- Location
- Yes.
Why can't we just level Primordial Sealing before doing research?
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
Welp, we could. But since we can just do an explosive and the point is to get Asuma to go get us more substrate. I don't really see the point?
We can't do reasonable sealing research without mountains of the stuff. So the faster we can get the ball rolling the better IMO.
To be clear, we'd need eff PS 50 to reliably research storage seals at TN 20 in two rolls. So this is not a short delay.
- Location
- United States
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
...why?
I mean, first of all, Asuma's biggest priority here is helping us win the Dragonwar. He's out and said the only reason he hasn't publicly declared that he's giving us preferential treatment and everyone else better shut up is that it wouldn't actually make things easier for us (because, well, they would not in fact shut up). Why would he start hanging this over our noses, threatening to not let us make progress on the Dragonwar unless we give up our 3D seals?
Second of all, why wouldn't we just be able to buy them? We can pay for it, we're rich. Let's say they took an A-rank mission to fund, we can afford that. Asuma would have to say "I will accept no payment other than the finished 3D seals" which is a very very aggressive bargaining position to make.
Third of all, he doesn't even really get much out of this? Our low-level Primordial Seals aren't going to be all that impressive compared to what Sealing can ordinarily do. Our explosive seals will be more powerful, yes, but powerful enough to make a difference in a Jounin v. Jounin fight? Probably not. Plus, they're large and heavy and cumbersome: you can't just give them to mission ninja as freely as we do paper seals.
And lastly, there's only so much crystal in the cave. Honestly I don't think we'd get more than, like, 20 seals even if we chopped down the entire thing. (And I'm still personally in favour of leaving it alive so we can learn more from it). Even if Asuma suddenly comes down with a case of the twirling moustache and tries to antagonize us for no reason, the gambit would be over before anything of note has happened.
There's merit to harvesting more from the cave. A static stockpile could help us progress while Ma and Pa are working on the jutsu. It could be our only source of substrate at all if Ma and Pa fail. If we're harvesting from the cave, there's merit in sending Hokage resources to do the mission, because they're available and it doesn't take up any of our time that way. The main reason I wouldn't want to do the mission is because I would want to tell these ninja "only harvest a portion of the crystal; try not to kill the cave entity" and I'm not sure I would trust them to do that (killing the cave entity could ruin our chance of figuring out how it makes the substrate and how we can replicate it). But Asuma isn't my concern. If he demands payment for the mission, we can pay. If he demands we pay in 3D Seals, we have Mari teach him a thing or two about negotiation. If Asuma twirls his moustache and insists, sure, whatever, we give him the basic chump change seals we're making as our first seals, and then the stockpile he collected runs out. Asuma is just a complete non-issue here.
Hazo's value is as a research sealmaster, not a sealing sweatshop, and historically the ability to furnish solutions to seemly impossible problem(Flight, slicing dragons, EM Nukes, etc).
Making Hazo produce PS explosive seals as upkeep of his sealmastery duty is a waste of his valuable time. He builds the systems that build systems of warfare.
It would be like tasking Albert Einstein to calculate artillery tables for the military, when a perfectly trained computer can do the task, maybe better and more efficient than he ever could. Better to have him think about the universe and relativity.
Making Hazo produce PS explosive seals as upkeep of his sealmastery duty is a waste of his valuable time. He builds the systems that build systems of warfare.
It would be like tasking Albert Einstein to calculate artillery tables for the military, when a perfectly trained computer can do the task, maybe better and more efficient than he ever could. Better to have him think about the universe and relativity.
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I think this is a drastic underestimate of blank numbers we'd get from the crystal.
Minimum size of a lithoseal is 8" diameter by 1" cylinder. Approx. 50 cubic inches, or 0.8 L (I thought they were square prisms earlier, but upon reread, this is clearly referencing a cylinder.
That sounds like at least a few cubic meters of crystal. Enough for literally thousands of blanks.
Yeah, but Naruto takes orders from Asuma.
Anyway, we know that Akane and Yuno could scratch the things but they weren't getting past the golem's Armor rating. So Lightning spec jounin with armor piercing jutsu, and Earth spec jounin ninjutsu as back up and maybe a Hyuuga to keep an eye out have a excellent chance of accomplishing the mission. Asuma could send 12 jounin if he wants to. He might!
Or Naruto, Naruto could probably do it.
- Location
- United States
We also delay all the issues with Orochimaru, what to tell Asuma, and needing to source the material until we have a working 3D Seal.
By simply leveling and waiting we punt all those issues, and end up with a better and more useful demonstrable seal when the time comes, and have more of a headstart on Orochimaru.
This sounds like the optimal scenario.
Chapter 614: Dark Miasma, Part 1
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
March 7, 1071 AS
"That looks fun," Noburi said, gazing into the pit that had been a research facility before Hazō PreserverGuy botched his infusion and caused the seal failure that collapsed the entire place and dissolved (stole?) every piece of written material vaguely related to the Fourfold Preservation Seal.
The pit was wide and shallow, a funnel much like an antlion trap. The ground that formed it had been battered, rendered torn and jagged, then fused into glass. Colors wound through the glass, blues and yellows and reds and greens lending accent to the dominant black. Some sections were clear, albeit bubbly, allowing distorted views of the dirt beneath. Hazō could see an earthworm trapped in the glass off to his left. It was the size of his thumb and contorted in agony, yet perfectly preserved.
"Didn't seal failures used to be cute and amusing little things like moss over your body or talking porcupines?" Noburi asked. "I remember when seal failures were cute and amusing little things like that. I liked those kinds of failures."
"Those still happen," Hazō said absently, his eyes searching for threats in the glass. "Pretty much every day when you're doing research. Things seem worse to you because you're not around when I'm doing research anymore so you only see the big ones that affect a wide area."
Noburi grunted in dissatisfaction.
"This does seem to qualify," Snowflake remarked, surveying the terrain. The pit was a hundred and fifty feet across, and the hole at the bottom two dozen. The hole was a twenty-foot vertical drop into a large cavern in which violet lights flickered and danced, unseen things moving in the shadows.
"Remind me," Mari asked, "why exactly are we doing this? I kinda like the idea of applying Kagome's Rule—throw explosives in until the place collapses, burying any threats under a gazillion tons of rock."
"Because we need to scout the extent of it," Hazō said. "It's unusual—not rare, but unusual—for seal failures to have effects that cover this much physical space. If they're larger than thirty or forty feet then there's no way to know ahead of time how big they're going to be or if they're still propagating. Remember that Air Dome failure that spread through the city until Kagome-sensei figured out how to cut it up? We need to know if the caverns are still spreading underground."
"And you're doing this while still wounded from the psychic backlash, because...?"
"Because I'm the guy who caused it and I'm the SSO," Hazō said, doing his final gear check. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."
"What should we expect, Summoner?" Cangue asked. The Dog warrior was eyeing the cave dubiously and sniffing the air.
"No idea," Hazō said. "Sealing failures are completely unpredictable." He slipped his gauntlets on and tapped the blades together. "That said, don't sweat it. This is a short scout, in and out. No muss, no fuss. Stay close, cover each other's backs, we're out before the baths have cooled. Pandojoru, do your thing."
The rotund pangolin, twenty feet tall and built like a meatball, looked at Snowflake for orders. She nodded and he sighed, then rolled into a ball and spun down the slope, crushing the jagged glass flat as he traveled. He reached the edge of the pit and uncurled, lowering himself in carefully. He was so tall that the top of his head was still at ground level until he crouched and disappeared from sight.
"Be careful," Noburi said. The young man was visibly irritated at not being allowed to join his family, and also scared for them.
"You'll be there next time, bro," Hazō said, rapping knuckles with his brother. "There's probably going to be a second trip, but we want to get a quick glance in first, just to make sure nothing is active. It's only twenty minutes old at this point, so if it is spreading then we can hopefully still contain it. If it's not then we'll take our time, organize a proper expedition, and clear it out in a few days."
"Yeah, whatever."
Hazō flashed him a final, apologetic smile, and then started down the path that Pandojuru had cleared, stepping carefully so as not to slip in the glass fragments. Mari followed, glued tight to Hazō's right side. She chuckled slightly as she moved. "I like that part of your preparations for a battle were to order a large buffet of snacks laid out and baths heated."
"We're probably going to be dirty when we finish murdering whatever's in there," Hazō said. "Seemed smart to be ready for it. Besides, it's something to come home for."
They reached the edge of the hole just as Pandojuru stood up again to report the cave preliminarily safe. Hazō produced a massive X made of hastily-nailed wooden beams, long enough to span the hole from side to side in four directions so that it couldn't easily fall in. He affixed a rope to the center and dropped the free end into the pit, then slid down Pandojuru's back to the floor below. Mari touched down half a second behind him, the others following quickly. Everyone was armed and jumpy.
"Is there actually fog here?" Mari demanded, waving one hand through the air. "If so, it's so thin that I honestly can't tell."
"There is," Snowflake said. "You can see it if you look up."
Sure enough, the sunlight above them was dimmer than it should have been. Not with the pearlescent smearing of normal fog. More like the grey that fell when a cloud—of which there had been none all day—passed before the sun. And yes, there were faint wisps of something shifting in the light.
"Charming," Hazō said. "Let's do this."
They prowled into the cavern, choosing a random direction (north) and searching for the far wall. It was obscured in the shadows and the light of the sun trickling through the entrance.
They found the walls (violet flames skittering out of their way as they moved) and circled the cavern (barely-audible chittering in their ears) through a full revolution. Three tunnels led off, one angling sharply downward (darkness enclosing quickly) while the others stayed roughly on the same level before turning and twisting out of sight.
"Don't be afraid, Summoner!" Pandojuru bellowed, from where he crouched in the center of the cavern. "My immense skill will protect you from any threat!"
"Shhh!" everyone shushed. Pandojuru fell silent, aside from grumbling under his breath.
"I'd like to get a quick sense of how deep it goes," Hazō said quietly, as the group circled up. "I say we go down first, then check the tunnels on this level."
"I believe ensuring our retreat by clearing this floor first would make more sense," Snowflake said.
"Yeah, but if this thing is still growing then my guess is that it's growing down," Hazō said. "Before you ask, it's just a gut feeling, I can't back it up. We don't have to go far. Five minutes, if we haven't found the bottom then we turn around. Yeah?"
Snowflake looked put upon. "Oh, very well." She glanced over at the tunnel, which was tall enough that she wouldn't have to duck, barely, and in no way tall enough for a twenty-foot pangolin. "Pandojuru, wait here and guard the exit."
"As you command, Summoner! Have no fear, with me here guarding the exit—"
"Shush!" she commanded, finger to lips. He shut up, looking more irritated than before.
The rump division of Team Uplift headed to the tunnel on the west wall that trended down. Cangue led, nose sniffing constantly, with Mari right behind her. Snowflake was sandwiched in the middle with kunai ready in both hands and Hazō rode drag, guarding their rear.
They jogged down for several minutes, the air growing thicker and more oppressive as they went. Partway down Hazō murmured a command and everyone produced a Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern seal, gluing them to their forehead protectors. The light sources pushed the murk away, but not nearly as far as they should have.
Hazō could feel the weight of the stone around himself; the tunnel had closed in, leaving them single-file with little room to maneuver or change position in the marching order. Hazō congratulated himself for having the foresight to put a taijutsu fighter front and back instead of leaving Snowflake hanging in the breeze against an attack from the rear.
The others must have found the space just as oppressive as he did, because everyone's breathing was rough and heavy.
"This is...deep enough," Mari said, pausing in a section of corridor than looked no different than any other. She leaned over, hands on her knees as she gasped for breath. "I think...the air...is bad."
A frisson of fear went through Hazō; now that it was pointed out, he could feel it as well. A tightness in his chest, a roughness in his throat like day-long thirst. His head was swimming. He quickly shuffled through his pouch of seals and pulled out a Purifier, clapping it to his mouth before handing out one to each of his team.
"Gah," Mari said through the muffling paper. "This hurts." She was pressing a hand to her chest.
"Let's get out of here," Hazō said. The pain was building steadily, tearing at the fabric of his body. He turned—
"Hazō, I think it's—" Snowflake began to say, before she disintegrated.
"Run!" Mari said, immediately before she too exploded as the invisible knives in the air jammed themselves into her body both inside and out.
Hazō turned and raced up the tunnel, chakra roaring in his muscles, but it was too late. The poison in the air had reached his core. It shredded his lungs, tore open his organs, and killed him before he could take two steps.
o-o-o-o
"Fuuuck me," said Hazō Prime as the memories of his clone slammed into him. "Goodbye, Me NotASub. We barely knew ye."
"What happened?" Noburi demanded.
"Bad air, I think," Mari said. "We went down. It got dark, and then it got painful to breathe. Clone-me died before we could turn back."
"Indeed," Kei said. "It was quite unpleasant." She made the seal of dismissal. "I have sent Pandojuru home. I doubt anything in there could permanently harm a summon, but I see no reason to take the risk."
"Cangue went at about the same time as the rest of us," Hazō said. He had felt the aetheric tunnel snap and the drain on his chakra vanish a few moments after his clone memories returned. "Give me a minute to check in with her, make sure she's okay, then we do a debrief back at the estate. My initial assessment is that I didn't hear or see anything that suggests life or that the zone is still expanding. I was listening for rocks shifting, grinding noises, or any sort of inrushing air that would have suggested new space opening up. I didn't notice anything like that, so I think we're good to take a few days on this. Does that work as a hot wash?"
"Indeed," Kei said.
"Sounds great to me," Mari said gratefully. "I'm not looking forward to going back in there, even by proxy again."
o-o-o-o
March 9, 1071 AS
"Hey Gaku. Any word on the caverns?" Hazō asked, striding into the room and settling behind his desk.
"Progress continues apace, sir," the older man said. "Lord Kagome has been leading the expedition with due care. The caverns are, as you reported in the original sweep, supernaturally dark. There is some effect within the cavern that causes light sources to spread far less, whether created by seals or flames. Lord Kagome has dubbed it 'Dark Miasma', and his chakrascope seals confirm that it is a chakra effect, not simple darkness."
Hazō snorted. "I bet he's loving that. He's making them go even slower, isn't he?"
"Indeed, sir," Gaku said. "Some of the exploration teams have complained. Combat has been frequent, although not continuous. Current speculation is that the rather enormous Pandojuru scared off the local wildlife, which is why you encountered nothing on your trip. When more normal human parties go in they report that the cavern system is extensive and filled with various monstrosities. Lady Yuno gave me a rather harrowing description of something"—he paused to check his notes—"'made entirely of teeth and eyes, but it made Satsuko very sad because it had no blood.' Lady Kei described another which appeared to have no sensory organs, being nothing but a giant, sinuous series of heavily armored chitinous segments."
"Ew," Hazō said.
"Indeed, sir. Due to Lord Kagome's rather thorough rules of engagement, there has been no meaningful danger to anyone thus far. Lord Kagome and Lady Yuno have been having something of a competition to see who can get to the monsters first. Lord Kagome is quite exercised about this, as he wants her to 'stay behind the stinking bastion the way I stinking told her so that I can blast the critters to stinking oblivion the way it should be done.' Lady Yuno and Lady Kei's pangolins have gotten frustrated with his pace and have been ranging a bit ahead."
Hazō frowned. "That's not appropriate. Kagome-sensei is the SSO and I put him in charge of the party. I'll speak to them."
"Yes sir. In any case, over the last two days they have cleared the first cavern and its environs to a depth of roughly thirty-five meters. They have reached multiple dead ends and have identified only two more unexplored tunnels leading out of the area. One leads eastwards, vaguely towards Leaf, while the other seems to go deeper. Both were sealed while the prior area was cleared. Lord Kagome unsealed the one that goes down this morning."
"Good news," Hazō said. "What about those violet wisps of light that we saw on the initial scout?"
"There have been few reports, sir. No one has gotten a clear look at them, although Lord Kagome has insisted that any further sighting be called out immediately. Yesterday, Lord Noburi reported seeing another wisp in the distance. They do not appear to be increasing in intensity or number over time.
"Earlier this morning, Lady Yuno asked me to pass on a message that she is begging off further attendance at the clear parties, as she needs more time with her weapons class. Shinji has been participating, under Lord Kagome's careful supervision, and seems to be enjoying the adventure of it all. I checked in with Lord Kagome on his way to the cavern, asking for any updates. He says that he has seen no signs of anything that worse than a normal chakra beast, nor any young, nor anything with reproductive organs or an apparent method of reproduction. He reiterated his desire to, and I quote, blow the stinking place into the sky like we stinking well should have done."
Hazō snorted in amusement. "Request denied. I want that space available. It's a huge underground area that belongs to the Gōketsu. We can use it for storage, secure meetings, lots of stuff."
"Indeed, sir. I should note that I checked in with Lord Kagome when the clear teams pulled back for lunch. He stated that the 'Dark Miasma' effect increases as one descends into the cave system. The effect is very slightly caustic, enough to pop Shadow Clones and strain but usually not disperse a summon. He had been leaning heavily on the use of Shadow Clones until now, so he has temporarily halted all progress while he lowers various animals into the miasma to determine its long-term safety."
"Good to know. Thanks, Gaku. Let me know if anything changes."
o-o-o-o
The days passed and the clearing of the caverns continued at a (for everyone save Kagome-sensei) maddeningly slow place. Hazō found himself eager to join the teams; it had been too long since he did anything more dangerous than sparring and the desire for some actual combat to blow the rust off his skills was vastly more appealing than facing yet one more mound of paperwork. Unfortunately, he needed time for the damage caused by the psychic backlash of the infusion failure to heal. The shock wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't been doing so much seal research in parallel and dipping into his awareness of the Out in order to do it. Brushing against that alien pseudo-reality gave him insights into seals that let him advance his research by leaps and bounds, but it always left him with a blinding headache for days. With that weakness in place the clone shock had hit extra hard, leaving him psychically exhausted and fuzzy-brained for days.
Which wasn't going to stop him. He was in multiple races, each of them with catastrophic consequences for second place. The Drag.ns might stop being lazy at any time, spread out from the butte in Arachnid and devastate the Seventh Path. If they could defeat in detail enough of the Clan Bosses and gain their power, they could become invincible before the eastern clans got off their fat asses and worked together to fix the issue. Hazō was hoping to find a seal-based weapon that could dispose of Dr4gons, especially since he had no idea how all the ground-bound Clan Bosses would contribute to a battle against flying enemies. If he didn't manage to come up with something, there was a good chance that the Crusade would fail, all the Clan Bosses in attendance would be eaten, and the Dragons would conquer the Path. From which, perhaps, they might cross the veil into the Human Path and kill everyone Hazō cared about here as well.
So that was the first race. Consequences for failure: death or destruction of everyone and everything he cared about. No pressure.
The second was to tear open the afterlife before anyone else did. He was pretty confident that Sasori of the Red Sands, the sealmaster of Akatsuki, was working on the project as well. He had no specific evidence to support the idea, but he was far too experienced a ninja to assume that the world wouldn't do its level best to fuck him over. Whoever got the rift open first could rescue S-rank allies from the Pure Lands, increasing their power over time and allowing them to hold the rift and prevent others from rescuing their own people. First-mover advantage would be everything.
Race numero dos. Consequences for failure: Akatsuki, their power swollen beyond stoppable levels, wielding an iron fist to bring the world to 'peace', or whatever Pain thought passed for it. More importantly, he would never see Akane again.
Given those pressures, he firmly stuffed down his desire for a spot of adventure and kept his nose to the grindstone.
o-o-o-o
March 11, 1071 AS
"After careful testing, Lord Kagome has stated that the 'Dark Miasma' is not harmful to living beings," Gaku said.
Hazō raised an eyebrow. "Is that all that he stated?"
Gaku looked uncomfortable. "There was rather a lot of speculation that I found quite disturbing, but when I pressed him he said that yes, it was probably fine for living beings to be exposed to the miasma for an hour or two at a time, so long as they took a day off afterwards."
"Uh-huh," Hazō said, being all too familiar with Kagome-sensei's 'speculations'. "If it's any comfort, one time he told us that me using a Multiple Earth Wall in the back of beyond in Snow Country could potentially lead to the deaths of twenty-five percentage of the people in the Elemental Nations." He frowned. "Or maybe the world. I was a little unclear on that point."
"I am pleased to see that his predictions did not come true," Gaku said after a moment. "Is he usually so...colorful?"
Hazō chuckled. "You have no idea."
o-o-o-o
"Report," Hazō said as he skidded to a halt at the edge of the pit.
"Something dragged Yūma into the dark," Atomu said. "We didn't get a good look."
"I heard that part from the messenger," Hazō said impatiently. "That's why I'm here in full battle rattle and every other available ninja will be here in ninety seconds. Anything since you sent the message?"
"No sir."
"Well—ah, good, here they are."
Yuno, Noburi, and Kei skidded to a halt beside them. Adding in Hazō and Atomu, that was the sum total of Gōketsu ninja force on the estate at this moment. Kagome-sensei was doing research at one of the out facilities, taking his mandated day off after being in the miasma for two hours. Mari and Haru were in Leaf doing something Mari-like, and the others were on various missions out of the city. Hazō thanked his lucky stars that Kei had happened to be on the estate, dropping off a message from Shikamaru. (No mention was made of the fact that Lady Nara did not have to personally deliver such messages, and Kei was very definitely too rational and logic-driven and professional to simply want to take time to visit her family when she could be doing work. Nope, definitely not a personal visit.) When Atomu's message arrived, Hazō had sent her to fetch Yuno and Noburi while he went on ahead.
"Yūma's been taken, we're going in," Hazō said. "Atomu, it was in the depths, right?"
"Yes sir. Shadow Clones are a no-go, summons are workable but will be vulnerable."
"Good enough. Candoru, Cangue, I choose you!" Hazō pricked his finger and slammed his hand to the ground even as Kei and Noburi were calling forth their own allies.
Hazō took thirty seconds to brief the summons while he and Kei both guzzled chakra water, then looked around the group. Everyone wore serious expressions.
"Everyone ready?" Hazō asked, checking the pockets of his CHAOS suit to make sure all the proper seals were loaded in the correct positions and ready for use.
"Ready," Yuno said, a smile in her voice. She was clinging very close to Noburi's side but she was the only one here who seemed enthusiastic about the trip. Well, Satsuko was probably excited too, but Hazō didn't speak axe.
"Ready, sir," Atomu said.
"Pangolin forces stand prepared," Pankurashun said, his voice gravelly. He did not even bother looking at Panchipāma standing beside him. The former gang leader had been working with Kei's tessera long enough that Pankurashun had finally gotten her to show a basically adequate level of discipline.
"Us toads are ready to show you ugly bipeds how it's done," Gamatatakai said. The young toad had been bulging his throat pouch halfway for the last five minutes as everyone got ready.
"Shut up, Tata," Gamakaberu sighed. "Also, I'm ready." Noburi's newest summon was middle-aged and extra warty but had shown a mastery of Toad-style taijutsu and several relevant ninjutsu that made him a desirable battle companion.
"Ready," said Cangue and Candoru in parallel. Since the moment Hazō had first summoned them together, Candoru had been trying to establish dominance over Cangue. The long-haired bitch had put up with it for about a tenth of a second and then told him to back the fuck down before she sent him home to the Seventh Path the painful way. Candoru had accepted it to the extent that he didn't actually start a fight, but he had been jockeying around, trying to step in front of her and otherwise being a brat.
"Ready," Kei said, ignoring the two dogs. "I must say, it is interesting going into combat in my Prime body again. I have not done so for some time."
"Meat people are a lot more durable than clones," Hazō said. "Kagome-sensei says we should be able to withstand it at least a couple hours."
"Ready," Noburi said, ignoring the rather ominous time limit. He looked around the group. "Everyone topped up?" He waved towards the barrel on his back.
Murmurs of agreement went around the crew and then Team Uplift Plus once more went to war.
Author's Note: This chapter was updated after I discovered I'd missed the AN from chapter 613. Also, I'm adding some explanations here because at least one person didn't understand what had happened:
- The first scene happens immediately after the seal failure. The rest happen over the course of a few days. Dates have been added to make this clearer.
- In the first scene, Hazō, Mari, and Snowflake are all Shadow Clones. I used normal names instead of saying 'the Shadow Clone of Mari' or 'Hazō IAmAShadowCloneDoNotWorryHazōIsNotActuallyInDanger' because I thought it would be nice to have a shred of narrative tension and the feeling in the reader that perhaps something about this scene mattered.
- It was not explicitly stated aside from a mention of the name but the Hazō clone was 'Hazō NotASub', one of the clones who had been doing seal research (specifically on the Substitution seal), not a new clone.
- People used Purifiers immediately upon recognizing the 'bad air'. (Which is actually a chakra effect but they didn't know that at the time.) It explicitly says in the text that Hazō pulled one out, put it on his face, and handed others around. These are the seals that purify surrounding air. Had the team had another few seconds they would have also tried using Tunneler's Friends seals, which are the ones that work like a SCUBA tank and emit previously stored air. They did not have those seconds (and it wouldn't have mattered anyway) and everyone popped before it was relevant.
- 'Kei' was changed to 'Snowflake'. I had thought that Kei could make clones who still thought of themselves as her and would choose to send one such into combat instead of asking a Snowflake (her 'sister') to do it. I have since been corrected; Kei's clones are always Snowflake or another one of their 'sisters'.
- Dates were added.
- I explicitly used NotASub's name to make it clear where he came from.
- The scenes with Gaku were added, mostly as a way of incorporating the 613 AN into the actual text and to make the timeline work more clearly.
- The notice that a Gōketsu ninja had been captured originally said 'Yūdai' because my brain is cheese. It was corrected to Yūma.
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Sooooo
1) No scouting actually took place. And we wasted a bunch of necromancy time by not doing any seal research either.
2) We're going in with people who can't easily run away to the Seventh Path if we get in trouble
3) Nobody seems to have realized that we have UGLSPs that can protect us from bad air.
Was the plan not clearly written or something? I'm legit at a loss here.
1) No scouting actually took place. And we wasted a bunch of necromancy time by not doing any seal research either.
2) We're going in with people who can't easily run away to the Seventh Path if we get in trouble
3) Nobody seems to have realized that we have UGLSPs that can protect us from bad air.
Was the plan not clearly written or something? I'm legit at a loss here.
- Location
- Yes.
1) Once Hazou confirmed the thing wasn't spreading I think the team elected to take their time (since, again, no need to rush).
2) That is the plan, to break stagnancy we need to engage in meaningful combat.
3) UGLSP works by filtering bad air from the good air but we/they have no idea if there is good air down there. Safer to just use a Tunneler's Friend.
- Location
- Somewhere
Shouldn't it be Snowflake in that first scene? Or was 'Kei' used just for dramatic purpose there?
Is it not meaningful combat unless someone's life is at risk? Having to get your stupid ass bailed out by the Hokage just after he told you to stop being stupid and take risks sounds like a meaningful combat to me. Hazou's credibility with Asuma is a very important resource.
Let's start taking Honoka into combat so the stakes are high enough to unstagnate. That seems smart.
Well they don't seem to have thought of TFs either. Note the complete absence of any mention of those seals. They're just not using clones and hoping the gas doesn't hurt the Primes fast enough to cause problems.
Which is fine, it's our jobs as players to think of these things, but in @Paperclipped 's update we scoured the first chamber for literal hours thanks to Kagome. (In direct contradiction to this update, so who the heck knows what's going on) and you'd think they'd have noticed the literal poison gas and that information would have made it back to the players.
In addition to the continuity error of Hazou not having any clone-hours left on the day of the failure, yet somehow still making a SC and not having to roll Resolve again.
...
I'm very frustrated. I wrote this plan and I feel very responsible for this. I'm going to check out for the night, hope everyone is well.
- Location
- Yes.
I am afraid to report that I am an idiot, and forgot that "Purifier" means "UGLSP" and not "Tunneler's Friend".
As Leaf's best living non-psychpathic sealmaster, it's entirely plausible that Hazou will be assigned to look at plenty of future sealing failures around the village.
What are academy students for if not to be disposable pawns to help you game the stagnancy system? Plus, if enough of them that you care about die, you earn more TYS points. We can't loose!
I get what you're going for there but in fairness that is very much how we process nuclear waste. Very little nuclear waste just gets sealed up in concrete or whatever else matches the general thrust of what I assume you intended.
