While Ren was negotiating the cooperation between him and the Ishiren trading company in the capital, his clone, who liked to refer to himself as Clone-kun, spent his time doing the usual activities Ren partook in his daily life.

It had already been a week since Ren left for the capital, and Clone-kun had to say, he envied the bastard for avoiding all this trouble he had to go through in Konoha.

Ever since the ‘earthquake’, Konoha has been on its head. The village was in a state of emergency, a strict curfew was imposed, and worst of all, Clone-kun knew he was being followed. It was a stressful few days for him.

Just yesterday, a ninja tried to break into his apartment. They failed because Ren had a lot of security seals installed. The ninja tripped up an alarm seal and got caught in a security seal that glued his sandals to the floor. Clone-kun almost confronted him out of habit. He heard the alarm seal and his first instinct was to check it out.

He only barely managed to stop himself before reaching the trapped ninja who was just around the corner. Then again, he did just wake up due to the seal so he was still a bit groggy from the sleep.

Besides, who wakes up a clone by trying to break into the original’s property? Clone-kun was certain that it was against the clone rights or something. He deserved a proper eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, dammit!

Fortunately, he didn’t confront the ninja. He pretended that something else got his attention and waited around said corner until he didn’t hear the guy trying to struggle out of the trap anymore.

The problem was that while Danzo’s men were definitely following him, they didn’t seem to be aggressive just yet. They seemed to look for information more than anything and that told him they had no idea he was behind the explosive surprise that turned Konoha upside down last week.

That was great. He could deal with a bit of suspicion. He just had to act like usual.

But if he saw the ninja who tried to break into his house, the man would either try to kill him or try to kill himself on the spot. The first option would be very troublesome because Clone-kun was just a clone and even if he had won the fight, it would make Danzo more suspicious of Ren.

The second opinion was also troublesome because people were liable to notice a fight between ninjas in the middle of the village’s housing district so he would have to report it and explain what happened. People would start asking questions like, ‘Why does he have such strong security in his home? Does he not trust Konoha?’, or worse, ‘Why would somebody want to break into his house?’.

Yeah, the Clone-kun decided to just… not do that. The best trouble is one you can easily evade, after all.

Just like now. He was sitting under a tree like he did during most of Ino and Hinata’s training sessions. In his hands, he held a book reminiscent of his fuinjutsu notebook, but it wasn’t his fuinjutsu notebook.

The reason?

Because the detection seal he had on his person was telling him that his observer was getting unusually boldly clingy today. They risked getting far too close. In fact, they were crouching in the branches of the tree above his head.

At first, Clone-kun was tense, thinking this was it. That they would try to kill him and then Ren would be unhappy because he would need to leave Konoha and then he would need to deal with hunter ninjas which would be just awful and he would need to look for a way to steer the future without being in Konoha and…

The Clone-kun forcefully stopped his train of depressing thoughts. He was probably created with a small flaw. Such a depressing mental monologue was not Ren’s usual thing but it happened to him quite often. It was annoying.

Nevertheless, Clone-kun realized after an hour that the goal of the attempted break-in into his house and the risk of getting too close during this peek-a-bo operation was to see what was in his fuinjutsu notebook.

The chakra of his hidden observer slightly moved only when he pulled a similar little book out. It wasn’t hard to guess his goal once Clone-kun noticed that fact.

Of course, Ren’s fuinjutsu designs were the most important thing to him. He wouldn’t be pulling his notebook when he was aware that a ninja was practically watching over his shoulder.

It honestly amazed Clone-kun that his observer thought he wasn’t noticed. But he guessed Ren’s reputation as a fresh chunin was helping him out here.

Instead, he brought out an empty notebook and started drawing.

And he was miserable when it came to drawing. Stick figures were the height of his skill in that department. But since Danzo was so interested in what Ren did with his book all the time, Clone-kun was eager to entertain his observer, drawing a manga with stick figures and appropriately throwing cringy lines here and there.

He had to admit, doing the sex scene with stick figures was hard. But Clone-kun just wanted to see if his observer would react. Alas, the man was probably emotionally dead inside. He didn’t even twitch. Not even when Ren made the male stick figure miss an arm and an eye in a similar fashion to Danzo and had the ‘female’ figure wear a big red hat.

A bit risky? Maybe. But he was one frustrated clone.

Because of Ren’s constant observer, Hinata and Ino’s training had to take one for the team. Clone-kun wanted to start Hinata on the elemental training and have Ino learn some Earth techniques to see how fast she could learn ninjutsu and determine if she had a talent in that area.

But of course, Ren was just a tutor who was supposed to help the girls with their academy stuff. Elemental training and techniques were chunin-level things. It’s not something that academy students should learn.

Ren didn’t care about unwritten rules like these. These girls will find themselves in a war before they reach twenty. But if Danzo knew that Ren was teaching them advanced things, he could try making some trouble for him. It wouldn’t be much but the man would probably try it just to be petty or to see Ren’s reaction.

So, unfortunately, Hinata was relegated to something much less interesting than learning how to shoot lightning from the tips of her fingers. But it was also something she still needed to learn anyway. She was learning how to throw senbon for now.

Ino was doing an increased amount of physical exercises to lessen the gap between Hinata’s and her level when it came to her fitness now that she had her gravity seals. Other than that, Ren had her practice water walking or do the katas with her sword.

Both things were very beneficial and maybe even necessary for her future career as a kunoichi… but also equally boring to watch. Seeing her fall into the pond stopped being funny when it happened for the forty-first time.

Her father pulled through for her and got her Gekko Hayate to show her the kenjutsu basics. Hayate was not going to be Ino’s teacher, though. And Clone-kun was not surprised. Hayate was the best kenjutsu user in Konoha. It was astonishing that Inoichi could get him to teach Ino anything at all. The man was horribly busy. Then again, the older Yamanaka probably had his methods.

Blackmail and bribery were not out of the question considering Ren’s experience with the overprotective man.

Hayate was just going to check Ino’s progress with the sword every two weeks and give her some tips.

Neither senbon throwing nor kenjutsu were skills that could be learned overnight. Byakugan would help Hinata a bit. But she still needed to grind the hours of the learning process to get the skill into her hands.

In the anime, everybody could throw a kunai but people generally disregarded the fact that throwing a kunai was not easy. The kids trained for years in the academy before they got that skill down. Senbon was very different from kunai, however. Clone-kun reckoned Hinata would need at least a few months to gain the needed proficiency with senbon.

Ino wasn’t particularly talented at kenjutsu but she was stubborn and one of Ren’s ideas when it came to Yamana clan practices actually worked. Ino could enter her mind and learn stuff there at an accelerated pace.

The blonde girl was so giddy about it and she looked downright adorable when she glared at Ren with her hands on her hips and had him swear to not tell that to her father or any other Yamanaka. She wanted it for only herself. She could be selfish like that sometimes.

Honestly, how that worked, Ren had no idea. He thought she would use it to learn book stuff. But apparently, Ino didn’t get the memo because she told him she was practicing the hair techniques and her kenjutsu in her mental space.

And much to Clone-kun’s shock, it did work for her. She was learning the kenjutsu basics at lightning speed and her slashes were getting more and more precise every day.

How she could replicate chakra in her mind or how did she know when she did a technique correctly, neither Clone-kun nor Ren had any idea. But he wasn’t going to mention that to the girl. She most likely had no idea either. She probably just didn’t think about it. She was doing something outrageous but it worked out for her. And it would give her the advantage in a similar fashion as the Bakugan gave Hinata.

Ren didn’t know enough about yin chakra to put together how Ino’s new mental skill worked. But then again, chakra could even resurrect the dead and allow people to travel through space and time. He still had a lot to learn.

Ino was probably just too thick to realize this was not supposed to be possible and that’s why she managed to do it. Sigh, the blondes in this world…

The situation kind of worked itself out despite the consequences of Ren’s actions. The girls would need the time to master their new skills and Danzo’s minions wouldn’t learn anything sensitive by watching them practice senbon throwing and kenjutsu.

But god if it wasn’t boring to watch the girls throw senbon or slash a sword at the air. Clone-kun couldn’t wait for Ren to return from the capital so he could peacefully disperse into the air.

Living was too depressing.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep