Chapter 15 A/N

Ugh, this chapter.

There was a lot of future plot things that I needed to set up in this chapter. And that was the biggest hurdle I had because I wasn't sure what route I wanted to take.

If you visited my blog over the past year or so- you know I decided to go crazy and write a rough draft of AtO till the final chapter. The draft is terrible and needs ruthless revising and editing but it helped me decide which plot points I liked better.

Speaking of editing, this chapter's editing was... an experience.

Maybe I was just super out of practice with editing AtO because it took embarrassingly long to get through even one page of this chapter.

On top of that I cycled between two different docs, one that I had written much earlier. So some conversations that are friendly in the earlier draft is completely different from what I wrote in the newer version of the chapter.

Having to read through and merge conversations was tedious but I think overall it came out rather well. If nothing else, I hope that my writing quality has improved and is more noticeable.

Now onto chapter specific notes- of which I don't really have a lot of.

Wordcounts

First draft: 16,807

Different/Older version of AtO15: 11,213

Scraps cut out: 2635

Final Upload: 13,973

How much lingering damage does Harry have?

I'd say a lot. There's no fixed time for when your mind will heal after a traumatic event. But Harry has always been adept at hiding and putting things off because he's no stranger to nightmares and headaches. I wanted to keep that aspect of his character in the story.

Sea Monster Story

This is the constellation Cetus.

NARA CLAN

Shikaku's siblings

I like the idea of him being the elders of four kids with big age differences between each birth.

He has a sister who is the super scary aunt who went to Suna in chapter 14. She does a lot of clan-specific work when Shikaku is busy with Jōnin commander work, she's also in charge of preparing Shikamaru with clan duties.

And twin brothers who are more than a decade younger than Shikaku, the youngest of whom is dead.

I haven't fixed exact age differences or filled out the family tree. But that's how it is for now.

Burial ritual.

I wanted to show that clans have culture and traditions that date back to the warring clan era/pre-Konoha. I'm not sure how much of that comes across to a reader.

Of course it also brings up the question of how the dead are usually dealt with. Who gets buried in the big plot shown in the anime/canon. Do all the clans have a unique way of dealing with their dead?

If you have any specific questions, leave a comment down below.

Polar