Whole backlog of things I meant to comment on and didn't. So here, have a giant mess of a reaction post/thread engagement before I go spent another week drowning.
Drone #549,571's muscles clenched, its stinger curling up and under in ready position. No. No, QueenMotherBelovedGoddess had said that Drone #549,571 was to obey ArachnidAlliesEmpress as if she were QueenMotherBelovedGoddess. ArachnidAlliesEmpress had ordered Drone #549,571 to do what the disgusting, rude, unpleasant fleshbeast said. The fleshbeast had not explicitly said that Drone #549,571 should not sting it to death, but that was probably safe to assume. Still...
"Hazō," said ArachnidAlliesEmpress, walking up from the bottom of the trap tunnel, "go let it. What asking you are beyond is the drone's comprehension." She turned to Drone #549,571. "Come, little one. New plan there is. Woven the nets we have for you. You and your brethren aloft the nets will carry, along a mite rider with. You are comfortable a mite carrying?"
Drone #549,571 buzzed happily. The mites were nice. Their little legs gave good scritches.
"In perfect formation will you need to fly," ArachnidAlliesEmpress said. "If not, tear you will the net. Keep your spacing you must, and hover long enough next to the skytower for mite rider to join net to skytower and the seals turn on. Fortunately, very good at flying together and hovering you and the other Hornets are."
Drone #549,571 buzzed happily. ArachnidAlliesEmpress said Drone #549,571 was very good at flying!
"Come," ArachnidAlliesEmpress said, waving with one foreleg. "Summon your hivebrothers. The net is this way." She glanced over at the fleshbeast.
Failure to communicate across folks who both speak and think differently. Makes sense, and is neat to see it depicted from the hornet perspective. Also cool to see QueenWife have the diplomacy and knowledge to go with her role. But, considering the hornet society set-up and fanaticism, I don't know if I'd take the risk in becoming the hornet summoner.
Somehow, Hazō needed to pry Harumitsu out of their halls and into the Gōketsu's before the kid got caught in the crossfire, and he needed to do it without violating Asuma's orders.)
I mean, that's fair. We've talked about it before. Having him with clout in the his clan would be better for us, but I'd still generally prefer doing what's best for the kid.
Gōketsu, lying is unbecoming in a Council Meeting," Lord Hagoromo said. "Or perhaps you simply lost one too many sparring matches, took one too many punches to the head from that ridiculous Rock Lee person?"
I just got an unlikely but satisfying mental image of Rock Lee punching Hagoromo in the head hard enough to knock him out, loudly shouting about how dousing the flames of youth is unbecoming to someone who's supposed to represent the Will of Fire. But, I'm going to take this as tacit confirmation that Rock Lee is still alive. After the loss of Ebisu, I was actually rather worried.
This is preposterous!" Lord Hagoromo burst out. "I don't know what this thing is, but—"
"Softly," Shino said. "Hear him out. Lord Gōketsu, you were saying?"
I like Shino. Good head on his shoulders, even in neutrality. I do want a follow-up on the glasses initiative at some point.
Fortunately, when it came to focusing attention, one could always count on...
"This is preposterous!" Lord Hagoromo burst out. "I don't know what this thing is, but—"
"Softly," Shino said. "Hear him out. Lord Gōketsu, you were saying?
Also (yes, it's not re-quoting), can we just take a second to marvel at how easy Hagoromo is to goad and rely on, such that chunin clan heads are dancing around him? I think I'm onboard with the whole "this is why Ritsuo was kept away from politics originally, even though he was a jonin" train of thought.
That said, if he's a jonin, and he's pretty bad at socials, then that REALLY means we don't want to fight him head on.
An elegant and expensive blade went into the skyslicer net and several dozen steel flinders came out. The dropcloth billowed, absorbing their momentum, and the steel slid down to nest with the salamander puree.
"Sage!" Lady Kei gasped.
"My father gave me that knife, you son of a bitch!" Lord Hagoromo was on his feet, his face pale with rage, and his voice shaking.
"Oh?" Hazō had been looking with satisfaction at the destroyed knife, but at Hagoromo's words he turned back, a sincerely apologetic expression pasted onto his face through the power of the Iron Nerve. "I'm terribly sorry."
"Lord Gōketsu," the Hokage said gravely. "That was extremely ill-considered. You owe Lord Hagoromo an apology, and weregild."
"An apology?! An apology?! How is this little pissant traitor's apology going to bring back my father's memory?! He forged that knife himself and gave it to me on my first mission! I carried it for decades! I killed four men with it! You motherfucking son of a foreign whore! How dare you?! You crawl into our homes, you sneer and simper and corrupt! You bring that filthy, slutty, deviant into our village and claim that she's—"
"Shadow Possession
1) Even if Hazou didn't know the significance of the knife, he still knew it was nice enough to cause ire. Asuma was right to ding us, that was petty. Though, given the reaction, it was worth the exchange rate.
2) oh, you're about to get wrecked Ritsuo.
3) The idea of Kei being called slutty under most definitions of the word has be just rolling around laughing. Ah, yes, Kei Nara is known for her promiscuity. Truly, the Hagoromo clan's intelligence network is top notch.
4) Seriously dude, you just insulted a founding clan's consort in from of the clan head. Only a fool starts a war on two fronts unnecessarily.
This person here, standing tall and tense, his breathing fast and angry, with foxfire dancing through his shadow and across the body of his victim...who was this?
"You are correct, My Lord," Shikamaru said after a moment, his voice clinical. "I am not going to kill him. I am not even going to injure him. I am, however, going to make a point.
"Hagoromo Ritsuo," Shikamru said calmly. "When Senju Hashirama decided to change the world, he approached all the most powerful clans in the region and recruited them to his cause. These clans became the Founding Clans of Leaf." He paused. "The Nara are one of them. The Hagoromo are not."
Hey, proto-aura. Nice. Looks like Ritsuo hit a nerve. Also, reassuring Asuma probably means he's getting a long leash to do his bit.
You insulted my wife once before. In response, the Nara moved against your wealth, but we did not raise our hand to you personally, nor to your people. You have now insulted her again, here in this hall that exists solely that the leaders of Leaf may have a place to come and work side by side with one another. You have insulted her in front of me, and in front of my peers. In my grandfather's time this would have meant a duel between us or a war between our clans. You would lose that duel, sir, and your clan would lose that war." Thin lips curved into an expression that was nothing like a smile. "Only a fool would issue death threats in front of the entire Clan Council, and I, sir, am no fool. I ask only that you remember this: if you ever speak an unkind word about Kei again, if you so much as express mild dislike for the color of her robe, then you are going to become the singular focus of my ill will. I invite you to consider how many shadows there are in this world, Ritsuo, and what value that places on the ill will of the Nara."
I really like our bro-in-law. He's developing a real spine. And "the competent, efficient ones with back-up contingencies for days" are not the kind of enemy you want to make
Stop it, Nara!" Hagoromo shouted. "Stop this at once! You are risking civil war!" The feeling of a looming thunderstorm spread through the room.
"If I fall, it will be forward."
The thunderstorm hesitated and then retreated into Hagoromo's soul.
Claiming someone else will start a civil war, while you're about to leverage your aura against them? My guy, my dude... Yikes. Cool to see what his aura was like though. Also, admitting that you'd be the other half of a civil war in front of the Hokage... Not a great look.
In an unprecedented act of political maneuvering, a Mist jōnin has renationalized herself to Leaf, although I think that point may have been elided.
Oh that's going to have international implications. Also, means permanently more Ami time. *Mixed, confused knight noises*
Well," he said at last. "This has been an exciting meeting. Let's recap." He nodded to Ami, sitting very quietly at the far left corner of the table. "In an unprecedented act of political maneuvering, a Mist jōnin has renationalized herself to Leaf, although I think that point may have been elided. The war is ending and peace may ring out across the Elemental Nations for the first time in recorded history." He nodded to Hazō. "Not only do Dragons exist, but Hazō killed one with the aid of enormous spiders who are going to enrich Leaf beyond our wildest dreams. Also, he created a new weapon that could kill Akatsuki members if we could simply bait them into running through it." He nodded to Hagoromo and Shikamaru. "Two of my Clan Heads essentially came to blows and are going to have strips torn after them after this meeting, possibly followed by sanctions on their clans." He looked around the room, meeting each eye in turn. "Would anyone else care to upend my world?"
Shikamaru raised his hand.
See? Meetings CAN be interesting. Also, the coils on Shikamaru raise his hand right then.
Many of the Tower's low-level staff died in the Collapse. Their replacements are new and inexperienced. They are literate, numerate, and most of them have some clerical training, but nothing like the level that is required, nor are they familiar with proper procedure for critical documentation and appropriate handling thereof. More importantly, most of them have little experience interacting with ninja, most especially with the Nara. They expect that bringing bad news could be fatal and thus they feel motivated to soften the blow or even delay passing the news at all."
The room had gotten very quiet, the faces very serious.
"Shikaramu—Lord Nara," Asuma said. "Are you telling us that our entire picture of the war is false?"
That's really not good, but a thing I can see happening. Also, Asuma going back to calling him Lord Nara is a nice touch. Especially since it means by the end of the meeting, Shika will have had a part where he's relevant and useful, and Ritsuo will not have
Leaf has been hammered in the past two years. The Battle on the Beach"—Naruto shifted uncomfortably—"the Battle of Nagi Island, the Collapse...when this war started, Leaf had approximately 1100 genin. We now have 740. We had 400 chūnin. We now have 240. We had 20 special jōnin. We now have 2—Gōketsu Yuno and Kei Anko. We had 20 full jōnin who were not people in this room. We now have 8."
The room was silent.
"Lord Nara," Asuma said carefully. "We have lost seventy-five percent of our senior forces?"
"Yes sir."
"...I see."
That's not even the news you get angry at, just the kind you slump over for a couple minutes at. Also, we got LUCKY. Given those numbers, and who they've been up against, Akane and Yuno could have easily just not come back home.
Incidentally, given 2/10 of the Jonin(1+special) not in the room right now are Goketsu, our relative power went up a decent amount. The bad news is, Orochimaru's relative power did as well.
How did we miss this?" Hinata asked. "I knew that Uncle Moritaka was killed in the line, but..."
Is he the one that went to the Rift and the rock base? Didn't love him, but he at least did competent work and once admitted error.
Silver lining, Hinata won't be as beholden to her elder clansmen if they're all dead?
Oh no Ebisu. Honestly, we should name a school after him. Dude gave his all to teaching.
Sage above, reaction posts take forever to do.
Yup! I enjoy doing mine, but this is why I haven't done one in a while, and only was able to do one or two for Road of Life.
It did, yes. They found nothing and returned empty-handed with sore muscles, grouchy dispositions, and several minor wounds from, quote scorpions the size of fucking sheep unquote.
- The two Academy students are still Academy students.
- The medically-retired ninja is still there.
- Atomu, Reo, and Mai were adopted, as you said
- The other two semi-crippled chūnin are dead. They were sent on what was expected to be a low-risk patrol mission along the eastern border with two other able-bodied chūnin but they got unlucky and died: that was when Cloud made their move.
- Of the 31 genin:
- 5 joined the KEI. You can check to see if they are still alive.
- 1 ran off because he thought he was going to be tortured by a fish sex cult leader
- 10 died on various missions
- 8 were promoted to chūnin and then died on various missions
- 4 were promoted to chūnin and are still alive and living on the estate
- 3 are still genin and living on the estate
Very informative. I think seeing who those four chunin are for adoption purposes should be priority, once we figure out our snake obligation.
Yeah this wasn't targeted at you or Velorien at all. It's directed at the hive mind and how in general we wi tend towards to a slow increase in what power levels should be. Also with all the corpses the rock war has made our standing in the leaf pecking order should be where a new jounin would have fit in pre-us
I actually fully agree our relative pecking order should be higher. The problem is we're always playing from the top down, so fewer people between us and the big players doesn't let us actually best the big players. Though, I think a lot of us have fairly consistent Jonin criteria (I remember seeing a couple good posts on it), and some of the hive mind tend to overestimate our abilities relative to jonin.
"To clarify, and please don't take this as an expression of disapproval because under the circumstances it is quite the opposite, but did you just potentially eliminate war and send humanity's future careening off in a hitherto unimaginable direction purely out of concern for your younger sister's welfare?"
Ami didn't look away from Kei's face as she replied. "Wouldn't anyone do as much for their family if they could?"
One of us! One of us! I'm glad Ami's Pretty Damn Far moment was less self-destructive than ours. Also, this really gives me flashbacks to Harry's conversation with Lupin in HPMOR. Excellent depiction of a rational character optimizing for their core value and then following through. The fact that I just called Ami a rational actor should just be glossed over though.
Step One is complete. I look forward to hearing your ideas for Step Two. Thank you for the lovely dinner. ^_^
My immediate interpretation was about step one being joining leaf, and step two being Hazou giving Ami FOOM keys. Ami has an incentive to keep it secret, since it will help Kei in the long run stay safer. Though, I thought a "reasonable rule" would be that a Ami can't use FOOM while actively planning or facilitating the downfall of a Goketsu member. Trade the ability to hurt Mari for more power to protect Kei personally. I think we have a real pitch here.
Adopt estate chuunin and prepare them for the Chuunin Exams
Just a note, chunin don't complete in the chunin exam, genin do. If you want to adopt a genin for this though, I'll support you as long as we do it in the next 2-3 days in character.
