Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Chocolate cookies are perfectly good for you. Not for your body, no, but certainly for the mood!
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
If Kei is starting to reconnect with Anna then Ami's plan is shot to hell.
- Location
- Yes.
something something kill Anna something something laughing in Kagome
- Location
- floating away
Shin, earlier
TN: Realize how bad an idea opening strange storage scrolls is. 3
Shin, Intelligence ? + 4df = -4, ouch
Shin, Intelligence ? + 4df = -4, ouch
Shin looked at his rival laying motionlessly in the mud. Hazo was perfectly at his mercy. Now he just had to take his word halves and lure a proctor to his position without implicating anybody from mist.
...Okay, then. Shin reflected after digging through Hazos pockets, revealing over 70 storage seals, hundreds of explosives, and dozens more he couldn't recognize but his bloodline swore were filled with eldritch power. This may take longer than I thought.
But Shin had time, and he knew how to operate a storage scroll. This is fine.
The first scroll was empty. No problem.
The second was full of sawdust. Shin was more confused than anything.
The third seemed to not work at first, only to release a large log several seconds later. Stupid defective seals.
The fourth scroll contained nothing but a burning log, and then everything for Shin was fire and pain.
Kurosawa secret bloodline ability, re-roll failed roll leading to death!
Shin, earlier
TN: Realize how bad an idea strange opening storage scrolls is. 3
Shin, Intelligence ? + 4df = 5!
Shin, Intelligence ? + 4df = 5!
Shin looked at his rival, laying motionlessly in the mud. Hazo was perfectly at his mercy. ...
Yeah, selling his name to everybody will just have to be enough for now.
Last edited:
You have no idea how much warmth this brings to my wretched heart.
Always kill Anna.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I thought the plan was to do all the horrible experiments on to figure out how to enslave the Mori voice
Awkward part there, if it's all one entity then the shard in Keiko would know about us having done so, and that seems... bad.
Oh, and also that sort of experimentation seems to be outside of Hazou's morals
.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Eh, I dunno if Hazou considers the Chakra AI behind the Frozen Skein to be a person.Awkward part there, if it's all one entity then the shard in Keiko would know about us having done so, and that seems... bad.
Oh, and also that sort of experimentation seems to be outside of Hazou's morals
Akane broke up with Hazou. But she did it in a way that wasn't exactly clear to him, as she didn't outright say it. He's basically in denial and thinks that she's just upset with him and their relationship status is 'had a fight'.
- Location
- The Deep Blue Sea
*ș̵̲͍̩̯̀́hị̴͔k̛͏̭͕͇̳̟̱̯͎a̶̴̪͉̘̱̤͕̰͝k̞͔͕͙̳͍͕͉͝ú̬̫.́jp̛̬̭͖̩̦̰̼̻ͅg̡̫̠͖͉͇̝͡͝ ͏̵̢̞i͖̟͕̤̟̕ͅn̴̜̞͓͚̤͜t̶̜̣͈͕͉̹ͅe̲̭͢ns̰͙̭̝͉ì̡̹̗f̢̧͓̗͈͚͍͎̤͙ͅi̛e̻͍̠̱͔̤͖̜͚͡s͠*
DAMN SON, I THOUGHT NOBURI WAS A WATER-ELEMENT BUT THAT WAS A BUUUUUURN
My goodness, @Velorien, how lewd
Yes. Except for Keiko, who needs a weighted blanket, a warm pot of tea, and a quiet corner of a library with a comfy chair.
I KNOOOOW. @Velorien Keiko best Keiko confirmed confirmed.
Vote for it and find out
I read her as referring to verbal sparring rather than physical
- Location
- Potato land
Putting aside the Shin shenanigans, this was a very good chapter for Keiko. Making her first unprompted attempt at breaking out of her fatalistic mindset is a huge step forward for her. Thus far attempts at fighting her self-perception as someone whose faults inevitably destroy all of her relationships revolved around directly confronting that belief, with limited success. Maybe a better answer is what she seemingly came up with this update: that what is broken can perhaps be fixed. Things can change.
Hopefully this whole debacle with Shikamaru propping us up will convince Shikaku that Hazou is really all about dumb luck.
Or perhaps the next time they meet, Shikaku will thank Hazou for graciously letting his son stand out.
Hopefully this whole debacle with Shikamaru propping us up will convince Shikaku that Hazou is really all about dumb luck.
Or perhaps the next time they meet, Shikaku will thank Hazou for graciously letting his son stand out.
No, she just needs her hug to come from Ami. With reassurances that she will never date Hazou.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
FTFY
Honestly, I can't see Shikaku taking the Mastermind Hazou idea seriously given how he seemed to see right through us when we met him. Certainly he keeps track of it as a low-probability alternative, it would be silly to discard the idea out of hand, but I feel like this theory is 99% just a hivemind meme by now.
A darn good meme, I might add, but not something to take seriously.
KEI: Please just promise me you'll never date Hazou?
AMI: Of course I--
(HAZOU enters the room. AMI's eyes unfocus.)
AMI: Uh... Let me get back to you on that one...
Omake: In Preferred Order [AU]
- Location
- UK
In Preferred Order [AU]
My chakra burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends─
It gives a lovely sight.
My chakra burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends─
It gives a lovely sight.
The desk was strewn about with papers, decorated with wavy diagrams of every esoterica, each drawn through long unseen arcs and perpendicular strokes forming the hidden web of negative space that etched each page. Along each margin notes were scribed, in garrulous detail where the matter was dull, with prestigious insight where it was most effused with the excitement of discovery, each letter its own uniquely perfect glyph, a lifetime of practice in the detail from every rushed stroke. The red light of the burning lamp brought out an age to the pages, like an old manuscript freshly repainted with its black silken lines, a wizened old man with memories as crystallized as the day they were formed. The quill pen dipped back into the well of ink, rebranding itself with a sheen of darkness, recloaking itself, ready to draw its will on the world.
The pen tapped the paper, the lines of thought tapering out to a pitter of points, as H's writing scrawled to a halt. His eyes scanned the line, flicked back to scan it a second time, drew back to read it a third time, and he shook into motion, pawing through the sprawl of documents with such haste as if expected he'd lost a seal among them. His hands would slide one into view, but his eyes'd have left it behind, finished with their peruse before the grainy noise of paper against wood had even started to settle─and then the next; two below on the left─third along on the right─top of the pile─no─the one on orbital mechanics; sheet after sheet sighted and dismissed. Only at last, after his frantic hunt branded every lead dead, did H allow himself a backward lean, to breathe deeply, and swear to the fucking Sage's bloody hthsshluhl piece of─breathe, H, breathe.
H leaned forward, feeling the musty currents of the lamplit cabin detour to his centre on every mediated breath. "K," he called across the room through the open doorway, "you aren't going to like this, but I need you to check my working." The sound diffracted easily around the small house, out here deep in the wilderness, through the doorless ways, to the very front of K's room, but the room's thick granite construction necessitated some extra volume, despite the periodic seal-aided amplification. Yet they were alone, as H had been from the day he decided to run from Mist, as K had been since the events that left him the Black Hunter in Iron, so he didn't mind shouting a little.
A deep stone thud some seconds later marked the opening of a half-ton rotary lock, as the following scramble did K's ineffective attempts at stealth in a house he had purposefully designed to be unstealthable. A mirror cautiously poked around the corner, viewing the room through its shiny eye with trepidation, before snapping back as would a poked antenna. K snaked his head around the bend, and nervously stepped through. He was old, in his seventies, and he had a long scar along his throat, a story for another time.
dt-de-de dtdtdtdt dt-de─
⌜what won't I like?⌟
K's fingers twitched as he spoke, modulating a pair of active seals on his palm, covering them in time with their beeps, a miniature magical drum kit that spoke in shrill dotdash. It was discrete enough you couldn't see him doing it if you weren't paying attention, though set to this pitch you could just localise the sound. Still, it suited him, and made the loss of his voice a little more bearable.
H hesitated, but passed along the newest page─still sitting top and centre─which K snatched up, sliding down his glasses─grated, in case of explosions─and held it up close to fight against his failing vision. His tells marked everything, a dismissive scoff at the premise, an inward lean at the technical parts, and you could see the realization as it hit; his body twitched into a lower stance, hand struck for his seals, a singular reaction to discomfort and fear that had never left him, not once since the day they met. H had tried removing his most easily accessible seals, since he ended up reducing things to rubble on reflex more often than not, but this just made him twitchier, more prone to explosive violence. Now they just replaced his outermost seals with blueprints, symbolic descriptions of the seals, and it seemed to have some kind of therapeutic effect, their universal language triggering all the same symbolic comfort as the real deal, yet they were totally inactive, safe enough for even the most irresponsible child, or the dumbest of stinkers. Nothing made up for the lack of a stable family, and nothing could ever even compensate for what H dragged him through year after year, but there was still joy in the little steps, miniature deltas that, in the long run, maybe...
K drew up a chair, snatching back up the dud he'd thrown to the wall in panic, and bunched up some paper at the desk. ⌜I need to check this,⌟ he typed out, letter at a time, ⌜but I hope you're wrong.⌟ So he wet his pen and set to work.
• • •
⌜the Fifth knows this seal.⌟
H jolted up so fast his pen scratched the table. "No! Jiraiya?"
⌜we need to─⌟
"Fuck no! We are not fighting Jiraiya! No! We're going to die!"
⌜do you want to─⌟ K asked, adjusting upward the pace of his speech.
"I don't want this!"
⌜IN PREFERRED ORDER⌟, he pounded out, the beeps screaming from the seals at incredible volume.
This was ridiculous. How in the gods is there meant to be an upside to throwing their lives away? Preferred fucking order? You think Jiraiya gives a shit about preferred-fucking-order? You want reasons this is a terrible idea? Sure, OK then, I can do lists. How about this. Point one, Jiraiya─ uh, Jiraiya── uhh…
H fumed, but he fed it back. His chakra flared, and his eyes flashed red. A fire ignited inside him and time ticked slower and slower and stopped. He had got his Sharingan the night Mist killed his mother. He had left the day after. The slow of time reminded him of her.
His eyes burned crimson light, and bled threads of chakra through his body. His mind separated away from his tension, and his tension floated away from his mind, as he drifted detached, a perfect puppet-master over his own form.
The world had ground to a halt. He felt his Sharingan dance around the room, stopping over each detail, every crevice seen before, afresh with new eyes.
He felt the inferno of his chakra burn through his veins, flooding his every corner with intentionality and will, every thought with direction, every idea dispassioned and dissociate.
He looked at the table where K was sitting. He had hated that table, seconds ago. So much groundbreaking work had happened there, so many miracles discovered, even lives saved. It was the table they first sat down at to work on their identity-free sealing descriptions. They were still discovering newer and better symmetries to represent the true craft, but what little they had already worked through had paid countless dividends. K had viewed that language as his only redemption, a way to break with the past, to separate study from sacrilege, so precious to him that he loved it like a child. It was the table at which H had sat watching his only companion in thirty-plus years learn to talk again, struggling through the alphabet on the very first seal they had designed together. The scar from the event was still visible over his throat, as he had been even more useless at medical jutsu back then than he was now, but it no longer gave him the intense guilt-bred agony it used to. It was the table, seconds ago, he had loved.
But it was also the table they murdered from.
He looked away, meeting K's eye. He'd found him in the woods, back when he was alone and lost. Not the friendliest of greetings, mind you, but it had worked out modulo only minor wounds. K was damaged then, and without a shred of the loving or care he needed or oh so desperately deserved, and he was no less damaged now. But they'd been with each other for so long, longer than most ninja live, through the thickest and thinnest, against all manner of chakra beasts and lupchanzen, through far worse of their own devising. You could see the time passing on his face, wrinkles forming canyons, shielding a mind that itself wasn't immune to the passage of time. H didn't know how he was going to cope with the inevitable consequence of K's ticking clock. He wasn't just the only person H could call a friend, he was the only person he could ever again consider a family.
But he was also the family he murdered with.
In preferred order, he had asked. Not really a question, just a demand. There was nothing more to want than to give K some happiness, retire next to a farm, live in a place of temporary calm, maybe meet some villagers and get him some real company. There was nothing more tantalizing than to settle under some powerful watch, trade a few tricks with Leaf to live under one of the clans─the Aburame, say─and pretend to be normal. He would maybe… maybe even consider continuing to work in the shadows, tying alliances together, forming bonds between nations, quelling uprisings without a single casualty.
But that wasn't the demand, was it?
Point one. Jiraiya was at least a decade older than Hiruzen ever reached, and he was still the fifth. Ninja don't live that long in public unless they're impenetrable. Jiraiya had lived through a plurality of wars, and fought opponents vastly more tricky than the two of them.
Point two. Jiraiya was the sage, and Jiraiya was really damn good at being the sage. Summoning contracts were powerful, and came with a host of powers. Boss summons, sage mode, specialist jutsu; even reverse summoning was an abusable skill, providing instant refuge without even needing to disperse the (immortal) summons left here on Human Path.
Point three. Jiraiya was yet still a contender for best sealsmaster in the world. How he managed this behind all his other achievements is a mystery, but alas and despite their achievements so far, neither H nor K had any particular confidence that they could best him. Not without breaking the rules.
Point four. Jiraiya rarely, if ever, left Leaf at this stage in life, and Leaf was full of all sorts, Hyūga, Nara, you name it. They had taken time to recover after the war, but they had recovered first, and on the back of it they had only gained strength. Leaf was nearly impenetrable.
You look at those points and you see only the impossible, dauntless task waiting before and above. Yet to wait five more minutes, or one moment with the eye, to let yourself think, and cracks form in the facade. It wasn't impossible, it just sucked. Jiraiya was one mistake away from ending the world. They could deal with sucked.
Seconds after the Sharingan flared, it dispersed, its raindrops sliding away, red backing fading to black. The world sped back into motion, and the thick substance of compressed space gave way to the inelegant freedom of the real world.
"Of course you're right," H admitted. "Better to be an assassin than leave a nuke lying around. We'll figure it out."
• • •
They stood on an empty platform raised high above the wide open ocean. It was a disk about six metres side-to-side, large stone tiles placed over an unseen ninja-wire base, with a polished granite podium raised in the centre. H had removed the pangolin scroll from his clothing─being nigh-impervious to damage, it made good armour─and after scrubbing off the ink they had caked it black with, they had placed it, as fresh and dry as it had ever been, atop the stand. The old summoners' names still stood engraved like the day they were made. H's old name stood at the end, no less foreign to him than the legendary Beast Lord above, or the stranger atop.
Iseri Fuki
Ui Isas
Kurosawa Hazō
The scroll itself had been an accidental find, found in the rubbles of Hidden Mountain, after they had discovered the village's primary jutsu. It didn't take much insight to realize Elemental Mastery was dangerous. The village itself was a risk, if only they had the smarts to know what they had wrought, but the real danger was its discovery. No other ninja civilization would be so blind to the the combat applications of their Elemental Mastery, and as curiosity brings expertise, soon after draws the end of the world, buried in icy tundra and tropical storms. Hidden Mountain couldn't stay hidden forever, and so it had to go. A few thousand seals later and the place was gone.Ui Isas
Kurosawa Hazō
The whole thing left him sick, an empty carcass for months post the event, and when negotiations with the Pangolins revealed their true nature, H had sabotaged everything in his fury. The Sharingan cannot save you from yourself if you have already made up your mind. Once you're committed, it only serves to blind your better self.
It took a few tries, the technique hazy in his mind, but within the minute the technique stuck, black ripples spread from his palm, and with a puff of smoke a Pangolin; Pandā, if the memory serves; appeared through the smoke.
"Sir," the pangolin stood from the smoke, "it is the greatest honour to meet you again."
There's a change in tune. He stood to attention with force, claws interleaved in their symbol for peace. A scar ran through one of his eyes, and his shoulder was bare of scales. But Pandā stood straight, unflinching, in respectful attention, not his old bundle of genocidal enthusiasm, not naïve, unlearned and spirited like the times of past, not a bitter stranger vengeful over their last encounter. They had been losing the war, therefore, and his innocent camaraderie lost itself there too. If even a noncombatant like Pandā left wounded and broken, trained to a grim point, perhaps then they had already lost.
The shock in his character when his periphery returned and he smelled the salty air still got him, but the momentary panic and awe from seeing his place in the sky passed quickly. He was still desperate, that was the plan.
"Pangolin," H said, "we are in need your services. If you help us in this task, we will consider winning you your foolish wars. If you do not, or should you let us fail, then I wish you the best of luck on your own. Report this to your superiors. I expect a response by sundown."
"Sir, yes sir," the pangolin replied, "I would be honoured to relay your request."
He disappeared in a puff of smoke the moment H dismissed him.
This is only ~half done, but I'm a slow writer and I've run low on motivation, so I thought it best to publish this for now. Feel free to point out typos or improvements, or anything, really. Apologies for the cliffhanger. <3
The theme is based on MordBad's old post.
An AU Hazō and Kagome, armed with a Sharingan and decades of experience together, run around ridding the world of existential threats. Lacking the tools to do this the right way, and without the support of the extended family (who, frankly, would never have agreed to the task), the responsibility takes a heavy toll.
Last edited:
- Location
- Potato land
I wouldn't be surprised if it was doable. However, there are so many intermediate steps between our current state and having an actually usable computer, that I doubt it can be completed within Hazou's lifetime.
I wasn't talking about computers. Just logic gates.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
So, on the note of Keiko...
Remember how she came up with a workable plan all on her own for reasons that people couldn't pass her in the fourth event when she and Noburi were rescuing Hazou?
...I feel like that's something we should bring up to her. Because that's a big deal for her. And I think I know how she was able to do that. See, the way her bloodline works is that it allows her to optimize others' plans. So, in short:
Given a framework, she can make it function better.
The framework in that case was their previous work with, uh, I forget her name, but the pervy granny. This means that she is able to iterate on past experiences as the framework for her own planning.
Remember how she came up with a workable plan all on her own for reasons that people couldn't pass her in the fourth event when she and Noburi were rescuing Hazou?
...I feel like that's something we should bring up to her. Because that's a big deal for her. And I think I know how she was able to do that. See, the way her bloodline works is that it allows her to optimize others' plans. So, in short:
Given a framework, she can make it function better.
The framework in that case was their previous work with, uh, I forget her name, but the pervy granny. This means that she is able to iterate on past experiences as the framework for her own planning.
- Location
- The Deep Blue Sea
I'm sorry, I'm just having a really really hard time understanding what's going on at pretty much any point. I get H and K are Hazou and Kagome, but then you mentioned the Sharingan, K speaks with morse code seals and it's not mentioned how he lost his voice, and I don't know what 'abstinence' means in this context or why seals are better than it, and Keiko isn't listed as a past Pangolin summoner so apparently she didn't even die she just never was there, and the 'context' box at the bottom doesn't explain any of this.....? :/
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I am imagining talking with people using only their own words.We really need to get our sound recording seal.
I mean, can you imagine?
- Location
- London
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Actually, per the wiki:
But also, in the anime at least, it was referred to as a kinjutsu. Man, if ONLY we had an in with someone who could give us access to Leaf's Super-Size Scroll of Secret Techniques. But I bet only like the top village spymaster or the Hokage would have that kind of access.
- Location
- UK
Bleh. Thanks for saying.
It's AU. H was born with the Sharingan because sometimes that happens to Kurosawa. You don't know how K lost his voice, and it's not super important.
Translation: "K carries around many explosion seals. K is very twitchy, because his life is even more distressing than MfD!Kagome, which is a problem because K often blows things up accidentally. H tried removing K's most easily-accessed seals to prevent this reflex, but this just made K more twitchy. Instead, H replaced K's most easily-accessed seals with blueprints in their universal sealing language, which are harmless. This helped."
H has never heard of this "Keiko" you speak of.
But srsly, thanks. I have a habit of being, uh, not super transparent, mostly because I write for myself. I'll see if I can improve things.
Please vote informative on this post if you had the same issue as Oli.