Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- 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
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Severe Consequences take about four months IC to heal, so about another two-ish and change by my reckoning.
Yess, then we can get "The Hokage is my Dad" back!
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Finally some quiet. I'm sure they won't even notice if we sneak off to steal some bijuu or whatever.
You know, as much as threatening people never worked out, trying to seduce people always did. Akane (with Youth), Kagome (with Mari's picture), Yuno (Noburi's work), Ino (see here), Jiraiya (Mari's work), Ikeda, Ami, now this...
Clearly this is the approach we should take in all social encounters. On an entirely unrelated note, where do we think Oro is currently?
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
He ripped off the Kagome maneuver using a storage scroll.
Hey, we wanted a Byakugan counter, and we're halfway there.
I've actually been wondering. We know from Hidan that "gods" are real and have observable effects on reality in exchange for worship. The five forbidden clans seem to have at least one on tap.
Is it possible that Gai made contact with an eldritch deity powered by homoerotic innuendo?
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Almost 2 years later and this is finally coming true
Omake: Marked For Death Voyage: If You Call It A Miracle
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
7̶3̷8̷
Present day, Elemental Nations
"Ami, what happened to our Hot Springs network?" Ren growled, Iron Nerve barely concealing her intense frustration and exhaustion from a seemingly endless parade of bad news. The Kurosawa were keeping quiet about it, but Ami was fairly certain that Kurosawa Niichi had been either severely wounded or killed in a sealing failure; it'd explain why Mori Biwako had suddenly requested her second cousin in the middle of a teatime that Biwako had strugged to get Ami to attend.
Ami smiled, bouncing up despite the glares of Mist's senior command, Ren, and Gramps sitting in the corner. In that order of importance, of course. "Well, if I wasn't so fantastic, I'd say we're encountering the worst news possible, but since I am, I'm just going to report merely good news," she deflected.
Internally she cursed. If Hazou wasn't just about the only person in the Elemental Nations crazy enough to do what he did, she'd be able to make him regret fucking tearing open Reality without even making sure that Keiko would be safe from the aftershocks.
"Well, it turns out that in that area there used to be a civilization on the edge of extinction, but now there's just a horde of horrifically strong, ludicrously durable, and constantly evolving metallic humanoids made up completely of blades that also happens to learn jutsu that we used on it. When I met up with the tatters of our network, I found out that the survivors of the Battle for Hot Springs were headed to the border to meet up with the ragged forces of Rice for one last desperate struggle atop Junko's Hill."
"And you dealt with the problem?" Ryugamine asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, the actual problem is that something is tearing apart the foundations of our reality, and the effects are that sealing failures once thought adequately contained might not actually be contained enough, but yes, I did temporarily contain the horde of metallic blademonsters for about two or three months, and I got Fire to launch suppression missions in the area. In other mildly unrelated news, these monsters are now confirmed to be completely immune to drowning and electrical damage, resistant to fire and ice, and can only be destroyed by ridiculously overwhelming force or by thermal shock. I also now owe Uzumaki Naruto one hell of a favor," Ami reported with a catlike grin.
The rest of the room shivered, and looked at each other.
"Ami," Ryugamine carefully said. "Is there anything we can do about reality falling apart?"
"Depends," Ami truthfully answered. "Do we have any enterprising sealmasters or technique hackers stupid enough to stare directly into the truth of reality, stubborn enough to survive, and crazy enough to try to use that knowledge to make changes to the foundations of reality, knowing that the slightest misstep could doom us all?"
Dead silence.
Two years ago
"Neji-sensei, I can't do iiiitt," Honoka petulantly whined. "How am I supposed to dodge those grapes with these blindfolds on?"
Chakra burning through his hands, Neji flicked another grape at her.
"Sense my hand motions," Neji blithely said.
"But howwwww? I can't see with these blindfolds on!" Honoka said, hit by another grape.
"Ask Lord Goketsu; the CASE system was his idea in the first place," Neji responded, flicking another grape high into the air. If he had guessed which direction Honoka was going to dodge next...
"Neji-sensei, he told me - ow!" Neji guessed right, and his day was improved by about negative one micro-Goketsus. Of course, his day had started with about three Goketsus in the negatives because Hazou had somehow convinced Hinata that this banality was a good use of his time, but Neji tried to look at the big picture nowadays.
Ugh. Listening to Honoka complain was seriously grating on his nerves. It might be worth helping Honoka out just to not have to hear it anymore.
"Supposedly, Honoka," Neji began, flicking another grape into the air, "the monks of Himetsu Castle in Lightning once had a certain monk Naomichi who was a prolific writer and happened to lose the use of his eyes in middle age due to completely natural chakra-liger related reasons. This is notable because Himetsu Castle was nowhere near chakra-liger hunting grounds, and Himetsu Castle was also training far more woodcutters than the local area could support."
Honoka stopped, confused. "What - no, wait, I can figure this out," Honoka said, and Neji could see through the blindfold how she was scrunching her face up in concentration. "Himetsu Castle wasn't training woodcutters, they were training warriors, and because of that Naomichi was blinded as a warning by..."
"By?" Neji smugly asked, tracking the downwards trajectory of the grape.
"By Cloud ninjas, who called it a chakra-liger accident?" Honoka said, relaxing as she found confidence in her answer.
"Correct," Neji declared, counting down to the grape's impact.
"Ya - ow! What the heck was that for, Neji-sensei?" Honoka complained, pouting.
"For paying attention to the word problem and not the point of the exercise," Neji said, smirking.
"Then, Neji-sensei, what is the point?" Honoka asked.
"The monk Naomichi's writings become understandably less legible and a different handwriting style after he got blinded; however, he noted that about a year after his blinding, his sense of hearing, smell, touch, and direction had improved significantly," Neji lectured.
"Ohhhh," Honoka said, before scrunching her eyes shut and clapping her hands over her ears.
Smirking, Neji picked up two grapes, and flicked his hand in just the right way to send one directly at her and the other high into the air.
Just as he expected, Honoka dodged the first one, swaying wildly to avoid the shot. Neji could tell that Honoka knew she dodged it by her confident smile, and although he wouldn't admit it, that smile improved his day by one negative Goketsu.
"Neji-sensei, I did it!" Honoka crowed - and then was hit by the second grape Neji threw into the air.
Honoka's annoyed face improved Neji's day by another negative micro-Goketsu.
Marked For Death Voyage: If You Call It A Miracle
Smoke popped in front of Kagome's fingers, where the silver-haired man once stood.
For an instant eternity, time froze - stuttered - restarted at a snail's - paused - decelerated - jerked laterally - space broke - reformed - rotated inwards - expressed imagination - clicked between states -
Honoka remembered seeing all five of her teammate's eyes. The light in Kagome's teary eyes hardening. Neji's wide-eyed expression of confounded terror. Lee's overacted shock and wide eyes telegraphing the hope he dared not express. Hazou's eyes unfocusing towards the middle distance, releasing his hope and humanity for a path to victory. Mari-sensei's green eyes blazing into a fury that Honoka had never even suspected Mari of being capable of, as her face curled into a rictus of terrified hatred.
The killing intent crashed into her next. The promise of a terror inflicted by a cackling demon swept through her and through her surroundings. Visions of nightmares beyond Honoka's imagining - within the Lady of Red's, her mind whispered - flickered around her and the recesses of her mind, and her innermost self knew that the only reason she lived was that the killing intent was not meant to be pointed anywhere close to her.
Distantly, she recognized that the Voyager team had moved into a battle formation on reflex. Mari-sensei had left the formation, coalescing such a powerful Wind jutsu around her form that Honoka could feel the biting lash of the wind dozens of meters away. The light of a glowing arrow pierced through the sphere, but it had only touched the afterimage of red. Water flowed around the sphere as Honoka blinked away the aftershocks of the glowing spear, spinning in a reverse direction to the air. Both revolved and lashed out indiscriminately. In one instant, an earthen dragon descended from the sky; in the next, a heaven-splitting peal of thunder shot from one of the tendrils and reduced the dragon to so much ash.
"Stand," a chorus of eldritch whispers affirmed. "Deliverance is within grasp," they echoed. "Seize it," they stated, and Honoka felt her spine stiffen with hands unclenched.
"Plan Faultline Black," Hazou icily called out, and Honoka slotted into the back right position, around Hazou and Neji casting the Summoning jutsu. "Neji, all-out. Bring your strongest."
Honoka tightened her lips. Faultline Black was the prelude to an Earthquake Black, summoning dozens of Summons and elemental clones to boost damage. Hazou had just ordered them to go silent; why would he order them to immediately go all-out, and attract everyone's attention? Worse, Honoka knew better than anyone just how strong her suits were; an all-out attack would hit her too. So why...?
Calm, Honoka inisted. Ino-sensei, as part of her "cruel training", had her prepare to "walk in other people's minds, even though you're not a Yamanaka." Honoka knew Hazou-sensei usually made good decisions, if often also at complete right angles to common sense, so there was some logic to it.
Honoka jus/
Franticall/
Luckily/ fbmdl
Her twin beam sabers were already in her hands, ready to block, and even still Orochimaru's descending Kusanagi nearly bisected her. Her arms crumpled under the weight of resisting Orochimaru's attack, as the edge of the blade took on a sinister green sheen which punched through her invisible sabers as if they didn't exist.
Automatic defense seals immediately layered barriers and spat out a faceplate to tank the attack, but the green edge punched through three barriers and cracked the faceplate, exposing her one eye. Just as immediately, the pressure vanished and she staggered forward, boosting leftwards on pure reflex as the sword speared through the space she had just been in. The knowledge that she was nothing aside from a pile of meat whose every connecting tissue had already ceased to hold itself together spread through her disjointed body and consciousness, as a countervailing chorus proclaimed that she was still alive, and that since she was alive she could pursue her dream.
Dream, huh? What even was her dream, she hysterically wondered.
Then the blade whipped back and she had no more time for those kind of thoughts; on instinct one hand dropped to her endless pouch of traps and the rest of her body tossed herself to the ground as she dropped one of her disks. The blade came through, tongue trailing behind on the handle; the trap activated, and a directional explosive severed - the tongue dodged, but not the second beam saber - the tongue suddenly grasped her wrist and snapped -
Everything went dark, and then sounded cracks, and then became pain. The ground became the sky and became the sky as she soared through the sky, one arm screaming in pain as she idly looked over at her arm flopping in the wind. Muscles screamed in the pain of dislocation; she tasted blood in her mouth, and bit downwards as she popped her arm back in. In the distance, a flood of Dogs and Turtles popped into existence, two great beasts towering over the rest just as Orochimaru had begun to summon his endless array of snakes. Colossal beings clashed on the earth as an endless storm of attacks descended from the heavens, and a limitless number of retorts from the earth rebuked heaven. Blue fire burned as yellow lightning met green venom, punctuated by the unceasing retort of another batch of explosives.
Wearily, Honoka stood up on the cracked earth and steadied her ragged breathing. Inhale. The power circuits on her right arm were badly damaged, not to mention how much even breathing hurt her right arm. Exhale. Her double-sided traps were still good. Inhale. She still had one beam saber. Exhale. CASE system: still effective. Inhale. She was ready to fight.
With her exhale, she bounded back towards the fight.
In the distance, Honoka saw her team fighting against the endless hordes of snakes and attacks. Thundering sounds echoed in her skull, as she tasted the tang of ozone. Sheets of fire met torrents of air and lit the sky afire as the earth trembled and fissured beneath the fury of a thousand Raiton jutsu. Beams of light bent in midair and translucent shimmers shot out of the smoke clouds kicked up by hundreds of explosives. Serpents of water met serpents of flesh and were found wanting; a fiery eagle found a river of dragons and was quenched immediately.
Portals shimmered into existence to disgorge their payloads; spears of icicles found abundant water and began spreading ice throughout, as the temperature dropped and formed a mighty blizzard. The light of Mari-sensei's fury, the Dog Boss's blue fire, and light from uncountable jutsu pierced through the sheet of driving white snow. Shaking her nearly uncontrollable right arm out, Honoka continued boosting back to her team.
"Honoka's - HONOKA!" Kagome-sensei screamed into the communicator, over Neji's quietly relieved callout. "I'm okay, sensei!" Honoka called out, to a conspicuous silence. Kagome was probably crying on the other end.
"Honoka, we need your CASE system up," Hazou urgently told Honoka. "We can't see anything in this blizzard, and Neji's fingers can't keep up with Orochimaru and the red guy's movements, got it?"
"Yes, sir," Honoka said, closing her eyes and feeling what the vibrating seals were telling her: four signatures loosely scattered near them, one blurry figure in the sky that was probably Mari, dozens of small signals which were probably summons, three that were so big they had to be the Boss Summon, and two pretty big signatures. One of them was heading out of the blizzard; the other one was -
She ducked on instinct, and lost a few strands of hair to Orochimaru's blade. How the heck that stupid Orochimaru-stinker's tongue could stand the cold, Honoka didn't know, but that was what she was dealing with. Cursing, she dropped another one of her disks and rolled forward. She could feel Orochimaru approaching her, lazily running in her general direction with his sword held lightly in one hand. It didn't seem like Orochimaru knew where Honoka was; he was running towards the place she had just been, not where she was rolling to.
"Orochimaru's on me," Honoka huffed out, just before she sensed Orochimaru making another slash. With the resistance of the snow, Honoka couldn't jump up fast enough, but the boosters - no time to think about that, just enough time to boost jump above the blade aaand Orochimaru was now turning to match her new heading at a really fast pace through the snow somehow.
Distantly, she could feel her limbs begin to fall to pieces; it was the second time that she felt Orochimaru's Killing Intent in as many minutes, she noted. No eldritch symphony of voices would give her affirmation this time, though - she would have to fight this on her own.
Fine, Honoka huffed, turning to face Orochimaru. He wanted to face a security specialist who had learned from Kagome and Hazou-sensei? She'd show him just how bad an idea it was to face a sealmaster on prepared ground, no matter how recent the ground was prepared.
Her hands flicked to her trapped disks. Charging forward with boosters in full burn, she threw out her disks with all her strength - dropping several behind her as she flew as the real trap. In the blindingly bright snow blasting in their faces, the disks should've been nearly invisible, but Orochimaru wriggled and slipped through holes in the net that Honoka hadn't even known existed. His sword flashed out any time a particularly dangerous combination approached: watching three of her ZorpBombs getting cut down was frustrating, dammit!
Suddenly, the sword whipped back out, and Honoka raised her own deactivated beam saber up. To make sure she got the timing right, she burned up her own chakra, and watched the world pass by in slow motion. Orochimaru's sword looked almost like normal speed as it came right for her midsection, but Honoka was a ninja, and vaulted right - fast!
The blade hit her beam saber and threw her back for the second time. Her fingers were numb, but she forced them to keep scattering the disks, as Orochimaru whipped his sword back and himself forward at a ludicrously high speed. Slithering and weaving, Orochimaru managed to dodge out of the way of every trap that Honoka had set. Explosion seals couldn't touch him, implosion seals were too slow, something was wrong with the Dust Bombs, and the Banshees didn't even slow him down. Someone was saying something into her earpiece, but -
Orochimaru was at her throat again. She desperately backpedaled in a circle. Blade met invisible edge over and over again, as Honoka used up all the chakra the S7 Engine could feed her. A thrust was deflected, a rising slash took off her right forearm's armor, a reverse cut left a deep gash in the shin plating, and a spinning slash smashing through her flimsy hold to leave a deep gash on her torso armor.
With each superficial wound, however, Honoka was dropping her own set of disks with her right arm, and leading Orochimaru further into her own trap array, spiralling outside.
Cut. Thrust. Smash. Punch. Half-sworded thrust.
Disk. Disk. Disk. Disk. Disk.
Her faceplate was destroyed. Her other shin armor gave way. Her torso armor cracked. Her shoulder pauldron was cut off and removed. Her skin was one massive bruise, through all the armor. Her consciousness was flayed just as certainly as her GUTS suit was falling to pieces around her.
But.
Dragging her exhausted body into one more block, a fierce smile broke out.
Because her trap disks were two-sided.
Boosting backwards at full speed, Honoka lept clear of the array she had spent the last minute getting beat up to build up. Orochimaru's tongue shot out to intercept her, and then the world became a maelstrom of sound and a rainbow of colors as the reverse side of her trapped disks activated. Implosion bombs sucked in the goo sprayed by the outer array, lightning surged outwards, a multilayered dome contained all the rest of the traps and the target - just as an earthshattering amount of explosives and Dust Bombs reduced everything inside to ash. Just to make sure of it, a set of Banshees stuck to the floor vibrated the churned mud floor until the survivor drowned in liquified mud.
Panting, Honoka touched down. The series of traps had pushed away the blizzard, apparently, and she could see the Dome clearly. The inside of the Domes was a blackened gooey ash - not even Orochimaru could've survived that, Honoka thought. Her everything hurt, and she could barely move her right hand, but the widest smile was pulled across her face. She survived Orochimaru, and even got the better of him, dammit! Exhausted, her laughter dribbled out of her, thrilled to be hurting, but alive. Babble from the communicator washed over her, as she concentrated on drawing in the sharp and cold air in deep, ragged breaths.
The Dome cracked. Honoka's knees gave out on her. The gooey walls divided, and Orochimaru stood tall, smirking in the ashes. Casually, he raised two fingers up to his hem, and brushed.
"Mistake," Neji proclaimed. "For you are within range of my divination! Eight Trigrams, Four Thousand Ninety Six Palms!"
Booms echoed throughout the battlefield, as Neji's palms left shockwaves in their wake. The tinkling of a shattered metal rang out, and Orochimaru launched himself backwards at the highest speed he could. Neji hands caught his ankle, which instantly peeled off, leaving Neji holding Orochimaru's dead skin; in the next instant, Neji leapt after him, but a curtain of fire blocked his path.
Honoka blinked. Where had that fire come from? She blinked again. The air wasn't as cold, the clouds had dispersed, and a golden ray was slowly descending. Most of all, the silence seemed to echo loudly in her head, the lack of explosions, of crackling lighting and rushing water making its absence felt.
"Impressive, new arrivals! Truly, amazing!" a voice boomed out. "Consider me enterained, incarnated Asuras! That was truly a splendid performance!" the golden figure said, loudly clapping one pair of his hands together. "You have made it worth sending Jirou to this front of the battlefield, and you have made it worth my time to come here in person," he declared, descending on a golden platform.
He was dressed from head to toe with golden armor, interspersed with glowing blood red highlights. Even from a distance, Honoka could feel the incredible degree of power that the man - no, Asura - was emanating casually. The very air seemed to cling onto his every word, awaiting the order to either relax or perish on the Asura's whim. Two arms remained folded together, as the top two contemptously clapped at their life-and-death battle.
"Tell me, then, Asuras, what prize do you seek more than life itself? A king must know what his subjects desire, in order to satisfy them, of course," the golden Asura smugly said.
Honoka grit her teeth and pushed herself up, shaking off the lingering feeling that her flesh would slough off at any moment. She looked over at Neji, on his last legs. Kagome, shaking from exhaustion and trying to comfort Mari, kneeling on the ground sobbing. Lee, covered from head to toe in corrosive venom, smiling his normal smile.
Hazou, radiating his own aura and purpose.
"Everyone we've ever lost," he said back.
The golden figure's face immediately curled up into a disgusted sneer. "Resurrection? Revival? You presume much, fools," he spat. "You believe that you can do what I cannot? How arrogant you must be."
The pressure doubled, and then redoubled upon the six of them.
"And?" Hazou asked, refusing to give even an inch.
"Tch," the Asura said, finally descending to the ground. "If you believe that you truly are stronger than me in all respects, and seek to achieve the unattainable miracle of resurrection, you will need to accomplish three things: Force the Judge of the Naraka Path to submit to your will, create an opening in the boundary of enlightenment dividing the Pure Land from reality, and then rebind the entirety of Reality together. The first task alone will break you; you will need to personally learn the lesson of each of the Six Paths before you can call youself qualified to challenge the King of Hell," the king-like figure derisively snorted.
"However," he cruely smiled, "because I believe in promoting ambition, allow me to help you on your journey - to the path of endless hunger, the Preta Path!"
The Asura waved all six of his hands in a complicated jutsu. Arrays of machinery emerged from golden portals around him at high speed, multicolored glyphs burning themselves into the air as he rose back into the sky - just out of the way of the yawning chasm opening beneath Honoka's feet, and dragging her downwards.
She looked up. All six of them were falling, falling, and falling, until the sky of the battlestrewn Asura Path winked away.
[X] Let @eaglejarl write what he wants. I trust him.
Present day, Elemental Nations
"Ami, what happened to our Hot Springs network?" Ren growled, Iron Nerve barely concealing her intense frustration and exhaustion from a seemingly endless parade of bad news. The Kurosawa were keeping quiet about it, but Ami was fairly certain that Kurosawa Niichi had been either severely wounded or killed in a sealing failure; it'd explain why Mori Biwako had suddenly requested her second cousin in the middle of a teatime that Biwako had strugged to get Ami to attend.
Ami smiled, bouncing up despite the glares of Mist's senior command, Ren, and Gramps sitting in the corner. In that order of importance, of course. "Well, if I wasn't so fantastic, I'd say we're encountering the worst news possible, but since I am, I'm just going to report merely good news," she deflected.
Internally she cursed. If Hazou wasn't just about the only person in the Elemental Nations crazy enough to do what he did, she'd be able to make him regret fucking tearing open Reality without even making sure that Keiko would be safe from the aftershocks.
"Well, it turns out that in that area there used to be a civilization on the edge of extinction, but now there's just a horde of horrifically strong, ludicrously durable, and constantly evolving metallic humanoids made up completely of blades that also happens to learn jutsu that we used on it. When I met up with the tatters of our network, I found out that the survivors of the Battle for Hot Springs were headed to the border to meet up with the ragged forces of Rice for one last desperate struggle atop Junko's Hill."
"And you dealt with the problem?" Ryugamine asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, the actual problem is that something is tearing apart the foundations of our reality, and the effects are that sealing failures once thought adequately contained might not actually be contained enough, but yes, I did temporarily contain the horde of metallic blademonsters for about two or three months, and I got Fire to launch suppression missions in the area. In other mildly unrelated news, these monsters are now confirmed to be completely immune to drowning and electrical damage, resistant to fire and ice, and can only be destroyed by ridiculously overwhelming force or by thermal shock. I also now owe Uzumaki Naruto one hell of a favor," Ami reported with a catlike grin.
The rest of the room shivered, and looked at each other.
"Ami," Ryugamine carefully said. "Is there anything we can do about reality falling apart?"
"Depends," Ami truthfully answered. "Do we have any enterprising sealmasters or technique hackers stupid enough to stare directly into the truth of reality, stubborn enough to survive, and crazy enough to try to use that knowledge to make changes to the foundations of reality, knowing that the slightest misstep could doom us all?"
Dead silence.
Two years ago
"Neji-sensei, I can't do iiiitt," Honoka petulantly whined. "How am I supposed to dodge those grapes with these blindfolds on?"
Chakra burning through his hands, Neji flicked another grape at her.
"Sense my hand motions," Neji blithely said.
"But howwwww? I can't see with these blindfolds on!" Honoka said, hit by another grape.
"Ask Lord Goketsu; the CASE system was his idea in the first place," Neji responded, flicking another grape high into the air. If he had guessed which direction Honoka was going to dodge next...
"Neji-sensei, he told me - ow!" Neji guessed right, and his day was improved by about negative one micro-Goketsus. Of course, his day had started with about three Goketsus in the negatives because Hazou had somehow convinced Hinata that this banality was a good use of his time, but Neji tried to look at the big picture nowadays.
Ugh. Listening to Honoka complain was seriously grating on his nerves. It might be worth helping Honoka out just to not have to hear it anymore.
"Supposedly, Honoka," Neji began, flicking another grape into the air, "the monks of Himetsu Castle in Lightning once had a certain monk Naomichi who was a prolific writer and happened to lose the use of his eyes in middle age due to completely natural chakra-liger related reasons. This is notable because Himetsu Castle was nowhere near chakra-liger hunting grounds, and Himetsu Castle was also training far more woodcutters than the local area could support."
Honoka stopped, confused. "What - no, wait, I can figure this out," Honoka said, and Neji could see through the blindfold how she was scrunching her face up in concentration. "Himetsu Castle wasn't training woodcutters, they were training warriors, and because of that Naomichi was blinded as a warning by..."
"By?" Neji smugly asked, tracking the downwards trajectory of the grape.
"By Cloud ninjas, who called it a chakra-liger accident?" Honoka said, relaxing as she found confidence in her answer.
"Correct," Neji declared, counting down to the grape's impact.
"Ya - ow! What the heck was that for, Neji-sensei?" Honoka complained, pouting.
"For paying attention to the word problem and not the point of the exercise," Neji said, smirking.
"Then, Neji-sensei, what is the point?" Honoka asked.
"The monk Naomichi's writings become understandably less legible and a different handwriting style after he got blinded; however, he noted that about a year after his blinding, his sense of hearing, smell, touch, and direction had improved significantly," Neji lectured.
"Ohhhh," Honoka said, before scrunching her eyes shut and clapping her hands over her ears.
Smirking, Neji picked up two grapes, and flicked his hand in just the right way to send one directly at her and the other high into the air.
Just as he expected, Honoka dodged the first one, swaying wildly to avoid the shot. Neji could tell that Honoka knew she dodged it by her confident smile, and although he wouldn't admit it, that smile improved his day by one negative Goketsu.
"Neji-sensei, I did it!" Honoka crowed - and then was hit by the second grape Neji threw into the air.
Honoka's annoyed face improved Neji's day by another negative micro-Goketsu.
Marked For Death Voyage: If You Call It A Miracle
Smoke popped in front of Kagome's fingers, where the silver-haired man once stood.
For an instant eternity, time froze - stuttered - restarted at a snail's - paused - decelerated - jerked laterally - space broke - reformed - rotated inwards - expressed imagination - clicked between states -
Honoka remembered seeing all five of her teammate's eyes. The light in Kagome's teary eyes hardening. Neji's wide-eyed expression of confounded terror. Lee's overacted shock and wide eyes telegraphing the hope he dared not express. Hazou's eyes unfocusing towards the middle distance, releasing his hope and humanity for a path to victory. Mari-sensei's green eyes blazing into a fury that Honoka had never even suspected Mari of being capable of, as her face curled into a rictus of terrified hatred.
The killing intent crashed into her next. The promise of a terror inflicted by a cackling demon swept through her and through her surroundings. Visions of nightmares beyond Honoka's imagining - within the Lady of Red's, her mind whispered - flickered around her and the recesses of her mind, and her innermost self knew that the only reason she lived was that the killing intent was not meant to be pointed anywhere close to her.
Distantly, she recognized that the Voyager team had moved into a battle formation on reflex. Mari-sensei had left the formation, coalescing such a powerful Wind jutsu around her form that Honoka could feel the biting lash of the wind dozens of meters away. The light of a glowing arrow pierced through the sphere, but it had only touched the afterimage of red. Water flowed around the sphere as Honoka blinked away the aftershocks of the glowing spear, spinning in a reverse direction to the air. Both revolved and lashed out indiscriminately. In one instant, an earthen dragon descended from the sky; in the next, a heaven-splitting peal of thunder shot from one of the tendrils and reduced the dragon to so much ash.
"Stand," a chorus of eldritch whispers affirmed. "Deliverance is within grasp," they echoed. "Seize it," they stated, and Honoka felt her spine stiffen with hands unclenched.
"Plan Faultline Black," Hazou icily called out, and Honoka slotted into the back right position, around Hazou and Neji casting the Summoning jutsu. "Neji, all-out. Bring your strongest."
Honoka tightened her lips. Faultline Black was the prelude to an Earthquake Black, summoning dozens of Summons and elemental clones to boost damage. Hazou had just ordered them to go silent; why would he order them to immediately go all-out, and attract everyone's attention? Worse, Honoka knew better than anyone just how strong her suits were; an all-out attack would hit her too. So why...?
Calm, Honoka inisted. Ino-sensei, as part of her "cruel training", had her prepare to "walk in other people's minds, even though you're not a Yamanaka." Honoka knew Hazou-sensei usually made good decisions, if often also at complete right angles to common sense, so there was some logic to it.
Honoka jus/
Franticall/
Luckily/ fbmdl
Her twin beam sabers were already in her hands, ready to block, and even still Orochimaru's descending Kusanagi nearly bisected her. Her arms crumpled under the weight of resisting Orochimaru's attack, as the edge of the blade took on a sinister green sheen which punched through her invisible sabers as if they didn't exist.
Automatic defense seals immediately layered barriers and spat out a faceplate to tank the attack, but the green edge punched through three barriers and cracked the faceplate, exposing her one eye. Just as immediately, the pressure vanished and she staggered forward, boosting leftwards on pure reflex as the sword speared through the space she had just been in. The knowledge that she was nothing aside from a pile of meat whose every connecting tissue had already ceased to hold itself together spread through her disjointed body and consciousness, as a countervailing chorus proclaimed that she was still alive, and that since she was alive she could pursue her dream.
Dream, huh? What even was her dream, she hysterically wondered.
Then the blade whipped back and she had no more time for those kind of thoughts; on instinct one hand dropped to her endless pouch of traps and the rest of her body tossed herself to the ground as she dropped one of her disks. The blade came through, tongue trailing behind on the handle; the trap activated, and a directional explosive severed - the tongue dodged, but not the second beam saber - the tongue suddenly grasped her wrist and snapped -
Everything went dark, and then sounded cracks, and then became pain. The ground became the sky and became the sky as she soared through the sky, one arm screaming in pain as she idly looked over at her arm flopping in the wind. Muscles screamed in the pain of dislocation; she tasted blood in her mouth, and bit downwards as she popped her arm back in. In the distance, a flood of Dogs and Turtles popped into existence, two great beasts towering over the rest just as Orochimaru had begun to summon his endless array of snakes. Colossal beings clashed on the earth as an endless storm of attacks descended from the heavens, and a limitless number of retorts from the earth rebuked heaven. Blue fire burned as yellow lightning met green venom, punctuated by the unceasing retort of another batch of explosives.
Wearily, Honoka stood up on the cracked earth and steadied her ragged breathing. Inhale. The power circuits on her right arm were badly damaged, not to mention how much even breathing hurt her right arm. Exhale. Her double-sided traps were still good. Inhale. She still had one beam saber. Exhale. CASE system: still effective. Inhale. She was ready to fight.
With her exhale, she bounded back towards the fight.
In the distance, Honoka saw her team fighting against the endless hordes of snakes and attacks. Thundering sounds echoed in her skull, as she tasted the tang of ozone. Sheets of fire met torrents of air and lit the sky afire as the earth trembled and fissured beneath the fury of a thousand Raiton jutsu. Beams of light bent in midair and translucent shimmers shot out of the smoke clouds kicked up by hundreds of explosives. Serpents of water met serpents of flesh and were found wanting; a fiery eagle found a river of dragons and was quenched immediately.
Portals shimmered into existence to disgorge their payloads; spears of icicles found abundant water and began spreading ice throughout, as the temperature dropped and formed a mighty blizzard. The light of Mari-sensei's fury, the Dog Boss's blue fire, and light from uncountable jutsu pierced through the sheet of driving white snow. Shaking her nearly uncontrollable right arm out, Honoka continued boosting back to her team.
"Honoka's - HONOKA!" Kagome-sensei screamed into the communicator, over Neji's quietly relieved callout. "I'm okay, sensei!" Honoka called out, to a conspicuous silence. Kagome was probably crying on the other end.
"Honoka, we need your CASE system up," Hazou urgently told Honoka. "We can't see anything in this blizzard, and Neji's fingers can't keep up with Orochimaru and the red guy's movements, got it?"
"Yes, sir," Honoka said, closing her eyes and feeling what the vibrating seals were telling her: four signatures loosely scattered near them, one blurry figure in the sky that was probably Mari, dozens of small signals which were probably summons, three that were so big they had to be the Boss Summon, and two pretty big signatures. One of them was heading out of the blizzard; the other one was -
She ducked on instinct, and lost a few strands of hair to Orochimaru's blade. How the heck that stupid Orochimaru-stinker's tongue could stand the cold, Honoka didn't know, but that was what she was dealing with. Cursing, she dropped another one of her disks and rolled forward. She could feel Orochimaru approaching her, lazily running in her general direction with his sword held lightly in one hand. It didn't seem like Orochimaru knew where Honoka was; he was running towards the place she had just been, not where she was rolling to.
"Orochimaru's on me," Honoka huffed out, just before she sensed Orochimaru making another slash. With the resistance of the snow, Honoka couldn't jump up fast enough, but the boosters - no time to think about that, just enough time to boost jump above the blade aaand Orochimaru was now turning to match her new heading at a really fast pace through the snow somehow.
Distantly, she could feel her limbs begin to fall to pieces; it was the second time that she felt Orochimaru's Killing Intent in as many minutes, she noted. No eldritch symphony of voices would give her affirmation this time, though - she would have to fight this on her own.
Fine, Honoka huffed, turning to face Orochimaru. He wanted to face a security specialist who had learned from Kagome and Hazou-sensei? She'd show him just how bad an idea it was to face a sealmaster on prepared ground, no matter how recent the ground was prepared.
Her hands flicked to her trapped disks. Charging forward with boosters in full burn, she threw out her disks with all her strength - dropping several behind her as she flew as the real trap. In the blindingly bright snow blasting in their faces, the disks should've been nearly invisible, but Orochimaru wriggled and slipped through holes in the net that Honoka hadn't even known existed. His sword flashed out any time a particularly dangerous combination approached: watching three of her ZorpBombs getting cut down was frustrating, dammit!
Suddenly, the sword whipped back out, and Honoka raised her own deactivated beam saber up. To make sure she got the timing right, she burned up her own chakra, and watched the world pass by in slow motion. Orochimaru's sword looked almost like normal speed as it came right for her midsection, but Honoka was a ninja, and vaulted right - fast!
The blade hit her beam saber and threw her back for the second time. Her fingers were numb, but she forced them to keep scattering the disks, as Orochimaru whipped his sword back and himself forward at a ludicrously high speed. Slithering and weaving, Orochimaru managed to dodge out of the way of every trap that Honoka had set. Explosion seals couldn't touch him, implosion seals were too slow, something was wrong with the Dust Bombs, and the Banshees didn't even slow him down. Someone was saying something into her earpiece, but -
Orochimaru was at her throat again. She desperately backpedaled in a circle. Blade met invisible edge over and over again, as Honoka used up all the chakra the S7 Engine could feed her. A thrust was deflected, a rising slash took off her right forearm's armor, a reverse cut left a deep gash in the shin plating, and a spinning slash smashing through her flimsy hold to leave a deep gash on her torso armor.
With each superficial wound, however, Honoka was dropping her own set of disks with her right arm, and leading Orochimaru further into her own trap array, spiralling outside.
Cut. Thrust. Smash. Punch. Half-sworded thrust.
Disk. Disk. Disk. Disk. Disk.
Her faceplate was destroyed. Her other shin armor gave way. Her torso armor cracked. Her shoulder pauldron was cut off and removed. Her skin was one massive bruise, through all the armor. Her consciousness was flayed just as certainly as her GUTS suit was falling to pieces around her.
But.
Dragging her exhausted body into one more block, a fierce smile broke out.
Because her trap disks were two-sided.
Boosting backwards at full speed, Honoka lept clear of the array she had spent the last minute getting beat up to build up. Orochimaru's tongue shot out to intercept her, and then the world became a maelstrom of sound and a rainbow of colors as the reverse side of her trapped disks activated. Implosion bombs sucked in the goo sprayed by the outer array, lightning surged outwards, a multilayered dome contained all the rest of the traps and the target - just as an earthshattering amount of explosives and Dust Bombs reduced everything inside to ash. Just to make sure of it, a set of Banshees stuck to the floor vibrated the churned mud floor until the survivor drowned in liquified mud.
Panting, Honoka touched down. The series of traps had pushed away the blizzard, apparently, and she could see the Dome clearly. The inside of the Domes was a blackened gooey ash - not even Orochimaru could've survived that, Honoka thought. Her everything hurt, and she could barely move her right hand, but the widest smile was pulled across her face. She survived Orochimaru, and even got the better of him, dammit! Exhausted, her laughter dribbled out of her, thrilled to be hurting, but alive. Babble from the communicator washed over her, as she concentrated on drawing in the sharp and cold air in deep, ragged breaths.
The Dome cracked. Honoka's knees gave out on her. The gooey walls divided, and Orochimaru stood tall, smirking in the ashes. Casually, he raised two fingers up to his hem, and brushed.
"Mistake," Neji proclaimed. "For you are within range of my divination! Eight Trigrams, Four Thousand Ninety Six Palms!"
Booms echoed throughout the battlefield, as Neji's palms left shockwaves in their wake. The tinkling of a shattered metal rang out, and Orochimaru launched himself backwards at the highest speed he could. Neji hands caught his ankle, which instantly peeled off, leaving Neji holding Orochimaru's dead skin; in the next instant, Neji leapt after him, but a curtain of fire blocked his path.
Honoka blinked. Where had that fire come from? She blinked again. The air wasn't as cold, the clouds had dispersed, and a golden ray was slowly descending. Most of all, the silence seemed to echo loudly in her head, the lack of explosions, of crackling lighting and rushing water making its absence felt.
"Impressive, new arrivals! Truly, amazing!" a voice boomed out. "Consider me enterained, incarnated Asuras! That was truly a splendid performance!" the golden figure said, loudly clapping one pair of his hands together. "You have made it worth sending Jirou to this front of the battlefield, and you have made it worth my time to come here in person," he declared, descending on a golden platform.
He was dressed from head to toe with golden armor, interspersed with glowing blood red highlights. Even from a distance, Honoka could feel the incredible degree of power that the man - no, Asura - was emanating casually. The very air seemed to cling onto his every word, awaiting the order to either relax or perish on the Asura's whim. Two arms remained folded together, as the top two contemptously clapped at their life-and-death battle.
"Tell me, then, Asuras, what prize do you seek more than life itself? A king must know what his subjects desire, in order to satisfy them, of course," the golden Asura smugly said.
Honoka grit her teeth and pushed herself up, shaking off the lingering feeling that her flesh would slough off at any moment. She looked over at Neji, on his last legs. Kagome, shaking from exhaustion and trying to comfort Mari, kneeling on the ground sobbing. Lee, covered from head to toe in corrosive venom, smiling his normal smile.
Hazou, radiating his own aura and purpose.
"Everyone we've ever lost," he said back.
The golden figure's face immediately curled up into a disgusted sneer. "Resurrection? Revival? You presume much, fools," he spat. "You believe that you can do what I cannot? How arrogant you must be."
The pressure doubled, and then redoubled upon the six of them.
"And?" Hazou asked, refusing to give even an inch.
"Tch," the Asura said, finally descending to the ground. "If you believe that you truly are stronger than me in all respects, and seek to achieve the unattainable miracle of resurrection, you will need to accomplish three things: Force the Judge of the Naraka Path to submit to your will, create an opening in the boundary of enlightenment dividing the Pure Land from reality, and then rebind the entirety of Reality together. The first task alone will break you; you will need to personally learn the lesson of each of the Six Paths before you can call youself qualified to challenge the King of Hell," the king-like figure derisively snorted.
"However," he cruely smiled, "because I believe in promoting ambition, allow me to help you on your journey - to the path of endless hunger, the Preta Path!"
The Asura waved all six of his hands in a complicated jutsu. Arrays of machinery emerged from golden portals around him at high speed, multicolored glyphs burning themselves into the air as he rose back into the sky - just out of the way of the yawning chasm opening beneath Honoka's feet, and dragging her downwards.
She looked up. All six of them were falling, falling, and falling, until the sky of the battlestrewn Asura Path winked away.
[X] Let @eaglejarl write what he wants. I trust him.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Kagome Maneuver involves using pre-prepared explosives to carpet-bomb an entire area with submunitions. Shikamaru used no explosives aside from the two in Shadow Blast.
Gai never made any homoerotic innuendo that I recall. That was all Lee.
@huhYeahGoodPoint That was brilliant! I loved the feeling of Honoka desperately battling a superior foe, using every trick in her arsenal to make up for being overmatched...and it didn't work. I'm a little dubious about her shrugging off the impact of Orochimaru's killing intent -- I think you were implying that her CASE system and some training from Ino were protecting her, but there wasn't enough groundwork to make that feel plausible.
Speaking of the CASE system, could you PLEASE start defining your terms?! The first time you mention some random new technology, make clear what it is. Perhaps, dare I say, even let us know what the hell the acronym stands for? Yeesh.
My impression is that CASE is some sort of sensory tech. If so, why didn't everyone have it?
Wait, shouldn't these be moving in opposite directions? If negative Gōketsu are the measure of improvement, I think the sentence should be "...had started at about three Gōketsu."
*sadbird, grumble, grumble*
Interesting data point...
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Leaf cannot afford to have its secrets leaked. The first two years are devoted entirely to mundane things -- reading, writing, arithmetic, history, throwing kunai, taijutsu, etc. In your third year you start learning to feel your chakra. At the start of your fifth year you start learning active chakra work (jutsu, wall-walking, etc). You graduate at the end of your sixth year."the hivemind" said:
If you flunk out before the start of your third year, you go back to your normal life. The instructors do their absolute best to flunk out anyone who they think is not going to make it to graduation, because no one flunks out after the start of third year. That doesn't mean everyone graduates; ninja training is rigorous and dangerous, training accidents are common, and people who cannot hack it end up dead. It's not uncommon for fifty percent of students to fail out in the first two years, and ten percent of those who remain to end up dead before graduation.
It is suuuuuper illegal to train anyone in chakra use outside of official Leaf-sanctioned channels.
Chapter 316: Decisions and Delayed Demolition
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The snowball fight and Noburi's playtime with the wind spirits were finally over. Noses and cheeks were red, eyes were bright, and fingers were numb; it was time to end on a good note.
Hazō waited until everyone was home, washed, changed into fluffy comfy clothes, and settled with hot drinks.
"So," he began. "The competition."
"Yeah, that was quite a thing," Noburi said. "Asuma's really pulling out all the stops, isn't he?"
"And smart," Mari noted. "I didn't expect such good politicking from someone his age."
Hazō frowned. "How do you mean? It seemed risky to me; he's basically asking the clans to give up a bunch of their secrets. That's going to cause issues."
"Sure, but he's going to undercut Ami, weld the KEI to himself, and gain the backing of the clanless ninja' while simultaneously having no direct responsibility for their actions." She saw the incomprehension on everyone's face and started over. "Most of the clans are...what? Thirty, forty ninja, once you take out the outliers?"
"Depends on what you count," Noburi replied. "There's a lot of variance."
Mari waved the objection away. "Fine. Regardless. The KEI consists of a third of all the ninja in Leaf—more, since the Collapse didn't affect them as much—and the contest heavily favors clanless over clan."
She turned sideways in her chair, draping her legs over the arm of her chair so she could conveniently set her drink on the floor. She let her head tip back so that she was looking thoughtfully up at the as-yet-unpainted granite ceiling of their new quarters.
"Start with the prizes," she said. "What have you got? The Dog Scroll and the land grant are both equally valuable to anyone, clan or not, so that's a wash. Training with Ebisu is more valuable for clanless; they don't have the money to pay for it on their own. Repayment of all debts; clan ninja aren't likely to have significant debts, clanless are. Income of ten million per year? Very valuable for clanless ninja who have to pay for all their own expenses. Less so for clan ninja who live rent free and probably get free board. Finally, option four in Asuma's list: Your clan gets a seat on the Clan Council plus extra adoption slots, and if you're currently clanless then a clan will be formed for you and up to ten friends. Obviously, having a clan formed for you isn't useful if you're already a clan. Likewise, getting a seat on the Council isn't useful to the roughly one-third of clans that already have a seat there. Maximum value for that choice only goes to clanless ninja.
"Furthermore, I'm fully expecting Ami, Naruto, and Keiko to 'ask' Asuma to grant the KEI a seat on the Clan Council. Having some clanless ninja form a clan and get a seat means that the KEI effectively has two seats...out of nineteen, but that's still double representation.
"On top of all that, look at what the entire point of the contest is: Collect stuff that will make Leaf ninja more powerful and then give it to all of them, clan and clanless alike. That disproportionately benefits KEI ninja. Their main weakness as a group is that they have less access to good training and less access to resources. No individual clanless ninja has the money to buy a ton of seals, or convince more experienced ninja to sell them good techniques. No one of them has access to as many jutsu as an equivalent clan ninja, so clanless have a lot less flexibility and usually a lot less raw power. After the contest ends, clan ninja will still have access to more techniques than clanless, since the Clans aren't going to give up all of their stuff and they're going to receive everything the clanless do. That isn't so important though; the clanless will have a big enough pool to draw from that it won't matter if it's not as big.
"On the flip side, Ami has been using the KEI as a way to drive a wedge between the clanless ninja and the established power structure, and Asuma just spiked that. The members of the KEI are going to recognize that Asuma was the one who got all this for them, not the KEI. They'll still be loyal to the KEI because it's to their advantage—prejudice isn't going away anytime soon—but if it ever comes down to a choice between the KEI and the Hokage, they're much more likely to come down on the side of the Hokage."
The room was silent as everyone digested that.
"Okay," Noburi said at last. "All that aside, the question of the day is: What are we giving up?"
"I think we want to get something in right away," Hazō said. "Like, today, and notify them that we're looking at other options. If and only if the rest of you agreed, I'd like to contribute the Pangolin Conditioning Jutsu, but that would require convincing Keiko to convince the Pangolin to let us contribute it. The deal we made with them was that we wouldn't give it out to non-Gōketsu or let it be modified; I'm not going to break our word on that. Still, an armor jutsu? That would be the single biggest contribution we could make. Think what it would mean for Naruto in particular, if his clones suddenly became more durable."
"Water Element: Water Whip." Water gushed out of Noburi's barrel, currently sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, and leaped towards him, forming into a thin strand. Noburi flicked the tip so that it lashed out and wound itself around the top log in the stack of firewood. A yank and a toss sent the heavy chunk of wood crashing into the massive brazier that heated the room. Sparks flew everywhere and the brazier would have tipped over if it hadn't been close enough to bump against the wall and settle back upright.
"Noburi!" Akane reproved.
The boy in question blushed. "Sorry, sorry. That was cooler in my head. Anyway, I'm fine to give Asuma the Water Whip. In fact, I'll pony up all the jutsu I have, although I learned most of them here in Leaf, so I'm not sure if they'll have value or not."
"Thanks, bro. They might have value or they might not—just because someone in Leaf knew them doesn't mean that everyone did. Regardless, you've got a good package of skills; it's well balanced and proven effective. We might get credit just for suggesting the idea of pre-packaged sets of jutsu that trainees can learn, instead of everyone have to start from scratch on deciding what to study."
Noburi arched an eyebrow. "Hazō, did you just compliment my package?"
Hazō felt his cheeks heating up. "Shut up, Nobby."
"I would be willing to share the Flame Aura and Firefly techniques," Akane said. "Firefly is from outside of Leaf and therefore should have value." She hesitated, biting her lip. "I...I think I would like to keep Elemental Mastery for myself." She looked away, clearly embarrassed. "It's the only thing I have that is unique."
"That's totally fine, Akane," Hazō said. "You're entitled to want something for yourself. Just...you know that Leaf is going to reach out to Isan at some point, right? And they may trade the technique for something they want from Leaf."
Akane swallowed and nodded, still not looking at anyone else. "I know. It is not youthful of me, and perhaps I'll get over it before the contest ends, but...for now, I would like to retain it." She looked back, meeting Hazō's eyes with brown eyes filled with worry and self-doubt. "Is that all right?"
"Of course." He smiled.
"Better schools," Kagome-sensei grunted. "Theirs suck. I could teach their teachers to not suck." He sniffed dismissively. "Maybe their sealmasters, too. For all that Jiraiya-stinker yammered about their collaborative seal studies, I haven't seen anything like that. I could show them how to do group work properly. Maybe formalize some of their training methods, because it looks like they're still doing master/apprentice."
"What's wrong with master/apprentice, sensei?"
"Get one stupid master, you get a whole lineage of stupid students." He snorted. "Or, more likely, a whole bunch of seal failures that rip everyone into shredded gobbets of flesh."
"But...aren't you and I using the master/apprentice system?"
"Yeah, but I'm not stupid."
What could one say to that?
"Ohhhhkay, moving on. We've got a bunch of jutsu, the idea of pre-defined jutsu sets, pedagogic reform for the general ninja arts, and a formalized pedagogy for seal research. What else?"
"I've got some jutsu I can throw in the pot," Mari said. "Fist of the Lightning God; high-damage, very flashy lightning attack. Jōnin-level technique that should get us lots of points, but there aren't a lot of Lightning-Element ninja in Leaf, so it doesn't cost us much. Ditto for Bile of the Ocean Demons, which is Water Element. Plus the FUBAR technique, although that's small potatoes. Wind Wall. Zephyr's Reach. Not any of my genjutsu, though. I'm not giving those out."
"Thank you," Hazō said. "That will help. I'm fine to donate the Poor Man's Yellow Flash—Jiraiya said that time-release storage seals already exist, so we should get credit for that before it gets out on its own. Macerators, too. Those are high-value as they are, but they would be better if we could crank up the storage stress and ejection speed. If we contribute them then maybe some other sealmaster can do that work for us and then contribute the improved version back.
"I also had an idea while we were out in the snow—"
Mari snorted. "When do you not have ideas?"
"As rarely as possible, now hush." He stuck his tongue out at her. "As I was saying, I was imagining something like a really big kite, big enough that the sky spirits would lift the user right off the ground along with the kite. Or, alternatively, a shuriken big enough to ride on. You could use skywalkers to climb up to a skytower, then use one of these 'skysliders' to cover distance while not having to use skywalker time. When you've gone as far as you want you turn on your skywalkers again. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy."
"Breezy," muttered Kagome-sensei.
"How would that even work?" Mari asked. "A shuriken big enough to ride on? It would be too heavy to throw, and how could you throw it while sitting on it? Even if you could, the spinning would make you dizzy and you wouldn't be able to see down. Plus, wind spirits don't like to support larger objects."
"And kites can't lift a person," Noburi said. "Seriously, dude. There has literally never been a case of a kite lifting a person, no matter how big the kite is. Are you thinking of using seals on it?"
"No..." Hazō stumbled to a halt. "I don't know. Maybe? It just feels like there should be a way to make it work."
Everyone took a moment to digest that.
"I mean...maybe if the person was really little and the kite was really big?" Noburi said doubtfully. "Even then, I doubt it. Like I said, it's literally never happened."
"People walking on air had never happened either, until we did it."
"Yeah, but that's seals. Seals can do weird stuff. Kites can't."
"I dunno, I just feel like it's possible."
Noburi shrugged and slurped on his tea. "Hey, you want to go fly a kite, good on you. Let me know when you're going out. I'll join you, if I'm not too busy."
"Actually, I want to get some craftsmen to work on it. I don't have any particular skill to make the thing or any way to contribute except maybe the occasional idea. I figure we hire some people and throw them at it."
Mari snorted. "Ah, yes. And, knowing you, I assume that you will be forgiving if they don't come up with anything, right?"
"I mean...of course? Well, I want them to hurry because I want the option to include this in our contest contribution if and only if we as a group decide to do that. Still, you can't blame someone for not figuring out something really complicated that no one has ever figured out before."
"So there won't be any actual consequences if they can't figure it out, right?"
"No, of course not."
"So, basically, you're going to pay a bunch of civilians to fly kites for a couple months with no need for them to ever actually produce anything."
"...Look, just get some carpenters and people who know about kites and put them on the project, okay? Figure out a reasonable rate and pay it. Oh, and keep this quiet for now. I don't want anyone else scooping us. Make sure they do their work away from prying eyes."
"Actually," Akane said, "that could be a contribution on its own."
Everyone looked at her with a universal 'huh?'
"The idea of civilian research teams," she clarified. "There are many civilians and few ninja. If there are non-chakra things that civilians can create that will assist Leaf, that would be a good contribution. Look at the printing press—it makes money for Leaf, advertises our wealth, and it requires no chakra to use or build."
And Jiraiya used it as the control system for his spy network, Hazō thought to himself.
"I got some more of his notes," Kagome-sensei volunteered, apropos of nothing. "Big chunk, actually. He wasn't as clever about rotating his ciphers as he should have been; I noticed the pattern he was using and it let me crack a lot of stuff all at once."
Everyone sat up. "Cool!" Hazō said. "What did you find?"
"A bunch of spy stuff. Names, locations, roles...details on fifty or sixty agents, and I'm pretty sure there's more. Most of them are low-level and have a note saying 'not reliable', but I figure maybe it's worth something?"
"Absolutely. Thank you, sensei. That's a big help. Asuma mentioned that Leaf's intelligence network took a big hit in the Collapse. He'll definitely like this."
"There's more." The older man fidgeted a bit. "There was details about the assassination of the last Raikage, as well as a detailed map and security analysis of Raikage Fortress, although it's probably out of date by now. Also, details on how Jiraiya seduced the Tsuchikage's wife and turned her into an agent funneling him information."
The room went absolutely silent.
"He what?" Mari demanded.
"Yeah. Also, the Kazekage's 'bastard daughter' is actually an ANBU sleeper agent named Marmot. She's spent years adding both poison and antidote to the Kazekage's breakfasts. The poison stays in the body, so as soon as the antidote is withdrawn the person will die." He shrugged. "That would be useful if the guy hadn't already died. Anyway, then there's the part about how he—Jiraiya, not the Kazekage, who is still dead—fought a float of gaki and trapped them in a sealing array in the Hanguri Gulf. He spent three years researching control seals and now they're available if we want to render a country unlivable."
Every non-Kagome-sensei eye in the room was filled with shock and every non-Kagome-sensei mouth hung open.
"I mean, as long as it was a small country," Kagome-sensei hurried to add. He paused, then noticed the expressions. "What?"
Mari sat up. "Kagome, do you have these notes on you? Could I see them?"
Kagome-sensei shrugged and rummaged in his seals. "Sure. Here." He passed over a thick sheaf of papers.
Mari flicked through them, crossreferencing certain sections.
"Kagome," she said slowly. "Some of this is notes for upcoming Icha Icha novels."
"...It is?"
"Mm-hm."
"...Oh." The man shrank in on himself.
"On the other hand, some of it isn't," she said. "The list of agents you mentioned seems to be real." She stopped talking, frowning as she skimmed. "I have no idea what this is."
Kagome-sensei craned his neck so he could see what she was reading. "Oh, that's the training instructions for all the chakra natures."
Mari looked at him in surprise. "What?"
Kagome-sensei reached over and took the papers back from here, leafing through and pulling off the top five sheets. "Yeah, these are study guides for acquiring the five elemental chakra natures." He glanced down at the top sheet for a moment, nodding appreciatively as he read. "Good job, too. Way better than the tangled-up mess they taught in...in Cloud." He stopped and took a breath, centering himself as though he'd just climbed out of an icy bath, then shook his head and continued. "The teachers there maundered on about 'universal connections', and 'feel the nature of the storm', and 'oneness of the spirit'." His tone had gotten steadily more contemptuous as he did the list; at the end he snorted in disgust. "Jiraiya-stinker was arrogant and boasty and arrogant and self-important and arrogant, but the man could write."
"Cool," Hazō said. "That should make a good donation. Anything else of interest?"
Kagome-sensei shuffled through the stack a little. "Let's see...drafts of blurbs for the last five Icha Icha novels, no help there..." He tossed the pages aside, allowing them to flutter to the floor. "Self-flagellation about various missions and failures and whatever, nope..." Toss, flutter. "Name, location, and description of the son of the head of the Green Dragon Yakuza's unmarried daughter..." Toss, flutter. "Name of the guy who supplies Vermillion Sigh to one of Wind Country's Daimyo's Viceroys...hm, not useful...oh, here's one! There's a trade confederation specifically organized around supplying squirrel-based meat treats for the Inuzuka ninken." He shook the paper at Hazō. "Squirrel-based! They're killing cute little squirrels!"
"Sensei, I think—" Hazō broke off as the knocker on the front door of their quarters banged. He glanced around to see if anyone knew what it might be.
"I'll get it," Akane said, standing up and heading out of the room. She was back moments later with a folded piece of paper and a small smile.
"That was Haru," she said. "He's interested in being adopted."
o-o-o-o
9pm, February 27, 1069 AS
"You sent for us, Lord Hokage?" Hazō said, bracing to attention. Kagome-sensei belatedly and sloppily copied him, although the effect was ruined by the way he kept looking around for potential assassins, lupchanzen, and/or suddenly appearing demonic invasions.
Asuma waved them to the comfortably-stuffed chairs that were positioned in front of his desk. "Please, please. None of that—at least, not when we're in private. It gets very wearing. Have a seat."
Hazō sat down. Kagome-sensei inspected the chair minutely, including getting down on hands and knees to look for lupchanzen dispensers on the underside. Asuma watched in patient bemusement.
Once Kagome-sensei was satisfied with the underside he stood up and poked dubiously at the seat (either to test the firmness or to verify that it would not transform into a person-eating gelatinous monster) and then grumpily settled himself and wiggled around a bit until he was comfortable.
"Your timing was really good, sir," Hazō said, once his teacher was no longer being distracting. "When your messenger showed up, I was actually about to leave to ask for an audience. I have some things to turn in for the Gōketsu contribution to the contest." He leaned forward so he could place a thick leather-wrapped stack of papers on the Hokage's desk.
Asuma's eyebrows went up as he looked at the stack. "Would there perchance be seals in there?"
"Uh...yes sir. There's one that we call the Poor Man's Yellow Flash—it's a time-delayed storage seal that's good for dispensing a Substitution target where you need it. Then there's one called a 'macerator'. It's a storage scroll variant with the stress limiters removed and the ejection velocity linearized and amplified. It chews up whatever you put in it, then shoots it out really fast." He fidgeted a bit. "There...may be some others coming. We're still debating on some things." He eyed Asuma's calm face nervously, then hurried to say, "It's just...we're a new clan. We want to support the Will of Fire and we're offering up as much as we can, but we also feel the need to keep a few things back, since we know other clans will, and I hope that's okay. There was some debate about whether I should tell you this or just not say anything and I hope I'm not—"
Asuma chuckled and raised a hand to cut off the flow of words. "It's fine, Hazō. Based on the size of this stack it looks like you're the largest contribution I've received so far."
Hazō digested that. "Other people have turned stuff in already?"
"Indeed. One moment, if you would." He riffled through some of the papers stacked on his desk and produced an envelope. "Shikamaru told me to read this if and when you showed up to contribute offensive seals." He broke the wax seal, unfolded the paper, and skimmed through. When he got to the end, he began laughing.
"To: Lord Hokage," he read aloud. "From: Lord Nara Shikamaru. Your Lordship, it is with honor and respect for the Will of Fire that I enclose the following: The macerator seal that I included with my clan's contribution was, to the best of my knowledge, created by the Gōketsu. The Nara reverse-engineered it after seeing it used in a sparring session before the Chūnin Exams. I did not mention this with the original submission because I was uncertain whether the Gōketsu intended to retain it as a clan secret or not. If you are reading this then they have joined with the Will of Fire and shared the design. In such case, I withdraw the seal from the Nara contribution and request that credit for it be given to the Gōketsu. Yours in respect and obedience, Lord Nara Shikamaru."
Hazō fulminated, but Kagome-sensei nodded. "Good man."
"Good man?" Hazō demanded, disbelieving. "Sensei, he stole our design and would have taken credit for it!"
Kagome-sensei shrugged. "And? He didn't take the credit and demanded that it be given to us."
"But he stole it from us!"
His teacher gave him a baffled look. "I mean...duh? Ninja, right?"
"But—" Hazō cut himself off and took a deep breath, then turned back to Asuma. "Right. There's a few seals and a bunch of jutsu in there. There's also some abstract ideas we had for new technologies or organizational items, and a lot of stuff that we decoded from the very extensive notes that Jiraiya left us. We're working through it, decoding as much as we can, and we'll keep submitting more of it as we break the codes. There's an index in the front, but it includes, among other things, detailed and comprehensible training instructions for all five chakra elements, plus some deep-theory work on sealcrafting."
"Excellent," Asuma said, breaking out in a pleased smile. "That will go very well with the Leaf Private Library that the Nara are funding."
"The what now?"
"I'm sure you remember the Leaf Public Library, site of our very exciting conversation about the printing press." Asuma was trying and failing to keep his face straight; Hazō felt his own heating up as he remembered the fit of foolish anger that had caused him to attack the jōnin son of the Third Hokage.
Asuma took a drag on his cigarette then looked up and blew a perfect smoke ring, probably-not-coincidentally giving Hazō a moment to gather his composure.
"The Nara are building a bespoke Leaf Private Library. Very high security, but open to any Leaf ninja in good standing. The goal is to make it include every non-classified jutsu and seal known to Leaf. They've invented a...card catalogue, he called it, and a numerical classification system for items stored in the library. There's also flow charts that allow a ninja to determine what jutsu would be most effective to study in order to fill holes in their skill sets, where the chart ends with the catalogue number for the jutsu that the person should learn."
Hazō leaned forward. "Actually, one of our contributions is the idea of pre-set, battle-tested jutsu lists. For example, the 'Noburi' package." (Hazō's brother had been very clear on the name, especially after the alternate 'Soggy and Dangly' had been floated.) "Water Whip for close- and mid-range combat. Hōzuki's Mantle for defense and combat amplification. Syrup Trap for battlefield control. Water Dragon Bullet for multi-combatant situations."
Asuma nodded, pleased. "Interesting. Yes, that will make a nice complement to the Nara flow charts and the personalized advisors they are training."
He set the stack of Gōketsu papers aside and leaned forward on his elbows.
"If I may shift topics for a moment, I'd like to discuss why I called you here." His eye shifted to the senior ninja across from him. "Kagome, Leaf needs your talents on a mission. Hazō, you are here in your capacity as Kagome's teammate and Clan Head in order to advise us on what support he will need."
Kagome-sensei glared at the absolute dictator of his nation. "You're sending me on a suicide mission, aren't you, you stinker? You just want to get me killed, I can tell!"
Asuma ignored the comment with munificent grace and pulled out a map of the Elemental Nations. He turned it around and slid it across the desk so that Hazō and Kagome could see it clearly.
"I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Land of Grass," he said, tapping on one of the minor nations that formed a buffer between Fire and Earth. "There's a major ravine that runs from here in Rain"—he set his finger down just above and to the right of the final 'N' in the nation's name—"through Grass and into Fire, ending here." He slid his finger over and tapped it on the final 'S' in 'Hidden Grass Village', the words being long enough to stretch outside of the map's image of the territory that the eponymous village actually ruled. "The width and depth vary from place to place, but at every point it's an impassable barrier to civilian trade. Hence why there are three bridges, here, here, and here." He tapped three points, one inside Grass territory and two in Fire, then moved his finger back to the one in Grass. "Kagome, your skill with explosives is well known. I need this particular bridge to cease existing and not resume existing for a good long time. You're the man for the job."
Kagome-sensei frowned and gave Asuma five long seconds of narrow-eyed studying, then turned to Hazō.
"Is he making fun of me?" he demanded.
Hazō shook his head. "No, sensei. He's being completely serious."
Kagome-sensei thought about that for a moment, then gave Asuma several more seconds of narrow-eyed studying.
"Are you joking?" he demanded.
Asuma shook his head, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. "I do not joke about missions, Kagome."
"Hmph."
"Sir," Hazō said carefully, "I don't know the etiquette for a meeting like this. Is it permitted to ask questions?"
Asuma frowned in puzzlement. "Why wouldn't it be? If you don't understand the mission assignment, how are you supposed to succeed?"
Hazō hesitated, biting his lip. "Sir," he said carefully...and then paused, thinking. After a moment he continued, choosing his words carefully. "Sir, we are loyal ninja of the Leaf and we will obey any orders you give—"
"Unless they're stupid," Kagome-sensei said, sending a blast of terror down Hazō's spine. "Like, if you told me to kill Akane, or not do the dance before a sealing experiment, or—"
"Rest assured, I have no expectation of ever giving such orders," said Asuma. "Now, Hazō, why don't you assume you've laid enough groundwork to keep yourself out of trouble and simply get to the question."
Hazō cleared his throat nervously. "Right. Um. Sir, I understand that this information might be compartmentalized and we aren't in the compartment, but if you're able to tell us the purpose of the mission it might be useful for planning purposes."
Asuma hesitated only the briefest moment.
"You are obviously aware of the fact that ninja from Hidden Rock have been oh-so-graciously helping us rebuild—"
Kagome-sensei sniffed derisively. "Stinkers. Should splat 'em."
Asuma smiled. "Tempting as it is, Leaf does not need a war right now." He pointed back at the map. "As you know, we are allowing the so-helpful ninja from Rock to rent a strip of our land along the border between Grass and Fire. The only good thing about that situation is that the land is disjoint from the Earth Country, which complicates their logistics.
"They've found a solution to that. Our spies tell us that they are in negotiation with Grass. Grass will cede Earth a strip of land on the eastern border between Grass and Hot Springs. In exchange, Grass will receive some of the land that we are 'renting' to Rock. Grass will likely end up with more land than they currently have, and richer land too. Earth will once again be contiguous and it becomes much harder for us to interfere with them.
"On the other hand, if this bridge weren't there then the new land would be inaccessible to civilian traders living in the main body of Grass. There would be no easy way to bring the food and lumber back and the new land would be essentially worthless to Grass. If that happens within the next forty-eight hours then they likely won't sign the agreement with Rock and things will remain as they are." He leaned back and took a drag on his cigarette. "Like I said, I need that bridge to not exist.
"That's the easy part. Now for the hard part: Grass is an ally of Fire, and has a mutual defense treaty with the minor nations in its area. The ideal situation is that this all looks like an accident; in that case, there should be no diplomatic issues. More likely, they'll figure out that it was sabotage and suspect that it was us. In that case I would expect a bit of kunai-waving but no meaningful problems."
He paused and studied them carefully for a moment. "The worst case is that you are identified as Leaf ninja, or actually captured. That would at the very least cause Grass to break our alliance and force them into the arms of Rock. It could invoke the treaty and end up with ninja from all the nearby minor nations swarming through Fire, blowing up key infrastructure and generally causing havoc. Therefore, this mission must be completely stealth, and if you are identified then I will claim you were rogue actors. Please do not force me to do that."
Hazō and Kagome-sensei exchanged glances. Neither of them was willing to respond to that last point.
"Sir," Hazō said carefully, "couldn't they just rebuild it? I could do it in a few minutes with the Multiple Earth Wall jutsu, and I'm sure that the ninja from Earth Country have something as good or better."
Asuma shook his head. "The terrain isn't favorable for bridging. The canyon is wide and the sides are limestone, so a MEW bridge wouldn't have the anchoring it needs. This bridge is where it is because the canyon is at its narrowest and there happens to be a basalt upthrust there to provide solid support. It's possible that they can figure something out—a tunnel under the whole thing would be an option, but Shikamaru did an analysis that suggests such a thing would be unattractive to the Grass leadership. Regardless, if they do find an alternative we'll deal with it when it happens."
The two Gōketsu ninja thought about that for a moment.
"Can you tell us about the terrain, sir?"
"The canyon is about eighty feet deep at this point, and at least fifty feet wide. Cover in the immediate area is minimal, but the forest starts only a half mile or so away, so you should have little trouble with your approach. The bridge is stone, and solid; a foot or two thick thick and wide enough to take a wagon easily, if I recall correctly and there have been no changes."
"What resources do we have, sir?"
Asuma shrugged. "Pretty much whatever you need, within reason. I'll send Snake and Hawk to provide physical security. If you need anything or anyone else, say so. Try to keep the party small, if possible."
"Yes sir. How much time do we have to plan?"
"I need the mission to succeed, which means I'm not going to rush you out the door. That said, sooner would be better. You need to leave absolutely not later than tomorrow noon, and I'll need time to put together what you need."
Hazō nodded. "Yes, sir. I'll have a plan on your desk in two hours."
"Excellent. Unless there's something else, you're dismissed."
XP AWARD: 5
Brevity XP: 1
It is now about 9:30pm.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, January 8, 2019, at 12pm London time.
Last edited:
Ample Accelerate
Gotta stab fast
- Location
- Texas
Have a good rest!
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Delete the bridge and then collapse the canyon a bit with explosives and tunneling jutsu to make it untenable to build a replacement.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Rightyho, a nice cool important-sounding mission! I sort of doubt we'll get away without any violence since if Leaf knows the bridge is important then so does Rock and so I'd expect for us to find significant fortifications waiting for us.
When it comes down to it we should be ready for a perpetual guard of strong ninja that we can't or don't want to fight. This means that we should expect to need to be sneaky. Part of me wants to arrange a 'sealmaster on prepared ground' trap and bait the guard into it to create a slaughterhouse that we can easily flee from while another ninja of ours sneaks past the diminished defenses and plants the bombs, but I'm not sure if that's too elaborate or not.
Team comp-wise, this is Kagome with ANBU so we definitely need someone else along who can keep him from getting too paranoid about them. Similarly, adding non-Goketus members is likely to make Kagome's situation more volatile and add additional risk.
What do you guys think?
When it comes down to it we should be ready for a perpetual guard of strong ninja that we can't or don't want to fight. This means that we should expect to need to be sneaky. Part of me wants to arrange a 'sealmaster on prepared ground' trap and bait the guard into it to create a slaughterhouse that we can easily flee from while another ninja of ours sneaks past the diminished defenses and plants the bombs, but I'm not sure if that's too elaborate or not.
Team comp-wise, this is Kagome with ANBU so we definitely need someone else along who can keep him from getting too paranoid about them. Similarly, adding non-Goketus members is likely to make Kagome's situation more volatile and add additional risk.
What do you guys think?
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Nah, delete the granite upthrust there, then vaporize the bridge.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Akane is the ideal addition. She's competent in combat, and very easy-going, and will help smooth things over between Kagome and other ANBU.
Regarding how we approach it... is there any reason that we can't simply bomb it from the air?
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
...Man, now I know how Mari felt being given carte blanche.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Mari seems more like... well, herself. Less caustic. Less bitter. This family interaction made me smile.
You know, as a new clan, the we might actually be more loyal to Leaf than certain other clans. We may not have infused the Will of Fire culture into our clan, but we're also grateful to be "in and out of the cold" and desperate to prove our loyalty to the few nay-sayers that exist.
I think Asuma's actually fond of Hazou. Huh.
Yup, he likes us. That's good.
Poor Asuma, don't you remember that Hazou's from the Mist? He's not used to all this logic. He's used to "tradition" and desperate displays of village zeal and secret police showing up at your door for nighttime interrogations.