More than four months later, spring had long since arrived in Konoha Year 64.
Beneath the Zero Training Ground, the laboratory had acquired quite a few advanced scientific instruments—an experimental workbench here, an assortment of bottles and jars there, and so on.
Right Mysterious Orochimaru submitted the requests, Wu Yu provided the funding, and Tsunade arranged the purchases.
Scrolls containing research logs were piled against all four walls. Since the Right Mysterious Clones could not inherit memories from previous research sessions, they had to preserve their findings through these fragments of recorded memory. Most were Right Mysterious Orochimaru's work, though Right Mysterious Chiyo had contributed to some scrolls as well.
At present, the laboratory was empty. In the other rooms partitioned off as training chambers after the expansion, two people sat quietly cross-legged. One wore a ceremonial robe embroidered with a flame-patterned hem, and the other also wore a ceremonial robe embroidered with a flame-patterned hem.
Tsunade's original body was molding a mass of water-nature chakra in her hands. As her fingers moved, the deep-blue sphere of water wobbled constantly, then suddenly turned into a slick, oily liquid.
Meanwhile, the shadow Tsunade, controlled by the same consciousness as her original body, turned her palm over and molded a mass of earth-nature chakra. A layer of ocher energy covered her pale, youthful palm, but compared with her skillful command of Water Release, her mastery of Earth Release was clearly a notch lower.
"Earth restrains water, and water supports earth. With your Earth Release slightly weaker than your Water Release, that balance is actually ideal for combining the two types of chakra into Wood Release."
A hazy gray figure walked over from beside the training chamber's wall.
If not for his vaguely human male outline, he would have looked like nothing more