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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Didn't Jinno research heat activated seals? That might have some serious combo in trappmaking with explosive tags.
 
Orochimaru's body. Is it falling apart faster than he can fix it? Does he replace it + redo bioseals from scratch? Pioneer of biosealing, unlikely never to have made mistakes or predicted all long term side effects. What age did he start? How cautious was he? Never felt time pressure to take risks before crucial missions? Sealing failures in the middle of surgery even scarier than paper seals. Did he trial everything extensively on test subjects first? Are his biosealed allies out in the wild? In Rice?
 
Sir Stompy said:
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped



How do ninja usually die? It seems there are plenty of options

1. Most genin die in combat against chakra beasts of same/higher rank

2. Most genin die in combat against enemy ninja of same/higher rank in home territory

3. Most chunin die in combat against chakra beasts of the same rank

4. Most chunin die in combat against enemy ninja of same/higher rank in home/enemy territory

5. Most jounin die in combat against enemy ninja of same/higher rank in home/enemy territory

6. Most ninja die in periods of incredible violence like the World Wars, similar to the past few years in Leaf



Omitted jounin chakra beasts because there don't appear to be enough of them to be killing off the jounin. If we plan to help reduce attrition rates, it would be helpful to know where the worst losses are happening.
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HDK any actual data, though Kei might. Ninja common sense says it should be more common for genin to die against chakra beasts, as low-rank missions are more likely to involve chakra beast extermination or patrols closer to home, where one might run into chakra beasts, than the expectation of encountering enemy ninja. Chuunin are assigned a vast variety of missions, so it is difficult to speculate. Hazō would guess that jōnin typically die to other jōnin, but jōnin missions are often classified, so it's hard to form a clear picture.

Note that it is less that jōnin don't die to jōnin-level chakra beasts because they are so rare and more that Kage are reluctant to send extermination teams when loss of jōnin is a realistic possibility. Typically, it requires a specific threat to village interests ("an iron mine has been taken over by a death worm") or ongoing harm that shows no sign of stopping, as opposed to something trivial like a couple of civilian settlements vanishing every now and again.
 
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

List of outstanding questions, if you are willing:
1. Specs for Motoyoshi fertility jutsu?
2. Can hot stuff such as heated sand or lava be ejected from a macerator without damage to the seal?
3. Does Kei know how Sand gets it's water?
4. How young can you start ACE?
5. Re Biosealing: "Specifically, he has a general sense of what biosealing is, and of how hard it would be to learn to replicate some of the things that Orochimaru and Jiraiya are doing in these projects.". -> Besides, zombies what IS possible with low tier Biosealing? We have little data besides it being horrifying and powerful?
6. Does Hazo have any idea what sort of tradeoffs are possible with storage seals given that he's played with them (such as with macerators)?
For instance, could we do larger volumes at a higher production difficulty, or more elements or less uses? Or lower volume but more mass, etc?
7. Would a MARS array of 100 macerators be a good ace in the hole or first strike weapon for Hazo? Would it be significantly better than 1 macerator?
8. Does Noburi know of any poisons he or the rest of the clan could become immune to/avoid with tunneler's friend and deploy with macerators?
 
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Velorien said:
HDK any actual data, though Kei might. Ninja common sense says it should be more common for genin to die against chakra beasts, as low-rank missions are more likely to involve chakra beast extermination or patrols closer to home, where one might run into chakra beasts, than the expectation of encountering enemy ninja. Chuunin are assigned a vast variety of missions, so it is difficult to speculate. Hazō would guess that jōnin typically die to other jōnin, but jōnin missions are often classified, so it's hard to form a clear picture.

Note that it is less that jōnin don't die to jōnin-level chakra beasts because they are so rare and more that Kage are reluctant to send extermination teams when loss of jōnin is a realistic possibility. Typically, it requires a specific threat to village interests ("an iron mine has been taken over by a death worm") or ongoing harm that shows no sign of stopping, as opposed to something trivial like a couple of civilian settlements vanishing every now and again.
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A couple follow up questions if you don't mind, does Kei know any actual data? Does it match up with what Hazou's intuitions are?

How rare are jōnin+ chakra beasts? About as rare compared to regular chakra beasts as jōnin are to genin? Or about as rare as jōnin are compared to civilians? Or perhaps something in between.
 
coldcutconvict said:
With how deadly the world is, wonder how many clans there have been in the last thousand years. Feels like there would be a lot of churn. Assimilation, elimination. Maybe tens of thousands if there are 500 clans at any time. Most bunched up in the less than five member range. Difficult to guess how old the oldest surviving clans are. Isan makes a lower bound for hidden clans.

Macerators are slower when fired without a punch for wind up. Guess it would be better, but not as good as 100 separately aimed macerators. Better against defenses that are good at blocking constant flow of attacks, worse against perfect single target defenses. Cardboard peacock tail strapped to the waist or Madara fan covered in seals could be interesting. Hard to decide what would be rolled to keep it protected in combat. Give it to a summon to keep hands free for ninjutsu.
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You could potentially still have multiple while punching it forward. Depends on size, substrate backing, etc.
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
What does Tsunade roll when she performs a surgery?

I remain high-key worried that Kagome has a shadowy past in biosealing given that he has Carving as a skill.
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Tsunade don't rolls she just intimidates the patient's body the fix itself (no rolling or anything or presents is just that powerful)

Now I'm imagining that Kagome actually had some notes on 3D sealing the reason why he hasn't given it yet is that it doesn't contain how to do 3D sealing and more than likely it would cause a sealing failure without that also he can't remember how to make 3D seals properly
 
Iris-Iven-Ibis said:
Tsunade don't rolls she just intimidates the patient's body the fix itself (no rolling or anything or presents is just that powerful)
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The people of the EN have never heard of Chuck Norris, and if they had then they would laugh and continue to tell Tsunade jokes:

Tsunade doesn't write medical textbooks. She stares them down until they are too scared not to exist.

Time waits for no one. Except Tsunade.

In the Beginning there was nothing ... then Tsunade punched nothing and told it to get a job.

When the Sage said, "Let there be light!" Tsunade said, "Say Please."

The driver ants looked at Tsunade the wrong way once. You know what happened to them.

Tsunade's tears cure cancer. Too bad she has never cried.

Tsunade breathes in Amaterasu to fight her heartburn.

Once a cobra bit Tsunade's leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Tsunade.

Tsunade can slam revolving doors, even though they haven't been invented.

Death once had a near-Tsunade experience.

When Tsunade looks in a mirror, the mirror shatters. Because not even glass is dumb enough to get in between Tsunade and Tsunade.

Tsunade doesn't own a clock. She tells time what to be.
 
Iris-Iven-Ibis said:
I can't wait until Hazou get Hazou jokes like his drunk Aunt
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Bet they're about how over-protective he is.

Hazou...
  • ...started a clan war with the Hagoromo over (what the wider Leaf perceived to be) a minor insult to Kei,
  • ...regularly stood up to Tsunade when she disparages Noburi's skills as a medic,
  • ...bought a bunch of torture tools from T&I when a genin fucked over KEI (of which his sister is one-third of the Triumvirate leadership),
  • ...made (what seem to be, from the outside) unfavorable trade deals with KEI, in order to get adoption tickets for Honoka,
  • ...regularly defends Kagome's knowledge and sanity to any who would disparage it,
  • ...was ready to sacrifice himself to Orochimaru's vivisection table in order to save Kei and all of his clone sisters (literally named all that had ever been mentioned within the story, at the time, and went out of his way to include "those yet unnamed").

"Hazou's all 'hugs, love, and pixie dust,' but the moment he suspects you're being mean to his family, he starts reaching for his explosive tags."

Any future paramour of Honoka's is going to get one hell of a shovel talk
 
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faflec said:
Hazou is not going to be the one giving the shovel talk; he's going to hear about Honoka's paramour and go all "hugs, love, and pixie dust" until proven otherwise.

Kagome, on the other hand...
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Poor kid's freaking out about what Hazou's reaction might be, and fails to notice Mari and Kagome looming menacingly behind them.
 
RandomOTP said:
...regularly defends Kagome's knowledge and sanity to any who would disparage it,
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He does?

RandomOTP said:
Poor kid's freaking out about what Hazou's reaction might be, and fails to notice Mari and Kagome looming menacingly behind them.
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"Lord Gōketsu, I have here a letter from the Hokage commanding the immediate release of my son. He also instructed me to inform you that you are not authorised to operate killboxes in Leaf territory."

"You don't understand: he gave her a flower."
 
Velorien said:
He does?
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Admittedly, I may be stretching with the use of "regularly" here.

I know he's defended Kagome when Ami doubted Kagome's knowledge, and I know Kei defended Kagome's sanity when Shikamaru called Kagome insane. I have a vague impression of Hazou doing defending Kagome more often when they first joined Leaf, but that might just be me misremembering? Swiss cheese brain is Swiss cheese


Velorien said:
"You don't understand: he gave her a flower."
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(The father pales so much, so quickly, that he sways on his feet)

"I warned my son against being so bold. Believe me, Lord Gōketsu, I will be having a talk with him."
 
faflec said:
Hazou is not going to be the one giving the shovel talk; he's going to hear about Honoka's paramour and go all "hugs, love, and pixie dust" until proven otherwise.

Kagome, on the other hand...
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Does Kagome even know what a shovel is?
I assume his tools go straight from "explosive tags" to "brush". If the brush doesn't work, apply more explosive tags.
 
T_of_A said:
Does Kagome even know what a shovel is?
I assume his tools go straight from "explosive tags" to "brush". If the brush doesn't work, apply more explosive tags.
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Velorien said:
Sounds of shovel digging into ground on the right. Probably Kagome updating the trap arrays. She wondered whether he'd reach triple-digit layers before he ran out of space, and whether he'd then come up with an excuse to expand beyond the walls.
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eaglejarl said:
"Oh, that won't be a problem," said Mari, waving a hand airily. "We can do it right here." She turned and surveyed the lawn to the left of the gate, mentally superimposing today's version of Kagome's map of the defenses over what she could see. Kagome had, as always, come out last night with his implosion bombs, storage seals, and a shovel to clear off the snow. ("Can't let the stinkers waterwalk across the defenses on the snow, or let the snow show where things are!") As intended, it made it harder to identify where things were, but she had prepared for this.
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eaglejarl said:

Hazō dropped into his chair with a sigh and rubbed his face with both hands. He let his head tip back and his eyes fall closed.

"Another difficult day, sir?" Gaku asked, pushing the plate of cookies closer.

"Ugh," Hazō said. He took two of the cookies without bothering to pick up his head or open his eyes (there was a small amount of groping about involved) and shoved one of them into his face. Gaku waited patiently, a small smile on his lips.

After a few moments of enjoyment, Hazō sighed again and sat up, opening his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Let's do this."

Gaku dipped his brush and waited attentively.

Hazō took another cookie and munched it as he spoke. "I just got done speaking to the Rat ambassador and his wife. They were...welcoming, I guess."

"That sounds modestly better than your prior meetings, sir," Gaku noted.

Hazō snorted. The team's first day at the Conclave had consisted of meeting six different Pangolins and handing out fried and/or candied bits of driver ant corpses to each of them, a revolting thing that Kei had recommended. The pangolins had been, respectively: snooty, abrasive, aggressively displeased with the team's presence, religiously bigoted, demanding of why Hazō had cut off the supply of skytowers and sneering at his misalignment with the will of the creator, and one whisker from violence. The last one had been the most fun.

o-o-o-o​

One whisker from violence...

Hazō, Kei, and Noburi had been taking a well-earned break from gladhanding in order to enjoy the buffet table at the Conclave's recreation facility. Most pangolin foods were not to Hazō's preference, being either melt-your-face spicy or plain disgusting, but there were enough different species at the Conclave with enough different tastes that there were some things he liked. In particular, the rolled-up teriyaki meat strips stuffed with watercress were amazing. He wasn't sure what type of meat it was, but it was amazing.

"Hey!"

Noburi's eyes flicked up at the shout, looking past Hazō and Kei's shoulders; his posture didn't change, so his siblings turned around calmly.

Panbanī was approaching, two other pangolins in his wake. Hazō wasn't good at judging pangolin age and only so-so at judging pangolin sex, but he suspected those two were also young males.

"Hey there!" Hazō called back, offering a smile and a wave. "You're...Pansomething...Panbubbly, right?"

"Panbanī!" the young pangolin snapped, coming to a halt in front of Hazō.

"Right," Hazō said. "Panbubbly."

"Panbanī!"

"Panboobi?" Hazō asked, frowning.

Kei gave Hazō a speaking eyebrow. Specifically, it said Do you really need to intentionally antagonize our hosts?

Hazō's eyes crinkled very slightly and the corner of his lips twitched. Yes. Yes, I do.

Eyeroll. Fine, but don't blame me when they murder us all.

"PANBANĪ!"

"Wait, wait, sorry. I think I've been mishearing it. Say it again?"

"Panbanī!"

"Pangoobi?"

"Panbanī!"

"Pandoodi?"

"Panbanī!!!!"

Hazō shrugged. "Well, whatever. What can I do for you, Panbubbly?" Hazō asked.

"It's Panbanī, you— Never mind! Your foul attack yesterday will not be forgotten!"

Hazō frowned. "Attack?" He looked at Noburi. "Who did I attack?"

Noburi shrugged. "Nobody while I was around. Maybe while I was in the loo?" He waggled a scolding finger. "Were you tippling again, Hazō? You know you can't hold your liquor. There you go, getting into fights, attacking helpless little toddlers—"

"I am not a toddler!" Panbanī said.

"Of course you're not," Hazō cooed. "You're a great big boy with great big muscles!"

Panbanī seethed at that but couldn't seem to figure out how to respond.

"You smackin' tail at my bro, bro?" one of Panbanī's backup band said, taking a half step forward and flexing.

Hazō studied the pangolin with a delighted expression and then turned to Kei. "You're right, they're just adorable! I wasn't sure when you introduced me to your team...the big ones are too impressive to be adorable and Pankurashun is waaay too badass to be adorable, but these guys are just right."

"Hey!" Panbanī said. "Shut your mouth, you filthy human! You're in the presence of the Pangolin Clan, show some respect!"

Noburi snorted and kept nibbling on his plate of canapés.

"Noburi!" Hazō scolded. "Don't snort at the Pangolin Clan. It's rude. Sure, Panbubbly is kinda puny and fights like a ten-year-old human civilian, but he's trying. You have to give points for effort, right?" From the corner of his eye he watched Paneihei coming towards them at something that was barely less than a run. The senior pangolin had been within Hazō's eyeline throughout the conversation or he wouldn't have felt so comfortable baiting this little twerp. Always important to have a senior person around to bear witness to who had thrown the first punch.

"I wasn't snorting at the Clan," Noburi said, locking eyes on Panbanī and chewing with his mouth open. "The Pangolin Clan is impressive."

"Good afternoon, Summoner," Paneihei said, arriving slightly out of breath. "Gentlemen. How goes your day?"

"Really well," Hazō said. "Panbanī was inquiring about our stay and whether or not we needed anything. I was saying that if he knew where to get more of those teriyaki and watercress things, that would be amazing. He was nice enough to volunteer to go get me some."

"No I didn't!" Panbanī snapped. "I'm not fetching your food like a servant! I was here to call you out for your dishonorable combat tactics yesterday!"

Hazō cracked up, laughing so hard he had to bend over and put his hands on his knees. Behind him, Noburi laughed. Kei, of course, merely sighed.

Paneihei also sighed. "Panbanī, return to barracks."

"You were there, Senior Lochagos! You saw him grab my face! You saw him—"

"Panbanī," said the Senior Lochagos. "If you attack someone, you should expect a real fight. A real fight has one rule: win. It isn't a teahouse slap fight and it doesn't care about the conventions of the Panmarata style. Now, return to barracks before I place you on administrative punishment." He stared the three younger pangolins down until they slouched grumblingly off, then turned back to Hazō. "I apologize for my trooper."

"S'all good," Hazō said, waving magnanimously. "Seriously though, those teriyaki and watercress things are amazing. Can you point me to a kitchen staffer so I can get some more?"

o-o-o-o​

"Anyway," Hazō said. "Today was the Rat Clan meetings." He ate another cookie and sipped his tea. "They made a point of noting how much trouble I've been having with the Pangolin Clan, so clearly Panbanī has been useful for something. I let them think it was more widespread than it is—which wasn't hard, since the pangolins really are pissed at me for cutting off the supply of skytowers. As we hoped, they had already spoken to the Condor ambassadors. We talked about Uplift, both the team and the various initiatives we've had going here. They had some trouble wrapping their heads around the need for walls around your towns and elevated roads, but they listened. They had some interesting ideas on underground canals for moving water around without losing too much of it to evaporation. We're going to have another meeting tomorrow, get more into the details."

"I see," Gaku said, taking the last note as Hazō finished speaking. "Would you say it's going well?"

"I think so, yeah. People are having more or less the reactions that Mari coached me to produce, so I guess I'm doing it basically right. Seriously though, I'm running out of small talk to make with people and running out of patience faster. If Enma doesn't get there soon I think my head may burst."

o-o-o-o​

The very next day...

"That's a fascinating idea, Ambassador," Hazō said. "I'd never considered the musical possibilities inherent in waggling thin sheets of metal back and forth. Very innovative." He sipped from his stemware in order to hide his face for just a moment. There was a limit to how much inanity even the Iron Nerve could allow you to endure without showing some trace of how much you wanted to choke the life out of a stupid old windbag.

"Of course, of course! Hoom, hoom, hoom!" the old pangolin said, slapping his claws against his belly. "The Pandemiku waggle style is by far the best! Pandemiku, of course, was the originator of the style, and he personally painted four of his students to be his disciples. The second student, Pandono, traveled to the northwest of Pangolin to found a monastery at the foot of the mountains—they're quite a bit more northwesterly than you might think, don't you know? Hoom, yes, very much so. Most people consider the mountains to start around ten miles from the Second Army's headquarters, but actually it's more like forty. That's modern miles, of course. Back in Pandono's time they measured in zu, which was based on tail-lengths and ended up being about seventeen hundredths shorter than a modern mile. We moved to the modern standard because..."

Hazō let the Ambassador's droning exposition fade into the background of the cocktail party that Team Uplift was mired in. They had arrived together but somehow the three of them had gotten separated. Noburi was standing by the wall chatting with two lithe young women from the Otter clan, one of whom had a gold ring in her left ear to indicate that she was husband-hunting. Hazō made a note to tease Noburi for at least two days about being scouted by non-humans.

Kei was thirty feet away and pinned down by a Condor ambassador who was repeatedly jabbing a wing at her as he spoke. Each wing jab came within inches of Kei's face and the young woman's hand was already white-knuckling the kunai at her hip.

"...my grandfather, who—" the old pangolin was saying as Hazō tuned back in.

"Excuse me, Ambassador," Hazō interjected. "I apologize, but I need to speak with my sister for just a moment. I ask your grace." He bowed and stepped quickly away, not waiting for the actual socially-expected grace to be offered.

"Hey, sis," Hazō said, stepping into Kei's conversation with a giant smile and a smooth pick-and-roll that allowed him to put himself between his haptophobic sister and the insensitive and overly-aggressive condor who was about to be introduced to an entire helping of activated stabby trauma.

"Hazō," Kei said, giving him an millisecond expression of gratitude. "I was just now speaking with—"

There was a booming sound as the double doors to the room slammed open hard enough to bounce off the walls. Enma strode through, the sunset behind him outlining him burnt umber light and casting his shadow forward across everyone.

"Somebody best have a bottle of the good stuff for me or there's gonna be trouble," Enma said into the silence. "And after I drink it, we're gonna talk about why you people aren't saving the world."

Hazō lacked the self-control to deny himself one little fist pump.




XP AWARD: 30 This update covered 10 days.

Brevity XP: 10

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Reaction Post time!

*clears throat*

u suxxor and ur writingg suxxor lol lmfao ur chacters r stupid n u r teh worst!!!


this is a joke based on something EJ said on discord, pls don't kill me mods
 
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