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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Now @eaglejarl , before you post that update consider the following:

Aspect Bonus: Players Recently Let the Grue Be Fed


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Chapter 196: Shock and Awe
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    • "No, Hazō, we are not doing that," Kei said, not looking at him as she spoke; she was too intent on setting up the second Air Dome seal. The seal didn't require the sort of precision alignment that a Lesser Barrier Formation did, but it irked her when one of the boys would set them up in a slapdash, non-parallel way.

    Lost in his thoughts, Hazō blinked back to his surroundings at the sound of Kei's voice. "What? I didn't say anything."

    Kei activated the seal, enclosing the nine members of the team, plus Pankurashun, in the momentary shimmer of the forming dome, then straightened and turned to face him.

    "You noticed that there is an exploit in the rules which would allow us to profit by crippling all our competitors and were debating with yourself whether it would be good to exploit that fact."

    "But—"

    "Wait, what?" Kato demanded. "How can crippling people be good? Why would you even want to think about that?"

    "The rules have an exploit in them," Kei said calmly. "There are three separate penalties related to crippling injuries: Minus two hundred for causing it. Minus fifty for being onsite when one is caused. Minus fifty for being a teammate of someone who is onsite. If the penalties stack, then the following sequence would be a net gain for a red team: Disable blue team. Send all but one member of red team offsite. Remaining member cripples all blue team members. For each victim, the person inflicting the injury would receive a total of minus two hundred and fifty points for causing the injury and being onsite. The rest of the red team would receive minus fifty points for being that person's teammate. The rest of the blue team would receive minus one hundred points for both being onsite and being the teammate of an injured person. Using this strategy, one member of a red team could sacrifice themself to give the rest of the team a benefit. In addition, anyone with a crippling injury would not be able to participate in the second round, or in the tournament. It would make it far more likely for the red team to progress."

    All six of Team Uplift's temporary teammates were staring in horror.

    "That's..." Fukai tried.

    "How..." Haga tried.

    "Why would you even think of something like that?!" Gomi demanded, horrified.

    The three Gōketsu warriors instinctively closed ranks, standing side-by-side with arms folded. Pankurashun stood at rest a pangolin-step back, observing the byplay with calm interest.

    "We left Mist because the teachings here are repugnant," Kei said, her voice flat. "Leaf accepted our repatriation, but we spent almost two years labeled as missing-nin before the political situation allowed them to do so publicly. We spent over five hundred nights in hostile territory, most of it in the middle of wilderness too far off the map to have had its threat population reduced. We have been assaulted by probably three dozen genin, a dozen chūnin, and...." She turned to look at her sibs. "What, five? Six jōnin?"

    Noburi thought about it, frowning. "Not sure. There was the one we crushed, the one that got buried when the building collapsed, and that attack by the cave. Hard to say, but somewhere between two and four of those guys were jōnin, maybe?"

    Kei shrugged and turned back to the rest of the 'team'. "Somewhere between three and six jōnin. Most of those ninja are dead."

    The other six looked impressed and more than a little daunted.

    "We have been betrayed, hounded, forced to live in the wilds, and attacked at every turn. We have survived by being stronger and more vicious than everything we faced." Pause, let the thought dangle for just a moment. "And by murdering everyone and everything that got in our way." She shifted her right foot forward half a step and met Haga's eyes; the other girl was the one most likely to act out and disrupt the alliance that the Gōketsu were attempting to form. So long as she was properly cowed there would be no spark to ignite the conflagration.

    Mentally, Kei ran down the list of the most vulnerable points on Haga's body and imagined herself putting a kunai through each of them. Throat would be optimal for a quick kill; the motions were there, trained so deep into muscle memory that she merely had to decide to act and it would be done. Left elbow back, palm turning up to expose the knife in the sheath on her forearm. Right hand stroking along the arm, fingers catching on the pommel of the blade, pulling it from the sheath and continuing the motion forward, the final flick of the wrist, her extended fingers making one end of a line that joined her hand to the gushing wound in Haga's throat. The way the girl's body would drop like a string-cut puppet when the blade pierced her spine. The fountain of blood would not reach this far, so Kei would not have to wipe her eyes, meaning that she could—

    Haga paled and stepped back, raising her hands placatingly. "Right. Yes, no worries. We're all friends here."

    "Allies."

    "Keiko!" Noburi said, turning to her with a reproving look. "Don't be rude." He turned to the other six. "Sorry, I apologize for her. We're all under a lot of stress; it's very important to us, and to our father, Jiraiya, that we make it to the tournament, and she's a little too focused on that. There's a lot of political stuff behind it, but the upshot is that we're a new clan and we really need to do well or it's going to have bad consequences back home, so there's a lot riding on this event. I'm really glad that you guys are here, though. Your skills are a great fit for ours and we couldn't do this without you."

    "Yes, we c—"

    "Keiko!" Hazō hissed. "Be. Nice!"

    Kei closed her mouth and breathed calming breaths, her face utterly blank. This was her role in the little play that they were putting on: the terrifying one who did not want the other six here, while Hazō and Noburi would both be 'good guy', welcoming the others and supporting them against her 'dislike'. Honestly, she had no idea why the boys thought she could pull off 'terrifying'—she was a competent genin, but terrifying? Hardly. Still, people did seem to react oddly when you laid out simple facts for them in a calm way, and she'd had moderate success with the 'imagine yourself killing them' trick that Jiraiya had explained to her.

    Oh, wait—Pankurashun was looming behind her. Of course. That explained it.

    "Allies sounds good," Kato said nervously. "I'm in. Just...we're not doing the crippling thing, are we?"

    "Of course not," Hazō said, shaking his head. "The Exams are all about coming together in a spirit of friendly competition instead of going to war. We're all here because we're among the best our villages have to offer, so we're going to be given more and more responsibility as time goes on. We'll probably meet again in the future, so it makes sense for everyone to be on good terms."

    "Right," Fukai said. "Makes sense, definitely." She paused, clearly looking for a topic change, and then found it: she gestured up. "What's with the dome?"

    "It blocks attacks and, more importantly, sound," Hazō said. "We don't want the proctor hearing us planning tactics. Like I said, Mist has been cheating since day one—I'm sure you guys had your own problems, but before the swamp event the proctors were loudly talking about where me, Keiko, and Noburi would be starting from. Then they dropped us off last so everyone had plenty of time to set up a whole gauntlet for us. We had to go through...two or three different ambush sites, I think? I wasn't sure about one of them, might have just been jumping at shadows. We were moving pretty fast and Panashe was clearing the road for us. You'll meet her later—she's a special operations pangolin. She does sneaking, assassination, scouting, that kind of thing. Nice woman."

    The other six spent a moment digesting the juxtaposition of 'assassination', 'pangolin', and 'nice woman'.

    "Anyway," Hazō continued, "for the third event, they gave us a client who was selling illegal goods. She spent the whole time hitting on me and Noburi while insulting Keiko. Then she cheated us out of half our points—we arranged for her to make six hundred thousand ryō, but only half of it was in Mist currency and she refused to change the rest before going in. Then, in the fourth event, my public role was a barely-disguised version of Jiraiya and my secret role was 'Leaf defector seeking Mist intelligence worker'. Keiko was 'blood cult leader seeking cult member', and Noburi was 'man with erectile dysfunction seeking miracle cure peddler'."

    Noburi rolled his eyes. "You had to tell them, didn't you?" he mumbled.

    Hazō spared him an unrepentant shrug before turning back to the other six. "Not only are those insulting, but how are you supposed to hint at them without giving them away completely?" He shook his head. "Anyway, this round they're teaming us with six people who mostly have no experience working together." He grinned. "Fortunately, they're idiots because they gave us you guys, and you're a perfect fit for what I think we should do."

    Kato raised an eyebrow. "Really? I'm a perfect fit? Me, a ninja with almost no combat ability?"

    Hazō nodded. "Yep. You do crypto, which we'll need to verify the documents." He paused, then raised a hand and held it in front of his mouth. "We should probably cover up, just in case anyone's around who can lipread. Especially you guys, since you're facing the proctor."

    The others hesitated, but followed instructions.

    "Okay," Hazō said. "Here's the deal. The maximum number of points that we can score in this event is a hundred and eighty-five, even if we got our assigned documents and turned them in in the first five minutes. That's not enough to get us"—he indicated his sibs—"out of the hole we got into last event. But! It's not our absolute score that matters as far as getting into the tournament, it's the relative scores. If we make sure that everyone else gets a lot of penalty points, that's the same as us getting more positive points. So, I'm thinking we go with the strategy Doigama suggested earlier: we take out everyone we can. But, before we get down to operational details, is there anyone that any of you would like to put on the 'friendly, do not punch' list? I think one person for each of us would make sense."

    Gomi glanced at his teammate, Haga, and got an answering shake of the head. "Nah, we're good. Kill 'em all, let the Sage sort 'em out." He grinned, then suddenly looked nervous. "That's a joke. We shouldn't actually kill them."

    "Fukai?"

    The girl shook her head. "No one from my village remains in the Exams and there is no one that I have bonded with enough to leave out of the ass-beating we are about to administer." She flicked her fingers and reached down; portions of the ground at her feet leaped upwards, forming into a shield that slid over her left arm and a one-handed mace with blunted spikes on the head. She shot them a feral smile, twirling the mace in one hand like a baton.

    "Nope," said Kato. "I'm good."

    "Nah," Doigama replied, grinning. "I'm with Gomi and Fukai: let's beat all the ass."

    "What about that other guy from your village?" Hazō asked, trying hard not to sound accusing. He'd hoped that Doigama would bring it up on his own.

    The other boy snorted. "Tanaka? He can go fuck himself. Asshole's from the richest clan in Wolf and he loves to lord it over the rest of us. The whole reason I came up with this plan was because I was looking for an excuse to kick that bastard's teeth down his throat." He paused, then hurried to add, "I'm not calling dibs or anything, though. I'd love to be the one who punches his face in, but I care more about it happening than about doing it myself."

    Kei nodded approvingly. "Very pragmatic."

    Doigama seemed nonplussed at the compliment (why???), but he said only, "Thanks."

    "No one I care about, either," Ikemoto said. "I'd rather have the points."

    Hazō glanced at Kei and Noburi. "ISC?"

    Kei nodded. "Most definitely. Maintaining positive relations with them is critical."

    "Seconded," Noburi said.

    Hazō nodded. "Okay, there's one squad that we don't want to hurt: Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino, and Akimichi Chōji. You guys know who they are?" He looked around, checking to make sure that he got six nods in reply. "Cool. If they attack you, do what you've got to, but don't start it until we've had a chance to talk to them.

    "Now, Doigama, you proposed the plan and I don't want to steal your thunder, but I've got some ideas for implementation. Tell me what you think...."

    o-o-o-o​

    The last of the sand was trickling out of the hourglass when the team emerged from the Air Dome. Hazō immediately moved to the proctor, who was still lounging against the bole of a tree.

    "Excuse me, ma'am," he asked. "I had a few questions about the rules, if you don't mind. First, does the round end for us when we turn in our documents?"

    The proctor rolled her eyes, not bothering to move otherwise. "Weren't you listening, kid? The instructions explicitly said that the round doesn't end until a proctor says it does."

    "Well, yes, but it could be the case that when we turn our documents in the proctor that we hand them to will tell us that we're done, so—"

    "Sage's balls, kid. No, you don't get to go hide in your nice comfy bunks just because you turned your documents in. And don't think the medics will let you off either—if you're not injured then they'll just throw you back. Unless you're too dumb to duck, you need to actually be out there taking your chances until the round ends."

    "Okay, well, are blue team members allowed to leave their facility, or does that represent an improper simulation? If they aren't allowed, does that mean they need to stay in the building proper or can they be in the surrounding area, perhaps on patrol? If the proctors won't be onsite during the event, how are you going to enforce the rules about injuries and simulation? If a Red Team member turns in documents from another facility, do they get—"

    "Oh, for Sage's sake, brat," she growled. "Stop being such a pussy. Real ninja don't need their hands held and every last little detail spelled out. Real ninja can apply some brainpower and actually figure things out on their own."

    "Well, it's just that there's lots of reasonable possibilities and I'm not sure which one—"

    She snorted and pushed herself to her feet, looming over him with arms folded across her chest and an expression one short step from a sneer. "I'll tell you about one part of the rules: the part about proctor behavior. We're required to maintain professionalism at all times, meaning that we're not allowed to comment on anyone's scores, either to provide numerical values or to offer condolences on being so far down in the rankings that the person in question would need a telescope just to see daylight because they utterly fucked the dog on the fourth event. We are not allowed to use words like 'traitor' to a contestant, even if they are one. We're not allowed to call contestants 'scum-sucking little shits' or make mention of the fact that they abandoned their families and went to live with our mortal enemies. We definitely can't express an opinion on a contestant's skills, or on how wildly unlikely it is that such losers will ever earn the right to be chūnin. Nor can we express whatever reaction we might have to the fact that their rich daddy will make them chūnin even though they didn't earn it. Oh, and, no matter what, we aren't allowed to say that a contestant has chosen his own desires over his responsibilities to clan and to village, just like his whore of a mother did."

    Hazō's face went as blank as if he had plunged into the ice of the Mori Voice. Behind him, someone gasped...perhaps Haga? He ignored it and merely studied the proctor calmly, then turned to look at the hourglass. He waited patiently until the last grains had fallen, then turned back to the proctor.

    "I assume we have your permission to go?"

    She snorted. "Yeah, whatever. Your site is that way. The medic station is a mile or so beyond it."

    Hazō sketched her the most minimal and most mocking bow in the Iron Nerve's repertoire. "Thank you. For your information, the Hokage ordered us to 'Show them how Gōketsu kick ass.' I think you'll find it interesting. Keiko, go."

    "Pangolin Summoning Technique: Pangaya!"

    There was the soft whump! of a summoning and the moon was briefly blotted out by a swirl of purple smoke. When the smoke cleared, the moon was still invisible, because there was a pangolin the size of a small building looming in front of it. The proctor stepped back, eyes going wide as Pangaya turned in a circle, sniffing carefully to get a sense of who was where.

    "Greetings, Summoner," she said, nodding politely to Keiko.

    "Greetings, Pangaya," Keiko said. "Allow me to introduce you. These seven here are my teammates. The tall woman there is our proctor, and the male next to her is my clan brother, Hazō."

    Pangaya crossed to the proctor, the pangolin's unbelievable height making the distance but a step. She bent down—largely because pangolin eyes were weak, but the proctor didn't know that—and sniffed experimentally.

    "I smell you," Pangaya said. "You would be the representative of this 'Village Hidden in the Mist' that spent the last two years hunting my Summoner, yes?"

    "Uhhhh...."

    "I'll take that as a yes. Allow me to offer you all the honor you deserve."

    Under cover of Pangaya's distraction, Keiko downed the bottle of water that Noburi held ready for her, the chakra within refilling her coils to the brim after she had nearly exhausted them with the summoning. "Pangolin Summoning Technique: Panashe!"

    The spec ops pangolin was already moving when she appeared; she flicked a glance at Keiko's pointing arm to get her bearings and then was gone, vanishing into the trees towards where the proctor had said the target site was.

    Hazō watched the pangolin go, then turned back to the proctor.

    "You were very careful," he said. "You did not say that we lack skill. You did not call us 'losers' and say that the only way we would make chūnin was nepotism."

    The proctor swallowed, her gaze shifting back and forth between Hazō and the still-looming vastness of Pangaya. She swallowed nervously but said nothing.

    "It's interesting," Hazō mused. "Before we left Mist, all three of us were...unremarkable. Noburi's family was too busy mourning his brother to see what a brilliant ninja he is, and the kids at school were too fucking stupid to see past his barrel to what a great friend he is. Keiko's family were cold and distant, too impressed by their elder daughter to realize they had something just as miraculous in their younger one; they never gave her the support and training that she needed to truly excel, and so everyone overlooked her. And me?" The expression that peeled his lips back was nothing like a smile. "My instructors couldn't handle someone who asked questions or wanted to find better ways. I was constantly on punishment duty instead of in class."

    He paused, his gaze pointed at the ground but seeing only the past. The whole clearing had gone silent, everyone's eyes on him as warrior senses frantically pinged the alert. Hazō's voice was too calm, too soft, and his smile wasn't a smile.

    He looked up at the proctor again, the not-smile getting wider. "Going into the woods cost me everything I had, you know? My 'whore' of a mother, my very few friends, my future...everything. But it also gave me a family, one that supports me and lets me support them. One that doesn't call me stupid or arrogant for asking questions, who welcomes it when I think of better answers than the ones in the book. You know what we've become since then, the three of us?" He gestured behind himself. "My brother, a medic-nin who is the demigod of war when he cuts loose. My sister, the Summoner of the Pangolin Clan, with a mind so bright the Nara bartered their full support for her hand in marriage. And then there's me." He chuckled, the sound dark and totally unrelated to humor. "Do you know what my special gift is, ma'am? The thing that makes me stand out? The thing that makes this 'traitor', this 'loser', something more than an average ninja?"

    The proctor swallowed again. "What?" she whispered.

    The not-smile had become a shark's grin. "When the Exams are over, I'll show you." He turned back to the team. "Let's go."

    Nine humans and two pangolin vanished into the night. It was time to hunt.

    o-o-o-o​

    Hinata flicked her Byakugan on as soon as the hourglass ran out. They weren't sure that the 'hour' measured by their hourglass was exactly the same length as the one that the Gōketsu's proctor was using, or that they had started it at the same time, so they'd deliberately been conservative. The Gōketsu shouldn't be assaulting yet, but she was definitely going to keep an eye out. She just hoped they didn't wait too long; the Byakugan didn't need all that much chakra compared to many jutsu, but it added up. The constant drain was something she could ill-afford when she would need to spend twenty-four hours defending a static site against an unknown number of assailants with unknown abilities.

    Granted, Wakahisa Kiri helped a lot with that; the girl's reserves were enormous, and her ability to move chakra between people was phenomenally useful. Almost as useful as Kurosawa Shin's ability to anticipate how the self-named 'Team Uplift' would attack, and Mori Anna's ability to optimize everything.

    "They'll hit us fast," Kurosawa had said. "We should expect an assault pretty much as soon as they're turned loose. They're way down on points, but they aren't the type to surrender. Their only option is to get a perfect score, then take out everyone else in the event so that we all score negative. They'll bring in as many pangolins as that Mori girl can pay for. I did some research and it looks like summons tend to be really chakra-intensive. On her own, I doubt she could summon more than one, but she's got Wakahisa Noburi supplying her. Kiri says he's a bit of a slacker, so he probably hasn't developed his reserves as much as she has, but the rest of the team might be willing to chip in...she can probably call two, but let's say three to be safe.

    "They'll need to hit fast and hard, so they'll be coming from all directions. Now, from what you said, Hazō is their tactician and also a CQC guy with a big protective streak, so he'll be in one of the lead elements. With Ryūgamine on our side, taijutsu isn't as much of a threat to us as ranged fighters and pangolins, so we'll want to target Mori first. If we take her out, I think the pangolins vanish, which will go a long way towards equalizing things. From what you've told us, they don't have any ranged attacks aside from her and explosives, and they can't afford to use the explosives too liberally for fear of crippling or killing one of us. They definitely can't use them if they don't know where we all are, so if they can't detect us then we're probably safe."

    And thus was born the plan. The plan that had Hinata sitting in the center of the concrete bunker that was the 'T&I' facility with Hazama beside her. After some prodding, Hazama had reluctantly revealed that no, the Lightning Pillars technique did not require line of sight, just a distance and direction. Line of sight merely extended the range and allowed for accuracy. With Hinata spotting, Hazama could call down the lightning on anything attacking the bunker, all without moving from his cushion.

    Of course, the pillars took a moment to form, so the defenders needed some way to slow the attackers down and prevent them from dodging. Fortunately, there were plenty of trees around; they'd knocked down a few largish ones and set up a series of abattises around the building, the tops of the trees pointing inwards so that the branches formed a hedge of dull spikes facing towards any attacker. The branches weren't strong enough to treewalk on, so anyone trying it would sink into the mess...and, hopefully, onto one of the sharpened stakes that had been hidden among the foliage. The trees were dry and strategic locations had been soaked in lamp oil, so one touch of Hazama's lightning would set the whole thing on fire. The light would make it easier for Gomi to use his genjutsu, but the smoke would provide cover from it; all in all, it should balance out. Of course, there was the one fact that trumped all the other calculations: abattises meant there was no valid path for Substitution from the edge of the trees to the bunker itself, so they would have a chance to react.

    "How long do you think?" Hazama asked, staring thoughtfully at the now-expired hourglass. "I know Kurosawa said minutes, but I can't believe they wouldn't take the time to scout first."

    Hinata shook her head helplessly. "I don't know. If they knew I was here then they'd know they couldn't scout without me seeing them, so they'd probably go straight in, using explosives to clear a path. They shouldn't know that, though. They were sent out first, so they don't know who is on their assigned blue team."

    The corner of Hazama's lips quirked. "The way that Mist has been screwing them over this whole time, I wouldn't be surprised if they assumed it."

    Hinata frowned. "What do you mean?"

    Hazama looked at her in surprise. "You haven't noticed? In the swamp event, the proctors were publicly talking about where the Gōketsu would be dropped off, and then they dropped them off last. I don't know what happened in the third event, but I assume there was something. Then, in the fourth event, Gōketsu Hazō's assigned role was a thinly-disguised version of Jiraiya. In this event they were the first ones led away, so everyone knows who is on their team but the Gōketsu don't know anyone else's grouping. Oh, and don't forget that they were in the dossiers that were being circulated back in the barracks."

    Hinata carefully did not say that the dossiers were a Team Gōketsu fiction and the information contained therein was, at best, distorted. The rest of it, though....

    "I suppo—INCOMING! ON THE ROOF!" She surged to her feet as Keiko appeared on top of the building (How?! There were no Substitution targets or valid paths!) and slapped her already-bleeding hand on the concrete. Her lips and tongue shaped the words Pangolin Summoning Technique: Pandamonium! and suddenly there was a monster on the roof beside her, one so incredibly huge that Hinata froze for just an instant in disbelief. The monster gestured and a strip of the roof tore itself free, forming a boulder in the monster's hand. Keiko primed a tag and dropped it through the hole.

    Hinata dove for the door, memories of massive explosions screaming in her mind, but it was far too late. The tag detonated with a soft crack and threw cyan goop everywhere. Her foot adhered, yanking her balance out from under her, and she fell belly-down into the sticky muck that covered virtually every square inch of the room.

    "Lightning Element: Pillars of the Storm God's Temple!" Hazama shouted from behind her. On the roof above her, Hinata watched the air spark around Keiko and her massive pangolin. They both dove for cover instantly, the pangolin slower off the mark than his summoner. Keiko rolled clear with no more than a faint caress, but a rope of yellow fire lashed through her creature's leg, drawing a grunt of pain but no visible damage.

    Hinata groaned and struggled to free herself. The goop might as well have been made of steel for all the good it did her. Even if she'd been able to get a limb free, it might not have mattered; her hair had flown forward when she fell and was now glued to the floor on both sides of her face. She wasn't getting free without shaving herself practically bald, and she didn't think she could manage to get any of her kunai out of their sheaths.

    o-o-o-o​

    Moments ago...

    "Wind Element: Vacuum Step," Keiko whispered. She vanished from the treetop she'd been standing on; Hazō, standing on the branch next to where she'd been, sighed in relief when she appeared safely atop the bunker's roof. He threw an explosive in the air and pitched forward, running down the trunk of the tree shouting "Go, go, go!" Branches came at him in blurs, forcing him to dodge left and right through a maze of potential impacts until he broke out of the canopy. He leaped forward off the trunk, arcing through the air towards the departing backs of his assault team, hit the ground in a roll that brought him immediately to his feet, and raced after them in a surge of chakra-enhanced speed.

    The team hit the line that represented their most liberal estimates of Hinata's visual range—after all, what were the chances that Mist wouldn't have fucked them over by putting her on their assigned blue team?—and accelerated. Moments later they burst out of the trees into the clearing at the center of which squatted the bunker. They hit the edge of the clearing in a column, running along the torn-up trench left by the massive and speedy Pangaya as she rolled to the defense of her Summoner, moving faster than a ninja could sprint and leaving the rest of the team in her wake.

    The team hurled explosives left and right as they ran, shattering the abattises and hurling fragments of wood everywhere. There probably wasn't anyone hiding among the wooden defenses in hopes of ambushing the team from behind but, hey, as Kagome-sensei liked to say, everyone liked gifts and explosives were the gift that kept on giving.

    Pangaya reached the front of the building—only waist-high on her—uncurled and leapt. Her uncurling released Pankurashun's rolled-up form from where it had been carried inside her own ball; the six-foot Lochagos could roll fast, but not as fast as his twenty-foot subordinate, so it had made more sense for her to carry him...the team was all-in on this assault, but right now Keiko was in a very exposed position, and she was the key to the entire strategy. She needed all the protection she could get as fast as she could get it.

    The building that was chest-high on Pangaya was half again taller than Pankurashun, but the grizzled veteran had no trouble leaping and pulling himself up in a single smooth motion. Even as Pangaya hurried across the roof to Keiko, Pankurashun spun to his left, moving to take up a position in line with the bunker's door but a few feet back from the edge of the roof.

    Just in time.

    Ryūgamine Eichi and Kurosawa Shin came onto the roof nearly together. Arcs of lightning crackled across Ryūgamine's body, and both boys' eyes scanned left and right, locating Keiko and turning immediately towards her—

    "ON THE GROUND, MAGGOTS!"

    The voice of the drill instructor is one of only a handful of constants across all the universe. Across races and dimensions, it has been honed and refined over generations into a tool that carves away the rational mind and forces compliance directly from the autonomic system. Imagine how much more powerful the effect when the primordial bellow comes, not from the mouth of a human teacher in the safe environment of the ninja academy, but from a scaled monster more than a foot taller than you and far more massive, with claws as long as your forearm. Now imagine that that voice is speaking directly into your mind and is boosted by the power of the Pangolin Technique: Drill Sergeant's Roar jutsu.

    Kurosawa and Ryūgamine were belly-down before they even knew what was happening, their thoughts momentarily broken into white-hot static.

    Before they could gather themselves, huge claws were pinning their heads down and rapid footsteps approached from their left. Something was placed on each of their lower backs.

    "Don't move," Keiko said quietly. "These are low-power explosives with a motion-detector trigger."

    Kurosawa and Ryūgamine both froze.

    "It's amusing," Keiko continued, her voice far away. "My uncle, Kagome, is extremely paranoid, in the common usage. When we were in the woods he surrounded our camps with bombs that had a thirty-foot detection radius. When I asked him to make me a set that detected the movement of the seal instead of movement in the surroundings, he was indignant. 'What sort of stupid idea is that?' he demanded. Still, I managed to prevail eventually, for situations just like this. The explosives probably won't kill you, and Noburi assures me that he can fix the damage as long as he gets to you quickly enough. Still, he tends to be overconfident, so it's probably best if you don't test it."

    "You're bluffing," Kurosawa said, not moving. "A crippling injury would destroy your chances for the tournament."

    "Try me," Keiko said calmly. "Our chances of getting into the tournament at this point are negligible; one of the red teams will undoubtedly turn in their documents before we can get to them and then stay hidden until the end of the event, thereby sealing our fate. The thing you're missing, though, is that we don't need to get into the tournament. All we need to do is make clear that the Gōketsu clan is a power...I think crushing all the other teams in this event should be enough to do that, don't you? If one of the people who ruined our score in the previous event happened to disbelieve my clear warning and got himself paralyzed for life...well, that would be a shame, now wouldn't it?"

    Kurosawa swallowed nervously.

    "The Summoner asked you a question, boy," Pankurashun rumbled from his position leaning over the two boys with clawed hands cupping their heads.

    "Yes?" Kurosawa said. "No? I mean...you asked...uh...yes, it would be bad. Definitely bad."

    "Good," Keiko said. "Now, Pangaya, if you would?"

    A pair of massive hands came to rest, very lightly, on Ryūgamine, one on his shoulders and one on his calves. He could see the massive claws in his peripheral vision; logic told him that this creature must weigh more than a fully loaded cart, and that he would be crushed like an egg if it pitched forward and put its full weight on him.

    He felt his hands being pulled roughly together behind himself, loops of ninja wire curling around his wrists. He winced when the object that had been on his back fell off. The wince turned into elation when there was no explosion.

    "I knew you were bluffing!" he crowed.

    "I never said I activated it," Keiko said calmly, looping wire around his ankles to finish the hogtie.

    o-o-o-o​

    Moments ago...

    Kurosawa and Ryūgamine were out the door of the building before Hazō could stop them, but a quick set of handseals yanked a granite wall out of the ground in the bunker's doorway, sealing it tight and trapping the rest of the enemy inside. Cold sweat prickled on his skin at the thought of what those two, both close-range fighters, could do if they caught Keiko on the roof. Yes, she had three pangolins to protect her, but experience had shown that it didn't take a lot of damage to dispel a summon. He forced chakra through his muscles and leaped for the roof, Doigama and Fukai right beside him—

    —only to find that the fight was already over. Kurosawa was hogtied with some of Keiko's ninja wire and the pangolins were holding Ryūgamine down while she did the same to him. Hazō winced; that was a good way to cost someone their hands if you weren't careful, or if you left them in the tie too long. Still, they'd be fine for the few minutes it would take to finish this place off, retrieve Noburi, and have him drain them dry.

    Noburi had protested vociferously against being left behind in the assault, and had been in no way mollified by being told that he was the absolute lynchpin of the strategy. That without Keiko and the pangolins the plan to take out all the other teams was probably impossible, but that it was absolutely impossible without his ability to drain their victims' chakra, thereby safely rendering them unconscious and the team renewed. He had burned all his own chakra and a good chunk of the team's in order to get them to this point, and he barely had enough left to cast a Water Whip; the extra utility he could bring to the fight was insignificant next to the cost of risking him. He'd argued and fought, but eventually allowed himself to be convinced. (Albeit with much ongoing grumbling.) They'd need to call him in from the woods soon or he'd be furious.

    Before that, however, there were still people inside the building that needed to be dealt with.

    "Ready?" Hazō asked.

    "Ready on explosives," Fukai said.

    "Ready on goo," Doigama said.

    "Remember, hold on the goo if you see a guy with dark glasses on," Hazō said. "We need him ungooped so we can interrogate him."

    Doigama rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You already told us a gazillion times."

    Well that was just unfair. It couldn't have been more than three. Okay, maybe four.

    "Is there anything else you wanted to remind us of?" Haga asked. "Wear our galoshes when it rains, maybe? Don't forget that walking is easier than hopping? Get plenty of sleep and eat all our veggies so the Numblyman doesn't steal us from our beds?"

    "Fine," Hazō griped. "Okay, let's do this. Pandamonium, whenever you're ready."

    The massive pangolin glanced to Keiko; she nodded.

    "Earth Element: Massive Earth Scoop!"

    A strip of the roof tore itself free and crunched into a boulder in the pangolin's extended hand. The instant the way was clear an explosive tag, a macerator full of pangolin peppers, and one of Jiraiya's Goo Bomb seals dropped through. Everyone immediately stepped back to avoid the massive fountain of goo that shot up through the hole in the roof. Once it subsided they cautiously stepped forward and looked inside.

    There was no one there.

    "Huh. Well, let's try the next room over."

    o-o-o-o​

    "I think he's waking up."

    Shino came back to awareness slowly, taking care to remain still with his eyes closed. It could only benefit him if his captors thought him still unconscious. Also, his eyes were still burning from whatever that hell-spray had been that they'd dropped through the hole in the roof.

    "C'mon, Shino, wakey wakey."

    Gōketsu-née-Kurosawa's voice. So, the blue team had all been captured. Gōketsu and his minions wouldn't have been able to afford the time to interrogate him if any of the others were still free. Where was he? He was vertical, but his feet weren't touching the ground. There was something rough against his back...a tree, probably. He could feel a slight breeze on his face, so he was probably outside.

    "Your pardon, Summoner," said a surprisingly cultured woman's voice that came through his brain instead of his ears. "I'm getting deucedly bored, and we really should be moving on. Would you mind terribly if I woke him? I promise not to break him too much."

    Shino's eyes shot open. He had been right; he was outside, glued to a tree somehow, and surrounded by the Gōketsu kids and their team...as well as four pangolins, two of whom were massive.

    "Ah, there we are," said the smallest one. Somehow her lack of size was not at all reassuring. If anything, she was more disturbing than the two big ones. "I thought perhaps you might wake up about then. Your name was Aburame, if I recall? I do hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, am I?"

    "Yes."

    "Excellent! So glad. Hate to give offense, after all. Now, if you'd be so kind, we'd greatly appreciate it if you would tell us where the lockbox key is so that we can collect the documents and be on our way. There's a good chap."

    "Why should I tell you?" Shino asked. "I have only to remain silent. The longer you wait, the more likely another red team will come along and attack you."

    The pangolin sighed while the humans exchanged looks.

    "Dear boy," the scary pangolin said, stepping closer and running a claw lightly down his cheek in what was almost a caress. "Do you know what pangolins eat? Because, as I understand it, you are just full of probably quite tasty bugs."

    A tongue as long as Shino's body came out of the pangolin's mouth and slurped across his neck and down his shirt. "Mmmm..." came the pangolin's thought, the words not muffled or misshapen despite her tongue being out. "I can taste little hints of them. There must be an opening here somewhere...oh, there's one coming out now! Oh, my! That is delicious!"

    "Hinata has it! Hinata has it! Stop licking me!"

    The tongue retracted. "Thank you, dear boy. Terribly kind of you, what?" She turned to Keiko. "Now, Summoner, as I was saying before we got so distracted by the search for this key, I found your friends—'ISC', I believe you called them? The two boys, anyway. They're sitting around a fire in front of their bunker. I tunneled under the building and invoked the Pantokrator's Ears; I could hear at least three people inside, but there could easily have been more if they weren't moving around much or talking. Would you like me to take you there?"




    All bonuses and dice are already factored into the numbers.

    As her first Supplemental action, Keiko uses Vacuum Step to appear on the roof of the bunker, right over the commander's office. (The team is guessing that at least some of the opposition will be in there.) She uses her second Supplemental to prime a Goo Bomb tag, uses a Free to drop it, and then uses her Standard action to summon Pandamonium, the heavy-weapons ranged specialist. Pandamonium will then use his Standard action to cast Earth Element: Massive Earth Scoop, which will pull a chunk out of the 'ground' (aka the concrete roof of the building) and compact it into a loose ball, which he will hold onto for now. He will use a Supplemental action to kick the primed tag through the hole, where it will detonate.(NB: This sequence fits the rules mechanically, but I wrote it as Keiko priming and dropping the tag through the hole herself because it makes more sense.)

    Hinata's active Byakugan leaves it an open question as to how the ambush rules should apply; on the one hand, she can see the attack happening. On the other, there was absolutely no warning. We might do something different in future, but for now I'm going to say she is not Flat-Footed. She can roll an Athletics check against an appropriate TN to see if she reacts fast enough to avoid the Goo Bomb. I'm going to give Hazama the same chance.

    Hinata, Athletics: Not nearly good enough.
    Hazama, Athletics: Nope, not him either.


    Well, both of those guys are stuck in a Jiraiya-strength Goo bomb, so they aren't going anywhere. They can still cast and do things that don't require moving their feet or pulling out gear. Things like, for example, calling down Lightning Pillars.

    Hazama, Lightning Pillars: 40
    Keiko, Athletics + tag 'Shock and Awe' + tag 'Attacker Was Shooting Blind': 43. She dives clear.
    Pandamonium, Athletics + tag 'Shock and Awe' + tag 'Attacker Was Shooting Blind' + invoke 'Veteran Soldier': 34. He gets hit for 2 stress, but shakes it off

    Okay, end of ambush round. New round, everyone goes. Initiative order:
    1. Pangaya
    2. Panashe
    3. Ryūgamine Eichi
    4. Kurosawa Shin
    5. Pankurashun
    6. Keiko
    7. Mori Anna
    8. Wakahisa Kiri
    9. Hazō
    10. Inuzuka Kiba
    11. Hotoke Eru
    12. Aburame Shino
    13. Noburi
    14. Pandamonium


    Pankurashun, Intimidation + tag "Surprise, Sucka!" + invoke "Pangolin Drill Instructor": 62
    Ryūgamine Eichi, Resolve: ?
    Kurosawa Shin, Resolve: ?
    Shin and Eichi take all the Mental stress; each of them will have nightmares about this moment for days. They obey without even meaning to, dropping to the ground and receiving the Aspects 'Prone' and 'Rattled'. Pankurashun gets tags on these for each boy.

    Keiko crosses the roof, puts a kunai on each of their backs, and warns them that it's a motion activated bomb. (So far as any of you know, there is no such thing as the seal she is claiming to have. I'm not bothering to roll Deceit here; Keiko's deceit is terrible, but she's got the pangolins and the boys are face down, so even if they figure it out it won't change anything.)

    Mori Anna and Wakahisa Kiri: Hold actions. They are inside the bunker, waiting for the team to assault.

    Hazō: Cast MEW to block the door.

    At this point, I'm calling it. The people inside are doomed, so let's just move on.



    XP AWARD: 5 for the quality of the plan, +1 for brevity, +1 for my post-writing-punching good mood

    FP AWARD: Keiko gets 2, everyone else gets 1

    Author's Notes:     This was a great plan. Very well thought out, well organized, and easy to write for. You offered strategic direction and let me generate tactics, which is much appreciated. @faflec, you did a fantastic job curating it.

    The assault started at 7; Panashe went to scout the other locations while you guys climbed trees to scout with the Mark I Eyeball. You spent about 5 minutes on that, the assault took another 5 from start to finish, and then it took about 15 to collect the documents, drain everyone, and get all the cleanup done.

    The biggest prize was that you captured Wakahisa Kiri without her barrel spilling. Congratuations: You have 700 chakra literally on tap in addition to the 500 that Noburi has. The prisoners' chakra paid for all of you to get refilled and to summon Pandojuru. Keiko then unsummoned and re-summoned Pandamonium, just to reset his chakra totals. (That required dipping into Kiri's barrel, but there's still more in there than Noburi has now that's he's full. Note: The chakra in Kiri's barrel is useless without Noburi to portion it out for you.)

    The bunker has been pretty thoroughly trashed in the process of getting all this done. The roof looks like Swiss cheese and several rooms have holes in the walls. The only intact portion is the cells, and all the prisoners are stacked up in there, carefully bound. They are not gagged, because that's dangerous to do with an unconscious person.

    Noburi was not confident in his ability to inflict consequences by way of chakra drain without accidentally killing the person. Instead, he took a thin surgical knife and made a deep incision in both heels of each prisoner, which he then disinfected and bandaged. It'll heel (er, heal) fine and they can even move around perfectly well...as long as they keep all their weight on the balls of their feet at all times and ignore a fair bit of discomfort. It would certainly interfere with combat and definitely counts as a Moderate Consequence.

    There will be no voting; this plan will continue at least through the next assault.
     
    Last edited:
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    • Keiko, you adorable, scary ninja you. You can be what you want to be if you put your mind to it. You are more than just the Pangolin summoner, you are a highly valued friend and ally.
     
    That was GLORIOUS. And we don't even have to plan again, the plan will just continue. AND we got the boon of having Kiri's full barrel of chakra. Fookin' fantastic.
     
    eaglejarl said:
    Ryūgamine Eichi and Kurosawa Shin came onto the roof nearly together. Arcs of lightning crackled across Ryūgamine's body, and both boys' eyes scanned left and right, locating Keiko and turning immediately towards her—

    "ON THE GROUND, MAGGOTS!"

    The voice of the drill instructor is one of only a handful of constants across all the universe. Across races and dimensions, it has been honed and refined over generations into a tool that carves away the rational mind and forces compliance directly from the autonomic system. Imagine how much more powerful the effect when the primordial bellow comes, not from the mouth of a human teacher in the safe environment of the ninja academy, but from a scaled monster more than a foot taller than you and far more massive, with claws as long as your forearm. Now imagine that that voice is speaking directly into your mind and is boosted by the power of the Pangolin Technique: Drill Sergeant's Roar jutsu.

    Kurosawa and Ryūgamine were belly-down before they even knew what was happening, their thoughts momentarily broken into white-hot static.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    +1 Thousand Yard Stare Point +1 Thousand Yard Stare Point
    eaglejarl said:
    "Don't move," Keiko said quietly. "These are low-power explosives with a motion-detector trigger."

    Kurosawa and Ryūgamine both froze.

    "It's amusing," Keiko continued, her voice far away. "My uncle, Kagome, is extremely paranoid, in the common usage. When we were in the woods he surrounded our camps with bombs that had a thirty-foot detection radius. When I asked him to make me a set that detected the movement of the seal instead of movement in the surroundings, he was indignant. 'What sort of stupid idea is that?' he demanded. Still, I managed to prevail eventually, for situations just like this. The explosives probably won't kill you, and Noburi assures me that he can fix the damage as long as he gets to you quickly enough. Still, he tends to be overconfident, so it's probably best if you don't test it."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    +1 Hundred Yard Stare Point +1 Hundred Yard Stare Point

    eaglejarl said:
    "Try me," Keiko said calmly. "Our chances of getting into the tournament at this point are negligible; one of the red teams will undoubtedly turn in their documents before we can get to them and then stay hidden until the end of the event, thereby sealing our fate. The thing you're missing, though, is that we don't need to get into the tournament. All we need to do is make clear that the Gōketsu clan is a power...I think crushing all the other teams in this event should be enough to do that, don't you? If one of the people who ruined our score in the previous event happened to disbelieve my clear warning and got himself paralyzed for life...well, that would be a shame, now wouldn't it?"

    Kurosawa swallowed nervously.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    +1 Hundred Yard Stare Point

    eaglejarl said:
    "The Summoner asked you a question, boy," Pankurashun rumbled.

    "Yes?" Kurosawa said. "No? I mean...you asked...uh...yes, it would be bad. Definitely bad."

    "Good," Keiko said. "Now, Pangaya, if you would?"
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    +1 Hundred Yard Stare Point

    eaglejarl said:
    A pair of massive hands came to rest, very lightly, on Ryūgamine, one on his head and one on his calves. He could see the massive claws in his peripheral vision; logic told him that this creature must weigh more than a fully loaded cart, and that he would be crushed like an egg if it pitched forward and put its full weight on him.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    +1 Hundred Yard Stare Point

    eaglejarl said:
    "Dear boy," the scary pangolin said, stepping closer and running a claw lightly down his cheek in what was almost a caress. "Do you know what pangolins eat? Because, as I understand it, you are just full of probably quite tasty bugs."

    A tongue as long as Shino's body came out of the pangolin's mouth and slurped across his neck and down his shirt. "Mmmm..." came the pangolin's thought, the words not muffled or misshapen despite her tongue being out. "I can taste little hints of them. There must be an opening here somewhere...oh, there's one coming out now! Oh, my! That is delicious!"
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    +1 Thousand Yard Stare Point

    and the best is yet to come ~
     
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