"I just find it a bit unusual, you know. That a team from Mist knows more about the Gōketsu than their supposed allies from Leaf. Especially ones with whom they've reportedly worked before the fourth event." said Hazama in a neutral tone. It wasn't clear whether the remark was aimed at Shin, just having finished his briefing on the capabilities of the Gōketsu, or at the conspicuously silent Team Kurenai.
"Right, because we're so eager to reveal stuff they've shown us in confidence." Inuzuka Kiba didn't bother hiding his disdain for the idea. "Maybe that's how it works in other villages, but in Leaf we—"
"Kiba, you're forgetting yourself." Hyūga interrupted him firmly, without raising her voice. "There's no reason to insult our teammates, whose concern is perfectly valid. I will say, however," she continued, turning to face Hazama, "that my friend isn't entirely wrong. Were we facing a Cloud squad, I wouldn't expect you to offer the full extent of your knowledge either." Shin could see Aburame Shino, leaning against a wall to the side, offer a silent nod of agreement.
"Anything you can reveal in good conscience is fine, Hyūga" Shin was quick to intercede, seeing Hazama prepare to continue the argument. "I think our intel on them is pretty thorough, so it shouldn't be a problem either way."
The girl nodded, her expression carefully controlled, though he could sense her curiosity as to the reason for Team Downfall's (And wasn't it an
appropriate name for what they were about to inflict upon their rivals?) interest in the Gōketsu. He'd need to address that eventually.
"Outside of what you've already mentioned, they are in possession of an effectively unlimited supply of explosive tags, and aren't afraid of using them en masse." she continued, "Noburi can use Syrup Trap, a short range technique that spews sticky goop over an area to immobilize enemies. Hazō's specialty, aside from Sealing, is CQC, and he's good at Taijutsu. Keiko is proficient at ranged weapons."
"The girl is the first genin summoner in recorded history, and all you can say is 'good at throwing things'?" Hazama asked incredulously. "Hazō was trained by the world's best sealmaster, and the extent of your knowledge is that they have a lot of explosive tags? Come on, throw us a bone here."
The girl pursed her lips unhappily. "I've seen them use some protective seals - ones that created a dome of earth over the user. I don't think they'll be very useful offensively. As for Keiko, I honestly do not know. I've yet to actually witness her summon any of her Pangolins."
"There wasn't much opportunity for combat after the second event." Aburame offered from behind her. "And we didn't interact with them or their fortress during said event. Why? We believed we'd be better off on our own - a decision later proven correct by our respective scores."
"I think you've given up more than enough." Shin said quickly, before another argument could start. Keeping the team cohesive and conflict-free was much more valuable than additional information about their enemies. Team Kurenai were unlikely to know anything truly important, in any case, if the Gōketsu were at all proficient at maintaining basic opsec.
"I agree." Ryūgamine interjected. "Don't mind Kyū, he gets all jittery and nervous whenever action's afoot. Starts being all paranoid, thinking of ways for everything to go wrong." He shot a teasing smile at Hazama, who just scowled in response. "I'm sure it'll be fine. We have a very strong team, a lot of actionable intel on our opponents, and it sounds like Kurosawa has the tactics figured out as well?" he turned to Shin, who felt very grateful for the lead-in. Could Ryūgamine be helping on purpose? The other boy's grin offered no easy answers.
"I do. Going back to Hazama's observation, we've indeed been paying a lot of attention to the Gōketsu. It's more of a personal matter at this point, and unrelated to the broader political situation, believe it or not."
"What, did Hazō steal your girlfriend while in the academy, or something?" Inuzuka interrupted with an obnoxious grin. Shin carefully ignored both the boy's comment and Kiri's barely concealed snort. He did not need this right now.
"Putting aside the exact nature of our relationship, I have indeed given some thought to how the Red Team we're facing should be handled. Here's what I think we should do..."
o-o-o-o
Keiko considered her destination on the building's roof, above where they'd estimated the command center would be located. She was perched on a treetop a distance away, far enough to outrange their most pessimistic estimates for Hinata's Byakugan. They weren't, strictly speaking, certain that Team Kurenai counted among their opponents, but it was a relatively safe assumption given Mist's attempts at sabotage in the exam thus far. Hazō, currently standing behind her on one of the upper branches, expected to also find Team Downfall, as well as a heavy combat team from either Cloud or Rock, waiting for them at the site.
Truthfully, it didn't matter much, Keiko mused as she waited for the rest of her team to get into position below. There wasn't a combination of squads left in the exam even theoretically capable of standing up to the force her team were about to unleash upon the opposition. A ghost of a smile touched her lips at the thought. If the proctors expected to effectively stack the deck against her in a combat test, they were in for a very rude awakening.
Seeing her clan-brother give the signal, she refocused, and felt the familiar pinprick of pain as she cut her thumb on a shuriken in her pouch. "
Wind Element: Vacuum Step" she whispered. She barely had the time to register the peculiar feeling of being pulled by the technique's effect, before she found herself on the roof, hand already in position for the next step of her assault. The defending team had done their best to clear Substitution targets around the facility and block paths with abattises they'd set up around it. Unfortunately for them, her technique ignored all of these preparations. Nor would they hinder the ground assault team, who would simply clear them with explosive tags.
"
Pangolin Summoning Technique: Pandamonium!" she exclaimed, feeling the etheric channel open as several tons of armored murderball were materialized next to her. Following the plan, the pangolin immediately gestured at the roof, and a piece of it was stripped away, forming into a ball in his hand, allowing Keiko to drop a primed tag into the resulting hole.
With a measure of satisfaction, she could see Hyūga Hinata faceplant into the cyan goop now covering the room below, her attempt at escape backfiring spectacularly. No such luck for the other person caught within the Goo Bomb's radius, it seemed like, as she felt the air around her spark with coalescing electric charge. She immediately rolled sideways, managing to completely avoid the pillar of lightning now occupying the space where she had been standing just a second ago. Pandamonium wasn't quite as fast, and she could hear a grunt of pain as one of the yellow tendrils snaked up his leg; nonetheless, he shrugged the hit off without any visible damage.
Taking a moment to look in the direction of the approaching assault force, she was again surprised at just how fast the massive pangolins could cover distance when curled into a ball. Pangaya had simply rolled over enemy fortifications, and she and Pankurashun were making their way up to the roof, ahead of the Blue Team's response. Said roof, of course, was merely waist high for the largest members of her tessera; it was a marvel it was holding up under their weight as well as it did.
Keiko wasn't normally much for triumphant smiles, but she was starting to see the appeal. Things were proceeding exactly according to Hazō's plan.
o-o-o-o
The Iron Nerve was convenient in a lot of ways; throughout his life as a ninja, Shin had grown to prize the sheer utility of his Bloodline almost above the combat advantages in granted him. Right now, it let him project perfect confidence to his teammates, taking care to show none of the nervousness that gnawed at him as the hourglass slowly emptied and the enemy attack grew nearer.
This really was it. The culmination of all of their hard work and preparation. It seemed so long ago that he stood before his clan head in her private quarters, vowing to knock the traitors out of the exam for the sake of clan and village. And while his view of the Gōketsu had since become more nuanced, the burning need to
win was still there. To show Hazō that it took more to change the world than some pretty words about peace and cooperation. That the reality of what he'd done, what they'd done, in abandoning Mist, was not so easily ignored.
They did give the Gōketsu a bloody nose during the fourth event, but that had been accomplished with the assistance of both proctors and other candidates, eager to target the top-ranked team. He still found the rather blatant cheating distasteful, though necessary in hindsight. This event, however, had given him what he wanted all this time - an opportunity to personally knock the newly minted "children" of the Hokage out of the exam with his own hands. There would be no excuses, no cries of unfairness afterwards. A total victory, just as he'd envisioned.
Now, they just needed to actually win, he thought, as the last grains of sand trickled out of the top half of the hourglass. He was confident in his plan, as long as everyone did what they were told, everything should be—
"INCOMING! ON THE ROOF!"
Shin was in motion before his conscious mind processed Hyuga's cry of warning, moving towards the exit with Ryūgamine right behind him. The building shook as if someone was dropping boulders on its roof, though he couldn't see any structural damage from the inside. The easily recognizable sound of an explosive tag being detonated somewhere outside confirmed that an attack was underway. But how did the enemy get to the roof this quickly, undeterred by the fortifications and undetected by Hyuga's sensory bloodline?
Shin shook the confusion off as he and Ryūgamine moved out the door and immediately onto the roof. Distantly, he heard a shout of "Earth Release: Multiple Earth Wall!", and realized with mounting dread that sealing the only exit to the building would leave the ninja remaining inside at the complete mercy of the attackers. He forged on, zeroing in on Keiko, who was standing on the roof, flanked by huge armored monsters whose sight gave him pause even as he—
"ON THE GROUND, MAGGOTS!"
... why was he lying on the ground? His mind felt scrambled, and forming thoughts was difficult. They were following the plan, leaving the building to knock out Keiko and hopefully make her summons disappear, and then... He suddenly felt something light and small touch his lower back.
"Don't move," He heard Keiko's voice, soft and quiet and wholly unfitting for the situation. "These are low-power explosives with a motion-detector trigger."
Shin froze. His thoughts raced as he looked for a way out of their predicament. Surely, she was only bluffing, she'd never risk seriously injuring them, he needed to go, to move right now and salvage the situation before they—
"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," Shin replied, though he didn't risk actually moving. Something about her voice, the way she spoke more than the words themselves, really unsettled him. He could believe it, that someone who could talk like this really wouldn't mind killing him here. "A crippling injury would destroy your chances for the tournament." He forged on, still desperately looking for a way to turn things around.
"Try me," She continued in her flat, emotionless whisper. "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?"
Shin swallowed nervously. As the strange static caused by the technique (because it had to be a technique, made all the easier by the pangolin speaking directly to his mind, no doubt) he was hit with slowly receded from his mind, he began to feel something else - the sinking realization that they'd lost. That he'd failed when it mattered most.
"The Summoner asked you a question, boy." it was the same gravelly voice whose shout brought them down earlier.
"Yes?" Shin stuttered, confused. Was this some kind of game to keep him off balance? "No? I mean...you asked...uh...yes, it would be bad. Definitely bad." He managed to respond.
"Good," Keiko said. "Now, Pangaya, if you would?"
Claws as long as his own forearm held him down as he was efficiently hogtied with ninja wire. In the process, the tag on his back shifted, and though he braced himself for the explosion in a moment of panic, nothing happened.
"I knew you were bluffing!" he crowed, taking what little victory he could under the circumstances.
"I never said I activated it," Keiko replied calmly, looping wire around his ankles to finish the hogtie.
Shin was left to lie next to Ryūgamine, and ponder his failure as the main enemy assault force moved on to clearing the sealed facility.
o-o-o-o
They were rats in a cage.
It still didn't feel real to Anna, even as she ran from the expanding reddish cloud of gas. In truth, it was more like a fine powder, small particles suspended in the air, causing a debilitating burning in the eyes and throat upon contact. A strong irritant coupled with an efficient delivery mechanism, it was a very effective non-lethal weapon. And also completely beyond their expectations, not that it mattered at this point.
... she was doing it again, wasn't she? Retreating into the comfort of emotionless analysis, running from the reality surrounding her. They had lost, and it was her fault. She'd been given all the necessary tools: a strong team, a wealth of exhaustive information on the enemy, and a well thought out plan to optimize. Yet even with all these advantages, Keiko had crushed her effortlessly. As far as Anna knew, they hadn't even managed to inflict a single injury on the opposing team. It was complete humiliation. The only reason she'd managed to come this far was thanks to the efforts of her teammates, and now she'd failed them as well. Just as she'd failed Keiko, all those years ago, a traitorous voice in the back of her mind whispered.
Kiri was stuck to the floor in one of the cells, unable to even reach her barrel and deny the Gōketsu chakra contained within. Hyūga and Hazama had been caught at the very start of the fight. Aburame was still on his feet, though the powder has gotten into his eyes, and he had to be guided by the taciturn Hotoke. And they were out of places to run.
Anna looked up with resignation as a strip of the roof was peeled away above her. The game was over, and they had lost.
XP AWARD: 5 for the quality of the plan, +1 for brevity
FP AWARD: Anna and Shin get +1
Author's Notes: This was a great plan. Very well thought out, well organized, and easy to write for. You predicted enemy tactics accurately and prepared well. It was a pleasure to write, and not for the reasons you may suspect given the results.
To address the elephant in the room briefly, know that the QMs decided on the Gōketsu tactics before you started planning for this update, in order to keep ourselves from being influenced by what was discussed in the thread. We kept things as fair and impartial as we could. Unfortunately, this being a rational, simulationist quest means that some challenges are simply insurmountable. You can't punch out Kakashi as a genin, and defending against a summoner backed by a chakra battery and a sealing prodigy comes pretty close.
It's likely that we're going to need a bit more time to figure out the results of the Gōketsu rampage, and so @ScreamEnhancer will write an interlude on Thursday.
fallfetch said:
*SCREAMING IN RETSU-SENSEI*
rumba said:
Damn, that's pretty tough. Didn't even scratch them. It's not like we didn't know this could go poorly, we did our best to get a handle on the summons' power, but there understandably wasn't much a genin could learn there. And they turned out to be ridiculous. And after we did so well in the fourth event too.
tyrant said:
Anna, don't cry, it's not your fault.
First thing we need to do next update is work on morale.
fang said:
I'll admit I'm frustrated, especially so after our plan being praised. It couldn't have been that good, considering it completely failed to meet its goal. @CrowChief did we really have no chance? I don't know whether that makes me feel better or worse to be honest.
sapient_bush said:
What in the actual fuck. Did you see the dice on that Pangolin technique? That's literally a jounin level combatant. How in the world is this fair!?
19_parsec said:
@CrowChief I have to admit I'm very upset about this. This is supposed to be a rational quest, but one of our rivals literally is a summoner as a genin. Another can apparently make seals that aren't beatable with 40 Athletics rolls, that we've never even heard of. Oh, and apparently Keiko can just casually teleport from out of Byakugan range. How much XP per day did these guys get as missing-nin? It really feels like you've overspecced them to put us down. Their whole story sounds like something straight out of canon. Very disappointed.
Yari said:
Let's not get too salty guys. We were outmatched, and I don't know if we could've countered that teleport + pangolin on the roof move even if we anticipated it. Really should've worked harder to eliminate them before this event, we set ourselves up to fail from sheer arrogance.
CrowChief said:
On the topic of the Gōketsu being too strong, allow me to say this: They spent nearly two years as missing-nin. That is not an environment you develop a social spec in. You focus on directly applicable combat power, or you die. Remember Noburi boasting about fighting jonin and chakra megalodons? That was one of many hints we dropped to warn you that your rivals are a dedicated and synergistic combat specialist team. You chose to ignore all of them, to your peril.
To specifically address summons being too powerful, the situation where a chuunin-level ninja signs a contract is unprecedented, as you've been told many times. And, I'll just say this directly, she wouldn't have been able to do a third of what she did without Noburi's reserves, or even the whole team pitching in a bit. And no, them being able to do this is not coincidence. Don't assume only you are able to optimize your team's builds.
Final hint: Think about what you know about Hazō, and how the Gōketsu function together as a team. There's a lesson to be learned there.
sad_merchant said:
Riiight, absolutely fucking called it. "Mist gave them the worst teammates, and us the absolute dream team. They also spent the whole marsh event cooped up in their fort. They can't be that good at offense herp derp." I told you guys you don't survive two years in the wild, dodging Zabuza, without having some serious firepower. Should have tried a lot harder during the escort event. We knew the fifth event would be punching, and yet we staked it all on the fourth event. It worked, but it wasn't enough to sink them.
rapid_raptor said:
Well, at least Shin can stop feeling bad about all the cheating now. Because I don't know how this can be considered anything but. Just casually three jonin level summons, why the hell not.
mark_2 said:
Wait, what about the word halves? They're going to take them all, aren't they? ... Holy shit, they're going to take ALL the word halves, stick them in the summon realm, and use that as leverage to control round 2. We are so fucking dead.
sonar said:
Aunt Ren is going to be so sad
Fuck Jiraiya, fuck Leaf, and fuck this absolute horseshit
aut said:
And now Hazō gets to continue playing shounen protagonist with his peace and cooperation uplift nonsense just because he got lucky to find all this crap as a missing-nin. And he'll even be nice enough not to gloat about it, I bet, because he's just that much of a Mary Sue. I wanted to punch his stupid face so hard, and then this happened.
fallfetch said:
Guys, Kiri had a full barrel of chakra, didn't she? Can Noburi use it? Did we just gift them 700 CP for more Pangolin summons?
lady_death said:
We really did a number on Anna with this shit. Took so much work to deal with her self-esteem issues, and now they're back full force, not to mention her baggage involving Keiko. I hope this rivalry plot was worth it, guys.
rumba said:
Thankfully it was Shin, and not Anna, who had to listen to Keiko monologue this update. Girl is fucking terrifying. I know we had plans to fix that relationship somehow, but at this point I'd be scared for Anna's life.
Transient_Commenter said:
Okay. That went about as bad as it could have gone, because they apparently weren't lying all those times they said they killed Jonin. Let's go over all of Noburi's other boasts.
But we aren't out of this yet. They are out for everyone's blood, and I don't think anyone can stop them in combat. So we go for social. Poison their allies against them, and everyone else too. Should be easy if they keep slicing heels, but maybe that was payback for draining Hazou. @CrowChief, does Kiri think she got cut in the same place she drained Hazou?
We can pin blame on them for the dossiers too, now that their misinformation on our bloodlines is no longer relevant.
Remember people, the goal isn't the exam, it's keeping team uplift from starting ww4. Let's rub the disconnect between their goals and their actions in everyone's face. We can't stop them from becoming legends, but if we move fast we can control what that legend is.
fallfetch said:
Transient_Commenter said:
Okay. That went about as bad as it could have gone, because they apparently weren't lying all those times they said they killed Jonin. Let's go over all of Noburi's other boasts.
DON'T YOU GET IT THEY HAVE OUR WORD HALVES
OUR. WORD. HALVES.
THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE'S WORD HALVES AND THEN TRADE THEM OFF TO THE LOWER HALF OF THE COMPETITION FOR THEIR SUPPORT
WE'RE ALL FUUUUUUUUUUCKED
pb7 said:
I think we have an opportunity here. Remember how we can learn seals?
1. Spend a FP to have glanced at the seals Upstart used on us (motion-sensor explosive, iron slime)
2. Once we're up, look for seals on the roof. If they've somehow discovered Flying Thunder God, there should be one there. We might also find the roofbuster, if that wasn't a summon trick.
3. Learn Sealing next chance we get. If we get into the tournament, stomp them with their own tricks.
fallfetch said:
Don't be absurd, we're not learning Sealing in a month. Our best bet for fighting Team Goketsu is to get some sort of AOE mist seal from our family that ruins seal ink. And also some sort of gapcloser to take out Keiko before her Pangolins become an issue.
Transient_Commenter said:
I agree that we should never give Goketsu a target to punch ever again, and that we should go after the other red rampage members. But the best part is that we don't have to do the punching.
Goketsu is going to get released dead last. All the other blue teams can leave a few members behind to form an ambush. The proctors won't hand out -1000s because they hate Goketsu. We know they have bad awareness because they didn't notice the ambush in event 4. All they have to do is take out Keiko. Then the red teams form an alliance to crush Goketsu.
They are good at security, but in the swamp no one was really motivated to take them out. Things are different now.
fallfetch said:
I'm...fairly certain Blue team attacking other Blue teams during setup, in clear violation of the spirit of the rules, is a bit much, especially in front of a proctor. Mist may hate Goketsu but they can't be too overt about it, that's just asking for a shitshow that gets a hammer down against them.
As for the Event 4 ambush, that was Hazou who didn't notice. Hazou. Just Hazou. I refuse to believe that our team's Stealth is gonna out-sneak their entire team's Alertness. Especially considering the results of those rolls, and the fact that there's nothing stopping Keiko from getting another Pangolin up (something something Pankurashun something something Jonin level bullshit).
MadPoet said:
Hazou didn't notice a trap at night, so we got an aspect tag for poor visibility. Team Uplift did collectively notice our traps during the third event. We can't count on blindsiding them with this.
rumba said:
You don't get it. We're completely all-in on taking them down now. That's the only way to undo the mess we've created for Ren.
If we hadn't decided to meddle, they would've probably reached the tournament without all this rampage nonsense, and then did well in it, but would've been normal for a top ninja of a given age group. Like how everyone expected Sasuke to do well in the last exam, and he did. I'm pretty sure a lot of the stuff they brought out this round were secrets they didn't want to even show in the tournament itself, techniques and seals you keep close to your chest for when you're desperate.
But no, we had to go with this pointlessly risky rivalry crap because apparently we think we're in a shounen still. So now, we pushed them into showing their cards, and cutting down literally all the other candidates. Think about how that looks. It's utter fucking domination, the kind of thing people will be telling stories about for years to come, a legend in the making. It doesn't even matter if they make it into the tournament anymore, though they probably will. Ren's one major advantage in these negotiations was Jiraiya's uncertain support among Leaf clans, and we ruined it. You think anyone will try to go against him now that it's clear his adopted kids are legends in the making? We even fucking let the Hyuuga heiress get dunked on this update, weakening Jiraiya's only major rival.
The tournament is irrelevant. We need to show the world the Goketsu can bleed in round 2. Or else, Mist becomes a Leaf protectorate in all but name and we can kiss our dreams goodbye.
fallfetch said:
Wait, @ScreamEnhancer is writing the interlude. It's going to be Ren and the rest of the Kage learning about our failure, isn't it?
ScreamEnhancer said:
*changes QM doc password yet again*
The empty space in
@Kiba's original Negaverse post called out to me, so I started writing some snippets, and things got a bit out of hand over time. Hope you'll find this enjoyable. Credit to
@Kiba for the idea, to everyone else who contributed posts to the Negaverse thread, and to
@eaglejarl, some of whose lines from the original update I stole verbatim for consistency, and who was kind enough to betaread this omake for me.
