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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Sentient Tree said:
Yeah, it just doesn't solve the underlying issue that the MC's existence was supposed to solve. If ninja get too involved in economic stuff, what use is there for civilians?

And the natural conclusion of civilians losing all the rights they do have if such a thing were to happen.
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Why would there be an issue? Specialization and division of labor is a thing.
 
eaglejarl said:
@Rafin

There's no retcon here, we're simply clarifying and reminding y'all because it's relevant now and there seemed to be some confusion. (Okay, we made one mistake: In the latest post we said there aren't laws on the books about this but there actually are. That's an irrelevant detail and we'll edit it out.)

De iure, civilians have a right to life, killing one will get a ninja executed, and if the ninja isn't executed then an embargo will be called that will force the ninja to bow to the civilians.

De facto, the Hokage doesn't want to execute his ninja and the Merchant Council doesn't want to escalate things with the ninja since that is definitely going to end in blood on the ground. It's an open question whether they could pull off an embargo, since it requires all the civilians to cooperate even when ninja start executing people -- which they absolutely would. It would be an incredibly chaotic situation and a lot of people would end up hurt, ninja and civilians alike. No one knows exactly what would happen and no one wants to risk finding out, so the Merchant Council isn't going to call an embargo unless it's absolutely essential.

How does that all shake out? Ninja bully civilians all the time but they usually don't kill them and if they do then they cover up the murders in order to maintain plausible deniability. At the same time, no civilian feels completely safe even in broad daylight, because a judge could deem "he fell on my kunai" plausible rather than execute a high-value ninja for the sake of a low-value civilian. This is well supported by evidence in the text.

Even beyond that, no one gives much of a toss about criminals so Asuma isn't that concerned that Haru killed a half dozen Yakuza, as it hasn't caused an issue yet and isn't likely to in the near future. If Haru keeps killing, or if he starts killing non-Yakuza, then it might cause a problem so Asuma wants Haru to stop.

As to the rest:

Yes, Hashirama enforced a 'no killing civilians' rule. Yes, those laws are technically still on the books even though no one really cares in practice. Yes, this level of protection, paper thin as it is, is still better than civilians get in most other places. Yes, the threat of embargo is the main reason that ninja don't use magic for economic purposes, since that's the one thing that almost certainly would get an embargo called. Other reasons include a culture of military service that says doing non-military things is shameful for a ninja, which is why people like Reo, Mai, and Atomu are so desperate to find productive and military-related work.
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You see, this makes much more sense and makes me completely retract all my complaints.
 
[X] Training Noburi: Copy + Paste
Physique 28 [28 Pangolin XP]
Resolve 21 [21 Yamanaka XP]

Don't mind me, just posting this for the next update so Noburi can cash in on his XP.
 
eaglejarl said:
"After we finish here I'm going to go collect the HOWS seals. These evening, when it's dark on the Seventh Path, I'll reverse-summon to the Seventh Path. I will meet up with Kumokōgō who will take me to the Great Seal where I will emplace the HOWS in order to slow down its degradation. It has to be me, unfortunately. The only people who are allowed up to the Great Seal are me and Kumokōgō, and she can't activate seals."

"Might be worth teaching her."

"The thought had occurred, sir."

"Hah. Yes, well, still worth mentioning. Granted, I'm not sure you have time to sit around doing chakra work with her.
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Oh we should definitely be teaching some Arachnids to operate seals, we wanted to test implosion seals on the Dragons, this way we can teach some Arachnids, and they can teach the Hornets.
eaglejarl said:
He pulled his pants on over the splints (no ninja wanted to advertise a vulnerability), picked up the crutches, and headed downstairs.
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One of the reasons I love this quest is the little worldbuilding details like this.
eaglejarl said:
Asuma shrugged. "Not critical, since we aren't going to have a say in it. Just academic interest. Anything else on your plate today aside from the important and no doubt exhausting conversation with a furious love interest and now off to save the world at tremendous risk to yourself?"

"Actually, this won't save the world," Hazō said pedantically. "It will simply delay the—"

"Yes, yes. Spare me the sealmaster answer. I used to get enough of that from Jiraiya." He saw the pang of grief and his face sobered. "Sorry."

"It's fine, sir. He'll be—" He barely caught himself before saying 'back, because I'm working on resurrection' and managed to finish safely with "—remembered as the hero he was."
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I thought this was a very touching moment, also I have wondered why Asuma likes Hazou when so many other authority figures do not. Perhaps it's nothing more than we remind him of Jiraiya.
eaglejarl said:
Two massive spiders, nearly as large as the Empress, skittered up. The spiders could accelerate as fast or faster than a ninja and stop on a ryō; watching them move towards you was always alarming since it was the way ninja moved in battle. Hazō found himself automatically shifting into a combat stance every time one of the Empress's courtiers approached. He made a strong effort to control the reaction but couldn't entirely suppress it.
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Again, love the little details like this.
eaglejarl said:
{{{RRR#A@AA$$AR%%RRG!!G.G2GH^fHH*HHH!}}}​
There were no words for the sound. It wasn't a howl, or a scream, or a roar, or any noise that could come from the throat of a creature of the Human Path. It was primal fear encoded into sound.

Hazō's chakra flickered inside him, shivering within his coils as instincts far more ancient than humanity or chakra clenched tight around his soul.
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This sounds like charka itself is afraid of the Dragons, fuck.
eaglejarl said:
Hazō paused, the pressure of air slowly seeping away from his lungs reminding him that he didn't have long, especially not when his body was so amped up. He had a choice. He could swim left or right, or he could dive down and try to go under the barrier of the Seal. The only problem was that he didn't know how deep it went.
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This part puzzled me, if Hazou has a 3-D map of the Great Seal in his head he should have a good feeling for how deep it goes into the rock.
 
Sir Stompy said:
Oh we should definitely be teaching some Arachnids to operate seals, we wanted to test implosion seals on the Dragons, this way we can teach some Arachnids, and they can teach the Hornets.

One of the reasons I love this quest is the little worldbuilding details like this.

I thought this was a very touching moment, also I have wondered why Asuma likes Hazou when so many other authority figures do not. Perhaps it's nothing more than we remind him of Jiraiya.

Again, love the little details like this.

This sounds like charka itself is afraid of the Dragons, fuck.

This part puzzled me, if Hazou has a 3-D map of the Great Seal in his head he should have a good feeling for how deep it goes into the rock.
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Anthroporphic principal. The alternative is that he doesn't like me, which leads to lakes of boiling glass instead of a quest.
 
What does canon!Ino and mfd!Ino has in common with each other? Apparently a lot more than at first glance.

  • They both like or pine after a missing-nin.
  • They both were part of a 'fanclub' for a missing-nin.
  • They both like a person who had 'lost' his clan.
 
Kiba said:
Which authority figures are you talking about?

If you're thinking of Hiashi, he's the guy who hate our clan's gut on principle.
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Hazou's teachers in Mist. They all disliked him for asking too many questions.
eaglejarl said:
'Run' was a strong word by ninja standards. It was more like 'jog' at best, at least over distances such as these. Still, it was far better than Hazō could do on his crutches. On the prior visit he had exhausted his chakra reserves on the beginnings of a tunnel, but without Noburi's help he didn't have the strength for more than a short distance. Over multiple visits he would eventually create an underground highway enabling the arachnids to approach much closer to the butte while maintaining cover from enemies flying above. To tunnel across fifty or sixty miles, which was the plan, would be the work of far, far longer than they could afford to wait. Still, it was good to get started, since it looked like they were going to have to make semi-regular visits.
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The user excavates a 2-meter diameter tunnel and is able to move through it unimpeded. They can cross (Effect) zones per round while ignoring any above-surface borders and blocks on Sprint actions. Effect cannot be higher than (½ Aspect bonus). User has 0 Alertness with regard to people and objects above the surface, barring unusual senses, and vice versa. The tunnel is permanent.
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Hazou can cast this at Effect 1 for 26 cp, which means he can cross 20 zones underground per cast. He can cast the jutsu 10 times at full capacity. Zones specifically aren't regularly sized which makes it difficult to guess how much tunneling Hazou could do in a given cast. But as an approximation, I will take ninja sprinting speed (20 mph) and apply it for 1 round (3 seconds) to get an average zone size. This gives 26.8 m, which seems a little high, so let's round down a bit to 25 m. 55 miles is 88500 meters, or 3540 avg zones. This implies that it would take 177 casts of Hazou's tunneling jutsu to form the tunnel for a total of 4602 cp. That's a little less than 4 of Noburi's barrels, easily doable in a single day if he lots of refills, otherwise we could do it in a week.

@eaglejarl @Velorien how do the numbers for avg zone size look?

EDIT: Edited to reflect a round in MfD being 3 seconds rather than 6, conclusions don't change
 
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Sir Stompy said:
1 round (6 seconds)
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Note: 1 round in FtD is 3 seconds, not 6, changing your calculations to about 25m per zone and 3540 casts. I also think you might have confused sets of 10 casts (Hazou spending his entire chakra reserve) with single casts, and thus estimated the job as 10x as easy as it really is.

By my calculations it costs about 92,000 chakra to cast Tunnel Excavation the 3540 times it would take to make a complete tunnel. Still, partial tunnels help.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Note: 1 round in FtD is 3 seconds, not 6, changing your calculations to about 25m per zone and 3540 casts. I also think you might have confused sets of 10 casts (Hazou spending his entire chakra reserve) with single casts, and thus estimated the job as 10x as easy as it really is.

By my calculations it costs about 92,000 chakra to cast Tunnel Excavation the 3540 times it would take to make a complete tunnel. Still, partial tunnels help.
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Maybe a good idea to dig the tunnel manually.
 
eaglejarl said:
This is exactly what we said before so I'm not sure why you're doing a 180 now, but cool. I'm glad your worries were assuaged.
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Because it all hinged on the "there are no laws on the books" part, which you said was a small mistake, but I thought was a massive retcon.

Also, your post provided much more context than Velorien's and Velorien did mention the grue, which usually means retcons.
 
Wanna pop in and say that I like the second to last chapter as a fantasy. "My day sucks, so give me some slack, step up, and stop talking to me." is a super real daydream for someone at the end of their rope. Very stream of consciousness, too.

Not sure what to think about digs and praises interspersed in the text; Sarcasm Hazou was in control, but not the pilot all the way.
 
Rafin said:
Because it all hinged on the "there are no laws on the books" part, which you said was a small mistake, but I thought was a massive retcon.

Also, your post provided much more context than Velorien's and Velorien did mention the grue, which usually means retcons.
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If that's your idea of a massive retcon you must have had an aneurysm when everyone forgot where they left their disguise kits.

Also, for the record, there's no such thing as "my post" or "@Velorien 's post" when it's an official announcement. We both do the wordsmithing, we both sign off. i.e I deserve an equal share in whatever criticism you have for the first post and he deserves equal credit for this one.
 
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