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- He/Him
It's a stunt proposed by Paper, but not yet official
I don't think there's much point in asking for rulings on stunts that haven't been added yet
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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
I don't think there's much point in asking for rulings on stunts that haven't been added yet
I see, thanks!
So @Left-Hand Mutant, the buff combo with Sub in it isn't really competing with a triple combo, cuz all she will have access to for Ath before her first initiative is RRBs + Sub, which she already has the Stunt for
After her Initiative she'll have the choice of FS, RRB, Sub and CotWG all for Ath buffs. I continue to think that Kei would be better off using the CotWG + FS + RRB combo stunt. By her nature as a RW specialist she's limited on her Supps more than someone like Hazou is.
Look at her proposed Turn 1 if she's playing defense:
Supp: Activate CotWG
Supp: Activate CFS
Standard: Move into optimal range
She can't throw and activate CFS, and she has no Supps left to Sub with, she'll go for the alpha strike next turn with CotWG + CFS for maximal bignumber. The tags from CotWG and the bonus for CFS are used defensively this turn, if she plays offense it's somewhat similar:
Supp: Activate CotWG
Supp: Draw/infuse kunai
Standard: Throw weapon
No Supps here either. Every time she throws she has to spend a Supp drawing a weapon. If she wants to attach a seal that takes her other Supp. She just doesn't really have spare Supps as a general rule.
Unlike Hazou who is usually Standard constrained.
EDIT:
I think this is my favorite training plan so far. Gives us maximal buffs to Ath for full offense T1, plus max RW for full defense T1. The next part would be getting the triple stunt, but I think I want to wait a bit to drop 300 XP on that.
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- Location
- United States
It's from the Master of Shadows stealth stunt, which doubles the value of aspect bonuses. It's not entirely clear it would apply in that situation, hence why I asked. Probably a bit premature to ask that for something that doesn't yet exist but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Actually, no! That's what I thought too but I checked and its tags can be used on all ranged attacks, not just ranged weapon rolls. Even ninjutsu qualify.
Narratively the jutsu helps you hide and make devestating strikes from range.
It's a shame we don't have a good extreme-range ninjutsu to use a sniper rifle. Mari and Snowflake could have made truly terrifying S-Rank Assassins with SkyWalkers, Shadow Clone, Cloak of the Wind God, and an extreme range attack.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Triple stunts are only 200xp to buy ^.^
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- He/Him
I think he was saying that she doesn't have frozen Skein + RB, which would be 100 XP. The Triple would then be another 200 for a total of 300
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- USA
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- He/Him
It's actually a species of tree, spread through a largeish area.
They do?
No it doesn't, it doubles the value of Stealth invokes that you spend FP on. Not multitag bonuses from jutsu.
Can't find a citation for it in the rules doc, it's never actually happened.
80% confidence this is just made up
Only for invokes(spending Fate Points), not for tags, which CotR is providing.
Noburi got to spend 2FP to invoke "imma be the next Tsunade" twice when doing Tsunade's test.
QM comments imply it was a judgement call, not a preexisting rule.
He had to spend the FP for it tho. It's wasn't a free doubled invoke.
I'm fine saying this is absolutely never going to work the way he's envisioning this and dropping it entirely.
I was agreeing with you, I must not have explained myself well.
Intent was: "this is the closest we came to that ruling, it was a special case, and even then it wasn't a 'double-value' invoke"
Yup, sounds good.
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You're allowed to invoke aspects once per scene.
- Each Aspect from your character sheet can only be Invoked once per scene, where a scene would typically be a fight, a social interaction, etc. Only the most drawn-out of battles will count as multiple scenes.
Anyway, this included his Tsunade aspect. He didn't invoke it twice, it was just judged to be extremely relevant and was worth double its usual bonus.
EDIT: Wait; maybe not. Let me check.
EDIT 2: Yep, it had a 2x bonus. I remember seeing this other times too, but this is the only one where I know where the roll is.
EDIT 3:
Nope! See the quote I posted.
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This is a one-off, for an Aspect that was extremely narratively appropriate. It'a not a general principle, and it's not happening for some random Nara clan jutsu and CotR.
IMO there's no point in discussing this further. It's a pipe dream.
- Location
- Book Fort
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- They/Them
Ooh, I thought it was one, specific Demon Chakra Tree that had an army of chakra rodents at its beck and call...
Okay, I feel a little better about our chances, now. Not much, because we're still trying to find one specific glade/copse of trees (rather than one, individual tree), and that's going to be difficult no matter how you look at it.
(Still, Magic Demon Trees, Symbiotic Chakra Rodent Swarms... I'm actually looking forward to this fight! ^.^)
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- UK
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TIAFO.
No.
This stunt does not exist.
It is not. Nothing is reflexive unless explicitly indicated as such.
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- Location
- Book Fort
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Assuming we have a small reserve of Darkness Seals (similar to Banshee Fuckers), I've added it to the plan.
If we're still concerned about the Sonic Experiment and Orochimaru, we can nix that, and the rest of it should still be viable... especially the substrate experiments.
If we're still concerned about the Sonic Experiment and Orochimaru, we can nix that, and the rest of it should still be viable... especially the substrate experiments.
- Location
- United States
Don't think so. We have notes for em though.
I'd probably vote for a modified version of this if we cut out the sonic testing
- Location
- United States
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
There's been some discussion on Discord about whether Hazō might be able to help decrease attrition in Konoha's higher ranks before he leaves, likely by sharing or researching seals for the Tower, so that the jōnin population will be higher than it otherwise would have been twelve to eighteen months from now.
There's been some discussion on Discord about whether Hazō might be able to help decrease attrition in Konoha's higher ranks before he leaves, likely by sharing or researching seals for the Tower, so that the jōnin population will be higher than it otherwise would have been twelve to eighteen months from now.
- What threats are the higher ranks regularly facing?
- What are the leading causes of death for jōnin?
- Does Hazō/Mari believe that upgrading ANBU from Chakdar 1 to Chakdar 2 would increase ANBU retention?
- Is there anything that the Tower would want in particular?
After a request for input- I suggest that we suggest he talk to Kabuto specifically about it since he trusts Kabuto, Kabuto knows Orochimaru more personally than most people do, and (the quiet part) Kabuto has much better socials than Hazo does. Assure him that even if Kabuto makes it sound like Noburi has to decide soon, he doesn't. Otherwise I think that these are reasonable security measures to suggest for Nobs to feel like we're not just fucking around.
Shortened verison (Notepad++ says from 193 WC to 147):
- When convenient, privately make sure he's on the same page- give precise explanations of procedure and Orochimaru's agreement.
- Suggest that he discuss it with Kabuto since Kabuto seems trustworthy and knows Orochimaru personally.
- Discuss options for security measures Hazo's willing to take because he takes Noburi's safety seriously- having Kabuto do it instead, having Orochimaru swear oaths in front of the Toad Elders, having Orochimaru do it while he still needs Hazo for lessons, having Hazo be in the room so he can report to Noburi after, getting Tsunade to examine Noburi after and telling Orochimaru so if Noburi wants, getting Tsunade to send a clone to assist with the surgery.
- Request that he spend a few days thinking it over and leave it entirely up to him.
- Check again in 3 days if Noburi doesn't bring up an answer before then.
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Looking this over, I think this can be optimised in a handful of ways. For example, you can combine
into a single bullet point something like
- Introduce the possibility of having Kabuto, Tsunade, or both either assist or replace Orochimaru in performing the operation, and have them explicitly teach him what was done
can be simplified as
- Explain how Orochimaru is dependent on us for instruction in Primordial Sealing, and that we can leverage his relationship with his summons as well
I think this can be cut down just a little. Personally, I think we can convince Noburi by putting our life on the same table next to him. So I'd write something like
- Hazo could place his life right next to Noburi on the operating table
- Hazo could personally observe, or serve as an assistant to, the procedure, and pay close attention for anything undue.
could be cut down to
- Reiterate the first points, and allow him time to deliberate
Chapter 640: Preparations for the Dragonwar
- Location
- USA
"Hello all," the Eighth Hokage said, dwarfed by the breadth of his conical hat. "I have bad news. It's not urgent, but it's still important. I'll keep it simple. Our ally, the hidden village of Isan, has been destroyed."
Gasps and exhalations went around the Clan Council's table. Hazō quickly decided to put on a troubled frown as he resisted the urge to check how Nara was reacting.
"Shortly after the murder of Lord Seventh, we sent messengers to Isan. They were unable to find the village based on our known landmarks and returned home after a week. We sent out another team to search for Isan, this time equipped with hundreds of skywalkers. The first team had noticed an oddly clear site on the mountainside, and the new team eventually realized that it had to be Isan's former location. The buildings were completely gone, though their foundations remained. The village's trees had all been knocked down and, in many cases, blown up. The area of dead trees seemed to originate from downhill of the village, as if the village had been engulfed in a giant cone-shaped ninjutsu by someone casting it from below. This is what convinced me that the village had actually been destroyed, since it's possible that they all decided to up and leave to the eastern continent or something.
"We searched for more evidence of who or what destroyed them, but didn't find much. There is one thing we noticed that was unusual – we didn't find any caches of seals or ninjutsu. We think that whoever did this also stole all of Isan's techniques once they'd finished casting their genocidal technique.
"In terms of who has the power to do this, this is well beyond any known jinchūriki's ninjutsu in scope. Really, I have to assume it was Akatsuki for some unknown reason. None of Deidara's explosions at Nagi Island were large enough to manage this… but who knows what new techniques he could have developed in the last two years.
"Regardless, we have no evidence to make any accusations. I intend to send a messenger to inform AMITY about our findings tomorrow morning and let the chips fall where they may. I don't think we have anything to gain from trying to cover this up, and everyone will find out about it anyway when Isan fails to show up at the next Chūnin Exams. If anyone has objections, now would be the time to speak."
"If this was indeed Akatsuki's actions," Lady Amori said, "would they raze Leaf for daring to speak up?"
"They cannot expect us to never say a word about the death of our close allies," said Lord Akimichi. "If it was indeed them, and they want their secret kept, I do not think they would hesitate to blackmail us into silence with their village-killing ninjutsu."
"We're well aware of the nature of Akatsuki's tyranny," Naruto said. "But we don't have any evidence against them here besides the sheer scale of the destruction. I assume they're going to take charge of the investigation, and that means there will never be any evidence against them. Still, I intend to try to use this to swing the villages against Akatsuki. Honestly, the combined forces of the Elemental Nations probably isn't enough to take them down, but incremental pushes like this will help us build the alliance we need to eventually get out from under Akatsuki's thumb."
"A whole village," Lady Minami said. "Our allies. An entire culture. Wiped out by some monsters with more power than sense."
Hazō carefully didn't react.
Naruto shook his head sadly. "Whatever happened to them, I don't think they're coming back anytime soon. Anyway, thank you for your time. I mostly wanted to keep you informed and get any opinions you had. As always, you can find one of me if you have anything you want to add in terms of navigating this correctly. We're going to be weakened by the loss of an ally, but I'm confident this is something we can survive. You may carry on with your days now. Dismissed."
o-o-o
The door slid open, and Nara Shigeru mustered the will to look up. He realized he probably needed to bow or something. He closed his eyes and counted to three. He opened them, and pushed himself up from his chair, slowly ending his blissful relaxation to stand. He bowed, keeping his back straight.
"Greetings, Lord Gōketsu."
"Hello, Nara," the young man said, his eyes flicking around the front room of the Leaf Ninjutsu Library. "I'm here to learn Earth Element ninjutsu."
"That is an appropriate thing to do here," Shigeru said. "The list of available ninjutsu is public. Which one would you like to learn?"
"All of them."
"Excuse me?"
"I'd like to learn all the Earth Element ninjutsu in the library," Lord Gōketsu said. "And the Chameleon technique as well, since it's non-elemental."
"I see," Shigeru said. "Would you like me to arrange a tutor, or would you like the technique scrolls instead?"
"Just the scrolls. While you're at it, get all the Water and Wind Element techniques as well. For my teammates."
"I… see." Altogether, that would be a lot of ninjutsu scrolls. It would take Shigeru a lot of effort to fetch them all. Still, the young man was a clan lord. Shikamaru would likely be irritated if Shigeru went inside the archive and took a nap instead of fetching the scroll copies.
"Very well, Lord Gōketsu. Allow me a few minutes, please."
One foot after another, Nara Shigeru disappeared into the ninjutsu archives.
o-o-o
Knock knock. "Come in!"
Hazō entered the room, only to jump back as Noburi thrust his palm at the doorway and yelled "Water Element: Heavenly Typhoon!"
"Noburi!" Hazō said from around the corner in the hall. "No ninjutsu in the house! Or do you not remember the dining room Jin wrecked?"
Noburi laughed from within his room. "I was just showing you the scroll. Look, Hazō! Water Element: Heavenly Typhoon!"
Hazō peeked around the corner. Indeed, Noburi had thrust the ninjutsu scroll towards the doorway. From the distance, Hazō couldn't quite make out the dense text describing the internal chakra manipulations needed to form the ninjutsu nonlethally. While it may have been safer to have tutors teach them, Leaf at large may have noticed the young Gōketsu rapidly memorizing all of Leaf's public techniques. Hopefully the Nara docent knew how to keep quiet.
"You're very funny," Hazō said, stepping into the room as Noburi turned back to the scroll. "Making me think that you're casting potentially lethal ninjutsu in the house."
Noburi backhanded Hazō's gripe into the wall. "Why else did we build everything out of granite? It can take a hit from ninjutsu, so I figure it deserves to take a hit from ninjutsu. Anyway, what's up?"
"I need to talk to the Toad Sages."
"Good for you?" Noburi asked, raising an eyebrow. He put the scroll away and kicked back on his bed. "I think they're somewhere in Turtle right now. If you get moving, you can probably catch them before they get on King Kamehameha's back."
Hazō shook his head. "No, I need you to summon the Toad Sages. Not right now, obviously, but tomorrow night."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Hazō," Noburi said. "They really don't like being summoned. Says it hurts their bones, or some nonsense like that. I think that even for Jiraiya, they mostly had him come to them, rather than the other way around. Look, they made it clear that they're only keeping their contract with me so that they can train Naruto for a couple hours a week, and even that's too much for their tastes. They were fine being summoned the one time to help me and Yuno work some stuff out. Every time since then, they've been getting pissier and pissier about being made to come to the Human Path."
"They still invite you over for dinner, though, right?" Hazō said. "Aren't you pretty close with them?"
Noburi shrugged. "That's like once every couple of months. And I wouldn't say I'm close with them. I'm buttering them up as much as any summoner would butter up their powerful, knowledgeable, and surprisingly loose-lipped almost-bosses, but they know that. And they were pretty clear that they didn't really care if I was going to die otherwise, because unless it was 3pm Tuesday for their regularly-scheduled Naruto training, they weren't going to answer my summons. Every time I get them over here is a whole-ass negotiation. Whatever you want from them, I think you probably want to pop down to Turtle to get it."
"I want to show them lithosealing," Hazō said. "I told them I figured out how to make three-dimensional seals, and they didn't believe me. Well, I've now actually made three-dimensional seals. They told me not to infuse anything on the Seventh Path, and I'd rather not surprise them by showing up with a rune in hand. If they want to see it, they'll need to come here. So, could you tell them that and get them to come over?"
Noburi sighed. "I guess a world-shattering sealing innovation is pretty important. Gamabunta should have taken a couple toadlets along with him for me to reverse summon to. And hey, maybe the Sage's luck will shine on us and instead of being double-pissed, the Toad Sages'll be happy to get rid of their turtle-back seasickness and visit the Human Path for once."
o-o-o
"Summoning Technique: Shima!"
A puff of gray smoke revealed the tiny, purple-headed Toad Sage, one of the most powerful denizens of the Seventh Path who, in a couple weeks' time, would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other Clan Bosses and face down the Dragons. She glanced around the clearing, noting Noburi, Hazō, Kei, and Kagome, before she locked onto the rock hovering above a tree stump in the center of the brightly-lit clearing.
"Oh, is that the damn thing?" she asked, hopping towards the slowly-descending rune. "Hurry up and get Fukasaku over here, boy. He'll want to give it a lick."
Noburi bowed and retreated into the woods, where Snowflake and a half-dozen of her sisters had valiantly sacrificed their evenings in order to ferry chakra so that the second Toad Sage could be summoned.
Shortly thereafter, Fukasaku joined his wife of untold centuries in poking around the eldritch rune that hovered above the tree stump. Hazō gave them a few minutes to confer before he slowly walked over.
The odd chakra-conductive crystal from the cave in Honey formed the pathways by which Hazō's chakra flowed through the rune, and it was stabilized by a matrix of purified marble that was ever-so-slightly less than clear. The flickering glow of dozens of burning braziers left the perfectly-clear crystal within the rune barely visible through the cloudy purified marble, giving the impression of a living bloodstream in the negative, pulsing and shifting as the fires licked high in the nighttime breeze.
The Toad Sages grew quiet as Hazō approached, leaving behind only the rune's faint, low-pitched scraping in the back of Hazō's skull. Thankfully, neither of the Toad Sages had actually licked the thing.
"I remember you had some doubts that I could create three-dimensional seals. Hopefully, this lays those doubts to rest."
"You're certainly laying something to rest here, boy," Fukasaku said, not taking his eye off the slowly-descending rune. "I'll skip all the 'holy crap, this thing is really weird!' nonsense. You said you already blew up a few of these and reality didn't break?"
"That's right."
"Hmph. You must have been real confident, huh? I think even making one of these would be a terribly big risk, and activating it is a whole step up."
"With respect, sir, I was very confident. And it worked out."
Fukasaku harrumphed. He crossed his arms and continued to stare at the rune.
"I take it you're going to show us what happens when it's activated, aren't you?" Shima asked.
"Of course. We've done a few detonations by now, so we've got a pretty good idea of the safe radius. That radius is pretty large, even though this is the equivalent of a puffer explosive," Hazō said, pulling out a pre-made minimum-strength explosive tag and detonating it in his hand with a soft pop. He resisted the urge to shake the stinging away, and instead pointed at the woods where he'd walked over from. "When you're ready, you can join us over in the woods that way."
"Hah, no need for that, my boy," Shima said. "We'll put up a barrier and watch it explode up close and personal. No real risk to that – if we get popped, you just have Noburi summon us again. You can leave an Earth Clone behind to activate it on our mark. You did do this with an Earth Clone before, right?"
"Yes, I can do that ma'am," Hazō said, internally grimacing. If the Toad Sages got popped, Noburi wouldn't have the chakra to summon them again tonight. They'd probably only be able to summon the Sages again the next night, and he didn't put it past the Toad Sages to complain even more about having to do this all a second time. "Bear in mind there's an activation delay, which seems like it's between thirty and sixty seconds."
"Yeah, yeah, Noburi gave us the gist. Hop off to your bunker and give us some more time to inspect it. We'll tell the clone to go when we're ready."
Hazō made his Earth Clone and retreated to the fortifications with his team. They waited there for several tense minutes until the quiet night was split by an earth-shattering BOOM.
"They're still here," Noburi said, once their ears had finished ringing and the forest's various chakra beasts had finished streaming away from the unearthly explosion. "I can feel them draining my chakra still."
"Good," Hazō said. "Let's go see how they made out."
The Toad Sages had backed off enough from the rune that they weren't caught in the shallow crater left behind. Still, they stood in the middle of a small circle of pristine grass that looked very out-of-place next to the fallen trees and torn-up dirt surrounding the rune's former location.
"Well, that wasn't bad at all," Fukasaku said. "I thought for a second we'd hear the aching screams of reality as it was shredded at its roots, but instead it was just a big explosion!"
"It was really a rather nice explosion," Shima said, giving Hazō a rare smile. "Sorry for giving you a hard time earlier. It just seemed really improbable that some random whelp would manage something like this. I guess we didn't account for the fact that you're Jiraiya's whelp."
"Thank you both," Hazō said. "I know I made some wild claims about bringing Jiraiya back to life, but I think this shows that I can actually do the impossible when I put my mind to it. I don't intend to stop until he's standing here beside us. Right now… things are difficult. I can't see the path to get him back. But I haven't given up. And I will never give up, as long as I still draw breath. Honestly, depending on how things go? Maybe even beyond that."
The Toad Sages looked at Hazō for several long moments, taking his measure. They glanced at each other, and something unsaid passed between them that Hazō couldn't follow.
"That's all well and good," Shima said, the kind smile returning to her face. "But don't get carried away with it and take the Paths with you. Jiraiya was our friend for decades, but we've lived for centuries, and we've come to terms with his death. It's been over two years, after all. I wouldn't complain about having him back… but sometimes, the impossible is just impossible."
"It's not impossible," Hazō said. "It's not like drawing a square circle or something like that. Jiraiya is out there in another Path, and we have a rift to that Path that's currently too small for us to pass through. We can get him back. It's just a matter of execution."
Fukasaku rolled his eyes. "Like she said, we've been around for centuries, boy. Plenty of humans say fool things like that, then go off to die in unsavory ways. But… you did make this three-dimensional seal. So, you know what? I'll hold off on the judgment. Let's see what you can actually do."
"The Human Path is a pain," Shima said. "And we're busy killing those pesky Dragons for now. But once that's wrapped up, you should pop by our place in Toad every once in a while if there's anything we can help you with."
"There is something you could help me with now," Hazō said. "I intend to continue pursuing lithosealing. I'll need to if I want to repair the Great Seal eventually. But to do that, I'll probably need to infuse a rune on the Seventh Path. I know Jiraiya infused seals on the Seventh Path. I'll-"
"He did!?" Fukasaku demanded.
"He did," Kei said. "I cannot attest to other potential violations he may have committed, but he indeed infused approximately six dozen seals at the Toad Embassy in Pangolin at the Chūnin Exams two years prior. To my recollection, he infused Goo Bombs, Five Seal Barriers, and Lesser Barrier Formation seals. He infused the seals while he drank his morning coffee."
The Toad Sages glanced between themselves again.
"That overconfident prick," Shima grumbled. "You bring him back, Hazō, and we'll send him right back to the afterlife."
"Regardless of Jiraiya's… flexible interpretation of the rules," Hazō said. "I take it that it's not seal infusion that's dangerous to the Seventh Path, but sealing failures? That is, is it reasonable for me to do the bare-minimum of lithosealing on the Seventh Path to fix the Great Seal? I'll tell you about it before I do, of course."
"Good," Fukasaku said. "You better tell us, if you know what's good for you. We'll tell you when and where to do it to deal the least damage."
"You're right that sealing failures would be catastrophic for the Seventh Path," Shima said. "But even seal infusions aren't exactly the best for it. We don't want to unravel the Seventh Path, but even poking little holes is going to fray the fabric over time, so to speak."
"What's the deal with that, anyway?" Hazō asked. "Where does the Seventh Path come from? Why is it weaker than the other Paths?"
The Toad Sages exchanged another glance.
"Should we tell him?" Shima asked.
"I think we should," Fukasaku said.
"What if he goes off and does some fool thing with the knowledge?" Shima asked.
"Look at the three dimensional seal he made!" Fukasaku said, pointing a bulbous finger at the center of the darkened crater. "He'll go off and do some fool thing no matter what. Do you want him doing his fool things with the confidence of an ignoramus? If he wanted the Seventh Path destroyed, all he'd have needed to do is not pull the damn Conclave together. He's the one human we can trust not to do that, isn't he?"
"Fine," Shima said, turning back to the humans. "Noburi, Pangolin Summoner, Arachnid Summoner, you don't need to hear this. Back to the bunker with you. Hazō, you stay. I'll need your oath that you won't share this knowledge with anyone without me or Pa giving you the okay, got it?"
Hazō looked back at his team and nodded. "I promise," Hazō said, as his teammates backed away. "I'll keep it quiet."
Fukasaku glanced behind Hazō and decided that his teammates had made a satisfactory distance. "Very well. The 'Sage' didn't have the power to make whole new Paths on his own, but he was able to twist and warp space and time pretty well. The Animal Path was pretty wrecked by the Tenfold Abomination, so he pulled off a little chunk of it, made it livable, then put a veil around it to make it into its own Path. That's what we call the Seventh Path today."
The bearded toad put his hands together. Hazō thought he was making hand seals, but instead he clasped one fist inside the opposite hand. "He took the slice of the Animal Path and wrapped it around the Human Path like this. Except they're both really crumply, so the distance between any part of the Human Path and any part of the Seventh Path is actually really small."
"He stitched the Seventh Path to the Human Path," Shima said. "Which makes summoning way easier than going to any other Path – we're basically next-door neighbors, cosmically speaking. Anyway, the 'Sage' did all that a thousand years ago, then left to do his own thing. Since then, the Animal Path has been trying to heal itself, and it's been forming… let's call them tendrils, connecting to the Seventh Path. It's trying to pull the severed part back to reform the whole."
"Everytime the summoning technique is cast, it adds a little stitch to the connection between the Human Path and Seventh Path," Fukasaku said. "So the Animal Path tendrils aren't an issue, and it won't be for a long time. Sealing is like pinching the fabric up tight. That means a lot of things, but the big one is that if one of the stitches that keeps the Seventh Path attached to the Human Path is nearby, you'll probably break it.
"Of course, a sealing failure would be a massive hole in the fabric, but even a regular infusion can stress it. And I bet that infusing one of those guys," Fukasaku said gesturing to the crater again, "would really twist that fabric up. You saw how it was hovering and murmuring and glowing that eerie purple. That doesn't sound like a negligible flaw in reality to me."
"Anyway," Shima said. "That all adds up to say this: don't infuse on the Seventh Path. Its existence isn't natural, as I'm sure you gathered. If you or anyone muffs it up bad enough, either the veil breaks down and we all get dumped into the primordial chaos, or we snap back to the Animal Path with untold death and destruction, and then get to deal with whatever popped out of that nasty wasteland after the Tenfold Abomination got done with it."
"Oh, and you humans would never be able to summon again," Fukasaku said.
"That too."
"Understood," Hazō said slowly. "So, concretely… should I avoid making plans to infuse a rune on the Seventh Path ever?"
Shima grimaced, then shook her head. "My guess is that it's probably better to risk whatever that's going to do to the Path than just let the Dragons run amok. One infusion shouldn't be too bad. Maybe even ten would be fine. But it's one of those things that we won't know is bad until it's really bad, you understand?"
"I get it," Hazō said. "I'll tell you before I even consider something of the sort, but just be aware that my best guess right now is that it'll definitely be necessary to infuse at least one rune."
Fukasaku harrumphed. "Fine. Guess it's not exactly your skin on the line, is it?"
"It's not," Hazō said. "But I still don't want to cause any unnecessary catastrophes. Speaking of which, I met the Kangaroo Summoner, and she suggested something interesting about the Dragons. She thought that the Dragons might be the anchor point of something important, and that's why the Sage sealed them away instead of killing them. Do you think that's likely? If so, is the entire Crusade misguided? It would be awful if it turned out that the Dragons had been kept alive for some critical function, and then we killed them and found out when that critical function failed."
"Anchor point, who can say," Shima said. "But the 'Sage' definitely kept them alive intentionally. If you think leading that Dragon through a fancy spacetime net was something the Sage couldn't do, you're a bit more up your own ass than I thought, boy. It has to be correct that the Sage kept the Dragons alive for some reason. Maybe it'll be a bad idea to kill them, but as best as I can tell, our choices are either kill them, or wait for them to grow stronger and kill us all back. If killing them is going to cause some other problem, I'll choose to deal with the other problem."
"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Fukasaku said. "When we land in Arachnid, we'll take a look with our own eyes and make our own decision. But even with Orochimaru in your corner, I get the impression that the Great Seal is going to take years to sort out. Given what just happened to the Shark Clan, I think we need a faster solution than that."
"I'll ask around on my end as well," Hazō said. "I'll be speaking with one of the Hagoromo tomorrow, a priest of Leaf's loremaster clan. Maybe they'll know something useful."
Shima laughed. "Fat chance."
"Figuring out why the Sage kept the Dragons alive is a problem for us, not you," Fukasaku said. "Speaking of which, we've got to get back to Kamehameha's back. Assuming that's everything you needed from us."
"Ugh, I hate the ocean," Shima said. "And no Path-shattering inventions for the next week, boy! I don't want to find out Kamehameha moved by getting dumped in the salt water. It's bad for my skin. I suppose we'll be seeing you in Arachnid. What a pain. Do come by Toad once this is all sorted out, though, and give me some notice! I'll bake a nice aphid-and-potato pie."
And with that, the two Toad Sages disappeared in twin puffs of gray smoke.
o-o-o
Hagoromo Mikijirō was among the more tolerable of the priests in the repugnant cult that called itself the Hagoromo Clan. He and Hazō had an understanding of sorts. When Hazō was in attendance at the older man's sermons, Hagoromo Mikijirō avoided dwelling on the fouler parts of the Hagoromo's religious canon. In exchange, Hazō continued not to allocate the time and chakra required to drop the entire Hagoromo estate in a sinkhole. It was a mutually beneficial trade, in a way.
Inviting him to tea had been a bit of a struggle at first, since Kagome had categorically refused to have one of the Hagoromo stinkers anywhere near the clan's main house (though he'd reluctantly agreed that Harumitsu was alright). Luckily, despite the season, Hazō had managed to book a time at Moritaka's. Even luckier, they wouldn't even need to sit in the main room with all the various patrons and lovey-dovey couples – with some strings pulled, he'd managed to get a private outdoor courtyard.
As the elaborate tea ceremony put on by the staff came to a close, the two of them finally started on their drinks.
"So, Hagoromo," Hazō said, trying to keep any contempt out of his voice as he said the oh-so-contemptible name. "I wanted to ask you about history. I know your clan prides itself on keeping records of the Sage's wisdom to more fully understand the Will of Fire. Does that extend in general to keeping good histories of the past? I'd like to learn more about the time of the Sage. It's relevant because of the Dragons, an extradimensional threat on the Seventh Path from ancient times."
Hagoromo Mikijirō nodded, doing an excellent job of hiding his own contempt for Hazō behind a slight smile. "Yes, the Hokage himself wrote me a short missive explaining your predicament. Our clan does take pride in our histories, and I am honored you want to learn from us. I reviewed some of the clan archives ahead of today in preparation. What would you like to know?"
"Well, maybe this one is a long shot. Have you ever heard of something called an External?"
Hagoromo cocked his head. "I've heard of the word before, but I assume you mean more than that. No, I don't believe I know of anything special that goes by that name."
"Hm," Hazō said, sipping his tea and casually scrutinizing Hagoromo to try to judge if the man was lying. "Very well. In a couple of situations, I've heard the word 'ninshu' come up before. What exactly does that word mean?"
"Ah, you must have caught it from the old priests' language," Hagoromo said. "It's quite a niche thing that we learn to better understand the ancient records. There's a lot of unusual words there, so I'm not sure why you latched onto that one, but it is an important one.
"Ninshū was among the Sage of the Six Paths' final teachings to mankind. In ancient times, men were totally at the mercy of whatever the world wished to throw at us, whether natural disaster or chakra beast or vengeful nature spirit. The Sage… the Sage had a complicated life, from what we know of it. Where his divine mother sought to keep humanity locked in their state of endless war and strife, the Sage, perhaps due to his human father, wanted peace. Their conflict is the stuff of many reams of epic and scholarship, but what is agreed upon is that after slaying his mother, the Sage took her blood and fashioned it into chakra.
"Chakra was meant to be a tool for peace. It was first meant to help men communicate and bring their spirits together. Have you never wondered how jōnin can project their emotions onto you? It is because of their abundance of chakra, which lets them share the inner workings of their souls with others.
"The Sage of the Six Paths taught his followers this art: the art of opening your soul to another and receiving their soul in turn, and in doing so achieving perfect harmony. This art was called ninshū. For many generations after the Sage's departure, this worked. The leaders of the various clans studied and practiced ninshū and continued the peace that the Sage had fought so long for.
"Yet, it was not meant to be. Certain clans broke from the teachings of the Sage and corrupted their chakra to be used for fighting and for killing. The peaceful followers of the Sage's ninshū teachings could not afford to be slaughtered, so they were forced to learn to use chakra in the same violent ways. Perhaps this was a result of chakra's provenance from a being dedicated to war and strife. Regardless, in time, the true teachings of ninshū were lost, and we are left with our current, limited understanding of chakra's purpose."
"I see," Hazō said. "Yet, despite this teaching, everyone continues to fight and kill each other. Why do you suppose that is?"
"Not everyone remembers the teachings of the Sage," Hagoromo said. "But fighting is not intrinsically evil. The Sage of the Six Paths was a warrior himself, and dedicated much of his life to fighting various evils. His philosophy in the Will of Fire captures when fighting is just. We fight to protect those worth protecting. In this fallen time, far from the Sage's ninshū, this is the purest act we are capable of."
Hazō hummed noncommittally and sipped from his tea again. Hagoromo was long-winded, but at least he didn't seem like he was trying to hide secrets from Hazō. "Well, let's set that aside for now. You said the Sage was a fighter, right? I've heard that he spent a great deal of effort fighting against a beast known as the Tenfold Abomination, alongside a group of companions. Do you know anything about those tales?"
Hagoromo nodded, donning a faint smile. "Of course. Tales of the Sage of the Six Paths and his team have been spread far and wide, though they vary quite a bit between tellings. While it's well known that the Sage allied closely with Uchiha – the founder of the clan whose name has been immortalized – few know that the Sage also worked with Senju. The Sage favored Senju nearly as much as he did Uchiha, and likewise granted Senju a powerful bloodline. Still, after the Sage's departure, the Senju spent many centuries in total solitude, reflecting on the Sage's teachings. They were forgotten in most of the Elemental Nations as a result, until they returned to the world relatively late in the Warring Clans Era. It is why they were the clan with the least corrupted understanding of ninshū, and the clan which produced Hashirama.
"The last of the Sage's companions was his son, who was named Hagoromo. Naturally, we believe he founded our clan, and is the ultimate source of the divine favor we enjoy. We remain studious and dedicated to the Will of Fire to ensure that we always do right by his eternal gaze."
"Senju, Uchiha, and Hagoromo… Only those three?" Hazō asked, ignoring Hagoromo's masturbatory commentary. "I've mostly heard that the Sage had five companions."
"Ah, you've heard the versions where he travels the Paths, picking up a demon from the Naraka, a gaki from Preta, and so on? No, the modern team structure of a sensei and three students has its root with the Sage and his journeying companions. His allies imitated him, their clans continued the tradition, and so it went through the Warring Clans Era until today. While he was called the Sage of the Six Paths, we think it is not literally because he befriended allies from every Path, but because he traveled across them and learned their wisdom. It is the only reason he managed to defeat the Tenfold Abomination, after all."
"And what exactly is that?" Hazō asked. "Again, I've heard about it obliquely in various places, but I've never gotten the full picture."
Hagoromo sighed into his empty teacup. "As before, the stories are varied and conflicting, and we do not know the exact nature of the divine monster. We know from whence it came. In the era prior to the Sage of the Six Paths, the world was ruled by various kami – gods large and small. Some of these kami were simple nature spirits that inhabited slices of the world. Others were ancestor spirits, who gave wisdom and guidance to families and clans. Others still were true gods that lived in ten divine palaces on high and acted in the mortal realm with near-unlimited power.
"Regardless of their habitat, the kami were evil. They were fickle at best, and used their powers to wreak havoc upon the world and lay waste to the lives of men. The nature spirits caused floods and called lightning on those who trespassed. Even the ancestor spirits, whose purpose was to support their families, would not hesitate to kill those who questioned them, and their violent actions against other families slaughtered hundreds in a flash. The ten grand kami were even worse by all measures. Powerful and no less brutal than their compatriots, they raised hosts of men to fight and die for little more than their own amusement.
"The Sage saw this and declared that it would happen no more – that man should be free to live his own destiny, not to have it dictated to him by powers beyond his ken. He fought the kami one by one and slew them, leaving them no longer able to influence the mortal world.
"Though dead, they were not destroyed. Their corpses still held their power and a remnant of their will. Those corpses agglomerated into a being of pure power and hatred, the Tenfold Abomination. Defeating it was the Sage's greatest challenge – and even then, it could not be destroyed, for the hateful power of the ancient kami would merely return again a generation later. Instead, it was sealed away, far from the ability of mortals to influence it, so that the world would never suffer under the kami's tyranny again."
"But the Tenfold Abomination," Hazō said. "What was it like? Do we have any stories of its abilities?"
"It could do everything," Hagoromo said. "It had the power of every nature spirit that ever existed, every binding and release held by a bloodline, even the vast and manifold might of the ten grand kami and the host of gods at their beck and call. Being a union of divine corpses, it was also blessed with a fiendish, animal intelligence that let it use those powers to wreak havoc and destruction. While it hated the Sage most of all, it also despised humanity, and grinded civilization to dust during the times when the Sage and his team were too weakened to continue the engagement. In the era before the Tenfold Abomination, men built great wonders. Even now, we are but a shadow of what we once were."
"If that were the case," Hazō said, raising an eyebrow, "you'd think people would put more effort into building the world back into a state of wonder instead of accepting their fate and living in the shadows. Yet, it seems like everyone else lets the world decay step by step, and I'm the only one that does anything about it."
Hagoromo smiled thinly. "Indeed. I will confess, I have been quite impressed by some of your Uplift projects. Speaking of which, I had a question regarding the Ministry of Agriculture, Reinvigoration, and Infrastructure. I was wondering if the Hagoromo Clan could perhaps help…"
o-o-o
Hazō stepped forward, waving a hand to dispel the summoning mist. Hagoromo had been quite long-winded, so he'd been forced to push this critical meeting to the morning before he started teaching Orochimaru. Kamehameha had finally reached the ocean and set off towards Arachnid, and Kumokōgō needed to know that she'd soon be dealing with a host of irritable and seasick Seventh Path leaders. Apparently, the Turtle King had claimed he would make the journey in three days. Neji, who had made it back to Leaf in one piece, privately confided that he thought the Turtle King was full of bluster, and that it would take more like two weeks.
Hazō had wanted to tell Neji that the Fires of Youth were anything but bluster, but his heart hadn't been in it.
"Has another visitor the Empress," the Arachnid escorting Hazō said. Hazō wondered who it was. Kagome, perhaps, or maybe Orochimaru visiting the Great Seal in advance of his daily lesson.
Hazō stepped into the throne room and stopped dead. Black cloak. Red clouds. A massive, bandage-covered club on his back.
Kisame of the Akatsuki was kneeling and smiling at the Arachnid Empress. He laughed at something and knocked back a cup of tea, and the Arachnid Empress made an improbably precise gesture with her own teacup to mimic the sentiment.
As Hazō entered the room, Kumokōgō dropped her teacup to skitter horizontally across the room. "Hazō greetings, a long time since have met our eight eyes been it has. The Dragon fight against has a new ally come to join. The Shark Summoner is he, and the Crow Clan alliance of brings as well."
Kisame rose and smiled at Hazō with rows upon rows of jagged teeth. He bowed to Hazō, a far deeper bow than any man of his stature needed to give. "Gōketsu Hazō. I've heard so much about you. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Hazō bowed, mentally memorizing the words to present the most detailed report he could to Naruto afterwards so he wouldn't get killboxed again. "Likewise. I'm grateful to hear that you've finally turned your attention towards the Dragons."
Kisame's cheer disappeared. "That's my mistake. I'm sorry."
Hazō raised an eyebrow reflexively. He quickly stuffed it back down, reminding himself to never question the S-ranker-with-a-chakra-eating-sword, but Kisame caught the expression.
The man sighed. "The Shark Clan is pretty big and spread out, and while there was a faction that thought the Dragons were a big deal, the main sentiment was that it wasn't our problem. I got your messages. Mori was pretty clear that the Dragons were something important for us to pay attention to, and the Great Seal you mentioned had Sasori pretty worked up – at least when he remembers that it exists. Still, I thought I could deal with other stuff first."
He shook his head, lowering his gaze. "My clan paid the price for my hubris. So many sharks dead. Because I'm an idiot that can't read the writing on the fucking wall.
"Anyway!" he said, looking up and reaching a hand up to the sword on his back, "I'm done with waiting around. I'm going to send these damned Dragons back to Naraka where they belong."
"You don't mean right now," Hazō said. "The Crusade will be here in a week or two, and you can't fight them alone."
"If they have chakra, Samehada will eat them alive," Kisame said with his predator grin. "And I wasn't planning on doing it alone. Itachi will be here soon enough, and if there's anything Samehada and I can't handle, he'll kill it with a look."
"I don't know if that'll be enough," Hazō said. "They might not have chakra at all. They're made of something completely different to normal beings from the Human or Seventh Path, and the Sage managed to seal them away, which you can't do with things that contain chakra. As for Itachi… well, two of them literally can't be looked at, one can be looked at but not perceived, one more subverts your mind if you look at it, and the last has such a huge reach that if it's in your visual range, you're in its threat range."
Was Kisame's smile looking a little strained? "I see," the Shark Summoner said.
"Makōmalika aid apart from, to fight agreed has the summoner the Crusade alongside," Kumokōgō added helpfully.
"Look, they're dangerous," Hazō said. "If you want them dead, you should wait a week for the Crusade to arrive."
"Arriving is excellent news that the Crusade it is!" Kumokōgō said. "Rid of my land the threat's Dragons, this day I awaited long have."
"I suppose after my months of ignorance, a week won't hurt too much now that the Dragons are back at their butte," Kisame said, after a second. He bowed to Kumokōgō. "I'll be back tomorrow to get what intelligence you have on the Dragons. I'll introduce you to the Crow Summoner when he arrives. Until then, I'll leave you two to discuss whatever you need to about the Crusade. Empress. Gōketsu."
He disappeared in a puff of pale-blue mist.
Hagoromo Mikijirō proposes sending a Hagoromo priest to villages aided by the Ministry to help spread literacy and the teachings of the Will of Fire to all those who want to learn it. Hazō will reject this by default, as the Nara Future Foundation partially fills this niche.
This update lasted 3 days. Hazō, Noburi, and Kei (and the entirety of Clan Gōketsu, if they followed Hazō's orders) have finished their first round of the Akimichi Chakra Enhancement. Unless you vote to the contrary, they will immediately start their second round, to finish on April 27 of the next in-character year.
Several training plans were recently voted in that had the player characters learn dozens of ninjutsu. All ninjutsu that could be feasibly learned will be added to their character sheets, but this took some narrative time – Hazō, Noburi, and Kei spent their Prime hours during this update doing only this.
Reo has gladly accepted Orochimaru's notes on technique hacking, and says he will study them diligently.
On reflection, Mari wants to wait to execute the dramatic backstab of the Hyūga until the clan's finances are set in order again. With the clan currently vulnerable to economic warfare, she doesn't want to piss off the clan with the greatest ability to bring the Gōketsu to ruin. She'll start putting requests out on the Minami's jutsu trading cabal in exchange for Orochimaru's Sundance and Bleeding River Impalement, but even if relations with the Minami are sufficiently improved, she warns you that the throughput isn't super high – usually one or two trades per month total. Clans are stingy.
Mari generally convinces other people to deal with the admin, rather than do it herself. She'll get Reo up-to-date on the ninja operations of the Gōketsu clan, but Gaku's really the one to talk to for most of the nitty-gritty. Reo has been immediately pulled away from his study to start shadowing Gaku around.
Hazō does three days worth of sealing research.
- Difficulty check on Noburi's barrel seals: Jiraiya. Noburi shrugs and says that they're not really seals, but a special and weird bloodline thing.
- Difficulty check on Improved Strobelight Seals: Disappointingly, also Jiraiya. Hazō thinks he's trying to cram too much stuff into the package. Importantly, limiting the seal output to a single color diminishes the brightness pretty substantially, and then jacking up the brightness several orders of magnitude seems like it's too much for the seal design to handle (see: Macerators not being infinitely improve-able). If he picked one of (+color, ++brightness), he thinks this would be much easier to handle.
- Hazō spent a day thinking about time-related runes. He thinks he could try to do some sort of time related rune or another, but he didn't end up coming up with anything concrete. If you want him to check something specific, you need to put that in a plan.
XP Award: 12 + 0 (brevity) XP
GM-fun Award: 1 XP
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on .
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- Location
- United States
AHHHHHHHHHHH KARANIUM IS FINALLY COMING
WE NEEED TO ASK ABOUT THE SEALCRAFT-EMPOWERING ANTI-DRAGON LOREEEEEEEEEE
WE NEEED TO ASK ABOUT THE SEALCRAFT-EMPOWERING ANTI-DRAGON LOREEEEEEEEEE
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- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Headache, scattershot thoughts
- Kisame based
- Reo doesn't need to be shadowing Gaku, he needs to be reading Notes so that he gets max gain before we leave Leaf and we take them with us
- Haru would make a better clan head than Reo. Haru has leadership skills, takes initiative, and has been learning under Mari for 2ish years. Reo has... an Uplift jutsu?