Chương 106

Rei leaned back against his chair and quietly watched everyone enjoying themselves. For a brief moment there were no invasions, no Akatsuki, no politics or hidden agendas to look out for. There were only friends eating, laughing and teasing one another beneath the orange glow of the setting sun. The celebration continued well into the evening before Rei finally stood up from his chair. After informing everyone that he had somewhere to be, he nodded toward Haku, who immediately understood and quietly followed him.

Naruto and others were too deep into the party theme to even bother where Rei was going. Both of them took a car and drove straight to Manhattan. From there, they made their way toward one of the city's most luxurious penthouses where Tony Stark had been staying while personally supervising the final stages of the new Stark Tower's construction.

As they reached and buzzed themselves in, they saw saw Tony looking over the city, and looking at the massive tower that was lit up and was in its final stages of setting it up. The moment they stepped in, Rei heard Tony say.

"Oh, there you are. I was starting to wonder where my favorite walking security system disappeared to after pulling the world's least polite magic trick right in front of me. Turns out you're the culprit. Good to know I'm not hallucinating." Rei rolled his eyes and replied.

"It's good to see you too Tony." Since Haku was far away, Rei had used the contract to summon Haku and thus he had vanished almost right in front of Tony. In fact, Tony had an inkling of this weird mechanism too as he subtly figured it out that Haku was essentially under the orders of Rei, after all he was a genius. Though he didn't know how it worked, but he felt like that was the whole arrangement. Haku didn't seem to care, and from the looks of it, Rei didn't command around Haku.

It was the first time Haku had been taken away, but of course, Haku had given warning to Tony saying that Rei was calling him. Thus Tony didn't raise any alarms when Haku went away, otherwise he and Pepper might have raised hell by now.

"So what brings the dimensional traveler here and also calling upon him? You aren't getting ready for an invasion are you? I say you put it off for now. I ain't ready for a fight at the moment." Tony joked.

"If we wanna to take over, we would go after the Presidents and the rulers, why will we even go after you? You don't think you represent Earth, do you?" Rei asked.

"I am the most advanced man you can find on Earth, so of course invaders will come after me." Tony justified his words. Rei didn't reply to that as he felt it would be tough to burst his bubbles with Wakanda.

"Congratulations. The tower's looking good."

"Damn right it is." Tony answered proudly.

"I need a favor." Tony immediately narrowed his eyes.

"... Those words always cost me money." Rei ignored the complaint.

"I need a new suit."

"I already made you one."

"I need another one." Tony folded his arms.

"And what exactly is wrong with the old one?" Rei scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"My body changed."

"... You hit another growth spurt? Don't tell me there is something called secondary puberty in your physiology""No. Where the heck does your mind goes?"

"Then what?" Tony asked, not at all ashamed of where his mind went. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"My muscles got a bit bigger."

"I've already compensated for that."

"My face changes too." Tony stared at him for several long seconds before breaking into laughter.

"Okay, that one I have to see." Without another word, Rei stepped away from the furniture and slowly activated Senjutsu. Natural energy flooded his body almost instantly. Dark markings spread across his skin, rough scales emerged over parts of his arms and neck, while his facial structure subtly shifted into a more savage appearance. Even the shape of his jaw became broader as golden arcs of lightning crackled around him without warning.

"... Holy..." He slowly walked around Rei like an engineer examining an entirely new prototype.

"Your skull geometry changed."

"Yes."

"Facial proportions too."

"Yes."

"The helmet won't even lock properly anymore."

"Exactly." Tony gently tapped one of the scales near Rei's jaw before immediately pulling his hand back.

"... That's real."

"It is." For nearly half a minute Tony said absolutely nothing. Then his expression transformed into one of pure excitement.

"Oh, this is fantastic." Haku and Rei exchanged confused looks.

"The old armor is officially obsolete." Tony declared while already pulling holographic screens into existence.

"Forget resizing. We're redesigning everything. Adaptive helmet. Variable facial mapping. Dynamic internal frame. If your body changes shape, the armor changes with it."

"There are other things you need to compensate for." Rei said and the next moment he showed cannon and the subsequent chakra blast. This made Tony's eyes bulge. Tony's jaw practically hit the floor. The glowing golden blast had punched cleanly through the table that looked quite new, leaving behind a perfectly circular hole whose edges still glowed faintly from the intense heat.

Before Tony could even process what he had just witnessed, the cannon dissolved back into an ordinary human forearm as though it had never existed.

"... No." Rei raised an eyebrow.

"No?" Tony pointed accusingly at Rei's arm.

"No! You don't get to do that and just stand there like it's normal!" He walked over at an almost frantic pace before grabbing Rei's wrist and turning it over repeatedly.

"Where did it go? Where are the mechanical joints? The recoil dampeners? The energy conduits? Don't tell me that thing simply... grew out of you."

"It did."

"... You're kidding."

"I'm not." Rei calmly raised his other hand. Before Tony's eyes, black scales spread across the limb once more. Flesh shifted without a single drop of blood as bones and muscles rearranged themselves into a massive organic cannon. The transformation was smooth, almost elegant, as though the body itself considered the shape completely natural.

"It isn't limited to my arms either." The cannon dissolved before the scales spread across Rei's right shoulder instead. The muscles bulged outward before forming another cannon directly above his shoulder.

"I can reshape almost any part of my body." The shoulder returned to normal.

"My forearms." His left leg transformed next.

"My legs." Even the side of his torso briefly reshaped before returning to human form.

"Anywhere I find advantageous during combat." Tony simply stared.

"... That's..." For perhaps the first time in years, the billionaire genius struggled to find the appropriate words.

"... That's a living weapons platform." He immediately summoned half a dozen holographic displays into existence, his fingers flying across them faster than Haku could follow.

"My repulsors require power routing from the Arc Reactor, magnetic focusing rings, stabilization software and micro-actuators just to keep the beam from tearing the armor apart." He pointed toward Rei.

"You don't have any of that."

"My body does it automatically."

"So your biology is replacing engineering." Rei nodded.

"The Sage Transformation allows my body to adapt itself according to what I need. If I require mobility, I can reshape accordingly. If I require firepower, I create cannons. It all comes from manipulating natural energy through my altered physiology." Tony slowly circled him again, his expression no longer merely impressed but genuinely fascinated.

"Do you realize what this means?" he muttered almost to himself.

"Your muscles are acting like hydraulic pistons. Your skeleton is becoming a self-reinforcing frame. Your nervous system is recalculating the transformation in real time, and somehow you're channeling enough energy through living tissue to produce blasts that behave frighteningly similar to repulsor technology." Haku quietly watched Tony pace around Rei like a scientist who had just discovered an entirely new branch of physics.

"I've never seen him this excited before."

"Well because this is much better than any engineering can replace. This is essentially biological engineering. Sad that I can never be something like this." Before Tony could sink any deeper into his disappointment, Rei casually shrugged.

"... There might be a way." Tony stopped typing.

"... Define 'might.'""There is a very small chance." The billionaire slowly turned around. Every trace of joking disappeared from his face.

"Rei..."

"... How small?"

"I honestly don't know." Rei admitted.

"Because I've never tried it on someone outside my own circle. And even if it works, I can't guarantee how far you will go and if your body/brain could handle it." Tony took several slow steps toward him.

"Start explaining." For several seconds Rei remained silent before finally extending his right hand. And within a second a paper materialized.

"This.... is my Kekkei Genkai." Tony stared at the floating contract.

"... That's paper."

"It isn't." Rei handed it over.

"The paper is only the medium." Tony's eyebrows rose higher with every passing second."'Ability Transfer Contract... Half Contract...'" he quietly read.