Chương 63: Chapter 21

Sunagakure Ryoma, Jonin A sharp knock at this door caught his attention. He looked up from the pot of slowly boiling water and towards the door, reaching out a finger to tap into the sight of the eye mounted upon it. Someone at his door this early in the morning almost certainly meant business. Business or it was Mari showing up to harass him again. A short woman he didn't recognize was at the door, with black hair, blue eyes, and a sort of white uniform on.

It was a bit too blurry to make out much else in the pre-sun morning, but he could recognize a flak vest loosely worn and a Suna headband tied around her waist.

"One moment!" He called out, reaching forwards to turn off the stove and doing a quick check to make sure nothing flammable was near the lingering heat. He'd have to reheat everything, but it was literally just boiling water, no big loss if it cooled off a bit. He hadn't added the rice yet. He scratched his neck as he approached the door, reaching out a string to turn the knob and open up the door, looking down at the stranger at his door.

She was maybe five foot tall, maybe, glaring up at him with a somewhat stern expression. She was wearing the standard issue 'parade' uniform of Sunagakure, the one used to show off to civilian clients, being a solid-colored long-sleeved jacket with golden buttons that went from the neck to mid-thigh. The same kind that Captain Gentai wore under his flak vest. She was short enough that the standard flak vest was more like a cape, hanging down and out to frame her torso.

Her legs were bare, leading into tall black boots that paired well with her black gloves. His initial impressions told him that she didn't see active combat too often.

"Hello?" He greeted in a questioning manner, rubbing his neck as he did so.

"Jonin Ryoma of the Puppeteer Corps, 40-064?" She asked sharply.

"That's me." He nodded in a casual manner, still waiting for her to get to the point. The only person he was expecting to show up at his doors was the supervisor Gentai was sending over, but it was entirely possible she was here for some other reason. Her glare tightened slightly, boot-heels clicking together as she snapped into a formal salute. A sort of diagonal gesture with the right arm, hand ending up near the right eye if performed properly.

It was the least formal of the formal gestures, the others being bows and kneels.

"I am Chunin Yuki Toyoko of the Puppeteer Corps, acting supervisor for your use of construction silo 3. If you will follow me, I will guide you to the location." He pressed his lips together beneath the mask, and glanced over at his stovetop.

"I was actually just about to make breakfast. I can put on another serving, if you don't mind waiting a few minutes for it." She maintained her salute and glare for several long seconds. He raised his brows and maintained his own stare, not exactly feeling intimidated at the current moment.

"I'm going to go ahead and assume that's a 'yes'." He continued dryly, turning around and walking back towards the stove. He waved a hand in a nonchalant manner.

"Go ahead and shut the door behind you- you'll let all the tepid air out." He turned the stove back on, ignoring the stare burning a hole through the side of his head as he brought the water back up to a boil and prepared the rice and sweet potato. He reached down into his pantry and pulled out the second ration serving for the day, going through the motions of opening up the packets and tossing the various bits into their respective recycling containers.

Upgrading the Mk1 meant he'd have a bunch of metal cans left over now, no longer using them for the Dragoon's armor paneling. This gave him a bunch of free metal to use as armor for his side-project, already hanging on the same rack that once kept the Wood Dragoon standing. A much more sleek, form-fitting, and massively simplified variant of the puppet armor concept.

Something that would mold around his body like normal armor and be operated with the chakra strings in his feet, mostly made of metal and an extra-durable black jumpsuit. Theoretically speaking, it would be something to increase his overall physical power and durability while not hindering his speed and mobility too much. Something to wear as his 'daily' puppetarmor while reserving the Mk2 for the big events.

The biggest practical issue being that all the components had to be in 'one piece' for it to be the 'same puppet' and for his strings to saturate it correctly. So the helmet and the torso and the limbs all had to be directly connected. Without that, he'd need to use multiple strings to operate it, and if he was sacrificing his hands to control the armor then he might as well just use Bolters like normal. Those would be more practical and safer at that point.

Finally giving up, the woman at his door entered his apartment, a judgemental stare on her face as her eyes wandered over the slightly cramped workshop interior and over towards his kitchen. He ignored it, washing off another potato and rapidly dicing it into easily eaten chunks.

"... Wearing a white veil over one's face is an indication of service to the Sunagakure ANBU." The short woman began with a clipped tone.

"Impersonating a member of the Sunagakure ANBU is a severity two offense." He poured a bit of vegetable oil into a pan, a different pan than the one used to melt metal, and waited for it to heat up. The water now boiling, he added the rice and put a lid over the pot.

"... Is it?" He asked with a raised brow, turning back to look at the woman in his apartment.

"I've been wearing it for two years now and no one has told me that." Indeed, it was one of the ANBU watchers who gave him the veil, during the war, so he was pretty sure it was fine for him to wear. Actually, assuming that was true, the veil might be why people tended to stay clear of him on the streets. Whoops.

"Ignorance is not innocence." She declared firmly.

"As a fellow member of the puppeteer corps, I will leave you with the warning about your criminal action, in hopes that you will correct your behavior before reprisal from the Disciplinary Squad comes." On one hand, the veil made him look dashing and mysterious and he was pretty sure he wasn't about to receive a disciplinary notice any time soon. On the other hand, it was probably safer to just find something else to cover his face.

"Hm… What about a black veil?" He asked over his shoulder.

"That would be fine, wouldn't it?"

"It is highly recommended that all Suna ninja leave their face visible to increase client trust. The use of cosmetic agents such as makeup and facepaint are acceptable, although piercings are strongly discouraged." A real stickler for protocol, wasn't she? He supposed that was what you wanted in a supervisor. He had absolutely no interest in wearing either of those, so he supposed he'd be incorporating a high bevor into his next set of puppet armor. He almost gave a sigh, before asking another question.

"Do you want salt on your sweet potatoes or not?" A long few seconds of silence.

"... Yes." Her sharp tone was downright bashful underneath all the professionalism and impatience. He added some of the canned meat to the sizzling pan and checked on the rice again. —"Your request to reserve the entirety of construction silo three is nigh-unprecedented, keep in mind." Toyoko explained as she led him to one of the rounded 'towers' that served as a general workshop for puppeteers who didn't have the space for it at their own properties.

"Previously, only wretched traitor Sasori was given this privilege, for the construction of superheavy class puppet 'Sanshouo', with Honored Elder Chiyo serving as active supervisor." Her heels clicked as she walked, he idly noted. She tilted her head to glare up at him. His white veil currently serving as a neck-scarf and little else, with his wide-brimmed straw hat shading him from the early morning sun.

"As acting supervisor, I will be responsible for ensuring that Puppet Corps resources are not being mishandled, and that fruitful work on the puppet continues at a regular pace. I am also available in an advisory role, and will be able to assist in the integration of components if need be."

"Hm? Oh that's quite good." He responded.

"I'll be sure to make full use of you." He teased with a flat tone and a tiny smile.

"Don't word it like that." She demanded at once.

"Word it like that?" He asked, badly pretending to be confused. Her glare intensified as he innocently continued, raising a finger up to tap at his chin, bending at the waist to be slightly closer to eye-level with the short woman.

"What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what such a statement implies. Cease at once."

"I'm really at a loss here. All I know is that supervisor-chan told me she was available to help me with integration of components, and next she's telling me to stop." He raised his hands in a mock shrug and shook his head.

"It's all too confusing for me, honestly." She let loose an actual growl at him, which was really cute, before sharply turning her head and marching on ahead. Most notably, her hands were splayed out and crossed behind her lower back, as if trying to shield her rear from his nefarious and perverse gaze. He rolled his eyes in an amused fashion and kept following.

Soon enough, they were at the front doors of the construction silo three, a sort of immense oblong tower of compressed sandstone with the same carved interior and ventilation shafts as any other building in Suna had. The side facing the road had a reasonably sized door for people to walk through, and the side facing a sort of walled courtyard had a much more substantial door available for the larger puppets to be transported through. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Do you have a schematic for your puppet design ready?" Toyoko asked as she opened the door, fiddling with the keys for a moment to do so. The doorknob was about chest-high for her, and waist-high for him.

"I do. Do you need to see it?" He asked idly, following behind her into the construction silo and waiting for her to turn the lights on.

"If you would like my assistance in an advisory role, it would be helpful for me to have a reference of your intended design." She replied sharply.

"My my! That was almost sassy of you!" Ryoma noted with a little grin, reaching into his vest to pull out the finalized schematic-scroll. Doubtlessly the design would be altered in the final product as he worked to translate his ideas to reality, but the schematic was still important for roughing out ideas to begin with.

"I was not being sassy, I was stating a fact!" She snapped at him, face scrunched up as she flicked the lightswitch and cast the room into illumination. This was followed by rapid fumbling to catch the scroll he carelessly tossed at her. She managed to catch it in the end, shooting another quick glare his way as she opened the scroll for inspection. The glare crashed into his amused smirk without effect, his defense was too high.

He turned back to start evaluating the work-space, taking on a somewhat more contemplative expression as he walked and noted the utilities of the silo. He let out a laugh as he heard her fumble and drop the massive pile of sub-design scrolls sealed into the main scroll. It sounded a lot like a puff of smoke, then a slightly panicked yelp and many rolls of paper falling to the floor. He could feel her angry glare on the back of his head as he looked around more. Naturally, he ignored it. —"Why five meters tall?"

Much of the initial prepwork for creating the mk2 was simply him looking at all the tools he was going to have available to work with, the space he had available to work with, and initial framework being assembled. He had already purchased much of what he needed to begin assembling the 'skeleton' of the puppet.

"Based on the operating-chamber scale, barely large enough to fit four people in emergencies. Scaling the legs and arms appropriately gave a height ranging from four point eight to five point five meters, depending on the scale of components available." The skeleton of the puppet would be mostly steel, and look vaguely like a human skeleton, save a somewhat deeper chest section, no real 'spine' equivalent, and a much larger degree of joint rotation.

The upper torso could rotate 360 degrees, mounted on a swivel section that connected to the hips, and each of the arms could rotate forwards and backwards without any real limit.

"Why was it necessary for the operating chamber to fit four people?" The legs were the biggest exception to this, as load-bearing structures. They would need to have somewhat more limited joint rotations simply for structural integrity. They would be able to move mostly like human legs, save for the extreme articulation of the feet and slightly less flexibility in the hips. The knees were nigh-identical, and he'd need to special-order the titanic springs that would be loaded in the lower legs.

"In case of emergencies, the operating chamber could act as shelter for an entire standard team of four. More commonly, it would be able to act as a shelter for two, a puppeteer and a support-specialist to handle secondary tasks. This improves the operative ability of the puppet for less material cost." But really, it was just to ensure he could wear his next gen puppet armor and have a lot of legroom.

The main reason the mk1 had to be so careful when walking and jumping was the legs- they had absolutely no suspension in them to absorb impacts. All the kinetic force of a jump went straight to the joints, and occasionally broke them. The mk2 would fix that with massive springs coiled around the central 'bone' but sheathed beneath the wooden 'exoskeleton' and other covering layers. This ate up a lot of space in the legs for weaponry, but he expected the less-risky mobility to be worth the trade off.

"... Hmp. Despite first impressions, you seem to know what you're doing. I won't have to hold your hand at least." Toyoko huffed, gently rolling the cockpit scroll closed as Ryoma finished reading the instruction manual for the massive circular saw.

After the initial kerfuffle with the scrolls, she had transferred herself over to a desk and rapidly began to sort through the scrolls, thoroughly interrogating him on each and every design decision he had thus far made while he worked to familiarize himself with the fancy heavy-duty puppetry equipment.

"Can we hold hands anyways?" He asked blandly, moving over to the massive press and inspecting it. Like most of the other big machines present, most of its operation was based on chakra strings instead of things like buttons or levers. This saved space, and made a few machines look quite alien to him, but the manuals were thorough enough for him to pick up on most of it quickly enough.

It wasn't automation by any means, even if a windmill or two could pretty trivially be installed to facilitate something like that- or even just running a power line and changing many of the internal systems, but automation was pretty overrated anyways.

"Absolutely not." She snapped immediately, opening the next scroll. Immediately she furrowed her brows at the scroll before calling out with another question.

"What is 'densified wood'?" She was looking at the 'exoskeleton' layer materials schematic, it seems like. The mk2 would have both a 'skeleton' and a 'exoskeleton, again for structural concerns, before being armored in a rather thin layer of steel and hemp.

"Wood treated in sodium sulfite, thoroughly washed in distilled water, and then subject to heat and pressure until it forms a significantly denser plate of material."

"Sodium Sulfite?" She interrogated again, staring at him with a slightly baffled expression.

"The white stuff they use to make paper out of wood." He simplified, an expression of recognition finally coming to her eyes.

"I see." He made a humming noise as he pulled back from the screw-press they had.

"I'll need to request aid from the Ninjutsu Corps to make it, I think. The press here isn't large enough for all the sections the design will need, nor is it something I can easily heat up for the process." She gave a sharp look at him for that.

"The Ninjutsu Corps?" She asked with a vaguely reproachful tone.

"I'll need help from specialists in several of the Corps to create it, really." Ryoma immediately answered, rubbing his chin as he stepped back to inspect the whole of the construction silo again.

"Shiki and Sealing Corps to help me with the chakra storage, distribution, and various shiki. Ninjutsu to help me make a few of the components. Puppet Corps for the workspace and several of the smaller components." He raised a hand and counted on his fingers.

"I'll need several speciality parts from the boys in the armory and salvage operations. I'll need to ask someone with a summoning contract how to make a link with an object to deploy the thing. I'll probably need to inform the guys in Intel about all of this so they can help me organize the entire operation…" He nodded firmly, turning back to look at his supervisor.

"This isn't a one-man job, it's looking more like a ten to thirty person job to get everything assembled and functioning." She stared for a few moments more, before her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"... Surely you don't expect the Puppetry Corps to pay for all this?"

"Course not." Ryoma gave her an irritated look before turning back to the general space.

"I got twenty million in the bank, I can afford it."

"T-twenty mi-" Supervisor-chan practically choked, making him hide a little smile.

"W-why the hell were you living in an apartment like that then!?"

"It's because I live in an apartment like that that I have so much saved up, Supervisor-chan." He waggled a finger in a condescending manner.

"Do you know how much a proper Kyojutsu like this costs? I'm probably going to be broke halfway through and need to beg Lord Kazekage for a loan of ten million more to finish it."" K-kyojutsu?" She asked suddenly. The word was just him making a portmanteau of the words 'Kyojin', Giant, and 'Kugutsu', Puppet. Pretty lazy on his part, but if it worked then it worked.

"Well… I can't exactly call it a puppet 'armor' anymore, can I? It's way too big. Even for a superheavy class puppet, it's too big." He shrugged.

"The other names I had in mind were just 'Great Dragoon' or 'Warwalker'." She considered those names for a few moments, before giving a sharp nod.

"' Kyojutsu' is the superior name." First time she had just agreed with him outright. He was beginning to get a read on her personality, and so far she was looking like the kind of girl who would be a lot of fun to rile up.

"I'm surprised you heard me down there." He responded blandly, smirking at the immediate glare that overtook her face. He'd finish familiarizing himself with the space before bringing in the steel beams to start construction. Not that he'd get much done on day one, but the process was going to be a long one no matter what he did. If he had to guess, anywhere from six months to two years to get it done. In for a penny, and all that.