64 Progress

On his way to Anteiku what does he find? Touka was passed out from blood loss in some alleyway. CCG agents driving around and news reports running around the clock on the death of an inspector. Mystical palms healed her injury at the cost of a miniscule amount of chakra on his part. She came to with him squatted over her. She opened her mouth and bit his shoulder as hard as she could. She drooled all over his new shirt which he swears Rize put some seasoning on in the wash, just to mess with him. Touka jerked her head away and coughed.

"That's so nasty what is your shirt seasoned with, ass?" Touka mutters and spits on the ground. "Sorry about biting you I've had weird dreams lately." Touka muttered. Bastion sighed and let the whole biting thing go. In favor of looking down on her.

"Touka, why were you wounded? I heard an inspector died, what happened?" Bastion said. She looked away.

"Its nothing, don't get involved." Touka said. Bastion bit her nose and she shouted.

"Just making sure you aren't dreaming." She gripped her nose in pain.

"I'll admit I've been working on a lot of projects recently. I mean Rize's pregnant, I don't know if I told you yet or not. She's doing nothing but talk about baby names and eating all my test subjects. Well they're mostly puddles when I get through with the tests, so its not like she's stealing. I've made a lot of progress. I've created a virus that doubles a person's potential lifespan. It even has a 95% success rate. Had to mix it with Ebola, not immortality but a step towards the right direction. The only problem is, once its used on a person, a new version can't be added or else the body is turned into a puddle of goop." Bastion said.

"Stop talking about all the dark shit you've been doing and congratulations. Um, how many have you lost so far. I understand that the mortality rate for human ghoul hybrids are high." Touka said looking down.

"No miscarriages so far. But yea, I know it can happen. I don't know if the natural power they inherit from me will be enough. Every day I feel the child in her womb grow just a little stronger. Its life force is very strong." Bastion said then looked at Touka seriously. "You killed the CCG agent, didn't you?" Bastion said.

"Like you're one to judge. The amount of blood on your hands is greater than mine will be in 10 lifetimes." Touka said. Bastion chuckled at her.

"I'm the perfect judge of the situation. I didn't kill them for food, or money, I killed them to protect humanity. If I had any other option, I would have used it. I understand your desire for revenge. Hate is a very human emotion. They killed those you care about and in return you wish to do the same. I understand it Touka. You took your revenge out on an innocent person just like they did. The debt has been paid you're even now." Bastion said.

"If that's the case then why do I still feel so much anger. She didn't do anything to anyone. She didn't deserve to die like that." Touka yelled.

"You're talking to the wrong guy. I just try to do the best I can one day at a time. I'm no omnipotent force. If it makes you feel better if they killed you, they wouldn't exist anymore. I would burn them, and their stories would end here." Bastion said.

"That's actually really sweet. Thank you." Touka said. Bastion shrugged.

"There isn't much I can do for you right now. Killing a few ghoul investigators might bring the full might of the CCG down on Anteiku. I have a lot of plans moving right now, I can't afford to give you too much of my focus. If you keep fighting them, you're on your own. The best I can do is offer you sanctuary at my home." Bastion said.

She seemed out of it, he couldn't tell if his words were getting to her. Thoughts whirled through his mind of what he should do. Could he trust her with a lasgun? Would such a weapon turn a battle? How about body armor or would that slow her down?

"If you ever need anything come to me. I'm always close by." Bastion said before leaving her to head back to Anteiku.

Engines buzzed, and sparks flew in Bastion's workshop. Technologies for the future of mankind were prepared and fitted in all manor of vessel. The sounds of machinery could be heard in the workshop. Lasguns were manufactured, disassembled, and packaged. Instruction manuals were printed and stuffed in the package before they were sealed. Engineers, physicists, and management staff went to work reverse engineering the technology of the lasgun and plasma drive. They were busily trying to reverse engineer the small-scale nuclear reactor part of the drive. It was all complicated.

Bastion didn't know how it worked only that if he did a + b it would = c. He didn't know how a and b interacted to make c only that their interactions did indeed make c. This was all done with his sharingan.

With the help of his employees his company would gain understanding of how this technology worked and then build from it. That was the idea anyway. A lot could go wrong.

"Sir, we managed to recreate the nuclear reactor and fit it to the craft. Permission to start." Toshiro Shin a nuclear physicist Bastion managed to snatch up right out of college. Bastion nodded, and the engine sparked to life spewing out a small but steady stream of plasma for propulsion. "It's amazing how magnetic fields can be bent in such a way isn't it." Bastion smiled, mars was in his sights now. It was time to begin terraforming and then colonizing.

"Toshiro keep up the good work. Build me larger, hardier engines, money is no object." Bastion said. Bastion had already used Genjutsu on all the political leaders he needed to get the approval for the new engines and their power source. Japan was no stranger to nuclear power. Soon Mars would belong to humanity and then the galaxy.

Deep beneath the ground where the magma flowed Bastion's sanctuary thrived. Magma was made power by turbines and seals. The sound of air recycling was the norm and the sounds of screaming could be heard loud and clear. This was where he conducted his research in viral seals.

For once a human survived the process. Instead of making a great change within the man's every cell, Bastion used smaller changes. This latest blend of seal craft and virology made the mitochondria within the cell more efficient. It was built to give the host more power. A simple experiment with interesting results. The man who survived the treatment walked around the isolation room constantly. He slept for only an hour a night if that and woke up refreshed to pace around his cell again.

He needed less food and seemed to get more energy from what food he consumed. From what Bastion could tell this was a success, samples from the man proved to be stable enough for further testing. Bastion decided to try for a single change again. He increased the processing power of the nucleus. There was no telling what would happen, but Bastion wanted to find out. After applying the seal the man didn't scream. Nothing really happened.

Two days later Bastion returned to hear the man scream. His body was destroying itself in a civil war. The cells in his body gained animalistic qualities and attacked one another. The unity that came with the quadrillions of cells in a human body was disrupted. Bastion wrote it off as another failure and shut the door.

Days later the man was nothing more than a lump of moving flesh. The cells had formed hives and separated to the corners of the room. Eyes, nerves, and organs covered the place in macabre imitations of cities. His seals were getting more dangerous by the day it seemed. Since the experiment wasn't dead, he continued delivering food to the cell. He wanted to see where this would lead.

After much deliberation, he decided to experiment only on RC cells and reintroduce them to a human body instead of changing the human body itself. Though, he had learned a few very frightening ways to melt people from his research which was always useful.