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
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Liverpool
I appreciate the nomenclature, and not just because that's how we talk about them.
So, we can test this with Science, if we're so inclined. Have another clone eat a beetle, wait the same amount of time, see if it was the beetle or the tongue (or both, I suppose).
I think for me this is the default play, unless another plan's cost/benefit analysis shows that a more aggressive play is likely to work or be worth it. I also think we can still spin the mostly true versions to some advantages as well though.
I was just about to bring this up! Thanks Vel.
Also remember that Noburi doesn't refill his own Chakra naturally, and we want the team combat ready, so this really is a fine balance.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Fate Point "have tried eating the Pangolin Bugs before, both via person and sc" and then a branching "if Snowflake was poisoned (i.e. bugs alone not sufficient to pop) then [blah blah blah. If bugs sufficient enough to pop cline, then [blah blah blah"
I may make a plan later that does this, spoons pending.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
PONWOG I don't think this would work. If the bugs are harmful, you'd be breaking the timeline (because Snowflake would not have offered them to the High Priest if she knew in advance).
[X] Action Plan: It's a little hot out here
Words: <300
Words: <300
- Continue the mission
- Get moving at top speed
- Avoid unburned areas if possible
- Avoid any river or lake
- Distribute Tunneler's Friend if it gets hard to breathe from ash and smoke
- If ground is too hot to run on rest in an Air Dome + very short MEW for a couple hours
- If attacked, try to kill all of the attackers to prevent our location from spreading
- If the attackers flee, make a wildfire in the direction they go
- If Hazou notices the fire petering off in distance, go up to a reasonable height in a skytower during a rest break to see if there are any patches that look like someone has been fighting the fire, if there are, avoid them. But don't leave the Dogs undefended for too long
- ETD on improved masks for Dogs. Rush order
- Make some chakdar seals in the evening
- Updates on bank run investigation.
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- Location
- Yes.
[X] Action Plan: It's a little hot out here
Could we not do this? Skytowers are very time consuming.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
we need a long fire pole we can freeze in place and climb up really fast :^)
How about we use some of our newly acquired rocket jump boots to make a quick check?
How about we use some of our newly acquired rocket jump boots to make a quick check?
It's only 45 min or so and we take rest breaks while running anyway. I'll slot it into the nearest rest break rather than having us stop for it entirely
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Joke response: "No, it just changes the context" >:3
Genuine response: "Okay, that's fair. Snowflake isn't needlessly murderhappy and this wasn't actually a plan where we intended to execute Isan's leadership."
- Location
- Yes.
That's reasonable, though I think to get a good view we would want to take more time than that. IDK, Hazou can decide to not do that IC if necessary, maybe?
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
[X] Action Plan: It's a little hot out here
On the one hand I want to vote for it since it's the only plan and if it works it should bring things back to almost as good as the way things were, just with the head priest having some new and pretty strong leverage over us. On the other hand, I'm afraid that it will get Keiko killed. Those people were acting incredibly shifty. So shifty that I'm almost convinced that they weren't actually trying to poison us, just because they would have been better at not acting suspicious if that were the case.
On the other hand, Mari will likely have a better idea of whether they were actually acting like people who were waiting to see if a poison worked. Let's have Keiko describe in the best detail she can what their expressions were when Snowflake was eating the tongues and how they reacted, then have Mari decide whether to send Keiko herself or Snowflake again.
[X] (Isan) Okay I Guess We're Posting Isan Plans
@Shrooms , could you add some lines like these ones to the start?
*makes face*
On the one hand I want to vote for it since it's the only plan and if it works it should bring things back to almost as good as the way things were, just with the head priest having some new and pretty strong leverage over us. On the other hand, I'm afraid that it will get Keiko killed. Those people were acting incredibly shifty. So shifty that I'm almost convinced that they weren't actually trying to poison us, just because they would have been better at not acting suspicious if that were the case.
On the other hand, Mari will likely have a better idea of whether they were actually acting like people who were waiting to see if a poison worked. Let's have Keiko describe in the best detail she can what their expressions were when Snowflake was eating the tongues and how they reacted, then have Mari decide whether to send Keiko herself or Snowflake again.
[X] (Isan) Okay I Guess We're Posting Isan Plans
@Shrooms , could you add some lines like these ones to the start?
- Describe to Mari their reactions and facial expressions in as much detail as possible
- Does she think this may have been a poisoning attempt? If so, send Snowflake again instead of Keiko.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Action Plan: It's a little hot out here
Not sure about my own thoughts about what happened, what we should do (other than burning Isan to the ground if it was an assassination attempt on our sister), or how Isan will respond to our own responses. Gonna vote for the Dog plan for now, will return to the Isan matter in a bit.
Not sure about my own thoughts about what happened, what we should do (other than burning Isan to the ground if it was an assassination attempt on our sister), or how Isan will respond to our own responses. Gonna vote for the Dog plan for now, will return to the Isan matter in a bit.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No nested plans, please. If you want to do something it needs to be in this plan, not call by reference.
Seconded.
Y'know, Tsunade take field trips, and a village where they don't even know what medic-nin are might be a tempting destination for her humanitarian efforts. It would win oodles of goodwill, and it never hurts to have an S-Ranker join the team. We could justify it to Asuma by having confirmed an Arikada present and therefore needing a top bio-specialist on-site.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
SC Math for Chapter 418 (Applied):
@eaglejarl, @Velorien
With Hazou and Keiko off on mission, only Akane continues to FOOM. By the SOP, she is training with 5 clones. With 3 base XP, the SC payouts are:
@eaglejarl, @Velorien
With Hazou and Keiko off on mission, only Akane continues to FOOM. By the SOP, she is training with 5 clones. With 3 base XP, the SC payouts are:
- Akane: +1.5 XP (3 x0.5)
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- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Action Plan: It's a little hot out here
I think 45ish minutes would be long enough to get a good look at our surroundings, it takes a 500 m skytower to get a 50 mile scouting radius. I don't know what the minute-spent-setting-up to height ratio is for the skytower, however.
Chapter 419: Helpful Tips
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 419: Helpful Tips
The door exploded.
"Good morning."
The man behind the desk, beneficiary of a small paunch and salt-and-pepper hair from years of power and good living, blanched. His eyes flicked to the large man currently being held in a submission lock with his head next to Gōketsu Haru's knee. He leaped to his feet and bowed until his forehead touched the desk. "Good morning, Your Lordship. How may I help you?"
"You are...?"
"Suzuki Masahito, Your Lordship."
"Second Lieutenant in the Yakuza?"
"Yes, Your Lordship."
"Since this morning, right?"
"Yes, Your Lordship."
"Congratulations on your promotion. Has anyone told you about the very polite request that I made the other day?"
"Yes, Your Lordship. I've been devoting all my resources to it, Your Lordship."
"Good to know. How goes the investigation?"
A sweat drop gathered at the edge of Suzuki's hairline. "Sir...I've found no evidence that this was an orchestrated attack."
"Interesting. Out of curiosity, why were you promoted?"
"Second Lieutenant Hagimoto died, Your Lordship."
"Oh dear. How did that happen?"
"He fell out his window and crushed his head on a rock, Your Lordship."
"Oh, dear. How clumsy of him."
"It was a first-floor window, Your Lordship."
"Very clumsy indeed. Anyway, where were we?"
Suzuki bit his lip. "Your Lordship...is there any chance that I could convince you to release Shigeki?"
"Sure, no problem."
Shigeki bent his knees and raised his arm in preparation for the push that would otherwise have slammed his head into the side of the desk. He dropped and stayed on his knees, cradling the badly bruised limb and facing away from the ninja who, disturbingly, wasn't even showing signs of being angry.
"Thank you, Your Lordship," Suzuki said, bowing deeply again.
"No problem. Hey, Shigeki, you took that one like a champ."
Shigeki glanced briefly over his shoulder and flinched at the brief eye contact.
"I especially liked the way that when I walked into the bar you bent over and put your arm up so it was easy to grab."
Shigeki mumbled something.
"What was that? I didn't hear you."
"Thank you, Your Lordship."
"You're welcome. Now, Suzuki. I'm really hoping that you've got something to report. I take this very seriously."
"Your Lordship...there's no evidence that this was a coordinated attack. Everything I've found says that people were afraid, that it was spontaneous."
"That's not good enough. The entire city does not spontaneously decide to attack my clan. No one spontaneously decides to attack my clan. The Hyūga, the Hagoromo, the conservative block.... We have real, serious enemies." He stepped forward and the distant sound of imagined wolves shivered around the room. Suzuki shrank back and Shigeki cowered.
"I was born clanless, Suzuki. Before the KEI. Before anyone gave a damn about clanless. Somehow, I got pulled into one of these fucking arrogant bastard clans that have stepped on my neck my entire life. They said they needed me. They were too small, they needed more fighters. Out of every ninja in Leaf, they picked me, a clanless ninja not long out of the Academy. I had maybe two years of life expectancy left before my father would have had to bury a brand-new forehead protector because mine was still on my rotting corpse, somewhere out there in a ditch where no one would ever find it. They moved my family into their stupid palace, gave us all the food we could eat whenever we wanted, all the clothes we could wear, warm blankets in the winter and soft beds year 'round. Hell, they gave my stepmother's brats attention from a medic-nin. A senior one. They've been teaching them to read and to have skills that will let them stand on their own feet with good, honest jobs instead of making them menial servants carrying laundry and scrubbing floors."
He smiled, and the expression was grim. "They were a team before coming here. Tight knit, like any long-term field team gets. They have their own jargon, their own jokes, their own stories. I've gone on missions with established teams a few times and it's a pain in the ass. These crazy loons that I somehow got roped into? They explain the jokes, they share the stories. Hell, they told me the details of their damn bloodlines."
Suzuki swallowed nervously and Gōketsu leaned forward, hands on the desk and face inches from Suzuki's own. The wolves were closer.
"Now, I'm not saying that I like being in a clan, or that I don't still think all clans are bastards. I'm saying that this clan is trying to be what clans are supposed to be—protectors. They're trying to do it for everyone in Leaf, not just their own. That scares the shit out of the other bastards. The Gōketsu are upending everything. Adopting as many clanless as they can and changing the laws so they can adopt more. Teaching anyone who will listen. Providing free medical care for anyone who can crawl through the door, and even sending senior medics to make Sagebedamned house calls. Spending money like water and seals by the bucket to raise the least civilian out of poverty.
"So when I tell you that this wasn't an accident, that we've got enemies and this was engineered...fucking believe me. You've got until sundown tomorrow to find me something I can use. Anything at all, but it better be for real. And you better be here when I get here."
He waited a moment for a response but the scent of ammonia suggested he would not get one. Haru nodded and left.
o-o-o-o
"What do you...oh, no."
"Hey, Shigeki. How's your night?"
Shigeki Choki was a towering mass of muscle, bald as an egg, with a cauliflower ear and a flat nose from years of earning his money in pit fights, breaking knees on those who didn't pay their vig, and assorted other criminal activities that involved violence. He was covered in tattoos that detailed a long and storied history of a lifetime in the Yakuza. He was wearing loose linen pants held up by a drawstring and a sleeveless shirt so well-loved that it had a hole big enough for Choki to put his ham-sized fist through. When he had opened the door of his comfortable apartment in the comfortable part of town, he had been happy. Now, suddenly, he was not.
"Your Lordship—"
"Ah, Shigeki, don't be like that. You can call me Haru. Mind if I call you Choki?"
"Of course, Your Lordship."
Haru raised one finger and tut-tutted. "Now, now, Choki. I told you to call me Haru."
"Um...yes, Lord Haru."
"Anyway, you in the middle of anything?"
"My Lord...it's nighttime." He looked over his visitor's shoulder at the empty street. "May I ask why you're knocking on my door at sundown? For that matter, how do you even know where my door is?"
"I asked around. People have gotten really helpful to me."
"Oh."
"Yeah, I know. Hey, I noticed you weren't working tonight. You brought that other guy in from Tanzaku Gai...what's his name?"
Choki sighed. "Tanaka Emon, My Lord."
"Tanaka Emon." The teenage ninja nodded thoughtfully. "Not really you, is he? Kinda weedy. Doesn't make me look particularly badass to take him behind the woodshed, now does it?"
"My Lord—"
"Haru."
"Yes, My Lord. With respect, he's six inches taller than you and fifty pounds heavier."
"Yes, well, you're six inches taller than him and a hundred pounds heavier than me."
"...Yes, My Lord."
"Aw, come on, Choki. We've had such a fine relationship so far, can't we be on first names?"
"Of course, Lord Haru."
Haru sighed in amateur thespianism. "Well, I suppose I'll take what I can get. Anyway, what are you up to?"
"Sir...it's after dark. I was having dinner and...I was having dinner."
"Really? What was the music?"
Choki's eyes flicked into the house. "Music, sir?"
"Yeah, I'm sure I heard music. Kinda tweedle eedle eedle bing ping ping."
Choki winced. "It's a music box, sir. It was my father's."
"Spiffy. Mind letting me in so I can see it?"
With a sigh, Choki pulled the door the rest of the way open and stepped aside so that his visitor could enter. "Please, My Lord, please don't break it. Mr Suzuki knows how dangerous you are, you don't need to do this."
Haru stopped three paces into the room and looked around. Blond wood, sanded smooth. A small kitchen area off to one side, one large kitchen knife and one set of dishes and a pair of empty bento boxes neatly arranged. A pair of crossed fighting sticks and two combat knives hanging on the wall. A full-sized punching bag filled with sand hanging in the corner. One cushion near the bricks of the hearth and chimney with a dark wood box in front of it. Shogi screen in the corner, presumably with a futon mat behind it. A landscape scroll hanging on the wall.
"Nice place you've got here," Haru said, the words sincere.
"Thank you, My Lord."
Haru turned, surveying it slowly. "Those are Gōketsu bentos," he noted. "You use the seal bank?"
"Yes, My Lord. It's very helpful, My Lord."
"Haru."
"Yes sir."
Haru turned to look at his host.
"You know I'm going to keep coming, right? You people need to get on the ball. You're the damn Yakuza! You're supposed to have fingers in every pie, eyes in every corner."
"My Lord, I'm just an enforcer. I stay at the headquarters and I protect the lieutenant unless he sends me out to kneecap some jerk. In the evenings I listen to the music box, or I meditate, or I go down to the bar and drink. I don't know anything."
"Choki, Choki, Choki...c'mon, don't be so hard on yourself. You stand behind the Second Lieutenant all day every day and you've done the same for the last three Second Lieutenants. It occurred to me that maybe Suzuki doesn't have the institutional knowledge to mobilize resources efficiently, but you've been around longer and you know where all the bodies are buried. Now, in five minutes the two of us are going down to his office. I can put you in the lock here and drag you through the streets like that, which probably won't do good things to your street cred, or you can walk on your own two feet and I can do it when we get to his office. Shoot, I might even let you change clothes first."
Choki sighed. "My Lord...honestly, he's doing everything he can. We all are. Every person we can squeeze is being squeezed. He's even shuttered some of the businesses so that we could have more people for the search. He went to the Oyabun right after you left, begged for the rest of the Brotherhood to get involved." His jaw slapped shut as he realized, too late, where the next sentence would lead.
Haru's face lit up. "Really? That's excellent! I was figuring I'd work my way up the chain but maybe I should go straight to the Oyabun. What did he say?"
"He...um...he...."
"Choki, are you telling me that the Oyabun refused to help?"
"Sir, you really should talk about it with Mr Suzuki. I'm just the muscle, really."
"Ah, but I'm talking to you right now, Choki. And we're really good friends, right?"
Choki felt sick. So this was what it was like to be on this side of the conversation. "The Oyabun was worried about people thinking the Brotherhood had become too subordinate to one particular clan, My Lord. It's important for us to be an independent group. We don't want to be stuck in clan wars."
"Oh, that sure is a pity, Choki. You personally are in the middle of a clan war right now and your organization is getting sucked deeper for every minute that I don't have answers."
"My Lord, there's nothing! After you talked about your enemies yesterday, Mr Suzuki put real effort into sniffing around the people you mentioned. The Hagoromo were on your side, sir. I see stuff over Mr Suzuki's shoulder sometimes. I don't look, but I'm standing there, you know?"
"Sure, of course. And don't sell yourself short, Choki. I have a feeling you're smarter and more sensitive than people give you credit for. Look at you with your music box and your landscape scroll. Anyway, what was this stuff you saw?"
"The Hagoromo were paying their debts in your scrip, sir. Some big debts, too. I dunno how many, but point is that they were using it. So were the Hyūga."
"The Hyūga were using our scrip?" Haru asked, his voice suddenly intense.
"Yeah. I mean, I guess. I only saw one page, but there were like three separate entries of a Hyūga exchanging ryō for your scrip at one of our gambling halls. Not winning it, coming in to buy it in bulk."
Haru's face lit up. "See, Choki? This? This right here is the kind of useful information that puts me in a good mood." He waved one hand towards the door. "C'mon, get changed. We're going to your office and you get to walk upright the whole way."
"...Yes, My Lord." He licked his lips, wondering...the noble did seem to be in a good mood, so maybe? He hurried behind his shogi screen to grab fresh clothes out of the pile and pulled them on as fast as he could. Less than a minute later he was back at the door with his question on his lips. "My Lord?"
"Yes, Choki?"
"Any chance you could shove me to the side tonight, instead of into the desk?"
"For such a good friend as you, I'd be glad to. Tell you what, I'll even use a wrist control tonight instead of going for the fingers."
"Thank you, sir. That one really hurts. Especially when you stick your thumb in that nerve bundle. Didn't know that was there. I've been using it myself these past few days and it gets really good results."
"Glad I could help. C'mon, grab your shoes. Suzuki ain't gonna scare himself."
XP AWARD: 1
Brevity XP: 1
Author's note: You progressed onwards through Cat territory. Hazō set more grass fires every time there was any chance of them burning out. He climbed skytowers occasionally. The area to the south of you is not burning as much as it should; the circle expands fairly evenly for about ten miles in all directions, but about three miles away there's a sharp inwards curve for no apparent reason, as though the flames simply refuse to go there. You have had no more encounters.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, March 17, 2021, at 12pm London time.