, though I don't expect he actually has any of your scents or we'd have already had an international incident on our hands… In any case, they have absurdly accelerated healing, and Blood Clones are absurdly good at intelligence gathering. Basically everything about that has the word 'absurd' attached to it somehow. Lucky bastards."

    "I've missed something, sir. What do our scents have to do with this?"

    "Hm? Oh, yeah. There were probably Kotsuzui swarming the inn that the, ah, Cold Stone Killer terrorist group destroyed in Hot Springs. If they manage to get the scent of someone's blood, they're supposed to be able to recognize the scent again at any point in the future."

    He frowned. "Actually, did any of you even leave blood lying around?"

    -o-o-o-​

    There were voices coming from the Team Clanless quarters. Akane was busy, then. That made for poor timing for an apology.

    But if the last few years of Hazō's life had taught him anything, it was that the world was out to get him, and opportunities to do the things he wanted in peace and quiet (like sealing research, he thought longingly) were few and far between. If he missed this chance, then tomorrow morning he might be murdered by a carelessly-provoked Keiko, or get kicked out of Mist over a diplomatic incident which would only indirectly be his fault and involve a truly staggering amount of raw fish, or have Team Downfall kidnap Akane as part of a dastardly plot and use S-rank ninjutsu to take her form. No, best to strike while the iron's hot. Or be struck with the iron while it's hot, depending on Akane's mood and whether she had the chakra for more Elemental Mastery.

    He knocked cautiously. The conversation inside cut off. "Come in." Yamamoto's voice.

    Not a good start.

    Inside, Akane and Yamamoto faced each other, sitting on adjacent beds. Yamamoto's hands were on his knees, his expression frustrated. Akane was sitting back, her body language open.

    Yamamoto scowled as he saw Hazō. "Gōketsu. If you're here to gloat, then you can go ahead and shove—"

    "Haru," Akane said sharply. Then, more gently, "could you give us a little time alone?"

    Yamamoto stomped out, though not without giving Hazō a warning glare. At that moment, Hazō couldn't care less about his opinion.

    "How are you holding up, Akane?"

    Akane didn't answer straight away. Nor did she motion for him to sit down.

    "I can handle it," she said curtly. "We all knew this was coming."

    "It wasn't your fault," Hazō said. "You're a great ninja, and you deserved—"

    "Of course it was my fault," Akane said impatiently. "If I'd been a better ninja, we would have scored more points. I'm not going to pretend otherwise."

    "But Akane—" Hazō began.

    "Of course," she went on, ignoring his attempt to object, "there are other ways in which we could have scored more points. For instance, if the Hokage hadn't decided to put together a team of two and a half combat specialists for an exam that famously tests every shinobi skill."

    That brought Hazō up short. The half was presumably Haruno with her genjutsu, but when Akane put it that way…

    "Again, we all knew this could happen," Akane stated, her voice hard.

    Hazō frowned. "Are you saying Jiraiya would do something like that deliberately? That doesn't make any sense."

    "Only if you think that weaker teams like ours matter," Akane said coldly. "Haru wasn't wrong about that. The major clan ninja have all been put in the same teams, and the rest are just there to pad out the numbers. No one ever expected us to make it to the tournament, not with four all-clan teams as competition before the foreign ones got involved."

    Hazō immediately zeroed in on the obvious problem. "What about Rock Lee? And Tenten?"

    "Anybody who gets to turn down adoption offers is a special case. And Rock Lee is a mystery to us all. But it doesn't matter," she said heavily. "We lost, and now we sit and wait until we can go home."

    Hazō couldn't leave it at that. He wasn't going to talk about the clan thing—now was not the time to point out all the flaws in what was almost certainly Yamamoto's logic—but as Akane's boyfriend, as her friend, it was his duty to say something.

    "Akane," he said insistently, "you have nothing to be ashamed of. Even if you were unlucky with team composition, in fact because you were unlucky with team composition, you should be proud of making it this far. You have everything a ninja needs to be chūnin-level. You're mature, competent and a good leader."

    To his surprise, Akane nodded.

    "I'm useful," she agreed. "My combat performance is consistently above average, I am level-headed with adequate social skills, and I have uncommon secondary training. An asset that merits further investment."

    "That's right!" Hazō said encouragingly. "I'm sure that even if you haven't passed the Exam, the senior ninja in the Hokage's Office will see that you deserve to be a chūnin."

    "Is that what you came to tell me, Hazō? To cheer me up by reminding me of my value?"

    "No," Hazō said. "That was just me… not wanting to see you beating yourself up. I came to apologise."

    Akane's back straightened slightly, alertness in her eyes. "Apologise for what?"

    "I should never have broken OPSEC on your technique. That was careless of me. I have this problem where… where I have trouble with putting people in tiers of trust. It gets too binary—either I trust someone enough to tell them anything, or I don't trust them at all. So when I decided I trusted Nara, it didn't occur to me that I could just tell him what he needed to know and no more."

    "That's not meant to be an excuse," he continued. "It was stupid, and I should have known better, and you have every right to be angry with me."

    "You really think I care about that?" she exclaimed suddenly. Hazō suppressed a flinch. "How likely was I to have a chance to use it against those two teams before the end of the Exam? And after it's over, before too long they'll be the ones giving me orders, and then they'll need to know all of my capabilities. This isn't about me losing a tactical advantage."

    "But... but if you don't care, why are you so angry with me?" Hazō paused. "You are angry with me, right?"

    Akane's shoulders sagged abruptly. The tension in her face and body melted away to be replaced with a void of resignation.

    "More with myself," she said quietly. "People keep warning me that too much optimism is unhealthy."

    "What do you mean?" Hazō asked softly, confused.

    "I mean," Akane said, "that you never asked me before talking to Shikamaru. Or Hinata and the others. The thought simply didn't occur to you."

    Wasn't that another way of saying what Hazō had just said?

    "You're right," he said peaceably. "I'm sorry. I should have checked in advance how much it was OK to share. I'll do better next time."

    "Because of course there'll be a next time," Akane muttered, almost to herself.

    "What?"

    "It really hasn't registered with you that we're not on the same team right now," she said. "You ask first, because you're polite and don't want to come across as high-handed, but somewhere in your mind, what I have is yours to use. If you ask me to do something, I'll do it unless I have a good reason not to. I'm at your disposal for whatever greater purpose you have in mind, and if you have to give away something of mine, unconsciously that seems OK because I've already signed it over to you."

    "What?! No! That's not true at all!" Hazō waved his hands in the air as if to dispel her claim. Something Keiko had once said flashed across his mind. "I respect your agency, Akane, and you're always free to disagree with my plans or follow your own instead. I'm sorry if I've ever made you feel otherwise."

    Akane gave a melancholy nod. "I always have your permission to deviate from the path you've chosen for me."

    "That isn't what I said!"

    "Isn't it?" She looked into Hazō's eyes. He saw no warmth in hers. "When I met you, I thought that was how it should be. I was lost but you had direction. I wanted to be youthful, but you were so much better at it even though you'd never met Lee or Maito Gai. I just wanted to make the world a better place, but you had a vision of a world that ran on better rules. And you agreed to guide me as my master. Why wouldn't I obey you in all things?

    "But still, some part of me wanted to stand by your side, as an equal. To be more than a follower. I thought that as long as we were together, sooner or later I could catch up. After all, weren't we already facing all the same challenges together?

    "Even after we came back to Leaf, even after the rest of the team became a great clan and I went back to being a carpenter's daughter, I still believed that. After all, you told me it was time to stop being master and apprentice. You told me you loved me the way I loved you. Love and the Spirit of Youth conquer everything, right?"

    "Is this about social barriers?" Hazō asked. "But you could still become part of the clan! If we… if we got…" He found the word inexplicably hard to say.

    "We won't get married," Akane said softly. "This isn't a festival play. Your clan is too new and too isolated to waste opportunities for marriage alliances, and Jiraiya knows it better than anyone. You will marry someone valuable and secure a long-term advantage for the clan. For what it's worth, I put in a good word for Ino when I had the chance.

    "But no, this isn't about social barriers. It's about you, Hazō. You are loving. Kind. Thoughtful. And goal-oriented to the point where you can't see the world any other way. People, even yourself — especially yourself — will always be tools to accomplish your goals before they can be anything else.

    "It doesn't mean you're not a good person, because I know that you care about your friends. Hell, you care about people you haven't even met. But at the end of the day, we are all resources. Our skills are your skills. Our possessions are your possessions. Our wills are only relevant when they intersect with yours. I could use a roleplaying metaphor here, but I think you already know what I mean.

    "Someday soon, you, the Hokage's presumptive heir, will be giving me explicit orders, and I will obey them because I'm a loyal Leaf ninja and because I really do believe that your vision will change the world for the better.

    "But I can't live my life as an extension of yours. I'm sorry. I just can't."

    "Akane, I…"

    But he didn't know what to say.

    "You should go, Hazō. You have an event to prepare for, and I have people who need looking after."

    Hazō wanted to argue, but there was a finality to her expression that rebuffed any words before he could find them.

    He left.


    AN: Part two coming in the eve, after I get back from a workout :)
     
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    • TaliesinSkye said:
    Do you have an actual plan for how you could pull such a thing off? I can't imagine a way to do it.
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    Haven't tried to make one yet. And any plan I could come up with alone would be really really bad compared to the thread's collective efforts so I'm not going to try here and now to prove my point because it wouldn't prove my point. That said: My basic strategy is to set up a scenario where one of Hinata's flaws/blindspots would push her to make a really bad decision with public fallout. Maybe Hazou suggests the plan, and then retracts his statement with no reason given for why it wouldn't work other than "gut feeling", but Hinata latches onto it because of a specific aspect she has hitting her with a compel to go through with it.
     
    I'll be perfectly honest and say I'm not unhappy with the Akane conversation, since Akane gets the chance to grow out of Hazou's shadow. Now all we have to do is keep Hazou from having a nervous breakdown.
     
    Kiba said:
    So, Hazō too good for Akane? Is that what Akane thought?

    I am confused.
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    More that he (as befitting a PC) is extremely goal-oriented, and she just isn't comfortable being one of his tools (even a well-loved and viciously protected one).

    E: I really liked the bit about how he uses himself as a tool/weapon more than anyone else - made it clear that she's not accusing him of manipulating her or anything, just that he is living his life in a way that doesn't work for her.
     
    Kiba said:
    So, Hazō too good for Akane? Is that what Akane thought?

    I am confused.
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    Still having that seeing-others-as-having-agency problem, compounded by Akane's status as a competent clanless ninja that has no political power and her conversations with Yamamoto.
    MadScientist said:
    Hazou is a sociopathic AI maximising for things. Even if one of those things is "human happiness" or "relationship fulfilment" it still feels really shitty to be dating a sociopathic-AI maximiser-agent.
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    I wouldn't put it that way. He's pretty clearly not sociopathic.
    e:
    faflec said:
    Surprisingly enough, the only person who left blood was Mari-sensei. Hazou got a dislocated shoulder and Noburi got some broken ribs, and Akane got some un-stated head injury...but no blood. Just Mari-sensei, and just from the post-MEW fall itself.
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    Head injuries tend to bleed quite a lot.

    ... oh dear. Oh dear.
    eaglejarl said:
    (Apropos of nothing, Jiraiya can be a complete bastard if written by an evil QM who excels at social scenes.)
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    Oh poor Akane. Well, she's standing up for herself. That's good. Still, she had to crush her own dreams, too. That's going to hurt for a long time and leave scars.
     
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    Cariyaga said:
    We should make Akane the hokage and Hazou can be the Mizukage :D
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    Akane as Hokage, Noburi as Mizukage, Hazou as the Kage of Hidden Heaven, and Keiko as the Summoner Kage of the Seventh Path unified under the Pangolins. :p

    faflec said:
    I'll be perfectly honest and say I'm not unhappy with the Akane conversation, since Akane gets the chance to grow out of Hazou's shadow. Now all we have to do is keep Hazou from having a nervous breakdown.
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    Yeah, I don't think their relationship is unrecoverable, just... not now. Not until the Goketsu are stable and Akane's standing on her own and they can approach each other as equals again.

    Kiba said:
    So, Hazō too good for Akane? Is that what Akane thought?

    I am confused.
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    Akane sees a power disparity between her and Hazou, both in terms of social standing and in personalities. Hazou's personality is goal-oriented and his plans, great and small, require that he 'use' the people near him to accomplish those goals. Not bad, if the goals are good, but if Hazou leads and Akane follows, Akane can't be in a relationship with Hazou as an equal. Even worse, Hazou is going to have tons of societal power from his position as Goketsu clan heir, making the power disparity worse.

    Power disparity can be worked around, but so far they kinda haven't. Hazou and Akane have been behaving like their relationship is equal at the same time as Hazou orders her around because he needs to in order to accomplish their goals. They can start again, later, with the power disparity in mind so they can work around it.
     
    Okay people, we are in scenario B! Hazou needs to reach out to friends and loved ones! Hana should be able to console him on his first break up. The only difficulty is getting to her.
     
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