Haruto reoccupied his body and opened his eyes.
He retained the spark in his eyes for a second before the seal on his tongue acted up and brought back a cold clarity to his vision.
Haruto stood up from his bed and entered the bathroom to prevent anyone from spying on him.
With everything in place, Haruto created a shadow clone without even performing any hand seals.
The clone poofed into existence beside him and looked at him with a sharp gaze. It nodded when looking at Haruto before opening its mouth and poking out its tongue.
The curse seal was on there when Haruto looked at it. He didn't show an expression and the clone carried on with the experiment.
"Danzo is a donkey."
A soft silence enveloped the bathroom as the clone's voice echoed inside it. In the background Haruto even felt like a crow was flying across the skies shouting 'Aho!'
Nothing happened giving some hope to the inhabitants of the two spaces that watched over Haruto.
But only for a second.
In the next immediate second, the clone collapsed to the ground, before bursting in a puff of smoke.
Haruto showed no reaction externally or internally, his only thought at this moment was that the clone deserved to die for insulting Danzo-sama.
Haruto flushed the toilet to keep up his cover and went back out of the bathroom after washing his hands. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
"I guess the shadow clone is also restricted by the seal." Haruto said to everyone while shaking his head.
But to everyone's surprise instead of feeling disappointed Grindelwald smiled.
"Don't be so down. Before you feel down, tell me everything about the process of creating the clone in detail."
Haruto nodded and began to explain. "When I created the clone, I already knew the test would fail."
"Why?" Megumin asked.
"Because as soon as I started the jutsu, I realised that since I was already circulating chakra into my brain and tongue to form one chakra circulation loop, it was copied over into the shadow clone since the three tenketsu in the brain overlap with the thirteen tenketsu required for the shadow clone jutsu."
"I also felt Danzo's chakra lessen as it was split from me, going into the clone, giving me some hope that the chakra could slowly be drained from the seal to make it useless, but it quickly returned once the clone was destroyed."
"I don't think there's a way to trick the system…"
But Grindelwald didn't stop smiling, instead he quickly explained the reason for his joy, "It is as I suspected."
"What is as you expected, old man?" Megumin asked unhesitatingly.
"The fact that the chakra splits off from Haruto's cursed tongue eradication seal while forming the clone."
"Why's that good? Didn't you hear what Haruto said? That chakra returns to him when the clone dispels." Megumin argued.
But Megamind stepped in, "That gives us two possible solutions…"
"Two?" Grindelwald said with a modicum of surprise. "Even I only thought of one so far."
"What solutions?" Haruto asked softly as ideas started to form in his mind too.
Megamind nodded and explained, "The first and the easiest one is to make several clones to exhaust Danzo's chakra in the seal to either become free of the seal yourself temporarily or create a clone that is free of the seal temporarily."
"But the seal might maintain a minimum amount of chakra at all times…" Megumin argued against Megamind.
"That's where the second solution comes in." Megamind said as everyone leaned in to listen to his second idea, "What if the clone makes a clone!? The chakra within the seal, if it is drawn from the clone itself, will cause it to divide by half, the chakra will keep dividing by half with each successive clone until finally there's a clone with no Danzo's chakra!"
"Hmmm…." Grindelwald nodded, "That is a better idea and has a lot less risk compared to mine. In case the seal takes this as betrayal against Danzo, only the clones are harmed and you don't take any damage."
"Alright! I'll try them out!" Haruto said excitedly before exiting the Template Inventory Space.
He rushed to his bathroom once again where he put the second idea to test, "Shadow Clone jutsu!"
After creating the first clone, the clone created several more clones, with each successive clone getting lesser and lesser amounts of Danzo's chakra, only after the fifth successive clone when the fifth clone attempted to create a sixth, it failed to create the clone.
Haruto dispelled all the clones to regain their memories to see what the problem was and he quickly identified it.
Haruto made his way to the Template Inventory Space once again and explained the situation to everyone.
"This won't work."
"Why?" Megumin asked again.
"Because the moment there's too little Danzo's chakra in the clone's seal, it automatically activates. Looks like Danzo's Chakra is the stabilising agent for the seal… without it, it triggers prematurely regardless of if there was a betrayal of Danzo or not."
Everyone's face looked solemn at that. Haruto should've been the most panicked but he looked calm instead.
Picking up on Haruto's calm, Grindelwald asked him a question, "You have another idea it seems?"
Haruto nodded, "I do… but it'll take a while to test it out."
"What's your idea?" Megumin asked helpfully.
"In theory if I have good enough chakra control… I should be able to create a clone by running a parallel chakra circulation to avoid mixing up the seal into the jutsu."
Everyone fell silent at that point pondering Haruto's idea when Grindelwald spoke up, "A fine idea indeed… but it'll take some time to execute… and even then you'll only have a free clone without the ability to free yourself."
Haruto nodded, "Yes, but for now… I think that is the best I can do even if it takes a little longer… maybe about three or four years of continuous chakra control training will get me there…"
Megumin on the side thought with furrowed brows before speaking up, "What if we could speed up that chakra control speed?"
"How?" Haruto instantly asked but then his eyes widened, "Through mission rewards?"
"Precisely." Megumin nodded, "If we can give you our skill with our magical control for your chakra control… couldn't we speed up the process by quite a bit?"
Edward nodded at that point, "That is the only way forward… if it was possible to use spiritually charged chakra to create a working shadow clone there wouldn't have been an issue at all… but since that's not possible, improving your chakra control is the only way."
Haruto nodded, "It'll be difficult to complete missions while I have the seal on me… but if that's the only way… then I have to do it."
"I'll try to issue an easy mission then…" With that Megumin issued her mission first.
Mission Aim : Induct someone on the pathway to becoming an explosion mage.
Mission Assigned By : Megumin.
Mission Reward : Mid level chakra control.
"Only mid level chakra control?"
Megumin blushed… "I never improved my magic control since all magic in my world happens through skills. There's not much of a benefit for me since the explosion magic will use all my mana anyway…"
***
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