Almost being executed is a disease Hazou has spread to Ami.
True, true — and
entirely deliberate.
If you've been paying attention, you would know that we've been working on
the Shadow Clone Singularity, and identified Ami as a potential OPSEC risk. Similarly, you should know that
treason equals power.
As a matter of fact, there's a possibility for a treason-based XP singularity as well, where each new instance of treason is calculated to entangle you with more and more new institutions you could subsequently betray, your treachery ever greater, your powers ever stronger. Ami has clearly been following this model, with a truly inspired approach of
personally creating the institutions relations with which she's planning to later harvest for treason XP (AMI, KEI, the Kei Clan, etc.).
But her approach was flawed. The growth rate was much slower than her calculations indicated, suggesting that something about the treasons she was committing was... off. Once Hazou came in fresh out of the killbox, and she saw he's been earning 17 XP/day, it struck her:
a treason isn't complete unless you're publicly and officially convinced of it! So she went to get almost-executed in Mist, and undoubtedly earned a staggering amount of XP from the experience.
Precisely according to Hazou's plan.
You see, the Treason Singularity's main flaw is that it's
dangerous. It's obviously still the correct approach to take when it's the only game in town, as not being an S-ranker for any period of time is begging to be killed anyway... However! Hazou now has access to the Shadow Clone Singularity, and it's superior in almost every way: safer, faster, more inconspicuous, with less collateral damage (twenty thousand dead forks notwithstanding). But how can he ensure Ami doesn't catch on and attempt to steal this secret? Simple: he distracts her by leaking an improvement over the inferior singularity technique she'd already been using, ensuring she'd be too focused on optimizing it and re-calibrating all her future plots to look for something
qualitatively better.
With Shikaku gone, his apprentice Sasuke is the only one who stands any chance of seeing through Lord Gouketsu's fathomless machinations. Will Sasuke be able to succeed where his teacher failed?
