19 KiB
[FF][RST] The Waves Arisen [Ch.9]
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Author: u/Wertifloke *
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URL: https://wertifloke.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/the-waves-arisen-chapter-9/
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Score: 23
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Created: 2015-02-03T01:01:17
Post:
Comments:
u/AugSphere [+11] Dark Lord of Corruption (5 hours later)
Holy shit.
You're going to run out of well established canon characters pretty soon at this pace.
u/Jace_MacLeod [+1] (21 hours later)
I don't know... Naruto has a lot of characters. The author could probably kill 5 per chapter and still end with half the named cast.
u/Nevereatcars [+9] The Greatest Is Behind (24 minutes later)
You don't pull punches on Character Death, I can say that much.
u/scruiser [+9] CYOA (3 hours later)
Irony:
“No! I told you to keep it family-friendly,” he grunted, Bee squirming against his headlock. “There are children here!”
Cussing in front of children is not okay. Children watching fight potentially to the death is. The first read through I thought it was just some comic relief, but as I considered it something else occurred to me. Was this an intentional move to highlight the values dissonance? If so, well played author.
Edit* no wait it was glancing through the comment section that made me realize this.
u/JackStargazer [+7] Primordial Apologist (4 hours later)
“Ave, Hokage!” They spoke in unison. “We, who are about to die, salute you!”
Holy Roman Colosseum, Batman.
Everything I hear about this crapsack world makes it even more so. The emphasized lethality among children, combined with the major spectator event of the tournament...
Yeah.
u/mns2 [+7] (2 hours later)
Is Byakugan cost halved with one eye?
u/Wertifloke [+4] (3 hours later)
No, full cost and effect.
u/JanusTheDoorman [+5] (3 hours later)
So... blowback. Tournament or not I can't imagine the Hyuga will take Hinata killing Neji lightly, especially seeing as how she's now technically not a Hyuga herself at all. I mean it might be unseemly for them to seek to revenge themselves against another Leaf ninja, and somewhat undignified to do so over the death of a Branch family member, but no more unseemly than Hinata killing another Leaf ninja in the tournament to begin with.
I suppose, however, that this might be causing some within the Hyuga to rethink the dismissal of Hinata as heir to the clan, able to beat their shining star Neji so simply, and showing the ruthlessness that she was believed to be lacking previously. I'm sure Hiashi has opponents within the clan who would love to rub his face in such a mistake as choosing the wrong successor.
That said, given that Hinata asserted herself by killing a Branch family member, the rest of the Branch family would almost certainly resent her being accepted back into the fold as a result. Such a splinter faction that would endorse Hinata being restored would have to come from within the main family, and the fact that she's been disowned would make that a bridge too far, I expect, especially given the reason she was disowned. If Naruto could reveal his lineage, and Hinata and her supporters could frame the Byakugan transplant as sealing ties between the Hyuga and the Leaf's jinchuriki who is also a strong candidate to become Hokage someday, then they might be willing to overlook that, but failing that I can't see any sort of internal Hyuga uprising in opposition to Hiashi in support of Hinata.
I expect we might be seeing the Hyuga taking the excuse Hinata mentioned earlier, refusing the revenge by citing the waiver, but that feels kind of... unfinished. If not just for revenge purposes, surely some will interpret this as Hinata threatening the Hyuga and will want to act on that basis.
Really, I think I'm just trying to come up with some scenario where Hinata isn't found as the victim of another perfect Hyuga assassination, but the outlook isn't great.
I mean, really, why go so far as to kill Neji? Defeating him without killing him, forcing him to yield would have gotten the point of her being better than she had been judged to be across, perhaps even more strongly than killing him. Protecting Naruto from Neji? I don't think Naruto's in less danger from the Hyuga than he was before - Neji's determination to kill them is certainly shared by some of the Hyuga and now likely exacerbated by this.
The explanation that feels most right is just that Hinata wanted to feel the exercise of power, to feel that she really did have the strength to fight back against the clan that had controlled, humiliated, and abused her, and to fight back in a definitive, absolute way. Which just seems, understandable, but stupider than I've come to expect characters in this story to be, but then, so was Sasuke planning to wander into the woods and shoot up on some special magic Uchiha power juice a foreign ninja had given him.
u/Wertifloke [+4] (3 hours later)
Quick note on the battle mechanics: chakra limitations meant that if she dropped shield layers to let Neji yield she mightn’t have still been able to raise enough to win, anymore, and thus Neji might no longer have felt the need to surrender as soon as he was allowed the freedom to actually do so. Parfit’s hitchhiker strikes again.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (5 hours later)
Could still have stopped at the point of incapacitating injury. Killing him was a choice, and at a guess, it's about taking the caged bird off the table. To get to a point where the house either leaves her alone, or kills her. Possibly also just not wanting to leave a humiliated Neji alive - he does not seem to have been the kind of guy who would have let that slide. Ever.
Fighting at all, I think was about the bracket setup and not trusting her opponent to not develop a sudden case of deafness - she is anticipating the winner of her match will be fighting Naruto. Given the theme of the tourney, if it is her, they can probably get away with sitting down and having a game of go
- Because that would be teamwork! -
u/kaukamieli [+1] (8 hours later)
She might have thought she stopped at that point, she didn't see what happened. Let's see what she's going to say about it tomorrow.
u/Transfuturist [+0] Carthago delenda est. (16 hours later)
Did you do the math regarding Hinata's chakra pool and regen, the stacking effects of the shield's pressure, visibility and audibility effects, continuous chakra cost, activation cost, resistance to chakra-imbued strikes, and anything else I might have missed? It's an awesome plot event, but I'd feel better about it if you showed your work.
u/Shadawn [+3] (an hour later)
Why didn't Neji use Kaiten (Heavenly Spin) there? In my opinion, it would destroy Kekkai really easy.
Also, looking at Neji-Kidoumaru fight, Neji could probably just slice Kekkai with his fingers.
EDIT: Also, constricting strenght of barriers stacks pretty strange. At least it's not additive, otherwise if 1 barrier could be stopped by leaning on him, 10 barriers can't constrict a human to death.
u/Jace_MacLeod [+3] (18 hours later)
He might not have had enough space to perform it. Also, it's quite possible that Kaiten's protective properties come from it's rapid spinning, not from any significant outward force. Unable to break the barrier, and compressed beyond normal use, it might have just created a nicely blended Neji smoothie.
u/SometimesATroll [+2] (12 hours later)
I commented on the mood whiplash before, and the mood whiplash hasn't changed. However; I find I'm starting to really like the rapid shifts. It's been keeping me on my toes more than what I normally read.
So forget what I said before, this is great.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (13 hours later)
That was nasty. Beware The Nice One, indeed. Nice to see Hinata win this -- the only two times I've seen her get a flat-out victory in fanfic are this one and one time when she activated Neji's Caged Bird seal.
On a side note, I've been a little worried about you putting actual numbers on chakra use. I'm afraid it's going to video-gameify the story too much. So far, though, it seems to be playing out pretty well. I do find myself wondering why Naruto chose to use "millichakra" as his base unit, instead of sticking to integers.
u/daydev [+1] (16 hours later)
I'm not sure if they understand what "milli" means. I have a feeling they may treat "milli" (and other SI prefixes) as "holy words from the ancient time", considering mentions of game theory and algebra as ancient half-forgotten arts. So Naruto may think "milli" is a just a fancy synonym to "part of".
u/dodriohedron [+3] (22 hours later)
But they talk about 'chakra' and probably even 'chakras' all the time.
Prefixing milli is the most obvious way to show you're talking about "chakra - the unit of chakra energy" and not any of other other fuzzy meanings they have for the word.
Plus, I don't remember it very well, but maybe the scale for "1 chakra" was set at something sensible, like the amount of chakra a normal ninja regenerates during a day?
u/kaukamieli [+1] (20 hours later)
I would think they'd still remember how to measure stuff.
u/daydev [+1] (20 hours later)
Some countries in the real world still use silly imperial measures for basic physical things (like weight, volume, distance, etc.). And ninja do not appear to have much technology to need anything more advanced.
I've done a quick search, and there indeed seem to be imperial measures scattered throughout the text. I don't remember any mentions about the metric system except "milli". Do you?
u/kaukamieli [+1] (21 hours later)
I've done a quick search, and there indeed seem to be imperial measures scattered throughout the text.
That also could have something to do with author using them. I'd bet canon uses metric, like Japan.
The characters also speak english, and their language is weirdly just like ours even though a lot of time should have passed. Or maybe we just are the intended audience?
They also have walkie talkies and computers and everything. What techlevel would need something more advanced?
u/daydev [+1] (a day later)
English is obviously coming from the Translation Convention.
Canon may have computers, I don't know, but in this story they worship a broken TV, and algebra is an ancient art. So I've assumed they degraded to about medieval level, except in some areas where knowledge is lost, but technology is preserved as "ninjutsu" (e.g. medicine).
u/None [+1] (10 minutes later)
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u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (8 hours later)
First off: I was wrong about my prediction. I confess.
But now i have to ask, is this going a story where everyone has superpowers that make it extraordinarily easy to live a stable and well provided for, with only a bit of common sense, but in the end they don't because of plot or author decisions. So far I don't see a reason why Naruto hasn't just sent his clones to learn agriculture, woodwork and other useful self providing skills. And if Hinata is anything to go by, everyone should be able to make use of shadow clones, at least in small numbers and a small periods of time.
u/Anderkent [+3] (8 hours later)
extraordinarily easy to live a stable and well provided for
Why would this be a thing they would want? Stable and well provided for farmer life is hardly an achievement, doesn't help them achieve their goals (assuming they have goals other than plain survival; sasuke definitely does), and is not what the culture that brought them up promotes as a good life.
u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (11 hours later)
If it was me risking my life for measly pay, with even more risk to get a promotion, and knowing my classmates are dying at a regular rate, and then if i get a promotion my colleagues dying even more, and then having to walk the streets as some lowlife civilian punk gets to play drink around the rosie with all of his friends, then go home to his family, basically leading a happy life, then I can honestly say that i would be miffed at the very least, if not bitter of my career choices. This could all change, provided there are significant downsides to being a civilian.
u/Anderkent [+3] (11 hours later)
Right, but that's because you haven't grown up in a culture that glorifies personal sacrifice for the good of the village. You value different things, which is fine, but don't expect people grown in basically a military camp to share that.
u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (a day later)
Nope. Your assumption is wrong, it's not a military camp, where everyone follows orders all the time and where there is no time to think or even a possibility for a creative idea.
1 its a commando camp, where they train kids to fight, but also train them to act on their own, to gather supplies in the wild, to build their own shelters, to make decision on their own when the mission takes an unexpected turn.
2 Glorifying personal sacrifice has nothing to do with being self sufficient and capable of providing for oneself and even thinking for oneself. Even if it were, if you were expecting a part of your zealot army to become jounin, team leaders, and even a Hokage, you would have to foster some level of creative thought.
I think there was an episode of the original series where Naruto actually uses clones to catch fish. Google gives nothing, but it's at least a step in the right direction.
And maybe a farmer life is to dishonorable, but there is no reason why Ninjas can't provide for themselves, either by catching fish, or gathering berries, or getting fallen braches for firewood, or getting water from a creek, or whatever it is you need. Hard work is hard, but when you have a power to jump over buildings, move faster than a speeding animal, kill things with pinpoint precision strikes(seriously kunai throwing in a bulls-eye is Op as hell) and do other kinds of magic, it stops being hard work and becomes easy living.
Excuses for lack of said behavior include but are not limited to: prevention by a Higher Power, lack of time to think for ideas and their execution (but somehow not lack of time for creating new techniques or training of the same), masochism, mental instability, author not thinking things trough, author purposefully not thinking things trough lest he spend too much time on making the economics and society work as it's supposed to, author madness and so on and so forth.
I might think of more things later.
u/Wertifloke [+1] (2 days later)
It's illegal for a ninja to flee their village.
u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (2 days later)
Ok then, is a short excursion into the forest legal? How about a training exercise, or for that matter how big is the village? They could hunt birds if all else fails, get some bread placed on a balcony often enough, train birds to always land there, kill a few every time a big flock comes and let the rest in peace, killing would be better if done silently, with a wire trap or a senbon needle.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (15 hours later)
Yhea, but their origin culture is set up to provide them with.. death. And even in victory, who wants to grow up to the kind of callous ass that in turn sends their own kids into the meat-grinder?
Uhm..
Hold a sec, where are the genin coming from? Going on the casualty rates, and the requirement for a bloodline, each ninja surviving past genin would have to have about 10-15 kids. Per ninja, so that's over 20 for a couple. Errh... I think I just spotted one way this world sucks for civilians. The only way these numbers work out is male ninja are abusing seduction techniques on a massive scale. Or alternately, people are using medic-nin techniques to have random women carry their children to term.
u/Anderkent [+2] (15 hours later)
Death if they fail (and I'm not one those losers who fail!), glory if they succeed, shame and oblivion if they just give up...
I don't think your parents have to be ninjas for you to have chakra? at least not in canon.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (17 hours later)
Warrior culture is a real thing. It's not likely to stand up to ninety percent casualties in a group which is essentially conscripted. That's a level of losses at which mutinies are nigh-universal when those casualties are suffered in the course of wars against external enemies. At the hands of your own? As I said in an earlier post the only comparable example I can even think of is communist cadre -that is, active members of the party - during Stalin's purges. This is social dysfunction at "Year Zero" levels.
u/kaukamieli [+1] (18 hours later)
The world isn't such that they can just live like that. Lots of wars and stuff around there. For survival, it's better to get strong fast.
u/mns2 [+1] (an hour later)
Idk man, her plan doesn't even take ten minutes to do. Seems unreasonable for her to not use the Byakugan during that time. Local Omniscience! Unless she planned to kill him and wanted plausible deniability. If she at any point ever wondered when she would know if Neji forfeited, she'd then plan to use the Byakugan during the final moments. (especially because if it didn't work, she'd need to be ready to forfeit asap)
Also, Hinata totally talks through her bubble to Naruto. I guess ten bubbles is enough to obscure all sound? If she can talk through her bubble, you'd think multiple bubbles would just make the sound less coherent, not silent.
u/scruiser [+7] CYOA (3 hours later)
Unless she planned to kill him and wanted plausible deniability.
Her self esteem was formerly built entirely around her family. Now that she is disowned her sole focus is her team. Neji has repeatedly threatened to kill her teammate, so it seems like this might have really been her plan.
u/Wertifloke [+2] (an hour later)
Single layered shields are not enough to block sound/sight (mentioned in Ch 8). Not sure what you mean about Neji, he tried repeatedly to break out.