Private An Eye For Detail [Req. Rei]

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune slumped into her chair and slammed a button on an intercom system, to make the secretary outside send an emergency summons to the main branch sennin. Usually Kitsune would be all smiles when summoning Rei, and offering tea and all that kind of stuff. But today was very much an emergency. See, Kitsune had just fended off another assassination attempt, the sixth in three months, and this time they’d gotten her eye. And while she’d usually be able to fix any damage done to her body, as this wasn’t just any ordinary eye, she’d been forced to perform healing to stop bleeding, and put on an eyepatch.

She sighed and pulled up some files from her desk drawer I guess I’ll have to move up the timetable on Project Oculus Aureus, and for that to happen, I’ll need the assistance of Rei-chan. Kitsune decided for herself. Sure, a prototype existed, but it wasn’t anywhere near ready for primetime. It needed a lot of work to be able to replace the now destroyed eye remaining in Kitsunes eye socket. At the same time, it’d also give her some new advantages in day-to-day operations. Regardless, none of this would happen without another genius on the case.

What Kitsune didn’t realize was that she’d bled onto her suit, leaving dark red stains, but she had at least wiped the blood away from her face, so it didn’t look too bad. Well. Instead of having a face injury, it looked as if someone had stabbed her chest, so who knows how that’d be taken by any onlooker. Regardless of all that, Kitsune was still on high alert, and would probably tear whomever was behind the assassination attempt limb from limb with her bare hands. If she knew who had ordered the hit, that is. She was still waiting for an in-depth report from the intelligence department.

 

[Toraono Michino]

“Carnal Pleasure”, wasn’t a phrase that used to be in Rei’s book. Even back before she started modifying herself, the scientist had a bit of an asexual view when it came to romantic entanglement. She had, of course, tried the whole dating thing back in the day but after turning into a literal cyborg, the woman went for years without the need for human touch. Then that thing, whatever it was that happened in the Academy, changed her entire biological make up.

Now, she had a mighty need.

Ryuu Rei was, however, still a Sennin. Being the boss of a bunch of shinobi really limited the pool of perspective mates in a military city. Citizens were the only hunting ground she could, legally, explore and while there were far more than a few tempting men that worked directly under her, she was serious about setting an example as best as her body allowed. Sometimes there was a little “primal” that slipped out when she got worked up, but thankfully the only time this had happened so far was in combat. In order to keep that primal at bay with her co-workers in a carnal sense, once or twice a month the Sennin would roam about the local clubs; both high-end and low brow.
Tonight was one of those nights. The monster of a woman had found, cornered, and was whispering some tepid things in the ear of a man that Miro could have easily use as blackmail if they weren’t in a club with music loud enough to drown such sordid pillow talk. Sadly, before Rei could seal the deal, an emergency message screeched into her ear that tore her mind away from the lurid fantasies she had planned for the night. The scowl on her face made the guy she had cornered clearly nervous but she flashed a smile and gently slipped her hand into his left pocket with a wink before just, literally vanishing with only small cracks in the floor to show she had been real. When the guy reached into his pocket he found a little card with a number on it and nothing else.

Very shortly after, the Main Branch Sennin exploded into Kitsune’s office through a closed window. The windows themselves were made to prevent this exact scenario, but since the only word she had gotten on the radio was “Help, the Raikage is injured and needs your help,” the Sennin thought the worst was happening and took the shortest route she could; up the building and through glass. Assassin attacks, which were expected, were starting to get rather bold lately. Their ANBU leader handled most of them before they even got anywhere near the village and, Rei suspected, probably even let a few of them into the village to get better intel before executing them. However, every once in a blue moon, one would get past Miro’s immaculate web of spies and get near Kitsune. When the MB Sennin landed on the carpet, she was ready for a fight. Fists raised and body stance in a painfully trained combat pose, the woman looked around and found, to her embarrassment, that the assassin had either gotten away or had been dealt with already. Kitsune was sitting at her desk, no doubt looking frustrated that her friend had just broken yet another window in the Torre. That moment of shame was quickly washed away when Rei noticed that Kitsune was wearing an eyepatch and that blood had soaked the top of her suit.

“Kit-chan!” the fellow scientist gasped as she darted over, “Your eye! No! Is it okay?! Who did this!? Where are they now?! Do you have the ANBU on it or are they close enough for me to handle?” Rei said with a slightly panicked voice, shaking her boss by the shoulders having no actual clue as to the real reason she was called in.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Luckily, Kitsune had already taken care of things, and really only needed assistance with technical things, so she was sitting at her desk, lowering her heartrate after the adrenaline kick of being attacked, and eviscerating an attacker. The corpse was lying on the floor over by the conference table, only moved enough to be pulled onto a rimmed plastic sheet so their blood wouldn’t seep into the floorboards or anything. And just as Kitsune had started to be somewhat calm again, somewhat close to her normal resting heartrate, Rei decided to not only scale a goddamn skyscraper, but also burst through the laminated, triple layered glass capable of withstanding tremendous amounts of force.

A sigh escaped Kitsunes lips just before Rei apparently noticed everything that’d happened, and decided to shake her about. Kitsune grabbed both Reis hands, and took them away. ”Calm down, Rei-chan. It’s just an assassin.” Kitsune said in a deadpan tone of voice ”Corpse’s over there, I got a little stabbed, and they managed to slice my eye.” she explained and gestured over to the body on the floor. Kitsune then proceeded to stand up, and take off her suit jacket and poke a finger through the stabbing hole, and another sigh escaped her lips. ”My favorite suit jacket… D’arvit.” she mumbled, cursing in a different language before tossing the jacket aside and turning to face Rei, which let the Sennin see the large splotch where she’d been bleeding from, but clearly weren’t any longer.

”Anyway. The reason I called you here, is this.” she said and lifted her eyepatch, letting Rei see the healed but destroyed eye. ”We don’t yet have a good technique for healing implanted bloodline organs, of which my eyes both are. Working theory is related to DNA and how the eye had one type, and the body has another, but due to blood coursing through, it’d technically have both and that causes issues. Either way. Eye ruined. That’s a problem, but I’ve been working on a contingency for it. It just isn’t anywhere near ready yet.” Kitsune explained, then gesturing to a stack of large blueprints on her desk, indicating for Rei to give them a read and ideally let her thoughts on the matter be known.

The blueprints detailed an artificial Sharingan eyeball, complete with all the necessary chakra coils and sight receptors and everything. It’d essentially be an electronic eye with a brain interface, allowing access to the same Sharingan abilities as the user normally would have, and a host of other features, mostly related to security systems and accessing various interfaces. The design sketch showed it slightly glowing in a golden hue.

 

[Toraono Michino]

The very moment Kitsune grabbed her hands, Rei felt a clam overtake the initial panic. Just an assassin. Like it was so common for them to get this close to their leader and actually deal damage; which it wasn’t! The Sennin’s eyes looked down at the direction her leader gestured at and saw the corpse, covered in a plastic sheet to minimized the damage to the interior. Smart, really. Releasing the Raikage’s shoulders the amazoness took two strides and delivered a swift, though weak, kick into the corpse’s side.
“Bastard,” she swore at the dead man before spitting on the plastic. It felt justified since she couldn’t actually assist in preventing the damage the man had already done. It was also a small release of pent up frustration and guilt. There was that part of her brain telling her that this, potentially, would not had happened if she had just waited one more night to go hit the clubs…it’s just that, Sunday was such a dead day for party-goers. Most of them were trying to shake off the hangover from the night before and getting ready to relax for the work week ahead.

Thankfully her friend didn’t give Rei enough time to sink too far into the depths of her guilt. She removed the patch and revealed the wounded eye that might as well been a national treasure to their country. Uchiha eyes weren’t exactly the rarest dojutsu in the land, but if she remembered hearing correctly, replacing a lost or injured eye was next to impossible; something Kitsune confirmed right there. They had to have the right genetics to handle the chakra potential of the person they were being transplanted into, and, they generally had to be closely related for the eye to achieve its full potential. Losing a single one of these eyes nerfed an Uchiha to easily half their power; losing an evolved form that Kitsune had was akin to nearly 2/3rds power loss. Working in pairs is what made the Mangekyō so powerful, or at least so she had read. There was actually very little information available to anyone outside the clan as to how the dojutsu really did its thing, even to a Sennin. However, based on what was available, Rei concluded the real reason one-eyed Mangekyō users didn’t exist was because controlling that lofty power required an extensive amount of chakra; and a single organ could only handle so much.

Thus was she then guided to some blueprints on the table that Kitsune called a possible solution. Rei lifted the folder and opened it to leaf through the pages before reaching into a little pocket on her belt to take out a scroll, activate it, and withdraw a pair of reading glasses from the cloud of chakra steam. With a flick of the wrist, Rei opened the glasses up and put them on, making the writing clearer. Then after a couple of minutes of silence and page flipping, Rei looked up with a mad grin,
“Oh, I do believe this is absolutely possible.” She placed the folder back down and spread out the blueprints across the desk before tapping the third page with the same glasses she had just put on,
“The only problem I’m catching is right here. The math checks out, in theory, or at least it does via shorthand in my head…but this right here. The coil. I don’t know if anyone has ever done an artificial chakra coil before. Especially one that specializes in keeping the balance of Uchiha techniques between two eyes. Everything else here is absolutely do-able. Hell, compared to what we had to go through for me, this should be a walk in the park otherwise.”
“Of course, I’d also recommend getting Madam Midori’s help here too. I can engineer with the best of them, but the actual medical practice of inserting said hardware? Well, you know how that went once with me. And since you’re going to be the one on the table…”

Rei trailed off, but she knew that her friend knew. There were probably only two people in their entire country that could preform this surgery, and the current Medical Sennin was the other. Creating the eye itself was going to be a breeze save that one issue with the chakra coil…but she had the strangest feeling that it had been done before. Besides, with enough study and practice Rei figured there wasn’t anything she couldn’t invent.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune chuckled a bit internally over Rei’s kick against the corpse, while maintaining a stern outer appearance. She grabbed a piece of paper and began scribbling down some equations relating to energy efficiency. Now as everyone with a basic understanding of science would know, energy couldn’t be created from nothing, and it couldn’t be destroyed, only changed. Chakra was the same, it was inner energy coming from maintaining the body properly, and for some, splashed with the energy of the surroundings. Now obviously no artificial construct could produce chakra, as there was nothing there to produce it. Well. Almost none. Kitsune had built one, and installed it in her artificial human puppet Hisako.

Using what she’d learnt from building that chakra heart, as she called it, Kitsune had learnt how to synthesize chakra coils. The very same thing that Rei was now saying she didn’t know if anyone had ever made it before. Kitsune gave a soft smile. ”Well. We’re in luck on that front, Rei-chan. You’re conversing with someone that indeed has constructed artificial chakra coils before.” she said as if it was the most natural thing in the world to have produced such things. ”If memory serves, I showed you the blueprints for an artificial human puppet, long ago. I’m fairly sure you’ve met her a few times as well. Hisako is her name.”

”She contains a full set of artificial chakra coils, built by my hand. And remember Honnou-kun? The guy that made sure the academy didn’t implode during the whole Tenouza debacle? His artificial arm also contains artificial chakra coils, made by me, as I designed, and made the arm.” she continued, explaining why she was very confident in her skills with regards to constructing hardware, but Rei did raise a good point with regards to actually implanting said hardware. Kitsune paused her scribbling, put down the paper, and looked right at Rei. ”That’s… A good point. I didn’t even consider that yet.” she mused, running a hand through her red mane of hair.

It was true that Rei wasn’t a medical prodigy, despite having plenty knowledge in designing things for use with the human body. It was also true that one of the few people capable of performing the surgery required was also the one having the surgery, leaving behind probably only the Medical Sennin for that task. ”We should probably rope her in on this once we’re at the finish line with the eye itself, hm?” Kitsune suggested ”For the time being, I’d prefer we focus our attention on finishing the design, and then construction. The faster we can get this done, the faster I can be back to full power, and so you uh… Don’t get interrupted on ‘date’ night.”

 

[Toraono Michino]

“Hisako! Right!” Rei exclaimed, having completely forgotten some of her friend’s grander achievements with androids. Then apparently the Kumogakure Hero Honnou also had the same kind of artificial chakra coils in his prosthetic. She didn’t know of that, personally, as the files on Hon were quite blacklisted being a member of ANBU, but she was one of the few people who knew his deeds during the war. A hand quickly raised up to her chin to consider things. If Kitsune had the blueprints for artificial coils laying around, she could easily tweak them to the degree needed for something as fragile as an ocular replacement. After all, tweaking existing things into a more perfect form was kind of her specialty when she was a weapon developer.
“If you can find me the blueprints for your chakra coils I can get right to work. I’ll go ahead and send out the message to get my team together and we’ll start procuring all the materials we need as soon as we get the rest of the information you have tucked away somewhere.”

Then, Kitsune mentioned something that completely threw off Rei’s train of thought. Her “date nights.” Almost instantly the beastly woman turned beet-red and started to squirm on the spot remembering that her prey had gotten away tonight and that she’d have to push her little monthly ritual back a few weeks for her best friend.
“I…uh…” the woman stammered with an uncharacteristic squeak in trying to explain herself. She had really thought that the secret was just that; a hidden hobby. Of course the leader of a shinobi village knew of her Sennin’s activities, but that also made her extremely worried that Miro knew too. If there was one thing she didn’t need, was that damn teenager to have anything else over her head.
“Please don’t tell Miro,” the Sennin begged her boss, “I think I might literally die of embarrassment if she knew.”
“Dammit, I thought they were joking about the bruised pelvis…” the leader of the Main Branch whispered to herself as she gathered the blueprints on the table back into its folder and quickly crunched back over the broken glass to the window exit to remove herself from this highly embarrassing scenario she had found herself in.
“I’ll…uh, see you in a little bit.” And with that, flickered out of sight.

48 hours later and Rei was putting the finishing touches on Kitsune’s new eye. She hunched over the eye with a soldering iron, tapping it against the tin to connect the last pieces together. Two whole days without any sleep or rest. Getting the team together to create the twelve different parts of the eye at once went smooth, as did the secrecy of why Rei was creating a cybernetic equal to the Uchiha’s eye. As far as they knew, she was just trying to test the limits of her ability as an engineer once again and if successful would easily allow all of them to retire into money. Of course, monetary value on this technology depended solely on Kitsune. If she wanted to keep this project absolutely in the dark then once the eye was done Rei had already decided to lock up the project deep in the Vaults and call it a failure. No one would blame her, either, as her entire team scoffed at the very idea to start with without realizing just how genius the Raikage actually was in writing the original idea. Now she sat on the bench, alone in the lab, with only two more points to connect before she could call it done and start running initial tests.
“….and….there,” she muttered to herself before sitting back up and lifting the protective eye-wear with a yawn. “That should do it. Only thing left now is for Kit-chan to actually fuel it with her chakra to see if the coils receive right and the heat circulates properly…”

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune rummaged around one of her drawers, to click a button hidden inside that’d pop open a secret compartment over in one of the shelving units near the side wall. She stepped over and retrieved the rolled up blueprints before depositing them into what looked like a tube you’d normally protect a poster with, except it was more armored in design. She handed the tube over to Rei and said ”A copy of the blueprints. When I designed this office, I had all sorts of hidden compartments built.” She chuckled, thinking about the various secret passages in the skyscrapers. They’d need a little touchup once the artificial eye was completed, now wouldn’t they?

When Rei gave off an uncharacteristic squeak, Kitsune blinked a few times. It was not a sound she’d expected the absolute unit of an amazonian woman would make. ”Oh don’t worry. You’re your spare time, Miro doesn’t need to know, even if she’s an information hoarder. I blame her job. Your secret’s safe with me. I mean, it’s the least I can do right? We’ve been through a lot together.” Kitsune said, chuckling, thinking back to the reports she’d seen from the medical branch of incidents where males get treated for a bruised pelvis. ”But maybe go a bit easier on ‘em, hm?” she finished as Rei wandered over to exit the same way she came in, and vanished out of sight.

Only some 48 hours later, Rei and her team had fulfilled the task given, and constructed the artificial eye. Of course, Kitsune had no intention of letting technology of that kind get out into the wild, as it could absolutely tip the power balance of the world if just anyone could get an artificial eye and bam, Uchiha powers. It’d have to be mothballed officially, written off as a failure, and put away in a vault somewhere. Officially. In reality the eye would be installed into Kitsunes eyesocket, and allow her access to the powers she had been denied access to due to the assassin. As if she’d been psychic, Kitsune strolled into Rei’s lab about the same time as she finished the eye.

She stepped up behind Rei, and placed her hands on the shoulders of the larger woman, giving them a gentle squeeze, ”So how’s the progress coming along, Rei-chan? About halfway there?” Kitsune inquired, not anticipating how fast Rei had moved on this task, only expecting it to be kinda half done, not fully done and ready for testing. When informed of the status of the eye, she’d be surprised, muttering something about needing to give Rei a raise, and her branch a budget increase for how fast she’d gotten this all sorted out. It had taken Kitsune months to get Hisako built, due to having to pioneer directions for several fields of study, but seeing those efforts being channeled into this project by her friend, really made Kitsune proud of Rei.

 

[Toraono Michino]

Feeling her leader’s impossibly small hands on her impossibly muscular shoulders would have normally solicited a yeek, and a jump. No one got the drop on Rei like Kitsune did. Yet after 48 hours of constant engineering work, the feeling of those feminine hands having the actual strength to massage the knot out of her shoulders felt amazing. Small bags under her eyes the Sennin leaned her head back against Kitsune’s stomach and looked up with a proud grin,
“Half-way? Girl, all we need is to make sure it can take to your chakra signature and not overheat. This eye is done,” she then closed her eyes with the pride clearly draining to again reveal the face of a tired scientist, “…but holy shit was it hard. Everything leading up to the actual Dojutsu part of the eye was weirdly simple. You’d think giving someone back their sight would be a harder task, but that was mostly simplified with the blueprints you had drawn up, and layering the artificial chakra coils was waaaaaaay easier than I’d thought it be.
“Then the technological side? Nothing but a thang. This baby can unlock doors, remotely hack any programed system in our country with a distance of at least 10 meters, and if you’re,” Rei paused to let out a huge yawn and stretched again, “…feeling fancy, it can even change the color of your eye on whim. Getting it to reflect chakra in the same manner that an Uchiha’s eye works though? That took the most time. Eventually it was my team’s Second that figured out a way to align microscopic mirrors in a fashion that would bounce chakra back and forth to send and receive chakra based information with the same speed as a Sharingan. I did what I do best from there, and upgraded that into what you were looking for. Initial tests we ran came back with a 99.6% match for the chakra signature on file with your Mangekyō. Only thing left is to test the micro engine and make sure overloading will just heat it up and not make it explode.”

Rei couldn’t make it perfect, which was disappointing, but she nailed that down as hubris anyways. The use of of any natural skill borne to anyone was taxing when used a lot anyways, and the same could be said of even the most masterful control over the Mangekyō. Eventually, those eyes were gonna start throbbing after a lot of use. At the very least, heating up uncomfortably over a splitting headache seemed like a step up, though.

“We even made it EMP proof,” Rei said, suddenly standing up to tower slightly over her friend as she connected the eye via a wire to a glove and handed it to Kitsune, “Put this own and channel your chakra. If you close your other eye you should get some feedback. It won’t be as clear as it will be after everything is connected to your ocular networks, but you should still be able to see through it with just chakra alone. I’ll keep an eye on the monitor and make sure everything is checked off proper and not overheating.”

Time to see how far Kumogakure’s science could push the limits of man once again.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune gave her hardworking subordinate’s shoulders a massage you’d expect to get from some giant muscular oiled up bronze god, but instead it came from a busty redhead with a pretty unassuming frame, in a suit. She gave a light chuckle at Rei’s proud grin, it was good to see she’d enjoyed the arduous task, but then she said something that surprised Kitsune. Done? Already? It had been two days! ”Did… Did you just say it’s done? In 48 hours? Holy hells below, I didn’t anticipate that level of speed.” Kitsune uttered, practically stunned over the frankly ridiculous speeds shown here.

Then Rei explained the process and how it wasn’t the sight part that was hard, it was the doujutsu part, yeah, that checked out to Kitsune. It was also the thing she’d spent the longest time banging her head against with the blueprints she’d made. She nodded as Rei explained how they’d gotten extremely close to Kitsunes own chakra signature, even without her actual chakra. ”That’s a damn good job, Rei-chan. Remind me to increase your budget after this, so you can give your researchers a solid raise.” she said, finally taking the glove Rei had handed to her and slipped it onto her hand.

”Alright, lets see how this works, shall we?” Kitsune said, rhetorically and closed her working eye before channeling her chakra through the attached wire and into the eye, and true enough, as Rei had said, she had vision through the artificial eye, even without her ocular nerves being hooked up to it, yet the chakra made up for that with ease, even if not with the same level of visual clarity. Kitsune figured she’d give it a good full rundown, and she activated her Sharingan, which should work on the eye as well. Assuming it did, and the monitors showed things were fine, she’d keep going, trying to perform some of the Uchiha bloodline specific jutsus, and if all that went well, kicking it up a notch to Mangekyou levels.

 

[Toraono Michino]

The Sennin was happy that her crew’s speed of doing things was so impressive, but for them it was the norm. Multiple days of tinkering at a project with little to no sleep, sleep which was usually interrupted by someone’s stroke of genius anyways, was a common thing for Rei’s development team. Of course, it helped that Kitsune’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The scientist’s bodily…needs, were a great fuel for staying awake as it turned out. The level of complication involved with giving someone their sight back through technology was distracting enough to keep her mind off carnal activity too, and she was able to completely focus her priorities towards the project. That said, 48hrs of constant tinkering and upgrading had done a number on her own body and eyes. Everything was a little blurry, and her shoulders were sore before her friend worked out that damn knot on her left with a few simple strokes of a masterful thumb.
The pay raise was great too. It didn’t do much for the muscular scientist because she had little use for money outside of pet projects and clubbing; both of which were infrequent enough to have a hefty savings. Her subordinates though…someone was going to be popping champagne in celebration tomorrow.

“Glad you’re happy, but I’d be remiss to say you didn’t have a core part in making sure it went so fast. Your blueprints did at least 70% of the legwork, we just finished what was missing and added some bells and whistles. My guys are going to love a pay raise though. Hitokyu is always talking about wanting to get himself one of those new automatic vehicles so he can go on a road trip to the Southern Coast.”

As Kitsune placed on the glove and started to channel her chakra, Rei flipped on the switch for a computer monitor and began to run her fingers across the keys to start up parameters. The readings were coming back well below “unsafe”, meaning that basic chakra levels needed to activate the base form were perfect. Rei couldn’t help but stare at the screen readings with pride, even knowing that this project was going to be canned before it ever made it to public. She had considered perhaps just taking the eye itself to market as a cure for blindness. Tweaking the blueprints so that it wouldn’t allow upgrades to what they were working on wouldn’t be hard either. Yet…she couldn’t help but worry that some other genius out there would take this technology and evolve it to where they had it now; and without their ability to stop it before it went to far. The world had enough Uchiha’s as it was - they didn’t need a whole army of artificial red eyes coming for the heads of leaders worldwide due to one country’s hubris. It would have to be something discussed later, though. Rei was certain that most of her team would be just fine with the pay raise, but her Second, the guy who made the mirrors, was really excited about the applications it would have for their military; he would probably need a talking to.
“Okay, and now…writing in the parameters for the next stage of dojutsu, you’re clear to push…”

The next thing to happen came as a bit of a surprise. Moments after Kitsune activated the next stage of Sharingan, the screen readings shot up as expected, but then the green text started to flicker. A heat coming from behind Rei, soft at first and then suddenly hot, caught her attention right as a terrible high-pitched squeal from the collection of hard drives that served as their lab’s computational power cried out before exploding. Without a second thought the woman side-stepped to stand between the minor explosion and the Raikage, bits of computer bouncing harmlessly off her large frame.
“Are you okay!?” she quickly asked before realizing, duh, of course Kitsune was okay. It was a minor explosion. 48 hours of no sleep really made her dumb, but then the other realization sank in, “Oh shit, the eye!” Rei’s attention quickly shifted down towards the prized project to find that it was…absolutely fine. She held a hand over it to test the heat and found that there was a soft warmth coming from it, but nothing that couldn’t be handled by top-level shinobi.
“Um…well, we might have really outdone ourself Kit-san….” She said looking her friend dead in her eye, “I don’t think we have the technology to actually fully measure this thing’s capabilities…”

Rei’s elation and fear were downright palpable. This was absolutely a project they were going to have to not only redact, but also seal away; and not just throw it in the Vault. It needed to be buried through multiple layers of ninjutsu and technological barriers. If this thing ever fell into the wrong hands…

[MFT]

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune was honestly a bit surprised at how well this whole thing had gone, but as Rei said, having the initial blueprints did most of the work already. Still, she couldn’t help but be impressed with the level of quality being pushed out by the Main Branch scientists. ”Well, until you guys built this, it was all purely theoretical. I hadn’t even run any simulations. Really, not a single one. Well, mainly because the equipment was tied up running other simulations for aerodynamics and engine output.” she explained, scratching the back of her head, ”I should allocate some funds for dedicated simulation hardware in one of my labs.”

As the test went on, and it went on beautifully thanks to the hard work of the scientists, Kitsune chuckled a bit at the odd sensation of having vision coming from two very distinct places ”You can tell Hitokyu-kun he can look forward to obtaining an automobile. They’re great fun. I should take you out for a spin in the one I built down in the private basement garage. I imagine you’d enjoy it, and uh, it can actually accommodate your amazonian stature.” she finished with a slight smirk, looking around the room with the artificial eye, before going to the next phase.

What Kitsune wasn’t prepared for was the small explosion causing small fragments of electronics to bounce off of Rei, who shielded Kitsune. Rei’s concern for Kitsunes wellbeing was very touching, and Kitsune smiled, patting Rei on the head. ”Yes, I am fine, thank you.” she said, letting her hand fall back down to her side. When Rei exclaimed her concern about the eye, Kitsune realized that it was still very much operational and still transmitting its visual signal to her brain, and still at the elevated Mangekyou Sharingan level she’d taken it to.

”I think you might be right, Rei-chan.” Kitsune said, pausing and looking at the circuit board shrapnel lying around the floor and then at the eye, ”I think I have an idea for how to keep it at a normal body temperature, even under use. If we graft some artificial blood vessels in there, and hook them up to a vein in the back of the eye socket. The blood would act like water cooling in an engine, and keep things at a proper temperature.” she suggested, not having it in the blueprints because she didn’t know it’d get as hot as it did.

But when everything was said and done, this technology couldn’t fall into anyone elses hands. ”You know. I figure it’s best if this project never happened, and research into artificial eyes don’t involve artificial chakra coils. Restoring vision is fine and all, but having the possibility to create artificial Sharingan eyeballs, let alone Byakugan, or any of the evolved forms? That’s a level of power we shouldn’t let others get to. So uh. I think we should do genetic keying for this, so no matter what, nobody can use it without my genetic code in their blood.” she suggested, grabbing Rei’s hand and staring into the larger womans eyes.

”What do you think, Rei-chan? You’re usually full of great ideas, so, thoughts on this one?” Kitsune asked, still holding on to Reis hand.

 

[Toraono Michino]

“That sounds like an idea,” Rei responded to the blood coolant, and letting the stab about her size slide. It wasn’t her fault martial arts training made her bulk! The idea of blood as a coolant was a little weird too, but might actually work out since it would also help blood flow in general to the eye; which could only be seen as a boon. It wouldn’t take really anything to create what Kitsune wanted and attach it either. That wasn’t the biggest concern though; that fell on the fact of what they had created instead. Such potential existed in this weapon that Kitsune’s suggestion of a genetic code immediately seemed like the best, and quickest, option to keep it under wraps. It would mean that only her family had the potential to even use it, and that was if they could even muster the power to use the Sharingan in the first place. Otherwise, it’d just be a normal cybernetic eyeball...which of course, would be sealed away as soon as it became available anyways. Which Rei couldn't even imagine considering their Raikage seemed to be just right out immortal.

“Yeah that might be a-”, and then suddenly Rei felt something touching her hands. She had been preoccupied with staring at the eye, the daze of her working days without sleep finally wearing thin on the mind when Kitsune pulled this. Human contact was not something the Ryuu cared for. Her entire life, in fact, she hated being touched because she considered people to be filthy; but Kitsune was different. She hadn’t aged or changed really at all since they met, back when Rei was little more than a curious teenager with the brain of a learned scientist. The woman had always been a pinnacle of respect and admiration for Rei, and feeling her touch sent bolts of electricity off in her brain and body that she did not believe existed for her.
Immediately Rei’s face turned beet red. Days without sleep, interruption of certain…monthly rituals, and now her hero was literally grabbing her hands. For a moment all she could do was just stand there and stare at Kitsune as little beads of cold sweat broke on her face before reality stepped in and she jerked her hands back, turning away from the Raikage to grab the table, and then her chest to still her beating heart.
“Yes! Great idea! We, should. Yes that. Immediately. I’ll, uh. I’ll work on that as soon as I get some sleep. I clearly need to get some rest because my brain is…very fried.”

Breathe, she told herself mentally as Rei closed her eyes and tried to still her rapidly beating heart. They had always been friends, even when she was a kid the red-head treated her like an equal when the scientist didn’t really deserve it. Now she had just proclaimed that she had great ideas. Senpai just noticed her. Such excitement to hear Rei agree with her, such soft hands touching her own. The woman just, she just couldn’t. With unerring speed the scientist finally broke free of the emotional trap she found herself in and crossed the room to one of the computers that didn’t explode, key in a few things and pushed a button to open an intercom up,
“Call the team, in…” she thought about it for a moment, “6 hours from now. We need to make one more adjustment for the medical team.” Sealing the project away was something she’d explain to her team personally instead of it just being an order. Honestly all the adjustments Kitsune wanted could be fixed right now, but not with Rei’s head a chaotic swirl of sleep deprivation and feels.
Throwing a glance at Kitsune she gave a nervous laugh and then ascended back out of the lab and into the crisp air to let out a huge breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She needed to sleep. Furiously.

[Topic Left]

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune chuckled a bit on the inside at how Rei paused in her speech immediately upon having her hand held. It was fun to tease her, given how long they’d known each other. Kitsune didn’t see Rei as just a subordinate, she was very much an actual friend, which is why Kitsune came to her when she was in need of aid. Well that and Rei was seriously clever. Even just the modifications Rei had made to her old body had been brilliant, and truly inspired changes made to an artificial situation.

When Rei blushed harder than a teenager that’d just seen a bare chest and reacted as she did, Kitsune gave a light smile and simply kept quiet, so Rei could compose herself, giving the excuse that her brain was fried. It sure seemed that way, yeah. ”Yeah, I can tell. You should get some proper rest, Rei-chan. I’ll uh… Schedule the operation required. We’ll have to call in Midori on this one. She’s really the only one besides myself capable of this kind of surgery. So you’re giving them 6 hours of rest here, the blood vessel modification shouldn’t take more than 2 hours, so I’ll give some buffer time and schedule the surgery in…” Kitsune paused and scratched the back of her hair.

”Yeah, 10 hours. Should be plenty time to prepare everything properly.” she decided, ”Go rest, Rei-chan. And I’ll see you tomorrow.” she finished, letting Rei get some fresh air and all the rest she’d need for the procedure. Rei’d have to be on hand for any technical issues, while Midori would have to handle the organic part of it all, i.e. the implantation of the eye itself. Tomorrow was looking to be… Exhausting. But oh well, such is the life of a Raikage.

[Topic Left]