17 Chapter 17: Time skip of 2 years (part 1)

Before I start the chapter. I need to tell you guys a little about how this chapter will be like.

Instead of directly skipping time. I'll be skipping it in parts where I'll be writing all the important parts about what happened in between this time skip.

Not a new way of doing things, at all. But what I needed to tell you is that the point for reference of time is the first day of [Life Flame] project where MC brought Rika to his home to work on the project.

Second thing I wanted to tell you is,

I had enlightenment.

That made first chapter become much longer than I expected.

So instead of 17 and 18 being two different chapters as I planned them to be, they'll be two parts of the first chapter.

Hope you'll enjoy the chapter!

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[ Tokiton: Toki Chōyaku no Jutsu]

[ 0 year, 3 months ]

[ Haruki POV ]

After getting permission from Rika's mother, we went back to my house.

I had already spent a few weeks in past 3 months explaining related basics to her. She had her school days to balance with this project too, so we couldn't put in much work into it.

Now that basics were over with, I started to explain to her about how I'm planning on starting the project.

"First, I'm going to need to create a whole bunch of different seals that will regulate the energy in it according to how it's programmed. A physical AI made of energy, in a sense. And no, it won't be able to control anything more than growing in strength and automatically healing when necessary. It won't have consciousness of it's own."

"Second, the AI is going to be made of your Quirk Energy."

"Third, the AI will be designed by you. You don't have to worry about messing up. What I mean by that, is that I'll connect the seal to your subconscious mind where you will have to focus on how you want the Flame to be like."

When I said the third point, Rika was about to ask a question which I was fairly sure about what it would be, so instead of waiting, I finished explaining what I meant to say in the third point. Then I paused for a few moments, for her to ask the question in case I guessed wrong.

Seeing that she has relieved expression and that she doesn't want to ask any question, I continued.

"I could do that without your subconscious mind getting involved in this, but then it'd take much longer."

"After we're done with that part we'll add some concious modifications or remove unnecessary parts from it. I'll do some of the modifications of my own into them, of which obviously you'll be made aware of beforehand."

"Once the seal is created, you will be the one to feed it your energy little by little everytime you get some free time. For a few weeks."

"After those few weeks, flame will be completed. In a way, it would be infant stage of flame. From that, it'll keep growing until it reaches the limit set by your body. You'll need to train your body further from there on in order to get stronger."

"In a way we are making something like a quirk that keeps accumulating energy as much as the body can hold. Modified for you."

I finished explaining.

'It's very much like One for All from my notes. But unlike One for All, it can't be passed onto anyone just because of their body being strong enough. It has to be compatible with it. In other words, her mother or descendants are the only ones that PROBABLY be able to inherit it from her.'

Ell can do all of that and more. She's sentient enough to learn how to use Jutsu(s). She's been growing all this time she spent sleeping. Learning things from our surroundings and also from my memories.

Right now, she may not be able to talk, but she can communicate with me through her thoughts and vice-versa.

I plan on training her to fight once she's able to grow her body size to a human size.

At this stage, she can do some long range Jutsu(s) with [ Kage Bunshin no Jutsu ]™ and its derivatives. So, she's already deadly enough in the battle if used strategically.

Even off-battle she can be a great spy. Small size, able to merge with he surrounding, easily contact me from extremely long distances, able to share her senses with me. As soon as I am able to teach her how to use [ Shift ] seal, I can spread greatest spy network in the world.

[ Shift ] seal is a derivative of [ Exile ] seal. Instead of teleporting stuff or people out of the planet, preferably to the sun, it teleports them on a said coordinate on the earth.

Similar quirk that I've seen that works like this is [ Blink ]. But the place it teleports the user is limited to the range of vision, unlike [ Shift ] seal. With [ Shift ], as long as I remember the coordinates of the place, I can teleport there in an instant. I can also use it during close range battles.

Anyways, back to Rika's [ Life Flame ] project. It has a huge potential too. Once raised to the point of its estimate growth, it may be able to stand against One for All in terms of sheer strength. Possibly, it can even surpass it too. Unlike [ Life Flame ], One for All doesn't increase anyone's life span after all.

Once I came out of my thoughts I saw that Rika was also thinking about something.

"Anyways, we have to first get a layout of how you want the seal to be like and try to focus on imagining about it..." I started explaining what she needs to do and what I will be doing in order to help and further the process.

It was going to take a long time. Really long time.

[ 0 years, 6 months ]

We reached the stage where we were modifying the already finished skeleton seal for Life Flame.

As we kept working on it, Rika seemed to change day by day. She was getting more serious about things, her behaviour towards me also subtly changed. She started to think more before she says something, she was also trying to balance all this work with her school, which left her constantly thinking about the possible changes she could or should make.

Her determination towards this project was really admirable, but that doesn't change that she's exhausting herself regularly. She may grow from it, but she's not giving her body enough rest for that growth to be settled in.

That's simply not good, at all. All this work we are doing will mean nothing if for some adverse effects from this, is going to make her unable to merge with it.

So, I did what I should. I asked her to stop. But that stubborn brute.... well, not that brute anymore, but stubborn as hell idiot, refused to take rest.

I clearly warned her about possibilities of not being able to use [ Life Flame ] at all if she keeps on going like this. She may be able to recover faster because of her quirk, but that's for only an hour in a day. She was overworking her even in her standards.

To which, she responded with just bare minimum rest.

It made me take my words back. She's still a brute. Just her purpose is different this time.

I guess, people can never change. It's their purpose that changes.

I had to take breaks myself even when I wasn't tired from time to time, because I knew she won't be doing that despite being exhausted.

Atleast she had to stop because I am working as the computer that she programs her AI in. If I won't work, she'll need to find another computer. Which doesn't exist in this world.

That finally worked. She had to stop when I stop and in that time I'd have her relax doing whatever we want in the living room.

I was also trying to subtly use my chakra to sooth her nerves because I just wanted to. It also helped making her energy recovery faster.

That made it easier and faster for us to progress without risking her health.

[ Rika POV ]

Haruki was really giving his all for this. The amount of work he showed me needed to be done just for the preparation stage was extremely meticulous.

He was considering almost each every aspect that may affect [ Life Flame ]'s growth, by extension my growth.

I know him good enough by now. Despite him working so much, he's rather lazy. Everything I saw him doing was in one way or another, was all for making his work easier or faster. He avoids doing things that aren't necessary according him.

But this project was different. I could see him seriously giving his all into it.

I am really grateful to him for that. Once he accepts someone as part of his life, he'd do almost anything for them. That's the reason I admire him more than anyone else.

If he's putting in so much work where he apparently gets almost nothing in return, I refuse to be the one to hold back anything when it's something that'll benifit me the most.

I did give it my best. I know I was being a little reckless there when I was trying to push myself to the point it came to the border of affecting my health.

But I couldn't do anything that could help me distract from my guilt. I was feeling like I'm exploiting my friendship with Haruki. I felt like I was exploiting his feelings. That guilt was eating me from inside.

My feelings at this point had become all a jumbled mess! I was feeling guilty, that much was for sure, but I was also feeling something weird.

The way he was taking care of me, making sure that I have no other choice but to take rest at the cost of delaying the project, secretly trying to help me replenish my energy using his quirk. I am fairly used to the feeling of the energy he often uses, so I could sense him doing it. All this was making me feel a little weird about him.

I don't know what I'm feeling, but it feels good to be around him. I have started to notice things about him much more than I used to. His habit of scratching his nose with the back of his thumb when he's bothered by something in his thoughts, he frowns slightly when something gets his attention and so many things that I didn't notice before. Now, I can noticed them clearly.

I feel weird whenever I'm around him. Whenever he praises me for something, I become extremely happy.

The worst thing though, I can't tease him easily without being afraid of making him angry on me. It was so easy before, but now I feel afraid that he may stop talking with me. Even though I know he won't, I am still afraid that he will.

I will have to have talk about this with Mama.

[ 1 year ]

[ Haruki POV ]

We finally finished [ Life Flame ]. All that is left is for Rika to merge it with herself and keep nurturing it and grow with it.

Just merging with it gave way more power boost than we expected. She was 3 times as strong as she was before and this was just the result of an infant stage flame.

We had a spar that lasted much longer this time. I still won. But this time she wasn't as miserable as she was before. She recovered much faster from it. It took barely one hour. The time limit on her quirk was offset by [ Life Flame ]. She is definitely going to be much more stronger than she could ever be.

I had to cheer her up after that though. So instead of fighting me to check her progress, I suggested her to choose different strength and speed training and also some martial arts that fits her style the best. I also made her compare with her old self and also pointed out how little the time she took to reach such progress compared to others was.

Mentioning about how she can keep training longer than usual and also keep getting stronger was enough to distract her from her bad mood.

Now that I think about all this. It seems like I created a sort of Jinchuriki (?)