Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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- 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
- Location
- U.S.
Okay, so a recap from some discussion on discord:
All of the main options (move/close/etc the rift) have been elaborated on here well enough. Lets talk creative.
1 - Make our own rift.
According to a few people on discord (haven't checked a primary source), making a rune, or even a seal, that opens a portal to some dimension is within our capabilities. But we can't target it so that it goes to Naraka. But if we address this issue, then we can open our own rift at home in secret, and then rescue our essies. This achieves our resurrection goals and massively increases our chances for any other method for opposing Akatsuki.
How could we target it? I'm unsure. Perhaps we could design a seal or bioseal that tracks a target through teleports and dimensions, and then kill someone? They go to Naraka, we figure out where they go, and now we have the info for opening our own rift. Or maybe we could study the current rift? Messing with it risks alerting Akatsuki, but if we only observe it then we just have to overcome however Akatsuki chose to monitor the area.
A bit of a long shot, but remember: checking the difficulty of a seal/rune is easy. It would cost little time and incur minimal risk to check if these seals/runes are within our capabilities.
2 - No rift? Fine, i'll do it myself.
There exists a seal/jutsu that teleports to a destination, Minato's Hiraishin, and a seal that teleports through dimensions, the summoning scrolls. Study both, or just Hiraishin if we can't avoid melting Hazo's brain, and make a version that can simply teleport us into the afterlife.
3 - Leverage the 7th Path
We've got a dozen clan bosses which acknowledge that there's a existential risk. If we fix the Great Seal, surely at least some of them will acknowledge a debt or possess gratitude. With that, we could temporarily contract bosses or summons for fighting Akatsuki, ask for useful lore (if any), have clans get their summoners to help us, have them pressure the Crows to pressure Itachi, etc etc.
There's a lot of ways we could make this useful, but it would take quite a while to implement, and it risks Akatsuki finishing their resurrection before us. If nothing else, maybe we could extract a revival of our choice from Itachi.
All of the main options (move/close/etc the rift) have been elaborated on here well enough. Lets talk creative.
1 - Make our own rift.
According to a few people on discord (haven't checked a primary source), making a rune, or even a seal, that opens a portal to some dimension is within our capabilities. But we can't target it so that it goes to Naraka. But if we address this issue, then we can open our own rift at home in secret, and then rescue our essies. This achieves our resurrection goals and massively increases our chances for any other method for opposing Akatsuki.
How could we target it? I'm unsure. Perhaps we could design a seal or bioseal that tracks a target through teleports and dimensions, and then kill someone? They go to Naraka, we figure out where they go, and now we have the info for opening our own rift. Or maybe we could study the current rift? Messing with it risks alerting Akatsuki, but if we only observe it then we just have to overcome however Akatsuki chose to monitor the area.
A bit of a long shot, but remember: checking the difficulty of a seal/rune is easy. It would cost little time and incur minimal risk to check if these seals/runes are within our capabilities.
2 - No rift? Fine, i'll do it myself.
There exists a seal/jutsu that teleports to a destination, Minato's Hiraishin, and a seal that teleports through dimensions, the summoning scrolls. Study both, or just Hiraishin if we can't avoid melting Hazo's brain, and make a version that can simply teleport us into the afterlife.
3 - Leverage the 7th Path
We've got a dozen clan bosses which acknowledge that there's a existential risk. If we fix the Great Seal, surely at least some of them will acknowledge a debt or possess gratitude. With that, we could temporarily contract bosses or summons for fighting Akatsuki, ask for useful lore (if any), have clans get their summoners to help us, have them pressure the Crows to pressure Itachi, etc etc.
There's a lot of ways we could make this useful, but it would take quite a while to implement, and it risks Akatsuki finishing their resurrection before us. If nothing else, maybe we could extract a revival of our choice from Itachi.
Would prefer to hold off on this for now, mostly because
I think making the suggestion here
- Without Sasori they cannot complete the research.
- Hazou could provide him with seal research notes that are subtly trapped - designed to lead to disastrous sealing failure
Is this "two pairs" or "two members"?
Also in this section I suggest saying something like
- Given the static nature of the Rift, we might be able to attack them while they're delving it. It should take days at least to locate Pain in the Pure Lands. Killing their rearguard and shutting the Rift behind them might be our best chance to defeat Akatsuki.
I actually would prefer they keep delving. We're not going to get another chance to get more substrate before the TH jutsu comes through. Better to just keep plugging away at this.
I'll vote for this plan if good efforts are made to incorporate these ideas, otherwise
[X] Lore Update
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I do like this suggestion, though naturally they're gonna fortify the hell out of their location before they go in
- Location
- Yes.
IMO I do not trust sufficiently in Hazou's Sealing stat (?) to believe he can make such a trap successfully. I do not believe he is better than Sasori in this regard.
Edited to make clear.
Added.
Will think about this, I recall some people wanted them to gtfo.
- Location
- Washington, USA
Let's not overlook the possibility of brute force. Leading theory is there are less than ten Paths total - if we can random-dial, see what's there, and have another rune already set up to slam the rift shut again before hostiles on the other side would have enough time to come through, that might get us what we need with reasonably few iterations.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There might only be a handful of Paths but it seems like there is an utter shit ton of planes/pocket dimensions. Like the bladehorror Rift, Lava Rift, Vine Rift, etc... also, the pure lands may themselves be more of a minor/pocket realm than a proper Path. In some myths there is a sort of purgatory area in Naraka where people are processed and the pure lands could be that - targeting Naraka may just send us to the actually Hellish part (if indeed the pure lands are within Naraka at all)
- Location
- U.S.
I agree, but either way we should at least try. Am I right that checking the feasibility of a seal/rune, like a "track target's dimension changes" rune or such, is a matter of just a day or so? We would be remiss to not spend a day or two verifying whether or not we can do the easier solution.
Static defenses are always bypassable with enough firepower.
And our name is Goketsu fucking Hazou
We'll have enough firepower
No, you're right. We can't do this while injured. I worked out the math. If we were uninjured and allowed to timeladder a reasonable amount we could easily crush him (83 vs 91). But we're hurt. I should note that Hazou is definitely the better sealmaster. No way Sasori has Sealing in the 70s.
I do think we should give Sasori RBs a second time. He asked for seals he doesn't know, and he doesn't know RBs yet.
[X] Action Plan: Foxes and Snakes and Dead Men, Oh My!
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
The seal option was already explicitly investigated in the story as virtually impossible. The 'move the rift' was considered the more feasible but still difficult choice of the two, with closing it probably being the easiest one. Sure, we haven't tried it as a rune yet but I find it pretty unlikely the answer changes, as the issue isn't capability. Even basic storage seal-level paper seals have the power to open rifts to other planes, the issue is sealmasters not having sufficient information to pin down another path and I don't expect runes to change this more than likely. I'm not like strongly opposed to doing a prep day on a rune but I do not really care to try it either.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
If I wanted to seriously pursue making another rift what I'd go for is some kind of XXL interdimensional beacon rune. It doesn't feel entirely impossible to me that this could solve the targeting problem and allow more rifts to be made.
The problem, naturally, is that we'd have to get the rune to the pure lands in the first place, even in the ideal scenario, which means we'd need to achieve our objectives the old fashioned way first. And if we've done that then we probably don't even need a second rift at all.
The problem, naturally, is that we'd have to get the rune to the pure lands in the first place, even in the ideal scenario, which means we'd need to achieve our objectives the old fashioned way first. And if we've done that then we probably don't even need a second rift at all.
- Location
- U.S.
But there's a major defining characteristic of the Pure Lands; if you kill someone, they go there.
(Well, that and "it has no chakra" but for all we know the Plane of Highly Compressed Polonium also has no chakra)
So if we put a hypothetical Super Interdimensional Tracking bioseal on someone and then kill them, we're golden. The major issue I see is ensuring that the seal effect persists; if it just sticks to their corpse instead of following them, no dice. We would have to be very particular about how the seal works, specifying that it tracks their... soul, I guess?
Wait, when we fought whatshisname and the rift opened and died and fell in, did he have chakra after he came out? Maybe you do land in the Pure Lands with your chakra and seals and stuff, but it just drains it.
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- Location
- how about no
I'd prefer also floating the option to Naruto of a giant air dome rune, or some other rune to protect the majority of Fire Country as a defensive measure instead of declaring and committing to an all out offensive war. It would be a stretch that it is even possible but no one expected us to invent Skywalkers either, so it could be the edge we'd need to catch Akatsuki unawares once more. We know that runes already produce much, much stronger effects than their paper counterparts so truly massive (in their area of effect) defensive seals may be plausible.
I am also in favor of having more than enough rune-crafting materials while we already have a team collecting it in the field and the world is at "peace". The more materials we have for world-changing, exclusive geopolitical-affecting defensive measures the better and the more trips Leaf ninjas make to one particular place in Honey the more suspicious our only source of rune materials becomes. We should transport as much of it as we can, ideally exhausting the cave of all such material so that no one else can gather their own samples after Team I-guess-if-they-do-this-for-us-they-deserve-their-preferred-name-of-Hyuuga leaves. Why leave metaphorical uranium lying around when you are about to introduce metaphorical harnessed fission to a hostile world if you don't have to?
Never open an inter-dimensional door you cannot close expediently. We should look into closing the rift first as that is probably easier and while we would prefer to have all of our dead comrades back... life has improved drastically since the world war(s) and the rift is one of the few things that can upset the new delicate balance of power. If we can manage to make the rift closing appear natural to such a degree that Sasori or anyone else cannot definitively say we caused its collapse that will allow us the opportunity to work on opening a new rift near Leaf at our leisure. It may be harder but it would not be as such of a desperate race as with the threat of Pain returning breathing down our necks.
- Location
- how about no
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
With Hazou's current skills and assuming he is fully healed, which basic seals up to air dome seals does he currently believe he can safely recreate as runes?
How much does he believe he can alter those new runes' properties in terms of their size of effect, hardness/durability for barrier type seals, etc.?
How long does he believe it would take him to create entirely new runes of these difficulties without seal equivalents first? Would skipping making a normal seal version first make the rune creation process noticeably faster or would it not be worth the risk in his estimation?
When it comes to creating new esoteric effects with first seals and then runes what does Hazou think affects the difficulty for new effects? What does he think makes Rift research harder than an antiseptic room seal or rune?
I am curious what Hazou IC thinks of the idea of a giant air dome seal covering most of Fire country as a defensive measure and whether or not he could make such a rune in a reasonable, actionable amount of time.
With Hazou's current skills and assuming he is fully healed, which basic seals up to air dome seals does he currently believe he can safely recreate as runes?
How much does he believe he can alter those new runes' properties in terms of their size of effect, hardness/durability for barrier type seals, etc.?
How long does he believe it would take him to create entirely new runes of these difficulties without seal equivalents first? Would skipping making a normal seal version first make the rune creation process noticeably faster or would it not be worth the risk in his estimation?
When it comes to creating new esoteric effects with first seals and then runes what does Hazou think affects the difficulty for new effects? What does he think makes Rift research harder than an antiseptic room seal or rune?
I am curious what Hazou IC thinks of the idea of a giant air dome seal covering most of Fire country as a defensive measure and whether or not he could make such a rune in a reasonable, actionable amount of time.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
I feel like runes are likely to give us strategic-scale Air Domes or nigh-indestructible Air Domes but not both. I'm thinking a more modest goal would be a circle of Air Dome runes buried around Leaf, chaining off each other to create a single city-sized dome that also has much higher strength than a typical Air Dome (which can be smashed by chuunin-level strength. Needless to say, it would do nothing to keep Akatsuki out). Activation becomes a bit of a question in that instance but it feels like the sort of thing we'd have a solid chance at succeeding to meaningfully useful parameters. Covering an entire country with Air Domes, even at the known level of strength from paper seals, feels very impossible due to the chakra diffusion problem.
I really should stress, "harder" does not even come close to describing how "make a second rift from scratch" has been described by both the story and the QMs. I consider myself fairly optimistic in supposing that we might be able to make a second one with sufficient runetech and full access to the current rift, and even that has me dubious. I fully expect that if this rift closes, we don't get a second chance. Targeting the Pure Lands blind will be essentially impossible, deep deep epilogue territory even in the optimistic case, and for all intents and purposes Jiraiya and Akane will be gone forever. I feel the QMs have said everything short of a big-text bolded WoG to convey this over the times we've discussed in-story and out about the possibility of creating a second rift.
Which isn't to say that I wouldn't press that button if I really had to, but I'm not going to make it anything other than the last resort because I firmly believe that the necromancy arc definitively ends there if we do. I certainly would not support a plan that closes the one rift we have to hedge our bets on the expectation that its deletion would only be a minor roadblock in our plans.
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- Location
- how about no
I'd say at best we'd have a 40% chance of a single giant air dome or system being the main solution to our Akatsuki defenses, but at the same time not asking the question even if it is only to the QM's seems like a waste. Maybe making the physical rune itself the similar in size to the Great Seal on the 7th path will affect the strength of the final air dome rune? (IIRC) We have so little information and runes have so much potential we cannot make accurate, actionable plans until we as players know how Hazou feels about his capabilities and what Hazou!pilot is willing to consider acceptable risk tolerances for novel rune research.
Closing the rift certainly qualifies as a sub-optimal outcome to me as well due to the apparent degradation souls seem to go through in the Pure Lands. Still, risking all of Fire Country's citizens on such a gamble is a call only Naruto can make and it is our duty to explain thoroughly to him all of the nuances such a decision entail. Ideally, we should see if Hazou can confidently create a rune that Naruto can activate in the event that we can no longer safely outrace Akatsuki entering the rift. It's a last resort we desperately need to have as a quick option and if we have to press it we need further contingencies for Akatsuki finding out we were the ones who intentionally closed the rift.
What circumstances would you consider acceptable and/or necessary for closing the rift? Furthermore, once those conditions happen how much time do you think we will have to execute actually closing the rift?
Alternatively, if we do manage to become immortal rift research becoming even more complicated becomes at most a minor hindrance even if it takes us centuries to accomplish as we have infinite time to devote to its study. Sure, we might not be able to save Akane, Jiraiya, etc., but choosing to not let anyone else die from then on would be an acceptable consolation prize to me.
I do not want to give up on Akane and Jiraiya either, but we also have a responsibility to all of our people who are still alive and well in Leaf. As much as we the players like them (myself included) it isn't logical nor rational to put their fates above the well being of thousands of people in our indirect care.
- Location
- Washington, USA
How about a multilayered dome which extrudes fractal spikes of solidified air when the outer layer is breached, inspired by that one sealing failure incident and the earth-spike trap jutsu? Modified so the whole thing can be safely shut down and reset to the smooth default dome from a central control node in the Tower, of course. Having intruders even briefly delayed by a weird trap out at the perimeter, confused and injured, while Leaf's defenders get notified by automated alarms, seems like a considerable improvement over Hidan showing up in our bedroom with no warning.
For extra "knew you would do that" / "easy way is always mined" spite, convenient substitution targets could be set up just inside the dome with appropriately-fuzed directional explosives underneath.
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- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Oh, to be clear, I support the idea! I'm just 1) proposing the "circle of runes" methodology as a way to bolster the strength of the rune effect, and 2) suggesting we start with our sights on a smaller strategic-scale target. Naturally, if our runework proves capable of defending Konoha and then some, we'll take that "and then some" and run with it as far as it'll go.
I confess, my perspective on setting exact terms here is compromised because I don't actually think it'd be all that bad a thing if Akatsuki won and brought Pain back, save for the fact that they wouldn't let Jiraiya come back. From that perspective, closing the rift is a strictly inferior choice.
But setting that aside and considering the broader picture, such as the prevailing opinion of the hivemind and Hazou's position as a subordinate of Naruto who will certainly not allow Pain to come back if he has any other choice, I'm well aware that such a moment of "last resort" would have to exist, and those kinds of compromises are what this quest is built around. The best answer I can give to your question is to ask what circumstances would convince Naruto to close the rift, or the rest of the hivemind.
When I wrote the protoplan that became the basis of faflec's action plan, I attempted to earnestly put the decision in Naruto's hands. Laying out what our options are, the pros and cons of each, and other than that deferring to his executive judgement as Hokage. We're no longer in a position to do this by ourselves, after all. It's even possible, with the option of Orochimaru cooperation on the table (or even just shadow clone research), that we might pursue both routes simultaneously and aim for the maximum-value of stealing the rift while retaining the risk-mitigation of closing the rift. It's not my place to say anymore, save when it comes to ensuring the pros and cons are clear. I think it's very important that Naruto knows if he orders the rift closed he can't expect Hazou to churn out another one here in Leaf, or else he might make a decision that he'd regret if he knew everything we knew.
Personally, I trust Naruto to appropriately care about defending the people of Fire from Akatsuki aggression and factor that into his necromancy decision. So long as he's as informed as he can be, I don't expect to have moral qualms about following his direction. If I wind up disagreeing with him, it'll probably be on matters of practicalities or simply how important it is to avoid Pain's return, and, well, it's normal for my fringe opinion to not control the whole decision-making process, is it not?
- Location
- Pacific standard
Okay, so. The first question we need to ask is "Will Sasori use his invokes checking each seal?" This is going to be dozens of unique seals. Probably not.
Hazou's effective sealing stat is 75 without consequences, that means invokes of 8
75 + 8(Creative Idealist - retrapping the dimensionalism seals) + 8(Lists and Plans - hiding the trap in a different Leaf sealmasters work) + 8(Out-Touched Sealing Genius) + 8(Orochimaru lab assistant) +8(Gouketsu Research Facilities) +16(prep) = 131
To be clear, I'd be surprised if Sasori's sealing is above 69, but I'm going to do calcs with 79. Ironmanning woo.
It still doesn't look good.
79 + 8(Aspect 1) + 8(Aspect 2) +8(non SSA sealmaster buff) + 8(Sasori Patented Research laboratory)+ 5(Konan assist!) = 116. Full prep gets them to 124.
I'm pretty sure if we take this as seriously as we can, Sasori can't actually beat our roll. If they underestimate the risk of the trap at all, it's completely impossible to catch. There's absolutely no way it's caught on a simple prep day scan to see if the seal is worth making. Orochimaru gives us the assist trapping a jonin seal to hand over, we give him the assist doing the same, and Sasori dies in a horrific burst of chakra the second he tries the wrong set of notes. Put the entire info-processing suite of Leaf to the task of presenting the seals such that the trapped ones are more likely to be attempted.
This is making me sit here wondering what the thought process of Sasori is, though. No way he's going to actually learn any of these, right? He's busy with the rift. If anything, this request seems like something designed to soak up Leaf manpower designing this exact kind of trap. Hmmmmmmm.
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
Are research facilities buffs? Lmao is there any way for us to upgrade ours?
Hmmm I'm liking the buff trio we have here. Research assistant, Trauma, and your office
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- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
My guess is that it's just an investment in the future. Rift research will only take so long, after all, and then it's back to the grind of essie-ing as hard as possible all day and all night. These are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for him to reach, the kinds of secrets jealously hoarded for centuries with untold power behind them, of course they're worth securing now even if he's only going to start working on them later. Kakuzu doesn't die every day, after all.
- Location
- Washington, USA
Bladehorrors might have come from that one Path which is constant battle. Random rift to the Human Path could land inside a volcano or chakra beast nest with correspondingly unpleasant results. For that matter, the pure lands rift could have instead been under the surface of the caustic ocean, within a stone's throw of where it actually did open up! There's a sort of reverse survivorship bias here, because when a sealing failure creates an interdimensional rift to a relatively benign environment, it just shows up in the actuarial statistics as "successfully contained, no casualties."
I'm certainly not saying it should be Plan A, but if we learn how to open and close arbitrary interdimensional rifts before we manage to either beat Akatsuki or outflank them by use of a tracking device... setting up a "gate room" out in the middle of nowhere, shooting blind, then systematically noting down inputs and results until a pattern starts to emerge, has at least some chance of eventually working. Could turn into a de-facto exile assignment for misbehaving bureaucrats if nothing else.
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I basically agree with this, but we can't wait until we're healed to trap the notes. It needs to be done now. Unfortunately that means it's not an option. We can't beat him while injured.
Just how static defenses that Akatsuki put up can be overcome with sufficient firepower. Static defenses that we put up can delay Akatsuki but will never be able to keep them out entirely. They have Deidara. They have Itachi and Ameterasu. They will be able to punch a hole in whatever we do.
I don't think this is a reasonable strategy. Put me down for <1% that it keeps them out permanently.
We could probably shield Leaf for a bit while our essies kill their essies.
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Noumero
Omit Needless Words
I wonder if we can get Mari's advice, and thereby raise the TN needed to see through the trap (and recognize it as a deliberate trap) by some fraction of Mari's Deceit.
Narrative-wise, I think it makes sense. While she doesn't have a detailed understanding of how Sealing works, the overarching principles of deception generalize. The two main ones are authenticity and attention management: you have to know which traps would look like plausible mistakes to the target, and which places to put them to minimize the chances that the target would notice them ahead of time. Mari doesn't know the domain well enough to manufacture a good deception on her own, yes, or even provide much object-level advice. But what I think she can do is steer Hazou towards inventing a plausible deception.
What I'm imagining, specifically, is Hazou walking her through the process of understanding a particular seal, focusing on how his mind works (and therefore how he predicts Sasori's mind will work), with Mari prompting him to pay attention to specific features of that process of comprehension, and pointing out which "conceptual landmarks" would work best for hiding a trap behind.
E. g., he might describe the seal as having a particular tricky-to-understand bit, Mari might prompt him to outline in detail what mental motions he'd make for grokking that bit, one of these motions could be a certain heuristical non-rigorous mental shortcut – and she could point out that such shortcuts are a good place to hide a trap in (since Sasori would likely also mentally skip over the particulars, in a subtle yet fatal manner). Notably, that doesn't require her to actually understand how Sealing works on the object-level – only how a sealmaster's mind and attention mechanisms work when they're engaging in it, which is likely very similar to how people in general reason through problems. (Not sure if I'm explaining that in a comprehensible way.)
Maybe she'll need to buy a couple levels of Sealing to get a high-level understanding of the field, though.
Since we need to be able to tell Oro "we informed you as soon as we could", whereas Naruto expects this briefing "reasonably soon" and is probably more amenable to us saying "can you give me one more day to put my thoughts together here", shouldn't we prioritise getting the Oro lithosealing deal done? I'm pretty worried not addressing informing Oro in this plan is going to cause us huge issues (unless it's a super short duration plan)
Do we need to talk to Naruto about this first, since we're already supposed to be collaborating with Oro on this? But even if so, we definitely don't need to talk to him before we talk to our advisors about the deal right? In fact there's probably benefits to talking to them before we talk to Naruto.
Well, Nagato was busy maintaining the Ritual, and they didn't have a Sealmaster capable of eventually Sage-tier bullshit, or a Runesmith for that matter, just Sasori and Konan. Note that Runes produce effects around an order of magnitude more powerful than their Seal equivalents (at least in the case of explosives) and are explicitly suited to be better suited to making static defenses than Seals are. See quote below:
Keep in mind even chuunin-tier Seals can produce effects that are basically indestructible for all intents and purposes, they just have weak points. Asuma assigned us a Jounin-tier Barrier Seal to learn, which was able to shield an area against S-rank attacks and presumably couldn't be easily bypassed. A Jounin-tier Rune built as a similar static defense, mixed with an Air Dome at huge scale, which can operate from a distance and requires fewer components and thus has fewer weakenesses? I think it absolutely could keep a bunch of Essies out - especially since we would have access to virtually unlimited chakra to fuel the Rune with due to Leaf having the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki and hundreds of ninja.
As for the feasibility of doing that on a deadline? Reaching Rune Prep Rolls of 67 (without invokes) would only take us 5 months (~1800 XP). Besides we could simply research dimensionalism enough to make a Rune that creates a pocket dimension, like what the Sage probably did with the Paths but on a far smaller scale, and then use that as a safe base of operations.
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