Approaching Headache

Look at him sleeping, so peaceful. Not a single thing can bother him now, all that matters is how much sleep he can get. 

Letting out a sigh I continue our work. 

While the original may need sleep I can keep going with no consequence. 

We've been putting a lot of work into our barrier seal. Originally we were gonna simplify it but that's changed, if anything it's even more complicated now. But if it works, it should activate nearly instantly, and its durability should be quite substantial. 

Almost three months have passed since my creation, and I've dedicated my existence to creating the best version of this seal possible. If I stopped now I'm certain I could get this barrier working by the end of the week, but if it did that I'd have to give up on my current idea. I want to be able to use both of the barrier seals if necessary to create one barrier that can withstand much more punishment than if I only used one.

It has not been easy, but I think I can do it. I've already had success with using both barrier seals with the previous version of the seal, but it was unstable and the two seals keep interfering with each other compromising the barrier instead of enhancing it. They also began to drain me of my chakra at an alarming rate, I barely deactivated them in time to save myself. The seals have an internal storage and are only supposed to draw from the user if absolutely necessary to keep the barrier from deactivating, so that means they burned through all the chakra in them in seconds and nearly burned through me as well. So I'll need to find out why that happened and make sure with absolute certainty it won't happen again.

I'm certain I'm close to getting this seal to work properly. 

At this point my knowledge of barrier Fuinjutsu has surpassed the original so I've been writing down everything I do in a journal. I've nearly filled the thing with notes, examples, and previous versions of the barrier seal. 

The original tries to help but he spends most of his time studying my notes and sometimes reviewing my work with a fresh perspective. But there's so much more to this version of the seal he's actually starting to have trouble understanding my work. He doesn't have the hours I've dedicated to creating this seal, plus the original has responsibilities so the gap between us just keeps growing. 

We talked about him focusing on something else but we decided it would be best if he kept studying my notes. It would be unfortunate if after all my work he wasn't able to create the barrier seal on his own.

Is it wrong that a part of me wants to create the two barrier seals, one for each bracer, then destroy my notes? So that once I'm gone he'll never be able to create a barrier identical to mine. 

I wouldn't do it of course but the thought has surfaced from the depth of my mind every now and then. 

I worked all night 

And when the original awoke and had to leave I continued to work. 

Time has no impact on me, I'm made of chakra after all.

…

Arriving at Sensei lab I wait patiently while he finishes examining whatever it is he's had under the microscope. 

Then the most peculiar thing happened.

Orochimaru took out the petri dish and dropped some sort of substances into it before putting it back under the microscope, not a moment's later whatever was in the petri dish suddenly expanded rapidly destroying the microscope.

It looked to be wood?

Orochimaru just smiled. Picking up the destroyed microphone held together by wood. He put into one of the sterilized glass cylindrical things he has all over the place.

"Sozo," Orochimaru spoke.

"Yes Sensei?"

"Let's run an experiment."

I guess we're just gonna pretend his microscope didn't just get destroyed by wood.

Orochimaru hooked me up to a bunch of mechanics meant to monitor my vitals along with a couple other things. He took some samples because he can never have enough samples. 

Orochimaru was going to attempt to trigger my body's abnormalities with some sort of injection.

"So what are you exactly injecting into me?" I said as Orochimaru filled a second syringe.

"Norepinephrine," Orochimaru responded 

"What's that?

"I believe this hormone is the trigger to your abnormalities," Orochimaru said as he injected me.

"Ow." I said monotone.

With the injection over we watched the mechanics waiting for the norepinephrine to take effect.

"Shouldn't I be doing something active?"

"I prepared a second shot for a second test." 

"Cool." 

"My heart rate is increasing."

"That's to be expected." 

"Then what exactly are we looking for?"

Orochimaru didn't respond, instead he was looking directly at me. 

"What?"

Orochimaru actually looked at me with disappointment.

"Sozo use your senses and examine this room."

"Ok?"

Closing my eyes I began to examine the room.

Am I missing something?

Nothing felt off about the room, same ambient chakra from who knows what, no chakra form Orochimaru, and some chak- 

What a minute, there's actually quite a lot of ambient chakra from me in this room? 

"There's a lot of my chakra." 

"Yes you're emitting chakra, quite a bit of it too, given your reserves."

I continued to produce chakra at a rapid rate for another five minutes before it stopped, not long after my vitals returned to normal.

"That didn't last long." I say

Definitely not the typical few hours I usually experience.

"Seems there's more to it, perhaps the excitement of combat will be the catalyst we're missing."

"I'm not fighting your snakes."

"Don't worry Sozo-kun, I'll personally handle this one." Orochimaru said grinning.

"Well on second thought maybe snakes aren't so bad." 

—------------------------------------