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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Shrooms said:
O_O

O_O

O_O

O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O
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Normally I'd let Velorien decide, but this part in particular cracked me up enough that I want to award XP, and the rest of the reaction post is great. To prevent too much XP inflation, I'll award it fractionally (at least in expectation). +1 XP to a PC of your choice, chosen by 1d4 if you don't pick in 24h.

Also, this is partly an apology, because...
Shrooms said:
@Paperclipped I NEED THAT WHOLESOME INO SCENE STAT
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I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.
 
Shrooms said:
He still has yet to address anyone else in the Goketsu with a similar term.
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oh i just realized that the rest of team uplift are also oro's nephews (except maybe mari). which makes it even stranger. especially with how he seems to like noburi's medical devotement.

Kiba said:
The questions were of poor quality. I wish we spend more time carefully curating questions that would lead to something useful instead of wasting his time on questions we already knew the answer to.
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would the only way to get more time have been voting in an interlude instead of the negotiations plan?

Velorien said:
A violation of free will on an untold scale
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interesting, this suggests he cares about violating free will

Inferno Vulpix said:
Alright guys, what question do you think Orochimaru considered as already asking about Jashin? Something from this update? Something from a past encounter?
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i think there is some memory modification going on. given that in shroom's plan jashin should have been asked right after jonin aura, but wasn't. instead skipped to ten abomination. and everything else was asked in order. we should have hazou use the iron nerve to replay the entire conversation! and have watchers tell us if there was jashin mentioned, or if there is a noticable weird glitch in the iron nerve when it gets to that part.

Inferno Vulpix said:
And now, Hazou has sound reason to believe it's something significant.
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i disagree. oro asking if he was being mocked makes me think he's never heard of the term. so when hazou replied that he also doesn't remember where he heard it from, it's like did you just make up a word?

Velorien said:
"You already asked about that," Orochimaru said. "Now leave."

"One more thing!" Hazō remembered. "Lord Orochimaru, thank you very much for your kind offer, but I've decided I would prefer not to have a bioseal."
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how nice. oro was even willing to give us more time to consider the bioseal. plausibly unintentionally though.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
Velorien said:
seals he was placing on Noda's abdomen
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did hazou download these?
also, what is hazou's estimate of how long oro spent answering questions? either by normal time sense, by sand left in hourglasses, or (if hazou pilot would do it) replaying the entire interaction with iron nerve.
 
Wait, remember when Ami said that she swayed Orochimaru's attention away from dissecting her, and towards the Final Gift Program? What if she did that by lying, and saying that she was engaged to Hazou, Jiraiya's adopted son and Orochimaru's nephew?
 
RandomOTP said:
Wait, remember when Ami said that she swayed Orochimaru's attention away from dissecting her, and towards the Final Gift Program? What if she did that by lying, and saying that she was engaged to Hazou, Jiraiya's adopted son and Orochimaru's nephew?
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That was my first thought as well. Probably not, though: she would've probably told us, to keep up the pretense. If it was a load-bearing part of her insurance, and Hazou went "what? no" here, that would've boded poorly for her.
 
Velorien said:
Right. Questions. The thing he was here for. His mind wasn't at its clearest now, but the questions were a list. Hazō, even at his worst, was a master of lists.
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An obvious conclusion. Goal orientation is his default state, and retreating further into that mindset is one of his few coping mechanisms.
 
RandomOTP said:
Idly, I wonder if Mari is closer to S-rank than Hazou is to Jonin?
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The thing that's keeping Mari from being S-rank isn't more stats it's the fact that she (probably) doesn't have any techniques that lets her threaten other S-rankers and a way to survive their tricks when they strike back

Right now the fastest way to get her there is to keep inventing seals that power her up or find/create a new gamebreaking jutsu
Paperclipped said:
  1. All S-rankers are by definition exceptions, and are created bespoke every time. The pyramid rules cover the typical use cases (genin-jounin) best. S-rankers get special jutsu, stunts, etc.
  2. S-rankers are defined more by their unique, game-winning abilities than by their raw stats alone. Many S-rankers have jounin stat lines.
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Chapter 551: Wrongful Gifts
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    • Hazō sat at his desk with his eyes open, staring into the distance.

    He felt empty. Noda… hadn't died, yet, but probably wished she had. And he'd been a part of her final torture.

    He closed his palms, ten fingers rubbing against the solid wooden surface of his desk. Should he feel soiled, defiled? He had pushed her into the operating room, and he had provided Orochimaru with the tools he needed to do whatever he was doing.

    Yet, he didn't feel dirty. He simply felt like a failure. Every moment, his mind was drawn back to what he could have done differently.

    For Noda, the answers were clear. He could have made it clear she was welcome on the estate, he could have asked the KEI to advertise that the Gōketsu were glad to provide for injured ninja and their families, he could have assigned someone to check on the recently crippled ninja to ensure they would manage their lives well.

    But Noda wasn't the problem. He could have saved Noda, but Orochimaru needed bodies to work on. If it wasn't her, the pressure and the price would have risen until someone else gave themselves to the Basement. The hydra could not be slain by cutting off its heads. Was there a way Hazō could have stopped the Final Gift Program from ever happening?

    Ideas, half-formed and ill-considered flitted through his head, only to be slapped down by the cold hammer of reality. Could he have arranged teams to capture enemy ninja at Orochimaru's behest? No, that would have provoked war sooner and made peace and AMITY impossible. Could he have destroyed Orochimaru's Basement while the Gōketsu still owned the house? No, Orochimaru would simply rebuild, and would need to experiment twice as much if knowledge had been lost, and Hazō would have ended up on an operating table as the subject of his ire. Could he have killed Orochimaru?

    Hazō knew there was no solution. The monster needed to be fed till it was satiated, for it could not be destroyed.

    Yet, he couldn't stop thinking. Even if he couldn't stop Orochimaru altogether, could he have found a solution that was even marginally better? Could he have saved just one person, one Noda, from that torture?

    Someone knocked at the door of Hazō's study. It was Gaku, by the cadence.

    "Enter," Hazō called.

    "My lord," Gaku said with a bow as he entered. "I am aware you are stressed at the moment. Would you rather I return at a later time? Perhaps tomorrow?"

    "No." Hazō shook his head back and forth like a dog, trying to shoo the thoughts away. "No, I think it's better for me to be doing something right now. Is there anything urgent for me to do?"

    "No, my lord," Gaku said, entering the study and gently closing the door behind him. "There are no clan affairs that require your immediate attention. You have now addressed everything which I'd thought particularly urgent."

    Hazō sighed. "Good. I'm going to take a few days off and do some sealwork with Kagome. Something to clear my mind."

    "Is that related to the reason you returned to the estate last night rather… underdressed?"

    "Yes. Also, could you send a messenger to the Yamanaka? I'd like to see Ino tonight."

    "It shall be arranged, my lord."

    Hazō looked at Gaku, who was clearly waiting for instruction. Hazō pulled himself up to his full seated height. "Fine. It's not urgent, but it's clan business isn't it?" Gaku nodded. "Let's get this over with."

    "As expeditiously as I can, my lord. First, Lady Mari has sent several notes on the investigation into the plays featuring yourself, apparently aimed to degrade you in the public eye. She notes this has been ineffective at swaying the civilian population's goodwill towards you. Furthermore, while she continues to suspect the involvement of the Hagoromo for clear motives, she concedes that this is far more subtle than their clan lord is capable of. She suspects the Hagoromo are opening their purse strings to theater troupes solely on another's advice. She has no evidence of this, but is coordinating with Lord Haru to investigate further. She is unsure if there is any counter-action required from you at this juncture, but invites you to consider your options."

    "Got it," Hazō said. "Not the Hags directly, but they may be involved, and there's definitely someone else out there trying to slander us. And that faction doesn't quite get how pointless it is to try to turn the civilians against the Gōketsu after all we've done for them, especially while the other clans left them in squalor." Hazō put his head in his hands and rubbed his forehead. "Why are we under attack at every corner? Why can't these people just let me help without attacking me for doing the right thing?"

    "Politics, my lord. Next, Lady Yuno requests leave to return to the mission rotation. Lord Yuma saw some unusually strong chakra beasts in southern Fire, and Lady Yuno wishes to, ah, investigate this." Gaku extended a scroll. "She has already arranged the extermination contract with the Tower, and requests to take Lord Yuma and Lady Mio along with her."

    "Granted," Hazō said, examining the mission statement and handing it back over. "The more dead chakra beasts, the better."

    "I concur. While you were gone, the Wakahisa piscist pronounced the koi pond ready to draw chakra from."

    "Oh, is that so?" Hazō asked. "That's good news. We'll save a lot of money purchasing chakra. Has there been any progress on expanding the koi pond further?"

    Gaku shook his head. "Lord Noburi said that he spent time speaking with the piscist. Apparently, the school is already quite large, and consequently rowdy. It may be dangerous to expand further. He says that this corroborates his experience at the Wakahisa compound, that they did not have schools of hundreds of koi, but rather several ponds of dozens of koi. We would need to construct additional ponds."

    "Right," Hazō said, "do that."

    "Certainly sir. I've already gone over the expense sheets and placed orders for the same materials the piscists requested we reimburse during the initial construction of the pond. I trust you will arrange negotiations with the Wakahisa for the additional koi eggs?"

    Hazō waved a hand. "I'll figure it out. Next?"

    "Of course, my lord. I'm uncertain if he told you, but Lord Kagome was invited to give a lecture at the Leaf Central Academy. Regrettably, the fallout of the event means it is relatively unlikely to be invited for further guest lectures."

    Hazō paled. "How many injured or dead?"

    Gaku quickly held up his hands. "Oh, my apologies. None at all. Or at least, no physical injuries, though apparently, the psychic trauma may have been lasting" Gaku shook his head. "He merely disturbed the academy students with his lectures. Apparently, he was telling stories about the various sealing failures he'd seen."

    Hazō shuddered. "Okay, I can see how that would scare the academy students. That's fine, as long as it doesn't get in the way of him tutoring whoever he wants one-on-one."

    "I understand he's still regularly tutoring Miss Honoka. Moving on, you requested that I ask around the clan to see who may be interested in learning ninjutsu creation."

    Hazō winced. He had been thinking of reaching out to Noda to see if she was willing to tutor someone in the clan.

    Gaku noticed Hazō's hesitation and paused. After taking a moment, Hazō said, "Apologies. Continue."

    "Yes, sir. Lord Reo was the only one to answer in the affirmative. Apparently, after his injury, he sought a teacher but couldn't find one as a clanless ninja. It appears he thinks this could be a very effective way to show his worth. He requested that I draw your attention to his skill in various ninjutsu, to his large chakra reserves, and to the fact that he has mastered multiple elements with access only to the barest of resources."

    "I'm glad he's willing to try. He knows the dangers, correct?"

    "They were presented part and parcel with the question."

    Good. Can you arrange a tutor for him?"

    "With respect, my lord, that may be an easier thing for you to do than I. To my understanding, many clans have experts in ninjutsu creation, and you have close access to the KEI as well. You would be better equipped to find the people you would need to negotiate, I believe."

    Hazō nodded. "Sure. I set up a contract with a clan to strengthen relations, or maybe just ask Kei to find someone. Also, Mari contracted a hacker to make the wall technique. Maybe they would be willing?"

    "You would know better than I, sir. Lord Atomu is still unaware of what exactly you want from him on the saltern project, would you care to clarify for him?"

    "I'll sort that out eventually," Hazō said, scribbling a note. "It's not urgent. For now he can keep doing more of the same."

    "Understood. Kenta wishes to speak with you about some construction on the estate. Shall I handle that for you?"

    "Please do."

    "Very well. Similarly, a few civilian graduates of the Gōketsu Education Department have requested loans to start businesses. Would you like me to summarize their proposals?"

    Hazō shrugged. "You've already looked through them, right? For any proposals that seem reasonable, make the loan. Make the terms as generous as possible, we don't need to be predatory of our own people."

    "Very well, my lord. I will note we need to find time to go over the clan's budgets and taxes at some point. Our wealth has recently risen thanks to the conclusion of the silk trades in the latter half of AMITY, but our expenses are rising as well. I wish to consult you on where we may find more income or cut expenses."

    Hazō sighed. "I get that it's important, but not today, please. We're above water for now?"

    "Yes, sir. We sold off many assets to dissolve our debts with the Hagoromo and Kurusu, but we have dissolved them. Our core expenses are small."

    "Then it's not urgent. Anything else?"

    "No, sir. I believe you missed many council votes. Lord Noburi will provide you with a summary, but I do not believe there was anything relevant to our interests."

    "Good. Then, I have one thing for you, Gaku."

    Gaku raised his brows. "Yes, my lord?"

    "I've asked Asuma a couple of times to see the registry of seals that the Tower is selling. Did he ever send over that list?"

    Gaku raised his hand to his chin in thought. "I recall sending several missives to the Tower with this request of yours, my lord. To my recollection, they haven't responded. Perhaps my contacts in the Tower are not highly placed enough to interact with the people that handle high-level ninja sealcrafting. I shall ask Lady Mari to check on this."

    Hazō smiled. "Good idea, Gaku. Mari knows how to get things done."

    "If that is all, my lord…?"

    Hazō nodded. Gaku bowed and made his exit.

    Hazō sat there for a moment longer, then pushed himself to his feet. He couldn't sit here forever with his thoughts spinning in circles. He needed to go find someone, maybe Akane, to talk about all this and see what, if anything, he could do about it.

    o-o-o​

    Ten days later…

    Hazō looked up from his armchair and mug of hot chocolate to see Mari slipping quietly into his study.

    "Mari, hello! I haven't seen much of you around recently. How are things going?"

    Mari smiled at him. "Hello Hazō. Just fine, thanks."

    As she spoke, she walked around the room, activating various privacy seals, finishing with placing down one of their extremely limited supply of anti-Byakugan seals on the desk at the center of the room. With the privacy seals set, she crossed the room and gently relaxed into the armchair across from Hazō.

    "Is this related to the investigation? Found something to pin it on the Hyūga?" Hazō asked.

    Mari shook her head. "Frankly, I've left Haru in charge of that. It'll be a learning experience for him, but it is the first big intelligence operation that I'm leaving to him, so you should expect some rough edges. We've already talked with a few of the actor groups, but our opponent isn't an idiot that would hire their patsies while wearing a clan crest. The groups were hired by what seemed like a wealthy daimyo who offered them a generous payout for putting on a few performances of a script apparently drafted by a different playwright under the daimyo's patronage."

    Mari sighed. "There were a few good months after the disguise kit shortage where these trails were much easier to follow. Now, it seems like everyone's gotten used to using the new style of kit."

    "Okay," Hazō said, "so you don't think it's going to be a big deal?"

    Mari shrugged. "I didn't say that. The civilians still love you, and the clanless ninja's opinion isn't really going to shift too much, so I figure this is aimed at the clans. Sure, they're not the people that are actually watching the street plays, but every clan has low-level intelligence gathering in the village to make sure they're not caught unaware by new happenings. Their people hear about the plays and report it up the chain to the ninja. For example, there was another play going around about the exploits of various summoners during the war, which left a notable gap for you. Civilians might not notice, but every ninja in Leaf was there when Asuma announced the Will of Fire Contest, and they'll remember that you were awarded the Dog Scroll in order to do missions for Leaf."

    Hazō frowned. "It sounds like they have some pretty powerful dirt on us."

    "Yeah. And they're wielding it subtly and through many layers of indirection, only bringing true-if-misleading facts to people in power through their own intelligence agents. It's a legitimately well-executed plot, if I'm being honest."

    "Then why aren't you working on it?" Hazō asked.

    "Well," Mari said, ticking off on her fingers. "One, there's only so much Haru can learn from working on little baby problems I make up for him. Thinking about and modeling other agents in a clan-critical environment will be way better for training him up than years of coddling lessons. Two, I'm not really a spymaster. Sure, I'm doing my best, which is still damn good by the way, but I was always the agent that retrieved the intel, not the person that took information from a dozen disagreeing sources and found the patterns that tied them together. And three, I spend most of my effort on counterespionage these days."

    "Counterespionage? What big secrets are we trying to keep?" Hazō asked.

    Mari raised an eyebrow. Hazō blushed slightly. "Ah," he said.

    Hazō looked back at the anti-Byakugan seal. "Is someone trying to find out about… WHOOSH?" he asked, making the same gesture of a bird taking off, rising slowly at first then quickly. Of the clan, he, Akane, Kei, and Mari were using Shadow Clone with Hazō's method to improve their rate of power growth. Apart from Mari, who didn't share her training with anyone, everyone was approaching their innate limits of mental endurance. Hazō suspected that by now, all of them could handle more clone-hours than even seasoned jounin.

    Mari shook her head. "No one is investigating us specifically, but that's partly because I'm putting so much effort into keeping us under the radar. You've noticed that we're still buying chakra even with the koi pond active, right? I've been arranging to keep the rate of construction on the estate steady and for Noburi to practice 'discreetly' with his big flashy Water Dragon ninjutsu, and I didn't want to cut off all the purchasing on the same day that the piscist took a vacation. Of course, if you want, we can taper off the purchasing over time or find another place to spend the chakra.

    "Anyway, that's just one example. I'm doing that all over Hidden Leaf. Hundreds of little nudges to keep the idea out of people's minds, to gently redirect their inquiries that might find dangerous answers, and to give them alternate explanations for the truth right in front of them."

    "Got it," Hazō said. "No complaints here, that does seem pretty important to get right."

    Mari grimaced. "Even so, we're on a timer as long as Noburi is refueling jounin for their training. If Asuma hands Shadow Clone to a clanless jounin that knows about our chakra-refueling services and actually has the money to pay for it, it won't take long for them to figure the whole thing out. Clanless, of course, because clan ninja wouldn't stoop to admit that our services could help them train. I've been jacking up Noburi's price little by little to make that less likely, but that just increases the time it'll take for it to happen.

    "By the way, that's another reason to just let the plays be. Sure, it alienates us from the other clans, but Asuma himself understands why you weren't fighting in the war and doesn't hold you ill will over it. The plays are far from an existential threat, and keeping the clans at a distance keeps any of their Shadow Clone users from stumbling across our secret in a way that I can't possibly prevent."

    Hazō nodded slowly. "Well, if I have any ideas on how to keep the secret better, I'll let you know. Is that what you needed me for?"

    Mari shrugged. "It's a thing I wanted to mention to you. I'm really here because you wanted to buy seals from the Tower."

    "Yes," Hazō said. "During the Neck mission, MARS proved invaluable for mass use of seals in combat. If anything, we didn't have enough seals. The other Leaf sealmasters definitely have combat seals we could use. Adding them to the MARS chains could multiply our combat strength. Gaku mentioned that the Tower officials stonewalled him. Did you have any success?"

    "Sort of. I managed to speak with Sarutobi Fumi, the senior Sarutobi sealmaster."

    "Yes, I'm familiar," Hazō said. "She was one of the more… moderating influences when we were trying to decipher the Great Seal replica."

    "Sure," Mari said, turning her finger in a circle to move on. "Well, she does the Tower's seal stuff. Apparently, Asuma thinks you're slacking on skywalkers. She's happy to send the list of seals for sale if you learn skywalkers, demonstrate you can make them, and start paying the tax of a hundred per month. I think they really want to replenish their strategic reserve after the war burned through it."

    Hazō grimaced. "That's a lot of time commitment. I like letting Kagome's students handle the explosive-storage-alarm tax." Hazō thought for a moment. "I could ask Kagome to do my skywalker tax, but his time is pretty valuable too. Ugh."

    "Well," Mari said, "I'll leave it up to you. Though Asuma may find another way to pressure you if this isn't enough."

    "Got it. Well, see if you can find a way to get a peek at the lists. There aren't that many sealmasters in Leaf that make seals that aren't explosives or storage seals, and probably even fewer that will sell those seals to the Tower with the risk of someone else reverse engineering them. If there's nothing too good on the lists, we can skip it for now."

    "Sure, I'll try when I get a chance," Mari said, shrugging. "No promises, though."

    "Thank you, Mari."

    Hazō and Mari sat in silence for a moment. Hazō sipped his hot chocolate as a vague intuition slowly formed in his mind, telling him that Mari was waiting to say something.

    Hazō glanced at her and smiled, but kept sipping his drink. Mari's own coaching guided him: be friendly and courteous, give them space to arrange their thoughts, and let them speak on their own time. Sure, Mari could read him like a book and definitely knew his full intentions, but he figured it was the thought that counted.

    "By the way, Hazō," she said lightly, "I've had a bit of a… conundrum, lately. It's no big deal, and I'm sure I'll figure out something for it, but I know you sometimes have creative solutions to things, so…"

    "Sure, glad to help," Hazō said, leaning forward in his chair. "What's the problem?"

    Mari shifted uncomfortably in her chair for a moment, then met Hazō's eyes. "I…" she cut herself off. "Do you feel better now, since your trip to the Basement?"

    Hazō nodded. "Yeah. Spent a while with Akane and Ino, made some progress on the jinchūriki seals, and started sorting through the notes Orochimaru gave me. It feels like he just scraped a stack of disorganized documents off the top of his desk and shoved it in a storage seal."

    "Do you feel mentally ready to talk about a hard topic?" Mari asked.

    "Sure," Hazō said. "I can handle it."

    Mari nodded and exhaled through her nose. Finally, she said, "It's been a long time, but I want to start making genjutsu again."

    "That's good," he said, then he frowned. "Wait, is this going to be a big problem? Sealing failures are awful and I've heard horror stories about technique hacking failures. What are genjutsu failures like? Do you make heads explode? Do you leave people as mindbroken catatonic husks? Does it do those things to you?"

    Mari laughed. "No, Hazō. If miscasting a genjutsu could make people's heads blow up or shatter their mind and send them into a coma, it wouldn't be called miscasting. Genjutsu users would all just do that, and it would save us a lot of trouble. No, genjutsu design is not innately dangerous to the people you test on. They experience the genjutsu, I alter the details, they experience it again, and I repeat until I have a ready-to-go package of experiences."

    "So, you need me to arrange testers?" Hazō asked. "That doesn't sound so bad. Do they need to be ninja?"

    Mari shook her head. "No, civilians work fine. But Hazō, the process of testing genjutsu is not innately dangerous. That said, the genjutsu themselves… those can be dangerous."

    Hazō frowned. "Like the Hell Viewing Technique and your other combat genjutsu?"

    Mari nodded. "That's right. They won't kill you, but combat genjutsu are usually just torture genjutsu. They're tools meant to overwhelm and break an opponent's mind as fast as possible so you can get out of the vulnerable state you're in while channeling a domination genjutsu and kill them while they're too mentally broken to fight back.

    "Even designing a torture genjutsu is uncomfortable. You need to remember all the physical experiences you're going to inflict on them, and fully feel the powerlessness that you're going to pound into the target's psyche – and that's awful even when you're doing it voluntarily. I repeatedly exposed those people I tested on to what I was trying very, very hard to make the worst experience of their lives.

    "Now, in Mist, finding test targets was easy enough. Yagura was glad to provide a steady supply of dissidents to the few of us that actually made new genjutsu, and he didn't particularly care what state they were in once we were done. Some of my genjutsu were honestly half motivated by not wanting to torture people on a given day. The Sunny Day genjutsu, apart from being incredibly useful in the field, and by field I mean bed, is also probably the nicest possible experience a genjutsu practice dummy has ever had.

    "The dissidents we practiced on… some of the other ninja enjoyed torturing them for violating Yagura's rule. They would keep them around for weeks or months, long past the point they had mentally given in and it was no longer useful to practice genjutsu on them. I never did that though. I always put them out of their misery when I was done with them."

    Hazō kept quiet for several long moments. He couldn't find a way to respond. "Mari… Why do you need to design torture genjutsu?"

    Mari laughed again, but this time it felt oddly colder. "Hazō, illusions are useful in a fight for misleading and confusing the enemy, but they don't compare with the complete control of your target's senses that a total mind control offers. It's incredibly powerful, but it leaves you vulnerable while you're doing it. You need to incapacitate them as fast as possible. How do you mentally incapacitate someone so that they don't just kill you while you're recovering from the genjutsu trance when you drop it? You give them an experience so strong, so intensely awful that it worms its way into their mind. Even freed from the genjutsu, they can't escape the torture.

    She read the thoughts off of Hazō's face. "Yes, you're right that a seduction genjutsu would be mentally compelling too. But in practice, when a ninja escapes a seduction genjutsu, they remember that they're fighting for their lives, that their heart is beating a million times a minute, and that the person across from them just cast a genjutsu on them. It's disorienting, but not incapacitating.

    "Trust me. With the degree of control I have in a total domination genjutsu, I've created levels of pain and suffering that left even hardened jounin crying in the mud until I slit their throats."

    Hazō realized Mari's intention and felt a pressure start to rise in his chest. He took a deep breath, noting the faint raggedness in it. His throat wasn't closing up, even if it felt like it.

    "Mari," he said, "couldn't you practice on me? I'm fairly sure my mental resilience is stronger than most jounin, and I've experienced painful things, things from outside this reality. Hells, you've even practiced on me before. I can handle your genjutsu."

    Mari shook her head, sadly. "I've experienced a lot of… bad things in my life, Hazō. When I designed my Special Hell technique, I took all those bad things I'd had happen to me and compressed it into a single perfect mindspike. You can handle pain, sure. You might even be able to walk away from the Special Hell technique, though I doubt it. Could you handle it for hours? For days? And then, I might need to design more than one combat ninjutsu."

    Mari pointed at herself. "I can stand under the burden of the suffering in my life because it didn't happen all at once. I don't know if I would have survived otherwise. Do you really think you could withstand the entire weight of all the pain I've ever felt without even the slightest crack? Because if you give even a little, you will break."

    "No," Hazō said. "Mari, we can't-"

    Mari raised her hand. "I get it. I absolutely, totally, one hundred percent get it. We will not start up our own version of the Final Gift Program, taking elderly and crippled civilians for genjutsu design. After everything I've been through, I would rather die than go back to… that."

    Hazō nodded and let the tension in his chest relax.

    They sat for several long minutes, sitting in their chairs and gazing into the distance. Hazō's hot chocolate had long since cooled.

    "Mari," Hazō said. "What are you going to do?"

    Mari shrugged, pasting on a smile that Hazō knew was fake even if he couldn't see its seams. "I dunno. I'll figure it out, I always do. Just let me know if you have any bright ideas, alright?"

    Hazō nodded and Mari glided to her feet. She deactivated the anti-Byakugan seal and the remainder of the privacy seals, then gave Hazō a nod.

    "Thank you, Hazō."

    "I didn't do anything, Mari."

    Mari smiled again, but this one seemed sad. "Sometimes, there's nothing you can do. When there's no other choice… isn't that enough?"

    She left the room in a swirl of elegant robes, leaving Hazō with only his thoughts.


    Kumokōgō had no complaints about you bringing in another powerful summoner and sealmaster to help with the Great Seal. In fact, she is anxious for progress on the sealing side – while you have killed a Dragon and taken steps to slow the degradation of the Great Seal, there has as-yet been nothing done to actually repair it.

    Sealing Research:
    TNs:
    Calligraphy: ??
    Sealing: ?? (reduced by Kagome's active assistance, who has already learned the seal)

    Hazō (Calligraphy): 32 + 12 (6x prep days) + 3 = 47
    Hazō (Sealing): 51 + 12 (6x prep days) + 6 (invoke "Promising Sealing Student") + ? (Kagome spends a FP) - 9 = 60 + ?
    Hazō spends a Fate Point to reroll.
    Hazō (Sealing): 51 + 12 (6x prep days) + 6 (invoke "Promising Sealing Student") + ? (Kagome spends a FP) + 9 = 78 + ?

    Hazō has made substantial progress on the first of Minato's seals. The chakra construct created by the seal is very different from anything Hazō has done before, but he's beginning to wrap his head around it. He thinks he's perhaps a quarter of the way done, and he thinks that future seals in the chain, once he's really understood this first one, will take less time to learn (even if they're more challenging).

    When Hazō asked Ino for a telescope, she asked "What's a telescope?" Hazō explained and she said she'd look into it at some point.

    Hazō has spent several days combing through Orochimaru's notes. While the previous files he gave you were neatly organized, the contents of his new storage seals are not. Orochimaru seems to be using Hazō as a convenient way to do some spring cleaning of his old documents. While being used as a trash bin is insulting, the contents of Orochimaru's trash bin are quite valuable in themselves.

    Link to information about Orochimaru's payment.

    Timeline for this update:
    • Day 1: Unwinding from the Orochimaru experience, meeting with Ino, Kumokōgō, etc.
    • Days 2-7: prep for infusion
    • Day 8: infusion
    • Day 9-10: unable to do much useful with the SSA headache, Hazō organizes Orochimaru's notes.

    XP Award: 23 + 10 (brevity) XP
    GM-fun Award: 2 XP     (The plan was not particularly good. It was largely offscreenable, hence the low base XP. However, I did enjoy writing the Mari scene.)

    Vote time! What to do now?

    Voting ends on
     
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    • Oneiros said:
    The thing that's keeping Mari from being S-rank isn't more stats it's the fact that she (probably) doesn't have any techniques that lets her threaten other S-rankers
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    Honestly I think her match-up spread here is not bad, if her genjutsus are in the 80s
    Naruto: An explicit weakness of his
    Itachi: Well, if EJonin kurenai could hold him off, FOOM'd Mari might win...
    Kisame: He absorbs ninjutsu and chakra with his sword. Genjutsu could work around that (unless the sword absorbs it somehow)
    Hidan: His immortality is to physical damage
    Normal essie punchers like Jiraiya and F also don't have any exotic defenses we know of

    She's not going to no-sell everyone but S rank genjutsu is honestly seemingly a pretty good weapon against a good chunk of the S rankers we know of


    Oneiros said:
    and a way to survive their tricks when they strike back
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    ...this part is certainly true though. Her best defense is probably just going first. Even with S rank stats, that won't save her from stuff like Amaterasu (until we make the fire Sealing seal). Sasori is also probably just a hard counter. Who knows what Orochimaru is capable of, and resistant to. Etc

    Genjutsu probably won't cover that unless she makes weird variants that work on like sound and touch and such

    If she can hack more TLitF-tier stuff (IE violates conventional rules like only 1 target at a time) I think she's in good shape.
     
    Yeah I think we need to sink in that Skywalker time. I get that people have things they want to do, but we want Asuma kept sweet.
     
    MadScientist said:
    "Uh. Mari? Give me a few more months of FOOM, and I probably can survive hours of Special Hell per day without cracking. S-rank Resolve is nuts."
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    Idk if she's rolling at base 70 or 80 + bonuses (which seems a safe bet since she's beating other jonin like Jotaro, who are not pushovers) it's going to be more than a few months before Hazou can handle that
     
    I have vague recollections of drained shadow clones not sending memories/mental consequences up the chain, but that might have been a hypothesis and not fact. If it turns out to be the case, she could train with her own clones and Noburi's help.
     
    Shane_357 said:
    Yeah I think we need to sink in that Skywalker time. I get that people have things they want to do, but we want Asuma kept sweet.
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    I'm pretty sure we already know the seal, for what it's worth. We stacked together the mother of all sealing buffs back in the day and got it researched before we could even reliably infuse it. Then we put it on the backburner and, well, now we're good enough.

    It's still a permanent time commitment to dedicate ~500min a month to skywalker obligations, but ~15min/day isn't that bad.
     
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