11 KiB
[RT][FF][HF] Naruto. The Need to Become Stronger, Chapter 9: Learning from the past
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Author: u/Sophronius The Need to Become Stronger*
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URL: https://needtobecomestronger.wordpress.com/2016/12/28/chapter-9/
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Score: 34
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Created: 2016-12-28T22:07:44
Post:
Comments:
u/Sophronius [+9] The Need to Become Stronger (19 minutes later)
Hey all!
Sorry for the delay, everyone. I got some new beta readers, and spent a lot of time dithering on what to do with the chapter. I ended up shortening it by about 3 pages because I felt Kakashi's backstory was not sufficiently different from canon (an issue which has been rightly pointed out by some of the reviewers) to justify including it in full, but I think the end result is better for it. If you still see any issues with the originality, flow, or style of writing, please do let me know in the comments below or send me a PM.
Anyway, the story should be going back to weekly updates now. Let me know if you enjoyed the chapter!
u/eaglejarl [+9] (a day later)
Okay, I'm awake at 6am and looking for something to read...hey, another chapter of TNTBS, cool. Okay, blind reading time.
[description of Tazuna]
Very visual. I can see him clearly.
"I am the great...Waves."
A little stilted, but maybe that's just Tazuna's speech style. As I understand it he's supposed to be pompous.
"The land of waves doesn’t have ninja"
Waves
"jōnin"
Out of curiosity, you don't happen to be on Mac, do you? I've been trying to figure out how to type macrons and have failed to succeed. My fiction I write in raw HTML so obviously I can do it there, but it would be convenient for use in Marked for Death and other BBCode-based things.
"Naruto barely heard [...] world."
Really nice bit of understated characterization. I can picture this immediately, and have a very clear sense of how he's feeling.
"The world’s greatest [...] is there?"
Oooh, nice. I don't think I've seen that link before. Is it original, or is it from [fc]anon?
"Not to worry, I promise [...] alive.”
Okay, that was funny.
“Naruto, I appreciate you taking security seriously, but you know we’re not actually at war, right?”
I really want every other character to turn to Kakashi and shout "SHUT UP, KAKASHI!" I get where he's coming from but yeesh. Dude, you're supposed to be a paranoid elite assassin/spy. Why are you objecting to a little extra security when it costs you nothing and someone else is doing all the work?
“What? I like ramen,” Naruto said defensively. “Just because I can store a cooked meal doesn’t mean I’ve got to. Otherwise having more freedom would give me fewer options, and that’s just silly.”
Wait, what? He bought the ramen, he plans to eat the ramen, uncooked ramen isn't really good for anything aside from cooking or building contrived examples around in DADA class, and it's more time-efficient to cook large batches of food once instead of multiple small portions over time. If storage scrolls are time-frozen then storing cooked stuff in them is totally fine. Why wouldn't he store it cooked if that's a thing he can do? If he's worried about "more options giving him less freedom" then he should have figured this one out.
and soon enough they were sitting around a small campfire, courtesy of Sasuke’s fire technique.
Hm, interesting tangent: In your world, is it possible to put a campfire into a storage scroll? How are you defining "object"? If a pile of logs can be considered an object, and the inside of a storage scroll is time-locked, then it seems like Naruto should be able to store logs (or at least a log) that happens to be on fire. Which, of course, has all kinds of military and civilian implications.
“Ah, but that skill is even harder to come by. The Hidden Stone couldn’t exactly afford to have their jōnin spend all their time storing supplies in scrolls for less skilled ninja to use, not when there was a war going on.”
Wait, what? It requires a jounin to use storage scrolls? Make them sure, but just use them? I thought activating a seal was trivial -- certainly everyone throws explosive tags around easily enough.
A rock ninja
Rock
[discussion about the Obito/Rin/Kakashi mission]
Nice choice to have him turn it into a teaching moment. The kids' reactions really frame their personalities, and that leads me to suspect that Kakashi may have done it partially as a psychological study to help him understand his students better.
“What do I think I did wrong?” [...] of course.”
Ooh, sick burn.
Thanks for this; it was a fun chapter.
u/Sophronius [+3] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
Ooh, review by Eaglejarl, this should be good.
Very visual. I can see him clearly... Waves... nice bit of understated characterization... Okay, that was funny...
I really like these little bits of blind feedback - it's something I rarely get to see otherwise, and it helps me get a feeling for what works and what falls flat. For example, my original betareader is not a Naruto reader and not a particular fan of rationalist fiction, and he thought the first part of the chapter was too cartoony. But now I know that you at least liked it, though I still have no idea what the rest of my readers think.
Out of curiosity, you don't happen to be on Mac, do you? I've been trying to figure out how to type macrons and have failed to succeed. My fiction I write in raw HTML so obviously I can do it there, but it would be convenient for use in Marked for Death and other BBCode-based things.
Sorry, no. I just add all the Naruto terms like jōnin to my dictionary, and then have Word correct it via spell check.
Oooh, nice. I don't think I've seen that link before. Is it original, or is it from [fc]anon?
Hmm, I've never seen it mentioned anywhere else, but I always figured it was implied: Kishi specifically stated that the Uzumaki were the original hosts and that they invented the technique to seal Kurama, and then they all mysteriously died right before the Kyubi's attack on Konoha. Seems like something the canon villain would have orchestrated in between starting Akatsuki and controlling the Mizukage.
I really want every other character to turn to Kakashi and shout "SHUT UP, KAKASHI!" I get where he's coming from but yeesh. Dude, you're supposed to be a paranoid elite assassin/spy. Why are you objecting to a little extra security when it costs you nothing and someone else is doing all the work?
I'll quote Jiraiya here from an earlier chapter: "Because fear and worry can kill you as sure as any shuriken." Being too stressed and overly cautious for too long a period of time will really wear on your nerves, and causes you to drop the ball when you actually need to be paranoid.
Or to put it in a different way: "Because being Kagome isn't actually an advantage, all things considered".
Why wouldn't he store it cooked if that's a thing he can do?
Ahhh... good point, he totally would. Originally I had him store instant ramen instead, and Sakura complained about that, but I changed the wording to "uncooked ramen" because I wanted to get rid of the anachronisms in Naruto (Feudal Japan had no equivalent to instant ramen, I'm guessing). But you're right that now it makes no sense. Hmm...
In your world, is it possible to put a campfire into a storage scroll? How are you defining "object"?
My interpretation of chakra mechanics steers clear of ill-defined metaphysical terms, so yes it should be possible. The idea I have in mind is that you can story any object that is suffused with your chakra by placing it on top of a sealing scroll while you complete the seal. You can't suffuse fire with chakra I think (unless you're a fire user like Sasuke I guess) so an entire fire would be out, but hot charcoal would be possible, assuming you seal it along with a fireproof container so it doesn't burn the scroll as you seal it.
Wait, what? It requires a jounin to use storage scrolls?
No no, just to seal it. But the point is that it takes time for them to seal items, time which is better spent on the front lines - or if they do spend time sealing items, they're going to be using it themselves, not give those scrolls to lousy gennin.
Nice choice to have him turn it into a teaching moment. The kids' reactions really frame their personalities, and that leads me to suspect that Kakashi may have done it partially as a psychological study to help him understand his students better.
Heheh.
(Sometimes I worry that I'm being a bit too subtle with my hints and foreshadowing and hidden motivations, and that readers will miss it. But I guess in this case I did it just right.)
Thanks for this; it was a fun chapter.
Thank you very much for the feedback!
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (3 days later)
Out of curiosity, you don't happen to be on Mac, do you? I've been trying to figure out how to type macrons and have failed to succeed. My fiction I write in raw HTML so obviously I can do it there, but it would be convenient for use in Marked for Death and other BBCode-based things.
When all else fails you may need to go to the input panel (currently called 'Emoji and Symbols' because Apple) and type "macron" in the search box. Then you can dōūblē clīck on the appropriate sȳmbōl...
u/eaglejarl [+2] (3 days later)
Yeah, that's more than I can stand to do. Thank you, though. And you're right about the dopey names.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (3 days later)
Aha, the instructions on this Wikipedia page work: Once you have selected the "ABC Extended" keyboard (that's what it's called in El Capitan or later, it used to be "US Extended", but they changed it because Apple) you can use Ālt-ā for the macron dead key.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (4 days later)
Āhā! Thank yōu! Now I can type all those Marked-for-Death-relevant words like Hyūga, jōnin, chūnin, and so on.
u/Gaboncio [+3] (2 days later)
"I shouldn't have let my friends die."
Ouch.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (3 days later)
I just made a bunch of improvements to the site. Specifically: An email subscription option + RSS feed, recent comments visible on the home page, and a Table of Contents at the top of the page to make it easier to go to a specific chapter without having to scroll down and click 'next' or 'previous' each time.
I hope this makes the site more pleasant to use. Also, if anyone knows how to add 'next' or 'previous' to the top of each chapter also, or how to make it so I don't have to update the table of contents manually after each new chapter, please let me know.