- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
This is a very rough, very unoptimized plan of how to go about shaking Sage Mode out of the Toads.
Feedback?
Feedback?
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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
I'd prefer to phrase "go missing" as "feign death" in "We've got a few ideas. Our best is to go missing." Otherwise this all seems good.
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- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I recall there being some amount of contention on that first part (though maybe that was resolved when I wasn't paying attention?), but for now, I'll add it as an optional phrase, to be determined later.
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
Immediate notes:
1. We've already demonstrated 3D seals to them, that's why they explained the rule against Sealing on the 7th path
2. Oro knows or suspects what the ritual was meant to do and has specifically rebutted our conjecture that the goal / foreseeable outcome was a revived 10fold abomination.
Edit: my top priority for a new action plan would be trying to have Hazo Prime create a Seal Blank from material produced by BotG. We need to know whether it is functional at lv 1, or lv 10, or lv 20 (etc)
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- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ah, poop, forgot about that. I'll delete it accordingly.
Eh, Orochimaru didn't cough up any other reason as to what the Ritual would've done. If he's not going to actually tell us, then I'm fine with spinning it. Might add a caveat to the effect of "Orochimaru denies it, but we suspect..."
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't see much point in asking for Sage Mode when I think we are all pretty skeptical anyone meets the qualifications yet and also Hazou doesn't even know the name of the technique or specifically that the technique exists IIRC (he knows something is up based on what Asuma told him but not much else afaik). But asking for some commitment to help us seems OK, and can probably lead into it later
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- Location
- United States
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
For purposes of making a training plan, what is the name of the fertility ninjutsu?
For purposes of making a training plan, what is the name of the fertility ninjutsu?
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
If nothing else, waiting until our stress track has cleared would simplify the negotiation process. "It is of utmost urgency that you train me to save the world asap… starting in three to five business weeks because I can't move quickly right now or else I will die"
Consequences, not stress track. That takes only a few minutes to clear.
Regardless they can't teach Hazou while they're traveling to and from the Crusade, so it's gonna be a few weeks either way
Well we dont know if the Toad Sages will survive the Dragonwar, especially since they are just ancient toads, not Bosses. I think Hazou also has some info to piece together like only Sages being able to feel <bark> and the whole thing Enma did and what Earthshaping does and how it interacts. There might have been explicit mentions of Sage Mode itself, too.
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- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Did Orochimaru teach us the jutsu on the day he made the deal, or just now when Hazou had that conversation with Oro while he taught Mari? I don't think Orochimaru would have taught Mari here if he had already given us what we need to learn the jutsu on the day we struck the deal. If so, then Kei only has about 10-15 XP available to level the jutsu with.
The specific scenario I was imagining was something along the lines of "we do some politics and leverage AMITY as a wall between the Akatsuki and Hazou, forcing them to sit and watch as he does necromancy faster than them." That is to say, a plan that goes "can we escalate hard enough that we out-escalate the Akatsuki and force them to fold?" And I think that it wouldn't be sufficient, because the Akatsuki have the means to escalate higher than we can. As others have pointed out, this doesn't mean they will, if the rest of them are much less gung-ho about necromancy than Itachi, but they could.
That's all in a hypothetical, though. The possible future where we start trying to line up political pressure to force the Akatsuki to back off and let Hazou do necromancy in peace. That is to say, it's only a question when we're staring Itachi in the eye and telling him we're going to stop their necromancy and there's nothing they can do to stop us. It's a costly action, flipping the table like that. The Akatsuki are allegedly gathered to save the world, after all, it would be hard to justify tearing down all the governments in service of that. In the current circumstance, where the Akatsuki must fancy themselves as running unopposed, there's certainly no need for it.
Even if we start trying to pressure the Akatsuki, if we rattle our sabers about sovereignty and get the other AMITY villages to rattle their sabers as well, if we make a lot of hot air and bluster that they're not allowed to touch a single hair on Hazou's head, the Akatsuki won't flip the table as their first resort. They might call the bluff, walk into Leaf anyways and rummage through Hazou's belongings on the expectation that Leaf won't actually press the big red button over this. It'd honestly be a good bet: Leaf wouldn't press it unless at minimum all the other villages were ready to as well, but how can Leaf trust Rock to follow through when doing nothing keeps their ninja safe and lets Leaf get destroyed by angry Essies? The Akatuski's first resort, calling our bluff, is likely to work.
But let's say we solve that problem. Our threats are credible, the rest of the villages would indeed rebel against Akatsuki as a united force if they waltzed into Leaf like they owned the place. The Akatsuki's second resort would likely be to fabricate some kind of AMITY violation that gives them justification to enter Leaf as enforcers of AMITY, just like they did when we called them in on the Akane case. Honestly, they probably play this card even earlier than that, since they can credibly claim that rummaging through our belongings is just the enforcement of perfectly legal deals. Would Leaf be able to convincingly argue, enough to keep the other nations all on board with the MAD death pact, that the Akatsuki is actually lying and only pretending this is something they have the right to do? It looks to me like a grey area, given the circumstances of the time, but is that going to be convincing to everyone else?
It's only past this point, if we've somehow convinced every other village to rebel in unison if the Akatsuki oversteps their authority, and also convinced them all that interrogating Hazou is overstepping their boundaries, and also perfectly defended against the Akatsuki's attempts to fabricate justification to intervene, that this even becomes a question. If we've made a miracle happen and successfully convinced the Akatsuki that the only way to stop Hazou from doing necromancy (because that's obviously what he's doing if Leaf is going so far to protect him) is to disregard AMITY and face the wrath of the whole world, we still might not avoid Itachi walking into our house and rummaging through our belongings. It, well, it becomes uncertain, an open question, but it's still not a confident victory.
And if the Akatsuki did decide to do this, to make everyone else their enemy in order to stop us, well, that's just putting them back at square one, right? They lived like that before, hunted by the world, they don't need to actually fight everyone, just survive the inevitable hostility. Attacking them at the rift site is, well, how exactly do we get more than Leaf signed up for this BotG round 2 without leaking the secret of necromancy to the world at large? Our personal plans for exploiting this scenario often involve a cold rune, a nuke option that absolutely devastates static targets even with minimal manpower, but if the idea is to gather the world's combined essies and overpower the Akatsuki at a hard point they can't retreat from, I feel we'd follow that up with an incredibly brutal WWV over control of the rift site, because whoever owns the rift has an unprecedented military advantage over everyone else.
I do think that the Akatsuki could be killed this way, if we aced all the coordination problems on our end (very hard!). I do not think this leads to a happy outcome. And more likely than that are the scenarios where we just get outmaneuvered or fail to successfully coordinate the whole world against the Akatsuki like we need to, and then Itachi's interrogating us again and ends up killing us for noncompliance with his order. It just seems to me, overall, like we must treat the Akatsuki as having a monopoly of both force and political influence in the current geopolitics. We simply do not have enough options to actually stymie their efforts sufficiently to protect Hazou. The only hope for escaping their wrath lies elsewhere.
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How can there be no Akatsuki Elmer Fudd art?
- Location
- Washington, USA
If we provide Rock with an effective anti-Akatsuki defense rune array, they'd have more to gain and less to lose by saber-rattling about sovereignty on their own initiative. There'd also be an obvious (at least, by ninja strategist standards) implication that we might have rigged some self-destruct contingency into those defenses, meaning if they stood idly by while Leaf was destroyed, we'd have no reason not to trigger it and bring them down with us.
If there was any implication of a strategic defense system being compromised in any way, no village in the entire Elemental Nations would accept using the defense, let alone letting it into their hidden village. They have absolutely zero reason to accept anything that we give them, unless it was through espionage.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
There's a lot of things we could do with an effective anti-Akatsuki defense rune array. In fact, if we had one of those, all the stuff about saber-rattling and political pressure would be redundant, because we could just use the effective anti-Akatsuki defense rune array. The trick is, of course, somehow acquiring an effective anti-Akatsuki defense rune array. I'm not gonna get into the weeds about my position there, but suffice it to say that I'm not optimistic given how much ninja combat favours offense over defense and how the Akatsuki are among the most lethal ninja in the world.
- Location
- Washington, USA
I'm certainly not saying it'd be easy, but that's why I figure we ought to hand it to Oro as homework. He can pull it off if anyone could. If he does, problem solved, and if he can't, the attempt should at least keep him busy for a while, which thereby frees up more of Hazo's schedule for all the other prep, hopefully without giving serious offense.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
So, my internal model of Orochimaru responds as such to this scenario:
"Nephew, you are aware that I have already paid you quite thoroughly for the secrets you have taught me. Our accounts are settled after this, and even if I were to research such a potent defensive mechanism I would be under no obligation to share it with you to do as you please. Furthermore, we are both novices in this new art. No matter the heights of its potential, it needs time to actualize. You are asking that I produce defensive effects stronger than the most powerful destructive techniques known to ninjakind, in a short timeframe, and then give it to you for free. Ask me something else before I lose my patience."
Maybe a bit more candid than what he would actually say to Hazou, closer to his internal monologue than his external one, but I do think he would take at least some offense at the notion and then not even waste his time trying. Orochimaru is intelligent and very much willing to shut us down if we don't provide sufficient justifications to our requests, as we've seen during our lore discussions that we explicitly bargained for as part of the teaching deal and which he feels obligated to fulfill. Even if it was possible for Orochimaru to produce the defensive effects you request, even if it was possible for him to do it fast enough to be useful in the necromancy race, he has no reason to research them at our command or share them with us afterwards. Calling it "homework" will just result in Orochimaru telling us that he did not agree to be our research assistant and that if we cannot adequately justify this as necessary for the tutoring he will not be doing it. And we can't, because it's not necessary for the tutoring, it's just us trying to get him to do research for us.
Maybe if we had something else valuable to offer him, striking a second deal in addition to this one. But even then, we are asking a novice runecrafter to make a rune that surpasses the most potent offensive jutsu in the world within a month or two. I'm sorry, but I just can't see that happening.
- Location
- Pacific standard
Cowardice is incompatible with ambition, Nephew.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Out of curiosity, I did some spreadsheeting to work out approximately how much XP it'd take to get the following:
Elemental Grandmaster stunt in one element
Elemental Master stunt in all others
Ath/Alt to 50
(the cost of the elemental stunts themselves which is 2000)
And it works out to around 30k total XP for that, probably about 5k more if you want to be reasonable about it and have your other elements be actually useful. (Kei will have it easier, because being able to have her GM stats at 55 will make a huge difference.)
Elemental Grandmaster stunt in one element
Elemental Master stunt in all others
Ath/Alt to 50
(the cost of the elemental stunts themselves which is 2000)
And it works out to around 30k total XP for that, probably about 5k more if you want to be reasonable about it and have your other elements be actually useful. (Kei will have it easier, because being able to have her GM stats at 55 will make a huge difference.)
- Location
- Washington, USA
How long did it take to turn air domes into skywalkers? Or the five seal barrier and a handful of cobwebs into a trap that overcame Kakuzu's immortality? Sharpest knife in the world and decades or centuries of practice swinging it around won't help if you're aiming at the wrong target, or forgot it in your desk drawer back home before leaving on a mission.
We can't be sure which higher-level possibilities are worth studying and optimizing until those novice-level options have been examined as part of a broader strategy. Only way to find interesting gaps is by trying to put together the complete picture.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Several months.
- Location
- Washington, USA
So, quick enough to plausibly be relevant here, even before taking into account potential speedup from shadow clone parallelization and not needing to personally maintain a camp out in the wilderness.
If you have an idea for what encompasses this "anti-Akatsuki runic array" please share it. As it stands, a magic "I win" rune is not an actual option for us to research.
With skywalkers we had an idea for how they'd work, and it still took months. We cannot rely on vagueness as a substitute for how the runes are supposed to operate.
- Location
- Pacific standard
Hazō's First Hunt
With a tug of his will, the Dog Summoner unsummoned to the human Path. His prey was in range.
Hazō twisted into being two miles above the border of Rain and Rock; the skytower beneath his feet gave him an otherworldly perch to watch the unnatural, unceasing storm of Rain. He ignored the ominous humming coming from beneath his feet, confirmed visuals of his targets rapidly traveling towards his position, and got to work.
First, he emptied his reserves into his Summoning Contract.
"Summoning Technique: Cannai!"
Cannai, forcibly shrinking himself to 'chakra alligator' size, joined Hazō on the skytower.
A rune underneath Hazō pulsed, sending celestine chakra through his coils until they were back to full. The humming abated slightly.
He emptied them again.
"Summoning Technique; Cantelope, Cangue!"
Hazō's longest standing contracts joined him on the sky tower. Cangue activated her utility jutsu, and deftly took a large stack of seals from Hazō to activate and distribute among her Pack. They both ignored the blue wash of energy refilling Hazo's chakra coils.
"Summoning Technique: Canny, Canyon!"
The Doberman twins barely glanced at Hazō, gazes locking on their Alpha.
"Summoning Technique: Cantrun, Canthide, Cantrol!"
Cannai's grizzled battle mates joined Hazō on the now crowded skytower, and Hazō chuckled at the visual. A bunch of magic dogs scared of heights, invisibly preparing to assault what's technically a world peace-keeping force. Ah, Treason.
To wrap up the preparations, Hazō summoned four copies of himself, the chakra storage rune beneath his feet finally running dry after refilling all five of him.
"I won't waste your time with a speech. We hunt monsters. You know your roles, good luck."
Hazō strode to the edge of the skytower, excited to see a plan come together. Hidan and Deidara were flying almost directly underneath him now. Out of the corner of his eye, Hazō saw Cannai organizing his Dogs, and he refocused on his mission.
He stepped off the skytower, and began rhythmically releasing seals as he fell.
He fell silently behind the clay-dragon riding duo, and with a single handseal selected 5 motes of dust forming a plane in the path of the Dragons flight, and created substitution markers on them.
Instantly a MARS cascade set off, clacking sounds filling the air as five blocks of wood connected to a wire net substituted themselves out of Hazō's open pack, through the gently falling substitution seals floating through the air and came to rest at his targeted dust motes.
In the next moment, the five seal barrier attached to the mechanism activated, right as the dragon flew through it.
Hazō grinned, step one complete. He dodged the exploding chunks of dragon, laughing at the confused cursing following him. An Iron Nerve guided midair turn let him see that Deidara managed to dodge the trap, while Hidan fell to the ground in bloody chunks. Shame it wasn't likely to stick.
One last rune pulsed, a mile above the fight - then sapphire skies of Dog suddenly surged onto the battlefield, an entire swathe of sky above Rock and Rain filled with Cannai's terrible purpose. The endless rain halted, unable to gain a foothold on Dog's summer.
Cannai spoke, "Do not interfere. My pup has unfinished business, and the world will be better off with it done."
Deidara fell, and continued to fall in Dog's sky. His chakra refused to obey him; unable to summon even the smallest explosion.
Cannai continued, amusement and some amount of strain filling his voice.
"My pup asked that you be kept alive, so you can compare notes on explosions. He, quote 'thinks they're really cool, too', end-quote.
Now stop struggling or I'll take your head and save myself the effort."
Deidara chose to close his eyes and think about explosions.
------
Hidan's head violently crashed into the ground, neatly spearing through a chakra otter on its way down, the lightning aura only adding to his headache.
With his usual amount of luck, the rest of his body fell only a few feet away from him, mostly intact. His mind slowly kicked into gear, recognizing the almost dainty cuts from descriptions of his life aspected equivalents work. He laughed.
"Finally! So you've finally come to the correct conclusions, Hazō! Mercy is the only sin, and conviction the only virtue!"
Hidan rolled towards his body, the lines on it nearly faded. He felt a presence approaching and grinned maniacally. It was going to be so much fun to beat Hazō to a pulp before forcing him to kill a few hundred people. He was finally fighting back! There's no way the little dummy could deal with their reinforcements, and there's no way Itachi could spout off thi-
Hazō's cold voice interrupted Hidan's train of thought.
"Earth element: Geode Coffin"
Hidan's nose bonked off the crystalline prism rising around his body. A note of trepidation entered his mind. He'd seen what happens when this technique lands. It's not supposed to land, not on him.
"Crush."
Hidan watched his body turn to slurry inside the crystalline structure. Trepidation turned to worry.
Hidan heard howling, from a source he couldn't see. A moment later the sun's wrath poured onto him and his body. Magnified by the crystal of the coffin, it baked the soupy mess into atomized charcoal. Still, he felt a connection. His heart struggled to beat, lungs barely whistled for breath through his open neck, every breath bringing strength.
"Crush."
The charcoal ground to pieces; no longer recognizably Hidan's body to his senses. His neck began to itch, indicating he'd began regrowing his missing body parts... body, his missing body. Slow. Too slow.
"Explode."
The charcoal scattered to the wind. Hidan felt a hand grasp his hair, before lifting him up and repositioning to look him in the eye.
Hazō dispassionately regarded Hidan before speaking.
"Don't worry, Hidan. I won't make you suffer. We'll find the limits of your immortality as quickly and painlessly as possible."
With a tug of his will, the Dog Summoner unsummoned to the human Path. His prey was in range.
Hazō twisted into being two miles above the border of Rain and Rock; the skytower beneath his feet gave him an otherworldly perch to watch the unnatural, unceasing storm of Rain. He ignored the ominous humming coming from beneath his feet, confirmed visuals of his targets rapidly traveling towards his position, and got to work.
First, he emptied his reserves into his Summoning Contract.
"Summoning Technique: Cannai!"
Cannai, forcibly shrinking himself to 'chakra alligator' size, joined Hazō on the skytower.
A rune underneath Hazō pulsed, sending celestine chakra through his coils until they were back to full. The humming abated slightly.
He emptied them again.
"Summoning Technique; Cantelope, Cangue!"
Hazō's longest standing contracts joined him on the sky tower. Cangue activated her utility jutsu, and deftly took a large stack of seals from Hazō to activate and distribute among her Pack. They both ignored the blue wash of energy refilling Hazo's chakra coils.
"Summoning Technique: Canny, Canyon!"
The Doberman twins barely glanced at Hazō, gazes locking on their Alpha.
"Summoning Technique: Cantrun, Canthide, Cantrol!"
Cannai's grizzled battle mates joined Hazō on the now crowded skytower, and Hazō chuckled at the visual. A bunch of magic dogs scared of heights, invisibly preparing to assault what's technically a world peace-keeping force. Ah, Treason.
To wrap up the preparations, Hazō summoned four copies of himself, the chakra storage rune beneath his feet finally running dry after refilling all five of him.
"I won't waste your time with a speech. We hunt monsters. You know your roles, good luck."
Hazō strode to the edge of the skytower, excited to see a plan come together. Hidan and Deidara were flying almost directly underneath him now. Out of the corner of his eye, Hazō saw Cannai organizing his Dogs, and he refocused on his mission.
He stepped off the skytower, and began rhythmically releasing seals as he fell.
He fell silently behind the clay-dragon riding duo, and with a single handseal selected 5 motes of dust forming a plane in the path of the Dragons flight, and created substitution markers on them.
Instantly a MARS cascade set off, clacking sounds filling the air as five blocks of wood connected to a wire net substituted themselves out of Hazō's open pack, through the gently falling substitution seals floating through the air and came to rest at his targeted dust motes.
In the next moment, the five seal barrier attached to the mechanism activated, right as the dragon flew through it.
Hazō grinned, step one complete. He dodged the exploding chunks of dragon, laughing at the confused cursing following him. An Iron Nerve guided midair turn let him see that Deidara managed to dodge the trap, while Hidan fell to the ground in bloody chunks. Shame it wasn't likely to stick.
One last rune pulsed, a mile above the fight - then sapphire skies of Dog suddenly surged onto the battlefield, an entire swathe of sky above Rock and Rain filled with Cannai's terrible purpose. The endless rain halted, unable to gain a foothold on Dog's summer.
Cannai spoke, "Do not interfere. My pup has unfinished business, and the world will be better off with it done."
Deidara fell, and continued to fall in Dog's sky. His chakra refused to obey him; unable to summon even the smallest explosion.
Cannai continued, amusement and some amount of strain filling his voice.
"My pup asked that you be kept alive, so you can compare notes on explosions. He, quote 'thinks they're really cool, too', end-quote.
Now stop struggling or I'll take your head and save myself the effort."
Deidara chose to close his eyes and think about explosions.
------
Hidan's head violently crashed into the ground, neatly spearing through a chakra otter on its way down, the lightning aura only adding to his headache.
With his usual amount of luck, the rest of his body fell only a few feet away from him, mostly intact. His mind slowly kicked into gear, recognizing the almost dainty cuts from descriptions of his life aspected equivalents work. He laughed.
"Finally! So you've finally come to the correct conclusions, Hazō! Mercy is the only sin, and conviction the only virtue!"
Hidan rolled towards his body, the lines on it nearly faded. He felt a presence approaching and grinned maniacally. It was going to be so much fun to beat Hazō to a pulp before forcing him to kill a few hundred people. He was finally fighting back! There's no way the little dummy could deal with their reinforcements, and there's no way Itachi could spout off thi-
Hazō's cold voice interrupted Hidan's train of thought.
"Earth element: Geode Coffin"
Hidan's nose bonked off the crystalline prism rising around his body. A note of trepidation entered his mind. He'd seen what happens when this technique lands. It's not supposed to land, not on him.
"Crush."
Hidan watched his body turn to slurry inside the crystalline structure. Trepidation turned to worry.
Hidan heard howling, from a source he couldn't see. A moment later the sun's wrath poured onto him and his body. Magnified by the crystal of the coffin, it baked the soupy mess into atomized charcoal. Still, he felt a connection. His heart struggled to beat, lungs barely whistled for breath through his open neck, every breath bringing strength.
"Crush."
The charcoal ground to pieces; no longer recognizably Hidan's body to his senses. His neck began to itch, indicating he'd began regrowing his missing body parts... body, his missing body. Slow. Too slow.
"Explode."
The charcoal scattered to the wind. Hidan felt a hand grasp his hair, before lifting him up and repositioning to look him in the eye.
Hazō dispassionately regarded Hidan before speaking.
"Don't worry, Hidan. I won't make you suffer. We'll find the limits of your immortality as quickly and painlessly as possible."
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Honestly, Hidan's immortality is probably linked to his faith in Jashin if nothing else. At least that would explain why he acted as he did, when Asuma beat him in an aura battle - my guess is that once he doubts his murderdaddy too much, he will be abandoned and thus killable.