>>4544471
“I’ve also learned that both my eyes allow me use of Amaterasu,” Sasuke continues. “I assume you’re familiar from my brother, but for Guren-san’s benefit, they’re black flames that can’t be extinguished, and burn hot enough to incinerate even regular fire release techniques. The attack itself is line-of-sight, but my other eye allows me to shape it.”

“So, I’ve never actually asked you this, but what are your abilities?”

You consider that for a moment… now that you think about it, you don’t think anyone’s ever asked for that in quite so direct a way. You’re not even sure that you’ve thought about the simplest way to describe it. And what would you even say? That you’re a walking repository for techniques that probably should never have existed in the first place?

“Yeah… so I guess I have three real talents,” you muse. “The Uzumaki fūinjutsu being the first, space-time ninjutsu being the second, and chakra flow techniques being the third. I can use ranton and its components, and my kenjutsu style is based on using inton chakra flow.”

“The way I use them is usually based around kenjutsu and paper ninjutsu, manipulating marked paper tags folded into origami. I enhance it all with senjutsu chakra.”

“Don’t you also know the rasengan?” Sasuke recalls.

You nod. “I use it as chakra flow now, but yeah.”

“So the three of us are the strongest in our group, am I right?” Guren-han muses quietly. “It seems like everyone else was assigned to support us.”

“Yeah, no,” you sigh, “I don’t think you’re ]wrong exactly...”

“But you don’t like phrasing it that way,” Sasuke guesses.

“All of us have something to add,” you explain your own feelings. “Especially Ajisai-kun, Maki-han, and Sai-kun.”

“We wouldn’t be as mobile without him,” Guren admits.

“Right.”

“That being said,” Guren observes, “nobody’s gonna be cheering to see nine chūnin and jōnin swooping in to the rescue. If we’re going to really swing a battle, it’s down to the three of us here to do it once we arrive.”

>Or just one of us at a time. That allows us to swing three battles at the same time.
>It may honestly be better if we held most of our unit in reserve… like our medic for example.
>I think it’s the best plan that we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force.
>Other?

>>4544477
>>It may honestly be better if we held most of our unit in reserve… like our medic for example.
>>I think it’s the best plan that we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force.

>>4544477
>>It may honestly be better if we held most of our unit in reserve… like our medic for example.
>>I think it’s the best plan that we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force.

>>4544477
>Other?
>Our small size gives us a lot more flexibility than anyone else, I don't want to tie us down to a single tactic.
>To start I would suggest we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force.
>As the fight goes on I can distribute people as needed for maximum effect with teleports.

>>4544477
>It may honestly be better if we held most of our unit in reserve… like our medic for example.
>I think it’s the best plan that we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force

>>4544477
>>Or just one of us at a time. That allows us to swing three battles at the same time.

>>4544477
>It may honestly be better if we held most of our unit in reserve… like our medic for example.
>I think it’s the best plan that we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force.

>>4544477
>I think it’s the best plan that we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force.

>>4544477
>>I think it’s the best plan that we stay together. Present the maximum amount of force.

>>4544477
Naori's senjutsu enhanced shadow clones are no joke. Spread those around and watch the fun from a Central location. If one goes down we can just make and send another as long as we leave marks behind.

>>4544477
“We have the highest potential when we’re coordinating,” you muse. “So yeah, I think when the time comes we should try to stick together. The others should be a reserve.”

“They do seem to be a pretty complete ‘set’ on their own,” Sasuke admits. “They compliment each other and support us, but couldn’t really be enough to make that much of an impact on their own. Not compared to a unit ten times their size with a similar composition.”

“That said it makes sense to designate a second in command,” Guren-han adds thoughtfully… and quite correctly, in fact. “Someone other than Sasuke-kun or I.”

“Kō-han,” your mind immediately snaps to your first pick. “It should be a jōnin, and Kō-han has the byakugan. That will give him a better tactical picture than either Daen-han or Maki-han.”

“That was fast,” Guren muses.

“There weren’t many choices,” you shrug. “Do either of you disagree?”

Guren simply shakes her head.

“No,” Sasuke replies.

“Then I’ll inform him the next time we’re all in the same place,” you decide.

…

When the call eventually comes, you’re having tea with Ryūzetsu in a field of hōzuki fruits in their strange and skeletal shells, which give the “blood prison” its formal name. You sense it coming, one of Sai’s ink-birds, and so you unroll a scroll onto the ground that the ink-bird slams into, dispersing into the characters which display his message.

“Five Kage summit called.
Location will be Konohagakure.
Presence of fast response unit requested.
Gathering members may be necessary.
Reason for meeting not divulged.
Likely mission goals unclear.
Konohagakure members on standby.”

“So yeah, great timing guys,” you grumble. “I guess that’s the downside to everyone knowing that they can call you in on a moment’s notice.”

“There’s no running from who you are,” Ryūzetsu muses, pouring you a cup of tea. “Go ahead and take the cup. You can use hiraishin with a cup of tea in your hand, right?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” you shrug. “Sorry about this.”

“Another time maybe,” Ryūzetsu suggests.
>1/2

>>4545817
It takes you a few seconds to gather up Ittan, Kiri, Maki, Ajisai, Omoi, and Tango from their respective villages (and in Ajisai’s case from one of your hideouts), but you soon have everyone assembled outside the rebuilt Hokage’s office in Konoha. By then you’ve finished your tea.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” you admit to them before you head in. “But I’ll tell you that I’ve decided Hyūga Kō-han will be my second in command, for any occasion where I’m obliged to fight separately from the unit. This isn’t subject to discussion, so if you have any complaints keep them to yourselves.”

…

“So you made it,” Tsunade gestures for you to sit at the round table where she and the four other kages have been waiting. “Please.”

“I hope you haven’t been waiting here long,” you muse as you take your seat.

“Lady Mizukage just arrived a few minutes ago,” Tsunade explains. “We sent a message as soon as we confirmed the time of her scheduled arrival.”

“So yeah, what is this meeting about?”

“We’ve learned something interesting today,” Ōnoki muses. “Something about the fates of the four previous Hokages, I believe it was?”

“It was her right to tell you of course,” you admit candidly. “So why am I here then?”

“We’re at a bit of an impasse,” Gaara informs you. “Two of us are of the opinion that the four hokages should be revived early on in the coming battles, to reduce the number of casualties overall and increase our staying power in the war. Two of us are of the opinion that this would give the enemy too much time to come up with a counter, or even potentially give a reason to intensify battle in one area leading to immense casualties.”

“And one of us refuses to take a side,” Terumi-han adds. “It seems that Lord Kazekage respects your judgment in the matter… which does make some sense. It is after all your technique, and of the six of us here you are the only one who has met the four hokages themselves.”

“But you don’t agree with Gaara-han’s vote, such as it is?” you muse.

She shakes her head. “It seems unlikely to me that a suitable counter can be found in any reasonable amount of time. These are after all four shinobi revered even by their enemies, for good reason.”

“Which puts me in the position to decide,” you realize. “Have I mentioned how much I hate you people sometimes?”

>The four hokages should remain in reserve until it’s clear in my judgment that they’ll be most effective.
>There may be a moral argument for deploying them at the outset of battle, but we would need to win quickly.
>Creating the technique was Tobirama’s mistake, and adapting it was mine. I would prefer to avoid using it at all.
>Don’t you think THEY should have a say in this?
>Other?

>>4545823
>Don’t you think THEY should have a say in this?
Choice was an important part of why we adapted it in the first place.

>>4545823
>While I do believe the four hokages should remain in reserve until it’s clear in my judgment that they’ll be most effective (though preferably not used at all)
>Don’t you think THEY should have a say in this?

>>4545823
>Don’t you think THEY should have a say in this?

>>4545832
>>4545823
supporting this amalgamation

>>4545823
>>4545832
Supporting this too

>>4545823
>>While I do believe the four hokages should remain in reserve until it’s clear in my judgment that they’ll be most effective (though preferably not used at all)
>>Don’t you think THEY should have a say in this?

The dead are dead, while we CAN ask them to help, we shouldn't, we should make this clear to the deceased when we bring them out to voice their opinions that we are doing this as it is being demanded of us, but if they refuse, so will we.

>>4545823
>>4545832

>>4545823
>They have already spent one life fighting for us, I'd rather they not have to do so again, but
>>Don’t you think THEY should have a say in this?

>>4545823
>>4545832
this

>>4545823
“Don’t you think they should have a say?” you muse. “Like for real, we’re talking about four of the wisest and most experienced shinobi who ever walked the earth here… and I’d have to summon them anyway to catch them up on recent developments, and explain my own thoughts on when and why to call on them.”

“… you can summon them here?” Ōnoki wonders aloud, seeming to have failed to even consider the possibility.

“I can,” you confirm. “But only if all five Kages agree to the necessity of it.”

“I consent,” Tsunade-han nods curtly.

“I won’t believe it until I see it anyway,” A-han shrugs.

“Very well,” Gaara shuts his eyes and settles into his seat.

Ōnoki simply nods, before leaning forward at the table, while Terumi-han crosses her arms and watches you patiently. “I haven’t had the opportunity to meet any of these four legends. This should be interesting.”

You create four shadow clones, who take up positions in the corners of the room and create a flexible barrier using the Kongō Fūsa. Meanwhile, having gathered sufficient natural energy, you bite your own real thumb, weave the seals, and place your palm against the floor to perform the summons.

“Senpō: Tensa Jōdo Tensei.”

The familiar ashes begin to gather, forming four bodies which quickly take on familiar features of the four previous hokages. A quick glance reveals renewed interest and shock among the five living kages… Tsunade’s attention is divided between her grandfather and her mentor, while A’s eyes are firmly locked on the blonde man whose form materializes before him.

“… what is this?” Tobirama-tono enquires with a frown. “Uzumaki Naori-kun, explain yourself.”

“War’s looming,” you explain with a shrug, “and the five kages are at an impasse trying to decide whether to rely on your power or not.”

“How is a group of five at an impasse?” Minato-han cocks his head at you. “Or has your decision caused a draw?”

“So yeah, one of the five is willing to trust my judgment,” you explain. “It’s split two to two.”

“Because your own position is equivocal,” Hiruzen-tono muses thoughtfully. “Am I correct?”

“You are, Hiruzen-tono,” you nod curtly.

“That’s why we agreed to have you summoned, Grandfather, sensei,” Tsunade-han adds.

“Ah, Tsuna!” Hashirama-tono muses happily. “Well, isn’t this an occasion, to see my grand-daughter with the red hat!? Almost makes me think this technique was worth creating!”
>1/2

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12 KB JPG

>>4547328
“I’m right here, brother,” Tobirama-tono grumbles. “If you’re going to insult me at least do it directly, please?”

“He does have a point,” Hiruzen-tono shrugs.

“Not you too, Saru...”

“In any event, I think we should consider the topic at hand closely,” Minato-han gets the three old men back on track. “The four of us have been asked an important question.”

“Saving lives is always a good thing,” Hashirama-tono decides, nodding to himself.

“But showing your ace too early diminishes its value,” Tobirama-tono frowns. “You should know this by now, brother.”

“That’s exactly like what I’d expect you to say,” Hashirama-tono slouches slightly. “Come on, Tobirama. We’re not talking pure strategy here, we’re talking about people’s lives.”

“Should we find ourselves neutralized somehow, our early departure from the battlefield may lead to more fatalities than what we managed to prevent,” Hiruzen-tono adds, apparently taking his own former sensei’s side. “As much as it is my first instinct to protect lives where I can, we have to be canny in how we go about doing that.”

“I’m not entirely sure how well hiraishin will translate in open warfare on the scale we seem to be contemplating,” Minato-han admits. “Even a Ni no Dan using rasengan won’t defeat a reanimation… only fūinjutsu will. And I’m not convinced that having a particularly fast sealer is worth revealing that Naori-san here can summon us.”

“I suppose it depends in part on the makeup of the enemy forces,” Tobirama-tono decides, “and their dispersal across the battlefield. What can you tell us about that right now, Go-Kage-dono?”

“Not much,” the Raikage admits. “We suspect that the enemy force will contain a substantial number of reanimated shinobi, likely chosen for high impact.”

“We believe that it’s most likely the enemy has been collecting samples of kage and s-rank shinobi for several years,” Gaara-han adds. “And it would seem to be a prerequisite in their position to have sufficient numbers of these to defeat a united force some eighty-thousand strong.”

“What that means in practical terms isn’t certain yet,” Terumi-han admits.

>I’m not certain how the enemy will want to proceed, because I don’t know how they intend to address the numerical imbalance.
>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.
>Other?

>>4547331
>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.

>>4547331
>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.

>>4547331
>>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.

>>4547331
>>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.

>>4547331
>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.

>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.

>>4547331
>>Numbers and relative strengths are irrelevant. The enemy’s end goal isn’t to win on the field, it’s to capture the remaining jinchūriki.
>>So what I’m hearing is a lot of points in favor of me summoning you when I have the relevant information and think it will be of most impact.

>>4547331
“So yeah, at a certain point the numbers are irrelevant,” you frown. “Defeating us in the open field isn’t the only condition for victory.”

“You mean the tailed beasts,” Tobirama-tono nods.

“That’s right,” you confirm.

“How many jinchūriki remain alive?” Hiruzen-tono asks you.

“Three,” you reply. “Uzumaki Naruto-kun with Kurama, B-han with Gyūki, and Nii Yugito-han with Matatabi-han.”

“So Killer B is still alive and well,” Minato-han muses thoughtfully.

“What about it?” A-tono frowns.

Minato-han shrugs. “I’m glad to hear it. I always liked your little brother even when we were enemies.”

“And what did you think of A-dono?” Ōnoki-tono muses with a wicked grin.

“It…” Minato-han briefly bites his lip. “It wouldn’t be appropriate to comment.”

“What are you trying to...” A-han begins to protest, before being cut off by Hiruzen-tono.

“I think it’s safe to say that we’ve strayed from the topic… again. My belief is that it would be best to leave determination on when to summon us to our young summoner here.”

“I agree with Saru,” Tobirama-tono insists. “If Naori-kun must use reanimations in the coming battles she should concentrate on using it the way I intended.”

“With Gojō Kibaku Fūda,” you muse.

Hiruzen-tono nods in agreement. “Mm. That tactic has only two weaknesses: its indiscriminate nature, and the fact that it presumes that the enemy does not also know the Edo Tensei.”

“There are two conditions where I think it’s clear we should be summoned,” Minato-han frowns. “The worst-case scenarios, where either the allied forces are at risk of being wiped out, or where the remaining jinchūriki are at imminent risk of capture.”

“I think the Fourth and I are in agreement there,” Hashirama-tono agrees with a sagely nod of his head. “Though I would prefer that our abilities be put to greater use… I would be hard-pressed to set any specific contingencies for it.”

>Then I think that settles it. I’ll call on you if and when the situation meets Minato-han’s criteria.
>I’ll rely on my own judgment, but I’d prefer not to call on you at all if I can possibly avoid it.
>I think I’ll take Tobirama-tono’s advice… assuming there are a large number of mortal enemies.
>Other?

>>4548560
>>Then I think that settles it. I’ll call on you if and when the situation meets Minato-han’s criteria.

>>4548560
>>Then I think that settles it. I’ll call on you if and when the situation meets Minato-han’s criteria.

>>4548560
>>Then I think that settles it. I’ll call on you if and when the situation meets Minato-han’s criteria.

>>4548560
>Then I think that settles it. I’ll call on you if and when the situation meets Minato-han’s criteria.

>>4548560
>>Then I think that settles it. I’ll call on you if and when the situation meets Minato-han’s criteria.

When did we get intel that the enemy was definitely going to use zombies? I thought it was just speculation that Kabuto MIGHT go to Tobi's side, and that he MIGHT be able to do Orochimaru's version of the technique.

When did we get confirmation on either of those points? I can't seem to remember.

>>4549328
It's still speculative but it DOES fit the known facts, and it's the only possibility that can be said to. You have a disgruntled former flunkie of Orochimaru's who has been all but confirmed to know most of his experiments inside and out, and is presumed to have had a role in reanimating Hashirama and Tobirama once already. You have an Uchiha who has declared open warfare on the entire shinobi world but without obviously having an army: all he has is a weird talking houseplant and a shark man. And the absolute clincher is the confirmed effort by Obito to steal Nagato's body despite its lack of eyes.

All that points to the Edo Tensei being key to Obito's plans for the war. The speculation has become the assumption.

>>4549335
I suppose. But we also know he's been planning to go to war since well before Kabuto joining for some reason was even a consideration.

Therefore, one might (correctly) draw the conclusion that he had something else in store.

>>4549353
So far as Naori would be aware the original plan for war was to use the tailed beasts. The presence of three living jinchuriki (two of which can transform fully) and the fact that Naori destroyed the only known set of Rinnegan in existence changed the calculus.

Now that Edo Tensei is on the menu exposing the captured tailed beasts to battle is an unacceptable risk.

>>4548560
“So yeah, I think that more or less settles it,” you decide aloud. “Minato-han’s criteria are sensible ones in the absence of any clear idea of what our enemy is planning.”

“But you won’t rule out bringing them in earlier?” Terumi-han observes.

You nod in agreement. “For sure. The implication from the start was that it would be my judgment on when those criteria have been met.”

“A lot of people are going to die, you know,” Ōnoki muses. “And some of their loved ones will blame you for it.”

“I suspect a lot of people will die no matter what I do,” you frown, “and this time there’s no rinne-rebirth to serve as an easy reset button. So while I’d like to save everyone what I should be doing is ensuring that they don’t die for nothing.”

“There’s one other point that no one has yet mentioned,” Tobirama-tono frowns.

“Tobirama...” Hashirama-tono spares his younger brother a glance. “Speak carefully.”

“Naturally,” Tobirama replies curtly. “There’s one other weakness to the reanimation technique, specific to Naori-kun’s use of it.”

“The lack of a control seal formula,” you acknowledge.

“She has ‘civilized’ it,” Tobirama explains his reasoning to the living kages. “I created the Edo Tensei specifically to be barbaric, because I used it in barbaric times. When its existence was no longer justifiable I declared it a kinjutsu rather than do as my descendant has done.”

“So yeah, in making it ‘civilized’ I added a weakness,” you muse, “is the gist of what you’re arguing. It’s not exactly wrong.”

“Make no mistake, I can respect what you’ve done and why you did it,” Tobirama admits to you. “Basic it off a summoning contract rather than on fūinjutsu-based control was a fine idea in pursuing that specific end. But it does mean that an opponent capable of creating their own control seal formula may be able to take control of your reanimated summons.”

“Can this Yakushi Kabuto really do something like that?” Gaara wonders.

You shrug. “I could.”

“Once you understand the principles it’s not that complicated a technique,” Hiruzen-tono muses.

“Which is honestly the other reason I declared it a kinjutsu,” Tobirama-tono admits.
>1/2

>>4549596
“Unless there are any complaints,” you muse, “I think that’s all we needed to discuss with the hokages?”

“That’s not quite true,” Minato-han muses.

Hiruzen-tono frowns at him. “What are you thinking, Minato?”

“I think she’s strong enough to learn the Shisekiyōjin,” Minato-han explains.

“So yeah, that’s a cooperation barrier,” you raise an eyebrow. “Right?”

“What are you thinking, Fourth?” Hashirama wonders aloud.

“I just think it could be useful,” Minato-han insists. “I think the more of us who know this the better. Lord First, you should know even better than I do how much of an advantage that could become.”

“Particularly when combined with Gōjo Kibaku Fūda,” Tobirama-tono nods thoughtfully. “I can see that being worthwhile.”

>I don’t think that’s necessary… and it may even be considered abusive of this technique.
>I will call you back once I’m able to find somewhere isolated to train with you.
>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.
>Other?

>>4549625
>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.

Considering we have sage mode, wouldn't we be able to do that alone?

>>4549625
>>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.
also any ideas regarding that specific weakness, great grandpa dono?
*or whatever the approriate honorifics would be

>>4549625
>>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.

>>4549625
>>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.

>>4549625
>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.

>>4549625
>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.

>>4549625
>>We can do that right now, if the five kage have no disagreements.

>>4549625
>1d6, taking the best of four
>DC: 10

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>4550360

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4550360
first time rolling in one of your quests after binging SSQ and catching up with this within a month, lets see if my dice are blessed

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4550360

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4550360

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>4550360

>>4549625
“If the five kages have no objections,” you muse, “we can do that right now.”

You spare a glance at the living kages, almost inviting them to find an excuse to deny the request of a dead hokage that will almost certainly serve everyone’s interests during the challenges that lie ahead.

“I don’t think you’ll hear anyone objecting,” Tsunade-han shakes her head. “It’s such a strange request that I’m not sure how I’d even go about objecting if I were so inclined.”

“So in that case,” you muse, “the three of you can leave.”

“Take care, Lady Fifth,” Hiruzen inclines his head politely before disappearing along with Tobirama. Hashirama-tono expresses the same sentiments, though he simply uses the familiar ‘Tusna-hime’ instead.

Then you place your hand on Minato-han’s shoulder. “Come with me. We need some more space.”

…

Your idea is to do this in the sage forest of the shrikes, and Minato-han easily recognizes that he’s been taken to an ancient sage territory.

“Your summoning clan’s domain,” he realizes. “The air here is laden with natural energy… it’s amazing that you survived long enough to sign a contract.”

“Uzumaki,” you remind him.

“Fair,” he admits. “So this is where you think we will have some secrecy?”

“I maintain a hideout here for that exact reason,” you nod in agreement. “So what is this barrier of yours?”

“The Shisekiyōjin is a barrier that requires four kage-level shinobi to cooperate,” Minato-han explains. “At our level it requires only one hand seal, ram, but it requires four people to do it simultaneously. And to maintain it takes a substantial amount of chakra and concentration.”

“How powerful of a barrier is it?”

“Have you seen the Shishienjin?” he asks you. “It takes four jōnin.”
(“Shishienjin”: Four Violet Flames Formation)

“Once,” you confirm. “When Orochimaru tried to kill Hiruzen-tono.”

“This technique is a few dozen times stronger,” Minato-han smiles. “Now, are you ready to try it?”

…

Minato-han has you create a shadow clone, and he does the same. Your two clones and Minato-han take their positions by hiraishin markings, then form the hand seals in unison with you.

“Ninpō: Shisekiyōjin!”
(Ninja Art: Four Red Yangs Formation)
>1/2

>>4550505
This… isn’t an easy technique. The task of matching this huge an amount of chakra in such a complex barrier in tandem with three other people, even if one of them is technically yourself, is a real pain in the neck. But on the other hand it requires you to remain still, so you can have your clone passively gather natural energy to greatly lessen the load.

“That was good,” Minato-han admits with a broad smile after the towering red barrier dissipates. “Jiraiya-sensei always told me the easiest student to have is a genius with a good attitude… unfortunately Kakashi-san’s attitude was always so rotten when he was young.”

“I feel like there’s still room for improvement,” you admit, throwing out two more hiraishin markings of your own and entering sage mode. “Let me try something out, tell me what you think of it.”

You create four shadow clones this time and have them each teleport to a hiraishin marking where each forms the seal of confrontation… like a one-handed ram seal. They knead their chakra and then form it into a barrier, this time in a familiar amber tone.

“Senpō: Shikonbenjin!”
(Sage Art: Four Golden Petals Formation)

You take a moment to ask your nearest clone what she thinks of your idea.

“So yeah, it’s actually easier,” she admits. “I feel like the barrier is no weaker for it, and the use of senjutsu takes so much of the strain off it that it’s almost scary.”

“You used a Kongō Fūsa barrier as a basis and enhanced it with senjutsu chakra,” Minato-han realizes immediately. “That way your sage mode clones can maintain a technique that’s effectively just as powerful but with much less strain on any individual clone.”

“That’s the idea, Minato-han,” you smile. “I knew you’d catch on.”

“I never really used senjutsu chakra when I was alive,” he admits. “I always found it too slow to gather for battles that could be decided in seconds by hiraishin, but too short in duration for anything likely to devolve into a high-power brawl.”

>I guess we’re not that much alike after all, despite sharing some techniques.
>My hiraishin could honestly use a little work. I haven’t developed it as far as you did.
>I found a way to get around its limitations, kind of like how your son has.
>Other?

>>4550509
>>I guess we’re not that much alike after all, despite sharing some techniques.
>>My hiraishin could honestly use a little work. I haven’t developed it as far as you did.

>>4550509
>>I found a way to get around its limitations, kind of like how your son has.

>>4550509
>>I guess we’re not that much alike after all, despite sharing some techniques.
>>My hiraishin could honestly use a little work. I haven’t developed it as far as you did.

>>4550509
>>My hiraishin could honestly use a little work. I haven’t developed it as far as you did.
>>I found a way to get around its limitations, kind of like how your son has.

>>4550509
>My hiraishin could honestly use a little work. I haven’t developed it as far as you did.
>I found a way to get around its limitations, kind of like how your son has.

>>4550509
>>My hiraishin could honestly use a little work. I haven’t developed it as far as you did.
>>I found a way to get around its limitations, kind of like how your son has.

>>4550509
>>I guess we’re not that much alike after all, despite sharing some techniques.
>>My hiraishin could honestly use a little work. I haven’t developed it as far as you did.

>>4550509
“Yeah no, my hiraishin could use a little work,” you admit. “I haven’t developed it as far as you probably have. But like your son, I’ve found workarounds for sage mode.”

“Naruto has?” he muses. “Is that so?”

You nod. “He also ‘completed’ the rasengan. Turns out the answer in both cases was shadow clones… oh god, am I turning into Naruto now?”

Minato-han can only chuckle at the sudden drama. “Is it really that bad of a fate?”

“Sorry, Minato-han,” you insist. “He means well, and he does have his moments, but he’s a total knucklehead.”

“It could be worse,” Minato-han shrugs. “He could have grown up a broody loner.”

“No, that’d be Uchiha Sasuke,” you sigh, “his teammate.”

“Tall, dark, and handsome?” Minato-han muses.

You shake your head. “I think he’s just caught up to me in height.”

“But dark and handsome?”

You take a few seconds to consider it, but eventually nod. “Yeah, I guess I can see the appeal.”

“Guys like that are usually the most popular with the ladies,” Minato-han muses. “Which just means the exceptions are usually for much more meaningful reasons.”

“A fair point,” you concur. “That being said I’m not interested in marrying your son, Minato-han. We’re way too closely-related for one thing… for all I know Kushina-han could have been my aunt.”

“I doubt that,” Minato-han chuckles to himself, “but I see your point. Still, I’m glad to know that I’m leaving things in capable hands.”

“So yeah, that was the point of this exercise,” you shake your head with a satisfied smirk. “Of course it was. The Shisekiyōjin was the only technique you could think of that required all four of you be summoned to access it. Everything else the four of you can do can also be done either by myself, or by one of the five kages.”

“That’s right,” Minato-han confesses bluntly. “Gee, was I that transparent?”

“Maybe,” you admit. “But even if you were it doesn’t matter. I’m glad to help a good man rest easier.”

“Speaking of which I think I’ve overstayed,” Minato-han inclines his head politely. “So if you don’t mind.”

You oblige him, and then dispel your own shadow clones.
>1/2
>There will be a delay here as I have somewhere to be this afternoon

>>4551600
Apologies, what I thought was going to be a short commitment turned into 9 hours and quite a few drinks. I'm in no shape to finish this tonight, so expect the second half some time tomorrow morning my time.

>>4552127
Have a nice nap.

>>4552127
Hopefully the hangover ain’t too bad :D

>>4551600
It’s a few days after you create the Shikonbenjin technique that you receive a notice from Yugito-han… a request for help. Not urgent, of course, but if she chose to contact you at all she must believe that it’s important.

“What is it, Yugito-han?” you ask after teleporting yourself to the hiraishin tag you’ve had her carry.

“Thank you for coming, Naori-san,” she replies quietly. “The others are off chasing Guy-san… get was snatched up by a giant bird. But that’s not why I asked you to come here.”

“Then why?”

“Yugito-san and I both saw a red-haired girl just now,” one of the Konoha jōnin informs you, a vaguely familiar man with small sunglasses. “She insisted that you should be here.”

“She looked a lot like you and Karin-kun,” Yugito clarifies.

“So yeah, you think she was from my clan?” you muse. “Where is she now?”

“She… disappeared,” Yugito admits. “This is an isolated island, no permanent residents so far as any of us can tell. We stopped over for fresh water.”

“Thank you, Yugito-han,” you nod curtly. “If this girl you saw is an Uzumaki I don’t doubt she’d be wary of strangers. My being here may give us a chance to talk to her… you’ve done my clan a great favor. I won’t forget it.”

“I understand how important this is to you,” Yugito-han tells you with a smile. “I hope our initial impression was right.”

>Use a wide-area sensing technique to see if there are any other humans on this island.
>Have Yugito and Aoba take you to where they saw the girl. Isoka can track her from there.
>Other?

>>4552775
>Have Yugito and Aoba take you to where they saw the girl. Isoka can track her from there.

>>4552775
>>Have Yugito and Aoba take you to where they saw the girl. Isoka can track her from there.

>>4552775
>Have Yugito and Aoba take you to where they saw the girl. Isoka can track her from there.

>>4552775
>Have Yugito and Aoba take you to where they saw the girl. Isoka can track her from there.
Oh cool, it's this arc. Isn't Honoka dead by this point in time, though?

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>>4552775
“Take me to where you saw her,” you insist curtly. “I can have Isoka-han track her from there.”

“It was right over here,” Aoba-han replies, leading you to a small clearing near the island’s rocky coastline. “She was standing here, and ran in that direction through these trees.”

You weave the signs and summon Isoka, who perches on your fingertip and listens attentively. “Isoka-han, I need you to track someone. There was a fourth person standing here, not one of the three standing here now, who left in that direction.”

“How long ago?” Isoka chirps.

“Aoba-han? Yugito-han?”

“About twenty minutes,” Yugito guesses.

Isoka flits back and forth through the air, examining twigs and branches and the roots of the trees before returning to you.

“It’s strange,” she admits. “Like, really weird. I can sense a chakra here, but no traces of a person.”

“Some sort of genjutsu?” you wonder aloud. “Or like a chakra manifestation using ninjutsu?”

“Something like that,” Isoka confirms. “Yeah, I’d say it’s like ninjutsu?”

“Can you track her?”

“Does it rain in Amegakure?” Isoka quips.

“It’s been known to,” you roll your eyes. “Come on, let’s get going.”

…

Isoka follows the trail to a small derelict structure, which seems to have been abandoned some years ago. It’s got vines growing into the broken windows, and a flower growing up between the cracked tiles in the floor.

“She’s here,” Isoka informs you before she disappears back to the forest.

“So yeah,” you muse aloud. “Why don’t you show yourself?”

A slender girl appears from behind a pillar, her long red hair tied back in a braid, wearing a mesh shirt under a sleeveless violet top along with a short ruffled skirt. She wears no sandals, and the ends of a practically transparent silken sash trail behind her back. At first she frowns at you, though after a moment her expression softens dramatically. So she realizes that you’re from the same clan.

“My name is Uzumaki Naori,” you offer with a polite bow. “Who might you be? Are you alone here?”
>1/2

>>4552965
She doesn’t reply. Instead she approaches you, offering her hand. She makes deliberate eye contact, silently making her request, which you oblige. You find that you can’t touch her… confirming that your slight unease at the meeting was completely justified. This isn’t a living person you’re speaking to, and seeing, but something entirely different. It’s life force, chakra, but without the actual biological trappings of life as you’d recognize it.

“You’re… an echo,” you realize aloud. “An impression of a living person left in the last traces of their chakra.”

The girl nods silently.

“So yeah...” you frown. “I’m sorry, it seems like I got here a few years too late.”

The girl smiles gently, and shakes her head at you. Then she gestures towards a door at the back of the large room that’s been left ajar.

“You want me to find something in there?”

The girl nods.

>I have another idea. Would you mind directing me to… well, to the place where you died?
>Follow her guidance, see what it is she wants you to find.
>Admit that you’re not sure that you trust this entire situation. It seems… UNLIKELY.
>Other?

>>4552966
>Follow her guidance, see what it is she wants you to find.

>>4552966
>>Admit that you’re not sure that you trust this entire situation. It seems… UNLIKELY.

>>4552966
>Follow her guidance, see what it is she wants you to find.

>>4552966
>>Follow her guidance, see what it is she wants you to find.

Quick question since I'm rusty on my nardo, but won't Naori's sharingan turn into the Rinnegan, eventually? She's an Uzumaki, and I can't remember if any family ties were mentioned beyond her mother and father, but most Uzumaki have had children with the Senju after the Warring Clan period ended, and it's canon that Senju + Uchiha DNA = Rinnegan, what with Madara injecting Hashirama's cells into himself.

>>4553137
(By which I'm making a leap of logic that just having a Sharingan is enough to qualify)

>>4552966
You go in through the door, to find the ghostly image of the girl standing just inside the doorframe, pointing to a desk by a broken window with vines starting to climb through it. On that desk is something that looks like a personal journal. On it’s cover you read:
“Investigation into Summoning: Improvements as well as Creation”

Inside, you find an explanation.

This island, according to the author’s handwritten notes, supposedly has a high concentration of creatures living on it that could be useful as summons. This includes giant snakes, giant predatory birds, centipedes like the one Nagato could summon as Pain, giant spiders, and so on. It chronicles an increase in demands from shinobi from the five great nations for creatures to train and contract with, along with repeated reference to the question “is there an ultimate summons?”

The answer that the researchers working here could give was always that they “were unsure”. But it was because of that pressure that they started researching ways to modify the animals. Horned animals gained extendable tongues, spiders’ silk was reinforced, snakes were given flexible scales that resisted breaking.

That’s where things started to get out of control. The researchers here created a chimera, a combination of multiple creatures, in order to fill the demand for an “ultimate” creature.

They needed someone capable of suppressing their own creation with a fūinjutsu, and that task fell to an orphan girl that the researchers’ unnamed patrons found. That girl was Uzumaki Honoka, the image of whom guided you to this place.

Inside you find a picture of this girl from when she still lived, smiling next to two of the researchers somewhere on the island’s coast. It looks as if she was at very least well-treated here, but obviously something went wrong… because if you’re right about this, everyone in this picture has been dead for years.

“Honoka-han,” you turn to the ghost, pocketing the photograph. “You… this after-image of you… is here because you failed to restrain this ‘ultimate summons’. Isn’t that right?”

Honoka nods silently.

“Then I’ll absolutely help you find peace,” you insist sternly. “Where do I start?”

She seems surprised at first by your candor, but after a moment seems happy to accept your demand that you be allowed to help her.

…

She leads you to a cave, the walls of which are too regular to be natural. It was likely expanded by ninjutsu and finished inside for regular use, so your guess would be that there’s a lab ahead of you and down a bit deeper into the mountainside. But as you descend, you stop.

“This is...”
>1/2

>>4553140
“This is you?” you ask your guide. “Isn’t it?”

Honoka looks down at the fragments of skeleton at your feet, and nods sadly to confirm what you suspect. This is where she died… she must have fled the lab when it all went wrong, and never made it out again. This is as far as she ever got, only to die alone in the dark, probably afraid and in pain.

You take the time to gather her remains and seal them into a scroll.

She watches you, perhaps confused at why you’re wasting time. “Yeah no, I was too late to save you, and I’m sorry for that… but at very least I can see to it that you’re given a decent burial.”

That does however leave you with an interesting question… it would be very helpful if you could actually speak with Honoka-han, since you’re going to be taking on the monster that slaughtered her and the other researchers.

>Tell her what you’re thinking about. She can at very least nod yes or shake her head no.
>The image of Honoka is only a fragment of her. Bring her back and then explain to her.
>Just keep her remains sealed like this and head down to the derelict lab.
>Other?

>>4553137
Unlikely? She doesn't have Indra's or Asura's or their reincarnations, Naruto's and Sasuke's, chakra, so maybe not. And if we did pull that off, it's unknown how long it'll take to appear as it took Madara on his death bed to acquire them. Course, King could just ignore that and give it to us, so who knows.

>>4553142
>>The image of Honoka is only a fragment of her. Bring her back and then explain to her.

>>4553142
>>Tell her what you’re thinking about. She can at very least nod yes or shake her head no.

>>4553142
>Tell her what you’re thinking about. She can at very least nod yes or shake her head no.

>>4553137
>>4553143
It's a mess in canon. There's an implication in one chapter that it's Indra and Asura's chakra, but at the same time Kabuto can recreate it using a reanimation body and cultured Hashirama cells, so it's not entirely clear whether it's actually SOUL MAGIC, genetic interactions, or both. We do know however that in Naruto souls actually EXIST and continue to exist after death, so I find it hard to believe that every Hashirama cell on the planet has his soul in it when his soul was clearly existing elsewhere. This includes the moment when Madara's Rinnegan awakened.

The Sharingan matures in bursts that are triggered by strong emotional experiences, which create changes in chakra qualities and brain chemistry. We've seen people train and develop Sharingan that aren't their own, including when Kakashi apparently awakened the Mangekyo in Obito's eye (again, complicated to say what exactly this is SUPPOSED to mean). Sasuke also later explains to Sarada that training can only advance a Sharingan to a certain point, confirming that there's a key element of enviromental triggers. The implication seems to be that since Madara was in hiding after being beaten by Hashbrowns, he never had the stimulus required to evolve his eyes until he was near-death.

Finally, you have the fact that Mangekyos can be swapped without changing the recipient's eyehax abilities: just their appearance. Kakashi and Naori have (in Naori's case, this is an assumption on her part) the abilities of their donor's eyes. But an evolved Rinnegan is no longer just the result of the Uchiha DNA/Asura's soul: it's something entirely new born from a blending of bloodlines.
>1/2

>>4553142
>Tell her what you’re thinking about. She can at very least nod yes or shake her head no

>>4553166
So to sum it up, my take on it is that strongly-inherited chakra and the genetics that accompany it are the prerequisites to revert a Mangekyo Sharingan to a Rinnegan. Both the Senju and the Uzumaki clans are strong inheritors of Asura's lineage, both boasting unusually strong life force (and in the cases of Hashirama, Naori, and Naruto a natural affinity for senjutsu). Naori's borrowed sharingan has been steeping in quite a decent amount of particularly strong Uzumaki chakra for several years.

Under the interpretation I laid out, where just cultured cells of Hashirama's body that were never actually a PART of the real Hashirama can create a Rinnegan even after Asura's soul transmigrated into Naruto, it's not really a question of "if" anymore. Obito is proceeding under the assumption that if exposed to the right stimulus Naori will awaken a single Rinnegan, which will be hers. Not as powerful as having two, which is a bit of a hindrance, but also not borrowed either.

>>4553142
>>Tell her what you’re thinking about. She can at very least nod yes or shake her head no.

>>4553179
>Naori will awaken a single Rinnegan, which will be hers. Not as powerful as having two, which is a bit of a hindrance, but also not borrowed either.

Will this ownership bit deal with the eventual loss of the eye due to eyestrain?

>>4553675
Nagato was using someone else's Rinnegan for years without any signs of eyestrain, and Obito abused the SHIT out of his Mangekyo for years presumably due to his White Zetsu/Hashirama grafts. So it's pretty clear that both particularly strong Senju and Uzumaki clansmen can stave off the worst cumulative effects of eyestrain, or in the case of the Rinnegan just don't experience it at all.

And even IF Nagato ever strained his Rinnegan, which doesn't seem to even be possible in the first place, he could repair the damage with the Naraka Path.

>>4553179
>Not as powerful as having two

So... big no to Chibaku Tensei and absorbing Triple S class ninjutsu, but a definite yes to a fairly impressive Shinra Tensei and easily mastering jutsu of all affinities, as well as adding the chakra receivers into our arsenal?
Dope.

>Madara seething at our sight when he gets revived

>>4553809
You'd get one unique and flavorful "instinctive" ability that will sort of serve as a "capstone" for Naori's skillset(s), and a smattering of other abilities that would all key off of the ES mechanic. Those you'd have to figure out the limitations and possibilities of for yourselves, though unlike with Mangekyo Sharingan I wouldn't be keeping track of how often you take ES to use them.

It would also finally let Naori manipulate the other three basic elements without taking ES.

>>4553142
“So yeah… would it be easier for you if you could actually talk?”

Honoka frowns at you, puzzled, but nods.

“I use a reanimation technique that uses natural energy as a vessel to summon your soul into. It’s… less barbaric than the technique it’s based on.” you explain, quickly judging her response. “Would you be okay with that?”

After a few moments, she nods.

…

“How… bizarre,” Honoka-han muses once her body is finished assembling itself. “I… feel like I know you.”

“Uzumaki Naori,” you reintroduce yourself. “Some of your chakra was lingering here… it guided me to a log left by one of the researchers, and then to your… well...”

“To my body,” she guesses. “Or what was left of it… I’m beginning to remember a bit more, Naori-san.”

“That’s good,” you nod. “About this ‘ultimate summons’ that was created here… what is it, Honoka-han?”

“A monster among monsters,” Honoka tells you. “I’ll explain as we go.”

…

“No such thing could exist in the natural order,” she begins as you run towards the lab. “Every summoned creature has some balance of characteristics inherent to its form and nature. So our project began to modify existing creatures until we developed the chimera which you must have read about.”

“What are its abilities?” you ask.

“Its main ability is to incorporate the physiological characteristics of anything it consumes,” Honoka tells you, her tone grim. “That means it will be able to use genjutsu, lightning release, and wind release.”

“From the researchers.”

She nods. “That’s right. Koyama-san and Rikichi-san were the first to be consumed. It then proceeded to slaughter the others, eventually managing to wound me.”

“Fatally, as it turned out,” you mutter. “Anything else I need to know?”

“It can absorb incoming chakra as a defense,” she tells you, “and its body is highly malleable. It can also shift the locations of its vital organs inside its body.”
>1/2

>>4553987
Yes, that certainly would qualify it as a “monster” alright. It also sounds like a creature too dangerous to have been created in the first place, which would only have been salvaged as something usable if its nature were more inherently compliant. As it turned out the creature was anything but that, and because the researchers here created something too powerful for them to defeat, too slippery for Honoka-han to restrain, and too belligerent to be controlled, they paid for their mistake with their lives.

“Can it use senjutsu?”

The answer isn’t immediate, probably because Honoka is still trying to decide whether your asking means that what she may have already noticed really is that rare capability.

“No,” she informs you. “The research team had no subjects to sample that could use senjutsu chakra.”

“Then this should be a breeze,” you muse. “That being said stay on guard, and act when I give you the signal. You should know what to do to help me finish this thing off instinctively.”

>1d6, best of four
>DC 10
>SP: 5/6 (iirc)

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4553989
ROLL HIGH!

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4553989

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4553989

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>4553989

>>4553989
You arrive in the lab, an open space with a catwalk running around its perimeter one floor higher than the main floor. There’s leftover equipment lying around, mostly smashed, and a light coating of rust on the exposed metals.

“There’s still power?” you realize as you notice a green glow from what looks like a fluid storage tank recessed halfway into the floor. You want to get a good look at it, so you jump up to the catwalk.

Honoka walks towards a computer terminal. “It’s powered by geothermal energy… the generator must still be running on emergency power.”

You can see it now… the creature is massive, though at the moment it looks a little like a potato bathing in some sort of greenish goo. It seems like a lot of the power in this underground complex has been shifted to keep the pool active, and doing whatever it is that it does for the creature inside. Which means that if Honoka restarts the power…

You quickly throw out four hiraishin-marked kunai which hit the corners of the pool, and create four shadow clones that immediately take their positions.

“It’s coming on!” Honoka warns you as you hear a grinding noise from somewhere deeper in the mountain, which fades into a low thrum. “One of us must have triggered a motion sensor that booted the main generator!”

The creature in the pool stirs… then bursts from the pool.

“Senpō: Shikonbenjin!” your clones declare in unison, forming their hand seals and quickly erecting the barrier to contain the ‘ultimate’ summoning creature.

It’s at precisely this time that the group of mainly Konoha shinobi arrives through a tunnel, probably from the caldera of the volcano that powers this facility. It seems they managed to rescue Guy-sensei, and they’ve been joined by a giant spider and an orange centipede.

“Stay back!” Honoka shouts at the newcomers, led by Naruto who’s charging straight ahead. “It’s waking up!”

“I have it under control,” you insist, leaping down from the catwalk to stand next to Honoka. “I need your help, Honoka-han. Please head up the stairs to the front of the barrier.”

“This barrier...” Guy-sensei realizes with wide-eyed admiration. “It looks exactly like the Shisekikyōjin… but how can you use it with shadow clones?”

“It’s a sage art variation,” you admit. “But it’s essentially the same.”

“It’s based on our clan’s hiden,” Honoka-han realizes. “So you inherited it that strongly… had you been here...”

“I’d have been a child,” you admit. “For real, Honoka-han, don’t beat yourself up over this. Instead help me make it right this time.”

After a moment, she finds her resolve again. “Yes, Naori-san. I’ll do it!”
>2/3

>>4554025
She leaps to the front of the Shikonbenjin barrier, waiting for your signal.

“What’s the Shikisenbonwhatsit and what’s that thing in there doing?” Naruto demands. “And who’s the other redhead?”

“It’s trying to absorb the barrier,” Yugito-han realizes as the monster grows tentacles from what you’re going to call its ‘face’ to continue attacking the barrier. “Is that a problem?”

“Not at all,” you reply. “In fact the live bait helped speed things along… it should happen any second now...”

Sure enough, as the monster absorbs more natural energy than it knows how to handle, its tentacles and other limbs turn to stone.

“I get it!” Naruto realizes. “It’s like what I did to Pain that one time, it can’t handle senjutsu chakra!”

“It was designed to be the perfect summoning creature,” you grin wickedly at the irony, “but its mindless hunger’s going to be its downfall. Do it now, Honoka-han!”

You lower a small section of the barrier as Honoka stretches out her hand, and you both declare the technique’s name together.

“Gojō Kibaku Fūda!”

The constant stream of explosions is unrelenting, causing the barrier’s walls to flex and bow gently under their force as Honoka’s left arm disintegrates to fuel the technique, the constant regeneration supplying a near-inexhaustible supply of resources. Despite the speed of the regenerative effect there is a point where the rate of explosions becomes too high, but by this time the damage has been done.

Honoka-han extends her own Kongō Fūsa into the barrier, wrapping the smouldering fragments of the summoning beast inside the barrier even as they begin to regenerate themselves, and while the beast is still helpless Honoka seals it into an array on her belly. Her top is left tattered in a circle the size of a salad plate, and a spiral-crest appears around her navel.

She falls to one knee, but it seems like she’ll be… well, as ‘okay’ as someone who’s dead can be.

Your clones end their barrier technique and disappear while you go to Honoka’s side.

“… is it done?”

She nods quietly. “Finally, with your help… yes. This monster that should never have existed will disappear with me.”

“I’m glad you had a chance to settle things.”

After a moment, she rises to her feet with a calm smile. “Yes… I think I can rest easily now. Thank you so much, Naori-san.”

You place a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and send her off with a smile. “Goodbye, Honoka-han, and go in peace.”
>3/4

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>>4554031
There’s a brief white glow, and she shuts her eyes. Then her body simply crumbles away back into the nothingness you created it from as her soul finally passes on to the Pure Land. After a few moments of silence, you return to the stunned shinobi who watched all that unfold at the end.

“So, judging by her eyes...” Yugito-han mutters sadly. “I’m sorry.”

“She died,” you explain. “A long time ago. What you and Aoba-han saw was like an echo of a woman who was once real, and alive, but who couldn’t rest easily knowing that the monster that killed her and her comrades was still here.”

“She’s gone now, finally at rest. As it should be.”

“That’s incredible!” Guy-sensei declares tearfully. “You fought so hard to put that young woman’s soul to rest, how could a man not be moved to tears by such compassion!?”

“… she was from our clan, wasn’t she?” Naruto realizes.

You nod quietly. “Yeah.”

“What are you going to do now?” he asks you.

>I found her remains. I plan to give her a proper funeral before anything else.
>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.
>I don’t know. The Uzumaki clan’s status is a thorny issue to say the least.
>Other?

>>4554033
>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
>>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
>>I found her remains. I plan to give her a proper funeral before anything else.

>>4554033
>I found her remains. I plan to give her a proper funeral before anything else.
>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
>>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
>>I found her remains. I plan to give her a proper funeral before anything else.
>>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
>>I found her remains. I plan to give her a proper funeral before anything else.
>>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
>>I found her remains. I plan to give her a proper funeral before anything else.
>>Our clan has lost a lot of people like this. They all deserve a place to rest.

>>4554033
You take out the photo you found of Honoka… she’s smiling of course, but still.

“She obviously wasn’t mistreated while she was here,” you admit, “but a lot of our clan’s survivors met their end the same way she did. They all deserve to have a proper resting place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I plan to take Honoka-han’s remains to the shrine near your village,” you explain. “Seal her body into a scroll… if what I’ve read is right it’s an old tradition, since our ancestors had a tendency to seal things into their bodies the same way she did just now.”

“And if someone were to get hold of the body they could remove anything sealed into it,” Yamato-han nods in understanding. “I see the logic behind that.”

“Naori, are you thinking...” Naruto’s voice falters for a moment.

You think you know where he’s going with that. “Yeah, no, if Hiruzen-tono did the decent thing and buried them next to each other I wouldn’t even consider disturbing them. But if not, I’d offer.”

“Can you check with granny Fifth?” Naruto asks you with a frown. “And if they’re not...”

“I’ll let you know,” you offer.

He nods curtly. “Yeah. Thanks. I think it’d be a good gesture, y’know.”

You turn to Yugito-han. “You take care too, Yugito-han.”

“Right,” she agrees. “And for what it’s worth I’m sorry if I got your hopes up.”

You shake your head. “Either way you did well by me, and I won’t forget it. Thank you.”

…

Next you pursue some overdue business in Kusagakure, moving yourself to the marking you left with Ryūzetsu. When you explain the situation to her, and what you found on the island (leaving out the details of who it was that called you there), her expression darkens.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes earnestly. “I really am. Are you… okay?”

“I helped Honoka-han’s soul find peace,” you shake your head. “What I did do for her was the best I could, so while I might not be happy about it at least I’m satisfied in that.”

Ryūzetsu nods slowly in agreement. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Would you happen to be here for Zōsui?”

You readily admit to it. “Yeah, so I know it’s not my place to punish him. All I want to know is where he had Karin’s mother buried, before I even speak to her about all this. The last thing I want is for her to say she wants her mother reburied with some dignity then not be able to follow through on it.”
>1/2

>>4555345
Ryūzetsu seems to immediately understand. “He’s being held here on terrorism charges. Turns out the Fruit faction are mostly sore losers. I can have him taken to a secure interrogation cell.”

“I would appreciate it.”

“One more thing,” she adds. “I couldn’t care less what happens to him myself, but in my official capacity as warden I have to ask that he be alive when you leave the room.”

“A vegetable is technically alive,” you observe.

After a moment, she shrugs. “Technically correct, but I think you understand what I mean.”

“I do,” you confirm. “I’ll avoid causing you any trouble.”

…

Zōsui is a man with a receding line of black hair, and very dark eyes with irides of a slate grey color. He watches you with obvious disgust as you enter the room and sit across a metal table from him, where he’s been chained with his arms behind the back of a metal chair.

“So you’re the Uzumaki witch who took the girl,” he growls as Ryūzetsu leans against the back wall. “You caused me a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah, no, you expect me to feel pity for you?” you glare at him intently. “Did you ever feel even a shred of pity towards Karin, or towards her mother?”

“Of course not,” he replies flatly.

“And so here we are,” you muse. “Tell me where you buried her.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Zōsui insists, before spitting at you from across the table. The glob moves slowly enough that you have time to use water shape manipulation to reverse its direction, hitting him squarely between the eyes with it.

You weigh your options.

>“How many times would you guess that Karin and her mother were bitten on your watch?”
>“If you refuse to say anything I’ll be forced to take what I want. And I WON’T be gentle.”
>“What do you stand to gain by spiting that poor woman even after you tortured her to death?”
>Other?

>>4555348
>>“How many times would you guess that Karin and her mother were bitten on your watch?”

>>4555348
>lots and lots of intense genjutsu torture, right off the bat

>>4555348
>“How many times would you guess that Karin and her mother were bitten on your watch?”

>>4555348
>>4555370
I think we can just look into his mind with our eye hax. Meth spider jutsu on crack.

>>4555348
>“How many times would you guess that Karin and her mother were bitten on your watch?”

>>4555348
>>4555370
Supporting.

>>4555348
>“If you refuse to say anything I’ll be forced to take what I want. And I WON’T be gentle.”
>“What do you stand to gain by spiting that poor woman even after you tortured her to death?”

>>4555348
>>“If you refuse to say anything I’ll be forced to take what I want. And I WON’T be gentle.”
>>Activate sharingan for intimidation factor

>>4555348
“So yeah, how many times would you guess that Karin and her mother were brutalized on your watch?” you wonder aloud, catching Zōsui’s eye with one of yours.

He yelps loudly at the sudden pain in his wrist… a sharp, gnawing pain that goes straight to the bone before it eventually grows duller.

He glares at you. “What the hell was that?”

“Karma, perhaps?” you muse as you repeat the effect, making Zōsui feel as though he’s been bitten on the arm two more times. “How many times do you think they were bitten? A hundred times? A thousand? Ten thousand? When their arms weren’t enough did you switch to their legs?”

This time he cringes and grits his teeth, steeling himself against the phantom bite on his ankle.

“Maybe I’m not the right person to serve justice to you,” you admit, stopping the genjutsu there. “I’m not barbaric enough to do to you what you put them through, and out of respect for Ryūzetsu I’ve decided I won’t be taking your life.”

“So you’re a coward?” Zōsui accuses, still visibly unsettled by the experience.

“No, I just have principles,” you sigh. “Principles that won’t stop me from taking the information I need if you insist on continuing to spite my clan’s members for no good reason. But I’d hoped that wouldn’t be necessary if I put things in perspective for you… because you know as well as I do that’s only a fraction of what Karin’s mother endured.”

“What human being can honestly say after experiencing it that it’d be okay to inflict that kind of pain on a mother and child, who came to you looking for help?”

“If you’re looking for a bleeding heart you’re in the wrong place,” Zōsui insists. “So quit wasting my time.”

“… if you insist.”
>1d6, high roll
>taking the first three

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4556340
Whoopsie late posty.
I'll just give you the roll here.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4556340
bleed ya bastard!

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4556340

>>4556340
You find the information in seconds, but you’re not satisfied with that. Using the same sort of manipulation that you used on Ryūzetsu to teach her the sealing technique that made her the new warden of Hōzuki castle, you leave behind a little something to make however many years of Zōsui’s life he has left into a living hell.

“What did you do to him?” she asks when you finally release the man. He certainly does look worse for wear now that you’re finished with him.

“So three things are a part of him now,” you reply calmly. “The memory of how it felt to watch my mother drown in her own blood, the memory of seeing my best friend’s body brought home in a bag, and the feeling of pure disgust I feel towards him right now.”

“He’ll carry those memories with him like they’re his own, until he breathes his last. I’ve decided that should be his punishment.”

Ryūzetsu nods and gestures towards the door. “I understand. I’ll take care of this, then I can arrange an escort to where you need to go.”

…

You leave a shadow clone with Ryūzetsu and send one to find Karin, to explain to her what the current situation is. But the real you goes to Tsunade-han’s office with a question. You wait until she’s ready to speak with you, but when she is you don’t dance around the issue.

“Are Minato-han and Kushina-han buried next to each other?”

Tsunade frowns at you. “No, they’re not. Why do you ask?”

“I spoke with Naruto-kun earlier,” you explain. “I found the remains of another member of our clan, and since I’ll be giving them a proper treatment I thought to do the same for the others I know of: Karin’s mother, my mother, and Naruto-kun’s mother.”

“I see,” Tsunade nods curtly. “And so you want to move Kushina-san’s remains, is that right?”

“Naruto-kun and I also spoke about his father,” you admit. “We agree that it wouldn’t be inappropriate to bury them together.”

“You’re asking me if you can dig up the Fourth Hokage?” Tsunade leans wearily over her desk, resting her chin on her folded hands.

“I wouldn’t be the first,” you point out. “And the point is that this would make me the last.”

“True,” Tsunade admits. “I believe that it’s within the realm of propriety.”
>1/2

>>4556497
It’s fairly short-term notice, but the next day there’s actually a fairly large crowd gathered at the Uzumaki shrine. The dress code is black, the tone deliberately poised and dignified. Among the crowd are Yugito-han, Fū, and Karin, as well as Naruto and Sasuke. Those you expected. Kakashi-han you also could have anticipated since Minato-han was his sensei, and you invited Konan-sensei so the fact that she’s here you expected too. But you didn’t anticipate so many chūnin and jōnin from the village who you’ve never met.

Your clone rings the heavy bronze bell at the shrine to announce that the ceremony has begun. You yourself bring the scrolls into the sanctified grounds of the shrine in a locked box, and carry it into the honden. Your clone rings the bell again as you place each scroll behind a photograph of the deceased and a corresponding incense stand: once for Honoka-han, once for your mother Makoto, once for Karin’s mother, once for Kushina-han, once for Minato-han.

Then you ring the bell twice, before lighting a stick of incense and placing it on the stand for your mother. After taking a step back and clapping twice, you bow, offering a brief and silent prayer. Exactly what you feel in this moment isn’t for anyone else to know… that’s why it’s silent. Next you do the same for Honoka-han, since no one is left alive to do it for her.

Next, it’s Karin’s turn. She separates herself from her friends, and walks into the honden. She rings the bell, lights a stick of incense for her mother, and prays. You can tell even at a glance that she’s upset, but you can also tell that there’s a sense of closure there. Before she leaves you see her mouth the word she never got a chance to: ‘goodbye’.

Now, it’s Naruto-kun’s turn. He rings the bell, lights incense for each of his parents, and offers no prayer… but he does seem unusually contemplative about the situation.

The last to make an offering is Kakashi-han, who stands before his mentor’s new grave and silently offers his respects.

Once this is done you return, placing each of the scrolls into its own niche within the back wall of the honden, sealing script naming each in turn. Finally you place a barrier over the whole thing, and leave the honden, closing its doors behind you.

Your clone rings the bell, one final time.
>2/3

>>4556542
Yugito-han and Naruto-kun are obliged to return to where they were before coming here, which you do for them using hiraishin. But everyone else lingers, with the Konoha-nin filing their way out of the shrine a few at a time as they manage to either say something to Kakashi-han, or else offer their respects to the shrine on their own. Hinata-han left after speaking briefly and awkwardly with Naruto about something you couldn’t hear. Sakura-kun left shortly after that. Even Asuma-sensei has his turn to offer a short prayer, before being wheeled away by Kurenai-sensei in a wheelchair.

“I had no idea that Uzumaki traditions were so… sombre,” Sasuke-kun muses, having approached you while Karin and Fū talk quietly among themselves. Quiet… not a word you’d typically associate with Fū.

>My understanding is that it respects intense feelings, but is intended to keep those feelings private.
>I don’t know about all this. Who am I to say what traditions should and shouldn’t be followed?
>Thanks for coming. It’s good to see so many of Naruto’s friends here for this.
>Other?

>>4556552
>>My understanding is that it respects intense feelings, but is intended to keep those feelings private.
>>Thanks for coming. It’s good to see so many of Naruto’s friends here for this.

>>4556552
>>My understanding is that it respects intense feelings, but is intended to keep those feelings private.

>>4556554
>>4556552
supporting this

>>4556554
>>4556542
supporting

>>4556552
>My understanding is that it respects intense feelings, but is intended to keep those feelings private.
>Thanks for coming. It’s good to see so many of Naruto’s friends here for this.

>>4556552
>>4556554
this

>>4556552
>My understanding is that it respects intense feelings, but is intended to keep those feelings private.
>Thanks for coming. It’s good to see so many of Naruto’s friends here for this.

>>4556552
>>4556554
Supportang!

>>4556552
“Yeah no, it’s not like it prohibits intense feelings,” you muse, “it just keeps them private. I can appreciate the sentiment… my feelings about burying my mother, and of being the only one who could offer Honoka-han a decent burial, aren’t something to be widely shared.”

“It’s… deeply private.”

“I get that,” Sasuke admits quietly. “It’d be like you expecting me to eulogize my brother and my parents. I don’t think I could do it.”

“That being said,” you sigh, “it’s good to see Naruto’s friends showing up for him.”

“Actually, I wasn’t going to come,” Sasuke shakes his head. “I’m not the type to drop by unannounced and uninvited.”

“So who invited you?” you wonder.

“Karin-san did,” Sasuke admits to you. “And before you say anything, I know.”

“Good,” you reply curtly. “For real though, I’m saying it anyway: you break her heart, I break your knees.”

“I’ll… keep that in mind,” he replies tensely, understanding damn well that you mean it.

“See that you do.”
>1d6, taking the third roll only

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4557363

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4557363

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4557363

File: MV5BZjg5ZmRjNmEtMjA2MC00M(...).jpg (121 KB, 1920x1080)

121 KB JPG

>>4557363
Four weeks after the service, you find yourself called out to some unidentifiable town somewhere in the world by Naruto. It seems that his party has been wandering fairly aimlessly, and spent two of the last four weeks at sea, completely becalmed. But right now, Naruto appears to be dealing with problems of a very different sort.

“For real?” you sigh. “You’re calling on me to deal with your girl problems?”

“Quit jokin’ around here!” Naruto insists, “I’m serious, ya know!?”

“Okay, let’s pretend I’m taking this seriously,” you muse, gesturing to the ‘girl’ in question: a kunoichi with a black ponytail and bright green eyes, wearing a headband bearing a symbol you don’t think you’ve ever seen before. “What do you expect me to do about that? I can’t even get girls off my own back!”

“Wouldja just listen for a minute!” Naruto shouts. “She’s going after Jiraiya-sensei’s students, trying to find one to beat her so she can marry them!”

You look the young woman over once again. “Nadeshiko… am I right?”

“That’s correct,” she replies curtly. “I am Shizuka, and I’m the one who will become leader of Nadeshiko village. My mentor, the previous village head, made a promise with Jiraiya of the Sannin that one day their students would fight in the tradition of our village.”

“And the winner becomes your husband,” you recall. “If I’m remembering this right.”

“That’s right,” Shizuka nods. “I’m surprised you know of our traditions.”

“It’s a standout,” you admit, rubbing the back of your neck. “So no, yeah, I think I see what Naruto-kun was thinking here. I’m a former student of Jiraiya-sensei’s too, he helped me restore my clan’s lost hiden technique.”

“And?” Shizuka presses.

“So, Shizuka-han,” you muse, “if you fight me and win somehow, you’ve satisfied your mentor’s promise. If you fight me and lose, I can’t exactly be your husband, and so you’re free. Win or lose, your honor is satisfied.”

“It’s actually pretty clever, coming from Naruto-kun.”

>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.
>I’ll fight you, Shizuka-han, if you agree that regardless of the outcome you’ll be satisfied.
>Personally I think your tradition is stupid… for one thing there are many kinds of “strength”.
>Other?

>>4557676
>>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.

>>4557676
>>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.

>>4557676
>>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.

>>4557676
>>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.

>>4557676
>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.

>>4557676
>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.

>>4557676
>>But clever doesn’t quite cut it. Solve your own problems, Naruto-kun. It builds character.

>>4557676
>Personally I think your tradition is stupid… for one thing there are many kinds of “strength”.

>>4557676
>>Personally I think your tradition is stupid… for one thing there are many kinds of “strength”.
this side plot reminded me of Ranma

>>4557676
Your tradition is stupid

>>4557676
>>I’ll fight you, Shizuka-han, if you agree that regardless of the outcome you’ll be satisfied.

>>4557676
“Unfortunately, a clever dodge is still a dodge,” you muse. “Naruto-kun, I think you’re going to have to deal with your own problems yourself this time.”

“Shoulda guessed you wouldn’t be much help,” he grumbles. “Alright then, where are we going to do this?”

“There’s a spot not too far from here,” Shizuka declares. “A clearing in the woods.”

“Then let’s go,” Naruto stomps off down the street towards the edge of the small town he called you to. “Sooner it’s over the sooner we can move on.”

“You’d better not be planning on throwing our fight,” Shizuka warns him.

...

When you reach the clearing the fight begins almost instantly, with Shizuka taking the initiative with several handfulls of kunai thrown in tight clusters.

“Nadeshiko-ryu: Shinku Enbu!”

Naruto easily weaves his way between the clusters of flying daggers, his footwork light enough and coordinated enough to convince you that far from being the awkward brat he was when you first met him, he’s actually improved significantly. You guess Jiraiya-sensei must have actually taught him something after all, despite the fact that his skillset hasn’t noticeably changed over the years aside from the addition of senjutsu.

Shizuka seems to be suitably impressed as well, because she steps up her efforts. “Try this then – Enbu: Ni no Dan!”

Her body becomes a twisting blur of motion as she slings an even greater volume of kunai than before, probably releasing them from something along the lines of your own raiko kenka seals. Naruto manages to keep up with this escalation by using shadow clones to split her focus, giving him just enough time to react.

“Doesn’t she ever run out!?” Naruto protests. “This is even crazier than when Tenten gets mad!”

“So,” you mutter, “what will you do now?”

After throwing one last handful of kunai Shizuka changes her tactics, charging in with her hand raised and loaded with wind-nature chakra. “Nadeshiko-ryu: Koha Reppuken!”

At the last second however, an opening in the ground below reveals some sort of burrowing puppet, piloted by a sleazy looking man.

“I have you now, Shizuka-sama!” he cries out.

>Interfere.
>Don’t interfere.
>Other?

>>4558344
>>Interfere.

>>4558344
>Don’t interfere.

Nardo can't grow if we hold his hand

>>4558344
>>Don’t interfere.

>>4558344
>Interfere.
>Violently.

Nobody fucks with the honorable duel!

>>4558344
>interfere
its Narutos fight, that means both of them fight, no interference

>>4558344
>>Don’t interfere.

>>4558344
>Interfere.

OMAKE: BEACH DAY
You are Uzumaki Naori, a kunoichi from the village of Amegakure who in many ways has become the “indispensable woman”. As a sage who knows the hiraishin technique and who possesses a version of the reanimation technique it should come as no surprise that you’ve been rated by the five kages as one of the great war potentials for them to rely upon in the coming weeks. Indeed, having recently created the “Shikonbenjin” technique with the help of the long-dead Fourth Hokage, your potential goes beyond even what the five kages realize.

How could they truly understand, when the only one to ever see you fight did so years ago?

With that of course comes responsibilities. Paperwork, messages to deliver at near-instant speed between nations, training with the unit you’ve been tasked with leading back and forth across the world to put out fires too hot for regular shinobi forces to handle., and even the recovery and burial of members of your Uzumaki clan. All while still making time to keep to your self-imposed social obligations, being a good sister to Karin and Fū and a good friend to Ajisai of course being high on that list of obligations.

That lifestyle has, admittedly, taken something of a toll. And so it’s no wonder that you’d be called out on it sooner or later.

“What?” you reply, having barely heard the original comment.

You’ve come here for… some reason. You’re sure that you had a reason, but right now it’s escaping you. You can only trust that it made sense at the time.

“I said you look terrible,” Ryūzetsu repeats herself. “Like you’ve run yourself ragged… with your inhuman stamina I don’t even want to know what that took.”

“Yeah no, I appreciate your concern,” you shake your head. “But...”

“But nothing,” Ryūzetsu interrupts. “Come to the lake with me, Naori. Relax for a few hours. Prove to me that you know how.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now!” she insists. “I was planning to go anyway, to buy a new swimsuit. This just gives me an excuse… hell, if it gets you to relax I’ll buy you one too. So what do you say?”

…

With her being that adamant about it, bordering on actual, genuine enthusiasm, it’s hard to argue with Ryūzetsu. And so you end up letting her take you away from Hozuki castle, although you borrow Nyoka-han’s wings to do it more rapidly. This also gives the great bird an opportunity to spread her wings on the warm afternoon air, flying over the sparkling clear waters of the lake below which grows calm the further you get from the castle, until she drops you off at a small town on the far side. Here earth meets water in a long, sandy strip of beach, with little waves coming in off the lake and shady trees growing right up to the edge of the sand.
>1/4

File: Ryuzetsu_V.png (750 KB, 1191x1352)

750 KB PNG

>>4558657
“What a perfect day,” you muse.

“I told you this was a good idea,” Ryūzetsu smirks, gesturing toward a shop within sight of the lakefront. “This one looks nice.”

Inside Ryūzetsu takes her time to choose a swimsuit… you gather she hasn’t had one for a long time, and so she picks out a few to decide between. Eventually, after holding one or the other up for your judgment, she selects a dark purple two-piece number, since you talked her out of the green one. Honestly you’d say that purple plays better with her complexion, hair, and eyes than green does.

“Now for you,” Ryūzetsu insists, with a tone of near-professionality. “I was thinking...”

“A competition single-piece,” you offer your own thoughts, quickly selecting a competition swimsuit in white, gold, and black, which compliments both your long red hair and your strong complexion. “So yeah, I think this suits me.”

“That was decisive,” she muses, a little surprised at your immediate selection.

…

She seems to change her tune once she sees you in it.

“Hi,” you muse. “You okay there?”

“You were right,” she admits, clearly trying hard not to stare. “Modesty does suit you.”

“Though you’d never hear me say it,” you quip with a smirk.

You leave your towels hung from a low tree branch, and walk out onto the water to avoid stubbing your toes on the rocks that collect right around the waterline. Eventually the bottom of the lake drops away, so you stop running chakra into the soles of your feet and fall in. The water is crisp and cool, but at least near the surface it’s been warmed by the sun to a perfectly civil temperature.

For a while you’re content to simply float, letting your long red hair drift idly around your head and shoulders. As you do, you also let your own mind wander as the tension slowly leaves your body.

“I knew this would be good for you,” Ryūzetsu muses as she floats next to you.

It’s a relaxing, albeit unfamiliar, feeling as you swim around idly in the lake water. The smooth, tepid movement across your skin, pressing in on all sides yet yielding easily as you pass, almost like bathing in a hot spring but much more active and mobile.
>2/4

File: Naori_Beach.png (498 KB, 551x850)

498 KB PNG

>>4558671
After some time, it could have been twenty minutes or two hours, you return to shore and lay out your towel so that you can rest in the sun to dry. Not long later, Ryūzetsu joins you.

“Thanks, Ryūzetsu-han,” you sigh. “I needed that… or at least, something like that.”

“I’ll be back in a second,” she offers.

When she returns, you find that she’s bought a couple of cans from a nearby convenience store: yuzu-flavored Chuhai, a lightly-alcoholic soda made from flavored shochu and sparkling water. It’s very refreshing, and just alcoholic enough to be considered ‘social drinking’ without really running any risk of intoxication. At least, not with just one or two.

“I’d like to ask you something,” Ryūzetsu muses, as you both sip at your drinks in your swimwear, relaxing in the warm sunshine. “How would you feel if I said I found a way to join you on the battlefield?”

“And not risk releasing your prisoners?” you ask. “How did you manage that?”

“My clan does have a kekkei genkai,” Ryūzetsu admits, pointing to the unusual eyes which you’ve chosen never to ask her about out of courtesy before taking a drink. “It’s called the Ryūmei… my soul isn’t bound quite as tightly to my body as a normal person’s is.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” you admit.

She nods once. “The technique I was taught using it involves removing our soul and transferring it into someone else… to trade one life for another.”

“A total transfer of life force,” you muse. “There’s a reincarnation technique I’ve heard of that’s similar.”

She nods quietly. “That’s right. I never thought much of a kekkei genkai that lets you die for someone else… anyone can do that with enough training, and there was only ever one person growing up I thought that maybe I would be willing to use it for.”

“A close friend?” you ask. “Yeah… I know I’ve never asked.”

“Muku,” she explains. “The son Mui sacrificed to try to open the Box of Paradise.”

“I’m sorry,” you reply quietly. “That’s… the reason I never asked you about it.”

Ryūzetsu shakes her head. “Don’t apologize. I’m telling you about this now because I want to.”

“So yeah… you mentioned wanting to fight in the coming battles,” you muse. “I’m willing to bet that’s why you’re telling me this now?”

Ryūzetsu confirms it with a nod. “After meeting you, I started to think about it differently… I wondered if maybe I could learn to use the Ryūmei not to die, but to live for someone I care about.”

“And you found a way?”

“I call it the Ryūmei Ikiryō.”
>3/4

>>4558676
“The ‘living ghost’,” you frown. “What did you do?”

“I learned how to manifest part of my soul outside my own body,” she carefully explains. “I can use that to possess a living body… or a similar vessel… without sacrificing my own life.”

“… like a senjutsu vessel,” you realize. “That was what you had in mind, wasn’t it?”

“You summon souls into that sort of vessel all the time,” Ryūzetsu observes. “And a soul is intangible. It can be blocked, but not harmed.”

You shake your head. “Why would you go that far?”

“For the same reason I brought you here,” she reasons, almost as if answering the question for her own benefit as much as for yours. “I’ll admit… I don’t know if I love you. I can’t even say whether I loved Muku before I lost him. But I do still blame myself a little for not being able to help him when he needed me.”

“So what I do know is that I want to be at your side, if you’ll have me… especially when it counts, like in this war we’re all anticipating.”

It doesn’t take long for you to decide how you feel.

“Yeah, no… I won’t stop you,” you reply calmly. “If you think that this is what you need to do, of course I’ll support you… and I’ll be glad to have the help.”

With a small smile, Ryūzetsu nods in agreement. “Thank you, Naori-san.”

“Of course, Ryūzetsu-han.”
>4/4

>>4558344
>Interfere

>>4558680
Great girl, 10/10

>>4558344
>Interfere.

>>4558344
>>Don’t interfere.

>>4558344
>Interfere

>>4558344
>1d6, best three of four
>High roll

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4559429

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4559429

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4559429

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>4559429

>>4559429
You don’t hesitate in the slightest to use violent force. This is after all supposed to be a fair fight, and while you refuse to solve Naruto’s problems for him you also aren’t about to let this become an unfair fight, skewed in either direction.

There’s barely enough time for you to get a good look at the mechanical puppet you’re destroying aside from the fact that it has two large claws, kind of like a crab, and that its pilot is sitting in an open cockpit at the top. That’s because almost as soon as you see it you’re already destroying it, having drawn Umekiri and slashed it clean in half with your first stroke. You cut off its claws, cut the claws into pieces, remove its legs, and destroy what you think is its internal control system of levers controlled by chakra threads.

The slick-haired pilot is left sitting in the dirt surrounded by various-sized chunks of puppet all around him, dust obscuring the view from behind his half-rim glasses and dirtying his purple suit coat.

Umekiri’s faint metallic tic as you return her to her saya catches his attention, and he seemingly begins to understand only in that moment what just happened.

“That’s… unreal,” he stares at you.

“Yeah no, what’s unreal is that you ever thought a technique like that would work,” you counter, pressing the invisible chakra ‘pin’ that ended up in one of your tenketsu after you destroyed the puppet. The small gesture and a little bit of your own chakra forces the intrusive chakra out instantly. “For real, a juinjutsu that takes losing to the same opponent multiple times without dying is such a dumb idea it’s physically painful.”

“How many times have you beaten this guy, Shizuka-han?”

“I lost track around eighty?” she admits.

“Ninety-nine!” the stranger exclaims. “This hundredth was to be the final...”

“It took you a hundred?” you muse. “Sasori-han could’ve done it in five. Even Kankuro-kun probably could’ve managed with thirty-two.”

“Who the heck is this guy anyway?” Naruto demands.

“He’s Kokuyō,” Shizuka-han explains, “a puppeteer who keeps attacking me. He’s after leadership over Nadeshiko village.”

“Sounds like a bit of a bastard,” you muse. “Trying to marry for politics, over your objections.”

“Where have I heard that before?” Naruto grumbles, shooting a glance at Shizuka-han.

Shizuka, for her part, looks almost as if Naruto has slapped her. “That… does sound familiar.”

“Want me to get rid of this guy?” Naruto asks, cracking his knuckles ominously as Kokuyō scuttles away on his hands and knees.
>1/2

>>4559811
“No,” Shizuka-han sighs. “Let him run. I wouldn’t ask you to lower yourself to attacking an unarmed man.”

“That being said...” you muse, walking over to Shizuka-han and flowing your chakra into her body. The process pops several dozen ‘shards’ of Kokuyō’s chakra out of Shizuka’s body, causing her to cringe in momentary pain before the sensation ends as abruptly as it began.

“I admire your restraint, but I’d suggest not sparing him ninety-nine more times if you don’t want a repeat of this mess.”

“… I’ll keep that in mind,” she replies warily. “As I will what Naruto-san said.”

“That’s good,” Naruto-kun declares. “That tradition of yours sounds really dumb… you shouldn’t have to marry anyone just cause of some promise Pervy Sage made before we were even born. Besides… I’ve already got someone, back in Konoha ya know.”

“You’ve gotta know what that’s like, right?”

“And… you too?” Shizuka-han asks you curiously.

“It’s complicated,” you shrug. “But yes, I think?”

Shizuka sighs dramatically. “Yeah, I suppose that is naturally the way things go, isn’t it? He said something like that.”

“He...” Naruto begins before you shush him.

You spare a glance at Shizuka-han, who eventually offers you and Naruto a curt nod. “I think I understand… my apologies for the trouble.”

>You can apologize by opening a standing dialogue between your village and mine.
>That’s fine. there’s no harm, so there’s no foul so far as I’m concerned.
>Tell me one thing. If we'd fought, and I'd beaten you, WOULD you have married me?
>Other?

>>4559850
>You can apologize by opening a standing dialogue between your village and mine.

this but in a less... standoffish way?

>>4559850
>>You can apologize by opening a standing dialogue between your village and mine.

>>4559850
>>You can apologize by opening a standing dialogue between your village and mine.

>>4559850
>>You can apologize by opening a standing dialogue between your village and mine.

>>4559850
>You can apologize by opening a standing dialogue between your village and mine.
but more in a... "hey we let's talk sometime" kind of way

>>4559850
>>That’s fine. there’s no harm, so there’s no foul so far as I’m concerned.
>>4559891
Supporting

>>4559850
>Tell me one thing. If we'd fought, and I'd beaten you, WOULD you have married me?
>You can apologize by opening a standing dialogue between your village and mine.

>>4559850
>>That’s fine. there’s no harm, so there’s no foul so far as I’m concerned.
>>Tell me one thing. If we'd fought, and I'd beaten you, WOULD you have married me?

>>4559850
“Yeah, no… so far as I’m concerned no harm done,” you shrug. “But I do think it’s in our shared interest if our villages opened a dialogue.”

Shizuka narrows her eyes slightly. “Oh?”

You raise your hands. “Just to talk… several nations and villages send their views and any grievances to the Five Kages through me already. It… could prevent something stupid from happening to your village in the future.”

“I can see there’s some advantage to that,” Shizuka admits. “Okay. I agree.”

You flip out a hiraishin kunai and hand it to her handle-first. “Hang onto this. I’ll contact you at a slightly better time.”

“… this is...” she begins to realize what she’s holding. “Okay. I’ll hold onto this.”

…

The next week is a nuisance.

Your own preparations have gone smoothly and efficiently as you could have expected, but the rest of the alliance’s forces are still taking shape. On the one hand you do realize that you’re talking about eighty thousand people in nine different countries at last count, but on the other hand you’re surprised at how little clout jōnin of the various participating nations actually have with their new subordinates in a lot of cases.

Kakashi, Temari, and other similarly well-known shinobi can command enough respect to get the process started immediately, while in other cases it’s more a question of brute force. Kurotsuchi-han for example is forced to put several of her unit in their respective places before they’ll listen to her.

There’s a small breakthrough when you learn that Ryūzetsu can have half her soul slip into your body using the Ryūmei Ikiryō technique, though you also learn that there’s a limit to how much she can force a person’s body to act against their will in such a weakened state. As expected, there are tradeoffs.

One morning you’re called into Tsunade’s office and she gives you a quick report.

“Team Kakashi has been sent to Tonika village,” Tsunade-han explains to you. “They’ve requested backup, and since we can’t spare any more shinobi right now you’re it.”

“Did they say why they needed help?” you wonder aloud. “Also… so yeah, who’s even on Kakashi’s team right now?”

“Sai, Sakura, and Sasuke,” Tsunade clarifies. “Team Guy will be able to go there as well, but they’ll take another twenty-four hours. And if Kakashi has requested backup, the situation is likely one that requires immediate action.”

>I’ll grab Guren-han and go there immediately after.
>I’ll just go now. Sasuke and Sai should have hiraishin markings on them.
>I’m going to go by air. There’s no telling what the situation might be like on the ground.
>Other?

>>4560815
>>I’ll just go now. Sasuke and Sai should have hiraishin markings on them.

>>4560815
>I’ll grab Guren-han and go there immediately after.

>>4560815
>I’ll just go now. Sasuke and Sai should have hiraishin markings on them.

>>4560815
>>I’ll grab Guren-han and go there immediately after.

>>4560815
>I’ll just go now. Sasuke and Sai should have hiraishin markings on them.
If it's something we can't handle then it's probably obito himself, and i'm guessing it ain't

>>4560815
>I’ll grab Guren-han and go there immediately after.

>>4560815
>>I’ll just go now. Sasuke and Sai should have hiraishin markings on them.

>>4560815
>1d6, first four considered
>DC 10

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>4561181

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4561181

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4561181

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4561181

>>4561181
You pick Kakashi-han out of the three of them, if for no other reason than that he’s still officially the leader of that particular team. But when you appear next to him, something strikes you as distinctly off for just a split second. It’s a feeling you haven’t noted for quite some time, one you’re not used to.

By the time you realize that it’s bloodlust it’s gone again.

“So you finally got here,” Sasuke muses nearby.

Sakura seems less than thrilled to see you. “Really, this is Tsunade-sama’s idea of ‘backup’? What could she be thinking...”

“The situation here has gotten somewhat out of control,” Kakashi-han informs you before you can completely eviscerate Sakura for her lousy attitude. “We were about to deliver our preliminary report to Disonasu-san here, so you came at just about the right time.”

“Disonasu?” you repeat with a frown.

“The village head of Hachō,” Sasuke informs you. “The village we were sent here to investigate was destroyed, its ruins are nearby.”

“The survivors fled here,” Sai adds.

“What we found in the ruins of Tonika village was Yakushi Kabuto,” Kakashi-han tells you. “That was twelve hours ago.”

“You engaged?” you press.

Kakashi-han nods curtly. “I called you here for a specific reason, being that Kabuto was using resurrected pawns… as lady Fifth warned us he might be planning to. But one of them is a problem.”

“How so?” you frown.

“My recollection is that you took the Akatsuki member Hidan’s head,” Kakashi-han tells you. “And that he’s still alive.”

“So yeah, that must mean you fought… some version of him?” you guess.

Kakashi-han nods in confirmation. “That’s right.”

“Deidara too,” Sasuke adds. “Though I know for a fact that he’s dead.”

“And not happy to see you,” Sai muses with a smile. “I don’t think he likes you.”

“Thanks, Sai,” Sasuke grumbles. “I gathered that.”

The way Sakura is glaring at Sasuke tells you that she’s not really a fan of his right now either… which come to think of it, you have a sneaking suspicion as to the reason for that.
>1/2

>>4561829
“Can you tell me anything else?” you ask this village head… an older man with a long grey beard and narrow eyes, seemingly creased above and below with customary frown lines. He also wears a brown cloth that covers his head. “About what happened here, I mean?”

“I’m afraid not, young lady,” Disonasu replies calmly. “I was not a firsthand witness to any of these events, so I’m certain others in the village would be better able to tell you what you wish to know.”

Not a sign of what you felt from him before.

You spare Kakashi-han a glance, but he doesn’t show any tells either. If he also sensed what you did he’s keeping just as tightly-controlled a facade as Disonasu.

>One more question… why do you want to kill me so badly that I can feel it?
>Excuse yourself, but speak with Kakashi about what you’re suspecting later.
>Excuse yourself, take a look around the village. Confirm your suspicions.
>Other?

>>4561831
>>One more question… why do you want to kill me so badly that I can feel it?

>>4561831
>>One more question… why do you want to kill me so badly that I can feel it?

>>4561831
>>One more question… why do you want to kill me so badly that I can feel it?

>>4561831
>One more question… why do you want to kill me so badly that I can feel it?

>>4561831
>One more question… why do you want to kill me so badly that I can feel it?

>>4561831
>>One more question… why do you want to kill me so badly that I can feel it?

>>4561831
“So yeah, I have just one more question,” you admit. “Why is it you want to kill me so badly I can feel it?”

There’s a noticeable pause before Disonasu recovers. “I have a history with Akatsuki. They destroyed the village I lived in before making my way here.”

“What village?” you ask calmly, continuing before he can make up another answer. “When did it happen? What member of Akatsuki was it that attacked you? Were there any other survivors who can corroborate your story?”

After a few moments, Disonasu drops the pretense and attacks you with a kusari-gama that emerges from his right sleeve. You draw Umekiri and parry its handle, yielding slightly with a slashing movement to avoid letting him yank it out of your hand when he draws his sickle-blade back.

“Be careful,” you caution the others, “his weapons are poisoned.”

“Great,” Kakashi-han muses. “Here I was going to let things play out a little more before I made something of this.”

“So you did both notice,” Sasuke mutters. “I wasn’t sure there for a moment.”

A chain, weighted by a pointed metal head on one end, drops from Disonasu’s other sleeve. “I never was any good at playing a part, especially one so dumb as that.”

“How much of what you’ve told us was true?” Sakura demands.

“One key point,” Disonasu admits as he seems to quickly stretch his old muscles. “I despise Akatsuki, ever since Pain bested me some years ago. That momentary slip-up must’ve been what gave me away I take it?”

“Pretty much immediately,” you confirm. “Kakashi-han, these three are your team, for the time. I’ll take the lead.”

“We’ll go with formation C,” Kakashi declares, and his subordinates open up some space.

The man’s style is certainly effective, using the chain sickle at an unusual range in wide, sweeping attacks mixed with straight ‘jabs’ with the weighted chain. He alternates them carefully to give you a false impression that the attacks are sharing the same length of chain, so that when he swings the sickle-blade down and you parry with the metal end cap of Umekiri’s hilt he can make a sudden attack with the weight. That attack is easily parried with the Tenryushi.

“He’s using a summoning-based technique,” you declare as you ready both your blades. “It’s like the Sen’ei Jashu used by the snake clan.”

“Is that so?” Sasuke muses. “Kakashi-sensei… I have a plan.”
>1/2

>>4562129
You draw another attack, and Sasuke sets his plan into motion. Streaming his chidori through a series of senbon, Sasuke pins Disonasu’s kusari-gama to the ground while Sai uses his ink to pin the weighted chain. Meanwhile Kakashi creates a shadow clone and links their two chidori in a stream, meaning to slice Disonasu in half while he’s anchored to the ground.

That’s why he releases the chains from his sleeves and vaults over the cable, only to find Sakura closing in on him as he’s in midair. That’s the only way she’d be able to hit him… when he literally can’t dodge. But he’s not out of tricks, and so you have to use origami shuriken to hit the new chain weapons so that Sakura can get past them and land a blow that just about caves Disonasu’s chest in.

He lands on the end of your sword, Umekiri’s point severing his spine and emerging from his chest as the tsuba stops his body.

You make sure that he’s dead by plunging Umekiri into his neck at the base of his skull, and giving it a little twist. Then you clean the blade and return her to the saya with a reversed grip movement.

“Did you have to kill him?” Sakura protests with a frown.

You nod. “Considering he’s probably the one who destroyed the village you came here to investigate yes. I’d rather not leave him to cause trouble for us later while we’re investigating Kabuto.”

“Do you really expect he’s still around?” Kakashi-han muses.

Sai offers his own thoughts. “I doubt it. He most likely won’t show his face here again.”

>My guess is he left some of his ‘pawns’ behind. Fighting them and determining what they are is why I’m here.
>I think you’re right, Sai. I’m not sure what Kabuto was here to accomplish but it’s probably no longer worth it.
>In any event, my hands are somewhat bound. I don’t want to risk showing him the techniques I developed specifically to counter him.
>Other?

>>4562131
>if kabuto was here, he probably left some traces behind. we should search the village thoroughly.

let's see how well kabuto can hide his tracks against three mangekyo users

>>4562131
>>My guess is he left some of his ‘pawns’ behind. Fighting them and determining what they are is why I’m here.
lets proceed carfully, i don't want to give him any more information about my abilities

>>4562131
>My guess is he left some of his ‘pawns’ behind. Fighting them and determining what they are is why I’m here.

>>4562131
>My guess is he left some of his ‘pawns’ behind. Fighting them and determining what they are is why I’m here.
Snake clone Hidan, right?

>>4562131
>>My guess is he left some of his ‘pawns’ behind. Fighting them and determining what they are is why I’m here.

>>4562131
>>I think you’re right, Sai. I’m not sure what Kabuto was here to accomplish but it’s probably no longer worth it.

>>4562131
“Yeah no, I’d be willing to bet Kabuto is gone,” you admit, “but I’d also be willing to bet that he left some of his pawns behind. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To determine what technique he was using?”

“That’s about the size of it,” Kakashi-han confirms.

“Then with your approval I’d like Sakura-kun to remain here,” you suggest.

Sakura glares at you. “And why’s that?”

“You’re a medical ninja,” you point out. “I want you to identify the poison this man was using on his weapons...”

One of the locals, armed with a military-style sabre, approaches the scene of your brief battle… the only one of several adult witnesses who’s come forward. Her hand waits at the hilt of her sword. Dark hair, curvaceous, with full lips… but also a few visible scars, and a bearing that tells you she’s trained in swordsmanship.

“… the more we know about that,” you continue, “the easier it will be to figure out who this man was, where he came from, and whether he has any associates to worry about. It’d also be better for someone experienced in toxicology to deal with removing those weapons.”

“And you’re sure it’s not just that you don’t want me around?” Sakura accuses.

You shake your head. “I don’t consider you my friend, so I have no reason to tread lightly around your feelings. I’m asking you to stay behind because I think it’s in the interests of the mission.”

“I agree,” Kakashi-han nods curtly. “Sakura-kun, we need to know what we’re dealing with… anyone that might be connected to this ‘Disonasu’ character might also be allies of Kabuto.”

After considering her sensei’s position, Sakura relents, turning to the swordswoman who approached your group. “Shiseru-san, I’ll need some basic tools to set up a makeshift lab. Can you help me with that?”

The woman nods, still watching you warily. “I’m certain I can make some arrangements.”

“Good,” Sakura replies curtly, before gesturing to the fallen shinobi. “And I’d like you to take that too. I’ll handle the weapons, just to be on the safe side.”

…

“Were you too hard on her, I wonder?” Sai muses as Kakashi-han leads your makeshift team towards the destroyed village they were sent to investigate.

“What makes you say that?” you ask.
>1/2

>>4563114
“This has to do with her recent change in attitude, does it not?”

“You can come out and say it,” you shrug. “Sasuke and Karin went on a date.”

“Yes, that,” Sai admits.

“It has nothing to do with that,” you insist curtly. “It’s not my place to intervene in anyone’s private lives.”

“Unless it’s my knees,” Sasuke observes.

“Right,” you admit. “Unless it’s his knees.”

“Well then,” Kakashi-han muses, “how do we go about this?”

>I draw out his pawns. He’s bound to be as interested in my techniques as we are in his.
>We should move in carefully. Observe the situation, look for any signs of what he was here for.
>A good saturation bombing usually provokes a response.
>Other?

>>4563140
>>We should move in carefully. Observe the situation, look for any signs of what he was here for.

>>4563140
>We should move in carefully. Observe the situation, look for any signs of what he was here for.

>>4563140
>>We should move in carefully. Observe the situation, look for any signs of what he was here for.

>>4563140
>>We should move in carefully. Observe the situation, look for any signs of what he was here for.

>>4563140
>>We should move in carefully. Observe the situation, look for any signs of what he was here for.

>>4563140
>>A good saturation bombing usually provokes a response.

>>4563140
Oh dear. Somebody please just put Sakura out of her misery.

To be fair, Karin doesn’t do much in canon either, and has almost exactly the same kind of shallow interest in Sasuke. A shame the mangaka wasn't better at writing that sort of thing.

>>4563140
>>A good saturation bombing usually provokes a response.

File: 44411751.jpg (679 KB, 1800x1350)

679 KB JPG

>>4563140
“We should move carefully,” you decide. “Observe the situation when we get there, and once we secure the site try to find any evidence of why he came here in the first place.”

“Agreed,” Kakashi-han nods curtly. “For a second there I was concerned you’d start by saturation-bombing the whole area to drive them out.”

“Yeah no, too much like Deidara,” you admit. “Though the thought did cross my mind.”

“Do you know anything like the Tōton jutsu, or the Meisaigakure?” Kakashi asks you.

“I mainly use the Kirisamegakure,” you admit. “Yeah… I find the synergy with my other techniques usually makes it the better choice.”

“Sasuke-kun?”

Sasuke shakes his head to answer Kakashi’s question. “Sorry. Say what you will about Orochimaru, but at least the man had the good sense not to teach me any infiltration techniques.”

“Sai-kun?”

Sai frowns slightly. “I used the Meisaigakure technique while part of Root, but that technique is spoiled in the rain.”

“Yeah no,” you muse. “That’s why it’s not taught in Amegakure… and why I’m careful about summoning rain while trying to work with others. If you were a team from Ame there’d be no trouble.”

“Sai, remind me,” Kakashi-han muses thoughtfully. “Your ink isn’t water-soluble, right?”

“I can fly in the rain if that is what you mean to ask,” Sai confirms.

“Then that’s the plan,” you declare.

…

You let Sasuke and Sai take to the skies before summoning Nyoka.

“We need some rain to use as cover,” you inform her. “Please.”

“That will not be a problem,” Nyoka agrees. “Are we likely to see combat?”

“Yes,” you admit. “I think we should be prepared to use that technique.”

“This one understands,” Nyoka tells you before taking to the skies.

“What did you mean by ‘that’ technique?” Kakashi-han enquires.

“A combination ninjutsu,” you clarify. “The Ō-Amehōsō. Not something that Kabuto would know about, but not something I’d mind showing if he uses Deidara to force the issue.”
>1/2

>>4564088
The ruins of the town are dramatic in their destruction… most of the frames of the buildings are nothing more than charred skeletons, filled in with cracked roofing tiles. The odd brick chimney or open hearth is still visible here and there. It’s hard to say anything about what once stood here.

“Well, lookit what we’ve got here!” a familiar voice greets you as Hidan steps out from behind a chimney. “It’s been a long time since I saw you last, Naori. You look different, you change your hair or somethin’?”

So he knows you’re here without being able to see you? That’s strange, you never knew Hidan to be so observant. In fact your memory of him was that he was the biggest idiot out of the Akatsuki, by far. It would be strange that he can suddenly tell you’re here now just because he’s been reanimated.

>Sneak attack. Try to take off his head.
>Use the wave transmission technique to communicate with Kakashi.
>Wait and observe. The next move might be bringing Deidara out.
>Other?

>>4564112
>>Use the wave transmission technique to communicate with Kakashi.
>>Wait and observe. The next move might be bringing Deidara out.

>>4564112
>>Use the wave transmission technique to communicate with Kakashi.
>>Wait and observe. The next move might be bringing Deidara out.

>>4564112
>Use the wave transmission technique to communicate with Kakashi.
>Kabuto might still be around, or at least he's observing us somehow because he knows i'm here.
>Wait and observe. The next move might be bringing Deidara out.

>>4564112
>>>Use the wave transmission technique to communicate with Kakashi.
>>>Wait and observe. The next move might be bringing Deidara out.

>>4564112
>Use the wave transmission technique to communicate with Kakashi.
>Wait and observe. The next move might be bringing Deidara out.

>>4564112
You decide that this definitely isn’t sitting right… it’s just too suspicious that Hidan evidently knows you’re here despite your precautions. So instead of preparing to fight, you signal your intentions to Kakashi-han through the wave transmission method, using the ground as the medium for transmission.

Kakashi-han, Hidan isn’t a sensor at all. There’s no way he should know that I’m here. I say we should wait and observe, see if we can get Kabuto to tip any more of his hand.

Kakashi-han, for his part, has only to do as you suggest to signal his agreement to your plan. And so, you wait.

After a few moments, maybe a full minute, Hidan starts to lose his patience. “Wow, fuckin’ rude. Come out here so I can kill ya, bitch!”

Hidan starts to swing his three-bladed scythe around on its cable, smashing through what little is still left of the village. But you have to admit, it’s a little surprising that he didn’t swing it at you. If he knew where you were you’d have expected him to swing that scythe at you in a way that it actually stood any chance of hitting you, but that’s not what he’s doing.

He must only know that we’re in the area, you suggest to Kakashi-han. I can also tell he’s not an Edo Tensei. This is some other technique.

“I’m gettin’ real fuckin’ tired of this!” Hidan shouts with a loud crash of his scythe.

After another minute or two, a wooden coffin emerges from the dirt behind Hidan, who glares at it like he hates it. The lid of that coffin falls off, and Deidara steps out of it.

“Oh, it’s you,” Deidara frowns at Hidan. “What the hell are we supposed to be doing here?”

“Naori’s slinkin’ around here someplace,” Hidan declares, leaning his scythe against one shoulder. “Not sure where exactly but she’s here.”

“Naori-san, huh?” Deidara muses. “So we’re being used to buy time then, hm? Jeez, what a pain… and all because of some little nerd who worked for Orochimaru.”

“You have any idea how to drag that little bitch out of hiding?” Hidan demands. “Don’t hold out on me now, I know the kinda shit you’re into.”

“Well,” Deidara admits, his right hand coughing up clay that transforms into a bird.

C1, you tell Kakashi. Though I have a feeling he’s going to escalate to C3 pretty quickly if we let him.

>I think we should let him. Nyoka and I can snipe his C3 bomb before it goes off, so you attack Hidan in that moment.
>I think we should launch a coordinated attack to hit them both before Deidara leaves the ground.
>You make an attack. I’ll wait for an opportune moment to counterattack using Hiraishin, take one out so we can focus on the other.
>Other?