>>5043107
In the moment of awkwardness, Mei-tono makes her move. “Yōton: Yōkai no Jutsu!”

Hiruko reaches up towards the superheated flowing lime, and the attack swirls and compresses into his palm – a chakra absorption technique? Paper tags wrap his outstretched wrist as Konan-sensei jumps in as well, forcing the missing ninja to use his evasive technique again, whisking himself away to another spot and leaving the acidic lava to melt a hole in the floor.

So he can’t use both of those techniques at the same time, and his evasive technique isn’t automatic. Both useful things to know when forming a strategy.

“You’re quite good at running away,” Konan-sensei muses, having used the moment when Hiruko disengaged to entangle his subordinates in paper. “Now, what will you do?”

“Those three lost to one target without even finishing their techniques,” Hiruko observes in a wry tone. “Do whatever you wish with them. It’s clear they weren’t up to the only task I had intended for them.”

>His evasive technique requires him to activate it – so counter it with the Tsubamegiri.
>Force him to absorb another attack, and take advantage of the opening it creates.
>Terumi-tono can probably introduce a mist into Hiruko’s body – give her the opening.
>Other?

>>5043109
>Bind him with the kongo fusa, then place weighted seals all over his body

>>5043109
>>Force him to absorb another attack, and take advantage of the opening it creates.

>>5043109
>Force him to absorb another attack, and take advantage of the opening it creates.

>>5043109
>>5043112
Supporting

>>5043109
>>His evasive technique requires him to activate it – so counter it with the Tsubamegiri.

>1d6
>best three of four

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5043498

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5043498

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5043498

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5043498

>>5043109
You make the call to manifest your Kongō Fūsa in order to bind Hiroko and prevent him from escaping, however whatever that technique he’s been using is a bit too fast for you to manifest the chains and then direct them. At least, not without the speed boost you’d be getting if you were at least using a regular sage mode. He reforms himself and releases a familiar attack.

“I should thank you, Mizukage-dono!” he taunts Mei as he unleashes her acidic lava in your direction.

An instant later he notices the marked kunai turning its way past his head, before you teleport to it and smack him in the side of the head. The blow sends him crashing into a desk, knocking one of the lords of the Land of Water nearly out the window behind him... you left Umekiri raised as a feint, just in case, but you’re starting to get the sense that his reaction speed honestly isn’t that quick for the jōnin-to-kage level.

“For someone claiming to be at Jiraiya’s level it’s a bit of a letdown.”

His gaze hardens at the insult that slipped out. “You got in one lucky kick! I wouldn’t start badmouthing my opponent just yet if I were...”

A handful of senbon shaped from the same golden chakra you’d normally use to make your Kongō Fūsa hit him at a blinding speed from close range.

“Looks like I got you with that one,” you muse as he tries and fails to use his kekkei genkai to slip out and around the needles. “Let’s call that one the Kongō Fūkugi.”

“Damn you!” he spits angrily. “What is this kekkei genkai!?”

“It’s a hiden,” you correct him. “A secret technique belonging to my clan. I’ve modified it to suit my own style over the years, this time for speed to counteract the kekkei genkai you’ve clearly stolen and done nothing to properly learn.”

“... what?”

“Yeah no, you seem to think of a kekkei genkai as something you just get to use,” you frown as he continues to try tearing the needles out of his pallid flesh. “Not like something that demands discipline and training to master. If you’d trained your stolen techniques a little more you might’ve actually forced me to fight you seriously.”

“And you expect me to believe such a ridiculous boast-”

The rasengan slams into his gut, right in the triangle formed by three clustered adamantine needles, and you angle it downwards to slam his body straight through the floor. After stepping off him, you haul him up by his throat.

“The form I used against Kaguya-hime is fifty times stronger than I am now.”
>1/2

>>5043732
Damn, chakra needles were Hinoko's gimmick. Who's the real thief here.

>>5043732
“Give it up,” you demand, before slinging Hiruko into the nearest wall. “I’m not a fan of killing helpless opponents.”

He pauses to wipe the blood from his face, before unsealing three large shuriken and slinging them at you from that position, intending to catch you by surprise. The chakra flow feels similar to Fū’s magnet release technique, but it never has a chance to hit you. Instead of Hiruko hitting you with the magnetized shuriken, you use hiraishingiri to take off his right hand, which you gather is the only one he can absorb and release chakra through.

“What are you even trying to prove at this point?” you muse as you flick the little traces of blood staining Umekiri’s blade away and sheathe her at your hip. “And what is it going to take to make you think better of it?”

“I already told you...”

“The fifth war, yeah I heard,” you interrupt. “If I didn’t stop you Naruto or Sasuke would’ve, they’re both a little stronger than me. Hell, like this even Sakura could probably beat you if she tried hard. So let’s forget that bit of idiocy for a moment, because I want to know why you want to start a war at all. We just had one.”

“You want to know why?” he spots more blood. “Because of people like you who were born special... no, that’s not right. It’s also because of people like Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru who get TREATED special just because of who they know.”

“That’s how this world works, Uzumaki brat – if you’re born powerful or well-connected you grow up to be powerful and well-connected. The rest of us get nothing. It was Lord Second who taught Sarutobi-sensei, who taught Tsuna and Jiraiya and Orochimaru. Then Jiraiya trained the Fourth, Namikaze Minato, who trained the Sixth, Hatake Kakashi. Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Kakashi trained Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke.”

“So tell me, which of the two do you think will become the Seventh Hokage?”

“... probably Naruto,” you admit with a sigh, tacitly recognizing the point. Even in your own case, you’re the protege of one Akatsuki member and the daughter of another, possessing one kekkei genkai by birth, a hiden, and two different dōjutsu given to you one way or another by Itachi-han. You even trained with Jiraiya-sensei yourself, even if it was just a day. If Hiruko had more energy after you smashed him through the floor he might have had the presence of mind to call out your use of the rasengan – a technique you could only have learned from one of four people he mentioned.

The way you learned hiraishin you’re just going to keep to yourself.

>You have a point, but starting a war isn’t the right way to handle it.
>I feel the same way about the daimyō sometimes. But I find ways to work around it
>I don’t care. You’re going to ninja jail for a VERY long time, Hiruko.
>Other.

>>5043753
To be fair Hinoko can guide those, which makes them especially potent for ANBU work. Naori's are just faster than chakra chains.

>>5043765
>And? So what, you want to start a war because not everyone's special? Instead of working to improve things for yourself you want to spill blood and end people's lives, what, because nobody handed you anything on a silver platter? How is that even going to fix anything? You're a special kind of stupid. Enjoy prison.

>>5043765
>I don’t care. You’re going to ninja jail for a VERY long time, Hiruko.

>>5043765
>"So because you weren't someone who thrived on the battlefield and ended the war, you began to hate them and resolved to shatter the peace those very people fought to bring back from the war. So what makes you believe realize that starting another war solves that? From my personal perspective, starting another creates the exact environmental conditions for the very people you despise to once again appear. So If you hate people like the Sanin and I who "thrive" in wartime conditions, why would you go about provoking us by starting another war and creating those very wartime conditions we "thrive" in instead of leaving us alone to live and die in peace?"

>>5043765
>>You have a point, but starting a war isn’t the right way to handle it.

>>5043765
>You have a point, but starting a war isn’t the right way to handle it.

>>5043773
>>5043779
>>5043765
Some combination of these.

>>5043994
>>5043765
Supporting this one's idea

>>5043765
“Yeah no, people like you are the reason people like me exist at all,” you insist bitterly. “I’d have loved nothing more than to live out my days in peaceful obscurity, but I never had that option – people like you who thought their petty squabbles could justify anything left me with a choice between excellence and death.”

“And so here I am today. Do with that information what you will.”

Hiruko’s expression sours as you lecture him, and his appearance slowly continues to shift as he shows his true age – ending a similar technique to Tsuna-han’s you’d wager. “You’ve beaten me, I’ll acknowledge that. So there’s only one thing I can do now.”

With his remaining hand he rips open his white coat to reveal his emaciated form underneath, along with the same style of fūinjutsu that Danzō once tried to use on you. Before he can say anything or activate the technique Umekiri sweeps through his temples and down to your side, leaving the top of his face to slide forward and off onto the floor before the rest of his body falls backwards.

After a quick flick of the blade you sheath Umekiri at your hip, then take a leaping backflip through the hole between floors to rejoin the meeting upstairs.

“How much of that did you hear up here, sensei?” you ask calmly.

After a moment – “All of it.”

“Well then,” you muse, “then you all know what that was all about.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to kill that man?” one of the lords presses you with a frown. “So why did you end up doing it anyway?”

“I’ve seen that technique before,” you explain. “If I had allowed him to use it anything within the footprint of this building, yourselves included, would have been sealed into his corpse to die along with him.”

“Then it sounds like he left you little choice,” Mei-tono muses.

“Unfortunately.”

“I believe we were in the middle of discussions when we were interrupted?” Konan-sensei muses. “Shall we continue?”

“I believe my own arguments have been sufficiently supported,” Mei-tono admits. “Whether the members assembled here choose to act on my advice or not is outside of my control, but as I said before – for Kirigakure’s part, we continue to recognize Amegakure as our valued friends and allies.”
>1/2

>>5043765
“That went better than we might have anticipated,” your sensei muses as you both prepare to slip out of Kirigakure under the cover of rain. “You handled yourself well, and not just when it came to the fighting.”

“You’re still talking like you expect me to take over for you one day,” you sigh.

“That’s because I do,” Konan-sensei insists curtly. “I know you harbor some doubts, but you are the only person besides me who can do this job. Ajisai is very good at handling administrative tasks, that much is true. But for force of personality, for determination, for the power and skill to back up your position when challenged? There’s no equal to you in our village.”

“Moreover, you have something else important. Do you know what it is?”

“Enlighten me, sensei.”

“You can understand others, even your enemy, and empathize with them,” she insists. “You came to see the members of Akatsuki as people, flawed though they may have been, where others saw only monsters or criminals. You came to treat tailed beasts and their jinchūriki as individuals. From what I understand you came to some sort of strange understanding with Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, a being foreign to our very world. And just today, you understood and did not completely dismiss Hiruko’s position despite obviously disagreeing with it.”

“Just as Nagato entrusted Jiraiya-sensei’s ideals and his hopes for the future to Naruto-kun, I have tacitly entrusted you with Yahiko’s ideals, and will one day entrust the future of our village and nation to you as well.”

>I… honestly don’t know what to say. I didn’t realize you were so serious about this.
>When you put it that way, it’s hard to refuse. When you step down, I’ll be sure to be ready.
>I’m sorry, sensei, but I disagree. I don’t think leading the village is to be my path in life.
>Other?

>>5044823

>I think i could do that, in the future. But not today. I've never really had a chance to live my life up until now, and i think... i think i'd like to rest now. Just a bit.

>>5044823
>>I think i could do that, in the future. But not today. I've never really had a chance to live my life up until now, and i think... i think i'd like to rest now. Just a bit.

I like this

>>5044823
Supporting >>5044836

>>5044823
>When you put it that way, it’s hard to refuse. When you step down, I’ll be sure to be ready.

>>5044823
>>5044840
>>5045018
Both of these, I'd say Naori is still a bit apprehensive but has been convinced

>>5044823
>>5044840

>>5044823
>>5045059
Sorry phoneposting. Meant to say, this.

>>5044823
>>When you put it that way, it’s hard to refuse. When you step down, I’ll be sure to be ready.

Isn't a chunk of Naori's international pull from her known status as a neutral party? I seem to remember her previously refusing to officially align herself with a village because, as a leader, she will be expected to prioritize her home in all things, not just by her own people, but also by other factions, making them suspicious of any suggestion and offer she makes.

>>5045320
at this point she has connections to pretty much every nation, most small nations and is even related to one kage candidate. I don't think 'neutral' is on the table anymore in the sense you meant.
The second thing is, she was already recognized as the voice for the smaller nations and now with the alliance between ame, kusa, roran, the land of bears and the land of snow, ame would on some meetings talk for them anyway.

>>5045320
Turning into a leader won't take away all the goodwill we've gathered, if anything having actual systematic power makes Naori more valuable as an ally.
Naori's "glorified thug" phase was fine for a time, this is the right conclusion of that.

>>5044823
“I...” you struggle for a moment. “I didn’t realize you had that kind of faith in me.”

“Of course,” Konan-sensei insists quietly. “Did you know that Kakashi and I have decided that we would like to have a child?”

You shake your head. “No, but it hardly comes as a surprise.”

“Naori,” Konan continues. “I’d like you to be a kari-oya to our family.”

Kari-oya: an old concept, like a fictive third parent who serves as a mentor and if need be protector to a child. Not common anymore, but a deeply significant role when offered to someone, and the meaning of it isn’t lost on you even if you struggle to even come up with a response.

So you don’t address it. It doesn’t need to be addressed, your old sensei knows you well enough that she can tell how you feel. “When that happens I’ll be ready to step up, Konan-han. But right now, I can’t.”

“Something’s bothering you.”

You nod. “Yeah no, I’m not even sure who I am without an impending disaster hanging over my head. So I’d like to have some time to figure that out, you know?”

After a moment, Konan-sensei offers a polite bow. “It’s partly my fault you feel that way. If you need someone else to cover your duties just let me know.”

You shake your head. “No, that ‘impending disaster’ thing is inescapably a part of me. This is just temporary... call it a phase of self exploration I never had time for before.”

"I can still handle some missions, I just... want to not have to worry about the next 'big thing'."

“I understand... I’m happy we’ve come to an understanding once more.”

With Nyoka having returned to the forest the rain eventually lifts, and you and your sensei teleport back to Amegakure once you’ve stepped foot outside of Kirigakure proper.

>Spend some time with Ryuzetsu, getting your townhome exactly the way you like.
>The ‘other you’ in the Tsukuyomi was quite the artist – maybe try cultivating that?
>You’ve always wanted to travel just for the sake of it, not for any missions or anything.
>Other?

>>5045819
>>Spend some time with Ryuzetsu, getting your townhome exactly the way you like.

>>5045819
>You’ve always wanted to travel just for the sake of it, not for any missions or anything.
Let's meet some people! Hell, we might even stumble on Sasori.

>>5045819
>>You’ve always wanted to travel just for the sake of it, not for any missions or anything.

>>5045819
>travel and maybe a bit of artistry, writing comes to mind.

>>5045819
>You’ve always wanted to travel just for the sake of it, not for any missions or anything.
maybe take Ryuzetsu along

>>5045819
>Go traveling, with Ryuzetsu.
i'm also kinda hoping we happen across sasori

>>5045819
I know you try to mesh all votes into one, but for the sake of clarity, I'm changing >>5045827 to support
>Go traveling, with Ryuzetsu

>>5045819
>Spend some time with Ryuzetsu, getting your townhome exactly the way you like.
Make Shin-Amegakure the next big thing

>>5045819
>>Spend some time with Ryuzetsu, getting your townhome exactly the way you like.

>>5045819
“No, come on,” Ryūzetsu insists. “This’ll be great!”

She’s practically pushing you towards the line to register for some sort of sports event, well to the west of the Land of Wind. You decide to humor her and at least take a look at see what it is she’s pushing you towards.

“Ah, I see,” you smile. “You might just be right.”

It’s a martial arts tournament.

...

You give your name as simply Naori, no family name, and do something called ‘weighing in’ where the officials take your height and weight in units of measure that don’t actually mean anything to you. Next, each of the hundred or so contestants is supposed to throw a punch at a machine that displays a little number for each, measuring the force of their punches. Those impacts register anywhere from three hundred to four hundred and fifty at peak for someone who seems to be some sort of hotshot fighter.

That’s probably some sort of measure of force to surface area.

Then it’s your turn.

>Hit it without amplifying your force at all.
>Hit it with the third gate open, which is ‘normal’ for you.
>You’re honestly curious, so go ahead and use sage mode.
>Other?

>>5046809
>>Hit it without amplifying your force at all.

>>5046809
>You’re honestly curious, so go ahead and use sage mode.
Oh shit, freaking tenkaichi budokai. Let's do a Vegeta.

>>5046809
>Hit it without amplifying your force at all.
I'm quite curious as to the force that Naori can put out without any modifiers

>>5046809
>Hit it without amplifying your force at all.

>>5046809
>Hit it without amplifying your force at all.

>>5046809
>Hit it without amplifying your force at all.
TOURNAMENT ARC LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO

>>5046809
>Hit it without amplifying your force at all.
Pretend to be a normal contestant, could be relaxing and/or good training.

>>5046809
“Number forty-seven!” the attendant calls your number out.

There’s some chatter as you tie your hair back and step up towards the punching machine, and not all of it is what you’d call ‘respectful’. You ignore it and shake out any tension you might’ve had in your shoulders before settling yourself into a good stance. Then you launch a powerful right straight.

“F-four-hundred and thirty-five!” the stunned attendant calls out after a failed start.

You take a few steps back and another attendant sends you into a waiting room while dozens of other contenders give you plenty of room – no one is chattering about you anymore.

...

Inside there are three contenders who were also pulled aside right after their shot at the punching machine. One is the man whose blow clocked in at four hundred and fifty, just a little taller than you with dark, messy hair and chiseled muscles under a sleeveless keikogi. He spares you a glance, and smiles. “Oh hey, you’re the girl who just rang up a four-thirty-five, right?”

“Yeah,” you nod politely, offering your hand to shake. “Naori.”

“Cheng,” he replies immediately, matching your gesture. “I look forward to seeing what you can really do!”

“How exactly did you do that?” another man, his head shaved and chest bare, asks you with a frown. If you remember correctly his punch rang in at four-twenty-five. “No offense, but you don’t exactly look like you ‘hit for power’ if you get me.”

“Don’t mind him,” a man just a little taller than you, whose hair is tied back like yours, reassures you. “Ihsan can be a bit pushy sometimes, so don’t feel like you’ve gotta humor him.” This guy’s punch was comparable to Ihsan’s, a four-twenty-five.

Cheng shrugs. “Yeah, a lot of us get that way Selim. If anything you and I are kinda the odd ones out. Though I’ve gotta admit, I’m curious where you came from and where you trained. I know a lot of the guys who’re probably gonna stick it out through the quarters, but you kinda came outta nowhere on me, you know?”

>I’m a shinobi from the east. I learned mostly through life and death battles.
>I’m a swordswoman first, but as a martial artist I’m interested to see how you all fight.
>To answer Ihsan’s question with a question, what do you call ‘internal power’ here?
>Other?

>>5047657
>I’m a swordswoman first, but as a martial artist I’m interested to see how you all fight.

>>5047657
>I may not have a ton of muscle, but i've spent my entire life training to make good use of it. That said, this is the first time i've ever used it for... sport.

>>5047657
>>5047671
this

>>5047657
>>5047671
support

>>5047657
>I may not have a ton of muscle, but i've spent my entire life training to make good use of it. That said, this is the first time i've ever used it for... sport.

>>5047657
>what do you call "internal power"?

>>5047657
>I may not have a ton of muscle, but i've spent my entire life training to make good use of it. That said, this is the first time i've ever used it for... sport.

>>5047657
“Yeah no,” you reply carefully. “Let’s just say this will be the first time I’ve ever used my skills for sport, and leave it at that.”

“Okay, cool!” Cheng smiles at you cheerfully. “I’m really looking forward to... oh, hey Tenzin! Come over here and meet Naori!”

The best way for you to describe how Tenzin looks would be like a ‘young old master’ – the shaved head and the wispy facial hair, already pale like Kakashi’s, of a stereotypical hermit, but without the age that usually goes with those things. He regards you suspiciously, but offers you a handshake.

He pauses as your hands meet, his expression gradually giving way to something like horror.

“Thank you all for being so welcoming!” you muse aloud, an impish grin tugging at your lips as your eyes rest firmly on Tenzin. “So, yeah, how exactly does this competition work?”

“Well, no killing,” Selim insists as you finally release Tenzin’s hand. “That’s the first thing. And you win by either knocking your opponent out or by knocking them out of the ring. And, well, that’s pretty much it.”

“No weapons,” Ihsan adds tersely.

“Well she knows that already,” Cheng shrugs. “She’s a swordswoman after all.”

“The callouses,” you muse.

“Yeah, that’s right!” he laughs. “So you know that trick, huh? Should’ve figured, you carry yourself too well to be a rookie.”

“You’re a keen one too,” you admit. “I’ve been training since I was five.”

...

There’s a fairly long break between the arrival of Tenzin and the rest of the actual contenders, and in the mean time Tenzin finds his way over to you as the others chat like old friends.

“Everyone here can tell you’re holding back,” he mutters. “I’m sure you can tell the same about us as well. But when I shook your hand I realized you’re holding back more than any of us. Tell me... what do you know about the Sage of Six Paths?”

>I’ve met him. Personally I think he plays favorites more than he should.
>He was the first human sage, paving the way for me to become one myself.
>Why, what do you know about the Sage of Six Paths?
>Other?

>>5048505
>>I’ve met him. Personally I think he plays favorites more than he should.
Just break his fucking mind.

>>5048505
>He and his mother have caused a lot of trouble.

>>5048505
>His name was Hagoromo, he left a bunch of big critters roaming the earth... His mom's in the moon, his sons are a pain in the ass.

>>5048505
>>I’ve met him. Personally I think he plays favorites more than he should.

>>5048505
>More than most. His family seems to have been the major movers of history.

>>5048505
>I’ve met him. Personally I think he plays favorites more than he should.

Just sounds too hilarious to pass up

>>5048505
>>I’ve met him. Personally I think he plays favorites more than he should.

>>5048505
>I’ve met him. Personally I think he plays favorites more than he should.

>>5048505
>Why, what do you know about the Sage of Six Paths?
Come on, have a little mystery.

>>5048505
“What, you mean Hagoromo-tono?” you muse with a little snort. “Yeah no, he’s nice and all but he plays favorites too much and can’t seem to ever finish what he starts.”

“If you know of him you should know not to speak ill,” Tenzin grumbles.

“I don’t think you understand,” you counter quietly. “I don’t know ‘of him’ – I’ve met him.”

Tenzin already looked worried, and as he realizes that you’re dead serious about having met the Sage of Six Paths his face outright blanches. “You can’t be serious?”

You nod. “His spirit lingered on a while after his death, to try and help fix some of the problems he left behind. So I can’t fault the guy for that.”

Your conversation is cut short by the appearance of the rest of the final participants, all brought in together as the judgments have been made. The first match is called – you’re fighting a man called Slatzke, and the other participants will be allowed to watch. The ring is a square stone platform, raised at the center of an arena with bleacher-style seating, around half the size of the stands in Konoha that were used for the exams the year you participated. And those stands are full of viewers, one of whom in particular you recognize cheering you on.

“Kick his ass, Naori!” Ryūzetsu calls down to you from the stands.

You flash her a smile and a thumbs-up, before turning a smirk towards your opponent and giving him a thumbs-down.

“And now, we’ll begin our first match of the tournament!” an announcer with tall styled hair and dark glasses calls out over a microphone. “Slatzke, a quarterfinals contender from the last time, and Naori, a newcomer to the tournament this year! Let’s see what they’ve both brought to the ring!”

After reviewing the rules for the crowd, the announcer calls for the match to start.

Slatzke towers over you, with a shaved head and bristly mustache, and he laughs down at you from across the ring.

“You got lucky once, little girl,” he taunts you. “But you’re luck’s already run out!”

Your only response is to go right on smirking, giving him a little gesture to just attack already. He obliges you with a flurry of blows that rain down on your upraised arms, letting you gauge his speed and power. While he has the advantage in mass he’s not all that strong, and while his repeated blows slide you back across the stone tiles your guard doesn’t budge in the slightest.

“Hah! It’s all you can do to keep your arms up!”

You sweep your leg up into a roundhouse that lands against Slatzke’s unguarded right ribs. The blow knocks him off his feet and sends him tumbling across the ring. He rolls onto his feet, but the hit caught him totally off-guard.

“Arms, and a leg,” you taunt.
>1/2

>>5049538
The momentum of the match reverses on the spot and doesn’t ever shift back in Slatzke’s favor from that point onward. It’s your own fists that are pummeling Slatzke, getting between and around his forearms to land against his ribs and the sides of his head, and the moment he tries to strike back you duck under his fist and throw him over your shoulder.

He rolls across the ring to put a little distance between himself and your fists, only to find that you closed the gap to drive your foot into his face. Too close to the edge already, that last kick sends him backwards and out of the ring.

“And that’s it! After apparently sandbagging her opponent at the beginning of the match, a withering barrage has sent Naori’s opponent out of the ring! Naori will progress to the quarterfinals!”

You offer a brief bow in Slatzke’s direction before heading back to the participants’ box to watch the rest of the matches. What little you learn is that the first few men you met here are strong – they all win their matches easily, though there are a couple of closer matches than the blowouts you were treated to.
>1d6
>taking the third roll

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5049551

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5049551

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5049551

Why are these threads almost always devoid of any and all discussion? Is King's discord (ugh) just this popular that in-thread discussions are discouraged?

>>5049863
Nah. People might make one or two comments there, but just generally not a lot of discussion goes on anymore. Same in my threads, i dunno what it is.

>>5049863
Discord is almost entirely off-topic and memery, I actively encourage any serious discussion that comes up there to move in-thread. There's just not a lot of discussion that happens anymore, especially not in a sort of interlude tournament arc.

I've noticed this slowdown happens quite a bit in fanfiction quests and "mature" quests where there aren't as many character-defining choices to be made anymore.

>>5049863
>>5049879
pretty much what Queen said. Naori's pretty much peaked in terms of strength progression and so now it's pretty much coasting along the plot that the QM writes. Nothing really character defining so to speak. Same went for his previous quest to a certain point.

Considering the previous few posts, how do the others here feel about gates and Sage Mode power ups in this tournament mini arc?

My stance is to avoid Sage mode completely unless pressed for death, or bystander danger.

Gates is to be avoided unless another fighter uses a pretty ridiculous power up and only to keep a challenging fight going. Have Naori push herself without her usual ridiculous techniques.

>>5050187
That sounds fine by me.

>>5050187
Same. No enhancements unless shit goes down.

>>5050187
Given we're already naturally stronger than most of the competition, needing anything unless those circumstances occurs is rather defeating the point, i agree.

>>5049551
“The first match of the quarterfinals will be Ihsan versus Naori!” the announcer calls out. “Both of these fighters eased past their first-round opponents to clench spots in the quarters, but only one will move on to the semifinals! Which one will it be!?”

Standing across from you, Ihsan speaks his mind. “If you can’t use some form of internal power to enhance your strikes, then you might want to back out now.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” you frown, crossing your arms in front of your body and opening the first two gates. “I abandoned this technique a while ago so it’s still unrefined, but I’ll ask you to bear with me!”

Ihsan takes a half-step back in surprise. “That’s Cheng’s technique!?”

You bear down on him almost instantly, letting your enhanced chakra surge into your limbs and putting Ihsan on the defense. He can clearly use chakra to enhance his own movements at the last possible instant, much the same way you’ve learned to, though instead you’d estimate his speed and strength are only being amplified by about seventy percent of his usual. While you’re able to hit about half again what your ‘base’ parameters might be using the same technique, that would be on top of your Gates letting you exceed the one-fifth limit your own mind normally places on your body.

So it’s well shy of double Ihsan’s normal strength and speed versus three times yours. Especially when you use a shunshin that would be far too much to expect Ihsan to match. So instead you tone things down a bit, leaving it at only a doubling of your usual abilities.

His guard drops for a moment with the first hit that lands from an unexpected angle, sending him reeling as he tries to face you. Your next move is to slip past him with a shunshin and land a backhanded blow against the side of his head, and a reverse heel kick to his ribs on the opposite side.

After the initial shock wears off he uses something like a shunshin to gain a little distance when you aim a right hook at his head, but he doesn’t quite move fast enough to confuse your sharp eyes. Instead you chase him down towards the edge of the ring with an elbow strike that he barely manages to block. But the follow-up knee strike to his ribs as you pull your right arm back manages to slip in under his guard.

He eventually does manage to get a little space, partly because you let up for a moment, and he stares at you in disbelief.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” you hear the announcer cry out. “Ihsan’s moves are blindingly quick, but he can’t seem to pull the wool over Naori’s eyes! This tournament newcomer really knows how to bring the pressure!”

Ihsan wipes a little blood from the corner of his mouth. “Okay, so you were holding back. I get that now. How the hell strong are you?”
>1/2

>>5050236
“Enough,” you reply cryptically. “So yeah, I was hoping nobody would notice I’ve been holding back, and I get that it may seem disrespectful. But I’m much more interested right now in studying and improving my technique than I am in overpowering people.”

“So I went with a stable form that’s a bit easier to adjust.”

“I’m at a loss.” Ihsan admits. “I appreciate your dedication to improving your skills and I’m insulted that you’re still holding back – which should I be feeling more?”

“Depends,” you shrug. “If I were showing twice the ability I’m using against now do you think you could put up a fight?”

He shakes his head. “Probably not.”

“Then would it be worse to fight me when I’m holding back, or to get completely shut out?”

After a moment, he nods then settles into a fighting stance. “I think I get what you mean. But in this position, if I were to win, then what would that even mean?”

>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.
>I’m a shinobi, not a martial artist – hardly anyone I know “fights fair”.
>If you don’t want to humor me, I won’t think less of you for standing down.
>Other?

>>5050302
>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.

>While you’re able to hit about half again what your ‘base’ parameters might be using the same technique

I imagine that 150% is crazy good, but where do people like Tsunade and Sakura fall on that scale with their insane chakra control?

>>5050302
>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.

>>5050302
>>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.

>>5050302
>>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.

>>5050302
>I’m a shinobi, not a martial artist – hardly anyone I know “fights fair”.

>>5050302
>>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.

>>5050302
>>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.

>>5050302
>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.
If it's a fight of skill against skill, and you are more skilled, you win.

>>5050302
>I set the terms of the engagement. If I lost it’d be your win. Absolutely.

>>5050302
>I set the terms ...
>If you don't want to humor me ...
It would look bad from the watchers point of view, but I get it.
Honestly think he is the type to get fired up hearing that bit

>>5050305
Hard to say. 200% feels low to me, 300% seems reasonable. Sakura's chakra reserves and physical strength are mediocre to begin with so she gets less out of it than Tsunade until much later.

>>5050733
I am still holding out hope for king to give respect tonadult Sakura, in Boruto she is quite capable.
No one can expect the bullshit Nardo, Sausage and now Naori can do from anyone.

Well, there's always the route of increasing chakra control on Naori's end instead of only doing powerups. Better chakra control helps with everything, and it should add even more of a multiplier to every one of her transformations so to speak. Naori would definitely need it considering the bs that shows up in the future.

>half again what your ‘base’ parameters might be
>one-fifth limit your own mind normally places on your body
>shy of double Ihsan’s normal strength and speed versus three times yours.

If our opponent is using 170% of his power, and Naori is using... 150% on top of a five-time boost from the Gates unlocking Naori body's limiters... That's either 1,5x5=7,5 times her usual, or just a simple additive 50%+400%=450%, which comes out to 4,5 times her usual, or... 50%x5=250%, which is 3,5 times her usual.
So assume you treat all the boosts she gets as one calculation that you then add onto base, and simply rounded the number down for ease of storytelling?
I'd be interested in learning how much of a concrete boosts Naori gets from Sage, and Storm Sage mode? I can't remember if it was stated during the group beatdown where she lariated the beastman into the ground.

On the other hand, the 50% vs. 70% power difference in simple Chakra enhancement seems... weird to me. Naori is an Uzumaki, a fuuinjutsu and close quarters specialist, why exactly does this barely-jounin-level brawler have a higher output than her?

>>5050925
The perks of specialization? There used to be samurais that could keep Naori on her toes in a duel.

>>5050925
Naori's never been a strength monster, typically she was either binding people with seals or shanking them, not going power to power.

>>5050925
2x base plus one-half of that is three times. And recall that as a swordswoman with an advanced sage mode she abandoned plain chakra-enhanced punches quite some time ago. Most of these guys ONLY have chakra enhancement to augment their taijutsu.

I was under the impression that this guy had a 70% increase compared to Naori's regular 150% increase, but I suppose I'm wrong?

>>5050997
No. He's fighting at 170%, Naori with chakra-enhanced moves only would be fighting at 150%, she's currently fighting at 200%. If she wants to add chakra enhancement she'd be at 300%.

Well, I'd vote for Naori polishing her abilities if given the choice. The strength enhancement directly correlates with chakra control, and chakra control just increases the effectiveness of practically everything.

>>5051036
Same. The Sage mode overreliance to do physical damage is extremely worrisome, and we should try to branch her out into either more efficient, greater chakra enhancement, or straight up finish learning the Gates.
>>5051007
So the first two Gates are what gives her that double boost, got it. That's where my confusion came from.

>>5051083
>finish learning the Gates
So learn a technique that can only briefly exceed the level she's at now with Seiran mode at the cost of her own life?

>>5051151
not him but yeah why not
and then when she's done learning to open them all, she can learn to control it more carefully. you know, so she can dial back a little bit instead of just flipping the "kill" switch that is sage mode.

>>5050302
“Yeah no,” you muse, raising your fists. “I set the terms for this fight, so all you have to do is heroically overcome me within those terms. If you can do that I think it’s absolutely a victory, so why are you wasting time worrying about it?”

After a moment, Ihsan seems to get his feet back under him. “You’re right. I’m not quite as much of a nut as Cheng is, but if it’s not a challenge it wouldn’t be satisfying to beat you!”

...

He doesn’t manage to beat you.

Ihsan’s speed can nearly match yours in bursts, but he’s not fast enough that your experienced gaze loses him for even an instant and your own speed with a shunshin seems to be enough that he does momentarily lose sight of you whenever you use it. His guard is tight and his punches strong, but his style is clearly based on something like one of the many monastic styles you’ve seen in use back home – not intended to kill, where your own style has always emphasized lethal simplicity.

After the end of a series of blows, rapid-fire staccato separated by shunshin steps, Ihsan is flat on his back out of the ring and you’re wiping a little blood from the corner of your mouth.

“And Ihsan is down!” the announcer declares loudly. “Since he’s out of the ring, Naori is the winner by ring-out! What a spectacular display of power and speed!”

You wave to the wildly-cheering audience, before going down to Ihsan.

“In my homeland we have a tradition,” you explain, offering the seal of reconciliation.

After a moment, Ihsan matches your gesture – and you leave the medics to pick him up to his feet and walk him off for a medical examination.

...

After two less than magnificent matches you’re left with four fighters – yourself, Tenzin, Cheng, and Selim.

“Well ladies and gentlemen, we’ve come to the semifinals!” the announcer declares. “Tenzin, Cheng, and Selim should be familiar to long-time fans, and the rookie competitor Naori will round out the four semifinalists!”

It’s hard to tell how many of the audience are cheering for whom.

>1d3, taking the third roll

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>5051271
Damn instincts.

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>5051271

Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>5051271

>>5051151
Didn't she straight up show off the Hell Gate that revived her body? I feel lile that is a big point towards "Gates aren't an actual danger to Naori."

>>5051427
Even with Naruto's deus ex horseshit the Eighth Gate still permanently crippled Guy. Theres' no dodging the consequences for using it. End of discussion.

I don't particularly care for the Eight Gates themselves as a power-up, especially the Gate of Death, but wasn't Gai getting crippled specifically a consequence of the last Gate? I seem to remember Gai going up to sixth or so against Kisame, and there seemed to be no lasting damage, even without the King of Hell on speed-call to heal you; or any medic at all, for that matter.

there's always one.

There's always getting better at gates for the purpose of combining it with sage mode. It being insanely hard to achieve just makes it even more worthwhile to do.

>>5051700
QM already made clear that anything beyond second gate is not worth it, the combinations backlash is to intense.

>>5051492
>permanently crippled Guy
Fair, but in all honesty Guy got crippled because he was too strong, but too beloved to kill off.

I thought everything was fine for guy but his leg? Well, aside from him needing ninja jesus to heal him in the first place

So here's the deal - the seventh gate enhances taijutsu and physical abilities, probably beyond what regular sage mode can do, despite the two forms never being stacked up directly with equally competent users. But sage mode simultaneously enhances physical power, ninjutsu, genjutsu, and sensory perception/threat awareness. There's a damn good reason Madara went out of his way to steal sage mode from Hashirama, but never bothered to learn the gates despite knowing about them in great detail.

If you want a way to dial it back in some rare situations, then suggest having Naori train control and efficiency. But going back to the gates makes no sense in character, especially since both forms are meant for fighting in life or death situations.
>writing

>>5051271
“The next match will be our rookie contender, Naori, fighting against Tenzin!” the announcer declares. “This promises to be an exciting matchup, so...”

“I forfeit,” Tenzin interrupts.

The announcer pauses. “Excuse me?”

“I forfeit,” Tenzin repeats calmly. “Sorry, miss Naori, but this is a part of my religious convictions – we hold sages to be a sacred existence, the Sage of Six Paths chief among them. I suspect that to be the power you’ve been hiding, but if not then having met the Sage himself would be enough. I can’t in good conscience fight you.”

“So, I forfeit. Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

After a moment, you offer the seal of reconciliation which Tenzin carefully accepts.

“I’m a little disappointed for sure,” you admit with a little frown. “But yeah, no, I can appreciate that you have a set of principles that you’ve held yourself to.”

“Don’t worry,” Tenzin smirks. “You should still get a good fight out of Cheng.”
>1d6
>best three of four

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5052102

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5052102

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5052102

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5052102

>>5052102
Since I have a project coming due soon, the update will be delayed until tomorrow.

>>5052969
>project coming due soon
he's just trying to figure out how to stack gates with sage mode because we wouldn't shut the fuck up about it

>>5052102
Speaking of Cheng, you’re treated to what you’d probably call the first good fight of the tournament when Cheng and Selim square off for their match. Both men seem satisfied with the fact that one is going to knock the other out of contention, like neither one would rather lose to anyone else. But it’s not hard for you to tell that of the two Cheng is probably going to win. What you notice most as he and Selim exchange rapid-fire, precise blows is his breathing – each breath is timed perfectly with an explosive burst of power.

His technicality is something you can’t complain about, favoring hard external strikes with his fists and elbows with the occasional low to mid kick, and carried by fundamentally sound footwork. You can tell he’s holding back.

Selim on the other hand lacks these key differences from your average taijutsu expert, instead relying mainly on the now-familiar combination of technique, athleticism, and chakra enhancement. Even when Cheng grabs him by the foot and slings him for the edge of the ring, Selim is experienced and focused enough to roll from his feet and slide to a stop before falling out. He even manages to block or weave past the flurry of punches Cheng throws his way after chasing him down and trapping him against the edge. Eventually Selim manages to duck under his opponent’s arm and roll back towards the center of the ring.

Eventually Selim hits the ground again after Cheng takes his legs out from under him, and is slow to get up – winded, where Cheng still has plenty of energy left. After a few more blows Cheng puts Selim back on the ground again with a shoulder throw, and gives Selim a few moments’ respite to roll back to his feet.

“I can still go!” Selim insists. “Don’t call it yet!”

After pushing Selim back towards the edge of the ring again, Cheng finally puts it away. He sweeps Selim’s legs and drives an elbow into his face at the same time, sending his exhausted opponent sprawling out of the ring.

As the announcer handles the formalities, Cheng offers Selim a hand up.

...

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for – the final bout!” the announcer calls out. “We have our final contenders, each of whom has shown remarkable skill and power to get here! On one side we have the newcomer who swept aside all competition, the feisty redhead Naori! On the other we have a tournament veteran whose full reserves of power we haven’t even seen yet, the irrepressible Cheng!”

Cheng offers you a polite bow, and you offer the seal of confrontation in response.

“So yeah, I know you’ve been hiding your full strength,” you declare. “What say we dispense with that?”

“I’m game,” Cheng agrees, stretching his neck until it pops. “Feels like it’s been years!”

With a deep breath, he activates a technique not dissimilar to opening the first three gates all at once, right down to turning his skin reddish and causing his veins to bulge
>1/2

>>5053303
That’s going to be tough to match with gates alone, so you decide on the spot to allow yourself nagare-te, chakra flow through your fists and feet instead of through a blade. That should make up the difference between the gates you can use and whatever techniques Cheng is about to use against you.

“Very nice!” you admit, closing your eyes for a moment before opening them with both your sharingan and jogan active. “This might actually be fun!”

By the time you’ve flowed earth-nature chakra into your hands and forearms Cheng has darted towards you and launched a right straight that hits your raised guard with stupendous force behind it – enough to start you sliding back on your toes slightly. His next few punches also meet your tight guard, and as he shifts his stance you sense an opening for a counterattack.

Your earth-nature flow shifts abruptly to water, and as your hardened and darkened skin clears the water surrounds your limbs to slow Cheng’s punches and redirect them ever so slightly. On his withdrawal they grip his fists and wrists as well, throwing off his timing just enough to frustrate a true taijutsu expert.

“If I couldn’t catch glimpses of it I wouldn’t believe it!” the announcer shouts as you slosh water across the stony ring in your intense melee with Cheng. “Naori’s body is actually producing water that’s trapping Cheng’s fists! What sort of technique is this!?”

Cheng realizes what you’re doing a second before you commit, leaping into the air and turning to avoid the surge of lightning-transformed chakra you send across the surface of the ring. As he turns he launches a blast of compressed air towards you, carefully-aimed at a downward angle so that it takes out a fair-sized chunk of the ring but doesn’t reach the stands.

You dodge it with a shunshin, but you do see the problem evolving here.

“You can’t use your full strength with a crowd here, can you?” you frown.

Cheng, who’s landed and taken up a stance again, pauses. “Why?”

>Ask the announcer if clones touching the ground count as a ring-out – if not, a Shikonbenjin might be good.
>Raise some additional walls using earth release to help protect the stands, hope that actually helps.
>Don’t say anything further right now. He’s being careful, and that reflects well on him. That’s all.
>Other?

>>5053598
>>Ask the announcer if clones touching the ground count as a ring-out – if not, a Shikonbenjin might be good.

>>5053598
>>Ask the announcer if clones touching the ground count as a ring-out – if not, a Shikonbenjin might be good.

>>5053598
>Ask the announcer if clones touching the ground count as a ring-out – if not, a Shikonbenjin might be good.

Lmao cutting our chakra in half multiple times just to get a good fight

>>5053598
>>Ask the announcer if clones touching the ground count as a ring-out – if not, a Shikonbenjin might be good.
>>5053655
as funny as it is, it makes sense, Taijutsu is incredibly efficient

>>5053598
>Ask the announcer if clones touching the ground count as a ring-out – if not, a Shikonbenjin might be good.

>>5053598
>make sure you actually explain to the ref that you want to put up a barrier in order to protect the crowd

>>5053598
>Don't say anything further right now. He's being careful, and that reflects well on him. That's all.

>>5053598
You take a few steps towards the edge of the ring and crouch low, looking down at the announcer. “Hey, quick question about ring-outs?”

The announcer looks back up at you. “Um... it’s a little unusual, but sure?”

“If I were to use a couple of physical copies of myself,” you begin, gesturing towards the corners, “would that count as a ring-out? They wouldn’t be my real body, just doppelgangers.”

“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” the announcer admits.

You raise your left hand for the seal and create five shadow clones. “All five of my clones are all copies of me. But if they take a hard enough hit...”

You punch one of your own clones and they disperse into smoke.

“They disappear,” you continue. “Poof.”

“Why exactly are you asking?”

“Because I want to raise a transparent barrier between the edges of the ring and the stands,” you explain carefully. “So that Cheng and I can actually aim our attacks at each other without worrying about the spectators.”

...

After conferring with the rules manager, the announcer makes the decision public knowledge. “In an unusual turn of events, Naori will be raising a protective barrier around the ring as a safety procedure.”

Your clones take their positions, gather some natural energy, and raise the golden walls of the Shikonbenjin.

Meanwhile, Cheng watches with slightly wide eyes – less afraid you think, more appreciative. Maybe even excited. “So how much of your full power are each of those clones using?”

“Yeah no, the form they’re using is half my potential,” you explain.

“It’s hard to believe someone as strong as you exists!” he grins. “It means I still have a ways to go.”

“So you feel like as a martial artist you have to always be growing?”

“That’s what it’s all about!” Cheng agrees. “I want to push my own boundaries, to be better tomorrow than I was today even if it’s just by a little bit, you know? Aren’t you the same?”

>I am – I guess I’ve always been a bit competitive, even if it’s mostly with myself.
>Where I come from, if you didn’t get strong when you were young you never got to be old.
>I’m divided on that. I polish my skills out of pride, but I wish I didn’t have to use them.
>Other?

>>5054365
>I'm proud of my skill, sure... but i only ever honed it for the sake of protecting what was important to me. I've never even thought about doing it just for the sake of self-improvement.

>>5054365
>>I’m divided on that. I polish my skills out of pride, but I wish I didn’t have to use them.

>>5054365
>I am – I guess I’ve always been a bit competitive, even if it’s mostly with myself.

>>5054365
>I am – I guess I’ve always been a bit competitive, even if it’s mostly with myself.

>>5054365
>I’m divided on that. I polish my skills out of pride, but I wish I didn’t have to use them.

>>5054365
>I am – I guess I’ve always been a bit competitive, even if it’s mostly with myself.
built different.

>>5054365
Do you guys know who absolutely should know about this tournament?
Rock Lee
Depending on what he is doing currently, a journey of self discovery might do him some good.

>>5054365
“For sure...” you muse, almost to yourself. “I guess I’ve always had a bit of a proud streak where my skills are concerned – a drive there beyond simple necessity. But at the same time I kind of wish I didn’t need to be as powerful as I am.”

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suwfJMiXauU

“Take my advice,” you tell him before using a shunshin that puts you in a low position, fist drawn back for an uppercut. Lightning flowing through your fist sends a little series of arcs racing across the stone tiles at your feet in random zig-zags. “If you want to enjoy the martial arts, think very carefully about how strong you want to let yourself become.”

After that brief hold, as if someone in the audience with a remote had put you both on pause for a moment, you snap back into action. Cheng blocks your body-blow with his guard, but the shot both stuns him for a moment and lifts him into the air. He regains control in time to handspring off the edge of the ring and land against the inside of your Shikonbenjin barrier, quickly adapting to the change in environment and challenging you to an aerial battle which you gladly accept.

You can unseal little fistfuls of paper to kick off, changing your trajectory in midair while Cheng has to rely on carefully controlling his momentum and position to fight back. Each blow you land from below forces him to rise higher, and the blows from the sides allow you to gradually bleed his momentum to give him less to work with. That is, until his back hits the top of your barrier, which you closed off for precisely this sort of moment. He pushes himself off with newfound force and plants a two-footed kick right into your arms, slamming you from the top of your barrier down into the stone platform below.

The earth nature chakra flowing through your back spares you the brunt of the impact – this is the Doton: Domu technique Kakuzu was so fond of you realize only now, and now that you can do it with your recently-evolved nagare-te style of combat you can understand why he used it as often as he did. In terms of defensive techniques, at least at this sort of range, it’s hard to beat. Easily one of the better natures to use in this manner.

Your acrobatic kip-up allows you to strike Cheng with an axe-kick as you tumble, and as his guard is raised you follow through with a knee strike to his sternum that sends him careening towards the edge of the ring again before you complete your flip. The instant your toes, still extended after your blocked axe-kick, touch the ground you use another shunshin to close the gap with Cheng.

He blocks your roundhouse kick and slides across the ring, parallel to the edge, but when you catch up and try to hit him again to finally put him out for good you find that you’ve hit an afterimage – an experience Cheng gets to share with you a moment later as he too hits an afterimage.
>1/2

>>5054687
you can still enjoy martial arts even if you are the strongest imho, training and nurturing students can be rewarding too, even if they are not going to reach the same level you will.
Eventually, even "mediocre" life-long martial artists who found joy in the practice and sparring will have to either find other ways to have joy in the art or move on to something else.
Old age or even a change of cultural paradigm would make finding such a perspective-locked enjoyment a challenge. The latter could even be said to be observed to happen in Boruto somewhat.

>>5054703
I think Naoris sentiment is due to the fact she, Naruto and Sasuke are so absurdely strong that nothing posess any challenge except each other.
Their monstrous power is completely unnecessary and way to easy to abuse, seen in Madara, Obito and Sasuke (to a lesser extent).
Even with less power Pain decimated one of the most powerful hidden villages in the world, without backup. Power like that is unreasonable for any single person.
Basically, It boils down to a form of demilitarisation.

>>5054687
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer shouts over the din as you and Cheng chase each other’s afterimages here and there, only occasionally locking in close to trade blows, “I can’t believe I’m saying this but at this distance I can actually feel some of these hits in my chest! The rules committee is actually discussing what to do in the event the ring is completely destroyed, but it sounds like if that happens they’ll consider the first fighter to touch the ground eliminated!”

Your arms and fists meet countless times, from many different angles, using straight punches, hooks, counters, uppercuts, sweeping chops, elbows – almost every technique you can think of, all testing and probing to see what’s going to work or at very least to catch each other off guard.

Then you spring your trap – an explosion throws Cheng back as one of the paper tags you unsealed in your aerial contest goes off.

He compresses another blast of air after he manages to dodge the explosion and launches it at you, only for you to disrupt it with another explosion. You dart out of the blast, weaving across the ring at blinding speeds before closing in for a kick.

The explosions keep him off-balance and screen your movements, while making it hard for him to land those ranged air punches. It gets to the point where he even goes so far as to use one of your explosions as cover to rip up a couple of tiles and throw them at you like large shuriken. They miss of course and shatter against the Shikonbenjin, but you appreciate the creative flair.

Cheng finally manages to close in with you and throws a haymaker, which you manage to step in against and hedge out with your own arms. But in that instant, when you’re face to face with your opponent who’s grinning like a madman, something interrupts you – your awareness of hiraishin markings you’ve left out in the world tells you that your attention is being demanded.

Not just Konan-sensei, but Kakashi-han and the other Kages as well.

Cheng seems to realize that something is off, and carefully withdraws his arm to take a step away, lowering his guard as you do the same.

“Something wrong?” he frowns.

>Someone in my homeland is contacting me, I may have to forfeit.
>We should wrap this up quickly. I may have to return home soon.
>I’m going to show you my full power, Cheng, just for a moment.
>Other?

>>5054710
More to the point, Cheng stated explicitly that's what he enjoys about the martial arts - challenging himself.

>>5054717
>someone in my homeland is contacting me, I might need to forfeit.

>>5054717
>I'm sorry, but i'm being called home.
>I’m going to show you my full power, Cheng, just for a moment.

>>5054717
>Someone in my homeland is contacting me, I may have to forfeit.
>I’m going to show you my full power, Cheng, just for a moment.

>>5054717
>>We should wrap this up quickly. I may have to return home soon.

>>5054717
>Someone in my homeland is contacting me, I may have to forfeit.

>>5054717
>We should wrap this up quickly. I may have to return home soon.

>>5054717
>Someone in my homeland is contacting me, I may have to forfeit.
>I’m going to show you my full power, Cheng, just for a moment.

>>5054717
>>Someone in my homeland is contacting me, I may have to forfeit.
>>I’m going to show you my full power, Cheng, just for a moment.

>>5054717
I kind of want to give him a tag with a marking so we might be able to fight this out later, or just to have contact here.

>>5054717
>slip him a hirashin tag
>"If you want a rematch, you can call me through this."

>>5054717
>Someone in my homeland is contacting me, I may have to forfeit.
>slip him a hirashin tag
Could be an emergency, I'd rather owe him another fight than find out we were playing around too long. Captcha gave me GG, lol

>>5055307
Yeah, can't forget to slip him a tag so we can finish this up later.

>>5054717
>Someone in my homeland is contacting me, I may have to forfeit.

>>5054717
“There must be some kind of emergency back in my homeland,” you frown, creating a shadow clone who instantly teleports back to Amegakure. “Otherwise they definitely wouldn’t be interrupting me like this. I may end up needing to forfeit.”

“Yeah, about that,” Cheng muses. “Where exactly did you say you were from?”

“Far to the east,” you explain, “across the desert.”

“So like Rōran?”

“Past that,” you clarify.

Your clones open the barrier for Ryūzetsu, whom you meet at the edge of the ring. “What’s going on?”

“One second,” you muse, before the clone’s memories update you on what was happening. “Okay, so the kages expect to speak with me, some serious problems back home.”

That’s a lie of course, so you don’t spook anyone. In reality it’s so much worse than you let on at first. There’s just a little cleanup to see to here before you can leave.

“Here,” you hand Cheng a hiraishin kunai you’ve just unsealed. “We’ll train sometime, I’ll contact you.”

“Sounds good,” Cheng agrees awkwardly. “So, you’re leaving before I get the chance to see your full strength?”

“Not quite,” you tell him. “I’ll let you experience my full power, just for one moment.”

You’ve already gathered the natural energy, and after blending it with your own chakra you quickly enter seiran mode. Cheng’s eyes widen as he realizes that you’ve appeared directly in front of him, hand planted on his chest. He can sense the vast power and inexhaustible reserves of chakra behind that touch, understanding that just a single push from that hand would send him clear out of the ring.

“It’s amazing there’s someone as strong as you out there,” he admits. “You could’ve won any time, but you didn’t – you chose to learn from each of us.”

“I can appreciate that.”

“It’s your win this time,” you reply cheerfully. “Since I have to leave. See you later, Cheng.”

He bows deeply before you dispel your clones, place your hand on Ryūzetsu’s shoulder, and glance at the announcer. “I have responsibilities back home to see to – but I’ll be back some other year.”

You teleport first to your home, to drop Ryūzetsu off.

“So yeah, sorry to have kept this from you,” you frown. “The moon is going to crash into us.”
>1/2

>>5055976
“Us specifically?” Ryūzetsu wonders aloud.

“Yeah no, more generally,” you reply with a frown, “as in ‘all of us’ are going to die if we can’t do something to stop it.”

After a moment, Ryūzetsu nods. “I’m not worried. If you need me just say so.”

...

“I thought you said you positioned the second moon correctly?” you frown at the screen where Sasuke and Naruto are both standing behind Kakashi. “Instinctively, you said, Sasuke.”

“I did,” Sasuke counters, “I’m certain.”

“Our scientists think that the new moon’s movements are responding to the change in our original moon,” Kakashi-sensei assures you. “Whatever this is, it started with that body – not with the new moon.”

“Do our experts agree?” you ask Konan-sensei quietly.

She shrugs. “We don’t actually have any telescopes – the storm clouds make that a non-starter. But we have mathematicians checking the Land of Fire’s work.”

“Our observatory has observed the same phenomenon,” Ōnoki declares.

“As has ours,” A adds.

“How bad is the current projection?” Konan-sensei asks.

“Everyone dies,” Kakashi-sensei folds his hands under his chin. “Its approach will disturb large amounts of debris in low orbit first, causing them to fall into the atmosphere. Some of those will be devastating impact events.”

>We can’t just let that happen. We need to find a way to stop the moon – I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.
>At very least we need to make sure smaller villages and non-shinobi settlements are protected. This requires collaboration.
>Everyone in the world needs to know about this, not just the shinobi but everyone. This affects everyone.
>Other?

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>>5056026
>>We can’t just let that happen. We need to find a way to stop the moon – I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.
Guess we are doing this. We should have a lead with the Hyugas right?

>>5056026
>>We can’t just let that happen. We need to find a way to stop the moon – I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.

>>5056026
>>We can’t just let that happen. We need to find a way to stop the moon – I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.

>>5056026
>We can’t just let that happen. We need to find a way to stop the moon – I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.
>"Is...is my life just going to keep getting more and more absurd? Is normality a bygone delusion, a dream forever beyond my grasp? Hath mine heart and soul departed for a realm of wonder and terror and heroes aplenty, ne'er to find its way home again?" Continue to get silly until someone stops you.

>>5056026
>We can’t just let that happen. We need to find a way to stop the moon – I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.

>>5056026
>We can’t just let that happen. We need to find a way to stop the moon – I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth

By god, we made a moon and we can un-make one. Or at least shift it's orbit.
How much time do we have? Does naori have time to perform a large-scale "ritual" hiraishin?

>go to the moon
>throw a hiraishin kunai out into deep fucking space with all of our strength
>place a large-scale hiraishin seal across the entire surface of the moon
>possibly borrow grandpa tobirama and minato's strength?
>possibly get chakra donations from sasuke, naruto and the kages?
>teleport the entire moon into deep space

Hmm... Didn't we do some research into the Ootsutsuki and find out that Hamura's descendants went to live on the Moon? If the problem started with the original moon, Naori should be able to theorise that this is yet another mess left behind by the Ootsutsuki. Perhaps a process that reactivated itself in the absence of any Ootsutsuki, or another megalomaniac from that clan using godlike power to destroy the world. It tracks to me.

>>5056296
>Teleport moon into deep space
>momentum is preserved in a vacuum, moon continues moving
>hits planet, releases Kaguya
>inadvertently begin the cycle anew on some alien planet, eventually creating alien ninjas.

>>5056311
>99.999999% chance it's some barren hell devoid of even the most basic bacterial life
>kaguya dies as her chakra runs out before she finds a living planet

>>5056312
>50% chance it's a gas giant, star or black hole and she's simply killed

>>5056296
>teleport the entire moon into deep space
this kills the silly amegakure courtesan's daughter

>>5056026
“That’s completely unacceptable,” you frown. “We have to do everything we can to keep the moon from falling out of the sky. And can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that those are actual words that just came out of my mouth?”

“We actually have a way to do that,” A offers calmly. “The chakra cannon.”

“A chakra cannon?” Mei is the first one to repeat. “Explain.”

“It’s a cannon powered by chakra.”

“And it has the power to destroy the moon?”

“That’s right.”

You almost wish looks could actually kill, because if they could you’d be burning little holes clean through A’s head and out the other side. “So yeah, I’m going to skip the first obvious question and move on to the second – why do you still have that?”

“The daimyō of our country balked at the idea of dismantling such an expensive piece of technology without it ever seeing any use,” A explains. “So we didn’t dismantle it, and now we have it to fall back on.”

“That’s idiotic,” Ōnoki scoffs. “But I can completely believe it.”

“We’re missing one critical question,” Gaara muses, having remained quiet as he considered the situation.

“Why now?” you supply the question.

“Exactly,” Gaara agrees. “The moons were stable until recently, so what changed to cause this to happen?”

After a moment, you make an admission. “Yeah no, it could be Hamura’s descendants.”

“Hamura?” Mei repeats.

“Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo’s brother,” you clarify. “His side of the clan settled the moon a thousand years ago using some kind of interspatial portal. We have no way of knowing if they’ve survived this long.”

“Actually that might not be true,” Kakashi-han admits.
>1d6, best three of four

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5056905

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5056905

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5056905

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5056905
66% chance to do better

>>5056931
>>5056932
>>5056945
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaqCPARmBjA

>>5056950
If Naori doesn't sing this for real I'm dropping the quest and also the moon or my name isn't Anonymous.

File: Naori_Adult_Nagato.png (2.47 MB, 1119x1400)

2.47 MB PNG

>>5056905
“Hyūga Hiashi-dono was attacked last night,” Kakashi-sensei admits, “and his daughter Hanabi is missing. My understanding was that the Hyūga were related to the Ōtsutsuki in the same way the Uchiha were?”

“That sounds familiar,” Gaara agrees.

“I find it unlikely that this would be a simple coincidence,” Kakashi-sensei observes with a frown. “The timing is too close, and now that we know that both events have ties to the Ōtsutsuki that seems too much to be a coincidence as well.”

You notice something – a change in Naruto’s expression as he stands behind Kakashi, that draws your interest away from what the Sixth Hokage is saying. It must be equal parts amusing and alarming when the other participants see you suddenly on the screen in Konoha, having traveled in a single frame to the hiraishin marking carried by Uchiha Sasuke.

“Sorry,” you apologize with a forced smile, “I need to borrow these two for a moment – you all go on talking for now!”

Then you teleport to Ichiraku ramen.

“Seat for three please,” you ask the waiter, who leads you to your usual table that’s typically left open for when you arrive with no notice. After a few moments, Ayame arrives to greet you.

“Well this is a surprise!” she muses. “And with Naruto and Sasuke-kun too, that’s rare! What will you be having? Diet or full calorie?”

“Full calorie tonkotsu, fixed the usual way,” you insist with a nod. “Anything for you two?”

“Not hungry,” Sasuke admits. “So just water for me.”

“I’m actually not hungry either,” Naruto adds, seemingly shocking Ayame with the admission. “Maybe a soda, but no food, ya know?”

“It must be pretty serious,” you frown. “Ayame… can you see to it we get a little privacy?”

“Of course,” she nods. “Naruto not ordering anything… I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

…

“So what is it?” you press.
>1/2

>>5057640
“It’s Hinata and her sister,” Naruto frowns, explaining his thoughts in a low voice. “If the Ōtsutsuki are involved with both these incidents…”

“Then that puts Hyūga Hanabi’s current whereabouts on the moon,” Sasuke fills in the blanks. “The same moon the Raikage wants to blow up.”

“I can’t let that happen to Hinata’s sister,” Naruto insists, “but the whole world is counting on us fixing this problem.”

>Then do what you think you must. I’ll support you unconditionally as a member of my clan.
>Hanabi-kun is essentially Konoha royalty. Kakashi-han will find a way to at least delay A-tono.
>Don’t do anything rash for the time being. We need more information before we can act.
>Other?

>>5057643
>>Then do what you think you must. I’ll support you unconditionally as a member of my clan.

>>5057643
>Hanabi-kun is essentially Konoha royalty. Kakashi-han will find a way to at least delay A-tono.

Plus, blowing up the moon tends to have pretty serious ramifications on a planet, I'm sure that any situation that involves going up there would be more supported than not.

>>5057643
>>Hanabi-kun is essentially Konoha royalty. Kakashi-han will find a way to at least delay A-tono.

>Hanabi-kun is essentially Konoha royalty. Kakashi-han will find a way to at least delay A-tono.

>>5057643
>Then do what you think you must. I’ll support you unconditionally as a member of my clan.

>>5057643
>>Hanabi-kun is essentially Konoha royalty. Kakashi-han will find a way to at least delay A-tono.
>Then do what you think you must. I’ll support you unconditionally as a member of my clan.

>>5057643
>Then do what you think you must. I’ll support you unconditionally as a member of my clan.

>>5057643
"Yeah no, I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” you shrug rather nonchalantly. “Hanabi-kun is the Hyūga clan heiress, basically the next thing to royalty, so you can be sure that Kakashi-han is going to keep A-tono’s worse instincts in check long enough to establish her whereabouts.”

“We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Naruto insists angrily, rising to his feet and leaning over. “We have to...”

“I agree,” Sasuke interrupts, shutting Naruto up as he’s too stunned at what happened to continue.

“I... what?”

“I said I agree,” Sasuke repeats. “Don’t make me repeat myself again.”

“But?” you press.

“But we currently have no idea how to proceed,” he continues carefully. “I think the best thing to do is wait for Hiashi-dono to regain consciousness and ask him directly. As the head of the Hyūga clan he may know more about how the Ōtsutsuki arrived on the moon.”

“Well this sounds pretty insane to me,” Ayame admits, seating herself next to you and across from Sasuke. “All I know is that running around without a plan gets people in trouble. And when you’re trying to solve a problem getting into more trouble’s the last thing you want.”

“See?” Sasuke muses. “Stay calm for now, Naruto. Don’t rush off and make things worse by mistake.”

“Easier said than done,” Naruto replies, thumping back down into his chair. “I hate waiting, ya know.”

“When you figure out what you have to do, let me know,” you insist. “As a member of my clan I’ll support you unconditionally.”

“A member of your clan?” he repeats, emphasis on the ‘your’ part. “Since when was that decided?”

“When you can show me Uzumaki-style fūinjutsu at even half my level we’ll talk again,” you roll your eyes. “That’s how our clan always worked – the ones of us who can pass on our techniques are the ones who get to lead. And anyway is that what’s important right now?”

“That makes sense,” Naruto shrugs. “It’s not like I really wanted the responsibility anyway. It’s just kinda weird when you say things with authority like that, sometimes I have to second-guess it when it comes out of your mouth.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Sasuke agrees. “In any event, I’ll be remaining here.”

“What do you mean?” Naruto frowns.

“I’m staying here,” Sasuke repeats. “If we’re right about what’s happening one of us has to protect Konoha – you have a reason to be the one to go, I have a reason to be the one to stay.”

“So who else would come with us?” Naruto wonders aloud.
>1/2

>>5058377
“So let me see if I’m getting this,” Sakura asks you as you finish off your bowl of tonkotsu ramen. “You want me to go to the moon and help you rescue Hanabi-chan, and stop the moon from crashing out of the sky. Does that about sum it up?”

“That’s right,” you confirm. “We don’t know what we might find there – Karin could heal any injuries Hanabi might have, but if we encounter a strange new poison or something along those lines? Yeah no, that’s not her area of expertise.”

“Alright, I agree,” Sakura nods curtly. “Who else will you want to bring, Naruto?”

Naruto spares you a glance as though asking for help.

>In Akatsuki we kept things small for a reason.
>A diverse set of skills to rely on would be best.
>I’m bringing Ryuzetsu and Fu, you do you Naruto.
>Other?

>>5058408
>In Akatsuki we kept things small for a reason.

>>5058408
>In Akatsuki we kept things small for a reason.

>>5058408
>>In Akatsuki we kept things small for a reason.

>>5058408
>>In Akatsuki we kept things small for a reason.

>>5058408
>I’m bringing Ryuzetsu and Fu, you do you Naruto.

>>5058408
“Akatsuki kept things small for a reason,” you muse. “Ten people in teams of two. Always small, always in even numbers.”

“Okay, so we have Naruto and Hinata...” Sakura begins, and Naruto immediately interrupts.

“Wait, what?”

“It’s obvious,” Sasuke rolls his eyes. “Sakura and... who?”

“Shikamaru,” Sakura answers immediately. “We need his analytical abilities.”

“Then Naori and...” Naruto continues.

>Ryuzetsu
>Fu
>Yugito
>Other

>>5059205
>Yugito

>>5059205
Ryuzetsu

>>5059205
>Ryuzetsu

>>5059205
>>Ryuzetsu

>>5059205
>Ryuzetsu

>>5059205
>Other
Neji

>>5059205
You briefly consider the likely options – Neji or Kō would both have reasons they might wish to join you, the former to keep his eyes on Hinata and the latter to rescue his clan’s future head. But Hinata being along for the trip is enough of a burden, since you already know that there’s a high likelihood of running up against Ōtsutsuki puppets. Automatons with no chakra network and no strings to control them will be a serious challenge to anyone relying on the gentle fist, which is probably why Hiashi-tono was defeated so soundly.

Sai might be a decent choice for some situations, but you can’t think of any real benefit to having his ink creations in this specific case. You briefly consider Fū or Yugito, but either one raises another potential problem that you’d prefer to avoid.

“Ryūzetsu,” you eventually decide. “Taking Naruto should be safe, but I’d prefer not to take more than one jinchūriki if I can help it. The Ōtsutsuki have targeted them in the past.”

“And the only two people you can think of to go with you other than her are jinchūriki,” Sasuke shakes his head. “I assume that means you don’t want to take Ajisai, or your sensei.”

“Yeah no, both have roles to play in Amegakure,” you explain. “They’ll protect our home from the effects of the moon’s approach.”

“And Ryūzetsu-san shouldn’t be allowed to help protect her home?” Sakura frowns. “Unless...”

You nod. “She will be, in a certain sense.”

“... ah.”

“As for any other Hyūga, of course I can’t deny them the chance to help – but I’d also prefer they stay out of it. The Ōtsutsuki puppets are probably why Hiashi-san was defeated, so we’d be asking for a repeat of that taking anyone too reliant on the gentle fist style.”

“Puppets?” Sasuke frowns. “I read a report in Kakashi-sensei’s office about that.”

You nod. “Yeah, so they can be a bit of a pain to deal with.”

“I think we should be able to handle it,” Naruto insists.

“Then I should get back to the meeting,” you declare, setting aside your bowl along with enough ryō to cover the cost. “Sakura-han, I’d appreciate it if you got Shikamaru-han up to speed. Naruto-kun, you do the same thing with Hinata-han. I’ll send a clone to let Ryūzetsu know what’s happening.”

“I’ll go back with you,” Sasuke insists. “I suspect Kakashi-han will want to discuss our defense plans.”

You create two clones before you go – one to say goodbye to Ayame, and one to go find Ryūzetsu. Then you teleport Sasuke to Kakashi-han, then yourself to Amegakure.
>1/2

>>5060781
“How did you just teleport Sasuke-kun to a different place at the same time you teleported to Amegakure?” Mei-tono wonders aloud. “I wasn’t aware the hiraishin could be used that way.”

“Yeah no, it can’t,” you admit. “The framerate of the recording equipment must have allowed me to drop Sasuke off without capturing it.”

“The rate on this equipment is forty-eight frames per second,” A-tono muses with a frown.

“Yes, but it only records on twos,” Kakashi-sensei interjects, “meaning it only captures twenty-four images per second.”

“I didn’t know you were a film buff, Kakashi-sensei,” Sasuke glances at his one-time teacher.

“I watch a lot of Koyuki-hime’s films,” Kakashi admits, before glancing at the screen. “Including the one you guest-starred in, Naori-san.”

“In any event, Naruto-kun and I have planned a mission to rescue Hanabi-kun,” you proceed, bringing the conversation back to the subject at hand. “The two of us intend to take Hinata-han, Shikamaru-han, Sakura-han, and Ryūzetsu to investigate whatever Hyūga Hiashi-tono can tell us about the portal his ancestors used to reach the moon.”

“Then you’re in luck,” Kakashi-sensei informs you. “Just before you returned we received word that he regained consciousness.”

...

Hyūga Hiashi has a large room all to himself in Konoha’s central hospital, though at the moment he has visitors.

“It’s good that you’ve come, Uzumaki Naori-san,” Neji greets you curtly.

Kō glances at him. “Dono.”

“Are we really going to stand on such formalities, cousin?” Neji frowns.

“She’s my former commander and a representative of a clan allied with our village,” Kō counters. “I believe she’s earned the proper respects.”

You wave your hand. “So yeah, why is it good that I’m here?”

“Because I suspect you wish to pursue these Ōtsutsuki yourself,” Hiashi-tono speaks over his juniors, asserting his presence. “That is why you came, is it not? Uzumaki Naori-dono?”

>You’re right. I need to know everything you know about the lunar-Ōtsutsuki.
>Just tell me how to get there. Everything I need to know I’ll learn on the way.
>I want to get Hanabi-kun back so A can blow the old moon up how he wants.
>Other?

>>5060881
>>You’re right. I need to know everything you know about the lunar-Ōtsutsuki.

>>5060881
>>You’re right. I need to know everything you know about the lunar-Ōtsutsuki.

>>5060881
>>You’re right. I need to know everything you know about the lunar-Ōtsutsuki.

>>5060881
>>You’re right. I need to know everything you know about the lunar-Ōtsutsuki.

>>5060881
>You’re right. I need to know everything you know about the lunar-Ōtsutsuki.
>Don't worry, i won't let them have Hanabi.

>>5060881
>You’re right. I need to know everything you know about the lunar-Ōtsutsuki.

>>5060881
“These moon Ōtsutsuki,” you reply, “I need to know everything you do about them.”

“Straight to the point,” Hiashi frowns. “I can appreciate that. The one who did this to me and took Hanabi came alone, surrounded by powerful autonomous puppets. He spoke of an old decree, to which he referred as the ‘celestial decree’, which he claimed to have come here to enact.”

“Please describe the substance of that decree.”

“Understand that this is a thousand year-old record of our clan,” Hiashi prefaces. “So much of it may have been distorted by time. But I believe he is referring to Hamura-sama’s judgment towards the world they left behind.”

“Judgment?” you repeat with a frown born of creeping suspicion. “For the weaponization of chakra by Hagoromo-tono’s sons?”

“That is what he alluded to, yes,” Hiashi confirms. “Neji told me what is happening right now.”

“Kakashi-han told you?” you glance at Neji, who nods in confirmation. “So you believe that the Ōtsutsuki are trying to punish us all by crashing the moon into us? Despite the fact that they live on the moon?”

“When you put it that way it sounds ridiculous,” Hiashi admits. “But you are the one in the room who has met another Ōtsutsuki previously. Do you believe that they would take such measures?”

After considering his question, you have to nod. “I believe Kaguya-hime would have done it, and the impression I got from her of her clan was that they would too. You said it was only one actual Ōtsutsuki?”

Hiashi-tono nods once. “That is correct. I used my byakugan as well, and saw no additional living beings within one kilometer. However that does not necessarily mean there were no additional Ōtsutsuki nearby – after all, Uchiha Sasuke-kun arrived not long after battle was joined.”

“And this Ōtsutsuki’s eyes – did you see them?” you press. “All dōjutsu trace back to their bloodline, most notably the byakugan and rinnegan. It would help to know what I may be facing.”

“His eyes were closed the whole time,” Hiashi-tono frowns. “Peculiar. He fought well without them, and so I had almost forgotten until you asked.”

“Yeah no,” you lock eyes with Hiashi. “You’re positive that he never opened his eyes? Not even a little bit”

Hiashi-tono nods. “I would stake my reputation on it.”

An Ōtsutsuki who never opened his eyes... that certainly would be peculiar. You might even call it suspicious.
>1/2

>>5061754
“Do you know how he got here?”

On this, Hiashi shuts his eyes and lays his head back. “I can only guess. But it is an educated guess, so I hope it gives you a place to start.”

“I can only promise to try,” you admit. “But by all means.”

“There is an old ruin associated with the ancient history of the Hyūga clan,” Hiashi explains carefully, “and near this ruin there is a cave. It was said in our ancient stories, which I only half-paid attention to as a child, that the cave was sacred to our ancestors and was protected by a powerful genjutsu.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“Never.”

>A lead is a lead. I’ll take any information you can give me to the others.
>So... it’s a spooky cave that may or may not exist. I have my doubts.
>If you can get him to return my hiraishin could get us the rest of the way.
>Other?

>>5061804
>A lead is a lead. I’ll take any information you can give me to the others.

>>5061804
>>A lead is a lead. I’ll take any information you can give me to the others.

>>5061804
A lead is a lead

>>5061804
>>A lead is a lead. I’ll take any information you can give me to the others.

>>5061804
>A lead is a lead. I’ll take any information you can give me to the others.
>I've followed up on information like this before, and it usually has something to it.

>>5061804
>A lead is a lead. I’ll take any information you can give me to the others.

>>5061804
“Yeah no, that’s already a better lead than some of the leads I’ve had to work with in the past,” you shrug. “I’ll take it to the others and we can make something of it. Where is this cave of yours?”

...

“So that’s the size of it,” you muse, having assembled the team of six to go. “I’ve already sent out some paper butterflies to locate the ruins. We can go as soon as they arrive.”

“Nice scarf,” Ryūzetsu muses, glancing at Naruto. “Someone special make it?”

Naruto shrugs. “Something like that. So there’s a genjutsu involved?”

“I’m not too concerned,” you admit. “You have Kurama’s help, Sakura-han and Shikamaru-han should be able to shrug off that sort of thing, and I’ve beaten much tougher genjutsu before. As for Ryūzetsu, even if I didn’t have faith in her abilities there are plenty of people who can break her out, and Hinata-han has you, Naruto-kun.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Naruto agrees.

“So what do we need to know about fighting these Ōtsutsuki?” Shikamaru asks you. “Hinata and I haven’t ever fought one of them, and on top of that Naruto-kun and Sakura-kun haven’t fought their puppets.”

“They’re really powerful,” Naruto explains, “like across the board. And they’ve got really weird abilities so I don’t think we’ll be able to anticipate how this guy’s going to fight, ya know?”

“As for the puppets, it pays to fight in pairs,” Ryūzetsu adds. “No strings, so you’ll have to find other solutions.”

“I can catch them with my shadow techniques,” Shikamaru tells Sakura, “so you can take them out with taijutsu.”

“Got it,” Sakura agrees immediately.

“I’ll rely on the Jūho Sōshiken,” Hinata decides. “It drains chakra instead of blocking it, so it should work against a puppet like what my father described.”

“So it seems we have the beginnings of a strategy,” you nod in agreement. “That’s good. This isn’t the sort of mission we could probably survive without a plan.”
>1/2

>>5062690
>1d6
>DC10, best of four
>SP: 6/6
>ES: 0

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5062707

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5062707

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5062707

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5062707
66,6% chance to do better

File: VM8eJ.png (63 KB, 271x267)

63 KB PNG

>>5062818

>>5062707
And now gimme 1d5, taking the second and third rolls only

Rolled 4 (1d5)

>>5062893

Rolled 2 (1d5)

>>5062893
We need to ride Kurama into battle, at some point.

Or maybe Matatabi.

Rolled 1 (1d5)

>>5062893

>>5062898
Chomei and Matatabi are the two I could see agreeing to it. Both like Naori, their jinchuuriki like her enough and they have a good history together.
Kurama would be a stretch, not sure how his new and more relaxed state of mind feels about her, considering she has a sharingan.

>>5062893
It takes about an hour for you to find the ruin that Hiashi-tono told you about, and in that time Shikamaru explains to you how he’s meant to keep in contact with the kages – Kakashi gave him a small device to wear on his wrist that shows how the moon is slowly advancing towards your world, with a red line at the 12 o’clock position meant to indicate the point of no return. After that point, it will be too late to stop the coming apocalypse.

The ruin itself seems to be in line with what you’ve come to expect from the Ōtsutsuki clan, a lot of stone with some worn carvings especially above the remaining doorways. And the cave is not far from those ruins.

“Can you sense that too?” you ask Naruto, having quickly gathered enough natural energy to go into sage mode and enhance your already superb senses. “It feels… heavy.”

“Yeah,” he agrees curtly. “I sense it too. It feels like we’re in the right place, ya know?”

“So yeah, no, anyone who’s having second thoughts,” you mutter, “now’s the time for sure. Because from this point on I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

“I’m going,” Ryūzetsu insists curtly, sticking close by your side.

“So am I,” Hinata agrees, unusually forceful on this occasion.

“We didn’t come all this way to back out just because this place gives us the creeps,” Shikamaru sighs. “It’s going to be a drag, but it has to get done. So let’s go.”

…

Inside the cave it’s dim at first, but as you progress deeper down you find what almost feels like a pathway that grew naturally from the living rock – it’s hard to describe any better than that, a curious blend of deliberate design and organic form. And beside that pathway runs a shallow stream, trickling across the worn rock faces, giving off a dim glow. The water dripping from the ceiling as well, little blue motes of falling light that give off just enough of a glow to show you the way deeper into the cave. The passageway broadens out and the trickle becomes a noticeable band of bluish light, giving the whole inside of the cave a hypnotic shimmer.

So this is the genjutsu Hiashi-tono mentioned? It’s… oddly beautiful, and it doesn't feel especially dangerous even though you know immediately what it is.
>1/2

>>5063282
“Katon: Onidōrō!”

A young girl with pale hair and familiar eyes stands in a field of hōzuki flowers, their berries visible within the skeletal cages formed by their petals. Behind her stands an old tree, bent and shaped by the winds as if it were a giant bonsai, and marked with a shimenawa. All around her tiny blue motes of flame rise from the field.

She concentrates, and the blue flames flicker and glide about for a few seconds.

Then her concentration breaks with a deep breath, and the lights go out.

//

A young woman with pale hair and familiar eyes stands in the rain, watching a young girl with red hair and unfamiliar eyes standing outside a tatami room. Men with shaved heads mouth words to her that she doesn’t hear, and beyond, within the room, a figure lies on the floor with covers pulled over their head. Bitter tears blend with cold rain.

//

“You have it so easy!” the girl with the ring-patterned eyes pouts as a boy with dark hair and a confident smile bounces a little red fireball back and forth between his fingertips. “You prodigies are something else, you know?”

The boy snaps his fingers and a field of floating red flares wink out if existence one after the other in rapid succession. “You have the Ryūmei, that’s something special too.”

“Yeah,” the girl rolls her eyes and leans back against the base of the tree with her hands folded behind her head. “It’s a kekkei genkai, sure, but if you use it once you die. No thanks, I don’t want it.”

“You have the ability to save someone precious to you,” the boy points out. “I don’t have anything like that.”

“Come on,” the girl insists. “You’re the guy who’s going to open the box and save our village, right?”

There’s an awkward pause before the girl repeats herself. “Right?”

//

The young woman sees the girl again, this time slightly older, bleeding badly from one mangled side of her face. She has a desperate, wild look in her remaining eye as she searches for any way to survive the situation. One of her teammates, a young boy, is clearly dead, staring up into the rain with eyes that see nothing. The other has just given up trying to crawl away, dragging his motionless legs behind him and leaving a little trail in the mud.

The girl stares down the man who is about to take her life, not with the heroic stature of the hero who saved the world, but as a child having to swallow her fear.
>2/3

>>5064010
The girl can’t even allow herself to cry.

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

He promised that he’d survive, that he’d come back just fine after opening the Box and saving their village. In retrospect it was a promise she shouldn’t have forced him to make – he suspected that something like this might happen. He feared it, but she wouldn’t listen.

She holds her breath, shaking slightly after having watched her best friend taken by the Box. The animal masked monsters don’t seem to mind one bit. This is merely an inconvenience to them.

“Not enough chakra,” the ox-masked man muses.

Even Muku’s father’s expression is so impassive it may as well have been a mask as well. “With your leave.”

“Of course,” another masked figure nods slightly.

Ryūzetsu silently swears, with tears in her eyes, that she’ll never forgive any of them.

//

The red-haired girl doesn’t want to see. She must already know, she shouldn’t have to see it to confirm. But she unzips the body-bag anyway to reveal the face of her best friend, bruised, her eyes closed in silent death.

Uzumaki Naori’s howl of pain can’t be mistaken for mere performance. Only soul-rending grief could possibly produce such a sound – even the young man standing before her seems ever so slightly uncomfortable behind his impassive facade.

Ryūzetsu watches as the one of the tear-filled eyes changes, from a three-tomoe pattern through a spiralling transition, stabilizing as a flower-like pinwheel with reversed colors of red and black.

//

Naori watches as Ryūzetsu, now slightly older, puts a kunai into a man’s back. He stumbles forward, grasping for the hilt, and his assailant kicks him onto his hands and knees before putting her knee into the small of his back and grabbing him by the hair.

“What are you doing!?” the man gasps. “I am our faction’s leader on the council – I am the voice of those who seek to revive our power!”

“That’s why you must be silenced,” Ryūzetsu replies curtly, before flicking a kunai out of her right sleeve and slitting the man’s throat.

//

Ryūzetsu watches as Naori fights a brutal battle against Han.

//

Naori watches as Ryūzetsu strangles a fellow ANBU with a razor wire.

//

Ryūzetsu watches as Naori grapples with Yugito’s condition, and eventually decides to leave Akatsuki.

//

Naori watches as Ryūzetsu suddenly smiles, and steps out of her office at Hōzuki castle to meet her.
>3/4

>>5064370
By the time you’re aware again you can’t be sure which of you is embracing which, but it probably doesn’t matter. You know what she’s seen, she knows what you’ve seen, and both of you seem to have had the same reaction to having seen one another’s pain.

“Is everyone okay?” Shikamaru presses loudly. “Sound off!”

“I’m fine,” Sakura admits, resting against a stony column. “It’s fine. This is fine.”

“I’m good, ya know,” Naruto adds.

Shikamaru glances at you. “And you two?”

>Answer Shikamaru – you’re both fine, just a little shaken by what you’ve seen.
>Just say something to Ryūzetsu. She’s what’s important in this moment.
>Other?

>>5064379
>>Answer Shikamaru – you’re both fine, just a little shaken by what you’ve seen.
Love talk later, mission now.

>>5064379
>>Answer Shikamaru – you’re both fine, just a little shaken by what you’ve seen.

>>5064379
And in case anyone was wondering, the rolls were for who got to see whose memories.

>>5064379
Just say so.ething to ryuzetsu
If this doesn't win at least take her hand and squeeze it.

>>5064379
>Answer Shikamaru – you’re both fine, just a little shaken by what you’ve seen.

>>5064379
>Just say something to Ryuzetsu. She's what's important in this moment

>>5064379
>>Answer Shikamaru – you’re both fine, just a little shaken by what you’ve seen.

>>5064379
>Just say something to Ryūzetsu. She’s what’s important in this moment.

>>5064379
You give Ryūzetsu’s hand a little squeeze, and bump your forehead into hers. “Yeah no, just a little shaken up. You?”

“I’m fine,” Ryūzetsu insists quietly – to you, not to Shikamaru. “It was just... a lot.”

“I know.”

“You saw each other’s memories,” Naruto muses. “Didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Sakura exhales curtly. “Well since we’re talking about this, I’m sorry, Naruto. For a lot of things.”

“You saw mine?” Naruto asks.

Sakura nods. “Yeah. I saw myself too, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“So we all saw things?” Shikamaru frowns. “It must have been intended to trap people in their own worst memories, and something just went wrong – what a pain.”

“What did you see, Shikamaru?” Sakura asks curiously.

“Some of your memories, actually,” Shikamaru admits.

“You don’t exactly seem traumatized by the experience,” Sakura frowns. “Was it really that boring

Shikamaru rubs the back of his head. “No comment. Who saw me?”

Hinata raises her hand hesitantly. “I-I think it’s okay? I mean, y-you made a mistake, that’s all. We all do.”

“Ah, got it,” Shikamaru sighs. “That. Thanks for not getting too much into it.”

“... of course.”

After having waited for last, Naruto speaks up. “Hinata-kun.”

Hinata seems startled, having only just pieced together the only possible permutation for herself – assuming no repeats, at least. “Y-yes? Naruto-kun, I...”

“My mom made me that scarf, ya know,” he explains, referring to the red scarf you only vaguely noticed him wearing before you all left. “She wanted to give it to me, before she...”

He pauses. “Konohamaru found it in his parents’ attic and gave it to me a few days ago.”
>1/2

>>5064747
“I see,” Hinata replies, looking both a little relieved and embarrassed – she must have assumed that one of the vapid little kunoichi wanna-bes in Konohagakure who keep trying to flirt with Naruto now that he’s a big damn hero gave him that scarf. “Naruto, I -”

“It’s fine,” he insists, briefly resting his hand on her shoulder before walking a bit further out into the cavern where you’ve all come to. “Lets’ go get your sister, yeah?”

After a moment, Hinata nods. “Right.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out where we are,” Shikamaru declares.

“We’re on the moon,” you insist curtly, getting to your feet and offering Ryūzetsu your hand in a chivalrous gesture. “I can tell by how far away all my hiraishin markings are.”

“Can you still teleport to them from here?” Shikamaru asks. “I need to know what we have to work with to come up with an initial plan.”

A split-second later you appear wearing a new hat.

“Isn’t that Kakashi-sensei’s...” Naruto frowns. “So I guess that’s a yes?”

“That’s a yes,” you confirm, tossing the hat onto Naruto’s head. “Looks good on you, cousin. Hurry up.”

“Could you take it back to Kakashi-sensei, please?” Naruto asks. “It’s a bit... I dunno...”

“Disrespectful?” Sakura offers.

“Yeah that,” Naruto agrees.

A moment later the hat’s back where it belongs on Kakashi’s head. “Point being, distance is irrelevant to the hiraishin – it’s only a question of mass. For just personal teleportation, given my chakra reserves and the rate I recover, it’s basically free.”

“Alright,” Shikamaru nods. “Got it.”

>Let’s do some remote scouting. Ryūzetsu, care to join me?
>We need to find the surface – that much I can’t tell you yet.
>I’m a bit insulted nobody’s here to ‘welcome’ us to the moon.
>Other?

>>5064757
>>I’m a bit insulted nobody’s here to ‘welcome’ us to the moon.

>>5064757
>Let’s do some remote scouting. Ryūzetsu, care to join me?