by The location near the border of the two minor nations north of the Land of Fire which had been designated as one of the Land of Waterfalls' "Black Sites" was... eerily peaceful and serene. Sitting on the exposed portion of a massive boulder a couple hundred meters from the center of a crater that did not exist, Ashitaka gazed out at the majestic unviolated landscape half-expecting not for the first time to hear some cheesy classical music in the background. Instead, there was only the sound of local wildlife somewhat drowned out by the constant white noise of the waterfalls from which the local area derived its name. The scenery was beautiful beyond words: there were at least thirty rainbows within his immediate sight. Every tree was green save the places on its branches and trunks that were not covered by climbing vines.
Other things that did not exist in this general area included the Black Site itself and the patrols one would normally expect to be monitoring the border between two nations, let alone a top-secret facility. The man who had come looking for these instead found himself spending his time fishing and bathing in one of the many nearby streams and sleeping, meditating, and training in the general vicinity of the cabin he could have conjured out of essentially thin air, but instead built the hard way. He took a certain pride in not abusing his chakra powers to shape the land in the image he desired and instead doing it through manual labor. Plus, the tedium gave his mind time to sort things out. Although he did use his Mokuton to grow new trees in place of those he'd cut down. Of all the things he could miss from civilization while out here, he found himself missing carbs the most. He'd not had a grain of rice or noodle since departing from Konoha.
In lieu of the many dozens of techniques that had fled his mind with his suicide-induced world transition, there were only a few which were immensely useful. Foremost among these was the ability to generate weapons without mutating his hands, which was great for theorycrafting new designs without having to commit to the labors of the forge. This jutsu melded well with the recently-acquired Assimilate All Creation Technique allowed him to create weapons in whatever form he could imagine and made of whatever material he could get his hands on. Which at the moment included Titanium, Senju Wood, and Ebony.
Trial and error taught him that his metallic knotworks only reinforced the weapons' durability vs blows against their broad sides. This was definitely useful, but it wasn't good enough in his mind. The fundamental problem with these enhancements was that they only applied to the surface and didn't strengthen the weapons as a whole. So he decided to reverse the procedure: instead of pouring molten metal onto a wooden core, he made the core out of Ebony first and flowed the braids out like thin branches, filling in the remaining space with Senju Wood. The resulting weapon was too thick at first but that could be resolved with a good beating. Now that he got the matter of material distribution out of the way, the time came to look into form and function.
The big downside to being competent with a variety of weapons was the difficulty in bringing all of them to bear in battle at the same time. Granted, he could pay to have them sealed and ready to summon at a moment's notice and could even -as he was doing at this moment- simply conjure and shape them to his will, but either action belied the unique bond a wielder could forge with their weapon if he wholly dedicated himself to it. This was a problem he'd tried to overcome with the Modular Weapon, but even the Iron Prince's stellar craftsmanship couldn't very well compensate for its inherent flaws in design -flaws that were Ashitaka's own fault.
The Modular Weapon was too complex and had too many small, by necessity loosely-fitting parts. It was designed to come apart easily and it did, compromising its ability to serve defensive purposes in spite of the durability inherent in its materials. Worse, it took far too much effort to alter its functions on the fly, a weakness where it was supposed to have a strength. In his frustration, Ashitaka scrapped the multi-component design entirely, but was unwilling to let go of the core concept of a multi-function weapon. He looked over his notes as he contemplated what options could be combined without too much compromise.
The flexible options such as the bow and shinai would have to go, but he decided he could do something with the axe, sword, hammer, and war pick. From the staff, he took only the principle that a greater length would add to the effective force of his blows. However, in order to use Kenjutsu techniques, he'd need the weapon to fundamentally be a sword, so he started from there. He couldn't make it too long because he expected to be carrying it on his person and didn't want it knocking into things unintentionally. He decided that about 1.75 meters from pommel to tip would be enough.
Factoring in the axe, he broadened the single-edged blade until it was wider than the full span of one of his hands, but found that made it unwieldy due to conflicting air resistance and weight distribution. So he compensated by focusing the weight at the weapon's ends, giving it a meaty 2 oz pommel and drawing out the tip opposite the edge to form the 7 cm pick. It took several days of experimenting and refining the more specific details of the weapon until he was satisfied with its performance, which even included agreeability to being thrown and serviceability as a shield if he took occasion to add a handle to one of the blade's flats. The design was ready to be made permanent, and all he had left to do was go home and get started.
[Exit -> Land of Fire -> Tanzaku Territory -> Konoha Northern Gates]
Other things that did not exist in this general area included the Black Site itself and the patrols one would normally expect to be monitoring the border between two nations, let alone a top-secret facility. The man who had come looking for these instead found himself spending his time fishing and bathing in one of the many nearby streams and sleeping, meditating, and training in the general vicinity of the cabin he could have conjured out of essentially thin air, but instead built the hard way. He took a certain pride in not abusing his chakra powers to shape the land in the image he desired and instead doing it through manual labor. Plus, the tedium gave his mind time to sort things out. Although he did use his Mokuton to grow new trees in place of those he'd cut down. Of all the things he could miss from civilization while out here, he found himself missing carbs the most. He'd not had a grain of rice or noodle since departing from Konoha.
In lieu of the many dozens of techniques that had fled his mind with his suicide-induced world transition, there were only a few which were immensely useful. Foremost among these was the ability to generate weapons without mutating his hands, which was great for theorycrafting new designs without having to commit to the labors of the forge. This jutsu melded well with the recently-acquired Assimilate All Creation Technique allowed him to create weapons in whatever form he could imagine and made of whatever material he could get his hands on. Which at the moment included Titanium, Senju Wood, and Ebony.
Trial and error taught him that his metallic knotworks only reinforced the weapons' durability vs blows against their broad sides. This was definitely useful, but it wasn't good enough in his mind. The fundamental problem with these enhancements was that they only applied to the surface and didn't strengthen the weapons as a whole. So he decided to reverse the procedure: instead of pouring molten metal onto a wooden core, he made the core out of Ebony first and flowed the braids out like thin branches, filling in the remaining space with Senju Wood. The resulting weapon was too thick at first but that could be resolved with a good beating. Now that he got the matter of material distribution out of the way, the time came to look into form and function.
The big downside to being competent with a variety of weapons was the difficulty in bringing all of them to bear in battle at the same time. Granted, he could pay to have them sealed and ready to summon at a moment's notice and could even -as he was doing at this moment- simply conjure and shape them to his will, but either action belied the unique bond a wielder could forge with their weapon if he wholly dedicated himself to it. This was a problem he'd tried to overcome with the Modular Weapon, but even the Iron Prince's stellar craftsmanship couldn't very well compensate for its inherent flaws in design -flaws that were Ashitaka's own fault.
The Modular Weapon was too complex and had too many small, by necessity loosely-fitting parts. It was designed to come apart easily and it did, compromising its ability to serve defensive purposes in spite of the durability inherent in its materials. Worse, it took far too much effort to alter its functions on the fly, a weakness where it was supposed to have a strength. In his frustration, Ashitaka scrapped the multi-component design entirely, but was unwilling to let go of the core concept of a multi-function weapon. He looked over his notes as he contemplated what options could be combined without too much compromise.
The flexible options such as the bow and shinai would have to go, but he decided he could do something with the axe, sword, hammer, and war pick. From the staff, he took only the principle that a greater length would add to the effective force of his blows. However, in order to use Kenjutsu techniques, he'd need the weapon to fundamentally be a sword, so he started from there. He couldn't make it too long because he expected to be carrying it on his person and didn't want it knocking into things unintentionally. He decided that about 1.75 meters from pommel to tip would be enough.
Factoring in the axe, he broadened the single-edged blade until it was wider than the full span of one of his hands, but found that made it unwieldy due to conflicting air resistance and weight distribution. So he compensated by focusing the weight at the weapon's ends, giving it a meaty 2 oz pommel and drawing out the tip opposite the edge to form the 7 cm pick. It took several days of experimenting and refining the more specific details of the weapon until he was satisfied with its performance, which even included agreeability to being thrown and serviceability as a shield if he took occasion to add a handle to one of the blade's flats. The design was ready to be made permanent, and all he had left to do was go home and get started.
[Exit -> Land of Fire -> Tanzaku Territory -> Konoha Northern Gates]
