This would also allow civilians to use non-storage seals, which causes... issues with the militarization of civilians increasing the rate at which the world dies. (Well, not the world, but humans.)
This would also allow civilians to use non-storage seals, which causes... issues with the militarization of civilians increasing the rate at which the world dies. (Well, not the world, but humans.)
Most civilian physical reflexes and skills wouldn't really matter compared to ninja. No ninja, not even a genin, is being hit by a explosive seal on a kunai thrown by a civilian.
Also, there's the potential need of setting up the Reusable Tripwire Seal in advance, which could be how to gatekeep (and lower the TN) of the seal being used more generally for the militarization of civilians. Static installations.
Most civilian physical reflexes and skills wouldn't really matter compared to ninja. No ninja, not even a genin, is being hit by a explosive seal on a kunai thrown by a civilian.
Also, there's the potential need of setting up the Reusable Tripwire Seal in advance, which could be how to gatekeep (and lower the TN) of the seal being used more generally for the militarization of civilians. Static installations.
It's not explicit anywhere, but I've assumed that physical stats are only for ninja, otherwise civilians would all specialize in ranged weapons and could regularly be a threat to even chunin with enough experience.
It's not explicit anywhere, but I've assumed that physical stats are only for ninja, otherwise civilians would all specialize in ranged weapons and could regularly be a threat to even chunin with enough experience.
We've had civvies on screen as rolling as high as 8-ish (cit: sunset racer). You can't get *high* compared to chakra users, but you can have physical stats.
We've had civvies on screen as rolling as high as 8-ish (cit: sunset racer). You can't get *high* compared to chakra users, but you can have physical stats.
@eaglejarl@Paperclipped
1. Is there any chance we could get the results from the unanswered results in the science update?
2. How fast are people going when they use rocket boots? Is it something like highway speed (65 mph)? More, less?
3. How long does a rocket boot fire? Is it like half a second?
4. Did Kagome limit the thrust to protect the wearer? Could it be increased if the wearer had bracing or better chakra reinforcement?
5. Is there any chance that a larger capacity storage seal variant with some other downsides (harder to scribe, less uses, etc) was in one of the sealing collections we got access to (tower, etc) ?
"Good morning, Hazō," Asuma said, strolling up to the Sunset Gate of Leaf with three ANBU behind him. "This is mysterious."
"Good morning, sir," Hazō said. He had been leaning on the gate post but he pushed himself upright with a bump of his shoulder. "Thank you for being willing to join me outside the office." He turned and walked out the gate as Asuma came even with him. The two men (and the three masked killers trailing behind them) sauntered down the western road that would eventually lead to Tanzaku Gai.
"You mentioned it was a high-security meeting," Asuma said.
"Yes, and also my presentation includes some exhibits that are difficult to bring to the Tower."
Asuma raised an eyebrow. "Truly? As freely as the Gōketsu use storage scrolls, that surprises me."
"You'll understand when we get there," Hazō said drily. "Meanwhile, I figured I would take you up on your offer of advice if it's still open."
"Of course. What may I help with?"
"First off, I have a feeling that Orochimaru is going to kidnap my Aunt Ren."
Asuma's eyes widened. "He's going to what?"
Hazō shrugged. "I don't have definitive proof and the details relate to bloodline secrets so I can't talk about them. It's possible that I'm wrong and I simply misinterpreted his words, so this is just a heads-up."
"I..." Asuma trailed off and was silent for a couple of paces. "Thank you? I'll send someone to the meeting with a quiet warning." He turned around and flashed handtalk at the ANBU who were trailing along just far enough back to not overhear a conversation spoken quietly. An instant later, one of them sprinted away.
"Thank you for taking me seriously, sir," Hazō said, smiling. "Moving to an issue that's a little closer to home: Ruka. Is her punishment based purely on her handling of Akane's death"—Hazō was very proud of himself for keeping 99% of the anger out of his voice—"or is it her general performance, or is it something else?"
"It's a combination of things," Asuma said. "Why do you ask?"
"If it's purely, or even mostly, about Akane, then I respectfully suggest that it's harsher than it needs to be. The exile you described is an eventual death sentence, and if she survives long enough she'll go mad from loneliness. Much as I have some...strong feelings about Ruka, Akane wouldn't want her punished to that extent."
Asuma smiled. "Akane truly was a good woman."
"She was. This way, sir." Hazō led Asuma off the road and into the woods. "I'm trying to continue following her moral guidance. Now, about Ruka?" He winced inwardly at the last words; they had come out too clipped, sharp enough to be an insult.
Asuma failed to acknowledge the cut. "I appreciate your concern," he said, smiling and offering a gracious nod. "I am not in the habit of allowing Clan Heads to interfere with or override my choices regarding disciplinary measures—that would be a terrible precedent—but you are tangentially involved in this case, so I'm happy to listen while you share your thinking."
Well, that could have gone better. Granted, it could have gone a lot worse, too.
"It feels to me as though exiling Ruka doesn't help Leaf," Hazō said, thanking Mari for the words she had suggested when they had prepared for this meeting yesterday.
"Remember to use 'I' statements," she had said. 'I feel X', 'I would like Y'. If you say to him 'you are being unwise' then you are asserting a fact and telling him that he's wrong. It's confrontational and it inspires him to react in a confrontational way, which makes him less likely to give you what you want. If you say 'I feel like it would be better to do X', then you're expressing an opinion. He can explain why he's doing Y instead of X, he can ask for more information about why you feel that way, and perhaps can be convinced by that information...lots of things. It gives the conversation more room to breathe without locking anyone into a particular position."
Granted, she'd first given him that speech years ago and he had lost track of how many times she had repeated it since then. Still, it was good advice.
"I don't know if Ruka was a field ninja on temporary stand-down or if that was her permanent billet," Hazō continued. "Still, her being exiled is one fewer ninja that Leaf can call on in an emergency. Heck, it's one fewer ninja that Noburi can draw chakra from in order to enable the training of Leaf's active-duty ninja. I feel like your plan for the Gōketsu / Hagoromo issue would fit very well here: Ruka doesn't like clanless, doesn't like Gōketsu, doesn't like civilians, or whatever? Fine. Make her do till'n'fill missions supervised by KEI ninja. It's a punishment because I'm sure she regards till'n'fills as beneath her, but it also gives her exposure to clanless and hopefully humanizes them to her. It might help her get past her bigotry and even if it doesn't it still has her contributing in useful ways. If it works for clans, surely it could work for an individual?"
"Hm." Asuma pursed his lips, nodding thoughtfully. "That's an interesting suggestion. It raises some issues..." He thought for another few steps. "I'll consider it. Thank you for the idea."
"Thank you for listening, sir. Speaking of the Hagoromo..."
Asuma chuckled. "Yes?"
Hazō sighed. "I thought about what you said, and you're right. I think that Hagoromo Ritsuo is a bigot and a terrible person who abuses his power. On the other hand, he's also served Leaf loyally for years and he and his clan have given comfort to many people over the generations through their sacred rituals and duties. I'm tired of this feud. I may not like him, but I don't want to fight him either. I shouldn't have destroyed his knife and he shouldn't have funded those plays in order to smear my family in the public eye."
Hazō didn't mean a one of those words, not truly. Well, he meant the part about Ritsuo being wrong to fund the plays, but actually giving up the desire to grind to dust Ritsuo and his hatred over everything and everyone who wasn't exactly like him? That was nowhere in the cards short of Hazō getting a chunk of his brain carved away. Still, he recognized the political necessity and could act it out. He could even give up actively attempting harm against the Hagoromo, provided that they did the same and Ritsuo never again insulted Hazō or anyone Hazō cared about. For right now, however, he needed to look like a meek little lamb who had mended his ways.
Is Hazō able to convince Asuma that Hazō is not just willing but eager to bury the hatchet with the Hagoromo?
Asuma nodded soberly. "Those are very mature words, Hazō."
"Thank you, sir. You asked me for suggestions on how to bring the clans together. I think you're right that we need to get to know one another better in order to form friendships and generally personalize each to each. I've seen it with Noburi and Neji; Neji started off hating Noburi and now I think he's mellowed."
Asuma's eyebrows went up and he visibly suppressed a smile. "Oh? Do tell."
"They bicker like an old married couple," Hazō said, grinning. "There's no real heat to it these days."
"Huh," Asuma said. "Interesting. Do you have specific thoughts on what to do between your clans?"
"I'm thinking we form teams, each consisting of a Hagoromo, a Gōketsu, and a neutral third party leader and observer. We send them out on long-duration till'n'fill missions. You remember Mari's presentation about the Ministry—let's do that. We'll send these teams out for a week or even two at a time. They can do a circuit, helping civilian towns with whatever is needed. They'll be living under field conditions, and that tends to make people bond." He chuckled. "Noburi and Kei and I didn't get along in the beginning, but living in the wilds together fixed that."
"And now you would go pretty damn far for them?" Asuma asked, his eyes twinkling.
Hazō grinned back. "I would indeed go pretty damn far for them."
"It's an interesting idea, Hazō, and you're right that it ties in well with the Ministry's study. I don't have any objections offhand, but let me review the details before I commit to anything. I'll need to check on need and availability fir...what is that?"
"Hm?" Hazō said, not making any sort of effort to hide the fact that he knew exactly what the jewel-like glint of light was. "Gosh, Lord Hokage. I have no idea what that gleaming jewel-like light could be. Why don't we check?" He gestured towards the source of the light with an 'after you' sweep of his arm.
Asuma looked at him with narrowed eyes. Hazō allowed the grin to split his face open but said nothing until Asuma finally sighed and went to investigate.
What he found was a fist-sized sapphire propped up between two tree roots. A Harumitsu's Outstanding World-Saver seal had been wedged underneath it, causing the sapphire to sparkle brightly so that it couldn't possibly be missed by anyone walking nearby.
Asuma studied the object carefully before picking it up.
"Hazō," he asked slowly. "Is this a statue of me, made from a single sapphire?"
Hazō peered over his shoulder. "Now that you mention it, I believe it is. Fascinating. I wonder how that could have ended up there? Well, no matter. Let's keep walking." He turned and led the Hokage deeper into the woods.
Asuma studied him for a moment, then slipped the statue into his pocket and followed after.
Fifty feet farther on, Hazō came to a halt in an unremarkable patch of forest. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth, heel to toe, heel to toe, while humming with exaggerated lack of gorm.
"What's going on, Hazō?" Asuma asked, his voice getting more suspicious. "Why are we stopping?"
"Hm? Oh, no reason, sir. This just seems like such an attractive piece of the Land of Fire, I thought I'd stop and appreciate it."
Asuma gave him a narrow glare and carefully surveyed their surroundings. When he saw the glint of light next to a nearby tree he relaxed. He let out a sigh and walked over with the air of a man who knows he's about to be pranked but is playing along.
Sitting on the moss beneath a forest giant was a small leather money pouch, fawn-brown and fresh from the tanner's shop. Another HOWS seal had been placed above it to make sure it didn't get missed.
"Oh, gosh!" Hazō said. "Look at that! Someone dropped their money pouch. You should definitely take that, sir. You're better equipped to get it back to the rightful owners."
Asuma gave Hazō another speaking look before picking up the pouch and rolling its contents onto his palm.
The contents were a dozen expertly-cut gemstones ranging in size from 'pinky nail' to 'walnut'. They formed a spectrum from completely clear to a rich blue deeper than the vast majority of stones available in Leaf.
"Wow, someone sure was careless to drop that," Hazō said, his expression still completely absent of gorm. "I sure hope they didn't have a dozen equally careless companions with them who dropped their own pouches."
Asuma's eyes were still narrowed but his lip twitched in amusement. He looked around and, sure enough, there was another HOWS seal glinting a short distance into the woods. He walked over and found another pouch, this one larger than the last. He tucked it into his jacket, looked until he spotted the next beacon, and followed it.
The strange little party followed a trail of light and wealth through the forest. The pouches of gems got larger and larger, each of them packed to the brim with uncut stones. The first pouch had been carefully curated to contain cut stones in a spectrum of colors, but the subsequent pouches were more about quantity than presentation; the stones were uncut and of various colors, some of them streaky instead of an even suffusion. The sixth 'pouch' was a sack the size of a feedbag, and by that point Asuma needed to start putting things in a storage seal.
"You're not going to tell me what this is about, are you?" Asuma asked as he picked up the seventh sack. His voice was amused and slightly exasperated.
"I have no idea what you mean, sir," Hazō said with wide-eyed and patently false innocence. "Although I think there's only a few more of these sacks and that the trail might end somewhere informative."
Asuma snorted, rolled his eyes, and set off for the next stop on the little treasure hunt.
The twelfth and final sack was on the edge of a clearing, and it weighed about half as much as Asuma himself. The man untied the top and looked in to find stacks upon stacks of crystals and gemstones. They were uncut and jagged, wildly varying in size, and there was even some gem dust mixed in. They looked like the sort of refuse that happened when you smashed a large gem with a hammer.
"Okay, we're at the end of the trail," Asuma said. "Fess up. Where did you get all these?"
"I made a bunch of gemstones," Hazō said, "but it's fiddly and time-consuming, so I only put a lot of effort in with the statue of you and that first pouch. After that, I just made a single really big crystal, doped it without worrying too much, and then smashed it with a hammer to get the smaller stones."
"You...made a bunch of gemstones," Asuma said. He looked down at the enormous sack. "You made this many gemstones."
Hazō shrugged.
"Huh," Asuma said.
"If it helps, the actually valuable thing is over there," Hazō said, jerking his thumb towards the clearing.
"I'm standing in front of probably eighty pounds of sapphires but the valuable thing is over there?" Asuma said, amused.
Hazō rolled his eyes. "There's a storage seal on the side of the bag. Seal it up and come look."
Asuma harumphed at the lèse-majesté but he did in fact seal the gems away and follow behind Hazō.
This clearing hadn't been there two days ago. It owed its existence to Hazō, Mari, Kagome-sensei, and Noburi applying several Force Wall saws and a lot of explosives in order to prepare a place for their demonstration. Once it was clear, they had brought a KEI ninja out to cast a Massive and Rapid Infrastructure jutsu and then sent her home with no answers to why they wanted a random chunk of wall on this random spot.
The MaRI wall, originally a hundred and fifty feet long, was gone. In its place was a circular berm of sand inside of which...
"What is that?" Asuma asked, frowning as he looked down into the depression. It had been dug into the ground itself with the sand forming a ring around it more to note the location than anything else.
"That's iron," Hazō said. "Well, iron ore. Well, mostly iron ore dust. Not much, probably only eight or ten tons, but it's richer than the vast majority of ore that Leaf has been digging."
Asuma looked up sharply. "You know we've been facing a shortage lately. Two of the nearby mines ran dry. Did you—"
Hazō raised a hand to interrupt his Kage. "We didn't do anything to those mines. Turns out that the granite produced by the Multiple Earth Wall and MaRI jutsu contains a fair amount of iron. Cast one of those jutsu on dirt, they produce real granite instead of a chakra construct. Take that granite apart with the Earthshaping jutsu..." He gestured into the hole.
"The Earthshaping jutsu?" Asuma said with a frown. "That sounds familiar, but I'm not placing it."
"It's a public jutsu from the library," Hazō said. "It lets you manipulate Earth Element material very slowly but very finely. That's what the gemstone statue was for—to prove how precise the detail can get."
Asuma nodded slowly as he worked through the implications. "And you said that you made the sapphires?"
"Yes. Granite is mostly made of sand, but it's got a lot of this stuff in it." He pulled a corundum disk from his pocket and tossed it to his ruler.
Asuma examined it. "Interesting. I've never seen this before. What is it?"
"Cannai named it 'corundum', because it came from the core of the granite. It's hard enough to scratch steel. It's also completely transparent and extremely tough, meaning that we can make window panes out of it. When you mix other things into it you can get different colors—mix in iron and you get sapphires, for example. Mari decided to call it 'doping', as in 'I doped the corundum with iron'."
"Why?" Asuma asked, turning the corundum disk over in his hands absently.
"She claims that it's because it involves mixing a little bit of a foreign material evenly and smoothly into a lot of base material, which is like when you dope a target's drink with a poison or a sedative. Personally, I think she's making a joke about turning rocks into gems is so ridiculous that it's dopey."
Asuma laughed. "We are absolutely calling it that. By order of the Hokage, that shall forevermore be the word for mixing things into corundum in order to make gemstones."
Hazō sighed. "Fine. So far we can only make sapphires. I've tried mixing other things in but it mostly just ends up looking muddy."
"How big can you make them?" Asuma asked.
"As big as you like. Earthshaping is a very weird jutsu. The area the jutsu can affect gets enormously larger as you get more skilled with it. Right now I can affect everything within about a hundred feet of me, and about two hundred feet deep."
"Wow," Asuma said, blinking. "That's enormous."
"Yup. It works on classic Earth Element material—stone, rock, dirt, and so on—and it just barely affects metal. I can only get my chakra into the metal a tiny distance, so I can tear foil sheets off and stick two big pieces together very, very weakly but I can't easily make big, strong objects."
"Can't easily?" Asuma asked, noticing the word.
"Yeah...if I really needed to, I could take lots of sheets of foil and layer them on top of one another, fusing each one as I went. It would let me build an object up from nothing into whatever shape I wanted. It would take a long time, but I could do it. Seriously, a very long time. Like, 'not worth it' long."
Asuma looked into the massive pit. He reached in and scooped up a handful of the iron; it was mostly coarse dust, with bits of larger scraggle here and there. He hefted it, then let it pour slowly back into the rest of the pile.
"It was easier this way," Hazō said. "Instead of forming the iron, I simply pushed it all to this spot and ejected it from the stone. Then I grabbed the corundum out, which made the wall disintegrate. I gathered the sand around this point to help shield the iron dust from the wind, and also because I thought it looked nice."
"You thought it looked nice."
Hazō shrugged.
Asuma snorted. "Fair enough." He glanced down the clearing. "I'm guessing your wall filled this clearing? That would make it something like a hundred and twenty, maybe hundred and fifty feet?"
"One fifty, yes sir."
"And you pulled eight or ten tons of iron out of that."
"Yes sir."
Asuma considered that for a moment and then sat down. His knees looked a little wobbly as he did.
"Hazō, this is incredible," he said after a few moments. "It comes out as dust, meaning we don't have to break apart big chunks and we can move it in whatever sizes we want. Heck, forget moving it—we don't need to ship iron anymore. We could produce it onsite, in huge quantities."
Hazō waffled one hand. "Yes and no. First, I already mentioned that it's very slow. It took me something like sixteen hours to make all this stuff, not counting the time to build the clearing. It's also a huge chakra hog. Noburi needed to refill me multiple times while I was working on it. And, according to the jutsu scroll, it's like Shadow Clone in that if you run out of chakra it will hurt you."
"I see." Asuma frowned again, clearly trying to remember something, then shook his head.
"Plus, it takes a lot of practice," Hazō continued. "It gives you the ability to 'see' what's inside the earth, and to move stuff around, but when I first started I was practically blind. Everything was so fuzzy and I couldn't really tell what I was 'looking' at. Likewise, my 'fingers' were fat and clumsy so I couldn't do anything particularly detailed. I have combat jutsu that I haven't practiced as much as Earthshaping." Being honest, he hadn't practiced very much with any of his combat jutsu, but there was no need to mention that.
"I see," Asuma said again. "Hazō, why are you bringing this to me? It's fascinating, and I'm very grateful that you did, but why? This is the kind of thing that most clans would keep very secret."
Hazō shrugged and smiled. "Because I do, no matter what Noburi tells you, know how to learn. I'm trying to be a team player and show that Gōketsu is a loyal clan. This jutsu is an economic weapon on the same scale as Elemental Mastery. Shoot, forget economic weapons, it's a direct weapon."
He looked out into the forest, thinking, then gestured broadly. "I could destroy this section of the forest if I wanted to. Pull the soil from around the trees' roots, all the trees fall over. I could plow crops under. Divert rivers to cause floods or droughts. I could go to one of our mines and pull all the valuable material up to the surface, dump it in a convenient pile, and put all the miners out of work. Then I could go to someone else's mine and push all the valuable material far underground so that the mine produces nothing but rock. Or I could simply collapse the mine itself. I could crash the gem market. The Aburame's telescopes? I can make lenses that are larger and clearer than what they can produce.
"The village of Rock is underground, right? I could drop it on their heads. Do any of your enemies live in stone houses? I could turn those houses to dust while the owner was asleep in his bed."
He held back one last weaponization: re-creating the Collapse in miniature. There was no reason to open not-so-old wounds by mentioning the event, and there was part of him that really wanted to drop the Hagoromo clan manor into a giant pit, so best if that idea was never spoken aloud. Not that Asuma wouldn't put it together if he did it, but no reason to help.
"That's...a lot," Asuma said. "I'm honored that you told me. Leaf can get a great deal of benefit from this."
"Which is the major part of why I'm bringing it to you, sir. One thing, though: I feel that the Gōketsu should benefit too. This is our discovery, our efforts, and we deserve something for that. I would prefer that it not be instantly given out to every other clan."
Asuma nodded slowly and rubbed his neck. "I agree with that completely, and I'm certainly not going to spread it around. On the other hand, if it's in the library then it's only a matter of time before someone else finds it. We'll need to make sure that the Gōketsu get their profits quickly, and that you do it without harming Leaf or her people."
"That works for me, sir."
"Excellent. All right, let's head back and start putting this to use." He stood up, took one final look at the iron, shook his head in bemusement, and headed back towards Leaf at a fast jog. Hazō fell in beside him and the ANBU trailed along behind.
"First suggestion," Asuma said. "Take those gems and get them properly cut, then we'll send caravans to Sand, Cloud, and the various minor nations to unload them. Heck, even Mist. You can do it on your own and keep the profit if you wish, but if you would care to partner up then I can classify it as an A-rank mission. I'll tap into Tower intelligence assets in order to find optimal markets and guarantee favorable prices. In exchange, the Tower takes forty percent. Acceptable?"
For a brief moment, Hazō considered haggling. Then he remembered that he could literally create gemstones out of dirt and decided that it wasn't worth it.
"Acceptable, sir."
"Excellent! Now, you mentioned that you could tank a mine. I know that you have a great deal going on with the Dragons and such, and I don't want to distract you from that work, but there is one particular mine that it would be very useful if it went dry..."
Author's Notes: Obviously, I didn't get to the Ino scene. I'm leaving voting closed; @Velorien can write the Ino scene or he can reopen voting as he prefers.
Additionally, Hazō and Asuma went back to the Tower and talking in more detail about the abilities of the Earthshaping jutsu. Asuma had wanted you to go into Rock and trash one of their mines but, after learning the details of what would be required, Asuma regretfully decided that it wasn't practical. He has dropped the idea.
This update covered a day and a half. (I think. I need to check the timeline. If it was more then I'll increase the XP award.)
"Excellent! Now, you mentioned that you could tank a mine. I know that you have a great deal going on with the Dragons and such, and I don't want to distract you from that work, but there is one particular mine that it would be very useful if it went dry..."
Do we want to be like an old married couple with Ritsuo? D:
(Okay no that is objectively funny and he would take spiritual damage if we said it to him so that's actually cool)
I'll need to check on need and availability fir...what is that?"
"Hm?" Hazō said, not making any sort of effort to hide the fact that he knew exactly what the jewel-like glint of light was. "Gosh, Lord Hokage. I have no idea what that gleaming jewel-like light could be. Why don't we check?" He gestured towards the source of the light with an 'after you' sweep of his arm.
No dice roll?
That's a fun way to do it. Asuma was probably starting to get a headache and now he's being treated like an old friend in a way he'll probably appreciate
Asuma laughed. "We are absolutely calling it that. By order of the Hokage, that shall forevermore be the word for mixing things into corundum in order to make gemstones."
And that's why we need to become Hokage. Although he's doing a better job of it than we could hope to do so let's let him be Hokage and Naruto, too. It's not like we won't get our chance at some point, what with being immortal later.
"Excellent! Now, you mentioned that you could tank a mine. I know that you have a great deal going on with the Dragons and such, and I don't want to distract you from that work, but there is one particular mine that it would be very useful if it went dry..."
"I..." Asuma trailed off and was silent for a couple of paces. "Thank you? I'll send someone to the meeting with a quiet warning." He turned around and flashed handtalk at the ANBU who were trailing along just far enough back to not overhear a conversation spoken quietly. An instant later, one of them sprinted away.
I think we should have a section for Ami in the next plan; she should be getting back to Leaf soon-ish, and as always, it's best to go into encounters with Ami prepared for chaos. Or prepared in general.
Additionally:
Between grieving and dragons, Hazou has made time to overturn economics as she knows it. Really, she needs to step it up.
"overturn economics" doesn't begin to cover it.
Friends, we dipped our first toe into post-scarcity. If we play our cards right, we can make it communism. @CommunismWillWin tell 'em!
