Look, there's only so many options. Either Hazō and everyone else dies, everyone else dies, everyone but the people we care about dies, or no one dies!
1/2 we're fine, 1/4 Hazō is fine and gets to make some truly epic Why You Suck speeches, and 1/4 we get to go hunting for Pain.
Look, there's only so many options. Either Hazō and everyone else dies, everyone else dies, everyone but the people we care about dies, or no one dies!
1/2 we're fine, 1/4 Hazō is fine and gets to make some truly epic Why You Suck speeches, and 1/4 we get to go hunting for Pain.
A fourth hunting call, a howling, echoing laugh, emerged from the valley below them, by the copse of trees beside the river they had been paralleling. The Horizon Chasers stopped.
"And that makes four," Canzon said as the dogs around her raised their ears and growled. "Aaaaand we're surrounded. Well, the plan's shot, and something tells me they didn't bring all their little prairie-rats together because they wanted to chat. Any bright ideas, Summoner?"
Principles of combat, terrain elements, known capabilities of his allies, and overall strategic objectives tumbled through Hazō's mind. The terrain was...not ideal, but it could have been far worse. He and his charges had been hiking up into the rocky foothills of Hyena territory. The ground was covered in low, scraggly bushes that had been pale green in the daylight and were now indistinct blobs in the night. The team had stopped amidst a bare and rocky patch that was roughly a circle and roughly twenty yards across. The rocks along the northern side of the circle overhung enough to provide shelter for the least combat-capable dogs in the group. There was a series of short cliffs behind them and another ranging from their front to their three o'clock. A couple hundred yards to the west were several large tumbles of rock. To the east, the land sloped down to the river. An enemy coming from the north would be unseen until it was directly above them, but nothing was perfect. The sky above was mostly clear. The wind had died, leaving the air almost still; the dogs were unlikely to scent attackers coming.
All this swept through Hazō's evaluation in two brief seconds and then a plan had crystallized. He placed his fingers in a cross and said, "Shadow Clone!" Four new Hazōs appeared, quickly collected the pre-prepared stacks of seals that Hazō handed them, slotted the skywalker seals into their sandals, and spread out.
"Noncombatants, gather 'round!" two of the Hazōs called out, pulling lengths of rope from their seals. Meanwhile, the other two Hazōs produced the pieces of a skytower and snapped them together with practiced speed.
"Hey!" / "Whoa!" squeaked Canajong and Canamo, the pack's two puppies. The skytower clones had each grabbed a puppy in one arm, their side of the platform in the other, and were sprinting into the sky.
"What are you doing, Summoner?" Canzon demanded.
"We aren't going to win against four packs," the Summoner said. "We need to get everyone out of here, starting with the noncombatants. Two of my clones are going to set up a skytower high enough that we're out of jutsu range. It's nighttime; if we get everyone up there the hyenas will sweep on by and we can move on later."
Canzon looked up at where the clones were faint silhouettes against the dark brown sky, legs pumping as they climbed higher and higher. She looked back at Hazō. "How exactly are you going to get us up there?"
"There's no time to make harnesses," he said, wincing as though the words pained him. "Everyone bite down on these ropes and the three of us"—he waved at his two clones—"will carry you up to the platform. We'll have to go in groups, but we'll take the noncombatants first."
Canzon blinked. "Are you mad? There's no way. You aren't strong enough to carry all of us in one batch, there isn't time for two batches, and it wouldn't work anyway. People would tear their teeth out and plummet to their deaths."
"Ma'am, there's no time to argue this," he said. "They're going to be on us in seconds."
"That's not a workable plan, Summoner."
He gritted his teeth. "Fine." He jerked his head at the two clones. They pounced, one of them yanking the two trackers off their feet and throwing them over his shoulders while the other grabbed Cancan, the pack's den mother. Both clones grunted their way into the sky, clearly struggling with the weight and snarling at their burdens to stop squirming.
Hazō ignored the byplay and gestured towards the overhang. "Hunters, under the overhang. Fighters, form up with me in the center. The clones will keep an eye out from above to warn us about attackers coming from the north. We don't have to kill them all, we only have to hold them back until the skytower is set up and the noncombatants are safe. With that done, my clones will skywalk over attackers and rain down explosives and fire."
Canzon nodded, her eyes gleaming hungrily. "Now this is a plan I can get behind. Canyon, Canny, you've got the west arc. The Summoner is in the center, I'm to the east. The rest of you, under the overhang."
"But..." Canonical said, looking from side to side. She was licking her chops nervously and her eyes were wide. "They're awfully big, ma'am."
Canzon's ear twitched in a complex feeling that she couldn't quite tease apart—amusement, frustration, pride, something...
"Just think of them as teeny-tiny little bison," she said. "Now listen to the Summoner and get under the overhang!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Canonical squeaked.
Canonical, Cantle, and Canteen, the three hunters of the tiny and newborn Horizon Chasers pack, hurried under the overhang as ordered. They were young, and lazy enough that they had never been interested in learning to fight as opposed to the easy job of hunting. This was probably the first time they had ever been in actual danger in their lives. Unsurprisingly, they were licking their chops nervously...but they were also facing out and ready to fight. Canzon nodded in satisfaction. Frightened or not, they did the Dog Clan proud.
"We can—"
"Storm Element: Wind's Grasp!"
Hazō would never finish saying what they could do; something grabbed him in an invisible paw and hurled him away and out of sight in a blink.
A frisson of terror rippled down Canzon's back. Hints of movement showed hyenas coming in from three sides and the team had lost potentially their strongest guardian in the opening seconds of the fight.
"Eyes up!" she snapped, sweeping her eyes frantically over the darkness to the east.
"Two west!" Canny said.
"Unknown, south!" Canyon said.
Canzon could feel her breathing accelerating and she had to fight down generations of canine instinct to whirl upon those who intended harm to her pack, to join with her pack in destroying their foes, to snap and rend and bite— No. She needed a cool head, and she needed to find the son of a cat who had done for their Summoner.
The world became muffled around her, as though she were sticking her head underwater; there was still sound there, but it was quiet and distant and strange. She cursed and ignored it.
There!
A hyena had been lying flat amidst the bushes about fifty yards to the east, looking like just another unremarkable blob in the darkness. It must have crawled on its belly from the rock pile in order to get close enough for a preemptive strike, but now it had made the mistake of turning its head in order to watch where the Summoner had been thrown. (Was it possible he was still alive?!)
"Star Element: Nova Burst!" Canzon barked, the chakra-infused words tearing their way out of her throat.
Silvery light burst forth from her body, condensed into a point, and lanced out in a beam two feet wide. The thermal bloom set the grass on fire in a straight line from caster to target, throwing the entire battlefield into sanguine relief. For one single instant, sound ceased to exist in the world as the silence of the void clamped down...and then it returned with a blast so loud that she felt it in her chest. Her target was thrown back, fur on fire, flesh smoking, and bounced three times before coming to a halt. It twitched slightly and managed to roll back to its belly, paws moving with the incoherence of a fighter whose bell had been severely rung.
A fighter whose bell had been rung but who was going to get up in another few seconds. Hopefully the Summoner would be back in the game by then, if he was indeed still alive. She had bought him as much time as she could and she needed to protect the others now.
She turned to find that much had happened in the seconds she had been distracted. Three hyenas had already joined the dogs in their rocky little arena and four more would be here in seconds. Canyon, the second strongest Horizon Chasers fighter after Canzon herself, was trapped inside a crystalline hyena skull the size of a transport sled. A sickly purple cord of whirling chakra led south from the skull back to the hyena that had had cast it and was (presumably) maintaining it.
Canyon's brother, Canny, a deep-chested dog with black spots and powerful jaws, had dragged two of the initial attackers into a whirling, writhing, biting ball of fury. He wasn't losing, but he wasn't winning either; none of the three could get a solid blow in on their opponents. The third hyena had slipped around the battle and was in midair, descending on her and only two feet away with powerful jaws gaping wide to bite her in half. Her chakra was still chaotic from the Nova Blast and it would be another moment before she could form another one. It was too close to dodge. She—
The monster was tackled out of the air by a combined rush from Canonical, Cantle, and Canteen. None of them were more than forty pounds and the three of them together didn't mass as much as the hyena, but they hit it with three perfectly synchronized shoulder rushes and knocked it ass over nose.
"We've got this, ma'am!" Cantle squeaked. "It's just a teeny bison!" He dashed forward, snapping at the hyena's haunch as he went. The massive animal spun to face him but Cantle was already out of range and Canonical was coming in on its flank, teeth bared.
The hyena caught Canonical's approach from the corner of its eye and spun to face her. She pivoted adroitly on her paws and reversed course, the tip of her tail losing a few hairs as the hyena's jaws snapped closed on where her head would have been.
Canteen got her teeth into the hyena's haunch and locked down hard, drawing a shriek from the monster. It spun, practically folding itself in half to get at her, but she stayed ahead of it and didn't let go. She didn't try to tear or rip at its flesh; that wasn't her job. Her job was to hold its attention and stay alive.
Canonical came in on the hyena's off side, going for its throat. At the same instant, Cantle went for its right rear ankle to lame it in case the killing stroke failed.
The hyena reversed course so fast that Canteen was yanked off her feet with a startled yip. It lunged, head low and rising up under Canonical's attack. It got its jaws into her throat and clamped down with a bite force that could crack bone; a shake of its head and Canonical's corpse hit the dirt, her head connected to her body only by her spine. At the same time, the hyena swatted Cantle aside with a kick that sent him flying, stopping abruptly when he hit a rock headfirst. The young dog yipped and collapsed, visibly dazed and struggling to make his paws work.
o-o-o-o
"We can—"
"Storm Element: Wind's Grasp!"
Hazō would never finish saying what they could do; an invisible vice clamped around him with force that would have crushed his ribcage had his Pangolin Conditioning Jutsu not protected him before breaking. He had no time to react before he was hurled to the north, ragdolling through the sky, shrieking in fear as the world flickered around him: flashes of grass and rocks, sky, an incoming pack of red-eyed hyenas, more sky—
Acting purely on instinct, he triggered his skywalkers and then instantly shut them off again, screaming in agony as the force of his motion jammed sideways against his knee while his feet stayed locked in place. He flickered the skywalkers in tiny pulses until the enemy jutsu broke and he once more had control of himself.
A dozen-ish hyenas were racing towards him, massive hindquarters bunching and extending smoothly as terrifying cackles trilled from their lips. Had he not had his skywalkers, he would have landed right in the middle of them.
Too much was happening too fast; his brain was scrambling to find its place again as the fear and pain and dizziness tore through his mental control and left him confused.
"Star Element: Nova Burst!" Canzon barked from far behind him.
The world went utterly silent for the duration of one fast-racing heartbeat, and then there was a catastrophe of sound and light from back where the dogs fought. It was accompanied by a hyena's high-pitched scream and the sound of fire.
A thousand battles, ten thousand lessons, and a hundred thousand hours of ninja training dragged him back to himself, reminded him of what mattered and what his duty was.
"Got a joke for you, you laughing assholes," Hazō whispered with a tight smile to the yipping, cackling hyenas charging from the north. His hands moved to touch the relevant pockets of his CHAOS suit and two pulses of chakra activated a pair of seals.
The first, a Multiple Activation Relay Seal, triggered the Banshee Slayer seal on the collars worn by both Hazō and his canine charges. Hazō had been forcing the dogs to wear the collars ever since this trip started and all of them had been piiiissed about it, constantly complaining that they found the things itchy and restrictive. Hazō had explained the reasoning, urged, cajoled, pointed out that he was wearing an identical collar, and finally ordered them to wear the things under his Cannai-granted authority as their security officer. It hadn't stopped the complaining, but it had stopped the actual attempts to remove the collars. It had also cost him a lot of goodwill, but that was paying off now as the Banshee Slayer seals on each of the collars activated, bubbling the dogs' (and Hazō's) heads in a protective sphere of near-silence. It would make it harder for them to know what was happening around them, but it would also protect them from what came next.
The second seal Hazō activated was one of Jiraiya's favorite toys: a Banshee Fucker. It screamed forth a ululating wail so loud that it reduced Canzon's Nova Burst explosion to a delicate sneeze, a wail so loud that it would be audible for miles in every direction. It was like the end of the world in sonic form, and Hazō was wearing it in the left shoulderblade pocket of his CHAOS suit. Heavy padding had been sewn underneath it in order to muffle the vibrations; simply being near it was painful, and having it actually in contact with your flesh had a habit of causing embarrassing side effects such as internal bleeding and collapsing lungs.
The hyenas who had been charging down on him—ten, not twelve, now that he had a chance to count—collapsed and skidded, rolling across the rocks and dirt as they wailed in pain and struggled to block their ears.
Hazō ignored them, not even taking the time to dig out, prime, and hurl an explosive. Canzon's jutsu had lit several hundred square meters of grass on fire, providing more than enough light to make out what was happening on the battlefield. Specifically, it showed two of the dogs down, one entombed and motionless, and the rest beset.
He charged, legs pumping hard as his skywalkers allowed him to skip past all the rocks and holes and bad footing. He went up and east, looping over where Canzon's Nova Burst victim was struggling back to its paws and looking for a way out of the flames that surrounded it. The hyena collapsed again as the ongoing onslaught of Hazō's Banshee Fucker approached and in the light of the flames he could see traces of blood coming from the creature's ears. His teeth bared without his conscious intent, a vicious glee in his heart as he saw his enemy humbled by the power of seals, the power of human intellect. A tiny whisper in the back of his mind warned him that padding and Banshee Slayers only did so much and that he would suffer the same fate as the hyena if he kept the Banshee Fucker so close to his body for long. He could already feel the pain in his bones, the nausea in his belly.
From behind him, hyena voices shouted. "Storm Element: Sky Strike!" / "Metal Element: Iron Bullet!"
Hazō hurled himself to the side and cut his skywalkers, dropping from the sky and rolling across the ground. He clutched instinctively for his chakra, desperate to trigger the familiar enhancement of chakra boost that would lend speed and precision to his evasion, but there was nothing there. His chakra coils were empty from creating the Shadow Clones, barely enough left to sustain life, and he cursed as his body refused to enhance itself.
A bolt of lightning crashed down from the sky, passing right through where he would have been had he continued forward; it turned the ground to glass in a circle two feet wide. A lump of iron the size of his fist slammed into his calf and a spike of pain wooshed the air from his lungs. He hit the ground hard, bounced while biting back a scream, and forced himself to roll back to his feet and leap upwards, reactivating his skywalkers to get himself above and away from the flames before they could catch on his seals. His ankle screamed in fiery agony but he ignored it and ran.
"Suck on this," Hazō growled, ripping the padded section of his uniform free and dropping it on a patch of fire-free rock a few yards from the screaming, ears-bleeding hyena. There was no time to finish the thing, but this would be enough for now. It was three-quarters cooked, in the middle of a fire, and disabled by sonic attack. If it wasn't dead by the end of the main fight then he could come back for it.
"Star Element: Nova Burst!" Canzon cried. She had dashed up the rock scramble so that she could see the hyenas who had moments ago fired on Hazō. The hyena pack coming from the north had gotten their paws under them and resumed their charge once the Banshee Fucker moved out of range. The beam of Canzon's attack blasted at the center of their ranks, but the targeted hyena dodged at the last second and the beam hit the ground behind them. The explosion scorched fur and hurled the hyenas a dozen feet, but Hazō couldn't see any clear fatalities.
He drew a wooden disk from a pocket on his hip and leaped in the air, triple-jumping off his skywalkers to gain enough height that he could hurl it back towards the pack of hyenas to the north. Towards the ones who had injured him.
Hazō was no hand with thrown weapons; he hadn't practiced the art since leaving the Academy and 'broadside of a barn, maybe' was about his level of accuracy. The throwing disk landed vaguely near the charging hyenas, endangering none of them, and they laughed hysterically as they went past it.
And then Kagome-sensei's Goo Bomb seal, the one wrapped around the throwing disk, activated. Cyan syrup flew out from the seal to blanket an area a dozen yards across. Half a second later it hardened into a marginally flexible material nearly as strong as steel. Two of the hyenas had been doused in it and they found themselves pinned helplessly to the ground.
"Crystal Element: Entombing Skull!" came a cackling voice from the south.
Hazō looked back in time to see a purple cord of pure chakra flick out of the shadows and snag around Canzon's neck. Crystal exploded out of it, forming around the warrior dog and stabilizing into the shape of a hyena skull with its fangs bared; Canzon was completely trapped inside the body of the skull.
Canzon and Canyon, the two strongest fighters, trapped. Canonical, dead in a spilled bathtub of blood. Cantle, swaying on his feet with one leg held off the ground. Canny, embroiled with three hyenas while his flanks and back bled freely from dozens of small wounds and abrasions. Canteen, being chased by a hyena five times his size and barely surviving by using his tighter turning radius to lead the monster in circles around Canyon's crystal prison.
Five more hyenas were leaping onto the rocky circle and would be on top of the dogs in under a second.
A beam of golden light lanced out of Canzon's eyes, passing through her crystalline prison without affecting it, aimed for the two hyenas that Hazō had gooed up. The beam went through the first hyena's head front to back, kept going, and burned through the second one's chest and lungs. The heat of the attack made the first one's head explode and dropped the other instantly.
Unfortunately, the attack had not been quite fast enough; the two hyenas got their own attacks off in the instant before they were killed. A ball of iron shattered the crystal prison entombing Canzon and crushed her hindquarters. The wound might have been survivable, but another bolt of lightning crashed from the sky and turned her into charcoal.
Hazō shivered in fear; Goo Bombs tended to stop human ninja from being able to make handseals, which meant they couldn't use ninjutsu to counterattack. He had forgotten that Dog (and, apparently, Hyena) jutsu were different. Hazō had been skylined and mostly static after throwing; if Canzon hadn't drawn the enemies' fire, Hazō would have been dead for sure.
"Run!" Canny shouted as a hyena overbore him. He tucked his paws under himself and forced the roll to continue so as to block the lunge of the other two hyenas with the body of their packmate. Halfway through the roll he kicked with his back legs, tearing the guts out of his attacker. When he came back to his feet the hyena stayed down, blood pouring from its belly.
If Canzon had survived to use her massive area-effect jutsu against the incoming hyenas, if Canonical hadn't been so quickly and brutally killed, if Canyon hadn't been entombed in crystal, if Canny had been free to act in defense of his packmates, if there hadn't been five more hyenas joining the fight...if the situation had been different, perhaps the surviving hunters would have ignored Canny's command and gone to the larger dog's aid. Perhaps that would even have turned the tide of battle, or perhaps not. As it was, Canteen and Cantle turned to flee past the fire and Banshee Fucker to the east and down to the the trees and river where they could find cover and break trail. East was also the direction that gave them the best odds of slipping past the new wave of hyenas.
Canteen made it, bolting across the stones and into the flames that were starting to burn themselves out. Cantle was a step too slow and the eastmost of the hyenas got its front teeth into his haunch and ripped free a massive chunk of flesh. Cantle screamed in agony and went to the ground but rolled back to his feet and continued to flee, now on three legs. The hyena gave a cackling howl and went after the little dog.
The five incoming hyena warriors arrived and piled onto Canny, who had set his back to his brother's crystalline prison and was limned in a blazing blue aura. Somehow, the dog held off all seven attackers.
Hazō's heart screamed at him; he needed to go after Cantle and Canteen, save them from a pursuer that they couldn't hope to defeat. He also needed to save Canny from overwhelming numbers. He needed to deal with the survivors to the north before they could mix in. There were too many needs and not enough time to do them all. And it wouldn't even matter if there were; wounded and without chakra he couldn't hope to survive a close-quarters battle against these hyenas.
He pulled an implosion bomb from his hip pocket, armed it, and threw it south to where the purple cord of chakra led from Canyon's prison to the hyena who empowered that prison. There was a brief whump, zorp, a grunt, and the purple cord disappeared.
"Thank you, Sensei," Hazō muttered.
The crystal skull that had been holding Canyon out of the fight dissolved. The furious dog, having been forced to watch the murder of his packleader and one of his packmates, howled in rage and dove at the hyenas who were attacking his brother.
He came from the side, attacking the eastmost hyena before it realized the dog was free. Canyon got his teeth into the enemy's throat and tore it free without slowing down, slamming into the next hyena in line and sending it flying into the others. The whole group was left surprised and momentarily off-balance.
That was all that Canny needed. He lunged and tore a hyena leg off at the thigh, dropping the enemy in a bleeding mess and then jumping back out before the rest could turn and attack.
The two dogs fought with the sort of perfect synchronization held only by those who had fought together for years. People like Team Uplift, whispered a portion of Hazō's soul that he didn't have time to listen to.
Canyon and Canny were big dogs, deep-chested and narrow-headed, with powerful jaws and vicious teeth. They moved around the hyenas, preventing them from spreading out and using their greater numbers. They bit and snapped, one of them drawing attention while the other attacked from the side. Canny blinded one of the hyenas with a paw-swipe and Canyon smacked another with a headswipe that knocked out most of the teeth on the left side of its jaw.
The surviving hyenas recognized a losing fight when they saw one. They lunged forward in a tight group, knocking Canyon and Canny aside and racing after where Cantle and Canteen were fleeing through the last of the fire and the ongoing noise of the Banshee Fucker. Their original pursuer was right on their heels, cackling in anticipation of blood.
"Plant Element: Shredding Thorns!"
The cry came from the south, from a hyena that had yet to show itself. In front of the fleeing hunters, the plants swelled to massive size and sprouted thorns half a foot long.
Canteen yelped and jumped aside as the plants struck. He skirted around the attack and continued fleeing as ordered. The wounded Cantle wasn't fast enough. He was caught by three of the plant stems, his body pierced by massive thorns that lifted him into the air and tore him apart in one swift motion.
Hazō's head snapped around and another implosion bomb vaulted from his hand towards where the plant-using hyena was already turning to flee. The creature was outside the immediate area of the seal's effect and thus did not have its lungs collapse as the air disappeared from within them. It was briefly retarded in its flight by the wind rushing into the ensuing vacuum and then boosted outwards as the seal ruptured and released its contents to surge forth once more, scouring the ground and hurling medium-sized stones everywhere. The hyena yelped and disappeared into the darkness before Hazō could follow up with another attack.
Canyon and Canny howled in fury and went after the hyenas who were pursuing Canteen.
Two of the hyenas glanced back and saw the brothers coming. They yipped in fear and broke off, turning north and fleeing. Moments later the others abandoned the pursuit and fled as well, scattering to both sides. Canyon and Canny snarled in anger but let them go, calling out to Canteen to stop, to return to where it was now safe.
Hazō looked north, looked south, looked west and east and collapsed to the ground in exhaustion and relief when he saw an absence of surviving hyena combatants. The dogs had paid a terrible price, but the hyenas were fleeing in panic.
For now.
Author's Note:
This battle was rolled out in meticulous detail, 95% of the work being done by the wonderful @Paperclipped, without whom this would not have been manageable given where my spoons have been lately. Separating the QM discussion from the rolls and formatting everything neatly would be a drag and I'm already behind, so I'm only posting some bullets:
Hazō took a Mild Physical Consequence ("Internal Bruising") from being too close to the Banshee Fucker for too long.
Hazō took a Moderate Physical Consequence ("Cracked Shin") from the enemy ranged jutsu.
The Banshee Fucker seal is silenced and expended. You have more.
Dog deaths: Canzon (fighter, pack leader); Canonical (hunter), and Cantle (hunter).
Hyena deaths: 3 in melee [relatively intact corpses], 2 to Canzon [Nova Burst], 1 to Hazō [implosion].
Current status:
Hazō has essentially no chakra.
Hazō has 4 Shadow Clones extant.
There is a skytower half a mile in the air with five dogs on it: two puppies, two trackers, and a den mother.
They are terrified out of their minds and the platform is too small for them all but the clones are setting up overlapping platforms so that everyone will have a bit more space.
There are no living enemies available to kill.
Some injured (i.e. Consequences) hyenas escaped.
The surviving, uninjured hyenas have dispersed.
Everyone's best guess is that the injured hyenas from these two packs will spread out and hide while the uninjured ones will link up with the other two packs and probably attack again.
With Hazō injured, the party can't outrun the hyena packs.
It's possible that the noise made by the Banshee Fucker will draw Haiwarai's attention. (Haiwarai is the Hyena Boss.)
This update was about 10 minutes long.
XP AWARD: 2
Brevity XP: 1
"GM had fun" XP: 2 Honestly, I was so mentally exhausted that getting this done was nearly impossible, but this is the kind of thing I normally enjoy writing and therefore I'm awarding it.
I'm dumbly reading this instead of studying in the middle of attempt 3 of the exams I keep talking all your ears off about (this should be the only reference I make to them this year, I'm trying to stay on topic for once), WE'RE ALIVE (for now) THAT'S GREAT (for now)
What a terrific, and terrifying, chapter to read. Hope you can get to a place that is less spoon-intensive.
"GM had fun" XP: 2 Honestly, I was so mentally exhausted that getting this done was nearly impossible, but this is the kind of thing I normally enjoy writing and therefore I'm awarding it.
My impression is if she shows up, we run a real risk of dying before we can unsummon. She has no obligations to play fair and dead men (or dogs) tell no tales. If Cannai gets uppity she can always say that well we killed some Hyenas unprovoked... and if he bats another eye at that then what's gonna happen, a Dog vs Hyena war? To what end exactly, its not like one can conquer the other, and its not like avenging an already dead Hazou is worth the casualties.
At this point I honestly think we should bail. We have enough time to go back to the Human Path while leaving the dogs on the skytower, get Noburi to refill us and summon the pack to the Gouketsu compound so they don't get stuck in Hyena territory where they'll die. Then we can get another dog to reverse summon us and see Cannai about this whole farce. I don't think the Conclave is important enough for us to risk so much, besides its not just our lives at stake but also those of the Horizon Chasers. And we are possibly a scarce few months from opening the gates of the Afterlife, coming back with S-rank ninja, as well as reaching actual power as a Clan.
We should not be taking these kinds of risks to maybe get the 7th Path to take Dragons a little bit more seriously - not when we have no reason to suspect the threat is quite that urgent, and another Clan just tried to kill us and the pack. And who knows if there even is an Afterlife if you die on the 7th Path, so even if Kagome magically managed to come up with research enough to rescue us from the clutches of death it might still end up being for naught.
My immediate thoughts: get the rest of the Dogs up to the skytowers, regenerate chakra to full, then get some stretchers to set the Dogs on and just skywalk the group to the mountains. We're not outrunning anyone at this point and we're not going to win any fights either.
Stretchers can carry 300 pounds pretty easily, so two stretchers split between 4 Hazous would be pretty manageable weight for 8 dogs, 2 of which are puppies and ?3? of which are adolescents.
The real question is, how many clones? The issue is, we need to replace Skywalkers fairly regularly, so probably two Hazou's would have to be available for handoff to switch out seals. If we could carry all the Dogs on one stretcher, I'd say 3 clones is sufficient. But if we need two stretchers, we'd need 5 clones, and I'm skeptical 2 chakra each is enough to operate skywalkers the whole way...
My immediate thoughts: get the rest of the Dogs up to the skytowers, regenerate chakra to full, then get some stretchers to set the Dogs on and just skywalk the group to the mountains. We're not outrunning anyone at this point and we're not going to win any fights either.
Stretchers can carry 300 pounds pretty easily, so two stretchers split between 4 Hazous would be pretty manageable weight for 8 dogs, 2 of which are puppies and ?3? of which are adolescents.
The real question is, how many clones? The issue is, we need to replace Skywalkers fairly regularly, so probably two Hazou's would have to be available for handoff to switch out seals. If we could carry all the Dogs on one stretcher, I'd say 3 clones is sufficient. But if we need two stretchers, we'd need 5 clones, and I'm skeptical 2 chakra each is enough to operate skywalkers the whole way...
That's not a issue, we can just use Noburi to overcharge on chakra to 20% so we'll only have to deal with a mild from overcharging, so each Hazou will have 12 chakra, and we can just set the dogs up on a skytower when whenever we're about to run out of chakra, and get a recharge from Noburi.
That's not a issue, we can just use Noburi to overcharge on chakra to 20% so we'll only have to deal with a mild from overcharging, so each Hazou will have 12 chakra, and we can just set the dogs up on a skytower when whenever we're about to run out of chakra, and get a recharge from Noburi.
Another idea I had is to send SCs ahead to set up skytowers, then have them come back, pick up the dogs, take down the previous skytower, then head to the next one and repeat.
We should set up skytowers and check on the dogs periodically...as we return to the human path and research, produce, and improve seals like skywalkers, skytowers, banshees (all types), goo bombs, possibly MARS, and explosives. To continue moving with less seals and weaker, injured dogs is just begging for death. We should stop, take a breather, re-up, and continue when it's safe.
[x] Action Plan: Hazou End a Combat Without a Medium Consequence Challenge (Impossible)
Word Count: 285
Immediate aftermath
Call down Shadow Clones to ferry remaining Dogs to Skytowers.
If time, seal up the dead.
Console remaining Dogs, apologize for failing to save the others.
Hazou's injured. He can't outrun Hyenas until healed.
Do they still want to push forward? Pangolin is likely closer than Dog by now.
Strategies:
The group could stay on Skytowers until healed. Optionally, Hazou Summons them to Human Path to be more comfortable, then everyone returns to Summon Path to sleep.
Hazou could send clones to set up skytowers, then ferry Dogs in stretchers from skytower to skytower. He'll need time each day to scribe more skywalkers.
Hazou could request aid from other Summoners, if able/willing to help.
Hazou could negotiate directly with Hiawari.
Relay situation to Cannai, get advice on strategy. Deliver dead Dogs if remaining Horizon Chasers wish it.
Run situation by Goketsu after Summoning Horizon Chasers with help from Noburi refills, get advice on strategy.
Group is a few days away from Pangolin or mountains.
Kei, would Ruri and/or the Condors help us reach Pangolin? Perhaps she could Summon some for us to negotiate with?
Optimize diplomacy for Hiawari if she shows up grumpy.
Cannai was unwilling to aid against the Pangolins, but Hazou may be inclined.
Hazou could describe in detail the destruction wrought by Dragons to the Archaeopteryx and Arachnids, and emphasize the importance of getting the Conclave to cooperate.
Hazou could otherwise bribe her somehow.
Any spare downtime:
Scribe any needed skywalkers
Research in order:
Goo bombs (withhold SSA if Hazou thinks it's faster.)
Higher Velocity Macerators.
Do 1 day of prep on Dragon's Roar Seal to gauge difficulty. (Resolve attacking seal akin to Dragon's roaring effect on Hazou.)
Are we even still going to the Conclave? I don't think "three of you, including your leader, die" was in the pack's expectations for this expedition. Given that we're not expecting to get a warm welcome at the Conclave either, and the travel to it was arguably supposed to be the easier part... It'd be perfectly reasonable for them to worry that we're leading them to their deaths (which we actually might be), and to change their minds and want to go back now.
Are we even still going to the Conclave? I don't think "three of you, including your leader, die" was in the pack's expectations for this expedition. Given that we're not expecting to get a warm welcome at the Conclave either, and the travel to it was arguably supposed to be the easier part... It'd be perfectly reasonable for them to worry that we're leading them to their deaths (which we actually might be), and to change their minds and want to go back now.
My reasoning is that in terms of 'getting to friendly territory' I think Pangolin is actually closer now. It might still be worth asking them about it though so I'll toss it in in a bit.
Not sure we should let the Condors know that Hazou (the weapons merchant who facilitated their annexation) is injured. Otherwise looks good, and low spoons means I should probably vote now, before I forget.
[x] Action Plan: Hazou End a Combat Without a Medium Consequence Challenge (Impossible)
Not sure we should let the Condors know that Hazou (the weapons merchant who facilitated their annexation) is injured. Otherwise looks good, and low spoons means I should probably vote now, before I forget.
