Private Spooky Cloth? Kinda. But it's neat though! [Req. Rei]

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune sat at her desk in the lab behind the secret door in her office, staring intently at her latest invention. Being the head of state of Lightning Country, and the leader of Kumogakure, she didn’t get as much time to her inventing as she would’ve liked, but she made do with what she got. And as someone with an artificial eye that gave her a heads-up display in her field of vision, she was no stranger to technology and invention.

But this latest creation was something truly special. It was a piece of cloth, no larger than a handkerchief, that had the ability to act as both optic and thermal camouflage. She had been working on this invention for months, and she was finally ready to test it. She carefully placed the cloth on an apple sitting on the table in front of her, and activated the camouflage function.

As she watched, the cloth began to change color, shifting and blending in with its surroundings. It was almost as if the cloth had disappeared completely, completely hiding the apple underneath, making it appear as if it was just a table there.

Kitsune picked up the cloth and wrapped it around her hand, testing its flexibility and strength. Satisfied with its performance, she placed it back on the table and activated the thermal camouflage function.

This time, the cloth began to radiate heat, matching the temperature of its surroundings. Kitsune could barely even see the cloth anymore, even with her artificial eye. "It's perfect," she said to herself in a low tone, a broad smile spreading across her face. ”Rei would probably love to see this…” she muttered and used her artificial eye to compose a message and send it to Rei. Ah, the wonders of instant communication with text.

Kitsune knew that this invention would be a valuable asset to her spies from the main branch. With the ability to blend in with their surroundings, they would be nearly impossible to spot on the job. She sat back in her chair, feeling a sense of pride and satisfaction. She was always attempting to push the limits of technology, and this latest invention was just additional proof of her ingenuity and skill.

 

[Toraono Michino]

The text came when Rei had least expected it: 4am. The phone given to her by the Raikage herself lit up and began to vibrate harder than the devices she kept inside of the nightstand. Sitting up to the sudden light and sound, nigh full combat mode initiated, Rei quickly realized what had told her senses to “be wary” and snatched the phone up from its little charging station.
“How the hell do I…” the Sennin muttered to herself through the blurry eyes of lacking sleep as she fumbled through the new technology to open up the message box and read the little text in there. Her thumbs started to punch in the keys but after taking nigh three minutes just to form the first word, she gave up and dropped the phone onto her mattress before flopping back with a groan. It didn’t surprise her that Kitusune would be sending messages to her at this time of day at all, or that it was possibly over the excitement of a new invention. After all, immortals such as the Raikage rarely needed to sleep save in recovering wounds, and as a cyborg, Rei once didn’t need any sleep either. Yet the downfalls of a mortal form, even if it was arguably more powerful, was that now, she did need sleep. Over the last few weeks she had been lucky to see a total of twenty hours but, the village needed the guidance. Wasting no time now that she was awake, the lithe woman sat up on the edge of her mattress, causing the bed to creak and groan in complaint to her hidden weight as it nearly folded in half before she stood up and made not-so-silent steps towards her closet.

Within a few minutes Rei was stumbling through the Raikage’s doors with a piece of buttered toast hanging out of her mouth that had seen two bites and a bit of frost build up on the edges from moving to the Torre so fast from her clan’s holdings higher in the mountain.
“Okay, what the hell did you wa-” her words stopped suddenly as she walked in to see Kitsune’s hand completely gone, and her arm laying on the desk.
“BY RAIDEN’S GONADS, DID WE HAVE ANOTHER ASSASSIN!? WHERE IS THE BLOOD?!”

The piece of toast hit the floor, and the Sennin’s body flickered in and out of sight as she reappeared suddenly next to Kitsune’s desk already reaching for her friend’s wrist. At the last second the sudden movement of air shifted the cloth so that it lifted up off the Raikage’s hand. The fellow scientist could only stand there and stare at the sudden hand, then back at Kitsune, then back at the hand.
“No. No you just did not. You did not just make freakin’ Stealth Cloth….” Rei’s eyes reached out and touched the cloth that still very much looked now like the desk it had shifted on to and squealed a little. All of her fatigue was gone in that moment as she went all but feral at the realization,
“You just made Stealth Cloth! Kitsune!”

The applied logistics of this were astronomical. One of the bigger problems in their military lately was a lacking stealth skill from their newer recruits. Not everyone had the chakra control to go beyond a certain talent for being able to hide themselves, and the ones that had the control to turn themselves invisible were all snatched up by ANBU; and rightfully so. Yet that left a small hole when it came to the Main Branch ninjas being…well, more ninja. Now without needing the ability to outright hide themselves her spies could stretch out further, her main force could do more things, and Miro’s branch could become far more specialized in their skills. It was an absolute win all around for every branch; even Medical could possibly see great field use out of it.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune hadn’t exactly expected Rei to show up as fast as she had, but fair’s fair, the message might’ve been a bit alarmist, but when Rei yelled out loud asking if there’d been another assassin, Kitsune facepalmed with the not hidden hand ”Oh come on! That happened ONCE!” she cried out, only to have Rei appear next to her and finally realize what was actually going on and the reaction was absolutely priceless. The slow realization that Kitsune had made stealth cloth, and then the actual realization a few seconds later. She couldn’t help but smile at the burst of enthusiasm from her close friend.

”I sure did, babeh.” Kitsune said with all the self importance of a genius ”Though only a small section. But it handles both visuals and thermals, so I’d like to think it’s pretty successful in working. I’ve been working on it on and off for the past long bit. What do you think of it? Pretty cool, eh? I was thinking we could work out any kinks and then implement it for certain aspects of your branch.” she said, trailing off in pensive thought. The applications were many and interesting. Actual stealth capability for the spy department for example…

A thought occurred to Kitsune ”I wonder if it could be attacked to a metal skeleton that works a bit like a fluid, so you could dump it into a hole and it’d just be totally camouflaged to the surrounding area while filling up the hole, so to speak. So long as we maintain thermals at the same level as the surroundings it should be great for listening outposts and similar things.” she mused out loud, just spit balling other potential ideas the stealth cloth could be used for. Kitsune was sure Rei had ideas and plans as well.

 

[Toraono Michino]

“You know what I’m thinking of…” Rei trailed off as she lifted the cloth up to inspect it for herself. It was light, but had a strange thickness too it. She could feel a soft tingle in the fabric as it adhered to the new parameters. Once it settled, and her wrist vanished, the tingle stopped and the doctor was ear to ear with grins.
“Stealth suits. Something to give my low-levels the ability to get out of a bad situation without hampering their performance…Kitsune,” Rei looked down at her friend seriously, “We can do this right? Please tell me this doesn’t take a lot to fabricate and tailor.”

Her eyes went right back to the cloth as she moved it up and down her arm, watching in marvel as it adjusted far faster than she could ever hope for. The Raikage had really outdone herself on this one. Finally satisfied the doctor placed it back down on the desk with a million ideas all running at once. Even if it took considerable amounts of rare materials the Sennin would absolutely be ready to fund it. She had a simple of dream of giving Academy Students and low-level chakra users within their military a better chance of survival, and this cloth was one of the answers she had come up with long ago. It seem impossible, but if Kitsune had figured out the math, she wasn’t going to judge.

If she needed funds, which was highly doubtful, Rei was willing to help. If the Raikage needed research assistance, the Sennin had an emergency button she could metaphorically hit to work on something important for a few days while the system went into auto mode. If the materials were the problem…

Well, actually she kinda hit a road block on that one.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune grinned. "I'm glad you like it. I was worried you wouldn't." she said, and picked up a piece of paper from her desk. It was the bill of materials for the cloth. It was defined as materials required per square meter, and while it was expensive, it wasn't insurmountable. The only issue was a few of the rarer elements that, while they had supply lines for them, didn't get nearly enough of to put the cloth into proper mass production without stockpiling for a while. At best she'd have to hope that a local source could be found by the time they were ready to start mass production. "I've got a meeting scheduled with the Mining Commissioner in a few days, to try and sort out the issue of these materials. As you know, money isn't an issue in my world. Materials are." she explained.

After a short pause "You know. If you could allocate a squadron of people to assist the Mining Commissioner with sourcing the materials from within our own borders, then we'd basically be ready in a short time. Your newbies could have stealth at an intermediate level, or even expert level if they're good at regulating their bodies and stifling their own noises." she said, her artificial golden eye twinkling in the light. "We can do this, Rei. Really."

 

[Toraono Michino]

Rei couldn’t believe the words she was hearing. Something new that could actually help her branch’s survival rate and make more use of the troops with lesser strengths.

It was ironic, really. After finally undoing the nigh godly curse that affected their country, lack of chakra, the over-abundant shift didn’t actually do much for strengthening their military. Sure, it helped fill in blanks that Kumogakure had no real way of filling when they took over the country. Having chakra placed a responsibility on most of the soldiers in the previous Shogun military and they fell right in line to be trained; yet only about 1 in every 100 was anything special. Everyone else did good to struggle up to Genin level, while the rest…well, they could light your cigarette with a hot finger tip; but that was about it. With the kind of technology Kitsune was proposing, even those low-level shinobi could finally be of use beyond manning a station.

Rei did not hesitate to reach up to that ever so slightly elf-like ear and push the call button on her earpiece. When the otherside came to life she simply relayed a few orders, asked which Lawyers were on stand-by without active cases and how many of their Chuunin-level Infantry they could spare. A few ‘mmhmm’s and ‘yeah’s later, she had reposition two from her Judicial Branch to work out the logistics and legalese, and about three Infantry to help with manual labor where needed.

“Done,” Rei said happily, “I already have people positioned to start this endeavor the moment you send the out the coordinates and minor details to my inbox. I’ll have the orders written up and pushed first thing tomorrow.”

She took one more look at the cloth, invisible on the table and undetectable but Rei knew it was there. A small bit of weight lifted from her shoulders at the thought of her lesser shinobi finally being able to enter dangerous missions without being at a disadvantage for stealth. If they had this kind of technology just a few months ago, the lycan problem wouldn’t be near as bad; at least, the optimisim in her gut tried to say so. Rei held out a fist to be bumped from her friend before moving to leave the office. There was a lot to get under order before she could just send out 2 Lawyers; one of the busiest members of the Main Branch. This kind of job would be like a vacation for them.

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[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune grinned and returned the fistbump. It wasn't often she'd come up with something that'd left Rei basically speechless, or entirely in "Lets go!" mode. This seemed to have first done the former, then the latter, and it had been a while since she'd seen Rei so excited about something. It was a good feeling, and she was glad she'd been able to do something useful for Rei's branch. A quick push of a button later, and the cloth was sitting on the desk, visible to the naked eye.

As Rei left, she turned back to her invention and decided to hold off on contacting the Mining Commissioner until the morning, to push up the meeting now that Rei'd pulled people off of other tasks to focus on this, giving her the bureaucratic equivalent of a power move. The following morning, or, a few hours later really, given that it had been 4am, Kitsune was sitting in her office, waiting for the Mining Commissioner to arrive. She'd sent a message to the Commissioner's office, requesting his presence, and had been told that the Commissioner would be there shortly.

A hop and a skip, and a short meeting later, Kitsune had convinced the Commissioner that she had Top Men working on things, and this was top priority for his entire office. This of course meant that she could now go back to her estate and get some sleep, which she did, after sending a message to Rei that the Mining Commissioner was now on board with the project, and that the Commisioner would be in touch so everyone was on the same page and knew where to buy land and begin excavation.

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