Kirigakure R&D: Namito Ichidai

Ryusame marveled at the smooth, modern architecture of the Kirigakure Research and Development District and tried to hold in his excitement. Steel and glass buildings threw back the soft gray light that filtered through the clouds giving everything a gentle and ethereal quality. Nearly every inch of the islet that the district sat on was taken up by its campus, although there were many relatively open areas dotted throughout. Somewhere in this labyrinth of sleek structures and carefully maintained courtyards was the famed Kirigakure Armory. Someday I'll have to visit that place, even if I don't really want to take anything out of the vault. They say every self-respecting Kiri ninja should do that at least once. But not today. Today I have bigger fish to fry....

He made his way to one of the larger buildings set a few hundred yards in from the nearest channel. From what he had gleaned at the Academy that was the Administration Building where they could get him set up. Although not as large as some of the islets that made up the village the Research and Development district was still among the largest and was really only geared towards those ninja that built their own tools. I wonder if they will set me up with a lab of my own? No, probably not. But there does seem to be a lot of space here. Maybe a little workshop out of the way somewhere? A quite place tucked away in a corner, maybe with a window so I can listen to the rain while I work. He carried on dreaming like until he stepped into the lobby.

Inside was noticeably cooler than outdoors, bordering on uncomfortable. The lobby was clean and bare except for a massive glass coated desk that seemed to meld into the floor itself. It curved around a third of a massive support column and held a long and unobstructed view of the main entrance. In the back of his mind Ryusame noticed the strategic advantage it held, providing cover to anyone watching the door without trapping them in place. Although it was easily large enough for a half dozen workers it was manned by only a single woman. She wore a simple blue coat and glasses just stylish enough to be noticed without being distracting. As Ryusame entered she set down a scroll that she was reviewing, carefully folding her hands over it as she did, and fixed him with a small but thoroughly professional smile. "Welcome to Kirigakure R&D. How may I help you today?" she asked.

Ryusame stuttered a bit. He realized in that moment that he hadn't really put together a plan, he had just found out the location of the R&D district and headed over at the first opportunity. "Ah, well, I heard at the Academy that you guys could provide me with a place to work. I'm a Puppeteer nin, or at least trying to be." He waggled his fingers to illustrate the point before realizing how foolish it made him look.

The woman's smile became a shade deeper. "I see. And do you have the name of a researcher that you were hoping to work under?"

"Well, no. I was told that I could work here on my own."

She nodded and started putting away her work. "Yes, we do allow ninja to work here on their own. However your access to our labs will be somewhat limited. Could you please provide your name and rank? Also lean forward a bit, I need to examine your headband."

"Yes. Um, I'm Ryusame Namito. Genin. Just graduated recently." The woman stared intently at his headband as he spoke, and he thought he saw a flicker of light flash through her eyes. It was gone before he could confirm it.

"I see. And have you spoken to anyone about your plans to work here? A Jounin of the village, perhaps, or one of the clan leaders?"

A moment of fear seized his heart. "No, not really. I asked some of the teachers about this place, but that was about it."

"I see. Well everything seems to check out. If I could just get a blood sample I think we can set you up in L8." She pulled out a small white pad that looked like it might be gauze and set it down on the desk between them.

"A, uh, blood, sample?" he stammered. "I don't have, well I guess I haven't been to the shops yet..."

The woman made a sound of mock disapproval. "You should really make that a priority. Every good ninja needs at least one way of drawing blood." As she spoke she produced a simple senbon needle, although where she had pulled it from was a mystery to Ryusame. "Here, use this."

Ryusame took the needle and pressed it into the thumb of his left hand until he drew a single bead of dark red blood. Trying not to look as though this were a new and strange experience for him he took a beat to gently press it into the gauze, hoping that he looked calmer than he felt. The woman nodded politely and took the gauze from him.

"Thank you very much. Our Sensory nin are are among the best, but there are Genjustu experts out there that can fool them from time to time. Blood, on the other hand, is harder to fake. Now, let's see, Building L8. Ah yes, there is a workshop open on the first basement level. It's nothing much, but it should serve the needs of a Genin. Please, follow me."

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Word Count: 937 Words

"Well, here it is," the woman said, opening the door of the workshop. It was about three times larger than his bedroom at home, with large if somewhat crude wooden tables set about the space. Along the walls were racks of tools, shelves full of various materials, and sets of drawers ranging from an arm's length across down to barely an inch. Ryusame followed the woman in and walked over to the smallest of those drawers. As she continued he began opening them at random to see what secrets they held.

"This is a common workshop, so all of the researchers have access, but you can store any projects in here that you want. Tools are over there, materials to the right. If you need something else you can put in a requisition upstairs on the second floor. If they can borrow it from another lab they will, but you may have to cover the cost yourself. There are no set hours but be sure to check in with the guard whenever you arrive and before you depart. Don't go anywhere that you aren't explicitly authorized to go, and if you damage anything make sure to tell the guys upstairs immediately. Other than that you should be set. Do you have any questions?"

Ryusame had moved on to studying the rest of the room. A smile was spreading across his face despite his best efforts to hide it. "No, I think I will be just fine here. Thank you so much for all your help." He ran a hand along one of the tables, wiping away the thin layer of dust that had built up.

The woman nodded politely and made a note on the clipboard she had brought along. "If you do think of anything you can always go to the main office for this building on the second floor, or if you're up for a walk you can come visit me in the Administration Building." Her eyes passed over the room one more time as though looking for something, and she made another note on the clipboard before giving Ryusame a small but genuine smile. "Well then, good luck."

He barely waited for her to leave before he pulled out a scroll of notes he had been working on. Ideas for the Namito Ichidai had been swarming in his head for months, and now that it was finally time to get to work he was almost giddy with adrenaline. He didn't even care that the workshop they gave him was down in the basement, its thick cinder block walls lacking any windows let alone a view. The faint smell of machinery and industrial cleaners was a more than adequate substitute for the sound of rain if he was able to start building his puppet.

For his design he had finally landed on a pale gray ceramic. Almost as hard as metal if not as strong it would stand up well to the ubiquitous salt spray of his home country. The body plan was very basic, a humanoid figure based on his own dimensions. Ryusame knew that some puppeteers took the trouble to make their puppets are lifelike as possible so that they could be used for subterfuge. Maybe someday I'll build a puppet like that, but for now I just need a good general purpose battle tool to learn the ropes.

Shaping the ceramic turned out to be a surprisingly easy and cathartic process, if a bit lengthy. With the right tools he could rough out the shape of each part in a matter of minutes, but refining it took hours of polishing. Eventually though he had a pile of pieces laid out on the table in front of him in constituting the puppet's entire body. The finish on the parts was left just rough enough to give them a flat matte appearance without leaving anything for salt or dirt to find purchase on.

Ryusame had found a way to pack two different mechanisms into the Namito Ichidai. The first was the Shiramori, a simple harpoon that he fashioned out of the same ceramic as the rest of the puppet. He fitted the barbs of the harpoon with spring loaded mechanisms, allowing them to expand out to slice through targets when fired but then retract quickly so that the projectile could be drawn back in by a coil of high strength filament he found in an old drawer. He intended for the Shiramori to be his main weapon and wanted to be able to fire it as often as possible. Unfortunately this meant that he had to sacrifice firepower, leaving the puppet a little underpowered for his taste.

That was where the Jikimori came in. Among the selection of materials he found there was a second grade of ceramic a few shades darker than the first
that was not quite as hard but had considerably higher tensile strength. From this Ryusame forged a larger harpoon and about twenty meters of chain which he stored in the torso of the puppet. This time he made the barbs and shaft one solid piece to maximize their strength as much as possible. This mechanism exceeded the Shiramori in both power and range, but it had also been designed with a second use in mind. With the stronger barbs and sturdy chain the Jikimori would be able to drag anything pierced by its weapon back to the puppet. There it could be confined or failing that pummeled into submission.

More of the chain was used to connect the pieces of the puppet together. He had designed them to be able to detached and extended to the limits of these chains, granting them about a meter of leeway. The extra flexibility would help the puppet strike at targets once the Jikimori drew them in and Ryusame hoped it would take some of the shock out of heavy impacts. Unfortunately he needed the head to be able to fold away in order to fire the Jikimori, so that connection was solid. All of the other joints had a secondary locking feature that allowed them to interlock when he didn't want the limbs flailing about. The joints weren't terribly strong but with the underlying chain holding the pieces together they were mostly cosmetic.

Once he had the puppet fully assembled Ryusame carefully turned it over and branded its name into the back of its head. Each of the four kanji was about an inch high and very lightly stamped into the material. Using black paint he coated the characters again to give them a darker, cleaner look. Once we has satisfied with that marking he repeated the process down what would be the puppet's spine in larger characters. Some Puppet nin would give their creations descriptive names, but Ryusame saw that only as a potential flaw. A skilled opponent would be able to work out any contraptions he came up with in time anyway, and once they did the tide of battle would flow back out to them. That being the case he saw no reason to give them any hints. As if to emphasize the point he then covered the entire puppet in a loose robe the same color as the ceramic of the Jikimori. A large hood like the one he wore covered its head so that both signatures were hidden. Between its coloring and the looseness of the fabric Ryusame hoped that the outfit would also help the puppet blend into the fog.

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Word Count: 1,251 Words

Ryusame stretched stiff muscles and pushed himself away from the table. His initial elation at completing his first puppet had faded several hours earlier to be replaced by an almost manic need to solve this puzzle. Originally his designs had filled about a foot of the scroll beside him, but the additions he had made that day alone now tripled that volume. So much of what he had planned out had needed modification or outright correction that the margins around the original section were now more ink than paper, packed densely with figures, charts, and hastily scrawled notes. It had gotten so bad that he had needed to develop a system of annotations on the spot, allowing him to link to sections further down the scroll for more in depth explanations.

How long he had been at it he did not know, but the all consuming exhaustion that filled his body told him that he had worked late into the night. Around him the building seemed unchanged, the quiet hum of distant machinery the only noise besides him working just as it had been since he had arrived. The clean artificial light helped to keep him awake but Ryusame knew that he could not fight it forever. Part of him realized that trying to make it home in his current state was, at best, a terrible idea, and wondered if there was anywhere in the building where he could sleep. I could go upstairs and ask one of the administrators, he thought. But what if they kick me out? It might be better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Shaking his head he pushed the debate out of his mind. The problem couldn't wait for him to get some shut eye. I am a ninja of the Hidden Mist. I will not be defeated here in a basement surrounded by forgotten tools and left over supplies. With a little effort he stood up and started pacing around the room. Movement got his blood pumping again and washed away the worst of his exhaustion, letting him think with something like clarity.

Despite being of his own design and creation Ryusame could not get the Namito Ichidai to perform. The limbs responded jerkily, if at all, and he couldn't get the mechanisms to fire. At first he had assumed that there was a flaw in the design and quickly found optimizations that he had previously overlooked in what he know regarded as his daydreams about his puppet. Without real feedback nearly every one of his theories had gone off the rails into rabbit holes of flawed logic and poor mathematics. Those errors had been corrected at length, leaving him with the closest thing to a perfect model for a puppet that he could manage.

Something else was eluding him. Going back over to the table he traced a finger down a section of the scroll and double checked a table of figures. Everything seemed to be in order and yet the puppet would not respond. He gave a frustrated sigh and paced away again before turning on a heel to face the puppet. Focusing his mind on his Puppetry Technique he spun out ten chakra threads, one from each finger, and latched them onto the puppet. They clung to its torso and shoulders, permeating through the cloak and working their way across the ceramic surface beneath to find their appropriate anchoring points. He paused, glancing over one outstretched arm to try and check his work one more time, then attempted to make one arm move.

At first his commands were ignored. It felt as though he were trying to move a block of lead, his chakra threads straining at the puppet in vain. The next moment the puppet's left arm snapped straight up to point at the ceiling, its hand limply flopping about as it did with a clatter of ceramic on ceramic. Ryusame growled through his teeth and tried to drop the arm down to a forty five degree angle. It began to tilt out towards him instead of back towards the table, and when he twitched his left middle finger to correct the motion the arm bent wildly at the elbow causing the puppet to strike itself on the chest. He swore loudly at that and released the threads altogether, then stormed across the room to start searching through the drawers.

What he was looking for exactly he did not know, but he felt that he had to do something with his hands to keep his mind on track. There were dozens of tools stored in that part of the workshop, most of which he could only guess at the purpose of. None of them seemed to hold the answer to his problem though. Why won't the damn thing work right? I'm sure that I've covered all my bases. Even if there is some flaw in the design that I can't see I should be able to get some kind of functionality out of it. Ryusame shut the drawer he was scrounging through a little harder than he meant to, knocking a can of some solvent or another off a higher shelf. On reflex he tried to catch it but only succeeded in swatting it away. The can careened across the room and bounced off a nearby table before clattering to the floor. Ryusame let out a sigh and felt the fatigue edge back into his mind. Man, I must be the clumsiest ninja alive. I can't even-

The thought was cut off by a flash of intuition. Moving slowly as if the idea were balancing on his mind he went over to his notes and checked one of his early assumptions. Puppet and puppeteer were connected by the chakra threads, and in his calculations he had assumed that the jutsu did all the work in converting the commands of one into the actions of the other. For that reason he had focused on improving his chakra reserves and his control over that chakra. The section at the beginning of his notes laid out rough consumption rates and the level of control he would need to make the threads fine enough to work but considered no other factors. Realization began to dawn on him. The problem isn't with the puppet, it's with me....

A smile broke on his face. His puppet wasn't a failure. In fact, from a certain point of view, the issue was that it was too much of a success. Ryusame had created a puppet that was too advanced for him to use. His smile gave way to tired, unhinged laughter that sounded explosive after the indeterminable ages he had spent listening to the soft hum of the building and the scratching of his pen. When at last his mirth had died down he reached beneath his robes and pulled out a blank scroll, unfurling it on the table beside the puppet. He took a moment to arrange its limbs back into the desired pose before making a series of handseals. "Sealing Technique!"

With a puff of smoke the puppet disappeared. In the scroll beside it appeared a ring of Shodou characters surrounding a column of four kanji written in Ryusame's own handwriting. He let out a contented sigh then carefully rolled the scroll back up and hid it under his robes again before retrieving the can he had knocked down and returning it to its shelf. With his task finally complete he had expected the exhaustion to return in earnest but instead he found himself filled with a giddy sense of accomplishment. He shrugged to himself and decided to attempt the trip home, opting first to stop in with the administrator on duty as he had been instructed. When he finally made it back outside he was surprised to find that it was only an hour before sunrise. Hoping that the clouds would keep the village cloaked in darkness long enough for him to make it home and get to sleep he formed the Ram handseal and activated the Body Flicker Techncique.

[Exit]

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Word Count: 1,345 Words

Justu Used:
Puppeteer: 5 AP
Basic Sealing Technique: 10 AP
Body Flicker: 10 AP

Remaining AP: 683/708

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CLAIMS
Equipment Creation Word Count: 3.533 Words [937 + 1,251 + 1,345]

Equipment:
Puppet-Namito Ichidai 3,450/3,450 [Full Cost 4,600 discounted 25% by Kirigakure Research & Development]

Ryusame Namito wrote:
[Exit]

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Word Count: 1,345 Words

Justu Used:
Puppeteer: 5 AP
Basic Sealing Technique: 10 AP
Body Flicker: 10 AP

Remaining AP: 683/708

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CLAIMS
Equipment Creation Word Count: 3.533 Words [937 + 1,251 + 1,345]

Equipment:
Puppet-Namito Ichidai 3,450/3,450 [Full Cost 4,600 discounted 25% by Kirigakure Research & Development]

Approved