Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
Byzantine said:
Please comprehend the power differential.

On one hand we have Hazou, an injured Chuunin who has stats on par with a gennin at the moment because of it.

On the other hand we have one of the strongest S rankers in the world.

Hatred of him would be... impotent, to say the least. We (and Hazou) are suppressing it because there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Have you considered that Itachi expects to be hated and maybe expressing it a little might actually buy more credibility in this situation, not less? I'm not saying pitch a screaming fit, but right now Itachi either thinks Hazou is either being dishonest or worse is being honest.
 
Copying my comment over from discord, because I think it may be useful for the Reason You Suck speech:


We could leverage his self-hatred, maybe. Make him look at what he's doing:​
​
That he's murdering someone who was just trying his best to make the world a better place despite his foolishness and ignorance, and was willing to reach out to akatsuki to do that because we heard enough about Nagato to believe they might also want the world to be better.​
​
Don't let him turn any of this back on us. Itachi is the one who's taking someone who wants to learn how to do better and taking out his frustrations by murdering them. That's all on him. He just went on a rant about how Nagato took in monsters and taught them love. Now he's got a hand-delivered idealist, not even a fully formed monster like he was, and he's going to kill them out of petty spite, betraying everything Nagato stood for.​
​
Good for him.​
​
Hazou's sure Nagato will welcome Itachi with a smile when they take him back from the portal.​
​
 
Sentient Tree said:
As an idea though, maybe asking him what Nagato would think about X
Where X is something like:
  • Taking a potential ally and executing him without finding out what he has to offer.
  • Flushing potential options for continuing his work down the drain without taking the time to fully hear them out
  • Letting his emotions get the best of him and lose him a potential path to peace
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Fuck it, let's do all three.

Side note: With Kagome's mastery of explosives, I wonder if he's learned how to do "dirty" bombs with the radiation being chakra? Because I could see easily Kagome knowing how to create atomic bombs. And then his "last resort" seal being something that takes ALL of his body's matter, and splits EVERY ATOM in his body, causing THE BIGGEST OF BOOMS.
 
So my current thoughts:
  1. As QM declared, we have actually met Itachi and Hidan
  2. Nothing we have experienced since is real.
  3. We are in Tsukuyomi, and events are being twisted so Itachi can see and learn everything about Hazou he wants (This genjutsu fits all the criteria EJ stated - it is inescapable).
I suspect if he decides to kill us in the genjutsu we'll be killed for real, though.
 
Emotional outburst idea:

I reached out to you in the hope of working toward peace, putting my hatred and your reputation aside, and this is how you repay me? This is how you honor your leader? By killing a fourteen years old and his family just for proposing a stupid, unworkable idea?
 
Kiba said:
Emotional outburst idea:

I reached out to you in the hope of working toward peace, putting my hatred and your reputation aside, and this is how you repay me? This is how you honor your leader? By killing a fourteen years old and his family just for proposing a stupid, unworkable idea?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I like the gist of it but think we should lean more on logic than on emotion.
 
Oh, and because this may actually need stating, the overarching goal of a Reason You Suck speech here isn't just to vent frustrations with Itachi's bullshit.

(That's a side-benefit.)

It's part of a strategy of "leverage Itachi's satisfaction from lashing-out and transmute it into self-directed shame, then use that shame to offer him hope for feeling okay about himself again that necesarily aligns with working with us instead of killing us". Just telling Itachi to sit his hypocritical ass down and shut up will get us killed, as will not pushing him hard enough, as will pushing him too hard too fast so that he snaps and kills us instead of letting us keep talking.

We should explicitly make Hazou aware of this in any non-"we trust EJ" plan.
 
eaglejarl said:
[X] Let EJ write what he wants. We trust him.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

HAZOU: Words are boring. I feel the urge to challenge you to a duel to the death.

ITACHI: ...Seriously?

HAZOU: *nods* World peace through violence!

HIDAN: *extremely happy* Finally!

HARU: I haven't even been in this clan for a week and it is already clear that it will be the death of me. I knew clans were evil.
 
[X] Let EJ write what he wants. We trust him.

Let the record show that I'm half-convinced that this is going to end with Kagome saying "no, you" to the Akatsuki and blowing up the world in revenge. Don't have to aim if you destroy the planet itself, right?
 
[X] Let EJ write what he wants. We trust him.

Of course.

I already had this written up for catharsis's sake.

[X] Action Plan: Sayonara!

Internally: Ok, you've had it. You've had it with these motherfucking S-rankers and their motherfucking talk-down-to-you-from-a-place-of-power grandstanding convince-me-not-to-kill-you bullshit. You've fuckinghad it! You are so damn angry right now you've circled right back to calm. Wow. Time to get your Keiko on.

Opener:

  • First, ask him for another couple minutes. Surely we aren't going anywhere, and we think we have at least one thing we can offer him that we believe will at least stay his hand momentarily. Before that, if he could indulge us...​
  • Now, here is the heart of the matter: we heard the debriefs of the battle and listened to Captain Minori's accounting. Here is what caught our attention:
    • Your leader said that the world was broken. We agree with that.
    • On arguing with Hiashi and the rest, he said this:
      • "The power for one ninja to kill a dozen with the wave of a hand. A hundred civilians. If I wanted to, right now I could kill thousands of them before sunset. Does it make you happy that you have that power? Does it make you happy that of the countless men and women in the world, only a handful dare to share your joy? Only a handful dare to to support you in your sorrow? Does it make you happy that your people obey you only because the alternative is worse?"
        Click to expand...
        Click to shrink...
      • "The best thing that ever happened to this world," he agreed. "Now tell me, Lady Senju, how many of the people medical ninjutsu saves would not need saving if they hadn't gone to war in the first place? How many more doctors would you have taught if we were all just civilians, and the people with the mental skills necessary to be a doctor weren't made combat ninjutsu users? How much more research would you all have conducted together?"
        Click to expand...
        Click to shrink...
      • We couldn't agree more with the above.
      • Hiashi went on some dumb tirade about conflict justifying human existence and how power and bloodlines matter . Your friend was like "That's totally dumb, you win no points, and may the Sage have mercy on your soul."
      • Then, Captain Minori volunteered to sacrifice her life to stop the ritual, your friend volunteered to stop it --willingly at that-- and then he brought you all back as a part of the deal. He asked you to pretty please not destroy all the ninja,said that humanity could still do it the hard way, and then you left.
    • "Gee, maybe these guys could help us stop everything from going to complete shit!" we thought. "Maybe they care too!"
  • Bring it back to the present:
    • Earlier when we were walking to grab the scroll, you said that it was our power we had to convince you of. You said " then you'll never be able to cow your enemies or earn the respect of your minions."
      • First off: Bullshit. Second, we fundamentally desire neither of those things, thank you.
    • And now? This conversation? "Present your solution to world peace before I'm done with my tea, or I'll kill you and your family."
      • Hah! A loaded question if there ever was one. The best solution you lot could come up with was to gather the most powerful creatures in the world and sacrifice them in a big ritual to amp up the jonin-aura chakra empathy connection thing.
      • Or maybe you were trying to get rid of all the chakra altogether. We were going to ask before you started threatening to kill our family.
      • Still, this doesn't strike us as being so respectful of our agency or of human dignity in general. Does this course of action make Itachi happy? Why? "I hold all the power so submit to my whims and desires!" Is this not a course of action that Hiashi would have taken? Jiraiya? Would Pain actually have approved of this?
Cut to the chase:


  • Here's what we want and here are our goals:
    • Short-term: Stop the world falling apart for like five damn seconds.
      • We literally just wanted your help with this one, by the way.
    • Mid-term: Spend the next couple years ferreting out all the big secrets of the world and in parallel with that stop being a useless Chunin schmuck. Mysteries of chakra, what happened to screw this world up so bad, the deal with Whirlpool, all of the scary crap Kagome has talked about, the Five --whoever or whatever those really are, etc.
    • Long-term: Make the world a better place for everyone, both inside and outside the institutional framework. Make it a nice place where peoples' parents and children don't get murdered by other peoples' parents and children because some psychos with all of the power and none of the perspective or empathy sent them on a mission to kill each other.
      • Gonna be tough, gonna be a lot of diplomacy and negotiating and medical research and a whole lot of other stuff. We're going to have to get creative, but that's fine. So what?
      • Maybe we can fix the death thing too.
  • Hazou has decided that we no longer require or desire the aid of your organization!
    • Best of luck with your endeavors, thanks for your time and assistance with the scroll. If we end up at odds in the future we'll do our best to unmake you all, hope the feeling is mutual, etc.

Dispel. Grab the gang and leave politely. Do not stop running until you get inside Mist.

Last resort option:
  • Okay, Uchiha, how about we take an option where everyone has a chance of being happy here?
    • You let our family go -- they aren't to blame here.
    • If you want to execute us so bad, we demand execution by afterlife portal.
    • Catch: While we're on the other side we'll look for your friend. You grab whoever is needed to keep it open. If we come back, we come back with him or you murder us on the spot. Our family members get to live, you get a chance to see your friend again, and we get a shot at living and rescuing the only guy that seemed to give a shit about actually unmaking this shitty world.
  • Say your goodbyes -- don't leave anything unsaid -- grab all the seals you can and maybe some chakra water and hop through that portal.
    • Avoid the acid ocean by creating earth clones in midair to use as platforms to jump off of, or toss something out of a storage scroll to serve the same purpose.
      • Maybe catch that Daizen guy and bring him to the shore.
    • Man, fuck Itachi.
      • Make sure to get in a parting quip about him being real good at killing even extended family members over your shoulder when you're out of sight.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top