*prepares the folder of "if Gaku turns out to be a traitor" meme*
I am prepared. As I always am."
na na na na na na na na GAKU
Well, you get the gick of it. Gick is bick, and all that. Don't go gickering about details. We have work to do and I'm already gick of it.
"Area of expertise, sir?"
Gaku never fails to crack me up. Just that "sir" over and over again is so funny to me
Snowflake is Kei without the depression and most of the inappropriately-directed rage issues.
most?
Are you suggesting that they might turn on us if they decide that the Gōketsu were a threat to Leaf, or to the Nara, or to whatever little brainworm Shikamaru woke up with that day?"
*Kagome voice* SHIKAMARU WOKE UP WITH BRAIN WORMS? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TALKING TO HIM? THAT'S JUST A MEAT PUPPET NOW, SQUISH THE FUCKER
"Sir..." The older man hesitated, looking uncertain. "Sir, my experience with ninja clans is that their alliances tend to be fraught and may not long endure."
"An excellent point, Gaku. An excellent point. You are a perspicacious man filled with insight and worldly wisdom."
Oooooh, a taste of your own medicine! I'm giggling, thank you for this.
Gaku's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
YEAH HOW'S IT FEEL
Gaku's head came up quickly. "Lord Nara is lying, sir?"
Reporting to ANBU headquarters are you, TRAITOR
"It's a fish. Once it bites down, it doesn't let go even if you kill it. You have to break its jawbone in order to get it to let go. Which is tough, because that tends to burst the fire glands and cause a massive explosion. Point is, Shikamaru doesn't share information he doesn't have to.
This has an extremely enjoyable, vague Cave Johnson feel to it. Something about the cadence, the level of detail, and then "point is" to something unrelated on a surface level is reminiscent of the Lemon Rant. Hoping that is not a rude thing to say.
If I wanted to know what the weather was, he would check the Nara rulebook to make sure it was safe to tell me.
Now in all fairness, if the Nara rulebook says it's not safe to tell you, it probably isn't.
Gaku's tone made very clear that he knew he was being excluded from sensitive information.
Too bad, Gaku, you don't have a Mari!
Hoo boy. Granny Mayuka's gingersnaps were too tasty. They were distracting him.
Can we weaponise that?
Oh that's a good word!
Hazō twitched and pushed the thoughts away firmly.
... Is it possible to learn this power?
Heh. Not from a Naruto quest, I fear.
Thinking back on it, I realized that I forgot to ask one of the questions. I went through all the rest but somehow I skipped that one. I thought maybe there was some kind of infoeater chewing the memories out of my skull.
Wait, I remember talk of this. People who are very involved in plans, is this about Orochimaru having "already answered" the Jashin question, or is it something else and a question of the prepared list did vanish?
"Is that possible, sir?" Gaku said, his voice the very model of horrified.
Still casually slumped in his chair, feet up on his desk, ankles crossed, Hazō took a bite of his cookie and continued staring at the ceiling. "Yup," he said.
One Badass Point.
"There's a whole class of seal failures related to infoeaters. Fortunately, most seal failures involve localized physical destruction—they blow up, or melt everything within twenty feet into goo, or turn nearby people inside out. It's when you start getting into the more esoteric failures that things get bad. Infoeaters are some of the worst, at least in my opinion."
SEALING LORE MY BELOVED 💜💜💜💜💜
Then Shikamaru disclosed the following words of wisdom on this critical issue."
Hazō sat up, turning to face Gaku with erect posture, both hands laid flat on his desk and an unmoving stone-like expression on his face. He met Gaku's eyes firmly and intoned, "The existence of supernatural beings is quite troublesome."
Hahahahahaha. How did I not see this coming?
Wait no the answer is easy, it is "you brought it up with enough gravitas that you could adroitly both set up and subvert expectations." Kudos
"Gaku, are you aware that Clan Heads have the power to choose the definition of family treason, and that I might choose to place 'excessive sass' on that list at any time?"
"I apologize if anything I said caused you offense, sir. I shall report for flogging immediately upon the end of this meeting."
That's it, adding excessive sass to the list.
Mari needs the practice. Civilians are too mushy to not be afraid, and ninja who are both able and willing to take a beating are rare indeed.
"I see." The Hokage stared at him silently for long seconds. "And, of course, you have no interest in recruiting the S-rank ninja into your..."
Hazō felt his butt clench in the chair. Plot? Conspiracy? Had the Hagoromo been pouring poison into Asuma's ear again? Shitshitshit, how did he get out of this one?
"...fish sex cult?"
Hazō glowered at his political ruler until Asuma's sober facade finally broke and the man started laughing.
"That was mean, sir," Hazō said. He paused. "Also, it was a fish god sex cult."
The fish god was called Jashark, by the way. It was adorable.
Jiraiya had a phrase, 'sounds like a bad case of being a jōnin'. Every member of Akatsuki has a truly monumental case of being a jōnin."
Yeeeesssss, remember him muahahahaha
Unfortunately, as the saying goes: time and drill instructors wait for no ninja and the calendar is the only tyrant that cannot be toppled."
Meaning drill instructors
can. Oh my.
"If I may ask, sir: who exactly is it that says that?"
This sentence is linguistically extremely pleasing based on very specific work done on interrogatives and identifying them which I've been studying for the last two years (and now that I don't have to and I'm sick of studying that, I can appreciate it for its own beauty without worrying about remembering every single detail about stuff I'll never use)
Oof, sorry. [X] Action Plan: Punching
