Mission:

When I showed up to the farmhouse, no one appeared to be inside. For the first time, the place was dead silent. Usually it was alive with the roar of machines or the deliberations of two crazy geniuses. I went around to the back and found Asida sprawled on the ground in the middle of a group of flowers. I sprinted over and checked his breathing. He was alive.

That was scary. Why would he randomly be asleep outside around the back of the farmhouse? Where was Edina?

I tried to shake him awake, but he was out cold.

Maybe he wasn't asleep. Maybe...he was knocked out or put under some kind of genjutsu.

I tried to shake the idea off, but I ended up using Genjutsu Kai just in case. Sure enough, he woke up right after. Now I was worried.

Were they robbed by other ninja?

When he came to, he groggily rubbed his eyes, and looked at me. He seemed very confused at first, but an excited expression soon enveloped his face as he looked straight into my eyes.

"It worked!" he exclaimed.

"What...what do you mean?"

Now I was the one with a confused expression on my face.

Did he somehow put himself under a genjutsu? Is it one of their new inventions?

"There's a nearby village surrounded by a mist that naturally creates a genjutsu-like effect on anyone who's in it for too long. I've been trying to chemically synthesize it in order to see if it could be combined with a sleeping agent of some sort, and this last batch certainly seems to have worked."

"Where's Edina?"

"Uhhh...she's at the store, I think."

"Is it okay for you to be experimenting with this sort of stuff when she's not here?"

"Truth be told, I'm not exactly allowed to be working on this project. She doesn't like experimenting with mind-altering stuff, like anything to do with genjutsu. Even though I'm really close! I just need a bit more trial and error to perfect this!"

"Even if you are close, you can't just experiment with this kind of stuff. It's too dangerous."

Asida sighed, "I know, I know. But this could be an incredibly effective tool for military combat, and I'd hate for the idea to go to waste."

He continued, "Anyways, the thing Edina wanted you to test today is inside."

I followed him into the building, and waited as he hefted a box onto a counter. Inside was a pack of shuriken.

Asida explained, "Last time you were here, your team's findings on these shuriken were that they were too heavy for effective combat use. We wanted to hollow some of these out so that the mass would change in testable increments. We wanted you to figure out which of the designs would be the most effective."

Wordcount: 492

Jutsu used:

Genjutsu Kai:

Chakra: 110/150

I was in the same field as when we first tested the shuriken, but it had been cleared of everything since I was last here. I had carried the heavy box of shuriken out here by myself, and I was beginning to suspect that Asida was a little mad at me for siding with Edina.

'I just wouldn't want him to hurt himself or put himself into a coma or something,' I thought somewhat sadly.

I took one out of the box and noticed it had been labeled as number "37". I targeted a nearby tree and threw it like I would a normal shuriken. It felt really light in my hands, and as I threw it, the wind picked up, making it swerve in completely the wrong direction.

So, "37" is too light.

I scrounged around and found a shuriken labeled, "5". I hoped they were in order of decreasing weight and not just a random order. This one was definitely heavier than 37, but I didn't know if it was heavier than 12 or 27, to name two random examples. I decided to line them up in numerical order, including "37", which I retrieved after a longer-than-expected search of the field. Apparently it had gone way off course. I found that Asida and Edina had prepared forty shuriken for me to test, in order to find the 'goldilocks' shuriken.

I felt the relative weights of each one, and found that it appeared my hypothesis about decreasing weights was correct. I picked up 5 again and threw it. This one actually felt decently good, but it fell really short of the target.

Next, I decided to narrow the pool by throwing number twenty. Theoretically, this would split the search in half. I picked it up and it felt more on the light side, but that could have just been because the last one I picked up was on the heavy side. I threw it, and was excited when this one actually flew straight. Unfortunately, it just bounced off the tree. Because of its decreased mass, it just didn't have the same momentum behind it. I searched my line-up for number ten, picked it up, and threw it.

This one hit lower than I aimed for, but this time it actually stuck in. I took number 15 to throw it, and found that not only did it hit the mark, but it stuck in. I was excited. I threw numbers 14 and 16 next, and 14 dipped too much while 16 again hit the mark. I threw number 17, and it hit but fell out of the trunk shortly after. I ran to go get 15 and 16, but when I picked them up, I noticed something odd about their weights. They seemed slightly heavier than they were previously.

I hope I'm just imagining this.

I went back to the area where I was throwing the shuriken, and sure enough, both 15 and 16 dipped slightly in their trajectory. It almost seemed as if they gained mass whilst in the air.

But that wouldn't be possible, would it? Unless, this metal could somehow convert energy to matter through chakra or something like that. That would be one of the biggest breakthroughs in modern day science.

I thought this as I went to pick up the shuriken. However, when I picked them up again, they seemed to be back to their normal weight. Not only that, but the tips of the shuriken seemed slightly dirty, even though they hadn't touched the ground since I originally picked them up. And the side of the tree wasn't dirty.

I may be getting ahead of myself, but did the metal absorb my earth-style chakra? The first time I threw it, it was absorbing chakra. The second time, it released the chakra in the form of dirt, slightly weighing it down.

This was exciting, and certainly warranted more testing. I took numbers 15 and 16 back, and while channeling lightning chakra to my hands, threw them at the tree. Again, they hit their marks. They felt heavier again, theoretically with raiton energy. I took them back to the throwing position, and threw them at the tree.

This time though, they again hit their marks. But when they struck the tree, sparks flew out. I jumped in excitement.

This is AWESOME. This metal can actually absorb and release the user's chakra according to their chakra affinity.

Obviously, a small shower of sparks wasn't going to tun the tide of a battle, but I was interested to see what Edina and Asida could do with this. I then thought of the possibilities regarding seals.

If someone were to put a sealing tag of earth style chakra on a kunai or something, they could change its direction mid-flight by making it heavier. Dense earth chakra could make it drop 90 degrees straight into the ground.

Unfortunately I was neither apt in fuuinjutsu nor any other elemental affinity, so I couldn't really test anymore by myself. I would have to leave that to Asida, Edina, and other ninja testers. I was glad that I was able to hazard a (hopefully) correct guess as to an amazing property of the metal, but I knew the discovery of the exact properties that allowed this would probably be made by Asida.

Now, I have to clean this up and report back to Asida.

It seemed weird to "report" back" to someone my age, but I brushed it off and started cleaning up. Occasionally I would throw a shuriken or two just to make sure that that shuriken still had the chakra-absorbing property, and would rejoice in giddiness every time that it worked. It was childish, I know, but it was a happy turn from what I was expecting the shuriken testing to be like when Asida first handed me the box.

Helping to discover new properties: all in a day's work.

I smiled to myself and continued my cleanup. I feel like I found a way to get on good terms with Asida again.

Wordcount:1029+492=1521

Jutsu used:
None

Chakra: 110/150

EXIT THREAD

Final Wordcount:1521
-1000 (Mission)
-400 (Perception D1->D2)
-----------------------------
Remaining Words: 121

Ryo earned: 200
-50 (Training)
-----------------------------
Net Ryo earned: 150