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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Velorien said:
"It may seem to you," Hazō played for time while his brain went into overdrive and the Thing failed to happen despite his prayers, "that there is a contradiction here. I can understand how you might think that. It's only natural at first glance. However..."—no, he had it—"…the letter of the law does not state that a ninja accused of killing a civilian must be executed. It states that the ninja must be presented to the Hokage for judgement, and execution is simply the appropriate punishment for the Hokage to bestow. I have already consulted the Hokage with regard to Haru's case, and while he ordered Haru to stop the killings, which has been done, he did not order Haru's execution. I will not take a life the Hokage himself chose to spare. However, the Gōketsu's standards in regard to harming civilians are more strict than those of the village at large, and so I have decided that Haru must be punished nonetheless."

"Did the Hokage order you not to execute him?" the insufferable civilian demanded even as an empty circle formed around him in the middle of the crowd. "Did he explicitly say that Gōketsu Haru must be exempt from the proper punishment for the crime he'd confessed to? Did he tell you that, even though you were fine to execute a civilian for rape, you were forbidden to execute a ninja for murder?"

Hazō reflected ruefully that in a normal, bigoted clan, no civilian would ever dare call their clan head out like this. Many would execute him just because a public challenge to their authority could not be tolerated. Frankly, even within the Gōketsu, the man's behaviour was unnatural. Yes, Hazō would be the worst kind of hypocrite if he punished a man for calling him to account for an apparent injustice. But as a clan head, it was fully within his right to execute his civilians, and the fact that doing so was immoral wouldn't make the civilian any less dead.

That aside, Hazō could see the trap here. It wasn't like the civilian in the scarf was wrong about anything. The Hokage had ignored the letter of the law because he only cared about practical consequences, just like Hazō had to begin with. Hazō was sparing the life of a man when he'd executed another one for less (Hazō wasn't going to argue, with Mari standing behind him, that raping a child was worse than murder).

On the one hand, Hazō publicly admitting that the Hokage was unjust, even by implication, would lead to nowhere good as far as his ever-shaky standing with Asuma was concerned. He'd been forced to come too close to that already. On the other hand, if the Hokage was just, yet justice wasn't being done, then Hazō had to be the one responsible for that failure. The assembled Gōketsu would remember that when Hazō next claimed to be fighting for a world better than the status quo.

She wouldn't forgive him for this. Not even once she got over his original mistake. Hazō felt a wave of utter loathing for the civilian in the scarf. He'd make sure to have the bastard thoroughly investigated later, and if there was a single black spot on the record of the man now trying to undermine Hazō's best attempt at justice…

"No," Hazō said, carefully, making sure every word was just right. "The Hokage did not give that order. However, I understand and accept his reasoning for not executing Haru. I neglected to explain that the six victims were all yakuza, killed in defence of the clan."

Some of the gazes directed at Haru turned much more sympathetic. Some of those directed at Hazō, hostile to the same degree.

"Yakuza," Hazō forced himself to say, "are the scum of the earth. They are predators of the very sort that the law exists to protect honest men and women from. Those six people, between them, must have committed many robberies, murders, acts of blackmail and extortion, and other crimes too vile for me to talk about with women and children present. They must have ruined countless lives. The Hokage, in his wisdom, has recognised that Haru's actions, though in violation of the letter of the law, were performed well within its spirit. We cannot know the number of people whom those actions have protected. We can expect that, over the coming years, many more than six civilians would have been killed if Haru had let those criminals live. When Haru acted, the thought foremost in his mind was that members of the Gōketsu, perhaps some of you listening to this today, would have been among that number.

"I know this is a grey area. When is it acceptable to violate the letter of the law to pursue its spirit? I don't know the answer to that question, and nor does anyone here. The only one who can is the Hokage, the Will of Fire made flesh, and as a loyal ninja of Hidden Leaf, I have faith in his judgement. The Hokage has chosen to spare Haru's life, and he has recognised my right to decide how that life is to be treated. There will be no more questions.
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@eaglejarl @Velorien What is Mari's/the clan's opinion on how Asuma will react to how we invoked his name here?
 
i think preventing their imminent deaths is a good enough present.
Hazou: "i need you to do all this shit (maybe permanently) because i am too busy stoping the END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!"
mari: "fair enough".
Hazou: "also, here is the bathtub seals that we have been researching non-stop and kagome's thingamajig that i carved whit my own hands."
 
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SC Math for Chapter 449:
@eaglejarl, @Velorien
With Hazou stuck in crutches, only Kei and Akane continue to FOOM. By the SOP, Kei and Akane are training for 9 and 7 training blocks respectively. With 3 base XP, the SC payouts are:
  • Kei: +2.7 XP (3 x0.9)
  • Akane: +1.8 XP (3 x0.6)
All previous payouts are accounted for.
 
PSA: An Earth-natured stonecarving jutsu exists

At your request, Kei dug around in the Leaf Private Library (the one that the Nara put together for the contest and are currently training non-Nara docents for), looking for a jutsu intended for use in stonecarving. She found it!

It is an Earth technique that allows you to manipulate Earth-element materials (generally meaning stone, but clay, dirt, gravel, etc also work) as though it were clay while the jutsu is in effect. Mechanically, roll the jutsu level against the TN of what you're trying to create, just as a civilian sculptor would roll Stonecarving or etc. We'll stat it out later, but it's a non-combat jutsu and can be assumed to not be usable in a fight because <TBD>.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
SC Math for Chapter 449:
@eaglejarl, @Velorien
With Hazou stuck in crutches, only Kei and Akane continue to FOOM. By the SOP, Kei and Akane are training for 9 and 7 training blocks respectively. With 3 base XP, the SC payouts are:
  • Kei: +2.7 XP (3 x0.9)
  • Akane: +1.8 XP (3 x0.6)
All previous payouts are accounted for.
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shounld't mari be FOOMING too?, she has SC and access to noburi.
 
Oneiros said:
If only we knew of the location of an incredibly powerful artifact that he would appreciate
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Velorien said:
"Uh-huh," Inoue-sensei said, giving him a pitying look. "Tell me, Hazō, how does expanding Keiko's arsenal make it clear how much you value her as a friend rather than just a combat asset?"

That brought Hazō up short. "I'm investing time and effort in designing something just for her?"

"And these are ideas which are obviously meant for her and not just ones you think would be useful for the team as a whole, and are giving to her because she's our best ranged fighter?"
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Kagome may not have Keiko's particular hangups but I still don't like the idea of giving him a Scroll, especially since we were planning on doing it anyway.
 
The scarf guy makes me uneasy. It's a good move for someone wanting to undermine us, but, like the bank run, it seems a bit too clever. It's the kind of idea that I really wouldn't expect most ninja to come up with. And he also presumably knew enough about the Haru situation to know it was worthwhile to attend, which implies a rather startling level of access to our internal communications.

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid here, but there is one person who would have both thought of these things and have had sufficient resources to carry them out - Ami. What I can't figure out is the motive.
 
Roomba said:
The scarf guy makes me uneasy. It's a good move for someone wanting to undermine us, but, like the bank run, it seems a bit too clever. It's the kind of idea that I really wouldn't expect most ninja to come up with. And he also presumably knew enough about the Haru situation to know it was worthwhile to attend, which implies a rather startling level of access to our internal communications.

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid here, but there is one person who would have both thought of these things and have had sufficient resources to carry them out - Ami. What I can't figure out is the motive.
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Or Mari.
 
faflec said:
Kagome may not have Keiko's particular hangups but I still don't like the idea of giving him a Scroll, especially since we were planning on doing it anyway.
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Cool glad to know you're on board with getting the scroll. We should have one of his gifts be a model of the scroll made out of chocolate
 
Eisenhelm said:
shounld't mari be FOOMING too?, she has SC and access to noburi.
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We have reason to believe that Mari has not leveled Shadow Clone to level 30 (the minimum level at which training can happen) yet, but more importantly we do not have access to Mari's character sheet or control over how she conducts her training in general. We can suggest she partake in FOOM but we are not in a position to guide or track it.
 
Oneiros said:
Cool glad to know you're on board with getting the scroll. We should have one of his gifts be a model of the scroll made out of chocolate
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...

Full disclosure: While I support getting Kagome a scroll (in general) and the Arachnid scroll in particular (given its relevance in the Dragon War), it does not mean I support it right now, given Hazou's injuries and high security around its last known location.
 
faflec said:
...

Full disclosure: While I support getting Kagome a scroll (in general) and the Arachnid scroll in particular (given its relevance in the Dragon War), it does not mean I support it right now, given Hazou's injuries and high security around its last known location.
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Well how about when his moderate injuries heal up?
 
Roomba said:
The scarf guy makes me uneasy. It's a good move for someone wanting to undermine us, but, like the bank run, it seems a bit too clever. It's the kind of idea that I really wouldn't expect most ninja to come up with. And he also presumably knew enough about the Haru situation to know it was worthwhile to attend, which implies a rather startling level of access to our internal communications.

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid here, but there is one person who would have both thought of these things and have had sufficient resources to carry them out - Ami. What I can't figure out is the motive.
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I could vaguely see it as a way of ensuring KEI as an organization has no competition (and I dunno if many clanless would be lining up to join after we very publicly assigned a fate worse than death to some on a former clanless). The question for me would be why? She's already dominating in basically all of her goals that we know of in Leaf, while we've been stumbling from failure to failure. She has no need to undermine us because we're doing just fine on that front by ourselves lol.
 
It is now clear to me, narratively and just by looking at the sheer size of The List, that the Goketsu's current state of affairs is unsustainable.
There are far too many things to do, and Hazou (and us by extension) has a regrettably finite amount of focus per day. Things have gone far enough that we need to delegate, or we will drop the ball on something that will kill us and/or the rest of the clan. Considering the Big Things we've been trying to save the world from, it'll be lucky if what kills us is something that doesn't end the world too.

I'm new to writing plan-like things and this is a very unrefined (albeit rather packed) scene, so here's a protoplan.

Protoplan: Delegation for the Sake of Friendship and Not Dying
  • Draw up a list of 'Things on Hazou's Plate'
  • Gather the clan at the relatively neutral ground of the cafe. Make sure they know this is Serious Business.
  • Explain the issues he's been having lately with managing each of these dozens of issues in parallel.
  • Have them explain their day-to-day, things they're taking care of, etc. Akane showed us quite clearly that we really don't know what's going on there.
  • Present the List, and relevant considerations for each item.
    • Since The List covers basically every plot thread or scheme ever, trim it to items that are ongoing or currently relevant.
    • Follow Opsec as needed
  • As a group, identify items that each person could potentially handle, and what clan resources are needed to do so.
  • Even after this, Hazou will inevitably have too much on his plate still. Ask for advice in handling the remaining duties acceptably.
  • Social bullet point that I am rather unskilled at planning: frame this all so they should be at least not-angry with it.
Caveat: I haven't had time to put detailed thought into indentifying failstates for this course of action. Grains of salt may be acquired from your nearest Goketsu saltern.
 
In light of the QM post on the stonecarving jutsu, here's where each of our options stand for creating Great Seal replicas:

Stonecarving jutsu:
  • If we dumped XP into this, we could get it to level 30. Given our wound penalties, however, level 29 would give us a higher effective level until we gather more XP. In total, we can expect an effective level of 17.
  • There are no obstacles or uncertainties, if we place our XP here we can guarantee a Great Seal replica created with a base eff skill level of 17.
MEW:
  • There is reason to believe it will allow for fine detailwork if we get it high enough in level, but it may also take something else than just level. Probably strictly inferior to the stonecarving jutsu at this point, since if any of the uncertainties resolve unfavourably then we're spending XP or rolling lower for no gain.
Craftsman:
  • If we dumped all our XP into Calligrpahy, we could get to base level 32. Given the Iron Nerve bonus and our wound penalties, our effective level would be 19. If we held back to 29, we would have eff level 20.
  • The only question in this route is whether we can find a stoneworker skilled enough to keep up with us. If we can (perhaps a good test would be getting Kagome to draw a sample topographic map and testing how well they can recreate it), then this is likely the route that produces the best results.

Thus my suggestion is that we resolve the one uncertainty we can dig into and search Konoha for an appropriate craftsman and supply them with a test of skill outlined above. Based on the results of that we can proceed with the route that looks best from our position.

We could even make it a sort of contest thingy, drawing the craftsmen to us for the honour of going down in history as the stoneworker who helped save the world from the dragons.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
MEW:
  • There is reason to believe it will allow for fine detailwork if we get it high enough in level, but it may also take something else than just level. Probably strictly inferior to the stonecarving jutsu at this point, since if any of the uncertainties resolve unfavourably then we're spending XP or rolling lower for no gain.
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Since Hazou learned MEW from Jiraiya, a Leaf ninja, we may be able to find some records or ninja who learned the jutsu at a higher level. Like the one who went on a mission with Kagome and Akane to blow up a bridge.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
In light of the QM post on the stonecarving jutsu, here's where each of our options stand for creating Great Seal replicas:

Stonecarving jutsu:
  • If we dumped XP into this, we could get it to level 30. Given our wound penalties, however, level 29 would give us a higher effective level until we gather more XP. In total, we can expect an effective level of 17.
  • There are no obstacles or uncertainties, if we place our XP here we can guarantee a Great Seal replica created with a base eff skill level of 17.
MEW:
  • There is reason to believe it will allow for fine detailwork if we get it high enough in level, but it may also take something else than just level. Probably strictly inferior to the stonecarving jutsu at this point, since if any of the uncertainties resolve unfavourably then we're spending XP or rolling lower for no gain.
Craftsman:
  • If we dumped all our XP into Calligrpahy, we could get to base level 32. Given the Iron Nerve bonus and our wound penalties, our effective level would be 19. If we held back to 29, we would have eff level 20.
  • The only question in this route is whether we can find a stoneworker skilled enough to keep up with us. If we can (perhaps a good test would be getting Kagome to draw a sample topographic map and testing how well they can recreate it), then this is likely the route that produces the best results.

Thus my suggestion is that we resolve the one uncertainty we can dig into and search Konoha for an appropriate craftsman and supply them with a test of skill outlined above. Based on the results of that we can proceed with the route that looks best from our position.

We could even make it a sort of contest thingy, drawing the craftsmen to us for the honour of going down in history as the stoneworker who helped save the world from the dragons.
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I vote calligraphy. A better drawing is itself going to be useful for the sealmasters while we use it to get a craftsman to construct it for us, something that will inevitably take a lot of time.

Making the seal ourselves with jutsu would also probably take a long time, requiring several sessions of work or more
 
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Shrooms said:
I vote calligraphy. A better drawing is itself going to be useful for the sealmasters while we use it to get a craftsman to construct it for us, something that will inevitably take a lot of time.

Making the seal ourselves with jutsu would also probably take a long time, requiring several sessions of work or more
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if we contract a craftsman, they will have to work whit our exact specifications (meaning whit hazou breathing on their neck) while not being a sealmaster themselves and have either us or kagome infuse it, not only is this contrary to what kagome taught us, it may be impossible as no sealmaster can infuse someone else's work.
 
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