Chapter 18


"You are quite possibly the most impossible person in the entirety of the Elemental Nations."

Raising an eyebrow, Sora decided to take the muttered sentence as a compliment. "Thanks, I guess? What caused that thought though?" She asked carelessly, realizing a moment later that maybe suddenly receiving and applying hundreds of points to her stats was a really fucking bad idea in terms of remaining hidden. Doubly so when she had the direct and focused attention of a logic-based man like Orochimaru whose data would most certainly show a massive change in her abilities, and would then want to find out exactly how it happened.

"Well, I don't doubt you already know that you have changed. Not simply in the quality and quantity of your chakra, but your speed, strength and overall power have all been substantially improved, despite no noteworthy change in your schedule for the last month at a bare minimum." He then looked directly at her, almost glaring with the intensity of his focus upon her. "The only hypothesis that remains to me, no matter how illogical, is that somehow by sparring with Mitarashi-san, you have received a substantial and immediate change to your abilities overall. In other words, you have achieved a breakthrough of some sort."

Sora rubbed at her neck, seeing no real reason to refute it. "Yeah, when I first had a sparring match against her, I felt a kind-of...barrier I guess is the only way I can put it into words. Every time I fought her and won I got stronger, and then suddenly all at once it was like the barrier broke and I got stronger from it. But saying that I 'felt a barrier' and trying to use it as a reason to fight her repeatedly without the evidence of it having happened would probably have seen me put into the mental patient category, wouldn't it?"

Orochimaru did not refute what she said, seemingly amused by it. "That may be true, but there is still something different about you, something that defies logic. You have power, matched with an autodidactic and prodigious ability to grow so quickly and so strongly, defying any preset convention or logical growth pattern, and yet you desire a civilian life without any fighting instead of the life of a shinobi, a killer. A life of power and control, most definitely. But of bloodshed and cruelty in equal or greater measure."

"I see now and understand something I never thought I would. That sometimes, there are things in the world that cannot be pinned down by reason or logic. Logically and reasonably, your power should have only slightly climbed in the time you spent here. Instead, you have grown to be much more powerful than a mere 13-year-old civilian girl has any right to be, flying under the radar and becoming a hidden ace within Konoha, one that not even the village knows about. And yet, you have no desire to show your power and claim a position in Konoha through strength."

He then gave her a faint smile, something Sora had never seen. "Rest assured, I have no intention of exposing you and causing trouble, though I will admit that watching you will certainly become a new pass-time of mine." Sora snorted at how hilariously wrongly that sentence could be taken out of context, a fact that the intelligent man realised a moment later, shaking his head, though the thin smile on his lips gave away his amusement.

"Thank you, Orochimaru."


"Not a chance in hell."

Staring at her mother, Sora had the rather irritating urge to act her age for once and be petulant, even though she logically knew it would do nothing. All she had asked was that her mother teach her how to use the jutsu she used back during her demonstration at the Kiri Academy. "Come on, please? Look, I have it all planned out, all I need is a clone that can play instruments and it'll be golden." She pulled out her notepad and put it on the table, yelping in surprise when Karatachi lashed out, striking the notepad sideways off the table and into the wall.

"Sora. Let me make this clear to you. Your father and I are happy to support you in whatever endeavours you want to undergo. However, you yourself chose that you wanted to be a civilian, you didn't want to join Konoha's forces. And that's fine. But you can't double-dip like this. At some point someone, somewhere, is going to look at you using advanced jutsus, and they will ask why you don't have a hitai-ate. I know you, my sweet daughter, and I don't want your drive to end up pushing you into a place you don't want to go." Folding her arms, Sora stared at her mother unwaveringly.

Then, she frowned. "How about a wager then? If I can hold my own against you in a fight, with no favours from friends or trickery like that, would you consider it?" Her mother looked strangely at her, sighing and rubbing her forehead as she muttered under her breath. "And if I can't even hold my own, I won't bring it up again, and I won't ask you to teach me anything ever again."

Sora watched as her mother removed her head from her hand and stared at her. "Does it really mean that much to you to learn it?" Sora nodded without hesitation, since most of her plans relied on it. "Can you promise me that you won't let yourself get dragged into the darker side of our world? I don't want to see another nod, I want you to swear it to me, face to face."

Halting herself before she could just carelessly say it, Sora gave her words serious consideration. She had a higher level than her mother, sure, but she still would need combat experience to actually beat her. That was why she said being able to hold her own instead of actually winning, as she herself wasn't confident in her ability to ensure she could win. If she ran into an opponent like the Hunter-nin Commander or someone on Orochimaru's level, or worse, a Kage-level shinobi, people who would be stronger than her and have way more experience than her, she would likely not be able to even fight them effectively. "I swear that I will fight tooth and claw to keep myself on the path that I want to follow, not the path that's easiest or that others want me to go on." She eventually said, breathing a sigh of relief when her mother closed her eyes and nodded.

"Alright. Now, this won't be what you expected, but I want you to go to that red-haired woman, the Uzumaki, and ask her to teach you a unique clone jutsu. She owes me twice over for finding two relatives of hers, so you can tell her I'll call it even." Blinking, Sora moved around the table and gave her mother a hug, one that the woman reciprocated with a pat on the back. "Oh, and tell her that I still expect her to show up at the Cryptology Department next week, or she won't like the consequences."

The sudden sharp look in her mother's eyes reminded Sora that her mother, while sort of retired from combat, was still definitely an incredibly scary woman.


"Oh she did, did she?"

Tilting slightly as she was caught by surprise at Kushina's rather amused tone, Sora could only nod. "Alright, you can tell her I'll be there. Lousy bets." The woman then shook her head, adopting her normal countenance. "So, you want to learn a unique clone jutsu then? Well you've come to the right place, because this Uzumaki knows just the ticket. It takes a lot of chakra, like...a hell of a lot of chakra being honest, but you, you little chakra monster, probably don't need to be warned about that. Honestly, you've got more than an Uzumaki teenager would have!"

Kushina's hands rose and formed a single seal, and then with a puff, an identical version of her suddenly popped into existence. "Now, looks like your typical standard clone, right?" Sora blinked, nodding as she didn't really know what else to say, honestly surprised that the clone had appeared with a single hand seal. "Aha, but that is where you are wrong. I heard through the grapevine that Orochimaru taught you about the Byakugan as payment for continuing to let him study your eye, so I'm assuming that means you can see chakra networks, right?" Sora nodded again, a little confused about where she could be going, because the only destination she arrived at seemed just the tiniest bit impossible. "Well, turn your Byakugan on and have a look. Don't worry, I'll explain the activation to Minato, he'll understand."

A bit perplexed, but emboldened by the fact Kushina would cover any issues, Sora activated her Byakugan and focused on the clone stood beside Kushina, seeing through it and filtering out all the unnecessary information until she could only see the chakra network. What she saw baffled her, as the clone had a fully functional chakra network. As she looked at Kushina, she realised that she couldn't tell any differences between the two. "How is that even possible, I thought only living things could have chakra?"

"And that's why the jutsu, Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, is so expensive. It creates an artificial chakra network in the clone. On top of that, well..." The clone then turned on the spot and raised a hand, high-fiving Kushina before turning to face her and actually speaking. "I can speak as well as do anything that boss can do until I run out of chakra." Then the clone puffed out of existence and Kushina stepped in again. "And while that's great, even better is that they are unbelievably amazing scouts for one reason. When a Kage Bunshin disperses, all the remaining chakra is sent back, and with that comes an optional copy of all the memories the clone experienced, delivered in a dump of information. You have to know about it to be able to accept the information though, obviously, and if you don't then it's simply overwritten and lost. The only other drawback is that they can only take one hit before poofing."

Sora's jaw dropped, trying to consider the implications of that technique. If Konoha had something like that...well, actually, Kushina had already said that it was ludicrously expensive. Creating a fully-formed artificial chakra network and then filling that network with chakra would be utterly exorbitant. In terms of casting techniques, expending chakra to make a clone would mean that a jutsu cast by that clone would be a net waste of chakra in total, though of course with another clone that meant two casters. That neatly explained why they didn't teach it to all of their higher-end shinobi and had then become literal nightmares in human form on the battlefield. "So...how do you learn it?"

"Ahaha, well, this was me showing off a bit, it does actually have a seal sequence." The redhead admitted with a laugh, raising her hands in front of herself. "You ready?" Sora nodded, watching keenly as Kushina went through a dozen hand seals. "The thing is, the technique was made and refined by the Nidaime Hokage himself, so once you know the sequence, it's all about the cost of the technique, not the hand seals. Hell, it only took me two days to go from twelve seals down to just one hand seal. That's part of why it's so dangerous, it's expensive as hell to use and is way too easy to use in terms of seals. By the time you realise you can't afford to use it, you've already cast it and instantly conked out from chakra exhaustion."

Nodding earnestly, Sora copied the sequence of hand seals, culminating in a cross that expelled 1,000 points of her chakra and caused a shadow clone to appear beside herself. Sora blinked, looking at the eerily identical copy of herself, whilst at the same time being examined by her own clone. "Okay, that's really fascinating." The clone nodded, surprising her just a little. Sora ignored the notification informing her of the new technique she'd learned, instead examining her clone keenly not just with her regular eye but also her Byakugan, looking individually at each and every layer of the Shadow Clone and comparing it to herself, finding literally no flaws in the clone that she could see.

With that done, she checked the technique, curious to see if it had anything else unique she should know about.


Shadow Clone Technique - A jutsu which forms a corporeal and intelligent clone of the caster. Clones can send back any learned information or muscle memory to the caster, but does not increase stats. Cost - 1,000 chakra per clone, can optionally infuse more into each clone, increasing quantity of hits takeable by 1 per 1,000 chakra. Clones will disperse once all chakra is expended, clone suffers more than allocated quantity of hits or caster manually disperses, refunding all remaining chakra.


That was actually quite useful, and well within her expectations after hearing the description that Kushina had given.

Muscle memory wasn't a physical change, it was mental, so it made sense that it could be transferred over. However, doing strength training with a Shadow Clone would be completely useless since it wouldn't transfer. Honestly, she was now super curious to see how efficient the training was. if it was an option, she could potentially set a hundred clones to work playing different instruments, forging, sneaking and handling all sorts of proficiency training.

It was then that she noticed something odd...the technique didn't list a timelimit. There was a durability thing, so she could put more chakra into a Shadow Clone and make it able to take an extra 'hit' though what exactly entailed a standard hit she didn't know, but there was nothing that said they would disperse after a period of time. "Kushina-san, how long exactly do the clones last?"

The woman grinned widely. "That's the best part, they don't suffer from any chakra leakage because of their own internal chakra networks, so as long as they don't enter an area with absolutely no ambient chakra, they won't disperse unless something hits them or they have to use their chakra for some reason." Nodding, Sora considered the implications of that, a group of clones who would constantly be able to learn things, that sounded amazing. "Don't even think about it, if you leave a clone for too long, then disperse it and try to accept the memories, either you'll suffer brain damage, or the information will be lost."

Apparently her thoughts were clear on her face to Kushina, undoubtedly others had thought to try that before. "Okay, so is there actually a limit? Could I make one clone an hour and at the end of an hour it would disperse? Or a dozen a day, what kind of limitations does it have? Because you know I'm going to experiment with this, obviously, and I don't want to end up making myself brain-dead."

"Nobody has done studies like that, obviously, but I personally can handle a half-dozen clones dispersing every day without any issue. Maybe you'd have a higher limit since you're younger and don't have as many memories taking up space in your head, I just don't know." Kushina admitted with a shrug, to which Sora hummed, then focused on her clone. "Oh, right, you can also-" Kushina started to add more, but Sora had already dispersed her clone. "-just think of what you want the clone to do and it'll know the instant it's made."

Kushina finished slightly lamely, looking at her with a frown. Sora smiled in response, then just as she was about to use the jutsu whilst doing exactly that, she realised something. "If I make a group of clones and they go out of the training ground...is that breaking the rules? Probably, because whoever is following me around can't follow my clones, can they?" Kushina nodded, a look of commiseration on her face.

"If you want I could ask Minato to let you have one clone out at a time? That way as long as the person or people following you also know the technique and can use it at least once, which let's be honest if they couldn't they wouldn't be assigned to follow you at all, then they could just send a clone to tail your clone with orders to disperse when your clone does. That works for all parties and doesn't break any rules...so long as Minato actually agrees to it. Though if he does, you'll owe me one." Sora stuck her tongue out in response.

"Thanks Kushina."


After Kushina got back to her and told her that she was allowed to send out a clone as long as she ensured that she made clear which one was the clone, Sora's rate of improvement climbed quite significantly.

Being able to have a clone grinding her proficiencies whilst she was doing other things was incredible, since she could be working in the forge, a job her clone wouldn't be able to do since the chance of taking a 'hit' was way too high, whilst her clone was either reading in the library, practising her Sticky Fist Taijutsu or hand-seals sans actual jutsus, or training her other proficiencies like playing instruments.

Now that she had a corporeal clone and thus a reliable way to play more than one instrument at a time, she had to think about what other instruments would be good to use. A set of drums was a given, it just went too well with pretty much everything, and more guitars to actually fill out the roster of a typical band, sure. However, other than that, what else would she want to use? The piano was an option as a lot of music had piano in them even if it wasn't easy to notice, but that was more for a classy setting, it didn't fit well with a random gathering of people in the middle of a training field.

But then, maybe she could copy Weiss and sing a much more calm and emotional song, that could be fun. Her singing proficiency was steadily climbing, so she was much more confident than before that she could actually sing a song like This Life Is Mine without sounding like an asphyxiating whale. And, as she thought about it, she realised that she could even use a henge or maybe genjutsus to make it less of just a singing experience but also a play of sorts, mimicking the events that were shown whilst Weiss sung, drawing the audience in not just with the music but also the fighting and the drama.

She grinned, pulling her ever-present notepad out and scribbling down the idea, not wanting to forget it. Sure, she had never actually used a genjutsu, but even if her plan failed, it would just mean needing to figure out an alternative. Backgrounds could be accomplished with painted wood that could be swapped in and out behind each other, and as for Weiss herself and the Knight, henges could accomplish that just fine. With her stats, as long as she practised the choreography of it, or rather had some clones practice it, they should be able to pull it off just fine.

For some parts of the song, it'd be harder to do as she'd need a much larger group of clones playing different instruments, but those were fine compared to the bigger issue, which was the synthesised parts of the song, the sounds that didn't come from instruments directly. The first part of This Life Is Mine was all string instruments, pianos and actual instruments, but the second and third parts were going to be hard. Sora's lips pulled into a grin as she thought about the challenges. If it meant she could actually pull it off, could perform Mirror, Mirror in front of a group of people, and could witness their reactions at it?

That would be so fucking worth it.


Yeah, I think I've gone off the rails a bit.

I just...I really want Sora to actually pull this off, to play songs from our world in front of people, to create something like that in a world that is all too often so utterly focused on warfare. Now, I want to say this right now, and this is really damned important:

Sora is not a pacifist.

If she gets into a fight, she will fight her opponent, and if she has to, she will kill them. The situation she was in was just too much for her to handle, since she's never been smacked in the face with morals and consequences like that. But if an Iwa-nin or a Kiri-nin came at her with a kunai, and she knows nothing about them, she won't find it nearly as hard to run them through.

But she will still be interested in disciplines that are not combat focused. I get that most people are probably reading this wanting to see a slap-fest, but...idk, I guess as I get older, combat doesn't hold as much interest to me compared to seeing more unique stories like that tea cafe one where the girl who owns it...

...Err, spoilers btw ^.^ but the one where she marries Kakashi, it's so cute!


Name: Sora Metami

Level: 209

Age: 12

Experience: 113,365/209,000

To Next Level: 95,635

Title: Civilian - +100% increase to civilian-based proficiencies, -25% decrease to shinobi-based proficiencies

Health Points: 14,968 (100 Base HP + (Vitality x Strength)

Regeneration Rate: 498.9/minute (Health ÷ 30) (Severe or noticed injuries can be chosen to retain scars)

Chakra Points: 123,100 (100 Base CP + (Wisdom x Intelligence)

Regeneration Rate: 4,100.3/minute (Chakra ÷ 30)

Strength: 118 (Each point increases melee damage by 1%, adds 1 slot to inventory)

Vitality: 126 (Each point raises poison resistance by 0.1%, reduces need for sleep by 0.1%)

Agility: 127 (Each point increases top speed by 0.1m/s, increases weapon proficiency gain by 1%)

Wisdom: 246 (Each point decreases chakra cost for techniques by 0.1%)

Intelligence: 500 (Each point increases experience gain by 1%)

Luck: 10 (Each point increases the chance of something lucky happening by 0.01%, decreases the chance of something unlucky happening by 0.01%)