Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

faflec · Jul 15, 2022

Velorien said:
PONWOG Iron Nerve muscle memory can't be used to trigger bodily processes that aren't under voluntary control to begin with.

Jackercracks said:
fictionfan said:

Can iron nerve be use to do usually involuntary actions? Can Hanzo cry, sneeze or fart at will? Naruto beat Kiba with a well timed fart.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Cry, yes. Sneeze, yes. Fart, depends on if he actually has gasses within this intestines. Try to fart when you only have solid in store and you're in for a brown time.

RandomOTP · Jul 15, 2022

Velorien said:
PONWOG Iron Nerve muscle memory can't be used to trigger bodily processes that aren't under voluntary control to begin with.

PONWOG, could we roll against a set TN to force it? Maybe Deceit (to simulate thinking about something disgusting, and deceiving your own body), or perhaps Resolve (to simulate forcing yourself to do something your body doesn't want/need to)?

Edit: Possibly faflec'd?
Edit 2.0: Maybe roll Resolve against Physique?

Oneiros · Jul 15, 2022

Shrooms said:
If anyone goes in there doesn't that immediately blow Hazou's identity? Can Hazou dismiss them at will?

Aren't regular dogs just a thing in MfD? There's the pack that's related to our tracker and the Inuzaki dogs. If dogs are a thing would be more reasonable to expect Hazō smuggled them on board instead of being the Dog summoner.

faflec · Jul 15, 2022

RandomOTP said:
PONWOG, could we roll against a set TN to force it? Maybe Deceit (to simulate thinking about something disgusting, and deceiving your own body), or perhaps Resolve (to simulate forcing yourself to do something your body doesn't want/need to)?

Edit: Possibly faflec'd?
Edit 2.0: Maybe roll Resolve against Physique?

Just eat a passion beetle.

Oneiros · Jul 15, 2022

Man I hope if we do the vomiting bit it's ninja trying to shake us down.

View: https://youtu.be/0H6n1aK0ZSo

Shrooms · Jul 15, 2022

Oneiros said:
Aren't regular dogs just a thing in MfD? There's the pack that's related to our tracker and the Inuzaki dogs. If dogs are a thing would be more reasonable to expect Hazō smuggled them on board instead of being the Dog summoner.

If we're summoning a puppy, I'm not confident they can pull off the act. If we're summoning an adult, well, be prepared for Hazou to fight on low chakra

ContextBot · Jul 15, 2022

faflec said:
ninja inspectors

Ninja Pirates.

Sentient Tree · Jul 15, 2022

[X] Action Plan: Ready for Anything

RandomOTP · Jul 15, 2022

You know. Hazou loves Akane for her optimism. Her smile, her fierce belief in Uplift and Youth. Hazou loved Akane for her compassion, her overwhelming love and acceptance of others. Her desire to always to the right thing, and her extreme willingness to call him out if she feels he's being cold.

Yuno loves Noburi because of his laughter. He loves and trusts with the heart of a healer, and arguably has the most emotional intelligence of all the Goketsu siblings (he wrote Goketsu SOP, after all). Yuno loves Noburi, the man who wants to help the world so much that he was ready to change his life's trajectory on a dime. Yuno loves Noburi, and he helps her to "see color" in the world.

I maintain that Yuno is an avid Hazou-Akane shipper.

MrRobot · Jul 15, 2022

I mean, o wouldn't attribute morden beheviors to ninja so easily but. But an interesting perspective is really how yuno sees her brother in law when you take the fact that looking to another man that is not her husbad is kinda like heresy to her.
Because Hazõ is wierd, like many people get him wrong assuming he is a do gooder but many fail to realize something, he does not see himself as a good person and he is fine with it. Yuno trough, yuno have an talent to get people so her insight on Hazõ would be intresthing.

Eisenhelm · Jul 16, 2022

I was thinking, the former ishihara family were at first just country commoners, then Akane was a ninja so their social status increased, and she is now an indispensable member of the 5th's clan's main family, a jounin in the making and a clan lady in all but name; so they are as respected as any civilian can be without being a wealthy merchant or a yakuza.

But for a couple of years she was a reviled traitor, a missing-nin, and even though leaf isn't quite as policed as mist her parents still would have been ostracized.
1) that would be a very interesting angle to explore in an Interlude
2) upon realizing this my respect for her father shoot out immensely; is hard for a civilian to demand anything from a ninja, even worse he had less than no support network when the dangerous missing-nin came to his doorstep and he still gave him the shovel talk.

eaglejarl · Jul 16, 2022

Adhoc vote count started by eaglejarl on Jul 16, 2022 at 3:18 PM, finished with 60 posts and 7 votes.

6 people have voted
[X] Action Plan: Ready for Anything
1 people have voted
[X] ction plan: no news is good news.
- faflec

Voting is closed.

Shrooms · Jul 16, 2022

Rah rah we're all gonna die ayeee

faflec · Jul 16, 2022

@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail Any chance of a timeline update?

Paperclipped · Jul 16, 2022

Inferno Vulpix said:
I mean, 'truly abhorrent environmental conditions' basically describes the entire setting. Towns in the EN are a shrinking unsafe population even in the best of times, and if you got run out of your village in the dead of night with nothing except the clothes on your back, well, maybe some will make it to the nearest settlement? You probably don't have to wander the wilderness foraging for food long before some chakra hedgehog bites your arm off. This isn't like irl where going hunter-gatherer in the forest for a while was a perfectly viable career choice for most of history.

Shrooms said:
I honestly don't think it's necessary for Yamanaka and Yuno to directly kill anyone. Beasts would descend on the fleeing crowd not too long after leaving the safety of civilization

I was accounting for the shitty MfD wildlife when I made that statement. It would be hard to forget it. When I said "truly abhorrent", I mean "city is surrounded by an impassable lava moat with dense populations of stalking predators".

Even if the setting is dying slowly, let's not forget that it's still alive. Rural farming villages exist and survive (with great losses) without walls. There are hunters and trappers and woodsmen that survive their occupations for more than a day. There are trade caravans and merchant ships that manage travel without ninja guards.

If death were ~assured from a few nights in the woods, we shouldn't expect any of that stuff. Civilization should be functionally impossible. Instead of 90%+ casualties per week in rural villages, I'd guess the rate is closer to 10% a year, which, compounded with famine and disease and ninja, is enough to tip the civilization from slow growth (as in our world) to slow decline.

Would there be deaths to beasts? No doubt, dozens if not hundreds. But towns are generally built in livable places, and often have loads of other settlements within a day's walk, much less two or three days of walking, and the local population would be well aware of the local threats.

FaintlySorcerous said:
Let's also not forget that Yuno and her Yamanaka compatriot were likely ordered to cause as many civilian causalities as possible and that they can be frighteningly effective in the context of explosive seals and ninjutsu. I think it's more than likely that Akane is shouldering the responsibility for the deaths they caused here.

Put another way: let's say that you're a random Yamanaka chuunin. You have a lot of explosive tags. I put you in the middle of a chaotic roughly-middle-ages village and force a compulsion on you to carry out as many civilian murders as possible within a short time window while not recklessly endangering your own life. You have a good working knowledge of the surrounding area and its threats and appreciable help for the civilian population will not be dispatched - you get full points for secondary casualties.

What's your body count as a percentage of the town's population? Personally, I think I could hit at least 50% if I tried hard enough. I won't elaborate on tactics as that gets morbid fast, but you can seriously wound groups, which is better than killing them as the groups take hits to both morale and resources, and then go on a quick jaunt to attract, guide, and unleash any local chakra beasts.

Akane might be hyperbolizing slightly and she's probably bad at math, but I don't think she's off by more than a single order of magnitude, if that, assuming that we accept that the village had a thousand-plus people to start.

First, being off by an order of magnitude is huge. Value of lives is not O(log(n)), it's O(n). Killing 300 people is 90% better than killing 3,000 people.

Difficulty of reaching a certain % of kills grows with the absolute # of kills. Just because a ninja can kill 100% of a 5-person family if they stumble across their house in the woods doesn't mean they can get 100% on a 10-family hamlet. I'd guess:

5 people: easy 100%
50 people: 80% reliably, 100% with some environmental luck
500 people: 10% is very doable with clever tactics and forethought, 20% is tough but achievable with favorable luck and good tactics.

Concretely, explosive tags have limited timers, meaning you have a limited time and distance window in which you can use them before civilians realize "ninja attacking!" and split. Unless you have other seals (LBF, ARS), you cannot effectively kill more a couple dozen people this way. Even if you have LBF, your traps stop working after they're used. Your kills/tag probably goes down from the initial volley as people spread out as well (if you have ARS, or Sage forbid MARS, then you have a lot more scalable killing power).

Ninja powers don't scale well. They normally don't have city-sized AoEs, and their best way to kill people is often by hand. Killing by hand isn't linear in the number of people. It would be if everyone stood still, but people will run and split up, meaning that with each kill, the distance you need to travel to the next one increases -- very sublinear.

Re: Their orders:

eaglejarl said:
As a tertiary objective, destroy the city in order to deprive Rock of the resources it generates. (Command apparently did not feel the need to specify what those resources are.)

eaglejarl said:
As per their orders, the three ninja then let as much of the city on fire as possible, taking care that the city food warehouses were well torched.

So, here's the situation:

They blow up an inn, maiming or killing all staff.
They have an extended ninja fight in the streets as the rest of the city realizes "Holy shit it's a ninja fight, everyone wake up and let's get the fuck outta here."
They win.
1. They search Shirogane for seals and equipment and pack away all his shit (off his person)
2. They securely tie him up.
3. They search the other (dead) ninja for seals (which need to be removed before transport).
4. They store the other ninja bodies as a tribute for the snakeman.
They rendezvous with Yamanaka.

At this point, they have spent several minutes with a fire already burning in the city as very obvious ninja who just won a very obvious ninja fight against the defenders of the city. Civilians should be going to ground now -- there's some reason to hide in their houses if they think the Leaf ninja will go away, but the Leaf victory and the fires foreshadow what's next (something which should be obvious given how late it is in the war). Some will be too elderly, ill, or pregnant to flee effectively, and they will run a far greater odds of getting caught in the fires.

The Leaf team meets up. They have a ultra-high-value target, and they don't know if they killed every single Rock ninja in the city. Rock will retaliate if they can, and a messenger genin could already be on the way to the Hidden Village. They don't have time to leisurely track down every one of the 5000 civilians that will run as far as their legs will take them then probably hide in an annoying place. They would far far rather escape with a captured Shirogane than kill some extra Rock civilians.

They set the city on fire quickly, moving at ninja speed between food warehouses and setting them on fire. Explosives or youthenizers (ouch) are probably used. The civilians are mostly fleeing the city at this point whatever they could grab in 15 seconds, and stay well out of the way of the ninja (except a few outliers, I'm sure).

Dozens of people cannot flee due to physical circumstances, dozens more are too central or are caught in a bad place and die in the fires. Of the thousands fleeing the city, a hundred or more die due to the environment. This happened in late February, so exposure kills the most, and the local chakra beast population (still lethal even if this is a very livable area suitable for big cities) kills the slowest and weakest. The remainder of the population finds refuge in the dozens or hundreds of rural villages around the big city. A few more die due to hunger from the sudden food shortage, disease, or from wounds sustained in the fire or the flight.

Overall, a massive tragedy. The city will likely take years to recover, if it is even worth trying to pull the burnt wreckage out and build again in the old location, and everyone will be traumatized, and almost everyone will know someone who died. The death count is still far less than a thousand though.

RandomOTP · Jul 16, 2022

Paperclipped said:
Even if the setting is dying slowly, let's not forget that it's still alive. Rural farming villages exist and survive (with great losses) without walls. There are hunters and trappers and woodsmen that survive their occupations for more than a day. There are trade caravans and merchant ships

As an abstraction: Yuuma's grandpa was a civilian hunter, and lived long enough to know his grandkids. Of course, luck played a role in that as well ("anything stronger than a [whatever it was]").

But it's also worth mentioning that the civilian farming hamlet that got Hidan'd said that they maintained their population through each winter by (aside from normal reproduction) accepting immigrants from other hamlets.

So while death by chakra beast is certainly a risk, it also seems fightable.

Egg Shavings · Jul 16, 2022

I know voting is closed but remember that jumping overboard and Racing towards the Sunset is always an option

faflec · Jul 16, 2022

[X] Armageddon Initiative

Sir Stompy · Jul 16, 2022

Paperclipped said:
Overall, a massive tragedy. The city will likely take years to recover, if it is even worth trying to pull the burnt wreckage out and build again in the old location, and everyone will be traumatized, and almost everyone will know someone who died. The death count is still far less than a thousand though.

I disagree with your numbers there. Most of the children and elderly will die from exposure or starvation. Most of adults (80%) will probably mostly be fine eventually. That's still half the population or so. I'd estimate ~2500 deaths. You're right about a 100% kill rate on a population that size being more or less impossible.

Shrooms · Jul 16, 2022

MfD players fighting over how many deaths their war crimes should have caused

Paperclipped · Jul 17, 2022

Sir Stompy said:
I disagree with your numbers there. Most of the children and elderly will die from exposure or starvation. Most of adults (80%) will probably mostly be fine eventually. That's still half the population or so. I'd estimate ~2500 deaths. You're right about a 100% kill rate on a population that size being more or less impossible.

Given that there are probably dozens if not hundreds of villages in a day's travel of distance (as this is apparently a fairly major city), I'm not convinced that exposure kills that many. Able-bodied people should be able to get to shelter with their rural cousins, so to speak.

"Able-bodied" is a qualifier here, but... 1) I'd guess that for the elderly, civilians are probably dead before their bodies really start breaking down (in ways that impact their abilities to flee ninja threats) because of general setting danger/attrition, and 2) children are pretty hardy in general (no citation on this, but you can imagine the handwavey "ancestral environment" argument).

Famine in the coming months is an issue. I think my first guess was a lowball, but 100% famine death is almost as nuts as 100% ninja death. Quickly checking the Great Leap Forward, the worst famine I can think of off the top of my head, that had 3-10% casualties. This is happening at the end of winter, which is about the worst time. On reflection, famine has a good shot of killing many more than exposure, depending on how resource-rich the area is and how fruitful their last harvest was.

If the area is in a comparably bad famine, given how at-risk this group is, I'll revise -- total fatalities could hit a thousand if the circumstances line up badly.

Paperclipped · Jul 17, 2022

eaglejarl said:
Chapter 517: Debriefing, but Not the Fun Kind

First time I heard this pun was in that one Asuma conversation. Sadly, we have a few more friendship points to earn with Naruto before we can do the fun kind with him.

"Okay," Naruto said. "I've been patient. Relaxed, even. Some people might use words like 'saintly'. I helped you clean up from the ritual. I helped you carry all that crap back inside. I waited patiently while dinner was prepared. Now what happened?!"

Considering that dinner prep had consisted of everyone choosing their preferred food-containing set of storage seals, Hazō didn't feel a lot of guilt about that last point.

I do hope that everyone enjoys the experience of cooking with Kagome now and again, though the efficient methods are well worth it for "impatient S-ranker" purposes.

"I saw something," he admitted. "I don't know if it was real, or a hallucination, and I've been going over it in my head, trying to make sure I had every detail locked down. We'll want to confirm it before acting on it, and—"

"So help me," Naruto said, his voice flat and a ball of blue light beginning to swirl in his hand, "if you do not share the information with me in an efficient and complete manner within the next five seconds, I will tear this house down around your ears."

Hey! He's not threatening Hazou's life or health, only his material possessions! That's progress.

"Okay, okay!" Hazō said, patting at the air in an attempt to calm down the angry jinchūriki. "Here's what I saw: a white beach next to a big lake. There were trees on the far side, stretching around two-thirds of the lake's perimeter, but the near side was grassy and backed up against hills. Jiraiya was exercising and practicing a weird kata that I didn't recognize. Something like this." He did his best to imitate the move but succeeded only in falling on his butt.

Naruto blinked and the incipient Rasengan disappeared. "Two-footed thrust kick powered off a jump, aimed at the thighs and catching yourself on your arms before back-rolling?"

It's real!

"Yeah," Hazō said, climbing to his feet and dusting off his butt. "Exactly. Except he spraddled out instead of rolling."

"That's the Toad Thrust. It's part of the martial art of the Toads. Unc always called it the 'Frog Kata' and that move the 'Frog Smash' because it drove Ma and Pa—that's Shima and Fukasaku—crazy." He paused, thinking. "You could have seen him practicing it before he died. He might even have tried to teach it to you." The moment he spoke the final words he looked dubious as Hazō's complete failure came to mind.

Note to self, use this name to fish for information with them. Say Jiraiya's notes said... and wait for them to correct us.

Aside: easiest path to Sage Mode might be resurrecting Jiraiya.

"I could have, but I didn't. He was talking to himself, trying to remind himself of something. He said, 'Damnit, Jiraiya. You know better than that. Do it again.'" Hazō ran through the rest of Jiraiya's words quickly, struggling to get them as close to exactly right as memory allowed.

Naruto, poking thoughtfully at his ramen as Hazō spoke, stopped and looked up at the final words. "The weird part is that he fell, and that he said the bit about no chakra. That's how Ma and Pa like to teach—they think that studying while handicapped means you learn better, because you have to get the form exactly right instead of doing it a little wrong but pushing through by pumping chakra. Uncle Jiraiya hated practicing without chakra and he never did it unless they were standing over him. I could maybe see him falling if he was trying to do it without chakra again." He thought for a moment. "Also, he said 'Little Miss'? You're sure?"

So, that's soft confirmation that there's limited/no chakra in the afterlife? I could see there just being no regen...

Alternately, he's trying to reproduce the memories as accurately as possible so as to not forget?

Hazō nodded. "Yes. Why?"

Naruto snorted, then burst out into full-throated laughter. "That's what Ma and Pa's teacher used to call Shima. It drives her bonkers when anyone else uses it. Like, I called her that when I was nine and she literally kicked me from one end of the training field to the other in one go, then zipped ahead before I landed and dribbled me all the way back. Cracked six ribs and I was black and blue for a week."

And... soft confirmation that jinchuuriki are built different? I don't know how easily a normal human child lives that, and probably doesn't get better in a week.

Hazō paused to reflect on the idea that the two-foot toad with the purple lipstick and the frizzy hair could punt a (granted, young) jinchūriki across the length of a training field and be waiting for him when he landed.

Also, we need to get training from those old toads. What's the roadmap on that?

"So...what I'm hearing is that I should never use that name in her hearing," Noburi said, half-serious and half-joking, with a tiny bit of fear to round out the tone.

"Yah. That."

"Do you know this 'Frog Kata'?" Mari asked.

"First, don't call it that around Ma and Pa if you want to live," Naruto said seriously. "Second, yes. Not at a master level, but I'm getting there. Granted, my training got interrupted by this whole kidnapping, torture, and near world-destruction thing, and now I can't continue because Unc isn't around to teach me or to summon the Sages anymore." He glanced sourly at Noburi.

Guess we have to pump Noburi's CR. Being able to summon the Toad Sages even in sequence would be big. We could have them over for dinner!

The young man in question shrugged. "I...might be able to. Dunno. It depends on how strong they are and whether or not they're willing to contract with me."

"They're massively strong and they're proud," Naruto said. "They're not going to want to be summoned by 'some whippersnapper.'" His voice dropped into a nearly perfect copy of Fukasaku's grumpiness.

"I could tell them it's to visit you...? And make it a one-time thing, or promise not to summon them into combat."

"Hmm. Maybe? If you phrased it carefully they'd probably go along or else be more amused and dismissive than angry. I think."

Noburi looked vaguely nervous at the idea of even potentially angering the two Sages.

Sounds like it's worth a shot! I imagine they'd at least consider it to meet Jiraiya's godson, wife, heir, two other summoners, two of his sealmaster collaborators, and assorted family. That seems like a dinner they'd consider attending at least. If appropriate, do it on the anniversary of his death.

We should pump Rapport before then.

"The real issue is what we do now," Hazō said, pouring himself some tea. "And I mean right now, like in the next couple of hours. Naruto, you've somewhat validated the vision."

"I wouldn't go that far," Naruto said. "You could easily have read all that in Jiraiya's journals."

"And seen the Toad Thrust? Do you really believe that he would have diagrammed out a secret and powerful martial art, or even described it well enough to understand?"

"...He might have."

Hazō was both happy and frustrated at the mulish tone of the words. It showed that Naruto didn't completely believe it and was aware that he was being stubborn, but there was at least a seed of doubt.

This is one of the ones you have to let go. They know the truth, you only force them to lose face by admitting it now.

"Okay," Hazō said, as reasonably as he could. "Why? What would I have to gain from lying to you?" He sipped his tea and continued to ignore the honey-brushed braised sea bass that was slowly cooling on his plate.

Put it back in the seal at least

"You said you wanted to fix things between us," Naruto said. "This could be your idea of a clever ploy to get me on your side."

Wouldn't an honest version of this also qualify as a clever ploy? No surprise, people want you to like them.

"Is that how you grew up?" Mari asked, sympathy in her voice. "Always wondering if people were being sincere in their offers of friendship or only trying to use you?"

Naruto looked at her, surprised.

You know, I suddenly want to know what things were like for Yagura growing up.

She nodded and poked thoughtfully at her fried rice. "I suppose it makes sense," she said, lifting an eggy bite to her lips. She tasted it consideringly, then swallowed before continuing. "Probably the most powerful jinchūriki in the world. Son of the Fourth. Student of some of the most powerful ninja in the world. Everyone wanted a piece of you, didn't they? It must have been lonely."

"Yeah, no. Not the first time someone's tried that on me," Naruto said. "Flattery combined with understanding and sympathy, with an only-implied offer of friendship that leaves me the choice as to whether or not to reach out? Nice try."

Mari shook her head. "You misunderstand. I have no interest in being friends with you."

Unfortunately, Mari is better with words than Naruto. It's a manipulation, of course, since it's Mari, but no way in hell that Naruto sees through it that easily.

"What?" Naruto said.

"What?" Hazō and Noburi asked in tandem.

"Hang on, now," Hazō said. "Mari—"

Does everyone want Mari to be friends with Naruto? I'd have hoped they'd have learned from the Wakahisa thing...

She made a cutting gesture with one hand, silencing him. "No. Being friends with Naruto is not a good plan. On good terms, absolutely. Able to work together in pursuit of common goals? Sure. Not friends. He'll be Hokage one day and we'll be under his orders. You don't befriend Kages. You do your best to have their respect and you try not to attract their attention. Getting involved in politics at that level is not worth the trouble. All that happens is you get their enemies throwing knives at your head from the darkness and their friends—if they have any left from their youth—staring suspiciously at you. Especially when there's as much of an age gap as there is between me and you, Naruto. I'd much rather be your loyal and respected jōnin who occasionally gets sent on interesting but not too dangerous intelligence-gathering missions as opposed to being your friend and confidante.

Hopefully by the time Naruto's Hokage, Mari's more S-rank than jounin -- though that's the sort of thing that might make Naruto even more wary.

"Mori Ami, she's closer to your age and she's not from Leaf," she continued, taking another bite of her rice and savoring it before speaking again. "She doesn't have any of the baggage that we're carrying based on being former missing-nin who Jiraiya brought in from the cold—which, to be clear, means that all the jingoistic nationalists who hate missing-nin hate us, and all the people who butted heads with Jiraiya also hate us. No desire to add your enemies to the list.

"As to Ami...you could do worse than befriending her. She doesn't have our other issues to increase the risk and she doesn't have our place here, so she's desperate to build one. Sure, the conservatives will never trust Ami or anything she's involved in, but she's smart enough to be loyal and she'll be as honest with you as she is with anyone. She's also quite pretty and I trained her well, so she's good in the sack. I assume you know better than to pillow talk, but even if you do she'll keep your secrets because she knows that one misstep will have the Hagoromo and their bloc down on her head. She'll be loyal, she'll be fun to spend relaxed time with—which I suspect is something you desperately need—and she'll be useful to you."

Weird to bring Ami up given the context and I don't see how Naruto doesn't feel like this is totally random, but hey. Anything to defang the metaphorical Dragon.

It's debatable whether the right skill here is Deceit or Rapport. Nothing Mari is saying is untrue, but it's not entirely true either. She's got an agenda in her words and she's trying to reframe Naruto's perception of reality in ways that are helpful for her and at least somewhat harmful to him because it will cause him to distrust those whom he has previously had no reason to distrust. (Also, there's some negging going on, which is a dick move when attempting to get in a woman's pants but pretty much de rigueur at this level of politics and in defense of your family.) On the other hand, trusting Ami is a fool's choice, so Mari is helping Naruto at the same time. All things considered, I'll go with Deceit.

Mari, Deceit (mostly): ? + invoke ? + invoke ? + tag ? + ? (dice) = ?
Naruto, Deceit: ? + invoke ? + ? (dice): ?

Lmao enjoy having six Severes Naruto.

You know, in her last village, Ami manipulated the jinchuuriki to enact a coup on the lawful Kage that she often disagreed with, leaving a puppet leader in her control to rule the village. Now, she's manipulating a jinchuuriki with ambitions of being a Kage, while her goals are very obviously not aligned with Asuma.

Really, it's perplexing that he's somehow not noticed this yet.

Hazō watched, nervous for Naruto's reaction. Fortunately, the young jinchūriki seemed very much on the back foot and even slightly shaken.

"Going back to the original point," Mari said after the silence had lingered for a moment. "Hazō was asking what we do now. Hazō, care to expand?"

"Right. Uh, well...I'm thinking about social and political risks, like—"

Noburi clutched his chest as though his heart had stopped. "What?! Mari, check his ears! He's been taken over by the lupchanzen!"

Hey, we don't want Orochimaru getting interested again.

Which he totally will, if we end up getting Jiraiya back. We definitely need Naruto on our side well before then.

Naruto's off-balance expression vanished and his body tensed as he looked back and forth between Noburi and Hazō.

Mari bapped Noburi on the arm. "Stop getting your brother in trouble."

"But Ma," Noburi whined, "it's my turn! Why does he get all the fun of causing massive political disasters for the clan?"

"Because he's older," Mari said primly. "But if you eat every bite of your vegetables then maybe you'll grow up big and strong and you can cause huge problems too someday."

Who runs the clan when we go to the rift? Maybe that can be Noburi's chance to cause trouble.

"Very funny, you two," Hazō said grumpily. "If we can be serious for a moment, what's our next move?"

"Depends," Mari said. "What's the goal?"

"Ultimately? Bring Jiraiya back, preferably before he loses too much of his memory. Then, with his experience at sealing and any knowledge he may have gleaned from the other side, figure out how to rescue everyone else we care about."

Assuming there's memory fading/spirit fading entirely (afterlife isn't overpopulated)... might be tough. Where's the after-after life?

"You know this is insane, right?" Naruto asked.

Hazō smiled. "Hi, I'm Gōketsu Hazō. It's a pleasure to meet you, Lord Uzumaki. Are you here to help with our latest endeavor?"

Naruto snorted and then half-strangled as a laugh snuck out and interrupted the snort. "Fine," he said. "I'm not sure I believe this. It's a lot simpler to believe that you found some details in Jiraiya's old journals and you're putting on an elaborate show to try to get on my good side. On the other hand...well, if you're lying then I'm morbidly curious to know how far you're willing to go knowing that once I find out I'm going to bring the wrath of me down on you. If you're telling the truth then of course I want to help. So, what are we doing?"

Naruto has a reasonable stance here. He doesn't have the same first hand experience with the supernatural that we do, especially not the experiences with Lord Jashin. Without that as a component, you really shouldn't expect the ritual to work since chakra magic, while wacky, is also localized.

How does Jashin bypass the chakra diffusion problem?

"Uh...right," Hazō said, unsure how to take that. "Well, the first thing to emphasize is that I don't know if this was a true vision, and I'm not claiming it was. It's possible that I hallucinated what I hoped to see. I don't remember hearing about the Toad Thrust or the 'Little Miss' nickname, but it's possible that I read it somewhere and have forgotten it. Still, I'm going to proceed as though it were the truth. Which leaves me with lots of questions, like how do we defend against accusations that we're making this up? How do we prevent this falling into the wrong hands or spinning out of control? What aren't we considering? What do we need to do right now? If this is real, it's huge, and we only get one chance not to screw it up. Is there anyone else who needs to know at this moment—maybe Kagome-sensei?"

Most of this seems like the answer is standard ninja tactics -- don't tell anyone. I really think we get the best outcome by presenting Jiraiya fait accompli.

"You made a list," Mari accused.

"Before we even did the ritual," Hazō said. "Now hush and don't distract the menfolk when we're talking about important things."

Mari's eyebrow went up and her face admitted amusement and promised retribution.

Ooh, looking forward to that. Get Mari into the prank war.

Get Mari to ruffle Hazou's hair again.

Naruto grinned. "You guys are nuts, you know that?"

"Eh," Noburi said. "You get used to it. Anyway, here's my idea: we have a nice evening with no mention of war, Dragons, dead people, or anything else stressful. Tomorrow we take the day off. Hazō, sleep in and don't do Clan-Head things. Spend some time with Akane. Mari...do whatever you do when you want to relax without being simultaneously sexy and terrifying."

...did anyone bring up Dragons yet?

"But Noburi," Mari purred, her face shifting into a cat-with-cream expression, "sexy and terrifying is how I relax. It's being Lady Gōketsu that stresses me out."

"Uh...right. Anyway, let's take the day off to chew on all this. There's too much going on, we're all stressed to the breaking point. Naruto, you spend the day checking up on us. You're friends with Ino, right? You went to the Academy together."

"Yeah, why?"

"She's dating Hazō, so she knows him better than you do. Talk to her about what kind of guy he is, tell her about the ritual and ask her what she thinks." He preemptively waved aside Naruto's objection. "And yes, take the fact that she's dating him into account when considering what she says. After you talk to her...I dunno, take a walk? Spar? Whatever it is you do when you want to let the back of your mind chew something over. If you honestly think we're scamming you, go to the Hokage and tell him that we're scamming you. He'll probably have us executed. If you think we're deluded, send us a message saying so and we'll leave you alone. If you think we're telling the truth to the best of our knowledge, let's meet up again for breakfast the day after tomorrow and figure out how we're going to either pry that O'uzu Island rift open or cut a new one, and how we're going to find Jiraiya after we do."

No way Asuma kills us all for trying to pull the wool over Naruto's eyes in an ultimately inconsequential way when he let a foreign seduction spec seduce Naruto for months. Also, I admire that Noburi knows the whole (bare bones) roadmap.

He looked around the table at the other three. "That work for everyone?"

Mari and Hazō waited for Naruto to respond first. After a moment, the blond nodded.

"Fine," he said. "Sounds like a plan."

Well, progress. Not sure what more we can do to get him on our side now, other than arranging that meeting with Ma and Pa. We can probably come up with a pretense for it, Jiraiya did plenty of stuff.

Great chapter as always, looking forward to more necromancy.

Sir Stompy · Jul 17, 2022

Paperclipped said:
Given that there are probably dozens if not hundreds of villages in a day's travel of distance (as this is apparently a fairly major city), I'm not convinced that exposure kills that many. Able-bodied people should be able to get to shelter with their rural cousins, so to speak

A day's travel is like 20 miles at most. Rock has a low population density. My estimate for number of villages (300-500 people) in walking distance is 15-25, not dozens or hundreds. I think that's way too high.

Paperclipped said:
Able-bodied" is a qualifier here, but... 1) I'd guess that for the elderly, civilians are probably dead before their bodies really start breaking down (in ways that impact their abilities to flee ninja threats) because of general setting danger/attrition, and 2) children are pretty hardy in general (no citation on this, but you can imagine the handwavey "ancestral environment" argument).

In situations like these, historically, people let elders and children starve more or less intentionally so they could preserve the family unit. The fact they have fewer elders is a good point. Keeping grandma around IRL was a good idea since she could still watch the kids and spin, here she gets eaten by chakra voles. No matter how hardy the kids are, infants will die since starving people can't breastfeed, young children cannot do the kind of calorie restrictions that adults can do, and everyone is far more vulnerable to disease. I'll update a little over that. Say maybe 2000 die instead of 2500.

Paperclipped said:
Famine in the coming months is an issue. I think my first guess was a lowball, but 100% famine death is almost as nuts as 100% ninja death. Quickly checking the Great Leap Forward, the worst famine I can think of off the top of my head, that had 3-10% casualties. This is happening at the end of winter, which is about the worst time. On reflection, famine has a good shot of killing many more than exposure, depending on how resource-rich the area is and how fruitful their last harvest was.

The Great Leap Forward was the worst famine because it affected the most people since China is very large. It's hard to have a famine that large without serious government mismanagement. I don't think it's a good comparison here.

IMO this is much more like the total war tactics towards Native tribes in the Americas, where their food supplies would be destroyed and they then would surrender rather than starve. Often many more than 50% died, although EN civvies are considerably hardier than any real people, so you can argue either way.

We also know that Rock had very low food stocks. That's part of why the went to war. They were hungry.

I'd say my estimates are ~100-200 die in the attack from the fires etc. and everyone else dies from starvation, disease, and exposure, with starvation and disease dominating.

Shrooms · Jul 17, 2022

SC XP for ch. 530:
Hazou: 0 xp
Akane: 0 xp
Kei: 0 xp
Mari: ??? xp

eaglejarl · Jul 17, 2022

This was originally canon, coming after Chapter 530: Embarking on a Quest. It was later decanonized as being unrealistic for the characters involved.

Omake: Because of a Nat 1

Hazō looked at the rest of the team. "Thoughts?"

"Keep cover," Akane said. "If they know we're ninja it will complicate things."

"Satsuko says that it only gets complicated if they can report back," Yuno shared, looking at her axe.

"Satsuko's not wrong, but I want to keep violence as an absolute last resort," Hazō said. "Let's not start anything, okay?"

Yuno sniffed.

"Grab your deniable weapons," Hazō said. "Everyone has their Multiple Activation Relay Seals and the relevant loads?"

"Yes, Hazō," Kei said. "We have in fact conformed to standing orders about in-field combat preparation."

"Right. Good. Well, let's go." He climbed up the ladder, remembering to move like a civilian and touch each rung with his feet instead of swarming up it using chakra adhesion and a series of jumps.

No sooner had he come on deck than Hazō could hear the argument at the front of the ship. The tension in his stomach from where he'd been expecting a fight against unknown enemies released and was immediately replaced with an entirely new tension.

"Where are they, you stinkers? If you've hurt them, I'll—"

"I am not in the habit of being spoken to like that by stowaways," the captain said frostily. "I want to know where you got on and why. Start talking or—"

"Or what? We're not in Leaf so I'm allowed to splat you if—"

"Hello!" Hazō called, striding towards where the captain and his stowaway were arguing, most of the crew gathered around with weapons of some sort in hand. Knives, gaffs, large wooden pins that undoubtedly had some sort of nautical purpose, and even one sword. Nothing that would endanger a ninja.

The man arguing with the captain, on the other hand...

"Hello!" Hazō said again. "I'm Sanzō, leader of this group." He gestured to the rest of the team behind him. "Captain—"

"Hazō!" Kagome-sensei said, bounding across the intervening space and hugging his nephew. This was less pleasant than his hugs normally were, since he was wearing a ghillie suit made out of sharkskin and seaweed, and was drenched in cold salt water. "So good to see you!"

Hazō squeezed the older man hard, two quick pulses, then pushed him back with a scowl. "Excuse me, sir! I don't know who this 'Hazō' person is, but you have me confused. My name is Sanzō."

"N—" He cut off as he finally noticed the meaningful glares being given to him by the entire team. "Oh, right. My mistake. Sanzō. Sannnnnzō. Yup. Definitely not Hazō. Sorry about that."

Kagome, Deceit: ? - 12 (dice) = -?

Ordinarily I would reroll a -9 or below, but (A) this is hilarious and (B) it wouldn't matter. I chose the name of the chapter before I started writing as a reference to when Kagome rolled a nat 1 at his first meeting with Hazō and was therefore willing to entertain a relationship instead of killing him out of hand. I see he's kept in good form.

Captain, Deceit: A natural number

The captain and crew looked completely unconvinced. Hazō sighed. Then-sensei Mari's voice whispered in the back of his mind, a memory from long-gone days when things were simple. Never break character, even if the enemy already knows everything. Never. It does nothing except foreclose options.

"And your name, sir?" he asked.

"Huh? You know...oh, right. You're not Hazō, you're Sanzō." The older man drew himself up and bowed slightly. "I'm..." He hesitated. "Uh...I'm...I'm..." His eyes flicked around for inspiration and alighted on Kei. "Nara. Nara...Bagome. Yes. Nara Bagome, that's me."

"A pleasure to meet you, Nara," Hazō said, ignoring the imagined sound of Kei's teeth grinding. "What brings you here today?"

"You know this guy, Sanzō?" the captain demanded, striding through the crowd of sailors that parted before him to allow passage.

"Of course he—"

"I do not," Hazō said quickly. "Although he seems like a fine fellow, we have never met. Correct, sir?"

"Oh. Right. Yeah, never met him before. I thought he was my nephew, Gōketsu Hazō, but he's not. Just some random guy who looks like him, I guess."

The sound of facepalming from behind him suggested that Yuno had exceeded her limits of discretion.

Hazō sighed. "Well, whoever this nephew of yours is, I'm afraid I'm not him. Why don't you come to our cabin and tell us about him?" Or absolutely anything that would involve getting Kagome-sensei's secrets-dropping lips away from the curious ears of captain and crew.

"Hold," the captain snapped. "I'm still waiting for an explanation. When and why did you stow away with us, Nara? And where exactly were you hiding? And what's with that getup?" He waved angrily at the ghillie suit.

"I was hiding under that beaky part on the front of the boat," Kagome said, waving vaguely forward. "Been there since you left the mainland."

The captain pushed on his eyebrow with one thumb as though trying to drive off a headache. It was a gesture that Hazō had seen more than once when Kagome-sensei was involved with people who didn't know him well.

"She's not a boat, she's a ship," the captain said through clenched teeth. "And it's not a beak, it's a bowsprit. And there's no possible way you could have been down there all this time. You were obviously belowdecks, which means I need to know where exactly."

Kagome frowned. "Why do you...ohhh, you're a smuggler, right? You want to know where I was so that you can know if I saw whatever you're smuggling. Don't worry, I didn't." He looked insufferably pleased with himself for having pierced the captain's cunning ruse and abated any reason for strife.

Hazō struggled not to facepalm.

"Mr Nara," Hazō said. "That's a terrible accusation to make! The captain is no smuggler, I assure you. A very stand-up man so far as I've seen. I feel certain that he's merely worried you have damaged some of the cargo, or spoiled some of the supplies. Right, Captain?"

The captain paused, then reluctantly nodded. "Yes, of course. Now, I believe you were about to tell me where you were hiding. Do so. Now."

"Why?" Kagome asked. "I already told you and you didn't believe me. If I tell you again is that going to change?" He sounded honestly curious.

The captain took a slow, calming breath. "Imagine for a moment that I believe your nonsense. How did you manage to cling to the underside of the bowsprit for the last few days?"

"I didn't realize ships could spit," Kagome said. "Cool. Learn something new every day and you'll never be bored, I guess."

"What."

"The boat...er, ship," Kagome said. "The bow is the front, right? You were the one talking about the bow's spit."

"Bowsprit," the captain ground out. "With an 'r'. It's the pole that sticks out the front in order to give more footage for the forestay." He saw the older man's mouth opening and hurried to interrupt. "And the forestay is the rope that runs from the top of the mast to the bowsprit. It helps keep the mast up."

"Oh, neat! I'm learning all kinds of things. Thanks!"

The captain's hands balled into fists, then relaxed, then balled up again, like a cat kneading.

"You claim that you were under the bowsprit for days. How?"

"Not the spit itself, just the curvy part of the outer wall. I fixed a hammock there so I could hang out of the water when we were traveling." He looked down at his aquatic ghillie suit, smiling with pride. "This thing worked super well, too. Kept me warm and mostly dry. A little bit of swamp butt, but that's not so bad."

The captain caught the eye of the first mate and jerked his head towards the front of the boat. The first mate ran off to check for the presence of a hammock.

"And why did you feel the need to do this?" the captain asked. "Were you fleeing from something?"

"Nah, I just wanted to travel with Ha—with my nephew, who is not the man standing next to me because that is a man named Sanzō whom I have never seen before." He looked around. "Gotta say, I like your boat. And the ocean. Smells nice."

"It's not a..." The captain stopped and took another breath. He glanced up to the front of the bow where the first mate had stepped out onto the bowsprit with casual disregard for the motion of the ship. He walked forward a few feet so that he could see below the curve of the hull. He looked back along the ship to where the captain stood and chopped his arm in the sailor's hand signal for 'yes'."

The captain chewed on his lip, his eyes shifting between Kagome, Hazō, and the other (hopefully still covert) ninja.

"All right," he said at last. "Nara, you will pay me the standard rate of passage and I will put you ashore on the next stop." He named a number.

"Oh, is that all? Hang on." Kagome shuffled through his pockets, pulled out a storage seal, unsealed a bulging sack of ryō, and crouched down so he could count out the right amount.

Everyone in the conversation froze. The captain and his crew because they had suddenly become aware of the fact that the man they had been considering murdering was in fact a ninja. Hazō and the team because Kagome-sensei had revealed himself as a ninja and thereby outed the rest of them as well. And also because Kagome-sensei was flashing an absolutely ridiculous amount of money in front of men who worked hard to make ends meet.

"Here you go," Kagome said happily, standing up and holding out a fistful of coins. "It's Leaf ryō, but hopefully that works?"

"Yes, of course," the captain said after a moment. He took the coins from Kagome, moving carefully so as not to startle the older man. "We will be making landfall in a few hours, sir. It's a small village but a good cove. You will all be disembarking?"

Kagome-sensei looked at Hazō, who gritted his teeth. "My party will, yes," he said. "Nara, if you wish to accompany us then I have no objection."

Kagome-sensei nodded furiously, an angelic smile on his face. "Great!"

"Good," the captain said. "If you will all please return to your cabin, I'll see about getting you there as fast as I can." 'So that I can get you off my ship' didn't need to be said.

[EDIT: This update has been decanonized because it made no damn sense for the characters. It is now just an omake and has nothing to do with canon.]

Author's Note: Sorry for the short update, but I absolutely crunked on spoons these last two days. Honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do for this chapter. I was intending to have a monster attack, or maybe pirates. Then, over in Discord, someone said "Clearly, what happened is that jōnin-level-stealth Kagome followed them and spent the entire ride clinging to the underside of the ship until it was too late for Hazō to send him back and the captain is freaking out about a massive pile of seaweed and stitched sharkskin quietly climbing onto his deck, sneaking up right behind him, and thunderously demanding that the stinkers produce Hazō while crackling lightning and flanked by giant angry spiders and horseshoe crabs." With a prompt like that, how could I not? I did leave off the bit about lightning, spiders, and crabs, though. Kagome has learned that it's okay to start off at a 2 or a 3 before escalating to an eleventy-bazillion.

XP AWARD: 1 The update was less than an hour.

Brevity XP: 1

"GM had fun" XP: 1

Sunset is in about 5 hours. You will be reaching shore in Honey in a bit under 3 hours, since the captain is piling on the canvas. If you look at the map and draw a straight line due east from Mist until it intersects the eastern side of Honey, that's where you'll be making landfall.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, Jul 20, 2022 at 7:00 AM .

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

In doubt there's always the Sun!

gran dutch of douchery