A month had passed since the Triple Anchor had been finalized. Base Gamma, sprawling and fortified yet teetering under constant threat, had settled into a brittle rhythm. Soldiers moved with purpose, their faces streaked with dust, sweat, and the faint scars of ongoing skirmishes. Yet peace, even temporary, was a luxury the shinobi world rarely afforded.
It was late afternoon when the alarm sounded,a piercing, metallic shriek, distinct from the usual distant echoes of enemy incursions. The eastern perimeter, long considered reinforced but untested under live assault, had been breached. Naoki's squad,he, Harumi, and Tsume,was immediately on the move, sprinting across the courtyard toward the collapse point. The air smelled faintly of ozone and scorched earth, mingled with the copper tang of blood.
Naoki's eyes scanned rapidly, calculating the trajectory of incoming enemy shuriken, the positioning of the attacking squad, and the weaknesses in the partially destroyed perimeter seal. The Main Body moved with precision, blending high-level Chūnin Ninjutsu with expert Taijutsu. Fireballs erupted from his palms with measured force, enough to disrupt advancing enemies but never extravagant enough to draw suspicion. He blocked, dodged, and struck with efficiency, weaving through the chaos, all while maintaining a carefully constructed facade of competence.
Harumi's eyes flickered with worry, Tsume's jaw tightened, and each movement of the squad echoed exhaustion. The soldiers fought valiantly, but the sheer ferocity of the breach threatened to overwhelm them. Naoki noted their fatigue, the tremor in their grips, the widening of their eyes as they faced enemy shinobi armed with strange, hybrid techniques. His pulse quickened,not from fear, but from the acute awareness of responsibility. These were not expendable avatars. These were people whose lives he could not replace.
Meanwhile, several kilometers away, in the quiet sterility of the Konoha Ninjutsu Lab, Clone 1 was in motion. The laboratory's fluorescent lights cast long reflections across the polished floor, but they held no warmth. Clone 1's hands moved with surgical precision, summoning the rasengan,a Jutsu that Naoki had acquired only through classified scrolls and fragmented archives from lost missions. A sphere of condensed chakra spun in his palm, a singular hand shaping what had once required weeks of concentrated effort and repetition.
The paradox was stark: while the Main Body struggled to survive among sweat, blood, and dust, Clone 1 had already internalized the experience. The battle that raged thousands of kilometers away was processed instantaneously in the sterile mind of the clone. Each movement, each strike, each enemy tactic was being refined in real time. Rasengan rotations were corrected for optimal power, chakra consumption calculated down to the smallest decimal, and combinations with elemental techniques simulated before they could ever occur in the field.
Naoki felt the surge of insight as he mentally monitored the clone. The triple processing power,the simultaneous awareness of three bodies,was revealing something profound. Clone 1 was evolving at a speed impossible under conventional training. The lessons of combat, distilled into pure data, were being applied faster than even the Main Body could hope to react. Within weeks, the clone had approached near-mastery of techniques that would have taken months, perhaps years, to learn under normal circumstances.
But here, in the field, the Main Body had no luxury of sterile perfection. He moved alongside Harumi and Tsume, deflecting blows with a mixture of skill and calculation, his own chakra ebbing with every maneuver. A fire-style jutsu erupted at his flank, scattering debris across the courtyard. He rolled to intercept an advancing kunai, the steel striking his forearm with a sharp crack. Pain flared, but he did not falter. His efficiency masked the strain, but he could see it plainly on his companions' faces. Fatigue, fear, and the weight of uncertainty,these were things no clone, no matter how capable, could truly feel.
For a brief moment, Naoki's consciousness flickered to the clone: he sent a subtle mental echo of the battlefield's urgency, the positioning of enemies, the tempo of their strikes. Clone 1 responded with imperceptible adjustments,chakra control refined, stance perfect, Rasengan spinning faster and more stably. Within seconds, hypothetical outcomes were evaluated and discarded in favor of optimal action sequences. The Main Body could now act with subtle advantage, informed by the sterile, flawless perfection of the clone's calculations.
A distant shout from Tsume broke his focus. "Naoki! We're surrounded on the east!"
The Main Body glanced, adjusting his fire-style jutsu to cut through the approaching squad. He moved with deliberate care, conserving energy, maintaining a rhythm of attack that seemed competent but not supernatural. Every decision, every strike, balanced on the knife-edge between survival and exhaustion. He watched the eyes of his companions,the fear, the weariness, the determination flickering behind it.
And yet, in the sterile lab, Clone 1 continued. No fear. No exhaustion. Only precision. Only learning. Only exponential progress. The Rasengan was perfected, one hand capable of adjusting force and rotation in real time, simulations running for multi-target deployment, sequencing, and potential elemental infusion. Within the span of the battle, techniques were learned and corrected, errors never repeated. The paradox of human limitation against mechanical-like efficiency struck Naoki deeply.
He could feel the weight of his responsibility more acutely now. The battlefield demanded his humanity: the need to protect, to calculate, to endure. Clone 1's sterile perfection could not feel the eyes that trusted him, could not feel the pulse of life he was sworn to protect. And that, Naoki realized, was why the Triple Thread existed: raw power distributed across minds, but humanity anchored at the center.
As the breach was finally stabilized, Naoki surveyed the aftermath. Soldiers regrouped, injuries assessed, and the eastern perimeter's seal reinforced in hastily applied chakra. Harumi and Tsume leaned against battered walls, gasping, yet alive. Exhaustion lined their faces, but so did relief. The Main Body allowed himself a faint nod, an acknowledgment of survival, efficiency, and the fragile bonds that drove him to fight.
He turned briefly, allowing his gaze to drift to the Konoha lab in his mind, where Clone 1 had just simulated a combination of rasengan sequences that could have ended the breach before it began. He thought quietly, almost reverently: Three minds. Three threads. One body here, fighting the world. One mind there, preparing for everything else. The paradox is perfect,and I will protect it.
The battle was over for now, but the acceleration had begun. And in the stillness that followed, Naoki felt the pulse of possibility: the future of Ninjutsu, of war, of the Triple Thread, was just beginning.