Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
Velorien said:
Jiraiya's expression fell. "Yeah. About that. Hazō, what are the two holy grails of shinobi warfare?"

"Flight and armour," Hazō said promptly. True flight could not be accomplished by ninjutsu or sealing; generations of sealmasters and technique hackers had tried and failed. Even Hazō could only cheat—which admittedly was what ninja were supposed to do. As for armour… armour ninjutsu did exist, but it was very rare, and guarded more closely than a dragon's treasure by the elite few who possessed it. Hazō's ability to facetank twin explosive tags demonstrated why.

Hazō's ability to facetank twin explosive tags… Ah, crap.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Days without an OPSEC break: 0

:p
 
So correct me if I'm wrong, but Hazou was never exposed to the explosion directly.

He was grappling Kitty Kat and holding him between himself and the blast. Can't we just say that Kitty Kat meatshielded for us, so we only took the (still kinda significant) damage that we did?
 
MMKII said:
HAZOU: I was wearing some of these underneath my clothes. Got some custom made beforehand, but now they're all shot to shit. Why do you think I was too slow to dodge those Blood Bullets? You think I'm always that slow? Psh. I train with Might Gai.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hazou: "Why do you think I let myself get beaten up by Gai-sensei? I don't feel pain anymore! Yosh! Youth!"
 
This chapter has multiple mentions of Hot Springs, MEW, OPSEC, (fake) suicides and "people sometimes act without considering the consequences".

Subtle it is not.
 
MadScientist said:
So correct me if I'm wrong, but Hazou was never exposed to the explosion directly.

He was grappling Kitty Kat and holding him between himself and the blast. Can't we just say that Kitty Kat meatshielded for us, so we only took the (still kinda significant) damage that we did?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Also that.

How about a combination of this and the armor or this and the clan secrets thing?
 
@OliWhail

How much of the following happened offscreen?

faflec said:
It's @Cariyaga's plan with some stuff that doesn't directly help us win our match cut out.

[X] Action Plan: We Have Matches To Win So Focus On That

Word Count: 225
  • Meet Jiraiya (secure location)
    • Debrief on all things gambling.
    • Any idea on how to get around the ban on seal usage?
      • EX: Keeping blanks in a storage scroll to infuse.
    • What do we do if the Hotsprings kid causes an international incident?
      • Implication: What if he outs us as the CSK?
    • Should we take precautions to avoid him catching the scent of our blood?
      • Drench our clothes in livestock blood maybe?
    • Ask for tips on:
      • Giving a dramatic pre-match speech?
  • Talk with Keiko and Noburi about Hana:
    • Hazou thinks he's biased towards his mother
      • With their permission, he gives them the full context of his recent conversation with Hana.
      • Though he was wrong to approach her judgmentally, she ignored our points and talked down to us.
      • Her actions in Leaf wereselfish. Is she post-hoc justifying her innocence?
      • Is he right to feel that being Hana's "thing to protect" is patronizing and adversarial?
  • Mentally steel self for tomorrow's match.
    • Expect Kotsuzui to badmouth us, our Momma/team, and our life choices.
    • Get Keiko/Noburi to insult Hazou as preparation.
    • Try to think of quippy counters and turn the narrative against Kotsuzui.
  • Misc:
    • Scribe (don't infuse!) relevant seals.
      • Explosives if nothing else is okayed.
    • Go and pay some butchers for a dozen buckets of (fresh!) livestock blood.
      • Store in a storage seal, keep fresh.
    • Ask Noburi to bribe some of the crowdgoers (half now, half later) to cheer us on.
      • Shouldn't take too much.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
MMKII said:
Also that.

How about a combination of this and the armor or this and the clan secrets thing?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hn. Keep it simple and seemingly inconvenient.

Kitty meatshielded for us, and his bloodline made him extra tanky (which we project as being annoyed about), but we want you to think that it was our own pain-tolerance training, even though it really was mostly Kitty's bloodline saving our necks.
 
Velorien said:
Minawa, flailing in panic, threw a series of Madara's Minute Meteors to slow him down before turning to run for the lake
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Velorien said:
But the true puzzle, and the one he had yet to solve, was the extraordinary obliteration of the campsite proper. Gaping craters had wiped any and all evidence from the face of the earth, as if Inoue had managed to find the legendary ninjutsu scroll of Madara's Minute Meteors. But assuming that she had not learned how to magically make rocks rain down from the heavens, only to disappear without a trace… The mysterious sealmaster's threat rating rose another notch.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For reference, did he actually say "Madara's Minute Meteors" when he used the jutsu or was Hazou just comparing the effects to something he'd heard about before? Last we heard of them Zabuza seemed to think it was a legendary lost jutsu, so if a Hot Springs Genin started throwing it around I think that'd put Hazou's armor out of the spotlight just a bit.

Velorien said:
His visits ceased eventually as he lost interest in her, but she still remembers those times fondly.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ryugamine losing interest in Ami? What could this mean?
  • Ami got skilled enough that Ryugamine wanted her to stop relying on his advice and figure things out her own way.
  • Ami stopped agreeing with Ryugamine on various things, causing him to withdraw support.
  • Ami stopped living up to Ryugamine's expectations (dubious given how extraordinary her performance is)
Personally none of these answers really seem right, except maybe Ami's affiliation with her mysterious third faction causing Ryugamine to realize she's not an asset for his faction.
 
ContextBot said:
Can we spend a fate point to have one? Keiko would probably die of a stroke.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You joke, but Chouji just beat Minawa by confusing and unbalancing him enough to make him abandon a winning strategy. We could also do this, and without targetting Keiko's insecurities.

Storage scrolls are permitted, right? We could have Hazou don a youthsuit before the fight, and then bombard Keiko with plush cats and ponies as our opening move.
 
Roomba said:
You joke, but Chouji just beat Minawa by confusing and unbalancing him enough to make him abandon a winning strategy. We could also do this, and without targetting Keiko's insecurities.

Storage scrolls are permitted, right? We could have Hazou don a youthsuit before the fight, and then bombard Keiko with plush cats and ponies as our opening move.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We don't know IC about the pony.

e: I wasn't joking.
 
I think the difficulty with all these explanations is that who is Hazou even saying them to and under what circumstances?

Nobody is going to ask him outright, "How did you do that?" That's a rude question and simply asking to be lied to in response. Hell, the double-bluff about bragging about his armor jutsu in a way that will be taken for a lie is almost the best option.
 
So about that armor jutsu:

Wouldn't anyone who has hit Hazou before with an attack which usually does damage but then unexpectedly fizzles on Hazou for no reason at least consider the existence of the jutsu?

Was Kots really the first time we got hit by something with the armor jutsu up or can we expect other people to have quietly passed on the possibility of said jutsu existing to their superiors?
 
MadScientist said:
Hn. Keep it simple and seemingly inconvenient.

Kitty meatshielded for us, and his bloodline made him extra tanky (which we project as being annoyed about), but we want you to think that it was our own pain-tolerance training, even though it really was mostly Kitty's bloodline saving our necks.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was thinking we run around Mist asking to see if blacksmiths can do any rush repair jobs on (Bloody and misshapen piece of metal) and/or if they can do a rush job on a replacement.

HAZOU: Look, I'm not a blacksmith! I don't care how long its "going to take" I need this now! How am I supposed to tank hits without my armor?!

BLACKSMITH #53: Look kid, theres absolutely no way its happening overnight, I don't care how much money you throw at me!

HAZOU: FINE!

proceed to next establishment while Anbu guard chuckles silently in the backalley
 
Tua said:
So about that armor jutsu:

Wouldn't anyone who has hit Hazou before with an attack which usually does damage but then unexpectedly fizzles on Hazou for no reason at least consider the existence of the jutsu?

Was Kots really the first time we got hit by something with the armor jutsu up or can we expect other people to have quietly passed on the possibility of said jutsu existing to their superiors?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That was the thing I was talking about earlier.

Touma the Lightning Lad (who we fought in the fifth event) appears to have a decently OP armor jutsu AND it appears to damage people who punch it.

Hence my confusion about this being a super massive problem, since precident exists for relatively good Genin to have access to such things on occassion.

Basically I don't see what Jiraiya and Keiko are whinging about.
 
Last edited:
Inferno Vulpix said:
For reference, did he actually say "Madara's Minute Meteors" when he used the jutsu or was Hazou just comparing the effects to something he'd heard about before? Last we heard of them Zabuza seemed to think it was a legendary lost jutsu, so if a Hot Springs Genin started throwing it around I think that'd put Hazou's armor out of the spotlight just a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's a ninja go-to description, the way you can refer to a Great Fireball technique even though the actual Great Fireball Technique is a proprietary Uchiha ninjutsu. Someone who was born in Leaf would probably reference the Phoenix Sage Fire Technique instead, another Uchiha technique which closely resembles what Minawa was using. (Leaf ninja are not big on associating anything good with Madara.)
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
More room for plush cats.

Or we could replace them with youthsuits in her size.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I have been on this thread for long enough now to know that these stupid-crazy-awesome-dumb ideas actually have a good chance of being voted in so I'd like to just preempt this:

I really don't want to reveal Keiko's personal weaknesses in public. We already broke OPSEC so lets not break the KEIKO as well. (Knowledge Enhanced Intelligent Kitten-loving Organism?)
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top