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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Black King said:
Isn't Kagome know to be explosive happy and over protective and super crazy and unable to keep secrets well?
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He has never deployed explosives inappropriately in Leaf.

He's settled way down since coming up Leaf on the protectiveness front - honestly that's a point in his favour.

He's crazy but honestly not more than a standard deviation off shinobi average, and his crazy has never interfered with his research output or mission preparedness.

He did excellent work on the one assignment he was given where being discreet mattered. He's also an intelligence officer's dream - he actively avoids knowing things he doesn't need to know.

He's never done anything to upset Asuma or even been proximal next to something that upset Asuma. He's not the perfect shinobi, but he has loads of great qualities and all of his negative qualities are either non-issues or mitigated.
 
Sir Stompy said:
Asuma is the Tower? It's like saying the White House will make that decision referring to the POTUS, but replace White House with Tower and POTUS with Hokage. Leaf is an absolute military dictatorship. If Asuma doesn't okay the killing whoever does it is not guaranteed the Scroll, because ownership of the Scroll is solely Asuma's decision. It's not like he's going to outsource the ownership of a Summoning Scroll to a mid-level career chunin.
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And you don't think someone could politic Asuma into being next in line?
 
Black King said:
And you don't think someone could politic Asuma into being next in line?
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And then Kagome mysteriously dies on a mission with their clanmates? I don't think anyone is stupid enough to try that. It's possible but IMO unlikely that Asuma will agree to a successor before Kagome actually dies. Since he has no incentive to do so, given how fast politics can shift. He'll want to play that card for maximum effectiveness.
 
Sir Stompy said:
And then Kagome mysteriously dies on a mission with their clanmates? I don't think anyone is stupid enough to try that. It's possible but IMO unlikely that Asuma will agree to a successor before Kagome actually dies. Since he has no incentive to do so, given how fast politics can shift. He'll want to play that card for maximum effectiveness.
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I mean, yeah, give them an idiot ball like that and nobody is stupid enough to try that. I want to hear your defense against "Kagome died during a sealing failure," note that using any undue political influence to investigate other clans of Konoha will get us killbox'd in the same way we got told to stop investigating the economic crash.
 
Guiding Bolt said:
I want to hear your defense against "Kagome died during a sealing failure,"
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Hard to fake a sealing failure well enough to convince an actual sealmaster. So they'd need to consult one of their own, a good one. Then they'd need to bypass Kagome's defenses at the sealing facility, since he'd never do an new infusion anywhere else. Not exactly easy. Lastly, they'd need to get the timelines to line up so well that Hazou can't go "wait, Kagome didn't do his belly dance of deception the night before he died, there's no way that a sealing failure is responsible since he would never do a new infusion without it." This sounds hard enough that I can't imagine someone attempting such a thing and succeeding against the famously paranoid Kagome
 
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Sir Stompy said:
Hard to fake a sealing failure well enough to convince an actual sealmaster. So they'd need to consult one of their own, a good one. Then they'd need to bypass Kagome's defenses at the sealing facility, since he'd never do an new infusion anywhere else. Not exactly easy. Lastly, they'd need to get the timelines to line up so well that Hazou can't go "wait, Kagome didn't do his belly dance of deception the night before he died, there's no way that a sealing failure is responsible since he would never do a new infusion without it." This sounds hard enough that I can't imagine someone attempting such a thing and succeeding against the famously paranoid Kagome
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Not...really? If Kagome dies in a 'sealing failure' and Hazou's the only one to say it's not that, it'd be pretty tough to claim foul play. The lack of the dance can be faulty memory or just a mistake by Kagome, and is far from proof that it was foul play.

And all the person/clan who gets the scroll next would have to do is establish a solid alibi and...
 
Sir Stompy said:
Hard to fake a sealing failure well enough to convince an actual sealmaster. So they'd need to consult one of their own, a good one. Then they'd need to bypass Kagome's defenses at the sealing facility, since he'd never do an new infusion anywhere else. Not exactly easy. Lastly, they'd need to get the timelines to line up so well that Hazou can't go "wait, Kagome didn't do his belly dance of deception the night before he died, there's no way that a sealing failure is responsible since he would never do a new infusion without it." This sounds hard enough that I can't imagine someone attempting such a thing and succeeding against the famously paranoid Kagome
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We have different ideas of who they have to convince here. They have no obligation to convince Hazō. Frankly, they aren't under much of an obligation to convince Asuma, either. Hazō can scream to the top of the earth that it wasn't a sealing failure, it was foul play, there was a conspiracy--ultimately, that (a) does not matter in convincing an outside observer and (b) will be dismissed as a Gouketsu continuing their greedy, power-grabby habits. "Belly-dance of deception" is a meme, but whatever excuse Hazo gives there is going to be dismissed as if he truly said belly dance of deception. Those responsible will only have to convince a reasonable outside observer that it was a sealing failure or other form of accident. Asuma does not have the strength to crack down against the popular will, and he especially does not have the strength to crack down against the popular will to support the Goketsu.

Do you think that it is possible for Kagome to be killed in such a way that an outside observer can explain it away without saying that there is foul play involved?

Do you think that it is possible for an outside observer who is already biased against the Goketsu & will benefit practically from a loss in Goketsu power to explain away a situation where Kagome dies without saying that there is foul play involved?

The people who are actually involved in the "sealing failure," or whatever reasonable accident they decide, have all the space they want to set up an air tight alibi. We have enough enemies to legitimize alibis for each other.
 
Guiding Bolt said:
We have different ideas of who they have to convince here. They have no obligation to convince Hazō. Frankly, they aren't under much of an obligation to convince Asuma, either. Hazō can scream to the top of the earth that it wasn't a sealing failure, it was foul play, there was a conspiracy--ultimately, that (a) does not matter in convincing an outside observer and (b) will be dismissed as a Gouketsu continuing their greedy, power-grabby habits. "Belly-dance of deception" is a meme, but whatever excuse Hazo gives there is going to be dismissed as if he truly said belly dance of deception. Those responsible will only have to convince a reasonable outside observer that it was a sealing failure or other form of accident. Asuma does not have the strength to crack down against the popular will, and he especially does not have the strength to crack down against the popular will to support the Goketsu.

Do you think that it is possible for Kagome to be killed in such a way that an outside observer can explain it away without saying that there is foul play involved?

Do you think that it is possible for an outside observer who is already biased against the Goketsu & will benefit practically from a loss in Goketsu power to explain away a situation where Kagome dies without saying that there is foul play involved?

The people who are actually involved in the "sealing failure," or whatever reasonable accident they decide, have all the space they want to set up an air tight alibi. We have enough enemies to legitimize alibis for each other.
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You know, if we have enemies galore who would all have no compunctions about murdering Leaf-nin for their own benefit, why are we still alive? Like, forget the Summoning Scroll, why hasn't Hazou just disappeared one day to weaken the Goketsu? It's not like we stay hidden in our room all day, and it's not like we'd be that hard to take out, and we've already shown ourselves to be both a capable leader and a right pain to our foes.

When people like Jiraiya talked about Hiashi, Hiashi Hyuuga, even despite all the negative things they had to say they still admitted that Hiashi is genuinely loyal to Leaf and what he believes the Will of Fire to be. When we started threatening clan war against the Hagoromo, Asuma cut us both off before we could even get started and in no uncertain terms told us that it would never be happening. And that was us, the radical rabble-rousers starting it.

Leaf isn't Game of Thrones, the evidence just doesn't hold out. Jiraiya didn't actually kill Minami, Leaf-nin don't kill Leaf-nin unless they're going missing, ROOT might be a thing but that's a completely different can of worms and has next to no bearing on whether we should be afraid of other clans sending assassins to slaughter us. Do you have any evidence in favour of the assassin hypothesis other than a priori assumptions of uninhibited machiavellian infighting?
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
You know, if we have enemies galore who would all have no compunctions about murdering Leaf-nin for their own benefit, why are we still alive? Like, forget the Summoning Scroll, why hasn't Hazou just disappeared one day to weaken the Goketsu?
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Here's the thing...once a summoning scroll is involved it's more power hungry/making a future for their clan than it is necessarily disliking the Goketsu.

Right now, the Goketsu's enemies don't have a strong enough reason to kill anyone, because the reward does not match the risk. But gaining near S-Rank amounts of power, for killing an easy mark like Kagome (easy because any excuse can work with 'sealing failure') is...well the reward is starting to match.

And then add on the enemies who might help whoever this is in drastically weakening the Goketsu and....


Inferno Vulpix said:
When we started threatening clan war against the Hagoromo, Asuma cut us both off before we could even get started and in no uncertain terms told us that it would never be happening.
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But then the Bank Run happened and Asuma couldn't prove anything...

And even the Goketsu don't quite have proof of who did it, nor do we know if it was Hagoromo+Hyuga or what. A conspiracy between 2 clans that can collapse the Leaf's economy is...pretty high up there in treasonous ballsy plans and it's already been done.


Inferno Vulpix said:
Leaf-nin don't kill Leaf-nin unless they're going missing,
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Orochimaru says hello. Tsunade says hello. Even Jiraiya's posturing says...hello. Because obviously it's a thing that can or might happen or no one would take his threats seriously.
 
Black King said:
Orochimaru says hello. Tsunade says hello. Even Jiraiya's posturing says...hello. Because obviously it's a thing that can or might happen or no one would take his threats seriously.
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And all those people are S-rankers, it's not a coincidence.

Black King said:
Here's the thing...once a summoning scroll is involved it's more power hungry/making a future for their clan than it is necessarily disliking the Goketsu.

Right now, the Goketsu's enemies don't have a strong enough reason to kill anyone, because the reward does not match the risk. But gaining near S-Rank amounts of power, for killing an easy mark like Kagome (easy because any excuse can work with 'sealing failure') is...well the reward is starting to match.

And then add on the enemies who might help whoever this is in drastically weakening the Goketsu and....
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I'm not saying it's impossible or that we don't need to be careful, but "murder a clan ninja for a scroll" is maybe even worse of "Get found willfully stealing clan secrets with illegal means". It's the kind of thing that will starts a civil war if it goes public, if Asuma finds out? "I want the heads of everyone involved and your clan head" is the minimum punishment, because the fundamental core of an Hidden Village is "Clans start to cooperate with the implicit promise of not murdering each other", you break that? No one has any reason to play ball anymore.
 
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Lord Marshal said:
Weren't the Minami "technically" Hyuga ninja, making it a internal clan affair? Because that is pretty much the only reason the Hyuga could get away with it. If they tried to exterminate the Inuzuka, for example....as Danzo shows, Chakra Beasts can hit anywhere.
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The statement I was refuting was "Leaf-nin don't kill Leaf-nin unless they're going missing".
 
Kiba said:
Hazo hadn't been asked to do summoner missions either.
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Note that you got the Dog Scroll from Asuma's contest and it came with an explicit statement of "you have to give it up unless you quickly become capable of using it for Leaf's benefit." I'm not sure if we specifically used the words "...by being sent on missions", but that's definitely how the clan understood it.
 
Velorien said:
Note that you got the Dog Scroll from Asuma's contest and it came with an explicit statement of "you have to give it up unless you quickly become capable of using it for Leaf's benefit." I'm not sure if we specifically used the words "...by being sent on missions", but that's definitely how the clan understood it.
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We also only had 3 month as a summoner before we crippled ourselves so still reasonable to expect that we will have to go on some as soon as we are healed
 
Black King said:
Not...really? If Kagome dies in a 'sealing failure' and Hazou's the only one to say it's not that, it'd be pretty tough to claim foul play. The lack of the dance can be faulty memory or just a mistake by Kagome, and is far from proof that it was foul play.

And all the person/clan who gets the scroll next would have to do is establish a solid alibi and...
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Literally the only people qualified to say what is or isn't a sealing failure are sealmasters, so yes Hazou's opinion matters here. We see it in the latest chapter where Asuma says "Hazō in his expert opinion—which, to be frank, is very expert—" that's talking about the GS, but Hazou has a reputation as an excellent sealmaster. If he says it wasn't a sealing failure, Asuma is going to investigate.

This isn't like the bank run, this is the murder of a Leaf-nin in good standing, they take that shit very seriously.
Guiding Bolt said:
Do you think that it is possible for Kagome to be killed in such a way that an outside observer can explain it away without saying that there is foul play involved?

Do you think that it is possible for an outside observer who is already biased against the Goketsu & will benefit practically from a loss in Goketsu power to explain away a situation where Kagome dies without saying that there is foul play involved?

The people who are actually involved in the "sealing failure," or whatever reasonable accident they decide, have all the space they want to set up an air tight alibi. We have enough enemies to legitimize alibis for each other.
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Sure it's possible, but it isn't likely. The risk is too high for no certainty of reward.

Again, possible but very very hard. This is something that if they make a single mistake will result in the deaths of their entire family, by angry Hokage, so I'm skeptical that anyone would try it.

How many people do you think are involved when Kagome infuses seals? It's just him and (not usually) Hazou. Anyone else onsite would be suspicious enough to suggest foul play. Any disturbance in the trap array would suggest foul play, a sealing failure that wasn't weird would suggest foul play. I'm not saying this it's absolutely impossible but it's difficult. I think it would actually be easier to manage an "accident" in the field.

Kagome is not some helpless lamb, he has security protocols, he can defend himself. It's not that I think he won't be facing increased risk from having a Scroll, but I think the chance of Leaf-nin killing him over it is sufficiently small (<5% of the total increase) that it's not worth worrying about.
 
This level of complicated politics around this is crazy. Talk to Mari to find out if it makes good political sense and then see how Kagome feels. Boom solved
 
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