Joyce
Hikari diligently listened to Juni's explanation of his strange throwing weapons with an even stranger name — boomerang! That sounded so goofy! Like it was supposed to blow up or somethin'! Hey, that gave her an idea!

"Juni, Juni!" Hikari chirped excitedly, nearly bouncing on her feet. "What if the boomerangs could blow up! 'Cuz, er, they're called boomerangs, so maybe if you put an explosive seal on 'em, and maybe a tie-in trigger that activated the explosion remotely through collision, or somethin'...? 'Cuz that would mean that they'd only blow up when they hit somethin'! Though, er, maybe catchin' em would be a bit scary, since the collision would also be affected by your catch... So maybe hittin' 'em with a specific part of the 'rang? Somethin' to work out later... Uhm! Hi! Sorry! Got distracted again! Seal talk does that to me, eheh... Anyway! Your boomerangs look super fun!"

She nodded happily, before another idea came to her mind. "Oh, hey! D'you need any help carryin' all these? 'Cuz I can totally put 'em all in this seal for you an' take 'em with you wherever you need'a go! How much do they all weigh? 'Cuz this only goes up to like a hundred pounds, an' it's prob'ly not a good idea to fill it to the max in case it's a lil' over — I haven't learned the proper way to make explosive seals yet but I've definitely blown seals up before!"

That Hikari said all of this with a very innocent smile was likely cause for concern — but, then, she was a child murderess, so perhaps it wasn't the worst thing to have said.
Raymond
"Perhaps in the future, it would be fortuitous of me to request lessons in the sealing arts from you, as you seem to have more knowledge in it than I would have. Though... It is, actually somewhat humorous, that you would speak of explosive boomerangs, I haven't the skill yet, but I've been working on some diagrams..."

It was possibly Hikari's turn to be out of the loop, as Junichiro pulled open a wide sketchbook, which was almost mechanically filled with accurate, indepth sketches of tools, weapons, gadgets, taken apart from the smallest level, each facet explained. "See, if I were to make a domestic, mechanical explosive, it would prove beneficial over a tag due to the lack of chakra within to detect. It could be used from stealth without the enemy being none the wiser, interesting, yes? Now, there's other, less lethal methods, such as-"

He would continue this until he'd gone through five design variations, between throwing weapons, shields, and even rough sketches of Trench Knives, like the one's Hikari used, it seemed as though Junichiro definitely had an eye for crafting.

"Ah, but I apologize, I have droned on and on... Do you... Have any questions?"
Joyce
"I could totally teach ya!" Hikari said happily, only to be immediately distracted by the mention of diagrams. "Ooh, show me, show me!"

Hikari was definitely out of her depth at the mention of actual mechanical blueprints — she'd never really done any crafting herself, especially since Mushi-chan was able to make her trench knives! — but it wasn't a total lack of coherence. Blueprints were kinda like seals, after all! Clearly labeled parts and detailed information on what each segment of a mechanism did were no different from the weird squiggle language that made up fūinjutsu in her mind. The amount of characters needed to tell a seal it was supposed to store something, and the exacting nature therein, was kinda like how precise metal parts needed to be to interlock and shift with each other!

Or something. Hikari wasn't an artisan.

Still, all of the designs were super interesting! Even if the redhead didn't completely understand what she was looking at, it all looked super detailed and *Wait, were those trench knives?!*

"Ooh! Trench knives!" Hikari exclaimed, pointing emphatically at the offending diagram. "Juni! You can make these? That's super awesome! I've got trench knives! They're so fun! Oh, uhm, I didn't really understand much of what you said. 'S okay though! Don't need to learn how to build things if my handsome friend Juni can do it for me, and that gives you money!"
Raymond
"I haven't necessarily unwrapped the secrets of forging meteorite... But perhaps, in the future, it would be something that I can do so... It would be, comforting, to know my friends are protected by my creations..." Handsome? What kind of word was that in relation to him? As far as Junichiro was aware, the Jihibiki were... The furthest from attractive by conventional Nora standards, though, the inverse was also true to him looking at them... Even then, looks mattered little as a shinobi, though in his mind, he simply assumed it was, as some would say, an ironic 'friendly ribbing'... Calling him something he obviously wasn't, in their eyes.

"I look forward to our future lessons then, and whenever I unveil these secrets, I shall undoubtedly offer you my services... Of course, it will not be free, but I can at the very least ensure you are charged less." Resources weren't cheap, and while it still vexed him, he understood that the government required some payment, it was... Important, right?... Taxes were eternally confusing...
Joyce
Being promised a set of meteorite trench knives, called a friend with no way for misinterpretation to exist, and offered a discount for the service? Hikari liked to think she was super good at keeping a level head, but this was almost too much! The small gremlin of a girl blushed madly — her first instinct was to hide the blush, but her hands were full! Uhm, uhm, uh... 

Hikari rushed forwards and hugged Juni, hiding her face in his chest — he was a foot taller than she was, after all. Upon realizing what she was doing, the girl's blush intensified, and she jumped back as though bitten. Even to Juni's grayscale vision, there would be a noticeably darker tint to her face, due entirely to her tomato-shade flush. What was she doing?!

"Uhm!" Hikari squeaked eloquently, before shaking her head. "Here, let me, uh, get started on sealin' these up for you to move 'em! Least I could do for, uhm, the discount! Yeah! Ack, where's my ink, paper's so much better for stuff like this 'cuz it's lighter."

A few seconds later, preceded by a series of comical noises emanating from her bag of sealing supplies, the redhead had an innocuous sheet of paper on the table in front of her as well as a well of ink and a calligraphy brush. In short order, she'd have the storage seal made, and all of Juni's boomerangs tucked within for his convenience.

```Uzumaki Clan Compound, Hikari's Parents' House!```

A frustrated groan escaped Uzumaki Hikari's mouth, reaching through a set of jail bars made of gritted teeth in a forlorn attempt at freedom, only for the redhead's mouth to snap closed in a pout. Why wasn't this technique working?

It was simple in design: swing her trench knives and a blade of wind would come out and fly forwards towards a designated target. Where Hikari was having trouble was the difference between just channeling wind chakra to her knives and letting it fly free — nothing she'd tried so far had worked. The Uzumaki scionness looked to the sky. It was maybe an hour past noon now, which meant she'd been here for around three hours. She sighed, then, and sat down after walking over to the wall of her home, resting her back against it.

She stared at the knife she held in her left hand, the trusty implement reflecting light as though it was freshly polished to a mirror sheen. Hikari knew basic blade maintenance, of course, but polishing wasn't something she was very familiar with. Juni had done it the one time she'd asked, and it had looked super pretty for all of a few hours before using the knives had smudged them too much to reflect light so clearly. She'd been too embarrassed to ask again — ugh, but she was getting distracted! Unless, maybe...

With a stuck-out tongue, Hikari channeled wind chakra to her knives. They lit up with an azure blue glow, and the redhead took solace in the comforting feel of her airy chakra — a smile shone on her face. If she sped up the flow, and controlled it more tightly, the chakra wasn't anywhere near as erratic in its flow, right? Hikari treated it like chakra meditation, focusing on nothing else but the feel of her chakra flowing to her blade. Nearly ten minutes later, the flow was totally refined, as smooth as the steel that made up the basic form of her blade.

Fifty minutes and fifteen cycles later, Hikari had lowered the amount of time it took to get her chakra flow to that point down to a matter of seconds — still too long, but good enough to progress. She could see a defined blade of wind resting on her trench knife, so now the only thing left to do was to find some way to throw the wind blade off her knife, right?

She tried to do it, swinging her blade and urging her chakra to fly off in a uniform layer, but it all just dissipated instead. Hikari frowned. Maybe she needed to be more thorough with that aspect of the technique? Think about hand seals! Focus on her wind! Try to flow it all through her blade, make the swinging aspect an extension of herself!

Hand seals and their effects entered the Uzumaki's mind. Bird for its flight, for its agility, for its sharp turns and sharper talons. Rabbit for its airborne jumps, for its haste, for its instinctual need for movement. Horse and Boar and Ram, too, for their forward locomotion, for their single-minded charge, for their speed and power and ferocity. Dragon for its fearsome wings or its levitation ability depending on the myth origin, for its unadulterated personification of strength, for its lack of fear in the face of its own ability.

Wind was freedom. Wind was the air she breathed and the sky overhead, the clouds on rainy days and the sun on others. Wind was bright like the day and dark like the night, radiant as the stars dotting the atmosphere overhead and as extant as the moon itself. Wind was an ability to move and seek and feel, to jump up and run ahead and shout to her heart's content. It was playfulness and rambunctious spirits, mischief incarnate. 
_ _

Wind was subjugation. Atmospheric pressure weighing fourteen pounds on every square inch of the world she lived in. Terrible natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes, like monsoons visible even as far away as Lake Soma was. Wind sliced and bashed and crushed and smashed without caring for the consequences. Wind was madness and fury, pride and power. Wind hated containment.

Wind was like Hikari, multifaceted and emotional. It wanted to frolic in the meadows and dance beneath the blanket of stars. It wanted to be shockwaves created from punches and slicing motions created from knives, to be blunt gusts emitted from outstretched palms and a maelstrom of violence bellowed from a powerful set of lungs. Wind was many things, but one thing it wasn't was incapable.

Hikari's eyes snapped open, gray irides glowing with mischief. She was Hikari and she was the wind within her coils, running rampant with wanton thoughts of destruction and prototypical desires to fly. One day she would fly, a comet twice or thrice the speed of sound sailing far above the clouds and crossing the width of Noragakure no Sato in a matter of minutes. For now, she was grounded — but the blade of wind that danced on her knives were not.

In an instant the Uzumaki stood. The trench knife she held in her left hand was soon shrouded in wind chakra — seconds later the flow was uniform. Hikari looked forward to the training post installed in her backyard. It was fairly new, since she'd sliced through the last one. But, really, that's what they were for, weren't they? It was hardly good practice if her wind didn't actually cut anything. 

The faint sound of wind being sheared emitted from her knives and with a confident flick of her arm — reflecting on her reflections, on the nature of wind, on wind-attuned hand seals and their brethren — the wind blade flew forwards into the upper region of the training post. It sliced clean through, dissipating shortly afterwards. A thin, triumphant smile stretched her lips, but she could do better.

The redhead prepared again, and the flow was even quicker to initiate and corral than before — it took maybe two seconds for the entire process, and she was sure the time would cut down immensely once this became part of her muscle memory. Her wind begged to be free, to fly forward and destroy, and Hikari obliged.

She'd have to get another training post, wouldn't she? Grr.