The Shadow of the Clone Technique

The Clone Technique demonstration was held on the third day of preparatory classes.

Mine did not let the children practice. She only let them watch. She stood in the center of the new training ground, the wind pressing her sleeves against her arms. The children sat beside the wooden posts. Kiyo strained to keep his eyes wide open, while Saori placed her doll on her lap and held down its bell, afraid the sound would disturb the teacher.

"Today, you'll be watching one of the basic Three Body Techniques: the Clone Technique," Mine said. "Watch, don't practice."

As she spoke those last three words, her gaze swept over Che.

Che raised his hand. "Teacher, I feel like I'm being preemptively taught a lesson."

"You are."

The children laughed.

Mine formed the hand seals slowly. Ram, Snake, Tiger. She deliberately paused at each seal so the children could clearly see the positions of her fingers. Chakra rose from her abdomen and flowed through her meridians to the surface of her body. It carried neither the heat of Fire Release nor the restorative intent of medical chakra. It was more like a thin layer of air, extending the outline of her body to one side.

With a soft pop.

White smoke dispersed, and a faint clone appeared beside Mine.

Kiyo immediately cried out, "Two teachers!"

Che stared at the clone.

A sense of analysis slowly surfaced. The clone had no substance. Its feet did not truly press into the ground, and even the way the wind moved the hem of its clothes did not completely match the original. It was a visual deception shaped from chakra. It could fool the eye, but it could not block a blade. The difficult part was not power, but maintaining the outline, distributing chakra, and synchronizing movement.

This technique was very basic.

And very dangerous.

The danger was not in the technique itself, but in how easy it looked. The more basic a technique was, the more likely people were to think they could try it in private. The moment the urge to learn stirred within Che, he forced it back down.

Watch, don't practice.

Mine had the clone raise its hand, and she raised hers as well. The two movements were almost synchronized, but the edges of the clone's fingers were slightly blurry. Che stared at that faint distortion, and his mind automatically broke it down into several angles: chakra projection, form memory, visual maintenance, synchronization control.

If he practiced now, he might be able to make a ball of white shadow that did not even resemble a person.

Then Mine and Nao would take turns teaching him a lesson.

To avoid that future, he shifted his attention to Kiyo. Kiyo was so engrossed that he had forgotten to close his mouth. Saori, meanwhile, was staring at the clone's feet, as if she had also noticed that they were not truly touching the ground.

"Who spotted a problem?" Mine asked.

One of the older children said, "The clone can't hit people."

Mine nodded. "What else?"

Saori softly said, "Its feet don't make any sound."

Mine looked at her. "Very good."

Kiyo immediately lowered his head to look at the ground, as though he had missed something terribly important.

Mine looked at Che again. "What about you?"

Che thought for a moment. "The wind isn't really blowing on it."

Mine's eyes shifted slightly. "Explain."

"The wind presses the hem of your clothes against your arm, Teacher. The clone's clothes move too, but a little slower. It looks like it's imitating the wind, not being blown by it."

The training ground fell quiet for a moment.

Oh no.

That observation had been a little too detailed.

He hurriedly tried to patch things up. "I got blown around by the wind a lot yesterday, so I hold a grudge."

Kiyo nodded seriously. "Wind really does attack hair."

Mine did not laugh. "It's good to observe closely, but don't only look for flaws. You must also see why something can fool people."

Che lowered his head. "Yes."

That was another reminder. Spotting flaws could easily make someone proud, especially someone with analytical abilities. But in a real ninjutsu battle, it was not enough to know that an enemy technique had weaknesses. One also had to know why it worked, whom it could deceive, and at what distance and in what environment it was effective.

Mine dismissed the clone and had the children close their eyes to recall what they had seen. The moment Kiyo closed his eyes, he frowned. "I only remember two teachers."

Che said quietly, "That's already the main conclusion."

"Really?"

"The purpose of the Clone Technique is to make you think there are two."

Kiyo relaxed.

After class, Mine had each of them write three observations. Che wrote:

"The clone's feet are light."

"The wind looks fake."

"Don't only look for flaws. Also see why it can fool people."

After reading it, Mine nodded. "Remember the third one."

After returning to East Row 2, No. 7, Che sat by the window and wrote a more detailed private record:

"Clone Technique structure: chakra projected into form, visual outline, synchronized movement, no physical pressure."

"Difficulty: form stability and synchronization, not chakra quantity."

"Risk: basic techniques easily encourage private practice."

After writing down the risk, he added another line:

"Do not practice tonight."

He wrote those four words heavily.

Kiyo leaned over. "What are you writing?"

"I'm writing that I'll be very well-behaved tonight."

Kiyo looked at him suspiciously. "If you need to write it down, that means it's not very reliable."

Che fell silent.

This kid's instincts were occasionally frighteningly accurate.

That night, patrol footsteps passed outside the window. Che lay in bed as the smoke and phantom image of the Clone Technique kept resurfacing in his mind. He did not form hand seals. His fingers did not move. He simply kept both hands pressed beneath the blanket.

The system-like sense of analysis was like a quiet eye, breaking the Clone Technique apart and putting it back together again in his memories.

He did not let it continue.

The shadow of a basic technique had already fallen before his eyes.

But the time to truly learn it had not yet come.

That night, the three hand seals for the Clone Technique still swayed through Che's mind.

Ram, Snake, Tiger.

He did not form the seals. He only laid his hands flat on his knees. His fingertips itched slightly, as if his memories were urging him to recreate the movements he had seen that day. The system-like sense of analysis was very quiet, but it had not disappeared. Again and again, it broke down Mine's chakra projection, the white smoke, the phantom outline, and the soundless feet.

Che took a deep breath.

Don't practice.

He picked up a pen and drew three very ugly circles on scrap paper. One was labeled "original," one "fake," and one "the one looking." Then he drew an eye beside "the one looking." After finishing, he felt that if Mine saw the diagram, she would probably make him redraw it.

Kiyo leaned over. "Are those three rice balls?"

Che looked at the drawing. "If you want, you can understand it that way."

"Which one is real?"

"You have to look at them to know."

Kiyo stared at the paper for a long time. "So the Clone Technique makes people mistake rice balls?"

Che was silent for a moment. "You understood the core idea in your own way."

Saori sat by the window and softly said, "But fake rice balls don't have any smell."

"So they'll give themselves away up close," Che said. "They only work from farther away."

After saying it, he froze for a moment.

Distance.

The Clone Technique's effectiveness depended on distance, smoke, light, lines of sight, and the enemy's mindset. A basic technique was not simple. It only seemed ordinary because too many people had learned it.

Che wrote this discovery into his private record and added another line beside it:

"Ordinary does not mean simple."

That applied to stance, carrying water, sleeping, and writing too.

The next morning, Mine asked about the Clone Technique again.

This time, she did not form any seals. She merely had the children say what they remembered from yesterday. Kiyo said two teachers. Saori said the feet made no sound. One of the older children said the clone could not block attacks. When it was Che's turn, he paused.

"It's more useful from farther away," he said.

Mine nodded. "Why?"

"Up close, people can see the flaws. From farther away, the enemy has to look twice."

This answer was still more detailed than an ordinary child's, but much simpler than the private record he had written last night. Mine did not press further. She only wrote the two characters for "distance" on the wooden board.

Che let out a quiet breath.

He was beginning to learn how to break complicated answers into small pieces that someone this age could handle. It was not lying. It was layering. Ninjutsu had layers, and answers did too.

Before going to sleep that night, Che folded up the "three rice balls diagram" and tucked it into the bottom of his wooden box.

He did not put it together with his formal training records. Formal records were written for others to see. The rice ball diagram was written for himself. One reminded him about the Clone Technique's distance and lines of sight. The other reminded him not to force himself to become too much like an adult.

Before bed, Kiyo was still asking, "If there are three rice balls, can I eat all of them?"

Che said, "If two of them are clones, you'll bite into air."

Kiyo thought seriously about it. "Then I still have to confirm first."

Che smiled.

Mine had been right. Confirming took time, and time was opportunity. Even Kiyo understood that when it came to rice balls.

When the wooden box closed, the rice ball diagram softly settled against its bottom.