Chapter 90.5- One Thousand Hands

“Headcount?” I asked.

“Don’t be an arsehole, boss. You know exactly just how many of us you made.” He said. Fair enough. I had split my chakra one thousand and twenty four ways to form just as many clones. With me as the original, that made about one thousand and twenty five. The fact that I had an audience in the form of my anbu guard was the only thing that prevented me from sagging at the change. Even adding Kurama’s chakra to the mix had made it so each of my clones only had about as much chakra as an average chunin. In my case, that meant the difference was night and day.

I’d gone from having more chakra than god— not really— to being weaker than basically everyone I knew.

“Okay, can you get to work now? Since you’re such a smart arse” I asked.

“Sure.” He said, and then the clones split perfectly into two groups. Right down the middle. The level of coordination clones could have with each other was another thing I added to my long list of things to figure out. Because it couldn’t just be that they were all me. How did they know to split perfectly like that. Perhaps a yin chakra connection between the clones I was not party to because of my existence as more than a chakra construct.

“And you guys know to—“

“Dispel ourselves whenever we make a breakthrough to spread that to the rest of the group so we can make even more progress. Yes we do. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

“A smartarse clearly” I said, taking a step back and feeling for the mark I had in my office.

“Goodluck then. Remember that when the three hours are up, you dispel in groups of hundred, let’s not give me more brain damage than I can handle” I requested before leaving. 1024 clones for three hours was roughly 128 days worth of practice with the jutsu. Hopefully with them dispelling when they made breakthroughs and just the sheer network effect of working in such a large group, they’d make months worth of progress in a matter of hours and by the time the Kazekage arrived, I’d be a master of the jutsu.

It would be cool as fuck to fly into the meeting or whatever.

“How are things going?” I asked the combination of my little sister and the girl I’d taken under my wing at a friend’s request.

“Terribly” “Well enough” Came the different replies. I looked at the girls and shrugged.

“Into the study with you both for now. I have business to conduct. Expect me to be busy for the rest of today.”

“Yes Shori-nee” “Yes, Hokage-sama” I nodded as they made themselves scarce. Spend some time with my genin team, I noted to myself as I watched Kushina leave. Minato popped by multiple times a day— probably more to see Kushina than to ask me questions I was mostly certain he knew the answers to— but I hadn’t seen Mikoto in a minute.