it reminds me of the time I compared Voldemort to Koschei the Deathless

[edenfalling]

I poked a little at ch. 13 of "The Guardian in Spite of Herself" tonight. Mostly scene transition stuff, working up to where I have to pull off a tricky plot justification handwave -- a certain thing must happen in order for the rest of the story to work, but it makes no sense on the face of things, so I am having to do a careful tapdance to keep my fingers on the plot threads hidden.

Anyway, I was looking at my outline to see what will need changing in light of the many and various secrets about the Uchiha that Kishimoto has revealed since I put my story on hiatus. I am not worrying about strict canon compliance -- the "Apartment Manager" world is already an AU beyond the basic 'change one thing and spiral out' pattern, because I got Kakashi's age wrong back at the beginning -- but it's nice to incorporate what I can, you know?

The funny thing is, I found my notes on what would have been Iruka's plotline, if he had survived as a POV character. (I took him out because I kept forgetting about his thread, which was a sign that it wasn't relevant to the rest of the story.) And... well... this is what I had Iruka doing back in Konoha:


Iruka Sidestory: Iruka discovers that during the academy break, he's been assigned to the Military Police -- mostly to help restructure the organization since 80 percent of the members are dead. Later, he visits the hospital to see if Yamanaka Kou can pry some information out of Tsukime's brain (she's still unconscious and on life support). He finds some sort of key -- Tsukime tells him to say goodbye to Naga in case they never properly meet again -- and sends a message to Naga and Kakashi. (Message sent 14-15 days post-massacre.)

13-16 days post-massacre: Naga-tachi find an Uchiha, but too late. They follow Itachi to a nearby village (yay tracking dogs!) and ask what he did there. Discover that Itachi is looking for something besides his remaining relatives. Iruka receives this information and returns to the Uchiha district.

16-17 days post-massacre: Naga-tachi receive a message from Iruka: Tsukime has woken up, though she'll be crippled for life.

25-30 days post-massacre: Iruka discovers that the Uchiha had been approached by a group of missing-nin who asked the clan to leave Konoha and join a new hidden village; they were debating what to do about that offer. They seem to have planned to leave Konoha in any case, or do something drastic to the village power structure. Bah. I will work out the details as I get there.

33-37 days post-massacre: Meanwhile, Iruka and Tsukime (who is now mobile, though still weak and in a wheelchair) are welcoming the few surviving Uchiha back to Konoha and trying to figure out what was going on in the inner circles of the clan.

38+ days post-massacre: The plans of the Uchiha clan are revealed, whatever they were. I'm inclined to think it was some sort of revolution or an en masse desertion, but it had some connection with either Orochimaru or Akatsuki.

-----

I would like to point out that all this stuff is still happening in "Guardian." It's just off-page and behind the scenes, which is why the first section of the outline says 'sidestory.' And it is really not that hard to take my vague meanderings and replace them with canon events. This also neatly explains why only two people were sent after Itachi: Konoha is not that interested in catching him, since he was acting on their orders. They just have to make their reaction to the clan's elimination look semi-realistic for the other villages.

...

I really need to get back to reading the manga. I am so behind on post-timeskip events.

Comments

[askerian]

Oooh plotting. Iruka with the cops! Other surviving Uchihas!

Alright, if one day you participate in a "behind the scenes" writing meme I know what i'll ask for. ♥

[edenfalling]

Status of the few Uchiha who were outside the village walls when Itachi struck, from ch. 13:

-----

Kakashi prodded a lump of tofu with his chopsticks. "There were eleven Uchiha out of town when Itachi killed his clan," he said slowly. "Four were military police on local patrols; they're confirmed dead. One was Uchiha Tsukime, Naga's partner. As for the other six...

"Uchiha Hanzo was leading his genin team on an escort mission in east Fire Country. He's presumed dead; jounin-sensei don't abandon their teams. Uchiha Mayumi was training a daimyo's guards on the southern coast and Uchiha Kensuke was guarding our ambassador in River Country. They've both vanished. Uchiha Noriyama and his partner were in Volcano Country. Neither has reported in since the day of the incident. Uchiha Akaro and his team were patrolling the Waterfall Country border. He failed to make a rendezvous and his team is still searching for him. Finally, Uchiha Shiburi was on detached infiltration duty in the eastern islands. We have no idea what her status is."

Kakashi tapped his chopsticks against his plate. "I suspect Itachi killed Hanzo first, then swung southwest to kill Mayumi and Kensuke. He missed Tsukime but presumably continued northeast toward Noriyama and Akaro, and he'll eventually head to sea to reach Shiburi. The problem is that we don't know exactly where his three final targets were, so our chances of confirming their status -- alive or dead -- are less than ideal. And we have no way of knowing how far behind Itachi we are."

-----

Shiburi is alive. I am undecided about Noriyama and Akaro -- one lives and one dies, but I don't yet know who gets which fate.

(Oh, who am I kidding. 90% chance Akaro lives, because I already know him, and I felt awful when I finished "Apartment Manager" and realized he was going to be murdered in a year. Also, young Uchiha are less likely to recreate the bitterness of their elders... except, given that Noriyama was not in the Military Police and was outside the village, it's a pretty good sign he didn't agree with the clan elders in the first place, and an older character would make a nice counterweight for all the teens and young adults in the story... Oh, bugger all. *wavers again*

No, wait! Shiburi's also older, and she might be traveling on one of Eiji's ships... But this is all largely beside the main point of the story.)

I do mean to write some of Iruka's plotline someday. Feel free to ask for it the next time I do a writing meme thing. :-)

[askerian]

Heee! Thank you! *rolls on quoty bit*

He's presumed dead; jounin-sensei don't abandon their teams.
... Waugh! I hope the kids didn't see it. ;__;

Oh, Akaro. Snobby little bastard ! He's got to be alive. I vote for him too. ;__;

Maybe the older guy is really maimed hardcore and they think he's dead/gonna die soon, so you get the angst from the kids, and THEN he eventually wakes up so he can provide guidance and yays. So, um, what's his personality like, apart from "doesn't agree with the village?" 9___9

-- oooh, if Itachi knew Noriyama didn't agree with their policies he might have left him alive on purpose! He knew his little brother would need some more protection/guidance/another target to divert attention from him, and if Itachi made it look like he really tried to kill Nori and he just got lucky then he elders wouldn't be too suspicious or think he went against orders and punish him in some way...

... no? 9__9;;;

[edenfalling]

Hanzo got his secret message from Itachi, told the kids to sit tight with the client for a few hours while he checked something out across town, and never came back. His team waited until evening, then completed the mission without him and yelled for help.

I don't know the exact plot details yet, alas, and some of my original ideas are now unworkable due to canon revelations. :-( It has been forever since I really worked on "Guardian," and I desperately need to catch up on the manga so I at least know what canon I will be ignoring when dealing with Hidden Cloud. Fortunately, Cornell's spring break starts on the 20th, so I can take a couple days and read scanlations without overloading my upstairs neighbors' internet connection. (I mooch off of them, you see, so I try not to download big files and slow their access.)

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

*rolls with laughter* I think I must be punchy, since the Iruka plotline strikes me as amusing.

[edenfalling]

Everyone else is out having Adventures, while poor Iruka is stuck in Konoha reading through stacks and stacks of paperwork (secret and otherwise). *pets him soothingly*

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

...haha, is Iruka stuck inside doing nothing?

[edenfalling]

Iruka is stuck inside three different buildings -- the hospital, the Military Police headquarters, and the main house of the Uchiha compound -- and he's not doing nothing... but yeah, he's rather bored. And worried about his friends, as he learns more of the Uchiha's plans. (He does not technically have the security clearance to know what really went down when Itachi killed his clan, but he may stumble across that anyway, because I think that would be interesting, and because I think Iruka would tell Sasuke, security clearance be damned, which would then kick this world down an even more divergent path from canon.)

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't know if Iruka is close enough to Sasuke to really disobey the security that much? It would really depend on what he found out, I guess :|