"Report."
A cold, low voice echoed through the spacious, stone-clad hall.
"We're continuing to provoke the younger members of the Uchiha clan. Every week, their reactions get harsher. Two of our squad are already in the infirmary with injuries."
"Their condition?" Danzo asked, not showing a hint of sympathy.
"One has multiple minor injuries, the other has broken bones in two limbs." The reply was just as emotionless.
"Continue."
"Every two or three days, anonymous letters are sent to the Konoha Police with complaints and insults. Some of their suppliers - those who suffered during the Nine-Tails' attack - we've managed to win over. Judging by the fact that some of their shops have been trashed and caravans destroyed, the clan elders are taking the issue of poor-quality goods very seriously."
"Not bad, but it's not enough. What about recruiting members of their clan?" Danzo's face didn't betray the slightest satisfaction.
"Through threats and blackmail, we've forced five to cooperate. Two of them don't have the best reputation in the clan, but all of them have words that resonate with the youth. There's been an uptick in small gatherings, and about a third of the conversations end up expressing dissatisfaction with the clan's situation. That's the end of my report."
"I see. You've done decent work, but we need to accelerate the growth of discontent in their clan."
If this drags on, Hiruzen might take steps to ease their dissatisfaction - Danzo grimaced inwardly.
"I'll assign a few genjutsu specialists to your squad. Make sure random people start getting handsy with the women in their clan. Stir up conflicts between regular kids and those who are allowed out of the district to wander the village. Work every angle - I don't care what methods you use, even if you have to throw trash over their walls. But in two weeks, I want their clan's discontent at its peak. Is that clear?"
****
Remembering last week's conversation, Hiro couldn't help but sigh. He'd been given a very important mission. His training had been top-notch, but no matter how hard he tried, under these circumstances, he thought it was impossible to finish the job in the time given. The villagers' attitude toward the Uchiha, after the events eleven years ago, turned out to be not nearly as negative as Root's analysts had described.
"Oh, he's up and walking." A voice sounded next to him.
"Weird, not a single bruise, and he's in a good mood. Kotsu, are you sure you didn't mess up the technique?" another voice chimed in.
Hiro, who had come to check on the fifth squad, glanced toward the entrance to the district and squinted. After a few seconds, he got a good look at the so-called "target" and swore under his breath.
"Idiots! Where did they even find you two? What were you thinking, picking him as your target?" If he hadn't been so short on genjutsu specialists, Hiro would've put a kunai through their necks right then and there.
"Uh… what's wrong, boss? We followed all the requirements - he was heading to their clan, dressed decently." One of them managed to ask.
If not for the mask, they'd have seen just how twisted Hiro's face had become.
"Alright, 'specialists,' let me spell it out for you. Take a closer look at him - don't you notice anything?" he asked through gritted teeth.
Calm, just stay calm. ANBU don't have emotions. Feelings are the enemy - Hiro repeated the mantra in his head.
"Well, he's pretty good-looking," the second "genius" replied.
"At least you've got eyes. Let me explain this for you two knuckleheads who've somehow survived this long. With a face like that, your wife or daughter would fall for him without even realizing, and you'd never know.
By picking him as your target, you just wasted your time and mine - and made one Uchiha girl's day. I hope you get it now. As punishment for screwing up, you're on night surveillance duty outside the clan's territory." With those final words, Hiro vanished, leaving only a puff of smoke behind.
****
Climbing the stairs to my floor, I couldn't help but feel relieved that the day was finally over.
I'll take a shower, have some tea… Actually, I've had enough tea for today. Maybe I'll just have some mineral water. I'll relax on the couch in just a towel, read a book - honestly, there's no better way to end the evening.
"I'm home," I called out, hoping for at least some reaction from Aika, who was napping by the door on my custom sneakers.
She just cracked an eye open, yawned, and went right back to her favorite activity - sleeping.
"Are you sure you're a fox and not a koala?" I asked, taking off my shoes. Just as I put away my geta and was about to sit down to scratch Aika behind the ear, I noticed something odd under her paw, between her and my sneakers.
A white triangle, like a piece of paper, was sticking out from under her.
After a few seconds of Aika's annoyed glare, I managed to pull out the object - and I really didn't like what I saw.
"Hopefully it's just the water and electricity bills." My poor homebody soul can't handle so many long meetings. If I have to go out and meet people every day, I'd rather just drop everything and go live in the mountains.
The envelope wasn't signed, not even an addressee - and that already set me on edge.
"Huh… at least it's not another invitation." I thanked all the gods as I read the contents.
Well, what do you know - my first fan letter… okay, fan girl. Hm, she didn't leave a return address? I decided to scan the text again, just in case I missed something.
"Hello, blah-blah-blah, I fell in love with your book… blah-blah-blah, found out through friends that you own the McD… and then I saw you for the first time, sorry for following you home…"
Apparently, she just really wanted to share her thoughts about my book. Oh well.
I tossed the letter in the nightstand and went back to my plans.
****
If you don't count morning training, I basically spent the last three days holed up at home. And when you're stuck at home all day, you tend to get good ideas. For example, I decided to rearrange the apartment a bit.
When I first moved in, I completely ignored the guest room. The bed was small, and the space was cramped. I wanted to clear it out, but until recently, there was never a good moment - something always came up, or I'd end up in the hospital.
Now that I finally had some free time, I decided to tackle it, starting with the bed - which, as it turned out, couldn't fit through the door.
With a screwdriver and a squad of clones, I took it apart (and broke it a little) in just half an hour. The remains of the bed were stacked neatly in the corner, and I immediately moved my desk from my room into the guest room's old spot. Of course, the guest room still didn't look much like the study I wanted it to be. I'd need to get rid of the wardrobe, repaint the walls in cooler, more serious tones, buy and install bookshelves, change the curtains, lay down a rug, maybe even add a small leather sofa - but for now, the desk was enough. It's hard to get any work done when there's a soft, cozy bed just two steps away, so I planned to use this study for reading and writing in the future.
(Author's note: No, the guest room didn't just appear out of nowhere. I mentioned before that his apartment layout is similar to Kushina's, and she has two bedrooms.)
"Yeah, working on the second part of the book outside the bedroom is way more productive." Stretching and cracking my knuckles, I got up and wandered to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
"Hopefully, tea will help with this headache." I remembered the clones who were working on the first stage of the Rasengan - it was about time to dispel them. I was just about to send them off when a happy shout from the bathroom stopped me.
Did they finally pull it off? Smiling, I walked into the bathroom.
"Well?" I asked, looking at the most satisfied clone, who was already filling a new balloon with water from the tap.
"Yeah, he did it," the others nodded.
The first step in mastering the Rasengan seemed pretty simple - you just had to spin the water inside the balloon with chakra and make it burst.
But to actually pop the balloon, the direction of the water's movement had to change rapidly, which was a pretty tough task. Still, the clones managed it on the first day, though they used a "crutch" - a second hand to help redirect the chakra flow inside the balloon. Those flows determined the water's movement.
That result didn't really satisfy me. I wasn't trying to master the Rasengan as fast as possible - I didn't even really need the technique, honestly. If I had a choice, I'd rather learn mid- or long-range jutsu. But I didn't have any, and the Rasengan was mostly for improving control, so I kept making the clones practice the first stage until they could fully control the chakra flow with just one hand.
"There." Finally managing to tie off the balloon, the clone held it over the tub, and after just two or three seconds, it burst, sending water and bits of thin rubber flying everywhere. [ image ]

"Can you do it with your left hand?" I asked. After thinking for a moment, he shook his head.
"Got it." I snapped my fingers, and the clones vanished. I'd recently learned to dispel them without using the concentration hand seal. The principle was pretty simple: with the hand seal, you quickly set your chakra in motion and "release" it in a wave that resonates with the clones' chakra, making them disappear. I figured this out through experience and experiments. My control was good enough to send a chakra wave around me, and the finger snap was just for unnecessary flair.
Unfortunately, the reverse process - creating clones - required a more delicate touch, and for some reason, just one hand seal was enough to manipulate the process. Without it, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't force my chakra out while simultaneously changing its Yin-Yang ratio to make it more material, like a physical object.
No wonder this is a B-rank technique - without top-tier control and experience manipulating your own chakra's properties, you can't use it without hand seals. And how do the hand seals "know" they're supposed to manipulate chakra? Only Indra knows. That's the same kind of question as "who or what determines if a fuin is written and combined correctly?"
Anyway, tomorrow I'll have them learn to pop the water balloon with their left hand and try to cut down the time it takes… Actually, why just the left hand? They should learn to do it with their feet, too! Luckily, I bought plenty of balloons, and I've only used up one pack out of three so far.
"Akira-saaan, are you home?" Along with the whistle of the kettle, a series of knocks came from the front door.
Tch, I dispelled the clones too soon. Bending down, I quickly gathered the bits of rubber scattered on the bathroom floor and tossed them in the kitchen trash, turning off the stove as I went.
"Hey, Naruko. Want to come in? The kettle just boiled." I called, stepping away from the door.
"Hi, Akira-san. I just got back from the academy and picked up some fresh buns." She agreed, coming inside. Judging by the way her eyes darted around, she was hoping to see Aika.
She didn't have to look for long - Aika deigned to come out herself to see who the extra voices belonged to. Naruko had already met her at home, and apparently, they liked each other. Why Naruko liked Aika was no mystery - Aika's adorable. But why the fox wanted to be held by Naruko as well as me, I could only guess.
While we sat in the living room drinking tea, Naruko kept getting distracted by Aika, and I was more focused on the soft, freshly baked buns with their sugary glaze.
"Akira-san, can you teach me that cool jutsu?" she asked, eyes sparkling.
"You mean the Clone Technique?" I mean, who knows - maybe in her mind, the cool jutsu is the one that lets you walk on water? When I saw her nodding furiously, I sighed.
"Naruko, what jutsu do you actually know?" I realized I'd never asked her that. If I'd asked a jonin or chunin, they'd have told me to get lost. But for academy students, it's more like a test of their skills, not prying for secrets. Though I bet other clan kids would just change the subject.
"Uh… well… Henge - the Transformation Jutsu, Kawarimi - the Body Replacement Jutsu, and… that's about it. I know the basic Clone Jutsu, but I can't get it to work at all," she said, sounding down.
Is this a joke? Kushina's not a ghost, is she really not training her? I asked.
"Oh, Mom trains me, makes me do homework, teaches me kanji and helps me with chakra control. She says my control is terrible, so she can't teach me most of her jutsu. Just my luck, dattebayo." She hung her head.
I see. So that's why she's more interested in clones and walking on walls - she's probably already been taught that.
"Well, there's nothing stopping me from teaching you, but there are some precautions you need to know…" I started explaining why this jutsu is rarely used, what the risks are if you use it for too long, and then got into the mechanics.
Of course, it's silly to think you can master a jutsu just by memorizing the hand seals. If that were true, every hidden village would have the same set of jutsu in wartime. The fact that I managed to pull it off the first time, after Tsunade showed me the hand seal and explained where to send the chakra, was pure luck. Even then, there were a lot of mistakes - the clone, for example, only looked like me in the broadest sense.
And as for Itachi in the anime mastering the Fireball Jutsu after seeing his dad's hand seals once, without tracking the chakra flow with his Sharingan - that's a fairy tale I don't want to believe. At the very least, to use a jutsu, you need to know in theory where and how to send the chakra. Or maybe that Itachi was a real genius, instinctively understanding how to work with chakra for any jutsu.
"Got it." Naruko nodded, face serious, and stood up, closing her eyes. I guess it helps her visualize the chakra and its movement - though honestly, that's a terrible habit she should break as soon as possible. But maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, and she only closed her eyes because she's trying this jutsu for the first time.
*Poof*
When I saw fifteen or twenty Narukos in my living room, my left eyelid twitched a little.
"Haha, yes!" came the chorus of happy cries from all the clones.
"Hurry up and dispel them," I waved, calming Naruko down.
After I explained how to dispel the clones and they vanished, the house was quiet again.
"The Shadow Clone Jutsu can be used in a lot of ways," I began, summoning a perfect copy of myself. "For spying, distracting the enemy…"
"For surprise attacks," she added, probably remembering that incident with Hinata. I wasn't too worried about the girls spreading that story - they were all involved, so it would affect their reputations, meaning they'd either keep quiet or only tell the story without details.
"Yeah, and also for sending messages and training."
"Um, I didn't really get what you meant by that last part," Naruko said, scratching her cheek and smiling shyly.
"Don't worry, I was just about to explain. See, clones at close range can get mental instructions from me. That's because my mind and the clones' minds are linked by Yin chakra. We can't read each other's thoughts, but when a clone is dispelled, all the new information and thoughts it got and processed automatically come back to me. When you dispel clones, some of their chakra returns to the original - and by 'some,' I mean more than 90% of the clone's chakra. But if the clone was around for a long time or used up chakra, only what's left comes back.
And the distance between the original and the dispelled clone matters, too. I tested it by sending a clone to McDonald's instead of myself, and when I dispelled it (clone suicide), I felt way less chakra come back than there should have been, and not all the information made it, either.
If I make more than four clones and keep them around for a few hours, I'll spend the whole next day in bed with a headache. So… be very careful with this jutsu. The more clones you make, the more strain it puts on your brain."
"I understand, Akira-san. Thank you." Naruko nodded, and judging by her outstretched arms, she wanted a hug, but she quickly pulled them back and gave a small bow.
"You're welcome." I smiled. "So your control is really that bad? You weren't trying to make twenty clones in my house, were you?"
"No." She let out a breath. "I wanted to make two, maybe three."
"Then focus on the number and really concentrate. Try to make just one clone now."
She tried and ended up with three. Second try - four. But Naruko has this great quality: if she sets her mind to something, she'll keep at it until she succeeds. And after half an hour, she finally managed to use the jutsu exactly as needed.
"Whew, that was harder than I thought." She flopped onto the couch, relaxing.
"You really should work on your chakra control," I admitted. "By the way, for spying and recon, Henge works great with the Shadow Clone Jutsu." Naruko listened carefully and started thinking it over.
Yeah, she wasn't dumb - maybe a little naive, simple, and lazy, but definitely not dumb. Naruto, on the other hand, might really have had some issues - I mean, getting hit on the head by Sakura every day can't be good for your brain. I did boxing for two years, every other day, and I learned that the hard way.
"Oh! Haha! I just came up with a second secret jutsu!" she suddenly exclaimed.
"Yeah? Good for you. What is it?" I asked automatically.
"Shi-shi-shi, I'll show you." That foxy grin of hers made me nervous. "Shadow Clone Jutsu." Five clones appeared in the room - two sat across from me on the couch next to Naruko, and three stood behind it. Then, Naruko and her clones all formed the concentration hand seal.
"Multiple Sexy Jutsu," they said in unison.
Yeah… should've seen that coming. I wonder, does Henge only need one hand seal, too? I'll have to try it later. I'm no jutsu genius, but I've got clones, and I know the word "experiment."
"Akiiiira-samaa…" the half-naked, adult versions of Naruko purred.
"Not a bad jutsu - you can distract your opponent for a split second, and in a fight, that's a huge advantage," I nodded.
"Oh, come on." The original Naruko made a face, and all the clones vanished. "I thought your nose would start bleeding." [ image ]

Well… I've seen weirder things, and I don't have blood pressure problems, and I'm not an anime character. Not that I said any of that out loud.
"If your opponent's a girl, you can turn the clones into hot guys. But as far as I know, girls are pickier than guys, so it's a bit of a gamble." Ignoring her last comment, I kept sharing my thoughts.
We hung out for another half hour, and before she left, I asked her to pick up a couple of storage scrolls and some explosive tags for me at the weapons shop tomorrow. She wouldn't be paying for them with her own money, of course.
"I'd love to, Akira-san, but I don't think they'll sell them to me - I'm not a genin yet," Naruko said uncertainly.
"That's what Henge is for. Think of it as a test to see how good your disguise is." I replied calmly, smiling when I saw the sparkle in her eyes.
Well, now I don't have to worry about getting the things I need. Even if I master Henge, it'll take a while before I can use it well, and the clones still have to work on the Rasengan.
****
"You were gone a while - I thought you just wanted to play with Aika for a bit," Kushina said, squinting suspiciously at Naruko as she returned.
"Oh, I asked Akira-san to teach me his jutsu. It's called the Shadow Clone Jutsu, and I mastered it," Naruko announced proudly as she walked into the house.
"But that's a forbidden jutsu, and it's dangerous because it uses so much chakra," Kushina frowned, but after a few seconds, her brow smoothed out.
Oh, right - Naruko doesn't have any chakra problems. Why didn't I think of that before? she thought, rubbing the bridge of her nose in confusion.
"Oh, and I came up with a new jutsu!" Naruko said, trying to hold back a smile.
"Really? Show me," her mother demanded.
…
"Kushina-saaan, I'm so hungry, please feed meee?" Kushina was suddenly surrounded by perfect copies of Akira, except the kimono looked like it had been thrown on in a hurry.
Some clones had their kimono open, showing off their chests, others had it slipping off their shoulders.
Hehe, looks like Akira is perfect for using this jutsu on women, Naruko thought, watching how flustered her mom got.
After a few seconds, Kushina shook her head, dispelling the illusion, and yelled at the top of her lungs -
"NARUKO!"
Uh-oh, the real Naruko thought, turning to run.
…
"Kso, this is so unfair!" Naruko grumbled, doing her homework in her room.
She didn't hold back at all - my butt still hurts, she thought, stretching to ease her aching backside.
"Ugh, I'm only halfway done… I'd rather be training, honestly." She sighed, and then a brilliant idea popped into her head.
"Will this actually work?" She formed the hand seal and summoned a clone - though, thanks to lack of focus, two appeared.
"Hmm, one of you has to do my homework," she said, hoping her idea would work.
The clones immediately turned to each other and picked the unlucky one with a game of rock-paper-scissors.
After watching the clone work for a few minutes, Naruko happily flopped onto her bed, only to sit up a moment later and glance at the second clone, who was chewing her nails with interest.
"Maybe I should make her clean the room? Or just dispel her?" she wondered, and then a thought hit her that made her blush.
Walking over to her door, she moved the desk aside, blocking the door from opening into her room, despite the clone's protests.
"Can you… turn into Akira-san?" she asked the second clone quietly.
The clone looked surprised, and after a few seconds, blushed as well.
I wanted my first kiss to be a little different, but I guess this will do, she thought, mustering her courage as she stepped toward the perfect copy of Akira.
🔥~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🔥
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