Cliff Notes [FB, P]

Time flies when you’re focused on your work and nothing else, especially when passion and inspiration strikes. It felt like yesterday that he was overseeing a round of the Chuunin Exams or watching Genin fight in placement bouts. Speaking with Ayato about his initial work and getting permission to continue working on it. Going on missions with others of the village. That was not the case, however. It had been over two years since Masashi had left the grounds of his home in the water gardens. The vast majority of that time having been spent in the lab that he’d built underneath it. So much so, that his butler had seen fit to installing a bed in one of the rooms as he was clearly not using his own bedroom anymore. In Masashi’s defense though, he was so close to the necessary breakthrough for the research project that had necessitated his sojourn into the lab.

The ability to combine two different DNA into the same organ. The research itself at first glance seemed like something wouldn’t be groundbreaking until one realises the potential, especially when the goal is to combine the DNA of people from different clans, merging bloodlines to gain the beneficial properties of both with one organ. The biggest hurdle was that bloodline DNA didn’t like merging like that. Sure, you could implant an organ that came from someone of a different bloodline into your body, but even then, there’s a chance that it’s not going to take. Even if it doesn’t reject automatically, it could be a long time before the benefits of the implant actually start to surface. The research can potentially factor in two ways; either combining your own DNA with DNA of someone else prior to implantation in order to guarantee success of the implant right from the outset or combining two separate DNA together to provide potentially double the benefit.

The only problem with that is that the Uzumaki Jounin didn’t have powerful enough tools in order to view the interactions at the cellular level. Any changes he could see would be happening well past the point where it would be beneficial, so upgrades to the lab would need to be made. Research into existing advances in scientific equipment would be essential to getting on the right path quickly. Anything that wasn’t available from books, trial and error would have to do. The actual important research couldn’t begin until this crucial first step was completed. Feelers were sent out. The library would be the first spot to look for information, with others to squad leaders to keep an eye out for useful information while outside of Haven. Another long shot was spending money to have traders and travelling merchants keep their ears to the ground and bring back any useful information they could find. Since the library was here in the village and not far, the information from there came in quickest and he could at least get started while waiting for information from other areas.

In order to see smaller than what he could see currently, he would need to drastically increase the magnification on the microscopes that he’s currently using. The first sources of information that talked about that field suggested modifying the magnifying lenses; changing the curvature of the lens could create a smaller focal point and thus greater magnification for the targeted area. It was also recommended that adding more lenses in a series could also help to increase the magnification but there was only so many of those that you can put in a row before they also become useless due to how small the upper-most lens would have to be. It helped, but still wasn’t enough magnification for him to be to see what was going on while it was actually happening.

Since there was only so much that he could do without any additional information, Masashi would need to fill the time gaps created with other projects to try and assist with the overall research. Other methods that could be of benefit to the research but from a different angle or perspective. The only problem with that is that when only one person is working on the project, there’s only so many perspectives that one can get. Masashi was loath to share the work with anyone else for fear of the stigma attached to this type of research in the village. The only reason he can assume that he was allowed to work on this in the first place was because Ayato liked him enough to not dismiss his claims out of hand, otherwise this would be illegal research and he would no doubt be a fugitive for it.

The first idea that came to him was to try and build a chakra scanner that could potentially pick up on changes at that small of a level and simply project the information into his Crystal Custodian Nexus so that he could peruse it as it’s being updated. That way he wouldn’t need to necessarily “see” what was going on but would still be able to get an idea as to what’s going on while the DNA interacts. The initial hurdle would be to set up the right array in order for the Custodian seal to accurately pick up the information and then transfer it. It would also need to simply make a copy of the information rather than sealing it away, which makes it all the more complicated. The Uzumaki Jounin would need to modify the fuinjutsu formula in order to make this work properly as the initial design for the Custodian Seal would not suffice. He may require the help of some other fuinjutsu users in order to sort this out properly.

WC: 957

Another trip to the Archives was required. This time however was for information revolving around fuinjutsu, anything and everything to do with it. From the basics and theory around how it came to be, to experimental arrays and ideas. Any piece of information was crucial to advancing and improving his designs. As an afterthought, he also decided to include sensory and genjutsu in his list of research materials. They weren’t his forte, but he had at least a working knowledge of how they worked and had reason to believe that they could be applied to this project in some way, he just wasn’t quite sure yet what that application could be.

By the time the Archives had been scoured of all the subjects that Masashi had been looking for, it felt like there were more books in his lab than there were in the Archives themselves. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought as he worked his way through book after book. Anything that looked even the least bit useful would be noted in research journals for him to then trial out at a later time. The amount of information that filled those journals started to rival the books and scrolls that he had collected from the Archive, if only because in addition to the scraps of information he’d grabbed from them, he would provide notations and musings at the same time so that the reasoning would not be lost during this first, time-intensive process.

It seemed like Sensory combined with medical ninjutsu may provide a workable scanner of sorts. The only question was could it get the level of detail that was needed at the level where DNA was viewable. As long as the scan could go down deep enough, he should be able to retrieve the necessary information. However, he wouldn’t really be able to tell if the scanning technique would be able to go down that low, at least not un-aided, so he was effectively back at square one.

It then came to him that since genjutsu was used to create illusions, perhaps it could be used to create an illusion of what was being scanned. There was a potential that the illusion could then be manipulated in ways like zooming in on areas to see things that the human eye picked up but was too small for the brain to actually register without extreme focus. It would be a little more complicated than a standard genjutsu because it would need to handle a couple different things on top of being able to create the illusion in the first place. Masashi may not be skilled enough to make it happen, but at least he had a direction he could take with it.

Masashi’s first step when developing a new technique was to put the idea down on paper. Having something visual to refer to helps him to sort out what aspects needed to be worked on. That way he could work on different parts of the technique as needed and then figure out how the different elements would interact so that they could be meshed together into a cohesive jutsu. In this instance, there would be a sensory aspect, a fuinjutsu aspect, and a genjutsu aspect. The Sensory aspect would be recording and tracking everything in the area that the jutsu was operating, the Genjutsu aspect would be creating an environment that the recording could be manipulated, and the medical aspect would be cataloguing findings using terminology and storing the information in several connected journals, as well as the Custodian Crystal Nexus.

He would start by working on the Fuinjutsu required for the technique. There was a lot of it, and it would require multiple layers in varying forms. Luckily after medicine, Fuinjutsu was his next-strongest area of skill so he got to work. He would need seals for all three aspects that he’d already planned out. They would all need to be able to interact together, some at the same time and others at different intervals. The first set of seals would be related to the sensory portion of this technique. It was the most numerous as it would by tying into everything. The first array of formulas were purely sensory for recording information at all angles, capturing as much as humanly and inhumanly possible. The goal was to have no detail slip away unnoticed. The next layer would be a variation of the sensory seal, meant to act as a go-between for the sensory seals and the genjutsu seals and information-storing seals. They were effectively a hybrid of the two, which allowed them to almost talk to each other, to pass the information along seamlessly. The real trick was to blend the seals together, so they still kept the function from each separate seal but were still able to transmit chakra back and forth to keep them working in their intended function. Interspersed among this layer were modified Custodian seals that could collect the sensory information for storage and interpretation once the experiments were completed. The last layer of seals were the Genjutsu seals that would be taking the information and essentially creating a mental version of the collected information. The information would hopefully be stored and can be recalled in the same way that it’s recorded. Once all the seals were in place, the Uzumaki Jounin would begin a minute examination of each one to ensure that they had all been placed properly and in the right order. It was a painstaking process, but a necessary one as the slightest miscalculation with the fuinjutsu array would result in the entire experiment not working. Once he was sure that the arrays were all set up correctly, he would run some chakra through them to ensure that they were indeed connected properly and see how they interacted with each other in a neutral setting. The initial test seemed successful at least. The first hurdle appeared to be cleared for now.

With the most intensive aspect of the project completed, his focus would shift to working on the sensory aspect. It wasn’t his strongest area of skill, but it was the foundation for what was to come, and he had enough literature and notes on it that he was feeling relatively confident that he could at least get the idea fleshed out. The fuinjutsu array that was set up was simply the medium. The seals still needed something akin to programming to be able to do what he wanted them to do, so he would need to design a technique that would do what he wanted. The end result would be something akin to the Hyuuga’s Byakugan; able to pick up on the smallest details almost subconsciously. That was literally all that needed to be done, as if that was a simple matter. Attempting to replicate a powerful doujutsu would likely be close to impossible, especially since Masashi didn’t have those eyes, so he wouldn’t know for sure that the effect would be duplicated. All he could hope for was at least a close approximation to the real thing. Each sensory-based seal would have a two part technique; a wide beam sensory technique that would basically blanket the entire area and a second finer point sensory technique that would be able to detect movement and home in on it to provide more accurate data of the specific point. It would then relay this information through the network to the Genjutsu seals, as well as the Custodian seals.

The last aspect that needed to be finalised was the Genjutsu aspect. Of all techniques, Genjutsu was among his weakest, but could end up being the most essential part of the whole exercise. The goal of incorporating genjutsu was that by the end of the experiment, the information could be transformed into an illusory version of the events that could be played, replayed, rewound, and interacted with at least in a limited fashion. The most important part would be that he was trying to zoom in more than the current microscope technology would allow. The base idea was to use the False Surroundings technique as a base to effectively modify what was picked up using the fuinjutsu array. There was no guarantee this would even work, especially since his first impulse when he knows that something is a genjutsu is to release the genjutsu. Nothing of this would be easy but not trying is almost worse than doing nothing to start. All this time and energy would need to amount to something, even if the test ended in failure. It took a little bit longer than he’d expected to at least be satisfied with the modifications to the genjutsu, but at last he had all of the parts in place to at least test out his idea.

He would use some of his own DNA with the DNA from one of the cloned organs he’d received from Stein not that long ago. He wouldn’t need a particularly large sample for this as it was only a test to see how much detail the array would be able to pick up. The Uzumaki Jounin took the two sample pieces, connected them together using medical ninjutsu, then placed them in the observation seal at the center of the array. Once that was completed, he moved outside of the array and powered it up by infusing chakra into it. There was no way to know how long the process would take to reveal the information he was looking for, so he would take a break from the work to get some rest and check in on the project later.

Accessing the array after his rest gave him some bad news. The array did not provide any useful information in the process of confirming whether the DNA from the two pieces of material rejected the joining or not. It would seem that perhaps he would need some additional assistance if he wanted to make this work. A little time, and a couple letters later. Some invitations were sent out to a couple recipients whom Masashi thought may be able to shed some light on what he may be missing.

WC: 1696
TWC: 2653

A week had gone by, and the letters remained unanswered. Masashi had hoped that at least one of the individuals would have been interested in assisting with his project, but alas, it seemed he would be on his own for this. So be it, he would tackle this problem on his own. The week since he’d written the letters were not wasted either, the Uzumaki Jounin had still been researching and reading, trying to find more data to back up any of his current theories and hypotheses while waiting for a response. The array to magnify cellular projects hadn’t gained any further traction. He hadn’t given up hope though, he was still waiting on information requests to come in from outside of the village. There was still a couple more adjustments he could try to see if that would affect the results of the experiments.

The first thing he could try was to re-arrange the fuinjutsu arrays around the test area, changing the number seals and what order they were placed in. The reasoning here is that since he was not as skilled with sensory or genjutsu, the seals that he had set up may not have been powerful enough to do what he had needed. ‘Perhaps a fuinjutsu amplifier could help…’ he thought to himself as he poured over scrolls and notes he’d written down. He was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to him sooner. Most likely due to how focused he was on the individual components; he wasn’t doing his intellect justice. Masashi took a step back to re-look at the bigger picture. In theory, it was plausible that a fuinjutsu amplifier could work. Especially when amplifiers themselves were something that Masashi would be skilled enough to place. So, the first thing to do would be to see if the fuinjutsu formulae that he’d already placed could be amplified in the first place. If they could, he would need to redesign the entire array to support the addition of amplifiers. The first test would be to make one of each of the different seals he had designed and set up an amplifier connected to each one to see if they could at least be powered up beyond what he had originally designed. If they could, they would need to be powered up sufficiently where they would actually be useful, to replicate a jutsu of a higher tier. He started with a lower rank amplifier so that he wasn’t putting too much chakra into it for no reason. He set up four separate tests, one for each of the seals that were used in the array. He combined each one with a low rank amplifier and then fed chakra into each one individually. Preliminary tests looked optimistic; they all accepted the chakra and fed into the seals that they were connected to. It at least looked like they were increasing in potency. The actual benefit wouldn’t be really known until it was retried in the array.

The next test would be to connect each of the seals into a stronger amplifier. Again, the benefit itself wouldn’t be known until it was fully connected into the array, but he wanted to see how they interacted individually before testing something on a larger scale. This test would be a little more thorough, testing all possible ranks of amplifiers with the seals that were already designed. It was possible that the seals could only accept so much power before they become unstable so it would help to sort that out in advance. As Masashi went through each combination, he noticed that there wasn’t any problems with D or C-rank amplifiers on any of them. B-Rank amplifiers seemed to cause some instability on the sensory seals, but the rest were fine. A-Rank amplifiers seemed to cause some issue with all of them. He would make another attempt with C-Rank amplifiers on the sensory seals, and B-Rank amplifiers on the rest. Hopefully that would be sufficient, he’d rather not have to redesign the seals themselves if he could help it. They took enough of his time to design in the first place. He would need to take a little time to make modifications to the array to accommodate the amplifiers. Overall, it shouldn’t be particularly difficult, he had made room initially for additional seals if reinforcement was necessary. He would use that space for his plans for now and see if anything else needed to change.

His next full experiment with the array was also a complete failure. The amplifiers helped; he could tell right off the bat that they made a difference. The only problem was there either wasn’t enough of them, or they weren’t powerful enough. There wouldn’t be any way around it; he would need to use A-Rank or even possibly S-Rank amplifiers if he wanted this to have any chance of succeeding. That was concerning all on its own as there was a dangerous amount of chakra being used in there as it was. He would need to make the array larger, completely redesign the seals, and set up defensive layers if he wanted to try this again without losing all of his work, or killing himself in the process. The Uzumaki Jounin was getting increasingly frustrated at the process, but he was also getting excited. The failures were vexing but the temptation of success just beyond the hurdle kept spurring him forward. ‘Alright, back to the drawing board it is...’ he thought to himself as he dismantled the fuinjutsu array that was already set up in preparation of the redesign. Before he did though, what he’d been working on gave him an idea to try and incorporate into his Custodian Crystal Nexus; adding the genjutsu seals so that he could project the data stored within to effectively give him a three-dimensional workspace for planning and prep. That in itself wouldn’t be difficult to incorporate and would likely pay dividends on future projects. It would require another crystal because the existing one wouldn’t be able to be modified. Acquiring the raw material wouldn’t be hard, just time-consuming as it wasn’t something native to Haven, so it would need to be ordered and brought in. In the meantime, he could just work on improving the designs for the existing fuinjutsu seals to accommodate higher-rank amplifiers.

WC: 1054
TWC: 3707

It had finally arrived; the new block of crystal that he would need for his improved Custodian Crystal Nexus. He’d thought ahead this time and ordered several of the base crystal blocks so that if he needed to make more, or remake the existing one, he could. At least the current one still worked as an information repository, so it wasn’t a waste. It was even possible that he could connect the original to the upgraded one so that he could pull the information from it and project it using his improved design. That is of course assuming that the new design he had would actually work. The first thing he would need to do is shape the new crystal block into the shape that he would need for it to work properly. Rather than the standard square tower he carved last time, he would be making the new one into an octagonal base. The additional sides were necessary to provide structure for the improved array. The previous array was just individual seals that didn’t need a particular rhyme or reason for placement other than Masashi’s whim. This would require more finesse and structure. Once the base was shaped out, Masashi could start interspersing the Custodian and Projection seals.

The Projection seals were heavily modified versions of the genjutsu seal from the previous experiments. Rather than just Genjutsu, there was some Space-Time ninjutsu included in the formula to create a temporary pocket dimension. He wouldn’t be able to create a permanent dimension like Hikari could. The projection he estimated would only last for as long as it was running, and would erase when it was shut down. There would be four rows of eight Custodian seals that form rings, with a central Projection seal in each row, and a final Projection seal located at the apex of the tower’s point. This design not only made the entire structure more efficient, but it could be modified in the future unlike the original. Now that the new Custodian Crystal Nexus was constructed, he could transfer his research notes and designs to it and attempt to create the project space that he could then formulate and test with.

Once that process was done, he activated the new Custodian Crystal Nexus and used the Projection seals to create his temporary workspace for testing out the new fuinjutsu array that he had been designing while waiting for the crystal blocks to arrive. The initial space itself was empty; completely white with nothing else to distinguish. It was rather disorientating, but he was able to modify the environment with a thought, making it appear like his lab and have the same environmental conditions, to try and replicate as close as possible to see if the test would react like the real thing. Once he had the conditions right, Masashi was able to start performing the stress tests on his new fuinjutsu formulae to see if they would be able to take the extra power from higher rank amplifiers. At initial testing, his modifications showed that all four seals that would be used could handle up to A-Rank amplifiers. S-Rank seemed fifty-fifty chances with how they were currently. The Uzumaki Jounin decided that it would suffice for now, at least it would be a significant bump in terms of his last attempt to make this work. Now all there was left to do was to arrange the new seals in the perfect configuration. There was now five different types of seals he needed to incorporate, with two completely different seals and one heavily modified. Thankfully the projection space worked exactly as intended and allowed Masashi to determine flaws in the network before he had even begun to set it up properly in his lab, saving him even more time than it take to get the new Custodian Crystal Nexus set up. Just on the off chance that there was any unexpected surges of chakra in the network, Masashi also enclosed the experiment area with a layer of defensive fuinjutsu barriers. After a few trial-and-error combinations, he was able to figure out the best configuration in order for him to finally test out his experiment again.

It would be an exact duplicate of his previous experiment; combining some of his DNA with the DNA of a cloned donor organ. He placed the combined DNA inside the experiment area, and fed his chakra into the array, using some chakra storage seals he had also set up in advance to account for the increased demands from the seals that were set up. It would likely take a little time for it to the experiment to run its course, so Masashi would observe the array to make sure that nothing was going wrong with the seals. From what he could tell, they were functioning within the expected parameters, and that they were indeed recording information from within the array’s interior. It was maybe ten minutes after the experiment started that the array stopped collecting information. The Uzumaki Jounin simply assumed that the two DNA samples had run their course. The information collected would still need a little time to move through the array and be converted so that the Projection seals could project out the experiment in a way that Masashi could interact with it. The results should be available for him to work with shortly.

WC: 895
TWC: 4602

As soon as he could see that the Custodian Crystal Nexus had finished processing the information, Masashi loaded the completed experiment data into the Projection seals and activated them. Once it was up and running, he entered the temporary workspace. The initial set up showed just the area of his lab that was contained within his fuinjutsu array, at the normal magnification. He tried to zoom in, specifically on the area where the samples were set. The workspace took a minute, but eventually it managed to do as he wished, zooming in to the point that he could clearly see the samples in their tray. ‘We need to go smaller…’ Masashi thought to himself and tried to see if he could go down to the cellular level, the lowest that they could see with traditional microscopes. Again it took a moment, albeit slightly longer, for the workspace to respond before it magnified the samples to where he could see the cells up close. ‘Helpful, but still not small enough…’ was his next thought before he willed the workspace to zoom in smaller. The workspace responded, taking even longer this time, but respond it did. This was taking Masashi into territory that he was completely unfamiliar with. Areas of the body that existing methods had not been able to map. He could barely begin to figure out what it all would be. He could spend hours simply recording and cataloguing the different aspects of the cells that he was seeing. He would likely have to, as they could all be related in some way shape or form. Luckily once he had zoomed in to a certain extent, zooming back out and back in didn’t take any extra processing time. Eventually, the Uzumaki Jounin finished documenting down as much of the information that he could see, including what would eventually be recognized as DNA strands in the cells.

With the initial cataloguing done, Masashi would allow the experiment to happen in real-time so that he could observe the interactions that were taking place that he could now see. Most important here is what cells are interacting with what, and in what way. This would be crucial to the processes that he was trying to perfect. As the experiment progressed, he could see how the two different genetic samples attempted to recognize each other. As they were foreign to each other, defender organisms would attack cells of the other sample. At a lower level though, the genetic strands of the cells were attempting to assimilate each other. What Masashi had observed is that when those genetic samples successfully merged with each other, the defender organisms would cease fighting each other and would then turn on the others until eventually the two samples were completely merged. Masashi had attempted this a few different times now that he could see it. It wasn’t always successful at first; sometimes the genetic material wouldn’t assimilate properly, or something was missing that caused them not to attempt the assimilation in the first place. It didn’t seem that there was any specific cause that he could identify in each instance. An unfortunate development as it would be useful to be able to guarantee successful implantation whenever an organ was implanted in a new body. Perhaps with some additional information that he didn’t have it could work, but nothing he had observed to this point made him hopeful. With the initial tests done, Masashi could now move on to the other aspect of his testing that he wanted to try, infusing two separate genetic samples together and then attempt to see if the new fused material would be able to be merged a third time.

The process Masashi decided he would take would be to merge samples from two donor organs first and then trying to merge it with a sample from his own body. The first part worked like any other sample interaction; eventually the samples would merge together. When Masashi then introduced the sample from his own body to the hybrid sample, the initial stages remained the same, but while the genetic material attempted to assimilate, it just didn’t happen. There was no reason that Masashi could see that would cause that to be the case, but no matter how many attempts he made or what combination he tried, the samples would not merge two into three. Even putting the three samples together individually would not provide a change in the results. Two of the samples would eventually merge, and the last sample would simply stop assimilating and would be expelled. A frustrating result for Masashi, and was a fairly demoralizing situation that he find himself in. It effectively meant that while there was much learned from the work that he had put in, the actual goal of his current research was an abject failure. At the very least he could share his medical advancements with the Hogokage and advise him of the results of the work to this point. No doubt Ayato would be pleased that the transplant work itself would not have progressed, being a strong opponent to the process in the first place. Masashi chuckled as he prepared his report. He left his lab and made himself presentable for his visit to his old friend. Perhaps Ayato’s opinions and preconceptions had changed since they last spoke, but the Uzumaki Jounin seriously doubted it.

[EXIT]

WC: 898
TWC: 5500

Claims:
55 Stats (17 Vigour, 35 chakra, 3 speed)
739 wc towards Nativity of a Sea of Trees (2500/2500) (POP here)
4761 WC towards Adamantine Sealing Chains (4761/5000)