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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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RandomOTP said:
  • 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?
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cough cough Atomu cough cough
 
Timestop rune. Runic drag exists. Experiencing the passage of time is simply moving along a temporal direction because of inertia or whatever the fuck. Make runic drag only apply to time when activated. When holding onto the rune, time effectively freezes for everyone who isn't you (you're sped up an arbitrarily large amount). You cease moving through time but can move normally through space. The rune also moves normally through space because when activated 100% of the drag is applying to time, not space. When you let go time passes normally again. Chakra magic bullshit makes it so you don't experience friction or have to deal with a metabolism or have your thought processes stop or the usual obvious gotchas, you get to act normally for X amount of subjective time before the rune runs out of juice and you go back to normal time. The rune isn't reusable and runs out immediately if you let go of it while activated.

EDIT: On discord it was pointed out to me that this may not work since it might just slow time down for the user instead of speeding them up. We could either slap them on enemies as a debuff or do the opposite, eliminate temporal drag entirely, and speed time up that way. RoadWild suggested inventing reverse dampeners to remove inertia then applying it to the time dimension.
 
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DanZapman said:
Timestop rune. Runic drag exists. Experiencing the passage of time is simply moving along a temporal direction because of inertia or whatever the fuck. Make runic drag only apply to time when activated. When holding onto the rune, time effectively freezes for everyone who isn't you (you're sped up an arbitrarily large amount). You cease moving through time but can move normally through space. The rune also moves normally through space because when activated 100% of the drag is applying to time, not space. When you let go time passes normally again. Chakra magic bullshit makes it so you don't experience friction or have to deal with a metabolism or have your thought processes stop or the usual obvious gotchas, you get to act normally for X amount of subjective time before the rune runs out of juice and you go back to normal time. The rune isn't reusable and runs out immediately if you let go of it while activated.
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Mfw the timestop rune that you have to lug around to move weighs 3000 lbs
 
Next sealing research cycle can we throw a prep day into this:
  • A rune that slows down time around it in a radius. Make it as easy as possible, so maybe radius would take a hit? As long as the radius is big enough for a person to be in.
 
I was worried for a moment there that the Shark clan got got, went fully the way of the Archaeopteryx. That would've been quite a concerning event to everyone with a coastline, and also a pretty grim indicator of our time running out. Even as it stands, the fact that major attacks are starting to happen again isn't good for us. It's a good thing the Crusade is on its way, because we knew all along that it's only a matter of time before the next Boss dies and things get very bad very quick if Kumokogo goes down before an effective defense can be mounted.

The "crumply" nature of the Earth and the Seventh Path sounds a lot like higher dimensional math to me. The more axes of freedom you have to work with, the easier it is to bring points "closer" to each other (or perhaps it might be easier to say that it becomes harder to fill out such a volume that keeping points far apart is inevitable). You can sort of envision this in the 4th dimension by stacking two cubes with thin 4D width on top of each other and thinking about how that makes the cubes "closer" to each other than "should" be possible. (For instance, the center of each cube in this example would only be separated from each other by the thin 4D width, even though within their 3D volume you'd have to go much further to reach the ordinary edges of the cube).

Happy that the Toad Sages trusted us with this information, though. I very much am happy to know that the prohibitions on seal infusions are there for a reason and that we would be burning the commons by doing seal infusions on 7Path. It's not like we're going to go this far and then turn around and destroy the Path for funsies. As a supplementary commnet, this means that summoning dozens of puppies is concretely tangibly a net good for the world and we should do it more often.

I'm now much more concerned about the Ten Tails now that we know its destruction is the scale of an entire Path. Who's to say it's not the reason the Pure Lands oceans are boiling, even? And, uh, I put this together on discord a little while ago but there's some extra supporting evidence for the idea that Pain was about to recreate the Ten Tails in his ritual:
  • In canon, the Ten Tails was formed in part from the God Tree, which was itself created when a meteor struck Earth and brought the God Tree's seed with it.
  • This tree theme persists not only through the Ten Tails (which looks kinda gnarled) but also through the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, the physical body of the Ten Tails after its chakra had been extracted from it, also having the texture of tree bark.
  • Pain called the thing he created for the ritual "The Seedling" and sought to feed it the nine Bijuu.
This is ultimately just a correlation between mfd lore and canon lore, so it's not confirmed in any sense of the term, but the parallels just feel too strong. I don't know what Pain's plan was, whether he knew he was assembling the Ten Tails and had a plan for what to do with it or if he was duped into thinking this would solve the world's problems, but the dude was 100% recreating the Ten Tails there on Nagi Island. Heck, canon Pain even had the ability to summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, while we know mfd Pain was responsible for the "creation" of the Seedling! It just lines up too well for me to not consider it my frontrunner guess as to what the heck was going on there.
 
Wait. Wait. Wait wait wait. Sealing paradigms. Sealing media have to meet certain qualities. They have to conduct chakra. You have to be able to shape them in such a way that order and direction matters, like chakra ink's brush strokes. Shadows qualify- Nara can freely manipulate their shadows and interact with other shadows when they use shadow jutsu like Shadow Imitation. Once we go missing we train Kei in sealing and get her to invent shadowsealing.

Oh fuck what if Shikamaru actually has or knows someone with Mokuton. Imagine the biosealing you can do with that shit. phytosealing. dendrosealing. oh fuck we have to meet with Shika and Kei right now. All XP on all MfD characters needs to be dedicated to sealing posthaste now and forever. Sorry combat sorry socials it was never meant to be.

WAIT OKAY so aerosealing. Shaping the air. Skyshaping. Whatever. You know what you need to finely manipulate air currents? No not the Wind element don't be ridiculous that's nonsense get away from me with this "chakra control" delusion. Let's deal purely in realistic matters here, okay? Okay. I'm glad we're agreed. No. What we need is TEMPERATURE. We need to be able to precisely warm and chill air to shape it well enough for 3D sealing. That's right we need to reinvent Elemental Mastery so we can seal even harder.

Also we can't leave Noburi out here, sure biosealing is cool and all but you know what else acts as a medium for chakra? Water. Water under the Vampiric Dew's control. Thanks Zerovirus for the idea. Every bloodline was meant for sealing. Each and every one converges back to the source eventually. The flawed Sharingan and its mastery of the false discipline of Technique Hacking returns to the truth via Minatosealing. And the Vampiric Dew? My friend, it was meant for mistsealing. Cryosealing. Something. But you know what we need to be able to keep mist to a consistent shape? We need to freeze it carefully. That's right we need to manipulate its temperature. We need to affect the warmth of midair particles again. Once again we must reinvent Elemental Mastery and teach it to Noburi and Kei so they can learn the truth of 3D sealing.

Wait. Mari needs to be included. None can be denied the holy truth of sealing. Genjutsu seals will be made manifest at last. The prophecy fulfilled. Chakra flows through the body. Chakra can be controlled inside the body. What serves as a medium? Electrochemical impulses inside the brain. What can control these? Genjutsu. Genjutsu. It was always meant to be. We have to teach Mari sealing so she can make genjutsu seals.

I did it I realized what Jashinism is it's knifesealing you stab someone with a knife and infuse a blood loss seal everything is sealing always and forever no exceptions everything came from the Out sealing is of the Out all things originate from sealing

This must be how the Sage felt as he created the Paths

Space-time seals. That's it. This is the pinnacle. This is how the Sage created the Seventh Path. Seals interact with spacetime. Storage seals as proof. Chakra flows through space and time. We can use them as sealing media. This is it this is how we use the Hagoromo estate as raw material for an explosion rune. We just need to evacuate Harumitsu first.
 
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well that was a bunch of lore. And Hazo totally missed an opportunity to let a couple Akatsuki do something quite silly, which is good for the DRAGONWAR but a shame for project necromancy.

In terms of immediately actionable stuff, the Hagoromo offer that is by default being rejected; should we perhaps consider it? In the spirit of deescalating and with the hopes that non-Ritsuo Hagoromo and/or their offspring might be redeemable. Ofc either way we should discuss with the Nara, they're doing the bulk of the work and would be in a better position to determine whether the offer would be genuinely helpful or if they'd just get in the way and teach mostly stuff we'd object to. Keeping in mind ofc Shikamaru's own attitude towards the Hagoromo.

Speaking of, are we on speaking terms with Shikamaru again after that accidental insult following Asuma's death? If not then uh... can we do anything about that?
 
Paperclipped said:
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.
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Assuming the Hagoromo priests can be trusted not to somehow do more harm than good, I figure Hazo should overcome his distaste and let them. It'll free up NFF tutoring resources for other subjects, and politically / symbolically it's a step toward Uplift being an accepted nationwide thing rather than just a Goketsu or progressive-faction thing, meaning more of that agenda will survive if Hazo personally has to do something that tanks the Goketsu reputation as part of dealing with Akatsuki.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
This is ultimately just a correlation between mfd lore and canon lore, so it's not confirmed in any sense of the term, but the parallels just feel too strong. I don't know what Pain's plan was, whether he knew he was assembling the Ten Tails and had a plan for what to do with it or if he was duped into thinking this would solve the world's problems, but the dude was 100% recreating the Ten Tails there on Nagi Island. Heck, canon Pain even had the ability to summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, while we know mfd Pain was responsible for the "creation" of the Seedling! It just lines up too well for me to not consider it my frontrunner guess as to what the heck was going on there.
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Think he got duped somehow? If so, how? Out!Stuff, the Five yoinking themselves loose bit by bit, or something more nefarious?
 
You know Hazo really seems to hate the Hagoromo a whole lot. Sure it's a funny and relatable gag and sure things escalated somewhat IC but things inside his internal monologue have gone a bit far, no? I blame primal malice. That must be it. Hazo is developing a case of being a jonin as his skill pyramid advances closer and closer to joninhood.

Anyway more space-time seals/runes.

Hyperbolic/hyperelliptic space seal/rune- in a given radius, space is warped into hyperbolic or hyperelliptic geometry. For the unprepared, this seriously disorients them and makes navigation or aiming impossible as their intuition no longer matches up with reality. Ballistic trajectories curve in unexpected ways. Walking someplace no longer works right. For a very brief summary, imagine if space warped so that instead of 360 degrees in a circle, you had to walk more or less than 360 degrees to end up back where you started.

The effect magnifies with the number of seals/runes placed in an overlapping area. With spatial geometry curved hard enough, you could walk in a "circle" 10 times straight and still not end up back where you started. They should be really effective traps/stationary defenses.

Useful posts to explain (images may need fiddling with scriptblockers to see):
goblinpunch.blogspot.com

Non-Euclidean Architecture

Introduction Non-Euclidean Architecture is how you build places using non-Euclidean geometry (Wikipedia's got a great article about it.)...
goblinpunch.blogspot.com goblinpunch.blogspot.com
goblinpunch.blogspot.com

Non-Euclidean Architecture, Part 2

This is a sequel to my first essay on non-Euclidean architecture. If you haven’t read that one first, you should. Non-euclidean spaces ju...
goblinpunch.blogspot.com goblinpunch.blogspot.com
 
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Time Affecting Runes

Time Drag Rune - Inspired by how runic drag makes runes nearly impossible to move in space, Hazou applies the concept to time instead. Anyone touching this rune while it's active experiences time at only a fraction of the rate they normally would

Reversion Rune - While active, causes time to loop in a small radius around the rune. Cycles are short in duration and limited in number. Memories are conserved between cycles

Fast Forward Rune - Speeds up time by a weak factor in a small radius

Time Stretch Rune - Slows down time by a weak factor in a small radius

Rewind Rune - Reverses time for a few seconds in a small radius

Pause Rune - Stops time for a few seconds (relative to an observer outside the AoE) in a small radius

Cut and Paste Rune - Skips an AoE forward in time. Outside observers see those in the AoE blink out of existence and back in a short time later.

Time Twister Rune - This rune distorts time sharply in a radius around it. Different parts of an object crossing the area experience time at vastly different rates. This is invariably fatal to living things, as their brains and hearts are operating on significantly different timescales.

Space Stretch Rune - This rune distorts space in a radius around it. The affected space is larger on the inside than the outside. Eg. A tape measure would give the diameter of the area as 15 m, but the circumference (measured from outside the AoE) as 10π m

Alright, let's get cooking
 
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We now have an in character way to conceive of permanently influencing Orochimaru using our self created brand of magic. Can we please, please spend a prep day on a rune of ninshu? A rune with the intent to bring two souls into closer alignment - Hazō will share his indomitable love of humanity with Orochimaru, and force the monster onto a path of restitution.

There's multiple paths to this goal, I'm detailing two I've considered below. Either way, I really think the rune would be worth researching anyways

I think we might be able to get him on board with the project if 1. We can tell him how good of a stunt forged in fire is. Seriously the guy is the only other one in setting with spreadsheet vision. 2. We can convince him his current a-social tendencies and preferences are actively detrimental towards his dream of immortality.
3. We give him a reason to take redemption, which is something we've been doing this whole time and I'm betting y'all are feeling a little weird about me saying that. He calls us Nephew for a reason; we're a kindred spirit. We treat him like an abusive but rich and generous uncle rather than irredeemable pond scum, even after he tried to vivisect our sister.

Think. Who else has forgiven Orochimaru after something like that? Tsunade. Jiraiya. Hiruzen. Who's taught him to make those violations in the first place? The same. He's a toddler with insane power constantly pushing boundaries, looking for someone who trades forgiven violations of boundaries. I'm pretty sure we're firmly in Oro's equivalent of found family box. He'll play along with those social roles as long as we can fill them. If we have the daring to propose a project for us to meld our minds/ have a mind battle, he'll grin, look at the mini Jiraiya/Him fusion, and.... well, he won't kill Hazō for suggesting this. I think the most likely thing is him entertaining the idea, finding it fascinating, then discarding it for a more mundane way to guard against entropy. Less likely is him going along with it, fully intending to hasten Hazō's development as his research Nephew and little else. Less likely still I'd going along with it, actually agreeing with the premise. That spread is like, 40/30/20, with 10% reserved for Ami plot interrupts.


But. We don't *need* his consent. We need him under our control for a single round to get him to touch a hidden rune. I've heard the Nara have some techniques that are really good at that. Naruto wants Orochimaru under control. If we sell it to him as a lobotomy that leaves him combat capable and Leaf favored, he'll join the mission himself.


Either way, we need to know if such a thing is possible. The idea is fresh in Hazō's mind. I know the xp costs are painful, but this would neatly solve an entire existential threat that we otherwise have no answer to besides "hope he doesn't kill us at some point :>". It's what chakra was made for, and I've got a really really really strong intuition that this is something that runes will be good at.

Oh also we got confirmation that CR is the jōnin aura stat again, which hey look at the mass of chakra leading to an increased emotional resonance. I'm glad runes are literally bricks of perfectly aligned almost humming chakra.

Rune of Ninshū
The rune brings two souls into alignment, allowing them to easily communicate large amounts of conceptual information.

if both users share the prerequisites of a mental stunt on one of the characters sheet, they may choose to share it with the other user. Being ninja minded, you can probably be mentally rough with the sharing.
 
Sir Stompy said:
Time Affecting Runes

Time Drag Rune - Inspired by how runic drag makes runes nearly impossible to move in space, Hazou applies the concept to time instead. Anyone touching this rune while it's active experiences time at only a fraction of the rate they normally would

Reversion Rune - While active, causes time to loop in a small radius around the rune. Cycles are short in duration and limited in number. Memories are conserved between cycles

Fast Forward Rune - Speeds up time by a weak factor in a small radius

Time Stretch Rune - Slows down time by a weak factor in a small radius

Rewind Rune - Reverses time for a few seconds in a small radius

Pause Rune - Stops time for a few seconds (relative to an observer outside the AoE) in a small radius

Cut and Paste Rune - Skips an AoE forward in time. Outside observers see those in the AoE blink out of existence and back in a short time later.


Alright, let's get cooking
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@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped great chapter, question for you lovely people. Do prep days of runes involve infusing substrate in the same way that seal prep days involve research and mild infusion failures?

If anyone has more, give'em. Having a general idea of what our capabilities are is more important than like 20 xp. We've spent wayyyy more on fate points. It's fine.
[X] Real Runic Research
Spend a prep day on the following runes
Time Drag Rune
Reversion Rune
Fast Forward Rune
Time Stretch Rune
Rewind Rune
Pause Rune
Cut and Paste Rune
Hyperbolic Space Rune
Rune of Ninshū
Time Gradient Rune
 
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Sir Stompy said:
Alright, let's get cooking
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Time gradient seal/rune. Time no longer passes evenly across the volume of the targeted volume. This is frequently fatal for anything living within. Even a tiny gradient should work because your brain and heart and blood and whatever now exist in separate moments.

This should be plausible. The Earth's gravity IRL already makes time pass at very slightly different rates as you change elevations. We just need to weaponize this. Twist the gradient a little bit sideways.
 
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My greatest invention yet. Dogsealing. It has nothing to do with the discipline of sealing. Hazo got bored and wrote a scientific treatise about how seals are basically ocean dogs when you think about it. He accidentally pioneers taxonomy and a theory of evolution.

Lightsealing. The natural complement to shadowsealing. We can make gems. They have various optical properties. Iceland spar/calcite polarizing light. Alexandrite and other gems being pleochroic and changing how they filter light based on direction. Fluorite and similar stones emitting different wavelengths of light when struck by UV or similar. Prisms refracting light into component wavelengths. Everything working in consistent and mathematically predictable ways. Lightsealing. We can use the same lightsource to make lightseals and shadowseals. It's beautiful. The light source can be a seal too. Recursive sealing disciplines. Sealing truly never ends. We should create a new world entirely out of sealing. Pure and untainted and perfect.

Wait. Cooking. Food. Foodsealing. Chakra can be stored in biological systems. Chakra beasts exist. The digestive system works on food in complicated but predictable ways. We can make chakra beast meat into a latent seal only activated when someone eats it.
 
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[X] Teatime with Uncle Orochimaru
Word Count: 299
  • Sanity check with Mari
  • Spend the first chunk of Orochimaru time
    • Overarching goal: Have an interesting conversation with Oro, do not approach this as a scattershot list of topics. We want to get him talking and keep him talking.
    • The confrontation between the Boss Summons and the Dragons is fast approaching.
      • Does he have any additional tactical insights from studying the Dragonbits? We're rather fond of Cannai. He is very useful.
      • Inform him that Kisame and Itachi are finally getting off of their asses and joining the fray.
    • We heard the Toad Sages refer to the Dragons as possible Externals. The term has interesting implications - External to what? The veils of the Paths presumably, or is it External to Outer Path instead?
      • This term was used to describe the Tenfold Abomination as well. Does that mean that (like it) the Dragons also can't be killed? What about the one that appeared to die? Will it reform?
    • Speaking of such beings
      • We've heard that the Five are fragments of the cognition of the Tenfold Abomination. How likely is that to be accurate?
        • Before you bring up our Mori/Nara allies, Kei was a genin when she left, and Orochimaru must know well the reticence of the Nara.
      • We ask, because if Pain's ritual was going to unite the body of the beast, in an attempt to somehow unify the minds of the shinobi world ... wouldn't that have the potential to resurrect it in full?
      • Is it wise to let Externals have such an influence on human governance and affairs? Wouldn't any such knowledge be tainted?
  • Offscreen
    • Consult on Mikijirō's plan with Kei/NFF, if it checks out, greenlight
    • Report on Kisame and Itachi to Naruto
    • Copy MS Notes
    • Continue TH training
    • Continue teaching Orochimaru
    • Sealing prep day
 
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Okay, a little housekeeping from this update

Kei SC XP: 12*1.7 = 20.4 XP
Hazou SC XP: 12*(1.4-0.4(sealing research)-0.3(Oro)-0.3(TH)) = 4.8 XP

No notes, cuz Nobs was busy learning new jutsu. (@Paperclipped is that right?)
 
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