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The Stars and the Moon (Naruto AU Quest)

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Death and Faxes said:
Thanks! It's actually... a completely canon thing, the identity of which is probably a mild kind-of-spoiler for this story but is probably also easily guessable at this point :|
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Juubi, then. if no, even odds between bijuu, summon, and something more obscure, then.
Death and Faxes said:
the unholy union of a lamprey and an alien shellfish. It rears back on too-human limbs, gaping maw addressing the sky,
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Most likely the juubi, as i said.
Maybe 4th, 5th, or 6th tails. 8 at a stretch.
No bets on summons or Other Beings, though.
 
Yay, a neat story update! :)

[x] exotic chakra suppression techniques, allowing you to evade detection by chakra sense. Gain +1 stealth.
[x] Corporate Espionage: A glassmaker in Iwa believes one of his competitors has been paying bandits to raid his caravans and warehouses. He wishes you to break into said competitor's offices, and find proof of this malfeasance, preferably undetected

Works for me. This combo kinda meshes. Mission seems the most interesting out of the three, and the boosted skill aids in that.

Though, greater Chakra Control could make sense too.
 
[X] exotic chakra suppression techniques, allowing you to evade detection by chakra sense. Gain +1 stealth.
[X] Corporate Espionage: A glassmaker in Iwa believes one of his competitors has been paying bandits to raid his caravans and warehouses. He wishes you to break into said competitor's offices, and find proof of this malfeasance, preferably undetected.
 
[x] exotic chakra suppression techniques, allowing you to evade detection by chakra sense. Gain +1 stealth.
[x] Corporate Espionage: A glassmaker in Iwa believes one of his competitors has been paying bandits to raid his caravans and warehouses. He wishes you to break into said competitor's offices, and find proof of this malfeasance, preferably undetected
 
[X] advanced shape control techniques, allowing you to more quickly collect and form the chakra needed for advanced ninjutsu. Gain +1 chakra control.
[X] Corporate Espionage: A glassmaker in Iwa believes one of his competitors has been paying bandits to raid his caravans and warehouses. He wishes you to break into said competitor's offices, and find proof of this malfeasance, preferably undetected.
 
Ok, calling vote. Looks like control + espionage. Update idk when, probably before next year i guess
Adhoc vote count started by Death and Faxes on Oct 27, 2017 at 3:33 AM, finished with 130 posts and 15 votes.
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1.6 - Glassworks
  • Threadmarks
    • It's not next year yet so this one was on schedule!

    Thanks to @keios, @bidoof, @Oh I am slain!, and @Blazinghand for reading drafts of this.
    ​

    (1.6)
    ​
    Getting ready for your second mission is a lot less interesting than getting ready for your first was. Part of it is the nerves, or rather, lack thereof: the first time you had no idea what you were getting into. You still don't, but you got through it the first time, so how bad could it be?

    Still, it's not horribly uninteresting, even if you're just going back to the same place you went to last time. Iwa is a pretty place, and you don't mind seeing it again; you might even get to spend a few days there this time around.

    It only takes two days instead of seven now that you're traveling at a ninja's pace rather than a merchant's, and since Iwa is technically an allied village, crossing the border into the Land of Earth and then into Iwa proper is easy and painless without a wagon full of possible contraband in your party.

    "I don't get it," says Ikki, on the last bend of the road before the relatively straight descent into Iwa proper. "Why don't they just hire Iwa-nin to handle this problem? They live a lot closer."

    "That's actually exactly why," says Hotarubi-sensei. "If you had to rob the nice lady at the grocery store, how would you feel the next time you had to shop there?"

    "Oooh. Right." You can almost see the light bulb go off in Ikki's head.

    The hotel you arrive at is nearly at the edge of Iwagakure itself, and has a pretty good view of the surrounding area—as much as the rather jaggy mountains of the area allow, anyways.

    It's too late at night for you to really make meaningful mission progress so Hotarubi-sensei gives you the night off. You thought you'd have wanted to explore the city or something, but you're surprisingly exhausted from the trip and fall almost straight asleep.

    ===

    The next morning you and Ikki stumble blearily out of bed directly into Hotarubi-sensei's extended briefing for the mission. You feel that it's way too early for this kind of thing, but apparently both your alarm clock and mission protocol disagree with you, which is a shame. You've overcome worse hardships before, though, so you're optimistic about making it through this one.

    Like all briefings, it's mostly logistics and some high-level information. Interestingly, it turns out the complex you're infiltrating isn't actually in the city proper, but rather in one of the outlying villages that sprung up in the area as Iwa outgrew its walls. It makes sense, though; the city itself is constant host to ninja patrols and it would be a lot to ask from a genin team to keep under the radar in those circumstances. It's otherwise a pretty standard briefing, although Hotarubi-sensei ends with a slightly surprising declaration: "I'll be hands-off on this one. Planning will be entirely up to you," he says, handing the pair of you a stack of maps.

    You suspect this might be a test of some sort.

    Upon some thought, you decide you're completely fine with this. Being tested is a little bit nerve-wracking, but it's also an opportunity. It means eyes are on you—your success or your failure will matter that much more, and you certainly don't plan on failing.

    First things first: planning. You need to memorize the floorplans and get a handle on the basic level and timing of security. It's pretty straightforward stuff, but you've only dealt with this kind of thing in theory and controlled exercises until now, though. This will be the first time you've taken a real mission of this kind.

    The floorplans Hotarubi-sensei has managed to secure are pretty detailed, thankfully, and you begin poring through them and various notes.

    "Nervous?" Ikki's been pacing back and forth non-stop in the little open part of the room for the better part of fifteen minutes, so it's a somewhat ironic question for him to be asking, but you humor him.

    "No," you say, lying through your teeth.

    "Yep, me neither," he replies, perhaps a little too quickly, and flashes you a stupid grin.

    "Shouldn't you be looking at these? You need to know your way around, too."

    "Well, you're already studying them. I can just follow you around."

    You throw half the pile of floorplans and notes at him, and they catch Ikki directly in the face as he turns back around towards you. He sputters a little bit but actually manages to catch the notes before they go all over the floor.

    "What was that for?" he protests.

    "Stop messing around. This is serious."

    ===

    Later that night you go with Ikki to scope out the site more closely, taking care not to draw too much attention.

    Despite looking at the floorplans, you're still a little surprised at how big this operation is. When you first heard "glassmaker" you pictured an old man like Fukui-san poking at a furnace, maybe with his son helping with the heavy labor. Instead, it's a sprawling walled compound with gates, attached warehouses, and on-site living quarters for employees. Thankfully, there aren't a lot of places available for storing the kinds of financial records you're after; they're important enough that they wouldn't be left in just any old office, and above-ground enough that nobody would bother tossing them in the undocumented hidden crawlspace. At least, that's what Hotarubi-sensei told you—you've only familiarized yourself with what these documents look like, not what they're actually for, and corporate accounting was sadly not an offering at the Hoshi academies.

    Of course that's not why you're going (yet). Since you're targeting an unsuspecting civilian target, you thought it would be good to get a finger on the guard patrols and other safeguards they might have. They're far enough out from Iwa that there's unlikely to be any ninja nearby except the occasional passing patrol, but retired genin are rather popular as private security, and even well-trained civilian guards could seriously throw off your plans. They don't need to beat you in a fight, after all—even detection will threaten your mission objectives.

    The transit is less comfortable than you would've liked—there's a piercing gale that blows through the canyons around Iwa. It's surprisingly cold for this time of year, too, and not the still, wintry kind you're used to from home; the wind carries a brisk, biting thing that numbs your fingers and hurts your ears.

    Part of it is your own fault, of course, because you're keeping to the peaks rather than the roads below, which are rather narrow and somehow still host to a fair amount of traffic at this hour. The upsides are, unfortunately, worth it—staying high up affords you a degree of both privacy and speed you couldn't easily get threading through the thin, winding path below.

    It takes only half an hour bounding between the tall granite crags at ninja speed, although towards the end your face has been frozen numb and your feet hurt a little from the hard and occasionally sharp stone. The little village shows up with comically abrupt suddenness—one minute you're just just jumping between some rocks, wondering where that slight glow is coming from, and the next it all falls away to reveal a totally flat clearing carved into the forest of stone pillars, dimly lit by the lamps still on at this late hour.

    The village doesn't just contain a corporate complex; it more or less is a corporate complex, with only a few small bungalows outside the walls. You're not sure why they bother with walls at all, either—they push all the way up against the crag; you could probably jump from here directly into the courtyard, even if you weren't a trained ninja capable of leaping several dozen feet in a single bound.

    That aside, nothing really out of the ordinary jumps out at you as you peer down at the complex. There are guards, but not that many, and they're mostly ground patrols. A few are stationed on the various roofs, but not enough to be worrisome with this level of lighting. There are a few dogs about with the guards, too, which will make this a little bit touchier, but probably nothing you can't handle. You note the building that seems to be their kennel—seems like that was newly built, and not in the plan—since dogs are basically as good as sensors for simple guard postings like this one, and you'd prefer not to get your cover blown by wandering nearby where all of them are.

    ===

    Back at your hotel room, you and Ikki hash out your plans. It's all very straightforward stuff, but—

    "About the dogs," says Ikki.

    "Yes?" You were in the middle of explaining your plan of attack, and this is kind of an uncharacteristic interruption by him.

    "Could we knock them out before? Or do something to make them less effective?"

    "Only if it's not obvious or traceable. I mean, we're supposed to be stealthy." You punctuate the last word by wiggling your fingers.

    He gives you the barest courtesy of a pause before he cuts in again. "Well, we could put something in their food. Maybe something sleep or drowsiness inducing? They have feeding bowls right outside, by the kennels."

    Hm, you didn't actually notice this. It could be useful.

    "I'm not sure that's helpful, though. Wouldn't we have to sneak into the kennels to do it?"

    "Well, you would. I, on the other hand, can actually aim." Professional protocol prevents him from sticking his tongue out at you, but you can definitely hear the sentiment in his voice.

    You give him a disapproving glare.

    Still, it's not a bad idea, and Ikki seems unusually excited about the prospect. A pre-mission of this sort is risky in its own way. Ikki could be detected, for one—although the guards would have no way of knowing what he was after, so it wouldn't necessarily harm your real mission—which would put the compound on a higher level of alert. Secondarily, someone could notice that you drugged the dogs and raise the alarm on that, although in that case at least the dogs would be a non-factor.

    Go through with Ikki's plan for the dogs?
    Article:
    [] Yes. It's a relatively easy detour for making your job much easier down the road.
    -[] He can handle it on his own. The more of you there are, the more likely you are to be detected, after all.
    -[] Go with him. He'll need backup if he gets found out.
    [] No. Too much risk, not enough benefit. You're fairly certain you can handle the existing guards-and-dogs setup, anyways, so there really isn't any point.
    As for the mission itself—apparently, the Lantern Festival begins at the end of the week here. That might be a good opportunity to sneak in, if you're not super confident in your ability to infiltrate undetected.

    On the other hand, you could go tomorrow and get in and out as fast as you can, before any possible news of your presence in town can leak (assuming somebody's watching). Some clients also appreciate a job done quickly.
    Article:
    [] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
    -[] Explore the town. Iwa is an intriguing city, and even though this is the second time you've come this year, you've barely seen any of it outside of hotels and customs offices.
    -[] Prepare. There's always more details you could be learning, practicing, memorizing, and it only takes one slip-up to ruin the whole mission.
    [] Go tomorrow. The sooner you get this done, the better.
     
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    • [x] Yes. It's a relatively easy detour for making your job much easier down the road.
    -[x] Go with him. He'll need backup ifhe gets found out.

    [x] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
    -[x] Prepare. There's always more details you could be learning, practicing, memorizing, and it only takes one slip-up to ruin the whole mission.

    Let's lay down the groundwork, and ensure our success.
     
    [X] No. Too much risk, not enough benefit. You're fairly certain you can handle the existing guards-and-dogs setup, anyways, so there really isn't any point.
    [x] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
    -[x] Prepare. There's always more details you could be learning, practicing, memorizing, and it only takes one slip-up to ruin the whole mission.


    This is not a family home. Dogs falling asleep would raise awareness.
    KISS principle here. Drugging the dogs only makes it more tracable.
     
    [X] No. Too much risk, not enough benefit. You're fairly certain you can handle the existing guards-and-dogs setup, anyways, so there really isn't any point.
    [X] Go tomorrow. The sooner you get this done, the better.
     
    [X] No. Too much risk, not enough benefit. You're fairly certain you can handle the existing guards-and-dogs setup, anyways, so there really isn't any point.
    [x] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
    -[x] Prepare. There's always more details you could be learning, practicing, memorizing, and it only takes one slip-up to ruin the whole mission.
     
    [x] Yes. It's a relatively easy detour for making your job much easier down the road.
    -[x] Go with him. He'll need backup ifhe gets found out.

    [x] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
    -[x] Prepare. There's always more details you could be learning, practicing, memorizing, and it only takes one slip-up to ruin the whole mission.
     
    [x] Yes. It's a relatively easy detour for making your job much easier down the road.
    -[x] Go with him. He'll need backup if he gets found out.

    [X] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
    -[X] Explore the town. Iwa is an intriguing city, and even though this is the second time you've come this year, you've barely seen any of it outside of hotels and customs offices.
     
    Alright, looks we have a tie on the issue of "dogs" so voting will remain open until tomorrow afternoon (probably ~4pm PST).
    Adhoc vote count started by Death and Faxes on Dec 2, 2017 at 5:39 AM, finished with 139 posts and 6 votes.
    • [x] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
      -[x] Prepare. There's always more details you could be learning, practicing, memorizing, and it only takes one slip-up to ruin the whole mission.
      [x] Yes. It's a relatively easy detour for making your job much easier down the road.
      -[x] Go with him. He'll need backup ifhe gets found out.
      [X] No. Too much risk, not enough benefit. You're fairly certain you can handle the existing guards-and-dogs setup, anyways, so there really isn't any point.
      [X] Go tomorrow. The sooner you get this done, the better.
      [x] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
      -[X] Explore the town. Iwa is an intriguing city, and even though this is the second time you've come this year, you've barely seen any of it outside of hotels and customs offices.
    Click to expand...
     
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    [X] Yes. It's a relatively easy detour for making your job much easier down the road.
    -[X] Go with him. He'll need backup ifhe gets found out.

    [X] Wait for the festival. In the meantime, you:
    -[X] Prepare. There's always more details you could be learning, practicing,memorizing, and it only takes one slip-up to ruin the whole mission.
     
    Yas, I'm happy to see this continued. I liked the descriptions of the town, the glass factory, and the mission parameters. :)

    [x] Yes. It's a relatively easy detour for making your job much easier down the road.
    -[x] He can handle it on his own. The more of you there are, the more likely you are to be detected, after all.
    [x] Go tomorrow. The sooner you get this done, the better.

    Voting anyway for the spirit of it. If this is considered a test by sensei, might as well ace it with efficiency. I'd imagine that security might already be a bit lax this close to the Lantern Festival. ^_^
     
    1.7 - Glassworks (cont'd)
  • Threadmarks
    • ...and here it is. Hoping to get into a more regular update schedule for the next few months, as things will be moving faster from here on out.

    Thanks to @keios for edits.


    (1.7)​

    The week leading up to your heist is a whirlwind of activity, but a controlled, consistent one. You take a few more trips out to the compound, noting the patrol patterns and schedule of the guards. There are three total groups of them, rotating in and out such that two groups are on shift at any given time.

    Well, any given time except when they rotate. Their organization is passable—even good, considering they're a civilian organization—but not exemplary, and the groups don't seem to coordinate starting and ending shifts. Sometimes there's a whole twenty-to-thirty second gap when half the guards are below-deck, and even when their timing matches up, the exiting group clearly stops paying attention to their surroundings the instant their shift is over. Another little detail that might be useful.

    Besides that, there's a lot to look into. Ikki, for his part, seems to be busy trying to figure out exactly how many and what kinds of herbs to mash together to do the job. He ends up dragging you to a nearby flower shop to buy some innocuous-looking flowers which Ikki assures you induce minor drowsiness and loss of fine motor control in most canine species, according to a book he just read.

    Then it's back to the maps and the drawing board. You have a few days to come up with a detailed plan, contingencies for the plan, contingencies for the contingencies for the plan, and so on. Ikki whines about it, of course, but you know he's pretty good at finding the weak points in your ideas and coming up with weird outside-the-box approaches, so it's good to keep him around.

    You don't get too much of the city the whole week—only a few quick trips to local eateries, all of them fast and cheap, none of them curry, and one brief rooftop excursion with Ikki that ends as soon as you realize you're attracting the attention of local ninja patrols—and you think it's kind of a shame. Ikki must, too, since you can see him stealing longing glances out the windows when he's supposed to be memorizing patrol patterns. Work takes precedence over play, though, so there's nothing for it.

    Eventually the night of the festival comes around. Ikki heads out first, in the early afternoon, a couple of satchels tied to his belt.

    "Wish me luck," he says, shooting you his trademark goofy grin.

    "Hope you won't need it," you say back.

    It's already well under way by the time dusk falls and you suit up—the streets and overpasses are thronged with people, served by entertainers and food stalls that you're sure weren't there yesterday, and the already-bright city lights have been joined by braces of brightly flickering paper lanterns. It's… so much more than the festivals you have at home. You suppose more people in one place means more more stuff, though, and this is just the logical extent of that.

    This is probably your seventh or eighth trip out to the glassmaker's complex, you reflect on the way. The route is almost familiar by now, but tonight it all feels fresh again. Maybe it's the festivities and its accompanying mood lighting turning the sky into a bright haze. Maybe it's the knowledge that this will probably be the last time you make this trip.

    Maybe you're just nervous.

    Nerves or no, it takes no longer to arrive than it did before. You meet up with Ikki at the rim of the compound. As you'd hoped, the guards are fewer today than normal. Even with that, though, you're not completely certain you can make it across the whole compound without being seen. That's not to say you think you'll be seen; you're just not completely certain.

    Fifteen minutes later, the first shift changes, just as expected. Perfect.

    You drop down between a large warehouse and the walls, using the building as cover as you edge around to a side path.

    Said path is normally watched by a guard in a tower as well as regularly frequented by two-man patrols, but the tower is empty right now, and you know the route of the patrol that normally covers it. You count down four seconds in your head, waiting for the patrol to pass behind another building, and then you dart out, down the path and to a little maintenance shack, Ikki following in your shadow.

    Rather frustratingly, the central tower is well-isolated from the surrounding buildings by a lot of flat, open space. From an architectural perspective, it's sensible: lawns and greenery do wonders for quality of life. Examining it these past few weeks, though, you've couldn't help but think there was some non-landscaping intent there—the only paths to the main building lead through a ring of flat greenery, like a grassy moat surrounding a castle keep. Four patrols usually cross the clearing at some point in their route, and guards perched on the main building itself keep constant vigilance.

    Your preparation has, of course, taken this into account, although it's by far the trickiest part of the plan.

    One of the patrol groups approaches the warehouse you're hiding behind, single file, only half on alert. They have a rather uncoordinated-looking dog following on a leash, looking like it might totter over at any moment; as it passes near you it stumbles briefly in your direction, letting out a low whine. The guards hardly seem to notice, though—some of them seem a little inebriated themselves, slurring their words loudly into the night air—and one of them absent-mindedly pulls the leash onwards while finishing the loud and rather crude joke he's currently telling.

    These guards are as much in a festival mood as anyone else, you think; they're seemingly intent on joining in on the revelry, or at least drinking, as much as they can, holiday shift be damned. One lingers a little as the patrol passes by, wobbling slightly as another guard begins to drag him away by the arm.

    Good enough.

    You dash out behind them, crossing the path and onto the lawn in the space of a second, the chakra of a mostly-formed jutsu flickering through your coils. Right before the next patrol makes their last turn into the clearing, you activate said jutsu and fall straight into the suddenly-soft earth.

    Then it's just a waiting game, hiding under the loose earth and pinging your chakra off the outside world. You're not completely immobile, although your control of the technique isn't actually good enough to tunnel at the earth at anything faster than a snail's pace. This in itself isn't a big deal, as you've become pretty sure that none of the guards here can sense chakra, and so your speed is irrelevant. However, Iwa's mountainous terrain is rocky and the bedrock unusually shallow; both significant complicating factors.

    Interestingly, though, whoever put in these lawns were careful to plant them over a thick bed of actual soil, soil loose enough for you to tunnel through without giving yourself away. You shift your way through the earth a little bit to find a good position, wincing a little bit at the strange muddy sliminess of chakra-infused soil, and then start collecting chakra for another technique.

    You let it loose the instant you feel the patrol pass by, snaring them in a genjutsu. The men stumble slightly as your illusion settles on them, and Ikki takes this chance to make his.

    From there, all you have to do is pop back out, gently easing off the illusion as you do so, vault up some sheds, and then it's just a short, chakra-enabled climb up the side of the building to the top floor. There are no less than six guards watching the roof, so you won't be going up there. The roof access is locked, anyways, and stealthily picking the lock is a rather unpromising strategy with that number of guards. Instead, you jimmy open one of the top floor windows—you know none of them have locks—and then you're in.

    You're surprised at how well everything worked out, actually. You were worried that some of them might have been trained to recognize genjutsu. You did have a plan in place for that, of course, but the best-case outcome for contingencies is always never having to use them.

    Your point of entry to the building is an abandoned storage closet without a lock, and you slowly push the door open. It creaks, a harsh rusty squealing noise that really seemed disproportionate for a door that size, but nobody comes running. The top floor is completely empty, after all.

    Stepping into the hallway, you take a few moments to absorb the surroundings. Even shrouded in shadow, the hallway feels strangely sterile—the walls are smooth and white, the floor is tile, and the whole space is broken up only by occasional and completely identical potted plants. Combined with the total empty stillness, and the whole thing is rather unsettling.

    Still, the way is clear—straight down this hall, take a right there, fourth room on the right, pick the lock—and then you're standing amidst a half-dozen shelves full of binders and scrolls.

    "Wow," says Ikki.

    You elbow him and make a zip your lips motion. Banter is not appropriate for stealth missions.

    The specific record you're looking for is, rather obnoxiously, hidden in the very last shelf you check, and you harumph quietly to yourself as you pull it down from its resting place. It's a thick packet—a parcel, almost—marked with a year, a serial number, and a village symbol. It's not Iwa's symbol either, but Konoha's, which is interesting to say the least. Konoha and Iwa haven't historically been on good terms, and especially now with all the squabbling over Kusa. That would certainly explain why somebody wanted this specific information, then.

    You hand the packet from Ikki and start the journey back out. You leave the way you came, bypassing the patrols the same way without incident. As you crest the first of the big stone crags ringing the compound, Ikki tugs your sleeve.

    "Look over there," he says, pointing off towards the city.

    You're about to shush him again—you're still on a mission, after all—but then you see it. A glimmering cloud of lights rises up from the city center, flickering and swaying gently in the stiff breeze. It's the lanterns, you realize: a thousand candles borne on canvas sleeves, floating up and away into the night sky. Just tonight, cloth stars light the sky.

    "It's beautiful," you say. Ikki nods.

    ===

    You and Ikki are both grinning when you arrive back at the hotel room, handing the little package to Hotarubi-sensei.

    "Knew you could do it," he says, ruffling your hair. "Let's get this back home. Wouldn't do to keep a client waiting for too long."

    ===

    There's a trio of guards stationed at the lone bridge that leads to your village, which is unusual; usually Hoshi doesn't bother with stationing guards past the bounds of the village itself.

    Neither of them stops to question you or anything like that—Hoshi has few enough ninja that most of them at least recognize Hotarubi-sensei—but one of them steps forward to head you off as you approach.

    "The Hoshikage requires your presence," says the man, a little apologetically.

    Hotarubi-sensei nods at the man. "We will debrief with him immediately."

    He turns to nod at you, his lips drawn into a thin hard line, and then continues wordlessly across the bridge. You and Ikki follow.

    Your father's office is disorganized, in a way that you've never seen before. It's not a mess, but some of the normally neat little stacks of paperwork are strewn about in rough piles now, and the number of half-written letters on his desk seems to have multiplied many times over. Still, he is ever the picture of dignity as he shuffles the paperwork he's been going through and turns to acknowledge you.

    "It is good that you are here," he says. "I imagine that you performed admirably on this mission."

    You nod. "Everything went well. We'll drop the package off at the mission office as soon as we can."

    "That is good. I am pleased." He favors you with a brief smile, before turning to Hotarubi-sensei. "The jounin council must convene on a matter."

    We were waiting for your return, he doesn't say, although the implication is obvious.

    Hotarubi-sensei dips his head in acknowledgement, the same stern mask on his face as before. "I understand, Hoshikage-sama." He turns back to you. "Go sign off on the mission at the mission office and take the rest of the day off."

    "Wait, but don't we need you to sign—" Ikki begins, but you grab him by the arm and drag him off before he can finish.

    ===

    The mission office, as it turns out, is unusually accommodating with the report, and you have it signed off and your stolen parcel collected in record time. Then… there really isn't anything to do, now, so the two of you decide to take a slightly early dinner.

    It's a little tense—it's just you and Ikki and some yakisoba, and neither of you are particularly hungry—but you dutifully pick at your noodles as Ikki rather obviously struggles to keep a lid on his curiosity.

    "What's happening?" he finally says, although it comes out flat, almost more a statement than a question.

    It's a good question. Hotarubi-sensei was needed for a meeting of the jounin council, you recall, but that body generally doesn't need all of its members present to make decisions—as far as you know almost all of their meetings are about patrol logistics and trade routes. The list of things that would require Hotarubi-sensei's presence—in spite of his assignment to a long-term mission, even—is very short. There's really only one thing you know of, actually.

    "We're going to fight a war," you half-whisper.

    ===

    What will you do?
    Article:
    [] As your father's presumptive heir, this is specifically the kind of thing that you need to learn about. Find your father and ask to be looped in.
    [] It seems like everything's pretty hectic right now, and you don't want to distract your father from his duties, but you're still curious. Ask Hotarubi-sensei for more information the next time you see him.
    [] It's high-level strategery stuff, and it doesn't really concern you because you're not even nine yet. You should be training instead, anyways.
    Your training will, of course, not go neglected now that Hoshi is on war footing; rather the opposite. What do you focus on?
    Article:
    [] write-in. You have 8+1=9xp to distribute among any items on your character sheet. XP costs to next level are displayed.
     
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    • [X] It seems like everything's pretty hectic right now, and you don't want to distract your father from his duties, but you're still curious. Ask Hotarubi-sensei for more information the next time you see him.
    [X] Seiton: Plasma Armor 3xp
    [X] Seiton: Impact 3xp
    [X] Seiton: Needle 3xp


    War so...combat loadout rather than long term skills. Defense, melee and ranged
     
    [x] It seems like everything's pretty hectic right now, and you don't want to distract your father from his duties, but you're still curious. Ask Hotarubi-sensei for more information the next time you see him.
     
    [X] It seems like everything's pretty hectic right now, and you don't want to distract your father from his duties, but you're still curious. Ask Hotarubi-sensei for more information the next time you see him.

    Don't know about the xp choices.
     
    [X] It seems like everything's pretty hectic right now, and you don't want to distract your father from his duties, but you're still curious. Ask Hotarubi-sensei for more information the next time you see him.
    [X] Seiton: Plasma Armor 3xp
    [X] Seiton: Impact 3xp
    [X] Seiton: Needle 3xp
     
    [X] It's high-level strategery stuff, and it doesn't really concern you because you're not even nine yet. You should be training instead, anyways.
    Don't mess with operational security in any part of a village. We'll get all the info eventually and if it concerns us... we'll get to know.
    [X] Seiton: Plasma Armor 3xp.
    [X] Seiton: Impact 3xp.
    [X] Body Replacement Technique: 3xp.
    Set 2
    [X] Chakra capacity: 9xp.
    Set 3
    [X] Ninjutsu: 9xp.
    @Death and Faxes what would happen if Ninjutsu got ranked up? I don't really get what the mechanics doc is trying to say.
     
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    [X] As your father's presumptive heir, this is specifically the kind of thing that you need to learn about. Find your father and ask to be looped in.
    [X] Ninjutsu: 9xp.
     
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