“And the project?”
“Representation of degenerate principal series and Simple Lie group representation methods,” they said in unison.
The secretary thought for a moment. “Show me evidence of your research.”
“What? We don’t walk around with that.” Ino shrugged exaggeratedly. “We left it on our desks.”
“But we can share the details of our research and prove that we’re scholars,” Orochimaru said and then began to explain at top speed. “In the development of a technology applying frequency analysis discretized further with digital signals for the conventional transformation to convert the real variable of a real-valued function to a similar type of function, we created a formula to carry out frequency analysis for the interval signal—which is to say, n multiplied by a complex number. This expresses the mapping onto the complex function, and while this does utilize unitary operator theory, when carrying out calculations with practical values, summing up the normalization factors into one, at the point when we simultaneously scale up—”
“Fine, yes, okay, I understand,” the secretary cut Orochimaru off, seemingly fed up. “Happily lecturing about your personal theories with zero regard for time and place, you’re definitely one of our researchers. I’ll give you that. But you can’t see Mr. Furieh. He hasn’t returned since yesterday.”
“Since yesterday?” Although she knew this, Ino kept any hint of that off her face and made a show of widening her eyes in surprise. “That’s worrying. Was he in an accident or something?”
“He often gets absorbed in his research, so it’s not particularly unusual,” the secretary said, unconcerned.
Ino glanced up at the security camera. The snake was curled up on top of it. It was done hacking it.
“I’ll have to ask you to please leave.” The secretary put a haughty hand on her hip. “I know that none of our scientists have actually taken a good look at the company rules, but at the very least, you should know you can’t go any further than this without permission. You have to follow proper procedures and come again.”
This wasn’t going to end peacefully. In which case it seemed that she had no choice but to use Mind Transmission, although she was still uneasy about trusting Orochimaru.
“All right, we’ll come again.” Ino acted like they would obediently withdraw and turned her back to the secretary to whisper to Orochimaru. “Distract the secretary? I’ll take over her body with Mind Transmission.”
“Hm? Oh, that’s far too much of a hassle,” Orochimaru said and lifted the sleeve of his kimono.
Multiple Striking Shadow Snakes Technique!
A massive albino rat snake flew out from the kimono and wrapped itself around the secretary’s body. The armful of torso was hoisted up, and the secretary passed out without the first clue that something was afoot.
It was over in an instant. Ino hadn’t even had time to stop him.
“You didn’t kill her, right?!” She grabbed Orochimaru by the collar and snapped at him so forcefully she was practically biting him.
“Who can say?” He cocked his head curiously to one side. “Why don’t you check yourself?”
Nine thirty-five p.m.
After arriving at the small settlement in the mountains, Sai used the Art of Transformation to match his clothing to the local style and casually strolled around the town.
In front of a longhouse made of sun-dried brick, children were splashing each other over a barrel of water. Skinned wild birds were boiling in full pots in the communal cooking area. And in the center of the slightly elevated rocky mountain, a palace of stone had been built looking out over the town.
The look of the place matched up with what Shikamaru had told him before he came. This was almost certainly the Land of Redaku. Now that he was in the country, all he had to do was wait for the message from Ino and weave the signs.
Redaku’s culture seemed fairly different from that of the Five Great Nations, in the style of buildings and the style of clothing, but unfortunately, Sai couldn’t enjoy the local color, suffering from altitude sickness as he was.
“Haah … Haah …” When his limbs went numb, he got the feeling he was in serious trouble.
This is bad.
Blearily, Sai stopped himself from clicking his tongue. Would he even be able to weave the signs in this state?
The rain falling on the village of Konohagakure grew stronger with each passing second. Kakashi and Yamato were thoroughly soaked as they poured all of their chakra into the Rasenro.
“Ngh … Haah, this is rough …”
“Hah … Haah!”
They had no sooner reinforced their respective pillars with chakra when the rain sweeping in from the side beat against the Rasenro, soaking it from the inside. There was no end to their struggle. They had to keep it strong enough to hold up against the rain, and the speed at which it grew had dropped significantly.
“Hah! We’re in trouble here,” Kakashi muttered, looking up. The clouds hung thick in the night sky, and it didn’t look like the downpour would be stopping anytime soon. “Our speed is … Hah! Dropping … Like this …”
They wouldn’t make it. Not only that, he was starting to doubt how long they could even keep it from falling over.
Kakashi and Yamato had both long since passed their limits. Veins twitched up to the surface of their hands pressed against the ground, their shoulders, temples, and necks, and steam rose up from their overheated bodies. Their gloves had long ago blown off from the pressure of the chakra.
“Ngh!”
“No!”
The earth part of the pillar snapped.
“No … Already?!” Kakashi gave up on extending the pillar and desperately poured his chakra into repairing the rift, but there were limits to the amount of chakra he could release at one time. Soaked to its core, the earthen pillar was crumbling from the inside. On top of that, now that the wooden pillar had lost its partner and support, the extra burden caused cracks in the wood.
No, no, no. It’s going to break!
Crack!
Bark tore off of the tree, the trunk split, and the entire structure listed heavily to one side. To prevent its collapse, the two shinobi pushed their chakra into the structure, and the blood vessels popping up on the muscles in their arms jumped about. As if taunting them, the rain grew even stronger, and a violent wind swept toward the pillar.
The creaking, listing Rasenro was going to tumble over.
And then two pairs of arms wedged their way in between Kakashi and Yamato. And then there were four hands slapped against the ground.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura in the sky above noticed a change in the Rasenro.
“The pillar’s gradually slowing down, isn’t it?” Sakura said, frowning.
“Maybe something happened below?” Sasuke replied.