Sasuke propped his cheek on one hand, his gaze fixed on the shadow of a great tree cast across his desk through the window.
The classroom was unbearably noisy.
Two boys in the front row were chasing each other around the teacher's desk. One slipped and slammed his knee hard against the wooden floor with a dull thud.
Several girls in the back had gathered together, chattering as they passed around folded paper. Bursts of laughter rang out.
Sasuke tapped his fingers lightly on the desk. To grow stronger, he was calculating how to make use of the dwindling energy inside him.
The method for refining chakra was completely different from that of Cursed Energy. Right now, he could barely use the Ten Shadows Technique.
The other night, he had forcibly drained his Cursed Energy to tame Mahoraga, using up what little he had left.
And refining Cursed Energy in this world was incredibly difficult.
During the few days he spent recovering in the hospital, he had tried to refine Cursed Energy, but he didn't know whether he was using the wrong method or whether Cursed Energy simply couldn't be refined in this world.
Either way, that tiny amount was better than nothing.
Rather than struggle to refine what little Cursed Energy he could, it would be more worthwhile to find a way to use chakra as a substitute to control shadows.
"Rip."
The sound of a bag being torn open rang beside him.
Sasuke stopped tapping the desk and turned his head.
Choji was standing by his desk, holding a bag of barbecue-flavored chips.
He reached into the bag, took out two chips, and placed them on Sasuke's desk. Then he started eating on his own.
Shikamaru stood beside Choji, his hands in his pockets.
His eyelids drooped as his gaze swept over Sasuke's face.
Shikamaru yawned, his tone casual.
"Shouldn't you have stayed home and rested a few more days? But you don't look like you're on death's door. You seem to be doing pretty well."
Sasuke looked at the two of them.
Shikamaru's seemingly casual manner, with every word actually an observation, and Choji's blunt habit of shoving food at people reminded him of the equally noisy, self-absorbed people at Jujutsu High.
They were just like this, always doing something inexplicable whenever someone was trying to think.
School life, huh... How long had it been since he'd had a proper rest after Shibuya?
Sasuke sighed.
He placed two fingers on the edge of the chip bag and pushed it back toward Choji.
"I'm not hungry. Thanks," Sasuke said, looking at Choji.
Choji blinked. "You don't want any? Then I'll eat them. No point wasting food."
With that, he stuffed the two chips from the desk into his mouth.
Sasuke turned to Shikamaru.
"Thanks for your concern, Nara," Sasuke said evenly.
"I'm doing fine right now. There's no need to test my mental state with comments like that."
Shikamaru's hand shifted slightly in his pocket.
He raised one eyebrow and looked at Sasuke, a little surprised.
"What a drag... I meant the way you address me. Can't you just call me Shikamaru?" Shikamaru scratched the back of his head, though one corner of his mouth twitched.
"As long as you understand what people say, that's all that matters. I don't want to deal with a pain in the neck who might fall apart at any moment."
"You've always been observant," Sasuke said, looking at the shadow stretching out at Shikamaru's feet in the sunlight.
"If I remember correctly, the Nara Clan uses shadows to fight, right?"
"Huh? Yeah." Shikamaru glanced at his shadow, following Sasuke's gaze.
"Shadow Possession Jutsu. What, is the Uchiha genius interested in our secret techniques now?"
"I was just wondering how you inject chakra into a shadow that has no physical form." Sasuke leaned forward slightly.
Shikamaru was just about to explain.
"Bang!"
The door at the back of the classroom flew open.
Naruto, in his conspicuous orange outfit, leaped onto a desk. He bounded across a few desks and charged straight to Sasuke's.
"Sasuke!" Naruto's fingertip nearly poked Sasuke on the nose.
"I'm going to beat you at shuriken throwing today, no matter what!"
Sasuke raised his eyes to Naruto, who was bouncing around in front of him.
"Uzumaki, you're too loud. You're seriously disrupting my train of thought." Sasuke leaned back in his chair.
"Keep it down. If you want to cause a scene, do it somewhere else."
Naruto's eyes widened, and his cheeks flushed red at once.
"What did you say, you jerk?!" Naruto flailed his arms, wildly swinging his fists through the air.
"Who do you think you are?! I'm going to be Hokage!"
Shikamaru scrunched up his face beside them and covered his ears. "He really is loud. Naruto, can you settle down? It's early in the morning. Are you trying to tear the roof off?"
"Stay out of this, Shikamaru! This is a duel between me and Sasuke!" Naruto turned and shouted at Shikamaru.
Choji stuffed a large handful of chips into his mouth and mumbled, "But Naruto, you missed the target with every shuriken yesterday."
"Choji! Whose side are you on?!"
Naruto's arrival made the classroom several times louder.
"Smack!"
A thick attendance book slammed down on the teacher's desk.
The classroom fell silent at once.
Iruka stood behind the desk, the vein in his forehead throbbing. He pointed toward Sasuke's seat.
"Naruto! Shikamaru! Choji! And..." Iruka's gaze swept over the troublemakers before finally settling on Sasuke.
"And..." Iruka opened his mouth, hesitating.
Sasuke didn't wait for Iruka to finish.
He pushed his chair back, stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked straight out of the classroom.
As he passed the teacher's desk, Sasuke stopped and glanced at Iruka.
"I'm fine, sensei." Leaving those words behind, he walked out of the classroom.
Iruka froze, his hand holding the attendance book suspended in midair.
"You three, what are you standing around for? Get out there and stand with Sasuke!" Iruka came to his senses and shouted at Naruto and the others.
In the hallway.
The air outside was a little cooler than it had been in the classroom.
The four of them leaned side by side against the hallway wall.
Naruto folded his hands behind his head and irritably kicked the base of the wall with his right foot.
"Damn Iruka-sensei. Sasuke was the one who provoked me first. Why do I have to stand out here too...?" Naruto muttered under his breath.
Choji leaned against the wall, still holding the bag of chips. The sound of him chewing was especially clear in the quiet hallway.
Shikamaru tipped his head back, knocking it against the wall, and let out a long sigh.
"What a drag. Now we have to waste our energy standing here first thing in the morning." Shikamaru complained, running a hand through his hair.
Sasuke stood at the far right.
Ignoring Naruto's grumbling, he turned to look at Shikamaru, who stood on the other side of Choji.
"Nara," Sasuke said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried well enough for the others to hear.
"What? And can you change the way you address me?" Shikamaru turned lazily toward him.
"Let's get back to what we were discussing." Sasuke looked at the shadows on the ground.
"When your clan uses Shadow Possession Jutsu, does the chakra adhere to the surface of the shadow, or does it change the nature of the shadow itself?"
Shikamaru paused.
He hadn't expected Sasuke to still be thinking about that.
"You're really acting strange today." Shikamaru straightened up and folded his arms. "That's a secret technique passed down in my clan. How could I just tell you about it?"
"I don't need to know the specifics. I'm just asking a couple of questions. It's not as if I could learn your secret technique from a few words, right?" Sasuke stared at Shikamaru.
"I only want to know the theory. In your eyes, is a shadow a channel or a physical entity?"
It was a very pointed question.
The casual look disappeared from Shikamaru's face.
He studied Sasuke seriously for a few seconds.
"It's both a channel and a physical entity." Shikamaru lowered his voice so only the few of them could hear.
"A shadow itself has no weight, but once chakra is injected into it, it can exert physical force."
"We don't create shadows. We simply extend the shadows that are already there."
Extend the shadows that are already there. Exert physical force.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed slightly.
That overlapped with the underlying principles of the Ten Shadows Technique.
The Ten Shadows Technique used shadows as a medium to summon Shikigami. The shadows themselves were a bottomless channel.
If chakra could give shadows the power to affect the physical world, maybe he could force that channel open and get around his lack of Cursed Energy.
"I see." Sasuke nodded. "A change in chakra's nature, huh?"
"Hey, what are you two whispering about?" Naruto leaned out from the far left and shouted in protest.
"What's all this talk about shadows? You just use a jutsu with a 'poof,' and that's it!"
"Idiot... Itadori was way more likable." Sasuke muttered.
"Who are you calling an idiot?! Fight me one-on-one if you've got the guts! And who's Itadori? Is that a dog?!" Naruto immediately flew into a rage and looked ready to charge.
Shikamaru grabbed Naruto by the shoulder and shoved him back against the wall.
"Calm down, Naruto. Do you want Iruka-sensei to come out and smack you again? And Itadori is a kind of plant."
Shikamaru massaged his temples with a pained expression, then looked at Sasuke.
"I don't know why you're asking, but shadows aren't easy to control. Without my clan's secret techniques, ordinary people can drain all their chakra and their shadows still won't move an inch."
"I know." Sasuke leaned back against the wall again, his gaze falling on the shadow beneath his feet.
As long as he could infuse a change in chakra's nature into a shadow and add just a little Cursed Energy, he might find a new way to summon the Jade Dog.
The hallway fell relatively quiet again, broken only by the "crunch, crunch" of Choji eating chips and Naruto's heavy, indignant breathing.
Sasuke closed his eyes and began to visualize the path chakra would take as it flowed into the shadow.
Before you continue