Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Lord Marshal · Nov 25, 2021

[X] Action Plan: Good Uses of Limited Time

Eisenhelm · Nov 25, 2021

faflec said:
@Eisenhelm Please delete this post from the Story-Only Thread.

i thought i did.

faflec · Nov 25, 2021

Eisenhelm said:
i thought i did.

Deleted now, thanks!

_The_Bomb · Nov 25, 2021

Shrooms said:
This is simply incorrect. Paper did an analysis for how much longer it would take if we had to level CR and didn't have access to Noburi. Do you know how much time it added? 3 months. It's not negligible but in the grand scheme of things that's peanuts.

I actually really want to do the CR training for this reason. It's a pretty tiny difference all things considered (2 years 5 months vs. 2 years 3 months) to get to the "unkillable kage-level sealer" in the Surivable Sealmaster build. It's been strongly implied that increasing our chakra reserves would be a "Good Thing" by Cannai and EagleJarl, not to mention that our mom said it would be nessesary for jōnin auras. All it all, it seems like it has lots of good potential and has a fairly low oppurtunity cost.

Shrooms · Nov 25, 2021

Paperclipped said:
How can Hazou be most useful in the war?

We should ask something about Mist diplomacy here as well. Mist's support is critical and our clan is best suited to helping

roobee · Nov 25, 2021

We could try hiring a social spec to fix their relationship

Edit: if kei will no longer be devastated if something bad happens to Mari. And ami learns that, I'm scared of what veangeance ami will do

Oneiros · Nov 25, 2021

Shrooms said:
We should ask something about Mist diplomacy here as well. Mist's support is critical and our clan is best suited to helping

This please! There is so little that we need to do in leaf right now

Shrooms · Nov 25, 2021

Oneiros said:
This please! There is so little that we need to do in leaf right now

Note that I didn't say Hazou should go, just that Goketsu could help Leaf with diplomacy. If Asuma thinks that means Hazou should go, then sure

Shrooms · Nov 25, 2021

Noumero said:
So this is all in one place:

The Summon Army Logistics
Spreadsheet.

Core assumptions:

The stats of other Summoners, including the assumption that they all know (or could quickly learn) SC at least up to level 10.

The goal is to get 105 jounin-level Summons across 7 Summoners: Noburi, Kei, Tsunade, Orochimaru, Ruri, Aiko, Neji.

Average jounin-level Summon costs 200 CP.

Noburi, inefficiently, would require 600 CP to summon, but I'm assuming we're still using him because we want the best Summons of every clan.

A ninja wouldn't want to drink more than 2 liters of water before combat, and would want to be at full chakra capacity.

Mechanics:

A ninja at full chakra capacity could summon CR*10/200 Summons at once, rounded down. (E. g., Kei could summon 1 at CR 27.)

If a ninja is willing to drink 4 half-liter water bottles, they could summon four times more Summons than their base capacity allows and be left at full CP afterwards. (So original!Kei could summon 4 on her own.)

A ninja could absorb Resolve - 3*(SC AB - 2)-20-1-6 clone-hours per day without taking consequences, which translates to the same number of one-hour clones.

-6 is a safety margin to avoid Mild Consequences, in case Fudge Dice roll -6. This safety margin might have to be ignored for those with low Resolve (e. g., Neji in the spreadsheet).

A ninja could create at most (CR*10-150)/26 clones per Mass Shadow Clone cast, rounded down, with all of the resulting instances having at least 1 CP. (E. g., Kei could create (270-150)/26 = 4 clones at once, with 20 CP distributed across them + original.)

Once a Shadow Clone is created, it could be restored to full chakra capacity by drinking chakra water. Once popped, all of that chakra would be transferred to the original ninja. (E. g., Kei has 4 CP, a Snowflake has 4 CP. The latter drinks water containing 270-4-4 = 262 CP, unmakes herself, and Kei is restored to full 270 CP.)

How many times would one ninja need to be fully refilled to summon 15 jounin-level Summons? 15 divided by the maximum number of Summons they could summon at one full capacity, rounded up. Three of these refills would be done by chakra water directly, the rest by creating a Shadow Clone, having it drink water, and reintegrating it. (E. g., Kei could summon only 1 Summon at once, so she needs 15 refills. She drinks chakra water thrice, and integrates 12 Snowflakes for the rest. Her ability to withstand clone sickness allows this.)

How many times would that ninja need to cast Mass Shadow Clone? The number of clones they need divided by the maximum number of clones they could create in one cast, rounded up. (Kei needs to cast MSC thrice.)

The total chakra expenditure on MSC casts is given by 25 * number_of_clones + 150 * number_of_casts.

How many times would one ninja plus their clones cast Summoning? The total number of Summons they need to summon divided by the number of Summons they could summon at once, rounded up. (Kei needs to summon 15, and she or Snowflake could summon 1 at once. That means they collectively need to cast Summoning 15 times.)

After each Summoning cast, the ninja (or their clone) would need to drink chakra water, and they'll want to be topped up afterwards. So the number of chakra-drinks is the number of Summoning casts plus one.

Casting MSC, casting Summoning, and drinking chakra water all take one Full Round's worth of time, or 3 seconds.

Totals: 31 000 CP and 192 Full Rounds, or ~10 minutes.

How long would transferring all that chakra to the battlefield take? Assuming an average ninja has 20 CR, that means we need ~155 ninja (actually about 170, see below) as chakra batteries. The cycle is as follows (assuming Asuma has 50 CR, and the other Wakahisa could drain about as fast as Noburi):

Yasuji (or Wataru, or whoever) transfers chakra to Asuma while Noburi transfers chakra to some Summoner. This is assumed to happen simultaneously, and takes one Full Round.

Asuma and Noburi reverse-summon, which costs 15 and 45 CP, respectively, and takes one Full Round. Simultaneously, Yasuji starts draining 500 CP from the chakra batteries, which will take him 7 Full Rounds.

Noburi drains Asuma's chakra, which takes 7 Full Rounds (as Noburi could drain 2*VD = 80 CP per round). For efficiency reasons, he then waits while Asuma returns to Leaf and gets re-filled twice, costing 30 more CP and taking 17 Full Rounds.

Note: Noburi drains 485, 485, and 280 CP from Asuma. The first two take 7 rounds, the latter only 4.

Noburi and Asuma unsummon, taking one Full Round.

One such cycle would take 27 Full Rounds, transfer ~1205 CP to the battlefield, and cost 90 CP. This means ~8% of chakra is lost to transportation costs, requiring the total chakra necessary to go up to ~34 000 CP. Transferring that will take 28 cycles, each 27 rounds long, or 28*27*3/60 = 38 minutes.

This is happening in parallel with the Summonings proper, so we're not summing the 11 and 38 minutes up, but taking the maximum of these numbers.

Results:

Summoning 105 Summons requires 170 chakra batteries and ~38 minutes.

If Noburi only transfers chakra instead of summoning, with the 6 remaining Summoners summoning 17 Summons each, we'll need ~6000 CP less. This means 23 cycles instead of 28, and only 31 minutes to get 102 Summons.

If we downsize to 50 jounin-level Summons instead of 100, and don't involve Noburi in summonings, we'll need half that time, i. e. ~16 minutes. 50 jounin is, if I recall correctly, the number of jounin Leaf had at the start of the quest, so this is still a formidable force.

But! What if all the chakra batteries are in the field with the Summoners (or, conversely, if the Summoners are in Leaf), making the Seventh Path pipeline unnecessary? This would mean that the chakra is transferred to the Summoners as fast as Noburi could drain it, with no losses, requiring only 31 000/80 = 388 Full Rounds, or ~20 minutes for the first option (105 Summons, Noburi summons too).

ASUMA: Ah, Hazou, about your Summon Army strategy, I don't think it will be too useful going forward due to water poisoning-
HAZOU: *Pulls out an easel absolutely covered in charts* "Actually, I heard about that and I've already calculated optimal hydration. Here's a 300 page dossier on the most efficient methods for drinking water safely"
ASUMA: I hate this job

Sir Stompy · Nov 25, 2021

Kiba said:
How do you exactly alimeoriate the effect other than black box chakra magic?

It's pretty easy to maintain electrolyte balance with salt and sugar. Tsunade should know how, if not we figure it out. I bet we can do it in a week if we pay volunteers. There's also Ideal Hydration a jutsu that does it for us.

Eisenhelm said:
could we ask the wakahisha for the dehydration jutsu?, we have a trade agreement and they have reasons to want to ally whit us.

Since we have a jutsu trade where they owe us utility jutsu. I suggest we have Noburi pick up a level of Ideal Hydration from our friendly neighborhood piscitist.

Daikloktos · Nov 25, 2021

[X] Interlude: Team Downfall

Ipsos Custodes · Nov 25, 2021

Velorien said:
"Nope. Water poisoning."

Isn't there already a jutsu for exactly this issue?

From the "Jutsu known to the players" doc:

Ideal Hydration

Casting Time: 1 minute

Requires "Apprentice Waterbender"

Hydrates or Dehydrates the target to the designers idea of "Perfectly Hydrated"

Safe on humans. Mostly used on those who frequently drink large quantities of Wakahisa water in a short period of time. It also eliminates urine from the body.

Noburi just needs to learn it.

Edit: ninja'd by Sir Stompy

Sir Stompy · Nov 25, 2021

Velorien said:
The revelation that she'd joined a clan that sacrificed its less valuable members for more valuable ones had plenty of emotional resonance. She'd said very little to anyone since hearing what happened, and nothing to Mari or Hazō.

This is.....not what happened? Nobody got sacrificed. IDK why the characters are acting like this. It's literally baffling to me.

Velorien said:
Noburi's own feelings were complicated. Everything had worked out all right, and in the end that trumped everything. Mari had made a hard choice in an awful situation, and had paid a price, and would, he suspected, pay a lot more in the traditional Mari currency of beating herself up. At the same time, he couldn't help feeling little flashes of irrational rage every time he imagined Kei being taken away to be tortured by a monster because Mari had put Hazō first. Guilt, too, and frustration. Why had Mari not chosen him instead? Yes, Kei had political support blah blah blah, but Noburi was the lynchpin to Leaf's military strategy. To the Hokage and the village at large, he was worth way more than his weight in gold. Was he not important enough, even now? Was he still not good enough?

Mari risked Keiko to keep Hazou from being immediately kidnapped? Oro was going to take Hazou out of that room and into his Basement right there. By distracting him Mari gave us time to gather allies and get Tsunade on board. Shikamaru was instrumental in winning her support and likely would not have done the same for Hazou or Noburi.

It's like these characters would rather feel angry and sad at each other than forgive each other and move on. Good luck with that

Velorien said:
"You weren't there," Mari said. "I could see the sand pouring out of the hourglass. I thought we'd won—I'd pushed myself to the limit to make sure we won—and then he started to turn around and think about whether he wanted Hazō after all, and with every second, the odds of Hazō getting out alive dropped like a rock. I did my honest best under pressure, and frankly, it's a miracle that I outraced Orochimaru's thought process at all."

Exactly right Mari. Thank you for saving Hazou, he's a good kid.

Velorien said:
"It was not a certainty, then? You offered Orochimaru our lives not to save Hazō, but as a form of risk mitigation? Your objective was only to distract Orochimaru, not specifically to divert him from a prize within arm's reach, and for that you gave him our lives?"

This is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard Keiko say. Literally everything about that conversation was risk mitigation. Since you can't be certain about other people's actions, being a social spec is about minimizing risk and maximizing chance of reward. So is being a combat spec. Everything is!

Since Mari wanted to distract Oro from thinking about Hazou, literally diverting him from a prize within arm's reach, Keiko's second sentence doesn't even make sense here.

Furthermore, Mari did not give Oro Keiko's life, since she is still alive. Jeeezus

Perhaps Keiko is not familiar with the concept of a "calculated risk", but, oh wait, she is. So she's intentionally being a moron where Mari is concerned. Big surprise.

Velorien said:
"I did everything I could," Mari insisted. "I took the path with the highest odds of survival for everyone, each time, even when that meant deliberately calling his anger down on myself."

Thank you Mari. Again. You really came through for us.

Velorien said:
"I can appreciate the reasoning behind your actions," Kei said. Of course she could. A Mori was not permitted to turn away from the facts, had she but the wherewithal to recognise them in the first place. "I can appreciate why, once our lives instantly sprang to mind as a convenient sacrificial piece, you weighed the odds and found it the optimal way to proceed. Certainly, it is a fact that I hold by far the most political influence of those in the clan, however richly undeserved. An enemy pointed at me will find it far more difficult to act than one pointed at Hazō, with his few allies and mercurial relationship with the Powers That Be. Let us be clear that a lack of intelligence on your part is not among my grievances.

Oh yes, Keiko does know all of the reasons for Mari to point Oro her way. Does she listen to reason though? Nah

Velorien said:
"With that in mind, Mari, do but one thing for me. Look me in the eye and tell me that if another such situation should arise, where a grave danger to the Gōketsu—or merely the Gōketsu clan head—can be offset by sacrificing me and trusting in my superior protections, you will choose my well-being over the good of the clan."

Why does Keiko want Mari to ignore her special protections? Her special protections are why we were able to get Tsunade to intervene. If she hadn't been at risk, Shikamaru wouldn't have threatened to leave Leaf.

And Mari didn't sacrifice Keiko, Keiko is alive. Everyone is fine. Except apparently Keiko's brain, which is now mush.

Velorien said:
"No? Then I am but your tool, bereft of my own agency and at the mercy of your personal risk assessment. I do not deny your skill at navigating crises, Mari—indeed I envy it—but I hope you understand why I will never be able to trust you again."

You were perfectly content to be Mari's tool less than a year ago. We don't even think you ever told Mari you weren't okay with that anymore.

Mari risked you to save Hazou's life. Your allies were critical to stopping Oro, without the risk to you personally we had a vastly lower chance of convincing Tsunade the threat was real.

Keiko, grow the fuck up and stop acting like a petulant, ungrateful, child, you were handed power by your sister and Shikamaru and you accepted it. This is the consequence. If you don't like it, resign from public life and become a shut in.

_The_Bomb · Nov 25, 2021

Velorien said:
Interlude: Childhood's End

Honoka interlude?? (wait a second, is she going to have her firt kill? oh no)

Velorien said:
Yuno's birthday

[audibly exhales in relief]

Velorien said:
The revelation that she'd joined a clan that sacrificed its less valuable members for more valuable ones had plenty of emotional resonance.

I think it needs to be said that both Yuno and Kei are having completely appropriate reactions that make total sense in the context of their personal histories. I don't think that Mari made the wrong choice on a rational level (and Kei even acknowledges that), but that doesn't mean that Kei and Yuno have to feel okay with it.

Velorien said:
Noburi's own feelings were complicated. Everything had worked out all right, and in the end that trumped everything. Mari had made a hard choice in an awful situation, and had paid a price, and would, he suspected, pay a lot more in the traditional Mari currency of beating herself up.

Good to know where Noburi stands.

Velorien said:
Why had Mari not chosen him instead? Yes, Kei had political support blah blah blah, but Noburi was the lynchpin to Leaf's military strategy. To the Hokage and the village at large, he was worth way more than his weight in gold. Was he not important enough, even now? Was he still not good enough?

Yikes!

You know your inferiority complex is bad when you want to be the one who was offered up as a sacrifice to Orochiaru.
(And to answer Noburi's question; his value is almost entierly to Konoha as a whole (and Orochimaru beats him in that department) and the Nara won't threaten to leave if Orochimaru goes after him)

Velorien said:
If Mari's decision to sacrifice Kei instead of him (or instead of a better option) had been even 1% determined by a grudge, that was a thing Noburi could never forgive. It was lucky that he'd probably never know.

If you consider yourself lucky that you don't know the answer, then you already know answer, you just don't want to face it.

Velorien said:
No, forget Mari, who'd put herself on the line to make it all work out in the end.

Man Noburi is really leaping around here.

Velorien said:
Even in the aftermath, all Noburi could do was sit at home and look after Mari while Hazō and the geniuses went off to save the day with brilliant political manoeuvres he wasn't cleared to know about.

Ouch

Velorien said:
But not the point. Noburi would bounce back. He always did. It was Yuno that mattered right now. Yuno had been promised that the Gōketsu weren't like any other clan. They were a family and a team, united by a determination to do better than the society around them, and not to stop looking until they found better solutions to humanity's problems than the ones that society had settled for. As far as she was concerned, that promise had been broken. Like the Kannagi, the Gōketsu hadn't hesitated to sacrifice a lesser clanswoman for the sake of the clan as a whole. There was no point arguing that they'd done the best they could in a difficult situation—the Gōketsu had promised to be smarter, not just kinder, and if they descended to the Kannagi's level out of incompetence rather than immorality, that would hardly make her feel much better.

Oh thank god Noburi is on top of this.

Velorien said:
That was the moment that Noburi, the hero they didn't deserve, had swooped in and saved the day by changing the event to something almost the same but tremendously more meaningful: the coming-of-age ceremony that Yuno had never received.

Awwwwwww

Velorien said:
(which, now Hazō thought of it, accounted for certain bizarre rumours about the clan's sexual preferences),

Mari probably helped too.

Velorien said:
"I was on close terms with Captain Kakashi," she said in a husky voice. "I would be very interested in learning what it's been like for you as his heir, if you have the time."

I am very much intrested in pursuing that. Seems like an interesting way to fill our time before the severes heal.

Velorien said:
My name is Fujisawa Miyuki. I am pleased to meet you. [a small doodle of a person bowing] I am unable to speak. Please do not ask about this. In every other way, I am an ordinary ninja. Thank you for your understanding. [a small doodle of a hand making the Seal of Reconciliation]

shrugs
Fair enough.

Velorien said:
Kei facepalmed. "Fractal, no! I told them we did not need 'adorable clumsiness' as an experimental trait!"

With that, she ran off, leaving Kichi blinking in confusion.

Hahahahaha

Velorien said:
"When she first found out I was doing it, I thought she was going to kill me," Kichi said airily. "But then we had a major shortfall one month, and Dr Yakushi turned up and warned us that Orochimaru was losing interest in the arrangement, and she saw the light pretty quick. There's no greater virtue in a leader than flexibility, am I right?"

Yes, I can imagine that happening. Also, why would Ami have a problem with that anyways? She isn't exactly the squemish type.

Velorien said:
"When she first found out I was doing it, I thought she was going to kill me," Kichi said airily. "But then we had a major shortfall one month, and Dr Yakushi turned up and warned us that Orochimaru was losing interest in the arrangement, and she saw the light pretty quick. There's no greater virtue in a leader than flexibility, am I right?"

"I-I think you'd better go get your costume sorted," Hazō said weakly. "Wouldn't want to delay the ceremony."

Note to self: do not mention Orochimaru around Hazō
(this may have implications for future plans)

Velorien said:
"The Hokage summoned Shikamaru earlier this morning."

"What did he say?" Hazō asked. And if it was about the Orochimaru incident, why only Shikamaru?

"He began by congratulating him on successfully navigating a challenging crisis without collateral damage," Kei said. "However, he went on to note that while citing obscure Leaf laws, or intending to invoke them, is not in itself illegal, blackmail most certainly is. He reaffirmed his promise to prioritise the spirit of the law with regard to this incident, but also stated that, should Shikamaru ever use this particular matter as a means of leverage again, he could expect to meet the same fate as Amori Goemon."

I really want to tell him something to the effect of 'take care of your pet monster and I won't have to' (through implication only, of course), but I can tell exactly how it would end.

Velorien said:
Then he brightened. "Oh, but speaking of recordkeeping! Kei, there's actually a chart I wanted to show you."

The chart was a masterwork, the fruit of hours of focused labour after he'd decided to use the night productively in lieu of Orochimaru nightmares. Disappointingly, Kei took it with the same banal reluctance she displayed with most of his lists or diagrams. Well, she would soon learn better.

uhhhhhhhhhhh

WHAT

Velorien said:
Yes, after only a few seconds of study, her world-weary expression was replaced by the stunned, wide-eyed stare of a newly-graduated genin facing his first chakra marmoset.

"Hazō," she said slowly, "what is this?"

"Can't you tell from the list of names?" Hazō asked. "It's a shipping chart. There's a key in the top right."

Oh good. There's no way he would actually say "shipping" in-universe to reffer to the polycule.

Still.....
GODDAMMIT VELORIEN
(also you totally cheated with her over the top reaction)

Velorien said:
Kei put her hand to her forehead. "Hazō, I am ever so grateful that you showed this to me before anyone else, especially anyone in a position of authority. While you are correct in assuming that the state of the war is severely interfering with our usual import routes, we cannot reroute naval traffic through Haran Bay. With Cloud having entered the war, we cannot simply assume that Hot Springs will remain neutral, or, for that matter, that Cloud is not monitoring approaches to it in anticipation of exactly this workaround. Your proposed detour through Degarashi Port, meanwhile, ignores the practicalities of foodstuff spoilage. As for Wave, if we can reliably get a messenger to Wave, we can reliably get a messenger to Mist, at which point we will in any case have assistance in expelling Cloud and restoring shipping to normal. I realise you are seeking new ways to be useful to the Hokage, but please trust that the Logistics Corps, much of it Nara or Nara-trained, has such mundane problems well in hand. This attempt would only have cost you respect from professionals unimpressed by ultracrepidation."

Hazō could do nothing but nod in contrition and return to carrying out Noburi's winning plan.

Knew it!

Velorien said:
This was just as bad, only it was also being delivered in rhythmic monotone by a girl notable for her low-affect speech, and was more soporific than anything Tsunade could concoct with a full alchemy lab.

I read this as "sophorific" (as in, relating to the super boring sophists of ancient greece) and didn't notice it wasn't the right word until I got to the alchemy.

Velorien said:
The Watcher, naturally, was Kagome-sensei. His duty was to stand there for the entire ceremony and watch for incursions by the Old Gods, for which purpose he held the Mirror of No Reflection in one hand and the Bell of Panic in the other. The outfit was completed by a long, weirdly cuboid fake grey beard (mandatory) and by the Vestments of Injunction, elaborate black robes with countless designs traced on them in red ink: a sword through a figure of eight, a circle binding an equilateral triangle, a spiky eight-pointed star, a series of concentric circles with four commas around the rim… Hazō had been salivating at the prospect of Forbidden Lore until Yuno admitted she didn't know what most of them represented.

Yes but there are OTHER people in Isan who definitely do.
Also, this is the Forbidden Lore you want to ask Yuno? You're not slightly curious about The Five, which she 100% definitely knows about and is under legal authority to follow your orders if you commander her to tell you and then not share that she did to Kei?
(also, I have to keep track of this stuff now, great)

Velorien said:
his clan head would be the one to spend hours weaving the Thrice-Bound Cage, a complex, irregularly-shaped wickerwork construction that had to be crafted completely underwater so that its eldritch powers wouldn't escape before they were sealed in during the final step (and that had ended up recording a variety of movements like nothing Hazō had ever made into the Iron Nerve)

OMG we actually have an "underwater basket weaving" skill on our charecter sheet now.

Velorien said:
In a swift, violent series of movements, Yuno slid the lid off the cage, pulled the striped green-and-purple Chicken of Innocence out by its neck, and stabbed it viciously with the Implement of Oracular Exsanguination, before casting it away so the initial spurt of blood wouldn't get on her yellow kimono.

Everyone watched in silence as the Chicken of Innocence ran to and fro, bleeding heavily, until its panicked energy ran out and it collapsed in the far corner of the ritual space.

Missed oppurtunity to have a litteral headless chicken running around.

Velorien said:
Hazō could see Kei and all the Snowflakes frowning in concentration as they strove to keep their Zephyr's Reaches coordinated.

ok this feels kinda mean

Velorien said:
Noburi gave Hazō the look the clan heads had given Asuma when he ordered the annihilation of Rock.

Terror mixed with oh-god-what-do-I-do?

Velorien said:
"You'll like this even less," Noburi promised. "Apparently, she's just got round to collating the reports from the Battle of the Five Clans, and all those summoners who were feeling sick afterwards but didn't say anything because you don't make jōnin by being able to show weakness and it was probably just a sign that they weren't exercising their chakra coils enough anyway? Same symptoms."

"And you're about to tell me that it's not because they weren't exercising their chakra coils enough," Hazō guessed.

"Nope. Water poisoning."

"What?" Hazō demanded. "But it's water! Pure water, the least poisonous thing in this Sage-blessed world! And besides, if drinking your chakra water was bad, everyone in Team Uplift would be with the ancestors ten times over by now."

Pure water actually can be harmful to drink.

Velorien said:
Noburi sighed and put his plate down. "Don't yell at me, yell at the world's greatest doctor. No, actually, do yell at me, because this is all my fault. I bet you anything, the second a Wakahisa hits chūnin, they get told about this weakness of the Vampiric Dew that they didn't need to know about before because their reserves weren't big enough anyway. I was so proud of myself for figuring out that other Bloodline Limit ability that I'm not going to mention in public because I'm not an idiot, but I didn't even think of something so simple. Of course if it was that easy, every Wakahisa in the field would be followed about by a gaggle of genin at a safe distance. Ugh."

"But—but wait!" Hazō exclaimed, reaching out to grab at the future as it slipped through his fingers. "The body absorbs chakra faster than it absorbs water, right? Couldn't you just keep vomiting up the chakra water before it could poison you?"

"I asked Tsunade the same thing," Noburi said. "After she was done giving me her 'Have you ever unfurled a medicine scroll in your life, boy?' look, she said if you vomit over and over, your stomach juices will rip up your throat and just generally do all kinds of awful stuff I won't repeat.

"Long and short, we're lucky the Battle of Five Clans was such an overwhelming curbstomp that they got the summoning done early—probably thanks to Orochimaru taking down the gate, much as I hate to admit it. The Hokage's going to be hopping mad when he hears we nearly hospitalised most of Leaf's summoners in one fell swoop. Hopefully, the fact that Tsunade knew the plan and didn't catch it either will make things easier on us—though, again, as a Wakahisa, I should've known better. Ugh."

"Ugh," Hazō agreed. He sincerely hoped the Summoner Army proposal he'd recently sent Asuma hadn't included his musings about having the Hokage drink all the chakra water they could make.

Shit. Also, that last line is really funny.

Velorien said:
Whether it was Yuno's tearful thanks for the second-best day of her life, or Akane bizarrely being even more bouncy after acting as an agent of anti-Youth, or Kichi attempting to make advances in the full knowledge that she was gay and married and not looking and completely immune to his dubious charm, or Fujisawa sticking to her like glue after finding out that Kei was more comfortable around speech-impaired people than around the incessantly-blabbering masses… enough was enough.

I thought she was bisexual, what with Snowflake's feelings towards Hazō and Kei's former crush on him.
Oh right. None of that is public knowledge, which is what Kichi would have to base his decisions on.

Velorien said:
Would that such relative bliss had lasted longer, as the absolute last person Kei wanted to see in the world (who wasn't a literal snake) suddenly barred her way.

"Kei, Snowflake," Mari began, shivering in her winter coat even though the temperature was barely below zero, "can we talk?"

.....

Velorien said:
"You have already apologised," Kei said. "You may consider your social obligations expended and return home."

She isn't doing this for social obligations, and you know that, Kei. You just want to hurt her by implying that's all she cares about. If anything, you probably think she's doing this to manipulate you (which is decidedly not under the umbrellas of "social-obligations."

Velorien said:
I, whose social skills put the most gregarious sea turtle to shame

wow that's really bad

Velorien said:
"You weren't there," Mari said. "I could see the sand pouring out of the hourglass. I thought we'd won—I'd pushed myself to the limit to make sure we won—and then he started to turn around and think about whether he wanted Hazō after all, and with every second, the odds of Hazō getting out alive dropped like a rock. I did my honest best under pressure, and frankly, it's a miracle that I outraced Orochimaru's thought process at all."

Kei soaked this in. Words finally came.

"It was not a certainty, then? You offered Orochimaru our lives not to save Hazō, but as a form of risk mitigation? Your objective was only to distract Orochimaru, not specifically to divert him from a prize within arm's reach, and for that you gave him our lives?"

"I did everything I could," Mari insisted. "I took the path with the highest odds of survival for everyone, each time, even when that meant deliberately calling his anger down on myself."

That last bit is probably the biggest argument in your favor.

Velorien said:
"With that in mind, Mari, do but one thing for me. Look me in the eye and tell me that if another such situation should arise, where a grave danger to the Gōketsu—or merely the Gōketsu clan head—can be offset by sacrificing me and trusting in my superior protections, you will choose my well-being over the good of the clan."

And here is the crux of the matter. She made the rational choice, the thing to do if this situation ever arises again. All we can do is plan ways to stay out of this situation because even the best way out is so enormously risky.

Honestly, what I would prioritize now is finding a way to change the calculus behind the choice. To make Hazō or Noburi the better choice to mitigate risk so that Kei won't have to fill the roll. (After, of course, we find a way to prevent Orochimaru from ever getting this far.) Kei won't say that though, because she knows how selfish it is of her to ask for that.

Velorien said:
Kei did not want to be defended. There was no point, and it was too late. Kei had not chosen to bare her soul, and though she was moved—perhaps even a little shaken—by Snowflake's actions, it was not Snowflake's place to do so for her.

"Mari, as part of your optimal scenario, you chose to sacrifice my trust in you. I do not have the power to undo that sacrifice any more than I do the other events that transpired, even should I conclude it to be the rational course of action. Our relationship is no longer a problem to be solved, or a scale to be rebalanced through apologies and atonement. It is over."

Kei walked away, and Snowflake with her.

At the last moment, before Mari was too far away to hear, Kei had two final words she could not make herself not say.

"Be well."

This is the most damning part of it. Kei really thinks it's over.

RandomOTP · Nov 25, 2021

_The_Bomb said:
Note to self: do not mention Orochimaru around Hazō
(this may have implications for future plans)

I think it was more the fact that Kichi is convincing people to voluntarily take the Final Gift Program, and that Orochimaru's insatiable insanity means that if Kichi stops, then Orochimaru may run out of "natural volunteers" and move on to kidnapping people.

Orochimaru is a power that is bought only with sacrifice. He is a blood-bought power that will remain only insofar as his cruelty is indulged. His price is one that Leaf cannot afford to decline, and that makes Hazou horrified.

_The_Bomb · Nov 25, 2021

_brightwing said:
Would this call for drastic measures like.. something like a colostomy for all the receivers? We do have Orochimaru and Tsunade

I feel the desirability of obtaining a Summoning Scroll will drastically drop when people learn that signing it will lead to regular colonoscopies from Orochimaru

_The_Bomb · Nov 25, 2021

Sir Stompy said:
This is.....not what happened? Nobody got sacrificed. IDK why the characters are acting like this. It's literally baffling to me.

Mari risked Keiko to keep Hazou from being immediately kidnapped? Oro was going to take Hazou out of that room and into his Basement right there. By distracting him Mari gave us time to gather allies and get Tsunade on board. Shikamaru was instrumental in winning her support and likely would not have done the same for Hazou or Noburi.

It's like these characters would rather feel angry and sad at each other than forgive each other and move on. Good luck with that

Exactly right Mari. Thank you for saving Hazou, he's a good kid.

This is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard Keiko say. Literally everything about that conversation was risk mitigation. Since you can't be certain about other people's actions, being a social spec is about minimizing risk and maximizing chance of reward. So is being a combat spec. Everything is!

Since Mari wanted to distract Oro from thinking about Hazou, literally diverting him from a prize within arm's reach, Keiko's second sentence doesn't even make sense here.

Furthermore, Mari did not give Oro Keiko's life, since she is still alive. Jeeezus

Perhaps Keiko is not familiar with the concept of a "calculated risk", but, oh wait, she is. So she's intentionally being a moron where Mari is concerned. Big surprise.

Thank you Mari. Again. You really came through for us.

Oh yes, Keiko does know all of the reasons for Mari to point Oro her way. Does she listen to reason though? Nah

Why does Keiko want Mari to ignore her special protections? Her special protections are why we were able to get Tsunade to intervene. If she hadn't been at risk, Shikamaru wouldn't have threatened to leave Leaf.

And Mari didn't sacrifice Keiko, Keiko is alive. Everyone is fine. Except apparently Keiko's brain, which is now mush.

You were perfectly content to be Mari's tool less than a year ago. We don't even think you ever told Mari you weren't okay with that anymore.

Mari risked you to save Hazou's life. Your allies were critical to stopping Oro, without the risk to you personally we had a vastly lower chance of convincing Tsunade the threat was real.

Keiko, grow the fuck up and stop acting like a petulant, ungrateful, child, you were handed power by your sister and Shikamaru and you accepted it. This is the consequence. If you don't like it, resign from public life and become a shut in.

Kei's problem isn't actually with Mari's choice. It was with being treated like a disposable tool (and some other stuff that Snowflake mentioned).

We're not going to get anywhere with Kei by talking about Mari's choice. The only way forward (aside from respecting Kei's decision to cut ties, which no one in this thread is going to even entertain the idea of doing) is by addressing the underlying issues.

RandomOTP · Nov 25, 2021

Updated ROCKWAR Tactics. Linked in Sig. Any ideas?

RandomOTP said:
Possible War Moves:

Banshee Seals to disrupt possible echolocation jutsu or Living Roots Jutsu (if placed on ground?)

Strobelight Seals to disrupt possible vision-enhancement jutsu

Pair with Banshee Seals for complete sensory overload.

Hyuuga Nin as deliverer, paired with Banshee Slayer earmuffs (Byakugan possibly ignores Strobelight? Needs testing.)

SIN-strikes and EM-Nuke

Deliberate Sealing Failures

Unseen Weapons Tech

Skytowers

3D Sealing = Unseen Weapon tech against Rock

Skyglider

Summoning Swarm (lots of contracted summons, leverage VD for chakra, hotswap as necessary)

Leverage what Goketsu resources we can to gain more Dog Summons to hotswap disposable assets as needed

Ask Cannai if there are Dogs who specialize in Tunneling?

Send Ninja out to scout Rock's country for targets

Use Skytowers to draw out that one clan that can fly

Deploy Condors against them (aerial superiority)

Deploy a reverse-summoned Orochimaru (to get bloodline-grafting samples)

Spam Condors against Skywalking/Flying Rock Nin?

Send Pangolins in to taint their underwater supply via tunneling

Deposit diseased corpses, human feces, harmful microlife/small-life/whatevers, dirty/dangerous acquatic chakra beasts, Kabuto or Orochimaru-engineered bioplagues (made to flourish in underground environments?)

It would further tie up their Medics and lower morale, if nothing else

Even if the ninja have their own filtration systems, it'll still effect the civilians and damage their productivity/morale --thereby forcing Rock to share the filtration systems (eating more time/resources that could be better spent elsewhere) or accept functioning on a hampered productivity.

Have Tsunade work alongside Orochimaru to develop a cure, to be offered to Rock after we win? Or to at least protect Leaf, if it spreads to our waters.

Undermine their reservoirs

underground structures vulnerable to cave-ins, esp. due to jutsu that can move huge amounts of earth within seconds (Pitfall, Pitfall with Spikes)

Bring in other tunneling-friendly Summons (Dogs? Snakes? Turtles?)

Target Rock's ventilation somehow (presuming it isn't entirely seal-based, such as Tunneler's Friend may imply)

Target natural ventilation and sealmasters somehow?

Collapse natural/engineered ventilation tunnels (bring in other tunneling-friendly Summons? Dogs? Snakes? Turtles?)

Target imports of paper and ink?

Use Summoning Swarms to assault Rock-proper, and then use the distraction to find and collapse ventilation tunnels.

Disrupt Rock's food imports

Convince the countries (such as Wind and the EN's more Minor Countries) that are trading Rock food to cease trade, or to simply send rotten food

Kill merchant caravans providing Rock food

Set fire to whatever fields Rock does have.

The naturally hot, dry climate should help spread the fires.

Skywalkers to scout should help locate the fields.

Destroy bridges and trade routes themselves.

We broke Rock's bridge into Fire and it cut off their expansion. Implying that Rock wouldn't have an easy way of using an Earth Element "Road Pavement Jutsu" to fix the routes. Or, perhaps, they do but it would be extremely chakra-inefficient to use it on entire hundred-mile long stretches of road... much in the same way that MEW is good for walls, but is inefficient in terms of walling off all of Fire Country's hamlets/villages.

Namely, it could be done, but it would be a massive undertaking that would require an investment of huge amounts of time, chakra, and manpower that might otherwise be better invested somewhere else.

Destroying their land-based trade routes would force them to either make that investment, or travel via ninja and skywalker --which would further alienate them from Merchant Councils, in addition to tying up military resources.

This cuts Rock off from their other vital imports, as well (lumber, food, paper, ink, etc)

Defenses Against Rock Tunneling

Boost Chakdar range to find Rock's secret underground tunnels

Implosion Seals could wreck shit if they suck air through soil (possibly combined with Purifier Seals to do so?)

Or such a vacuum may simply collapse the tunnel

Develop Earthshaking Seal based on Earbusters (only works via ground, but bigger vibrations?)

Isan has an Earthquake jutsu that could wreck Rock's tunnels

Pangolins may have one, too, since they can tunnel so well (would have to restore relationship)

Would also damage Rock's ventilation (if it's natural/based on civil engineering)

Encapsulate earth/shadow clones in capsules of earth that they have used the Excavation technique. Depending on how this works, it may send them quite deep into the ground.

Summon Army 2.0. That's the version where we field deploy Noburi and he refills through the Seventh Path. That allows huge buildups of Summons pre-assault. It requires a second Wakahisa, but the war has now significantly increased in scope.

Summon Army Logistics Effort Post

Churn out what minor seals we can with our current Consequences (such as explosive seals, sealing scrolls, and the like) via shadow clone to ensure that Leaf is properly stocked for war.

~~Attack Rock's Island that has the Arachnid Scroll~~

~~Underground sealing failures would be a whole new kind of horror, so Rock likely does most of its sealcrafting there.~~ ~~Let's attack it, and wipe out Rock's access to seals.~~

We can probably take advantage of the fact that Cloud has skywalkers but not skytowers. If we trapped an area of sky at night with a bunch of 5SB fishing line, we could do the zoo rush from a skytower within the prepared area. The jonin cloud sends up would get minced by the invisible wire traps, and if the tower were high enough cloud wouldn't be able to hit with long ranged jutsu (chakra diffusion)

Trapping the whole sky isn't very easy, 5SB don't cover that much area. Though the issue of skywalkers allowing surprise attacks with impunity is definitely there.

Could dial up the lantern seals until they are so bright they literally light up the whole city, then put that on a skytower. It'd allow lookouts to spot night attacks from the sky.

MrRobot · Nov 26, 2021

Fill the entrance with carbon monoxide i guess.

hYGP · Nov 26, 2021

Shrooms said:
ASUMA: Ah, Hazou, about your Summon Army strategy, I don't think it will be too useful going forward due to water poisoning-
HAZOU: *Pulls out an easel absolutely covered in charts* "Actually, I heard about that and I've already calculated optimal hydration. Here's a 300 page dossier on the most efficient methods for drinking water safely"
ASUMA: I hate this job

ASUMA: You know, once I asked my old man whether he wanted the Hat. He looked me in the eye and told me death would be preferable.
ASUMA: I feel closer to my old man with every passing day.

Cariyaga · Nov 26, 2021

Paperclipped said:
[X] Action Plan: Good Uses of Limited Time
Word Count: 286

Check plan with Mari.

Meet with Asuma:

Scribe and deliver skytowers and skywalkers.

Orochimaru situation is hopefully resolved.

Orochimaru psychically attacked Mari and she shouldn't be deployed for a week.

Explain if requested, don't mention Shikamaru's ultimatum or Mari-Kei split.

How can Hazou be most useful in the war?

Make more strategies and tactics like Zoo Rush?

If so, access to recovered intelligence would help.

Hazou can make more "creative" plans with more information access, so there's better odds that one of them is good.

Train the candidate for the Arachnid Summoner?

Hazou, injured, is the least useful Leaf Summoner and knows the Arachnids personally

Home-front Noburi could as well.

Coordinate Gouketsu for seal production?

If Mist allies with us, a home-front Wakahisa could chakra-fill a summoner, then Noburi can retrieve that chakra from the Seventh Path and distribute it to summoners anywhere in the EN.

Allows a summoner to have all their summons out at once and still fight at full capacity.

Works with Noburi and Wakahisa flipped.

OPSEC concerns?

Spend some time with Ino and Akane:

See how they're doing, especially with the war.

Be supportive, but also let yourself be supported.

Chakra Science:

Refueling with Noburi's aid, attempt to determine how many Substitutions you can consecutively cast.

Repeat with minimum-chakra Dispels.

Try to determine the mathematical ratio between these costs.

(offscreen) misc:

Arrange a birthday gift for Akane.

Have clan members paint designs on flowerpots for her garden, possibly of things that remind them of her.

Follow strict OPSEC.

Ask Cannai to send a diplomat to Hornet and Hare to ask if they have a Scroll.

Hazou would also like to personally thank the Hornets for their sacrifices.

Kei + Noburi: Get to know Leopard and Rat representatives. Goal: information on scroll.

Last cycle's plan, reposted. Since @Velorien will almost certainly want to do the Kei+Tenten commitment ceremony, I dropped that scene in favor of a thing we've been neglecting for a while -- chakra quantification!

I'm really not attached to this idea. If someone else has a better idea for the last scene, I'm open to suggestions. One such suggestion: don't have a last scene and just rewrite the Ino+Akane scene for more detail.[/hr]

We can't scribe skywalkers or skytowers with our consequences, can we?

Black King · Nov 26, 2021

We should timeskip to our injuries being healed. And in the meantime pester about Sage mode and forbidden lore from Yuno.

Oh and quick thought, we might want to make more...combat ready detours for our FOOM or find a way to turn sealing into combat readiness because it'd be a shame for us to waste time with super sealing and then an almost jounin just merks us.

Also, I feel like Kei is 100% wrong. Mari did sacrifice herself. She pointed Orochimaru to snowflake who has literally infinite lives, and then put herself on the front line to take the brunt of his ire. And she got attacked for it.

She did exactly what a mother should do. But w/e.

_brightwing · Nov 26, 2021

_The_Bomb said:
I feel the desirability of obtaining a Summoning Scroll will drastically drop when people learn that signing it will lead to regular colonoscopies from Orochimaru

It's worse than a colonoscopy

basically a surgical hole to your intestine connecting to a small bag outside that will hold the contents, to void later.

_The_Bomb · Nov 26, 2021

Black King said:
Oh and quick thought, we might want to make more...combat ready detours for our FOOM or find a way to turn sealing into combat readiness because it'd be a shame for us to waste time with super sealing and then an almost jounin just merks us.

_The_Bomb said:
Hazou (Surviving Sealmaster + No-Buri)

Hazō Paths Sheet
Detour 1:
At Caligraphy 29, we hit a safe sealing TN of 46.
Detour 2:
At Caligraphy 35 and Sealing 28, we hit a safe sealing TN of 56.
Detour 3:
At Caligraphy 42 and Sealing 38, we hit a safe sealing TN of 68.
At Athletics 57 and Subsitution 29, we can dodge attacks that would otherwise have killed us out of nowhere.
If attacked, dodge with Athletics: 57 + 3 (IN) + 7 (boost) - 1 PCJ = 66. If needed, use Substitution up to twice to dodge off-turn attacks, each use giving +15 for 2x 81 dodge, then 66 dodge thereafter.
Detour 4:
At Caligraphy 50 and Sealing 48, we hit a safe sealing TN of 80.
At Alertness 69, we win inititative agaisnt 99% of jōnin and can move first.
Summon dogs with Standard, use PKH (very chakra efficient boosts) with Supplemental, then use HlaM to dive underground, skywalkers to skywalk directly up, or something similar.

Orisha91 · Nov 26, 2021

@Paperclipped

Could you add proposing to Asuma to add macerators (burning logs) and (saw dust) to leaf-nin seal loadouts?

Seems like low hanging fruit to me. Asuma might be leery of us pushing the Zoo rush after Tsunade's news about the summoning army.

I was thinking of mentioning misterators as anti Sky walkers seals, but it might annoy Mist or imply that Mist and Leaf are sharing jutsu. Could cause Rock and Cloud to coordinate or ally together.

[X] Action Plan: Good Uses of Limited Time

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

gran dutch of douchery

Banned Forever

Ideal Hydration

In doubt there's always the Sun!

Handsome Gentleperson