Board Thread:Rebirth: Story Time/@comment-4869113-20141109220441/@comment-24070327-20141110021206

I have to agree that having to confront the man that killed legends like Naruto and Sasuke would make for a better story than just confronting a supposedly powerful individual. Wholeheartedly in fact.

However, I disagree with poison being nothing but a cop-out. In my opinion, it depends on how it is played. If you just say they were poisoned and call it a day, yes it's an anti-climatic cop-out. But you can make a pretty good arc about the whole thing if you play your cards right. I'll use your Sengoku Rebirth scenario as an example because I just like that scenario.

The almighty duo, Naruto and Sasuke, both died under similar, if not identical, circumstances. Though many would like to say their deaths were connected, a lack of evidence prevents such a connection to be made. Later, individuals who are important to the maintenance of the village system begin to die of the very same circumstances. Daimyo and their family, high-ranking shinobi, and others are developing the very same illness that killed THE Naruto and Sasuke.

Now the world has a crisis on its hands, but it has NO IDEA what it is. As far as they know, people are just getting sick out of nowhere and then dying not long afterward. Some believe it's a plague. Others correctly deduce that it's some kind of clever poisoning, but then they begin to point their fingers at innocents out of desperation. Regardless of what anyone thinks, they all KNOW that what they need is intelligence.

Research will need to be done on the sick which would be difficult because many of them will be of such a social standing that it'll be next to next to impossible to treat them as the guinea pigs they would need to be treated as. Konohagakure no Sato would probably be the first to make any sort of breakthrough...and EVERYBODY will know that. Now even those that were neutral with Konoha will be BEGGING for some sort of intelligence on their progress.

Spies will flood into Konoha's gates by the hundreds, and Konoha would probably be perfectly aware of that to the point of paranoia. If things weren't already bad between Konoha and some people, it WILL get bad once this starts up.

Of course, everybody will also be looking for the poisoner as well. Except not. Many are likely to just assume that their enemies are responsible. Especially if the poisoner is intelligent enough to leave some people alone for the sole purpose of painting them as the culprit. Oh the finger-pointing to be had. XD

The poisoner could remain in hiding for quite some time, but that'd be boring so instead you could make the poisoner arrogant and cocky. He considers himself the most dangerous shinobi in the world and he is out to PROVE it. And there is no better way to prove it than by poisoning the Kage themselves! Whether he succeeds or not and how he plots the poisoning and who his allies and enemies are in the poisoning leaves a lot of room for a lot of RPing.