[Part 1 of "Get Equipped!" mission]
"So what is it... that you do here, again?"
Raijuta, the older man that was leading Katsuo deeper into the labrynthine headquarters for the Journeymen Order known only as the Hall of Hammers, offered Katsuo a patient but thin smile through the full beard on his face at Katsuo's question. He'd been called here on a mission request that had asked for him specifically by name but the request had only said that the mission was to spend the day with the client and ask very few questions.
So of course, he asked a ton of questions.
The Hall of Hammers was not anything like what Katsuo expected it to be. It was both a very communal space and an extremely private one at the same time as each member had their own workship which could be entirely cordoned off from the rest of the facility if need be but otherwise they all connected back to central forges and all manner of power tools that Katsuo could not imagine uses for. He'd seen plenty of these sorts of things in the past and they drew out all sorts of unpleasant memories for him so as a method of distracting himself he'd asked the same question probably three times now.
"We're heading up a project which has received special funding to combat the Sovreign Academy." Replied Raijuta without sparing a look towards the wide-eyed Katsuo as they made their way through various construction projects.
Eventually they came to a singular small door that Raijuta did not stop to knock on or linger near before placing his palm upon the center of the door and pushing on it. The door itself had no doorknob but as he rested his fingers and palm against it, the door pulsed and rippled like water for a moment from the place where he'd touched it and then was simply... not there any more. Raijuta motioned for Katsuo to enter first and as he did the older doctor folowed behind him, pausing only to spare a glance over his shoulder to ensure the bizarre door had reformed in the door space it blocked.
Within the room were rows of small-ish steel foundations that lined the walls and where a number of similar-looking puppet frames hung motionless with spools of wires and hoses attached and streaming from every limb. At the back of the room was a collection of computer monitors and as Katsuo fully came into the room the sound of furious clacking of keys and swears in Runic Terran filled his ears as he and Rajuta approached.
"Fuurika, manners. We have a guest." Raijuta chided sternly as both he and Katsuo came to a stop a pace or two back from a huge, beat up leather chair was swiveled around towards the computer screens.
"Don't care. Too busy. Almost solved... wait. Guest? What?"
The train of thought ran through the head belonging to the person sitting in the chair and as she arrived at the questioning stage her chair suddenly swiveled around and the girl that Katsuo had heard Raijuta refer to as Fuurika was upon him in a fury of pokes and measurements.
"This... is him?" She asked, arcing an eyebrow at Raijuta as Katsuo stood in stunned silence with Fuurika still touching him occasionally.
"That's him." Raijuta confirmed, folding his arms across his chest.
"Can't be. Color is wrong. He's green. Footage is gold." The young girl concluded confidently before throwing herself back into her chair and sitting with her legs folded underneath her and her chin resting in her right palm with her elbow wedged on her knee. "Cute though. I'd hit that."
Katsuo, who was for his part not typically embarassed easily, felt color filling his cheeks from a combination of sheer surprise and utter confusion. Raijuta's face fell into his palms at Fuurika's comment and for a moment there was an awkward silence between them.
"I would though." She said, seemingly not understanding why Raijuta and Katsuo were taken aback at her forwardness. "Lemme know if you wanna take me up on that, Avacado."
And then she was back to her work with her chair swiveled back around and Raijuta giving Katsuo a look that very clearly said "please don't". Whether he was intending to tell Katsuo not to pursue the line of discussion at a later date or asking him not to run away was not clear.
"So... what is it that you do here?" Four times. It was all Katsuo could think of to say. "And what does it have to do with me?"
"Nothing!" Fuurika chimed in before Raijuta could speak earning her a dirty look from the older doctor that could have burned an inferno into the leather chair if only the good man possessed eye beams.
"Perhaps it's best if we start from the beginning. Masashi Katsuo, I am Hideyoshi Raijuta. I am the director of this project. The engineer you just met is Tokugase Fuurika---"
"The Machinist!"
"--- Tokugase Fuurika." Reiterated Raijuta as he stepped over to the cluster of strange electronics that Fuurika had previously been furiously inputting information into and with a handful of key-strokes over Fuurika's shoulder-- and a squeaking protest in the form of a string of curse words from Fuurika --commandeered one of the larger screens which went black... then to static... then after a moment of tracking came into focus as a slightly fuzzy video recording of a number of large formations of ice that were relatively serene for a few seconds before the winds suddenly whipped up and in the sky overheard spiders of aerial lightning crawled across the sky.
It took him a bit to understand what it was that he was watching until the familiar gold glow of his avatar transformation appeared over the horizon and then all hell broke loose. The ice began to crack and fall away, equal parts melted and blasted apart by the force of Katsuo's transformation. He understood then that he was watching surveillence footage of his last practice run transformation which had decimated the Tundra biome for a short period of time while the ice-creation processes that maintained the biome recovered it from the damage he'd done. They watched it for a little bit before Raijuta clicked another few keys and the set flipped over to a rapidly generating energy reading report that Katsuo could not hope to recognize or even begin to translate.
"A few days ago that recording was taken from the Tundra biome of the Tracking Grounds. That was you, isn't it?"
"Yeah. That's me." Katsuo admitted, feeling like perhaps this entire thing was an elaborately arranged meeting so that he could be scolded for being so reckless with the village's resources. "Sorry about wrecking your stuff."
Fuurika snorted derisively causing Raijuta to slap the back of the chair she was sitting in, apparently done with her nonsense.
"Don't be!" Exclaimed the director, showing the first real surge of positivity since they'd met up at the entrance to the facility. "No my friend, that was amazing. You see, we monitor any and all activity that goes on in the Tracking Grounds because the facility needs to be constantly maintained and conditioned properly to serve it's purpose and what you did there was the single largest distortion in the history of the facility. It took hours for the Tundra biome to rubber band back to full capacity."
Katsuo didn't understand why that was significant but the fact that Raijuta seemed excited about it made it pretty clear that "hours" was an unprecedented amount of time for it to take a biome to recover from the effects of a training shinobi.
"The energy readings we took from that event... they were unlike anything else. You have a very unique chakra type, Mister Masashi." Raijuta continued without stopping to explain any of the concepts he was laying at Katsuo's feet. "Which caused us to look a bit closer at your file and I have to admit. You're a bit of an enigma to us. With that performance you showed, you should be very well known to the mission office but the only recorded mission we have on file for you was the expedition into the Diamond Maelstrom... which you concluded with the dispersal of the anomoly which caused the maelstrom."
Katsuo shifted uncomfortably as Raijuta assessed his file. He had been dreading this situation for a long time. Eventually somebody was bound to string together his sudden appearance and the strange powers he displayed. It was only a matter of time.
"And that's very impressive but it leaves me wondering... where is the rest of it? Where have you been hiding yourself, Katsuo? Let me show you one last thing."
A few more clicking key strokes and the screen flickered to life again. This time it was a criminal that looked vaguely familiar to Katsuo sitting in an interrogation room. The interrogator asked the criminal to describe the scene once more and he did. He told a story about a younger man with green hair and a long white coat who came out of no-where and decimated his whole crew in a flash. Like literally, in a flash. With golden lightning. And to top it off, he claimed that he was the Kazekage.
Raijuta's fingers twitched on the keyboard and another tape played-- another interrogation video that was very similar to the first. Green hair. Golden lightning. The Kazekage. This process repeated three or four more times before Raijuta stopped and leaned on the leather chair that Fuurika was sitting in who, for her part, did not seem to have been privvy to the entirety of the theory her boss was laying out as the expression on her face was one of interest and suspension.
"Green hair." He pointed at Katsuo's hair, then at his coat. "White coat." Then jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the screen. "Golden lightning."
"Now, I'm just a doctor. But it seems to me like all of those pieces of information draw one very particular conclusion. My specialty is in neuro-chakra medicine you see and well. I haven't seen chakra like this since Hiro was still alive. So, Mister Masashi, is there something you'd like to add to my theory?"
"You got me." Katsuo said, his expression stone-faced. This was real trouble. He hardly knew these people and they knew his biggest secret. What if they were somehow involved with the daimyo and the people who had arranged his father's murder? Still, Raijuta had him dead to rights. There was no sense in denying it. "I am Sunahoshi Katsuo. Son of Hiro. Last of my line."
Fuurika let out a little gasp as her eyes went wide and Raijuta grinned widely which was a little unnerving given the man's regularly dour demeanor.
"Oh yeah. I'd definitely hit that." Was all Fuurika could think of to say which earned her a smack in the back of the head from her boss.
"I'm glad you owned up to that and shared it with us. That's a big secret. Take a seat, Katsuo. Why don't I finally tell you what we're really doing down here?"
[Continued HERE]
"So what is it... that you do here, again?"
Raijuta, the older man that was leading Katsuo deeper into the labrynthine headquarters for the Journeymen Order known only as the Hall of Hammers, offered Katsuo a patient but thin smile through the full beard on his face at Katsuo's question. He'd been called here on a mission request that had asked for him specifically by name but the request had only said that the mission was to spend the day with the client and ask very few questions.
So of course, he asked a ton of questions.
The Hall of Hammers was not anything like what Katsuo expected it to be. It was both a very communal space and an extremely private one at the same time as each member had their own workship which could be entirely cordoned off from the rest of the facility if need be but otherwise they all connected back to central forges and all manner of power tools that Katsuo could not imagine uses for. He'd seen plenty of these sorts of things in the past and they drew out all sorts of unpleasant memories for him so as a method of distracting himself he'd asked the same question probably three times now.
"We're heading up a project which has received special funding to combat the Sovreign Academy." Replied Raijuta without sparing a look towards the wide-eyed Katsuo as they made their way through various construction projects.
Eventually they came to a singular small door that Raijuta did not stop to knock on or linger near before placing his palm upon the center of the door and pushing on it. The door itself had no doorknob but as he rested his fingers and palm against it, the door pulsed and rippled like water for a moment from the place where he'd touched it and then was simply... not there any more. Raijuta motioned for Katsuo to enter first and as he did the older doctor folowed behind him, pausing only to spare a glance over his shoulder to ensure the bizarre door had reformed in the door space it blocked.
Within the room were rows of small-ish steel foundations that lined the walls and where a number of similar-looking puppet frames hung motionless with spools of wires and hoses attached and streaming from every limb. At the back of the room was a collection of computer monitors and as Katsuo fully came into the room the sound of furious clacking of keys and swears in Runic Terran filled his ears as he and Rajuta approached.
"Fuurika, manners. We have a guest." Raijuta chided sternly as both he and Katsuo came to a stop a pace or two back from a huge, beat up leather chair was swiveled around towards the computer screens.
"Don't care. Too busy. Almost solved... wait. Guest? What?"
The train of thought ran through the head belonging to the person sitting in the chair and as she arrived at the questioning stage her chair suddenly swiveled around and the girl that Katsuo had heard Raijuta refer to as Fuurika was upon him in a fury of pokes and measurements.
"This... is him?" She asked, arcing an eyebrow at Raijuta as Katsuo stood in stunned silence with Fuurika still touching him occasionally.
"That's him." Raijuta confirmed, folding his arms across his chest.
"Can't be. Color is wrong. He's green. Footage is gold." The young girl concluded confidently before throwing herself back into her chair and sitting with her legs folded underneath her and her chin resting in her right palm with her elbow wedged on her knee. "Cute though. I'd hit that."
Katsuo, who was for his part not typically embarassed easily, felt color filling his cheeks from a combination of sheer surprise and utter confusion. Raijuta's face fell into his palms at Fuurika's comment and for a moment there was an awkward silence between them.
"I would though." She said, seemingly not understanding why Raijuta and Katsuo were taken aback at her forwardness. "Lemme know if you wanna take me up on that, Avacado."
And then she was back to her work with her chair swiveled back around and Raijuta giving Katsuo a look that very clearly said "please don't". Whether he was intending to tell Katsuo not to pursue the line of discussion at a later date or asking him not to run away was not clear.
"So... what is it that you do here?" Four times. It was all Katsuo could think of to say. "And what does it have to do with me?"
"Nothing!" Fuurika chimed in before Raijuta could speak earning her a dirty look from the older doctor that could have burned an inferno into the leather chair if only the good man possessed eye beams.
"Perhaps it's best if we start from the beginning. Masashi Katsuo, I am Hideyoshi Raijuta. I am the director of this project. The engineer you just met is Tokugase Fuurika---"
"The Machinist!"
"--- Tokugase Fuurika." Reiterated Raijuta as he stepped over to the cluster of strange electronics that Fuurika had previously been furiously inputting information into and with a handful of key-strokes over Fuurika's shoulder-- and a squeaking protest in the form of a string of curse words from Fuurika --commandeered one of the larger screens which went black... then to static... then after a moment of tracking came into focus as a slightly fuzzy video recording of a number of large formations of ice that were relatively serene for a few seconds before the winds suddenly whipped up and in the sky overheard spiders of aerial lightning crawled across the sky.
It took him a bit to understand what it was that he was watching until the familiar gold glow of his avatar transformation appeared over the horizon and then all hell broke loose. The ice began to crack and fall away, equal parts melted and blasted apart by the force of Katsuo's transformation. He understood then that he was watching surveillence footage of his last practice run transformation which had decimated the Tundra biome for a short period of time while the ice-creation processes that maintained the biome recovered it from the damage he'd done. They watched it for a little bit before Raijuta clicked another few keys and the set flipped over to a rapidly generating energy reading report that Katsuo could not hope to recognize or even begin to translate.
"A few days ago that recording was taken from the Tundra biome of the Tracking Grounds. That was you, isn't it?"
"Yeah. That's me." Katsuo admitted, feeling like perhaps this entire thing was an elaborately arranged meeting so that he could be scolded for being so reckless with the village's resources. "Sorry about wrecking your stuff."
Fuurika snorted derisively causing Raijuta to slap the back of the chair she was sitting in, apparently done with her nonsense.
"Don't be!" Exclaimed the director, showing the first real surge of positivity since they'd met up at the entrance to the facility. "No my friend, that was amazing. You see, we monitor any and all activity that goes on in the Tracking Grounds because the facility needs to be constantly maintained and conditioned properly to serve it's purpose and what you did there was the single largest distortion in the history of the facility. It took hours for the Tundra biome to rubber band back to full capacity."
Katsuo didn't understand why that was significant but the fact that Raijuta seemed excited about it made it pretty clear that "hours" was an unprecedented amount of time for it to take a biome to recover from the effects of a training shinobi.
"The energy readings we took from that event... they were unlike anything else. You have a very unique chakra type, Mister Masashi." Raijuta continued without stopping to explain any of the concepts he was laying at Katsuo's feet. "Which caused us to look a bit closer at your file and I have to admit. You're a bit of an enigma to us. With that performance you showed, you should be very well known to the mission office but the only recorded mission we have on file for you was the expedition into the Diamond Maelstrom... which you concluded with the dispersal of the anomoly which caused the maelstrom."
Katsuo shifted uncomfortably as Raijuta assessed his file. He had been dreading this situation for a long time. Eventually somebody was bound to string together his sudden appearance and the strange powers he displayed. It was only a matter of time.
"And that's very impressive but it leaves me wondering... where is the rest of it? Where have you been hiding yourself, Katsuo? Let me show you one last thing."
A few more clicking key strokes and the screen flickered to life again. This time it was a criminal that looked vaguely familiar to Katsuo sitting in an interrogation room. The interrogator asked the criminal to describe the scene once more and he did. He told a story about a younger man with green hair and a long white coat who came out of no-where and decimated his whole crew in a flash. Like literally, in a flash. With golden lightning. And to top it off, he claimed that he was the Kazekage.
Raijuta's fingers twitched on the keyboard and another tape played-- another interrogation video that was very similar to the first. Green hair. Golden lightning. The Kazekage. This process repeated three or four more times before Raijuta stopped and leaned on the leather chair that Fuurika was sitting in who, for her part, did not seem to have been privvy to the entirety of the theory her boss was laying out as the expression on her face was one of interest and suspension.
"Green hair." He pointed at Katsuo's hair, then at his coat. "White coat." Then jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the screen. "Golden lightning."
"Now, I'm just a doctor. But it seems to me like all of those pieces of information draw one very particular conclusion. My specialty is in neuro-chakra medicine you see and well. I haven't seen chakra like this since Hiro was still alive. So, Mister Masashi, is there something you'd like to add to my theory?"
"You got me." Katsuo said, his expression stone-faced. This was real trouble. He hardly knew these people and they knew his biggest secret. What if they were somehow involved with the daimyo and the people who had arranged his father's murder? Still, Raijuta had him dead to rights. There was no sense in denying it. "I am Sunahoshi Katsuo. Son of Hiro. Last of my line."
Fuurika let out a little gasp as her eyes went wide and Raijuta grinned widely which was a little unnerving given the man's regularly dour demeanor.
"Oh yeah. I'd definitely hit that." Was all Fuurika could think of to say which earned her a smack in the back of the head from her boss.
"I'm glad you owned up to that and shared it with us. That's a big secret. Take a seat, Katsuo. Why don't I finally tell you what we're really doing down here?"
[Continued HERE]