Chapter 649: The Message
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Ready for infusion?" Hazō asked.
Kagome-sensei nodded grumpily. The man was incredibly unhappy with Hazō's latest idea and it was getting to him in a big way. There had been at least four separate occasions where he had opened his mouth to say something, presumably a rant about safety and lack thereof, but then shaken it off without a word. It was disturbing. Still, he was going along.
Hazō nodded and turned his attention back to the simple slip of paper in his lap. It was a simple idea: a variation of another one of his original seals, the Light Relay, that would instead slightly change the color of the light going in and out. It was a trivial seal for a sealmaster as skilled as he was. It was also one more thing:
A marker for himself. For his future self.
The challenges they faced were too large. Resurrection? The degradation of the Great Seal? Akatsuki, with their desire to resurrect Pain and somehow rule or transform the world in likely unwanted ways?
He needed help, and his dream last night had given him the answer. In it he had stood in fog, the center of a line of Hazōs that stretched out of sight in both directions. Looking over his shoulder, he recognized the clothes of the ones behind him; they were the clothes he had worn yesterday, the day before, the day before that, in a steady line back as far as he could remember his sartorial choices. So, about a week.
If the ones behind him were his past selves, what about the ones in front? The fog grew thicker faster, his other selves becoming blurry, their exact positions indistinct. Still, they were there. They were there, and when he called out to them their heads turned in surprise, looking back to him.
He had jerked awake, the dream shattering before it could progress to anything useful. Still, the basic idea was there: what if he could leave a message for a future self, and a future self could call an answer back?
This seal was his attempt at that. It wasn't a challenging thing to make – and for that, all the better. Given the stakes he was playing with, he didn't need any extra complications. The first infusion of a new seal was a memorable one, so this infusion would serve as a marker in time, a signpost for his future self to send a message. A message that he promised himself to send to himself once he had the ability, which he promised himself he would develop.
Of course, he'd wanted to do this ritual with a rune instead, but if it didn't work and immediately give him unending, godlike power, he didn't want to be on the receiving end of whatever punishment Orochimaru meted out for breaking the rule on runic research outside the basement.
He pushed the thoughts away and focused on the infusion. He needed to remember every detail.
He took it slow, sweating every tiniest detail even more than he normally did. Finally, the final moment came; he poured in the last drop, twisted his chakra into the final loop, and tied it off. Many things happened at once.
Futures crashed against one another, million or billions of them vaporizing in an instant.
Wars raged through Potentialities, possibilities blowing to and fro on the winds of fate and chance as 'perhaps' strove to become 'is'.
And, least impressively but perhaps most importantly, a packet of unassuming off-white paper appeared in midair and fell atop his lap desk with a faint 'plop'. It landed on the smooth surface and slid until it slipped from there to the ground.
Hazō blinked. His trained mind flickered across lists and tripped along flowcharts, checking to see whether this should be considered a seal failure. Tentatively, he decided it did not so he bent down and lifted the papers.
He turned the packet this way and that in his hands, considering. It was good paper, heavy and rich, with even color and thickness. Paper suitable for a sealmaster. It had been tri-folded, the edges sealed with wax to form an envelope. An envelope that bulged and was heavy enough to contain a large number of pages.
He turned it over and the blood drained from his face at the words written on the front. Written in his own hand, above a wax seal with the Gōketsu family crest pressed into it.
Are you fucking serious? Get your ass out of there or I'm blowing you up on the spot!
"Bonfire!" he shouted, shoving the packet into his shirt and Substituting away to where Kagome-sensei waited behind the first barrier. He grabbed the older man, repeated the Gōketsu family escape code, and dragged him away.
They ran. Two, perhaps three hours of pounding feet that required all his training to lock away the screaming pain from exercising his still-burned back. There was insufficient breath to spare for sharing the details with a steadily more nervous teacher who knew better than to demand answers.
Finally, Hazō came to a halt. Kagome-sensei slowed beside him, still not speaking. They were no longer at the research facility but Hazō was still the SSO and did not need distraction.
Hazō produced the packet, broke the wax that sealed it shut, and tipped the contents out into his hand. It was not, as he had expected, loose sheets of the same heavy paper. It was one page that was thin, painfully thin, so thin he needed to handle it with care, and then another packet made from moderately heavy paper with the edges sealed shut and the words READ THE LETTER BEFORE OPENING THIS on the outside. He slid the packet back inside the outer packet for safekeeping and read the loose sheet.
Dear Shitstain,
Stop fucking pinging yourself through time. This is the third time today and the mods are getting tired of piecing the platform back together. They've already retconned me into being a player instead of an author. So. Thanks for that. Better hope the new guys are nicer than I was (lol)
If you're lucky, the story is still mostly on track. The Dragons should have just been vanquished, the Akatsuki back to rob you, and the Ash Moon should be about to rise and bring about a new era of everlasting gloom. I hope Shiori is still your love interest, I put a lot of work into depicting your undying love for each other and would hate to see that all go to waste.
This is likely the last chapter I'll be able to publish before having always been a player. Players don't write canon chapters, everybody knows that. Not even Paperclipped, one of the best players among us. Hopefully he stays a player when this is all over. I'd hate to see him get retconned.
I've given you some spoilers for plotlines I had charted out before you biffed the timeline to all hell. With any luck, these spoilers will help you win the setting before the new authors put you through the wringer.
Trigger event for next envelope: Completion of reading this letter.
Hazō swallowed nervously and opened the next packet. Sure enough, there were more sheets of the incredibly thin paper and another envelope.
He gave the first few sheets a quick glance, just enough to verify that yes, they were seal design notes, before going on to the final page. It was short.
Trigger event for next envelope:
- The date is no earlier (earlier! not later, earlier!) than August 7, 1071 AS (you're still using AS, right? Whatever. The 71st year after Leaf was supposedly founded.) AND
- The entire family (yes, even Orochimaru) is standing in the cave with the chakra water that Zabuza told you about.
All thanks to @eaglejarl for taking over as QM (not that I had much choice.)
The Gifts of Future Hazō
PastShrooms wrote in my... his crosstime missive that he was mass-limited. He also rambled wildly and included a lot of unnecessary junk, some of which you [NB: @eaglejarl wrote this bit] did not bother to mention in the text. A partial list:
- A selection of recipes from the Preta Path, most of which can't be made on the Human Path due to key ingredients not being available
- (Probably as a gift for Kagome), nine chicken wings (still warm)
- Into the Fire, Senju Hashirama's lost fanfiction. Only the first two pages, unfortunately
- Literal laundry lists. Yes, you. Do your laundry.
- Opining on the Political: One Man's Journey Through Government. It's full of reddit posts with many spelling errors
- Chocolate milk
- Lunar azimuth tables for different locations throughout Detroit on 1073-04-03, 1074-04-02, and 1079-04-01
- Various seal and rune design notes:
- Rift Seal 0: makes a chex mix construct that attaches to a rift.
- Difficulty: Jōnin.
- Rift Seal 1: Reveals doors you can currently see
- Difficulty: Jōnin.
- Rift Seal 2: Opens doors that are unlocked and open
- Difficulty: Jōnin.
- Rift Bioseal 0: upon activation, the infuser learns rift bioseal 0
- Difficulty: [Hazō does not know biosealing and therefore cannot judge difficulty]
- Rift Bioseal 1: turns your eyeballs into rifts that release spiders made of blood.
- Difficulty: [Hazō does not know biosealing and therefore cannot judge difficulty]
- Rift Rune 0: does absolutely nothing, hence the 0 in the name.
- Difficulty: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
- Rift Rune 1: Inflation? What is this, DeviantArt?
- Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
- Rift Seal 3: I forgor
- Difficulty: Jiraiya
- Rift Rune 2: references an SCP trope I mean creates a "dimensional anchor".
- Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
- Drift Rune 3: plays the Tokyo drift theme at a deafening volume
- Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
- Harumitsu's Mediocre World-Saving Rune: HOWS, but not as exciting.
- Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
- Spoiler Containment Rune: minimizes the 'Path-aberration' caused by spoilers.
- Difficulty: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
- Shitpost Containment Rune: creates a physical barrier that shitposters cannot cross (humans, summons, and ninjutsu can cross the barrier like normal; seals and runes cannot).
- Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
- Rift Seal 0: makes a chex mix construct that attaches to a rift.
We... uh, they will provide information on how much substrate/chakra is required for each rune once we've finished sorting out the rules of this setting. The old, er, new QMs' notes say that the seal's difficulties or effects will change as a result of the actions they took to send a message back in time – at the very least, the astrological differences will be massive and force us to actually re-research the seal, rather than simply follow the instructions from our future selves.
In the process of preparing for the "Mirror Dragon" seal, you ventured out to the site of the battle against the Dragons (inasmuch as it can be called a site, rather than a stretch of countryside larger than some daimyos' demesnes) on skywalkers and gathered a scale the size of your forearm with a pair of heavy iron tongs. You have now joined with the Will of Fire, but the scale rests in an Earthshaped stone vault deep underneath Hazō's office. Nice job champ.
Kei downchecks asking Yuno about becoming the Pangolin summoner. As the plan for the conversation with Hiawari of the Adamant Fur doesn't specify what to do if Yuno doesn't refuse but is prevented by a sanity checker, I'll skip the Cantai conversation (also I'm very busy this week, and this probably puts the Cantai conversation back in [ ]'s hands so that he can enjoy it (if he's not immediately swamped by the magnitude of the plotline he's just joined)).
After extensive debriefing, travel, negotiating, and more, Cantai and the other bosses are back in their home territories. Canabisu and the squad of dogs formerly stuck in Arachnid have been consumed, and a new squad of dogs have been left in Arachnid to appease the Arachnid queen.
Neji has transcribed your conversation with Kamehameha and stored it in the Gōketsu Dark Vault (Greg's room).
Hazō does not currently have access to infused Instant Darkness Dome seals, delaying the Seeker of Darkness from possessing him for another year.
Hazō and Kei perform the test with Geode Coffin. It appears that it does make cool rocks, though only temporarily.
Hazou has been instructed to stop shadowing Hazou around and return to Orochimaru's notes. He clearly feels a little whiplashed, but agrees. Hazou has begun shadowing Hazou around. Hazou comments that Hazou's good at handling people, but he's not very sharp with numbers.
The Tower provides notes for an as-yet-unspecified amount of OPSEC and static defense basket weaves to Hazō, under the usual condition that they are underwater.
My Severe Consequence has cleared as of the end of this update.
XP AWARD: 3099 This update transcended time equivalent to 2.5 years.
Brevity XP: 10 (Brevity XP caps at 10.)
"GM had fun" XP: 10
Voting is closed, as Kei would very much like to have @Velorien tell Hazō exactly what he thinks about the idea of giving Yuno a summoning scroll solely to slaughter Pangolins.
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