Blossom’s Edge – Posted 2019.06.03

The following are the recorded responses of Eyazahrid to the feedback he received on the above listed chapter and the story in general for the week following. This document is to serve as a replacement to the traditional Author’s Note at the beginning and ending of chapters and will be kept separate from both the above listed chapter and any future chapters unless deemed sufficiently important.

Sakura

While the majority of feedback I received for Sakura’s role in the last chapter was positive, I did receive a few reviews expressing either disagreement or confusion about the situation.

The main question seems to be why Naruto would bother to help Sakura. I thought it was obvious but I’ve made that mistake before.

Naruto’s helping Sakura because making Sakura a competent Kunoichi is beneficial to him.

He’s part of team seven now, she’s his teammate. That means she’s the one watching his back in the field. The last thing he wants is a teammate who can’t hold her own. Having a useful Sakura is, well, useful.

Why have dead weight when you can teach them to pull their own?

It didn’t cost him anything more than a few extra minutes, either, and if that improves his team’s future survivability it’s well spent.

The next part will address the other matter that came up – how Naruto handled the situation.

Psychology Skills

I’ll just make it clear here- Naruto has absolutely no knowledge or training on this subject. In chapter 83 he made use of manipulative logic to try turning a scared young woman into a killer.

Did he go about it wrong? Oh, very much so. As Mo Eazy pointed out, he was going about things backwards and focusing on some incorrect areas. I did not intend for him to be some sort of master mental manipulator and I’m glad he didn’t come off that way. He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing – I do believe he has the same thought in the chapter, too, or at least something similar – and it’s a miracle it worked as well as it did.

And how well did it work? Well, I’ve already included that in one of the future chapters, though I can’t remember exactly which one. You’ll get to see exactly how successful Naruto really was.

It was to be expected, really, his primary frame of reference for emotional conditioning are the Wolves. We love ’em but we’re all well aware that they aren’t the most normally functioning individuals.

To really simplify it, Naruto applied Wolf-Logic (Which is only about a degree or so less than Anko-Logic) to solve the problem of an untrained, unblooded Kunoichi out in the field. The results will be less than stellar –

From an outsider’s perspective, at least. I don’t think the Wolves will find anything wrong with our little Sakura.

Naruto’s Direction / Goals

For most of the story, Naruto has had his own little projects that we’ve focused on and they’ve served as short-term goals. At the moment he doesn’t have many short-term goals – Kage Bunshin was probably the biggest recently – and instead we see him dealing with daily affairs while his more long-term goals play out.

Regardless of where he’s decided to apply his attention, however, he has always had a constant goal- the success of the Wolves.

Ultimately, it’s the only one that matters to him. The problem with that goal is that there’s really no end. Looking after the House of Wolves will be a constant task and there won’t be a point that he can say ‘Alright, that’s done.’ before moving on to something else. In short, it’s not really an obtainable goal.

It’s also hard to say what actions properly work towards this unobtainable goal because he could start a farm with the Wolves and consider it being a success for supporting the Wolves or he could take over a country and consider that a temporary success. Regardless of what he does, he must constantly work towards providing his Wolves a better future.

That is his goal and until his final breath it will remain his primary concern.

At the moment, all we really see are glimpses of his efforts in Mizu no Kuni but I do have other plans for him to be working on soon. He has plenty of ideas for the house of Wolves, it’s just a matter of having everything he needs to implement them.

I’m not sure if we’ve peeked in on them yet (My memory is pretty bad), but several characters have mentioned the fact that there are more Wolves currently being trained which will be pretty important as Naruto tries to expand.

That’s as much as I’ll say on that, though, wouldn’t want to ruin the fun.

–

The response this week was again mostly positive so we’ll try to keep that trend going.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid