Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu and Flying Thunder God Technique

In the quiet, pitch-black underground cell, Rinto slowly rose to his feet and walked to the door.

He brought his hands together.

"Ox—Goat—Snake, Secret Technique: Nurarihyon no Jutsu!"

With a soft hum, Rinto's body was immediately enveloped in a strange gray energy.

Gray mist spread out and blended into the darkness. In an instant, it was as though his very existence had been forcibly erased from this world.

An Amegakure secret technique that could greatly reduce one's sense of presence.

It had its drawbacks too. This secret technique could only block ordinary sight, making normal people subconsciously overlook his existence.

But before certain Sensory Ninjas, it was completely useless.

Rinto did not know whether the Anbu had any Byakugan users.

But!

There was no time to worry about that now. Any plan had a chance of failure, and all Rinto could do was reduce that chance as much as possible.

Rinto's ears twitched faintly as he listened closely.

Just moments ago, an incredibly faint set of footsteps had passed by his door.

Rinto knew it was a patrolling Anbu.

Although he did not know the interval between patrols or how to determine its pattern, that did not matter to him. Knowing the shortest interval was enough.

For the Anbu ninjas, the shortest interval was around thirty seconds.

That meant that whenever an Anbu passed his cell door, the next patrolling Anbu would need at least thirty seconds before passing by Rinto's cell again.

He counted silently.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.

Now.

Rinto brought his hands together and formed the Horse sign at extreme speed, pointing his right index finger at the lock.

"Alohomora!"

At that instant, in the corridor outside, grains of iron powder hidden in the cracks of the walls instantly combined into a key. It crossed through space and appeared in the keyhole outside the door.

Click! The crisp sound echoed far down the empty corridor.

Crap! I'd calculated everything except the door!

Rinto fought desperately to suppress his trembling as he slowly pushed open the cell door. He slipped outside with careful, light movements, shut the door behind him, and formed another hand sign.

"Substitution Technique!"

Poof!

The pillow on Rinto's bed immediately transformed into his likeness, appearing on the cell bed.

"Come here!"

Using Magnet Release to sense the steel, Rinto controlled the kunai inside the pillow and had it swiftly fly to the door.

Two or three seconds after Rinto finished, Earth Dog came running wildly from the far end of the corridor.

The moment he saw the familiar dog-head mask, Rinto was delighted.

Though he did not know what Earth Dog looked like, Rinto could be certain that this guy was neither from Konoha's Hyuga clan nor the Uchiha clan.

In that case, there was a high chance the substitute in his cell would fool him.

As for why Earth Dog was neither Hyuga nor Uchiha—

That was simple. The traits of those two clans were far too obvious.

One was long black hair plus icy aloofness. The other was a dead tsundere plus mild social withdrawal.

As for Earth Dog? This guy was just an ordinary, secretly perverted LSP!

Stopping in his tracks, Earth Dog began inspecting the cells one by one according to the source of the sound.

Click! The small window on a door opened.

The prisoner inside was sleeping on the bed. He turned over and muttered a curse.

Soon, Earth Dog arrived before Rinto's cell. He hesitated for a second, then abruptly pushed open the little window.

Inside, Rinto stood ramrod straight at the door, an eerie smile on his face. His pitch-black eyes, concealed in the shadows, were opened wide as he stared directly at him.

Earth Dog's scalp instantly went numb, and he subconsciously staggered several steps back.

"Y-you... y-you... what are you doing?!"

"Hehe~ Let's play find-the-ball together!" Rinto's innocent voice rang out beside his ear.

"!"

In an instant, a chill shot from his ass straight to his skull, and every short hair on Earth Dog's head stood on end.

"G-go back to sleep!" Earth Dog stammered, hurriedly shutting the little window. He did not notice at all that the voice had come from beside his ear rather than from inside the cell.

Earth Dog shuddered violently, glanced suspiciously around him twice, then stiffened himself and headed toward the duty room. He did not notice that a pitch-black shadow had silently followed behind him.

With a wicked grin, Rinto casually touched the window of his cell door, leaving behind an iron-wire trigger device made of iron powder.

Then he quietly trailed behind Earth Dog, reclaiming the nearly undetectable iron powder from the corridor walls along the way.

Following Earth Dog, Rinto continued onward until they reached a duty room at the end of the corridor.

Unlike the other rooms, this duty room was not built against the side of the corridor.

Instead, it stood directly across the corridor.

There were doors at both the front and rear. The front door led directly to the corridor where prisoners were held, while the rear door connected to the free world outside.

Rinto followed Earth Dog into the brightly lit duty room.

In an instant, the gray mist wrapped around him was no longer dark. Instead, like a chameleon, it shifted toward the color of the lights.

Earth Dog hurried into the light, shuddered again, and complained to the companions seated in the duty room.

"Damn Rinto! That guy won't sleep at night. He stood in front of the window pretending to be a ghost and nearly scared me to death!"

Several Anbu immediately burst into laughter.

"Serves you right. Who told you to give that brat The Tale of Genji? All his blood is rushing to the little head below. Of course he can't sleep!"

Earth Dog did not argue and shuddered once more.

"You guys keep patrolling. I need to piss. I'm going to the bathroom first!"

"Earth Dog, don't tell me you pissed yourself from fright?!"

His companions burst into another round of laughter.

Rinto grinned as well and swayed after Earth Dog.

After passing through four or five doors, climbing seventy or eighty steps, and encountering four or five groups of patrolling ninjas, Earth Dog finally reached the surface, clutching his lower abdomen. Rinto followed him all the way to ground level.

Looking around, Rinto chuckled.

At that moment, he was inside the Hokage Building, by the first-floor stairwell.

Based on the memories of having come here several times before, Rinto bid farewell to his "good brother" Earth Dog and skillfully found a double wooden door tucked away in a first-floor corner.

Looking at the intricate, dazzling flame patterns on the wooden door, Rinto could no longer suppress his excitement. He clenched his fists hard.

Wonderful!

After all that hardship, he had finally—finally—reached this door!

To infiltrate Konoha, I killed people from Amegakure and brought Rie with me.

To preserve my freedom, I racked my brains and desperately drew close to the Will of Fire.

To make Konoha wary of me, I even killed the Rain Frog and exposed my strength.

To infiltrate the Hokage Building, I even put myself in danger, provoking Tobirama Senju with arrogant words and actions.

Every step of the way had been so cautious, like walking on thin ice!

Thinking of that, Rinto felt a trace of grievance well up within him.

Why was it that other transmigrators never had to worry about food or clothing, casually got a Mangekyo, or else a Rinnegan or Tenseigan?

But what about me?

An immortal body sounds great—until you get sliced up and air-dried!

I finally infiltrated Amegakure, only to be sent to Konoha as a spy.

I finally made a whole plan, only to find out Konoha had already infiltrated Amegakure like a sieve, exposing my identity in an instant.

And that was one thing, but even getting into Ninja School required me to beg and plead until I was practically crying my eyes out.

"Life is hard!" Rinto clutched his forehead, on the verge of tears.

Still, the fruits of victory were right before his eyes. Soon! This great Lord Rinto was going to grow wings and soar into the sky!

Rubbing his little hands excitedly, Rinto extended his right hand. Tiny, nearly invisible grains of iron powder squeezed out through his skin and slowly formed a key.

Click!

Rinto was overjoyed. Ignoring the slow-movement requirement of the Nurarihyon no Jutsu, he flashed forward and slipped into the archive room in an instant.

Closing the door, he took a deep breath. A heavy scent of ink mixed with the smell of old books washed over him.

"This! This is the smell of knowledge. Splendid!"

Standing on tiptoe and rubbing his hands, Rinto's eyes shone as he swiftly scanned the archive room.

It was a vast room, cylindrical in shape, with a towering dome seven or eight meters high.

Tall, ancient bookshelves stood against the surrounding walls.

The shelves were neatly lined with scrolls of every size and kind.

Rinto knew that these scrolls recorded countless ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, and secret techniques of Konoha.

His gaze swept past them, but he did not linger long on those scrolls.

He had only one ultimate target.

The enormous half-human-height scroll at the very center of the room!

It was an ancient-looking scroll resting quietly on a circular stone platform in the middle of the room.

The platform was densely carved with all manner of profound patterns, interspersed with complex writing.

Six candle stands were evenly arranged around the stone platform. The candles atop them burned slowly, illuminating the entire room.

Damn it, set one fire in a library and the police chief falls in love with me!

Rinto simply could not understand how these ninjas thought. Lighting candles in a place full of scrolls was like playing hide-and-seek in a toilet.

But Rinto was racing against time and could not spare attention for that. He quickly walked to the stone platform and examined the patterns on the ground.

They were pretty, very pretty—just like when he had first encountered English in third grade.

Those twisting, turning words—

They knew him, but he did not know them.

Even so, Rinto knew these patterns definitely were not drawn for fun. Like those sentences in an English textbook, aside from making things difficult for him, they surely had some other purpose.

With that thought, Rinto raised his hands and formed seals again.

The next second, Rinto pulled an iron rod made of condensed iron powder from between his legs.

"Heh~ Let's test it out!"

As he spoke, he stuck the iron rod into the stone platform.

Suddenly, a thin silver-white gleam flashed, and Rinto's right hand holding the rod was severed at the wrist.

Holy crap! You didn't cut the rod, you cut me?!

Fine, you cut me—but you even cut through my wrist bone, which was as hard as steel. That's seriously impressive!

Blood mixed with black iron powder gushed from the severed wound, and Rinto hurriedly formed seals with one hand.

The next second, iron powder gathered at the wound and formed a membrane, stopping the flowing blood.

"Watch this—Magnet Release: Iron Man Technique!" he shouted.

The iron rod on the ground instantly broke apart, transforming into a tiny Rinto barely the size of a palm.

Previously, Rinto had relied on this move to open the door of the specially made prison cage.

Little Rinto slowly stood up, bounced twice to adapt to the tiny body, then picked up Rinto's fallen right hand and threw it out of the formation.

Rinto caught his own hand and pressed it against the severed wound.

The iron powder within his body condensed into needles and swiftly stitched it back together.

At this point, time no longer allowed him to heal slowly.

After reattaching his hand, Rinto formed seals again and controlled the little man in the formation to quickly walk to the half-human-height Scroll of Seals.

Little Rinto nimbly leaped up and pried open the clasp holding the Scroll of Seals shut.

"Whoosh~" The scroll unfurled, and Rinto hurried forward to the edge of the stone platform.

On the Scroll of Seals, seven large characters stood out clearly.

Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!

Holy hell! A cheat-code technique?!

Without time to think, Rinto instantly entered a focused state. Holding his breath, his eyes shining, he stared fixedly at the contents of the Scroll of Seals.

Reading ten lines at a glance, Rinto had no time to understand it and quickly memorized the formula for the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu.

"Keep turning!"

At his command, Little Rinto immediately pushed the scroll, rolling it to one side until it nearly reached the edge of the candlelight.

"Stop!"

Seeing the candle flame about to lick the Scroll of Seals, Rinto hurriedly controlled Little Rinto to grab the scroll.

Once it stopped, Rinto looked at the Scroll of Seals again.

"Hm? It isn't the Eight Inner Gates Technique! What is this?"

An incomparably obscure passage of text appeared on the scroll.

"This! The Flying Thunder God Technique! But where's the formula? Where are the hand signs?"

There was no formula, only a long passage of complicated, incomprehensible text.

Damn it!

Rinto forced himself to memorize the entire lengthy passage.

Fortunately, he had trained his memorization skills rigorously for this day. Otherwise, he might not have been able to remember it.

And every character in that long passage was one he recognized individually, yet when they were put together, he could not understand a single sentence!

Forcing himself onward, Rinto was just about to continue.

Suddenly, his senses were triggered.

"Not good! Someone's checking the cells!" Rinto cried out.