Quick PSA: The reason I offered the 'let EJ write what he wants' vote option, and the reason you survived that update, is because the situation was due to a miscommunication between the QMs. (Details not important.) Yes, in this update you had plot armor. That's not the norm so please don't rely on it.
Second PSA: In these trying times it is always nice to be able to make people happy, so I will publicly admit that @Raxner was correct when he (A) said that everyone would survive and (B) strongly implied that it would happen because y'all had plot armor. Amigo, whatever you may think, that is not the norm. If you doubt me, convince the hivemind to chase after Itachi and give him another chance at you before he's cooled off. I've got plenty of things I could be doing with an extra 8 hours on my weekends, including working on the other novel that I'm currently writing.
Thank you for posting this. I was heavily discouraged by the previous and this chapter, largely because I was confident that there was no way out without plot armor, and that in context of recent meta-updates (about the quest not being as much fun) you're actually just wrapping things up - which would have been fine, if sad, but then this last chapter was rather confusing.
If I may make a request; next time something like this happens, would you consider saying this when you make the 'Make EJ write what he wants' suggestion? For those of us that unfortunately interact with you less, it would avoid a lot of stress. Something like "Due to miscommunication between GMs, you were put in a situation much more difficult than we meant to. Vote for this post to have GMs resolve it in a moderately positive outcome."
Obviously that may be inconvenient for other reasons, so I won't blame you if you don't. But personally it'd have been much appreciated.
Thanks for all your work! It's much appreciated by the usually silent group of those who just lurk in the story-only threat.
p.s. Good Dog is so Good, I'm following that story with bated breath as well
I'm pretty sure we really shouldn't be messing with the portal. The way everyone was talking we're going to get dragged away the moment we suggest doing more to mess with it.
I'm just worried that mentioning them will get us labeled as traitors by Asuma once he realizes we contacted Akatsuki. I'm fine with mentioning them if we can avoid getting killed/whatever, I just want people to think up a way to o avoid that fate if we come clean.
I want to mess with the portal because it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to study the afterlife, and could help us with necromancy. Plus, it will be really fun to do some actual research.
I'm just worried that mentioning them will get us labeled as traitors by Asuma once he realizes we contacted Akatsuki. I'm fine with mentioning them if we can avoid getting killed/whatever, I just want people to think up a way to o avoid that fate if we come clean.
I want to mess with the portal because it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to study the afterlife, and could help us with necromancy. Plus, it will be really fun to do some actual research.
I'm just worried that mentioning them will get us labeled as traitors by Asuma once he realizes we contacted Akatsuki. I'm fine with mentioning them if we can avoid getting killed/whatever, I just want people to think up a way to o avoid that fate if we come clean.
Probably the best plan is to debrief with Mari before we report to Asuma and follow her advice. Since we plotted contacting Atsuki with her she should already have a plan ready
Asuma got angry at us just suggesting that peace was better than war with Rock. I was thinking that he might also be less reasonable than he usually is when Akatsuki is involved, considering all the Leaf nin that died when they took Naruto.
Edit:
And they're international terrorists that we contacted without the consent of an acting hokage, which I'm pretty sure is treason, at least on paper.
Asuma got angry at us just suggesting that peace was better than war with Rock. I was thinking that he might also be less reasonable than he usually is when Akatsuki is involved, considering all the Leaf nin that died when they took Naruto.
Sigh, we do have to tell Asuma. If it's not literally the first thing we do when we get back, we leave a huge hole for future doubt.
We should put more thought into exactly how.
I'm going to precommit to voting for any plan which has us tell Asuma the truth ASAP. Since I think that not telling him is an existential threat to Hazou, if not the goketsu as a whole.
Personally, I would start with a few big signals of good faith.
Go talk to Asuma alone, just Hazou.
Go straight to the tower when we get back, sit and wait quietly until you can talk. (Stay visible enough that it's clear you didn't do anything between when you got to the tower and when you meet Asuma.)
Take the porcupine scroll with you.
Write a single complete mission report that explains everything we did and everything that happened. Have that unsealed and ready for when you meet Asuma.
Do not have any seals (other than the porcupine scroll) or weapons on your person.
Then I'd basically tell Asuma:
"Look, there's a pretty good chance I'm not going to leave this room alive after I make my report to you. So first, here is the procupine scroll and the only written copy of the AAR. That way if you do decide to kill me, you still have all the information we managed to gather. I'd ask that you give the procupine scroll to whomever succeeds me as the head of the Goketsu."
After that disclaimer I'd explain as truthfully as possible what happened, who we encountered, what we did to initiate the contact.
No skirting around the issue that despite everything they did, we were dealing in good faith with Akatsuki and genuinely hoped that they too want to forge a lasting peace. We don't forgive Akatsuki for what they did, but we are willing to find common ground if it prevents more unnecessary deaths and can avoid an escalating cycle of revenge. That said, do not advocate for mercy, or anything in particular, just stick to the facts and make sure it's clear that whatever decisions Asuma makes, we'll back him.
Basically, I want to signal as strongly as possible that we are loyal to Leaf as a whole and Asuma in particular, even though we believe the things we do. The best way to do this is to make clear that we are actively avoiding steps to protect ourselves from Asuma, and are not hiding anything from him.
Also, making the first thing we show Asuma a substantial increase to the military power of Leaf should buy us a bit of leeway.
In addition to the general tests mentioned, I think it would be interesting to learn whether the heat from a candle held close to one side of the portal can be felt from the other side, and whether the lit candle can be passed through and remain alight.
I'd prefer to stop by the clan compound and talk to Mari before we head to Asuma, just, ya know, to make sure we don't do something that might be stupid. Obviously we shouldn't dawdle, but this info isn't so time-sensitive that we can't check back in with the clan.
Also, I'm not all that in favor of poking the seal failure more. Hazou already took a big risk going in and we got some good info on the workings of the other side. I say just leave a note on the junior cultist for Hidan noting that stuff, since they'll probably be trying to figure out a way in at some point to get Nagato back. We really should just get off this island with the pissy guy and his magic eyes.
It's not time sensitivity that's the issue, it's signaling. Every unaccounted moment between now and when we see Asuma is another thread of doubt Asuma can have about our loyalty.
I'd prefer to stop by the clan compound and talk to Mari before we head to Asuma, just, ya know, to make sure we don't do something that might be stupid. Obviously we shouldn't dawdle, but this info isn't so time-sensitive that we can't check back in with the clan.
100% this. No one here understands how ninja society works. This is a situation where a misstep is game over. Instead of stumbling in blindly let's consult the expert and follow her advice to the letter
Telling Asuma has serious risks. He thinks we are more loyal to peace than to Leaf. That is a problem, because we are. He has been chill because it hasn't yet caused security concerns for Konoha. Except it just did. We essentially offered the Akatsuki a vote on Leaf's council due to ideological agreement. The only reason they don't have that vote is because they turned us down.
Telling Asuma has serious risks. He thinks we are more loyal to peace than to Leaf. That is a problem, because we are. He has been chill because it hasn't yet caused security concerns for Konoha. Except it just did. We essentially offered the Akatsuki a vote on Leaf's council due to ideological agreement. The only reason they don't have that vote is because they turned us down.
To sell it to Asuma we were aiming to turn the Akatsuki into Leaf's first line of defense while we are weakened from recent events. That way they would be taking the risks and harm meant for us.
I HAVE AN IDEA! Its confrontational, its evil, but it might work.
We can offer Daizen to Snake Uncle. He is one of a handful of individuals to have ever come back from the dead, and he probably did it in a way that Orochimaru hasn't seen before. We offer him Daizen's location and description in exchange for protection from Asuma. There are fiddly bits involved in achieving this safely. But the core mechanic seems viable.
I HAVE AN IDEA! Its confrontational, its evil, but it might work.
We can offer Daizen to Snake Uncle. He is one of a handful of individuals to have ever come back from the dead, and he probably did it in a way that Orochimaru hasn't seen before. We offer him Daizen's location and description in exchange for protection from Asuma. There are fiddly bits involved in achieving this safely. But the core mechanic seems viable.
Those are some pretty difficult fiddly bits. What would we be trying to get from this?
One downside is that we would immediately be put back on Orochimaru's radar. We'd need to be getting something pretty nice to even that out.
If we do this, I think we should just take Daizen with us, assuming we go straight back to the village(not sure if that's the case, but I saw someone mention they want to do that).
I wonder when clans are required to report to the Hokage. Do y'all think if we hadn't met Akatsuki on the mission and found the scroll on our own Asuma would expect a report?
I think telling Asuma anything about what transpired with Akatsuki is a terrible idea that will get the entire clan and Keiko killed in the worst case, and will ruin whatever progress we've made with Akatsuki, deprive us of the Porcupine Scroll, severely damage our standing with Asuma, make SC FOOM impossible for the foreseeable future, and otherwise significantly limit our freedoms in the best case. I'm also confident Hidan and Itachi don't expect us to tell Asuma anything, and won't be happy if we do.
To start off, sending them a letter was treason of the highest order: we went behind a Hokage's back to meddle in high-level politics and colluded with international terrorists/supervillains/existential threat. It would be further aggravated by Asuma's personal feelings about them (likely hates them more than Rock, and we should all remember how he reacted to the idea of cooperating with Rock), some unpleasant similarities between us and the terrorists ((former) missing-nin, care about "peace" more than about any particular village), and the fact that it'll come just after we pissed him off with that Rock suggestion. A bunch of crazy extremists contacted another bunch of crazy extremists with a suggestion to cooperate on their extremism, after the second group just finished showing off to everyone how determined they were about their extremism by killing heroes and leaders of five villages and almost bringing about an omnicide. The fact that we sent the letter under Hiashi won't matter, the fact that we've decided to tell Asuma won't matter, the fact that we "just wanted to prevent a war" or whatever won't matter. It would look really fucking bad, kill-us-before-we-follow-in-Akatsuki's-footsteps bad.
But okay, let's assume that Asuma is unbelievably nice, nicer than we have any reason to expect, and suffers us to live. What happens next? Obviously he wouldn't want us to have unsupervised contact with them again, to actually cooperate on our extremism as we've been planning. We can't be trusted, so he takes the Scroll, he forbids us from leaving the village, he probably stations some ninja on our estate to supervise us 24/7, or he just locks us up. (Dunno what he'd do about Keiko.) He also takes over our chosen method of communication with them (messages from Porcupines), and has whoever he gave the Scroll to forge messages from us to Akatsuki, aiming to tease out intel.
Okay, let's instead assume we go with one of these suggestions to conceal the information that we'd contacted them first, and tell Asuma everything else, since we "didn't do anything wrong after that". Firstly, that bit where he takes over our communications with Akatsuki absolutely happens in all relevant possible timelines where we inform him about it, the alternatives are inconceivable. He vets all messages we send, we can't cooperate with them without further treason, etc. We okay with that? Second, the moment the fact that we had contact with them comes out, the debriefing will turn into a very detailed and intense interrogation, and there's no way Hazou won't make his real attitudes towards Akatsuki (that he's actually interested in working with them, that he wasn't saying all of that just to survive) slip. I'm very skeptical of his ability to conceal the letter's existence at that step, either. Even if he does, his openness to an alliance of convenience with Akatsuki, and his inevitable severe disagreement with Asuma forbidding him from going forwards with it, will severely damage Asuma's trust in his loyalty. We'll be put under supervision, possibly deprived of the Porcupine Scroll, yadda yadda.
The only way we get out of this with our meatbags and agencies intact is by not mentioning anything about Akatsuki whatsoever. Quickly visit Leaf, give Mari the Scroll, drop a written report about this part of our mission on Asuma's desk (encountered a weird civilian religion, learned that a woman fitting the description of the Summoner is dead but had visited "the Greater Forest" to meet "the Great Spirit", decided to look there, killed a snake chakra monster, found the Scroll in a cave — oh by the way that's a possible source of chakra iron, very important bit focus on that here's a map!), leave for Mist.
Ideally he won't revisit the topic again, and even if he does, concealing the information would be considerably easier than surviving divulging it, with some preparations. I'm willing to change my mind on that if Mari disagrees, but the default plan should be "tell nothing", not "tell everything".
(For goodness' sake, we just had an encounter where an essie we thought was reasonable went apeshit on us. Can we stop making the mistake of assuming that these people could stay reasonable when an emotionally charged topic comes up? And Asuma is an honorary essie, by dint of his position if not his ability to summon Enma.)
To sell it to Asuma we were aiming to turn the Akatsuki into Leaf's first line of defense while we are weakened from recent events. That way they would be taking the risks and harm meant for us.
Hazou, newly-promoted combat/research chuunin suffering from a Severe Consequence, Deceit: 7.
Asuma, elite jounin, born politician, Clan Head of a Leaf founding clan, son of God of Shinobi, Hokage, Empathy: ??.
Asuma, Taijutsu: ??
Hazou, Athletics: 36.
Hazou has taken stress! His stress track is full! He takes Mild Physical Consequence "Concussion" and Severe Physical Consequence "More Two-Dimensional than He Used to Be"! His Consequence track is full! Hazou is dead!
I wonder when clans are required to report to the Hokage. Do y'all think if we hadn't met Akatsuki on the mission and found the scroll on our own Asuma would expect a report?
(For goodness' sake, we just had an encounter where an essie we thought was reasonable went apeshit on us. Can we stop making the mistake of assuming that these people could stay reasonable when an emotionally charged topic comes up? And Asuma is an honorary essie, by dint of his position if not his ability to summon Enma.)
Your position is, frankly, utterly illogical. Do you honestly believe we are capable of hiding this meeting from Asuma for any reasonable period of time? Because I can tell you the chances of us managing that are so close to 0 as to be a joke. Better we come in hot off success.
Besides, I'm not banking off him being "logical". I'm banking he'll grin evilly at the idea of having used the Akatsuki as meatshields against Rock. Ninja are overjoyed to get their enemies to fight each other.
I will never be able to comprehend the idea that, somehow, we can get away with no consequences by not mentioning anything, yet any attempt to do anything else is suicide. That does not make any sense. You are falling into the mental trap where you assume the enemy is strong in the ways that fit your message, yet so weak they can be bowled over if only we do exactly as you say.
See, this scenario leads to in a month or a year, us finding ourselves waking up in T&I missing a few fingers, as they extract why we didn't tell them the akatsuki were there from our screaming corpses.
Do not assume you can hide information that leaves such a ridiculous amount of evidence behind from the intelligence agencies of every ninja village. Because if any find out we are going to be exposed. Leaf because duh, everyone else by slipping it to the Leaf network so they take out their own assets.
Do you honestly believe we are capable of hiding this meeting from Asuma for any reasonable period of time? Because I can tell you the chances of us managing that are so close to 0 as to be a joke.
Because we met them publicly on an island with known ninja informants and an unknown number of unknown ninja informants. This is getting back to someone, and in relatively short order. And once it does? Well, they'll make sure it gets to Leaf so we get killed. Benefits them to have Leaf eliminate their own resources after all.
The letter can be explained. Not debriefing after contact with S-rank enemies? Are you crazy? They'll literally skin us alive.
(Also, I find your comment toward my post incredibly insulting so may be being somewhat irrational.)
Because we met them publicly on an island with known ninja informants and an unknown number of unknown ninja informants. This is getting back to someone, and in relatively short order. And once it does? Well, they'll make sure it gets to Leaf so we get killed. Benefits them to have Leaf eliminate their own resources after all.
I was under the impression that we weren't literally walking around in public places with them, undisguised, and that they wanted to conceal their presence on the island, by and large. If no, well... gg.
(Also, I find your comment toward my post incredibly insulting so may be being somewhat irrational.)
The "dice" one? The flippant nature of it was caused by a perceived contradiction in your statements. You hold that we can't lie by omission to Asuma at all, yet you think we can explicitly lie to his face about our motives? Because using Akatsuki as a meatshield against Rock and hopefully get them killed wasn't our intention at all.
I think telling Asuma anything about what transpired with Akatsuki is a terrible idea that will get the entire clan and Keiko killed in the worst case, and will ruin whatever progress we've made with Akatsuki, deprive us of the Porcupine Scroll, severely damage our standing with Asuma, make SC FOOM impossible for the foreseeable future, and otherwise significantly limit our freedoms in the best case. I'm also confident Hidan and Itachi don't expect us to tell Asuma anything, and won't be happy if we do.
Because we met them publicly on an island with known ninja informants and an unknown number of unknown ninja informants. This is getting back to someone, and in relatively short order. And once it does? Well, they'll make sure it gets to Leaf so we get killed. Benefits them to have Leaf eliminate their own resources after all.
The letter can be explained. Not debriefing after contact with S-rank enemies? Are you crazy? They'll literally skin us alive.
(Also, I find your comment toward my post incredibly insulting so may be being somewhat irrational.)
Ah, see, we don't have to speculate vehemently in a vacuum.
While Hazo's opinion isn't exactly what I called bulletproof, he lives in the universe, not us. And he can consult with his family if it's a good idea, and they know ninja norms better than us.
We all know what happened when we rely on wrong social assumption. Let tease out what those assumptions are before we see a catastrophic failure.
It would be surprising if Asuma wasn't pissed off to discover that you went behind his back to talk to the S-rank terrorists who murdered so many of his friends, oh and one of them is the missing-nin who butchered an entire Founding Clan (less one child ninja and some civilians).
Still, success covers a multitude of sins. As long as you get significant positive results out of the contact, he probably won't have you executed or exiled or strip away your clan status.
The "dice" one? The flippant nature of it was caused by a perceived contradiction in your statements. You hold that we can't lie by omission to Asuma at all, yet you think we can explicitly lie to his face about our motives? Because using Akatsuki as a meatshield against Rock and hopefully get them killed wasn't our intention at all.
What? You think he doesn't want them dead? Hazou, the character, is willing to put aside just how much he despises them for Uplift. But they killed J. He hates them utterly. Now even if they had agreed they almost certainly wouldn't have died - Rock doesn't have that kind of firepower - but that still prevents an attack on us and has our enemy bleed for it without us having to lift a finger.
And, as events proved, an attack on Leaf was the expected - and actual - trigger for what should have been the next war, hence preventing said war was, obviously, the patriotic duty of a Leaf nin presented with the opportunity to do so. (But then Rock dropped the ball and wasn't able to properly capitalize on their success. Oops.)
Now we, the hivemind, don't actually think this way. But it has been made explicit many times that Hazou does not share our view on these things by default.
Ah, see, we don't have to speculate vehemently in a vacuum.
While Hazo's opinion isn't exactly what I called bulletproof, he lives in the universe, not us. And he can consult with his family if it's a good idea, and they know ninja norms better than us.
We all know what happened when we rely on wrong social assumption. Let tease out what those assumptions are before we see a catastrophic failure.
