Chapter 41: Frustration
After learning the information about his 'enemy,' Hiiro Rinko felt that his life hadn't changed much.
After all, no matter how anxious he was, he couldn't just blow up all of Kumogakure right now. When it came to village unity, Kumo and Iwa were truly the gold standards of the Shinobi World.
This was the trouble with personal feuds. Kill one person, and you have to kill their entire family. If you don't handle it cleanly or thoroughly, trouble will just keep finding its way to your door.
Wasn't Rinko himself just that kind of 'trouble'?
With his current lack of strength, no matter how much the lingering sorrow in his heart annoyed him, and no matter how much he wanted to resolve the Binding Vow's influence, all he could do was ignore it as much as possible.
But even if he thought his life's rhythm was unchanged and his attitude was the same, in the eyes of others, Rinko's agitation was quite obvious.
Unconsciously tapping his fingers, bouncing on his toes, clicking his tongue… Since that day, these little tics had multiplied. His brow was now perpetually furrowed.
Those closest to him couldn't help but worry, but they had no good way, nor the proper standing, to resolve his melancholy. Instead, Rinko was the one who, annoyed by their clumsy attempts at comfort, realized his own abnormal state.
And then, logically, he became even more irritable.
He had no reason to vent his dissatisfaction on others, so he could only turn it inward. He'd made a lot of progress in Fire Release because of it, and had even generated a large amount of Cursed Energy, but under the circumstances, it was hard to call this a 'benefit.'
Time passed just like that.
"Spring blossoms, winter snow melts"... these words had nothing to do with Sunagakure. The closest thing to "green" in the entire village was probably the plant breeders in the horticulture department.
The departure of the 'cool' winter, naturally, did not improve Rinko's mood. Instead, it added another layer of restless depression.
Everyone was busy handling their early graduation procedures. Recently, the time Rinko, Pakura, and Karura spent studying together had plummeted.
At this moment, he was spacing out in a drink shop in Sunagakure.
Though he was 'spacing out,' his quad-core brain hadn't stopped thinking. He just didn't feel like writing anything down.
It was also meaningless. From winter until now, his brain had just been re-running basic calculations. His emotional instability had also led to a lack of inspiration.
For example, the repeatedly erased and redrawn design draft on the table in front of him.
Eight-Barreled Shuriken Launcher. The prototype for this was part of the device he had planned to show Chiyo last winter.
All-Range Multi-Purpose Logical Verification-use Composite Armament Prototype No. 13 - Kai—or Prototype 13 for short. That clawed-gauntlet was, as its name suggested, a composite weapon used to verify various designs. It was equipped with a funnel-like function based on Sand Manipulation, a Wind/Fire dual-nature Chakra conversion function, and docking ports for numerous expansion components.
The former had since been optimized into a wire-guided drone, because the device was simply too heavy compared to sand. Controlling it remotely with Chakra alone made its response sluggish and severely limited its operational range.
The latter was still being optimized, adjusting the stable ratio of Wind and Fire Chakra.
And the shuriken launcher, originally an external component, had been detached and designed as a standalone device.
It had an integrated, sand-proof, and water-proof shell that could be fully disassembled.
Aided by a multiple-catapult mechanism and a Wind Release-style acceleration formula, its rate of fire was as high as three hundred rounds per minute, with a velocity matching a Jōnin's suppression throw.
The drawbacks were also obvious. To increase the speed, the recoil was significant. A typical Chūnin using it for the first time would easily have their aim thrown off. Also, the trajectory was fixed; it couldn't be finessed like a throw from a shinobi's hand.
But this was designed to be mounted on a puppet or a fixed emplacement for suppressive fire. Those drawbacks were negligible.
The core concept was to use the Summoning Jutsu (Kuchiyose no Jutsu) mechanism—where summoned objects are sent back after a certain time—to retrieve the fired shuriken, achieving a pseudo-infinite ammo supply.
With the shortest retrieval time, it would take three to five minutes for the summoning to automatically dispel. This meant, considering attrition and redundancy, he needed at least a thousand shuriken prepared.
For an individual, the cost was a bit too high. Some Genin or even Chūnin might not use that many in their entire careers. Although they throw them in bundles, shuriken are usually retrieved from the battlefield. It's rare to just dispose of them.
But for the village as a whole, this expense was a drop in the bucket.
The biggest problem now was how to precisely summon the shuriken into the magazine in sequence. Unlike a summoned beast, a shuriken can't coordinate with the summoner.
Technically, it wasn't impossible, but shrinking the mechanism down enough to fit inside the launcher was proving difficult.
"Ahahaha, you look pretty grumpy, Rinko-kun~"
Just then, Sakaki Tatsuma, who worked part-time at the shop, rolled a cart over with his signature laugh, placing a cup of ice cream in front of him. "Here, have something sweet to lighten the mood. This one's on me."
"Hmph. True. But forget treating me. Your part-time wage isn't that much."
Rinko dug a spoonful of sea buckthorn-flavored ice cream into his mouth, and his expression softened. He always had a high demand for sugar, and cold things were high on his list of likes right now.
He'd always wanted to say: instead of looking at him with such worried eyes, it would be more effective to just drown him in ice cream.
"Rinko-kun, you seem to have been in a bad mood recently~"
The shop wasn't busy, so Sakaki Tatsuma took the liberty of sitting down opposite his kōhai and started chatting.
"Ehh… I wouldn't say 'bad,' just... agitated."
Telling deep secrets to a shallow acquaintance is a social taboo, but Rinko genuinely felt he needed to vent to someone.
Sakaki Tatsuma, while not a close friend, was a familiar face. He was a decent enough choice.