Rinto was jabbed awake by the charcoal pencil in his hand.
The tip dug into the soft flesh of his palm, and the pain made him jerk his hand back, waking him. His coat had slipped to the floor, picking up iron filings and scraps of paper. He had slept slumped in the chair for nearly a day, and his neck had gone stiff. The slightest movement sent piercing pain through the back of it. He muttered, "Fuck," and stayed rigid for a long while before daring to straighten up slowly.
The desk lamp was still on. Its glare made him squint, and it took him a long time to adjust. He had jumbled the drawings on the desk in his sleep, and the piece of Starfall Iron that had worked yesterday had rolled to the edge, nearly falling off. His throat felt as dry as if someone had stuffed a handful of sand into it. He reached for the water bottle at the edge of the desk, but his elbow knocked it over. The empty bottle clattered to the floor and rolled a long way away.
"Damn it." Frowning, he braced himself against the desk and stood. His numb legs made him stumble, and his knee struck a desk leg. He bared his teeth in pain, adding a fresh injury to the bruise he had only gotten yesterday.
After groping around for a while, he found the insulated jug Kabuto had left earlier in the corner. He unscrewed the lid. The water inside was still slightly warm. He hugged the jug and drank more than half of it straight down before the burning in his throat subsided. Beside it sat two meat buns Kabuto had left that morning. They had long since gone cold, their skins hard as stone. He squeezed them, then tossed them back. He had no appetite.
Only after the grogginess of waking had passed did he remember yesterday's work. He grabbed the piece of three-attribute Starfall Iron, walked over to the steel target plate, and infused it with chakra.
Lava Release, Explosion Release, Lightning Release-he switched back and forth, faster each time. The first thirty switches were perfectly stable. The iron only warmed slightly, and the residue cleared away completely. But on the forty-second switch, he distinctly felt the iron's temperature jump beneath his fingertips. He hurriedly stopped, withdrew his chakra, and held it up to the light to inspect the patterns. At the innermost corner of the channel, a tiny bit of residual chakra debris was still caught.
There was very little. Even another dozen or so switches might not make it explode, but it still bothered him.
"Fuck, it sticks like a damn plaster." Cursing with the iron pinched between his fingers, he sat back at the desk, grabbed the charcoal pencil, and began drawing. The trailing anchor points from before could sweep the main channel clean, but they could not reach the blind spots at the channel's corners. After enough switches, residue would still accumulate.
He wanted to add a miniature trailing anchor point at the corner, but frowned after just a couple of strokes. There was too little space there. Another anchor point would sit too close to the main structure, making interference likely. If things went wrong, it would blow out outright. He crossed it out and redrew it, trying to alter the main channel's curvature to smooth out the corner. But changing the curve threw the anchor points' entire reconstruction rhythm into disarray, wasting all his previous effort.
The more he drew, the more irritated he became. He tossed the pencil aside and reached into the blastproof cabinet for his experiment log, hoping to find the original main-channel parameters he had drawn earlier. Instead, as he flipped through it, he reached the dual-attribute pages and discovered that the activation threshold he had casually noted down was wrong by 0.1 units.
"What the hell was I thinking?" He cursed himself and grabbed the pencil to correct it. As he worked, he remembered that the ternary chakra cycle had also suffered leakage around its edges and corners during his earlier senjutsu solidification work. He had thought little of it then. Could this trailing structure be used in the senjutsu configuration?
Once the thought surfaced, he could not put it down. He set the three-attribute work aside and rummaged everywhere for the old draft notebook from his senjutsu experiments. Pages flew everywhere, and another heap of scrap paper piled up on the floor. After nearly half an hour of searching, he finally found the crumpled booklet at the very bottom of the materials rack. Its page edges had been soaked in water and curled up.
He hunched over the desk and leafed through it for a long while before finding the cycle diagram he had drawn back then. Pencil in hand, he made haphazard alterations, embedding trailing anchor points into the cycle's nodes. Partway through, he realized something was wrong. Senjutsu's ternary chakra formed a flowing closed loop, not a reconstruction based on switching. Adding this trailing structure would disrupt the cycle's balance instead, and might collapse the senjutsu configuration outright.
He stared blankly at the drawing for a long time, muttered, "Nothing better to do, huh," then snapped the notebook shut and tossed it back onto the rack. The whole morning had passed just like that. He had accomplished none of his actual work, wasted hours messing around, and made the room even messier.
While he was stewing, the door was gently pushed open. Kabuto poked his head in, holding an empty folder. He had not come specifically to deliver anything, and kept his footsteps very light, afraid of setting off Rinto's temper.
"Mr. Rinto, sorry to disturb you," Kabuto said quietly. "Have you finished revising the chakra filtration configuration drawing I left with you? My experiment is waiting on it."
Rinto lifted his eyelids, only then remembering it. He had made a couple of quick changes before falling asleep yesterday and tossed it onto the edge of the desk. He rummaged through the piles of paper for a long time before finding the crumpled little sheet and tossing it to Kabuto. "This one. Change it to match this, and stop bothering me."
"Ah, all right. Thank you." Kabuto hurriedly caught it. One glance at the two changes told him instantly where the earlier problem lay, and his eyes filled with admiration. He tucked the drawing into the folder, then set the insulated bag he was carrying in the corner. "I brought buns and porridge from the cafeteria this morning. They're still warm, so remember to eat. There are new engraving blade tips, too. I've put them at the edge of your desk."
He crouched down and picked up the scrap paper and notebooks Rinto had just dug out, stacking them neatly beside the desk. As he did, he casually remarked on a couple of things, less like a deliberate report than an offhand complaint. "My Cursed Seal compatibility experiment blew up yesterday. Lord Orochimaru gave me a scolding. I spent all night revising it, but there are still some problems."
After a pause, he also mentioned what was happening outside. "Three of the Anbu at the entrance were replaced today. They're blocking the main gate, questioning even the material delivery people forever. The gate guard argued with them, and they almost came to blows. Lord Orochimaru asked about your progress this morning. I didn't say much, just that you were still busy with experiments."
"Got it." Rinto frowned, his tone full of impatience. "Don't tell me about this crap from now on. Just keep it out of my way. Don't waste my time."
"Yes, of course. Understood." Kabuto hurriedly agreed. He glanced at the small puncture the charcoal pencil had left in Rinto's palm and the blood-seeping scabs on his fingertips, then placed some povidone-iodine at the edge of the desk. Not daring to press him further, he slipped out quietly, closing the door without even a sound.
Only after Kabuto left did Rinto remember the insulated bag in the corner. He opened it. The buns were still warm, and the porridge was hot too. He took two buns and wolfed them down in a few bites. Only when his stomach warmed did his irritation ease a little.
After eating, he sat back at the desk and stared blankly at the three-attribute drawing again. How was he supposed to deal with the residue in the corners? Adding anchor points risked interference; altering the channels risked disrupting the rhythm. Neither way worked.
He chewed the pencil shaft and stared for nearly an hour before finally steeling himself. Carve a version and try it first. Just add a miniature anchor point at the corner. Worst case, it would explode and he would start over. He grabbed a piece of Starfall Iron and clamped it into the vise with a click. After fitting a new engraving blade tip, he was especially careful as he began cutting. He left the main channel's pattern untouched, adding only a tiny trailing anchor point, so fine it was almost invisible, at each of the three corners.
His hand still shook as he carved. He had stayed up too long, and his vision was blurred. At the second corner, the blade slipped, nicking the neighboring main pattern and ruining the entire section. He muttered, "Fuck," threw the iron away, and started again with a fresh piece.
By the time he finished carving, it was nearly dark. He carried the iron over to the target, infused it with chakra, and began switching repeatedly. The first fifty switches were perfectly stable. The temperature did not rise, and the residue cleared completely. He had only just begun to relax when, on the fifty-eighth switch, a small corner anchor point clashed with the main reconstruction anchor point. The chakra instantly fell into disarray, and the Starfall Iron suddenly grew scorching hot. He hurriedly withdrew his chakra, but it was still too late. A small section of the pattern along the edge broke apart.
"Damn it!" He slammed the ruined iron onto the desk, his temples throbbing with anger. He had meant to solve the residue problem, but adding anchor points had only made it more prone to collapse. He would have been better off leaving it alone.
Unwilling to give up, he revised the drawing again, shifting the small anchor points a little farther from the main structure, and carved another version. This time it did not collapse, but the residue in the corners still would not clear completely. It was no different from not adding them at all. All that work for nothing.
He revised it again, making the trailing hooks curve more sharply so they could reach the blind spots in the corners. But when he finished carving and tested it, a trailing hook caught on the main anchor point, jamming the reconstruction outright. The switch to Explosion Release cut off halfway through and nearly caused an explosion.
He went on like that, revising and carving, carving and blowing things up, then revising again, from nightfall until well past midnight. The scrap box filled up by nearly another half. He tested five or six versions. They either collapsed, failed to clear the residue completely, or delayed the switches. Every revision made things messier. None was as good as the original version.
The last blowout sent fragments into the back of his hand, reopening the wounds that had only just scabbed over. Beads of blood immediately seeped out. He stared at the half-piece of ruined iron in his hand for a long time, then suddenly lost all drive. He flung the engraving knife hard onto the desk and cursed, "Fuck it. I'm done. Whatever happens, happens."
He slumped back against the chair, eyes closed, his whole body sunk into it, and stopped moving. The little puncture in his palm hurt, the wounds on the back of his hand hurt, and his stiff neck hurt. After working through most of the night, his eyes were so sore he could not open them. His stomach was empty again, but he did not want to move at all.
Outside the window, the sky had long since gone completely dark, then slowly begun to turn pale. He remained slumped in the chair with his eyes closed, without turning on the lights. Only the desk lamp still shone in the laboratory, illuminating the desk covered in discarded drafts and shattered iron. The breeze from the vent rustled the scrap paper on the floor, but he paid it no attention.
His mind was full of tangled lines, corners, anchor points, trailing structures, and residue, winding round and round. The more he thought, the more irritated he became. In the end, he simply stopped thinking and lay slumped there, even letting his breathing grow quieter. Near dawn, drowsiness washed over him, and he drifted back to sleep in the chair, still clutching half a piece of Starfall Iron ruined by an explosion.