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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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TaliesinSkye said:
I don't remember that, what'd we do with it?
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eaglejarl said:
Better yet, Kagome had provided a number of pre-infused Force Wall seals to the team's general supply. Under his teacher's fussy supervision, Hazou was able to set some of them up so as to make an impenetrable blast shield around the wall that closed off the cave. He placed four dozen tags on the wall they intended to destroy, activated them on a five-minute countdown, activated the Force Wall seals, and ducked back into the mouse hole.

Force Walls are effectively impenetrable and immovable; they make excellent blast channels. The explosion hit the Force Walls, rebounded, and smashed back on the Earth Wall, magnifying the power of the blast and reducing the granite wall to fine powder and fragments. Stalactites fell from the ceiling—several of them crashed off the roof of the mouse hole—but the cave itself stayed firm.
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eaglejarl said:
Four hours later they were ready. Heavy effort with a kunai had chipped a crack in the wall that sealed them in. A single explosive tag wedged into the crack had expanded that crack into a small recess. Hundreds of explosive tags were packed into that recess and a Force Wall was erected that would seal it closed so that the blast could only propagate outwards. Hazou used Multiple Earth Wall to raise support columns throughout the cavern, and to build an angled shield that led from the door of their mousehole to the exit in a wall-hugging crawlway that would hopefully be safe even in a cave-in. With everything ready, the team set the timers on the explosives, activated the Force Wall, dove back into the mouse hole, and covered their ears.
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The Force Wall focused the blast from the explosives and directed it at the cave-in.
 
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We should get something for Kagome to splat. Find a mission, clear out some bandits or chakra monsters. Or both.
 
Dear QMs:

You very obviously are under serious stress. Please, don't injure yourselves trying to write stuff for us. It's a story. We have dealt with long hiatuses before. If you need to take a break, take a break.
 
The aspirin thing is a jokey meme (though one rooted in reality) and shouldn't be taken too seriously. I would end the comment there except that EJ has been commenting about having a bad time at the moment, so:

Seconding this, @eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail. We trust you to do the sensible thing and cut effort spent on MfD if you're low on spoons. Take care of yourselves.
 
Evenstar said:
Dear QMs:

You very obviously are under serious stress. Please, don't injure yourselves trying to write stuff for us. It's a story. We have dealt with long hiatuses before. If you need to take a break, take a break.
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Thank you, that's very kind of you. My feelings haven't changed since this:


I very much appreciate the thought. This might make sense for @Velorien and/or @OliWhail, given that their current stress factors are related to things they are required to do. (eg work and school) They can speak for themselves on that issue. Speaking for myself:

Hell no.

Sitting around with lots of unstructured time is the absolute last thing I need right now. I care a great deal about this quest and writing for it usually gives me a great deal of enjoyment. When it doesn't, or I lack the time or energy or etc, I write an Interlude. Maybe a goofy bit of Chosen for the Grave, or Honoka being adorable, or Kagome being the paranoid comic relief woobie. No matter what, it's enjoyable and generally helps me recharge. It also provides some structure in my week that I appreciate having.

On top of that, I am very proud that I have stuck to my self-assigned weekly schedule for three years without fail. (Although, granted, sometimes a day late. There have also been early deliveries, so I think it balances out.) It would bother me a great deal to break that streak.
 
MMKII said:
I dont know why folks keep saying "ARS" either.
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Obviously for Activation Relay Seals we should be using the acronym AReS, gor the sake of branding.

AReS(tm) architecture, your NEW god of war.

This weapon of mass destruction is a product of the Goketsu corporation.Any attempt at unauthorised imitation will be regarded as an act of war.​
 
eaglejarl said:
"No!" Noburi said. "Kagome, this is amazing. No one's ever given me anything like this before. This is really thoughtful, and beautiful. It must have taken a lot of work."

Kagome-sensei shrugged uncomfortably. "You needed it for the Exams, I had some time, and I like carving," he said. He held his thumb and finger out an inch apart, thrust them towards the frame and whispered, "Boom!"

"You carved this with explosives?" Mari-sensei said, surprised.

"Just the big parts," Kagome-sensei said. "Did the detail work by hand. Oh, I almost forgot." He pulled back the lip of one of the sand socks and pointed inside. "Shaped charges inside each sock. Some stinker tries to sneak up on you, just reach over your shoulder and get a finger here. Boom! Squish!" He clapped both hands together as though killing a fly, then tossed them open to suggest the following rain of giblets. He looked at Noburi, suddenly uncertain. "Um...each of the socks says 'this side in' on one side. You should probably make sure it's facing in. And make sure the middle of each sock is outside the netting or it'll cut it and then the barrel won't be stable until you replace it. The netting, I mean. Not the barrel. No reason to replace the barrel. Try not to have to, though—I didn't manage to finish studying the seals yet so I couldn't make any more."
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Looks like Kagome mentioned the directional explosives in front of Jiraiya.
 
MMKII said:
I must admit some level of confusion about the nomenclature a while back. Both 5SB and LBF dont really create a "barrier" as one would normally think they would, though they are used in the process of making a barrier to entry of somesort.
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I think this has come up before, but "barrier" (kekkai) is a little weird in Japanese popular culture, and doesn't quite map on to the standard translation. To the best of my understanding, the purpose of a kekkai is to put a boundary between two kinds of space. Those two spaces can be identical so that the kekkai functions as straightforward defence ("this kekkai will keep us safe while we complete the ritual"). Even then, though, a kekkai is absolute. You can't walk around it like a wall, and it usually doesn't make a difference what angle you attack it from (focused fire notwithstanding).

Often, though, the kekkai is there to allow the inside and the outside to function according to different rules. One common example is a space which functions as a separate copy of the area it defines, so that no matter how much destruction is wreaked within, when the space disappears, the real world is unaffected (e.g. Shakugan no Shana, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). This is really good for epic shōnen battles. Other examples are spaces which weaken certain abilities/effects/people while strengthening others ("we have to destroy the barrier before we run out of mana"), or are selectively permeable so as to advantage the user (e.g. the cathedral in The Rising of the Shield Hero).

Coming back to the original point, the 5SB creates a kekkai around the thing between the secondary seals. In canon, this would have been the entire Akatsuki cave (or Team Gai would have been able to get in just by smashing the rock next to the entrance boulder). The MfD version is less OP.

Relatedly, see "seals" in the "seal away" meaning. Typically, the subject being sealed is physically far too big for the space it's being sealed in (cf. Kurama and Naruto), so it has to go to some different kind of space, with the seal functioning as the boundary that keeps the two kinds of space separate. In general, this is the canon meaning of the word "seal" (the Cursed Seals and their derivatives being referred to by a different word in Japanese).
 
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Gev said:
*grating lisp in a know-it-all voice* acchually, Mars is the toman god of war, as Ares was forma the greeks, so tour nitpicking is, like, squaredly irrelevante.
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Except that Roman policy was to consider them the same gods with different names and known myths. Ares is just Mars seen through the interpretatio graeca.

And look at that. I perfectly managed to come over as a dork without even lisping, so take that!
 
Velorien said:
I think this has come up before, but "barrier" (kekkai) is a little weird in Japanese popular culture, and doesn't quite map on to the standard translation. To the best of my understanding, the purpose of a kekkai is to put a boundary between two kinds of space. Those two spaces can be identical so that the kekkai functions as straightforward defence ("this kekkai will keep us safe while we complete the ritual"). Even then, though, a kekkai is absolute. You can't walk around it like a wall, and it usually doesn't make a difference what angle you attack it from (focused fire notwithstanding).

Often, though, the kekkai is there to allow the inside and the outside to function according to different rules. One common example is a space which functions as a separate copy of the area it defines, so that no matter how much destruction is wreaked within, when the space disappears, the real world is unaffected (e.g. Shakugan no Shana, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). This is really good for epic shōnen battles. Other examples are spaces which weaken certain abilities/effects/people while strengthening others ("we have to destroy the barrier before we run out of mana"), or are selectively permeable so as to advantage the user (e.g. the cathedral in The Rising of the Shield Hero).

Coming back to the original point, the 5SB creates a kekkai around the thing between the secondary seals. In canon, this would have been the entire Akatsuki cave (or Team Gai would have been able to get in just by smashing the rock next to the entrance boulder). The MfD version is less OP.

Relatedly, see "seals" in the "seal away" meaning. Typically, the subject being sealed is physically far too big for the space it's being sealed in (cf. Kurama and Naruto), so it has to go to some different kind of space, with the seal functioning as the boundary that keeps the two kinds of space separate. In general, this is the canon meaning of the word "seal" (the Cursed Seals and their derivatives being referred to by a different word in Japanese).
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Thats super interesting(to me at least)! A lot of tropes suddenly make a great deal more sense to me.

I suppose this gets awkward nowadays when one wonders why the seals just have "seal" written on them and whatnot, but it adds up if you stop thinking about it so literally. Weird mental gap thing. Hmm, I wonder how much of that is the product of really clear-cut magic systems in a lot of fiction I've read. And here I thought Fate/Stay Night and related works were just being lazy with names...
 
MMKII said:
Thats super interesting(to me at least)! A lot of tropes suddenly make a great deal more sense to me.

I suppose this gets awkward nowadays when one wonders why the seals just have "seal" written on them and whatnot, but it adds up if you stop thinking about it so literally. Weird mental gap thing. Hmm, I wonder how much of that is the product of really clear-cut magic systems in a lot of fiction I've read. And here I thought Fate/Stay Night and related works were just being lazy with names...
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All this said, I am as yet unclear on how this model interacts with the "suppression" function of seals, such as the classic chuunibyou "the seal on the world-destroying dark power within my arm must never be broken."
 
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Omake: Sealmasters' Showdown
  • Apocrypha
    • Omake: Sealmasters' Showdown​

    This is an alternative early draft of a scene for the Battle of the Gods.

    -o-​

    Two men looked down on the bloodbath that was Nagi Island, where friends and allies whom they might have saved were being murdered one by one. Two men looked down, but neither moved to help, because they both knew that the true battle was taking place here, in the sky.

    Jiraiya of the Three, the Fifth Hokage, the legendary sealmaster, stood comfortably on thin air. His stance was relaxed, almost as if waiting for an appointment, with all the poise of a man not nearly out of chakra. Next to his lowered hands was an entire array of pouches.

    Sasori the Puppetmaster, Head of Akatsuki Research and Development, the legendary sealmaster, floated in that same air like a mechanical angel, great wings of wood and leather beating determinedly in defiance of gravity. There were countless seals attached to his wooden body like festival decorations.

    "I know how I'm staying up here," Jiraiya said bemusedly. "How are you?"

    "With difficulty," Sasori admitted. "Ultra-light puppet materials get me halfway there. As for the other half… you can guess."

    "Sealmasters cheat," the two said in unison.

    "Let's get started," Sasori said as his wings flared wide. "Deidara is being insufferable about his kill count."

    "Lucky bastard," Jiraiya grunted. "Even after all you've done, I only get to kill you once."

    Sasori peeled off one of his seals and flicked it at Jiraiya in one light, seemingly carefree motion. In mid-air, the seal unravelled, loops of ninja wire lashing out from within to wrap tightly around Jiraiya's body, leaving him all but immobilised. A powerful flame lit one end, heating the wire red as it travelled towards him as if on a fuse.

    Jiraiya, arms pinned to his sides, twisted his wrists to reach awkwardly at the secondary pouches on his thighs. Holding two seals with his fingertips, he slapped one onto the wire and flung the other in Sasori's general direction. Over little more than a second, the wire was covered in a translucent green goo that not only drained the heat, but rapidly melted the wire into oblivion while leaving even his clothes unharmed.

    The other seal burned away, revealing a pair of metal spheres rotating against each other like meditation balls held by an invisible hand. Ignoring gravity, the two separated as they continued to spin against each other. The ever-growing space between them was lit up by a flickering series of thunderbolts, like blows being exchanged between two invulnerable fighters.

    Before the balls could reach and electrocute Sasori, he threw a seal downwards, towards the ground, where it turned into a malformed, glowing metal spike. The lightning followed it, happily grounding itself through some hapless cultist. Another seal thrown between the spheres created a brief vacuum that sucked them in, smashing them against each other before they could generate anything else.

    Jiraiya smirked as the two spheres detonated on contact, catching Sasori in an immense fireball.

    The smirk disappeared as Sasori remained untouched. His scroll effect's suction had drawn in the fire, then instantly transformed itself into repulsion, sending everything back to Jiraiya in a single focused stream of roaring flame. At the last second, Jiraiya unsealed a storage scroll, bringing out a dense, strangely dented metal wall that glowed red-white as it absorbed the heat. Its duty finished, the wall plummeted to the ground, crushing some more cultists as it did (Jiraiya had not chosen his position by accident).

    For a moment, all was still as the sealmasters calculated their next gambits.

    "Stored wall?" Sasori sneered. "What are you, a chūnin?"

    "It was a present from Tsunade," Jiraiya muttered. "She kept hitting me over the head with it, shouting 'take this!', so I did."

    Before Sasori could decide where to start with that one, Jiraiya took the offensive. He threw out several scrolls towards Sasori in a circular pattern, and each one erupted into a fountain of acid. In addition to being strong enough to melt through platinum, the combined effect completely obscured Sasori's vision—leaving him unable to see the giant spike of rock following close behind.

    Sasori's defence was a seal that sparked the acid droplets with controlled Lightning chakra, sending an instant spider web of energy crackling through them that evaporated every last one. The resulting acidic fog only just failed to envelop him.

    The spike, on the other hand, made it through.

    Or at least it made it through to touch several of the seals on the Sasori puppet's stomach. They flared, and the spike vanished, reappearing somewhere several metres away and falling down to pierce… well, you can guess.

    But the shimmering in the air that had redirected the spike didn't disappear. It kept going towards Jiraiya at the speed of a projectile uninhibited by air friction. It was at the very last moment that Jiraiya's own seal flew into it, making it vanish completely.

    "Wait," Sasori said cautiously as the exchange ended. "Did you just use a teleportation effect on a teleportation effect?"

    The two sealmasters instantly jumped/flew away from the point of contact. In flawless coordination, the two selected and threw seal after seal at the point of contact as fast as they could. About a dozen seals later, there was a reassuring green flash as reality failed to destroy itself.

    The pair's eyes met with a shared understanding: for now, conventional weapons only.

    Of course, these were sealmaster conventional weapons. Jiraiya's next attack looked like he'd produced a tiny white ball from a storage scroll, but as the ball zoomed towards Sasori, it drained moisture from the air, growing into an ever greater water bullet with enough final mass to humble an elephant.

    Contrary to expectations, Sasori didn't use Fire or Earth, or even Wind, to block the attack. Instead, his defensive seal produced a mass of wood which absorbed the water with a series of gluttonous pulses, growing bigger with each one. Its sustenance used up, the ravenous tendrils stretched towards the nearest source of water, namely Jiraiya.

    "Is that the Wood Element in a seal?" Jiraiya exclaimed incredulously.

    Sasori shrugged and simply said, "Orochimaru."

    As the first tendril touched Jiraiya, he took a deep breath in and unsealed a strange, double-sided seal. Crimson clouds burst forth as he destroyed it, causing the wood to wither away instantaneously.

    It was Sasori's turn to be shocked. "Why are you carrying concentrated herbicide into battle?"

    "My cousin insisted," Jiraiya said. "Something about half-plant, half-animal creatures."

    Cutting the banter short, Jiraiya activated two seals at once, and waves of solid compressed air slammed towards each other as they made a beeline for Sasori, like the bite of a creature with many sets of jaws.

    Sasori, unwilling to be outdone, slapped seals onto the walls right before they could reach him, sending a series of cracks through the air as if it was made of stone. The walls shattered into fragments, each fragment flying back at Jiraiya like a homing kunai.

    But what Sasori hadn't realised was that Jiraiya had been taking advantage of the increasing visual distortion as the pairs of walls came together between them. Step by step, he'd been closing the distance. Before the "kunai" could connect… he leapt forward, grabbed Sasori and swung him around like a no-longer-human shield. Sasori's body began to fall apart as it was pierced by a hundred razor-sharp strikes.

    "Sealmasters cheat," Jiraiya whispered triumphantly into Sasori's ear as he held him tight.

    "Yes," Sasori agreed softly. "We do."

    Even as Jiraiya's eyes widened in realisation, even as he began to move, a great ironsand drill pierced his chest from behind. The hole was bigger than a human head. A sandstorm briefly enveloped his body, tearing his clothes and destroying his seals… including the skywalkers on his sandals.

    Sasori fell as collateral damage from his ultimate puppet's attack finished off his disintegrating body. The puppet followed. And so did Jiraiya.

    The Fifth Hokage, the strongest man in the world, hit the ground from twenty metres' height, together with a rain of his own blood and countless shards of wood.

    Perfect silence fell on the battlefield. Then Jiraiya stood up.

    Nothing was over yet. A few drops of blood had fallen within the reach of Hidan, watching the battle from beneath. The scythe-wielder smirked as he touched one of his blades to the ground, and then licked it like a delicious treat. Then, looking Jiraiya straight in the eyes, he drew his ritual circle, and in the same motion, pulled out a spike and stabbed himself through the heart.

    Jiraiya swayed. He coughed up blood. Then he took a step towards Hidan.

    Mouth hanging open in disbelief, Hidan stabbed himself again.

    Jiraiya took a step forward.

    In a panic, Hidan kept stabbing himself, as if convinced that if he did it enough, it would finally work. But Jiraiya, swaying, back bent, arms down in front of him as if he didn't have the strength to lift them up, took step after step after step. When the immortal came to his senses and realised that he had to run for his life, it was too late.

    Jiraiya pulled himself upright by pure force of will. He gave Hidan one last contemptuous look. Then he plunged his hands into Hidan's chest like a knife through butter, grasped his spine, and tore him in half.

    The Fifth Hokage fell to the ground, the last of his strength used up. He gazed at the sun one last time as his vision faded away.

    "This is the best I could do, kids," he said to the sky above. "It's all up to you now."
     
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