[Closed] On the hunt for parts

[Zao]

With a star filled realm, floating on a fifty meter wide island with a bamboo structure constructed upon it that gave off a soft golden glow a man stood before a pair of puppets. His long white hair was left to hang loose today as it stretched all the way down to his waist, both of his thin arms were crossed over one another upon his chest. Both blue eyes scanning each of his puppet, the one of the left was called Juuki. It was a large, humanoid puppet with large features and wide shoulder which Zao had designed to be a true long range puppet. The large features made to hold and attach various weapons. Currently it only had the tri kunai launchers that were situated on the upper forearm of the top right arm. These were a unique design that the relatively new puppeteer had created from a set of left over weapons that he then disassembled and modified into the launcher that they were now. But sadly those had been the only parts that he’d been able to find like that and in order to balance out his puppet he wanted to similarly craft powerful launcher weapon on the opposing upper arm on the left side. Only he wanted for this one to shoot senbon instead of kunai to give it some different utility, also it would not be focused so much on individual or small groups of kunai like the other launcher as he wanted for it to function more so like a senbon blaster.

Exhaling slowly the man took a seat as he maintained his eyes on the puppet’s right arm with the launcher on it, with a flip of the shinobi’s index finger a thin thread of cyan blue chakra whipped out connecting to the kunai launcher on Juuki and after a bit of maneuvering the launcher came loose from the arm and floated over to the table. It was then gentle placed down upon the table now and the man’s slender fingers began to tweak and fidget with the different pieces and after a short while he’d managed to take apart the weapon system into a handful of main components. This allowed for Zao to understand the exact working mechanism and help him to begin imagining the next weapon he planned on designing. Reaching his right hand out to the side slightly a surge of chakra entered the hand and a notebook seemed to appear out of thin air now having been summoned to the man’s hand, as the other hand reached into his robe and withdrew a quill. Glancing back and forth from the series of scattered parts atop the stone tabletop and the worn looking notebook that he was about three quarters of the way through in its pages, the man began to sketch with intricate detail the weapon system being sure to label every piece that was drawn and what function it had in making the weapon work properly. In the future he actually planned to crafter an identical weapon system and place it on the other side but for the meantime he wanted to work at developing the senbon blaster that he was envisioning.

After several minutes and a number of pages filled out in the book leaving very few pages left over in the old notebook the man set down the quill atop the book and sat back, allowing for his bright blue eyes to close for a few moments before they reopened and he look up at the starscape about him now. It truly was a wondrous sight to behold seeing the stars and planets that were outside of the man’s personal realm, it allowed for the man to think outside of the box to solve problems knowing that anything was truly possible with the right motivation. His head shifted from the left to the right and back as the thoughts began to formulate how the weapon shoulder operate and its size, along with how many senbon it could be loaded with and how the reloading mechanism would function for the mass launcher. “That might work…” Speaking aloud to himself now the man had started to for the general picture of the weapon system and he once more set back up in his comfy chair now with a straight back once more taking a firm grip on the white feathered quill. The hand began to draw and write as the image in his thoughts began to come to life on the page in front of him, the weapon was designed to launch around twenty senbon in one go creating a cloud of metal that spread out as the needles flew further away from the puppet. This was just the launcher portion of the weapon as the man moved onto the next page, flipping it with his free left hand, as he began to draw a couple different designs for reload pods that would allow for quick reloading of the new launcher in order to make it just that much more effect and deadly to that person or person on the wrong end of the launcher. But it was one thing to think up and design such an idea on paper as it was a much more difficult task to actually find all the pieces needed to assemble even a prototype and then there would be all the trial and error involved with troubleshooting any problems that were bound to come up with the design as it was the first time Zao had built something like it.

Luckily, he had been able to build up a little bit of experience when he build the kunai launcher a few weeks ago, finally able to utilize some of his free time to focus on increasing the strength of what would be one of his future spirit puppets the man took this opportunity very seriously. Planning to use every minute available to him in order to work on new and practical mechanisms and weapons to ultimately arm the puppet for the dangerous times ahead. Glancing back down at the unique launder design he took the quill back into his right hand and crossed out a few things and began to make changes, this would have been much easier to do with a pencil but he was already started and didn’t want to stop the flow of his ideas at the moment. Flipping over to a new page the man continued to sketch as he moved away from the idea that had been at first similar to the tri kunai launcher that he’d designed and instead moved to something a bit on the other end of the precision launcher.

The idea that it would be useful to have more than just a precision launcher, the new senbon launcher would be the best fit to create a blast of projectiles that would cover a small area. Finally, the man had finalized on what he wanted for the new weapon system to accomplish and the type of ammo being the long needles helped to solidify the ammo. But just having the premise for the weapon and the type of projectile he felt were best suited for the mission of the weapon system were just the start really as he continued to scribble both words and small pictures onto the faded pages of the old notebook. The function of how the projectiles could be fired were honestly pretty simplistic as launchers really worked in a few different ways which made the basic construction of the launcher portion of the new weapon easy for even the newbie puppeteer like Zao. The deliver method of the ammo into the launcher was another problem all within itself, as he would need to come up with a loading system for the senbon that would allow for the launcher to carry a number of senbon and also allow for quick reloading of the weapon system.

Exhaling slowly the man looked down at his tea up, taking a moment to enjoy a sip of the cool tea before turning back towards the new page of his notebook, gentle tapping the tip of the quill on the top right corner as he thought about the problem at hand. It made sense to package the senbon into a form of container that would hold a ‘shots’ worth of senbon, the number still left undecided at this point as that would form from the style of container he could make work with the weapon system but he couldn’t even start building the launcher without some dimensions on how the ammo loading portion was going to work. Looking down at a bottle of unopened sake that also set on the table before him the man then looked up and to the left as he let his mind begin to formulate a new idea, it would be easier for loading purposes and even the firing process if the things worked smoothly. A half smile formed now on the man’s thin lips as the left corner rose slightly and his eyes came directly back down onto the scribbles that had been made while doodling on a few different directions. What he drew was a cylinder shaped container that was a bit longer than a traditional senbon as he also wrote out the dimensions of a single senbon.

Using the dimensions of the single senbon he began to do some math both in his head and on the paper itself now, attempting to figure out what would be the optimal amount of senbon for a small container to hold and also what would be a good number for the weapon system to fire at once as well. It was sort of like a balancing act as one could have less ‘shots’ from the launcher but a larger number of senbon per use, or just the opposite and have a smaller number of senbon before use but a greater number of shots to use. In the end the man decided that it would be more effective to decrease the number of senbon fired per use of the launcher and increase the number of shots to deal with more targets that weren’t grouped up together. With that decided upon the man only had one last thing left to workout about the new senbon launcher, which might have been better called a blaster as it launched more than one senbon, and that was the reloading process. Having the item he had simply named ‘ammo pods’ to use would make it easy to load the new pod after firing the senbon but the man was all about innovation and making things more efficient as he looked back at his bamboo constructed home. As he looked at the struct of the bamboo and how each section linked up flawlessly with the next he began to think if something like that could be done with the new senbon launcher, as well.

After some time thinking about a few different methods, the first being linking the pods together with a ‘chain-like’ belt that would cycle through the weapon as it fire, but after some thought he felt that it had areas that could cause failure of the weapon to feed properly and thus result in it not firing. In the end the man created a cylinder with holes cut out within it that would attach directly to the weapon and adding some additional features to the reloading mechanisms the cylinder would rotate with each firing of the launcher feeding a new ‘ammo pod’ into the chamber of the senbon launcher. As much work as it seemed like the man had put into the actual design portion of the new senbon blaster for his long range puppet, this was actually the easy part and the truly difficult part was yet to come when he actually set down and started to engineer and construct the weapon system. There would always be things that wouldn’t transfer from the paper design to the real life version and unforeseen problems would need to be worked through in order to finally arrive at a working finished product.

2026/2000

E Rank Puppet Trainings - 2 Mechanisms Earned

[Zao]

There would always be things that wouldn’t transfer from the paper design to the real life version and unforeseen problems would need to be worked through in order to finally arrive at a working finished product. The process of forging the new senbon launcher would end up taking three solid says of work which included a number of trips to the Sand village to pick up parts or material and even using his contacts outside the village as he made full use of his abilities in space time in order to travel to and from various places around the continent. Without that ability it would have taken weeks if not months to gather the materials and then start the crafting and assembly process of building and retrofitting the launcher onto the massive puppet’s lower arm opposing the specially made kunai launcher that he’d also hand crafted for the puppet. The man enjoyed the process of creating new things, as could be seen with his spirit plant pets that he had literally created, it allowed for the man to continue thinking outside the normal box put before him and to also allow for him to make improvements in his life and his ninjutsu by being able to be open minded about things. Three hard days of work with only stopping to do that basic tasks needed to continue to function and the man had finally finished crafting the special senbon blaster and tis special ‘ammo pods’ and ammo cylinder for continuous shooting.

After that the man literally fell asleep under the stars of his personal realm, a relaxed smile on his face as the young white haired man sleep for around sixteen hours before finally awakening. Taking care of the necessities the shinobi then turned back to his puppet, sadly completing even a powerful weapon such as the senbon blast was still only a single weapon on the man long ranged puppet that had managed to climb to the grand total of two launchers. This was far from providing the puppet and whatever spirit would inevitably be placed within the puppet’s body the necessary fire power to defend itself and Zao at the same time. Of course weapons weren’t everything but they did help, and the next weapon design was something which the young man had actually dreamed about while sleeping. It would seem that even while asleep Zao still had the thoughts of how best to upgrade Juuki on his mind. After washing up and changing robes, the man returned back to his chair and table that sat out in the grass of the floating island now, a steamed bun in his mouth as he took his place back at the metaphorical drawing board of ideas.

During his design of the senbon launcher the man had began thinking about another style of launcher, an elemental launcher that didn’t require chakra to use, the idea had come from a machine called a turbine that could be turned be accelerated causing the mechanism to build up a powerful current of electricity, to the point that it could be turned into a powerful blast of lightning. Though his knowledge on this subject was truly a bit limited as he’d only heard of the invention from a scientist that he had met a few years back while traveling through [Frost] country. This man had been a self proclaimed inventor and had even offered the weary traveler a place to stay and rest for a few days on his travel. Be a bit strange, the man truly was a brilliant scientist and inventor and turned out to be a retired shinobi from his home village of Suna. That man was like an older version of himself that traveled the countryside attempting to increase his knowledge of the world and just live an interesting life. It was here that the man first heard of a ‘turbine’ and it was an invention that the old man was still tinkering with to get to work and how to get it to work effectively. With a smile on his face the man picked up the old looking notebook and stood up not stretching out his left hand to tear open a hole through space before slipping through it.

In a remote mountain side, near the peak of the mountain was constructed a large structure that doubled as an observatory and workshop for an old man nearing his seventies now by the name of Zetsou, a retired jounin of the Hidden Sand. A hole in space opened up and the white haired, white robed youth stepped through as he found himself within the observatory portion of the structure as the cool mountain air hit him causing a slight shiver to run through his body. His crystal blue eyes scanned the room before landing on the old man wrapped in a thick rob on his back underneath the massive telescope that he’d built to observe the heavens, though he was absorbed in his observations of the stars and planets he was not caught off guard by the young man’s sudden appearance. Though he didn’t speak at the moment and only raised his hand with the wrinkled index finger extended upwards telling his company to wait a moment for him. Zao only shook his head lightly but didn’t make to much noise as he allowed for the scientist to finish making whatever observations he was currently working on and in the meantime took a seat nearby and summoned some warm sake from his own realm to his hand. The warm alcohol helped to fight back against the cold air here in Frost country now and after about ten minutes had passed the old man coughed as the shinobi would turn to find the man standing next to him with an empty sake cup extended. With a friendly laugh the scholar would stand up giving his seat to the old man and pour him some of the warm liquor now to help warm himself up at well. “My young friend, it has been a few years since we last saw one another but you seem like you’ve almost aged ten years. Time has truly not been kind to you.”

The old man poke a little bit at the rapid change in the man’s appearance and seemingly his age as well despite it only being a couple years since the pair last spoke to one another in this very same place, “Things have been a little rough for me but I’ve return back to being a shinobi.” Zetsou nodded as he sipped on the cup of alcohol some more, approving of the well traveled man bringing his experience and knowledge back to the village. He also wondered why kind of events would make it rough for the talented young man but understood that the wanderer must have ventured back here for a purpose other than chatting with him over some warm saki. “Well, that sake is good but come out with it. What brings you back to this old man’s remote home?” A light smile formed on the thin lips of the white robed man now, his friend was never one for useless chatter and had cut straight to the point now. “Very well, I came to ask if you made any further advancements on your turbine invention.” The old man placed his wrinkled fingertips onto his lower lip and stubble covered chin at the mention of that old invention, shaking his head a bit he spoke once more with his somewhat aged voice now. “Only a little since I showed it to you last time. The concept is there but the materials that I need are just either to hard or expensive to obtain.”

“I see, if that’s all you need how would you feel allowing for me to complete this invention for you?” Zao didn’t was any time responding to his old friend now, gathering parts and finding rare materials was as difficult for one like him with the ability to move about through space and time, plus the man had some rather shady connections still that could help him find or acquire rare things for him. “What are you planning to us it for?” The old man couldn’t help but be surprised that the Suna-nin wanted to run with the idea and even seemed confident in find all the rare elements that would allow for the creation to be utilized as a weapon. “This, Zetsou-sama.” Reaching into his robe the man would remove the faded and worn looking notebook as he flipped it open to the turbine cannon design that he was working on for Juuki with some detailed notes about ideas that could possibly improve the output of the turbine and increase the power the turbine was able to put out. Once that man’s grey eyes fell upon the weapon design and the puppet design that it was going to be affixed onto he couldn’t help but smile revealing his toothless grin at this point. “Now you’ve peaked my interest, kid!”

There was an excited tone to his voice now as he grabbed Zao by the arm and the two walked arm in arm towards an interior door that led back into the massive structure that doubled as a workshop and laboratory for the old man now. After retreating back into the workshop were it was much warmer due to the dual fireplaces within the area that burned with small fires the man found and placed his prototype out a cluttered workbench as he began to go over the inner workings of the small turbine that was only about a foot in diameter. As they did the young man had already whipped out the notebook and was making notes on his own design along with taking some shorthanded notes about the function of each piece the man went over. Next the man took out a small scroll and handed it to the traveler, “This is my up to date design plans for it and the material needed to upgrade it like we spoke about. Though I’m not sure how you plan to find let alone gather all of that stuff.” Receiving the scroll and tucking it away into his robe the man brought his hands together forming a martial style salute to the elderly man and only spoke a few words in response, “I have some friends who can help me with that, so don’t worry. When I manage to finish it I’ll be back to show you.” There was a confident tone in his voice as he spoke to the man who could only shake his head, still feeling like it was a stretch to think he could gather the materials and build the upgraded invention without wasting years of his life. “Well, in that case I hope it doesn’t take to long. I’m not going to be around here forever.” Zao couldn’t help but shake his head at the antics of the old man as he placed a new bottle of sake on the workbench before his body seemed to disappear as it swirled through space back to his personal realm now with the scroll and prototype in tow.

Over the next couple of weeks the man traveled thousands of miles worth of traveling, of course the journey was made much easier through the use of his space-time ninjutsu as he leaped literally back and forth across the continent dealing with a number of contacts that worked on the black market. It was a rather expensive investment to say the least but the man had gotten enough parts and materials to construct at least four of the turbine inventions even with its upgrades. There was always the chance for the lightning converter to blow up or be damaged in battle and he needed to ensure that he had the part to either replace or repair as needed. Plus the man also had a few other ideas which he wanted to work on involving combining the mechanism with other energy sources or even spirit energy to see what kind of weapons that he could create for the long ranged puppet.

2039/2000

D Rank Puppet Trainings - 2 Mechanisms Earned

[Zao]

Weeks’ worth of the man’s personal time went into crafting the special turbines that were able to utilize the natural elemental chakra of whatever spirit or the user of the puppet naturally had, creating powerful weapon depending on the strength of the puppet. The more that Zao’s talent in the art of crafting and modifying puppets grew the strong this special mechanism would grow as well. Back within his personal realm the man was floating in the air just above his small island which gave off a soft golden hue that seemed to illuminate the realm as it floated through space and time. His long snow white hair seemed to hand almost perfectly straight as it flowed down onto his shoulders and down the thin framed shinobi’s back as his eyes were fixed. Those two blue orbs were looking over the wide back of his massive golem like puppet that stood three meters tall on its own but is wide shoulder, this was his designated long range puppet known as Juuki. He’d been putting a lot of time and work into this puppet as of late, starting off first with the triple kunai launcher that had been affixed around the upper right forearm allowing for single fired kunai or bursts of kunai to be fired. But the man had just been getting started as his experiences in training with the puppet and after speaking with his friend Li and other puppeteers about different mechanisms the man was once more at it again.

Next he took the kunai launcher design in another direction and created a shotgun style of launcher for senbon, a weapon that would be able to fill another roll of dealing with multiple targets or those targets which managed to get into close range of the puppet. Being able to fire a small cloud of senbon to cover an area was quite the dangerous weapon if it were to be used on someone. So far the man had focused on basic launchers and then came the idea of the elemental turbine cannon’s which stemmed from the original creation of an old retired Sand shinobi Zao had once met by chance. This what was he was working on affixing now as behind him upon the table down on the island, was a small sealing pot that contained a powerful spirit which had attacked his friend Li and himself during their journey back from Fur country. On the back right shoulder the man was currently affixing a base plate that would hold a trio of elemental cannons were currently pointed upwards towards the sky as the man’s slender fingers in either hand were wrapped around a single tool that were each tightening different components now as he scanned over the new weapon system. Each cannon had a special turbine that was designed and assembled by the scholar to work in tandem with the spirit which the two brothers had captured on their return trip. It was a rather well versed spirit in elemental chakra as it knew how to utilize ration, fuuton, and even katon. Such a spirit would work well after it was sealed into the large golem before him and would be the man’s first spirit puppet or Joruri when everything was completed. Several minutes later as the man would complete a number of small teaks on the puppet he would float backwards in order to allow for him to take in the full view of the newly assembled mechanism.

Letting go of the tool in the right hand it seemed to just float there where it was released and from the fingertips of the hand a few threads of raw chakra formed and expanded from the tips of the middle and index finger to connect onto the puppet before him. Moving the ends of the fingers and a little wrist motion the cannon’s on the shoulders began to move one at a time and then two of them began to move with one another and at the end of the initial testing the three cannons would all move at once. First the movement was together as though they were targeting the same target for all three cannons but after that Zao would flick his fingers a bit faster and in a different rhythm now as the three cannons would each point in a different direction from the other two. “Not to bad, not to bad indeed. These three cannons will be able to unleash some powerful attacks after I’m able to seal Shi into this puppet in the near future.” The white haired man couldn’t wait to create his first spirit puppet but before that he wanted to work on increasing the combat power of the puppet armor first. Only by doing this did the man believe that the puppet would be strong enough to deal with the level of threats that he would be encountering giving his own level of skill and strength. That was why he was putting so much effort and time into these three elemental cannons, something that were honestly useless without the proper elemental affinity to empower the special turbines he’d crafted.

Zao himself wouldn’t even be able to draw out a tenth of the potential power of these three new cannons right now due to the strict requirements that were needed, lacking any true elemental prowess in the ninjutsu arts these would truly be useless to him. But after he used his new sealing technique which would anchor the spirit permanently into the long range puppet armor, the dragon snake spirit with its natural ability in Raiton, Fuuton, and even Katon would be able to create powerful elemental attacks beyond its own abilities while in this armor. In his research into the art of creating spirit puppets, there wasn’t a whole lot to use as a reference aside from the creation of Tsukumogami and thus this was something the man needed to experiment with and work through a number of different hypotheses in order to come to the end result which was his recently perfected Tsukimogami technique: Living Puppet. It worked in a manner that was close to the Human puppet technique the puppet body ability that allowed for one to first create a core inscribed with the complexe fuuin. Drawing from both of these techniques and even the ability for one to create an elemental body the man would eventually through his research and study develop a manner in which to combine all these things with his Tsukimogami technique. Thus the end result, in theory, was that the spirit core that he would create would be able to be placed into a puppet body and in turn permanently possess the puppet body and use it as though it was his own. The idea was something he had only been toying about with in his head but after capturing the injured Shi who was not able to maintain its original body due to the damage it suffered at the hands of Li and himself when it attacked with the intent to kill them body and seize back its sealed brother from Li.

This technique was developed to its current level in order to actually save the spirit’s life because if the white haired shinobi unsealed the creature from the temporary sealing jar it was currently contained within it would quickly exhaust its remaining chakra before dying. Giving a now nod to himself the man had finished testing out the cannon’s movement capability and after going through each one of them individually once more to ensure that everything was good now he would collect his tools that floated in the air around him and descend back onto the soft grass of his home island. The bright blue eyes shifted solemnly onto the spirit jar that was resting by itself atop the plain stone table top, everything had built up to this moment as the man walked casually across the luscious grass feeling it with his bare feet as the right hand turned up towards the starscape above him. Willing chakra into the palm of the hand it glowed briefly with a soft blue hue of chakra before the space above the palm twisted and distorted slightly and a heart sized construct of what appeared to be gold appeared flowing just above his palm. While it wasn’t actually gold, that didn’t mean it wasn’t a rare metal. It was a special type of metal that Zao had brought back from one of the spirit realms he’d explored and it was a rather chakra sensitive material which made it a good combination for the Living Puppet technique but first things first the man moved the chunk of yellow metal in between his palms as if floated just out in front of the white robed ninja.

Both of his hands soon glowed with bright blue chakra which was soon directed into the the metal chunk now, the flow was a slow and steady one as the metal had to first be prepared to receive the spirit and thus the man had to temper the metal with chakra. Due to its sensitivity to chakra, this was actually an easy task for the young man as he get his gaze focused upon the special metal and as the chakra continued to infuse into the metal as it started to become more malleable as its shape started to change. After some time the man had finished the tempering process with his chakra as the former hunk of metal was now a small cylinder with the dimensions of five inches in length and four inches in diameter, not to far from the size of a normal human heart. With the part complete the man’s slender finger took hold of the floating chakra tempered container now and walked over to the table were he took a seat upon the comfortable bamboo crafted chakra. An ink set appeared out of nowhere now and now the process of writing and inscribing the fuuin diagrams would begin with the first one being an actually sealing diagram meant to contain the spirit and similar to the one that was on the Temporary Sealing jar the dragon snake spirit was currently within. Next would come the modified Tsukimogami technique that would allow for the spirit to extend its chakra outside of the container and connect to the puppet body that Zao had build for it to inhabit now.

Normally a Tsukimogami technique would need for the shinobi to apply their own chakra into the seal in order to draw forth the power of the spirit sealed within, yet this one allowed for the spirit to use his own chakra to perform techniques and move about. The spirit puppet was similar to a possession technique in that the spirit was in full control of the body it inhabited, though Zao would never allow for it to have complete control as he’d utilize his ‘Supremacy Over the Beast’ technique to ensure that the spirit was loyal to him. After all, this spirit had attacked both his friend Li and himself in an attempt to kill them and seize back the Tsukimogami that held his brother. While Zao could admire the loyalty to his brother he had actually tried to kill them, thus one could never be to careful. This process of inscribing the diagrams needed for the technique were rather tedious and thus also time consuming as a few hours would pass as the slender fingers worked the fine tipped quill before finally finishing al the needed formulas which covered nearly every square centimeter of the core’s surface. Placing the two, the core and the spirit jar, away from him now floating in the air just of the edge of the island as his hands began to move through a series of hand seals which took a bit of time to complete before maroon chakra surged off his body now like real flames before pushing forth to envelop both the core and the contained spirit. The top would fly off the container and lightning crackled as the dragon snake spirit was drawn out of its container, though it wasn’t able to struggle against the strength of Zao’s technique, especially as weak as it was due to the injuries on its body. A short while later the flame like maroon colored chakra would withdraw and the man’s first spirit puppet core had been completed now as he brought the core into his hand, ‘Finally….’

2086/2000

C Rank Puppet Trainings - 2 Mechanisms Earned