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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Yeah, wearing the coat to the party for several hours as if the coat is not the gift is a joke to mess with Noburi

now laugh
 
Halberdier said:
Was changed to shark skin, since hiring Ninja to hunt apex Chakra beasts when personnel is low just to make a coat wouldn't fly.
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Think-Like-A-Classic-Clan-Head-Difference.


Velorien said:
That's what I thought. So why is Hazō going to come to Noburi's birthday party wearing Noburi's present?
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It turns out that if you soak megalodon skin in ethanol and the proper ammoniac salts during the curing process a single one can be stretched enough to cover the torsos of both of a pair of bipedal fleshlings. Difficult to believe, but it really is quite elastic.

-although, it must be nice to see the thread absorbing expert advice about chakra-beast disease vectors by deciding to literally wear them.
 
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Been lurking for a while now, stopped reading the updates, gosh, almost a year ago, and come back to this. Hazō and Akane have got together, Leaf law is becoming more Icha Icha, and the team is now powerful enough to take out chakra monsters without rolling a single die.
*snifs*
Baby's all grown up…
 
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Chapter 371, Part 1: The Nobster Rises
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    • Something had already gone wrong.

    The totality of the Naked Jaybird, booked ASAP after Hazō finished leafing through Noburi's guest list, felt hollow. Instead of the promised crowds, there were maybe twenty people milling around, dwarfed by the mountains of prepared snacks. Hazō didn't object in principle—as clan head, he was getting used to being swarmed by strangers, but he still felt more comfortable at intimate gatherings—but he felt sorry for Noburi, who had clearly expected his coming of age to be celebrated on an epic scale.

    "I just don't get it," the man of the hour muttered. "I know I've only known most of them for a few months, but for every last one to cancel at the last minute… It's a knockout punch straight to the ego."

    Hazō couldn't help but agree, considering the excuses, which ranged from the plausible, such as "I'm washing my hair", "I don't feel well", "I have an urgent mission", and "my sister was eaten by a chakra lemming" (it was that time of year) to those that weren't even trying, such as Akimichi Chōko's claim that she was on a diet and couldn't risk being in the same building as food. Something was definitely wrong.

    "Nice coat, by the way," Noburi added. "Where'd you get it?"

    Hazō gave an inscrutable smile. "This coat has a truly incredible story behind it, but one this world isn't yet ready to hear."

    "I won't hold my breath."

    Hazō surveyed the area. Akane was speaking quietly with Ino near the dais reserved for the musicians (who, being terrifyingly outnumbered civilians, had taken cover in one of the back rooms until it was time for them to perform). Akane's presence was electrifying, an unfamiliar and disorienting feeling, and if Hazō didn't know better, he'd almost suspect Mari to be playing a prank with her Lightning Element.

    Come to think of it, he didn't know better. Few things were more in character than Mari picking up on their as-yet-unannounced relationship change and deciding to mess with them while the opening was there. But no, Mari was otherwise occupied having a very animated, completely silent conversation with Ami and Tenten on subjects unknown. Keiko stood nearby, watching attentively and jotting down notes in rapidfire shorthand.

    Or was that her chatting with Ino and Chōji? Noburi had made a point of inviting Snowflake individually. He claimed that he was now the only man in the world with four different types of sister: sisters by blood (Aya and Saya), a sister by adoption (Keiko), a sister by metaphysical extension (Snowflake), and a sister by the transitive property (Ami). He'd added that the next step in his master plan was to get a sister-in-law, which would be a race between globally unprecedented, radical legal reform and Hazō sorting out his love life. Maybe, he added by way of consolation, they could make Keiko's wedding the kind with cute bridesmaids.

    Shikamaru, Hazō noted, wasn't there to complete the ISC set, as Noburi had sent him a note to the effect that while he was, of course, invited, Noburi would be just as happy if Shikamaru responded by staying home and treating himself to something nice in Noburi's honour.

    Then there was the gaggle of unfamiliar young men, the few of Noburi's friends who'd honoured their RSVPs instead of begging off at the last second. It was they, coming from a world where sharks were only a thing of stories, who'd asked the most questions about the coat.

    "Oh, this? It's from the Mist Academy graduation test. To pass, you have to choke a shark to death with your bare hands. What? All right, I admit it, I made that one up. You're allowed gloves—shark skin is really rough.

    "I just found it in my bedroom when I woke up one day. There was a note saying, 'Your father left this coat in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well.' The mystery is… my father never wore a coat.

    "Actually, this started out as a normal leather coat. It only began looking like this after I bound Hoshigaki Kisame's screaming soul to the cloth for all eternity. Sometimes I summon his shade to give me tactical advice. I mean, what else do you do when someone raises a hand against your family?"

    Now, the boys were clustered around Yuno, the beautiful exotic foreigner, and she was smiling at the attention even as her hand slowly tightened around Satsuko's grip. Hazō would have to do something about that soon. Meanwhile, on the periphery… Hazō had an equally bad feeling about the periphery, where Neji (who'd been invited, amazingly, lest he "gatecrash the party out of burning jealousy") was talking to Kadokura Ruri. Why had Noburi invited her? Why was she immune to the curse that had befallen so many other guests? What were the implications of her talking to Neji? Hazō wanted to ask, but had a feeling he might not enjoy the answers.

    Finally, Kagome-sensei's voice could occasionally be heard from the kitchen, where he was busy browbeating the civilian cooks into making a new batch of snacks "with a proper kick to them, none of this bland mush I wouldn't feed to a toddler".

    Seeing all the boys clustering around one girl, Hazō had a moment of realisation. He reached for the guest list.

    "Shimura Yumi. Sunohara Sachiko. Minami Shiina. Meiori Nanako. Nara Shion. Sakurai Kanade. Noburi, are all the names on these three sheets girls?"

    "Well, duh," Noburi said.

    "This is three quarters of the guest list!"

    "Don't worry," Noburi said. "Someday, you will be almost as popular as me. Two thirds, maybe, if you leverage the clan head thing for all it's worth. And get a proper haircut."

    "Shut up, Noburi," Hazō said, concealing his pity. It wasn't Noburi's fault that the best girl on the planet had already been claimed. "It's just… yesterday morning, Yuno asked to see the list, then said she'd be going out for the day. She took Satsuko."

    Both boys slowly pivoted around to look at Yuno. She smiled and waved.

    Keiko and Kadokura were summoners. Akane was Yuno's best friend. Mari and Ami terrified her. Tenten only had eyes for Keiko. Ino was a clan head specialising in psychological warfare. Those were the only other women at Noburi's birthday party.

    Hazō patted Noburi on the shoulder reassuringly. "Good luck."

    "Oh, no," Noburi said after a second, eyes widening. "She's just noticed that Kimura's wearing a green bracelet on his left hand in a place of business. Who does that? Oh, hell, she's about to—"

    "Ladies and gentlemen!" Hazō bellowed, interrupting the diplomatic incident before axes became involved. "It's time for everyone's favourite time of day: gift-giving time!"

    Yuno lowered her axe. Kimura, a tall, gangly youth with almost Naruto levels of poor colour coordination, took the opportunity to back away.

    "Gōketsu Noburi. Step forward."

    Noburi stepped forward solemnly.

    Hazō pulled off the sharkskin coat and passed it to Noburi, folded across his hands as if it were a ceremonial blade.

    "I hereby bestow this sacred sharkskin coat upon you. May it come to bear many legends, only some of which you will make up."

    Noburi took the coat bemusedly. "So… you're giving me this coat you've been wearing all day?"

    "…yes?"

    Noburi shrugged. "Eh, it's a nice coat. Thanks, Hazō." He put it on, tugged on the lapels a couple of times, then looked around. At Hazō's prearranged signal, a couple of waiters hustled up with a full-body mirror.

    "A very nice coat," Noburi amended. "The girls will be all over this… if I'm ever allowed to meet any girls again."

    "Ooh, I've got just the thing to complete this outfit," Mari said. She walked up to Noburi, examined the coat critically, then tugged it in a couple of places to make it settle in a more flattering form. Standing on tiptoe, she reached up and slid a chain over his head.

    The silver pendant bore the character for "dragon", framed by a thick, elaborately-shaped cerulean ring that, on closer inspection, was a remarkably accurate portrayal of one mythical beast in particular: Noburi's humongous dragon, complete with tiny ruby eyes glowing with wrath, and a tail composed of water droplets fading into nothingness behind it. Hazō had no idea how the craftsman, without ever having seen the original, had managed to capture its sense of majestic, torrential violence.

    "Badass," Noburi said after another few seconds with the mirror. "If I were a girl, I would totally fall in love with me."

    "Hey," Ami said, "we've got a theme going!"

    She offered Noburi an innocent-looking scroll. By size and shape, it seemed like a standard ninjutsu scroll, but where you would expect a label describing the contents, it bore only the dread mark of "^_^".

    Noburi unfurled it, spent a few seconds reading, and then he looked right at Hazō with what could only be described as a malevolent grin.

    "Say, Ami, is this what I think it is?"

    Ami beamed.

    Hazō got a powerful sense of impending doom.

    "I'll make it my top priority," Noburi promised.

    "Could you make sure I'm there when you first try it out? Pretty please?"

    "No promises," Noburi said, struggling to hold in laughter. "The true master bows before nothing but comedic timing."

    "Preach it."

    After that, it was a massive relief when Keiko chose to go next. Whatever she had in store, it would be both practical and reasonably likely not to result in chaos and destruction for Hazō personally.

    "This is a joint present from Snowflake and myself," she stated, handing Noburi a sheaf of documents which, after the preceding gifts, looked about as thrilling as… well, a sheaf of documents. "She proposed the original plan, which I of necessity had to implement alone, and we cooperated on the final structuring and transcription."

    Noburi nodded. "And it is decorated with a drawing of a toad with its tongue tied in a knot because…?"

    "Snowflake was feeling whimsical," Keiko said scathingly. "This file is the product of extensive discussion with the Pangolin Diplomatic Corps, which as you will recall has centuries of experience interacting with the Toads. It contains a detailed listing of unique Toad slang and idiom, with notes based on my own experience of the peculiarities of summon culture. Snowflake's contribution is an analogous dictionary of Toad insults, listed according to level of formality and familiarity. I am given to understand that the use of any from the final page is considered legitimate casus belli."

    "Whoa." Noburi flicked through the pages. "My Toad street cred is going to be through the roof. And I'll finally have something to say back to Gamasēji when he starts lecturing me, the yellow-throated sprogfloinker."

    Keiko winced. "On second thought, this was a terrible idea. Is it too late to retract the gift in favour of some nice, inoffensive chocolate?"

    "Yes."

    -o-​

    This is Part 1 of the update. Part 2 will have to be posted over the weekend, when I have spoons to finish it. In the meantime, voting is open.

    What do you do (starting the day after the party)?

    Voting closes on Saturday 12th of August, 9 a.m. New York Time.
     
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    • Velorien said:
    "I know I've only known most of them for a few months, but for every last one to cancel at the last minute… It's a knockout punch straight to the ego."
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    I was worried that something horrible had happened off screen...

    Velorien said:
    Keiko and Kadokura were summoners. Akane was Yuno's best friend. Mari and Ami terrified her. Tenten only had eyes for Keiko. Ino was a clan head specialising in psychological warfare. Those were the only other women at Noburi's birthday party.
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    ...but Yuno being terrifying is always a delight ^.^

    Velorien said:
    Snowflake was feeling whimsical," Keiko said scathingly. "This file is the product of extensive discussion with the Pangolin Diplomatic Corps, which as you will recall has centuries of experience interacting with the Toads. It contains a detailed listing of unique Toad slang and idiom, with notes based on my own experience of the peculiarities of summon culture. Snowflake's contribution is an analogous dictionary of Toad insults, listed according to level of formality and familiarity. I am given to understand that the use of any from the final page is considered legitimate casus belli."
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    Snowflake is a dear and Keiko continues to be an awesome sister. A lovely chapter, Velorien!

    Edit: sorry I can't reply in more detail, currently working on a paper before work.
     
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    To be completely honest, I feel we should've personalized the birthday gift more. The issue is that we have so many things on our plate that when we have an idea, we implement it immediately instead of saving it for a birthday. We should keep this in mind for the future.

    Also, if the Naked Jaybird is still struggling, we should consider going to other restaurants sometimes for meetings and seeing the differences. It's not advertising if we only go to the Naked Jaybird - and if the Yabai Cafe can thrive, there's no reason Mist seafood shouldn't.

    In other news, my aerodynamics course is going well and by the end of it I will hopefully understand enough at the non-modern level to force our engineers to develop skygliders. I would advise they start with a wind tunnel and try literal hundreds of different wings shapes. The Wright brothers only really got there once they took a more reductionist approach - and if Hazou's thoughts on kites are any indication, we will absolutely need that here. Realistically, what's probably holding us back is the shape of the airfoil. We can leave adding control surfaces for steering until the glider stays up (I also haven't taken the class for it yet lol).
     
    [X] Action plan: Something vague and clever

    • Hazō and Noburi meet with Keiko and Shikamaru.
      • pick up the improved dog sleds from the Nara engineers
      • while there discuss 7th path chakra farm idea (check with Noburi in advance$
        • Once we have it completed we will be able to deliver chakra water to any summoner whenever
        • We are planning on selling this service to every summoner
          • Of course the Nara and Keiko will get it for free since we are such solid allies
        • We are are having some problems implementing it safely and would like to get advice from our resident geniuses
          • Jiraiya informed us of the potential dangers of draining from a summon
            • Do they know of any way to make sure if we use creatures from the 7th path it will be safe for Noburi?
            • We have also tried to bring creatures to the 7th path and had less than optimal results. Do they think bringing fertilized egg might work?
    • Meet with Cannai
      • Deliver upgraded sleds for testing
      • Discuss Candoru's performance at the mine
      • Inform Cannai about the summoner trade network and find out an goods he would be interested in acquiring
      • If we have successfully managed to get a sled that meets his standards ask about any dogs that he thinks would make good potential summons for us to contract with
    • After this do seal research until Casino seal variants are finished
     
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    Velorien said:
    "Shut up, Noburi," Hazō said, concealing his pity. It wasn't Noburi's fault that the best girl on the planet had already been claimed. "It's just… yesterday morning, Yuno asked to see the list, then said she'd be going out for the day. She took Satsuko."

    Both boys slowly pivoted around to look at Yuno. She smiled and waved.

    Keiko and Kadokura were summoners. Akane was Yuno's best friend. Mari and Ami terrified her. Tenten only had eyes for Keiko. Ino was a clan head specialising in psychological warfare. Those were the only other women at Noburi's birthday party.

    Hazō patted Noburi on the shoulder reassuringly. "Good luck."
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    It was at that point that Noburi knew, he f***ed up.
     
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