Ruka shrugs and says "Probably me, but so many missions go across my desk that I can't remember for sure." No evidence has been found suggesting that it was anyone else.
Wha… that's not how bureaucracies work! Nevermind bureaucracies for military instillations or locations that handle classified material.
@faflec do clerks seriously not sign off on the missions they assign? Is there no defense for Tower spies, at the very least, infiltrating the Tower and setting false missions.
Even if there wasn't before, Shikamaru has been actively investigating and revamping the clerk system as his top* priority since the he noticed something was off about their causality numbers. *Aside from keeping the Conspiricy of Silence, which will always be his true top priority.
Keep in mind that in Hidden Leaf business recorded numbers in longhand. For every transaction. Making it literally impossible to do the most basic ledger reconciliation without a tremendous amount of (fallible) mental math.
Their auditability sucks. Their bureaucracy is simply bad and honestly Leaf probably only got by because they had Hiruzen and Jiraiya and other heroes who were everywhere at all times. Hidden Leaf is not a process-minded place. I suspect that part of the reason that Danzo was able to run a shadow government is because he actually thought about how to do it in a manner that would not make you or I gouge our eyes out lest we suffer any further. Maybe he flipped a Nara.
Yagura was a terrible despot but he made the trains run on time.
Having "the trains run on time" has nothing to do with being good at bureaucracy. If you look at the origin of the phrase, you'll see that Mussolini only was able to make run the trains on time because he was willing to strip public health and services of their funding to funnel it there. Mussolini was a despot, and he wanted something highly visible to point to and say "look how well I'm doing."
Ruka shrugs and says "Probably me, but so many missions go across my desk that I can't remember for sure." No evidence has been found suggesting that it was anyone else.
How does each clerk not have their own stamp? Even as an office culture thing rather than proper bookkeeping procedure, everyone has one specific pen or stamp that they like to use for everything. Why aren't we having a time-ladder boosted Hyūga, maybe with minato!chakdar going over the report to see who assigned it? An examination roll of 90+ should be able to get *something*
This is what I was getting at a while ago. If this isn't the fault of the Hagoromo, then it means that this is actually just what the tower can provide for their ninja, and it's not good enough. This is why sans anything else, Hazō should still be passed at the framing offered to him
Having "the trains run on time" has nothing to do with being good at bureaucracy. If you look at the origin of the phrase, you'll see that Mussolini only was able to make run the trains on time because he was willing to strip public health and services of their funding to funnel it there. Mussolini was a despot, and he wanted something highly visible to point to and say "look how well I'm doing."
Sure, but the point I'm making (Yagura was a monster who demanded auditability and got it, which resulted in the proliferation of a sunstone system of bookkeeping in Hidden Mist) stands.
He wanted a thing and because he was a despot he got it. This thing had some fringe benefits.
The current issue is that the Tower honestly does seem incompetent despite having gone through a Nara audit within the past year.
Obviously we want to follow up on how this happened without making you cry. If Hazo suggests that Ami dig into this and improve the structure of the Tower (red-teaming/pentesting) will that work? Getting the information we want without having to get our hands (and yours) dirty in the guts of how the Tower runs.
It seems like everyone would prefer to resolve this outside of planmaking and I think we can probably all deal with each other in good faith and make that happen.
Wha… that's not how bureaucracies work! Nevermind bureaucracies for military instillations or locations that handle classified material.
@faflec do clerks seriously not sign off on the missions they assign? Is there no defense for Tower spies, at the very least, infiltrating the Tower and setting false missions.
Even if there wasn't before, Shikamaru has been actively investigating and revamping the clerk system as his top* priority since the he noticed something was off about their causality numbers. *Aside from keeping the Conspiricy of Silence, which will always be his true top priority.
Keep in mind that in Hidden Leaf business recorded numbers in longhand.
Their auditability sucks. Their bureaucracy is simply bad and honestly Leaf probably only got by because they had Hiruzen and Jiraiya and other heroes who were everywhere.
Yes, the businesses in Konoha suck at this but Leaf's ninja military is another matter. They keep very close track of what their ninja do and you can't even leave Leaf without a mission. Now imagine how much more scruntity gets directed at the people who directly work in the Tower or at ANBU HQ. It obviously wasn't enough, but there should at least be a beauracratic papertrail to follow.
"Morning," the guard captain said, stepping away from the fire that he and his squad had going in a large metal firebox in order to keep back the biting cold. "Headed out?"
"Yes sir," Hazō said politely. "We'll be back in a couple hours."
The guard captain raised an eyebrow. "Short mission, huh? What, message delivery to one of the villages?"
"Uh, no sir. Just need to have a private talk."
The guard captain looked at him as though Hazō had spontaneously grown a second head. "Yeah, no. Nobody leaves without a mission stamp."
I would be shocked if the military bureaucracy were orders of magnitude better than the civilian one because the military bureaucracy is staffed with civilians so best practices would cross-pollinate.
Probably plenty to make sure they don't leak information, but if the system is working, as everyone assumes it does, why bother putting the same effort into ensuring the integrity of the work itself? Everyone working there is trusted. There isn't a culture of cross-checking and institutional paranoia. RIP Yagura, taken too soon.
Barring a retcon, given that neither Asuma, Shikamaru, nor Naruto went 'holy hell why wasn't procedure followed' the simplest answer is that it was followed, and procedure sucks.
There is no paper trail because this has never been a problem before. I agree that we should revolutionize the Tower's procedures, but we should leave that to Kei and Ami.
In the meantime, we have what we have. We can perhaps get Kagome to look things over but I'd like to talk to Shikamaru first.
A reminder that this is a deathworld where the average civilian is illiterate and the average genin might struggle with kanji (see: the update you quoted). There has never been a big push for this stuff because there's always been a bigger priority, and the system worked (because of Hiruzen and Shikaku and Jiraiya) so why bother making it better?
Yes, the businesses in Konoha suck at this but Leaf's ninja military is another matter. They keep very close track of what their ninja do and you can't even leave Leaf without a mission. Now imagine how much more scruntity gets directed at the people who directly work in the Tower or at ANBU HQ. It obviously wasn't enough, but there should at least be a beauracratic papertrail to follow.
Especially after the Tower just messed up in the War efforts by underreporting deaths. It's weird this is still this bad and that everyone is OK with it.
Especially after the Tower just messed up in the War efforts by underreporting deaths. It's weird this is still this bad and that everyone is OK with it.
Its especially weird when its a deathworld where war has been the norm rather than the exception for hundreds of years, and the world is ran by military dictatorships, so they should really have refined everything by now, because every advantage matters, however minor.
Notably, the Pangolins believe Death can be summoned by other summoners. We know by now that you can only be a summoner of one clan and even if you ditched the scroll you couldn't change to another clan after that. If Death can be summoned by someone who's already a summoner, that corroborates Pandaa's line that it's fundamentally different from any other kind of summons.
"How will the consequences of my choices impact Leaf as a whole? Do I have a Yamanaka mindwalk Ruka in violation of the Founding Charter, or do I take the risk that she'll get away with a horrific crime? If I decide that she probably leaked information to a foreign nation then I could order it. The clans would be alarmed and furious but they would accept it if it turned out that she had betrayed us. If it turned out that she was innocent then I would have some extremely, and justifiably, angry people making pointed demands. It's possible that one or two of them would start loading up wagons and finding lodgings outside of Leaf.
Good thought, we can and should point out the timelines, but it seems like Asuma's position is "no mindwalk unless we almost certain she's guilty of treason". I don't expect this to move him.
Also, I've been exceptionally unimpressed with Asuma's ability to "take care of it" so far.
Every time Mari uses TLiTF like this it causes permanent brain damage where she forgets the emotional impact of something that made her happy. We don't need to ask that of her.
Mari has demonstrated repeated willingness to non-frivolously use TLitF. I'm not happy about the cost, but I think it's worth it. I suspect Mari would agree, and we can ask her. deciding for her and not even bringing up the option also seems really dismissive of her agency in this.
Respectfully, it is a big mistake to alert Asuma about this plan at all. If you're having Ino do a scan because you think there's a chance of Hokage-implicating-findings then the Hokage probably shouldn't be involved in the investigation. On the other hand, I think that the Goketsu are uniquely situated to find out the truth of the matter without the consequences that might face Asuma by using official Tower resources. But that unique positioning means that Hazo does not need to ask permission to act in defense of his clan.
[x] After Ruka is banished, have Ino infiltrate Ruka's outpost and mindwalk to find out what the Hagoromo know about Akane's disappearance. Use Mari's Truth Lost in Fog Genjutsu to ensure that the brain-scan goes undetected.
This really helpful, thanks!
In retrospect there is ~no way that Asuma would have Ino do the scan instead of ANBU White.
Letting Asuma run the test would still be helpful if we don't trust him, as it might give us a lead on the Colour Cowls(if they are responsible).
If ANBU White says they didn't find anything, that probably means either the leak isn't with Ruka, and/or Asuma was behind the attack. at this point, getting Ino and Mari to do their own (very illegal!) examination of Ruka is appropriate.
By first letting Asuma test Ruka with Mari's assistance, this might let us avoid doing a treason, and get Asuma's help against the Colour Cowls.
----
side note:
An Asuma-run mindwalk needs to decide between the bad optics of a Mari-censord mindwalk on a clan nin, or actually protecting clan secrets, as I think Mari can only TLitF one target at a time. If Asuma actualy does object to both letting the Hagoromos know that he's doing a censored mindwalk, and to a black-bag mindwalk where we delete Ruka's memory, we should absolutely chew him out him, then do our own black-op.
@Velorien@eaglejarl@Paperclipped
1. Can shadow clones be used to do prep days to determine the difficulty of a given seal?
2. Is there danger associated with prep days to check feasibility/difficulty of a seal?
Its especially weird when its a deathworld where war has been the norm rather than the exception for hundreds of years, and the world is ran by military dictatorships, so they should really have refined everything by now, because every advantage matters, however minor.
Incremental improvements would stack up but Leaf is at (something) of a local maxima: their system runs well enough. You can't increment (e.g., a subordinate has a great idea and changes how their little part of the system works - the natural process of evolution in a bureaucratic context) towards a fully auditable system because changing one part of the system would result in a loss of efficiency, not a gain, as all of the pieces need to be able to talk to each other and if one piece has different record-keeping standards internally you've now added a translation layer, which is expensive and potentially lossy.
You could have a Kage who steps in and demands that the entire system become auditable overnight: Yagura did it, and by the Sage if it didn't work. But Leaf wouldn't naturally arrive at that point because it can't evolve towards it naturally (see above) and the previous Hokage, in their wisdom, have not addressed the system. (I can think of about a dozen reasons for this ranging to 'I can navigate this broken system very well personally and fixing it would be a net loss for me because my opponents would be able to navigate the system, too' to 'I can't afford to piss people off by changing things and I can personally ensure the system doesn't come screaming to a halt' to 'this seems boring and I do enough paperwork already'.)
It's also worth noting that we aren't seeing the system as it's supposed to be: this is the system having suffered sudden, massive, and unanticipated losses (e.g., the Collapse). There are hundreds of ninja dead and dozens of people who had critical procedures locked up in their brains, which are currently fertilizing whatever weeds manage to grow between the cobblestones of Leaf's main roads. This probably wouldn't have happened a decade ago because Nara Shikaku and his dozens of embedded Nara Tower workers would have gone about making polite suggestions and generally kept an eye on things. Leaf has been on a war footing ever since. Asuma would probably love us to champion a revolution in Tower bureaucracy if we weren't the Goketsu. We can try to launder it through the Nara. (Personally I'd like to have it be a joint Hyuuga-Goketsu effort.)
Also keep in mind that the hidden village system isn't hundreds of years old - it's a couple of generations at best, given that Tsunade remembers the Second Hokage. Moreover, prior to the hidden village system, the concept of a central bureaucracy was unheard of in ninja matters because it was quite literally all in the family. There would have been minimal compartmentalization of information because everyone trusted each other. This is a system in its infancy, both in concept and in execution.
The day before Hazō, Mari, and Noburi rent the seals to Orochimaru...
Noburi is attempting to make Ma and Pa feel relaxed and friendly so that they will share whatever they know about the Sage's band of five. (Names, abilities, stories, appearance/descriptions, symbols, etc). They aren't averse to talking about this so he'll be able to get some information, but if he manages to beat their roll then he'll get substantially more.
Noburi, Rapport (24) + invoke "Sensitive About My Cooking" (one of Shima's Aspects that he didn't have to use Empathy to discover because she's very obvious about it) + invoke "Zone of Friendship" (his own Aspect and basically tailor made for this setting) + 3 (dice) = 33
Ma, Empathy (?) + 0 (dice) = ?
Pa, Empathy (?) + 3 (dice) = ?
"Thank you for the tea," Noburi said, nodding politely as he set the cup down. "And for the soup." He picked up the spoon and sampled, acutely aware of Shima standing over him looking expectant.
He blinked, then immediately sampled a bit more, forcing himself not to simply pick the bowl up and glug it down. "Sage, this is amazing." The words were no mere flattery; this soup was the savory equivalent of lying back, drowsy and content, in a sunny meadow with no particular place to be.
"Ha! Told you I could make that work," Shima said to her husband.
"Oh hush," Fukasaku grumbled. "I never said you couldn't. I just thought you were using a little too heavy a hand on the dill, that's all." Despite his words, the Toad patriarch was spooning the soup up just as fast as Noburi.
"Did you make the recipe up?" Noburi asked.
Few things are more horrifying than being simpered at by a two-foot tall toad with purple lipstick and purple hair.
"A little bit of tradition, a sprinkle of experimentation, and a double handful of experience," she said.
"More than a double handful," Fukasaku muttered.
"Are you calling me old, you antique coot?!"
"Actually, that reminds me of something I meant to ask you two," Noburi said quickly. "Humans generally live thirty or forty years, maybe sixty or seventy if they're very lucky. People on the Seventh Path seem to live much longer. Hundreds of years."
"Bah," Shima said, waving one webbed hand dismissively. "That's mostly nonsense. Sure, some of them like to claim they've lived for centuries, but they're mostly lying."
"We aren't lying," Fukasaku said, glowering at his wife.
"Sure, but when those Pangolin upstarts claim it they're sucking on fewmets."
"Stop being such a snob. Some of them have. That boy with his scales all adangle, for one. I remember him being around when we had that little kerfluffle on the border."
"Excuse me," Noburi siad. "'Scales adangle'?"
Fukasaku waved dismissively. "Something like that. Panty? Pants? He brags himself up by claiming his scales are dangling."
"...Do you mean 'Pantsā of the Adamant Scales'?"
"That's the one!" Fukasaku snapped his fingers and pointed at Noburi in acknowledgement. "Bah. Pretentious much?"
"Sir...Pantsā is the leader of the Pangolin Clan."
"Bah." Another dismissive wave and he went back to his soup.
"How does that work, anyway?" Noburi asked. "Clan leaders, I mean. Do they choose their own successors?"
"It varies," Shima said, patting him on the arm. "Also, it's usually complicated—or simple, depending on how you look at it. They'll say that it's a choice of the people, or of the winds of fate, or whatever. In reality, there's always one or two people who make the decision."
"Such as yourselves?"
Shima and Fukasaku exchanged amused glances. "We're much too old to weigh in on that sort of thing," Fukasaku said, reaching for the bread.
Noburi chuckled. "Meaning that I shouldn't ask."
"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Fukasaku said. "How are things going for you, boy?" The implied 'we are done with that topic' could not have been more clear.
Noburi paused to consider. "Things are..."
The ancient Toad Sages waited.
"Things are..."
"Complicated?" / "Unstable?"
"...Those fit, I guess. We've been in a war for months, Leaf has lost about a third of its ninja, but we've lost more like eighty percent of the people who actually matter in a fight."
Shima's already wide eyes went wider. "Are you going to survive?"
"Probably? There's a new organization being started. It's called the AMITY, because my sister's sister likes to name things after herself."
"Your sister's sister?" Fukasaku said, curious. He poured himself another cup of tea and leaned back in his chair, one bony green ankle resting on the other knee. "Isn't that just your sister?"
"It's complicated. I told you how the Gōketsu formed—we were tricked out of Mist, we found the Pangolin Scroll, invented the skywalker, and used all that to buy our way into Leaf and form the Gōketsu clan. My sister Kei was originally a Mori, then she became a Gōketsu when we founded the clan, and then she married into the Nara. She's still a Gōketsu, I think, but she's also a Nara. Her sister, Mori Ami, is this unstoppable engine of chaos prodigy who does whatever she wants and always gets away with it. She's also psychotically devoted to Kei, to the level where she almost decided to kill us all because she didn't like something that Mari did that put Kei in danger. Recently, Ami decided that it would make Kei safer if she ended war, so she did."
"She ended the war? On her own?" Shima asked, shocked.
Noburi laughed. "No, that's much too fiddly for Ms Prodigy. She ended all war, forever. Probably. Possibly." He poured himself another cup of tea and sipped it. "This is good tea, by the way. I didn't say this before, but thank you for having me in your home, and cooking for me."
"Whatever!" Shima said, flapping a hand at him. "What's this 'ending all war forever' thing?"
"She created an agency called the AMITY. I don't know the details, but apparently it's an alliance between the major Elemental Nations and some of the minor nations. A mutual defense pact, where if anyone attacks anyone else then everyone attacks the aggressor."
Fukasaku snorted. "Pull the other one. People down there think that has a chance of working long-term? Sure, the minor nations tried it, but they had a common enemy in the majors."
"First, 'down there'?" Noburi asked, raising an eyebrow. "What makes you think the Human Path isn't up from here?"
"Stop prattling and answer the question! Do they honestly believe it will work long-term?"
"I don't know if people believe it will work, but they at least believe it's worth talking about. There's going to be a big meeting between all the Kage and the leaders of some of the minor nations." He tipped his head in realization. "Actually, I'm not sure if it's all the Kage. I have no idea whether Rock is getting invited or not, or what will happen if they are."
"So they're going to get together and make this mutual defense treaty," Shima said. "And the day after that, someone is going to stage a false flag attack as a way of getting everyone to destroy their enemy."
Noburi shrugged. "I assume that's going to be one of the first things they talk about."
"In a thousand years, no human has ever done this? What's so special about this girl that she can convince rulers of nations to listen to her?"
Noburi shrugged again. "Like I said, she's a prodigy with Infiltration and Seduction experience. She basically does whatever she wants and gets away with it. She attracted Orochimaru's interest and survived—"
"Little Oro is still running around down there?" Shima asked. "How is that boy?"
"He's...uh...not a boy anymore, ma'am. He's a grown man, and he's terrifying."
Fukasaku clicked his tongue. "Still doing those snake things, hm?"
"Yep. He's got eyes like a snake—literally. They're bright yellow with vertical slits. According to the stories, during the Battle of the Gods he made his tongue sixty feet long and forked it three times so that he could wield three separate swords."
Both Sages rolled their eyes.
"Oh, please," Fukasaku sneered. "Tongue enhancement is the first trick any young Toad learns, and a sense of proportion is the second. Sounds like little Oro is overcompensating something fierce."
"Yes sir. Anyway, he's probably one of the five most powerful ninja in the world who isn't a Kage or a jinchūriki, and he's likely more powerful than some of those. Recently, he was going to kidnap Hazō for dissection, we think. Asuma said that he needs Orochimaru more than he needs the Gōketsu. He told us how to resolve the issue but he said that he couldn't be seen to involve himself directly."
"He what?!" Shima shouted, bolting to her feet. "I need to have a talk with that boy! How dare he—"
"Ma'am, I don't like it either, but I understand where he was coming from. Asuma is—was—in the middle of a war. Orochimaru contributes massive combat power, but more importantly he contributes a reputation that makes the other nations think twice about attacking Leaf. The Gōketsu don't. On top of that...well, I wouldn't say this to anyone on the Human Path, but Orochimaru is crazy. He's barely under control, and he's already shown that he's willing to abandon the village if he's pushed too far. Asuma is the Kage of Leaf, not the lord of the Gōketsu. He needs to prioritize thirty thousand lives over one, or even over the half dozen ninja and several hundred civilians in our clan."
"Why didn't he just order the boy to stand down? Sure, he was always headstrong, but..." She trailed off.
"Yeah. 'But.' If Orochimaru accepts the order and stands down, great. If he doesn't then Asuma can't physically force him to the way his father or Jiraiya could. Tsunade and maybe Naruto are the only ones in the village who can stop Orochimaru, but if Asuma orders them to do it then he's reminding everyone that he can't do it himself. That weakens his ability to be Kage and means that people are more likely to start questioning his orders or wanting to insert themselves into the planning process where they shouldn't be. We're in the middle of a war; we can't have that."
Shima slowly sat down, grumpiness spreading itself across her wide face. "Hrmph."
"Yeah," Noburi said, nodding and offering a 'what can you do' wave of one hand. "Anyway, a while back Orochimaru got interested in maybe dissecting Ami. In order to get out of it she created a thing called the Final Gift Program, where elderly ninja who are going to die soon give themselves to Orochimaru for experimentation in exchange for a large payment to their families."
"Where's he getting the money from?" Fukasaku asked, curious. "He was missing until twenty minutes ago, wasn't he?"
"He was, and I'm not sure. I know that he took his old house back and kicked us all out, claiming that the Tower hadn't had the right to take it from him. Maybe he did the same with his old cash reserves from before his disappearance? Or maybe the Tower is paying it. Dunno, not my area."
"Hrmph."
"My thoughts exactly. That was just one example. Ami has also toppled a Mizukage, created an organization that gives Leaf's clanless ninja almost as much power as the clans, created an organization that gives Mist's young ninja almost as much power as the clans, fought beside Naruto and Kei when they defeated the Condor Boss, and convinced both the Mizukage and the Hokage that they should let her change citizenship from Mist to Leaf. Now she's decided to end war everywhere for always."
"How old is this girl?" Shima asked.
"Not sure exactly? Eighteen, nineteen? Something like that."
"And in hundreds of years, no one ever decided to make a defense treaty that would end war?" Fukasaku demanded.
Noburi grimaced. "In fairness, it wasn't really possible until now. I think it's less that she's transforming the world through her own will and more that she's taking advantage of a situation that allows for the world to be transformed.
"I talked to Mari about this. She got pretty detailed in her breakdown and I didn't understand all of it, but the upshot is that up until very recently it wasn't possible. During the Warring Clans period there wasn't enough cohesion to form a global alliance—too many factions, too many grudges, not enough leadership. Seventy years ago, Senju Hashirama united a bunch of the strongest clans to form Leaf—"
"We know that, boy," Fukasaku snapped. "We were Jiraiya's friends for decades, you think we don't know the history of that little puddle he calls home?"
"Called." Shima laid her hand on her husband's and silence laid its hand on all of them.
"...Well," Noburi said eventually, "after Leaf was founded, the other nations condensed into their own Hidden Villages. Now, suddenly, there's enough leadership and cohesion that it's theoretically possible to condense further, but only after a couple of generations have grown up thinking that it's normal to live with and fight beside people from other clans.
"Then the Third—"
"Oh, little Hiru! He was such a good boy. What a loss."
"Yes, ma'am. The Third spent decades spreading the idea that it wasn't just clans that could work together, it was nations. He held things together for a decade before World War Three—"
"We know all this," Shima said. "And it wasn't his failure that caused the third war. Without him, it would have started at least a year earlier. There were droughts and famines for two years and people were starving. He kept things together for two years even as bandits started burning everything to the ground and people were dying left and right. Those Rock bastards kicked in the door of Claw, Claw got wedged between Wind and Rain, Lightning took a bite out of Hot Springs, and everything went to the trash. Hiru and Jiraiya both talked to us about it and asked for suggestions."
There were times when it was hard to remember that these tiny little toad people had lived through the events that Noburi only knew from history books. Not just lived through them, but influenced them.
"Right. Um, sorry. Anyway, with the First condensing the various tribes into the villages and the Third condensing the villages into something like friendly relationships, things were ripe for Ami to do what she did. Rock started this war, Lightning started to step in and then got its nose bloodied and backed out. Everyone knew that it was going to spread, so the idea of a way out that didn't mean losing face was appealing." He shrugged. "That's what Mari said, anyway."
"Why did Rock start all this, anyway?" Shima asked. "Seems like it wasn't to their interest."
Noburi shrugged helplessly. "There's been a lot of speculation. Someone said that they were having a famine and needed better farmland."
"Ridiculous!" Fukasaku snapped. "Why not just buy the food? Asuma's a good boy and he learned at his father's knee. He would have been happy to sell them food at affordable rates that would tie the nations together."
"Well, another theory is that Leaf got off relatively lightly in the Battle of the Gods, making us more powerful in comparison. Maybe Rock was worried that we would grow our power faster than they could and if they didn't strike now they wouldn't be able to strike in the future."
"Bah," Fukasaku said, flapping one hand. "Even more ridiculous. If that was the worry then they should have coordinated with Lightning, attacked you on two fronts simultaneously."
"I mean...Lightning did attack us..."
"When?"
"Um...I don't remember exactly. A couple weeks after things started?"
"Probably they made an alliance and a plan to coordinate and then Lightning hung them out to dry," Shima said, nodding to herself.
"Nah. Probably just people being dumb," Fukasaku said. "Hard to coordinate over long distances. Attacks always happen at different times."
"Different by weeks? Don't you condescend to me, you old fool! Sounds more like a false flag to me. Lightning saw their chance, so they attacked Leaf while wearing Rock's headbands. Leaf was already primed after the Collapse; they went at Rock, who fought back, and once the two were embroiled Lightning would have been able to snip off a good chunk of Fire."
"Stop making up crazy conspiracy theories, you old bat! Besides, if it was a false flag then it would make much more sense for it to be one of the minor nations. They've still got that mutual defense pact that Hiru built for them. Right, boy?"
"Uh, I think so, sir."
"Sure. They see that the majors have all been weakened by that Nagi Island disaster, so they stir the pot. If your enemy is the other Elemental Nations, no one is going to want to open up another front against the minors. It doesn't serve strategic needs and just brings more trouble down on you."
"I suppose," Noburi said. Damnit, they'd gotten off track. He was supposed to be bending this around to the Sage and his companions! That was the entire reason that Hazō had asked him to come here. "Anyway, the point is that Ami is able to do all this super impressive stuff, but at least in this case it's because most of the work was already done for her. The Third gave everyone the idea of international cooperation after the First gave them the idea of interclan cooperation after the Sage gave people the chakra to protect themselves." Okay, at least the Sage had been mentioned again. Although a simple 'hey, speaking of the Sage, how about you tell me everything you know about him and his companions' wasn't going to cut it as a segue.
Fukasaku harumphed. "The Sage. Wasn't he a font of good advice and excellent choices?"
"How do you mean, sir?"
"Oh, ignore him," Shima said. "This old coot has been jealous of the Sage as long as I've known him."
"That's not true! You snotty old bat, what do you mean talking me down in front of the boy?!"
"There, there," she said, patting his arm while wearing a smug grin. "I'm sure you're very impressive and stack up well against the living god who created our entire dimension and all the species."
"LOOK—"
"Have you studied the Sage, sir?" Noburi asked, praising his stars for the opportunity. "I admit, I actually know very little about him." He shrugged in self-deprecation. "They teach us that he's the one who created chakra and created the world, but there's not much known about him beyond that. Hazō says that Cannai, the Alpha Dog, gave him a poem about the Sage and talked about these companions he used to tool around with, but I hadn't heard of them before."
"Poem?" Fukasaku demanded.
"Yeah, I think I have it somewhere here. One sec." He made a show of checking various pockets until he found the right stack of storage seals, then riffled through them while counting silently to himself. Mari had drilled him relentlessly on how fast to riffle and how long to 'search' in order to keep the targets interested and heighten anticipation without actively annoying them.
"Here we go," he said, right as the count ended. He unsealed the paper on which Hazō had copied down the words after returning from the Seventh Path.
Unbounded you call me, yet bound I am
Wise One you call me, yet still I err
First Spinner you call me, and this I grant
I have spun your First Tale, my Great Tale
The Tale of Dog and Cat, of Hawk and Hornet.
All tales change and all tales flow
Days wend into weeks or years
Passing time brings losses, cheers
Now must I go, my children all
My bed to make among the men, who need me more.
Flow of fire, standing high
Tower the mighty waves, grave and gray and green
Water's power raised by storm-wind breath
Fire and wave in joyous chorus, the birth of earth to bring
Green the rising life shall grow
Trees of wood and iron and stone
Beware their shade, for my Lost Ones sing.
Beyond the trees my rest shall be
I leave there seven rocks with seven locks
Each rock a treasure's home
Treasures bright shall guidance give
Truth or death, no equal chance
To find the way to me.
Spin on, talespinner! Spin on!
Raise up the mighty word, unite the bounding arc of dream
With reason's bark and incisors bite
From first to last
To tread the path of wisdoms loss
Remember me, speak my name
And when the years have wended wide
Come and find me once again.
Fukasaku snatched the paper from him and read through it, Shima crowding close to read over his shoulder. It was clear when Fukasaku reached the end; he frowned, shook his head slightly, and went back to read it again. Finally, he threw the paper down on the table, prompting a grunt from Shima who hadn't finished yet. She picked it up with a glare at her husband and resumed reading.
"What is this twaddle?!" Fukasaku demanded, not noticing his wife's glare. "What sort of nonsense are they spewing over in Dog? This doesn't make any damn sense!"
"To you maybe," Shima said with a sniff. "For anyone with the slightest trace of romance in their heart, it's perfectly plain."
"And I suppose you think you have romance in your heart? Hah! You wouldn't know romance if it snuck up and bit those purple lips off!"
"I've got more romance than you do! Who remembers our anniversary, hm? Not you, that's for sure!"
"I remember it! I had an entire party for you not ten months ago!"
She thwapped him on top of the head. "Our anniversary is nine months ago, you addled old fool!"
"Don't you hit me, you crazy old bat!" Fukasaku said, rubbing his head. "Nine, ten, whatever! I was rounding!"
"You rounded nine to ten?"
"It's easier to remember!"
"You round to the nearest eight, you idiot!" said the angry and four-fingered toad matron. "Tens are for those freaky humans and their squiggly hands!" She went to thwap him again but he parried with an inside block and jabbed her in the arm with two fingers. She twisted with the attack, robbing it of much of its force, and lashed out with an open-hand slap, which he ducked under before snapping a straight kick that she flowed around, dropping low and rising up on the opposite side with the grace of the greatest festival dancers.
Noburi sat back in his chair, legs crossed at the ankles, and sipped his tea as the two ancient Sages fought their way up and down the room. He'd get his answers once they tired themselves out, but for now he wasn't going to miss the show.
Author's Note: The start of this one got away from me and I ran out of steam. I'll see about writing the second half tomorrow or Tuesday.
@Velorien@eaglejarl@Paperclipped
1. Can shadow clones be used to do prep days to determine the difficulty of a given seal?
2. Is there danger associated with prep days to check feasibility/difficulty of a seal?
Incremental improvements would stack up but Leaf is at (something) of a local maxima: their system runs well enough. You can't increment (e.g., a subordinate has a great idea and changes how their little part of the system works - the natural process of evolution in a bureaucratic context) towards a fully auditable system because changing one part of the system would result in a loss of efficiency, not a gain, as all of the pieces need to be able to talk to each other and if one piece has different record-keeping standards internally you've now added a translation layer, which is expensive and potentially lossy.
"I... okay, let me grab some bounty receipts." She opened one of the desk's drawers and pulled out several sheets of parchment covered in identical copies of the the Tower printing press' eerily uniform writing. "Let's see... sorry, just confirming, you're the Lord Hokage's boy, right? Yeah, thought so, Saitō mentioned you'd come by a couple times looking for till'n'fills... okay, blood-vine burnback... blast-stone clearing... wall-raising... and I'm going to have to modify this one for the leftover amount. Ugh. At least it'll cover the service fees..." She struck out a couple lines and wrote in something new, before initialing near the changes and crisply stamping all the sheets in rapid succession. "Make your mark at both top and bottom, please."
By now there were a couple people queuing up behind Hazō, so he scrawled his name and took the sliced-off stubs she handed back to him with a retreating bow. "Thank you ma'am!"
Everything you're citing is pre-collapse and not tremendously applicable to the current set of circumstances. There's nothing to suggest that there's a formal trail which can be audited to determine who assigned the mission, only that it was assigned.
What you're suggesting is...handwriting analysis? I mean, I guess? But that comes with huge margins of error. It also assumes that the paperwork was done properly, which it may well not have been.
Moreover, it doesn't actually change anything if Ruka assigned the mission or if it was another potentially-compromised Tower agent.
Everything you're citing is pre-collapse and not tremendously applicable to the current set of circumstances. There's nothing to suggest that there's a formal trail which can be audited to determine who assigned the mission, only that it was assigned.
What you're suggesting is...handwriting analysis? I mean, I guess? But that comes with huge margins of error. It also assumes that the paperwork was done properly, which it may well not have been.
Moreover, it doesn't actually change anything if Ruka assigned the mission or if it was another potentially-compromised Tower agent.
We know there was a leak in the Tower. Akane's attackers had advance notice of her route and when she would be taking it. It's very improbable that they could set that up from when she was assigned that mission. Which means it was leaked before it was assigned to her. From what it sounds like, the system is currently, that means Ruka is very likely the leaker herself.
We know there was a leak in the Tower. Akane's attackers had advance notice of her route and when she would be taking it. It's very improbable that they could set that up from when she was assigned that mission. Which means it was leaked before it was assigned to her. From what it sounds like, the system is currently, that means Ruka is very likely the leaker herself.
