Update on the state of Master of Ninshu
Tale as old as time, you find a new story, read the updates, and poof. The author dissappears without a trace, maybe updates every couple of months at best, manufacturing empty promises.
Of course, I didn't choose to update this story for something as silly as announcing a return, or a permanent departure. This update is only here to set a precedent and hopefully make it easier for current and future readers should they stumble upon this story in its unfinished state.
From this point forward, Master of Ninshu will only recieve updates when multiple chapters are already completed. I'm sure you've all added a story to your list only to completely forget what the contents were when it recieved its ocassional chapter. So to mitigate this and improve the reader experience, as well as lower my own anxiety about consistent updates, I've decided upon this. Should you ever see the "Story Update: Master of Ninshu" notification again, you can rest easy knowing that there's at least 4 or 5 chapters (roughly 15k-30k words)of content already loaded up and ready to be released between periods of 4 to 10 days per chapter.
If you're reading this update when this story is complete or there are already many more chapters available to read beyond this one, you can move on. The rest of this update will just be an overview on where the story is going and what you can expect.
I first drafted Master of Ninshu about 5 years ago, my outline has gone through massive growth compared to the initial idea I had in my head. As a result I can give fairly accurate expectations (NOT spoilers, expectations) on the length of the story, time to completions, and relevant thematic details that may prevent you from feelings of betrayal later.
Length: I have drafted three parts to Master of Ninshu, however, the third part is in such a proto-stage that I can't 100% promise it will ever be serously pursued (more on that later). Regardless of whether part 3 is released, expect this to be on the longer side.
Part 1- I estimate another 70k (maybe more) words to be dedicated to finishing Part 1 alone.
Part 2- Part 2 should be in the neighborhood of 100k-250k words. Should this story end in part 2, the total length will probably be 200k-250k.
Part 3- At this stage I'm unsure of just how wide Part 3's scope will be, but I doubt it will be below 90 thousand words. Should I release Part 3 you can expect this story to approach if not surpass 300,000 words.
Time to Completion: As an outline heavy writer, the heaviest lifting for this story is mostly complete. My life is astonishingly more busy than it was early into release, and will remain so even far after the final chapter is published. I aim to publish the rest of part 1 by years end or by the start of Spring 2024. At my current pace Part 2 will take 18 months to finalize, but given how much is outlined already, I can't promise that I won't blitz through the whole thing within 3 to 6 months after Part 1. As for Part 3, I will take a break before announcing my decision on it, and I can't really promise that it will take less than a year, or that update frequency will match Part 2.
Narrative Priming: Given that I've established quite a sharp turn from canon just with premise of this story alone, some of you might be under the impression that you're going to recieve something that is unrecognizable from the manga. I'll warn you now to not expect that. While many events will be wildly different, others will be quite similar if not identical to the original. This story is going to stay faithful to the MAJORITY of story beats that Kishimito set up and executed in the original manga. That means Naruto and Sasuke still have 3 pivotal clashes, Naruto still bests Sasuke in their chess match of ideals, and Naruto still becomes Hokage. This story is meant to explore and expand upon the subtext in the manga. It is not to tell an independent work of fiction that happens to take place in the same setting with aesthetically identical characters, but to push Kishimito's established characters and ideas to heights and stresses that they were not privy to in the manga, anime, or light novels.
On Part 3: Speaking of Narrative Priming, let's talk about Part 3. Part 1 and 2 will be set over roughly the same time periods as their respective counterparts (you may have noticed I've aged the cast up by rougly 2 years). Part 3 will approach Boruto's story from a slightly different view, and thus will diverge heavily from the manga's timing. On the topic of the manga, it's no secret that the historically lackluster Boruto has recently had quite the compelling plot twist. You may or may not be pleased to hear that this plot twist has quite a shocking amount of syngergy with the original arc I had planned for Boruto's character. While exciting from a narrative standpoint, it does put Part 3 in an awkward spot of potentially being longer than I was comfortable extending this story to. Currently I do intend to write it, especially with all the ideas the Boruto manga has to play with, but it's possible that I might be past this project by then. Should that be the case, I will probably try to pass the outline of the story off to someone else, as I am already quite attached to the possibilites and would like to see where it goes even if it is only as a partial contributor.
Other potentially spoilery notes (read at your own risk): This story features a strong Kakashi, and in addtion to being more powerful, he will drive the plot-forward in a much more active way than he did in canon. Also, Itachi is. . . . . . not so sympathetic in my version of the story, proceed with caution should you happen to be quite fond of his character and his role in the original.
And, that's all. I don't know when I will release the next set of chapters but I hope to do it before summer ends, things are really going to ramp up by the end of Part 1, specifically the last 5 or so chapters will see the stakes skyrocketing from all different directions, prepare for a brutal cliffhanger.
-cloudpetals
