Chapter 57: The 'Side Effect' of Yin Release
"Hey, I'm talking to you. You've been working nonstop for three or four days, right? Are you planning to rest at all?"
In the maintenance bay of Hiiro Rinko's workshop, five levels underground, a—or rather, one—Tanuki-styled clockwork beast was standing human-like on its hind legs on a railing, arms crossed, complaining to Hiiro Rinko, who was inspecting a large-scale puppet.
Now sixteen years old, Hiiro Rinko was in his prime growth period. He had easily shot past 170cm and was heading toward 180cm, a growth rate that often made his clothes ill-fitting.
As a result, his clothing style for the past two years had become quite loose. Aside from his unchanging beige turtleneck sweater, most of his clothes looked a size too big.
Whether it was the rolled-up cuffs on his pants and sleeves, or the white lab coat that was a bit too wide in the shoulders, it all made the otherwise tall young man seem less imposing.
Paired with his unkempt, medium-length, wavy red hair and the peeling paint on his glasses, he looked even more disheveled.
"Mhm, you're right. I'll rest a bit after I finish up here."
Hiiro Rinko, a lollipop stick hanging from his mouth, gave a perfunctory reply. Feeling a bit constricted, he tugged at the collar of his ever-present beige turtleneck. Through the gap, the bandages wrapped tightly around his body were visible.
He then picked up the clockwork beast that had climbed onto his lab coat and quickly recorded the indexes flashing on a glowing green screen.
"Ehh... fine."
This was different from a conventional combat puppet loaded with mechanisms, and different from the autonomous puppets on Rinko's assembly line, which, while self-moving, had rigid logic.
This clockwork Tanuki was extremely nimble. From its modulated, "emotional" tone, one could tell this 'mechanism' possessed a consciousness.
Of course, this wasn't Rinko touching the highest realm of Yin Release (creating something from nothing). In fact, it was just one of his minor experiments.
As its form suggested, the consciousness currently residing within it belonged to the One-Tails, Shukaku.
By processing the One-Tails Chakra into a permanent magnet core used by his autonomous puppets, and then using Yin Release to further establish a link between that Chakra and its main body, Shukaku could, as long as he didn't exceed a certain distance, transfer his consciousness from Bunpuku's body into this clockwork beast.
Of course, as a trade-off and a failsafe, Shukaku could not use any Chakra in this puppet body. And when he'd first entered it, the clumsy controls had caused him to fall over comically for quite a while.
But even so, Shukaku was happy.
Even though Bunpuku was now free, and Shukaku could see the world through his Jinchūriki's eyes, the feeling of being able to physically grasp something himself still brought immense joy to the long-sealed Tailed Beast.
Of course, even though the voice emitter was processed and the official story was that this was a 'living puppet' reverse-engineered from a dying summoning animal, the Third Kazekage, who had seen the real Shukaku, nearly had a heart attack on the spot when he first saw this thing.
Rinko had repeatedly stressed that this wasn't a technology prepared specifically for Shukaku; he was just using Shukaku's durability to run an experiment. But the big-tailed Tanuki still viewed him as one of his closest humans.
To be honest, it wasn't Rinko playing hard-to-get.
Given that Chakra normally can't be freely controlled over super-long distances, he had to find another way to create an autonomous puppet like Mechamaru. Besides 'consciousness transfer,' he had also prepared a plan to improve Chakra threads, but the latter wasn't panning out. Materials science is like that; even with a solid foundation, it's still a lottery.
But Shukaku didn't care about the details. Like was like.
If you don't treat them as monsters, don't unilaterally apply pointless pity, and don't just try to control and use them from on high, the Tailed Beasts are actually pretty easy to placate.
"By the way, brat, you still haven't learned Lightning Release?"
After a while, Shukaku looked at Rinko, who had collapsed into a chair and was applying eye drops.
"Nope."
"I'll be damned. I really, really don't get it. How did you brat manage to master Magnet Release without even learning Lightning Release?"
Getting the dry, expected answer, Shukaku was speechless. He hopped into Rinko's lap and flopped down lazily.
Earlier, after confirming Rinko was making no progress, Shukaku had Bunpuku help him transfer a large portion of his own Chakra to Rinko, hoping to force him to learn Magnet Release.
After ingesting a certain amount of Tailed Beast Chakra, one can achieve a partial Tailed Beast transformation, even if it's not at a Jinchūriki's level. This was just like how a host's body is engraved with the Cursed Technique of an incarnated Cursed Spirit.
Using this method, Rinko could indeed master Shukaku's Magnet Release.
Shukaku was no longer surprised by the fact that this kid could maintain a stable mental state even while wearing a Tailed Beast Chakra cloak or in a partial transformation.
But… what do you mean, during that brief transformation, you 'used comparative analysis to figure out the Chakra-mixing ratio for Magnet Release' and 'incidentally calculated three other potential Magnet Release ratios'?!
Okay, fine, your freakish brain plus Split-Thinking is overpowered, great moves. But if you can do that, WHY CAN'T YOU LEARN LIGHTNING RELEASE?!
"It just doesn't make any sense!"
Shukaku, who served as Rinko's sparring partner in Bunpuku's mindscape, had personally witnessed him master the Chakra nature transformations for Fire and Earth. But when it came to Lightning Release—which he should have an affinity for because of Magnet Release—Rinko was completely stuck.
The big-tailed Tanuki could only say, "I've never seen anything like this."
"Mhm… It's probably an influence from my 'spirit'."
The red-haired young man replied, closing his eyes to ease their dryness, having some understanding of the issue.
By achieving a 'Triple' Split-Thinking state, Hiiro Rinko's spiritual energy output and total volume now surpassed his physical life force. His Yin Release had, as a result, surged in power.
To prevent the Yin-Yang balance he had worked so hard to achieve from collapsing, he had been consciously regulating his Yin and Yang "cores." The bandages currently wrapped around his body existed for that very reason.
But even so, this surging spiritual power was bound to have some effect on him.