"I'm Danzo's disciple now?"
Hikari's expression was a mix of disbelief and amusement as she listened to her Kage Bunshin's tale. She'd only sent the clone to Konoha Hospital to study medical ninjutsu, but somehow it had not only joined the Root but also become the apprentice of Shimura Danzo, the so-called "Darkness of the Shinobi World."
She'd been planning to train hard, take down Danzo, and steal Hashirama's cells. But now what? Was she supposed to fight herself? After being a Kaguya clan avenger and a Hyuga main branch rebel, was she now the heir to Konoha's black-and-white power players and a double agent to boot?
The Yang-style Hikari licked her lips, clearly finding the situation absurd. "The thing is, those Hashirama cells were right there. That insane life force? Hard not to be tempted! You weren't there, but if you were, you'd have told me to do the same."
Hikari blinked, conceding her clone's point. Sending a death-immune Kage Bunshin to infiltrate the Root and steal Hashirama's cells was way safer than storming their headquarters herself. Still, the Yang-style clone's experiences were bizarre. Danzo, who treated shinobi like tools, taking her as a disciple? That was beyond her comprehension.
"Why the heck did Danzo want me as his apprentice?" she asked.
"I read his emotions, and let's just say… it's twisted," the Yang-style Hikari said, her face scrunching in disgust as she recalled the feelings emanating from Danzo. "When I called him 'Teacher Danzo,' I'm pretty sure his dominant emotion was golden pride, but there was also this faint pink… pleasure?" She practically gagged on the word, as if she'd seen something vile.
"What?" Hikari's jaw dropped, her body leaning back slightly. This was venturing into her knowledge blind spot.
Seeing the misunderstanding, the Yang-style clone waved her hands frantically. "It's not about us! He's got some warped thing going on. I think he wants to use us to mess with Sarutobi Hiruzen. Taking me as a disciple is just part of their twisted game."
"That sounds even grosser," Hikari muttered under her breath.
"Did you actually get into the Root?" she asked.
"Nope," the clone replied, shaking her head. "My chakra was running low. After all that effort to infiltrate, getting exposed as a Kage Bunshin would've ruined everything. Danzo didn't force me to stay either—he just placed the Tongue Calamity Eradication Seal on me and told me to go home. I'm supposed to report to the Root base tomorrow morning."
"He's waiting to see if Beppu Tensen triggers any changes in you. If the Tongue Calamity Seal activates, he'll sense it," Hikari reasoned.
"Exactly," the Yang-style clone nodded, confirming her theory.
"So, to keep Beppu Tensen's Yin chakra intact and avoid triggering the seal, you can't dispel yet," Hikari said, scratching her head.
"That's the third thing I wanted to talk about," the clone said, extending both hands. "In about two hours, I'll run out of chakra and vanish. But I remember Kurama can lend chakra to others. Since we inherit its good-evil sensing ability, we should be able to borrow its chakra too."
"If we can keep the Kage Bunshin intact, we'll have dual identities. The main body stays safe to grow stronger, while the clone infiltrates the Root to find a way to fix the Shikotsumyaku's flaws."
Hikari and her clone's thoughts synced perfectly, their voices harmonizing. Their Byakugan and kaleidoscope eyes locked, and their four identical hands clasped tightly, purple chakra illuminating the space around them.
"Do you trust me, main body?" the clone asked.
"I only trust myself," Hikari replied.
They shared a knowing smile. Purple chakra flowed through their hands into their meridians, channeled by Hikari into their hearts. One real, one illusory, their hearts beat in unison, an invisible thread tying them together.
"What is this?" they said in sync.
A spark of realization hit them. They released each other's hands and stepped back. The thread between their hearts stretched like a high-speed conduit, purple chakra spiraling between them, transforming and merging. When a Kage Bunshin dispelled, its chakra returned to the main body through some channel. This was it.
As the distance grew, the "bridge" remained unaffected, their chakra flowing back and forth. Knowledge, memories, and a day's worth of training from Hikari's main body and other clones synced rapidly with the Yang-style clone. The clone's medical ninjutsu knowledge and memories of fighting the Root and facing Danzo poured into Hikari's mind. Their chakra blended seamlessly, erasing any differences from their separate experiences.
With identical thoughts, power, and chakra, trust issues between a Kage Bunshin and its main body were impossible.
Zzt!
Lightning crackled over the Yang-style Hikari's body, electric serpents slithering across her skin like living creatures, moving with explosive speed. She felt not only a fiercer destructive power but also a boost in physical defense compared to before.
"You got stronger," the clone noted.
"Just a bit," Hikari replied, grinning as she formed a finger gun gesture at her clone.
While the clone was out causing chaos, Hikari hadn't been idle. She'd officially mastered the Lightning Release Chakra Mode, cracking its defensive capabilities. The defense came from two parts: the enhanced physical resilience from an electrified body and the offensive nature of Lightning Release itself. Much like her Wind-enhanced Huitan technique, the Lightning Armor's defense worked like a porcupine—any attack triggered an instantaneous counterstrike from the lightning coating the user, neutralizing the assault. The stronger its offensive power, the stronger its defense.
The Second Raikage, who developed this technique, was a genius. He'd turned the Yugakure clan's lightning resistance into an offensive force and then converted that offense into defense. Lightning Release was like a needle—strong at the tip but weak elsewhere. The Lightning Armor, a close-combat technique, hid most of its chakra flows inside the body, with only the "needle tips" forming the outer armor. To counter it with Wind Release, you'd need to target the internal weak points, but that required breaking through the armored surface first. This gave the Lightning Armor strong resistance to Wind Release, far surpassing standard Lightning techniques.
Before, the Lightning Chakra Mode was just good for speed. Now, it truly lived up to its name as Kumogakure's ultimate Lightning Armor.
Zzt zzt zzt! Lightning flowed over the Yang-style Hikari as she closed her eyes, absorbing the main body's chakra and savoring the new technique's intricacies.
"Pretty impressive. With the Lightning Armor's defense, I'm even less likely to get hurt. We can keep this lie going," the clone said, punching her own shoulder. Her fist clashed with the lightning, sparking brilliantly but leaving her unscathed.
"You got the medical ninjutsu memories, right?" Hikari asked.
"Yeah. Transferring life force from other creatures is way simpler than we thought," the clone replied.
Hikari closed her eyes, sorting through the clone's transmitted memories, including her conversation with Chihaya Tou. "We've got new ideas, but the Shikotsumyaku issue is life-or-death. We can't skimp on medical ninjutsu or Hashirama's cells."
"Same page," the clone agreed, pointing to her kaleidoscope eyes. "You were stuck on Yin Release progress, right? Now you've got the so-called strongest genjutsu, Beppu Tensen, right here. Study it, see if you can replicate it with enough tries."
With the chakra and information transfer complete, Hikari stretched tiredly. Looking up, she saw the sun had set, leaving only a full moon and faint starlight flickering through the clouds, lulling her into drowsiness.
"That's your job, clone," she said.
"Main body trying to slack off?" the clone teased.
"Your fatigue all comes back to me. What slacking?" Hikari shot her a look.
The clone's crimson kaleidoscope eyes gave her delicate face an eerie edge. "You'd better cover those eyes. Hard to explain if someone sees."
"Mutated gray Byakugan, half-evolved Shikotsumyaku, fake kaleidoscope Sharingan, plus the fused powers of the Three-Tails and Nine-Tails," the Yang-style Hikari mused, stroking her cheek as the four-bladed pinwheel spun in her eyes. "Think that sneaky masked guy would call me 'Mama'?"
Hikari rolled her eyes. "I'm making dinner."
She turned and left the training ground, sometimes marveling at her own wild thought process.
After dinner, the exhausted duo fell asleep in each other's arms. Since the clone couldn't dispel, they had to share a double bed—a lifestyle that might continue for a while. Together, they weighed over half a ton, and Hikari felt the creaky wooden bedframe at the Hatake house was under more strain than her clone infiltrating the Root.
The next morning, as dawn barely broke and the red bedside alarm clock ticked on, Hikari slept soundly. The Yang-style Hikari stirred groggily, her kaleidoscope eyes sharpening. A small trick of bodily control—her internal clock—had woken her.
The silver-haired girl beside her slept peacefully, her perfect profile sinking into the pillow like a work of art. Gorgeous, the clone thought, then cringed. Bit narcissistic.
Muttering internally, she carefully pried Hikari's arms off her. The main body frowned, stirred awake, then rolled over, pulling the blanket over her face to sleep more. Training with seven clones while bearing the Shikotsumyaku's toll left her exhaustion overwhelming.
"I'm not making breakfast," Hikari mumbled.
The Yang-style clone shook her head, made breakfast for her main body, and slipped out the door. The fatigue would hit Hikari later anyway—morning exhaustion just became evening exhaustion, like borrowing comfort on credit.
The morning breeze was cool, mist lingering. Her cloak concealed her, but the chakra link to her main body remained unbroken. They'd tested the clone's chakra transfer multiple times after dinner. The results were promising: no time or distance limits, minimal loss, and memories could be sent via chakra flow, creating a kind of real-time communication. Requesting chakra from the main body took less than two seconds to deliver.
The clone's endurance was now near-epic, matching the main body's combat strength except for its fragility.
Whoosh! The cool mist swirled as dim lights flickered from a breakfast shop's window. A white figure darted silently through the empty streets, her black ninja boots striking the ground soundlessly, her core strength channeling her weight into the earth. Hikari's form cut through the fog like a sword, heading west of Konoha Hospital toward her destination: the secluded forest from last night.
Danzo had said a Root ninja would meet her there to escort her to their base. Her anticipation for the mysterious Root was high. With the main body supplying chakra in real-time, she could finally use her chakra freely.
Lightning cycled through her legs. In just over ten minutes, she crossed the village to the battleground from the previous night.
Step.
The dew-soaked leaves felt softer than the crisp, dry ones from yesterday. Hikari found the tall tree from the night before. The pits and scars from the battle had been filled with Earth-style jutsu, the surface flawless. But her Byakugan revealed mask fragments and black blood mixed with soil five meters underground.
Her eye veins pulsed, the Byakugan briefly overriding the kaleidoscope as its vision radiated outward. Three familiar Jonin-level chakra signatures appeared nearby, sensing her arrival and rushing toward her.
In moments, three Anbu in standard gear, distinguished only by their mask designs, surrounded her.
"Tsume Hikari, the Lord requests your presence," said the ninja with a bear-shaped mask, his voice low and raspy, like iron scraping in his throat. It was the Earth-style ninja from yesterday's ambush.
The other two were familiar: the Wind-style ninja with green beast patterns on a white mask, and the sensory ninja with purple streaks on their mask—the one whose genjutsu Hikari had shattered, misleading Danzo and the Root.
"Where's Danzo?" Hikari asked.
"The Lord awaits you at the base," said the green-patterned ninja, "Storm," his tone laced with anger.
The sensory ninja, "Butterfly," glanced at Storm, remaining silent and submissive. The sinister purple chakra flowing from Hikari, stickier than glue, felt like a demonic sea creature, its terrifying, mysterious aura constantly pressing on his mind.
Sometimes, he envied the ignorant.