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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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I don't know whether it got brought up already, but Mari tried to sacrifice herself for us, and would have succeeded had Kei not used her bloodline to throw a wrench into Mari's plan at literally the last second. Informing Hana of this might help.

Or she might conveniently rationalise it away. Either or. But it probably won't hurt.
 
MadScientist said:
I don't know whether it got brought up already, but Mari tried to sacrifice herself for us, and would have succeeded had Kei not used her bloodline to throw a wrench into Mari's plan at literally the last second. Informing Hana of this might help.

Or she might conveniently rationalise it away. Either or. But it probably won't hurt.
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Eh, Hazou was kinda going for it but got sidetracked. That conversation went as well as we could expect, but given everything I don't think anybody's surprised that it didn't go optimally.
 
Radvic said:
She is acting fully within her character agency. Her agency just happens to be anti-aligned to our goals, in addition to herself being situated in a position of incredible power over our PC. My complaints are not that she's unrealistic, or badly written, or irrational. They are, in fact, the opposite. She is well written, acting sensibly, and within the bounds of reason for her experiences. As a result of that, she is opposed to most of our goals at least somewhat and our PC affords her a significant amount of influence into his life. This means she as a character is a large roadblock to many of our plans. This means I personally would be quite happy if she were to die or otherwise become irrelevant in a way which didn't cause Mist-Leaf tensions to ignite.

My particular preferance for "way to make her fall into obscurity" is to nudge Hazou into deciding he doesn't love her anymore and that she's disruptive to his life plans, and then strongly communicate that to her. I imagine she would be largely non-fuctional if such a thing happened, and thus no longer able to disrupt our plans.
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I mean...is she anti-aligned at all? Hazou cites her upbringing of him as a major reason for his idealism, and while her attitude towards civilians may not be what we'd consider moral, these things are graded on a curve when it comes to assessment of individual ethics. This isn't mentioning at all her near-immediate acceptance of till'n'fill missions purely based on their importance towards Hazou. In what possible way can she be interpreted as a long-term roadblock?


Vecht said:
This is never a valid justification for causing harm out of apathy or spite.

Even if it were, Hana is practicing no small amount of willful ignorance to continue to believe her interpretation of reality. She has continually interpreted every observable as evidence in her favor and found cause to dismiss any arguments to the contrary. This is not how a reasonable person operates.

Believable? Yes. Realistic? Yes. Sympathetic, understandable, relatable? Yes. Reasonable? No. Rational? Hell no.

(I hate that this bears mentioning, but this is not a dig at QMs. Not everyone should behave rationally in a rational setting. That would be absurd -- most people IRL don't.)



On the plus side, if there's any relation at all with the IN and the Sharingan...
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Uhh...reasonable doesn't mean unemotional, detached, and all-knowing.
 
Something we could try, to help make amends to Kagome, is start a lupchanzen hunt.
eaglejarl said:
"Team Hisakawa met up with that mobile vegetable monster with the toxic spore jets and mind-control tentacles. Turns out, the things are mighty tasty with a bit of salt.
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If this quote is talking about what I think it's talking about, we may be able to find a lupchanzen if we search through the Swamp of Death for one. From there, if we can capture it alive and bring it back we can help convince people around Leaf that Kagome's not full of hot air, as well as figure out what's going on with the little guys.

After the exams, of course, and not when we might be needed at a moment's notice, but I think we could credibly schedule an outing for the three genin and Kagome together without much trouble.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Something we could try, to help make amends to Kagome, is start a lupchanzen hunt.
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That might just be Early Installment Weirdness.


We should exploit a combination of Keiko's Fan Club, Hazou's A-rank ability "Print Literal Money" and Keiko's mad bartering skillz to acquire All The Chocolate, All The Honey, and All the Sweets available in Leaf right now. Should only take a day or so of time IC if we plot it out correctly. Maybe Hazou would have to pull an all nighter making seals to get $ and barter with, but eh. Speaking of:

@eaglejarl

Did Hazou pay his Explosives Tag tax for the month while he was at the Tower?
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Something we could try, to help make amends to Kagome, is start a lupchanzen hunt.

If this quote is talking about what I think it's talking about, we may be able to find a lupchanzen if we search through the Swamp of Death for one. From there, if we can capture it alive and bring it back we can help convince people around Leaf that Kagome's not full of hot air, as well as figure out what's going on with the little guys.

After the exams, of course, and not when we might be needed at a moment's notice, but I think we could credibly schedule an outing for the three genin and Kagome together without much trouble.
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Ehhh....
eaglejarl said:
Well, not exactly mind control. It shoves a tentacle into your spinal column between C4 and C5, interfaces with your nervous system, and overrides all motor control commands outgoing from the brain to the body. Don't worry, though, it doesn't have any reason to shut down the incoming ones so you still have full sensory awareness.
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Velorien said:
A chakra brain parasite with its limited structural complexity could not adequately comprehend, replace and imitate the human host's functioning but only inject its own influence into the existing mental substrate meaning it was impossible for the host to be aware of the infection including the Hyūga who would either have to all be infected and their perceptions filtered or be unable to flag lupchanzen signs as abnormal because everyone they had ever met had been infected.
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Sounds like the lupchanzen and these tentacled horrors are seperate species. Unless Shikaku is mistaken. Or the QM is [ERROR].
 
LIGHTBULB!

Velorien said:
It happened at breakfast, after Noburi had finished helping Kagome-sensei recover from morning exercises with Minami.

The sealmaster rose shakily from his seat, and stood so that the rest of the group was facing him in a rough semicircle.

"I…" he mumbled. "I just wanted to… I… I wanted to say…"

He trailed off. His mouth opened and closed helplessly as if he was a hooked fish gasping for water.

Finally, his eyes lit up as if he'd hit on an idea. His gaze snapped into the middle distance.

"I mishandled a risk assessment and implemented a personal project without seeking feedback from the rest of the team," he pronounced like a Leaf printing press stamping words onto paper line by line. "I… how'd it go… I humbly apologise for this violation of procedure and am prepared to accept any disciplinary measures my supervisors deem appropriate."

His eyes refocused again. "I thought I was doing the right thing," he said quietly but clearly. "I really did. I thought getting rid of Dumbbutt, uh, I mean Minami, was just eliminating another risk, like we do every day. But I guess in all my years alone, I forgot that… there's a reason sealmasters work in groups. It means if one person screws up, somebody else might notice before the trial phase.

"I… Despite everything, when it counted, I forgot what it meant that we were a team.

"Back at the lab, they'd put me on meatbag duty for this—if I was lucky. I don't… I don't know what I'm supposed to do now, but I swear I'll find some way to make it up to you."

Kagome-sensei bowed, and bowed deep. The gesture of abject submission from Hazō's master made Hazō feel a little sick inside.

"I'm so sorry," Kagome-sensei said to the skytower floor. "Please don't hate me. Please don't kick me out."
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You know, a while back, in the high pressure, hostile environment of the Chunin Exam, I remember thinking about how nice it was going to be to finally relax and take it easy after getting back to Leaf. To pursue some sealing projects, train, hang out with people, host some game nights, all without any immediate pressure or high stakes situations.

Silly me. I must have temporarily taken leave of my senses and forgotten what quest this is. Remember the concerns about joining Leaf possibly leading to lighthousing and a boring narrative? I could really fucking use a calm, isolated lighthouse right now, to be completely honest.

Thanks for the update @eaglejarl, it was great and painful.
 
There's something I still don't understand about the last update, about the stuff toward the end. Is Hazou just not comprehending an apparent polyamory situation, or is there some deeper issue going on that I'm not grasping that's legitimate cause to wonder what the heck is going on?

And is there really any reason to care about the whole orgy thing in the first place to such a degree that we need to find ways to blame it on Anko or whatever?
 
TaliesinSkye said:
There's something I still don't understand about the last update, about the stuff toward the end. Is Hazou just not comprehending an apparent polyamory situation, or is there some deeper issue going on that I'm not grasping that's legitimate cause to wonder what the heck is going on?
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I think what confuses him is that it's Ibiki Morino/Anko/CivilianGirl that date, not Jiraiya/Mari/Anko which he could probably comprehend.
 
Roomba said:
You know, a while back, in the high pressure, hostile environment of the Chunin Exam, I remember thinking about how nice it was going to be to finally relax and take it easy after getting back to Leaf. To pursue some sealing projects, train, hang out with people, host some game nights, all without any immediate pressure or high stakes situations.

Silly me. I must have temporarily taken leave of my senses and forgotten what quest this is. Remember the concerns about joining Leaf possibly leading to lighthousing and a boring narrative? I could really fucking use a calm, isolated lighthouse right now, to be completely honest.

Thanks for the update @eaglejarl, it was great and painful.
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Hazou in a few chapter: "Boy, am I glad to be back in Mist!"

Everything is going according to Ren's masterplan. Probably.
 
Honestly at this point I wouldn't be averse to Hazou taking a long distance C-Rank to get away from this clusterfuck for a while after the Chunin Exam concludes.

An episode of just Hazou and his solo adventure sounds good to me.
 
Drasky said:
Honestly at this point I wouldn't be averse to Hazou taking a long distance C-Rank to get away from this clusterfuck for a while after the Chunin Exam concludes.

An episode of just Hazou and his solo adventure sounds good to me.
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He can get around to doing some espionage while doing some Uplift while getting some seal production in on the side.

All to start our Merchant Empire and Secret Propaganda Mill, of course.
 
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