Starring:
Date: November 15, 2015
Summary:
Three medic-nin (Kenta, Kyu and Tatsuo) look into the oddities of the situation presented by the non-nin-animals that suddenly exhibited chakra usage in two previous missions. After a series of experiments and observations. they discover that the culprit might be a quickly mutating virus, which was possibly engineered by human hand.
"Fang & Talon - Laboratory Revelations"
Konoha Hospital
It's midmorning, the point in time when people are still fresh from a night's rest, but not so early that they're struggling to function. Kenta's already been awake for hours, but that's the way the medic-nin is. There's an important task that has to be handled today. It's a task that could be very important for the future, although that's not a given. Nevertheless, there's a medical mystery to solve, so he has requested the attendance of both his brainiest students to act as his assistants - Kyu and Tatsuo. Kenta waits for the two Genin in a laboratory that would be very familiar to Kyu.
This laboratory is made for some heavy duty containment. There's no windows, only small air vents. The place is partitioned into two unevenly big sections. The smaller one is right through the entrance and bare of all equipment, except for what can be wheeled in on a cart. Right now, this section hosts a big cage with a bored monkey inside. A barrier of thick glass with a door in it leads to the bigger section, where all the lab equipment is. There are vents on the ceiling that'll funnel away dangerous fumes. The vents can also be sealed in case the fumes are too dangerous to -be- funneled out of the laboratory.
Kyuketsuki had been called by Kenta-sensei, and OF COURSE would not turn down his sensei. Especially for something as interesting as entering the lab again. He looks around at the place when he inevitably arrives. Noting the monkey… Why is there a monkey here? Kyu finds himself staring at it. Blinking in a bit of confusion, before carrying on. "Kyuketsuki, reporting for duty Kenta-sensei! What did you need me and Tatsuo-san for?" Kyu asks a bit enthusiastically. Seems his in a good mood, or something.
Tatsuo arrives at the laboratory at the assigned time and he slips inside, looking around with a curious expression. He had yet to be here and so it was something new to him. As he enters he looks to the monkey as well before he looks to Kyu and Kenta, giving them both a smile in greeting. "Hi Kenta-sama. Hi Kyu-sama. How are you feeling?" he asks of the latter.
Kenta smiles at his students when they enter. The young man's wearing a pristine lab coat, goggles and a plastic cap to cover his unruly hair. "Konichiwa, Tatsuo and Kyu. Thanks for coming to help me," he greets the two Genin. Kenta walks over to the door and closes it tightly by throwing the triple bolts. Then, he walks over to a panel in the wall, which he opens to reveal some engraved seals behind it. A few special hand seals later and a tight barrier of energy ripples up over all the inner laboratory walls to seal everyone inside. "Ok, so you guys want to know why you're here. I bet that Tatsuo already guessed." He gestures at the caged monkey.
Kyu looks at the monkey when gestured towards once more. He also seems a bit confused about why such precautions are being taken for a simply monkey. "I see. So something is wrong with this… Monkey? Something worthy of some pretty extensive precautions? What's it's secret?" Kyu asks curiously, and he wastes no time activating his Sharingan to observe the monkey's chakra. Maybe the strangeness lies there, or maybe the Sharingan would somehow show Kyu something that he couldn't see for himself.
Well considering he'd already talked to Kenta about it before, yeah, he knows pretty well what's going on. "Some animals have been showing up that can use chakra. Um, we need to find out why and who's doing it since it also seems to make them aggressive," Tatsuo says to Kyu before he moves over to where he sees an outfit that mimics Kenta's own, putting on the lab coat and working on the other items as well, as odd as it may look on the Nara.
The monkey's chakra network looks much stronger to Kyu than it should. The chakra also looks different than any regular animal's would be, richer and deeper somehow. This probably won't be a surprised after what Tatsuo revealed. "Umm… that's correct, Tatsuo. This is the monkey that can make shadow clones. Hundreds of them, which is impossible to anyone except the strongest shinobi. You and me, we're going to analyze blood samples from both this monkey and the two cats that were brought in a month ago." Kenta gestures at Kyu. "And you, Kyu, are going to use your sharingan to examine the monkey's chakra network when it performs its jutsu. Please suit up first, like Tatsuo and I did."
Kyu's Sharingan fades, to not needlessly use chakra, as soon as he's done observing the monkey's chakra network. "I see… That is strange. It has a rather strong chakra network. Rich chakra. Definitely not normal." Kyu then turns to Kenta, "Hai, Kenta-sensei. Suiting up now." Kyu then moves to don his lab coat. Once finished he seems to realize something, "Oh, and Tatsuo-san, I'm fine, no pain, no balance problems, no discomfort. I think I'm fully healed. Sorry for not answering sooner." Kyu smiles, and then turns back towards the monkey. "But onto business. Shadow Clones? A monkey… Strange. How do you plan on getting him to do it Kenta-sensei?"
Tatsuo finishes the gloves and pulls on his goggles, blinking after that's done. Just…strange. Three bug eyed shinobi. "Um, that's okay Kyu-sama, I know you had other things you were thinking about. You didn't have to answer me." After all, he's the lowliest of the three in the room! The young Nara nods to Kenta when he says they'll be taking blood samples and he goes about gathering the supplies quickly.
Kenta smiles at Kyu. "I picked this laboratory for a reason. Remember when we had to draw blood from Zori in here?" he asks the younger shinobi. Kenta watches Kyu through his goggles for a second to see if understanding blossoms on Kyu's expression. "You're going to have to make the monkey angry and enter a berserk stage." He pats the cage. The motion draws the monkey's attention and the little creature plops itself in front of the bars to stare at the humans. "I have tags stuck to the top and bottom of the cage. A barrier would activate if the monkey uses any jutsu, so this will be safe."
Kenta heads towards the door that leads to the part of the laboratory where all the experiments will be held. He beckons at Tatsuo. "Follow me, Tatsuo. We'll start on those blood samples while Kyu does his thing. Ummm… would you prefer examining the monkeys or the cats? The cats will probably be a bit harder, because the sample are slightly less fresh. We stored the corpses in a scroll, but… corpses are less fresh than living monkeys."
Kyu blinks. And nods. Making a monkey angry? Alright… Kyu thinks he could manage that. He stares at the monkey as Kenta and Tatsuo sort out which animal they will be prodding, the dead one or the live one. Kyu on the other hand, makes the ram seal and preps a good deal of chakra… For SOME reason. He stands by after doing so. Simply waiting for a sign to begin annoying a monkey.
Tatsuo follows after Kenta, considering the options that the medic nin gives him. "Umm…I'll do the monkey's blood Kenta-sama. You'd be better at doing the older blood since you have much more experience." Tatsuo looks back at Kyu and the monkey curiously before he follows Kenta into the room. "Um, should we really leave Kyu-sama alone with the monkey?"
Kenta looks through the glass wall at Kyu. "Umm… I think he'll be fine. Kyu's strong and he's fully recovered now. The monkey's not going to pose any danger while inside a seal cage. Tatsuo, you take that station. The blood samples are already inside the vials." He points at the laboratory station further away from the inner door. It's stocked with everything that a medic-nin can need - vials of chemicals, scrolls, microscopes, tools needed for fine manipulation… Kenta stops at the station closer to the door, where a big scroll lies bound by a yellow ribbon. He pulls on a pair of latex gloves. Then, the senior medic gives Kyu a thumbs up.
Kyu watches Kenta through his googles, and as soon as the thumbs up is given, Kyu nods, and his Sharingan activates. Seemingly by itself. Kyu then looks at the monkey with a slight grin before doing handseals, and holding the snake seal. After a moment, the bars on the cage, to the monkey, would seem to start to shake, before parts seem to have strange growths pop out, creating strange lumps on them, after a moment the bumps suddenly burst, chains flying out of each and every one, and surrounding the monkey, before wrapping around him in several places, binding him uncomfortably in place. After that Kyu does two more handseals, purposely making the Sleepy Jutsu be less subtle and relaxing, and more of a jarring, obvious illusion of sudden sleepiness. Hopefully inducing grouchiness. The chains, after a brief moment of being annoying, seem to just fade out of reality. Gone. Kyu stands with his hands at his sides, looking at the monkey, waiting to see what it does, watching it's chakra system and following what the Sharingan is predicting for him.
Tatsuo still worries a bit despite Kenta's words. But then, he still had nightmares about when Kyu was cut down so he was feeling a bit protective, despite knowing that Kyu was stronger than he was. He watches Kyu another moment before he pulls on his own gloves and moves to the vials of the monkey's blood. He goes through the process quickly yet carefully and skillfully, hands steady as he drops some blood onto a slide and pushes it under the microscope to examine it before adding any chemicals.
The monkey's still staring curiously at Kyu when the hand seals are being made. It doesn't seem to recognize what's happening, despite being some kind of special chakra using animal. Instead, the little creature begins to hoot nervously once the cage starts to shake. It scrambles back from the bars, staying in the exact middle of the cage, where it turns around and around to watch the strange growths appear. Before long, the poor thing's screeching in pure fear with his arms wrapped around its head. It stays frozen in that position for at least five minutes after the genjutsu stops. Then, the monkey's bouncing all over the cage to grab and shake the bars and try to gain its own freedom. There's some flaring of chakra in the monkey's network, but nothing too revealing yet.
At Tatsuo's workstation, progress is occurring at a decent pace. The monkey's blood is very fresh, which the boy can easily tell, because he can still see the blood cells moving around under the microscope. They look very normal. Yet, as Tatsuo keeps examining blood samples, he'll begin to detect smaller movements between the cells. Much tinier particles that's very hard to make out. He might need a stronger microscope or a different stain.
Kenta's starting the exact same set of examination that Tatsuo's doing. His source of materials is sealed inside the scroll, so he has to unseal them first. Two dead cats appear on the table. Kenta gives them a pitying look before he carefully extract blood from the corpses. Then, he proceeds to prepare a slide with a drop of blood and some staining solution to check under a microscope.
Kyu watches the stunned monkey during those long five minutes, and is honestly a tad startled as the monkey begins to attack the bars. He watches the monkey and considers what he should do next… How else could he anger it… It's working somewhat as he can see the chakra flaring up. Just needs to be angrier. Kyu does more rapid handseals, and as the monkey panics, he would feel his movements begin to feel involuntary, as if he's losing control of himself. He would be overwhelmed by a creeping numbness before becoming completely numb and losing his sight, being met with nothing but void, before suddenly body and mind seperate, leaving his stiff, motionless body stuck in place, as his 'soul' floats above, looking down at itself, if it could recognize itself that is, if not, than Kyu would be paying attention, and if it doesn't react to seeing itself, he would just give the monkey the ability to float around as if there was no gravity, and throw in a Sly Mind Affect, to make the monkey confused on which direction it is facing, and where things are in relation to itself. Hopefully further angering the poor monkey before it returns back to it's body.
Tatsuo has a thoughtful expression as he watches the blood beneath the microscope. How interesting. He purses his lips thoughtfully for a moment before he switches out the slide for a fresh one, putting in a different stain before examining this new one. After a moments he changes the magnification higher to see if he might be able to see what that little oddity is that he can see. Is it something he's seen before in human blood, or completely foreign?
The monkey's frenzying even more now. The second Genjustu sends it into deeper panic. But as Kyu watches the little creature's chakra network, he notices something odd. The amount of chakra in the monkey's network is building and strengthening. That's not the strange part. The strange part is that chakra is flowing from parts of the body -outside- the network into the network. Even when someone's gathering chakra, it should be entering the ends of each tiny branch, but this chakra is merging with the network from all over . It's like seeing tiny flecks of glitter draw together. When the chakra builds to a certain level, the monkey suddenly stops screeching in fear and starts screeching in anger. It's eyes turn a glowing red shade and it pounds at the bars with renewed force.
It's hard to ignore the noise, but Kenta's mostly managing to do it on the other side of the glass. Closing the door would help, since the glass is soundproof, but he doesn't want to miss any calls for help from Kyu if something happens. The senior-most medic-nin frowns when he checks the cat blood slide under his microscope. "Ummm… are you seeing the same thing I'm seeing, Tatsuo?" That would be the tiny organisms that's floating in the blood at the most powerful magnifications. They're so small that each blood cell dwarfs the smaller organisms like a building. Careful observation would note viral characteristics. And these viruses are making their way in and out of the surrounding cells without causing any visible damage somehow.
Kyu observes closely the monkey's chakra… Many strange happenings. But it's only when the monkey's eyes turn red that Kyu shows any signs of being unsettled. "Now that is weird…" Kyu mumbles, "I'm the only one here that's supposed to have red eyes, Saru-san." Kyu says jokingly, before giving it one more nudge to try to get it to act. He does Sleepy Jutsu once more, in the same jarring fashion. Afterwards Kyu takes a cautionary single step back. 'What will this creature do next?' Kyu wonders silently to himself.
Tatsuo looks up from his microscope when he hears the monkey starting to sound angry instead of scared, looking through the glass to make sure everything is okay. Looks good so far at least. The cage is holding. He lowers his eyes back to the microscope and hmms softly. "There's something moving between each blood cell. It's not changing it like an infection would, it's just moving in and out. Either that or the changes are too small to see." He frowns as he looks up at Kenta, not quite sure what to make of it. "Have you seen anything like this before Kenta-sama?"
The cage's up for now only. The monkey's not happy that it's being manipulated and it's clear that it knows that's happening at this point. In fact, it's glowing red eyes are trained on Kyu. It slams into the cage bars closest to Kyu and rattles it so hard that the entire cage shakes. Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof! There's two monkeys inside. Three. Four. A dozen. That's the most that the cage can fit, but so many monkeys body slamming one side is enough to tip the cage over. Luckily, the use of chakra causes the tags to activate, so a barrier wraps around the entire thing before it comes crashing loudly to the ground. Kyu still has to dodge to avoid getting smash with bone breaking metal. Now the cage's down.
"Ummm… I'm not sure. Could be parasitic in nature. Viruses that enters a cell always does something, like replicate itself or inject its DNA into the host cell. I don't know why we're not seeing anything odd," Kenta tells Tatsuo with his eyes still glued to his own microscope. "There's a lot of dead cells in my sample, but that's because I withdrew it from a quickly preserved corpse. There's no burst patterns or viral damage that I can see otherwise. Maybe—" CRASH! Kenta's head snaps up at the sound of the cage tipping over. "Kyu! Are you ok?!"
Kyu watches, his Sharingan taking in, and memorizing exactly what happens as the monkey clones itself, then does it again, and again. Until the cage becomes sealed and begins to tip, Kyu's Sharingan allows him to spot the problem early, and react accordingly. He leaps back and away from the cage, landing and skidding a bit across the ground before standing up straight. His Sharingan fades, and he straightens the lab coat he's wearing. "I'm perfectly fine Kenta! But I do indeed have some things to tell you." Kyu watches the cage, just to be on the safe side.
Tatsuo continues to examine the sample, going FULL MAGNIFICATION! And even then it's still hard to see the little things moving. "I think we might need to try and isolate whatever is moving between the cells and see what happens if we introduce it to-" he cuts off and looks up at the same time as Kenta does, though he actually runs to the door to make /sure/ Kyu is okay, his heart beating a million times per minute as the nightmares flash through his mind. "Kyu-sama! What happened? Are you sure you're alright?"
Kenta also runs to the door, a step behind Tatsuo despite being close. "Put the monkey to sleep!" Kenta calls out to Kyu. He watches the cage with worry in his eyes. The barrier around it is holding, but it looks like his senior student had a near miss there. Not having the cage affixed to the floor's a mistake that no one realized would be a problem. "I think that's enough excitement for today. You can help us with lab work instead once the monkey's asleep. I'll have people come in to take it away later."
Kyu looks at Kenta as he's commanded to put the monkey to sleep, and nods, "Hai Kenta-sensei. Perfect time to use something a tad bit different." Kyu starts off as if he's doing Sleepy Jutsu, but doesn't stop at two handseals, and he also makes sure to spread the illusion harmlessly to Kenta and Tatsuo, allowing them to see it too. Kyu does a decent number of preparatory handseals before pointing both arms at the monkey, all three would see glowing white feathers, like the one used in Dream Feather, seem to pour out from Kyu's sleeves, and float as if blown by a strong breeze towards the monkey, swarming it and creating a slow moving feather tornado around it. The monkey would feel the warm, comforting light coming from the feathers begin to sink in, causing a very potent sleepiness. And the tornado would just keep spinning and spinning. Hopefully lulling the monkey closer and closer to sleep.
Tatsuo relaxes a bit when he sees that Kyu is indeed quite safe and…why are there so many monkeys in that cage? Oh right, shadow clones. He looks at it in a bit of amazement before watching Kyu and…watching his genjutsu. He squints a bit, wondering /why/ he can see it but…at least he's not feeling it's effects, right? Still, strange.
All the monkeys begin to sway as the Genjutsu takes effect. The clones poof out of existence one by one. Eventually, the single monkey's that's left drops into a seated position. It's not a comfortable position, since the cage is upended, so its sitting on the bars instead of on a flat metal base. Nevertheless, the monkey is just sooooo sleepy. Before long, the poor thing's out like a light.
"Ummm… impressive," Kenta says with genuine admiration in his voice. He beckons for Kyu to enter the glass encased section of the laboratory. "We'll keep an eye on the monkey, but let's try out Tatsuo's suggestion." He watches a second longer to make sure that Kyu's really ok. Then, he heads to a large refrigerator at the back of lab, where he takes out some vials of chilled blood. He brings them all to an uncluttered section of the counter.
But before Kenta does anything else, he gives the monkey blood slide that Tatsuo prepared a quick check. "Ummm… odd. The viruses in this sample looks very similar, but slightly different to what's in the cat blood. Probably a slight variation of a base virus."
Kyu smiles as Kenta says that, pleased to hear that Kenta enjoyed his Genjutsu display. "Hai Kenta-sensei." Kyu then begins to follow Kenta and Tatsuo, curious on what they had been doing. He makes sure to not be in the way as he observes though.
"So it's either a newer or older version, which means it either mutated…or if someone has created it than it's a new strain." Tatsuo says, moving over to Kenta's to look through the microscope as well, his thoughtful frown returning. "How strange…" he murmurs thoughtfully.
"Umm… I want you guys to pick a vial of blood from this rack…" Kenta tells his students. He taps the rack containing the blood samples that he mentioned. Each one's for a different species - cow, dog, pig, human, rat, etc. "…Take a drop, mix with a drop of monkey blood from the vials at Tatsuo's station and see what happens under the microscope. We don't actually have a good selection here, but I want to see what happens. This is just stocked here for basic testing when we need many different sample blood sources." Kenta removes the vial of pig's blood and starts doing exactly what he asked the other two to do.
Kyu nods, and moves carefully and picks a vial, a vial of human blood. He then takes that vial gets a drop ready to be examined before mixing it with the monkey's blood. Once that's completed, he takes it and examines it beneath a microscope, hoping his findings reveal… Anything for that matter.
Tatsuo returns to the lab and reaches for another marked vial. He's a bit hesitant to mix two different types of animals. The results wouldn't be one hundred percent accurate since the blood cells would, in general, not be compatible with each other and may even resist each other. Which, in and of itself, could be an interesting to see with whatever this 'virus' was.
The testing goes on for a long time. There's a lot of blood samples, despite what Kenta says about it being a poor selection. One thing's clear by the time everyone's tired and ready to grab lunch for some refueling. The virus in the monkey's blood, and presumably the cat's blood, is highly mutagenic. As soon as monkey blood is mixed with the other live samples, new strains of the virus start appearing before the medics' eyes. The viruses would change form slightly depending on whether it's entering a monkey's cells or a pig's or a dog's or any other. They're probably also leaving unseen changes behind too. The only good news is that only very few transitions can occur before the virus becomes completely inert. This could be a limiting factor that keeps the virus from replicating out of control. Oddly enough, the only blood that the virus doesn't want to interact with is human blood. The virus doesn't even try to enter human cells. Kyu gets to identity this unusual piece of information, but it's a mystery that all three will have to ponder carefully.
