The next few days for the end of the week passed quickly.
During these few days Haruto worked in a strict routine, moving through the motions throughout the day as he woke up and went to the Interrogation and Torture Department before training under Daichi and surprising him with his progress.
After which he went to Kakashi and Naruto and practiced his new jutsu for a while along with water walking. Then Haruto would go to the Research and Development Department to check on the computers before he returned home and sparred with Unohana for a while before settling down under the tree in the Template Inventory Space to merge Unohana's memories with himself.
Haruto hadn't slept for about a week straight now, surviving purely using Occlumency to keep his mind refreshed and had been rewarded with thick eye bags under his eyes as a result.
"I won't be coming tomorrow Daichi-san…" Haruto said softly, trying his best to suppress a yawn that was threatening to break through.
Daichi looked at Haruto with a frown and spoke boldly, "Why? Is it because you haven't slept well recently?"
Haruto shook his head, "No. I'm going to be meeting Hokage-sama tomorrow because my research project will finish today."
Daichi's frown eased slightly as if he'd been preparing a speech for Haruto to take care of his health and he said nothing for a few seconds before nodding, "Alright… I'll take a note of it for tomorrow's class."
Haruto nodded similarly and thanked Daichi for today's lesson before leaving the Interrogation and Torture department to go back to Kakashi and Naruto.
Haruto arrived at Training Ground Seven and spoke directly to Kakashi, "I won't be able to come here tomorrow sensei…"
"Oh?" Kakashi looked up from his book and frowned for a second before his eyes crinkled into a smile, "Is your research project completed?"
"Yes sensei…"
"That's alright… I'll make an exception for you." Kakashi said softly, this was truly good news, one of the objectives he'd been tasked with completing from Shikaku was completed.
"Thank you." Haruto said and continued practicing water walking for the next few minutes.
Of course, Haruto was only pretending that he was learning water walking since he'd recently mastered tree walking, otherwise Megumin's chakra control reward was enough for him to perform water walking immediately.
"Oh!!! You did it!!" Naruto shouted in joy as he looked at Haruto who was barely standing straight on the surface of the water that was rippling.
Today was the day Haruto decided that he would release some of his chakra control skills for the world to see but before then Haruto slipped as soon as Naruto shouted, pretending that there was a lapse in his concentration and fell into the pond.
Haruto glared at Naruto, causing him to shrink a little and turtle his neck but when Haruto looked away Naruto immediately flubbed his tongue out and poked fun at Haruto with his spit flying everywhere. 'Hmpf… what do I care if he's mastering water walking or not…'
Haruto looked down at his wet dress and decided to switch to practicing his fire release jutsu which he did by first drying his clothes using fire release chakra and then trying to explode the rubber balloons he'd already prepared using fire release needles.
There was no progress in the jutsu but Haruto didn't give up and trained in it continuously for about twenty minutes as usual before bidding Kakashi and Naruto a quick farewell and going back to the Research and Development Department.
Everyone was still present for him today even after it had gotten slightly late for him to attend to them so Haruto quickly realised what had happened.
'Have they finished cleaning up all the data?'
"We've finished Haruto-sama." The old man said softly.
Haruto nodded and spoke in as gentle a tone as he could pretend to muster through the cursed tongue eradication seal. "Thank you for all your effort. Your work will go towards helping Konoha progress faster and your names will be recorded in history. I will make sure to credit you in the program's about section…"
The old man's eyes widened as did everyone else's and before Haruto could say anymore the old man hurriedly interrupted, "No… it's alright if we stay anonymous for this Haruto-sama… we're afraid the credit might bring us more trouble than we can handle."
Haruto frowned and nodded, he'd only wished to do something decent for the people he'd hired, but if they felt it was a burden he wouldn't impose the responsibility of spearing a new era of the village onto them.
Instead Haruto spoke simpler, more agreeable words, "If there are any jobs in the future that I have, I will make sure to recommend it to you again."
"Thank you Haruto-sama… we look forward to it."
With that everyone left.
Haruto looked at the machines that had been training on the data that he'd already provided and frowned.
'Hmm… not quite what I was expecting but good enough…'
The model accuracy was only ninety four percent, not above the ninety five that Haruto had been expecting but it was still good enough for his first demo.
So Haruto made his way to the receptionist.
"Ahem…"
The receptionist looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, Haruto-sama, what may I do for you?"
"Could you please arrange a meeting with the Hokage-sama for tomorrow for me?"
"Why would you want that!!?" the receptionist asked with clear surprise in her voice but then she recalibrated the fear that showed in her eyes before she spoke calmly, "I'm sorry, I mean what reason should I give to the Hokage office for the meeting?"
Haruto ignored the soft outburst before speaking coldly, "Inform Hokage-sama that I have finished my research and would like to present to him my results."
"So soon?" The receptionist asked with slight surprise since it had only been about three weeks since Haruto had begun his research after bringing the people he'd hired into the R&D department to work.
But Haruto simply nodded, "I'm done, so if you could inform them please?"
The receptionist nodded, "It'll be done, you'll have to come here again tomorrow early to confirm the timings of the meeting with me if possible, or do you want me to leave you a message through some other means?"
"I'll come to confirm the timings."
"Alright then…" The receptionist made a quick note of Haruto's request and stuck it to her desk.
Haruto in the meanwhile went back up to his desk to add the finishing touches to his program for a while before standing up and letting the machines run on the latest data that had been generated by the team of shinobi he'd hired.
'Who knows… by the time it's tomorrow, the model might break through the ninety five percent mark?'
Only after doing all that did Haruto finally reach home.
Haruto sparred with Unohana in the template space after having his dinner, which went just as badly for him as before, before officially sitting under the tree in the template inventory space.
'Phew… finally… time to absorb the last little bit of Unohana's memories…'
'It should only take about an hour or so since there are only a decade or two of memories remaining…'
***
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