"Konome, dinner is ready."
"I know."
"I know."
"I know."
"I know."
"I know."
Five Konome voices blended into a tidy chorus behind the bedroom door. The five exchanged a look.
"From now on, the main body does the talking. Clones keep quiet."
"One."
"Plus one."
Out in the hall, Guy untied his apron, baffled. Why did Konome's room sound like a Konome convention?
Suspicious or not, he did not dare go anywhere near her room. Sawada Fūka's warning kept circling in his head. On paper he and Konome were family, but there was no blood relation. Some lines needed to be respected.
The latch clicked and the door opened. Konome stepped out.
"Wash up and eat. The food will get cold."
She looked as if she were about to add something, thought better of it, and headed for the sink.
Is she mad at me? Guy froze, stung by her cool tone. Had he messed up without noticing? They had been fine a minute ago.
Until the rest of her began filing out of the bedroom, one after another.
"Those are my shadow clones," Konome said.
"Oh. Shadow Clones."
Guy nodded sagely, then double-took. "When did you learn that?"
"Just now."
"Shadow Clone is a high-difficulty B-rank jutsu. You learned it in the time it took me to plate the stir-fry?" Guy's eyes went as round as rice cakes.
He had never mastered any B-rank technique in his life. Konome had picked it up between sizzle and serve.
Technically it was the A-rank Multiple Shadow Clone, but Konome could not be bothered to fact-check him.
And honestly, with five chakra natures, Byakugan-level microcontrol, and today's discovery that Shikotsumyaku could remake her meridian routes, ninety percent of the world's jutsu were not all that hard for her.
But learning jutsu was the shallow end of the pool. Ninjutsu had a ceiling. She knew that too well. Late in the game, nature releases without Sage chakra were roadside weeds.
Her true path was taijutsu at the core, ninjutsu as support, chakra as fuel. She would exhaust the spectrum of nature transformations and climb toward Kekkei Mōra, becoming something the world had never seen before, a Six Paths-class taijutsu shinobi.
"Enough talk. Eat."
Guy watched five tiny bottomless pits march into the kitchen and felt his wallet spring a leak.
"You want the clones to eat too?"
"Experimenting with a jutsu. I will not do this every day."
"…Fine."
Dinner vanished in record time. Five Konome, five pairs of chopsticks, one stripped battlefield of plates.
Afterward, Konome released the clones and sat with what returned. There it was. When a clone dispelled, its chakra snapped back to her regardless of distance. If five clones ate at once, digestion and absorption happened in parallel. Energy intake quintupled.
With clones, ordinary food could approach the effect of soldier pills. As long as she avoided combat, maintaining clones cost essentially nothing because their returns offset the maintenance.
So that was what Kakashi meant by "meant for reconnaissance." From the start, Shadow Clone had not been designed for fighting. Exhaustion stacked endlessly. Other than a monster like Naruto, no one could bear it.
She had no intention of fighting with clones anyway.
Tomorrow she would pack extra snacks for school and have a clone attend in her place. With steady food coming in and no brawls, a school-day clone should last from bell to bell.
Konome No. 1 could take that shift.
From today forward, Konome No. 1 was officially School Konome. Her job description: maintain social ties, learn shinobi common sense, and mine classmates for resources. A tenth of Konome's chakra should be enough. If it was not, well, truancy existed for a reason.
What would Iruka do, call her guardian?
Later she would spin off five more clones dedicated purely to nature transformation training. Laying the groundwork for Kekkei Mōra was a long road.
She remembered the shortcut: fuse the tailed beasts into the Ten-Tails and jump straight to Six Paths. The price, though, was steep. If she pushed too far, Kaguya might hitch a ride back into the world.
Even if the chance came, she had no plans to recreate the Ten-Tails.
Chakra was refined from life force. Each tailed beast was a well of life. If her Reverse Eight Gates worked, she would prevent their chakra from blending and instead convert each beast directly into vast, pure life force. That might dodge the Kaguya pitfall.
Reverse Gates.
Kai, Kyū, Sei, Shō, To, Kei, Kyō, Shi.
Eight steps to fuse with One-Tail through Eight-Tails.
Last would be Yin and Yang of the Nine-Tails in unison. When the endless life force opened like a floodgate, the Reverse Eight Gates Formation would be complete. She would probably need sealing techniques to stabilize it.
For the first time, the path did not feel like fog. Ideas began to line up like a stair.
A night passed without incident.
At dawn she peeled off a tenth of her chakra to form School Konome.
One annoying footnote. Without understanding the formation mechanism, she could only divide the chakra evenly by formula. Which meant forming nine clones and then canceling eight to leave one at a tenth.
Cumbersome. Mechanical. That was her review of most ninjutsu.
At the door, the main body fussed like a mother. "Buy extra chocolate on the way. You will need the calories."
"Out of cash," said School Konome.
"Guy." Two voices in perfect sync, two small hands extended.
Guy looked from one Konome to the other, ground his molars, and peeled a couple of bills from his wallet.
"You promised me an allowance."
"You have the nerve to ask? More," Konome said, palm still up, eyes flat. The word money alone made her blood simmer. If he had not burned down her place, she would not be in this state.
"What do you need all that for?" The pain in Guy's chest was real. Yesterday's payout had flown straight to Kakashi's IOU, then groceries and household goods. He had been hoping to save enough to refurbish the carbonized wreck of the old house.
"Less talking, more paying, old man. Drop the loot."
He knew he was in the wrong and did not argue. Two more bills.
He had adopted a money-eating beast. Yesterday's work had been for nothing.
Konome split the cash, handing half to School Konome, and stepped out with her cane. Since Kakashi had cut off her route to nature transformation coaching, she would take the curve instead of the straightaway.
The Konoha Hospital was not far.
There was still a wind release instructor laid up there.
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