Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_335

Jyuro was an ANBU staff member working at the main training facility. He was in charge of operating and maintaining training machinery. He wasn't busy because operatives didn't have the time or energy for regular training. The staff's responsibility didn't involve combat, so they also didn't train frequently.

Moreover, few shinobi believed in the usefulness of training machinery. They saw them as complicated gimmicks and would instead train in old-fashioned ways, using simple equipment and mastering skills through repetition and sparring. He had nothing against old-fashioned methods because they were tried, trusted, and true, but he also believed advanced machinery could be exploited for gains.

In his opinion, busy ANBU operatives could take advantage of training machinery to make good use of their limited time and energy. However, convincing them to try something new was difficult when their time was limited, and their ways had been servicing them perfectly well.

But some were willing to try unorthodox methods.

"Again, please."

A voice came from the speakers in the command room. Jyuro gazed down at the reinforced training room below through the fortified glass pane before pressing a button on the electronic module containing numerous buttons, each controlling a setting. The flamethrowers in the walls and roofs all moved to face the same direction before firing flames that engulfed a spot in the centre of the floor.

"Hey, I brought food."

Jyuro accepted his lunch from his colleague. It was lunchtime, and while he could ask the operative to leave so he could have his meal in peace, he didn't. The disinterest in machinery made his job easier as he didn't need to spend time controlling the machinery, and the maintenance work was also easier—but whenever someone did come along, even though it increased his work, he was willing to do so because it made him feel like he was doing something meaningful—the thought of his work surmounting to nothing was haunting.

"Today again, huh," said his colleague.

"It works, and there's no risk of damaging any machinery," Jyuro replied as he opened his packed lunch.

The flamethrowers gradually halted, revealing a figure as the flames subsided. Instead of clothes, he was covered in dragon-like scales that had been burned from red-brown to charred black from the fire. The scales shed down, revealing unharmed skin, but disappeared into nothingness before they could hit the ground.

The room was designed for mobility training, where the trainees avoided fireballs and streams aimed at them to practice situational awareness and react to random attacks, but when Jyuro got the training request, he repurposed the functionality to suit the operative's needs to train the Yang Release: Fire Dragon Scales. It was undoubtedly dangerous, but so were all-out brawls that some liked to call light sparring.

"Any problems?" Jyuro spoke into the microphone.

"Not at all. Once more, please."

Takuma weaved his hand seals for a fresh application of the ninjutsu. Starting from his hands, a wave of scales sprang up all over his body. Short tails of blue flames fluttered out of the nozzles as the fire throwers moved toward him. The plummeting temperature rose again as fuel was injected through the fire, and intense flames more suited to smelting factories were launched at him. The scales reflected the heat like a shield, but a tiny amount seeped in, burning them from the inside. They could handle only a certain amount, and when that was breached, they degraded and crumbled.

Roughly ten days ago, he asked the training facility management if they could help him train the Fire Dragon Scales jutsu because Anko wasn't free to whip him daily. He was initially disappointed until they contacted him the next day, saying they might have something he could use. Since that day, he has volunteered to get blasted with fire for two one-hour sessions every day. It paid dividends, as his skill had drastically increased in a very short amount of time. The only downside was that he got burned all over his body. Ai fixed those for him, and he was getting into the habit of regular moisturising, which was good for his skin.

The flamethrowers stopped, and Takuma breathed a sigh of relief as he shed the scales with a small jolt of chakra, instantly feeling the residual heat leave with them.

"Once again?"

"Let's take a break, thank you," Takuma replied.

His skill wasn't the only thing that had improved. He had been thinking about his conversation with Doctor Oisihi and Ai about their perception of the Yang nature. He had been contemplating how it functioned in Fire Dragon Scales. After thinking about it a lot, he zoned in on the fact they weren't real dragon scales, as dragons weren't real.

The ninjutsu's creator had simply manipulated Yang to create scales resembling that of a dragon when they could've created another layer of skin or used existing skin and imbibed it with fire-resistance properties. They had probably simply chosen it for aesthetic or artistic reasons. It was something that was created from pure imagination—and not an accurate recreation of something real.

Then he realised that his water clones weren't accurate copies but simply a form of simulacra—a representation of him—made from water. They were identical from the outside but completely different from the inside.

It was then that he had an epiphany: Shadow Clone Jutsu didn't create an identical copy, but something different formed in his image. He wasn't trying to create a real human because that was nearly impossible as that would be rivalling the natural creation of life, and even if it was possible, it was too much for a B-rank jutsu.

"I'm ready," he said to himself.

"Sorry, I missed that," said Jyuro from the speakers.

"Nothing, just speaking to myself. Please don't start the fire," said Takuma. He had gotten burned enough in the past few days to last a lifetime.

Takuma took a deep breath and gathered chakra inside his body to use for the Shadow Clone Jutsu. After two daily attempts that all ended in failure, he had gotten the amount down from trial and error. As he began forming the hand seals, he split the chakra into two parts and sent them in opposite directions of his chakra pathway network inside his body, following specific routes as per the instructions provided in the ninjutsu scroll.

The Shadow Clone Jutsu fell under the Yin-Yang Release, which required both Yin and Yang natured chakra.

Yin controlled imagination, creating form out of nothingness.

One-half of raw chakra turned into Yin natured chakra as Takuma weaved the hand seals, and he held an image of himself in his head. This part was easy, as he had been doing it for years while using genjutsu. But this time, instead of imagining an exact copy of himself inside and out, he only thought of something resembling him because that's not only what he wanted, but it was also the limit of his skill. He now had the template of what he wanted to create.

Yang controlled vitality, giving life to forms that had none.

The other half of raw chakra turned into Yang natured chakra, ready to fill the template with "life." Fire Dragon Scale was not a good jutsu to train the type of Yang nature transformation needed for the Shadow Clone Jutsu, as the former required Yang chakra to "grow" scales from pre-existing skin and then "modify" them so they had fire-resistant property—whereas, the latter required "creating" something out of nothing. It wouldn't have mattered what he had picked as "creation" was the domain of Yin-Yang Release.

The two chakra halves joined together like two river streams joining together and mixed into a very potent form of Yin-Yang chakra.

As he finished his hand seals, he felt the chakra rush out of him, and a sweat of nervousness dripped down his face because he had always failed at this step. The mixed chakra that would be stable inside his body would turn unstable the moment it exited his body, as though it couldn't survive outside the protection of its birthplace.

Thump! Takuma felt his heart lurching as he felt massive amounts of Physical and Spiritual energy react and move out of his body. He was scared for his life because he had never felt anything like this before. He knew what was happening, but instead of feeling comfort from that knowledge, he was petrified because of it.

When he used the Water Clone Jutsu, he would mix a lot of chakra, but only a portion of it would be used for the creation of the jutsu, and the rest of it would deposit itself inside the water used for the clone's body that it could then use later. There was a drawback to that method of giving a clone chakra to use, as chakra would always disappear when it wasn't used. If a shinobi mixed chakra to use for a jutsu and they were interrupted midway, that chakra was wasted and couldn't be used for something else. Chakra stored in fūinjutsu seals would also run out without fail, regardless of whether they were in use or not—and while there were ways to delay the inevitable or bypass the problem by methods like recharging, there was no method to stopping it.

The chakra inside the water clone, too, would slowly dissipate, and once there wasn't enough to hold the clone's form, it would return to a mass of water.

The Shadow Clone Jutsu didn't employ the same method of providing the clone with chakra. The phrase: "A shadow clone jutsu took half of the user's chakra" was a simplification. The chakra that the user mixed all went to create the clone's body, and instead, the clone took half of Physical and Spiritual energy that it would then mix on its own to create chakra just like a real human.

It was a much more complex way to "store chakra" inside a clone and bypass the chakra degradation. The shadow clone, like any other clone, would inevitably disappear when it ran out of chakra, but it could stay real for a much longer time as it wasn't wasting chakra at the same time.

But that came with a downside. In the Water Clone Jutsu, Takuma controlled how much chakra went to the clone by mixing it by himself; the jutsu would only take what he mixed. But in the Shadow Clone Jutsu, he had no control over how much of his Physical and Spiritual energy would be taken away.

The phrase: "A shadow clone jutsu took half of the user's chakra" was also a lie. The clone took as much Physical and Spiritual energy as it needed to create a minimum viable clone. If the needed amount was more than half, the clone would take it away without stopping—if the needed amount was less than the user's half, it would take still half to create a stronger clone.

And that was the real danger. If a shinobi, during the heat of combat, used the Shadow Clone Jutsu without realising that he had less than the amount of Physical and Spiritual energy needed for a minimum viable clone, it would be akin to signing a death warrant by death via chakra exhaustion as there was no automatic stoppage which would stop the jutsu. The moment the hand seals were complete, it was out of the user's hands.

That's why the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu was forbidden. One mistake to estimate how many clones one could safely create meant instant death—and because it was an A-rank ninjutsu, it meant the user had to be a jōnin—and that was not someone the village could afford to lose from a jutsu mishap.

Takuma knew he had more than enough chakra for a minimum viable clone—but the fear of the "what if..." lingered regardless. What if he had spent too much chakra while practising the Fire Dragon Scale, and the amount of Physical and Spiritual energy left in his body was insufficient for a minimum viable clone?

His body went cold, his heart thumped harder, and his breathing halted in his lungs as he felt Physical and Spiritual energy leave his body in droves, filling him with dread—until it stopped, and he found himself with plenty left in his body.

He looked up and saw the smoke clear until he was looking at himself. He had experienced it plenty of times before while creating water clones, but he knew how different it was because this was a shadow clone, much more advanced than what he was used to.

The clone held up his arm.

"What?" asked Takuma.

"Come on, you were thinking about it before. Touch it," said the clone.

Takuma nodded, touched the clone's wrist, and gulped when he felt a pulse. The skin's elasticity was real-like, and he felt bone underneath the skin. He could even feel the warmth from the clone's body. And even though he knew that nothing inside the clone was real, it sure damn felt real.

"Is that a shadow clone? Neat!" Jyuro's voice came from the speaker. "Want me to shoot fire at him?"

"No!" "No!"

"Hey, I want to test it," said Takuma, excited about experiencing something that would change how he lived his life.

"Now? Sure, let's do it. Should I head out?"

The clone shrugged and then walked out of the training room. A minute passed, and Takuma wondered what the clone was doing, and just as he thought that, his eye widened as he saw and felt things he had not seen or felt.

Takuma grinned because he knew things were going to change in a very good way.

———

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A/N: Shadow Clone Jutsu... acquired!