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-Rei-
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Haki wasn't the only notes she'd been perusing avidly.
If Judge discovered what she was really using his Lineage Factor notes and her requisitioned clones for—not that she wasn't actually also testing the poison hypothesis she'd originally posited to him—he'd understand the potential of her work immediately. And seize on it.
Like with Haki, she was loathe to improve Judge's private army with her own quasi-medical scientific advancements. Knowing what they'd be used to do…
Judge had already given her advance warning about a mercenary contract Germa 66 had accepted on Cozia. Cozia was a peaceful little resort island in East Blue that had done nothing wrong… except commit the crime of unknowingly harboring a splinter faction of anti-World Government extremists. They were hired to raze the place to the ground, as an example to sympathizers. The Vinsmoke patriarch had extolled what a wonderful opportunity this was to prepare for her debut as Poison Pink.
.
.
(With the brothers' Devil Fruit-esque alterations coming up soon, and because she was sensing the beginning of a pattern, she asked after his other name ideas.
Keeping the dryness out of her tone was simple enough—she'd had plenty of practice, dealing with him—but keeping a straight face as Judge elaborated was far more difficult.
Sparking Red for explosions, Electric Blue for electricity, Blazing Yellow for flames, and Winch Green for self-mechanization?
Really?
…They weren't the most ridiculous names she'd ever heard, sadly. In Haruno Sakura's time, there were horror stories passed around the Konoha administration about the sort of things inventors tried to register their new techniques as, with the Yondaime being rumored to be the worst offender of convoluted titles until his wife wrestled him under control. It was what passed for casual office gossip.
Reiju decided to be optimistic about her relatively straightforward moniker. Epithets, she'd learned, were culturally even more important in this world than in the Elemental Nations, where they'd already outranked clan names half the time. Admittedly, she wasn't sure if she should be more or less disgruntled by the alliteration.
But, well, it didn't matter that much. A name was a name was a knife in the dark. You made them mean what you represented. And besides; when she left the Vinsmoke name behind, she was going to shed 'Poison Pink' as well.
She had to keep thinking that.)
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Unlike Haki, however, a certain degree of scientific progress was actually supervised from her. She couldn't keep all of her discoveries and speculation stifled there, not when she was obviously observed performing 'precociously' poking around the labs. Not if she wanted to keep and expand her lab access. Now was still a golden age for conducting research—young enough to set a precedent, young enough to not really have expectations, young enough to have the specific 'messing around' overlooked.
When Judge had interrogated what she had to show for her trial period of allowed access—one she'd patiently campaigned for over the course of years of watching her brothers' routine check-ups—Reiju settled for suggesting only what Judge was already on his way to thinking of himself. Extrapolations of his existing research—her compromise between her continued facade of 'perfect child' and associated freedoms and privileges, and her abstinent apprehension about having a hand in adding more force multipliers to the completely loyal Germa clone army.
Which meant cheaper versions of their raid suits in development, with the most twisted poisons and bombs and diseases that Judge could tinker up buried dormant within them, to maximize results from a single clone. They were sufficiently inhuman enough in mentality and production process for Reiju to really process them as expendable cannon fodder and suicide bombers/biological weapons, through the lens of Haruno Sakura's experiences with chakra clones. And the more abhorrent an idea, the greater the odds of Judge practically bursting with happiness at his daughter's genius suggestions.
(Vinsmoke Judge was not somebody who wore happiness well. She found it utterly disgusting, really. Just like she found him to be!)
It also meant mass-produced and far-inferior versions of their own Lineage Factor modifications, contained within pill form for an instant boost in strength, agility, regeneration, etc. Essentially, a knock-off from Haruno Sakura's memories of soldier pills, and an improvement on Reiju's world's currently existing 'Energy Steroids'. They could even go commercial with the 'soldier pills' and make money off selling an exclusive contract to the World Government. However, the more lucrative option would be producing an artificially limited supply to circulate within the Underworld as black market goods. There'd be plenty who'd pay for it, just like any other drugs or ability-enhancement items. Or maybe a gaseous form that was pumped into the soldiers' helmets, or all throughout their suits, to be absorbed over time through skin for longer-lasting effects.
Judge's control complex was easily impressed by the further suggestions, slowly fed over time, of trackers implanted from birth in every clone; of biological sensors and transmitters literally built into them; of kill switches and immediate-recognition abilities granted to the royal family; of an attempt at diversifying their appearances to better broaden their skillset to cover covert espionage as well…
Just little things like that.
Judge was so pleased by her performance that he opened up even his personal stores of notes to her. The contradiction of her 'performance' producing mostly theoretical results despite her frequent usage of the labs to fiddle with materials on her own time didn't faze him; the most obvious and thus assumed answer was that she was a little girl with an ingeniously innovative mind, and there was no need to waste resources specifically monitoring her playing around in a laboratory filled with dozens of scientists, when such allowances was mere indulgence at worst and purely for inspiration at best. She was already exceeding any expectations of a 10-year-old by 'innocently' providing ruthless ideas for Judge and the royal scientists to make into reality.
This left her free to wander and subtly sabotage the worst—or 'best', if looking at things from Judge's motivations—developments to lessen how devastating they could be. Or to curl over a workspace in the corner and make microbatches of secretly improved pills and poisons for personal stockpiled use, under the guise of childishly, thoughtlessly, harmlessly mimicking the actions of the adult scientists.
Hopefully, Judge had also fully gotten over his (not incorrect) suspicions about her being the one who'd continuously 'infected' his sons with Sola's 'worthless' values—built on the (again, not incorrect) basis that out of everyone else, she spent the most time and held the most influence with them.
With the notes to go off of, she'd immediately zoned in on the prize: the stabilization meds and drug regime keeping the quadruplets healthy. In other words, the most immediately practical barrier to her plan to get them all out of Judge's reach.
The recipes and underlying regime principles, she hand-copied several times, with additional translations for the more esoteric terms and instructions that even the average person could follow. The paper copies were meticulously hidden throughout her brothers' rooms. Reiju had the entire compilation memorized herself—no harder, really, then memorizing bland Academy textbooks and dense chakra control theory and dry medical texts had been.
Some of the ingredients were quite hard to find out of North Blue, however. With Germa making frequent trips back and forth between the North Blue and the Grand Line, it would be too dangerous to return to the North for a while after they left, although the Grand Line was enormous and bizarre enough to make lying low easy.
Reiju began secretly building up a stockpile of them, swiped in small bits from the laboratory supplies and stored in specialized preservation suitcases… also hidden in her brothers' bedrooms, where Judge never had any interest in inspecting. (Right next to the suitcases of hoarded medical supplies, disguise items, and money.) Manufacturing a stockpile wouldn't do for now, as the stabilization drugs had a short window of effectiveness between make and use. Stockpiling expired drugs would do nothing but cause a more noticeable discrepancy in the supplies that should be there and the ones that weren't.
With such preparations being made for escape, Reiju didn't think it'd be long until there was an opportunity to do so. She was sure that everybody except perhaps Yonji would be willing to leave with her. Even he could be persuaded if she explained that he'd be easily accepted back to Germa in the future... and decided not to mention how she hoped, after a few years completely out of Judge's influence, the youngest would realize that it would hurt him to do so.
This was a little sooner than she'd expected, but the sooner the better. The brothers were old enough to make a decision like this, they'd have to be. They should all leave and assume different identities before Judge got it into his head to implant trackers of his own, or spontaneously developed Observation Haki, or something else as random but not impossible. Hope for the best, expect the worst.
Ideally, Cozia would serve as a jumping-off point. During the attack, Judge would likely want to keep her close, but she was trusted enough right now that she was confident she'd be able to slip away at some point. Then she'd meet up with her brothers, who were left in the unguarded castle and privately told of the plan beforehand. They'd take the suitcases, change into disguises, board the ship one of the quadruplets would've found and paid passage for earlier, and sail off into a new life… before changing ships and disguises a couple more times, for good measures.
Some 'wing it' room in her vague plan wasn't necessarily a bad thing. If they didn't know what they were going to do next, it would be difficult for Judge to.
With luck, even if she couldn't get away from battle and they had to leave first without her, then her town visits would've succeeded in their intention to educate the four on how to blend in with regular people. Some attitude of nobility still clung to them from their surroundings, despite her upbringing. And the Vivre Cards she'd anticipated being useful would come in handy, beyond being a cute sixth birthday present to them all, when she had to catch up.
A look at the clock spurred her out of her daydreams. Reiju packed away her lab work for the day. She nodded respectfully to the scientist she'd been sharing a table with - the princess was only allowed to bow to the king - and left the room at a fast clip.
It was almost storytime.
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Sakura!Reiju Part 8:
Development
A/N: A bulky character (dynamics) development chapter next, then I'm at the end of my 'written up months ago, mostly finished but still needs finishing' stock of S!Reiju chapters and it's over to S!Bonney for a bit.