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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Nebulus said:
I mean, would Hidan not understand that we could well die if we push too early for a Jashinist revolution? That Leaf is not a civilian village, waiting for us to convert them? That Leaf will convert, but first we need to pry open their heart (esp. through Uplift)?

edit: our win conditions might look like "Hidan thinks Hazou is still a Jashinist, and is not in fact betraying him" (Hidan front) and "Leaf thinks Hazou is not a heretic" (Leaf front).
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Yeah, that's the idea... I'm not sure that'd be enough, though. We will need to kill people. We're not good enough at lying, to lie to Hidan's face about that.
 
MrRobot said:
People are talking about an hiatus?
It got that bad?
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For me? Yeah.

We've been running around since EM Nuke happened. We've been reacting to the fires that cropped up since then. Arguably even before then.

I've made posts about it before. Hasn't been very fun to engage with, even though I know the QMs are simply writing this amazing work of literature, for free, as a hobby, to spend some spare time with friends.

If I'm the only one who feels this burnt out, then maybe I'm the one that just needs a break? Which is fine, if so, I wouldn't want to try an unilaterally force a hiatus like that.
 
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[X] Action Plan: So, You Have Come This Far, and Still, You Understand Nothing
Word Count: 391
  • Optimize with Uplift
  • Public Announcement: Send runners to other clans/KEI and hire criers. Make it known Lord Goketsu has something important to say.
    • Denounce Hidan's penchant for ritual slaughter.
    • Hazou's literally dedicated his career to preserving lives, even civilians, which he's frequently mocked for doing. He's astonished anyone believed he'd support ritual execution of people he's invested so much in protecting.
    • People say crazy things about Hazou daily. Look at his actions, not words from literal zealot mass-murderers.
    • Have Mari organize Clanmates to handle suspicious characters to avoid another Scarf Man incident.
  • Bring upset Goketsu ninja to Bakuchioka. Invite same-age Clan Heads/peers from specjonin celebration.
    • With permissions, describe the incident.
      • Hidan infiltrated Leaf and kidnapped Hazou, then forced him to play psychotic murder games.
        • When facing S-Rankers, options are generally, "Do what they say," or "Die." Hidan is no exception. Except he won't just kill Hazou. He'd kill everyone and everything Hazou cares about just to prove a point, because he can.
        • If Hazou's choice is between his Clanmates being at Hidan's mercy or himself, it's not much of a choice is it?
      • Hazou helped Bakuchioka recover as best he could, but the dead still died, along with the village Hidan just visited. How's it possible to believe Hazou endorses that? He's genuinely baffled. You can't both think he's a pussy for caring about every life and think he's a murder cultist. That's frankly stupid.
    • He's dedicated to sealmastery at his combat/social abilities' expense. Why? Punching empowers himself, but better seals empower his Clan and Leaf ninja. He must be careful what's shared lest it get turned against Leaf. He's not protecting them if he's arming their enemies. Shikaku taught him that. Though frustrating, he's determined to become so skilled, no sealmaster can imitate him and he can share freely.
    • Until his seals deal with S-Rankers, Hazou's stuck doing whatever they say. That doesn't mean you should believe their crazy bullshit.
 
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eaglejarl said:
Here is the revised timeline:

Feb 8(same)
Feb 9(same)
Feb 10Hazō does his research as normal, finishing up before it is completely dark.
When Hazō returns home, Mari grabs him and immediately demands that he gather his advisors to deal with the Jashinism thing, planning a speech to be delivered tomorrow morning. Chapter 607 happens as shown.
Feb11(Assuming you vote for it) Hazō denounces Jashinism as early as he can get an appropriately-sized audience together.

The situation did not immediately explode on the 9th. Instead tension was merely building, as noted in the chapter:
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Thank you again to the QMs for patiently & genuinely listening to people. I know this quest prides itself on fostering a rationalist environment & mindset and it's awesome to see you all lead by example and be willing to admit to & correct mistakes.

I look forward to reading whatever you cook up that's enjoyable for you to write!

Cariyaga said:
Yeah, that's the idea... I'm not sure that'd be enough, though. We will need to kill people. We're not good enough at lying, to lie to Hidan's face about that.
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AFAIK the plan right now is to just murder the "right" kind of people (e.g. convicted criminals, bandits, and enemy combatants) with the steadiest stream coming from asking to be the executioner for Leaf's capital crimes.

However, beyond the general feeling of, "Mmm, Hidan (and Jashin?) will eventually want us to 'REALLY MEAN IT'" I think the public executioner route is about to face some PR hurdles.

It's gonna look EXTREMELY bad if we say, "We're totally not Jashinists! Don't worry, your immortal souls are safe!" and then we turn around and say, "Hey Asuma, would you mind letting me be the one to kill a bunch of your citizens? I have to so Hidan thinks I really worship Jashin but don't worry I totally ninja pinky promise I'm not lying to you and I really am a Jashin worshiper even though I totally would make a pact with an extra-dimensional being if I thought the benefits were worth it😁"
 
Velorien said:
What are the Rapport/Presence rolls intended to achieve?
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To convey the correct tone. Sometimes if Hazou is upset Intimidation will get rolled which I don't think works for this approach. He might get upset but I'd prefer it be more in a "you should feel bad for doubting me" type way. If I'm fine leaving off rolls entirely and relying on narrativium to determine the outcome then that's fine by me.
 
Shrooms said:
Denounce Hidan's penchant for ritual mass slaughter as recommended
  • Hazou has literally dedicated his career to preserving lives, even civilians, which he's frequently laughed at for doing. He's frankly astonished anyone believed he'd support ritual execution of people he's invested so much in protecting.
  • People say crazy things about Hazou daily. Look at his actions, not words from literal zealot mass-murderers.
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Where are we doing this? If it's to our people, can we take action to prevent another totallynotHagoromo!interrupt like with the Haru incident?
 
Threnodist said:
"Hey Asuma, would you mind letting me be the one to kill a bunch of your citizens? I have to so Hidan thinks I really worship Jashin but don't worry I totally ninja pinky promise I'm not lying to you and I really am a Jashin worshiper even though I totally would make a pact with an extra-dimensional being if I thought the benefits were worth it😁"
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I think there may be a Freudian missing word in that denial.
 
faflec said:
Where are we doing this? If it's to our people, can we take action to prevent another totallynotHagoromo!interrupt like with the Haru incident?
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>have mari lurk in the crowd and start stabbing suspicious people wearing scarves
"I am not a murder cultist. Please ignore the gurgling from our surprise guest."

what kind of preventative action should we take? Just have Mari surreptitiously genjutsu hags that start interrupting?
 
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Shrooms said:
>have mari lurk in the crowd and start stabbing suspicious people wearing scarves
"I am not a murder cultist. Please ignore the gurgling from our surprise guest."
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"Historians now believe that Lord Gōketsu forgot, when issuing his orders, that it was still winter in the Fire Country, and this simple mistake was the true reason for the First Gōketsu Massacre."
 
Shrooms said:
>have mari lurk in the crowd and start stabbing suspicious people wearing scarves
"I am not a murder cultist. Please ignore the gurgling from our surprise guest."

what kind of preventative action should we take? Just have Mari surreptitiously genjutsu hags that start interrupting?
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Have our ninja be looking out at the crowd and pinpointing suspicious folks/anyone who isn't Goketsu approaching, then quietly have them removed before the speech?
 
Reaction Post Time!

eaglejarl said:
Interlude (AU?): Generation One​


"All right, Yasuo, it's your turn," Inori said with a smile. She gestured for the young boy to take the podium.

"Yes, Sensei!" Yasuo stood up immediately, struggling and failing to be discreet about swallowing the lump of stage fright that was closing off his throat. He did his best to stride to the front of the class, but he stumbled on the leg of Himiko's chair and everyone laughed. He blushed crimson and did his best to ignore it.

Inori suppressed her smile. Seven-year-old boys had delicate egos and it wouldn't do for him to think she was joining in the mockery.

Yasuo took his position behind the child-sized podium and laid his report on it. Inori could see that the pages were crumpled from where he had clutched them too tight in his nervousness; he took a moment to smooth them down.
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Ah, the terror of stage fright. I remember my own struggles public speaking in first grade and third grade. The sweaty palms and having to remember my simple speech weren't fun at the time but it's still nostalgic though. I'll be rooting for Yasuo.
eaglejarl said:
"You've got this," she whispered, flashing him a reassuring smile. He smiled back, taking heart from the support.

"My book report is on 'The Sealmaster Tradition: Lineage of the Gōketsu, Generation One'," he read, the words stilted. "This book is the first in a series that talks about the sealing tradition that started with the Gōketsu family back in the Village Era and continues to this day. It lists who taught who and what they did. It is very exciting. There are stories of battles that were won using seals created by Gōketsu sealmasters. There are details of the invention of all the many, many seals that form the basis of modern technology. Those seals are what give Leaf its quality of life." He stumbled a bit on 'quality of life' but pushed on through.
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The Kool-Aid song started to immediately go off in my head as soon as he mentioned the Goketsu contributions to sealcraft. Feels damn good to make it into the history books and even better when it seems to imply Uplift actually turned out to be successful in the future. Kind of also nice to know there's technology based off of seals in the future, which implies we ushered in less risk or more stability to the field.

eaglejarl said:
Inori couldn't keep a frown off her face. That was clearly ripped from the blurb on the back cover. The words were original, technically, but he had clearly been reading the cover while he wrote them.

"The first Gōketsu sealmaster was Lord Gōketsu Jiraiya," Yasuo read. "He was born almost three hundred years ago in 1017. He was also known as the Toad Sage, the Fifth Hokage, the leader of the Sannin, the Hero of Nagi Island, the Scholar, and the author of the first fifty-eight volumes of Series One of the well-loved Icha Icha series."

Ooh, that was right! Series 287, Volume 29 should have dropped yesterday. She would have to check if her bookseller had gotten them in stock yet.
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Yeah! Hooray for humanity getting 300 more years. Guess Shikamaru's calculations of when the apocalypse might occur had to be frequently updated thanks to us. You could say uplift was quite troublesome. And I'm not surprised Icha Icha was continued in some form or another. The real question is who was lewd and brave enough to commit to continuing the series after Jiraiya?

eaglejarl said:
"He was—" Yasuo began, only to halt when Himiko's hand shot up.

"Yes, Himiko?" Inori asked. "You have a question?"

"What's 'Sannin' mean?" the young girl asked. "And 'Hokage'?"

"The Sannin were three very famous ninja," Inori explained. "We'll talk about them in history class this year. As to your other question...back in the Village Era, the various nations were each ruled by one person. The Hokage was the ruler of Fire Country, which is what we today call the Forest Province."
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...Right.
Post village era. Things must have really changed in three centuries.
Still, not that much hero worship or propaganda present so far. I wonder if the Will of Fire has gone the wayside as well.

eaglejarl said:
"But what about Parliament?" Himiko demanded.

"Parliament didn't exist while Gōketsu Jiraiya was Hokage," Inori said. "It was created about fifty years after he died the first time, mostly by Jiraiya's wife and son, and it was very different from what it is today. We'll cover that in the next unit when we go over the Great Transition."

"But—" Himiko cut herself off when Inori made a firm 'shush' gesture.

"There's a lot to talk about there," Inori said. "That's why there's an entire unit on it." She looked down at her young speaker. "Go ahead, Yasuo."
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Okay, okay, I'm liking where this is headed.
Ninja parliament sounds stronger than the clan council- enough so that the rule of one ninja over the others is a thing of the past. And Hazou and Mari helped start this somehow.

(Smiles at the mention of Jiraiya's death "the first time".)

eaglejarl said:
"Yes, Sensei." He took a moment to find his place, then continued. "He—Gōketsu Jiraiya, I mean—created the Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern seal that we still use to this day." He pointed up at the seals that ran across the ceiling. "He was the one who taught all the other Leaf clans how to make seals. Some of them thought they knew how to make seals but they were doing it wrong, so Lord Jiraiya took all their sealing stuff and fixed it and gave it back. That's why they call him the Scholar."

Inori suppressed a chuckle. That wasn't wrong, exactly, but hoo boy was it biased. At least three-quarters of Leaf's early sealing tradition had come from people who weren't Jiraiya. He hadn't 'fixed' the existing sealing traditions, he had standardized them. Still, that was a bit much to expect a seven-year-old to get.

"The most pro-lif-ic of the Gōketsu sealmasters was Gōketsu Kagoome," Yasuo continued. "He trained twenty-seven students and only one of them died. He is known for creating the Pressure-Activated Exploding Parmeter seal—"

"Explosion Perimeter," Inori corrected. "And it's 'Kagome'." Back in the halcyon days of university, she had done her senior thesis on Gōketsu Kagome. Untangling truth from myth where that man was concerned was more challenging than almost any other figure of his era. It had been fascinating.

Yasuo blushed again. "Yes, Sensei. Lord Gōketsu Kagome is known for creating the Pressure-Activated Explosion Perimeter seal, which made it safe for anyone to sleep in the wilderness, even civilians."
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Yeah, the victors get to write history. And the biased academics who study them can make them sound even more awesome or complicated- within reason. I'm still going to bask in the prestige of the Goketsu being included in the textbooks, especially when they were such a new clan.

Wonder if that was based off of trying to make pressure-activated armor. I've got to check again. Would be totally cool of Kagome to continue his work where he left off. That's assuming he gets more chances to off essies that can tank his traps.

Very unfortunate what happened to Yudai, by the way. It looks like he might be permanently gone. My guess is that deaths that occur as a result of a sealing failure are either much more difficult to reverse or impossible.

Bummer.

eaglejarl said:
Another hand shot up.

"Yes, Daiki?" Inori asked.

"Why wasn't it safe to sleep in the wilderness? Were they worried about getting rained on? And what's a civilian?"

"Rain wasn't the problem," Inori said. "They had tents for that. There used to be monsters out in the countryside. Dangerous animals that would attack people while they slept at night. The Explosion Perimeter seal would cause anything passing through its field to explode. It could activate many times, which was unusual for motive seals of that time, and it could be used by civilians, which is what they used to call people who were born with inactive chakra systems, back before the activation process was invented." She waited for Daiki to put his hand down, then nodded to Yasuo again.

"Gōketsu Kagome also invented the first skymaster seal," Yasuo read, "which allowed for free flight and lasted for eighteen hours."

"It does not!" shouted Aiki, the class know-it-all. "It lasts for thirty-seven months of total operation, plus or minus three days!"

"Aiki!" Inori snapped. "We raise our hands, we do not interrupt. Apologize to Yasuo."

Aiki looked mutinous but no seven-year-old could withstand the withering eye of the teacher. The boy finally grumbled out an apology before sulking.

"To respond to Aiki's comment," Inori said, "yes, the modern skymaster seals last about thirty-seven months, but the first versions, the ones that Gōketsu Kagome invented, only lasted eighteen hours. They were also significantly slower than the modern ones, mostly because the shield bubble hadn't been added yet and so the wind quickly became a problem. Still, at the time this was absolutely miraculous. I suspect we're about to hear just how miraculous. Yasuo, please continue."

"The skymaster seal was responsible for ending the Warring Clans period," Yasuo read. Inori cleared her throat. "Er, the Village Era. This seal allowed Fire Country to unify all of the nations under the Council of Unity which eventually became Parliament."
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Nice.

Chakra beasts seemed to have been culled by civilians. That's awesome. Although, I'm kinda sad that they were done away with like that if it became so easy to kill them. Wish there was some usage for them that humanity would have stumbled upon.

And it looks like Skywalkers will be going through some major improvements. I can't wait for them to start lasting whole hours. This will dramatically improve Leaf's ability to penetrate other villages and reduce the cost of producing Skywalkers. We already have a lot of the tools for remote viewing, which is going to be a game-changer, and improving on that is absolutely going to be big for village perimeter defense. There's no mention of the role of Sky Sliders or Sky slicers though; were the two inventions impractical for ninja combat?

Looks like these folks have what Iron country always dreamed of-kind of bitter sweet knowing that civilians just aren't a thing in the future.

eaglejarl said:
That was leaving out a whole lot, Inori thought to herself. Mostly blood and murdering, and the Council of Unity was an evolution of the AMITY organization and the various infrastructure development organizations Leaf had been spitting out by the dozens at that time. Still, it was true; the military capacity of the skymaster seal had convinced Wind to apply for unification with Fire, at which point Lightning and Water had seen where things were going and joined the burgeoning Federation of Nations. Two years later, the civilians of Earth had been delighted to be brought into the fold, stepping across the dead bodies of most of Earth Country's ninja in the process. Still, it had been a surprisingly bloodless end to what history later called the Thousand Years War.
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Hm, I can see AMITY having a few rough years ahead of it as the villages hold onto old grudges or as ninja warfare shifts into an even more clandestine direction. It does sounds like it eventually gets stronger and Leaf also happens to chest burst out of the organization.

Can't say that Sand eventually joining Hidden Leaf is any shock at all. They were practically brow-beaten into participating in the 4th Shinobi war when they really wanted to play neutral. Seems like being cursed with terrible geography eventually caught up with them after their military losses to Akatsuki. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if players had chosen to start out as missing-nin in Wind country instead of Fire. It sucks for them that they never got a chance to interact with team Uplift.

eaglejarl said:
"The third Gōketsu sealmaster, and the last in Generation One, was Gōketsu Hazō," Yasuo continued. "He was also known as the Ninth Hokage, the Dragonslayer, the Innovator, the Builder, and the Rescuer among other names. He and his mother, Gōketsu Mari, are credited with creating the Federation Parliament."

Okay, that line was plagiarized straight from the book. She would need to talk to him later.

"Gōketsu Hazō was the inventor of solid state sealing, which became the foundation of all modern chakra-based technology," Yasuo continued to plagiarize. "His groundbreaking work was so far ahead of his time that sealmasters were still making new discoveries from his research notes forty years after he passed on. Among other inventions, he produced the first generation of the modern programmed construction seal, which encodes the blueprint of a building into its structure and then expands into that building two minutes after activation. Hazō's version was only capable of producing buildings under ten thousand cubic feet, but he worked throughout his career to enhance the detail capacity of his seals. By the time he was thirty, he could generate buildings equipped with running water and wall-mounted chakra conduits that would allow civilians to activate seals."

"Oooh, ooh!" Miwa said, bouncing in her chair and waving her hand frantically.

"Yes, Miwa?" Inori asked.

"Where did the water come from?" the girl demanded. "I asked Mom where the water in our walls comes from, but she didn't know."

Yasuo froze, looking frantically from his report to his questioner as he tried to find the answer.
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And our boy, Hazou, is a legend in his own right. Really surprised we got enough approval to make a bid for the hat. I guess Naruto slacked off something fierce. Or maybe he retired and our feats were just too numerous to deny, even by the conservative block. Also looks like we went ahead with plan Necro and retrieved people from the afterlife.

If chakra-based technology is only possible with solid state sealing, then chakra transistors must have been developed then? I'd think you'd need chakra to be more consistent, but I'm already way, way outside of my laymen's knowledge.

Loved the fact that our quality of life camping and survival seals caught on. Comfort always wins.

eaglejarl said:
"Hazō's initial version used a very large storage space as a water tank," Inori explained, saving the boy from having to admit ignorance. "His later versions used two spaces, one for cold water and one for hot. The problem with this was that once the spaces were empty there was no way to recharge them. Hazō and his uncle, Kagome, worked on this problem for twenty years and eventually solved it using technology which I suspect Yasuo is about to tell us about." She smiled at the boy. "Yasuo, was there something in there about rifts?"

"Um..." He quickly skimmed through his report. "Oh, yes! Gōketsu Hazō and Gōketsu Kagome are credited with the first-generation rifter seal. It was only capable of opening pre-existing rift scars but they found a scar that lead to the Pure Lands. They rescued Gōketsu Jiraiya, who had died four years earlier, making Jiraiya the first person ever resurrected."

"Gōketsu Yūdai was second," Aiki said smugly. "Then Tanaka Tomika, then Gōketsu Akane. He wanted to get Gōketsu Akane first but couldn't find her until later."

"Aiki." Inori's tone was sharp. "I said not to interrupt. For now, cover up. After class, detention." She mimed putting her hand over her mouth. Aiki pressed his hand to his mouth, glaring at her angrily. He would be required to sit like that for the rest of the class, an action he was well familiar with.

"To answer your question, Miwa," Inori said, "the later generations of the Gōketsu seal-based buildings, and all modern buildings, have large storage spaces in them to act as water tanks. Those tanks are refilled by way of a rift to one of the freshwater seas on the Deva Path."

More hands shot up, waving frantically.

Inori smiled and turned back to her speaker, who had been looking more and more nervous at standing up front. "Yasuo, well done. I know you have more in your report, but why don't you sit down? There's a lot of questions to explore."




Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, .
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Holy shit. We used rift based seals for building infrastructure? Wait...we'd totally do that. Lol.
And I spoke too soon. We got our hands on Yudai, which is a big win. Yes. He needs to be careful with that pressure-based seal of his though. Jiraiya's notes should help with that.

Finally, opening rifts sounds exciting as hell. I'm imagining Hazou opening up rifts and doing some damage like he's some kind of Diablo 3 character. I think he'd be a Demon Hunter, not quite sure what build though. You know, It would be funny if locking up the dragons only prevented them from entering the 7th path or Human path. Rifts invaded by dragons sounds like fair game to me.

I noticed a certain Goketsu with an affinity for snakes wasn't mentioned.
:drevil:
 
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Shrooms said:
[X] Action Plan: So, You Have Come This Far, and Still, You Understand Nothing
Word Count: 320
  • Optimize with Mari/Kei
  • Clan Announcement: Denounce Hidan's penchant for ritual mass slaughter as recommended
    • Hazou has literally dedicated his career to preserving lives, even civilians, which he's frequently laughed at for doing. He's frankly astonished anyone believed he'd support ritual execution of people he's invested so much in protecting.
    • People say crazy things about Hazou daily. Look at his actions, not words from literal zealot mass-murderers.
    • Have Mari organize Goketsu ninja and handle suspicious characters to avoid another Scarf Man incident.
  • Bring upset Goketsu to Bakuchioka. Invite same-age Clan Heads/peers from specjonin celebration.
    • With permissions, explain exactly what happened.
      • Hidan broke in to Leaf and kidnapped Hazou, then forced him to play psychotic murder games.
        • When faced with an S-Ranker, your choice is generally, "Go along with what they want," or "Die." Hidan is no exception. Except he won't just kill Hazou. He'd kill everyone and everything Hazou cares about just to prove a point, just because he can.
      • Hazou helped Bakuchioka recover as well as he could, but those people are still dead, along with another village the Goketsu had assisted that Hidan just visited. How's it possible to believe Hazou could endorse that? He's genuinely baffled. You can't both think he's a pussy for caring about every life and think he's a murder cultist. That's frankly stupid.
    • He's dedicated himself to sealmastery at the expense of his combat/social abilities, to Mari's dismay. Why? Punching empowers himself, but better seals empower his Clan and Leaf ninja. He must be careful what he shares lest it get turned against Leaf. Shikaku taught him that. He's determined to become so skilled, no sealmaster can imitate him and he can share freely.
    • Until he makes something to deal with S-Rankers, Hazou's stuck doing whatever they say. That doesn't mean you should believe crazy shit they say.
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I like it, I just want to raise a couple concerns. In the most recent update, Mari says we might have to do some nasty purifying ritual via the Hags to get clean. Thoughts on that?

Also this addresses the fears of the Goketsu junior members and the young clan heads, but what about the KEI and the older clan heads? I think that covers most of the groups with power in Leaf.
 
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