Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
[X] Action Plan: Onwards Mark
But this recontextualizes that. Getting to the cave wasn't the prize, the thing we reach after clearing the encounters along the way, it was the setup for the last fight that the rolls had already determined would happen. It's a subtle difference, but I'm glad for the chance to update my priors.
This part caught my attention a little: I heard a couple people speculate, after the update came out, that it seemed a little odd for Hazoupilot to do something that triggers an encounter without control being turned over to us. A little 'they wouldn't give us an unwinnable fight without a vote' vibe.
But this recontextualizes that. Getting to the cave wasn't the prize, the thing we reach after clearing the encounters along the way, it was the setup for the last fight that the rolls had already determined would happen. It's a subtle difference, but I'm glad for the chance to update my priors.
[X] Action Plan: Onwards Mark
I think with Kei and Hazou's abysmal Craftsmanship:Trapmaking skills that this won't be as useful as enclosing our heroes in a box of skyslicers, which will probably be as lethal to golems as Dragons
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I would like living roots mentioned, if we're gonna mention chakdars etc. If we're trying to navigate out of caves 3D earth sensing is way too helpful to pass up. If hazou doesn't think it's worth it/necessary he doesn't have to use it but I think it should be considered
Lava doesn't start until 200 km down, so this is kinda silly, but I guess we also don't want to dig out the bottom of a pool of regular water either.
Also if we're tunneling we should avoid digging at the glowing blue rock. I'd really like that to be in there.
So fun facts @eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped, the temperature of the Earth goes up by 25-30C for every kilometer you go under the ground.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Does Hazou feel warm right now? 50C should have him feeling heatstroke after a couple hours. That's 122F
Geothermal gradient - Wikipedia
Does Hazou feel warm right now? 50C should have him feeling heatstroke after a couple hours. That's 122F
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Note that due to the lack of sunlight and other surface temperature conditions, the 'baseline' for this past about 20m underground is about 10 degrees C. So we're talking more 35-40 C if Hazou really is 1km underground, quite hot but probably not dangerous for someone with water in storage seals.So fun facts @eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped, the temperature of the Earth goes up by 25-30C for every kilometer you go under the ground.
Geothermal gradient - Wikipedia
Does Hazou feel warm right now? 50C should have him feeling heatstroke after a couple hours. That's 122F
(and it could also just be that Hazou's bad at estimating depth. He grew up in Mist, not Rock, how's he supposed to know this stuff?!
)
- Location
- Liverpool
Also that's assuming that the elemental nations work the same way when it comes to geothermal patterns, which is a big assumption. But 'wind spirits' keep gliders aloft, so *shrugs shoulders*
- Location
- Yes.
Works for me
Good point, I missed that and was thinking that it was 20-25 C base temp. 35-40 C is still pretty hot, although survivable for a while with adequate hydration. Anything hotter than that will quickly cause heatstroke in a matter of hours.Note that due to the lack of sunlight and other surface temperature conditions, the 'baseline' for this past about 20m underground is about 10 degrees C. So we're talking more 35-40 C if Hazou really is 1km underground, quite hot but probably not dangerous for someone with water in storage seals.
(and it could also just be that Hazou's bad at estimating depth. He grew up in Mist, not Rock, how's he supposed to know this stuff?!
If they're even 1.5 km down that's a whole different game. It's linear and so that would be 48-60C.
Tbh since we the players can reliably tell how far down Hazou is by the temperature of the environment I was hoping to figure it out that way.
- Location
- Yes.
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
There are old things in this world.
The Appalachian Mountains are old.
Old beyond comprehension.
Not the old of the First things, self assured in their status.
Not the old pervading everything born of recycled parts, unfailingly relayed.
Not the cold oldness of distant globes, untouched and untouching.
The Appalachian Mountains are older than the rings of Saturn.
Older than dinosaurs.
Older than trees.
Older than the first fish born with bones, borrowing the strength of the earth.
When next the continents convene as one, the Appalachians will be unbowed.
Obdurate shepherd, gently effaced, gently effacing.
Wrinkle on the blue dot's brow.
Patient.
Waiting.
The Appalachian Mountains are old.
Old beyond comprehension.
Not the old of the First things, self assured in their status.
Not the old pervading everything born of recycled parts, unfailingly relayed.
Not the cold oldness of distant globes, untouched and untouching.
The Appalachian Mountains are older than the rings of Saturn.
Older than dinosaurs.
Older than trees.
Older than the first fish born with bones, borrowing the strength of the earth.
When next the continents convene as one, the Appalachians will be unbowed.
Obdurate shepherd, gently effaced, gently effacing.
Wrinkle on the blue dot's brow.
Patient.
Waiting.
- Location
- USA
This is correct. The encounter rolls corresponded to number of hours caving, with a difficulty modifier that depended on depth and other factors. Once those rolls were done, those encounters were guaranteed to happen -- the only question was how it would play into the narrative. Had the team not found the crystal, there would have been a comparable (but different) encounter.
I figure this is basically fine. I feel no qualms about an unwinnable fight coming to Hazou if he's just standing around passively. Instead having the narrative be that Hazou did something proactive that triggered the encounter is not very different from a player-interactivity standpoint, but given the specific encounters and other background details, this is the most logical way for things to have happened.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Akane: "Hazou, are you mad at me?"
Hazou: "I am mad, but not at you. How could you tell?"
Akane: "Your Mist accent gets a little more prominent when you're angry."
Hazou: "I don't have an accent!"
Akane: "Darling. Dearest. Sweetie. Joy of my heart. There were no consonants in that sentence. That was pure Mist-nin sailor-speak."
Hazou: "..."
Akane: "Now do it again."
Hazou: "I am mad, but not at you. How could you tell?"
Akane: "Your Mist accent gets a little more prominent when you're angry."
Hazou: "I don't have an accent!"
Akane: "Darling. Dearest. Sweetie. Joy of my heart. There were no consonants in that sentence. That was pure Mist-nin sailor-speak."
Hazou: "..."
Akane: "Now do it again."
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Elemental Nations:
- Leaf: American. Because of 'murica memes.
- Mist: Polynesian? Kei, Ami, Hazou, and Mari are all poly, after all. Lots of shipping. There was even a chart about it.
- Lightning: Elvish accents. High minded, theological, probably rude. Kagome's better off with the Goketsu.
- Wind: They're all voiced by Matt Mercer, but no one realizes it until the credits roll.
- Rock: They all sound like Dwayne Johnson. And yes, they can smell what you are cooking.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If you've ever seen that canon scene where Sasuke & co meet Killer B you'll know what Lightning natives sound like
Chapter 545: Up From the Depths
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"This looks like fun," Hazō said.
Kei cut a glance at him, then went back to surveying their surroundings. "I recognize your comment as an attempt at humor. It needs work."
"Yeah." He continued searching for anything familiar, hoping against hope that this was a reshaped version of the crystal's chamber. Perhaps there would be some scrap of texture or coloration that would seem familiar and allow him to orient himself.
Nope.
Double extra nope with a popped 'p' and a serving of nuh uh on the side.
"I've got nothing," he said at last, keeping his voice low. "No trace of threats but also nothing familiar to orient on. You?"
She shook her head, her hands tightening on the hilts of her kunai.
Hazō fumbled in his seals until he found his calligraphy materials, then carefully marked the wall where Kei had emerged, doing his best to note the exact location and angle whence she had arrived.
"You are hoping to use my emergence point as a navigation aid back to the crystal chamber?" Kei asked.
"Yup," Hazō said. "I don't know where Takahashi put it in your training, but from Tsunade-sensei it was lesson 594: 'if the arrival point is blocked then the Summoner will be ejected to the closest available space.' This mark gives us something vaguely like a starting point for locating where we came from."
"Takahashi-sensei did not—drop!"
Reflexes acted before his thoughts could ask questions; he deactivated his skywalker seals and dropped, kicking off the wall to give himself an outward vector that would hopefully make him harder to hit and would also make it easier to roll out of the impact. He hit, rolled twice, and came back to his feet in a combat crouch, turning to localize the threat. Kei joined him a second later, but she was looking at him and not at the surroundings.
"Take your skywalkers off," she ordered, doing the same herself.
Hazō obeyed, still without asking questions. In a combat situation, you obeyed the person who clearly knew more than you did. (Certain segments of Leaf's intelligentsia encapsulated this wisdom in the phrase a running sealmaster outranks the Hokage. In a testament to Leaf's enlightened and progressive nature, no one had ever been executed for uttering those words.)
Hazō's left pair of skywalkers had started to char. It was only one of the elements and the damage had not spread far enough to affect any part of the seal proper, but there had clearly only been seconds before failure.
Kei turned her own inserts towards him, a grim expression on her face. Hers were also charred, although less severely than his.
Hazō's jaw worked in frustration. He nodded thanks, then pulled out one of Kagome-sensei's chakrascope seals.
Which burst into flames and exploded the moment he activated it.
Hazō rubbed his eyebrow in frustration.
"I believe those seals have been shown to be unusually sensitive...?" Kei asked hopefully.
"If this is what I think it is, the seals are being overloaded and their channels are rupturing," Hazō said, answering her actual question. "If that happened to the skywalkers, the results would be extremely bad. The very best case would be a truly impressive explosion."
"When you say 'truly impressive', how many KSCs are we discussing?"
"Five, maybe six."
Keiko sucked in her breath. The 'Kagome Skipping Chocolate' scale measured the strength of an explosion by comparing Kagome-sensei's desire to see it against his desire to have hot chocolate with hot pepper oil. The scale was something of a joke, since few explosions were sufficient to make Kagome-sensei skip one mug of hot chocolate.
"In good news," Kei said, rummaging through her pouches, "the effect appears to be limited to seals that are in use. My storage seals show no sign of being affected. Presumably the skywalkers, being in a state of continuous activation, were more vulnerable. So long as we minimize the number of times we activate our storage seals, I suspect they are unlikely to sustain harm."
"Small favors." He looked up at where they had come from; their point of emergence was thirty feet up a sheer wall that curved slightly out into the room.
"Regarding your earlier comment about Summoners being relocated when their arrival point is blocked," Kei said, "Takahashi-sensei did not know the maximum range that a Summoner could be displaced. Nor was he certain what would happen if there were no safe location within that range."
"Tsunade-sensei didn't either," Hazō said. "Which isn't too surprising. There haven't been that many Summoners in history and they tend to be careful about their arrival points. It's not like you can do experiments on it. Not safely, anyway."
"Researchers get so hung up on that," Kei grumbled quietly.
Hazō chose to ignore the fact that he now had to worry about his sister becoming the next Orochimaru. Thank you, brain, for giving him that thought.
"Time to execute," Hazō said. "Go drop the sitrep off with Noburi, then pop back here. Give him the envelope. Tell him we want check-in attempts every two hours. Tell him that he's got basically unlimited chakra available on the Human Path and Gaku is running things, so he's not allowed to bitch about the cost or the time involved. Don't waste time chatting; I want you back here as quickly as possible."
"Given that you are giving him the authorization envelope, I suspect his answer will be quite rude," Kei said drily. Despite the snark, she summoned a junior pangolin and vanished back to the Seventh Path, returning less than two minutes later. It had been just long enough to leave Hazō feeling very, very alone, here in the dark with immeasurable amounts of stone pressing in on him.
"I was correct," she said. "I gave him the message and then gave him the envelope containing your transfer of Clan Head power to him. He read the document and then said, quote, tell Mr MEW that he works for me now, so I'll worry about any damn thing I want and that he needs to get his ass back here before I have to suck all of Leaf's ninja dry watching for him, unquote."
"It's a temporary transfer," Hazō grumbled. "Only until I get back."
"I wish to express my desire that the transfer be as short-lived as possible," Kei said. "Also, that we stop standing around."
"Yeah, yeah." Hazō started to set forth and then paused. A small smile crept onto his face. "Does this remind you of anything?"
Kei raised an eyebrow. "Your referent is unclear."
"This," Hazō said, offering a general wave that encompassed the caves and their current situation. "It's like being a missing-nin again. Only one problem to deal with: survival. No politics, no paperwork, no concern about educating and feeding hundreds of civilians and dozens of ninja. Just survive. Simple. Clean."
She stared at him for a moment and then snorted her amusement. "Indeed. There are people that I wish to return to and, more importantly in some cases, books that I wish to return to. Despite that, I am forced to admit that the current situation does provide me with a sense of focus that is, in a strange way, both relaxing and quite pleasant."
"We are seriously fucked up, aren't we?" Hazō said, struggling not to laugh. He didn't bother waiting for a response before saying, "Okay, let's do this. Up to the water's inflow, exit protocol, stealth."
Kei didn't respond; this was a stealth exit, meaning it would be done silently instead of violently. Even if talking had been appropriate, there would have been none. Years of fighting shoulder-to-shoulder meant that there was no need to discuss tactics—Hazō took point, Kei rode drag, both had their weapons ready and their eyes up. Both knew that escape was to be prioritized over combat but that if combat became necessary then it would be in the Gōketsu mode: brutal, unrestrained, and very short. Either person could start combat on their own recognizance because in such situations there was no time to waste on passing information.
They started off trending upwards, following the flow of the water. (Which, yes, was water. Hazō had checked, for fear that it might be the secretion of some cave monster. If it was then it was a secretion that looked, felt, smelled, and tasted precisely like cold, clear, and incredibly pure water.)
It was hard. Much harder than it should have been. The path was barely short of vertical and the stone of the cavern absolutely rejected all attempts at chakra adhesion. Hazō had to face the fact that he hadn't climbed a tree the normal way since he was six, and had never actually climbed rock a single time without using chakra adhesion. Ninja training simply didn't waste time on such silliness.
Granted, the first part was easy. They used a ladder from one of Hazō's storage seals to skip the first twelve feet of the climb. ("No, Hazō, I am not going to ask why you have a fifteen-foot ladder in your seals. I am fully cognizant of the fact that your answer would be 'because there are some things I would not touch with a ten-foot ladder.'") From there it was a grueling job, pulling themselves up one handhold at a time until they reached the point where the waterfall flowed into the chamber.
The channel was three feet high and wider than the flow of water, meaning it was possible to straddle across the water and not be swept away or drenched.
Hold, Hazō gestured. He crept ahead, wishing that he dared risk a Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Seal. Instead, he made do with the faint bluish light from the veins of chakra in the walls.
Forty seconds later, he was back at the mouth of the passage where a combat-calm Kei awaited him. She was cutting up a rope, for some reason.
No passage, Hazō signed. Roof... He made a pinching gesture, fingers closing vertically. Alternative path known?
Kei nodded and pointed.
Hazō followed her finger, looking out across the cavern to the wall from which they had originally emerged. Far up on that wall, tucked back where it wouldn't have been visible from below, was a crack in the stone. A crack that was big enough to allow the passage of a human on all fours.
Fuck.
Hazō looked at the wall that led up to the crack and thought back to what he had seen before. That wall overhung and was...well, 'smooth as glass' would have been unfair, but given how hard this wall had been to climb, that one was beyond his ability and he knew it.
Too many guards, he signed. The ninja hand-talk he was familiar with didn't actually have a sign for 'the terrain is impassable'.
Kei gestured towards the ceiling.
Hazō looked up, frowning in confusion, and then realized what she was suggesting.
Hell to the fucking fuck no.
Negative, he signed emphatically. Negative. Mission not doable.
She held up a finger in a 'hold on' gesture, then offered him one of the rope fragments she had been making. It was about two feet long, with a loop on one end and a series of progressively larger knots on the other. Hazō accepted it blankly and looked at her in confusion.
She stepped up onto the wall, smearing her toes into tiny crevices that were just barely enough to support her, and stretched up to touch the ceiling. Stalactites hung down and, here and there between them, cracks ran through the stone. She took one of her rope segments and shoved the knotted end into the crack, wedging it in tightly and then lowering her body weight onto it until she hung, one handed, staring at him expectantly.
Fuuuuck.
Hazō took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and nodded. I lead, he signed. He held out his hand for the ropes.
Wordlessly, she handed over a half dozen more, plus a longer section and a knife. The two of them settled down, legs braced to hold them out of the water that ran across the stone below them, and cut the rope into improvised prototype climbing tools with which neither of them had any training or experience. All so that they could crawl, upside-down, across a fifty-foot drop onto stone, with no chakra adhesion to keep them from falling and skywalkers that might destroy the entire cavern if used.
o-o-o-o
Hazō could feel his arms screaming on the edge of collapse. He spun chakra through them, wiping away as much of the exhaustion as he could manage, but the muscles were too fatigued for that to be effective. He forced his left hand to support him just a little longer, long enough that he could fold a longer loop through the loop of the handhold he had just placed and slip his head and shoulders through it. In retrospect, some kind of harness around the hips would have been better, but he could loop a knee through the previous handhold and let this one support his chest, which shifted the load to his core muscles and let him rest his arms. Kei waited patiently behind him, sitting in a loop of her own, light contact with the rope allowing her to balance.
When they started the climb, Hazō had a very brief thought that perhaps Kei could recover the ropes as the two ninja moved past them, thereby not wasting them in case they were needed in the future and also not leaving a trail. He rejected that thought instantly. If the ropes were anchored poorly enough that it was easy to recover them then they weren't safe to use, and trying it would increase Kei's chance of falling. This situation was dangerous enough as it was; he wasn't about to take any risks, or make her take any risks, that could be avoided. That was why he climbed first; he weighed more, so if the holds were going to fail then they would fail under him. Hopefully, he would be able to catch himself as long as he always kept a grip on two holds at once, but if anyone was going to plunge fifty feet to a stone floor then it needed to be him. She was his sister.
No, they would leave a trail and that was just the way it would be. As to needing to reuse the rope...they were Gōketsu. They had more rope.
They had thus far crawled, moving agonizingly slowly and carefully, across thirty feet of roof. The destination was only fifteen or twenty feet away; Hazō could probably have made it without the rest, but caution was the watchword.
His arms were no longer shaking and the loop was now cutting into his back, so he disentangled himself and draped the larger loop back around his chest. He stretched forward and groped around for a crack to put the next handhold in.
The bats are small, well camoflaged, and completely motionless while they sleep. They are also packed together enough that they look like just another rough patch of stone.
TN to notice them before putting your hand on them: 30
Hazō, Alertness (31) - 3 (circumstance modifier for being upside down, clinging to a ceiling, in bad light) - 3 (dice) = 25
Oops.
Is this colony of bats small (0-20; 2d3+3 bats), medium (21-70; 5d4+5 bats), or large (71-100, 10d4+10 bats)?
Dice: 75
Oops.
How many bats are in the colony?
Dice: 25+10 = 35 bats.
I'm not going to roll individual attacks for 35 bats. Instead, I'll treat them as a single enemy with an attack of 60 but a maximum damage dealt of 3 stress. Which is a bit irrelevant, since neither Hazō nor Kei are able to dodge right now, or even move very much, so this really boils down to 'Hazō takes 3 stress per round until he dies or Kei does something to split some of the attackers to herself'.
First round: Hazō takes 3 stress. His PCJ soaks two of it, one makes it through. He has to roll Resolve to resist the bats' sonic attack. Under the circumstances, this is a Greatly difficult thing to do, so he's got a TN of 40. I'm choosing this without looking at his sheet and don't remember his actual Resolve. *checks* Cool, he's in good shape.
TN to not convulse from the sonic attack: 40
Hazō, Resolve: 50 + 0 (dice) = 50
No problem!
Kei vs Hazō initiative order in this situation can be argued both ways, so I'll just stick with the numbers: Kei, then Hazō
Kei: activates a MARS stack that turns on Banshee Slayers for both of them, then triggers a Banshee for 1 second
Bats: *are stunned* *fall* *die*
Combat over. 1 FP gained for Hazō (surviving a fight). 2 FP gained for Kei (surviving and winning). All stress tracks have refreshed. Hazō will reactivate his PCJ the next time he has 10 minutes to meditate
TN to notice them before putting your hand on them: 30
Hazō, Alertness (31) - 3 (circumstance modifier for being upside down, clinging to a ceiling, in bad light) - 3 (dice) = 25
Oops.
Is this colony of bats small (0-20; 2d3+3 bats), medium (21-70; 5d4+5 bats), or large (71-100, 10d4+10 bats)?
Dice: 75
Oops.
How many bats are in the colony?
Dice: 25+10 = 35 bats.
I'm not going to roll individual attacks for 35 bats. Instead, I'll treat them as a single enemy with an attack of 60 but a maximum damage dealt of 3 stress. Which is a bit irrelevant, since neither Hazō nor Kei are able to dodge right now, or even move very much, so this really boils down to 'Hazō takes 3 stress per round until he dies or Kei does something to split some of the attackers to herself'.
First round: Hazō takes 3 stress. His PCJ soaks two of it, one makes it through. He has to roll Resolve to resist the bats' sonic attack. Under the circumstances, this is a Greatly difficult thing to do, so he's got a TN of 40. I'm choosing this without looking at his sheet and don't remember his actual Resolve. *checks* Cool, he's in good shape.
TN to not convulse from the sonic attack: 40
Hazō, Resolve: 50 + 0 (dice) = 50
No problem!
Kei vs Hazō initiative order in this situation can be argued both ways, so I'll just stick with the numbers: Kei, then Hazō
Kei: activates a MARS stack that turns on Banshee Slayers for both of them, then triggers a Banshee for 1 second
Bats: *are stunned* *fall* *die*
Combat over. 1 FP gained for Hazō (surviving a fight). 2 FP gained for Kei (surviving and winning). All stress tracks have refreshed. Hazō will reactivate his PCJ the next time he has 10 minutes to meditate
There weren't a lot of chakra veins in this area. It wasn't completely pitch black, but it was the next best thing. Hazō could have prioritized staying in the light—there was a route that would have worked—but he had instead chosen to go straight across as quickly as possible. At the moment they were climbing past one of the larger stalactites; it was wet, and the water caught the miniscule amount of light in the area and made it bounce weirdly, changing the shadows even more. Ahead, the ceiling of the cave bulged down in what was not yet a stalactite but would likely grow to be one eventually. The surface was rough and should provide good holds, so Hazō groped along its rim.
And then the bat colony that Hazō had mistaken for a bulge opened scores of tiny red eyes, shrieked, and pounced on him.
Hazō recoiled; his feet slipped off the hold they had been anchored to but he managed to keep his grip on the single handhold while slashing back and forth with his other hand. The bats were small, perhaps a quarter the size of his palm, and their hides were grey and lumpy, melding perfectly with the stone on which they slept. They were blindingly fast and their claws and fangs were tiny but sharp. Within a heartbeat, Hazō was covered in bloody scratches across most of his body.
Yes, scores of bats were swarming across him. Yes, each bat was tearing tiny morsels of flesh loose with each attack. No, that was not the major threat. The shrieking of the bats was a sonic hammer, rattling his brain inside his skull so that the world spun and melted around him. His vision tunneled down, much like the first time that Shiomi-sensei had choked him out during combat training, but he clamped his left hand tight around the handhold and spun his chakra through his body faster and faster, forcing his lungs to pump harder and his heart to beat more strongly. The resulting surge of energy forced the effect away so that he could—
The world went nigh-silent around him, the shrieking of the bats suddenly only barely audible as though they had teleported half a mile away. An instant later, the shriek of a Banshee seal ripped through the cavern in a blast of sonic murder that cut off almost as soon as it began. Around him, the stunned bodies of the bats pattered to the cave floor in a rain of wet squelches.
"I apologize for breaking stealth," Kei said.
Hazō's heart was still pounding, his breath coming in gasps, but he laughed anyway as he dangled from one hand over a massive drop. "All things considered, I'll forgive you this time. Stealth sucks anyway. We're trying to hide from a cave while we're inside it—how is that supposed to work?" The real answer was that they had no way of knowing and that it had been a useful exercise. On the other hand, he was in no way going to criticize Kei for her fast thinking in saving his life. He flipped his feet up onto the rock again and hooked his toes into the small crevice they had been in before.
"I should have used the pangolin pepper macerators," Kei fretted. "In retrospect, it is obvious. I have announced our presence to the entire cave system. If we draw more enemies—"
"Relax," Hazō told her. He found a crack ahead and pushed a handhold into it, tugging to make sure it was solidly set. "You did the right thing," he said with a grunt as he pulled himself forward. "Also, I'm feeling very smug right now."
"Oh?" she asked, moving in his wake. "Allow me to prognosticate: you accidentally caused those cave bats to attack us, I dealt with the issue by using a Multiple Action Relay Seal to activate the Banshee Slayers we were both wearing and also set off a Banshee seal in order to stun our enemies. You are looking forward to me castigating you for irritating the bats, since you believe that you have an invincible comeback in the form of 'I invented the MARS seals that you used to save our lives and I was the one who thought to set it up so that either of us could protect both of us and therefore the victory in this battle is in fact mine while you merely utilized my devices. You, Kei, should in fact be grateful to me for saving our lives.' You will offer this comeback in response to my entirely justified comments and, in your mind, I will be so taken aback that I will have no choice but to stammer out an apology for doubting you, followed by an expression of gratitude."
"That is not—"
"Sadly, Hazō, you have overlooked a key element of this scenario in your gleeful and one-sided rendering of the scene."
"Have I now?" He grunted as he pulled himself past a tricky hold.
"Yes."
"I wish to stipulate—ah, finally." He swung down and dropped onto the lip of the cave opening that had been their destination, then shook out his hands. The callouses built up by fighting hand-to-hand had nothing in common with the ones built up by clinging for your life to loops of rope that dangled from the ceiling. His palms were raw and his fingers stiff.
"I wish to stipulate that I had no expectation of you castigating me or of me using such a comeback," he said, crowding to the side so that Kei could drop down beside him. "I was feeling smug about the fact that, even hanging upside down from the ceiling, my family are still the most lethal things around. That said, what was the mistake that the version of me who lives in your head made?"
Her smile was small and brief, easy to miss in the diffuse light.
"I had every intention of expressing gratitude that you invented such a useful seal."
She eeled past him, taking care not to touch, and moved to inspect the cave that would hopefully lead them back to sun and sky and friends.
XP: 1
Brevity XP: 1
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, .
Last edited: