Brie, regaining her composure, grabbed Koko by the waist and lifted her to eye level, adjusting her spectacles with serious intent.
"What a specimen!" she remarked, with a scientific curiosity illuminating her eyes. "So nimble and feisty! I bet you'd be a fascinating subject to dissect."
After a brief second, Koko's expression changed.
"Dissect?" she repeated, tilting her head. "What's that mean?"
Brie grinned mischievously as she answered, "It means to take things apart and see how they work."
This caused Koko's fluffy ears to slightly drop upon understanding what Brie meant. She recoiled slightly as her head darted toward Arthur.
"Save me, daddy!" she squeaked, but Arthur feigned ignorance, already walking inside.
After a moment, the group reached a secluded section. Arthur dropped to the ground, placing both palms against the earth.
'Forbidden jutsu: reanimation…'
A coffin then erupted to the surface. Its lid slowly creaked open. Brie gasped, eyes wide as she beheld the sight before her—a body lay within, the features ghostly and pale.
It was the corpse of a young girl, her skin marred with purple markings on either side of her face.
"Who's that, daddy?" Koko piped up. "You're not trying to play favorites again, are ya?!"
It was no surprise that neither Koko nor Brie knew who Rin Nohara was. Rin, after all, had been dead for over ten years without leaving anything substantial behind.
The morbid spectacle captivated Brie. She stepped closer as her heart beat with excitement.
"My goodness," she murmured, already analyzing the corpse's state. "How is this even possible? This body… It appears to be incredibly well-preserved despite its age."
Arthur, calm as always, coolly replied, "It's not an illusion. This is a dead girl I brought from her grave."
The ritual was performed before he arrived at the collection office. Brie, however, didn't care to know those details; her curiosity turned into unrestrained enthusiasm.
"You're telling me you've managed to—" she paused, frantically adjusting her glasses. "You've raised the dead?"
Koko clung to Arthur, oblivious to what the two were discussing.
"Not raised," he clarified. "This is just a regenerative corpse made of dust I've brought for modifications."
"Modifications?!" she repeated. "To what end?"
Arthur regarded her carefully before answering, "I need her to appear a decade older than she currently looks."
"That… could be incredibly complex. The cellular makeup is different, and—"
"Is it doable for you or not?" Arthur asked with a steady voice.
She hesitated, finally understanding the magnitude of the challenge before her.
She looked at him, her eyes filled with moral ambiguity as she said, "It would take a giant lab, lots of equipment, and months to process things…"
Just then, Arthur began walking away.
"Where are you going?" she called after him, panicking. "I was just kidding! I can do it in a couple of weeks!"
But he didn't even bother glancing back. His confidence irked her, but it also fueled her determination.
"No, really! I've just got to—" she began, scampering to catch up with him.
Koko, watching the exchange, gestured playfully for Brie to stay away, convinced that the scientist had some ulterior motives.
"We don't need creepy women here!" she said, sticking out her tongue.
"Creepy?" Brie repeated with a bemused smile. "I prefer to think of myself as a pioneer of the macabre!"
"I dunno what that means," Koko shouted back, "but you're still creepy!"
Finally reaching Arthur, Brie pivoted and said, "Okay! Okay! I'll do the modifications, but we need to discuss terms—and equipment! A lab is crucial, after all!"
Arthur, still ignoring her, walked toward an empty wall. With one push of a button, the wallpaper lifted, revealing a steel door. Then it quickly rose to reveal an amazing room inside—the laboratory that took her breath away.
She stepped over the threshold, the sight before her overwhelming. The laboratory was a marvel—steel surfaces, organized shelves of apparatuses, and machines that would cause Isaac Newton to salivate.
Every conceivable tool a scientist, an evil genius, and a researcher could dream of was at their fingertips. It was like innovation and madness intertwined in one room.
"No… way," Brie stammered, clapping her hands together in disbelief. "Th… This! I've never seen anything like this before!"
Arthur stepped aside to let her explore, reiterating, "How long did you say it would take you again?"
She blinked before understanding how truly serious he was about hiring her. Her heart then pounded against her chest. Since inside, she knew that with all these materials, she could accomplish her task in days.
Because he allowed her, she wandered deeper into the lab to further examine things.
Each piece of equipment was a new marvel. A cutting-edge dissection table, centrifuges, and racks of preservation vials lined the walls.
This was the kingdom of a true scientist, and she felt as if she had just stumbled upon the secrets of the universe. She couldn't help but touch certain things.
"If we're to modify that girl's body…" she said, trying to contain her excitement while using a magnifying glass. "I mean, the sheer implications of this research… You've unlocked new levels of science here! This could put us in the history books—you could become more than a bounty hunter! You could be a legend!"
"Calm yourself," Arthur warned. His focus clearly wasn't on fame. "For now, I'm only interested in the corpse."
Brie snapped her attention back to him. She was quite confused. How could someone not want to change the world through this expansive laboratory?
Then something registered in her head: did she even know who Arthur truly was?
"Mind telling me your name?" she finally asked.
"That's not important for you to know," Koko answered, suddenly appearing over his shoulder. "And if ya call him daddy, I'll bite you!"
Brie let out a content sigh.
"Fine," she conceded, "have it your way. But I'd like to start immediately, if possible."
"Agreed," Arthur replied.
Not a moment too soon, and Rin's body was now on the dissection table. It became quite evident that Arthur was also going to participate in this experiment.
The first thing he planned was to assess the corpse, something he had yet to do.
The way that a reanimation's body worked was that they retained their figure from the moment they died. It was a tad bit strange to comprehend since characters like Deidara completely blew themselves up. Then there were characters who more or less died of old age yet were summoned in their youth.
Brie was spotted examining the tissue integrity and the cellular condition that made the body tick, as well as the regenerative factors Arthur had mentioned.
Not to his surprise, the hole in which Kakashi Hatake struck Rin with the Chidori was not present.
As they began their work, setting the stage for the impossible project ahead of them, Koko perched herself on a nearby shelf. She watched the two with amusement.
"Is she really going to help you, daddy?" she skeptically asked. "She's so weird!"
Brie turned at the quip and said, "I'm not weird! I'm just… differently intrigued."
"She is," he answered, spinning a vial that contained stem cells.
Arthur dimmed the lights, creating an environment both clinical and a tad haunting.
In the center of the room lay Rin's corpse draped in white sheets. The task ahead was going to be a profound challenge and ethical quandary, one that demanded extreme precision and upkeep.
Brie stood over the table, her brow furrowed in concentration. She adjusted her glasses for the umpteenth time, peering down at the body spread before her.
Despite the macabre nature of her work, she felt an odd sense of reverence—the honor of taking on such a high-level task. But if Kabuto Yakushi could do it, so could she and Arthur.
"Are you ready?" Arthur asked.
He was standing next to her, preparing his latex gloves.
"Yes, I am!" she replied, a bit too enthusiastically, as she grabbed a scalpel. "It's just... a little unbelievable that we're doing this."
Arthur merely nodded, his gaze focused on Rin.
Brie swallowed hard, squeezing the scalpel in her hand, as they began the work of transforming Rin's features.
As they were operating, Brie couldn't help but ask, "So... how exactly do you know so much about, uh, medical ninjutsu and... biology?"
His attention gleamed toward the monitors, measuring the corpse. He clearly wasn't interested in answering questions that didn't pertain to Rin.
"Here," he ordered, "stretch the temporal bone. It will give her more of an adult face structure."
She gave a dismissive sigh, truly wondering just what sort of man Arthur was.
As they enhanced Rin's dimensions, he drew upon his chakra and channeled it through a scalpel to gently manipulate the cells.
Brie followed his commands, all the while marveling at his extensive knowledge.
"How do you know all this?" she pressed again. "There aren't many who know the anatomy of the body, just so you're aware."
"Practice," he replied while maintaining focus.
"Practice?" she muttered. "You make it sound so simple."
It was then that she took her own scalpel and began drawing it delicately over Rin's skin. Even while Brie probed him, she was fully capable of sculpting the girl's appearance.
Somewhere behind them, a childlike giggle disrupted the tense atmosphere—Koko. She was playfully bouncing in and out of their peripheral vision, fascinated by the bizarre operation.
Arthur had only let her be because she would have otherwise forced herself to secretly watch.
"Whaaaaatcha doing now, daddy?" she chirped, peering over the edge of the table. "Is she awake yet?"
"Not so loud, Koko!" Brie demanded. "We're working very hard here!"
The sound of Koko's voice grated on her nerves, but deep down, she appreciated her curiosity, especially in such an odd setting.
"But I wanna know about this, too!" Koko protested, bouncing on her feet.
Arthur simply ignored her, unbothered by Koko's antics.
"Not like I'm the one distracting her," Koko teased.
"Go play somewhere else, Koko," Brie finally said while working on Rin.
Koko stubbornly retorted before sticking her tongue out. The little chimp's voice then faded into the background.
They spent hours carefully reshaping Rin's features.
With each passing moment, Brie marveled at Arthur's expertise. She followed his instructions flawlessly, watching as he manipulated the chakra flow around her tools like an artist shaping clay.
Arthur's scalpel cut through the underlying bone. He then made a precise incision along the biceps brachii, peeling back the fascia so cleanly it would leave real surgeons impressed. Brie leaned in closer, absorbing the excess dust.
As he excised portions of the deltoid muscle, he set aside the layers. Next, he retrieved a vial of synthetic collagen, dabbing it sparingly across the exposed fascia. He then accurately layered in strands of synthetic dermis to create the appearance of tightness in the upper arm, mimicking the pull of age.
The reconstructed muscle was then secured in place with tiny sutures, threading around the humerus and ensuring that every fiber aligned perfectly.
Brie adjusted the position of the corpse, exposing the lower face. With a scalpel that Arthur chakra-enhanced for her, she began dissecting the zygomatic arch, making calculations in her head about age-related bone density loss.
As she created a small flap, she examined the subcutaneous tissue. She injected a mix of hyaluronic acid and aged adipose cells into the cheeks, giving the corpse a better look to allow her to sculpt the contours of the face.
That would give more emphasis to Rin's youthful appearance.
With a steady hand, Arthur shifted his focus to the thoracic cavity. After removing the lower ribs, he applied an artificial construct that mimicked the incline of muscle mass and strength over at least a decade.
He placed strands of biodegradable material along the intercostal muscles, allowing them to droop slightly as he tied them off, creating the illusion of an older, more built body.