I looked that up, and that thing is clearly a ripoff of the Juuohken from Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger.
Tome of the Orange Sky (Naruto/MGLN)
The Naruto threats may be gone, but none of the Nanoha threats have been introduced. The Elemental Nations could suddenly get an alien invasion from any civilization mentioned in Nanoha since we have no idea where we are at in that timeline, so while the biggest alien threat in Naruto canon may be gone, there are plent of options to replace that threat.
- Location
- Here
Just a thought, but perhaps the reason for the low chakra capacity combined with the lower detectable levels via sensor is due to a heightened chakra recovery rate. In essence, the amount stored in the body may be lower (granting greater control) while recharging fast enough to make the effective capacity very much higher, perhaps even to the point of being effectively limitless. Or at least, unlimited when close enough to the physical Tome to draw power from it...
- Location
- Europe
Aaa, as in, replace everything used, almost instantly.
That could work.
Will they try to see if they can figure out a way to make more cores?
On that, does a Back-Up system, exist?
If so, does it still have data or not?
If not, could they make a Back-up and then re-abdorp set back-up, in order to beef certain points, up?
Should give some extra options, especially if done three times.
Lets them create a main system with three emergency alternatives, plus more guardian options.
Currently, I find that this book, reads more like the "Materials", their book setup.
While the Worm one doesn't have any guardians, at all, nor a weapon or so.
Sound more like that army making book, there.
So how about a book from that virus-gun line of have to kill things?
A funny, CmptrWz is that in one Last Exile series, you have 1/2 moon like battleships, RWBY, perhaps?
Or would a Ranma 0.5 be funnier, there?
Infinite Stratos, perhaps, as a option?
- Location
- Scotland
@Norgarth That makes a lot of sense actually. The Book of Darkness was supposed to have basically unlimited amounts of power to it yet for all that while the Knights were powerful they could still be taken out with a decent bit of effort which does suggest such a limitation. After all, while they might have been real people once upon a time, as the Wolkenritter they're magical constructs and so should be able to handle far more power than they actually received. Heck, adult Reinforce was slapping around Nanoha with ease and could likely have handled both girls at once if Nachtwal hadn't chosen to go completely berserk. Even then it took both girls (who are admittedly powerhouses in the making) to blast Nachtwal off. All this does seem to point towards the knights being artificially limited in comparison, likely so that the knights wouldn't be a threat to their lord among other safety measures.
Chapter 51 - Proctoring, Cooking, Puppetry
Yoko set down the brush and ensured that the clear protective coat wasn't too thick anywhere. No need to create problems due to it drying unevenly.
"Do we really need a new sign?" Karin asked. Or Karin's clone asked, technically, as the real Karin was at the hospital today. She'd come in to check on things during a lull that meant Odoroki could handle the civilian girls...who she'd taken offense at being so poor at their chosen tasks and had decided to 'whip into shape'.
...how the group of civilians hadn't run for the proverbial hills already was completely beyond everyone that helped out in the shrine in general, but it made the girls a lot more tolerable, so Yoko had no complaints.
"With any luck it will reduce the regular questions," Yoko replied once she was positive the coat was even, gesturing at the sign to have the other girl lean over to read it.
"I see you're trying to cover all the bases," Karin noted. "But you're being a bit generous with not barring healing entirely."
Yoko sighed. "There are, for some stupid reason, civilians that refuse to get shinobi healing. But they will accept a healing 'blessing'."
"...you're too soft on the idiots that can't tell that the 'healing blessing' is shinobi healing." She then looked over at the stack of books off to the side. "What exactly were you writing down earlier, anyway? Odoroki said it was important, but I didn't expect to see a stack of books."
"The chakra infusion instructions that Deidara gave to Naruto provided an interesting alternative to using seals to build or improve chakra net nodes. A lot safer too, for that matter, as if you get them wrong you probably don't lose the ability to use chakra at all. It took some time to figure them all out, but those are instructions for techniques to create or repair each of the basic nodes, add on additional control elements for the medical chakra node, and then build or repair each of several extra pieces. Oh, and one that forms the full set of interlinks, once the rest of your nodes are healthy enough."
"Er..."
"If someone runs through one of those books then they'll have a much healthier, fully-balanced chakra net with all the elemental bloodline releases we're aware of, plus a few other things like the bite-to-heal trick, chakra chains, your sensory ability, and even the wood release helper node. Which probably makes them the most valuable books in the elemental nations."
Karin's eyes had gone wide at that. "You...just...wrote all that down? Those could be the most dangerous books in the elemental nations as well! They should probably have been kept locked inside of the Tome."
"They're also rigged with seals like those used to secure Uzushiogakure technique scrolls. When locked, which they do automatically when more than a short distance from an Uzumaki, you can't open them at all unless you've got Uzumaki heritage. Specifically, I connected them to the shrine's identification matrix to 'key' them, so only those who can get into the storage rooms here can 'unlock' them."
"Oh."
"Hinata also helped test the 'only Uzumaki can read the real book' portion, which makes it look like our recipe book to others even when unlocked. Coupled with the 'build a basic chakra net' seal now sitting in the storage room I emptied out last week, this essentially provides a way for Uzumaki to recover abilities if something happens to their net. Haven't figured out how to duplicate the 'things on the shelf only exist for Uzumaki' trick yet, but if we do then the books will be protected in that manner while in here as well."
"...I don't know if that's being properly paranoid or if it's being insanely over-prepared."
"Mostly we want to be able to blame finding the books on some of the rest of what we've managed."
"So you're...creating a retroactive cover story?"
"Kind of, yeah. Though if Tsunade finds out that there's a 'just do this long string of hand seals' version of the medical chakra control boost trick..."
"She'd probably grumble and agree that the seal-based version is better for political alliances."
"Well, it's also more reliable. If you don't get the chakra flows of the technique correct then it can make it harder to use medical chakra until you get things correct."
"Right, that's enough justification all on its own. Other nations would probably swear it was a trick to cripple them until someone got it right. Er, but why so many copies of the book?"
"We're...considering handing a copy over to the Anbu and/or the Hokage for safekeeping. Still locked to only be able to be opened by Uzumaki, of course. Plus we are going to pass copies to the foxes and toads, and possibly ask Hinata to pass one to the snakes."
"Ah. Incredibly valuable and important information, spread out so that someone can't destroy all the copies at once?"
"Yeah."
Naruto hadn't expected his return from fixing up the Anbu bunkers to be met with a request for him and Hinata to meet with the Hokage. Nor for said meeting to include Anko-sensei, for that matter. He and his 'cousins' had decided to share a couple more things recently though, so this was probably a good time to do so.
"Now then," Shisui said after all the standard greetings and office-sealing had been completed. "As you may be aware, Konoha is going to be hosting the chunin exams again in a couple of months. I'd like you three to be the primary proctors this year."
"...the kids are a bit young for that," Anko-sensei noted.
"That may be, but interestingly enough the international agreements don't specify ages at all for the initial stages. Just a minimum rank."
"Which would put me as the 'single combat' portion proctor this time, as there's a 'public-facing' age requirement for it."
"Indeed, though I'm not actually concerned about sticking to 'each proctor exclusively runs their portion' either. After reviewing the reports on how Kumo's exams were held and finding that they hadn't changed since the last war, nor have any of the villages they have records of exams for, I decided that everyone needs to mix things up a bit in the stages before the single-combat portion of the exams. I know for a fact that other villages have guides on how we run our exams, with only five relatively minor variations we ever use. What better way to mix things up than to get fresh eyes on the problem, ones not invested in the 'tradition' of the current exams?"
"That's hard to argue."
"How much leeway would we actually have?" Naruto asked.
"The requirements are honestly minimal. There must be some form of testing that can weed out at least half of the participants before reaching the single-combat portion of things, and that needs to include the potential for team-based combat. Most of the specific details in the agreements only kick in for the single-combat portion of things. There are traditional elements...but sticking to tradition is the problem."
"So you want us to buck all the normal details?"
Shisui shrugged. "I want you to meet the 'at least half the participants disqualified before the single-combat portion' requirement. Training ground forty-four is the only one we have really suitable for the team-combat portion of things here, so using it is less 'tradition' and more 'necessity'. Tradition does dictate that an attempt be made to mislead participants into going to the wrong location at the start of the exam, but not what form that takes. Most villages use three total stages, but before their civil war Kiri sometimes used four. Frequently making the 'find the testing center' an actual stage, specifically."
"Huh."
"I think we'll be able to handle that," Hinata said, shaking her head. "Especially as I think Naruto has already come up with basic ideas."
"He does look like he's thought of something," Anko-sensei agreed.
"There are possibilities," Naruto admitted.
"You will need to submit plans for approval," Shisui noted. "But so long as you get a sign-off on things from one of my advisors or the jounin commander you're good to start requesting materials and manpower. However, Anko here has also requested help with the academy, wanting to better evaluate students for infiltration work."
"More like I want them to help come up with a way to demonstrate why infiltration isn't 'boring' like some of the brats think it is," Anko retorted.
"For some people it is boring," Hinata replied.
"What you need to do is show them that it isn't useless," Naruto continued. "Give them a challenge that can't be solved in a straightforward manner, but is trivial to solve if they can apply the basic lessons you've already given them."
"And then give anyone who fails extra homework. Repeatedly, if needed."
"...they're academy students," Anko pointed out.
"So set it up such that the only way to complete the assignment is to fool someone with the transformation technique," Naruto retorted. "Something they can't steal, can't take by force, and can't obtain if they're recognized as an academy student, but is trivial for a visitor to the city to get."
"...oh."
Ino bit back the urge to sigh as she re-secured the safe. This should've been a genin mission, not a chunin mission. They'd been in town for all of five minutes when Kiba had spotted the owner opening the safe through the wide-open window and absently noted the combination in case they decided that a distraction of 'rob someone else too' was needed. Only to discover that it was their target's house afterwards. Then they found out that the place had no guards and the owner's entire family was going to a gathering, without having a guard.
Worse, the window had been left wide open, along with three others. Locking the door didn't help when you left multiple ways into the house. If Naruto-sensei wasn't busy with things back in Konoha she'd be tempted to summon him just to get ideas for humiliating these idiots.
"Found two other safes," Sasuke sent with the communication technique. "Both opened with the same combination. Only money in each of them, and still no sign of any seals."
"Ino would've picked them up better than either of us," Kiba contributed. "You may be better at figuring out what they do once we find them, but she's the better chakra sensor."
"Makes me wonder why we were sent to do a simple robbery," Ino added. "Especially since we didn't even need to find the other two safes. The 'minimum amount taken' was in this one."
"Just means that we should loot the place more. I've got plenty of storage tags."
"Same," Sasuke agreed. "Say, everything not visible from a window to start with? Grab the stuff that someone might notice vanishing last."
Ino looked out the window, where she could see her paperwork clone snorting on the street. "There's still basically nobody in this entire half of town to see us hauling things right out the door, let alone notice stuff vanishing into seals. A couple people inside of houses, but nobody outside. I vote we empty the house, then go on a mini crime spree to cover it. Any house we come across that doesn't at least have the doors and windows locked, to teach the idiots a lesson. I believe that my clone thinks the house across the road is a suitable target."
"Mine thinks the neighbors are a good choice too," Kiba supplied. "But a mother and child are in the house beyond that one, so we probably shouldn't burn anything down to cover tracks."
"It wouldn't be much of a lesson if they thought that they lost things to fire instead of theft, and we're going to have to stop when we run out of room in our tags anyway. The bigger question is if we should leave notes chastising them for leaving doors and windows unlocked."
There was a pause, but Sasuke's response felt smug. "Why don't we slap together some models of each house, with markings around the easy ways in? Make it look like this was planned earlier than the day of."
Yeah, this was going to suck for the neighborhood. And the entire small town, with how much money was likely about to be pulled out of it. But this entire portion of the town was also apparently filled with idiots, so perhaps those with actual brains would have better luck going forward? Or at least those who could manage to close their windows and lock their doors when leaving the house, anyway.
...they were definitely going to need to borrow the Uzumaki compound to sort all the stuff when they made it back home though.
Naruto was preparing to do some work inside of training ground forty-four to prepare for the exams, aiming to use some of the pile of stuff that the junior team had looted recently just to get it out of the compound, but before he could cross the fence he found the Anbu commander body-flickering next to him.
"My apologies for interrupting," the Anbu commander apologized. "But we have a minor situation at the main gates."
That had Naruto blinking, and focusing in that direction a little. It took a moment to realize who was over in that direction. "Deidara and Sasori want to talk to me, don't they?"
"...yes."
"I suppose it would be difficult for them to send a warning ahead of their arrival."
"They're being quite polite about the situation and we'd rather not have them decide to force the issue. Especially not at the gate with a pile of merchants nearby."
Naruto nodded. "I can see why that would be the case, but there's a good chance that they're going to want some kind of fight. Sasori, at least, will want to ensure that I've not been 'slacking off' in learning to fight with puppets."
"That...okay. I'll have a team quickly secure the clearing near the gates, provided you don't mind an audience."
"Works for me. I'll need to grab a couple of things, and drop these supplies off while I'm at it. Shouldn't take me long."
"I'll ensure that they're informed."
Swapping out 'prepare things in the Forest of Death' for 'talk to, and possibly fight, Deidara and Sasori' didn't take long, and Naruto headed for the main gates. Hinata met him on the way, her Matatabi puppet running alongside her. The Kurama puppet was still in progress, needing to at least be as big as the Shukaku puppet to make Ren happy, but Matatabi hadn't minded a more sensibly-sized puppet that only came up to Hinata's chest. Keeping the puppet active during the day was partially training and partially 'convince Hanabi to take her training more seriously'.
Not that Hanabi was likely to ever be able to coat her puppets in blue-black flames like Hinata could when using the paperwork puppeteer trick.
As they approached the gates, it looked like volunteers among jounin and Anbu were passing over the wall to reach the clearing to be used for Sasori's likely test. This demonstrated nicely that signing in and out at the gate was honestly more of a 'recommendation' for shinobi to not have civilians complaining that they were being treated differently. Records indicated that they only really complained when there was a long line though, and even then only when they were residents of the village returning from trips and the shinobi bypassing the line were genin or chunin. Jounin and Anbu were presumably seen as doing the bypassing for good reason.
In this case, Naruto even approaching the gate had several civilians, merchants and locals, looking relieved. He didn't think his reputation was that strong in this case, but he was known by name and appearance and it was possible that the two S-Class missing nin were being vocal about waiting for him. The gate guards also looked relieved and waved them through, and the Anbu commander landed nearby to observe.
"Uzumaki, my man!" Deidara called. "There you are!"
"You are...difficult to find," Sasori said. "Which speaks highly of your skills, given that I'm led to believe that you're completing missions outside of Konohagakure here."
"I'm a sealmaster and there was a need for that skill set recently," Naruto admitted, even if it was very much a partial explanation. "Not much interaction with the public, and then I got tapped for chunin exam stuff."
"Ah. That combination explains quite a bit. Still, as we couldn't find you in the field we decided that the easiest course of action was to simply come to you." He then paused, and looked at Hinata with the Matatabi puppet. "Is that...a tailed beast inspired puppet?"
"Yes," Naruto answered, even as Hinata decided to show off by coating the puppet in her blue-black flames. "It's good inspiration for her sister to put proper effort into her stated desire to learn to use puppets."
"...fascinating. I heard that you had created additional puppets of your own, but hadn't expected you to accomplish this much in so little time."
"Yeah, well, I cheat." Deidara looked somewhat impressed as well, and like he didn't believe the 'cheat' comment, but not necessarily interested. "But perhaps we should start with your partner here? We're sadly too close to the village for a proper explosion demonstration, but I do believe there was a claim of appreciating all art?"
"Some more than others, hm," Deidara admitted. "But the world would be boring if all artists did the same thing."
"What do you think of cooking?"
"...I hate cooking, but have to do it for myself because Sasori gave up on having taste buds."
"Pity, because I think you have the potential to be a great cook."
"Bah."
Naruto pulled a scroll out of a pocket and threw it to Deidara. "Have some basic recipes and samples of what a normal person can accomplish with them compared to what you should be able to manage. I haven't described the secret technique in detail, of course, but I'm positive you can manage it."
Looking intrigued now, Deidara opened the scroll and started with a couple pieces of jerky. One using Kiba's current recipe without chakra infusion and one with fire chakra infusion added on top. The two were carefully examined, as if to prove that they were using the same recipe, and a poison-detection technique was used on them. Prudent, but that felt like it would be both too easy and too likely to invite problematic retaliation. Sasori was even looking on with interest as the two pieces of jerky were tasted, the 'normal' piece eliciting pleased sounds but the chakra-infused one causing Deidara to moan in pleasure.
It was...a little creepy, honestly. Even if it was a common reaction when Kiba made his own special batches.
Deidara continued through the scroll a lot more eagerly after that, trying out normal and 'lightning rod' pocky sticks next. Then melon pan with medical chakra that both temporarily boosted healing and enhanced all the tastes...so long as the one who made it had the bite-to-heal node and didn't focus on it being scalpel chakra. Without the bite-to-heal node the taste changes remained but you could develop ulcers, and if scalpel chakra was used for some reason everything ended up seemingly impossibly spicy and you would develop ulcers.
Then the man reached the last item in the scroll, and paused. "Uzumaki, my man, why is there a warning about priming the senbei?"
"Because having the flavor explode in your mouth is one thing," Naruto replied. "But having the senbei literally explode in your mouth because you primed them to explode is another entirely."
"...the explosive senbei are actually explosives?"
"Only if you prime them before eating them. I do recommend throwing them after priming them as well, for that matter."
Deidara gave a look, but took a bite out of the normal senbei. He obviously found it tasty enough, but then he tried the explosive senbei and reacted quite strongly to the taste. It seemed that the man was possibly too into explosions, honestly. Half the thing had made it into his stomach before he seemed to remember the discussion, pausing before taking another bite and giving the remaining portion of senbei a look. With a frown, he obviously primed it, likely able to feel that difference as he did so. Throwing it off to the side, looking pained at having done so instead of eating it, he then made a hand seal and the half a senbei exploded as though it had been a decent-quality explosive tag.
This led to a very difficult to parse look on the man's face as he looked between the scorch mark from the explosion and the scroll he was still holding.
"I may have to decide that I hate you," Sasori said.
"Oh?" Naruto asked.
"He's going to be insufferable until he can figure out how to make those himself."
"Do you know how to cook?"
"...no."
"Then point him at someone who does while you go do your own thing. It's obvious that you'd rather be tearing apart one of my puppets anyway."
"...that has merit, and you're absolutely correct. But I doubt that you'll be willing to give me one."
"Not planning on it, no."
"Pity. Have you improved upon your skills at all?"
"Perhaps. Don't use them much in the field, and the one time I had a chance to go up against a puppeteer from Suna he couldn't handle the stress."
"Ah, yes. Young Kankuro. Pity that." Sasori looked around, noting the civilians. "I suppose we might need to move somewhere else for testing you?"
"The Anbu commander over there has ensured that a nearby clearing is available for our use."
"Prudent. Shall we?"
Deidara wasn't an idiot, and as Sasori prepared to face off with Uzumaki he was thinking about what had been said. There was no question in the boy's voice that Deidara was capable of reproducing the feats of cooking that had produced the various sample foods from the recipes that had been provided. At the same time, he was fairly certain that there was an implication that it wasn't going to be something just anyone could manage.
Which meant that the chakra infusion scroll had likely been used, and instead of going straight for clay and explosions the boy had played with using the skill while cooking. Where that idea had come from was unknown, and didn't matter. All that mattered were the results, because infusing chakra into food was obviously genius.
Teasing Sasori about Uzumaki getting him to get off of his ass and get back to work on improving his art of puppetry was...going to have to stop, unfortunately, because this showed that the puppeteer wasn't the only one that had been sitting on his ass and not properly exploring their art. Sure, there were probably all kinds of ways to make his existing explosions more powerful or harder to stop, but that was only a single expression of the art. Uzumaki had found an entirely new direction to explore.
Why, food might only be the beginning. It might be possible to arrange for literally everything normally carried to be used as an explosive on demand instead of relying on the annoying-to-produce special chakra clay.
...that, and it was also obvious that all of the chakra-infused food items helped to replenish chakra, at least a little. That alone could be invaluable in the field.
It was obvious that Sasori was impressed with Naruto's control over his puppets, and seemed particularly interested in the Shukaku and Matatabi puppets. He couldn't make his copies of the Matatabi puppet light on fire like Hinata could, but he could still use them in combat and had added one to his 'puppetry field kit'. This had him up to six unique puppets, four of them originally Sasori's own designs that had now been heavily modified by Naruto. Well, if you included copies made for training or the scouting birds he had more, but he didn't bring those out.
The resulting six-on-six puppet battle was interesting in several ways. Naruto was positive that he hadn't improved enough to actually pose a true challenge to Sasori, but his six puppets were doing far better than he thought they should've been able to even if there wasn't enough room for the Shukaku puppet to move properly in the clearing. Some of that was probably his personal designs having unknown capabilities, but after giving it some thought another component of things became a little obvious.
Sasori had to split his focus between puppets, while the paperwork clone based control system was able to devote a full copy of Naruto's own self to each puppet. Which meant that getting up to Sasori's infamous hundred or more puppets wouldn't reduce the effectiveness of any of Naruto's puppets at all while Sasori would be at a major disadvantage splitting his focus.
More importantly, the ongoing battle was allowing deeper examination of the mechanism that the man-turned-puppet was using to make chakra threads without a proper body. Something like that might be the best way to fix some of the problems with controlling the tails of the Kurama puppet that came up from having only a single internal string coming out of a seal that couldn't be placed multiple times in the array. At least without sticking multiple paperwork clones into a single puppet to help manage the tails with individual arrays or having the external chakra expression points used to generate additional strings that reached back into the puppet, anyway, and the latter was a horrible workaround.
Anywhere up to six or seven 'limbs' was doable with one string, but the Kurama puppet prototype had thirteen.
"You are definitely doing better than Suna's teachings," Sasori said. "Within a couple of years I may not even need to hold back against you."
"Still haven't tested myself against their current puppeteers," Naruto replied. "But holding back is going both ways right now."
"...oh? You seem to be at your limit for keeping up with my puppets."
"Too busy examining your fighting style, which has weaknesses mine doesn't."
"Care to demonstrate?"
Naruto weighed his options, and that everyone watching seemed to be curious, before shrugging and telling his clones in the puppets to target the threads Sasori was using to control the six puppets. They all struck at the same time, though in very different ways, to sever the controlling threads. Unlike previous times that they'd done this though, this time the two humanoid puppets extended one string from each arm and connected to the puppets before Sasori could reconnect himself. The four-armed puppet removed the need for the other puppets to use tails or paws to do the same.
Sasori and Deidara, along with most of those watching, seemed very shocked at this development.
"Are your puppets in control of his puppets?" Hinata asked after a moment.
"Yeah," Naruto replied. "They're avoiding triggering any of the mechanisms he didn't use, of course, but using chakra strings or threads to control puppets is practically inviting someone else to break your connection and make their own."
"...your puppets can control puppets," Sasori finally said, trailing off at the end and sounding like this was a revelation he'd never even considered. Despite being a living puppet of sorts himself that controlled other puppets. His chakra threads had also lashed out, failed to dislodge Naruto's chakra strings, and then failed to connect to any of Naruto's puppets at all.
"You really need to get yourself down to proper threads," the Anbu commander said after a moment of silence. "So that it's less obvious which puppets are controlling the others."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "I had to work my way down to strings. Repeatedly. Threads are an incredibly small amount of chakra for me."
Ten minutes later Sasori had reclaimed his puppets, given Naruto a scroll detailing additional mechanisms for puppets and some spare parts as examples, and then Deidara had made a clay bird and flown them off.
"You're a one-shinobi puppet brigade," the Anbu commander commented as Naruto put his own puppets away.
"I haven't practiced with as many different puppets," Hinata said as she patted her puppet. "But I can at least pull my own weight."
"If we want a real threat then we should get the Aburame some puppets. Providing protection for entire hives, when insects in general are normally one of the biggest problems the Suna puppet brigade goes up against?"
Shibi Aburame dropped out of one of the trees, a large gourd containing insects on his back. "That is intriguing, young Uzumaki. The problem is that we do not have the expertise needed to even begin to attempt such a thing."
"...would it help if I slapped a few basic puppets together for you? I don't exactly consider the normal ones to be any kind of Uzumaki clan secret or anything like that. Most of my notes are just things I learned from taking Sasori's stuff and figuring out how it works too, actually, with only the paperwork puppeteer trick being my own creation."
"It is rare for such offers to be made."
"I only got started with the puppets because Hiashi figured that I'd have a better chance of figuring things out to teach Hanabi than anyone else. Plus one of the puppets was 'cursed', but I fixed that up and turned it into the paperwork puppeteer trick."
"Perhaps we can arrange a suitable exchange. We should not be the only ones to benefit from such an exchange, after all."
"I'll check with you after I finish some of the chunin exam prep I was about to do when those two showed up."
"Check with me as well," the Anbu commander said. "Might want to buy some of your knowledge for the village archives if you're willing to share it in general."
...maybe a few clones should just get started on that immediately.
"Do we really need a new sign?" Karin asked. Or Karin's clone asked, technically, as the real Karin was at the hospital today. She'd come in to check on things during a lull that meant Odoroki could handle the civilian girls...who she'd taken offense at being so poor at their chosen tasks and had decided to 'whip into shape'.
...how the group of civilians hadn't run for the proverbial hills already was completely beyond everyone that helped out in the shrine in general, but it made the girls a lot more tolerable, so Yoko had no complaints.
"With any luck it will reduce the regular questions," Yoko replied once she was positive the coat was even, gesturing at the sign to have the other girl lean over to read it.
Yes, the Land of Snow movie shrine maiden works here.
No, she will not give autographs.
Yes, her ears and tail are real.
No, you may not check them for yourself.
Checking them for yourself may result in retaliation.
No, you will not get healed if said retaliation ends in injuries.
No, she will not give autographs.
Yes, her ears and tail are real.
No, you may not check them for yourself.
Checking them for yourself may result in retaliation.
No, you will not get healed if said retaliation ends in injuries.
"I see you're trying to cover all the bases," Karin noted. "But you're being a bit generous with not barring healing entirely."
Yoko sighed. "There are, for some stupid reason, civilians that refuse to get shinobi healing. But they will accept a healing 'blessing'."
"...you're too soft on the idiots that can't tell that the 'healing blessing' is shinobi healing." She then looked over at the stack of books off to the side. "What exactly were you writing down earlier, anyway? Odoroki said it was important, but I didn't expect to see a stack of books."
"The chakra infusion instructions that Deidara gave to Naruto provided an interesting alternative to using seals to build or improve chakra net nodes. A lot safer too, for that matter, as if you get them wrong you probably don't lose the ability to use chakra at all. It took some time to figure them all out, but those are instructions for techniques to create or repair each of the basic nodes, add on additional control elements for the medical chakra node, and then build or repair each of several extra pieces. Oh, and one that forms the full set of interlinks, once the rest of your nodes are healthy enough."
"Er..."
"If someone runs through one of those books then they'll have a much healthier, fully-balanced chakra net with all the elemental bloodline releases we're aware of, plus a few other things like the bite-to-heal trick, chakra chains, your sensory ability, and even the wood release helper node. Which probably makes them the most valuable books in the elemental nations."
Karin's eyes had gone wide at that. "You...just...wrote all that down? Those could be the most dangerous books in the elemental nations as well! They should probably have been kept locked inside of the Tome."
"They're also rigged with seals like those used to secure Uzushiogakure technique scrolls. When locked, which they do automatically when more than a short distance from an Uzumaki, you can't open them at all unless you've got Uzumaki heritage. Specifically, I connected them to the shrine's identification matrix to 'key' them, so only those who can get into the storage rooms here can 'unlock' them."
"Oh."
"Hinata also helped test the 'only Uzumaki can read the real book' portion, which makes it look like our recipe book to others even when unlocked. Coupled with the 'build a basic chakra net' seal now sitting in the storage room I emptied out last week, this essentially provides a way for Uzumaki to recover abilities if something happens to their net. Haven't figured out how to duplicate the 'things on the shelf only exist for Uzumaki' trick yet, but if we do then the books will be protected in that manner while in here as well."
"...I don't know if that's being properly paranoid or if it's being insanely over-prepared."
"Mostly we want to be able to blame finding the books on some of the rest of what we've managed."
"So you're...creating a retroactive cover story?"
"Kind of, yeah. Though if Tsunade finds out that there's a 'just do this long string of hand seals' version of the medical chakra control boost trick..."
"She'd probably grumble and agree that the seal-based version is better for political alliances."
"Well, it's also more reliable. If you don't get the chakra flows of the technique correct then it can make it harder to use medical chakra until you get things correct."
"Right, that's enough justification all on its own. Other nations would probably swear it was a trick to cripple them until someone got it right. Er, but why so many copies of the book?"
"We're...considering handing a copy over to the Anbu and/or the Hokage for safekeeping. Still locked to only be able to be opened by Uzumaki, of course. Plus we are going to pass copies to the foxes and toads, and possibly ask Hinata to pass one to the snakes."
"Ah. Incredibly valuable and important information, spread out so that someone can't destroy all the copies at once?"
"Yeah."
Naruto hadn't expected his return from fixing up the Anbu bunkers to be met with a request for him and Hinata to meet with the Hokage. Nor for said meeting to include Anko-sensei, for that matter. He and his 'cousins' had decided to share a couple more things recently though, so this was probably a good time to do so.
"Now then," Shisui said after all the standard greetings and office-sealing had been completed. "As you may be aware, Konoha is going to be hosting the chunin exams again in a couple of months. I'd like you three to be the primary proctors this year."
"...the kids are a bit young for that," Anko-sensei noted.
"That may be, but interestingly enough the international agreements don't specify ages at all for the initial stages. Just a minimum rank."
"Which would put me as the 'single combat' portion proctor this time, as there's a 'public-facing' age requirement for it."
"Indeed, though I'm not actually concerned about sticking to 'each proctor exclusively runs their portion' either. After reviewing the reports on how Kumo's exams were held and finding that they hadn't changed since the last war, nor have any of the villages they have records of exams for, I decided that everyone needs to mix things up a bit in the stages before the single-combat portion of the exams. I know for a fact that other villages have guides on how we run our exams, with only five relatively minor variations we ever use. What better way to mix things up than to get fresh eyes on the problem, ones not invested in the 'tradition' of the current exams?"
"That's hard to argue."
"How much leeway would we actually have?" Naruto asked.
"The requirements are honestly minimal. There must be some form of testing that can weed out at least half of the participants before reaching the single-combat portion of things, and that needs to include the potential for team-based combat. Most of the specific details in the agreements only kick in for the single-combat portion of things. There are traditional elements...but sticking to tradition is the problem."
"So you want us to buck all the normal details?"
Shisui shrugged. "I want you to meet the 'at least half the participants disqualified before the single-combat portion' requirement. Training ground forty-four is the only one we have really suitable for the team-combat portion of things here, so using it is less 'tradition' and more 'necessity'. Tradition does dictate that an attempt be made to mislead participants into going to the wrong location at the start of the exam, but not what form that takes. Most villages use three total stages, but before their civil war Kiri sometimes used four. Frequently making the 'find the testing center' an actual stage, specifically."
"Huh."
"I think we'll be able to handle that," Hinata said, shaking her head. "Especially as I think Naruto has already come up with basic ideas."
"He does look like he's thought of something," Anko-sensei agreed.
"There are possibilities," Naruto admitted.
"You will need to submit plans for approval," Shisui noted. "But so long as you get a sign-off on things from one of my advisors or the jounin commander you're good to start requesting materials and manpower. However, Anko here has also requested help with the academy, wanting to better evaluate students for infiltration work."
"More like I want them to help come up with a way to demonstrate why infiltration isn't 'boring' like some of the brats think it is," Anko retorted.
"For some people it is boring," Hinata replied.
"What you need to do is show them that it isn't useless," Naruto continued. "Give them a challenge that can't be solved in a straightforward manner, but is trivial to solve if they can apply the basic lessons you've already given them."
"And then give anyone who fails extra homework. Repeatedly, if needed."
"...they're academy students," Anko pointed out.
"So set it up such that the only way to complete the assignment is to fool someone with the transformation technique," Naruto retorted. "Something they can't steal, can't take by force, and can't obtain if they're recognized as an academy student, but is trivial for a visitor to the city to get."
"...oh."
Ino bit back the urge to sigh as she re-secured the safe. This should've been a genin mission, not a chunin mission. They'd been in town for all of five minutes when Kiba had spotted the owner opening the safe through the wide-open window and absently noted the combination in case they decided that a distraction of 'rob someone else too' was needed. Only to discover that it was their target's house afterwards. Then they found out that the place had no guards and the owner's entire family was going to a gathering, without having a guard.
Worse, the window had been left wide open, along with three others. Locking the door didn't help when you left multiple ways into the house. If Naruto-sensei wasn't busy with things back in Konoha she'd be tempted to summon him just to get ideas for humiliating these idiots.
"Found two other safes," Sasuke sent with the communication technique. "Both opened with the same combination. Only money in each of them, and still no sign of any seals."
"Ino would've picked them up better than either of us," Kiba contributed. "You may be better at figuring out what they do once we find them, but she's the better chakra sensor."
"Makes me wonder why we were sent to do a simple robbery," Ino added. "Especially since we didn't even need to find the other two safes. The 'minimum amount taken' was in this one."
"Just means that we should loot the place more. I've got plenty of storage tags."
"Same," Sasuke agreed. "Say, everything not visible from a window to start with? Grab the stuff that someone might notice vanishing last."
Ino looked out the window, where she could see her paperwork clone snorting on the street. "There's still basically nobody in this entire half of town to see us hauling things right out the door, let alone notice stuff vanishing into seals. A couple people inside of houses, but nobody outside. I vote we empty the house, then go on a mini crime spree to cover it. Any house we come across that doesn't at least have the doors and windows locked, to teach the idiots a lesson. I believe that my clone thinks the house across the road is a suitable target."
"Mine thinks the neighbors are a good choice too," Kiba supplied. "But a mother and child are in the house beyond that one, so we probably shouldn't burn anything down to cover tracks."
"It wouldn't be much of a lesson if they thought that they lost things to fire instead of theft, and we're going to have to stop when we run out of room in our tags anyway. The bigger question is if we should leave notes chastising them for leaving doors and windows unlocked."
There was a pause, but Sasuke's response felt smug. "Why don't we slap together some models of each house, with markings around the easy ways in? Make it look like this was planned earlier than the day of."
Yeah, this was going to suck for the neighborhood. And the entire small town, with how much money was likely about to be pulled out of it. But this entire portion of the town was also apparently filled with idiots, so perhaps those with actual brains would have better luck going forward? Or at least those who could manage to close their windows and lock their doors when leaving the house, anyway.
...they were definitely going to need to borrow the Uzumaki compound to sort all the stuff when they made it back home though.
Naruto was preparing to do some work inside of training ground forty-four to prepare for the exams, aiming to use some of the pile of stuff that the junior team had looted recently just to get it out of the compound, but before he could cross the fence he found the Anbu commander body-flickering next to him.
"My apologies for interrupting," the Anbu commander apologized. "But we have a minor situation at the main gates."
That had Naruto blinking, and focusing in that direction a little. It took a moment to realize who was over in that direction. "Deidara and Sasori want to talk to me, don't they?"
"...yes."
"I suppose it would be difficult for them to send a warning ahead of their arrival."
"They're being quite polite about the situation and we'd rather not have them decide to force the issue. Especially not at the gate with a pile of merchants nearby."
Naruto nodded. "I can see why that would be the case, but there's a good chance that they're going to want some kind of fight. Sasori, at least, will want to ensure that I've not been 'slacking off' in learning to fight with puppets."
"That...okay. I'll have a team quickly secure the clearing near the gates, provided you don't mind an audience."
"Works for me. I'll need to grab a couple of things, and drop these supplies off while I'm at it. Shouldn't take me long."
"I'll ensure that they're informed."
Swapping out 'prepare things in the Forest of Death' for 'talk to, and possibly fight, Deidara and Sasori' didn't take long, and Naruto headed for the main gates. Hinata met him on the way, her Matatabi puppet running alongside her. The Kurama puppet was still in progress, needing to at least be as big as the Shukaku puppet to make Ren happy, but Matatabi hadn't minded a more sensibly-sized puppet that only came up to Hinata's chest. Keeping the puppet active during the day was partially training and partially 'convince Hanabi to take her training more seriously'.
Not that Hanabi was likely to ever be able to coat her puppets in blue-black flames like Hinata could when using the paperwork puppeteer trick.
As they approached the gates, it looked like volunteers among jounin and Anbu were passing over the wall to reach the clearing to be used for Sasori's likely test. This demonstrated nicely that signing in and out at the gate was honestly more of a 'recommendation' for shinobi to not have civilians complaining that they were being treated differently. Records indicated that they only really complained when there was a long line though, and even then only when they were residents of the village returning from trips and the shinobi bypassing the line were genin or chunin. Jounin and Anbu were presumably seen as doing the bypassing for good reason.
In this case, Naruto even approaching the gate had several civilians, merchants and locals, looking relieved. He didn't think his reputation was that strong in this case, but he was known by name and appearance and it was possible that the two S-Class missing nin were being vocal about waiting for him. The gate guards also looked relieved and waved them through, and the Anbu commander landed nearby to observe.
"Uzumaki, my man!" Deidara called. "There you are!"
"You are...difficult to find," Sasori said. "Which speaks highly of your skills, given that I'm led to believe that you're completing missions outside of Konohagakure here."
"I'm a sealmaster and there was a need for that skill set recently," Naruto admitted, even if it was very much a partial explanation. "Not much interaction with the public, and then I got tapped for chunin exam stuff."
"Ah. That combination explains quite a bit. Still, as we couldn't find you in the field we decided that the easiest course of action was to simply come to you." He then paused, and looked at Hinata with the Matatabi puppet. "Is that...a tailed beast inspired puppet?"
"Yes," Naruto answered, even as Hinata decided to show off by coating the puppet in her blue-black flames. "It's good inspiration for her sister to put proper effort into her stated desire to learn to use puppets."
"...fascinating. I heard that you had created additional puppets of your own, but hadn't expected you to accomplish this much in so little time."
"Yeah, well, I cheat." Deidara looked somewhat impressed as well, and like he didn't believe the 'cheat' comment, but not necessarily interested. "But perhaps we should start with your partner here? We're sadly too close to the village for a proper explosion demonstration, but I do believe there was a claim of appreciating all art?"
"Some more than others, hm," Deidara admitted. "But the world would be boring if all artists did the same thing."
"What do you think of cooking?"
"...I hate cooking, but have to do it for myself because Sasori gave up on having taste buds."
"Pity, because I think you have the potential to be a great cook."
"Bah."
Naruto pulled a scroll out of a pocket and threw it to Deidara. "Have some basic recipes and samples of what a normal person can accomplish with them compared to what you should be able to manage. I haven't described the secret technique in detail, of course, but I'm positive you can manage it."
Looking intrigued now, Deidara opened the scroll and started with a couple pieces of jerky. One using Kiba's current recipe without chakra infusion and one with fire chakra infusion added on top. The two were carefully examined, as if to prove that they were using the same recipe, and a poison-detection technique was used on them. Prudent, but that felt like it would be both too easy and too likely to invite problematic retaliation. Sasori was even looking on with interest as the two pieces of jerky were tasted, the 'normal' piece eliciting pleased sounds but the chakra-infused one causing Deidara to moan in pleasure.
It was...a little creepy, honestly. Even if it was a common reaction when Kiba made his own special batches.
Deidara continued through the scroll a lot more eagerly after that, trying out normal and 'lightning rod' pocky sticks next. Then melon pan with medical chakra that both temporarily boosted healing and enhanced all the tastes...so long as the one who made it had the bite-to-heal node and didn't focus on it being scalpel chakra. Without the bite-to-heal node the taste changes remained but you could develop ulcers, and if scalpel chakra was used for some reason everything ended up seemingly impossibly spicy and you would develop ulcers.
Then the man reached the last item in the scroll, and paused. "Uzumaki, my man, why is there a warning about priming the senbei?"
"Because having the flavor explode in your mouth is one thing," Naruto replied. "But having the senbei literally explode in your mouth because you primed them to explode is another entirely."
"...the explosive senbei are actually explosives?"
"Only if you prime them before eating them. I do recommend throwing them after priming them as well, for that matter."
Deidara gave a look, but took a bite out of the normal senbei. He obviously found it tasty enough, but then he tried the explosive senbei and reacted quite strongly to the taste. It seemed that the man was possibly too into explosions, honestly. Half the thing had made it into his stomach before he seemed to remember the discussion, pausing before taking another bite and giving the remaining portion of senbei a look. With a frown, he obviously primed it, likely able to feel that difference as he did so. Throwing it off to the side, looking pained at having done so instead of eating it, he then made a hand seal and the half a senbei exploded as though it had been a decent-quality explosive tag.
This led to a very difficult to parse look on the man's face as he looked between the scorch mark from the explosion and the scroll he was still holding.
"I may have to decide that I hate you," Sasori said.
"Oh?" Naruto asked.
"He's going to be insufferable until he can figure out how to make those himself."
"Do you know how to cook?"
"...no."
"Then point him at someone who does while you go do your own thing. It's obvious that you'd rather be tearing apart one of my puppets anyway."
"...that has merit, and you're absolutely correct. But I doubt that you'll be willing to give me one."
"Not planning on it, no."
"Pity. Have you improved upon your skills at all?"
"Perhaps. Don't use them much in the field, and the one time I had a chance to go up against a puppeteer from Suna he couldn't handle the stress."
"Ah, yes. Young Kankuro. Pity that." Sasori looked around, noting the civilians. "I suppose we might need to move somewhere else for testing you?"
"The Anbu commander over there has ensured that a nearby clearing is available for our use."
"Prudent. Shall we?"
Deidara wasn't an idiot, and as Sasori prepared to face off with Uzumaki he was thinking about what had been said. There was no question in the boy's voice that Deidara was capable of reproducing the feats of cooking that had produced the various sample foods from the recipes that had been provided. At the same time, he was fairly certain that there was an implication that it wasn't going to be something just anyone could manage.
Which meant that the chakra infusion scroll had likely been used, and instead of going straight for clay and explosions the boy had played with using the skill while cooking. Where that idea had come from was unknown, and didn't matter. All that mattered were the results, because infusing chakra into food was obviously genius.
Teasing Sasori about Uzumaki getting him to get off of his ass and get back to work on improving his art of puppetry was...going to have to stop, unfortunately, because this showed that the puppeteer wasn't the only one that had been sitting on his ass and not properly exploring their art. Sure, there were probably all kinds of ways to make his existing explosions more powerful or harder to stop, but that was only a single expression of the art. Uzumaki had found an entirely new direction to explore.
Why, food might only be the beginning. It might be possible to arrange for literally everything normally carried to be used as an explosive on demand instead of relying on the annoying-to-produce special chakra clay.
...that, and it was also obvious that all of the chakra-infused food items helped to replenish chakra, at least a little. That alone could be invaluable in the field.
It was obvious that Sasori was impressed with Naruto's control over his puppets, and seemed particularly interested in the Shukaku and Matatabi puppets. He couldn't make his copies of the Matatabi puppet light on fire like Hinata could, but he could still use them in combat and had added one to his 'puppetry field kit'. This had him up to six unique puppets, four of them originally Sasori's own designs that had now been heavily modified by Naruto. Well, if you included copies made for training or the scouting birds he had more, but he didn't bring those out.
The resulting six-on-six puppet battle was interesting in several ways. Naruto was positive that he hadn't improved enough to actually pose a true challenge to Sasori, but his six puppets were doing far better than he thought they should've been able to even if there wasn't enough room for the Shukaku puppet to move properly in the clearing. Some of that was probably his personal designs having unknown capabilities, but after giving it some thought another component of things became a little obvious.
Sasori had to split his focus between puppets, while the paperwork clone based control system was able to devote a full copy of Naruto's own self to each puppet. Which meant that getting up to Sasori's infamous hundred or more puppets wouldn't reduce the effectiveness of any of Naruto's puppets at all while Sasori would be at a major disadvantage splitting his focus.
More importantly, the ongoing battle was allowing deeper examination of the mechanism that the man-turned-puppet was using to make chakra threads without a proper body. Something like that might be the best way to fix some of the problems with controlling the tails of the Kurama puppet that came up from having only a single internal string coming out of a seal that couldn't be placed multiple times in the array. At least without sticking multiple paperwork clones into a single puppet to help manage the tails with individual arrays or having the external chakra expression points used to generate additional strings that reached back into the puppet, anyway, and the latter was a horrible workaround.
Anywhere up to six or seven 'limbs' was doable with one string, but the Kurama puppet prototype had thirteen.
"You are definitely doing better than Suna's teachings," Sasori said. "Within a couple of years I may not even need to hold back against you."
"Still haven't tested myself against their current puppeteers," Naruto replied. "But holding back is going both ways right now."
"...oh? You seem to be at your limit for keeping up with my puppets."
"Too busy examining your fighting style, which has weaknesses mine doesn't."
"Care to demonstrate?"
Naruto weighed his options, and that everyone watching seemed to be curious, before shrugging and telling his clones in the puppets to target the threads Sasori was using to control the six puppets. They all struck at the same time, though in very different ways, to sever the controlling threads. Unlike previous times that they'd done this though, this time the two humanoid puppets extended one string from each arm and connected to the puppets before Sasori could reconnect himself. The four-armed puppet removed the need for the other puppets to use tails or paws to do the same.
Sasori and Deidara, along with most of those watching, seemed very shocked at this development.
"Are your puppets in control of his puppets?" Hinata asked after a moment.
"Yeah," Naruto replied. "They're avoiding triggering any of the mechanisms he didn't use, of course, but using chakra strings or threads to control puppets is practically inviting someone else to break your connection and make their own."
"...your puppets can control puppets," Sasori finally said, trailing off at the end and sounding like this was a revelation he'd never even considered. Despite being a living puppet of sorts himself that controlled other puppets. His chakra threads had also lashed out, failed to dislodge Naruto's chakra strings, and then failed to connect to any of Naruto's puppets at all.
"You really need to get yourself down to proper threads," the Anbu commander said after a moment of silence. "So that it's less obvious which puppets are controlling the others."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "I had to work my way down to strings. Repeatedly. Threads are an incredibly small amount of chakra for me."
Ten minutes later Sasori had reclaimed his puppets, given Naruto a scroll detailing additional mechanisms for puppets and some spare parts as examples, and then Deidara had made a clay bird and flown them off.
"You're a one-shinobi puppet brigade," the Anbu commander commented as Naruto put his own puppets away.
"I haven't practiced with as many different puppets," Hinata said as she patted her puppet. "But I can at least pull my own weight."
"If we want a real threat then we should get the Aburame some puppets. Providing protection for entire hives, when insects in general are normally one of the biggest problems the Suna puppet brigade goes up against?"
Shibi Aburame dropped out of one of the trees, a large gourd containing insects on his back. "That is intriguing, young Uzumaki. The problem is that we do not have the expertise needed to even begin to attempt such a thing."
"...would it help if I slapped a few basic puppets together for you? I don't exactly consider the normal ones to be any kind of Uzumaki clan secret or anything like that. Most of my notes are just things I learned from taking Sasori's stuff and figuring out how it works too, actually, with only the paperwork puppeteer trick being my own creation."
"It is rare for such offers to be made."
"I only got started with the puppets because Hiashi figured that I'd have a better chance of figuring things out to teach Hanabi than anyone else. Plus one of the puppets was 'cursed', but I fixed that up and turned it into the paperwork puppeteer trick."
"Perhaps we can arrange a suitable exchange. We should not be the only ones to benefit from such an exchange, after all."
"I'll check with you after I finish some of the chunin exam prep I was about to do when those two showed up."
"Check with me as well," the Anbu commander said. "Might want to buy some of your knowledge for the village archives if you're willing to share it in general."
...maybe a few clones should just get started on that immediately.
I can understand people avoiding anything that they can about ninja stuff. Better for their general health and sanity to stay away from ninja. Ninja are basically magic mercs. If I had the option of paying them for healing vs paying legit shrine maidens that did the same thing in healing blessing form. I'd likely always choose the shrine maiden. Better karma that way.
I was rather confused on why the kids were stealing everything from the village. O.k. so they were offended by open windows and some unlocked doors. This is why folks hate ninja. You can't have nice things with ninja around.
They were talking like actually closing the windows or locking the doors would do anything. No, it wouldn't. Any some what trained thief could likely pass through either in less than 15 seconds without any issues. Unless you had some fancy seal work or very heavy door and no windows at all in the home. No one sane would live in a home like that.
That wouldn't even really keep it secure from ninja. Instead of 30 seconds, it would take them like 2-5 minutes to get through. That's only if they were wanting to be quiet. If any of them wanted to go loud, then they'd need much thicker walls and seal work for any hope of delaying the ninja.
So with that a matter of just being a thing in the setting, why bother? You might as well leave your windows open and a door unlocked. It's more convenient for yourself and typically ninja don't care enough to loot a small village of everything even if they could. Typically they'd view it as a waste of storage tags and not bother unless there was something actually important.
I can see the only result of that is more cussing out ninja and hiring a team to catch the thieves and return their stuff.
Sasori is going to be rather interested in the chunin exam that Naruto sets up. That's just a given. I could see him laughing his ass off at it.
I feel so bad for whatever teams Naruto tests.
I was rather confused on why the kids were stealing everything from the village. O.k. so they were offended by open windows and some unlocked doors. This is why folks hate ninja. You can't have nice things with ninja around.
They were talking like actually closing the windows or locking the doors would do anything. No, it wouldn't. Any some what trained thief could likely pass through either in less than 15 seconds without any issues. Unless you had some fancy seal work or very heavy door and no windows at all in the home. No one sane would live in a home like that.
That wouldn't even really keep it secure from ninja. Instead of 30 seconds, it would take them like 2-5 minutes to get through. That's only if they were wanting to be quiet. If any of them wanted to go loud, then they'd need much thicker walls and seal work for any hope of delaying the ninja.
So with that a matter of just being a thing in the setting, why bother? You might as well leave your windows open and a door unlocked. It's more convenient for yourself and typically ninja don't care enough to loot a small village of everything even if they could. Typically they'd view it as a waste of storage tags and not bother unless there was something actually important.
I can see the only result of that is more cussing out ninja and hiring a team to catch the thieves and return their stuff.
Sasori is going to be rather interested in the chunin exam that Naruto sets up. That's just a given. I could see him laughing his ass off at it.
I feel so bad for whatever teams Naruto tests.
A couple of details you might have missed. It wasn't some random village but a town. The target was rich enough to have 3 hidden safes in a rather large house so this was most likely the nicer part of the town. He also clearly had made enemies that wanted to sabotage him but not kill him. Closing your windows and doors is common sense when you leave the house empty. You don't need ninja for that to bite you in the ass. Similar to how you don't leave valuables in plain sight on your car seat regularly unless you want someone to break your car window and help themselves to a laptop or something else.
Setting up some mock ups to make this crime spree look planned and not something ninja would do is because the lack of security makes it believable for "normal" criminals to pull it off.
I keep seeing Naruto swiping all of the genin's kunai and replacing them with spoons and then making them fight. Spoon on Spoon combat, treated with upmost seriousness.
Any complaining is addressed with
"Well of course if you can only expect to succeed under optimal conditions, then I assure you Konoha at least will be taking note of that"
Any complaining is addressed with
"Well of course if you can only expect to succeed under optimal conditions, then I assure you Konoha at least will be taking note of that"
Might not be able to get away with that for the 1v1 portion of the test, since that's the part that does have significant rules.
Hexcalibur
Not So Ordinary Sword
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- It
This will be the start of Explosive Chef Deidara. One of the great shinobi chefs.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
At least Naruto probably won't turn the first stage into a dance-off.
Ralyx
Seeking Balance
- Location
- The Realm Between
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This author has had a weekly update schedule of MWF for three different stories for… years, now?
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Of course not! That is what the SECOND stage is for. That way, you can have group dances be included.
- Location
- Michigan
Obviously the Second exam will be a mix of the hunter exam Sushi contest and a shokugeki between randomly selected teams.
USRTS
(Unverified Cracker)
- Location
- Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy
- Pronouns
- Dont/Give/A/Damn
Preform an amusing dance, you get told exactly where to go to take the written portion of the exam, no muss, no fuss. Refuse, and you have to figure it out yourselves. Preform a dance, but fail to amuse? Partial information to figure out where to go.
The kids were sent to steal at least a specific amount of money from a specific person that had not paid their bill and had used their local position to justify not doing so as perfectly valid. Konoha, obviously, disagreed, wanted their money, and tacked on more for needing to send out 'collection agents'.
How they obtained the money was left up to them, but they were expecting to take a week or so to figure out where he kept his money, safe combinations, and so on. Probably needing to deal with guards and other obstacles as well. The only thing they were specifically told to avoid was causing or threatening direct harm. Konoha could be known to have been involved, and if asked would state that you run out on your bill at your own peril, but you get more repeat paying customers if you don't have a reputation for threatening bodily harm.
What they found was that the entire "rich" area of that town was so security-lax that you didn't even need shinobi to empty things...and they arrived just in time for a local festival to pull most of the area away. Kiba accidentally got the single combination to all of their target's safes when strolling by on the street checking the area out. The complete lack of security made "cover up that Konoha stole stuff by pretending to be criminals emptying the area, complete with the supposed 'criminal gang' leaving behind mocking items for how to trivially get into each (empty) house" a believable thing. Doubly so when said criminals would've known about the festival and thus could've been waiting for the "nobody is home" time to strike and vanish.
Anyone with their doors locked and windows even basically secured against non-shinobi thieves, or with someone still in the house, was left alone.
Konoha gets their money, the kids get quite the bonus from all the extra stuff they grabbed, the idiot rich of that town get a lesson that just because they're rich and have local clout doesn't mean shit to thieves...and, with their houses emptied, most of them are likely to suddenly have financial issues.
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Another possible result could be the ones with enough common sense/defenses to not have been robbed by the team might end up seeking Konoha's help in securing things further. So, could be more missions in the docket, soon.
- Location
- United States
Considering their mark of basic security was thumb turn locks for windows and doors, if anyone was using Konoha installed security they would have been perfectly safe from the message the kids made.
Considering that they are being robbed because they didn't pay for … something? (Not specified…could be protection, could also be utility, or just general taxes), I'm not sure this is a valid concern to others, especially as there doesn't seem to be any indication of this being 'a protection racket' in the first place
You know it's not a protection racket because they didn't steal the target's kneecaps on the way out.
Seems like they hired Konoha for a mission or two, then failed to cough up the money. The ninjas are now repossessing some of the former clients wealth to make up for the expenses, with some fees tacked on for having to send someone.
So this is merely the consequences of their actions, they aren't some innocent victims preyed on by the oppressive ninja.
There's no protection racket, that's not how the major villages operate at all.