- Location
- Liverpool
[X] Noburi Training Plan: Every Level Counts!
[X] Interlude: The New Genin Teams
[X] Interlude: The New Genin Teams
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
[X] Interlude: The New Genin Teams
[X] Lore Update
[X] Lore Update
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Noburi generally defers to Hazou regarding sealing inventions. If you press him, he can come up with some ideas:
- A seal that changes or cleans beddings, ideally without disturbing the patient too much.
- A seal that keeps disease spirits out of an area. Even if it's short duration, there are a few critical periods where this would be invaluable.
- A seal that can regularly apply a herbal poultice to a wound (e.g. once every hour).
- A seal that increases or decreases the rate of blood flow.
- A seal that cleanses and separates bodily humours.
Note that Tsunade has had access to a genius sealmaster her whole life and a genius biosealer for much of it. If there was low-hanging fruit to be found in medical sealing, she'd likely already have it.
Combat Frozen Skein (FtD)
- Location
- USA
EDIT: The draft mechanics for the Combat Frozen Skein from this post were finalized with some changes, described in this update post. The version in the PLAYERS - Known Bloodlines document is official.
Second, the Frozen Skein skill will now be doublecost, and will incorporate the Combat Frozen Skein mechanics from the previous rule system. Consequently, Kei's Frozen Skein skill has been reduced to 20 (to keep XP parity with her previous XP invested in Frozen Skein and not send her into the negatives). Her pyramid remains balanced, but insufficiently wide.
Following are the tentative Combat Frozen Skein mechanics:
On a success, you gain a bonus of X to all rolls until the start of your next turn (does not affect initiative), and you gain X/5 Apathy points. On a failure, you gain X/2 Apathy points.
You suffer a penalty on all rolls equal to the number of Apathy points you have.
At the end of combat, you must make a Resolve check against TN (3 * total Apathy points). On a success, you remove Apathy points equal to the number of shifts of success. On a failure, you take mental stress. Being Taken Out by this mental stress has similar consequences to being Taken Out by "The Best Laid Plans".
You remove one Apathy point per day of rest from mentally strenuous tasks.
Frozen Skein Revision
First, the extraneous "Bloodline Mastery: Frozen Skein" has been removed from Kei's Nonelemental Ninjutsu column.Second, the Frozen Skein skill will now be doublecost, and will incorporate the Combat Frozen Skein mechanics from the previous rule system. Consequently, Kei's Frozen Skein skill has been reduced to 20 (to keep XP parity with her previous XP invested in Frozen Skein and not send her into the negatives). Her pyramid remains balanced, but insufficiently wide.
Following are the tentative Combat Frozen Skein mechanics:
Combat Frozen Skein
Select a target bonus, X. Take 1 mental stress and roll Frozen Skein against TN (2*X).On a success, you gain a bonus of X to all rolls until the start of your next turn (does not affect initiative), and you gain X/5 Apathy points. On a failure, you gain X/2 Apathy points.
You suffer a penalty on all rolls equal to the number of Apathy points you have.
At the end of combat, you must make a Resolve check against TN (3 * total Apathy points). On a success, you remove Apathy points equal to the number of shifts of success. On a failure, you take mental stress. Being Taken Out by this mental stress has similar consequences to being Taken Out by "The Best Laid Plans".
You remove one Apathy point per day of rest from mentally strenuous tasks.
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Damn, that's a hugely useful bloodline. Kei is going to be a combat monster with this, SC and the Nara Shadow jutsu chained with debuffs.
If I understand it correctly, if Kei levelled Frozen Skein to 60 and then decided to take a +30 bonus, she would roll FS vs 60 and be able to reroll failures with Fate Points and possibly invoke Aspects to help her in that roll. On a success she would get +30 to all rolls until the start of her next round, and a -6 from Apathy, for an effective... +24. To everything she wanted, including things like Sealing, Technique Hacking, Medical Ninjutsu and their secondary stats. One round is all it takes usually.
At the end of combat, taking a single +24 would only be a TN 18 Resolve check, which easily clears all Apathy so there's no need to worry about it much. With her current Resolve if she levelled FS to 60, she could afford to get a +24/+18/+12 thrice per combat and still be safe at the end of it.
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- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
This makes me a little sad, but is understandable.
So... not talking to Hazou, got it!
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
I think this Frozen Skein rework leaves an important part out... is Kei still disliked by dogs or can she hug puppies normally now? Getting Kei puppy-hugs is the goal of the quest, after all.
Interlude: Splicing Threads
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interlude: Splicing Threads
Uchiha Minori sat quietly in the Academy classroom, along with two of her fellow ninja. Yes, they were ninja now, and each of them wore a mark on their foreheads proving their hard work. Despite their new status, their soon-to-be sensei had left a cryptic note at each of their houses, telling them to arrive at the Academy before dawn, long before the first classes began. Fortunately, Minori had not been among those few foolish fellows of hers that had sworn never to return to the Academy at graduation. She of course had her fair share of miserable experiences at the hands of appalling teachers. She merely knew that the future was an uncertain thing and that oaths should not be invoked without an absolute certainty of completion – or of death at its hands.
They had waited for nearly an hour, and classes were still yet to begin. Minori focused her hearing, but she could not hear the sound of early arrivals playing or practicing in the yards outside. Their mysterious sensei still had time to arrive.
"Should we do something?" said Minami Samiko, breaking the silence. "She's not here yet."
Sasaki Yuda nodded at Minami's astute observation. "We have time," he said. "They haven't opened the main gates yet. What should we do?"
Minami shrugged. "My sister said this is a… thing that new sensei sometimes do to haze their students. They show up late to watch the genin freak out, to see if they do something stupid or if they act sensibly under pressure."
"So, what would be sensible?" asked Sasaki.
Minami shrugged. "If this were a mission, we would be rendezvousing with an ally, so we can't go too far from the meeting point. Maybe we could stake a lookout on the roof to see if she's nearby, watching us?"
"That seems good," Sasaki said, standing from his seat.
"It is possible that the ally already passed the rendezvous location under pursuit. In that situation, she would leave a message for us in the room. Let's not leave the room before searching it."
Both heads snapped over to Minori as she spoke and she shrunk a little under her stares. She hadn't spoken to them yet, but there had been nothing to say. Now, they were ignoring an important possibility, acting before a plan had been fully formed.
After a moment, Minami acquiesced. "Yes, that sounds possible too, Uchiha. Let's search the room."
The three set to work, slowly going through the classroom (irritatingly, already marred by the new intake of students' various affairs), taking care to return things to where they were found. After all, if there were pursuit, why give away information about other parties involved?
Within minutes, Sasaki flipped a chalkboard and revealed a message on the opposite side.
Greetings, my potential students
Sadly, the duties of the clan and village weigh heavily upon me. While I acknowledge that training a new generation of genin is a worthwhile endeavor, I have limited time and cannot train you all. As a result, I have to limit the number of students I take to one. The first of you three to step foot on Training Ground 88 will become my student. The other two will join the general genin corps, with the option to petition for reassignment if you desire. My apologies, of course.
Gōketsu Mari
Sadly, the duties of the clan and village weigh heavily upon me. While I acknowledge that training a new generation of genin is a worthwhile endeavor, I have limited time and cannot train you all. As a result, I have to limit the number of students I take to one. The first of you three to step foot on Training Ground 88 will become my student. The other two will join the general genin corps, with the option to petition for reassignment if you desire. My apologies, of course.
Gōketsu Mari
Sasaki started sprinting to the doorway halfway through the message, but Minami was faster and intercepted him. "Wait," she said as he fell back with his head on a swivel. He was clearly deciding between going through her or trying to make his way out of the window.
Minori frowned. Something seemed wrong about this…
"This is another thing they do," Minami said with a slight sigh. "Though I would have figured most jōnin-sensei would have stopped by now, since everyone knows."
Sasaki bristled and Minori sympathized privately. Common knowledge to members of the large and powerful Minami was not always common knowledge to the clanless who lacked senior ninja as mentors. Or to her.
"Anyway, they make up a test that divides the team to see if we have 'teamwork' and 'cooperation' and blah blah blah. This is a test, Sasaki. Try not to fail it."
Sasaki looked at her suspiciously. "How do I know you're not lying to me? You could mislead me until you have the chance to claim the prize."
Minami smiled, puffing her chest out. "I'm glad you think I'm that good of a liar. But if you want, we can visit the Tower together first. We can find someone there that'll tell us that the jōnin do this sometimes."
Sasaki frowned, but Minori interrupted. "Do either of you know the location of Training Ground 88?"
They both shook their heads. "Then we must visit the Tower regardless to get that information," Minori said.
"Unless you or she already knows the location," Sasaki said, "and you're trying to lead us off on a wild goose chase.
Minami raised a hand to hit him, but stopped herself as he raised a block. "Stop being stupid. If I'm honest, you'll definitely fail the test. If I'm not, we can race from the Tower, but we won't be close enough that I'll get there before you react. If I run off after the Tower person says the wrong thing, you'll outpace me before I'm winded. Let's just go to the Tower and check it out."
After a pause, Sasaki nodded his agreement, and they set off.
o-o-o-o
Linked arm in arm, the three genin leaned forward and took their first step onto the newly established training ground. Their feet landed simultaneously, or at least as close as they could manage. After a moment's pause to listen for fanfare, Minori and Sasaki unlinked their arms from Minami's.
"Why did you have us link up arms anyway?" Sasaki asked.
"It's the right way to do it," Minami said with supreme self-assurance as she walked to the center of the clearing.
"Did your sister tell you that too?" Sasaki asked.
Minami didn't answer. She looked around Training Ground 88, which had been surprisingly near the Gōketsu estate. Very few training grounds lay within Leaf's inner walls, as, though they afforded convenient travel, it meant other parties could easily observe your training.
"Where is she? We passed her test. She should be near enough to gloat if we failed, so why isn't she telling us we passed?"
"I don't know, maybe-" Sasaki cut himself off as a messenger arrived in the clearing at a moderate walk.
She was a young civilian girl, perhaps fifteen, wearing the grays of the messenger corps with a Gōketsu red-and-green bandana tied around her upper arm. She bowed briefly, pressing her fingers to her forehead. Minori blinked. Of course the messenger would salute them. Minori had graduated and become a full ninja of Hidden Leaf. Civilians would give her the appropriate respect.
"Greetings, honored ninja. I carry a message from Gōketsu Mari. She apologizes for her absence, and says that she has prepared a test for you at a location in town. Could you follow me, please?"
"Uh-huh. A likely story." Minami said, clapping her hands together in the seal of release. "Dispel!"
Nothing happened.
Minami looked around for any changed detail, but found nothing. Sasaki cocked his head at her. "Why did you do that?" he asked.
Minami scowled. "You're not an idiot, Sasaki. You know she's a genjutsu mistress. Also, this is obviously a trap."
"Why?" he asked. "This test was a farce, there's obviously going to be a real test."
"Our Tower detour randomized our arrival time," Minori said, as her two compatriots turned to look at her. "Without foreknowledge, Gōketsu must have acted intentionally to ensure the messenger's arrival within seconds of our own. The messenger is not Gōketsu herself, as no one could make jōnin at such a young age." Except him, she added internally. "If the messenger is not genjutsu, Gōketsu must have placed her close to respond to our arrival."
The messenger paled and held up her hands as the three genin turned on her. "I'm sorry, honored ninja, but I know nothing about that. It was ten minutes ago that Lady Mari told me to walk over from the estate, find you three, and take you to the green building on Tobirama Square."
Minami turned away from the civilian messenger and huffed. "Fine. Let's play along with Gōketsu's game. But keep your guards up, everyone. This is definitely a set-up."
o-o-o-o
They followed the messenger at a walking pace. Though they could have made it to Tobirama Square much faster through the trees and the rooftop highway, they'd decided to follow Gōketsu's instructions. The morning streets were unsurprisingly crowded – harvest season always kept civilians busy. Leaf had paid a price in blood in the war, but it had clearly bought safety and plenty for Fire's people. Away from the squares, certain alleys were almost packed shoulder-to-shoulder. It was nice, Minori thought, that even with the streets so crowded, people made room for the ninja.
"Did you see that?" Minami asked, grabbing Minori's arm. Minori flinched, then followed Minami's gaze.
Minori narrowed her eyes. "The dango stand?"
"No, dummy. Gōketsu. I saw a flash of red hair."
Sasaki turned around, scanning the market square around him for any sign of Gōketsu. "Red hair?"
"Yes, red hair," Minami said, voice rising to be heard above the market din. "Sage above, did neither of you do your research? She's short, pretty, curvaceous, with long red hair."
"Hair is easy to dye," Minori said.
"Yes," Minami said. "But why would someone disguise themselves as our jōnin-sensei? Let's follow her!"
Minami dashed away. Minori glanced at the messenger, who was wringing her hands and watching Minami shove her way through the crowd. Something still didn't feel right to her…
After a moment's consideration, Minori followed Minami and Sasaki through the crowd. They forced their way through the civilian throng until people realized they were ninja, at which point their way quickly cleared. Minori followed Minami until they reached Tobirama Square.
"Do you have eyes on her?" Sasaki asked.
"There!" Minami said, clambering atop a fruit stand. Minori climbed up and saw Minami pointing at a redheaded woman, walking into a green-painted building.
Minami jumped down and started to race towards the building, but Minami waited and looked around.
Another redheaded woman, back turned to the three of them as she chatted amiably with a vegetable merchant.
Another redheaded woman, minding a pair of children trying to run off through the market.
"Wait!" Minori called out. "There's more."
As Minami and Sasaki climbed back up the fruit stand, a thought came to Minori. She brought her hands together. "Dispel!"
o-o-o-o
Minori raised her head up off the desk in the classroom and opened her eyes. Embarrassingly, she noticed a little spot of drool on the desk. She quickly wiped it off. Glancing to either side, she noticed Minami and Sasaki with their heads still down on their desks. They had not yet broken the genjutsu.
Someone had written a message in thick chalk letters on the blackboard at the head of the classroom.
YOU FAIL
Sorry, but I have no need for genin that can't recognize such a basic genjutsu. Proceed either to the Academy Headmaster's office to re-enroll for your final year of studies, or to the Tower if you wish to join the general corps of genin. I recommend the Academy, as your skills are clearly inadequate to survive in the field for long.
Sorry, but I have no need for genin that can't recognize such a basic genjutsu. Proceed either to the Academy Headmaster's office to re-enroll for your final year of studies, or to the Tower if you wish to join the general corps of genin. I recommend the Academy, as your skills are clearly inadequate to survive in the field for long.
Minori waited as her two teammates stirred and read the message themselves. Unsurprisingly, Minami was the first to speak.
"What does she mean we failed? How in the Sage's name were we supposed to notice a genjutsu from a jōnin!?"
"There were a few improbable factors," Minori said. "The messenger, as you pointed out, then Gōketsu in the crowd. We would not notice a jōnin unless she wanted to be noticed, so we should have been suspicious."
"That's absurd!" Minami said. "We're not Yamanaka! Are we expected to read her mind and know what exactly she intends for us to do in every situation?"
"You knew she was a genjutsu-spec jōnin," Sasaki said. "Dispelling is probably a safe reaction to any suspicion. In hindsight, I should have thought things through myself instead of following you into the crowd."
"No," Minami said. "That's stupid. This is all stupid." She stood from her desk. "Come with me. We're not going to fail this dumb test. We're going to go talk with my mother, and we're going to make Gōketsu take us seriously as students."
Sasaki laughed. "What will your mother do? Gōketsu is a jōnin."
Minami glared. "My mother is a Clan Head. Gōketsu will break first. Come with me."
"Is that really wise?" Sasaki asked. "We followed your lead last time and failed the test."
"Exactly, things can't get any worse!" Minami said.
"Actually, things could get a lot worse," Sasaki said.
"Whatever. I was right then and I'm right now. Come on, stupid, you gotta leverage connections for power when you can." With that said, Minami stomped out of the room.
Sasaki glanced at Minori. "Will you follow her?"
Minori thought for a second. Something still seemed wrong to her. Was the test really over? At the very least, following the hot-headed Minami would likely cause more trouble. Or would leaving her alone to cause chaos make Minori fail the test for abandoning her teammates?
Distantly, a door swung open, then shut.
Sasaki looked into the hallway, then back at Minori. "Whatever," he said. "I'm going to go catch up with her."
He left.
Expecting the genin to infer exactly what Gōketsu wanted seemed unreasonable. In a situation with two choices, they would never be able to pick the right choice reliably. Instead, the test must be something else altogether. What could it be?
Minori heard the door to the courtyard slam again, then hurried to catch up to her maybe-teammates.
o-o-o-o
In the Academy, Minami had been the queen bee of her own metaphorical hive of groupies and sycophants. The extent of Minori's interaction with that particular sphere had been merely periodic bullying by various orbiters and flunkies that sought to gain status by demonstrating their superiority over another. Could Minori blame Minami for others' futile attempts to gain their queen bee's attention? Should she? After all, they had done relatively little to her in the grand scheme of things. The Academy's girls had never favored physical attacks, especially after learning to mold chakra when the instructors had become particularly strict about physical altercations. Similarly, bullies' attempts at verbal abuse were limp-wristed at best. Those whose primary aim in life was to taste the heel of another's sandal were not particularly equipped to create barbs with lasting harm. Their best efforts had amounted to barely coherent attempts to mock her for her dead parents. It was far from the worst thing she had endured – no, that had been finding out that her parents were dead. And besides, her clan head had endured far worse, as everyone told her. Therefore, if their words had hurt, it proved only her own weakness.
Sasaki, on the other hand, had primarily socialized with groups of other clanless ninja. While her elders had always told her that the social gaps between clan and clanless were insurmountable, she had repeatedly seen it done by children too young to recognize and care about the difference. Yet, their paths had never crossed enough for them to truly befriend one another before their social groups had crystallized, such as they were. In a way, the rise of KEI in their final Academy year had only widened the gap. Now, the clanless ninja had ample reason to keep away those of the clans, just as the clan ninja had long rejected them. The rifts widened.
She wondered if Misa still thought about Minori the way Minori still thought about her.
While in theory the social gaps between the three of them would close in time, as every other team's experiences predicted, a rejection from Gōketsu would rob them of the chance. Minori could tell Gōketsu was testing them, but Minami and Sasaki had misunderstood the test's goal. Enough dichotomies would prompt a failure eventually. Instead, a single, overarching question would dominate the test's final result. Minori could not discern it. What had her clan head said once, about finding secrets and looking yet deeper?
For all their social distance, Minami had not lied about her position. She strode into the Minami compound as if lightning itself would wait for her to pass before striking, letting her tiny legs and enormous attitude cow civilians and chūnin and elders alike into letting her through. Many barriers existed to defend the Minami Clan's inner sanctum from attackers, charlatans, and petitioners – they all fell before Minami Samiko.
Eventually, they filed through a door and took elevated seats, conveniently provided to allow genin to see over the enormous desk that inevitably dominated the private offices of clan heads. Only at this juncture, faced before her mother, did Minami finally deflate.
Minori observed Lady Minami. She was young, on the kinder side of middle aged. A part of Minori's mind wondered how young she must have been when she had Samiko to look so young. Minori pushed the thought away. Lady Minami was short even for a woman. She wore a pristine white-and-blue kimono marked with the Minami emblem with a strange armband around one arm. Her eyes were a clear turquoise blue like the water in a hot spring, and long, flowing red hair cascaded around her shoulders and reached just below her large bust.
Something itched at Minori's mind. Something about that seemed wrong. Something about her hair? After all, Samiko's hair was nearly black. Or perhaps her eyes? Before the thought could coalesce, Lady Minami spoke.
"Hello, Samiko. I take it these are your new teammates? I'd thought you'd be with your sensei right now, rather than bothering me in the middle of the day. What's the matter?"
"Hi mom," said Samiko. "You know how our jōnin-sensei was supposed to be Gōketsu?"
Lady Minami smiled and nodded. "Yes, Gōketsu Mari, a very strong and fearsome jōnin. Both beautiful and competent with a mind-boggling mission record. You should be honored to join her squad."
"But she said we failed her test! She put us in a genjutsu and then I guess we didn't recognize it fast enough because we woke up in the Academy and she said we'd failed!"
"Oh?" asked Lady Minami. "That's not wholly unreasonable. After all, shouldn't top genin from Leaf's First Academy recognize a basic illusion genjutsu?"
Samiko preened at the compliments, but pouted as it was turned on her. "It's just not fair, mom!"
Something was wrong. Minori glanced over to Sasaki. He too was frowning. What had he noticed?
"Pardon me, Lady Minami, but-"
"Ah, forgive me," Lady Minami said with a smile. "Samiko often monopolizes my attention. I don't believe we've been introduced?"
"Ah, Sasaki Yuda, honored Lady. If I may ask, what's that armband you're wearing?"
Lady Minami glanced at the armband, as if noticing it for the first time. "It's the Clan Gōketsu emblem, of course."
"Why are you wearing that?" Sasaki asked.
Lady Minami shrugged. "I wished to show support for Samiko's new sensei. Perhaps now nothing will come of it. You kids really threw a great opportunity away!"
Something was wrong in Minori's mind. Her thoughts had gone sticky and gummy, trying to find their way to a conclusion but getting mired in a swamp of distractions and false assumptions every time she tried to think the situation through. What was happening?
Sasaki brought his hands together. "Dispel!" he called out. He disappeared.
Minori's eyes went wide. They were in a genjutsu. She should dispel too. She couldn't-
Lady Minami smiled at her. "Ah, how rude. Apologies, we haven't been introduced either. Your name is…?"
"Ah," Minori said. "Uchiha Minori."
"The young Uchiha! What a fortunate coincidence! Many know your bloodline for its prowess with genjutsu, you know? Perhaps that's why they paired you with such an incredible, masterful sensei. After all, she is perhaps the greatest genjutsu mistress in all the Elemental Nations."
A genjutsu mistress? Minori had been trying to think about something like that. That they were in a… they were in a clan head's office? No. Something about the red hair and the armband… They were in a test!
"My sincerest apologies, Lady Minami, but our possible jōnin-sensei may still be testing us. I believe it is likely that a genjutsu is altering some minor parts of our perception. Would you let me dispel, to see if any details change? Remembering such details may be essential."
"Oh," said Lady Minami. "That's not polite, is it? Could you save it for later, once you're off on your way?"
Yes, it was impolite. How could they be caught in a genjutsu within a clan head's office, the most secure place within a powerful clan still flush with ninja resources? Well…
"Perhaps we were caught at some point while traveling. Please, Lady Minami. It will only take a moment," Minori said.
"If you insist," Lady Minami said with a sweeping gesture. Samiko looked back and forth between Minori and her mother as if confused. "Though, before you do so, consider for a moment – when do you think you were trapped within a genjutsu?"
When would they have been trapped? Minori didn't know. There were any number of ways they could have been caught within it. She couldn't say for certain, surely?
"I'm afraid I have no solid answer to that question. Now, with your leave. Dispel!"
o-o-o-o
The first thing Minori heard was the sound of children playing in the yard. Minori pulled her head up from the desk to see the familiar classroom. Day had broken, and rays of light shone in through the window to illuminate the classroom's dusty interior. It made the writing on the blackboard clearly visible.
YOU FAIL
Setting aside your inability to detect basic genjutsu, you are clearly also unable to follow basic instructions. I told you to report to the Headmaster or the Tower. Whatever your deficiency (literacy, basic navigation, I can imagine any number of things wrong with you), failing to follow orders demonstrates that you are unfit to be genin. You may return home. This is not an order.
Minori, shame on you for not even recognizing your own mother.
Setting aside your inability to detect basic genjutsu, you are clearly also unable to follow basic instructions. I told you to report to the Headmaster or the Tower. Whatever your deficiency (literacy, basic navigation, I can imagine any number of things wrong with you), failing to follow orders demonstrates that you are unfit to be genin. You may return home. This is not an order.
Minori, shame on you for not even recognizing your own mother.
Sasaki looked up from gently shaking Minami. "Good, you're awake. Any idea how we can awaken Minami?"
Minori thought about that for a moment. "Inflicting pain can help a genjutsu victim break out of a dream state, I think."
Sasaki looked blankly at Minori, then stepped aside to allow her access to Minami. "You do it."
One very enthusiastic pinch and one very satisfying yelp later, the three of them stared at the blackboard.
"What now?" Minami asked.
"Basic due diligence," Sasaki said. "Dispel!"
Nothing changed.
"Drat. Okay, have we actually failed this time? That was a pretty egregious failure, Minori. Your own mother, really?"
Minami glared. "I couldn't recognize her! Surely you know that. I couldn't even think about the fact that she looked totally wrong!"
"It seems unlikely that we have actually failed," Minori said. "Previously, she said we failed, yet we were being tested, evidenced by us getting caught in a genjutsu at some point. Now, she has said again that we failed. If anything, the failure message indicates that we're still being tested."
"Okay," Sasaki said. "Well, I refuse to accept the test is over until she actually tells us, to our faces, that we failed."
"Hmph," said Minami. "That darn woman. Who does she think she is? Anyway, now that we're out of the genjutsu-"
"No!" said Sasaki. "We've followed your ideas twice now and they got us nowhere. This time, I'm in charge."
"Oh yeah?" asked Minami. "What are you gonna do?"
"For one, actually think things through," Sasaki said.
Minamu fumed, but didn't interrupt, so Sasaki continued. "Okay, let's brainstorm. We're in a test of some sort. That means that there's a way to succeed and a way to fail. What are the things that could cause us to succeed or fail? It has to be something she can observe, and it's about us. So, maybe we need to say something, or go somewhere, or do something. Are there any other categories of things we could be tested on?"
"She could be looking for no particular thing," Minori said. "She could merely be testing another quality of ours. As Minami pointed out, cooperation and teamwork are often tested. Alternatively, she could be testing our intellect or some other aptitude – such as the ability to recognize genjutsu."
"If she isn't looking for something specific, how will she know if we passed or failed?" Sasaki asked.
Minori shrugged. "Perhaps she will decide arbitrarily."
"That's dumb," said Minami.
"Decision-making processes often are," said Minori.
"Anyway, we can't do anything about it if she just decides to fail us. Let's assume there's concrete criteria for success or failure. Sounds reasonable?" Sasaki waited until the two girls had both nodded, then continued. "First, let's make sure we don't fail outright. I think like a normal test, we could run out of time before succeeding. What else could cause us to fail? Probably breaking the law. Maybe splitting up if teamwork is really being tested. Let's not do those.
"Okay, next, let's consider what to do to pass the test. If we could pass by saying something, what would we need to say?"
"We give up!" yelled Minami, before Sasaki or Minori could get a hand over her mouth.
"Shhh," said Sasaki. "Don't say that. We don't actually want to concede."
"Fine," said Minami, before raising her voice. "This test is really stupid!"
They paused for a moment. Nothing happened. "I don't think that was it," said Sasaki.
"We are currently in a genjutsu, though we cannot detect or dispel it," Minori said to the empty classroom. Obligingly, upon hearing this, Minami dispelled.
Nothing happened.
"Perhaps the space of possible things we could say is too large?" Minori said.
"There's a lot of choices, yeah. Maybe we should go somewhere? She said the Tower and the Headmaster's Office last time," Sasaki said.
"You're not very decisive for a 'leader'," Minami said. Distantly, they froze as they heard the Academy bell ring. Outside, they heard the sounds of students stop their games and rush towards the Academy doors. No student wished to become the teacher's exemplar of tardiness by being the last to their seats.
"Fine," Sasaki said. "Screw the Headmaster, let's go to the Tower. We can ask them what they know about Gōketsu Mari."
o-o-o-o
The squares around the Tower were even more crowded than the markets on the eastern side of the city near Training Ground 88 and the Gōketsu Compound (if Training Ground 88 even existed, now that Minori considered the possibility). For all that the area was harder to access for farmers and their ilk, the greater concentration of people made it far more profitable to lure in passersby. Blessedly, now that they wore the headbands, those passersby posed far less of an obstacle than they would have a mere month earlier.
They entered the Tower and waited politely in line for the attention of one of the skinwastes. Minori observed the hustle around the Tower. Prior to the Collapse, the Tower's bottom floor had seemed intolerably tight from what she had observed. The redesigned Tower accounted for the limitations of the original and had substantially expanded the bottom story. The Mission Board was now duplicated several times across the walls of the open lower floor, and civilians coming in to place D and C ranks were allotted a special area of their own separate from the ninja perusing the publicly posted missions and interrogating the skinwastes about the details.
Minori noticed a number of other newly graduated genin. None from her class, but others from the First Cohort. They stood politely by the sides of their chūnin-sensei, watching as those same sensei chose from the D-rank section of the board which mundane torture to inflict. For all they'd learned of ninja life to come, they would still be spending large portions of it helping merchants stack crates and chasing down escaped pets. Perhaps, with a jōnin-sensei, the three of them would be able to avoid that end and instead engage in truly exciting missions, the way her clan head had told her. Defeating bandits or overthrowing foreign regimes both sounded more to her taste than peeling onions.
One of the other newly-graduated genin noticed her staring. She quickly looked away and down. Who was he? Did she even know his name?
Apparently, they had reached the front of the line while she was examining her surroundings. True to form, Sasaki had taken the lead, yet…
"There is no Gōketsu Mari on file."
"What do you mean?" Minami asked. "My sister came here yesterday and gave me the papers. I read them today morning!"
The skinwaste smiled apologetically at Minami. "Sorry, but there is no ninja of Hidden Leaf named Gōketsu Mari. I checked the register of the Gōketsu Clan. They have no Mari."
"You're wrong," said Minami. "Check again. Gōketsu Mari. That's Mari as in-"
The ninja in line behind them bent down to tap Minami on the shoulder. Minami whirled around and the ninja instinctively cringed. She was a newly graduated genin and he was clearly a grizzled chūnin past twenty, yet she had the presence of one born to power, while he was clearly clanless. Despite everything the instructors said, rank was not everything.
"Apologies, Miss Minami. I merely wanted to ask: are you talking about Inoue Mari? She has been spotted in the Land of Fire recently."
"Who is Inoue Mari?" Minami demanded.
The chūnin fumbled with his pockets until he drew forth a Leaf-marked Bingo Book, and quickly flipped to a page, before splaying the book and showing it to the genin.
HIGHLY DANGEROUS – DO NOT ENGAGE
Name: Inoue Mari
Rank: jōnin
Status: Confirmed missing-nin
Original Village: Hidden Mist
Known Elements: Water, Fire, Wind
Specialities: Genjutsu, taijutsu, ninjutsu, social infiltration, physical infiltration, psychological operations
Abilities: Unknown. No survivors.
Last sighted: Outskirts of Tanzaku Gai. Details classified.
Description: Short female, 20s, hourglass build, long red hair. Extremely physically attractive.
Highest bounty: 12,500,000 ryō, offered by Hidden Mist
For full bounty information, consult appendix.
HIGHLY DANGEROUS – DO NOT ENGAGE
"Dispel!" Minami called out at the reminder that they were dealing with a genjutsu user. Nothing happened.
"I don't know how many more of those I can manage," Minami said. "I'm running low on chakra."
"So she's a missing-nin?" Sasaki asked.
"That's right," said the chūnin. "And a very dangerous one. Why are you looking for her?"
"I thought she was supposed to be our sensei…" Minami said.
"Oh!" said the skinwaste. "Would you say that you're trapped in a sadistic cat-and-mouse game with a psychopathic missing-nin who is making you doubt your sense of reality?"
The three genin turned back to the desk and considered for a moment. "Not exactly cat-and-mouse, and evidence is mixed that she is really a missing-nin, but yes on the other points," said Minori.
"She really is a missing-nin," said the chūnin. "Don't go on any missions if you think she's targeting you. She's scarier than even Momochi Zabuza. You don't want to mess with her."
"I don't think we'll need to go on a mission to get her attention…" Sasaki said.
"Anyway," said the skinwaste, trying to keep people's attention, "I wanted to say that if you're dealing with a sadistic cat-and-mouse game with a psychopathic missing-nin who is making you doubt your sense of reality, you should go downstairs and ask for ANBU Field Guide 448A."
"There's a field guide for that?" Sasaki asked incredulously.
"Yes," said the skinwaste. "Make sure you don't ask for ANBU Field Guide 448B. It's very similar to 448A, but accounts for when the cat-and-mouse game has seduction elements that aren't appropriate for new genin like you."
Minami shook her head. "Whatever. Where do we find ANBU? They'll be able to tell us if she's really a jōnin or not."
"Right down the stairs, ma'am," said the skinwaste, pointing at a set of sturdy-looking steel double doors that occupied about half of one of the room's sides.
"Come on, guys," Minami said, storming away towards the door.
Minori and Sasaki shared a glance, then followed afterwards.
After some enthusiastic pushing, the doors finally swung open with an extended creak, revealing stairs heading downwards to a dimly lit hallway. Minami stomped down the stairs with no hesitation.
The hallway was lit only by periodic torches, set within iron sconces in the wall. The hallway seemed to stretch out into the distance forever, with the space between torches growing farther and farther until it resolved into an interminable stretch of blackness. The genin were silent as they walked, until they passed the first mask.
Minami jumped as she noticed it, then leaped back with a kunai in hand. Minori and Sasaki went to their ready stances, but did nothing else. It was just a mask, stylized to look like a cat, embedded in the wall at around the height of their heads.
Minami straightened up. After a long second of staring at the mask, she said, "Mr… ANBU? Cat? Sir?"
The mask said nothing in response.
Slowly, Minami walked up to the mask and tapped it with her finger. The sound was amplified slightly by the hollow space between the mask and the wall, but there was nothing special about it. It was just a mask.
"Creepy," Minami said.
"Yeah," said Sasaki.
"Let's keep going?" asked Minami.
"Yeah," said Sasaki.
There were many more masks. Simple porcelain with only a single color for markings at most, they dotted the walls at random places, always at their eye level. Sometimes, they were just under the flickering torches. Sometimes, they were deep in the dark between the torches, barely visible by the way that the torch light reflected off the enameled markings.
"This is weird," said Minori.
"Think it's a trap? That the missing-nin is drawing us in?" Sasaki asked.
"Nah," Minori said. "We're still in the Tower. We're close to ANBU. We're safe."
"We've been walking for over ten minutes," Minori said. "If we were traveling west the whole time, we may be outside of Leaf by now."
Minori snorted. "What, do you think we're under the monument?"
"I don't know…" Minori said. "This place is weird."
"Tell me about it," said Minami. "Anyway, we're out of the torches. Now it's just the darkness. Ready?"
Indeed, they had passed the last torch. Now the hallway continued ahead of them. The stone tiles on the floor grew darker and darker until Minori could no longer tell whether there was still a hallway at all. If the hallway suddenly dropped off, or ended in a wall, or had an enemy lurking in the dark, she would have no way to tell. Why, then, did her legs continue to carry her forwards?
At nearly the edge of the light cast by that final torch, they passed another mask. Minami and Sasaki passed it by with barely a glance – its features were nigh-impossible to make out in the dark – but something about it caught Minori's attention.
Two ears, triangles pointing upwards, separated by a downward triangle between them in a color that Minori could not detect in the dim light. A protrusion for the nose, suitable for mounting breathing seals within, and a mouth like a hill, flat on the sides but rising to a shallow peak in the center. Two eyes, each with a point of faintly glowing red within them.
Minori felt her heart race. This mask, it was…
"Dispel!"
o-o-o-o
Minori awakened in the classroom. This time, she kept her head on the desk for a moment longer, letting her heart and mind calm down, pushing the thoughts away. She'd nearly pushed herself to her limits with the chakra she'd spent to dispel that genjutsu. There were other people in the classroom now. The Academy students? What would they think of her, sleeping away on one of their desks? Clearly, class had ended, because there was no sound of a teacher, just a few groups chatting away about the meaningless affairs of schoolchildren. As she listened in on their conversations one at a time, a distant bell rung and they finally left.
Would they have drawn on her face? She'd thought she'd escaped such tortures. At least the Academy students could no longer tease her for drooling – though, embarrassingly, it seemed that the small puddle she'd noticed earlier was only cleaned up in a different world, and was substantially bigger in this one.
"What the heck!" yelled Minami from elsewhere in the classroom.
It appeared her compatriots had worked their way out of the genjutsu as well.
Finally, Minori raised her head, quickly swiping her sleeve over the desk's surface, and looked again at the blackboard.
YOU FAIL
Your Academy instructors have been informed that you will not be suitable genin for the village. You may remain in this classroom if you wish. Your next class starts in ten minutes. It covers observation patterns and genjutsu detection. Trust me, you are in desperate need of this.
This is the last you'll hear from me. Best of luck in the future.
Gōketsu Mari
Your Academy instructors have been informed that you will not be suitable genin for the village. You may remain in this classroom if you wish. Your next class starts in ten minutes. It covers observation patterns and genjutsu detection. Trust me, you are in desperate need of this.
This is the last you'll hear from me. Best of luck in the future.
Gōketsu Mari
"Well, that's not promising," Sasaki said.
"As before, she said we had failed," said Minori, "but we were still being tested in truth. The test continues."
"Not that," Sasaki said. "Just that everything we try ends badly. Is there anything we can do to even figure out what we need to do to pass the test?"
"I don't know. It's a stupid test anyway. Why are we even doing this? Why can't we have a normal jōnin-sensei?" asked Minami.
"Focus," said Sasaki. "We're still in the test. I have no ideas for what we could do that's unlikely to be met by a genjutsu that puts us in some confusing situation that ends up with us waking up here looking at the blackboard. There has been no feedback about what was good or bad. We don't know what we're being tested for. Is there anything we could do?"
"We could wait," Minori said. The two of them turned to face her.
"Ah, Uchiha," Sasaki said, raising a hand to his cheek. "You have something on your…"
Minori raised a hand to her face, then let it drop before she touched it. Rubbing it now wouldn't make things any better.
"Anyway," she said, trying her best to ignore the heat in her cheeks, "we could wait. Our initial instructions were to wait in this classroom for our instructor, and the new instructions here tell us to wait in the classroom. In the worst case scenario, we'll just walk out and try something new."
Minori didn't mention that the instructors and students and everyone would see them, especially her with her graffitied face, making a walk of shame out of the Academy.
Sasaki and Minami glanced at each other, then shrugged.
"I guess we can try it," Minami said. "It's not dumber than this darn test. Maybe it'll work."
So, they waited, as the sounds of the younger students on their breaks wafted in through the barely cracked windows. The classroom grew slightly colder, now no longer warmed by two dozen fidgeting little bodies, but no instructor came in to relieve them.
Minori wondered if she should try to make conversation. They'd been silent before, but that had been before the test started. Now they'd had experiences together. Shouldn't that have reduced the barriers to socialization?
Evidently not. They waited in silence.
Eventually, the door opened, and a short, curvaceous woman with long red hair stepped in. She was chewing on a dango stick.
Minami was on her feet immediately. "You!" she cried out as she leveled an accusatory finger at the jōnin.
"Me!" the woman said in return, with her mouth full of dango. With her free hand, she pointed at herself.
"You… why, you… Why did you make us do that stupid, stupid test!?" Minami exclaimed.
The woman pulled another rice ball off the stick and started to chew it.
"Answer me!" Minami said.
The woman shrugged. "If was funneh," she said around the dango.
"Was this really the goal of the test, Sensei? To make us sit and wait for you to arrive?" Sasaki asked.
"That's completely dumb!" Minami said. "That's not what a ninja should do! If we're in the field and an ally doesn't arrive, should we just stand around looking stupid until the enemy finds us because they captured our friend and found out our location? No! We regroup, try to save our ally or move to the secondary rendezvous point or do something, not just wait around for something to happen to us!"
"Mhm," the woman said, swallowing her food. "I didn't mean for it to be a good lesson. When you look at it that way, it's a bad one. Sorry."
She clearly wasn't sorry.
Minori stood up and bowed. "My name is Uchiha Minori, of the Uchiha Clan. I am honored to meet you."
"Ah, a pleasure. I've heard a lot about you," the woman said. "My name is Gōketsu Mari."
"If we have passed the test," Sasaki said, "I hope it is not presumptive to call you Gōketsu-sensei. My name is Sasaki Yuda. I am honored to meet you."
The woman looked confused. "Well, of course you passed the test."
"Apologies," Sasaki said. "It seemed unclear to me at the time. In my defense, you did spend a lot of time telling us that we failed."
Gōketsu frowned. "How could you have failed? You have the headbands."
"Yeah," Minori said. "That's because we passed the Academy graduation test! At least that's a test that makes sense."
"Exactly," Gōketsu said. "You got sufficient scores in close-quarters combat, demonstrated adequate ability with thrown weapons, passed an inane written test, and demonstrated control over the Basic Three ninjutsu: Clone, Substitution, and the Dispelling technique. Is any of that wrong?"
"It's all right," Sasaki said.
"Then how could you have failed?"
"How were we supposed to know what your stupid test was going to need from us!?" Minami said, throwing her hands in the air.
"My test?" Gōketsu asked, her face innocent.
"The thing you just had us do?" Minami said, sneering. "You remember it, right?"
"Oh, that wasn't a test," Gōketsu said. "I could call it training, but honestly, it was mostly to mess with you. It was pretty funny, honestly."
Minori put her face in her hands. Minami groaned. "You're gonna be that kind of sensei, huh?" she said.
"Yup!" Gōketsu said with a smile. "You kids are not going to have fun for the next few years! It's going to be really awful. Some sensei will make you do physically demanding tasks, or put you through dangerous training exercises to make you feel like your life is at risk. I'm gonna do all that, but while you're doing that, I'm going to make you doubt your sense of reality as well! You'll spend an unknown amount of time thinking that you're not in a genjutsu when you are, a larger amount of time thinking that you're in a genjutsu when you're not, and who knows how long you'll be stuck in a genjutsu without the reserves to dispel it."
The genin didn't respond to that. After a long moment, Sasaki asked, "...perhaps we could not do that, Gōketsu-sensei? I think normal genin do D-ranks."
Compared to what Gōketsu was offering, Minori would gladly take D-ranks.
"Nope!" Gōketsu said with a wide grin. "In fact, I'm looking forward to the look on your face the first time you finish a D-rank only to realize it was an illusion and that your hard work won't be recognized or rewarded. Don't worry, I'll be starting with the easy things, instead of jumping right to letting you get your first kill, only to realize that it was an illusion and you'll need to kill that man again and again until he finally dies for good, begging and pleading for mercy the whole time."
The genin were silent at that again, and for longer.
Eventually, Minori spoke. "Why?"
Gōketsu smiled. "Because it'll teach you something important. Oh, don't worry about your ability to fight. I've seen all your Academy scores, I'm sure you'll end up as exceptional warriors. Learning how to fight, or how to do missions in general, is not what you need."
"Isn't that what jōnin-sensei are supposed to teach?" Minami asked.
"It's not the most valuable thing I could be teaching you," Gōketsu said. "The world is full of lies. Everyone will try to lie to you. I'm sure you know your friends will lie to you. Your Academy instructors have been lying to you for years, and lying to themselves while they're at it. Your superiors certainly won't hesitate to lie to you. After all, that's what I spent this whole morning doing."
"So when you said that you would only take one of us…" Sasaki said.
"I lied," said Gōketsu.
"And when you said we failed?" Minami asked.
"I lied," said Gōketsu.
"Argh!" cried Minami. "So we should just never trust anything you say?"
"Not quite," Gōketsu said. "My words won't always be the truth, but they'll depend on it, and they'll give you information about it. Remember, people won't just lie with their words. They'll lie with their actions, they'll make objects that will lie to you, they'll do everything they can to craft what parts of reality lies under their power in order to convince you of things that are false. It often won't even be targeted at you – it may be for your friends or allies, or proles who they expect you to know better than, or they might even be lying to themselves, as I said.
"The only way you can see the truth, see how the world really is, is to look for it. Think everything through, ask yourself what makes sense and what doesn't. Why does someone say they think one thing, but do another? Why is the propaganda written in this way and not that way? Who shapes the world you live in, and what do they want?"
Sasaki hesitantly raised a hand. "And why make us kill a man over and over?"
Gōketsu cocked her head. "Well, apart from the fact that it would be kinda fun to put you through it? It would teach you to ask why. Why is killing this person the best option in my current situation? Is there something here that doesn't add up? What is the information available to me, and how should I interpret it? If you don't want to kill the genjutsu-man, then you need to look for the genjutsu. If I train you to always be looking for the truth behind your situations to avoid doing things you hate, mission accomplished. Besides, there's probably been just as much harm done by killing someone too quickly as by sparing someone you should have killed. Maybe even more.
"Remember, there's only one truth, and everyone is going to be working against you in your search to find it. I'm going to make you viscerally hate the lies. That's all there is to it.
"On that note!" Gōketsu said, clapping her hands together, "I should actually teach you something. At what points today were you in a genjutsu?"
"The whole thing," Minami said. "We were in a genjutsu for all of it."
"Nope!" said Gōketsu. "That would be too easy. Today was a mix of genjutsu, practical effects, patsies, and other special tricks to mislead and misdirect you. Let's hear a better answer?"
Minori closed her eyes to think as Minami tried another inane answer. After a minute, she opened them. "We woke up and proceeded to the Academy along different routes, so a genjutsu was unlikely then. We entered the Academy at different points, so we likely made it into the Academy safely. We then traveled to the Tower, which is likely safe, and then to the training ground you asked, where we met your patsy. One person cannot genjutsu three people, so your patsy led us to the square, where you and two collaborators put us in a genjutsu.
"You made it look as if we dispelled the genjutsu, but actually we entered the genjutsu as we dispelled. You then led us on a wild goose chase with Lady Minami fully in an illusory world while you carried our unconscious bodies to the Academy, until we dispelled again. Then we went to the Tower again, and you had collaborators and yourself disguised in the nearby outdoor markets and hit us with a genjutsu, which lasted until we went into the weird ANBU basement and dispelled again."
"Close," Gōketsu said with a smile. "Not quite there, but close."
"What did I miss?" Minori asked.
"Think about it," Gōketsu said.
Minori thought about it.
"Dispel!"
o-o-o-o
Minori felt a hand gently reach her shoulder and shake her. She twitched away from the touch and drew a kunai, but the man who had touched her moved almost as fast to put his forehead to the ground.
"Please, honored ninja, forgive me!"
Minami looked around. She was in the back of a rickshaw, which was parked just outside the Uchiha compound. The man seemed to be the rickshaw's operator – he had the characteristic hat and sandals.
"Explain," Minori said.
"Ah, a woman met me near the Hokage's Tower and told me to take you here! She paid my fare with extra on top, and said that you were ill."
"What did she look like?"
"Well, she had this beautiful red hair, and she was short, and-"
Minori stopped listening. The other genin were no longer near her that she could see. Was she finally back in reality? Her forehead protector had been removed, but she felt it moving in her shuriken pouch. Perhaps that was why the rickshaw driver had been willing to transport her unconscious body at all. Minori realized that her fist was closed. She opened her hand to see a small note.
YOU PASS
Congratulations on surviving day one of training, Uchiha. I hope you're looking forward to many, many more days of this. To prepare yourself, why don't you go home and rest? Don't forget to tip the rickshaw man as you leave, as he also played his part in this whole lie.
Congratulations on surviving day one of training, Uchiha. I hope you're looking forward to many, many more days of this. To prepare yourself, why don't you go home and rest? Don't forget to tip the rickshaw man as you leave, as he also played his part in this whole lie.
The rickshaw operator was still babbling. Minori tossed him a handful of coins and walked through the gates of the Uchiha compound.
The civilians here recognized her well, and they were quick to get out of her way and make their gestures of respect. They weren't even Uchiha, but they had lived long enough on the clan's patronage to learn the appropriate motions.
Minori passed through the secondary walls, into the inner city. Here, it was quieter. Not quiet, but the Uchiha civilians were few in number, and often had occupations in the city. The compound was not quite large enough to support all of them.
She smiled and waved at the few children that were still playing in the streets and at the few women still washing their clothing in the late afternoon light. They were of her clan, yes, but they were not ninja. They were not the same as she was.
Minori entered the Uchiha fortress, the heart of the compound. The main family building was meant for the clan head and his family and his elders and his favored jōnin.
She ascended beyond the first story. Now, the old men were left behind. Now, it was just him and her.
She entered the parlor. He was there, reviewing a stack of notes of some sort. Perhaps another ninjutsu design project.
She looked at him. She felt emotions roiling in her gut. She stamped them down.
He finally raised his head to acknowledge her. She felt the emotions spike again, her attempted efforts at quashing them ineffectual. She tried harder.
"How was it?" he asked.
"It was fine," she said.
He looked at her for a moment longer, then nodded his dismissal.
Minori clutched harder at the emotion in her gut, deep in her belly, around where the Academy teachers had taught her the lower part of her intestines were. Nothing could be allowed to escape.
She turned to leave.
Before she left the room, she felt his gaze upon her once more. She did not know how. His gaze, like many Uchiha, simply had an unmistakable weight to it.
She turned to face him. He considered her for a moment, then spoke.
"I pulled many strings to secure Gōketsu Mari as your teacher once we discovered Sarutobi Yūhi would not be taking a team this year. She is strong, skilled at protecting her students in even the most challenging of situations, and a masterful genjutsu mistress. You could learn a lot from her. I do hope you try your best to do so."
"Yes, sir," Minori said.
He nodded again and did not interrupt her as she ascended the stairs to her room.
Minori entered her room and closed her door. She walked over to her desk and sat down, but her brain felt full of fuzz. Could she think like this? Could she study? She glanced down at what was laid out on the desk.
Profile of Publicly Available Information on Gōketsu (née Inoue) Mari
She tucked the file away. That was finished now, there was no further need to think about it.
Was there any further need to think about anything? Her jōnin-sensei had told her that she was done training for the day. She could rest. Couldn't she?
Unless…
Minori brought her hands together.
"Dispel!"
o-o-o-o
Minori sighed. Some part of her wanted to cry, feeling the warm, now-wet surface of the Academy's desk pressed against her cheek. She added that emotion to the pile and suppressed it too.
She straightened up and stared blankly at the blackboard.
YOU FAIL
Minori considered the words for a moment. There was no one in the room with her, neither Minami or Sasaki. Was there any test here?
Before she could stand from the desk and take any action, the world melted around her.
o-o-o-o
Minori was staring dully at the bookshelf to the side of her room. She was still in the Uchiha compound. She turned her neck to see Gōketsu Mari, crouched on the windowsill with the shutters now splayed wide.
Gōketsu raised a finger to her lips. "Just kidding," she whispered. "Enjoy the rest of your day."
With that, she stepped backwards out of the window and tumbled away, no doubt to land at the bottom of the building with that impossible precision that jōnin tended to have.
Minori shuttered the window. She felt exhausted. There was nothing more she could handle today. She just needed to sleep.
She lay down on the bed.
Could it really be over?
She started to bring her hands together.
She considered it.
She separated them.
Minori closed her eyes and, as usual, tried her best to sleep.
Although this was delayed in order to give the appearance that I am some sort of speed-writing genius, this update was written in advance, not by the charming firebird currently posting, but by the terribly handsome and skillful @Paperclipped.
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- Location
- Yes.
Is there an upper limit to the number of times we can roll Combat Frozen Skein per round? And is the X/5 and X/2 Apathy points gained upon success or failure rounded up xor down xor unrounded?
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- France
Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Did you mean ARS?
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Let's work backwards here. With a Resolve of 69, let's suppose Kei wants enough wiggle room to win the end-of-combat roll even on a -6. I don't know who wins a tie, so the max TN we can afford is 62, rounded down to 60 because TNs here come in multiples of 3.
With a maximum TN of 60, Kei can afford to rack up 20 Apathy points during combat. This means the max target bonus we can afford is +40 (on the assumption that she may or may not fail the roll. If we can near-guarantee success, the max target bonus we can afford is +100).
This leads us to the actual Frozen Skein roll. Even a +40 bonus would have a TN of 80 to hit, so right out of the gate we know that the Frozen Skein skill is our main limiter here. With our current FS of 20 and standard tolerance of 'safe on -6 or better', the max TN we can aim for is 14, corresponding with a +7 bonus. (Given the phrasing, I assume here that this is considered Kei attacking a TN and thus she wins a tie).
This bonus scales up quickly and smoothly as we level Frozen Skein, since our maximum safe Resolve threshold is so high. The stated bonus number should be understood as slightly deceptive, as it comes directly with Apathy points that work equally and oppositely. A successful +10 target is only a +8 in effect due to this, for instance. (Incidentally, this makes the value of FS not smooth as we level it, because every time our target bonus crosses a multiple of 5 we get one more Apathy even on success. +12, +13, +14, and +15 are each one point better than before, but there is no reason to go for +16 instead of +15. In fact, arguably the training of Frozen Skein can be considered as 'blocks', where you would only ever want to train +15 to +20 to +25 target bonuses. Modeled like that, each 'jump' gives +4 net bonus over the previous position)
As a buff, Frozen Skein doesn't seem overly strong without more leveling, but closer inspection would note that "all rolls" is a very powerful statement to have. It can be taken as granted that characters will be at their buff limit for main combat stats and such, but there are plenty of stats that we have no buffs in at all. In a buff-sparse environment, FS is not competing against other strong buffs for room, it just needs to be good in its own right. A high-stakes social situation, for instance, is a perfect situation to call this up, since Kei may have no other social buffs to bring out.
With respect to multiple rounds, it should be noted that Frozen Skein gets significantly worse on repeat uses due to the accumulation of further Apathy. Our Resolve still dramatically overshoots the Apathy we gain (remember, we'd need to hit 20 Apathy to reach our limit), but while the first turn consumes 20% of the FS buff the second turn consumes 40% of the buff. Or, well, thereabouts. Concretely, a +15 target bonus would give us 3 Apathy on the first turn, and we would have a buff of +12. Then another +15 target bonus the next turn would leave us with 6 Apathy and +9 net bonus. However, it is also not true that we would be able to hit +15 on the second turn with the same safety tolerances. The Apathy penalty would apply to the FS roll that turn as well, meaning we would only be able to aim for +12 target bonus, from which we would still be left at 6 Apathy but now with only +6 net bonus. Thus, the bonus from Frozen Skein not just harshly but dramatically falls off after the first turn, meaning we should use it to end fights, not start them.
Overall I would say this is definitely worth leveling, given that it is an omni-buff and thus counts as a buff for any and every stat that doesn't have any buffs. It's fantastically flexible for any situation where Kei is rolling stats she doesn't mainline, which makes it fantastic even with the drawbacks. Given more levels, it also becomes a pretty potent buff to combat skills. FS 40 gives a safe TN of 34 for a bonus of +13 after Apathy. +13 is strong, stronger than most buffs get. In situations where Kei needs to hit the absolute top peak number she possibly can, FS is probably part of that.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Huh, so she has a celebrity crush on her Clan Head? Probably not uncommon. Poor rumor mill, always getting it wrong.
This was a fun interlude, and it's great to finally have my curiosity (halfway) satisfied. Thanks @Paperclipped!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Think this should be Minami since it was about Lady Minami
- Location
- United States
This is the primary reason why I haven't had much interest in this before and am only bringing it up now that we have such high sealing ability.
If I'm not mistaken, we have some time before we need to kick things off at the conclave, so I'd like to figure out how we're going to handle Ami. I don't have much experience writing plans, this is a draft, it may have flaws, let me know what needs changing, etcetera.
[X] Action Plan: Seeking Counsel for a Leap of Faith
Word Count: TBD
[X] Action Plan: Seeking Counsel for a Leap of Faith
Word Count: TBD
- Discuss with Mari and Kei with appropriate OPSEC
- If we teach Ami the secret of FOOM, what are the likely outcomes?
- She would appreciate the gesture, and it would probably increase her power, which is good and possibly necessary as long as she's working with us.
- But do we know what else she might use that power for? Under what circumstances would we regret doing this?
- Ami can do things that we can't, she can achieve victory under highly adverse conditions. As long as it won't screw us over, it seems like the best choice is to give her as many tools to work with as we can.
- Sealing research
- Continue researching directional explosives
- Location
- Pacific standard
I'll note she never mentioned if it was itachi or Sasuke in the room, it was just *that man* who became a jōnin ridiculously young
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Eh. We need to show up as soon as Enma leaves Arachnid, which could be any day now. No comment on the plan yet though
I took that to mean Itachi. Sasuke is skilled but Itachi was Leaf's youngest jonin IIRC.
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Why then specifically? I thought we just wanted to arrive before Enma.
Uh, she's a fresh genin, a kid. Itachi was never Clan Head and they've probably hardly interacted at all given their age differential. While Sasuke is Clan Head right now and has been for most of the time she's spent at the Academy. It also pretty much explicitly stated its just the two of them being ninja in the entire compound, so.. I imagine its Sasuke for sure. Who is a jounin already iirc.