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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Anderkent said:
What happened to everyone being Lupchanz and having random profile pictures? I liked it :(
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Its still there! Just not all the time.

Another question for the thread:

When Akimichi use their Multi-Size techniques, do they rip out of their clothes like the hulk or do their clothes somehow stretch with them? If the latter, by what magic is this achieved?
 
MMKII said:
Its still there! Just not all the time.

Another question for the thread:

When Akimichi use their Multi-Size techniques, do they rip out of their clothes like the hulk or do their clothes somehow stretch with them? If the latter, by what magic is this achieved?
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It seems likely that they wear baggy clothes that are tied such that if expanded from inside, the component parts (ie sleeves, pant legs) will separate gracefully or be provided with additional clothing to expand with.
 
Velorien said:

How had it come to this? Yes, the night had started out ominously, but for a while, it seemed like everything was going to be under control. People were mixing. Confrontations were being defused by more level-headed participants (having access to jōnin hand-picked for their ability to function in a foreign village really helped). Discovering the concept of gaming for the first time was exciting, and helped distract the gamers from the fact that each side's relatives had spent a good century or more killing the other's. Yes, it wasn't everything he'd hoped for, but the chaos had been more or less manageable, and so far there hadn't been any literal bloodshed.

So how had it come to this?

All of the games, all of them, from Strategic Dominance to the Chains of the Witch King adventure module, to freaking Yakuza, had somehow merged into a single metagame with a complex amalgam of rules that allowed every single attendant to play with or against each other at the same time. And guess who was running it.

No, Hazō knew how it had come to this. His mind flashed back to

-Φ-​

The door slammed open. Hazō's flashback was cut off as if severed by a blade.

"You're all here. Good."

Hazō recognised that voice. Even though, despite everything, he'd only heard it once before in his life, he knew it to be the voice of primal fear. No matter who Hazō became, no matter how well he learned to laugh at the antics of his past, there would always be a part of him that refused to forget. Right now, that voice meant only one thing.

Momochi Zabuza had crashed the party.

He'd brought his sword.

"Captain Zabuza!" a chirpy voice broke the paralysed silence. "I was so sure you wouldn't make it. Here, grab a seat next to… Nara, and I'll give you a quick run-down of the rules while Teams Platypus and Garden Eel and are finishing off their turn spiral."

"Mori. Shut up."

In the second most shocking development of the night, Mori shut up.

"I'm not here to play games," Momochi growled. "I've had enough of games. I've had enough of politics. I've had enough of lies. My comrades, the best men and women in Mist, are dead. The politicians don't get to brush that away because the truth is inconvenient. Tonight, you're going to hear everything that happened. And who was responsible for it all."

Hazō realised in a burst of horror exactly what Momochi was about to tell the world. The true events of that battle were classified beyond imagination. The only people in Leaf who knew were those present at the fateful clan heads' meeting. And of those people, Lord Hyūga had chosen not to attend the gaming night at all, while the other two had eventually bowed out, citing (probably Mori-related) headaches.

There was a reason those events were classified. How would the people at large, both civilian and ninja, react if they learned that the other side of the prospective alliance had just massacred all of their heroes? How would they react if they learned that the other side had lured Uzumaki and Yagura respectively to their doom? Most importantly, how would they react if they learned that their leaders had chosen to pretend it all away in order to make friends with the enemy, and in so doing boost their personal political status?

A permanent end to the possibility of alliance would be a given. But the consequences beyond that were unpredictable. Villages betrayed by their new leaders. The enforcers on whom the state's power rested suddenly all dead. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and any theoretical texts on the subjects of civil unrest, or even insurrection, had always been burned on sight and their authors disappeared. And even in the best-case scenario, either every foreigner present would have to be imprisoned or killed—while under Chūnin Exam peace treaty—or the other villages would find out that Leaf and Mist had just suffered catastrophic military losses.

Jiraiya, the only person in the room who could do anything about this, looked completely unconcerned. He was fully in-character still, obviously as interested as anyone in this grand revelation that had nothing to do with him personally. Hazō had no idea how he could stop Momochi from that position. Any public attempt to silence someone about to reveal a conspiracy would instantly implicate Jiraiya as a member of that conspiracy. But if anyone could pull it off…

"I may have to stop you there," Jiraiya said mildly. "If the Mizukage has ruled these topics highly classified, as I believe she has, it could cause a major diplomatic incident for you to tell us without her permission. I, for one, can't afford that when I have urgent business waiting for me in Leaf."

A pretext—something of a flimsy one, but definitely a pretext—for Jiraiya to take action against Momochi in an aggressive but fundamentally non-hostile way. Hazō didn't often get to see Jiraiya at work in his natural environment of subtle diplomacy, as opposed to the cutthroat politics that had been thrust upon him, and it was beautiful to see a master at work.

However, people's eyes were still narrowing in suspicion.

"We'll still be here if you go and come back with her permission," Jiraiya said, casually defusing it. "It's not like I'm not curious about what you have to say."

"Shut up, Hokage."

Thirty people flinched.

"You don't have the authority to enforce Mist law. If you so much as lay a finger on me, that's your diplomatic incident right there. In a room full of people."

A none-too-polite reminder that if Jiraiya used violence, the friendly fire could be catastrophic.

"Here are the facts," the ultimate hunter-nin raised his voice.

"It was a trap. And the ones who set us up, the ones responsible for all this—"

The door slammed open. Momochi whipped round instantly, sword in hand.

An apparently unarmed man stumbled in, looking like he could fall over any second.

Thank the Sage and all his many brothers.

Jiraiya flicked his eyes to one of the ANBU, and the woman took off at a dead run. Aunt Ren would be here in minutes. Hazō almost regretted not inviting her.

Until then, all Jiraiya had to do was take whatever the man was about to tell him and use it to stall for time. Child's play for the master diplomat.

"Sunohara?" Jiraiya asked with a confused frown that probably masked massive relief. "What could be important enough to make you come all the way here in person?"

"They've taken Gaara," Sunohara said heavily. "We are out of time."

-o-
​
What do you do?

Voting closes on Wednesday 3rd of April, 4 p.m. London time. Note the extended deadline.​
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The closest he got to ever doing team Uplift any real harm and it was an April Fools joke

Ha
 
Lupchanz do exist, but we haven't taken over the whole thread. Or at least not as far as my clearance lets me know.
 
So I'm considering reading this quest from scratch. How well does it stand up as a standalone story? Have reader mistakes screwed it up significantly and/or led to unsatisfying plot progression or character development?
 
Huo Yuhao said:
So I'm considering reading this quest from scratch. How well does it stand up as a standalone story? Have reader mistakes screwed it up significantly and/or led to unsatisfying plot progression or character development?
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You'll see us make mistakes that nearly cost us our lives and/or ruin our plans for the immediate future, but the QMs have been very good at maintaining characterization and verisimilitude throughout it all, and overall I'd like to think we've done fairly well for ourselves.

The general tone is 'harsh but fair' since the QMs put us in a ruthless deathworld and honestly didn't expect us to survive, but we managed to keep it together against all odds. The character side has been very fleshed out and all of the main characters have demonstrably grown as people.
 
PSA: I'm leaving for a while
​
Goodbye everyone. It has been a pleasure writing this quest for you, but I'm afraid I need to leave for a while. @OliWhail, @Velorien, I'm sorry for not discussing this in advance, but I just don't have the spoons.

I recognize that today is April Fool's, and that my traditional prank is to declare that I'm leaving and then provide bizarre and elaborate explanations for why. I'm afraid I just don't have the energy for a decent prank this year. It's been a hard few weeks and this weekend was particularly challenging. (I mentioned on Saturday that I had a funeral to go to; you can extrapolate from there.) I'll hopefully be back at some point, but I'm not sure when.

Sidebar: I did in fact make a stab at an April Fool's prank. The first two drafts were exceptionally dark, and I decided that posting them would be cruel. The fact that I couldn't come up with a version that was both funny and remotely convincing was a sign that I really really needed to just stick with this version instead.
 
eaglejarl said:
PSA: I'm leaving for a while
​
Goodbye everyone. It has been a pleasure writing this quest for you, but I'm afraid I need to leave for a while. @OliWhail, @Velorien, I'm sorry for not discussing this in advance, but I just don't have the spoons.

I recognize that today is April Fool's, and that my traditional prank is to declare that I'm leaving and then provide bizarre and elaborate explanations for why. I'm afraid I just don't have the energy for a decent prank this year. It's been a hard few weeks and this weekend was particularly challenging. (I mentioned on Saturday that I had a funeral to go to; you can extrapolate from there.) I'll hopefully be back at some point, but I'm not sure when.

Sidebar: I did in fact make a stab at an April Fool's prank. The first two drafts were exceptionally dark, and I decided that posting them would be cruel. The fact that I couldn't come up with a version that was both funny and remotely convincing was a sign that I really really needed to just stick with this version instead.
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Good luck man.

 
eaglejarl said:
PSA: I'm leaving for a while
​
Goodbye everyone. It has been a pleasure writing this quest for you, but I'm afraid I need to leave for a while. @OliWhail, @Velorien, I'm sorry for not discussing this in advance, but I just don't have the spoons.

I recognize that today is April Fool's, and that my traditional prank is to declare that I'm leaving and then provide bizarre and elaborate explanations for why. I'm afraid I just don't have the energy for a decent prank this year. It's been a hard few weeks and this weekend was particularly challenging. (I mentioned on Saturday that I had a funeral to go to; you can extrapolate from there.) I'll hopefully be back at some point, but I'm not sure when.

Sidebar: I did in fact make a stab at an April Fool's prank. The first two drafts were exceptionally dark, and I decided that posting them would be cruel. The fact that I couldn't come up with a version that was both funny and remotely convincing was a sign that I really really needed to just stick with this version instead.
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FWIW this was much more convincing than the romance novel movie rights one.
 
eaglejarl said:
Sidebar: I did in fact make a stab at an April Fool's prank. The first two drafts were exceptionally dark, and I decided that posting them would be cruel. The fact that I couldn't come up with a version that was both funny and remotely convincing was a sign that I really really needed to just stick with this version instead.
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No worries man, we gotcha' back.

Sorry, but I have to go​

First of all, sorry everyone for the way this news is coming. Because of unidentified computer problems, I (eaglejarl) have had to rely on @Veedrac to relay my message. This is not the only time I have been given such kindness from the great people in this thread... but it might be the last. I'm honoured by the hours spent by everyone on this quest, so it saddens me to have to announce my departure.

Before anyone gets too concerned: this is not a personal issue or related to recent hardships. In truth the change will be motivated purely by a change in interests. MfD doesn't bring me the same joy that it used to, and the energy drain and time investments have continued to increase. Overall it seems my time is better spent playing Japanese RPGs and reading Cultivation novels. Those who have experience with the genre will attest to the time they require.

As a parting gift, I have negotiated with @Velorien and @OliWhail to offer conciliatory in-game prizes.
  • A detailed roster of Akatsuki's members will be provided to Patreon supporters.
  • Naruto's death will be confirmed in game within the next few updates.
  • Akane will never have broken up with Hazō. This will be retroactively applied.
  • The thread is awarded 3 XP, which can only be used to purchase Fate Points.
I will still pop in to the thread at times between save points and chapter updates, though I expect my participation will decrease over time. In the meantime I wish everyone the best in their lives. It has been a pleasure being a part of this community.
 
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