- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Thank you all! Very sweet of you. It was actually yesterday, but I'm still grateful.
What about the one in my sig?
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
Thank you all! Very sweet of you. It was actually yesterday, but I'm still grateful.
Depending on how far you want to stretch on any given point, Mari, Keiko, Ami, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Anko, Sakura, Sauske, Hivemind and/or Fifi come to mind, why?
Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My thought is that one of:
A: this is a Generic Ninja Horoscope,
B: Velorien has less character range than I expected, or
C: Mari/Keiko/Ami are literally the same person.
is true.
If the list fits a lot of people it's probably A/B. If it's specific to Mari/Keiko/Ami then C becomes more likely.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
About the first half of it is definitely Generic Ninja Horoscope.
Mari-Keiko-Ami aren't independent variables, Jiraiya-Tsunade-Anko are both more of a stretch and not original characters.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Maybe Mari's kenjutsu/genjutsu is a sort of... accidental, quasi-cognivore? Maybe it replaces/overlays parts of the victim's overarching psyche the with that of the user, while at the same time exacerbating the very same traits that it copies over? Maybe the changes are small and subtle at first, but then grow with repeat castings? Maybe it amplified Mari's innate sense of justice, her seeds of doubt and guilt, her compassion and whatnot until she feels the demand to take Mist's children away from that hellscape? We don't know if Mari's ever used it on Ami during their history together --entirely possible, since Mari was still the Heartbreaker in full at the time of her training Ami.
And it's not impossible for Mari to have used it on Keiko while Mari was attempting to rehabilitate the then-suicidal girl. Keiko was, at the time, exceptionally prone to interpreting words in their worst possible meaning. I could very easily see Mari accidentally saying something wrong and pushing Keiko deeply over the edge, and then removing the memory from Keiko's mind in order to save her life. Maybe Mari even panicked when she saw the embers of Keiko's will to live be smothered by her own words and that's why she reached for her Old Reliable Jutsu of Memory Fuckery --to a panicked woman with a jutsu specialized specifically for this kinda thing, Mari would be hard pressed not to leap to use it as a solution to a horrible fuck up like that. And this is especially likely in the beginning of their career as missing-nin, when Mari might not have had an adequate enough grasp of Keiko's character to accurately project Keiko's reactions to certain proddings --which Mari is known to do.
And Mari could have easily had to do this to Kagome to keep him from slaughtering stinkers. Arguably, his case would be the easiest to argue for --again, especially in the beginning. Can't have him flying off the handle and endangering the kids just because Mari tried the wrong thing to calm him down. Or worse, was too effective at calming him down and now Kagome has feelings for her. Can't have that type if thing as missing-nin, out in the cold.
Though I doubt that Mari would be aware of the truth of her genjutsu, if this is the case.
And, of course, I think that either A or B are far more likely, but my notion for C is more interesting and thus will be my personal headcanon --much like Hazou being an Outer Being Larva/Pupa --until proven otherwise.
(or it could be that Mari had an influential role in both Keiko and Ami's development as ninja, and thereby passed along some of her own character deficiencies. But that's not as interesting to consider as Cognivore Jutsu, so I'm going to go with Cognivore Jutsu)
Edit: for grammar and clarity of thought.
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Omake: Marked For Death Voyage: The World Has Already Started To Move
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
(X) Stealth BOOM SQUISH
"Did you - "
A golden portal appeared and spat a spear through the questioner, three marble walls, fourteen houses, three treasure vaults, and one hundred meters of earth.
With a snap of his fingers, the golden figure restored the walls of his throne room, and nothing else.
The man lazily standing on the steps of the throne, draped in a distinctive red haori, considered asking the figure about the tears running down his face. Seeing the fate of the other one, he decided to say nothing, but nod solemnly.
"I do not require your misplaced pity," the king spat.
The white-haired man dressed in red and green said nothing.
The king climbed the steps to the throne, golden armor clinking with every step. He turned, tears still flowing freely down his face. Heavily, he sat on his throne, and rested his face on his golden fist, weeping all the way.
"I...I couldn't bring him back..."
Marked For Death Voyage: The World Has Already Started To Move
The six of them quickly snapped into a huddle, as the smoke from the battlefield began to swirl in the passage of a screamingly loud projectile.
"Voyagers, here's the plan," Hazou said, as a bright pink flash shined over everything, "The other forces here don't know we're here. Let's keep it that way for now, at least until we recover our chakra. Star G3, on that hilltop, clear?"
The roar of an explosion drowned out the affirmatives, but the rest of the team nodded their assent. With the next crack of blue lightning, the group dispersed into the mud and dust of the battlefield.
Not a second too soon, too; the moment the group split, a jet of water sliced through the circle where the six Voyagers were talking. Lightning crackled through in the aftermath, and the earth turned just a little bit more.
The six of them laid face-down at top of the lightly-trapped (by Kagome and Honoka's standards) hill. The custom rings of telescopes whirled around Neji's head as his Byakugan showed him everything in every direction. The active dampening of the Silence Mines V4 would have made communication impossible, if not for the point-to-point communication the suits came equipped with.
"Neji, how does it look?" Honoka asked, fiddling with her deactivated beam sabers (Hazou had tried to call them lightsabers, but Honoka had quite eloquently insisted that since they made beams into sabers it should be beam sabers), trying to keep herself from breaking cover to improve the trap array.
"It looks...insane," Neji said. "There is no end to this battle. The battlefront is bigger than I can see; it's bigger than Leaf, and maybe even all of Fire. The portals extend further than that because the entire battlefront is defined by the portals, which keep appearing and disappearing along the whole front. The worst part is that they're constantly throwing out A and S-Rank jutsu. It looks like that 'friendly spar' between B and Naruto, except everywhere, and they're not showing any signs of stopping."
Silence reigned in the group for a few seconds, as the earth quaked under the weight of ten thousand missiles.
"...let's set up a few more defenses," the group collectively agreed. Honoka, Kagome, and Hazou were already pulling out the seals and cutting the seals.
Defensive expendables used!
"Even if we do, what's the plan?" Mari-sensei asked. "What are we waiting for?"
"Neji, do you think we can go through - " Hazou asked.
"YOU WANT TO GO THROUGH AN UNKNOWN - " Kagome screeched.
"Calm," Mari said, patting Kagome. "Calm," Kagome repeated, much less agitated.
"...Leaving that aside, I think we could go through," Neji said. "It looks like - what?!" Neji screeched, color draining out of his face.
Lee clapped a hand on Neji's shoulder.
"Temper yourself, Neji! I know it is quite difficult to resist being youthful, but - " Lee somehow whisper-shouted.
"It's Orochimaru!" Neji hissed.
The other five members quickly matched Neji's eye color.
"Has he noticed us?" Mari urgently hissed.
"Not yet," Neji emphasized.
"Turn off your Byakugan," Hazou ordered. "I don't even want to take the risk that he can somehow detect us through the Byakugan."
"R-roger," Neji shakily said, flipping his telescope up. "It looks like he's just looking - oh, never mind, he's casting the Summoning Jutsu, we have some - "
His communication was interrupted by the presence of Manda appearing, and laying waste to the battlefield. A thousand streams sought the old and wizened giant, and the serpent contemptously batted them all away, as a sword swept through the sky and returned the favor.
A portal opened up, and so did Orochimaru's jaw; a flaming fist that burned as bright as the sun was swallowed by the endless darkness of Orochimaru's gullet.
Something glinted in the smoky skies above, something that made Mari look up first. Honoka noticed when she raised her hand to look up, but couldn't ignore the whispered voice in the communication channel.
"Jiraiya?"
In the next instant, a red comet descended to earth, revealing a man with a silver mane, billowing out his red haori for everyone on the battlefield to see. No words were said between the two before they began fighting in earnest; the red man fought with blue spheres and white hair against Orochimaru's silver blade and fang. A straight fist was met with a high counter which was met with a low sweep before Manda shattered the ground underneath his tail.
Purple lightning flashed into the two fighters as the wider battlefield made itself known; endless streams of attacks flowed in to the chaotic eye of the storm, destroying, meeting, and redirecting attacks in every direction. In the next instant, the eye of the storm collapsed as the two holding up the storm appeared elsewhere, replaced by other expendable items. The two flickered into quick clashes around the battleline, before the man dressed in red and green suddenly leapt straight into the sky and called down an endless storm of meteors.
"Duck!" Neji cried out, just before a stray attack sheared through their defensive perimeter.
"We need to go!" Hazou shouted to his team.
"That's a little rude, don't you think?" a ninja said, right next to their group. "I mean, I'd peep on me too, but to not even introduce yourself when I come over and say hello?"
Silver hair. Red haori over a faded green combat uniform. Red highlights under his eyes.
"Jiraiya?" Kagome asked out loud.
"You got it," the man said, smiling as he opened his arms. "I'm impressed you got this far."
"Yeah, stinker? How's Naruto doing, huh?!" Kagome cried, bringing his hands up.
"He's doin' great as always," the man said.
Kagome's fingers moved.
135
@eaglejarl, happy belated birthday!
"Did you - "
A golden portal appeared and spat a spear through the questioner, three marble walls, fourteen houses, three treasure vaults, and one hundred meters of earth.
With a snap of his fingers, the golden figure restored the walls of his throne room, and nothing else.
The man lazily standing on the steps of the throne, draped in a distinctive red haori, considered asking the figure about the tears running down his face. Seeing the fate of the other one, he decided to say nothing, but nod solemnly.
"I do not require your misplaced pity," the king spat.
The white-haired man dressed in red and green said nothing.
The king climbed the steps to the throne, golden armor clinking with every step. He turned, tears still flowing freely down his face. Heavily, he sat on his throne, and rested his face on his golden fist, weeping all the way.
"I...I couldn't bring him back..."
Marked For Death Voyage: The World Has Already Started To Move
The six of them quickly snapped into a huddle, as the smoke from the battlefield began to swirl in the passage of a screamingly loud projectile.
"Voyagers, here's the plan," Hazou said, as a bright pink flash shined over everything, "The other forces here don't know we're here. Let's keep it that way for now, at least until we recover our chakra. Star G3, on that hilltop, clear?"
The roar of an explosion drowned out the affirmatives, but the rest of the team nodded their assent. With the next crack of blue lightning, the group dispersed into the mud and dust of the battlefield.
Not a second too soon, too; the moment the group split, a jet of water sliced through the circle where the six Voyagers were talking. Lightning crackled through in the aftermath, and the earth turned just a little bit more.
The six of them laid face-down at top of the lightly-trapped (by Kagome and Honoka's standards) hill. The custom rings of telescopes whirled around Neji's head as his Byakugan showed him everything in every direction. The active dampening of the Silence Mines V4 would have made communication impossible, if not for the point-to-point communication the suits came equipped with.
"Neji, how does it look?" Honoka asked, fiddling with her deactivated beam sabers (Hazou had tried to call them lightsabers, but Honoka had quite eloquently insisted that since they made beams into sabers it should be beam sabers), trying to keep herself from breaking cover to improve the trap array.
"It looks...insane," Neji said. "There is no end to this battle. The battlefront is bigger than I can see; it's bigger than Leaf, and maybe even all of Fire. The portals extend further than that because the entire battlefront is defined by the portals, which keep appearing and disappearing along the whole front. The worst part is that they're constantly throwing out A and S-Rank jutsu. It looks like that 'friendly spar' between B and Naruto, except everywhere, and they're not showing any signs of stopping."
Silence reigned in the group for a few seconds, as the earth quaked under the weight of ten thousand missiles.
"...let's set up a few more defenses," the group collectively agreed. Honoka, Kagome, and Hazou were already pulling out the seals and cutting the seals.
Defensive expendables used!
"Even if we do, what's the plan?" Mari-sensei asked. "What are we waiting for?"
"Neji, do you think we can go through - " Hazou asked.
"YOU WANT TO GO THROUGH AN UNKNOWN - " Kagome screeched.
"Calm," Mari said, patting Kagome. "Calm," Kagome repeated, much less agitated.
"...Leaving that aside, I think we could go through," Neji said. "It looks like - what?!" Neji screeched, color draining out of his face.
Lee clapped a hand on Neji's shoulder.
"Temper yourself, Neji! I know it is quite difficult to resist being youthful, but - " Lee somehow whisper-shouted.
"It's Orochimaru!" Neji hissed.
The other five members quickly matched Neji's eye color.
"Has he noticed us?" Mari urgently hissed.
"Not yet," Neji emphasized.
"Turn off your Byakugan," Hazou ordered. "I don't even want to take the risk that he can somehow detect us through the Byakugan."
"R-roger," Neji shakily said, flipping his telescope up. "It looks like he's just looking - oh, never mind, he's casting the Summoning Jutsu, we have some - "
His communication was interrupted by the presence of Manda appearing, and laying waste to the battlefield. A thousand streams sought the old and wizened giant, and the serpent contemptously batted them all away, as a sword swept through the sky and returned the favor.
A portal opened up, and so did Orochimaru's jaw; a flaming fist that burned as bright as the sun was swallowed by the endless darkness of Orochimaru's gullet.
Something glinted in the smoky skies above, something that made Mari look up first. Honoka noticed when she raised her hand to look up, but couldn't ignore the whispered voice in the communication channel.
"Jiraiya?"
In the next instant, a red comet descended to earth, revealing a man with a silver mane, billowing out his red haori for everyone on the battlefield to see. No words were said between the two before they began fighting in earnest; the red man fought with blue spheres and white hair against Orochimaru's silver blade and fang. A straight fist was met with a high counter which was met with a low sweep before Manda shattered the ground underneath his tail.
Purple lightning flashed into the two fighters as the wider battlefield made itself known; endless streams of attacks flowed in to the chaotic eye of the storm, destroying, meeting, and redirecting attacks in every direction. In the next instant, the eye of the storm collapsed as the two holding up the storm appeared elsewhere, replaced by other expendable items. The two flickered into quick clashes around the battleline, before the man dressed in red and green suddenly leapt straight into the sky and called down an endless storm of meteors.
"Duck!" Neji cried out, just before a stray attack sheared through their defensive perimeter.
"We need to go!" Hazou shouted to his team.
"That's a little rude, don't you think?" a ninja said, right next to their group. "I mean, I'd peep on me too, but to not even introduce yourself when I come over and say hello?"
Silver hair. Red haori over a faded green combat uniform. Red highlights under his eyes.
"Jiraiya?" Kagome asked out loud.
"You got it," the man said, smiling as he opened his arms. "I'm impressed you got this far."
"Yeah, stinker? How's Naruto doing, huh?!" Kagome cried, bringing his hands up.
"He's doin' great as always," the man said.
Kagome's fingers moved.
135
@eaglejarl, happy belated birthday!
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
@Evenstar
So I conclude that the person you are talking about is Keiko, with an emphasis on the fact that she'd rather not have been sold to the Nara if that had been an option.
- Has a perfect idol they'll never catch up to
- Downplays their own skills
- Good at planning/logistics
- Deeply values their freedom
- Doesn't meet their own standards
- Has a perfect idol they'll never catch up to
- Attracted to women
So I conclude that the person you are talking about is Keiko, with an emphasis on the fact that she'd rather not have been sold to the Nara if that had been an option.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
To the extent that this is a callout post, I think it's reasonable for me to offer a response.
A couple of preliminary notes:
- A number of those points have inherent correlations with each other, e.g. "unpredictable", "unstable", and "has huge mood swings". Listing them separately here isn't as informative as it looks. A number also have correlations from context, such as both Mori being good at planning/logistics, and both infiltration/seduction experts having complex, ambiguous relationships with sexuality.
- As @Lailoken pointed out, these are not independent variables. Mari had a mild to moderate influence on Ami. Ami had a large influence on Keiko. Keiko had a large influence on Ami. Mari had a large influence on Keiko. Keiko had a large influence on Mari. In fact, Ami -> Mari is the only missing line, and that's a case of "neither confirm nor deny" based on information presented so far.
| Keiko | Mari | Ami | Canon Naruto | |
| Self-loathing | Check | Check | ?? | No |
| Self-sacrificing (correlates with above) | Check | Post-swamp only | ?? | Check |
| Cynical | Check | Check | Check | No |
| Unstable | Check | Check | ?? | No |
| Unpredictable (correlates with above) | YMMV | Check | Check | Check |
| Has huge mood swings (correlates with above) | Check | Check | ?? | No |
| Thinks of themselves as a weapon | Check | Check | ?? | No |
| Needs to be useful to others | Check | Post-swamp only | ?? | Check |
| Has difficulty relating to others | Check | YMMV | ?? | No |
| Shoves away others (correlates with above) | Check | Check | YMMV | No |
| Doesn't feel like they belong anywhere | Check | Check | ?? | No |
| Wants to impress others | Check | Check | Check | Check |
| Strong sense of justice | Check | YMMV | ?? | Check |
| Doesn't meet their own standards | Check | Check | ?? | Check |
| Has a perfect idol they'll never catch up to | Check | YMMV | YMMV | Check |
| Downplays their own skills | Check | ?? | ?? | ?? |
| Good at negotiating | YMMV | Check | Check | YMMV |
| Good at critique | Mori | YMMV | Mori | No |
| Good at planning/logistics | Mori | YMMV | Mori | No |
| Unusually creative | YMMV | Check | Check | Check |
| Has weird teaching methods | ?? | Check | Check | Check |
| Scary as hell when they want to be | Check | Check | Check | Check |
| Plays sadistic pranks | ?? | Check | Check | Check |
| Enjoys disassembling and reshaping people | ?? | Check | Check | No |
| Thinks of people as their minions or potential minions | ?? | Check | Check | No |
| Deeply values control | YMMV | Check | Check | ?? |
| Deeply values their freedom | Check | Check | Check | Check |
| Downplays their own skills | Check | YMMV | ?? | ?? |
| Wants to help clanless ninja | Post-Hazō only | Post-Hazō only | ?? | Check (wants to help everyone equally) |
| Wants to reform the clan system | Post-Hazō only | Post-Hazō only | ?? | N/A |
| Thinks of ninja marriage as prostitution | Check (social default) | Check (social default) | Check (rejects) | N/A |
| Attracted to women (correlates with I&S) | Check | Check | ?? | Check |
| Complex, ambiguous relationship with sexuality | Check | I&S | I&S | Sasuke? |
| Has badly fucked-up family dynamics | Check (shared with Ami) | Check | Check (shared with Keiko) | Check |
| Has a Dangerous Forbidden Technique | Mori? | Check | Mori? | Check |
| Sometimes seems like an entirely different person | ?? | Check | Check | Check |
| Is primarily written by Velorien | Check | Actually, fully shared | Check | No |
I can't believe nobody's mentioned Kagome. He was the instant fourth on my list, excepting that he is primarily written by @eaglejarl.
This may sound petty, but please don't misuse "literally" to mean "emphatically". There are many words that mean "emphatically", but only one that means "literally", and once it's gone, it's gone. We've already lost words like "decimate" (which means "remove one in ten").
I assume this is a reference to Hana, whose moral integrity Mari was always jealous of.
I would say this is a defining character trait for Keiko if you substitute "freedom" for "agency". Or is that "control"?
Edit: For my own twisted amusement, I added a Canon Naruto column. Here are the totals:
Ignoring ?? and YMMV, Keiko hits 28 points. Mari hits 29. Ami hits 20. Canon Naruto hits 17.
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I feel like you can stretch this a bit more, since a lot of the No's are more like "Half of the time, depends on your interpretation." or timeline dependent in some manner.
(Also Naruto clearly enjoys breaking people down by shattering their worldview and rebuilding them in a manner that suits him. That this is portrayed in a shonen power-of-friendship Talk no Jutsu sort of way doesn't really change that thats what he ends up doing. He's just particular about his targets.)
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure, but the whole thing is largely subjective anyway. I'm sure it's possible to make cases for/against a number of assessments in that table, especially where character growth is concerned. For example, it's debatable how many of Uplift actually care about the clan/clanless issues deep down, as opposed to being swept along by Hazō because he's a charismatic leader and they don't have a cause of their own to fight for. Also, Keiko starts to change over her character arc, while Mari's sense of identity is a rollercoaster.
Now that is a very good point. But I don't know if it counts for this purpose if he's not doing it consciously.
Chapter 311.1: Adoption Interviews — Yamamoto Haru
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 311.1: Adoption Interviews — Yamamoto Haru
"Got a minute?" Hazō called.
As expected, Yamamoto was on the field practicing. He was working the spin-punch dummies: Pole-mounted, vaguely human-shaped dummies with a target on the head, another target on one arm, and a flail on the other arm. Striking the head target dead center would leave the dummy still, but striking even slightly off-center would make it spin, meaning that the flail on the arm would strike at you with speed proportional to how far off-center you were. Of course, hitting the arm target would make the dummy spin super fast. The point was to reinforce the need to chain attacks and dodges together seamlessly.
Yamamoto was working the dummies as though he had something to prove; he had four of them set up in a tight group and was bouncing between them, striking mostly at the arm targets so that his working area was a chaotic mess of spinny danger. Keiko would have danced through the storm, gliding around attacks with grace and speed; Yamamoto smashed into the storm and dared it to face him. He punched and kicked, leapt and spun, parried a flail with the aid of two metal rods he wore strapped to his forearm, struck out with one foot to deflect an incoming flail with a blast of chakra repulsion, then chained it into an inverted axe kick that broke an arm off one of the dummies.
At Hazō's words he leaped clear, allowing the dummies to slowly wind down and come to a halt.
"What do you want?" He turned away and paced over to where he had earlier laid a towel and a water jug. He picked up the towel and started wiping the sweat off.
"I've got a weird question for you," Hazō said, pacing over and stopping a few steps away. "You hate clans and I would imagine you'd like it if they stopped existing, but—"
Yamamoto snorted. "Why no, Mr Clan Lord, sir. I would never say such a thing. Everyone knows that the clans of Leaf are its strength. They are repositories of lore and skill dedicated to the protection of the village and all the people of Fire. Without their power, Leaf would have been destroyed long ago."
"Uh-huh." Hazō made a tossing-away gesture. "Well, you may feel that way, but I don't. I think the clan have their place but Leaf would be better off if they didn't exist. If we all shared whatever jutsu we have and worked together without the arrogance, everyone would be better off."
Yamamoto paused with the towel and studied Hazō for a moment. "Is there something you wanted, Lord Gōketsu?"
"Yes. Gōketsu has the option to adopt one ninja this year. We aren't at the point of making an offer yet, just talking to candidates to see if they're interested, but we've reviewed every ninja in Leaf that we could get information on and there's only three that we're interested in. You're my first stop."
The other ninja finished wiping himself down, folded the towel neatly, and set it on the ground. He picked up the jug and took a swig.
"You're asking me if I'm interested in joining your clan."
Hazō nodded. "Yes. You work well in a team. You're charismatic and a good leader, but you're also willing to take orders when that's the appropriate choice. You're smart enough to recognize when that is; Akane told me that you and Sakura have a good tactics/strategy split going on."
The corner of Yamamoto's lip twitched. "The bookworm is smart."
Hazō nodded. "Yeah. Anyway. You're smart enough to lead, not too proud to follow. Self-disciplined enough to be out in the snow training on your own. Of the ninja in our age bracket, you're one of the best fighters in Leaf. You're Akane's teammate and friend. You've been getting more involved in the KEI and taking on responsibility and initiative. There's a lot to like."
"Kind of you to say so."
"I spent a lot of time thinking about exactly how to present this," Hazō said. "I recognize that it would be easy for you to take offense, to view this as arrogant or condescending on my part. It's not. I'm here because you're a strong ninja and having you in the clan would make Gōketsu stronger."
"Thought you weren't making an offer."
Hazō shrugged. "We've only got one slot for legal adoption and we've got three candidates. I'm pushing the Clan Council to give all the clans more slots for this year to make up for the losses taken in the Collapse, but that's not a sure thing. Regardless, we want all three of you and you're in if you want it. You might need to wait until next year to have it happen on paper, but we can do most of it right now. You and your family are welcome to move to our estate, eat at our table, train with us, and receive every benefit of clanship that we can provide. That means pretty much everything except some jutsu that we aren't allowed to give out except to clan members and you'll get those as soon as we can do the paperwork." He studied the other for a moment, then spoke, choosing his words carefully. "I don't know if you've ever had cause to sit down and review the tax code; clan ninja receive a monthly stipend from the Tower." That wasn't precisely true, since the stipend went to the Clan Head instead of the individual, but Hazō had every intention of simply passing the stipend on directly to each of his people. "Now, so long as you are not officially a Gōketsu we obviously can't collect that money for you...but it turns out that I have terrible luck at dice. There's a lot of KEI ninja living on our estate who aren't yet officially part of the clan; we have a monthly dice game with me and all of those ninja, and somehow I always seem to lose a ton of money to each of them. About the same amount as the monthly stipend that they should be getting if the bastard clans weren't greedy assholes."
A muscle in Yamamoto's jaw bulged slightly as his teeth ground together.
"Yeah, I know," Hazō said with a shrug. "I'm clan and I'm getting those benefits. I make no bones about the fact that, if I'm stuck being in this stupid system, then I'm going to work it to my advantage. That doesn't mean the system isn't stupid, and I'd prefer if it weren't there." He shook his head in annoyance. "Honestly, the whole fucking thing just pisses me off. If the Merchant Council would get out of my damn way I'd be using our jutsu and seals to help civilian businesses make a fortune. If the clans weren't actively screwing over the clanless then you would be getting the missions that you deserve, access to...." He trailed off and shook his head tiredly. "Access to everything you should be getting. This whole fucking system just pisses me off."
"Says the son of the former Hokage."
Hazō considered those words for a moment, considering how the Summer Lake would reflect them. Nothing came to mind; there was simply no content in Yamamoto's words to reflect. They were nearly pure phatics, meaningless mouth noises serving only as placeholders. "It sounds like the clans have treated you like shit. That about right?"
Yamamoto took another pull at the jug, then carefully twisted the stopper back in. "I've had an interesting life. There have been a few challenges along the way."
Hazō had been the subject of intentionally-directed killing intent from some of the most powerful ninja alive. In addition, there had been multiple occasions when he was in the general area of an angry or frustrated Jiraiya, where Hazō had imagined himself standing near the lip of a howling black abyss filled with fangs and desecration that hinted at the nature of the Sannin's fury. Hazō was, by this point, something of a connoisseur of killing intent.
No one Yamamoto's age should have perceptible killing intent. (Well, no one who wasn't Hazō's terrifying, Pangolin-summoning sister.) Despite that, Hazō imagined that he could hear the faintest traces of an endless raging howl, far off in the distance. It played across primal nerves at the bottom of his brain and sent a shiver down his spine...and he knew that the creature making that howl was chained up deep in Yamamoto's soul, its cries muffled and its darkness carefully concealed.
Hazō nodded, conceding defeat; there was nothing more to be had here. Yamamoto embodied the Summer Lake more perfectly than Hazō could. The blond's words were completely calm, offering no way to engage and nothing to reflect. It was time to bail.
"The offer's open," Hazō told him. "Also, no matter whether you decide to join us or not, I'd like your permission to talk to your father about a business venture."
Yamamoto's eyes narrowed. "What kind of business venture?"
"My understanding is that he made sandals until recently. Right?"
The muscle in Yamamoto's cheek once again spoke of teeth grinding to powder. "Yes. He lost his contract to supply the ninja forces when skywalker sandals became a high-priority military necessity. Now he's working day labor, making concrete."
Hazō nodded. "Right. He lost that contract because the Nara horse-traded with the Hyūga. The Hyūga had an investment in another cordwainer's shop, the one run by Oshiro Eichi, and your dad got caught in the crossfire."
For the first time, Yamamoto's cool mask slipped and there was honest surprise on his face. "Oshiro? That's who got the contract? His sandals are shit. He uses goat tendons for the stitching. They stretch when they get wet, and he doesn't pre-stretch. Dad and I have been wondering for years how Oshiro is even still in business."
Hazō nodded. "Yeah. According to...a reliable source"—he was not about to say 'secret notes that Jiraiya stashed in a bolt hole hidden under a skeevy brothel'—"the Hyūga own Oshiro lock, stock, and barrel. I don't know for sure why they were propping him up, but the evidence says that they were using him as a money laundering front. Anyway, his shop was larger than your father's and could supply more sandals faster, even if the quality wasn't as good. Lord Nara wanted to spread the contract out among multiple suppliers so that there wouldn't be a"—he frowned, trying to remember the phrase—"'single point of failure on the critical path of the supply chain', but he needed an extra vote on a bill in Council. Hyūga traded him support in exchange for sixty percent of the sandals contract going to Oshiro. Your father got squeezed out."
"And you're telling me this why?"
"Right now, the Gōketsu have a lot of cash but no income streams. I'm looking to fix that, which means finding ventures to invest in. Your father made good sandals—Noburi checked with a lot of his former customers, and they almost universally sang his praises."
Yamamoto snorted and folded well-muscled arms. "Let me guess: He talked to Widow Katō, didn't he?"
Hazō grinned. "How'd you know?"
"You said 'almost' universally. She was always our biggest detractor." He shook his head. "About six years ago, she placed an order that got delayed three days because we were having trouble getting decent leather for the soles. Dad gave her a discount but she never did anything but complain after that."
"Well, she looked like she really needed a laxative so we didn't take her words too much to heart. Anyway, your father's clearly a good cordwainer. I want to get him set up again and then set up a deal going forward. Part of the reason I want to do this is because the Gōketsu need income sources going forward, and your dad looks like a good investment. Part of it—"
Yamamoto shifted his weight and frowned. "—is because you want to bribe me into joining."
Hazō shrugged. "You can call it a bribe if you want. Personally, I would rather call it a demonstration of the fact that our families each have things that are useful to the other, and we'd both be better off if we combined our efforts."
If a surprised laugh and a snort of derision had gotten really badly hammered on cheap sake and given each other a night of drunken passion, the love child would probably have sounded much like what slipped out of Yamamoto's mouth before he could stop it.
Hazō smiled. "Look, if you tell me not to, I won't. Otherwise, I'm going to have Noburi approach him about figuring out the best way to make it work. Whether or not you join us has no bearing, so you don't need to factor that into your decision."
Yamamoto's calm stance and emotionless visage had cracked; hesitancy, uncertainty, and resentment were leaking out.
"You aren't making me join in order to get the loan?"
Hazō looked at him in bafflement. "What would be the point of that? Last thing I need is someone in the clan who doesn't want to be there. No, it's what I said before: I'm going forward with this because we need ongoing revenue streams. Yes, I would like it if this convinced you to join us, but as far as I'm concerned that's a bonus and not an essential."
Yamamoto blinked.
"I'll think about it," he said at last.
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
- Location
- France
That was far too smooth. Where the heck is the real Hazō? How can we get the Out-creature out of his head? Will there be a horrible "I have no mouth but I must scream" chapter in a half an hour, when eaglejarl reveals what it's like to be possessed and have your body puppeted against your will?
- Location
- Yes.
I'm pretty sure it's the equivalent of an EN saying translated into a language we understand.
- Location
- Pacific standard
Ooooooooh there's concrete in the setting.
There's concrete in the setting! *laughs maniacally*
This means we can make bunkers that are one solid piece except for the door and 5sb them! I also need to look through the ingredients of concrete, but pretty sure there's a good amount of overlap between it and gun powder.
I really like Haru. Even if he decides to not get adopted we should ask him to be our drinking buddy, maybe rope in Sasuke to go bowling.
Great chapter @eaglejarl, happy belated birthday
There's concrete in the setting! *laughs maniacally*
This means we can make bunkers that are one solid piece except for the door and 5sb them! I also need to look through the ingredients of concrete, but pretty sure there's a good amount of overlap between it and gun powder.
I really like Haru. Even if he decides to not get adopted we should ask him to be our drinking buddy, maybe rope in Sasuke to go bowling.
Great chapter @eaglejarl, happy belated birthday
- Location
- Yes.
We've known concrete was in the setting since the Chunin Exams?
Edit:
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- Location
- The state of Paranoia
Great chapter, Eaglejarl!
I'm kind of impressed that Haru actually listened to us through the whole thing and that Hazō actually got him to. Who got lupchanzed, Hazō or Haru?
That fledgling jonin aura probably gives us a hint that saying the clans have treated him badly is a huge understatement. You don't get that kind of thing from a couple incidents here and there.
- Location
- Yes.
Neither, Mari genjutsu'd Hazou into thinking he did the interview, and did the work herself.Who got lupchanzed, Hazō or Haru?
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I personally think that guns were invented and then promptly fell out of use in the EN. Guns were originally invented to destroy plate armor, right? And if, for whatever reason, guns were invented in the EN, I doubt that they'd last very long. Between fire jutsu that can melt the metal, lightning that can set off the gunpowder, water that can keep the gun from firing, and earth that can can tank the shots, I have a hard time seeing gun development being anything less than a defunct tech in the history of the EN, much in the way that our own history has many thousands of dead-end technological branches that never went anywhere.
edit: ninja-ed by eaglejarl
IIRC, I don't think guns were developed to destroy plate armor.
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
They would probably be pretty useful to civilians, I think. Then again, maybe that's why they wouldn't last long. Can't have the livestock getting up-ity and trying to replace their ninja superiors, now can we?
Edit:
Kiba has a good point. The draw of guns was that you could train people for a much shorter amount of time than bows, and still get a unit that was fairly powerful. In MfD, this draw would still exist for civilians, but ninja might not take too kindly to it.
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