Back home, Uchiha Jin sat on his bed, fingertips tapping the tatami.
He reviewed the results of his new powers and felt they were only partly satisfying.
The talismans were as valuable as ever. Their conceptual boosts had pushed his strength to a new level.
With only the Rabbit talisman he had left a Root squad helpless.
The weak point was the fragment from Nika. Its effects were eerie enough to startle those Root shinobi.
But Jin knew it was mostly for show.
Aside from a handy pocket space in his shadow, it did little.
Because this world was not the Black Shadow Kingdom, he could not summon Nika's shadow soldiers as the Holy Master could.
Without those undying grunts, the value dropped sharply.
"Hey, Holy Master, got a way to strengthen this shadow power?"
He decided to ask the demon sorcerer and called to him in his mind.
"Why should I answer you, thief?"
The Holy Master's voice dripped scorn.
"Because you are a statue sealed inside me. When you live off others, learn to wag your tail. Good enough?"
Jin went straight to threats.
"Do not get cocky, brat."
The roar shook his ears, but Jin had already set the sealed domain in motion.
Chains lashed out and wrapped the Holy Master.
Before a cry of pain could leave him, darkness swallowed his sight.
"Do not forget your situation. You are in no place to haggle. Answer the question."
Silence, then grudging words.
"That bit is only a fragment from Nika's mask. In a foreign world, forming a tiny shadow pocket in your shade is already the limit. To enhance it, you need chi magic to sustain it, which means chi. Besides normal chi and dark chi, the simplest source is chi drawn from the human body."
"You know the spell for draining chi from a person, do you not, demon sorcerer?"
Jin understood at once. It was just another kind of cannibalism. He did not hesitate.
"Chi magic is not so simple to cast, and you..."
"Skip it. Tell me how."
Impatient, he cut the lecture short.
The Holy Master disclosed the method and incantation, but warned him all the same.
"Misapplied chi magic has unpredictable results, and this is an unknown world. I do not know what it will do. Be cautious."
Sealed in Jin's body, he would die if Jin died, so for once the warning was sincere.
"I know my limits."
Jin dropped the matter and moved on.
His shadow twisted. A curled-up ninja surfaced above the dark.
He felt no pity.
He began to chant as taught, guiding the flow of chakra through his body.
Nothing happened. Using chakra to drive chi magic failed.
He switched methods and drew a thread of the Holy Master's dark chi from the seal, coiling it around his fingertip.
As the chant rose again, the dark chi writhed like a living thing. The ninja convulsed and groaned.
His eyes snapped open. Two ghostly green streams shot from his pupils and gathered midair into a spinning sphere.
At the same time, his body shrank before Jin's eyes and withered to a husk.
"This is chi?"
Jin studied the floating orb, feeling the life within it.
His shadow yawned wide and swallowed the sphere.
At once, the inner space shifted. Edges grew clearer, the interior swelled, and something seemed to be taking shape inside.
"Looks good."
He nodded and repeated the process, stripping chi from the other two.
When the third orb slipped into the dark, the room changed. Shadows writhed of their own accord, and Jin felt the pocket expand more than twofold.
A shape rose from the shade.
It was ink-black head to toe, eyes glowing blood-red, the spitting image of a soldier from the Shadow Army.
"The Shadow Army?"
Surprised, Jin called the Holy Master out again.
"Hey, is this normal?"
"It is not."
The demon answered at once.
"The Shadow Army is born and reborn only in the Shadow Kingdom."
"You mean the inside of my shadow may be becoming a new Shadow Kingdom."
Jin caught on immediately.
"Likely. The two worlds are too far apart. This fragment cannot link to the true kingdom anymore. Housed in you, it changed. Perhaps it is your so-called chakra. Perhaps the difference between worlds. Either way, it is building a new Shadow Kingdom."
The Holy Master's voice grew heavy, tinged with unwillingness.
That power had once been his. Now it belonged to Jin.
"How much chi to complete it?"
Jin ignored the tone and asked what mattered.
A long silence, then a reluctant answer.
"If taken from ordinary people, at least ten thousand by a cautious estimate. If they are like those three shinobi just now, a hundred or so might suffice."
A dangerous smile tugged at Jin's lips. He looked out at the bustling streets, a tide of figures passing by.
"How convenient. There are plenty like that in the Leaf."
With his whisper, the newborn shadow ninja melted into the dark.
In the sunlight, Jin's shadow squirmed, little bulges rising at the edges, as if more shadow creatures were about to break through.