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Industrious (Thread II) - (Naruto AU SI Inspired Inventor) by Throwaway1971

Books » Private Rated: T, English, Friendship & Drama, Words: 125k+, Favs: 48, Follows: 66, Published: Sep 30, 2023

2Chapter 24

I sighed and replaced the wet towel over my eyes, trying to lie as still as possible in order to not aggravate the strain I'd put my body and soul through. As it turned out, pumping demonstrably large amounts of foreign chakra into yourself, even when you knew how to override the natural tendency to reject alien energy was not a terribly good thing to do outside of the very short-term. What this meant, in practice, was that asking Satsuki and Naruko to infuse me with energy daily in the week leading up to the full moon had strained my chakra system. There wasn't really a good way to explain the kind of damage I'd done, since barely anyone had the resources or tenuous grasp on their sanity to attempt it.

All that really mattered was that I felt like absolute shit.

A rapping at the door made me wince, the noise like thunder against the pulsing spiritual pain that I couldn't quite touch with my physical body to heal. Even if I could abate the inflammation on my side of the equation, the pain in my soul wasn't something I could touch.

"Enter." I spoke, grimacing at the sound of my own voice.

Aburame Torune entered, a characteristic lack of expression on the visible portion of his face as he opened the door with one hand, immediately using it to adjust his sunglasses as he entered the dark cave that my room had become over the past two days. The other hand was easily balancing a tray of soup and bread. Satisfied, I allowed the rag to fall back over my face and leaned back against the pillow.

To my immense gratification, the slightly-older boy was as quiet as a trained shinobi should be, setting the tray down and kneeling quietly next to my bedside.

"Has your condition improved, Senior Apprentice Kotaro? Or have you reconsidered a trip to the hospital?" He asked in a quiet undertone, absent the penetrating rasp of a whisper.

Yeah, I bet that would be easy for Danzo to sneak someone in. Private residence is one thing, but anything could happen in a hospital, up to and including an accidental overdose that 'kills me' only for me to wake up in a Root cell the next day. No thank you.

"My condition is improving." I replied quietly. "I'll be able to return to normal duties sometime tomorrow and be at full strength the day after." I paused, considering my words. "You have my gratitude for bringing me food, if only so that I do not have to deal with Sai in my current condition."

A soft grunt. "He is trying."

I wondered, was that meant to be understood as 'he is trying to build better interpersonal skills' or 'he is a very trying individual.' After a moment, and considering the Aburame's rather unscrupulous reputation, I decided it probably served both simultaneously.

"I had thought your skill at bodily control would have prevented vulnerability to illness." Torune stated more than asked, my covered eyes unable to pick up any tells he might have given off, though again... Aburame. I'd have liked to rely on my chakra sense to read him even a bit, but that was out as well in my current condition.

I hate this. I hate this vulnerability.

I accepted the thought and resolved, when I was able, to do something about it. No more repression. My thoughts went to the small storage cellar I'd found under the rear of the new building we'd acquired. I split off a portion of my mind to begin redesigning the space given what I now knew about sealing.

"I suppose I won't ask how you know about my skills given how often Satsuki and Naruko show up." I replied, the words a kind of general non-answer.

Torune made a hum of understanding, a neutral noise I couldn't connect with any real opinion. I heard him shift his body in a controlled fashion. "Would you like me to-"

"I can feed myself." I replied preemptively.

Another slight movement. "Very well. The Uchiha girl will arrive in a few hours to change your bedding and provide you dinner. If that is all, I will be returning to my duties."

I acknowledged him with a dismissive grunt and a slight wave of my hand.

I could hear him stand and move towards the door, pausing right before he hit it. "It is an interesting device, Senior Apprentice, but it resembles no clock I have ever seen before."

"Some clocks do more than simply tell time." I answered neutrally, a faint edge of irritation in my words. My fingers were itching to return to work on the device, especially now that I knew where I'd gone wrong and what I would have to rebuild.

Torune hummed again, then the door opened, he stepped out, and it closed behind him.

I released a long sigh and, with careful motions, rose to eat the soup he'd placed by my beside.

I'd moved quickly and hastily, but I'd lived to regret it. Now I'd need to make sure I didn't make the same mistake twice. The issue was buried in my lack of understanding of my own abilities. My chakra network simply couldn't handle repeated massive loads needed to trigger a doubling of potential every full moon. Next month I'd be back to a single charge, but perhaps I could manage it every other month, or...

I sat the empty bowl aside and considered the issue.

My finger slowly trailed over the lines of my chakra coils, not doing anything other than idly mapping them out as I considered my options. As I laid back down, I nodded to myself and split off another stream of consciousness to make yet more plans.

…

Satsuki did, indeed, show up in my room later and immediately busied herself tidying up, gently forcing me out of my bed as she rolled the futon up to hang it outside while I kept resting on a thinner blanket. Immediately after, she brought in a large tub of heated water that she set on a large towel and began pulling out a small bottle of soap, some hand towels, and brushes.

"You know I'll be perfectly fine not bathing for a day, Satsuki. You don't have to do this." I sighed as I gave in to what I already knew was inevitable and started removing my tunic.

The Uchiha girl grunted in a way that I knew well enough was a staunch refusal to accept what I'd just said. "I want to. You're always doing so much for me, and Tenten, and Yakumo, and Naruko... all of us. I want to do this." Her piece said, she removed her own top. Ostensibly, she'd said, to keep it from getting wet while wiping me down. I was sure there wasn't any other possible reason for her to want to remove her clothing in my presence.

...we'd need to have a talk about that sometime soon, wouldn't we?

I clicked my tongue and finished disrobing down to my boxers.

There was a moment of exchanged glares before Satsuki looked away and accepted the line I'd drawn in the sand. Regardless of my arguments, I sighed as she began her work. The water is warm enough not to be uncomfortable, but not so warm that it doesn't leave me feeling cooler and refreshed once it was wiped away. The girl was characteristically quiet as she went through the motions of wiping away my sweat and the stink of lying in bed all day, having done so twice before at this point. After a bit, though, her motions stopped and there's a long pause as small noises from her throat indicated she's trying to find the words to say something, but can't.

"Ah... Bon-chan..." Satsuki started suddenly, then sniffed wetly.

My shoulders slump. "I'm sorry."

Satsuki grunted again; this time though, I felt her arms wrap around me as she leaned against my back and sniffled quietly, her bare chest meeting my own unclothed skin. I reached down and overlaid a hand on one of hers, not saying anything as I reaped the whirlwind. Satsuki shook against me a few times, then took a deep breath and steadied herself.

"I... when he died... my sharingan..." She muttered, her hands going back to washing my back. "How did you know?"

"Hmm?" I replied. "Know what?"

I got a sharp pinch and a warning grunt of aggravation for playing dumb so badly.

"Father says it happens sometimes, our bloodline activates when a pet dies, but it's rare and hard to do on purpose. Which is why we don't try to do it with most of the kids in the clan. There was something else, about how you had to bond with the pet... I wasn't sure what he meant, though." She realized she was rambling and stopped herself. "But you gave me Bon-chan when I was complaining about not being able to wake up my sharingan like Father, Mother, and Itachi-nii. So you knew."

It would be one thing if I were still planning to leave permanently, but...

I sighed and nodded. "I guessed. I wasn't sure."

Satsuki grunted, accepting the statement as truth. It helped that it was, in a manner of speaking at least. I hadn't known a pet would work, not for sure. It made sense under the rules described in a piece of media, but I'd been worried the emotional connection wouldn't be sufficient or that the rabbit might die without Satsuki being there, which was why I'd intentionally chosen the oldest one available in the store and hoped it would happen before Satsuki graduated. There had also been the question of why the Uchiha wouldn't do it more often, but... the degree to which children made connections with childhood pets varied quite a bit. Unlike a trusted comrade in the heat of battle, an animal might not always trigger the same kind of emotional response.

Really, I'd just been rolling the dice.

"How?" Satsuki asked. "You know... a lot of things. Weird things, things you shouldn't, and the way you always have something more to teach us..."

I stopped a wince. I'd already decided that, should it come to it, I'd give her part of the truth. Not all of it, but part of it.

"It was several things," I replied as Satsuki lifted up my arm and began cleaning underneath it. "The first thing is that your clan is the only one to still have thick and tall walls around their property. Other clans have small barriers to denote property lines, but..."

"Why walls?" Satsuki asked, turning me so that she could begin washing my chest. As she did so, I caught the light coming from the window she'd opened and winced as the pain in my head flared. It had thankfully gone down since Torune had brought me breakfast, but too-loud noises or suddenly-bright light still set it off.

"You build walls to stop other people from getting in, to stop them from hurting you." I replied, the words an obvious truth, but obvious truths were the ones most ignored.

Satsuki still, looking up at me with dark eyes that slowly filled with realization. "Ah."

"The other part..." I paused. "If I tell you this, please do not tell anyone else. Not Naruko, not Yakumo, not Tenten. Not your family. If I decide to later, that's one thing, but I'd rather as few people know as possible."

Satsuki bit her lip, but nodded, setting the towel she'd been using aside. "I promise."

"Do you remember, when I told you about the three types of knowledge?" I asked pointedly.

She cocked her head. "Traditional, Revelatory, and Experimental."

"I am able to... pull knowledge directly from the Pure world." I sighed, feeling a weight fall off my shoulders as I finally confided in someone. "It isn't much and I can only do it under certain circumstances, but-" I shrugged as her eyes widened. "-that's how."

She took a deep breath, her gaze turning calculating. "That's... really amazing and really useful. You can just… pick something and you'll know about it?"

I gave her a bit of a tired grin and raised an eyebrow. "Usually, but occasionally It goes out of control and I wake up bleeding from my nose, ears, and eyes feeling like my soul just got pulled through wire mesh."

Satsuki stared at me for a moment as the ryo dropped and she scowled. "Bleeding from your what?!" She hissed and I winced at the piercing tone.

Shaking my head, I waved her off. "I found a line not to cross, that's all. I'll finish recovering by the end of tomorrow and start back doing light exercises after that."

The Uchiha girl glared at me, crossing her arms as chakra leaked out of her control and she flashed her sharingan at me for an instant. "You'll be more careful." She growled. "A lot more."

...cute.

An inappropriate part of me wanted to lean over, close the distance, and kiss her. I... didn't repress the urge, but put it aside instead. Not now, but perhaps...

"I promise." I stated and, a moment after she determined I was serious, her glare lessened.

Regardless of how much my overreach had hurt, my estimations on my recovery had proven true. After spending two weeks going through the work that had built up during my convalescence, I had enough time to focus on the more important things than simply filling orders for swords and making money.

Like finding a more secure place to do my work.

Looking around the small cellar, I nodded. By virtue of seniority, I'd assigned Sai the task of removing all of the previous owner's old stock to either use, sell off, or dispose of. Little of it was actually suitable to the kinds of ceramic weapons I made, but there were some odds and ends I could craft and fire so I'd justified keeping a small pile in reserve.

The real prize was the now-clean room beneath the wooden hatch in the rearmost part of the new building.

It was small, perhaps only a bit bigger than three meters by three meters with a height just under that.

"That means... ten by ten by eight in freedom units." I muttered, looking around and inspecting everything closely. The previous owner hadn't bothered to properly enclose the space, having likely wanted a certain cool dampness to maintain the area's low temperature and keep the unused stocks of clay moist for later use. Or something. I wasn't an expert on pottery by any means.

However, I could fix all that.

Nodding to myself, I unfolded the small drafting table I'd brought down with me and began laying out the sheets of paper and ink along with the variety of brushes I'd need. After ensuring the hatch door was securely closed and my oil lamps were positioned properly, I cracked my knuckles and got started. Sagara had taken Sai to inspect a shipment of new materials and Torune was simultaneously watching the counter as well as doing some detail work on a few blades I'd finished. Whatever criticisms I had against him, he could bring metal to a mirror shine and his work on handles, sheathes, and wraps were possibly better than my own.

I swear he'd blushed when I said that. Who knew Aburame were that vulnerable to a little praise?

I shook my head and returned my focus to my work.

The thing about fuuinjutsu was... it was heavily limited by what any given practitioner thought was possible. Also, there were at least two kinds of practical application of the discipline. Oh, and even with those two different kinds of practical application you had dozens of various schools under the broad umbrella usually identified as 'fuuinjutsu.' I guess what I'm really trying to say is that it was a complete mess of a subject that had arbitrary theory and practical application thrown together according to whatever individual wrote any given scroll or gave you lessons.

Gods Above and Below... I might actually kill someone for access to wikipedia. Hell, I'd even take TVtropes.

One thing that I'd completely misunderstood about the information I drew from the Pure World was that it was 'perfect' in a way that no human compendium of knowledge would ever be. Every scrap of information was categorized, sorted, and organized in a way that I could only describe as beautiful. While I was 'creating' martial arts and formulating metallurgical applications, I'd never really had anything to compare the knowledge I was drawing from against. I wasn't a Yamanaka and couldn't jump inside Sagara's head to see how I measured up, after all.

I strongly suspected that it was him measuring up against me now, though.

Even if I drew the comparison to a single expenditure of potential giving me a high-school-equivalency, even that fell dramatically short of the reality. The only way to properly describe it was if someone spent between twelve and sixteen hours per day doing nothing but understanding and practicing whatever information they chose for at least several years. Again, though, that didn't quite explain the depths to which I was cheating, because even the greatest genius would have flaws in his memory, understanding, or application. The only part of the equation that I fell short in was needing to properly synthesize all of the various fields I was pulling from and experiment until I found a way to fill in the gaps between those fields.

My mind flashed back to the scrolls Obito had given me and the birthday present of fuuinjutsu primers from Naruko (Kushina). I'd ridiculed them both privately, though I think I'd griped a bit about the former to Obito. In retrospect, though, I shouldn't have been as harsh as I was.

It might have been egotistical of me to think so, but...

They are only human, aping a flawed understanding of a world so far beyond them it would take the eyes of a god to see how short they fall.

Was it still arrogance if it was true?

I sighed, blowing the air out in a steady stream to finish drying the final sheet of paper I'd just scrawled out a nearly-identical formula on.

"Case in point." I muttered as I put away my tools momentarily and folded up the desk before taking all of it up to the room above. Standing on the bottom rung of the ladder, I took the first sheet I'd finished in hand, making sure it was the correct one in the process, before touching it to the floor and channeling chakra through it.

Instantly, the packed earth which made up the floor turned into a solid foot-thick of pure granite.

I pressed my hand to it and extended my senses, feeling the faint echo of the energy fading through the transformed material.

"This is why ninja can't do construction." I stated as I went over my work with excessive care and attention. This would be my laboratory space, after all, and it needed to be fit for that. No normal technique performed by a normal ninja could have given me the kind of uniform and stable construction I'd just performed. Having tried the technique on the small-scale, it was hard to even fully-transform a given chunk of dirt into stone, let alone all of it into the same kind of stone. Or do so with the kind of permanence I would require.

A shinobi could clear a patch of land more efficiently than any bulldozer, of course, but performing a technique to an engineering-grade level was never a requirement for anything in their lives. In a pinch, they could probably repurpose a given technique for temporary shelter or other utility use, but... as I'd told the girls...

Speed, power, control; pick two.

If you know fuuinjutsu, though, you can front-load all of the preparatory work, precision, and application.

This was one of the two main schools of fuuinjutsu. You could write out a technique formula, put a seal on the outside of it, store activation chakra within it, and then trigger it. The most famous example was the explosive tag. Coincidentally, I'd actually seen a few of the low-power ones Tenten used last year during her final academy days and they were actually more miscalibrated fire element manipulation techniques than a proper bomb. The mission-grade stuff they sold exclusively to active-duty ninja was probably better, though.

All of that just goes to show, though, that it didn't take much to make something blow up.

Pushing away the separate train of thought carrying my idle speculations, I finished my inspection of the floor and quickly applied the next set of tags to the four walls, then the final one to the ceiling. The last of these was done while I hung from the top of the ladder just in case I'd miscalculated and the walls wouldn't have held the half-thick sheet of granite I'd turned the packed earth into to serve as a ceiling.

Confident in my work as I was, I also didn't want to be crushed under an avalanche of shattered rock because I'd made a simple miscalculation. In that same spirit of caution, I took even longer to thoroughly inspect the ceiling before deciding to draw up a few more sheets to create 'support beams' out of a pile of the clay we'd decided to get rid of.

A bit more sure of myself, I even added a few stylistic touches to the addition, turning the clay into a series of arching bands of thick oak to...

I stopped cold as I looked at what I'd just done, then sucked in a deep breath.

"It doesn't count as mokuton if the wood isn't alive." I told myself, then forced myself to believe it.

Six Path's Sage Chakra is absolute bullshit.

Instead of getting lost down that rabbit-hole, I went up to install the security seals I'd designed on the entry hatch. Or, rather, I removed the old hatch, installed the new tungsten-alloy hatch and frame I'd clandestinely finished the day prior, then activated the engraved seals to fuse the outer portions to the surrounding material. A sturdy door was no good if you could just tear it off its hinges, after all.

Once the hatch was properly set, I overlaid the old hatch onto the new one, discreetly attaching the former to the latter so that it perfectly camouflaged the changes. After making sure it all worked as intended, I touched a finger to the security seals and felt them snap into place.

I stood, blinking, as I looked around the room, trying to remember-

My body jerked as I reflexively pulled at the invading chakra, pushing it out just long enough to activate the hidden 'key' that took the form of a small pellet imbued with a counter-technique to the one I'd had Yakumo charge for me on the door.

Shaking off the reality-bending illusion as it seemed to reluctantly leave my mind, I inhaled deeply. "Those techniques are just fucking evil." Even keyed in as I was, the hatch appeared to be solid, unbroken floor. Only a careful application of the tree-walking technique to unlock the latch actually allowed me to prove to myself that the section of floor was fake. I still felt a strange kind of resistance as I reached through to reassure myself there was a space beyond it.

I went below, shaking my head as I began installing the other sets of security seals.

It had been easy enough for me to get the Kurama heiress to charge a few chakra storage 'batteries' for me once I began her tutelage on pre-constructing illusionary artwork to use in the field. A perfectly plausible reason to need her to donate chakra for me to experiment with. It surely had nothing to do with the fact that, if I'd gotten my calculations correct, even a Hyuuga looking into the earth below the building would only see more unbroken soil.

Let me repeat, once again, that the Kurama genjutsu were fucking terrifying.

After I had shaken off another set of illusions trying to convince me that I was standing in a mass of solid packed earth, I began drawing out the next set of fuuinjutsu I'd need to install. Even with my perfectly-sure hands and the finest brushes and smoothest inks I'd been able to afford, it was still a challenge to ensure the various designs didn't bleed into each other. I'd have honestly preferred to use a pen here, but the ones I had available weren't built to use the kinds of ink I needed to. Plus, the ink they used dried too quickly for me to complete the entire 'circuit' of the seal, as I'd discovered.

"Damn finicky magic bullshit," I growled under my breath as I carefully destroyed a sheet I'd made a mistake on.

The second broad type of fuuinjutsu was the construction of barriers. I think this school of thought had developed first, really, as you could see the same kind of constructions in creating delayed-technique-activation seals. In essence, creating a delayed-activation technique, like an explosive tag, was simply drawing a barrier around a technique formula, then charging it up to make it ready to go off later. Making a standalone barrier, on the other hand, was both easier and deceptively simple in its applications.

Because you could make a barrier to contain, bar, or retain anything.

For instance, you could create a barrier that didn't allow light to pass... or air or water or rats or dogs or... whatever you wanted.

I set the last of my new barrier-seals to dry, resolving to charge them over the next several days. Unlike the comparatively simple earth-element techniques I'd used to shift the soil to granite, these would take a truly monstrous amount of chakra.

Even if I couldn't perform all of Hagoromo's techniques, his personal skills still allowed me a unique understanding and perspective on space and time. As I scampered back up the ladder to the sound of Torune finally finishing his work and calling for further instruction, I was confident that I'd either permanently solve my need for private space... or collapse my little laboratory into a singularity.

The latter was a fringe possibility, though.

I was sure.

Potential Spent:

Metaphysical Physiology: Unique Mutation (Kota)

Metaphysical Cosmology: Reincarnation Cycles

Metaphysical Physiology: Reincarnation (Aberrant)

Metaphysical Physiology: Respiration of the Soul

Metaphysical Cosmology: Akashic Records

Blacksmithing

Cognitive Performance Enhancement

Meditation

Mechanical Computers

Mechanical Computers II

Ruggedization

Automation

Horology

Cooking

Prana-Bindu Disciplines I

Prana-Bindu Disciplines II

Prana-Bindu Disciplines III

Prana-Bindu Disciplines IV

Blacksmithing: Ninja Tools

Swordsmithing

Metallurgy

Lightsaber Styles - Form I: Shii-Cho

Lightsaber Styles - Form I: Shii-Cho (II)

Lightsaber Styles - Form I: Shii-Cho (III)

Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu

Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu II

Chakra Control

Medic-Nin Training

Weirding Way

Yin-Yang Manipulation

Blacksmithing: Chakra-Conductive Metals

Personal Techniques: Otsutsuki Hagoromo I

Personal Techniques: Otsutsuki Hagoromo II

Personal Techniques: Otsutsuki Hagoromo III

Fuinjutsu I

Fuinjutsu II

Fuinjutsu III