Chapter 38
Title: Irritation
AN/ half of this chapter is all scientific stuff and me explaining about Retsu's latest experiment regarding her improving other people and herself in physical attributes.
This was purely for testing and to see if I had what it took to be all nerdy and explain stuff in more vivid details, so I went through the extra mile of explaining things more Indeptly during the chapter.
It seems I have what it took, but it also took a lot of my time and effort in order to do it, so from now on I won't be going into as much of a detail as I did in this chapter.
Anyways, enjoy the story.
You guys can support me by donating powerstones on this book
Let's begin!
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Third Person POV. -- 28th of December -- 2415
[ Fujikawaguchiko Town ]
Progressive Adaptive Physiological Recalibration, or just PAPR for short.
It's the term Retsu has come up with to describe her latest masterpiece plan regarding the human biology and anatomy.
It is essentially her plan for overcoming the human biology's perceived limit, and elevate an individual safely and passed their fleshy constraints.
The term, human limit, refers to the anatomical limitations placed on the human body. For example and in a very short express of explanation; the human biology has a set limiter, and a built-in system that prevents us from exerting 100% of our muscle's strength, for doing so would result in the said muscle tearing apart and destroying our body.
Now here comes the kicker part, the part where Retsu comes in, and spits right in the face of this set limiter.
With her quirk Sanguimancy, which essentially dictates it's users biology itself, and is like a third party with the power to control and shape that set human biology into any shape and form it wants, and even able to influence foreign biologies after a few set of rules and mediums has been met.
With her power, Retsu can essentially and methodically tear apart the human body's perceived limit, and elevate it's flesh to much newer and never before seen heights.
When her work in done, the concept of a strength type quirk being something 'superior' to a normal human strength will be flipped the other way around.
Progressive Adaptive Physiological Recalibration, or just PAPR for short, is the name of the 5 different staged surgical process, which she will use in order to further her agenda and build her strength through biology.
The process will be done in 5 different stages, with the first stage being the structural integrity phase.
The goal of this phase will be to upgrade the body's base durability before increasing output. The process will start with modifying Bone Latice Density with no excessive mass, then strengthen the Tendons and Ligaments via Collagen restructuring.
Then improve joint capsule stability to prevent torque injury, and lastly enhance fascia tensile strength.
The purpose of these modifications and why they should come first, comes from the fact that normal humans will tear apart before they overpower themselves. You can't raise strength safely without upgrading the frame first, after all.
A glass of water, without it being upgraded to a bigger one, cannot contain the liquid past it's perceived height.
After the first stage, the second stage is Energy Infrastructure Phase.
The goal of this stage is the increased capability of stamina and oxygen delivery.
Oxygen, unlike what most people may think, isn't just a substance that let us breathe within the atmosphere. It has many other uses and effects on the human body. When one inhales oxygen, they also breathe in O₂, which then travels via our red blood cells to our Mitochondria, which then converts it into energy. Essentially oxygen can be a source of energy for the human body, on top of it being the substance that let us breathe in the earth's atmosphere.
By modifying the human body's oxygen intake, Retsu essentially makes a bridge between phase one and two, with phase one being the new engine of the car, and phase two its new and improved fuel line.
If for example not upgraded, it would essentially be like installing a super engine in a car but keeping the same tiny fuel line. It would be ineficient and make the body's energy delivery fall behind.
The third stage of the process is Cognitive & Motor Enhancement Phase. Its goal being to raise reaction speed and mental processing without frying the brain.
For this one, Retsu already has a higher computational capacity, so for her this stage isn't needed, but she did enhance Himiko's mental capacity through the process, but of course doing so after testing the ins and outs of the surgery and making sure it's 100% safe.
The process of this stage would begin with an increase of myelination of major neural pathways, enhancement of neurotransmitter recycling efficiency, Improvement on synaptic pruning precision, and strengthen pain-signal modulation, –not remove pain but regulate it.
Think of myelin as an inlusating sheat that wraps around nerve fibers, and help in their increased activity, allowing for faster neural transmissions between two points of the body.
Increasing its capacity results in overall faster neural signal transmissions, which results in many bodily improvements, some of which include faster reaction speed, stronger signal precision, increased learning efficiency, higher processing capabilities, and many more.
Enhancement of neurotransmitter recycling efficiency, think of this as basically improvement on the ability to recycle and reuse bodily stamina and energy to a much more efficient capacity.
Improvement on synaptic pruning precision. First of all, what even is Synaptic Pruning?
Think of it like this, during development, and even in adulthood, the brain constantly trims weak or unnecessary neural connections. This process is called Synaptic Pruning.
Think of the brain like a huge network of roads. Early on, it builds too many roads, then later removes the ones that aren't useful so traffic moves more efficiently.
If pruning is more precise, the brain removes only the truly useless connections, while preserving all important ones.
Recalibrating this process would result in many mental improvements, including some of which being: higher intellectual capacity, faster learning, better retention of distant events, higher cognitive efficiency, stronger pattern recognition, and many other mental benefits.
Lastly, pain signal modulation is pretty much self explanatory. It simply improves upon the body's pain signal receivers, and supporting the body in managing it better. By management, it doesn't imply that it will be negated, just that pain signals will better be received by the body, and the possible strain or paralyzation will be better managed by the body and mind.
At stage 4, the process will involve one of the main points of this whole procedure. At stage 4 will come the Muscular Output Amplification.
Up until stage 3, we've built the improved base itself, now it is time to arm that base with better and stronger equipment and ammunition.
The goal of this stage will be to increase fast-twitch fiber ratio, improve motor unit recruitment efficiency, slightly reduce neural output inhibitors, but careful in not out performing the brain's safety limiters. And lastly improve ATP synthesis speed.
ATP is basically the source of energy for use and storage at the cellular level.
Once done, this stage will grant the body an explosive strength, extreme burst capability, and high-speed combat capabilities, making one a true monster in close quarter combat.
There are some risks to these improvements as well, like a risk of muscles overheating and or higher caloric demands. But these risks will be the new norm for the human body, and can be negated just like a normal human negates muscles heating by taking a breather, or avoid caloric fall back by eating food. It will all be the same, just on a much higher scale to compensate for the improved bodily capabilities.
Lastly and the final stage, is the stage that will set all of this into motion. The stage that will be all about incoding everything and making it so all of these optimizations will be done correctly and overtime.
By the time everything is done, Retsu and her perfected experiment which will be Himiko, the two of them will become unstoppable human machines, capable of outperforming any average atlete by at least 7 to 8 times, and this is without including Retsu's personal body augmentation capability, just her base stats.
In the future she plans on further improving this experiment, and tap into higher powers for herself and those she cares for, but for now it seems her quirk's limit is this.
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...
At 9 am in the morning, where the sun has already arisen and human activity can be slightly heard throughout the ryokan's compound, two individuals has just awakened from their slumber.
It is Himiko and Mina, with the former one rubbing her eyes and still inside her futon, and the latter girl slowly sitting up.
"Hmmm~ where is Retsu-chan? " Mina sleepily utters, her eyes still closed and her posture hunched.
Stretching her hands over her head, and hearing some pleasant pops to her now enhanced physiology, Himiko answers her friend's question, "she went out early morning, I saw her when she woke up and exited the room. "
"Eh? Where would she go? " The now awakened pink girl asks, her eyes having opened up for her unique irises to gaze around, as if looking for her tall friend.
"Dunno, but we should be getting up by now. It's already 9 in the morning and you know how she is~" Himiko smirks before slowly getting up, "waking up early is the sign of a healthy body, or whatever else she always says. "
After smoothing out their futon sheets, the duo go on and exit the bed room, before coming face to face with the friend they were just talking about.
"Good morning, " Retsu quietly achnowledges, a cup of steaming green tea around her hand as she turns her gaze to them, and smiles a pleasant smile in their direction.
"G'morning! I see you're in a good mood today~" Himiko cheerfully says, before dramatically leaping forward and giving the sitting Retsu an affectionate hug.
"Good morning, that kimono looks very nice on you. " Mina replies, while also complimenting Retsu's current wear.
[Image Here]
"Thank you, it's something that mother got me last time we were out.
Anyways, you two should go and freshen up, breakfast will come any moment now. Also, mother texted me and said she and father are waking up a little late today, so we shouldn't disturb them. " Retsu informs,
"Oh~ I see I see~" Himiko playfully says, hoping to get a reaction from her best friend, but is let down unfortunately since the pleasant smile on Retsu's face doesn't so much as twitches, her eyes being in a perfect U shape as she takes another sip of her tea.
"Sigh, let's go Himiko-chan. " Mina exasperatedly says before taking hold of her blood loving friend, and drag her away towards the sink behind the adjacent door.
"... "
Left alone for now, Retsu loses her smile and her face falls on a neutral expression, her eyes looking ahead and towards outside of the balcony doors.
'This is getting irritating. I didn't expect for it to make me feel like this already and right off the bet. ' Retsu thinks.
Of course her thoughts are in regards to her problem of being possessed, not something else.
Retsu's mood has been souring the more she thinks of that problem, and can't find any solution for it since her awakening in the hospital.
Being a soul who always finds solutions to her problems and discomfort right the moment she encounters them, the prospect of having to wait before she has any chance of doing anything is making her slowly restless.
Even in her first life, the moment she was even slightly off put about the fake death of Sosuke Aizen, she immediately went on to investigate and solve it by herself. Now that she has to wait, even if until the new year before she can begin on her search of finding a solution, she's become irritated.
'I don't think I'm going to enjoy the rest of my stay on this vacation, but I'm going to have to do it for the sake of Himi-chan, Mina-san, and father and mother. I don't want to be the reason why they wouldn't enjoy themselves.' As Retsu finishes with her thoughts, she hears a knock on their room's door.
"Room service, breakfast is here. " She hears before standing up and opening the door.
A woman in a plain brown yukata is seen with a wooden trolley of breakfast before her, to which Retsu stands aside and let's her in.
"Excuse the intrusion. " She briefly says before moving in and putting the different trays of breakfast on the low table. After she puts all of it down, she turns and exits the room, taking the wooden trolley with her.
Moments after she is out, Himiko and Mina exit the bathroom to see the readied out breakfast, and they quickly clean up their face and hands before moving to sit around the low table.
"Itadakimasu! " Mina and Himiko yell out, before they start digging in.
As they are eating breakfast, conversations start between them as if the norm, which it is since they've known each other since they were kids. And like clockwork itself, their topic of discussion eventually circles them back to the incident from two days ago.
"Ne ne! What happened back there? Was it one of those guys we were fighting? But how did they even injure you to begin with Re-re?" The always enthusiastic blood sucker of the group asks, her cat slithed eyes wide in curiosity and wonder, while Mina too is looking to Retsu, waiting for her tall friend's reply regarding the incident.
Himiko knew back then that something had gone awry along the way, and she knows there is no way Retsu could have been caught off guard by those people, after all it was Himiko herself who took almost half of their members all by herself, and managed to beat them to a pulp under just a few minutes with no injury to show for it.
So she was quite shocked that her best friend could have been caught off guard by those same incompetent people.
Mina is having a similar mindset. In her eyes, there is just no way her beacon of hope could have lost, and so unexpectedly and out of nowhere like what happened too. She knows Retsu, –maybe not as much as Himiko but still, she does. And she knows that her friend is a strong being, maybe the strongest in their whole school even including the upperclassmen.
Hearing their plea for an answer, Retsu just quietly closes her sky blue irises, and takes a calm sip from her cup of tea.
Putting the cup down, she fixes her best friends with her usual stare, and gives them a little smile of reassurance while tilting her head, "I'm fine you two, it really was nothing. I was just caught off guard. And the reason I started acting so unusually was because of a possession type ability. " Retsu explains,
Her explanation isn't technically that much apart from the truth, she did truly get posessed. And yes, it was some sort of ability that was derived from a quirk, just that she didn't say anything about anyone specific who had taken possession of her body.
'There is no need to get them involved in this. I'll fix it by myself, and then we can have our normal lives back. ' this is Retsu's thought process regarding the incident.
Once again, she shows that she is not someone who burdens others with her problems, being a soul who dines to get rid of her problems on her own. And the quicker she is able to, the better it will be for her mindset.
' Just a few more days, and then I'll be able to start on finding a solution for this problem. '
"Well, If you say so... " Himiko says, though her eyes don't lose their sharp edge, still suspicious of her best friend's unusual behavior.
Mina, on the other hand, just heaves a sigh of relief. She is an eleven years old girl who doesn't know any better. And the minor trauma she got because of that incident will demand her mind be more accepting of Retsu's words, choosing to accept her tall friend's words over the scary idea that her hero had actually been in trouble back then.
A seed of devotion, truly a two edged sword that could either strenghten her mindset and belief, or destroy it depending on who Ashido Mina puts her faith on.
But maybe it is a good thing. After all, Benihana Retsu is still a force of nature.
Unless something truly schemy and irreversible crosses her path, or unless this world's truly strongest become her opponent, Benihana Retsu can never truly be defeated.
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..
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A Future POV.
[ Descember 30th -- on the foot of Mt. Fuji, and where tourists usually visit in order to enjoy a day of snow surfing ]
"Benihana Retsu, the one our father is after,
Either surrender and come with us peacefully, or bear the consequences of holding the lives of all these people present on your shoulders!"
Turning her gaze behind her, having just finished putting her set of snowboarding equipment on her body, with the white snow goggles over her eyes, and a tightly tied scarf around her neck with the puffy white snow jacket that hides even her hair.
Benihana Retsu turns around, and her already soured mood takes another nosedive.
In that moment, all her irritated mindset can think of is one sentence, and one sentence only,
"... Oh great, another nuisance. "
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..
...
Author's Note/ we're slowly getting to the last few moments of this tiny arc, and after the last anticipated confrontation, it will be the end of the first volume of this book.
Woooh! Feels like a marathon at this point, which is not something I don't like doing. In fact, I love writing marathons in this book.
Anyways! Hope you guys are enjoying this story, have a great day/night, and I'll see ya guys in the next one, peace!