Nine-Tails: Saw a ghost late at night

After Right Mysterious Kakashi disappeared, his memories of squatting in Kakashi's home bathroom to record the scroll, then climbing out the window and running into the just-arrived Right Mysterious Rin, all returned to Wu Yu's mind like surveillance footage.

Cold, emotionless visual memories were better. If even the clone's inner thoughts were returned to Wu Yu, wouldn't he eventually develop a split personality?

A thick scroll lay quietly on the floor.

"At least he remembered this original body's order and left behind what he was supposed to."

Wu Yu stepped forward, picked up the scroll, and opened it for a quick look.

Kakashi, known throughout the ninja world as the Copy Ninja who had copied a thousand ninjutsu, had recorded no fewer techniques for Wu Yu than Right Mysterious Clone Tsunade had.

It was just that Tsunade's style was bold and unrestrained, splashing ink with sweeping strokes, so her scroll had ended up enormous. Kakashi, perhaps relying on his sharp eyesight, had written in tiny, densely packed characters. Yet despite the sheer amount of writing, it was orderly rather than chaotic, so the scroll itself was not very large.

"Ah..." Naruto Uzumaki, wearing a nightcap and yawning, passed through the living room. "Why are you still awake..." The blond kid sleepily headed to the bathroom. After a burst of splashing water, he sleepily passed through the living room again and returned to his bedroom. "What a weirdo..."

Wu Yu put away the Kakashi Scroll and formed hand seals with both hands.

"Then let's give it a try."

Poof!

It was still that mysterious, indescribable feeling. No Chakra was consumed, yet a clone materialized.

When the light smoke dispersed, a ninja wearing an Amegakure forehead protector appeared.

Wu Yu was slightly surprised. "Who's in charge of Amegakure right now?"

"..." Right Mysterious Rain Ninja fell silent for a moment before answering with a frown, "The village is still in civil war. There is no leader."

Wu Yu smiled. "Since it's a civil war, that means there's more than one leader. Don't you follow one of them?"

Right Mysterious Rain Ninja said, "I follow... Pain... God..." The further he spoke, the tighter his brow furrowed.

Wu Yu asked, "One question: who do you love and respect the most?"

Right Mysterious Rain Ninja replied, "Lord Pain..."

"Fine. Now I'm giving you a mission." Wu Yu said, "Tell me everything you know about Pain, then go assassinate him."

"Pain's information... assassination..." Right Mysterious Rain Ninja muttered to himself. At last, he could no longer hold it together. As though his system had bugged out, his face twisted in pain as he stood frozen in place for a while. Then, as expected, he vanished with a poof.

Wu Yu sat by the window, lightly tapping his fingers against his arm as he recalled the unidentified Right Mysterious Clone he had created before leaving that afternoon. He had told the clone to stay home and write down as many of the techniques and secrets it knew as possible, but it had dispelled itself on the spot...

At the time, he had assumed that random nobody clone's attainments were simply too poor for it to last even one minute. Wu Yu had indeed drawn quite a few trash clones like that. But thinking about it now, perhaps "techniques" and "secrets" were things that person would never reveal, things that held an extremely important place in his heart.

Just like Pain, who occupied a godlike status in that Rain Ninja's heart.

As for Tsunade and Kakashi, perhaps their Right Mysterious Clones had been willing to record their techniques on scrolls and give them to him only because there were things more important than ninjutsu in their minds.

Wu Yu decided, for the time being, to call this mental trait that caused Right Mysterious Clones to bug out and dispel themselves a "Cognitive Anchor."

With his back to the moonlight streaming through the window, time slowly passed...

Since Wu Yu had nothing better to do, he formed hand seals and silently practiced Yin Release Chakra Nature Transformation for a while.

"First refine it into Chakra, then imagine that it's nothing but pure spiritual energy... ethereal and formless... This is a little difficult. It seems to require strong abstract thinking..."

About an hour passed.

Wu Yu once again formed the special cross-shaped hand seal. Right Mysterious Clone, activate!

Poof!

This time, the one who appeared was a dark-skinned man Wu Yu likewise did not recognize. Mm, a Kumogakure ninja...

The ninja world was neither especially large nor especially small. The famous, named characters Wu Yu had seen in manga in his previous life were merely a drop in the ocean.

The more he thought about how he had drawn Tsunade and Kaguya one after another at the very beginning, the luckier he felt.

And because Right Mysterious Rin had also taught him that it was not only the living who could be drawn—his Right Mysterious Clones also had a chance of randomly selecting dead people in the underworld who had nothing left but soul Chakra... Wu Yu could no longer be bothered to calculate just how enormous the total draw pool was.

"You. What's most important in your heart?" Wu Yu lifted his chin and asked. "Kumogakure, or your own family?"

Right Mysterious Cloud Ninja answered calmly yet firmly, "I have no family. Lord Raikage is my only family."

Wu Yu said, "I have a Kumogakure ninja who needs to be assassinated. Are you willing to do it for me?"

Right Mysterious Cloud Ninja did not hesitate. "You are the original body. Of course I will do as you wish."

Wu Yu said, "What if the assassination target is your village's Two-Tails Jinchuriki?"

Right Mysterious Cloud Ninja still did not hesitate. "You are the original body. Your word is final."

Wu Yu asked, "What if it's the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki?"

This time, Right Mysterious Cloud Ninja hesitated.

Wu Yu suspected it was because the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki was regarded by the Raikage himself as a brother.

But even so, Right Mysterious Clone only hesitated for an instant before saying, "Although I am no match for either the Two-Tails or Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, as long as you give the order, original body, I will carry it out."

"Neither of them."

Wu Yu said, "The actual assassination target is the Raikage himself. First give me his information, then set out at once."

This command caused an intense conflict with Right Mysterious Cloud Ninja's own Cognitive Anchor.

A bug appeared. The Cloud ninja's face twisted with conflict and pain, and then, with a poof, he vanished from the spot.

Wu Yu propped up his elbow, brushed a finger over his lower lip, and clicked his tongue... Just now, while testing this Cloud ninja's Mysterious Clone, a thought had suddenly occurred to him: if he went back a few years, and if he had drawn Itachi Uchiha's Mysterious Clone instead...

If he told Mysterious Clone Itachi to kill the Uchiha Clan, Itachi probably would not hesitate.

If he told Mysterious Clone Itachi to kill his own biological parents, he would probably hesitate for a moment, but still carry it out.

But if he told Mysterious Clone Itachi to kill Sasuke, or betray Konoha, Wu Yu figured Itachi would directly dismiss the clone... He just was not sure whether Sasuke or Konoha held the more important place.

"I really stayed up too late. My mind's starting to wander..."

Wu Yu shook his head, took off his clothes, tidied up a little, then went to Naruto's bedroom and laid out a bedroll. Before long, he fell into a deep sleep.

Early the next morning, Naruto Uzumaki sprang out of bed full of energy, stretched, and shouted, "Alright! Starting today, I'm a Genin! I'm going to take on missions and show everyone what I can do!"

"Why are you yelling like a ghost this early in the morning?" The sudden voice beside him startled Naruto into jumping. Only then did he remember that Wu Yu was still in his house. Thinking about how he had just acted being seen, he was instantly mortified.

"What are you having for breakfast?" Barefoot, Wu Yu wandered into the living room, opened Naruto's refrigerator, and took out a carton of milk. Oh, it was still barely within its expiration date. Lucky.

Breakfast was milk and bread—pretty Western. No wonder he had blond hair and blue eyes... Wu Yu inwardly teased as he taught Naruto at the table that, if he was too lazy to shop for ingredients every day, he could just send a Shadow Clone. Wasn't that what they were for? Running errands, doing dirty work, hard work, and work where dying was not a concern?

"Right..." Naruto Uzumaki, wearing a nightcap, scratched his cheek while gnawing on bread, smiling sheepishly to himself.

"What are you grinning stupidly about?" Wu Yu found it strange.

"Nothing..." Naruto said haltingly. "It's just that... this is my first time eating breakfast at home without being alone... Hehe..." To hide his embarrassment, he hurriedly grabbed the milk carton, tipped back his head, and gulped it down.

While Naruto was happily bashful, the Nine-Tailed Fox inside him was in an awful mood.

A particularly, particularly awful mood.

[What exactly was that...]

The sight it had accidentally glimpsed late last night still would not leave the Nine-Tailed Fox's mind.

As a special Chakra life-form, the Nine-Tailed Fox's Chakra was its limbs, its flesh and blood, its eyes and senses... So long as it wished, it could transmit its will through every strand of its Chakra.

Even sealed within Naruto's body, it could still see and sense the outside world.

That was precisely why, late last night, the Nine-Tailed Fox had "seen" that figure beneath the moon... It had only ever seen that woman—the mother of the Old Man of Six Paths—in the illusions simulated with Chakra when the old man told his story.

It had never imagined that it would actually see a living, breathing Kaguya Otsutsuki.

And inside its Jinchuriki's home, no less.

Before the bedroom window, the Rabbit Goddess had appeared like a phantom, her wide sleeves drifting as she silently gazed up at the moonlight beyond the window...

The Nine-Tailed Fox barely dared to breathe, drawing back all its Chakra for fear that Kaguya Otsutsuki would notice it.

But Kaguya simply floated there alone, quietly staring at the bright moon in the night sky, without moving even once.