…
I woke before the sun began its ascent.
No surprise there. Habits do die hard.
Despite being absent for so long, my apartment didn't feel cramped.
Hina had kept the place spotless, not merely clean but well maintained.
A scroll rack stood against the far wall of the main room beside a heavy cabinet where I used to keep my travel gear. Most of it remained untouched safe for the cabinet that now held carefully sealed scrolls.
Over a year of missions, scavenging and, occasionally, looting had left me with more than a few important scrolls. Most containing maps of the various regions in the land of fire.
I moved through my morning without much thought. Showered. Changed into a fresh black shirt and dark pants. Tied my hair back with a brown band.
I ate nothing, just hot tea.
Then I slid open the rear doors and stepped into the courtyard behind the apartment.
Unlike the front, which faced one of the district's roads, the rear was now enclosed by high wooden fencing and shaded by a single persimmon tree.
The space had been designed intentionally when I first bought the place to be wide enough to practice in and small enough to control.
Once again, I was reminded of something very important; This was mine. My very own corner of Konoha.
I sat near the edge of the courtyard and pulled out the scroll. Unfurling it, the first technique that caught my attention was The Shadow Clone Technique.
I had seen the technique before, obviously. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with shinobi warfare knew what a Shadow Clone was.
That wasn't why I had asked the Hokage for the scroll.
No Shinobi who has experienced the wondrous effects of the clone technique in misdirection would say no to this technique.
The ordinary Clone Technique created an illusion.
The Shadow Clone created a physical duplicate.
Where one have the illusion of being hit before actually being hit, the other hit you, and even if you counter, you'd only dispel it without causing harm to the main body.
A body of chakra capable of moving, fighting and thinking independently before its accumulated experiences returned to the original upon dispersal.
What greater cheat could a Shinobi possess?
I read through the scroll. The Ram seal was simple enough; the chakra division behind it was more interesting.
Each clone will give it half the user's chakra, creating two clones will give each a third of the user's chakra, and so on. But that wasn't the interesting part.
The more interesting part was what came after.
Consciousness.
I wasn't unfamiliar with divided consciousness.
My mental clones had already proven that a single mind could be divided into autonomous parts, each capable of independent thought and action.
Within the mindscape, they could pursue separate lines of reasoning, train their own understanding of, and reach conclusions I might not have reached alone on a particular subject.
But they were confined to the mindscape. They had no bodies therefore had no direct interaction with the outside world.
The Shadow Clone Technique solved that problem by creating a physical body.
A physical vessel capable of carrying a portion of my chakra and operating independently in reality.
Yet its method of reintegration was far cruder than what I had developed within my mindscape.
When a mental clone completed its task, its existence didn't simply collapse into mine and flood me with everything it had experienced at once.
There was structure to the process.
A mental clone returned exactly what it had developed during its assigned task and nothing beyond that. If I assigned one to train the Mountain Embracing Technique, then when the training session ended, what returned was the accumulated process of that training.
The repetitions, adjustments, failures, discoveries and final understanding it had reached by the end of the day as though I was the one who went through it.
It didn't return the entirety of its existence. I didn't suddenly inherit every idle thought it had entertained between repetitions, the sensation of sitting down to rest, or every insignificant detail it had experienced while carrying out its task.
The mindscape separated the useful development from the unnecessary noise.
The Shadow Clone Technique, from what I understood, appeared far less selective.
Once dispersed, everything returned.
Memories, sensations, pain fatigue, thoughts.
Interesting.
The hand seal, along with the chakra distribution required to stabilize the clone were recorded clearly.
For a regular shinobi, the seals were part of the process of performing the jutsu.
For me, they were a framework.
My chakra threads had long since made conventional hand-seal execution unnecessary for techniques whose underlying principles I understood.
Pure chakra manipulation came first. Then nature transformation, when required. Then shape.
Of course, the sequence could be interchanged but the process itself was simpler once the foundation had been grasped.
The hand seals were merely one method of reaching it.
That was why I still needed them. Not to depend on them but to understand them.
I formed the ram hand seal and closed my eyes. I followed the chakra flow described in the scroll through my mind then extended a thin chakra thread from my fingertip.
It hovered in the air, and responding to my intent, the thread shifted, looping once before dissolving.
"Hmm." A Shadow Clone appeared to be far more complicated than that.
The technique seem to require a stable physical construct, a precise division of chakra to create the construct and a means of sustaining an independent cognitive process within that construct.
That last part interested me.
Not the hand seals, not even the clone itself but the relationship between the physical vessel, the chakra sustaining it and the consciousness that animated it.
I formed the required hand seal, not just because I needed to understand it, but because, for now, I am still learning.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."
Smoke erupted beside me, and as it cleared, a clone appeared.
Same clothes, same posture, same expression.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
"You look tired," he said.
"Yeah… I just woke up."
"Hmm."
I stared at him.
Did I always sound that irritating?
Apparently.
The clone crossed his arms. "So?"
"So what?"
"Are you going to keep staring?"
"I was observing."
"That's just a longer way of saying staring."
A faint smile tugged at my lips. My mental clones had prepared me for the existence of another version of myself.
Still, this was different.
I could feel him.
Not through the same structured awareness that connected me to my mental clones, but through something looser, a connection created by the jutsu itself.
If I wasn't a sensor, I probably wouldn't have sensed it.
The clone was independent, I wasn't controlling his thoughts, I couldn't see through his eyes and yet, somewhere beneath my conscious awareness, I knew he was there like a separate existence carrying a portion of me.
Interesting.
The clone tilted his head. "You're thinking too much."
"Go away."
"Gladly."
He said and dispersed.
As he did, a faint pulse passed through my mind as his brief existence returned.
His thoughts, observations and irritation he'd felt while I was looking at him.
I absorbed them almost instantly.
The experience was short enough that it caused no discomfort, but I understood the mechanism more clearly now.
There was no real buffer.
The clone's accumulated experiences were simply returned to the original the moment the chakra construct collapsed.
I already knew chakra carried information, and while it was efficient, it was unfortunately crude.
I frowned at that for a moment then pushed the thought aside.
I wasn't here to modify the technique yet. First, I needed to understand it.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."
Another clone appeared from the burst of smoke and looked at me expectantly.
"Assignment?" he asked.
"Chakra manipulation."
His expression remained neutral. "Specifics?"
"Study the technique."
The clone glanced at the scroll. "We're already studying it."
"We're studying it from different perspectives."
That made him pause.
I pointed toward the far side of the courtyard then waved him away.
"Follow the chakra distribution recorded in the scroll. Test the stability of the construct. Pay attention to the point where the chakra separates and the point where the independent consciousness is established."
"You want me to analyze myself."
"I want you to analyze the technique sustaining you."
"There's a difference?"
"Figure it out."
The clone gave me a flat look. "Troublesome."
But he moved away regardless.
I watched him go. There was another advantage to this technique.
My chakra threads.
I extended one from my hand and sent it toward the clone.
It crossed the courtyard, stopping just short of his shoulder.
The clone glanced at it. "Experiment?"
"Partly." I nodded.
The thread moved, connecting to its body.
For an instant, my awareness sharpened in the same way I could maintain awareness through my threads when they extended through an area.
I was able to perceive things through the clones senses, but before I could revel in the feeling, I felt a disturbance then the connection destabilized.
The clone looked back. "That didn't last long."
"I noticed."
The thread dissolved but I remained where I was, considering the result.
My chakra threads could be extended through an area, wrapped around a target, used to obstruct relevant tenketsu or woven into the structures required for Fūinjutsu.
As long as the thread remained within my range of control, it also carried a portion of my awareness. They were my extensions at this point.
A Shadow Clone was made from my chakra.
That should have made the interaction simpler.
Instead, the clone's independent chakra structure interfered with the thread's stability.
I could feel him through the subtle connection we shared and that gave me another thought.
My awareness through the threads wasn't the same as the awareness connecting me to the clone.
The Shadow Clone Technique already possessed its own link.
The threads were simply another system.
Forcing one into the other without understanding either completely would be reckless.
Still…
There was potential there, yet I didn't allow myself to waste time on it and dismissed the thought.
There will be time for that later.
The clone turned back toward the scroll and I left him to it.
For now, there was no need for physical training.
The thought almost made me laugh.
There had been a time when I would have spent the morning doing exactly that.
Push-ups.
Squats.
That stage was over.
The Skin Refining Threads that had formed beneath my skin were crystalized form of vital energy, constantly moving through the deeper layers of my body and refining the flesh from within.
They were not chakra threads.
The difference was fundamental.
My chakra threads were constructs of pure chakra, formed and manipulated according to my intent.
The Skin Refining Threads were vital energy that enhanced the physical body.
Mundane exercises could still tire me, they could still improve endurance and strength to a degree, but they were no longer the path forward.
Not when every moment, even while I stood still, my body was passively being refined from within.
I closed my eyes and turned my attention inward.
The two green threads moved beneath the surface of my skin making themselves useful.
If I wasn't actively working on them, they would remain undisturbed. Even after abusing them some time back and spending months in recovery, their luster hadn't show any sign of decreasing.
I exhaled and let my awareness return.
With nothing else to do, I spent the next hour reviewing the two other techniques.
Wind Release: Vacuum Great Sphere and Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears.
Not the techniques themselves, but the principles behind them.
Both were B-rank techniques, yet their methods of manifestation were fundamentally different from C rank ninjutsu and below.
D-rank followed this chain: Chakra → shape → effect → Release.
C-rank followed this chain: Chakra → nature transformation → shape → Effect → release.
B- rank follows this chain: Chakra → Nature Transformation → Shape Manipulation → Control → Effect → Stabilization → Release
This was their progression, and I held no illusion that A-rank and S-rank ninjutsu would have their own chain of activation.
I compared their chakra distributions, formation methods, and the role the hand seals played in directing each process.
I performed the hand seals, observed the chakra flow then stopped before the execution.
Only after I understood what the sequence was actually accomplishing did I attempt to reproduce it through my threads.
Wind Release: Vacuum Great Sphere.
I stretched my hand and extended several chakra threads and drew them together. At first, they remained simple constructs of pure chakra, thin strands held together by nothing but my control.
Then I applied Wind Nature Transformation to them.
That was when the threads changed.
They became became sharper, more unstable, and carried the cutting quality of wind.
Maintaining that transformation across several separate threads required considerably more control than simply converting a single mass of chakra.
One lapse in concentration caused the threads to lose uniformity, causing the entire structure to unravel.
There wasn't any backlash but there was a dip in my chakra, however, it wasn't much. So I tried again.
This second time, I allowed the threads to spiral around a single point, each one feeding transformed chakra into the centre while maintaining the compression the original technique required.
The process was slower than using the hand seals, but that wasn't the point. The point was in learning how the technique worked through my threads.
Once the structure stabilized, the compressed wind began to take form between the threads and formed a sphere.
I watched it tremble suspended in the air as a smile tugged at my lips.
The threads were no longer just extensions of my chakra. They had become the framework around which a B-rank technique was being constructed.
Just then, the trembling sphere destabilized and scattered before I could release it.
The destabilization kicked up the wind, thankfully, it wasn't harmful.
I nodded to myself. It failed but that was expected. The principle behind it was clear now. I didn't need the hand seals to gather, transform, compress and shape the chakra for me.
My threads could perform each process directly.
I simply needed to make them work together without allowing one stage to destabilize another.
With that settled, the Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears came next.
This one was easier.
Not because the technique itself was simple, but because I had already spent considerable time working with similar principles through the Mountain Embracing Technique.
They were both Earth style Ninjutsu but I still followed the traditional method first.
Hand seals.
Chakra into the ground, Earth Nature Transformation then manipulation but I stopped just before release.
The process was familiar almost immediately.
Unlike Wind Release, I didn't need to spend much time understanding how to establish control over the earth beneath me.
The Mountain Embracing had already taught me that. The real difference lay in what I was asking the earth to become.
Mountain Embracing focused on manipulating the earth across a broader area to come together to form a small mountain.
This technique didn't just require broad manipulation, it also required precision.
Several points of earth had to be affected at once, compressed and shaped before being forced upward into spears.
Once I understood that, chakra threads extended from beneath my feet and sank into the ground.
My awareness followed them.
The packed earth beneath the courtyard spread through my perception, its changing density becoming clear through the threads.
I selected several points and unlike the conventional method, where a single flow of chakra was directed through the technique's established structure, my threads allowed me to divide the process.
Each thread became a separate point of manipulation. I established control over the selected sections of earth simultaneously.
Then I began compressing and shaping each one. Once the forms were stable, I willed them upward and the courtyard floor ruptured.
One spear rose, then another, and another.
Several earthen spears erupted from the ground in succession, their tips stopping just short of the wooden fence.
I studied them closely. I hadn't used much of chakra in the process which showed in their height, but I was practicing, not killing someone.
A faint smile touched my lips.
As expected, the Mountain Embracing Technique had done most of the difficult work.
Earth Flow Spears was simply a more precise application of principles I already understood.
The hand seal had shown me how the technique was originally structured.
My threads allowed me to divide that structure across several independent points of manipulation.
That was where they became particularly useful.
A conventional shinobi performed hand seals to direct the entire technique through a single, unified chakra process.
I could assign different parts of that process to different threads.
I let the threads dissolve and the earth protrusion receded back into the ground.
By the time the morning sky had brightened fully, the clone approached.
"I have something."
I looked up. "What?"
"The chakra division isn't the problem."
"I know."
"The clone is."
I raised an eyebrow but remained silent.
He continued. "The moment the chakra separates, the technique doesn't simply maintain another body. It establishes a complete operating structure."
I studied him. "Go on."
"The body has to be stable enough to function independently, even perform Jutsu, but the more interesting part is the connection to the original. It isn't constant enough for direct communication, yet it's stable enough to preserve everything until dispersion."
I remained silent. That was close to what I'd concluded. "It doesn't seem designed for prolonged existence."
"No."
"Why?" I smiled faintly. "Now that's worth finding out, no?"
The clone looked mildly annoyed at my response.
"Continue," I said.
He nodded and returned to the far side of the courtyard.
The shadow clone technique was already giving me more questions than answers.
That was a good sign. It meant it could be improved upon.
I spent another hour training on the Vacuum Great Sphere and Earth Flow Spears before the clone finally dispersed.
This time, I felt the warning before it happened, a subtle shift in the connection.
Then… Pain.
Not physical, mental.
A sharp pulse struck the back of my mind as memories and sensations flooded in.
Hours of study, repeated chakra measurements, thoughts, frustration and conclusions.
The clone's perspective of looking at me, my perspective of looking at him.
Everything came crashing down causing my breath to hitch.
"Fuck."
The clone had spent hours working independently, and every experience was being compressed into a single moment of reintegration.
Even with my experience managing mental clones, the sensation was disorienting.
That was the difference.
My mental clones exsted within a system I had gradually constructed.