You know, we've gathered a large amount of ninja. We should ensure that they all know the basics of how to prevent a pregnancy (Shikaku offered the knowledge to Kei when she first asked about extra-marital relationships, so we know it's somewhat of a concern). If one of our ninja accidentally impregnates a Hyuuga ninja, then Hinata's clan elders would riot.
I'd like to assume that it's common enough knowledge, but we have a diverse group of ninja under our Clan Name, and their knowledge may be... inaccurate to science.
You know, we've gathered a large amount of ninja. We should ensure that they all know the basics of how to prevent a pregnancy (Shikaku offered the knowledge to Kei when she first asked about extra-marital relationships, so we know it's somewhat of a concern). If one of our ninja accidentally impregnates a Hyuuga ninja, then Hinata's clan elders would riot.
I'd like to assume that it's common enough knowledge, but we have a diverse group of ninja under our Clan Name, and their knowledge may be... inaccurate to science.
Minor quibble: it's 30 seconds base (with the possibility to do it faster/slower if desired) to infuse any seal regardless of number of elements in the seal. Everything else you said is exactly correct
For the record, I'm not suggesting he does or can do this: I'm suggesting that he level Calligraphy (or whatever) to the point where he can scribe a Skywalker in the normal amount of time.
10.5 minutes is close enough to the time budget I allocated that the conclusion doesn't change. It's a half-hour per day; that's peanuts given that our average day has quite a bit more time in it. Random thought: do Shadow Clones have normal bodily functions? Do they need to eat, sleep, use the bathroom? I'm going to go ahead and assume that they need to breathe.
My question comes as a result of thinking we should have asked Orochimaru if bioseals transfer to Shadow Clones, and then wondering if they'd even need to.
My imagining is that they do need to do all these things, and that we should Not Question what happens to Shadow Clone excrement as long as we want to keep FOOMing.
10.5 minutes is close enough to the time budget I allocated that the conclusion doesn't change. It's a half-hour per day; that's peanuts given that our average day has quite a bit more time in it.
Random thought: do Shadow Clones have normal bodily functions? Do they need to eat, sleep, use the bathroom? I'm going to go ahead and assume that they need to breathe.
Hazō had discovered one of Central Fire's little secrets a couple of months ago, stumbling into it by sheer blind luck as he fled from a gleeful Kei (whose eyes had lit up with the fires of Naraka itself when he asked her for projectile evasion training). Not far from Leaf's walls, there lay a grassy knoll concealed by an array of maple trees that were too perfectly spread to possibly have grown there naturally, their expansive branches and dense layers of leaves offering privacy from prying eyes while at the same time granting a unique panorama of the village to those prepared to stand or sit in just the right place (and you could probably see all sorts of interesting things if you brought a telescope; it was a shame no such thing existed). According to Ino, in Leaf tree language the maple represented stability, balance, and serenity, making it an ideal place to spend time with Ami.
This afternoon, it had taken a little time to escape Gaku, who was developing a ninja-like sensitivity to when his lord was attempting to flee the compound while there was still important work to do. It had left Hazō fashionably late, and it turned out that there was significance to him being fashionably late, because otherwise he'd never have witnessed this.
Ami was dancing. Clad in a billowing blue and white sundress, complete with a straw hat, she was spinning around barefoot on the grass in a fashion that was either strikingly innocent, perfectly calculated to be strikingly innocent, or one of those veteran I&S things where you could be both at the same time because your body had forgotten how to move without deliberate effect. If it was the latter, an Iron Nerve wielder was hardly in a position to criticise.
Just standing there and watching her dance, while oddly tempting in its own way, seemed like it would be weird, and also guaranteed to get him teased afterwards, so he decided to come over and get her attention (noting, in the process, a white blanket and picnic basket sitting on standby).
Ami tags "Hazō Should Have Seen Something Like This Coming, But Fortunately Didn't"
Ami: Athletics ?? + ? + ? = ??
Hazō: Athletics 40 - 3 = 37
Ami wins.
Before Hazō could politely refuse, Ami snatched his hands and pulled him into a spin (naturally, he stayed on his feet even when surprised and off-balance because he was a skilled ninja who could rapidly adapt to any situation).
Step. Step. Spin. Step. Twist.
For a moment, Hazō wondered whether the best move was to disengage from this tomfoolery (she wasn't holding him that tight) and avoid setting the precedent that clan heads were to be randomly grabbed whenever Ami felt like it.
Then he got over himself. Gōketsu Hazō was not a man of ego. No, he would show her he could match her step for step, because he was about 30% a taijutsu specialist and had thus honed control over his body to a fine art.
Ami was laughing. Caught up in the moment, he grinned back.
Gradually, the randomness of the dance began to resolve itself into something regular. Hazō hadn't been able to put words around it the one time he'd tried to explain it to Kei, and honestly, he still couldn't, but there was something that happened to him that he thought was an Iron Nerve thing because he'd never heard anyone else mention it. When he found himself repeating the same movements without aiming to, when passive Iron Nerve recording layered over itself again and again in quick succession, it was… like feeling air currents with his fingertips. No, like standing in pulsating ocean waves. No, like reaching out to grasp déjà vu. No, like…
It was no good. He still couldn't do it. But the point was that it triggered something inside him that other things didn't, and it was being triggered now. Ami wasn't just messing around. Or rather, she was, but she was also drawing an elaborate pattern on the ground, something Hazō couldn't visualise while he was still in mid-dance.
Then she finally let go for real, and instead of stumbling as the leftover momentum carried him away, Gōketsu Hazō set his feet like this and this, and swept into an elegant Isanese bow (which he'd picked up from Noburi purely because it looked cool).
Ami curtsied.
"Milord is very light on his feet, it would seem."
"And milady continues to be an ambush predator."
She beckoned him towards the blanket.
"I spent the last week being rained on in Cloud," she said, "followed by being rained on some more on my journey back, so if I get to Leaf to find that it's perfect picnic weather, then by Byakuren's hefty mast, I'm going to have a picnic. Unless you have a better idea?"
"A picnic is fine with me," Hazō said.
"You want to know the irony of it all?" Ami asked, reaching for the picnic basket. "I was only in Cloud when the thunderstorms hit because I managed to talk my way out of having to visit Rain."
"Rain?"
"Yeah," Ami said. "You know how Akatsuki sort of split up into small groups after Nagi Island, and mostly kept to themselves with only the occasional massacre? I guess I ended that. Oops."
"Oops?" Hazō repeated, as if Ami hadn't just confessed to recreating the most powerful destructive force known to man.
"I guess I could upgrade it to a 'yikes'," Ami said. "But there's a sense in which it's a good thing. Pain's vision of peace was what kept them together in the first place—somehow—so if they've reunited, that suggests they're taking my attempt at world peace seriously. We need that, or AMITY risks falling apart the first time somebody defects, which they will because people. But on lighter topics!"
"Oh, I've got one," Hazō said as she began to unpack mysterious sandwiches. "How do you feel about Gōketsu-style shaved ice?"
"I would love some," Ami said. "What's Gōketsu-style shaved ice?"
Hazō brought out the storage seal.
"The ice is all water from the air of the Gōketsu compound, made by Noburi using his Condense Water cantrip for just such an occasion." Albeit yesterday rather than last winter, thanks to Elemental Mastery. "Kei researched the recipe, and Akane shaved the ice. The syrup is a Yuno special, though we had to swap out a couple of ingredients for Fire ones, and I made this magnificent quartz bowl and spoon myself."
Ami sat very still and just stared at the dessert.
"It's yours if you want it, Ami," Hazō said gently. "Just reach out and take it."
There was silence, and Hazō could hear the maple leaves rustling in the summer breeze.
Slowly, Ami reached out and took the bowl and spoon.
She took a bite, and Hazō let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.
"Mmm. My compliments to the chefs," Ami said in the voice of an Ami being perfectly casual and laid-back. "If you ever feel like getting away from all this madness, I bet Frost Country will welcome you with open arms."
"You realise that soliciting a Leaf ninja to go missing is unquestionably treason, right?"
"Peer pressure's a terrible thing," Ami said with a grin. "It's appalling what some people will do to fit in."
Hazō rolled his eyes. "I did have something else for you, but I'm already starting to wonder if I'm going to need it more than you do."
"Do tell."
Hazō pulled out the flask. "Willowbark tea. You said you got headaches sometimes."
"I have my own, thanks," Ami said. "Besides, I plan for them in advance. But I do appreciate the gesture. It's really sweet of you—much like the shaved ice. I would ask Yuno for the recipe, but I don't think I have any assassination missions coming up.
"So how was your trip to the eastern continent? Noburi said he couldn't tell me what it was, but he didn't direct me to the Tower, so I assume it was a clan thing? Summoning scroll, forbidden lore, hobnobbing with more Akatsuki? No, scratch that last one, Hidan's on the mainland."
Hazō was vaguely aware that he was on a Hidan timer: one of these days, his self-proclaimed religious superior would turn up to see him, and he didn't care if Hazō was outed as a Jashin worshipper in front of the entirety of Leaf.
(Was Hazō a Jashin worshipper? Or, perhaps more importantly, did Jashin consider him one?)
"No comment," Hazō said. The odds of Ami sending somebody after the Squirrel Scroll, or going after it herself, were pretty low, and the odds of her succeeding where he'd failed were lower still. He still wasn't going to bet against her if he could possibly avoid it.
"We did have quite an adventure on the way back, though," Hazō said. "So back when I was lending Orochimaru the Dragon parts for research, one of the things he paid me with—"
"Hold the ravenous chakra sheep," Ami interrupted. "You've been doing what to the what now?"
"Lending Orochimaru the Dragon parts for research," Hazō said. "We need countermeasures, and he's the only person in Leaf with a decent chance of using the parts to figure something out. Also, they're incredibly valuable to him and pretty much nobody else, and we've been getting great deals out of it."
Ami put down the sandwich she'd been in the middle of eating. "Hazō, Orochimaru's research is how he made himself an unkillable, terrifying monster. At least with the FGP, he'd have kidnapped somebody anyway. Now you're giving him access to levels of power that make summon bosses run and hide?"
Hazō was forced to admit that wasn't an angle he'd considered—though, thinking about it, he wasn't sure if it would have stopped him. An invincible Orochimaru in the future was still better than unstoppable Dragons now.
"It's a moot point now anyway," he said. "I decided to sell him the parts, and I doubt he'd give them back if I asked."
"Welp," Ami said, "I guess that's a new apocalypse scenario to add to my collection. Anything else you want to get off your chest while I ponder how to convince Kei to flee to another continent with me?"
"Actually, yeah," Hazō said. "Since we're on the subject of Orochimaru… I've seen the Final Gift Programme with my own eyes now. One of the things I bargained for the parts was answers to some questions, and he made me assist with a vivisection while we talked."
Ami winced. "No wonder there's a shadow hanging over you. The first one's always the worst."
"Wait, what?"
"Every kink under the sun."
Hazō reeled as his imagination fired up things he absolutely did not want it to fire up, and asked questions to which he would pay not to know the answers. Dressing dripped out of the half-eaten sandwich in his hand and he didn't even notice until a few seconds later.
"Just kidding," Ami said with a wink. "No, there was this biosealer I had to seduce when I was around your age. He was plotting against Yagura—thought he could disrupt the jinchūriki seal and leave him powerless long enough for a dagger in the back—and we needed to know who was backing him, but Mist policy is not to take biosealers into T&I if you can avoid it; they have a nasty habit of implanting themselves with explosive suicide seals and other fun surprises. Buuut the guy was a crazy hermit, like a lot of biosealers, so I couldn't just get him drunk in a bar. I had to weasel my way into getting hired as an assistant. Long story short, he gave me education in anatomy that most people would pay a mint to get. Or maybe pay a mint not to get, depending on how you look at it."
Hazō shuddered.
"Were you at all tempted to just let him do his thing? Yagura getting assassinated seems like it would have been a dream come true."
Ami shrugged. "I won't pretend I didn't think about it. But there were all sorts of reasons why it would've been a bad idea, and the big one was that he turned out to be backed by Leaf, which would've rolled in and conquered us the second Yagura went down.
"The story has a happy ending, though. You know creativity isn't a Mori speciality, but once I asked myself 'What would Mari-sensei do?', the answer came practically by itself. He had a bunch of civilian kids in a cellar, because apparently creating artificial ninja is a philosopher's stone of biosealing. I just tied him to his own operating table, laid the tools out in front of the kids, told them to go wild, and walked away. Yagura was pissed with me for not staying to make sure he was dead, but he also thought egregious cruelty in executing a traitor showed I was ideologically sound. He went light on the punishment—for Yagura, anyway—and in the long run it probably contributed to my jōnin promotion."
"Wait," Hazō said. "Wasn't the whole point of not torturing him that he might have had an explosive suicide seal?"
"Those kids weren't going to live long anyway after what he did to them," Ami said. "Worst-case scenario, at least they'd die smiling.
"But enough of my trip down memory lane. You're the one with fresh trauma to talk through."
"…yeah." Hazō fell silent for a second as the images bubbled up, followed closely by the sounds. Noda's missing leg. Her blank eyes. Her helpless, ever quieter whimpers.
"Did you know Noda Kaiyo?" he asked.
Ami shook her head. "She was KEI, so I'd have been a failure as a Mori if I didn't have her dossier memorised, but no, not personally. She didn't come to KEI meetings or sign up for the Network or make voluntary contributions or anything like that. She just lived her life, until I guess she didn't. I knew her fiancé, if that helps."
"She had a fiancé?!"
"Mmm," Ami said. "Troubled kid, with circumstances, but nice. They got engaged not long before the war. I thought they were rushing it, personally, but then again, they never got to marry, so maybe they weren't rushing enough. I guess she signed up to the FGP for his sake while I was away."
"I tried to help her once," Hazō said quietly. "She was on the adoption shortlist, but she refused. She caught my attention as a ninjutsu developer, because it's a rare skill and the Gōketsu don't have it, but after meeting her, I also thought we could be a found family for her. I could see her rejecting connections with other people, and I thought this might be her second chance. Maybe that's arrogant, but I just saw somebody in front of me and wanted to help her. I should have tried harder."
"You can't help somebody who doesn't want to be helped, Hazō," Ami said. "It's one of the most basic truths. If you offered her a found family, and she didn't want one, or she was on the edge but didn't dare take the step, or she couldn't even admit that the step was there, that wasn't something you had the power to change. You can't save somebody who denies that they need saving, Hazō. All you can do is choose either to watch or to walk away."
And Hazō had walked away.
"I know I can't save everyone," Hazō said. "I'm not omnipotent. My hands only reach so far. But I hoped… I hoped she'd at least meet a better end than that. She deserved a better end than that. She survived the Great Collapse. She survived the war. Apparently she even found love. Somebody like that deserves better than to just waltz into Orochimaru's lair to be tortured to death. With my help."
"I don't think the world runs off 'deserve'," Ami said. "Nobody rewards the virtuous. Nobody punishes the sinful. It's a sweet delusion to believe that there's a balance waiting to be restored. It also implies that there's somebody out there who does deserve to be tortured to death by Orochimaru. I don't think you believe that, no matter what you might think in moments of rage."
Hazō wondered about that. He thought about Lord Hagoromo, who was willing to ruin the lives of dozens of innocents just so he could feel good about his own moral purity. He thought about Yagura, who trampled the spirits of an entire village in his personal quest for a cold perfection. He thought about Hidan, who laughed as he butchered human beings just like himself on a geographical scale.
But then he saw Noda, immobilised, vomiting up monstrosities while her gaze was filled with a despair so distilled you could barely tell it apart from emptiness.
Hazō did not want to be the one judging who did and didn't deserve that fate. That was a burden too heavy for anybody with a soul.
Once it floated up, the image didn't go away. The slug thing… somehow that was the worst. Even Orochimaru cutting into Noda with a scalpel didn't have the same sense of violation of her human dignity, like she was less than a person, less than an animal, just... a substrate.
He hadn't talked to the others about what he'd experienced, not in any detail. They couldn't turn back time. They couldn't make it right. It would only hurt them. He didn't want them to feel even a shadow of what he'd felt at the time. For Noburi and Akane, and in a way even Kagome-sensei, who could be both grimly cynical and eerily innocent by turns, it was a darkness they should never touch if they didn't have to. For Mari and Yuno, it was a darkness they shouldn't be reminded of while they were still turning towards the light. For Kei… he would never tell Kei what had so nearly been done to her.
But Ami… Ami knew.
"It was the inhumanity." His voice came out low, like he both wanted and didn't want her to hear. "She was just lying there, not saying anything, not fighting back. Just a few whimpers. There was some kind of creature inside her, and she vomited it up, and nothing. He cut into her, and nothing. I handed him a bonesaw, for sawing through bone. Did he do something to her, before? Had she just given up? If she'd just screamed, it would've made sense. It would've been a horror that made sense. But she looked at me and didn't know who I was. She just let it happen. I saw her scared of him, it wasn't like she was unconscious, but he treated her like a body and she acted like a body. I know she signed up for it, but she should've fought. Fighting is instinct. You have to fight. But she just whimpered, and then she stopped because I made her. Why didn't she fight back when he was cutting her apart like meat at the butcher's?"
Ami listened silently.
"I saw her, and I felt sick, and at the same time I was this cold person who asked Orochimaru questions because they needed to be asked, and let him stand there and violate her because he was Orochimaru and I was just the child snatching scraps from his table, and every other minute I was scared because I thought he was going to hurt me, but I was never scared for her because I'd just accepted that she was dead. I accepted it, and there is still that part of me that knows it's hopeless and I can't fight him, and I should go about my daily business while he gets the next Noda prepped for surgery, and I should be in pain but I'm not!"
At some point, Ami had shifted over to sit next to him.
"I hate it!" he spat. "I hate that I am in this world where it's the right thing to do. I hate that all I can do is make plans and move pieces around a shogi board and whenever I'm faced with real evil I bow down just because it's strong and I'm weak! I hate that my strength is my intellect and I can't even come up with anything that trumps the Final Gift Programme that does this! I hate that we need Orochimaru, and we need his strength, when just knowing he exists is poison, and letting him exist is poison, and every minute I do it, it's like he's inside my veins. I'm just like Noda, lying there and not fighting back while he sinks his fangs in me, only I'm supposed to have a choice!"
"Yeah," Ami said softly. "I know."
Hazō hadn't even noticed that his hands were gripping the sheet in front of him.
Ami put an arm around his shoulder as he looked down at those hands and that sheet.
"It was the same with Nashi. I felt so powerless, standing there and doing everything I could to help him because the mission came first, and I needed him to be satisfied so he'd let down his guard. I screamed at the kids in my head. Part of me hated them, for not fighting back, for letting themselves get caught, for being the reason I was doing this. Even though I knew how absurd that was. I should have been hating him, and only him, but it was like… it was like he was an animal. No matter how monstrous he was, I was the one with free will. I was the one choosing to enable him. And even as I stood there, I knew I'd keep doing it, because it was what the mission demanded. I'd serve him faithfully, and then I'd sleep with him and hope this was the night he slipped up and gave me what I needed. And every morning, I'd know that if I'd only been better at seduction, today would have been the last day.
"After a while, the horror is just… more horror. I can promise you that much. The Ami before that mission probably couldn't have made the Final Gift Programme—and then she'd have been devoured, and everyone else would be living in the world Orochimaru created instead of a compromise that makes some things better.
"The first time is the hardest. And slowly, you learn to contextualise the things you have to do, and you learn to make peace with the part of yourself that knows it's necessary to do them. You never want the pain to go down to zero, because once you lose your humanity there's no way to get it back, but you can learn to put things in the right boxes without having to drown in them or throw them away.
"It probably won't work for you the way it worked for me, because that would require you to be insane in the exact same way I'm insane, but I know you of all people can do it. Besides, you have one enormous advantage I didn't."
Hazō looked up at her questioningly.
"Me."
Hazō's first thought was that of course Ami had had Ami, by definition, but on reflection, he wasn't so sure.
Ami lifted her arm off his shoulders and moved around to face him.
"The other thing is… Orochimaru tried to kill Kei. I hate him more for that than a normal person is capable of hating anybody. I will smile and nod at him for as long as I have to, but one day I will kill him with the power you promised me, with your help if you'll give it, and on that day the Final Gift Programme will be ash."
There was no jōnin aura. No ice. Hazō didn't know what to make of it.
While Hazō was still processing this, she moved back and gave a traditional Ami smirk. "Look at me, being all treasonous. It's lucky ANBU's been left so understaffed and I am—depressingly—one of Leaf's more experienced jōnin. So treason away, Hazō! You're safe from everyone but me while I'm around."
"I think," Hazō said, "if the Hokage actually considered people wanting to kill Orochimaru to be treason, Leaf would have run out of killboxes by now.
"But thank you, Ami. That… helps."
"Any time," Ami said. "Except in front of other people, because that would be embarrassing."
"Yes, Ami," Hazō said. "You are so well-known for being easily embarrassed."
"I'm a regular shrinking violet," Ami agreed. "Why, just being in the presence of a boy is making me want to run away and hide."
"Oh, yeah," Hazō remembered. "Orochimaru seemed to think we were engaged. Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"
Ami gave him a look of the purest innocence, which might even have worked if she wasn't Ami. (Hazō wasn't sure how that worked, given that Ami's exceptional social skills were one of her primary features.)
"You mean other than that we're engaged?"
Hazō slowly and demonstratively brought the flask of willowbark tea out and took a swig.
"Ami, we are not engaged. That would have required somebody to propose, and I am confident that hasn't happened."
"Are you sure?" Ami asked. "Because you did—"
Hazō held up his hand. "Ami, if I were to propose to you, it would be a mindblowing, unforgettable experience that would sweep you completely off your feet and leave you daydreaming about me and our upcoming wedding every spare minute of the day. I am confident that I haven't done anything like that. Ergo, we are not engaged."
"Mmm," Ami said thoughtfully. "Now I feel shortchanged by your actual proposal."
"What actual proposal?"
"A funny thing happened shortly after the end of the war," Ami said. "I was visiting the temporary barracks where the Isan ninja were being stationed, and I had my hair in that lovely braid you taught me…"
Ah, crap.
"And wouldn't you know, it turns out that's a triple double Isanese braid. They were so freaked out. And then one of them kindly explained to me that it means 'I am an unmarried woman between 18 and 26 who was born under the star of chaos, and will give myself only to a man who can overwhelm me in a duel of wits', which is amazingly specific for a hairstyle. And I kindly explained to him that you gave me this braid and then immediately overwhelmed me in a duel of wits. Or whelmed me to a draw, anyway.
"Given that Kabuto visited the Isanese contingent a whole bunch of times before they left—them having no medical ninjutsu and him wanting to secretly check them for Bloodline Limits—I'm really not surprised it got as far as it did.
"So, lover boy, when's the wedding?"
All right. Apparently this one was entirely on him.
"Ami," he began, "me braiding your hair like that was a prank, and it was in no way meant to constitute a proposal."
"Ah, I get it," Ami said. "You picked the specific phrasing because you want me to give myself to you without marriage, leaving the position free for Akane or Ino or whoever's next on the list. That certainly would explain this hidden spot away from both Leaf and your compound. As ways to acquire a mistress without tipping off any of your legitimate lovers go, full points for creativity. Zero points for effectiveness, though—I wonder how far the rumour's spread in the time we've both been away."
"No, Ami, that wasn't—"
Then Hazō had what was either a brilliant or a terrible idea. No, it was almost certainly a terrible idea. But, sealmaster that he was, now that he'd thought of it, it was impossible for him not to try it.
"Yes, Ami," he declared, "that was in fact a proposal of marriage."
"Oh?"
"However," Hazō went on, emboldened by the fact that the world hadn't ended with those words, "it was conditional on my victory in the duel of wits. But I did not win, so it is impossible for you to have accepted my proposal."
"Mmm?"
"Nor did I lose, so it is impossible for you to have rejected it."
"Ah."
"In fact," Hazō concluded, "because of the draw, we now exist in a perfect suspended state of demi-proposal, and for as long as it is unresolved, it is physically impossible for anything I say or do to count as me proposing to you."
"Bravo, Hazō." Ami actually clapped. "Now that's the kind of intellectual tour de force I expect from my demi-fiancé."
"Thank you, thank you," Hazō said. "I trust there are no further complaints?"
"None at all," Ami said. "I can honestly say you've beaten me this time. In fact, one might say you've overwhelmed me in a duel of wits."
"Ah, crap."
-o-
You have received 4 + 1 (Brevity) + 1 (Fun-to-write) = 6 XP.
-o-
You have successfully completed research on the skywalker seal. You have not had time to start a new project.
Given that we have now actually finished a Chakra Adhesion project of moderate complexity (Skywalkers), it's probably possible for the Chakra Adhesion Button seals to be made, since those are merely a more simple LBF seal + CA.
there was something that happened to him that he thought was an Iron Nerve thing because he'd never heard anyone else mention it. When he found himself repeating the same movements without aiming to, when passive Iron Nerve recording layered over itself again and again in quick succession, it was… like feeling air currents with his fingertips. No, like standing in pulsating ocean waves. No, like reaching out to grasp déjà vu. No, like…
It was no good. He still couldn't do it. But the point was that it triggered something inside him that other things didn't, and it was being triggered now.
Thickest Iron Nerve blood, straight from the clan founder
I wonder if clan training would have given him better ability to analyse and develop movement-related skills. Iron Nerve x sword-wielding seems naturally overpowered, and Roki is quite nice too, but I can imagine a dance-like hard-soft taijutsu style focused on constant footing and angle changes with precise strikes and flow building/disrupting to maximise disorientation. Plus whatever this feeling he has actually is? To be honest that could be anything from random feedback to the key to supreme executive arcane power. Guess we'll need to ask Ami to help cement the pure Mist-Leaf alliance by making Ren's freedom or some of her privileges depend on getting us clan training. And the Nagi Island seal array, obviously.
I say meh. Meh I say. We're obviously going to cheat when we get around to killing Snuncle. It's like Lord English - immortal means "find an exploit", not "it's over". Glitch him out of reality, sic the Watchers on him, throw him into some of the Paths he doesn't want us to know about, seal him into a newborn, or if he was dumb enough to incorporate a Dragon-like thing into himself, as "so sad collateral damage from sealing the Dragons back into the butte".
It was no good. He still couldn't do it. But the point was that it triggered something inside him that other things didn't, and it was being triggered now. Ami wasn't just messing around. Or rather, she was, but she was also drawing an elaborate pattern on the ground, something Hazō couldn't visualise while he was still in mid-dance.
"I would love some," Ami said. "What's Gōketsu-style shaved ice?"
Hazō brought out the storage seal.
"The ice is all water from the air of the Gōketsu compound, made by Noburi using his Condense Water cantrip for just such an occasion." Albeit yesterday rather than last winter, thanks to Elemental Mastery. "Kei researched the recipe, and Akane shaved the ice. The syrup is a Yuno special, though we had to swap out a couple of ingredients for Fire ones, and I made this magnificent quartz bowl and spoon myself."
Ami sat very still and just stared at the dessert.
"It's yours if you want it, Ami," Hazō said gently. "Just reach out and take it."
There was silence, and Hazō could hear the maple leaves rustling in the summer breeze.
Slowly, Ami reached out and took the bowl and spoon.
She took a bite, and Hazō let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.
"Mmm. My compliments to the chefs," Ami said in the voice of an Ami being perfectly casual and laid-back.
I say meh. Meh I say. We're obviously going to cheat when we get around to killing Snuncle. It's like Lord English - immortal means "find an exploit", not "it's over". Glitch him out of reality, sic the Watchers on him, throw him into some of the Paths he doesn't want us to know about, seal him into a newborn, or if he was dumb enough to incorporate a Dragon-like thing into himself, as "so sad collateral damage from sealing the Dragons back into the butte".
This scene was originally much neater, but then I realised that the Gōketsu would not be foolish enough to give Ami any clue as to the existence of Elemental Mastery.
Agreed that this is a good idea, especially due to the emphasis placed on the Iron Nerve in the scene. Shouldnt even be difficult to look into, just do the dance in some sand or something. But this would be an incredibly Ami way to pass some info.
This scene was originally much neater, but then I realised that the Gōketsu would not be foolish enough to give Ami any clue as to the existence of Elemental Mastery.
Bah. It's a good scene. It speaks in both direct language and a hidden social spec language, with implications being there. It's wholesome and lovely and angsty and comforting. It's absolutely lovely, it shows Ami's immediate grasp of Hazou's intentions, being shocked by them and the collective effort of the gesture (Mari noticably absent), and is an immensely great example of literature and social maneuvering.
The training plan has been implemented. Orochimaru is now suffering from the Mild mental Consequence "Unnerved", the Moderate mental Consequence "Aghast", and the Severe mental Consequence "I Am a Monster". He has also received a backlog of 57 TYS points.
The training plan has been implemented. Orochimaru is now suffering from the Mild mental Consequence "Unnerved", the Moderate mental Consequence "Aghast", and the Severe mental Consequence "I Am a Monster". He has also received a backlog of 57 TYS.
Agreed that this is a good idea, especially due to the emphasis placed on the Iron Nerve in the scene. Shouldnt even be difficult to look into, just do the dance in some sand or something. But this would be an incredibly Ami way to pass some info.
The training plan has been implemented. Orochimaru is now suffering from the Mild mental Consequence "Unnerved", the Moderate mental Consequence "Aghast", and the Severe mental Consequence "I Am a Monster". He has also received a backlog of 57 TYS.
