- Location
- London
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Add in some Red Bull and you've just reinvented grad school.
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
Add in some Red Bull and you've just reinvented grad school.
- Location
- Yes.
@OliWhail QUICK WRITE IN A JOKE FIGHT BETWEEN HAZOU AND KEIKO
inb4 augsphere and jackercracks collaborate on the next update and sneak it in a second earlier than all the others
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
+8 actually; we can fill up mental and physical consequence tracks.
e: Hm. It just occurred to me that high levels of Resolve/Physique are synergistic with Sealing for that reason.
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Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Not while we're in Mist, obviously.
Omake: The Shattered Heart, ch. 1
Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Omake: The Shattered Heart, ch. 1
There's so much noise.
The barks of the drill instructor in the distance. The dull thud of kunai sinking into targets. The whispers of the other students, looking at this cold, silver-haired girl none of them have ever seen before. Looking at her. Don't they know? Don't they know? She's so small, she's keeping herself small, like they taught her, her family, even Fuutsu knows how to be small when she has to - but no, no, she can see them, making her larger in their heads, blowing her up into something strange and different.
The instructor says something. She didn't catch it, but she can read his face: impatience lurking behind formality, a little resentment towards this spoiled clan girl he's going to have to nursemaid -
She shakes the thought from her head, and bows formally.
"Kakero Sae. I - "
How does it go again?
"- I look forwards to sharing my schooling with all of you so as to become a strong and competent protector of Sand."
It's perfect. It's what she's supposed to say. It's also utterly, completely wrong. Everyone is staring at her. Even the teacher is staring at her.
She hides her fear behind her mask, takes three long strides over to her desk, and sits down with a flounce and a deliberate fuss with her skirts.
"I like being perfect," she says, looking down into her lap.
The whispers go around the class again. In her mind's eye, she can see the big one in the back opening his mouth -
She flashes a grin over her shoulder. "And if you believe that, I have a few dunes to sell you. Don't forget, my sister's only the biggest troublemaker in the whole village."
That shuts him up.
It doesn't do much for her reputation, though.
------
There are exactly 56 pieces of poorly-concealed graffiti on the school grounds. The roses near the school entrance are dying. The textbook is poorly-written and has more than twenty typoes in the first chapter alone, to say nothing of its factual inaccuracies. The training targets are frayed and sun-bleached, and could really use a proper restoration. The other students are terribly careless of their belongings. Even the teacher occasionally makes mistakes she can catch.
She doesn't say anything. She keeps herself small.
Instead, she goes around after hours with a bucketful of water and sponges.
She can't fix the textbook. She can't change the teacher. But she can water the roses, and scrub away the graffiti that'll shift.
One of the older girls finds her in the awkward cubby beneath the stairwell, scrubbing determinedly at a very-badly-drawn dick.
Sae doesn't look up. Rule one of infiltration: You should be here.
"What are you doing, little miss perfect?", comes the mocking voice.
Sae keeps scrubbing.
"I said, what are you doing?"
She doesn't look up. If questioned, break their expectations. "Detention."
The older girl blinks. "Really? Little miss perfect fucked up for once, huh?"
Sae just nods. Give your enemies the opportunity to have power over you, and they'll take it.
- and then everything jars as the older girl sits down next to her.
"Pass me a sponge," she says.
Sae stares.
She rolls her eyes. "What, do you think I like having dicks drawn all over my school? Pass me a damn sponge. It'll go faster if there's two of us."
Hesitantly, Sae passes her the spare.
She takes it wordlessly, and gets to work on the nearby caricature of Sae's instructor.
Sae never does learn her name.
-----
Her first live spar goes badly.
Her chakra control is good. Is strong. Is better than most students a year older than her, in fact. But she just - can't. There's no power in her blows. She can do the forms, mechanistically, but when it comes to wanting it, to needing to win even if it hurts her opponent -
Well, there's a reason her back's one big purpling bruise.
Her instructor says she has the killing intent of a wet noodle. She's honestly a little proud of that.
But - she's supposed to serve the village. To help. To be able to defend it from attack.
She's not going to be able to do that if she's killed or captured.
And - someone like her, with her bloodline - she's never not going to be a target. Her mother's made that very clear.
So. She'll just have to try.
-----
She can see how the lessons are designed to shape her. To desensitize her. To break her down and build her up again, into a tool that doesn't need empathy, that will be strong enough to take blows without breaking. She can see how discipline becomes armor, how purpose becomes power.
She counts every scrape, bruise, cut and broken bone in the back of her head, on a little dial labelled "reasons why I will never teach ninja."
She wishes it worked on her.
-----
She fails her first Genin exam. It's not for lack of trying. It's just that - she can't fight. She just can't.
She tries anyway.
-----
A month before her second Genin exam, she's finally desperate enough to go to her mother for help.
"How do you manage it?", she says. "How can you - hurt people, see them suffer because of you, and keep doing it?"
Her mother - no, Itsumi, always the first name, never 'mom', never 'mother' - smiles sadly at her from behind her massive oak desk.
"I'm a surgeon," she says. "And you have to learn, as a surgeon, to hurt in order to help. It's hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, choosing to be someone who can do that. It's - never really stopped being hard, dearest."
Before Sae knows it, she's being hugged.
"I'm sorry," her mother whispers. "For - I don't know."
She squeezes her closer. "I don't know."
Sae, very slowly, decides to hug back.
After a long moment, her mother sets her down again, her familiar, businesslike manner effortlessly sliding back into place.
"You'll want these," she says: and she hands Sae a deck of cards.
She blinks. "- what are these?"
Her mother smiles. "An old, old custom. A superstition, almost. Only to be used in the direst emergency - but I think, now, they're warranted. Take them to your secret place. Draw three cards. Past, present, future. Let them show you your heart."
" - Oh," Sae says, absently shuffling through, her eyes cataloging each card's no-doubt-symbolic design. "It's like - a very, very complex coinflip test."
"More or less," says her mother. "Now run along. You have thinking to do."
"Yes, Itsumi."
-----
Sae sits in her high and lofty bed, hugging her plush dragon close, covers wrapped tightly around her. Her fingers feel the contours of the strange card deck, tracing the intricate designs oh-so-carefully embossed onto the back of every card.
It's quiet. It's twilight. Her room is just so, just as it ought to be. She's just so, just as she ought to be. The blanket is heavy, her dragon is soft, and her thirteenth birthday is tomorrow.
Carefully, hushfully, she draws the first card, turns it over, and lays it on the bed. A glittering, blue-green marble, starlit in emptiness. The whole world, all its possibilities. Everything she could have been, everything she could become. That's what her past is: undefined, unformed, not yet any one thing.
She nods to herself. That... feels right.
She turns over the second card.
It depicts a ninja, kunai in hand, standing atop a giant pangolin, directing it onwards into sunlight. Strength of will. A warrior. The power to overcome and drive forwards. If that's her present - well, yes, she is asking if she's supposed to become a warrior, if she has the will to do it, if she can manage to overcome. So much is obvious. Can the cards maybe tell her something she doesn't already know?
(Of course they can't. There are no seals, no chakra. This is her, talking to herself. But still - )
She turns over the third card. It depicts - a crescent moon, shining silver. Is that her future? To be - the moon? What does that even mean?
Well, she does have her silver hair. So... it is supposed to be her. Something silver and nightwise and gentle and evershifting.
Oh.
Oh.
It's telling her that she can change. She can be a different person again, even if she chooses one thing now she can change her mind. She doesn't have to always be a warrior, it's not - that simple, that easy. That well-defined. The future will never be the same as her past, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily one thing. She still gets to choose.
... When she puts it like that, the answer is obvious.
Carefully, reverently, she puts the cards back into their box: then she pads softly down the hall, back to her mother's office.
-----
"I want to go hunting," she says.
-----
She passes her second Genin exam.
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- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
i have but a single objection: those kids have ready access to kunai, they'd be carving dicks into the wall instead of just inking them
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Snerk.
A cold, silver-haired girl named Sae. Hmmm.
Oooh oooh! Tarot scene! Now, as a member of a certain fandom I'm obliged to inquire:
Did you by chance have a certain individual in mind when cooking this character up?
I liked that. Are you planning to do more?
Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I have no idea who said other Sae would be: probably it's a coincidence of theme naming. ("Sae" can mean "Clarity" in Japanese.) The character takes inspiration from Auri (Name of the Wind), Yin (Darker than Black), and Rui Ninomiya (Gatchaman CROWDS).
There's a reason why it's marked as chapter one! Next chapter will probably be from Fuutsu's point of view.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I love it and look forward to more. +1 XP.
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
Since I was rereading a few chapters and I am currently at the bit where Keiko loans their Pangolins to ISC:
Why don't we just ask the Pangolins who were in a position to closely observe all of ISC's techniques that were used in Round Two of the Fifth Event about what they saw them doing? This could give us some really useful intel for when we have to fight Shikamaru or Choji/Ino later on in the tournament stage.
Also:
While all three of the Goketsu making it to the semi-finals was impossible from the get-go due to how the brackets were laid out, one of us is guaranteed to make it that far.
Only Noburi tanked and that was against the Hyuga themselves but still, one out of two isn't bad.
All while we were operating against a huge handicap of seal bans.
Why don't we just ask the Pangolins who were in a position to closely observe all of ISC's techniques that were used in Round Two of the Fifth Event about what they saw them doing? This could give us some really useful intel for when we have to fight Shikamaru or Choji/Ino later on in the tournament stage.
Also:
While all three of the Goketsu making it to the semi-finals was impossible from the get-go due to how the brackets were laid out, one of us is guaranteed to make it that far.
Only Noburi tanked and that was against the Hyuga themselves but still, one out of two isn't bad.
All while we were operating against a huge handicap of seal bans.
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- Location
- The state of Paranoia
Awesome start!
Sae: "Every movement, every brushstroke... it's perfect." *stares*
Hazou: *stops writing seals for a second* "Uhhhh..."
Jiraiya uses his toads a lot, and the monkey scroll exists, but what summons would other places know about? Maybe bears? Those are pretty terrifying, but if you scale them up to summon size they don't gain as much as other species. Roaches would be an awesome summon, they'd probably have so many defensive jutsu you'd be unstoppable. Dragonflies would be terrifying as a summon.
Come to think of it, there's a lot of insects and small animals that would make amazing summons.
Man, a Kakero would probably love to meet a Kurosawa.
Sae: "Every movement, every brushstroke... it's perfect." *stares*
Hazou: *stops writing seals for a second* "Uhhhh..."
Interesting that it's a pangolin instead of a "normal" summon, since the pangolins haven't been seen much for about 400 years. Come to think of it, what would be the animal that everyone thinks of when they hear the word summon?
Jiraiya uses his toads a lot, and the monkey scroll exists, but what summons would other places know about? Maybe bears? Those are pretty terrifying, but if you scale them up to summon size they don't gain as much as other species. Roaches would be an awesome summon, they'd probably have so many defensive jutsu you'd be unstoppable. Dragonflies would be terrifying as a summon.
Come to think of it, there's a lot of insects and small animals that would make amazing summons.
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What's a Kakero?
- Location
- NY
SHIKAKU: How interesting. Shikamaru, do you understand now?
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Evenstar's non-canon Bloodline Limit clan.
Somethings called spiderbears are canon in MfD...
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
So, Noburi suggested Water Dragon as a joke but learned it for the tournament.
Jiraiya suggested Keiko learn a jutsu to repel people like Hazou.
I guess that pretty much tells us exactly what Keiko's new jutsu is going to be, and I wish Hazou all the luck in the world not to look too helpless.
(Though I'd laugh if it turned out to be Surprise Shadow Clones instead.)
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
If Keiko gets some no-save defensive pushback jutsu, I'ma call shenanigans on that.
There is a wonderful YouTube channel called Tier Zoo that does a nice parody-analysis of the animal kingdom's character build effectiveness.
Pretty much anything that doesn't rely on being super large and bulky would be much more effective after scaling it up as a summon, save those animals that might have more of a stealth build without any offensive capabilities. There are probably some interesting exceptions to that: a chameleon for example would probably scale up well.
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
I think I've seen a couple of those videos. I should watch more of them sometime.
Terra Formars is pretty much all about how awesome various insects and small animals would be if you scaled them up to human size. The mantis shrimp was my favorite.
Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
To elaborate on Velorien's answer: The Kakero hold the Shattered Heart bloodline, which grants an extended empathic sense that reflects "environmental damage" as pain. The exact definition of "environmental damage" varies by individual, but you can see the general shape of it in the chapter - noise, graffiti, tools badly made for their intended purposes, etc. It's difficult to describe accurately, but -
Think about your daily life. Think about every little daily annoyance you have that fades into the background after a little while. Think about all the things that become assumptions, like "I have to wear this uniform to work", or "my car is a piece of junk", or "my boss is a prick."
Now imagine that none of them ever faded into the background. Every single time you go to the bathroom, you notice the crack in the mirror. Every single page you turn in your textbook, all the typos jump out at you.
Imagine that every single time you noticed any of those problems, it was exactly as annoying as the very first time you noticed it.
In short: the Shattered Heart is a bloodline that makes it impossible to say "that's just the way things are." All its holders have this part of themselves that's painfully, enduringly innocent, that can't help but process every single experience as if it were the first time it had ever happened. They're incapable of "skimming" or "glossing" - they either engage deeply or not at all.
That gives them power, because it means their brains don't fill in details for them: they can come to every new problem as a blank slate, utterly empty of assumptions. They can spot the gorilla in among the basketball players ten times out of ten.
It also makes them dangerous to themselves and others. There's this tremendous weight on them, the weight of literally every single thing wrong with the world. A lot of them break under that. They start believing that the flaws they can't shut out are good somehow, just or fun or natural or all part of the plan. They stop believing that suffering is bad, because there's just so much of it.
If they only break a little, they become hippies and martyrs. People who say "death and pain are part of the cycle of life." They don't embrace it: they just stop caring about it. All is tranquility, so I don't need to worry about this kunai in my leg. It's fine. It's natural.
If they break a little more, they become judges and executioners. People who say "There's meaning to all this. Death and pain are my birthright." There's so much suffering, and so many people are so indifferent to it - best that one who understands it be the sword in the dark. It's only proper to make your enemies suffer, isn't it?
The most broken of them... they're the ones who believe that suffering is right. That a world with suffering is better than a world without it. They fall in love with it. They worship it. They become demons, devils, laughing nihilists and blood knights. Cultists, doomsayers, torturers and mad dogs. They are only alive when they are suffering, because they've decided that suffering is life. Few of them last long.
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's a mistake we made, actually. It's silly that the pangolins have defensive jutsu given that they are naturally armored tanks. We should have given them offensive and utility things instead.
Pretty awful, actually, unless you're using magic that handwaves away the square/cube law and the issues of breathing through spiracles instead of lungs.
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
True, but they do handwave it away. I'm assuming that we're doing that here too, or pangolins and toads probably wouldn't be able to be that big either.
Fair.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I'm not sure about that. Natural armor only goes so far versus ninja bullshit. On the other hand, I could see their Rollout techniques ignoring the athletics penalty as well by virtue of the way it moves.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
I can see it working out, actually. We know that the Pangolin Conditioning Jutsu is easier for Pangolins to use than humans, so I can buy Pangolins having a natural advantage at armor jutsu that, even if they don't need it as much as others, is still worth pursuing as a comparative advantage.
Then again, I don't know how much worldbuilding you've locked down about Seventh Path physiology and stuff, but from what's reached the story I think it's viable to spin it that way.