"So… I'm Danzō's disciple again?"
Konome Taketori listened to her shadow clone's report with a look that didn't know whether to laugh or curse.
She'd only sent the clone to Konoha Hospital to learn medical ninjutsu. She hadn't expected it to join Root, and on top of that, formally take Danzō as a teacher, becoming the disciple of the man everyone in the shinobi world loved to blame for everything.
She'd been planning to grind her training, kill Danzō, and snatch the Hashirama Cells herself.
And now what?
Fight myself?
First she was the avenger of the Kaguya clan. Then the rebel against the Hyūga main branch. Now she'd somehow become the heir to both Konoha's "white" and "black" sides at once. A double agent, with two masters. A walking contradiction.
The Yang Release clone licked her lips, looking a little helpless too.
"It's mainly because the Hashirama Cells were right there in front of me. That kind of insane life force… it's hard not to want it. You weren't at the scene. If you were, you'd have made the same call."
Konome blinked. Annoyingly, the clone had a point.
Sending a disposable clone into Root to steal Hashirama Cells was far safer than breaking into their headquarters and grabbing them by force.
Still, the clone's experience was absurd.
With Danzō's personality, treating shinobi like tools, the fact that he offered to accept her as a disciple was completely outside Konome's understanding.
"Why would Danzō take me as his student?"
"I checked his emotions. All I can say is… he's twisted." The Yang Release clone recalled the mood swirling over Danzō's head, her expression turning sour. "When I called him 'Teacher Danzō,' if I didn't misread it… the main emotion was gold."
She paused like she'd stepped in something filthy.
"But there was a tiny bit of pale pink mixed in. Like… pleasure."
"Huh?"
That answer stunned Konome so hard she actually leaned back.
This was officially outside her knowledge base.
Seeing the misunderstanding on Konome's face, the Yang Release clone hurriedly waved her hands.
"It's probably not about us. He's just warped. I think he wants to use you and me to disgust Hiruzen. Taking you as a disciple is just one part of their little game."
"That somehow sounds worse."
Konome muttered it under her breath.
"Did you go into Root?"
"No." The Yang Release clone shook her head. "I didn't have much chakra left. I finally got through their trap, and if they realized I was a shadow clone, everything would be wasted."
"Danzō didn't force me to stay either. He just put the Tongue Curse Seal on me, told me to go home, and report to Root tomorrow morning."
"He's waiting for Kotoamatsukami to end, to see if you do anything weird. If the Tongue Curse Seal triggers, he should be able to tell."
"That's exactly it." The Yang Release clone nodded. "So whether it's to keep the Yin Release chakra of Kotoamatsukami from being wasted, or to avoid triggering the seal…"
She exhaled.
"…right now, it looks like I can't die."
Konome scratched her hair.
"That's the third thing I needed to tell you." The Yang Release clone stretched both hands out. "At most, I've got two hours before I dissipate from chakra exhaustion. I remember the Nine Tails can lend chakra to others. We inherited the good-and-evil sense. That ability shouldn't be impossible either."
"If we can keep this clone from collapsing, we gain a double identity. The real body stays somewhere safe and grows stronger, while the clone goes into Root and looks for a solution to the Shikotsumyaku drawback."
Konome's thoughts snapped perfectly in sync with the clone's, their voices even matching in rhythm.
Byakugan and Mangekyō stared at each other across the air. Four identical hands gripped tightly, and violet chakra lit the space between them.
"Do you trust me, real body?"
"I only trust myself."
They both smiled.
Violet chakra flowed through their clasped hands into the tenketsu, pouring into the heart under Konome's control. One real, one false. Two hearts beating in the same tempo.
It felt like an invisible thread had formed, looping and twisting between the two hearts.
"This is…"
The realization came with no warning.
They released each other's hands and stepped back.
The thread between heart and heart stretched, as if a high-speed conduit had been built in midair. Two streams of violet chakra spiraled along the bridge, converting into each other as they went.
When a shadow clone dispelled, its chakra could return to the original across distance. That meant there had always been some hidden channel connecting them.
This was it.
As they moved farther apart, the "bridge" didn't weaken at all. The spiraling threads kept flowing and returning.
Knowledge, memory, information.
Everything Konome gained from an entire day of training, including the harvest from the other seven clones, synchronized rapidly into the Yang Release clone.
And the Yang Release clone's medical ninjutsu knowledge, plus her battle with Root and her confrontation with Danzō, flooded back into Konome's mind in the same breath.
The two streams blended perfectly, like water and milk.
Different experiences created tiny differences, but those vanished instantly.
Same thoughts. Same power. Same chakra.
They were the same person.
If there was one thing a shadow clone and the original could never suffer from, it was a crisis of trust.
Crackle.
Lightning danced over the Yang Release clone's body. Coiling around her like living serpents, the electric arcs sprinted across her skin, fast and hungry.
She could feel it clearly. Not only was the destructive power more violent, even her body's defensive strength had climbed.
"You got stronger again."
"A little."
Konome let go of the clone's hands and grinned, pinching her fingers together to show a tiny gap.
While the clone was doing all that, Konome hadn't been idle. Her Lightning Release Chakra Mode had officially reached entry level.
And now she'd finally parsed out its defensive core.
The defense came in two layers.
One was the raw strength of an "activated" body reinforced by Lightning Release.
The other came from Lightning Release itself, from its aggression.
It was similar to her mutated Rotation concept that fused Wind Release into defense.
The Lightning Armor's defense was essentially a porcupine. The moment an attack landed, the lightning around the user's body counterattacked instantly, canceling the incoming strike.
Its offense determined its defense.
Only a genius like the Second Raikage could have built something like this, turning the Yotsuki clan's lightning resistance into attack, then turning the attack back into defense again.
And it didn't stop there.
Lightning Release was like a needle and thread. Wind Release was like scissors.
Lightning's strength was in its "tip," its leading edge. Everything behind that tip was a weakness.
Lightning Armor was a close-range technique. Most of the Lightning chakra flow stayed hidden inside the body, while the armor exposed on the surface was all "needlepoints."
To use Wind Release to counter it, you'd have to strike the weakness inside the body.
But to get Wind chakra into the body, you'd first have to break through the strongest part on the surface.
A trap loop.
Lightning Armor still could be restrained by wide-area, dense Wind techniques, but compared to ordinary Lightning Release, it resisted Wind far better.
Before, her Lightning Chakra Mode was basically a good speed buff.
Now it finally deserved the title.
"The strongest secret Lightning Armor of Kumogakure."
Crackle, crackle.
Lightning flowed through the Yang Release clone's whole body. Eyes closed, she received the chakra transfer from the original while quietly savoring the technique's beauty.
"It really is nasty. With Lightning Armor's defense, I'm less likely to get hurt, and our lie can hold longer."
She clenched her fist and punched her own shoulder.
Her fist and the lightning on her body collided, spraying bright electric sparks.
Her body wasn't injured at all.
"You received the medical ninjutsu memories too, right?"
"Yeah. Transferring life force from other living things is way simpler than our old idea."
Konome also closed her eyes, sorting through the information shards that came with the clone's memories. The conversation with Chihaya Tōru was included, naturally.
"We've got new inspiration, but Shikotsumyaku is a life-or-death problem. We can't let either medical ninjutsu or the Hashirama Cells go."
"That's what I think too." The Yang Release clone paused, then pointed to her Mangekyō. "And you were worrying about Yin Release progress, right? Well, the so-called strongest genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami, is sitting right here. Study it. See if we can replicate it by understanding it."
After transferring chakra and information, Konome stretched lazily, exhausted.
When she looked up, the sun was gone. Only a round moon remained, stars flickering behind thin clouds, and sleepiness hit like a wave.
"That's you clones' job."
"The real body wants to slack off?"
"All of your exhaustion is on me. What slack?" Konome shot the Yang Release clone a look.
She stared back with crimson Mangekyō eyes. A face that had once been delicate and pure now looked wickedly sharp, almost demonic.
"You'd better cover your eyes," Konome warned. "If anyone sees that, it'll be a nightmare to explain."
"Mutated gray Byakugan, half-evolved Shikotsumyaku, a fake Mangekyō Sharingan, and fused Three-Tails and Nine-Tails power."
The Yang Release clone traced her cheek, the four-bladed pinwheel spinning lazily in her eyes.
"Do you think that shady, hooded guy would recognize me as his godmother?"
Konome rolled her eyes.
"I'm cooking."
She turned and left the training ground. Sometimes even she felt like her own brain wiring was too strange.
After dinner, the two of them fell asleep wrapped around each other.
Because the shadow clone couldn't dispel, they had to squeeze into the same double bed.
And this might last a long time.
Their combined weight was over half a ton. Konome felt the Hatake family's creaking wooden bedframe was under more pressure than the clone sneaking into Root to steal Hashirama Cells.
The next morning.
The sky was barely gray. Konome was still asleep beside the red alarm clock when the Yang Release clone groggily opened her eyes.
A small trick of body control.
Adjusting the internal clock.
The hazy Mangekyō turned sharp and deep in an instant.
In front of her, a silver-haired girl lay with eyes closed, hair scattered over the pillow, her flawless profile pressed into the fabric like a painting.
Too pretty.
Also… a little too narcissistic.
Mocking herself silently, the Yang Release clone carefully pried away the original's arms that were wrapped tight around her.
Konome was half-awakened, frowned, rolled over, and pulled the blanket over her head.
The original trained alongside seven clones while also bearing the burden of Shikotsumyaku.
The fatigue she accumulated every day was brutal.
"I don't want to make breakfast."
The Yang Release clone shook her head anyway, made breakfast for Konome, then slipped out the door.
The fatigue would return to the original later regardless. She was just shifting "morning tired" into "night tired," borrowing comfort on credit.
Morning wind was cool. Fog drifted along the street.
Her cloak wrapped her whole body, but it couldn't sever the chakra line between clone and original.
After dinner the night before, they'd experimented repeatedly with chakra transmission through the shadow clone link.
The results were excellent.
The transfer had no real time or distance limitation. There was slight loss, but it was almost negligible.
She could even wrap memory packets inside the chakra stream and send them back, forming a crude real-time communication line.
If she sent a request for "need chakra," the original could push chakra to her within two seconds.
Her endurance, as a clone, was upgraded to absurd levels.
Aside from being fragile, her actual combat power was now nearly the same as the original's.
Whoosh.
Cold fog drifted. Breakfast stalls glowed dimly behind windows. On the empty street, a white figure flashed past.
Black shinobi boots struck the ground hard.
Her core strength dumped the weight into the earth so completely that not a sound escaped.
Konome's figure became a blade, splitting the mist, racing west of Konoha Hospital.
Her destination was still the remote forest from last night.
Danzō had said Root would send someone there to bring her to their base.
For the legendary, mysterious Root, her expectations were high.
She moved fast.
With real-time chakra supply from the original, she no longer had to be stingy when using chakra.
Lightning cycled through her legs.
In a little over ten minutes, she crossed multiple districts and arrived at the battlefield from yesterday.
Step.
The fallen leaves were softened by morning dew, no longer crisp like yesterday's dry crackle.
Konome found the tall tree she'd stood on last night.
The crater marks below from the fight had already been filled in with Earth Release. On the surface, nothing looked unusual.
But under the transparent sight of her Byakugan, five meters underground, she could still see mask fragments and black blood mixed into the soil.
The veins at her temples bulged.
Her Byakugan briefly slipped free from the Mangekyō's "overlay," and her ocular power spread outward like a wave.
Three familiar jōnin-level chakra signatures appeared rapidly nearby.
The moment she stepped into the area, they sensed her and sprinted over.
The distance was short.
In seconds, three shinobi in standard ANBU gear surrounded her, their masks different shapes.
"Chihaya Gray… Lord Danzō summons you."
The one wearing a bear mask stepped forward first. His voice was hoarse and heavy, like iron filings grinding in his throat.
It was the same Earth Release user from yesterday, one of the four jōnin who had led the ambush.
The other two weren't strangers either.
The Wind Release user with a pure white mask painted in green beast patterns.
And the sensory type with purple markings on his mask, the one whose genjutsu had been shattered instantly and who'd accidentally baited Danzō into wasting Kotoamatsukami.
"Where's Danzō?"
"He is waiting for you in the base."
The "Stone Bear" hadn't even finished speaking when the one with green markings, "Storm," cut in impatiently, anger leaking into his tone.
The "Butterfly" lifted his eyes briefly at Storm's suicidal bravado, then returned to a lowered gaze without saying a word.
In front of him, that evil violet power flowed like something more viscous than glue.
Its chakra presence felt like a sea demon's aura, terrifying and mysterious, pressing on his mind every second.
Sometimes, he truly envied the ignorant.
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