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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Egg Shavings said:
They want to thank Leaf for killing Kakuzu but can't agree on an appropriate flower arrangement?
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KISAME: "Hazo is from the Mist. Fish would be appropriate."
KONAN: "That would be a poor move, politically, as he's now a shinobi of Leaf."
ITACHI: "Perhaps chocolate?"
DEIDARA: "What about an explo-"
CHORUS: "No explosions."

E:

In Leaf...

KAGOME: shivers, clutches explosives
HAZO: "What's wrong, sensei?"
KAGOME: "Felt something weird in my chakra. Gonna go check the perimeter. Felt like someone walking over my grave. Not today, stinkers."
 
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Future Interlude (AU?): Honoka's Team, Part 6
  • Sidestory
    • Future Interlude (AU?): Honoka's Team, Part 6​

    "Honoka," Chōza sighed, "would you like to explain yourself?"

    The young jōnin thought about it with an audible "hmmmmmmmm" while her genin stood at strict attention, sweating in fear of being murdered by hidden ANBU, or psychically crushed by the Hokage's anger, or (worst of all) forced to go on another mission with their Psycho-sensei.

    "Nah," Honoka said.

    Lord Akimichi Chōza, Eighth Hokage, raised an eyebrow in unamusement. "'Nah'?"

    "Yup. Nah."

    "I would prefer a bit more detail than that, Honoka," Chōza said through gritted teeth.

    "Oh, sorry. You asked if I wanted to explain myself and I decided that I really, really don't, so I said 'nah'." She paused and then hastened to add, "Sorry, I should have said 'nah, Lord Hokage'. Didn't mean to be rude."

    Chōza took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Honoka. Explain to me what happened on your latest mission. In particular, explain in detail what you did that caused me to have a letter from the Kazekage along with a bill for over a million ryō in damages."

    "A million?!" She shook her head. "Honestly. A million?" She turned to her students. "You three caused a million in damages? I am disappointed in you. When I was your age, I—"

    "Honoka!" the Hokage snapped.

    "Huh? Oh, right. Sorry. Let's see, where to start, where to start...? Right, so you assigned us that suuuuper boring mission to escort those stinky guys back to the sandy place."

    A muscle in Chōza's jaw jumped.

    "And we did it in our usual exemplary fashion," she said brightly. "Not a single problem the whole way there!"

    "According to this letter, you were attacked by bandits."

    "I mean, I would hardly call that a problem. It's just one little bandit attack. Hardly worth mentioning, especially since no one got hurt. My little sproglings dealt with it just fine."

    "Oh? And where were you at the time?"

    Don't say it, don't say it, Eita urged in the privacy of his own mind.

    "Oh, I was boinking one of the drivers in the bed of the third wagon. Well, actually, I was finished boinking him and I was taking a nap. I was suuuper tuckered out, because he did this thing with his—"

    "Honoka!"

    "What? He did."

    "The bandits attacked, your genin dealt with them. Is there anything else you might have forgotten to mention about the incident?"

    She looked at the boys as though for help. The boys kept their eyes locked on the far wall, so she sniffed and turned back to the Hokage.

    "I don't think so? Nothing comes to mind, anyway."

    "Nothing."

    "Nope."

    "Perhaps the fact that you insisted on cutting off two of the bandits' heads and bringing them along?"

    "I mean...yeah? We put them on spikes on the first and last wagons. All the other bandits saw them and stayed away. Not another incident the whole trip! Who's a clever girl? Me!" She hooked both thumbs towards her chest and smiled a self-congratulatory smile.

    "Honoka, you used them as hand puppets."

    "So? I was bored! It's a long way to Sand and it's all flat and sandy and booooring! Besides, once they started getting stinky I soaked them in some acid to take the meaty bits off. They were just skulls by the time we got there."

    Chōza took an even deeper breath and let it out even more slowly. "The wagoneers were so traumatized they couldn't sleep for three days. The Kazekage is charging me for emotional damages."

    "Bah." She waved dismissively.

    "What happened once you got to Sand?"

    "We went inside and—"

    "When you say 'we' went inside, who are you referring to?"

    "The caravan?"

    "Were you, Gōketsu Honoka, part of the group that went into the village?"

    "Absolu—"

    "Went into the village through the gate."

    "Oh. I mean, sure, I went through the gate..."

    Chōza raised one eyebrow.

    "...on the way out. I may have skipped it on the way in."

    "According to the Kazekage, you slipped away from the wagons, went over the wall, and led his ANBU on a merry chase for over an hour."

    "Hah! As if. Couldn't have been an hour. The sproglings and the stinky guys went through the gates just after three, the badbu—that's their version of ANBU, except they're really bad at their job—didn't spot me for at least twenty minutes, and I met up with the sproglings at..." She looked at the ceiling and counted on her fingers, her lips moving as she did mental math. "Oh, hey! It was more than an hour, cool! Wow, those Sand guys suuuuck."

    "Is there a reason you broke protocol and nearly caused an international incident?"

    "I was bored?"

    "Is there a good reason you broke protocol and nearly caused an international incident?"

    "I heard that Sand has these sweet syrups that they put in their cake and I really needed to try one. For the record, they are amazing."

    "I'll be sure to compliment Ryu on the quality of his village's confectioners. Did you do anything else that I should know ab...allow me to rephrase. What else did you do between entering the village and rejoining your team?"

    "Nothing much, really. I did some shopping, visited a museum, scouted some jutsu theft, splashed in a fountain—"

    "Stop. Go back. What was that about jutsu theft?"

    "Oh, yeah, there's this technique hacker who lives in Sand, right? Uncle Hazō's been talking about him for years. Wanted to collaborate with him but he refused. I swiped some of the instruction materials that he wrote up for his students, along with three of his jutsu scrolls. Now Leaf can learn all his tricks!"

    Chōza closed his eyes. His lips moved slightly as he counted to ten, then continued on to twenty, and finally made it a nice round fifty.

    "Honoka, do you understand why this is a problem?"

    "Not really?"

    Chōza seemed to be trying to pull strength from the very air.

    "I just scouted his place out so I could steal them later. Then I went and visited the museum, played tag with the badbu for a bit, and met up with the sproglings."

    "And when you say 'played tag with', what you mean is...?"

    "I let one of them see me, then I evaded him, then I whistled and waved so that he could find me again, then I did that a couple more times and got bored so I went to their Academy and snooped around to see what they're teaching the kids. The badbu guy and three of his friends caught up to me and hustled me out. I promised them I wouldn't tell their boss that they had misplaced me a bunch of times and we could just forget the whole thing."

    "I see."

    "I was very good from then on, even when I got super bored! I stayed in my room and didn't bother anyone or do anything wrong."

    "You stole the jutsu, right?"

    "Well, yeah. Of course. But that's going to help Leaf so it's not wrong."

    Chōza seemed conflicted about that. "Go on."

    "Not really much to tell from there, honestly. I stayed in my room except when I was stealing top-secret jutsu stuff which was only like five minutes so it really shouldn't count, the sproglings escorted the stinky guys around, and we came home."

    "I believe you're forgetting the little matter of a million ryō in damages?"

    "I am so disappointed in them," she said, shaking her head. "Honestly, a ninja fight in a public building and they only caused a million in damages? It's like they weren't even trying!"

    "How did the fight start?" Chōza demanded.

    She offered an exaggerated shrug. "How should I know? I was upstairs, staying in my room like a good girl because those badbu guys are terrible at their jobs."

    Chōza turned to the team. "Eita. Elaborate."

    "Sir! We were in the public room of the inn where the team and the protectees were quartered, sir. The protectees wanted to drink and we were there guarding them. A team of Sand genin came in and settled down at an adjacent table. They were clearly looking to provoke a fight, sir. They were staring straight at us as they chatted loudly between themselves. Their comments were all insulting towards us, the Leaf as a whole, and Sensei."

    "And so you started a bar fight? In a foreign village, while representing Leaf?"

    "Sir, we did not start the fight, sir!"

    "Oh?"

    "Sir, no sir. The Sand genin threw the first punch, sir."

    "I see. And what exactly prompted that?"

    Eita hesitated. "Sir, we may have gotten drawn into their narrative, sir."

    "Explain."

    "We attempted to ignore their insults, sir. At first."

    o-o-o-o​

    "Stay cool, Goro," Eita murmured, putting his hand on his friend's arm.

    "Did you hear what they said?!"

    "I heard. Let it go." The genin had been going after them for thirty minutes now, with digs that were getting steadily sharper. Somehow they must have gotten the team's details from the gate guard and then cross-referenced it against Sand's files because the insults were personalized. They had started off with basic things, mockery of the Will of Fire and such, then moved on to slander against the Gentle Fist style that was at the core of the Hyūga Clan's honor, then repeated use of the word 'mudfoot', and so on and so on.

    "Told you those tree fuckers are cowards," one of the Sand genin said to his friends. "Too scared to talk to manly specimens such as us."

    "What can you expect?" the second one said. "Look who their teacher is. That useless skinwaste bitch who decided to caper about the rooftops as a joke. The ANBU said they watched her the whole time. Apparently they were worried because she was so clumsy they feared she'd slip and break her neck."

    "I heard she was flashing her panties at the crowd, except she forgot to wear 'em," his teammate added.

    "Probably couldn't. When you've got crabs, underthings can get in the way of scratching." The three teenagers nodded solemnly to one another.

    "Hey," Hayata called to the other table. "You with the scarf. You look familiar. What's your name?"

    "Are you talking to me?" the other genin said, placing one hand on his chest in exaggerated surprise. "Tanaka Isao."

    "Yeah. I heard a song about you in the marketplace."

    He stood up and struck a pose, left foot on his chair and left arm dramatically extended as he sang:

    He's the mudfoot son of a caravan whore
    Whose mother's feet never touched aught but the floor
    For while on the road, of employ she'd no lack
    Relieving all folk on the flat of her back
    Lice-ridden was she—
    ​
    That was when the million ryō in damages started adding up.

    o-o-o-o​

    Chōza seemed caught somewhere between amusement and exhaustion when Eita finished relaying the events. "You don't think the song was a bit much?"

    "Sir, it felt right at the time, sir."

    "I would like to say that I thoroughly disapprove of him singing that song," Honoka said, scowling at her student. "We workshopped those lyrics for three days and I suggested a much better choice but did he listen? Noooo. No, he did not. Had to go for the mother joke. My version was much more elegant." She sniffed derisively. "Still, it made for a pretty good diversion."

    Chōza looked back to her. "Diversion?"

    "Oh, that's right! I forgot to mention that part. Yeah, I told the kiddos to start a big fight to distract everyone so I could sneak into that guy's room and make copies of his jutsu notes. That's why we took rooms at that inn—he lived there because it was a hangout for Sand ninja so it was very safe, but that just meant that there were definitely going to be some stroppy young lads available to serve as a distraction. Then it was just a question of making sure a fight broke out and things caught a little bit on fire so the guy wouldn't know he'd been robbed."

    Chōza stared at her silently, then turned and swept a gimlet eye across Team Honoka, glowering at each one in turn.

    "I've heard just about enough," he said. "Eita, I need to hear only one more thing from you."

    "Sir?"

    "How many of those sandfuckers did you beat down before the ANBU broke it up?"




    Author's Note: Apologies for the absence of Council scene. We'll get to that next.

    Voting remains closed unless @Velorien or @Paperclipped open it.
     
    Last edited:
  • Sidestory
    • eaglejarl said:
    Interlude: Honoka's Team, Part 6 (AU?)​

    "Honoka," Chōza sighed, "would you like to explain yourself?"

    The young jōnin thought about it with an audible "hmmmmmmmm" while her genin stood at strict attention, sweating in fear of being murdered by hidden ANBU, or psychically crushed by the Hokage's anger, or (worst of all) forced to go on another mission with their Psycho-sensei.

    "Nah," Honoka said.

    Lord Akimichi Chōza, Eighth Hokage, raised an eyebrow in unamusement. "'Nah'?"

    "Yup. Nah."

    "I would prefer a bit more detail than that, Honoka," Chōza said through gritted teeth.

    "Oh, sorry. You asked if I wanted to explain myself and I decided that I really, really don't, so I said 'nah'." She paused and then hastened to add, "Sorry, I should have said 'nah, Lord Hokage'. Didn't mean to be rude."

    Chōza took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Honoka. Explain to me what happened on your latest mission. In particular, explain in detail what you did that caused me to have a letter from the Kazekage along with a bill for over a million ryō in damages."

    "A million?!" She shook her head. "Honestly. A million?" She turned to her students. "You three caused a million in damages? I am disappointed in you. When I was your age, I—"

    "Honoka!" the Hokage snapped.

    "Huh? Oh, right. Sorry. Let's see, where to start, where to start...? Right, so you assigned us that suuuuper boring mission to escort those stinky guys back to the sandy place."

    A muscle in Chōza's jaw jumped.

    "And we did it in our usual exemplary fashion," she said brightly. "Not a single problem the whole way there!"

    "According to this letter, you were attacked by bandits."

    "I mean, I would hardly call that a problem. It's just one little bandit attack. Hardly worth mentioning, especially since no one got hurt. My little sproglings dealt with it just fine."

    "Oh? And where were you at the time?"

    Don't say it, don't say it, Eita urged in the privacy of his own mind.

    "Oh, I was boinking one of the drivers in the bed of the third wagon. Well, actually, I was finished boinking him and I was taking a nap. I was suuuper tuckered out, because he did this thing with his—"

    "Honoka!"

    "What? He did."

    "The bandits attacked, your genin dealt with them. Is there anything else you might have forgotten to mention about the incident?"

    She looked at the boys as though for help. The boys kept their eyes locked on the far wall, so she sniffed and turned back to the Hokage.

    "I don't think so? Nothing comes to mind, anyway."

    "Nothing."

    "Nope."

    "Perhaps the fact that you insisted on cutting off two of the bandits' heads and bringing them along?"

    "I mean...yeah? We put them on spikes on the first and last wagons. All the other bandits saw them and stayed away. Not another incident the whole trip! Who's a clever girl? Me!" She hooked both thumbs towards her chest and smiled a self-congratulatory smile.

    "Honoka, you used them as hand puppets."

    "So? I was bored! It's a long way to Sand and it's all flat and sandy and booooring! Besides, once they started getting stinky I soaked them in some acid to take the meaty bits off. They were just skulls by the time we got there."

    Chōza took an even deeper breath and let it out even more slowly. "The wagoneers were so traumatized they couldn't sleep for three days. The Kazekage is charging me for emotional damages."

    "Bah." She waved dismissively.

    "What happened once you got to Sand?"

    "We went inside and—"

    "When you say 'we' went inside, who are you referring to?"

    "The caravan?"

    "Were you, Gōketsu Honoka, part of the group that went into the village?"

    "Absolu—"

    "Went into the village through the gate."

    "Oh. I mean, sure, I went through the gate..."

    Chōza raised one eyebrow.

    "...on the way out. I may have skipped it on the way in."

    "According to the Kazekage, you slipped away from the wagons, went over the wall, and led his ANBU on a merry chase for over an hour."

    "Hah! As if. Couldn't have been an hour. The sproglings and the stinky guys went through the gates just after three, the badbu—that's their version of ANBU, except they're really bad at their job—didn't spot me for at least twenty minutes, and I met up with the sproglings at..." She looked at the ceiling and counted on her fingers, her lips moving as she did mental math. "Oh, hey! It was more than an hour, cool! Wow, those Sand guys suuuuck."

    "Is there a reason you broke protocol and nearly caused an international incident?"

    "I was bored?"

    "Is there a good reason you broke protocol and nearly caused an international incident?"

    "I heard that Sand has these sweet syrups that they put in their cake and I really needed to try one. For the record, they are amazing."

    "I'll be sure to compliment Ryu on the quality of his village's confectioners. Did you do anything else that I should know ab...allow me to rephrase. What else did you do between entering the village and rejoining your team?"

    "Nothing much, really. I did some shopping, visited a museum, scouted some jutsu theft, splashed in a fountain—"

    "Stop. Go back. What was that about jutsu theft?"

    "Oh, yeah, there's this technique hacker who lives in Sand, right? Uncle Hazō's been talking about him for years. Wanted to collaborate with him but he refused. I swiped some of the instruction materials that he wrote up for his students, along with three of his jutsu scrolls. Now Leaf can learn all his tricks!"

    Chōza closed his eyes. His lips moved slightly as he counted to ten, then continued on to twenty, and finally made it a nice round fifty.

    "Honoka, do you understand why this is a problem?"

    "Not really?"

    Chōza seemed to be trying to pull strength from the very air.

    "I just scouted his place out so I could steal them later. Then I went and visited the museum, played tag with the badbu for a bit, and met up with the sproglings."

    "And when you say 'played tag with', what you mean is...?"

    "I let one of them see me, then I evaded him, then I whistled and waved so that he could find me again, then I did that a couple more times and got bored so I went to their Academy and snooped around to see what they're teaching the kids. The badbu guy and three of his friends caught up to me and hustled me out. I promised them I wouldn't tell their boss that they had misplaced me a bunch of times and we could just forget the whole thing."

    "I see."

    "I was very good from then on, even when I got super bored! I stayed in my room and didn't bother anyone or do anything wrong."

    "You stole the jutsu, right?"

    "Well, yeah. Of course. But that's going to help Leaf so it's not wrong."

    Chōza seemed conflicted about that. "Go on."

    "Not really much to tell from there, honestly. I stayed in my room except when I was stealing top-secret jutsu stuff which was only like five minutes so it really shouldn't count, the sproglings escorted the stinky guys around, and we came home."

    "I believe you're forgetting the little matter of a million ryō in damages?"

    "I am so disappointed in them," she said, shaking her head. "Honestly, a ninja fight in a public building and they only caused a million in damages? It's like they weren't even trying!"

    "How did the fight start?" Chōza demanded.

    She offered an exaggerated shrug. "How should I know? I was upstairs, staying in my room like a good girl because those badbu guys are terrible at their jobs."

    Chōza turned to the team. "Eita. Elaborate."

    "Sir! We were in the public room of the inn where the team and the protectees were quartered, sir. The protectees wanted to drink and we were there guarding them. A team of Sand genin came in and settled down at an adjacent table. They were clearly looking to provoke a fight, sir. They were staring straight at us as they chatted loudly between themselves. Their comments were all insulting towards us, the Leaf as a whole, and Sensei."

    "And so you started a bar fight? In a foreign village, while representing Leaf?"

    "Sir, we did not start the fight, sir!"

    "Oh?"

    "Sir, no sir. The Sand genin threw the first punch, sir."

    "I see. And what exactly prompted that?"

    Eita hesitated. "Sir, we may have gotten drawn into their narrative, sir."

    "Explain."

    "We attempted to ignore their insults, sir. At first."

    o-o-o-o​

    "Stay cool, Goro," Eita murmured, putting his hand on his friend's arm.

    "Did you hear what they said?!"

    "I heard. Let it go." The genin had been going after them for thirty minutes now, with digs that were getting steadily sharper. Somehow they must have gotten the team's details from the gate guard and then cross-referenced it against Sand's files because the insults were personalized. They had started off with basic things, mockery of the Will of Fire and such, then moved on to slander against the Gentle Fist style that was at the core of the Hyūga Clan's honor, then repeated use of the word 'mudfoot', and so on and so on.

    "Told you those tree fuckers are cowards," one of the Sand genin said to his friends. "Too scared to talk to manly specimens such as us."

    "What can you expect?" the second one said. "Look who their teacher is. That useless skinwaste bitch who decided to caper about the rooftops as a joke. The ANBU said they watched her the whole time. Apparently they were worried because she was so clumsy they feared she'd slip and break her neck."

    "I heard she was flashing her panties at the crowd, except she forgot to wear 'em," his teammate added.

    "Probably couldn't. When you've got crabs, underthings can get in the way of scratching." The three teenagers nodded solemnly to one another.

    "Hey," Hayata called to the other table. "You with the scarf. You look familiar. What's your name?"

    "Are you talking to me?" the other genin said, placing one hand on his chest in exaggerated surprise. "Tanaka Isao."

    "Yeah. I heard a song about you in the marketplace."

    He stood up and struck a pose, left foot on his chair and left arm dramatically extended as he sang:

    He's the mudfoot son of a caravan whore
    Whose mother's feet never touched aught but the floor
    For while on the road, of employ she'd no lack
    Relieving all folk on the flat of her back
    Lice-ridden was she—

    ​
    That was when the million ryō in damages started adding up.

    o-o-o-o​

    Chōza seemed caught somewhere between amusement and exhaustion when Eita finished relaying the events. "You don't think the song was a bit much?"

    "Sir, it felt right at the time, sir."

    "I would like to say that I thoroughly disapprove of him singing that song," Honoka said, scowling at her student. "We workshopped those lyrics for three days and I suggested a much better choice but did he listen? Noooo. No, he did not. Had to go for the mother joke. My version was much more elegant." She sniffed derisively. "Still, it made for a pretty good diversion."

    Chōza looked back to her. "Diversion?"

    "Oh, that's right! I forgot to mention that part. Yeah, I told the kiddos to start a big fight to distract everyone so I could sneak into that guy's room and make copies of his jutsu notes. That's why we took rooms at that inn—he lived there because it was a hangout for Sand ninja so it was very safe, but that just meant that there were definitely going to be some stroppy young lads available to serve as a distraction. Then it was just a question of making sure a fight broke out and things caught a little bit on fire so the guy wouldn't know he'd been robbed."

    Chōza stared at her silently, then turned and swept a gimlet eye across Team Honoka, glowering at each one in turn.

    "I've heard enough," he said. "Eita, I need to hear only more more thing from you."

    "Sir?"

    "How many of those sandfuckers did you beat down before the ANBU broke it up?"




    Author's Note: Apologies for the absence of Council scene. We'll get to that next.

    Voting remains closed unless @Velorien or @Paperclipped open it.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Nice. I love Honoka. She's like if Anko liked explosives the appropriate amount.
     
    Last edited:
    eaglejarl said:
    Interlude: Honoka's Team, Part 6 (AU?)​

    "Honoka," Chōza sighed, "would you like to explain yourself?"

    The young jōnin thought about it with an audible "hmmmmmmmm" while her genin stood at strict attention, sweating in fear of being murdered by hidden ANBU, or psychically crushed by the Hokage's anger, or (worst of all) forced to go on another mission with their Psycho-sensei.

    "Nah," Honoka said.

    Lord Akimichi Chōza, Eighth Hokage, raised an eyebrow in unamusement. "'Nah'?"

    "Yup. Nah."

    "I would prefer a bit more detail than that, Honoka," Chōza said through gritted teeth.

    "Oh, sorry. You asked if I wanted to explain myself and I decided that I really, really don't, so I said 'nah'." She paused and then hastened to add, "Sorry, I should have said 'nah, Lord Hokage'. Didn't mean to be rude."

    Chōza took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Honoka. Explain to me what happened on your latest mission. In particular, explain in detail what you did that caused me to have a letter from the Kazekage along with a bill for over a million ryō in damages."

    "A million?!" She shook her head. "Honestly. A million?" She turned to her students. "You three caused a million in damages? I am disappointed in you. When I was your age, I—"

    "Honoka!" the Hokage snapped.

    "Huh? Oh, right. Sorry. Let's see, where to start, where to start...? Right, so you assigned us that suuuuper boring mission to escort those stinky guys back to the sandy place."

    A muscle in Chōza's jaw jumped.

    "And we did it in our usual exemplary fashion," she said brightly. "Not a single problem the whole way there!"

    "According to this letter, you were attacked by bandits."

    "I mean, I would hardly call that a problem. It's just one little bandit attack. Hardly worth mentioning, especially since no one got hurt. My little sproglings dealt with it just fine."

    "Oh? And where were you at the time?"

    Don't say it, don't say it, Eita urged in the privacy of his own mind.

    "Oh, I was boinking one of the drivers in the bed of the third wagon. Well, actually, I was finished boinking him and I was taking a nap. I was suuuper tuckered out, because he did this thing with his—"

    "Honoka!"

    "What? He did."

    "The bandits attacked, your genin dealt with them. Is there anything else you might have forgotten to mention about the incident?"

    She looked at the boys as though for help. The boys kept their eyes locked on the far wall, so she sniffed and turned back to the Hokage.

    "I don't think so? Nothing comes to mind, anyway."

    "Nothing."

    "Nope."

    "Perhaps the fact that you insisted on cutting off two of the bandits' heads and bringing them along?"

    "I mean...yeah? We put them on spikes on the first and last wagons. All the other bandits saw them and stayed away. Not another incident the whole trip! Who's a clever girl? Me!" She hooked both thumbs towards her chest and smiled a self-congratulatory smile.

    "Honoka, you used them as hand puppets."

    "So? I was bored! It's a long way to Sand and it's all flat and sandy and booooring! Besides, once they started getting stinky I soaked them in some acid to take the meaty bits off. They were just skulls by the time we got there."

    Chōza took an even deeper breath and let it out even more slowly. "The wagoneers were so traumatized they couldn't sleep for three days. The Kazekage is charging me for emotional damages."

    "Bah." She waved dismissively.

    "What happened once you got to Sand?"

    "We went inside and—"

    "When you say 'we' went inside, who are you referring to?"

    "The caravan?"

    "Were you, Gōketsu Honoka, part of the group that went into the village?"

    "Absolu—"

    "Went into the village through the gate."

    "Oh. I mean, sure, I went through the gate..."

    Chōza raised one eyebrow.

    "...on the way out. I may have skipped it on the way in."

    "According to the Kazekage, you slipped away from the wagons, went over the wall, and led his ANBU on a merry chase for over an hour."

    "Hah! As if. Couldn't have been an hour. The sproglings and the stinky guys went through the gates just after three, the badbu—that's their version of ANBU, except they're really bad at their job—didn't spot me for at least twenty minutes, and I met up with the sproglings at..." She looked at the ceiling and counted on her fingers, her lips moving as she did mental math. "Oh, hey! It was more than an hour, cool! Wow, those Sand guys suuuuck."

    "Is there a reason you broke protocol and nearly caused an international incident?"

    "I was bored?"

    "Is there a good reason you broke protocol and nearly caused an international incident?"

    "I heard that Sand has these sweet syrups that they put in their cake and I really needed to try one. For the record, they are amazing."

    "I'll be sure to compliment Ryu on the quality of his village's confectioners. Did you do anything else that I should know ab...allow me to rephrase. What else did you do between entering the village and rejoining your team?"

    "Nothing much, really. I did some shopping, visited a museum, scouted some jutsu theft, splashed in a fountain—"

    "Stop. Go back. What was that about jutsu theft?"

    "Oh, yeah, there's this technique hacker who lives in Sand, right? Uncle Hazō's been talking about him for years. Wanted to collaborate with him but he refused. I swiped some of the instruction materials that he wrote up for his students, along with three of his jutsu scrolls. Now Leaf can learn all his tricks!"

    Chōza closed his eyes. His lips moved slightly as he counted to ten, then continued on to twenty, and finally made it a nice round fifty.

    "Honoka, do you understand why this is a problem?"

    "Not really?"

    Chōza seemed to be trying to pull strength from the very air.

    "I just scouted his place out so I could steal them later. Then I went and visited the museum, played tag with the badbu for a bit, and met up with the sproglings."

    "And when you say 'played tag with', what you mean is...?"

    "I let one of them see me, then I evaded him, then I whistled and waved so that he could find me again, then I did that a couple more times and got bored so I went to their Academy and snooped around to see what they're teaching the kids. The badbu guy and three of his friends caught up to me and hustled me out. I promised them I wouldn't tell their boss that they had misplaced me a bunch of times and we could just forget the whole thing."

    "I see."

    "I was very good from then on, even when I got super bored! I stayed in my room and didn't bother anyone or do anything wrong."

    "You stole the jutsu, right?"

    "Well, yeah. Of course. But that's going to help Leaf so it's not wrong."

    Chōza seemed conflicted about that. "Go on."

    "Not really much to tell from there, honestly. I stayed in my room except when I was stealing top-secret jutsu stuff which was only like five minutes so it really shouldn't count, the sproglings escorted the stinky guys around, and we came home."

    "I believe you're forgetting the little matter of a million ryō in damages?"

    "I am so disappointed in them," she said, shaking her head. "Honestly, a ninja fight in a public building and they only caused a million in damages? It's like they weren't even trying!"

    "How did the fight start?" Chōza demanded.

    She offered an exaggerated shrug. "How should I know? I was upstairs, staying in my room like a good girl because those badbu guys are terrible at their jobs."

    Chōza turned to the team. "Eita. Elaborate."

    "Sir! We were in the public room of the inn where the team and the protectees were quartered, sir. The protectees wanted to drink and we were there guarding them. A team of Sand genin came in and settled down at an adjacent table. They were clearly looking to provoke a fight, sir. They were staring straight at us as they chatted loudly between themselves. Their comments were all insulting towards us, the Leaf as a whole, and Sensei."

    "And so you started a bar fight? In a foreign village, while representing Leaf?"

    "Sir, we did not start the fight, sir!"

    "Oh?"

    "Sir, no sir. The Sand genin threw the first punch, sir."

    "I see. And what exactly prompted that?"

    Eita hesitated. "Sir, we may have gotten drawn into their narrative, sir."

    "Explain."

    "We attempted to ignore their insults, sir. At first."

    o-o-o-o​

    "Stay cool, Goro," Eita murmured, putting his hand on his friend's arm.

    "Did you hear what they said?!"

    "I heard. Let it go." The genin had been going after them for thirty minutes now, with digs that were getting steadily sharper. Somehow they must have gotten the team's details from the gate guard and then cross-referenced it against Sand's files because the insults were personalized. They had started off with basic things, mockery of the Will of Fire and such, then moved on to slander against the Gentle Fist style that was at the core of the Hyūga Clan's honor, then repeated use of the word 'mudfoot', and so on and so on.

    "Told you those tree fuckers are cowards," one of the Sand genin said to his friends. "Too scared to talk to manly specimens such as us."

    "What can you expect?" the second one said. "Look who their teacher is. That useless skinwaste bitch who decided to caper about the rooftops as a joke. The ANBU said they watched her the whole time. Apparently they were worried because she was so clumsy they feared she'd slip and break her neck."

    "I heard she was flashing her panties at the crowd, except she forgot to wear 'em," his teammate added.

    "Probably couldn't. When you've got crabs, underthings can get in the way of scratching." The three teenagers nodded solemnly to one another.

    "Hey," Hayata called to the other table. "You with the scarf. You look familiar. What's your name?"

    "Are you talking to me?" the other genin said, placing one hand on his chest in exaggerated surprise. "Tanaka Isao."

    "Yeah. I heard a song about you in the marketplace."

    He stood up and struck a pose, left foot on his chair and left arm dramatically extended as he sang:

    He's the mudfoot son of a caravan whore
    Whose mother's feet never touched aught but the floor
    For while on the road, of employ she'd no lack
    Relieving all folk on the flat of her back
    Lice-ridden was she—

    ​
    That was when the million ryō in damages started adding up.

    o-o-o-o​

    Chōza seemed caught somewhere between amusement and exhaustion when Eita finished relaying the events. "You don't think the song was a bit much?"

    "Sir, it felt right at the time, sir."

    "I would like to say that I thoroughly disapprove of him singing that song," Honoka said, scowling at her student. "We workshopped those lyrics for three days and I suggested a much better choice but did he listen? Noooo. No, he did not. Had to go for the mother joke. My version was much more elegant." She sniffed derisively. "Still, it made for a pretty good diversion."

    Chōza looked back to her. "Diversion?"

    "Oh, that's right! I forgot to mention that part. Yeah, I told the kiddos to start a big fight to distract everyone so I could sneak into that guy's room and make copies of his jutsu notes. That's why we took rooms at that inn—he lived there because it was a hangout for Sand ninja so it was very safe, but that just meant that there were definitely going to be some stroppy young lads available to serve as a distraction. Then it was just a question of making sure a fight broke out and things caught a little bit on fire so the guy wouldn't know he'd been robbed."

    Chōza stared at her silently, then turned and swept a gimlet eye across Team Honoka, glowering at each one in turn.

    "I've heard enough," he said. "Eita, I need to hear only more more thing from you."

    "Sir?"

    "How many of those sandfuckers did you beat down before the ANBU broke it up?"




    Author's Note: Apologies for the absence of Council scene. We'll get to that next.

    Voting remains closed unless @Velorien or @Paperclipped open it.
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    [X] Make sure Honoka grows up to be like that.
    Thank you for this, it's awesome. Loved the part about the hand puppets and the thievery. It's a bit bittersweet to think that when Sand gets better, they can be antagonistic to us, but if it allows Honoka to do that then it's worth it in the end
     
    Gev said:
    New project idea: bioseals that turn snakes into explosives
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    OROCHIMARU: Nephew, I-
    *Orochimaru violently explodes*
    HAZŌ: Oh, sorry, that was my bioseal that turns snakes into explosives
    OROCHIMARU (newly reformed): I did not find that amusing, neph-
    *Orochimaru violently explodes*
    HAZŌ: Good to see it works, though.
    OROCHIMARU: I said th-
    *Orochimaru violently explodes*
    OROCHIMARU: STOP THAT
    *Orochimaru violently explodes*
    HAZŌ: I actually can't
     
    RandomOTP said:
    @eaglejarl, @Velorien, @Paperclipped

    To avoid a meeting update: What is Mari and Kei's progress on turning Mio into a non-threat to the Goketsu?

    • We know that she's been unhappy, we know that she was actively planning on leaving the Goketsu.
    • Players have theorized that leaving a clan must be an unofficial death sentence, or else the state of Leaf would look different than what it does.
    • Mio is also dangerously angry at Hazou, with nothing we say/do making her happy.
    • Hazou just almost killed himself to save an adoptive Goketsu, which stands against Mio's claims of indifference (but again: nothing we say or do).
    • Mari and Kei have both said they would handle Mio, but this was before Yuno turned to Jashinism, and definitely before Asuma died.
    • Mari is an Elite, FOOMing, social spec jonin who knows the Shadow Clone jutsu. However, she has also said that, since the Goketsu Clan know her as a powerful social spec, Goketsu Ninja aren't as easy to manipulate as other ninja are.
    • In the immediate aftermath of saving Yuuma, Kei expressed discomfort at the split in duty between Goketsu and KEI, regarding Mio, specifically. This draws into question just how much work Kei even attempted to do up until that point, let alone what progress she might have made.
    • Finally, we've had issues before, with assumptions regarding NPC agency on both ends of the spectrum (assuming they're doing some work, or assuming they're not doing anything)
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    Last you heard, Kei was handling this. You can expect her to approach you with a briefing when she has concrete results/needs your input.
     
    @faflec, O most glorious Loremaster, a large and ominous question for thee: What does Hazō (as opposed to the players) know about the Mori Voice/the Five/the Thinker conspiracy?
     
    Velorien said:
    @faflec, O most glorious Loremaster, a large and ominous question for thee: What does Hazō (as opposed to the players) know about the Mori Voice/the Five/the Thinker conspiracy?
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    He knows the Thinker Clans exist (and their general quirk) and have for a while, they're in the major hidden villages, they have some form of communication with each other, the deaths of one Clan is BAD NEWS, and their ancestors may well have dicked around with the Sage. Also they have Forbidden Lore. Like, enough so that Isan knew about it.

    Similar on the Mori voice but more detailed.
     
    faflec said:
    He knows the Thinker Clans exist (and their general quirk) and have for a while, they're in the major hidden villages, they have some form of communication with each other, the deaths of one Clan is BAD NEWS, and their ancestors may well have dicked around with the Sage. Also they have Forbidden Lore. Like, enough so that Isan knew about it.

    Similar on the Mori voice but more detailed.
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    Didn't Hazou talk to Mari about Kei using the Mori Voice's brain to optimize her plans, and how ninja would only use that for social/physical combat? Hazou said that, as a result, such a being would only ever see the worst in humanity, and that would be bad for the obvious reasons.

    Mari, in a very conteolled way that had the playerbase speculating that she was pretending not to freak out, touched ahazou's shoulder, said that she trusted him to be able to handle it (as he had so many other things), and then Mari promptly left the room?
     
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    eaglejarl said:
    He nodded, then sighed and opened his eyes, allowing the sheltering darkness to fall away. "Speaking of summoning, and therefore things outside our reality, I've been meaning to get your take on something."

    "The way that you tend to fall out of touch with reality and start talking like a crazy person?"

    "No."

    "The way you keep ripping holes open to other realities through which come horrific nightmares?"

    "No."

    "In that case, I give up."

    He gave her a squinty-eyed glare and let out a calming breath. "The Five that Pain mentioned back at Nagi Island. Remember, he was talking about 'after a thousand years the Five are still sealed'?"

    "Sure. What about it?"

    "What are they? Five what? If they've been around for a thousand years then it's not the villages, or the nations."

    She shrugged. "Maybe five beasts, aside from the Nine?"

    "Maybe. I think it's five bloodlines. Specifically, the Mori, the Nara, the Tama and those other two intelligence-based clans. Or, at least, it's related to them."

    "Huh." She cocked her head in thought. "Okay. Why?"

    "The Frozen Skein isn't something innate that just makes Keiko smarter. It's something she reaches out to. She talks about 'going deeper' when she has a harder problem or needs to look farther ahead. She's using this other...thing to do her analysis, setting goals for it and guiding its thoughts, then bringing the results back to our world. It's not just Keiko, either; Ami said that she wouldn't 'surrender to it' just because it's 'more real' than she is. Her words, not mine."

    Mari looked thoughtfully into the fire. "It does explain some things..."

    "I know, right? Anyway, if there's one bloodline that allows you to borrow the thoughts of some...sealed horror, then why can't there be more? There are five mind-related clans and Pain referred to 'the Five' being sealed. That's what those are: Horrors from beyond our reality, and those ninja clans are using them to optimize battle plans."

    "That...sounds bad."

    "Right. If nothing else, think about the impression that it gives of us to those beings. Assuming they think, but let's assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised if it's not the outcome. If those things think and they ever make it into our reality, they're going to assume that all human are murderous warmongers focused solely on killing each other."

    Mari's lips twitched. "I mean...they wouldn't be wrong."

    "C'mon, Mari. Be serious."

    "I am serious...well, I suppose 'killing' is too far. Dominating? Enforcing our will upon? Power. That's the only thing that anyone really cares about, Hazō. Ninja or civilian, clan or not, everything is about power."

    "...Mari."

    She looked over at him, her eyes serious. "Think about it, Hazō. Why does a baby cry? Because it wants to force its parents to provide something—food, warmth, cleaning. It wants to impose its will on the world. Why do merchants haggle? Because they want to exert power over the customer by forcing him to give up more money. Why do ninja kill each other? Because murder is the penultimate form of power. Jiraiya was the perfect example: Everyone did what he told them to because he could kill them. He had power, they didn't."

    Hazō sat back in his chair, trying to figure out which part of that gigantic mess of untruth and misperception to untangle first.

    "I don't agree with those examples, particularly not the baby, but let's skip that for now," he said. "The core premise is flawed. People care about other things too. Friendship. Love. Sex. Good food."

    Mari chuckled. "Oh, Hazō. My sweet summer child. You think sex isn't about power? Sex is the ultimate form of power. Were you not paying attention when I made Wakahisa shoot every one of his secrets right out his dick?"

    Hazō winced; Mari chuckled at his discomfiture.

    "You've read some of Jiraiya's books, right?" she asked.

    Hazō could feel the blush climbing up his face. "Maybe?"

    "How many times did you read things like 'Jun fisted his hand in her hair and pulled her head back so he could press a burning kiss to her eager lips'? How is that not about power? He is physically controlling her, moving her body the way he wants, controlling the terms of engagement. Did you notice how many servant girls Jun bones? He's a ninja, they are civilians; they cannot resist him even if they want to. And usually they aren't much more than walking keys to a lock he needs to get through."

    "He makes love to kunoichi, too," Hazō mumbled.

    Mari laughed. "Hazō, Hazō, Hazō. No one 'makes love'. They might think that's what they're doing, they might say that's what they're doing, but it's still about power. The act itself is always about power—one partner is in control, choosing the position and the time and the location. If they're generous, or if they want to be able to use that target again, then they'll make sure the other person enjoys it. Maybe they'll even make that person think they had a say in what happened and how it happened. Sex is never an equal thing, and as a Clan Head you need to know that. Anyone you fuck is going to be less powerful than you are and part of them will be thinking about what you might do to them if they don't please you." She paused, then hurried to add, "Well, unless they're a ninja of equal power to you and also a Clan Head. In that case part of them will be thinking about what this will mean for their own people. They may care about you, they may want good things for you, they might have chosen to be in your bed, they might enjoy the act, but something in the back of their mind is still thinking about power and its implications."

    "It doesn't have to be that way," Hazō protested. "It can be mutual. People can choose each other, choose to build a life together. They can make each other stronger."

    "Yes, by joining their collective power and turning it against the outside world. Think about it—I married...I was supposed to marry Jiraiya for the power we would gain by becoming a Leaf clan. Keiko married Shikamaru for the power we would gain from having the Nara as allies. If Noburi marries Yuno, a large part of it will be because it gives them both power within their individual villages."

    "What about Kenta and Yukari? They married for love."

    Mari gaped at him for a moment and then started laughing so hard she choked. "Oh, Hazō," she said, wiping her eyes and doing her best to stop snickering. "Civilian marriages are all about power. Civilian women's only chance at a decent life is to find a man who is a good provider and then fuck him enough to keep him around. Men choose a wife for various reasons...because she is beautiful and therefore owning her will give him reputation—which is a form of power—among his friends. Because she'll give him sons who can work in his shop and daughters who can be strategically married off the way we married off Keiko. Because it means he can get his rocks off without having to pay for it. Lots of reasons, but they're all about power."

    She shrugged. "Sure, Kenta and Yukari seem happy enough, but that doesn't mean it's not about power. She still gets him to do what she wants the same way every civilian woman does: Seduction. Smiles and gentle touches that make him feel manly and reinforce his desire to keep her happy so she'll do that again. Cosmetics and pretty clothes, because it makes him feel powerful to have a wife that other men desire. Polite requests accompanied by flattery, often phrased so that he thinks they're his idea. Lies that make him feel important and strong."

    "That is not how they are! Just because you want to touch someone, or pay them a compliment, it doesn't mean you're trying to manipulate them. Just because a woman dresses nicely, it doesn't mean she's trying to manipulate her husband. Maybe she just likes to look nice."

    "Sure. Which is a form of power, because beautiful people get treated better. Remember when we were still missing and we would stop at a village or town to resupply? I always got great prices at the market, right?"

    "Yes?"

    "I went to those market with this eye-catching hair loose around my shoulders." She twirled a fire-red strand demonstratively. "I put liner under my eyes to bring out the green. I painted my lips red and wore a bra that had my tits about to spill out. Do you think I would have gotten the same prices if I covered up and bound my tits flat? Beauty is about power, just like sex."

    This conversation had gone so far off the trail, Hazō wasn't even sure that he was on the same map. What he was certain of was that he didn't want to be having it anymore.

    "Going back to the original topic," he said firmly. "I was saying that I think 'the Five' are otherworldly entities that those bloodlines can tap into and use to enhance their thinking in various ways. The question becomes: Why? And why was Keiko so adamant about keeping that information from us when Yuno started to spill it? Do the clans have a...a purpose to keep the entities sealed? Are the entities malevolent, beneficent, or uncaring? Who knows about it?"

    Mari eyed him for a moment, her smirk all but shouting her awareness of the fact that he had retreated in disarray from their prior topic. Fortunately, after a moment she decided to let it go. "Probably the rest of the Ino-Shika-Chō block. Likewise, allies of the other clans, if there are any."

    Hazō shook his head. "I don't think the Akimichi or Yamanaka know. Ino seemed surprised when Jiraiya warned her not to go into Keiko's head." He flipped one hand, tossing a metaphorical admission aside. "Granted, she might've just lacked clearance."

    "Okay. Say you're right. So what?"

    "It's all tied up in what I've been worrying about with reality being in danger. If those entities were to break out of whatever prisons they're currently in, how much damage could they do? They could destroy everything."

    Mari chuckled and stood up, collecting her book from the table. "They won't."

    "How do you know?"

    "Because you'll stop them." She smiled and rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment. "Good night, Hazō."

    She walked away, leaving him alone with his thoughts in front of the fire.
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    @Velorien, I found the thing!
     
    RandomOTP said:
    She was an I&S jonin under Yagura's Mist for over a decade... and we know the hellish place he fostered.

    Honestly, even Hiashi as Hokage might have been an upgrade.
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    And even before that she was raped by her uncle in her formative years, before anyone discovered her ninja potential. And then she became a ninja and then she was fast tracked for I&S, at I don't even want to know what age. Maybe right out of the Academy. Maybe earlier. And then she turned out to be good at it and got the kinds of missions one gets (and can't refuse) when one is good at it in Yagura's Mist.
     
    RandomOTP said:
    She was an I&S jonin under Yagura's Mist for over a decade... and we know the hellish place he fostered.

    Honestly, even Hiashi as Hokage might have been an upgrade.
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    Rafin said:
    And even before that she was raped by her uncle in her formative years, before anyone discovered her ninja potential. And then she became a ninja and then she was fast tracked for I&S, at I don't even want to know what age. Maybe right out of the Academy. Maybe earlier. And then she turned out to be good at it and got the kinds of missions one gets (and can't refuse) when one is good at it in Yagura's Mist.
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    None of this is quite right. She was raped by her uncle well after her ninja potential was discovered, as an Academy student. She graduated as a taijutsu spec and tried to stay as one until she realised she was always going to be short, so she wasn't fast-tracked to I&S, quite the opposite. Between this and her age at the start of the story (namely twenty-mumble), she was in fact in I&S for less than a decade.
     
    Velorien said:
    @faflec, O most glorious Loremaster, a large and ominous question for thee: What does Hazō (as opposed to the players) know about the Mori Voice/the Five/the Thinker conspiracy?
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    On top of what faflec and RandomOTP said, Kei told him (and he then told Ami, to which she responded... icily) that there is a purpose, and the bloodline and/or the connection with the Mori voice was designed. Ami said "trust me when I say that some powers can only destroy" and may or may not have been referring to that. He also knows that Pantsā was offended by Mori's use of the bloodline. Also, dogs appear to hate Kei. I don't remember if we had a Dog + Kei scene, but regular dogs happened when preparing for the Hot Springs heist, and they were scared/wary of her iirc. Which, combined with the knowledge that the Mori kids love toy cats... may correspond to something? Or not. And the obvious: Thinker clans all have a flaw, and the strongest members seem to have a way to counter it. Grandmaster F is extremely curious ans interested in the outside world for a... Raiyoke, was it? Ami is very imaginative and proactive, Shikaku was excitable and energetic. And when Yuno appeared to guess something, Kei cut her immediately and ordered her to confine herself to Nara safe rooms or something, to which she obeyed immediately (and neither ever spoke of that again).
    On top of that, Orochimaru didn't want to answer questions about them, and seemed to think info about them was either stupid not to know or imperative not to know. When asked about Jashin then, he said he already answered that - which might be about them or not, and we don't know. I think Shikamaru implied or directly said that there are few to no external entities that are positively-inclined towards us. Also, if Jashin is linked to the Five, and Yuno's wedding dress' "triangle in a circle" sign is Jashin's, then there are other linked symbols - a sword through a figure of eight, a spiky eight-pointed star, and something that kind of looks like an upgraded Rinnegan with four magatama (except he doesn't know about that). If so, they're concerned with the "elder seals" in Isanese culture, which scans with Pain's "the Five are still sealed" comment.
    There was also Cannai's poem, though analysis of this is very open to interpretation. He brought it to Shikamaru, who may or may not have made something of it.

    ... Oh wow that was longer than I expected
     
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    Sir Stompy said:
    @eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

    In the interests of boosting Sealing and PS we've had some proposed ideas for (litho)seals that smooth out environmental chakra and make it more regular. Does Hazou think that has promise as something that could make (P)Sealing easier?

    What are the top 3-5 difficulties with infusion?

    My model is that infusion involves extraordinarily complicated shaping of your chakra to the seal. So anything that makes shaping your chakra easier is something that helps with infusion.

    Are there other things that could help? Like an advanced almanac for phases of the moons and whatnot?
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    @eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

    Just checking in about this, did it make it into the QINOA doc?

    EDIT: I also wanted to ask, I've been going off the assumption that every time Hazou makes a prototype rune, he irrevocably uses substrate equal to the final volume of the rune. Is that correct? Or does it only consume substrate permanently when you shape and infuse the final rune?


    The difference would be, Hazou has 3 chunks of substrate, and he makes 3 research rolls to master the explosive rune. If each research attempt consumes substrate, he has one explosive rune, if he can recycle the research substrate, he has three explosive runes.
     
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