So while I was procrastinating I did some quick recolors; if a redesign of the hoodie is necessary, I can do that, but I figured I’d start with these.
These are great! I am most fond of bottom left but bottom right is also very good. I’m a bit wary of the top two mostly because of the similarities to Mitsuki might be too prevalent, but the bottom ones are different enough that they’re safe.
There actually were foreign Jounin during the prelims. That’s, in fact, the first time we see Baki, Team Gaara’s jounin. And Orochimaru disguised as the foreign jounin watching the prelims? (I don’t remember if he was sound or grass; I’ll look it up later.) So maybe he isn’t called in until after Shikako gives the signal about Orochimaru. Then Kakashi makes a sign to the crane watching over Youbirin, and Takama then shows up physically?
I’ll do another few attempts at his design later, when I have time. Maybe tomorrow if I get enough work done on my paper or reach a suitable break in it, but otherwise it might be a bit.
I wonder… How does Kabuto even approach Youbirin? It would have to happen for a while before the exams, but beyond that I’m not sure I understand the specifics of the mentorship.
Oh, I meant while the jounin were watching the written exam and the Forest of Death parts. Because I know the Konoha jounin were somehow able to watch parts one and two of the exam, but I forget if the foreign jounin got to as well? But, like, in a different room.
It’s not a formal mentorship, is the thing, because otherwise Kabuto “outing” Youbirin as his informant wouldn’t be as impactful? Given Kabuto’s skill with medic jutsu and the fact that his adopted father is the head of the hospital (if I’m remembering correctly) then they probably meet at the hospital. Like, maybe the Team Medic genin are doing one of their “D-rank” missions–and it’s deliver a bunch of these bottles/folders to different parts of the hospital. Well, you don’t need three people to carry one bottle/folder, so probably they split up the items and got solo to different parts of the hospital.
Team Medic is familiar to other people at the hospital–it’s the first time an entire team of battle medics is being trained since… ever?–and so Kabuto obviously knows who Youbirin is before hand. Unsure if it would be better to have Kabuto approach Youbirin after their C-rank gone awry: if their mission report is public, then Kabuto–who has some way to get missions completed/ranking for his info cards even though he shouldn’t be able to get that–would totally notice that while it was Jiro that prevented Masumi from flat-lining, and Sakura that finished the actual cure synthesis, Youbirin basically did nothing. Kabuto would totally see the three and realize Youbirin is the weakest link.
Hmm… Perhaps it’s not just that he’s only here in this version, but that as an intelligence ninja he’s in this position regardless of universe? But he only sends a crane to watch the second test in this AU because of Youbirin’s participation. So he actually gets a closer look at the Forest of Death than other Jounin, but his reasoning for being at the test isn’t actually changed?
Hmm… I like the idea that Kabuto latched onto Youbirin being the weak link after their C-rank. So part of getting that to work is figuring out the timing of that mission. Given it’s a medicine delivery and not medic fieldwork, Masumi wouldn’t be so pushed to make sure they’re 100% medically trained, so it doesn’t have to be last-minute as was my original plan.
There’s also the question of “How did Kabuto know about the pill?” Doesn’t necessarily have to be answered – IIRC, aren’t there a ton of things about Kabuto that are just completely unanswered in canon? – but if his reasoning comes up during his monologue to Youbirin, then we should know what it is.
As far as I understood, Kabuto was basically a spy for three different people? Orochimaru, Sasori, and Danzo… but I don’t know how exactly that worked and if it was simultaneously or if he abandoned one master for another… Orochimaru and Danzo did have a very tentative alliance, so… I mean, depending on if Masumi was encouraged to continue research by Danzo instead of by Minato then that would sort of explain how Kabuto knows about it? But, in the case of using Youbirin to get it, he’s probably trying to steal it for Orochimaru.
So if I understand correctly: Kabuto is a mess.
I’m not sure how that times out for Masumi’s capture exactly – I don’t 100% know how the hokage timeline works at the moment – but having Kabuto be playing Danzo like that makes a lot of sense. And we don’t even really have to explain it beyond explaining Masumi’s connection to Danzo, which is a plus.
Is there anything we’re missing for the beginning arcs? We’re reaching the limit of what I remember from the anime, and much of anything else will have to be as I get to it in DoS.
😀 Yes, basically, Kabuto is a mess.
Given your POVs will mostly be journals and first person, it might be okay to not have to explain everything to the reader. Timeline works out like… there’s the war and a very short time after it ends Minato becomes Hokage (to bank on his Yellow Flash, flee on sight, reputation) and a few years after that the Kyuubi escapes from Kushina and Naruto is born. So it’s actually possible that Masumi’s imprisonment/experimental drug research is done during the end of Sandaime’s first reign and when he puts the axe on it, all of the research and mere mentions of it in official papers is lost in the transition between Sandaime and Yondaime… ie Danzo steals it so Minato doesn’t even know it exists. And when Sandaime comes back to the office, he has a lot more things on his mind than a failed drug. And out of sight out of mind, without any reminders he just never remembers it at all…
Well SQ does a pretty good job of, if not including arcs/missions from the anime, then at least mentioning it if it’s something that Shikako wouldn’t have been on.
There actually were foreign Jounin during the prelims. That’s, in fact, the first time we see Baki, Team Gaara’s jounin. And Orochimaru disguised as the foreign jounin watching the prelims? (I don’t remember if he was sound or grass; I’ll look it up later.) So maybe he isn’t called in until after Shikako gives the signal about Orochimaru. Then Kakashi makes a sign to the crane watching over Youbirin, and Takama then shows up physically?
I’ll do another few attempts at his design later, when I have time. Maybe tomorrow if I get enough work done on my paper or reach a suitable break in it, but otherwise it might be a bit.
I wonder… How does Kabuto even approach Youbirin? It would have to happen for a while before the exams, but beyond that I’m not sure I understand the specifics of the mentorship.
Oh, I meant while the jounin were watching the written exam and the Forest of Death parts. Because I know the Konoha jounin were somehow able to watch parts one and two of the exam, but I forget if the foreign jounin got to as well? But, like, in a different room.
It’s not a formal mentorship, is the thing, because otherwise Kabuto “outing” Youbirin as his informant wouldn’t be as impactful? Given Kabuto’s skill with medic jutsu and the fact that his adopted father is the head of the hospital (if I’m remembering correctly) then they probably meet at the hospital. Like, maybe the Team Medic genin are doing one of their “D-rank” missions–and it’s deliver a bunch of these bottles/folders to different parts of the hospital. Well, you don’t need three people to carry one bottle/folder, so probably they split up the items and got solo to different parts of the hospital.
Team Medic is familiar to other people at the hospital–it’s the first time an entire team of battle medics is being trained since… ever?–and so Kabuto obviously knows who Youbirin is before hand. Unsure if it would be better to have Kabuto approach Youbirin after their C-rank gone awry: if their mission report is public, then Kabuto–who has some way to get missions completed/ranking for his info cards even though he shouldn’t be able to get that–would totally notice that while it was Jiro that prevented Masumi from flat-lining, and Sakura that finished the actual cure synthesis, Youbirin basically did nothing. Kabuto would totally see the three and realize Youbirin is the weakest link.
Hmm… Perhaps it’s not just that he’s only here in this version, but that as an intelligence ninja he’s in this position regardless of universe? But he only sends a crane to watch the second test in this AU because of Youbirin’s participation. So he actually gets a closer look at the Forest of Death than other Jounin, but his reasoning for being at the test isn’t actually changed?
Hmm… I like the idea that Kabuto latched onto Youbirin being the weak link after their C-rank. So part of getting that to work is figuring out the timing of that mission. Given it’s a medicine delivery and not medic fieldwork, Masumi wouldn’t be so pushed to make sure they’re 100% medically trained, so it doesn’t have to be last-minute as was my original plan.
There’s also the question of “How did Kabuto know about the pill?” Doesn’t necessarily have to be answered – IIRC, aren’t there a ton of things about Kabuto that are just completely unanswered in canon? – but if his reasoning comes up during his monologue to Youbirin, then we should know what it is.
As far as I understood, Kabuto was basically a spy for three different people? Orochimaru, Sasori, and Danzo… but I don’t know how exactly that worked and if it was simultaneously or if he abandoned one master for another… Orochimaru and Danzo did have a very tentative alliance, so… I mean, depending on if Masumi was encouraged to continue research by Danzo instead of by Minato then that would sort of explain how Kabuto knows about it? But, in the case of using Youbirin to get it, he’s probably trying to steal it for Orochimaru.
There actually were foreign Jounin during the prelims. That’s, in fact, the first time we see Baki, Team Gaara’s jounin. And Orochimaru disguised as the foreign jounin watching the prelims? (I don’t remember if he was sound or grass; I’ll look it up later.) So maybe he isn’t called in until after Shikako gives the signal about Orochimaru. Then Kakashi makes a sign to the crane watching over Youbirin, and Takama then shows up physically?
I’ll do another few attempts at his design later, when I have time. Maybe tomorrow if I get enough work done on my paper or reach a suitable break in it, but otherwise it might be a bit.
I wonder… How does Kabuto even approach Youbirin? It would have to happen for a while before the exams, but beyond that I’m not sure I understand the specifics of the mentorship.
Oh, I meant while the jounin were watching the written exam and the Forest of Death parts. Because I know the Konoha jounin were somehow able to watch parts one and two of the exam, but I forget if the foreign jounin got to as well? But, like, in a different room.
It’s not a formal mentorship, is the thing, because otherwise Kabuto “outing” Youbirin as his informant wouldn’t be as impactful? Given Kabuto’s skill with medic jutsu and the fact that his adopted father is the head of the hospital (if I’m remembering correctly) then they probably meet at the hospital. Like, maybe the Team Medic genin are doing one of their “D-rank” missions–and it’s deliver a bunch of these bottles/folders to different parts of the hospital. Well, you don’t need three people to carry one bottle/folder, so probably they split up the items and got solo to different parts of the hospital.
Team Medic is familiar to other people at the hospital–it’s the first time an entire team of battle medics is being trained since… ever?–and so Kabuto obviously knows who Youbirin is before hand. Unsure if it would be better to have Kabuto approach Youbirin after their C-rank gone awry: if their mission report is public, then Kabuto–who has some way to get missions completed/ranking for his info cards even though he shouldn’t be able to get that–would totally notice that while it was Jiro that prevented Masumi from flat-lining, and Sakura that finished the actual cure synthesis, Youbirin basically did nothing. Kabuto would totally see the three and realize Youbirin is the weakest link.
Hmm… On the one hand, I really like the idea of their “Land of Waves Arc” being a “ninja bio-weapon” arc? And while I’d love to have them have to fight the villains if only for the symmetry, they aren’t heavy-hitters like Team 7 and, honestly, none of them really bring much to combat that early on. Jiro has probably learned some lightning jutsu, but that’s probably the heaviest hit they have given that Sakura didn’t have anything relevant for combat that early and Youbirin’s character arc requires he be very quickly outclassed by his teammates… But having them see to the bio-weapon – and perhaps having to develop a counter-medicine when Masumi gets stricken by the disease herself? – is the most appropriate way to handle themselves so early on.
I like where her background is going, but I’ll propose a tweak: it’s not that they didn’t notice she was alive when they raided the prison camp she was in, but that she’d been transferred to a higher-security facility because they noticed her proficiency with medicine and put her to work. So it wasn’t that she was passed up but more so that they were too late to save her from further imprisonment. Like, if they’d been a week earlier they’d have found her in the first rescue mission.
I really like the drug to increase chakra output, because honestly it has the best reasoning for why she’d develop it and how badly it backfires. Now the real question is: when does she develop it (for the enemy as a POW or on her own for the village), who knows about it (Her, Kabuto, maybe OA-jounin or the Hokage?), and to what extent can the research be salvaged? Kabuto would have reasons to want to use it either way (i.e. Burn people up from the inside with their own chakra? No evidence of a crime! Or the standard increase in output if he can make a workaround) but it’d be nice to know which direction to take that in.
By the way, the OA-jounin was referred to as Takahiro-sensei by Sakura in Chapter 6. No surname given, but it probably isn’t important enough to give him one. Especially because then Masumi can refer to him as Hiro or Hiro-kun or something else diminutive and irreverent. Because they’re close and all.
As for the defibrillator hands… At the very least the Naruto universe is aware that electricity can mess with the musculature system, as seen in Shikako’s narration that lightning jutsu can cause paralysis. This was the idea that lead to the idea of defibrillators, so it’s not impossible for Jiro to develop his defibrillator hands based on that alone. Especially if it’s in an act of desparation; he’s trying to save someone, CPR doesn’t work and he doesn’t know anything for a stopped heart, so he tries lightning to make it start and it works. Which goes on to be a defining part of his arsenal.
For Takama… Yeah, that makes sense. He’s the weird uncle who didn’t become a medical-nin and has birds, so he’s probably really reclusive. He probably doesn’t even live on Nohara land, instead like, on a mountain hut or something. But Youbirin isn’t trying to become a standard medic, so at some point after Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama – who was probably paying some attention to the exams because family was in it for the first time in a long time – reached out to Youbirin to help him right his wrongs by showing him how to summon. Or maybe Youbirin went to find him because he’s family and apparently was once a reasonably powerful ninja and Youbirin needs all the help he can get to catch up. Or somesuch.
I do have a question about Team Medic in the forest, though. They obviously survive the forest, but do they confront the sound-nin? Sakura’s fight with the sound-nin was very important for her character development, plus the development of Lee and Sakura’s relationship. But the DoS version of that fight is really important to Shikako’s character development? So I’m not sure how to reconcile that fight in specific. It’ll be interesting, at least. I could shift the timing; the sound-ninja come across Team Medic early on, causing a fight that Lee interrupts to save Sakura. But the fight ends when Team Medic finds an escape route, but only after Sakura’s Important Hair Cut. (Her really cool “tank the hit” strategy really only works if she’s at the tree tending to Team 7′s woudns, which is another way to take the fight. But that’d lose Shikako’s first kill(s). So this is a hard fight to work around.)
We also need to figure out the adjusted fight pairings. Sakura and Ino face off like in canon, Shikako vs. Shikamaru is still a faceoff using DoS logic… Jiro and Youbirin can be faced off against Shino and Chouji, using Shikako’s “Weakest v. Strongest” logic and alleviating their anticlimactic fight. Which pairings of those four make the most sense, then? (There’s an even number of contestants in this AU, which is neat, so we can avoid dealing with the by-round) This would also probably, to immense irony, make the finals closer to canon. Kankuro forfeits his fight with Shino and Shikamaru and Temari get their strategy battle. If one of Ino and Sakura actually gets to win, though, (because of the alternate character/ability development of the AU) then they fight Temari using the “Pair the Kunoichi” logic. In which case Shikamaru and Shino fight as in DoS? And Kankuro forfeits his fight with Chouji. (Because there’s no way they’d let the anticlimax of Chouji and Shino happen in the finals.)
Also, at what point, exactly, do we want them shuffled back amongst the other teams? Like, we know it’s after the Sound Invasion/Konoha Crush, but how soon? Right after? And I’m like, 100% sure that Sakura should be brought along to find Tsunade – because it’s the best way to move up her training time table, plus she’s already an accomplished medic by that point – but how does Jiraiya come to the conclusion to bring her along with him and Naruto?
When Masumi first realizes that something is wrong with the C-rank–she keeps her genin away while she tries to work on the cure–but because of increased exposure and the stress of being the only jounin in charge of the entire situation and not entirely sure when their back up will appear just wears away at her.
And so the genin have to try to decipher her notes and continue developing the cure–which is doable since they spent a few months running her research reports to various parts of the hospital and helping her make her current drugs (though with her supervision). So it’s just a step beyond what they’ve already done–as opposed to expecting them to be able to fight a higher ranked enemy nin. (And it hits home all that much more that Team Medic is different from other teams–their enemy isn’t people, their enemy is poison/disease/injuries)
Oh, also, tangential, I kind of like the idea that Inuzuka Hana is on the back-up/tracking team. Because it’s canon that she’s a medic nin (even if it is for ninken instead of humans) and she’s a chuunin so that would make sense. Like–she may not necessarily be able to cure the bio-weapon but she’ll be able to handle herself against her. Just, you know, to sprinkle in some more canon cameos.
While I like the POW background I’m really unsure how much leeway she would get if she actually made anything for the enemy. But I’m also unsure how patient the enemy would be if her drugs didn’t have immediate results. So there’s a balance where she can’t just completely sabotage the project because the enemy would’ve killed her, but she can’t have been too successful because that’d be treason.
I think the increased chakra output drug does have the best narrative because it’s like the holy grail for medic nin who usually have small chakra reserves and could do so much more if they just had more chakra. So for it to backfire and become forbidden is very poignant. I don’t think this should be her POW drug, though, because that’s definitely treasonous to develop for enemies no matter how much she sabotages her own progress. Also the whole–burning the subject from the inside–thing isn’t something that the enemies would tolerate no matter how brilliant she is–they’d kill her as soon as her first subject dies. Well–they probably have her test it on other prisoners, so they might give her some leeway if the subject dies… hm… maybe it’s her POW drug? Just so we don’t have to come up with another drug?
Or maybe it was her POW drug which she sabotaged even if it meant the death of her fellow prisoners, and then when she gave a report of her experience Konoha was like–try to make it for real. Except she doesn’t actually know how to make it not kill people, so they just pull the plug on the project and it’s all swept under the rug as part of the mayhem of war.
Defibrillators aren’t used for stopped hearts IRL, they’re used for irregular heartbeats. Like to shock it back into a normal rhythm. I mean, it still basically follows the act of desperation thing. So… actually… maybe he develops it during their C-rank gone wrong? Like it’s one of the symptoms and Masumi-sensei is basically having a heart-attack and the genin really cannot have their sensei flatline so he just kind of… electrocutes her. -_- Jiro… what… I mean, it works and luckily Masumi can heal the burns when he accidentally overloads it. But, you know, it’s got a long way to go before it’s perfect.
I like the “Takama goes to watch the Exams” idea more than Youbirin goes to his hermit hut. Because it kind of explains why Youbirin didn’t know about him (another combat shinobi Nohara!) earlier and why, after the reveal of Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama gives him a bit of a pep-talk. Because if Youbirin came to him it’d be like–why should I help you–whereas if Takama goes to Konoha it’s–I have faith in our clan again, pull yourself up and get back out there you brat.
As for Forest of Death.. hm… Sakura being outnumbered and fighting back anyway is very important, I agree. Unsure how important I would deem Lee “rescuing her,” but it would make sense for him to follow her team… It doesn’t necessarily have to be the Sound Team, though–that wouldn’t make sense, actually, because the Sound Team were specifically going after Sasuke to test the curse seal. But what if the enemy ninja from their first C-rank was the relative of one of the genin? So there is that little bit of a grudge built in to it?
As for why Sakura ends up outnumbered… maybe she recognizes the poison they use a split second before her teammates do–before her perfect chakra control and her Tsunade training, her main strength was her encyclopedic knowledge–so she’s able to react fast enough (maybe not breathe in, or shut her eyes) that she doesn’t get exposed to it. And so her teammates get knocked out after a few minutes into the fight which leaves her up against three enemy genin. So it’s basically like the canon set up…
As for the prelim battles… well–how far have you gotten in DoS? I wouldn’t want to spoil who gets promoted (because it’s different than canon) but I don’t think Team Medic should affect that. Which means that you might be able to have Jiro fight someone who definitely doesn’t to the Third Round. And, of the three, I think Jiro does have the earliest development and it makes the most sense for him to make it to the Third Round. Probably not to get promoted necessarily… but definitely to make a decent showing. So probably Chouji v Jiro and Youbirin v Shino, that way you can get the canon-esque set up of in the Third Round. It’s a little hard for me to picture the prelims, it’s been a while–I feel like I need to chart it out.
I think… in order for Sakura to be brought along to find Tsunade, Team Medic should be split up pretty much immediately after the Sound Invasion–at the very least, before Itachi and Kisame show up. Which… isn’t exactly that long after the Invasion anyway.
As for why Jiraiya would bring her along. Again… how far are you in DoS? Well, in DoS Sakura’s training with Tsunade is already moved up–and that’s a Sakura who was in the Medic Corps, not a battle medic team. So this Sakura would have more confidence, and she’s now a part of Team Seven, and one of her teammates/patients is in a coma via the Tsukuyomi. So she probably goes to Jiraiya and demands to be included–because she is a medic who has lost her sensei and she’ll be damned if she loses one of her new teammates/patients… And Jiraiya sees this girl and thinks–this is basically Tsunade come again. Hell yeah, he’s bringing her along–though, of course, he’ll act very reluctant about it the entire time.
Yeah, that’s roughly the direction I’m headed with that. Maybe, maybe, they’ll be a thing where some of the straggling enemy ninja wander back into town to make sure everything’s progressing and Team Medic, as the only ones not sick or otherwise available, have to fight them off. But like, not very strong enemy ninjas. More reasonable level for them, I guess.
I’ll see what I can do about Inuzuka Hana. At the very least, it’ll be an interesting interaction. And alternative perspectives on being a medical-nin will help Team Medic form their own opinions and goals. Or somesuch.
Hmm… Yeah, that seems to be the best way around it. Like, she sabotages it, and at least one prisoner dies from it. And the enemy is considering using it for interrogation instead of for their men, because hey if they can’t use it one way… But before she refines the medicine either way she’s rescued, and destroys her notes because it’s something that mankind is not ready for.
If we don’t have her develop a drug as a POW, then she could have been forced to help with interrogations. I.e. they interrogate someone, bring them near death, and have her fix them up. Repeat until desired results. She could then develop the chakra drug when she’s older, and scraps it when the first test subject burns themself alive.
Takama going to the exams would also make him an interesting way to feel for the spectators of the final round, since that was the only round with spectators. So he goes – perhaps originally because he thought Youbirin had passed, and then the invasion happens, Kabuto’s treachery is revealed, he outs Youbirin as someone who helped him (or whatever), Youbirin fights back anyway, Takame helps Youbirin save face by giving him an in with the cranes.
If it’s an actually reasonable Genin team – i.e. not Orochimaru’s overpowered plants – then it’s not impossible for Sakura to win without assistance. Especially given the Sound ninja were Orochimaru plants, and thus way above Genin level. Now she might realize she needs more than the basics to survive, making her resolve to improve stronger.
This genin team may be connected to that, or maybe not. It could also be a team from Takigakure, because there were a few of those there. There was also a second sound team that didn’t pass the second exam, so it’s entirely possible to swap with another sound team. It’d be harder for Sakura to win in that case, but not impossible.
As for how far I am… I’m currently in the month between the prelims and the finals? It’s slow going with all of the work I’m doing for school, but I’m making progress. I was mainly avoiding sending Jiro on to round 3 because I wanted to avoid favoritism. But he is kind of my favorite… And pitting lightning versus Choji might actually work really well. I mean, Dosu won by taking advantage of the water inside his body…
It’d be neat if that was actually the opposite of what was intended when the battles were rigged. Like, the test proctors react in such a way that they were not expecting the civilian kid
– whose family isn’t even from Konoha –
to beat the heir to one of the most prominent clans of Konoha. And Masumi is just really smug about how well her student has done, because he’s not only an accomplished medic, but also a battle medic which was the entire point. It might even surprise Shikako, really, given she’d have no reference point for Jiro’s abilities like she does the other kids.
Also, I’m fully on board for the resolution to the “Early Tsunade training” thing. It provides Sakura with more narrative agency, something she desparately needs…
I’m wondering… for the Konoha side of trying to have Masumi develop the drug… is it Danzo or is it Minato “encouraging” her? Because that would be two very different ways to interpret the failed version of the drug and then the destroying of the notes…
It could be that Takama shows up in Konoha during the Exams as soon as the first part, even, as a sort of silent moral support and even though Youbirin is knocked out during the prelim, he still stays because… hey. There’s a battle Nohara again, finally, after how many decades? And sure he’s not in the top eight but he made it through the Forest of Death which is saying something.
Jiro just gets his power boost earlier than the other two, so it’s not really favoritism… and of the “clan heirs” that he could be up against, Chouji would be the easiest to defeat. Although I think Naruto beat Kiba in DoS using the single lightning jutsu Kakashi taught Team Seven? So maybe have Jiro follow after and knowingly copy his victory or try to alter it enough so it’s not an exact replay…
If possible, I think it would be cool to see Shikako react to Team Medic and–as readers, we know she’s confused because this would be the largest change she’s made and, specifically, a change that sustains itself–but maybe Team Medic has no idea why she’s reacting the way she is.
Hmm… I’m really not sure how the timeline works there with having Masumi develop the drug, so I’m going to defer to your judgement on that until I better understand that particular plot point.
That makes sense for Takama. Though, the prelims were closed off, and even if he’s a super-ninja-hermit, he’d be noticed by the jounin if he were to observe. Although it’s possible he observed via a crane? Which would be neat and cool. The jounin would notice, but there aren’t any village enemies known to use cranes so they wouldn’t know how to deal with this random ninja bird. (Unless one of them recognize whose bird it is, in a good way?)
Yeah, Jiro winning against Chouji makes more sense than any other clan heir match up. But he’s still not someone who’d be expected to win, if that makes sense? And I think having someone be surprised by the match up turning out “wrong” would be really neat. But I could just be too hung up on that.
Although, Jiro’s “Heart-Stopping Hands” (I came up with the names Heart-Starting and Heart-Stopping Hands too early to get rid of them, accuracy or no) would actually work pretty well since there’s so much surface area on Chouji to affect…
Shikako’s reactions, though, will definitely come up. Not directly – Team Medic’s viewpoint characters, Sakura taking a “main character” stance because Sannin/Team 7 privilege – but people have noted her facial expressions in-universe before, especially Ino. So there’d be a “You look more surprised than usual, Shikako!” Or somesuch? And maybe there’d be a side-chapter here or there, interludes where we get a journal entry from Shikako about how Team Medic’s inclusion has thrown off her knowledge of events. (I don’t feel super comfortable writing Shikako’s thoughts though, given she’s a self-insert? I dunno. If I do, it’d be under consultation from Silver Queen.)
(By the way, I started redesigning Jiro in light of getting his outfit to look less like Mitsuki, but honestly I think we should just do the grey-teal-navy combo? Because I’m fresh out of ways to do the hoodie that would continue to incorporate the asymmetry.)
Well the Masumi drug thing… I actually think it ought to be “revealed” after her death? I think you were going for an epistolary story telling, correct? So it’s only after Masumi dies that Team Medic inherit all of her notes and they dig through everything and find her personal journal. Which, obviously, is still hella encrypted but they are her students and she would have taught them her encryption (maybe another reason why Kabuto needed Youbirin? As opposed to stealing it by himself).
Takama is… hm… well, even if the parts of the Exam that Youbirin was actually in was closed, I still think he’d want to show up and support? And also, since the various parts of the exam are secret until actually done, maybe he thought one of the earlier parts would be watchable. And since he’s already there he might as well stay (and even though he’s a weirdo, he’s still a Nohara clan elder, so he still gets a guest room or something)…
Yeah, basically all of Team Medic are paired up against clan heirs because the Konoha higher ups are worried that medics fighting would be boring to watch (kind of in line why the Nara twins and Hyuuga cousins are paired off to prevent repetitive matches in the finals). And they’re expected to lose. But, again combat medics so… 😛
I think it’d be more poignant if we never actually see Shikako’s POV–just an outside POV of her reactions. Reacting to her reactions. Because we as readers have an extra level of knowledge that the characters don’t have so we interpret things differently from them; whereas Shikako is in between.
(Ah, well, the asymmetry thing was a bit of a reach. Though I will miss it… You didn’t want the tan instead of navy?)
Yep, pretty much. I’m not sure entirely how it’ll be done exactly, but the style will be reminiscent of The Kane Chronicles, where they sometimes interrupt or interact in the narration, sometimes even outright correcting (or “correcting”) what another narrator said. So yeah, that makes perfect sense! And in that case, the backstory chapters can be straight-up from her perspective as we read her journal from her POW days. Which will be neat.
Possibly. But I like the idea of him being around, but keeping an eye “illegally” through a crane that follows Youbirin? It feels very dramatic and cool and symbolic. But hmm… They’d probably just ask him to cut the charade when the prelims start, but he’d be watching and Youbirin would probably drop off the face of the Earth when he watched out of shame.
But glad we’re on the same page about Jiro’s fight. That’s going to be a neat fight to write… Youbirin’s fight with Shino will probably be a curbstomp, though. Not much early, basic Youbirin can do against Chakra bugs.
Yeah, that’s better with how I wanna tell the story, anyway. Sakura notices her face when the prelims start, because she’s clearly calculating… something. (In fact, the new matchups, since Jiro and Youbirin don’t fit into anything she knows about.) Etc. She probably wouldn’t let on too much, but enough that the audience would know she’s re-calculating her next move based on how things are changing, since she didn’t expect the butterfly effect to go as far as it did.
(I liked the asymmetric hoodie, was what I was saying. You said you liked the grey/teal/navy combo OR the white/blue/tan combo, and since we’re ruling out the latter for being too close to Mitsuki, the former just makes more sense. If you’d rather I take another stab at the hoodie without the asymmetry, I can; I’m just attached to him having a hoodie because I like hoodies.)
I’m still just like… there’s a limit to how much leeway even an old retired shinobi will get from Konoha, no matter how badass he was in his prime. I mean… well… unless he still does something. Like, given he has summoning cranes, maybe he’s also part of Konoha’s information/intelligence/espionage network. Because it can’t all be just Jiraiya. And Takama would be able to justify it because there are so many foreign nin in the village–he suspects something’s going to go down.
So probably, since he’s part of the intelligence network, they do let him watch some parts of the Exams (probably however they let the jounin-sensei watch… do they also let the foreign jounin-sensei watch? I don’t remember that in canon, but maybe they’re in a different room? So that’d be where Takama is too since he is, ostensibly, there to keep an eye on the foreigners).
(I like the idea of him with a hoodie, too. Because that is that little bit of call-forward to his future team… but I feel like grey as well as a hoodie would be too much of a call-forward, you know? So maybe tan, teal, and white but very minimal amounts of white so it’s not too much like Mitsuki.)
Hmm… On the one hand, I really like the idea of their “Land of Waves Arc” being a “ninja bio-weapon” arc? And while I’d love to have them have to fight the villains if only for the symmetry, they aren’t heavy-hitters like Team 7 and, honestly, none of them really bring much to combat that early on. Jiro has probably learned some lightning jutsu, but that’s probably the heaviest hit they have given that Sakura didn’t have anything relevant for combat that early and Youbirin’s character arc requires he be very quickly outclassed by his teammates… But having them see to the bio-weapon – and perhaps having to develop a counter-medicine when Masumi gets stricken by the disease herself? – is the most appropriate way to handle themselves so early on.
I like where her background is going, but I’ll propose a tweak: it’s not that they didn’t notice she was alive when they raided the prison camp she was in, but that she’d been transferred to a higher-security facility because they noticed her proficiency with medicine and put her to work. So it wasn’t that she was passed up but more so that they were too late to save her from further imprisonment. Like, if they’d been a week earlier they’d have found her in the first rescue mission.
I really like the drug to increase chakra output, because honestly it has the best reasoning for why she’d develop it and how badly it backfires. Now the real question is: when does she develop it (for the enemy as a POW or on her own for the village), who knows about it (Her, Kabuto, maybe OA-jounin or the Hokage?), and to what extent can the research be salvaged? Kabuto would have reasons to want to use it either way (i.e. Burn people up from the inside with their own chakra? No evidence of a crime! Or the standard increase in output if he can make a workaround) but it’d be nice to know which direction to take that in.
By the way, the OA-jounin was referred to as Takahiro-sensei by Sakura in Chapter 6. No surname given, but it probably isn’t important enough to give him one. Especially because then Masumi can refer to him as Hiro or Hiro-kun or something else diminutive and irreverent. Because they’re close and all.
As for the defibrillator hands… At the very least the Naruto universe is aware that electricity can mess with the musculature system, as seen in Shikako’s narration that lightning jutsu can cause paralysis. This was the idea that lead to the idea of defibrillators, so it’s not impossible for Jiro to develop his defibrillator hands based on that alone. Especially if it’s in an act of desparation; he’s trying to save someone, CPR doesn’t work and he doesn’t know anything for a stopped heart, so he tries lightning to make it start and it works. Which goes on to be a defining part of his arsenal.
For Takama… Yeah, that makes sense. He’s the weird uncle who didn’t become a medical-nin and has birds, so he’s probably really reclusive. He probably doesn’t even live on Nohara land, instead like, on a mountain hut or something. But Youbirin isn’t trying to become a standard medic, so at some point after Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama – who was probably paying some attention to the exams because family was in it for the first time in a long time – reached out to Youbirin to help him right his wrongs by showing him how to summon. Or maybe Youbirin went to find him because he’s family and apparently was once a reasonably powerful ninja and Youbirin needs all the help he can get to catch up. Or somesuch.
I do have a question about Team Medic in the forest, though. They obviously survive the forest, but do they confront the sound-nin? Sakura’s fight with the sound-nin was very important for her character development, plus the development of Lee and Sakura’s relationship. But the DoS version of that fight is really important to Shikako’s character development? So I’m not sure how to reconcile that fight in specific. It’ll be interesting, at least. I could shift the timing; the sound-ninja come across Team Medic early on, causing a fight that Lee interrupts to save Sakura. But the fight ends when Team Medic finds an escape route, but only after Sakura’s Important Hair Cut. (Her really cool “tank the hit” strategy really only works if she’s at the tree tending to Team 7′s woudns, which is another way to take the fight. But that’d lose Shikako’s first kill(s). So this is a hard fight to work around.)
We also need to figure out the adjusted fight pairings. Sakura and Ino face off like in canon, Shikako vs. Shikamaru is still a faceoff using DoS logic… Jiro and Youbirin can be faced off against Shino and Chouji, using Shikako’s “Weakest v. Strongest” logic and alleviating their anticlimactic fight. Which pairings of those four make the most sense, then? (There’s an even number of contestants in this AU, which is neat, so we can avoid dealing with the by-round) This would also probably, to immense irony, make the finals closer to canon. Kankuro forfeits his fight with Shino and Shikamaru and Temari get their strategy battle. If one of Ino and Sakura actually gets to win, though, (because of the alternate character/ability development of the AU) then they fight Temari using the “Pair the Kunoichi” logic. In which case Shikamaru and Shino fight as in DoS? And Kankuro forfeits his fight with Chouji. (Because there’s no way they’d let the anticlimax of Chouji and Shino happen in the finals.)
Also, at what point, exactly, do we want them shuffled back amongst the other teams? Like, we know it’s after the Sound Invasion/Konoha Crush, but how soon? Right after? And I’m like, 100% sure that Sakura should be brought along to find Tsunade – because it’s the best way to move up her training time table, plus she’s already an accomplished medic by that point – but how does Jiraiya come to the conclusion to bring her along with him and Naruto?
When Masumi first realizes that something is wrong with the C-rank–she keeps her genin away while she tries to work on the cure–but because of increased exposure and the stress of being the only jounin in charge of the entire situation and not entirely sure when their back up will appear just wears away at her.
And so the genin have to try to decipher her notes and continue developing the cure–which is doable since they spent a few months running her research reports to various parts of the hospital and helping her make her current drugs (though with her supervision). So it’s just a step beyond what they’ve already done–as opposed to expecting them to be able to fight a higher ranked enemy nin. (And it hits home all that much more that Team Medic is different from other teams–their enemy isn’t people, their enemy is poison/disease/injuries)
Oh, also, tangential, I kind of like the idea that Inuzuka Hana is on the back-up/tracking team. Because it’s canon that she’s a medic nin (even if it is for ninken instead of humans) and she’s a chuunin so that would make sense. Like–she may not necessarily be able to cure the bio-weapon but she’ll be able to handle herself against her. Just, you know, to sprinkle in some more canon cameos.
While I like the POW background I’m really unsure how much leeway she would get if she actually made anything for the enemy. But I’m also unsure how patient the enemy would be if her drugs didn’t have immediate results. So there’s a balance where she can’t just completely sabotage the project because the enemy would’ve killed her, but she can’t have been too successful because that’d be treason.
I think the increased chakra output drug does have the best narrative because it’s like the holy grail for medic nin who usually have small chakra reserves and could do so much more if they just had more chakra. So for it to backfire and become forbidden is very poignant. I don’t think this should be her POW drug, though, because that’s definitely treasonous to develop for enemies no matter how much she sabotages her own progress. Also the whole–burning the subject from the inside–thing isn’t something that the enemies would tolerate no matter how brilliant she is–they’d kill her as soon as her first subject dies. Well–they probably have her test it on other prisoners, so they might give her some leeway if the subject dies… hm… maybe it’s her POW drug? Just so we don’t have to come up with another drug?
Or maybe it was her POW drug which she sabotaged even if it meant the death of her fellow prisoners, and then when she gave a report of her experience Konoha was like–try to make it for real. Except she doesn’t actually know how to make it not kill people, so they just pull the plug on the project and it’s all swept under the rug as part of the mayhem of war.
Defibrillators aren’t used for stopped hearts IRL, they’re used for irregular heartbeats. Like to shock it back into a normal rhythm. I mean, it still basically follows the act of desperation thing. So… actually… maybe he develops it during their C-rank gone wrong? Like it’s one of the symptoms and Masumi-sensei is basically having a heart-attack and the genin really cannot have their sensei flatline so he just kind of… electrocutes her. -_- Jiro… what… I mean, it works and luckily Masumi can heal the burns when he accidentally overloads it. But, you know, it’s got a long way to go before it’s perfect.
I like the “Takama goes to watch the Exams” idea more than Youbirin goes to his hermit hut. Because it kind of explains why Youbirin didn’t know about him (another combat shinobi Nohara!) earlier and why, after the reveal of Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama gives him a bit of a pep-talk. Because if Youbirin came to him it’d be like–why should I help you–whereas if Takama goes to Konoha it’s–I have faith in our clan again, pull yourself up and get back out there you brat.
As for Forest of Death.. hm… Sakura being outnumbered and fighting back anyway is very important, I agree. Unsure how important I would deem Lee “rescuing her,” but it would make sense for him to follow her team… It doesn’t necessarily have to be the Sound Team, though–that wouldn’t make sense, actually, because the Sound Team were specifically going after Sasuke to test the curse seal. But what if the enemy ninja from their first C-rank was the relative of one of the genin? So there is that little bit of a grudge built in to it?
As for why Sakura ends up outnumbered… maybe she recognizes the poison they use a split second before her teammates do–before her perfect chakra control and her Tsunade training, her main strength was her encyclopedic knowledge–so she’s able to react fast enough (maybe not breathe in, or shut her eyes) that she doesn’t get exposed to it. And so her teammates get knocked out after a few minutes into the fight which leaves her up against three enemy genin. So it’s basically like the canon set up…
As for the prelim battles… well–how far have you gotten in DoS? I wouldn’t want to spoil who gets promoted (because it’s different than canon) but I don’t think Team Medic should affect that. Which means that you might be able to have Jiro fight someone who definitely doesn’t to the Third Round. And, of the three, I think Jiro does have the earliest development and it makes the most sense for him to make it to the Third Round. Probably not to get promoted necessarily… but definitely to make a decent showing. So probably Chouji v Jiro and Youbirin v Shino, that way you can get the canon-esque set up of in the Third Round. It’s a little hard for me to picture the prelims, it’s been a while–I feel like I need to chart it out.
I think… in order for Sakura to be brought along to find Tsunade, Team Medic should be split up pretty much immediately after the Sound Invasion–at the very least, before Itachi and Kisame show up. Which… isn’t exactly that long after the Invasion anyway.
As for why Jiraiya would bring her along. Again… how far are you in DoS? Well, in DoS Sakura’s training with Tsunade is already moved up–and that’s a Sakura who was in the Medic Corps, not a battle medic team. So this Sakura would have more confidence, and she’s now a part of Team Seven, and one of her teammates/patients is in a coma via the Tsukuyomi. So she probably goes to Jiraiya and demands to be included–because she is a medic who has lost her sensei and she’ll be damned if she loses one of her new teammates/patients… And Jiraiya sees this girl and thinks–this is basically Tsunade come again. Hell yeah, he’s bringing her along–though, of course, he’ll act very reluctant about it the entire time.
Yeah, that’s roughly the direction I’m headed with that. Maybe, maybe, they’ll be a thing where some of the straggling enemy ninja wander back into town to make sure everything’s progressing and Team Medic, as the only ones not sick or otherwise available, have to fight them off. But like, not very strong enemy ninjas. More reasonable level for them, I guess.
I’ll see what I can do about Inuzuka Hana. At the very least, it’ll be an interesting interaction. And alternative perspectives on being a medical-nin will help Team Medic form their own opinions and goals. Or somesuch.
Hmm… Yeah, that seems to be the best way around it. Like, she sabotages it, and at least one prisoner dies from it. And the enemy is considering using it for interrogation instead of for their men, because hey if they can’t use it one way… But before she refines the medicine either way she’s rescued, and destroys her notes because it’s something that mankind is not ready for.
If we don’t have her develop a drug as a POW, then she could have been forced to help with interrogations. I.e. they interrogate someone, bring them near death, and have her fix them up. Repeat until desired results. She could then develop the chakra drug when she’s older, and scraps it when the first test subject burns themself alive.
Takama going to the exams would also make him an interesting way to feel for the spectators of the final round, since that was the only round with spectators. So he goes – perhaps originally because he thought Youbirin had passed, and then the invasion happens, Kabuto’s treachery is revealed, he outs Youbirin as someone who helped him (or whatever), Youbirin fights back anyway, Takame helps Youbirin save face by giving him an in with the cranes.
If it’s an actually reasonable Genin team – i.e. not Orochimaru’s overpowered plants – then it’s not impossible for Sakura to win without assistance. Especially given the Sound ninja were Orochimaru plants, and thus way above Genin level. Now she might realize she needs more than the basics to survive, making her resolve to improve stronger.
This genin team may be connected to that, or maybe not. It could also be a team from Takigakure, because there were a few of those there. There was also a second sound team that didn’t pass the second exam, so it’s entirely possible to swap with another sound team. It’d be harder for Sakura to win in that case, but not impossible.
As for how far I am… I’m currently in the month between the prelims and the finals? It’s slow going with all of the work I’m doing for school, but I’m making progress. I was mainly avoiding sending Jiro on to round 3 because I wanted to avoid favoritism. But he is kind of my favorite… And pitting lightning versus Choji might actually work really well. I mean, Dosu won by taking advantage of the water inside his body…
It’d be neat if that was actually the opposite of what was intended when the battles were rigged. Like, the test proctors react in such a way that they were not expecting the civilian kid
– whose family isn’t even from Konoha –
to beat the heir to one of the most prominent clans of Konoha. And Masumi is just really smug about how well her student has done, because he’s not only an accomplished medic, but also a battle medic which was the entire point. It might even surprise Shikako, really, given she’d have no reference point for Jiro’s abilities like she does the other kids.
Also, I’m fully on board for the resolution to the “Early Tsunade training” thing. It provides Sakura with more narrative agency, something she desparately needs…
I’m wondering… for the Konoha side of trying to have Masumi develop the drug… is it Danzo or is it Minato “encouraging” her? Because that would be two very different ways to interpret the failed version of the drug and then the destroying of the notes…
It could be that Takama shows up in Konoha during the Exams as soon as the first part, even, as a sort of silent moral support and even though Youbirin is knocked out during the prelim, he still stays because… hey. There’s a battle Nohara again, finally, after how many decades? And sure he’s not in the top eight but he made it through the Forest of Death which is saying something.
Jiro just gets his power boost earlier than the other two, so it’s not really favoritism… and of the “clan heirs” that he could be up against, Chouji would be the easiest to defeat. Although I think Naruto beat Kiba in DoS using the single lightning jutsu Kakashi taught Team Seven? So maybe have Jiro follow after and knowingly copy his victory or try to alter it enough so it’s not an exact replay…
If possible, I think it would be cool to see Shikako react to Team Medic and–as readers, we know she’s confused because this would be the largest change she’s made and, specifically, a change that sustains itself–but maybe Team Medic has no idea why she’s reacting the way she is.
Hmm… I’m really not sure how the timeline works there with having Masumi develop the drug, so I’m going to defer to your judgement on that until I better understand that particular plot point.
That makes sense for Takama. Though, the prelims were closed off, and even if he’s a super-ninja-hermit, he’d be noticed by the jounin if he were to observe. Although it’s possible he observed via a crane? Which would be neat and cool. The jounin would notice, but there aren’t any village enemies known to use cranes so they wouldn’t know how to deal with this random ninja bird. (Unless one of them recognize whose bird it is, in a good way?)
Yeah, Jiro winning against Chouji makes more sense than any other clan heir match up. But he’s still not someone who’d be expected to win, if that makes sense? And I think having someone be surprised by the match up turning out “wrong” would be really neat. But I could just be too hung up on that.
Although, Jiro’s “Heart-Stopping Hands” (I came up with the names Heart-Starting and Heart-Stopping Hands too early to get rid of them, accuracy or no) would actually work pretty well since there’s so much surface area on Chouji to affect…
Shikako’s reactions, though, will definitely come up. Not directly – Team Medic’s viewpoint characters, Sakura taking a “main character” stance because Sannin/Team 7 privilege – but people have noted her facial expressions in-universe before, especially Ino. So there’d be a “You look more surprised than usual, Shikako!” Or somesuch? And maybe there’d be a side-chapter here or there, interludes where we get a journal entry from Shikako about how Team Medic’s inclusion has thrown off her knowledge of events. (I don’t feel super comfortable writing Shikako’s thoughts though, given she’s a self-insert? I dunno. If I do, it’d be under consultation from Silver Queen.)
(By the way, I started redesigning Jiro in light of getting his outfit to look less like Mitsuki, but honestly I think we should just do the grey-teal-navy combo? Because I’m fresh out of ways to do the hoodie that would continue to incorporate the asymmetry.)
Well the Masumi drug thing… I actually think it ought to be “revealed” after her death? I think you were going for an epistolary story telling, correct? So it’s only after Masumi dies that Team Medic inherit all of her notes and they dig through everything and find her personal journal. Which, obviously, is still hella encrypted but they are her students and she would have taught them her encryption (maybe another reason why Kabuto needed Youbirin? As opposed to stealing it by himself).
Takama is… hm… well, even if the parts of the Exam that Youbirin was actually in was closed, I still think he’d want to show up and support? And also, since the various parts of the exam are secret until actually done, maybe he thought one of the earlier parts would be watchable. And since he’s already there he might as well stay (and even though he’s a weirdo, he’s still a Nohara clan elder, so he still gets a guest room or something)…
Yeah, basically all of Team Medic are paired up against clan heirs because the Konoha higher ups are worried that medics fighting would be boring to watch (kind of in line why the Nara twins and Hyuuga cousins are paired off to prevent repetitive matches in the finals). And they’re expected to lose. But, again combat medics so… 😛
I think it’d be more poignant if we never actually see Shikako’s POV–just an outside POV of her reactions. Reacting to her reactions. Because we as readers have an extra level of knowledge that the characters don’t have so we interpret things differently from them; whereas Shikako is in between.
(Ah, well, the asymmetry thing was a bit of a reach. Though I will miss it… You didn’t want the tan instead of navy?)
Hmm… On the one hand, I really like the idea of their “Land of Waves Arc” being a “ninja bio-weapon” arc? And while I’d love to have them have to fight the villains if only for the symmetry, they aren’t heavy-hitters like Team 7 and, honestly, none of them really bring much to combat that early on. Jiro has probably learned some lightning jutsu, but that’s probably the heaviest hit they have given that Sakura didn’t have anything relevant for combat that early and Youbirin’s character arc requires he be very quickly outclassed by his teammates… But having them see to the bio-weapon – and perhaps having to develop a counter-medicine when Masumi gets stricken by the disease herself? – is the most appropriate way to handle themselves so early on.
I like where her background is going, but I’ll propose a tweak: it’s not that they didn’t notice she was alive when they raided the prison camp she was in, but that she’d been transferred to a higher-security facility because they noticed her proficiency with medicine and put her to work. So it wasn’t that she was passed up but more so that they were too late to save her from further imprisonment. Like, if they’d been a week earlier they’d have found her in the first rescue mission.
I really like the drug to increase chakra output, because honestly it has the best reasoning for why she’d develop it and how badly it backfires. Now the real question is: when does she develop it (for the enemy as a POW or on her own for the village), who knows about it (Her, Kabuto, maybe OA-jounin or the Hokage?), and to what extent can the research be salvaged? Kabuto would have reasons to want to use it either way (i.e. Burn people up from the inside with their own chakra? No evidence of a crime! Or the standard increase in output if he can make a workaround) but it’d be nice to know which direction to take that in.
By the way, the OA-jounin was referred to as Takahiro-sensei by Sakura in Chapter 6. No surname given, but it probably isn’t important enough to give him one. Especially because then Masumi can refer to him as Hiro or Hiro-kun or something else diminutive and irreverent. Because they’re close and all.
As for the defibrillator hands… At the very least the Naruto universe is aware that electricity can mess with the musculature system, as seen in Shikako’s narration that lightning jutsu can cause paralysis. This was the idea that lead to the idea of defibrillators, so it’s not impossible for Jiro to develop his defibrillator hands based on that alone. Especially if it’s in an act of desparation; he’s trying to save someone, CPR doesn’t work and he doesn’t know anything for a stopped heart, so he tries lightning to make it start and it works. Which goes on to be a defining part of his arsenal.
For Takama… Yeah, that makes sense. He’s the weird uncle who didn’t become a medical-nin and has birds, so he’s probably really reclusive. He probably doesn’t even live on Nohara land, instead like, on a mountain hut or something. But Youbirin isn’t trying to become a standard medic, so at some point after Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama – who was probably paying some attention to the exams because family was in it for the first time in a long time – reached out to Youbirin to help him right his wrongs by showing him how to summon. Or maybe Youbirin went to find him because he’s family and apparently was once a reasonably powerful ninja and Youbirin needs all the help he can get to catch up. Or somesuch.
I do have a question about Team Medic in the forest, though. They obviously survive the forest, but do they confront the sound-nin? Sakura’s fight with the sound-nin was very important for her character development, plus the development of Lee and Sakura’s relationship. But the DoS version of that fight is really important to Shikako’s character development? So I’m not sure how to reconcile that fight in specific. It’ll be interesting, at least. I could shift the timing; the sound-ninja come across Team Medic early on, causing a fight that Lee interrupts to save Sakura. But the fight ends when Team Medic finds an escape route, but only after Sakura’s Important Hair Cut. (Her really cool “tank the hit” strategy really only works if she’s at the tree tending to Team 7′s woudns, which is another way to take the fight. But that’d lose Shikako’s first kill(s). So this is a hard fight to work around.)
We also need to figure out the adjusted fight pairings. Sakura and Ino face off like in canon, Shikako vs. Shikamaru is still a faceoff using DoS logic… Jiro and Youbirin can be faced off against Shino and Chouji, using Shikako’s “Weakest v. Strongest” logic and alleviating their anticlimactic fight. Which pairings of those four make the most sense, then? (There’s an even number of contestants in this AU, which is neat, so we can avoid dealing with the by-round) This would also probably, to immense irony, make the finals closer to canon. Kankuro forfeits his fight with Shino and Shikamaru and Temari get their strategy battle. If one of Ino and Sakura actually gets to win, though, (because of the alternate character/ability development of the AU) then they fight Temari using the “Pair the Kunoichi” logic. In which case Shikamaru and Shino fight as in DoS? And Kankuro forfeits his fight with Chouji. (Because there’s no way they’d let the anticlimax of Chouji and Shino happen in the finals.)
Also, at what point, exactly, do we want them shuffled back amongst the other teams? Like, we know it’s after the Sound Invasion/Konoha Crush, but how soon? Right after? And I’m like, 100% sure that Sakura should be brought along to find Tsunade – because it’s the best way to move up her training time table, plus she’s already an accomplished medic by that point – but how does Jiraiya come to the conclusion to bring her along with him and Naruto?
When Masumi first realizes that something is wrong with the C-rank–she keeps her genin away while she tries to work on the cure–but because of increased exposure and the stress of being the only jounin in charge of the entire situation and not entirely sure when their back up will appear just wears away at her.
And so the genin have to try to decipher her notes and continue developing the cure–which is doable since they spent a few months running her research reports to various parts of the hospital and helping her make her current drugs (though with her supervision). So it’s just a step beyond what they’ve already done–as opposed to expecting them to be able to fight a higher ranked enemy nin. (And it hits home all that much more that Team Medic is different from other teams–their enemy isn’t people, their enemy is poison/disease/injuries)
Oh, also, tangential, I kind of like the idea that Inuzuka Hana is on the back-up/tracking team. Because it’s canon that she’s a medic nin (even if it is for ninken instead of humans) and she’s a chuunin so that would make sense. Like–she may not necessarily be able to cure the bio-weapon but she’ll be able to handle herself against her. Just, you know, to sprinkle in some more canon cameos.
While I like the POW background I’m really unsure how much leeway she would get if she actually made anything for the enemy. But I’m also unsure how patient the enemy would be if her drugs didn’t have immediate results. So there’s a balance where she can’t just completely sabotage the project because the enemy would’ve killed her, but she can’t have been too successful because that’d be treason.
I think the increased chakra output drug does have the best narrative because it’s like the holy grail for medic nin who usually have small chakra reserves and could do so much more if they just had more chakra. So for it to backfire and become forbidden is very poignant. I don’t think this should be her POW drug, though, because that’s definitely treasonous to develop for enemies no matter how much she sabotages her own progress. Also the whole–burning the subject from the inside–thing isn’t something that the enemies would tolerate no matter how brilliant she is–they’d kill her as soon as her first subject dies. Well–they probably have her test it on other prisoners, so they might give her some leeway if the subject dies… hm… maybe it’s her POW drug? Just so we don’t have to come up with another drug?
Or maybe it was her POW drug which she sabotaged even if it meant the death of her fellow prisoners, and then when she gave a report of her experience Konoha was like–try to make it for real. Except she doesn’t actually know how to make it not kill people, so they just pull the plug on the project and it’s all swept under the rug as part of the mayhem of war.
Defibrillators aren’t used for stopped hearts IRL, they’re used for irregular heartbeats. Like to shock it back into a normal rhythm. I mean, it still basically follows the act of desperation thing. So… actually… maybe he develops it during their C-rank gone wrong? Like it’s one of the symptoms and Masumi-sensei is basically having a heart-attack and the genin really cannot have their sensei flatline so he just kind of… electrocutes her. -_- Jiro… what… I mean, it works and luckily Masumi can heal the burns when he accidentally overloads it. But, you know, it’s got a long way to go before it’s perfect.
I like the “Takama goes to watch the Exams” idea more than Youbirin goes to his hermit hut. Because it kind of explains why Youbirin didn’t know about him (another combat shinobi Nohara!) earlier and why, after the reveal of Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama gives him a bit of a pep-talk. Because if Youbirin came to him it’d be like–why should I help you–whereas if Takama goes to Konoha it’s–I have faith in our clan again, pull yourself up and get back out there you brat.
As for Forest of Death.. hm… Sakura being outnumbered and fighting back anyway is very important, I agree. Unsure how important I would deem Lee “rescuing her,” but it would make sense for him to follow her team… It doesn’t necessarily have to be the Sound Team, though–that wouldn’t make sense, actually, because the Sound Team were specifically going after Sasuke to test the curse seal. But what if the enemy ninja from their first C-rank was the relative of one of the genin? So there is that little bit of a grudge built in to it?
As for why Sakura ends up outnumbered… maybe she recognizes the poison they use a split second before her teammates do–before her perfect chakra control and her Tsunade training, her main strength was her encyclopedic knowledge–so she’s able to react fast enough (maybe not breathe in, or shut her eyes) that she doesn’t get exposed to it. And so her teammates get knocked out after a few minutes into the fight which leaves her up against three enemy genin. So it’s basically like the canon set up…
As for the prelim battles… well–how far have you gotten in DoS? I wouldn’t want to spoil who gets promoted (because it’s different than canon) but I don’t think Team Medic should affect that. Which means that you might be able to have Jiro fight someone who definitely doesn’t to the Third Round. And, of the three, I think Jiro does have the earliest development and it makes the most sense for him to make it to the Third Round. Probably not to get promoted necessarily… but definitely to make a decent showing. So probably Chouji v Jiro and Youbirin v Shino, that way you can get the canon-esque set up of in the Third Round. It’s a little hard for me to picture the prelims, it’s been a while–I feel like I need to chart it out.
I think… in order for Sakura to be brought along to find Tsunade, Team Medic should be split up pretty much immediately after the Sound Invasion–at the very least, before Itachi and Kisame show up. Which… isn’t exactly that long after the Invasion anyway.
As for why Jiraiya would bring her along. Again… how far are you in DoS? Well, in DoS Sakura’s training with Tsunade is already moved up–and that’s a Sakura who was in the Medic Corps, not a battle medic team. So this Sakura would have more confidence, and she’s now a part of Team Seven, and one of her teammates/patients is in a coma via the Tsukuyomi. So she probably goes to Jiraiya and demands to be included–because she is a medic who has lost her sensei and she’ll be damned if she loses one of her new teammates/patients… And Jiraiya sees this girl and thinks–this is basically Tsunade come again. Hell yeah, he’s bringing her along–though, of course, he’ll act very reluctant about it the entire time.
Yeah, that’s roughly the direction I’m headed with that. Maybe, maybe, they’ll be a thing where some of the straggling enemy ninja wander back into town to make sure everything’s progressing and Team Medic, as the only ones not sick or otherwise available, have to fight them off. But like, not very strong enemy ninjas. More reasonable level for them, I guess.
I’ll see what I can do about Inuzuka Hana. At the very least, it’ll be an interesting interaction. And alternative perspectives on being a medical-nin will help Team Medic form their own opinions and goals. Or somesuch.
Hmm… Yeah, that seems to be the best way around it. Like, she sabotages it, and at least one prisoner dies from it. And the enemy is considering using it for interrogation instead of for their men, because hey if they can’t use it one way… But before she refines the medicine either way she’s rescued, and destroys her notes because it’s something that mankind is not ready for.
If we don’t have her develop a drug as a POW, then she could have been forced to help with interrogations. I.e. they interrogate someone, bring them near death, and have her fix them up. Repeat until desired results. She could then develop the chakra drug when she’s older, and scraps it when the first test subject burns themself alive.
Takama going to the exams would also make him an interesting way to feel for the spectators of the final round, since that was the only round with spectators. So he goes – perhaps originally because he thought Youbirin had passed, and then the invasion happens, Kabuto’s treachery is revealed, he outs Youbirin as someone who helped him (or whatever), Youbirin fights back anyway, Takame helps Youbirin save face by giving him an in with the cranes.
If it’s an actually reasonable Genin team – i.e. not Orochimaru’s overpowered plants – then it’s not impossible for Sakura to win without assistance. Especially given the Sound ninja were Orochimaru plants, and thus way above Genin level. Now she might realize she needs more than the basics to survive, making her resolve to improve stronger.
This genin team may be connected to that, or maybe not. It could also be a team from Takigakure, because there were a few of those there. There was also a second sound team that didn’t pass the second exam, so it’s entirely possible to swap with another sound team. It’d be harder for Sakura to win in that case, but not impossible.
As for how far I am… I’m currently in the month between the prelims and the finals? It’s slow going with all of the work I’m doing for school, but I’m making progress. I was mainly avoiding sending Jiro on to round 3 because I wanted to avoid favoritism. But he is kind of my favorite… And pitting lightning versus Choji might actually work really well. I mean, Dosu won by taking advantage of the water inside his body…
It’d be neat if that was actually the opposite of what was intended when the battles were rigged. Like, the test proctors react in such a way that they were not expecting the civilian kid
– whose family isn’t even from Konoha –
to beat the heir to one of the most prominent clans of Konoha. And Masumi is just really smug about how well her student has done, because he’s not only an accomplished medic, but also a battle medic which was the entire point. It might even surprise Shikako, really, given she’d have no reference point for Jiro’s abilities like she does the other kids.
Also, I’m fully on board for the resolution to the “Early Tsunade training” thing. It provides Sakura with more narrative agency, something she desparately needs…
I’m wondering… for the Konoha side of trying to have Masumi develop the drug… is it Danzo or is it Minato “encouraging” her? Because that would be two very different ways to interpret the failed version of the drug and then the destroying of the notes…
It could be that Takama shows up in Konoha during the Exams as soon as the first part, even, as a sort of silent moral support and even though Youbirin is knocked out during the prelim, he still stays because… hey. There’s a battle Nohara again, finally, after how many decades? And sure he’s not in the top eight but he made it through the Forest of Death which is saying something.
Jiro just gets his power boost earlier than the other two, so it’s not really favoritism… and of the “clan heirs” that he could be up against, Chouji would be the easiest to defeat. Although I think Naruto beat Kiba in DoS using the single lightning jutsu Kakashi taught Team Seven? So maybe have Jiro follow after and knowingly copy his victory or try to alter it enough so it’s not an exact replay…
If possible, I think it would be cool to see Shikako react to Team Medic and–as readers, we know she’s confused because this would be the largest change she’s made and, specifically, a change that sustains itself–but maybe Team Medic has no idea why she’s reacting the way she is.
Hmm… On the one hand, I really like the idea of their “Land of Waves Arc” being a “ninja bio-weapon” arc? And while I’d love to have them have to fight the villains if only for the symmetry, they aren’t heavy-hitters like Team 7 and, honestly, none of them really bring much to combat that early on. Jiro has probably learned some lightning jutsu, but that’s probably the heaviest hit they have given that Sakura didn’t have anything relevant for combat that early and Youbirin’s character arc requires he be very quickly outclassed by his teammates… But having them see to the bio-weapon – and perhaps having to develop a counter-medicine when Masumi gets stricken by the disease herself? – is the most appropriate way to handle themselves so early on.
I like where her background is going, but I’ll propose a tweak: it’s not that they didn’t notice she was alive when they raided the prison camp she was in, but that she’d been transferred to a higher-security facility because they noticed her proficiency with medicine and put her to work. So it wasn’t that she was passed up but more so that they were too late to save her from further imprisonment. Like, if they’d been a week earlier they’d have found her in the first rescue mission.
I really like the drug to increase chakra output, because honestly it has the best reasoning for why she’d develop it and how badly it backfires. Now the real question is: when does she develop it (for the enemy as a POW or on her own for the village), who knows about it (Her, Kabuto, maybe OA-jounin or the Hokage?), and to what extent can the research be salvaged? Kabuto would have reasons to want to use it either way (i.e. Burn people up from the inside with their own chakra? No evidence of a crime! Or the standard increase in output if he can make a workaround) but it’d be nice to know which direction to take that in.
By the way, the OA-jounin was referred to as Takahiro-sensei by Sakura in Chapter 6. No surname given, but it probably isn’t important enough to give him one. Especially because then Masumi can refer to him as Hiro or Hiro-kun or something else diminutive and irreverent. Because they’re close and all.
As for the defibrillator hands… At the very least the Naruto universe is aware that electricity can mess with the musculature system, as seen in Shikako’s narration that lightning jutsu can cause paralysis. This was the idea that lead to the idea of defibrillators, so it’s not impossible for Jiro to develop his defibrillator hands based on that alone. Especially if it’s in an act of desparation; he’s trying to save someone, CPR doesn’t work and he doesn’t know anything for a stopped heart, so he tries lightning to make it start and it works. Which goes on to be a defining part of his arsenal.
For Takama… Yeah, that makes sense. He’s the weird uncle who didn’t become a medical-nin and has birds, so he’s probably really reclusive. He probably doesn’t even live on Nohara land, instead like, on a mountain hut or something. But Youbirin isn’t trying to become a standard medic, so at some point after Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama – who was probably paying some attention to the exams because family was in it for the first time in a long time – reached out to Youbirin to help him right his wrongs by showing him how to summon. Or maybe Youbirin went to find him because he’s family and apparently was once a reasonably powerful ninja and Youbirin needs all the help he can get to catch up. Or somesuch.
I do have a question about Team Medic in the forest, though. They obviously survive the forest, but do they confront the sound-nin? Sakura’s fight with the sound-nin was very important for her character development, plus the development of Lee and Sakura’s relationship. But the DoS version of that fight is really important to Shikako’s character development? So I’m not sure how to reconcile that fight in specific. It’ll be interesting, at least. I could shift the timing; the sound-ninja come across Team Medic early on, causing a fight that Lee interrupts to save Sakura. But the fight ends when Team Medic finds an escape route, but only after Sakura’s Important Hair Cut. (Her really cool “tank the hit” strategy really only works if she’s at the tree tending to Team 7′s woudns, which is another way to take the fight. But that’d lose Shikako’s first kill(s). So this is a hard fight to work around.)
We also need to figure out the adjusted fight pairings. Sakura and Ino face off like in canon, Shikako vs. Shikamaru is still a faceoff using DoS logic… Jiro and Youbirin can be faced off against Shino and Chouji, using Shikako’s “Weakest v. Strongest” logic and alleviating their anticlimactic fight. Which pairings of those four make the most sense, then? (There’s an even number of contestants in this AU, which is neat, so we can avoid dealing with the by-round) This would also probably, to immense irony, make the finals closer to canon. Kankuro forfeits his fight with Shino and Shikamaru and Temari get their strategy battle. If one of Ino and Sakura actually gets to win, though, (because of the alternate character/ability development of the AU) then they fight Temari using the “Pair the Kunoichi” logic. In which case Shikamaru and Shino fight as in DoS? And Kankuro forfeits his fight with Chouji. (Because there’s no way they’d let the anticlimax of Chouji and Shino happen in the finals.)
Also, at what point, exactly, do we want them shuffled back amongst the other teams? Like, we know it’s after the Sound Invasion/Konoha Crush, but how soon? Right after? And I’m like, 100% sure that Sakura should be brought along to find Tsunade – because it’s the best way to move up her training time table, plus she’s already an accomplished medic by that point – but how does Jiraiya come to the conclusion to bring her along with him and Naruto?
When Masumi first realizes that something is wrong with the C-rank–she keeps her genin away while she tries to work on the cure–but because of increased exposure and the stress of being the only jounin in charge of the entire situation and not entirely sure when their back up will appear just wears away at her.
And so the genin have to try to decipher her notes and continue developing the cure–which is doable since they spent a few months running her research reports to various parts of the hospital and helping her make her current drugs (though with her supervision). So it’s just a step beyond what they’ve already done–as opposed to expecting them to be able to fight a higher ranked enemy nin. (And it hits home all that much more that Team Medic is different from other teams–their enemy isn’t people, their enemy is poison/disease/injuries)
Oh, also, tangential, I kind of like the idea that Inuzuka Hana is on the back-up/tracking team. Because it’s canon that she’s a medic nin (even if it is for ninken instead of humans) and she’s a chuunin so that would make sense. Like–she may not necessarily be able to cure the bio-weapon but she’ll be able to handle herself against her. Just, you know, to sprinkle in some more canon cameos.
While I like the POW background I’m really unsure how much leeway she would get if she actually made anything for the enemy. But I’m also unsure how patient the enemy would be if her drugs didn’t have immediate results. So there’s a balance where she can’t just completely sabotage the project because the enemy would’ve killed her, but she can’t have been too successful because that’d be treason.
I think the increased chakra output drug does have the best narrative because it’s like the holy grail for medic nin who usually have small chakra reserves and could do so much more if they just had more chakra. So for it to backfire and become forbidden is very poignant. I don’t think this should be her POW drug, though, because that’s definitely treasonous to develop for enemies no matter how much she sabotages her own progress. Also the whole–burning the subject from the inside–thing isn’t something that the enemies would tolerate no matter how brilliant she is–they’d kill her as soon as her first subject dies. Well–they probably have her test it on other prisoners, so they might give her some leeway if the subject dies… hm… maybe it’s her POW drug? Just so we don’t have to come up with another drug?
Or maybe it was her POW drug which she sabotaged even if it meant the death of her fellow prisoners, and then when she gave a report of her experience Konoha was like–try to make it for real. Except she doesn’t actually know how to make it not kill people, so they just pull the plug on the project and it’s all swept under the rug as part of the mayhem of war.
Defibrillators aren’t used for stopped hearts IRL, they’re used for irregular heartbeats. Like to shock it back into a normal rhythm. I mean, it still basically follows the act of desperation thing. So… actually… maybe he develops it during their C-rank gone wrong? Like it’s one of the symptoms and Masumi-sensei is basically having a heart-attack and the genin really cannot have their sensei flatline so he just kind of… electrocutes her. -_- Jiro… what… I mean, it works and luckily Masumi can heal the burns when he accidentally overloads it. But, you know, it’s got a long way to go before it’s perfect.
I like the “Takama goes to watch the Exams” idea more than Youbirin goes to his hermit hut. Because it kind of explains why Youbirin didn’t know about him (another combat shinobi Nohara!) earlier and why, after the reveal of Kabuto’s betrayal, Takama gives him a bit of a pep-talk. Because if Youbirin came to him it’d be like–why should I help you–whereas if Takama goes to Konoha it’s–I have faith in our clan again, pull yourself up and get back out there you brat.
As for Forest of Death.. hm… Sakura being outnumbered and fighting back anyway is very important, I agree. Unsure how important I would deem Lee “rescuing her,” but it would make sense for him to follow her team… It doesn’t necessarily have to be the Sound Team, though–that wouldn’t make sense, actually, because the Sound Team were specifically going after Sasuke to test the curse seal. But what if the enemy ninja from their first C-rank was the relative of one of the genin? So there is that little bit of a grudge built in to it?
As for why Sakura ends up outnumbered… maybe she recognizes the poison they use a split second before her teammates do–before her perfect chakra control and her Tsunade training, her main strength was her encyclopedic knowledge–so she’s able to react fast enough (maybe not breathe in, or shut her eyes) that she doesn’t get exposed to it. And so her teammates get knocked out after a few minutes into the fight which leaves her up against three enemy genin. So it’s basically like the canon set up…
As for the prelim battles… well–how far have you gotten in DoS? I wouldn’t want to spoil who gets promoted (because it’s different than canon) but I don’t think Team Medic should affect that. Which means that you might be able to have Jiro fight someone who definitely doesn’t to the Third Round. And, of the three, I think Jiro does have the earliest development and it makes the most sense for him to make it to the Third Round. Probably not to get promoted necessarily… but definitely to make a decent showing. So probably Chouji v Jiro and Youbirin v Shino, that way you can get the canon-esque set up of in the Third Round. It’s a little hard for me to picture the prelims, it’s been a while–I feel like I need to chart it out.
I think… in order for Sakura to be brought along to find Tsunade, Team Medic should be split up pretty much immediately after the Sound Invasion–at the very least, before Itachi and Kisame show up. Which… isn’t exactly that long after the Invasion anyway.
As for why Jiraiya would bring her along. Again… how far are you in DoS? Well, in DoS Sakura’s training with Tsunade is already moved up–and that’s a Sakura who was in the Medic Corps, not a battle medic team. So this Sakura would have more confidence, and she’s now a part of Team Seven, and one of her teammates/patients is in a coma via the Tsukuyomi. So she probably goes to Jiraiya and demands to be included–because she is a medic who has lost her sensei and she’ll be damned if she loses one of her new teammates/patients… And Jiraiya sees this girl and thinks–this is basically Tsunade come again. Hell yeah, he’s bringing her along–though, of course, he’ll act very reluctant about it the entire time.
CHARACTER CREATION! 😀
Okay so jounin sensei: battle-medic who is loyal to Konoha…
They needn’t necessarily have been mentioned in canon provided, well… the scale of Konoha is much larger in DoS than it is in canon which is one of the very many reasons I prefer DoS to canon. Given that Masashi Kishimoto has such a narrow scope of the world, a single jounin–even if they are a medic–could easily be overlooked. Especially since we don’t really get a good look at any medic nin until Tsunade and Shizune appear–so, if we do go with the jounin sensei dying in the Sound Invasion, they would have likely also died during the canon Invasion as well and so would not be there when Tsunade and Shizune return. Also, frankly put, if the jounin sensei is female? Well… MK isn’t all that good about female representation.
And there is the fact that, as we brainstormed previously, their originally assigned jounin sensei actually passed them onto the battle medic who was on a sabbatical. So if she had been primarily doing research before being ambushed with a team of genin, then there’d be no reason for her to still mentioned in canon.
My guess is that she might have been, like Rin had, a field medic that was fast-tracked into becoming a combat medic during the Third Shinobi World War only she got to live through to peace time post-Kyuubi. I feel like a lot of that generation–had they survived–would be in a weird limbo? They were the youngest generation to be eligible for fighting during that war so they’re probably all either super strange and mildly traumatized.
So if you want to make that part of the jounin-sensei’s storyline–not exactly like Kakashi’s but a similar sort of coming out of her self-imposed isolation because she begins to care for these three kids–that could be one route. Like maybe the originally assigned jounin sensei was her genin teammate and is the only person she really interacts with outside of a professional capacity of the Medic Corps (a bit like Gai is to Kakashi). Which would make it super sad when/if she dies… Hm… we could come up with alternative story arcs. If this doesn’t appeal to you.
I’m also unsure if I actually want her to die? Maybe injured to the point of retirement from field work–so she can still be a medic and a researcher, but she can no longer be their team leader on the field which is why Team Medic is broken up amongst the other genin teams…
It would help if we had names…
Her dying is mainly useful because balancing 2 OC’s with canon changes feels easier to work with than balancing 3? And having her around would make dispersing Team Medic among their genin peers feel less like a natural progression? But I could be wrong there. Those are both selfish reasons, but it just feels like the right move narratively. But I’m willing to bend on it depending on where we go with her character.
I guess the first thing is what her strengths are. If she’s a combat medic like rin was – which makes sense, given that timeline – then to me it feels like she should have some neat, over-the-top attacks and abilities to help in combat. No clan stuff, but maybe she’s the one with the endless forbidden medical pouch? So she has poisons, painkillers, pain-inducers, inhalents, salves, maybe some enhancement potions… So her working sabbatical was probably spent making more of those kinds of secret-but-highly-effective combat-meds. (The research of which goes back to her students if/when she dies, so they add it to their arsenals. Which would give Sakura more to do in combat later on, which is a plus.)
This could also mean she’s more of a mad doctor-type character? Like one of the reasons the other jounin is skeptical of her taking on a team is that he doesn’t think they can handle her eccentricity. Which works, given she’s dealing with the trauma of the war. But it’s mostly manifested in a manic obsession with her medical work. Or somesuch.
Alternatively, she could be super cold and calculated, known for her cleanliness, intelligence, and orderliness. She runs a tight ship, which is hard for her team to adapt to given she’s running them into the ground at times.
In this case, her combat abilities might be derived more from ninjutsu or from ninja tools. Or she could be genjutsu-heavy, inflicting pain or pleasure on enemies in order to distract them in order to get away. (I mean, Tsunade’s medic-nin laws do prohibit battle-medics from the front lines, at least without the 100 chakra seal. although in this case they’re more middle-lines, and Tsunade may be considering revising her rules if they’re training genin for battle-nin team dispersion.)
Really, the only thing we can rule out is her being knowledgeable in seals, since in that case she would definitely have been spoken of, at least briefly.
Given the set up of genin teams now–how each team is created with a specific function in mind, Team Ten being infiltration, Team Eight being tracking, Team Gai being bodyguard, Team Seven presumably being the heavy hitters–the jounin sensei may not necessarily have to be as ridiculously strong as Kakashi since it’s highly implied that Kakashi was on his generation’s Team Seven. Which means that our medic jounin sensei may have been on a team with a different primary function. And while the rest of Konoha Twelve do end up being total beasts when it comes to battle it’s still pretty clear that Team Seven is a cut above the rest when it comes to extreme techniques.
Also, I think if combat medic jounin sensei and originally assigned jounin sensei (uh, CM-jounin and OA-jounin from now on to keep things clear?) had been on a genin team together and their third teammate (and their own sensei) had died that would explain a lot? And it was war time so it’s not too unusual…
I do like the idea of her basically being a walking pharmacy of badassery, since we took that option away, and it would kind of explain on both sides, why she’s so isolated. Because she herself would deliberately delve into research so as not to make attachments to other people and other people wouldn’t want to get close to her because she’s crazy about research.
Though perhaps this would explain why Kabuto mentors Youbirin–we had been thinking that Kabuto was going after something the Nohara clan had, but the Nohara are (presumably) fairly common in the Medic Corps. If he’s after something that the CM-jounin has–some kind of compound or drug that she created but deemed too dangerous to produce and so destroyed all her notes (but not in an “it’s poisonous way” but in the way that the Tajuu Kage Bunshin is a forbidden art? Like ideally it would be super helpful, but in practice it’s far more likely to kill someone than help)–and pinpointed Youbirin as an opportunity to steal that? Well…
I would prefer the eccentric, off-kilter kind of personality more than cold and controlling–Doctor Who more than Sherlock… or maybe Elementary’s version of Sherlock more than the BBC version–because we do want her to have that connection to the genin before we coldly rip her away. I’d also be worried about likening her too much to Orochimaru if she’s too cold and controlling, especially if she’s been research obsessed? Konoha wouldn’t tolerate a possible Orochimaru take two right under their noses…
Also it kind of goes with the vibe of Team Medic being a slapdash, last minute creation. Technically, the genin failed OA-jounin’s test–they should have been shuffled into the Genin Corps or the Medic Corps–them being handed off to CM-jounin isn’t following proper procedure and I highly doubt that someone who is all cold and calculating and controlling would put effort into getting this team if it were a casual suggestion from her old teammate. Of course, Konoha bureaucracy doesn’t actually mind this jounin-sensei swap because as far as they’re concerned three jounin-trained combat-medics-to-be is a lot better than three Academy graduates being shuffled off into either of the Corps.
I wonder if, at first, a lot of the team’s “D-rank missions” is actually just helping CM-jounin organize all of her research or acting as her paperwork gofers in the hospital. Their C-ranks would then be following her out of the village as she goes to gather more ingredients and whatever… I mean, she probably has a lot of things to juggle–she strikes me as the kind of person who would be researching several substances concurrently, and on top of that she has to teach three genin how to be medic-nin? Yeah, best to multi-task and have the chore missions be something that is useful instead of wasting her time having to monitor her genin painting a fence or something stupid like that.
(Also, do you have any ideas regarding her name? I basically just looked up Japanese legends and medicine, got redirected to a list of Japanese deities, found this tiny sparkling gem “Sukuna-Biko-Na (少名毘古那) A small deity of medicine and rain, who created and solidified the land with Ōkuninushi.” So we can probably find something there?)
Good to know we’re on the same page about Badass Pharamcist! If used correctly, it can really make her and the team a huge threat in battle. Not on the front lines, given they’re medics, but certainly as support and for fights where they have no choice but to be in, or special missions. (Does that count as “front lines”? I have to question the wording of Tsunade’s rules. But I think those are established later on? Which is annoying, because it’d be super cool to have her first lesson be Tsunade’s rules.)
Would Sukuna Masumi work for CM-jounin? Sukuna isn’t a common surname as far as I can tell, but I’ve seen it used elsewhere to reference the same deity so it’s probably not that far-fetched. Thankfully for us, Kanji isn’t a factor because Kishimoto made literally everyone’s names in Hiragana and Katakana instead. (I haven’t read the original, but the wiki isn’t giving me kanji for any names, meaning there wasn’t any to give)
As for her missions… I imagine the vast, vast majority are just errands for her “disguised” as missions. She still probably files through the village and stuff, but she’s also a researching doctor and 9 times out of 10 the drug she’s making goes back to the village so they fund her research-related missions for her. Or somesuch.
Like, even the D-ranks (beyond the catch Tora mission that probably every team in Konoha has done at some point in their career) were probably like, running errands for her, grabbing ingredients that are at most in a village just outside of Konoha (One of the nearby ones, y’know?), doing menial tasks at the hospital or for a med-nin heavy clan (So maybe they spend some time among the Nara medical-nin? Would make for neat interaction with Shikako and Sakura, at least), etc.
Their C-rank, I feel like, should be either a medicine delivery job to a village of significant distance from Konoha – like how the original C-rank for Team 7 went all the way to the Land of Waves – or maybe going into a quarantine zone to administer treatment. If the latter, then Sukuna wouldn’t take on the mission until she was absolutely sure the team could handle it, since you don’t send out doctors who aren’t fully prepared.
(For drama, the C mission probably ends up going awry. Sakura does, after all, still have Team 7 karma. But it probably wouldn’t upgrade to A-rank the way the Land of Waves arc did. Maybe B-rank, though. Unless the disease involved in the mission is because of an enemy ninja, which might be A-rank depending on the threat level of the ninja. I’ll think on it.)
There’s also the question of what drug Kabuto is after. That overkill painkiller is still an option; it causes the body to painlessly overexert itself in much the same way as the Eight Gates, increased output while also causing intense, permanent damage. (Kabuto probably has a contingency around that, though. Because he’s Kabuto…)
Other options: an experimental drug to increase Chakra output by the body (slowly burns the subject up from the inside from excess, uncontrolled chakra; no one knows how or when it was tested, probably for the best), an amnesia-inducing pill (completely destroys the subject’s mental faculties), an anti-biotic that targets foreign chakra (specifically developed for cursed seal-type situations or combat enemy techiniques like Tenketsu Blocking Strikes; may work too well without distinction between types of chakra), a truth serum (developed for interrogation and works by changing brain chemistry; not sure on side effects, but honestly they can’t be good and may be similar to the amnesia-inducing pill’s), or a transformational drug (changes the body’s makeup slowly and painfully over time into something else)
Whatever the drug is, there’s probably only one or two other people who know it exists. If it’s one of the more morbid options (or an additional option of a particularly potent/painful poison), then it’s possible she developed it during the war for the enemy while she was a POW, and destroyed all of her research and notes about it in order to cover it up, meaning only her rescuers know much/anything about it. For the more helpful ones, it was probably something she was working on for the village, but abandoned when the risks became clear. (Meaning the Hokage has to know about it in order to forbid other medics from researching the drug she’d developed, and she destroyed her notes.)
On a different note: I’m still curious if defibrillators exist in-universe. (Or, rather, if they are common. Because DoS canon tells us early on that ninja have strict control of what technologies do and do not exist.) If so, then it’s an easy jump for Jiro to develop his “Heart-Starting Hands” technique and the battle-derivative “Heart-Stopping Hands.” If not, it would make both jutsu more impressive and useful, although how he’d get the idea to try it in that case is a bit beyond me.
And also, how dedicated we are to the crane thing being a Nohara clan thing. I like the whole Takama being guilt-stricken over not giving Rin the technique to protect her, but I’m not sure what the excuse would be. My best thought is that it’s something like only 1 in every 1000 Nohara (Or the best/”first” of 1000 or whatever) can be taught the technique as part of the contract the queen of the cranes has with the clan? Such that Takama didn’t give it to Rin because he wasn’t sure if she was the right choice.
Otherwise, it’s possible that Takama’s contract with the cranes is a more personal thing, not being connected to the bloodline per se but Takama never had the time to give Rin the contract due to the timing of the war.
I think so long as Team Medic aren’t the first shinobi on the scene then that would be believable. Like–Team Medic would never go on a recon mission, would never be sent on bodyguard missions where there are no other shinobi either at the destination or also part of the Konoha contingent. But probably, as with your C-rank suggestion, so long as a different team scouted ahead or if there’s a permanent outpost of Konoha nin stationed there then Team Medic would be sent without it being “front lines.”
So actually, what it could be–depending on how much you want the mission to go awry–is that Team Medic are to deliver medicine to a village a significant distance away (but probably not actually outside Fire Country) where there is a permanent outpost of Konoha ninja. Theoretically, perfectly safe for a genin team’s first C-rank mission. Except when the team gets there, it turns out everyon in the village–including the outpost guards–have fallen sick. Possibly a biological weapon from an enemy ninja.
I think, though, so as not to bump it all the way up to A-rank, the enemy ninja already left probably off to the next village to wreak havoc. But it’s not Team Medic’s job to pursue–it’s their job to heal the village though they do, of course, send a missive back to Konoha updating them about the situation so that they can send a tracking team their way (maybe it’s Team Eight–though probably unlikely given that enemy ninja is usually at least a B-rank if not higher depending on the threat level). So since the mission wasn’t just a simple delivery, it does get bumped up to B, but since it didn’t actually involve fighting enemy shinobi it’s not quite A-rank.
Sukuna Masumi totally works! I know Sukuna is a last name (though not the same kanji, of course) so the slight reference is enough.
I have this idea that her D-ranks are also helping the team to familiarize themselves with being a medic. Yes they are combat medics, but they are mainly, primarily, medics which means that she’s not going to teach them cool jutsu or make sure they’re maintaining their taijutsu skills. No, they can do that on their own time. And maybe at first the D-ranks do seem like just errands, but maybe at some point one of them cracks and is like–this is useless!
So then she asks them something: where are the sedatives stored in the hospital?And they answer because one of the “missions” was taking inventory of the drugs in the hospital and checking up on all of the storage rooms. Then she asks–if a patient comes and has X, Y, and Z symptoms, where do you direct them? And they had to work a stint at reception but it’s also basically quick diagnosis and split second decision making on how they should be treated. etc. etc.
And while it’s not the same as the school set-up of the Medic Corps, they’re still learning. More importantly, they’re learning in a real-life, practical setting. If they’re going to be battle medics they won’t necessarily have the luxury of scheduled shifts and clearly defined medical history or an entire team of fellow medics to help out. No, they’re going to be out in the field and responding to the worst sort of injuries and they have to be able to know what’s going on and where everything is subconsciously.
I like the drug to increase chakra output (which ends up eating away at the subject, etc, etc), the anti-foreign chakra, and the transformational drug because those do seem like things made with good intentions that just backfired horribly as opposed to some of the more deliberately malicious drugs which might cross the too-similar-to-Orochimaru line.
I also have no idea where you came up with the POW background, but I really really like it. Because that would explain so much! Okay so, during the war, Sukuna and OA’s genin+jounin team were sent on a mission that went horribly awry and only OA was able to escape. By the time OA comes back with reinforcements, they find the bodies of third genin team and jounin sensei and assume that Sukuna was also killed. Except she wasn’t. Because… I dunno, ~reasons~, but the point is, she wasn’t even freed on a deliberate rescue attempt but because a different Konoha contingent raided the enemy base where she was being held, found her only after basically razing it to the ground, and brought her back to Konoha where she was eventually reunited with OA who feels hella guilty about assuming she was dead and not looking for her, etc.
Which is probably why he still looks out for her even decades after the war, even though she’s basically deliberately retreated into research because she’s been hurt by people (losing them, being imprisoned and probs tortured, being abandoned)…
Unsure about defibrillators in-universe. It seems like a very specific technology that wouldn’t have been created since most medical “technology” in the Naruto world are seals? Do they even have heart monitor machines?
I’m unsure if I want Takama’s contract to necessarily be a Nohara clan thing–or like, since the Nohara are mostly medics, it’s like having that one great-uncle who can do a specific trick that isn’t very relevant and so no one really wants to talk to him at family reunions. Also, if he is VERY old then it could be that the rest of the clan forgot he even had it?
I mostly assumed Takama hadn’t given the contract to Rin due to the timing of the war–although didn’t she technically survive the war only to end up the temporary jinchuuriki of the Sanbi and then killed herself via Kakashi? It could be one of those things that he only regret after the fact like–after news of her death came back–he was like, ah, I should have offered her the contract, even though he never really considered doing so when she was alive…
CHARACTER CREATION! 😀
Okay so jounin sensei: battle-medic who is loyal to Konoha…
They needn’t necessarily have been mentioned in canon provided, well… the scale of Konoha is much larger in DoS than it is in canon which is one of the very many reasons I prefer DoS to canon. Given that Masashi Kishimoto has such a narrow scope of the world, a single jounin–even if they are a medic–could easily be overlooked. Especially since we don’t really get a good look at any medic nin until Tsunade and Shizune appear–so, if we do go with the jounin sensei dying in the Sound Invasion, they would have likely also died during the canon Invasion as well and so would not be there when Tsunade and Shizune return. Also, frankly put, if the jounin sensei is female? Well… MK isn’t all that good about female representation.
And there is the fact that, as we brainstormed previously, their originally assigned jounin sensei actually passed them onto the battle medic who was on a sabbatical. So if she had been primarily doing research before being ambushed with a team of genin, then there’d be no reason for her to still mentioned in canon.
My guess is that she might have been, like Rin had, a field medic that was fast-tracked into becoming a combat medic during the Third Shinobi World War only she got to live through to peace time post-Kyuubi. I feel like a lot of that generation–had they survived–would be in a weird limbo? They were the youngest generation to be eligible for fighting during that war so they’re probably all either super strange and mildly traumatized.
So if you want to make that part of the jounin-sensei’s storyline–not exactly like Kakashi’s but a similar sort of coming out of her self-imposed isolation because she begins to care for these three kids–that could be one route. Like maybe the originally assigned jounin sensei was her genin teammate and is the only person she really interacts with outside of a professional capacity of the Medic Corps (a bit like Gai is to Kakashi). Which would make it super sad when/if she dies… Hm… we could come up with alternative story arcs. If this doesn’t appeal to you.
I’m also unsure if I actually want her to die? Maybe injured to the point of retirement from field work–so she can still be a medic and a researcher, but she can no longer be their team leader on the field which is why Team Medic is broken up amongst the other genin teams…
It would help if we had names…
Her dying is mainly useful because balancing 2 OC’s with canon changes feels easier to work with than balancing 3? And having her around would make dispersing Team Medic among their genin peers feel less like a natural progression? But I could be wrong there. Those are both selfish reasons, but it just feels like the right move narratively. But I’m willing to bend on it depending on where we go with her character.
I guess the first thing is what her strengths are. If she’s a combat medic like rin was – which makes sense, given that timeline – then to me it feels like she should have some neat, over-the-top attacks and abilities to help in combat. No clan stuff, but maybe she’s the one with the endless forbidden medical pouch? So she has poisons, painkillers, pain-inducers, inhalents, salves, maybe some enhancement potions… So her working sabbatical was probably spent making more of those kinds of secret-but-highly-effective combat-meds. (The research of which goes back to her students if/when she dies, so they add it to their arsenals. Which would give Sakura more to do in combat later on, which is a plus.)
This could also mean she’s more of a mad doctor-type character? Like one of the reasons the other jounin is skeptical of her taking on a team is that he doesn’t think they can handle her eccentricity. Which works, given she’s dealing with the trauma of the war. But it’s mostly manifested in a manic obsession with her medical work. Or somesuch.
Alternatively, she could be super cold and calculated, known for her cleanliness, intelligence, and orderliness. She runs a tight ship, which is hard for her team to adapt to given she’s running them into the ground at times.
In this case, her combat abilities might be derived more from ninjutsu or from ninja tools. Or she could be genjutsu-heavy, inflicting pain or pleasure on enemies in order to distract them in order to get away. (I mean, Tsunade’s medic-nin laws do prohibit battle-medics from the front lines, at least without the 100 chakra seal. although in this case they’re more middle-lines, and Tsunade may be considering revising her rules if they’re training genin for battle-nin team dispersion.)
Really, the only thing we can rule out is her being knowledgeable in seals, since in that case she would definitely have been spoken of, at least briefly.
Given the set up of genin teams now–how each team is created with a specific function in mind, Team Ten being infiltration, Team Eight being tracking, Team Gai being bodyguard, Team Seven presumably being the heavy hitters–the jounin sensei may not necessarily have to be as ridiculously strong as Kakashi since it’s highly implied that Kakashi was on his generation’s Team Seven. Which means that our medic jounin sensei may have been on a team with a different primary function. And while the rest of Konoha Twelve do end up being total beasts when it comes to battle it’s still pretty clear that Team Seven is a cut above the rest when it comes to extreme techniques.
Also, I think if combat medic jounin sensei and originally assigned jounin sensei (uh, CM-jounin and OA-jounin from now on to keep things clear?) had been on a genin team together and their third teammate (and their own sensei) had died that would explain a lot? And it was war time so it’s not too unusual…
I do like the idea of her basically being a walking pharmacy of badassery, since we took that option away, and it would kind of explain on both sides, why she’s so isolated. Because she herself would deliberately delve into research so as not to make attachments to other people and other people wouldn’t want to get close to her because she’s crazy about research.
Though perhaps this would explain why Kabuto mentors Youbirin–we had been thinking that Kabuto was going after something the Nohara clan had, but the Nohara are (presumably) fairly common in the Medic Corps. If he’s after something that the CM-jounin has–some kind of compound or drug that she created but deemed too dangerous to produce and so destroyed all her notes (but not in an “it’s poisonous way” but in the way that the Tajuu Kage Bunshin is a forbidden art? Like ideally it would be super helpful, but in practice it’s far more likely to kill someone than help)–and pinpointed Youbirin as an opportunity to steal that? Well…
I would prefer the eccentric, off-kilter kind of personality more than cold and controlling–Doctor Who more than Sherlock… or maybe Elementary’s version of Sherlock more than the BBC version–because we do want her to have that connection to the genin before we coldly rip her away. I’d also be worried about likening her too much to Orochimaru if she’s too cold and controlling, especially if she’s been research obsessed? Konoha wouldn’t tolerate a possible Orochimaru take two right under their noses…
Also it kind of goes with the vibe of Team Medic being a slapdash, last minute creation. Technically, the genin failed OA-jounin’s test–they should have been shuffled into the Genin Corps or the Medic Corps–them being handed off to CM-jounin isn’t following proper procedure and I highly doubt that someone who is all cold and calculating and controlling would put effort into getting this team if it were a casual suggestion from her old teammate. Of course, Konoha bureaucracy doesn’t actually mind this jounin-sensei swap because as far as they’re concerned three jounin-trained combat-medics-to-be is a lot better than three Academy graduates being shuffled off into either of the Corps.
I wonder if, at first, a lot of the team’s “D-rank missions” is actually just helping CM-jounin organize all of her research or acting as her paperwork gofers in the hospital. Their C-ranks would then be following her out of the village as she goes to gather more ingredients and whatever… I mean, she probably has a lot of things to juggle–she strikes me as the kind of person who would be researching several substances concurrently, and on top of that she has to teach three genin how to be medic-nin? Yeah, best to multi-task and have the chore missions be something that is useful instead of wasting her time having to monitor her genin painting a fence or something stupid like that.
(Also, do you have any ideas regarding her name? I basically just looked up Japanese legends and medicine, got redirected to a list of Japanese deities, found this tiny sparkling gem “Sukuna-Biko-Na (少名毘古那) A small deity of medicine and rain, who created and solidified the land with Ōkuninushi.” So we can probably find something there?)
JackSGreyson Says 