40. Plans and blond boy

Maniacal laughter could be heard inside a forest in Konoha. Tomoka’s laughter had an odd mixture of glee and madness mixed in it. After thoroughly testing of her new jutsu, she came to one simple conclusion: it was awesome. 

From her notes one could easily see the pros and cons of this new jutsu. For starters, and perhaps more important, the clone has a permanent connection with the user. This connection made it so they could share information through thoughts alone at the cost of some chakra. 

The second pro would be that the clones were effectively immune to physical harm. As long as an attack held no chakra it would simply phase through the clone harmlessly. However, these also led to a con. The clones were effectively unable to affect the world around them, at least for the most part.   

As they are made mostly of yin chakra they couldn’t affect the world around them with ease unlike their shadow counterparts. They could still affect their surroundings with their meager reserves of yang chakra though. The usage of that minuscule amount of yang chakra allowed them to at most push or pull something for a moment. 

After extensive testing Tomoka came to the conclusion that her clones could at most punch or kick someone once every minute or so. Overall, they were better at ranged attacks, and intel gathering, she concluded. It didn’t matter though, she was over the moon at her success. 

“With this I can send a clone to the academy and be done with it!” her maniacal cackling continued to ring through the forest for a while. 

[I can’t wait for you to get caught. It will be hilarious!] Kurama fully expected Tomoka’s plan to backfire on her as so many had done before. He enjoyed seeing Tomoka struggling against her mother. 

“Ha ha, very funny. This time I won’t fail! I refuse to!” With newfound determination Tomoka set a few plans into motion. Said plans had been derailed once she discovered her inability to use the shadow clone jutsu. Now however, she could use her phantom clones to do a similar thing.

Originally, she wanted to send shadow clones out there to look for a suitable cave or some such to build her secret lab. Afterwards, she would have them build said lab while she stayed inside Konoha. Now though, she could put the first part into motion but not the second one. Her clones are completely useless when it comes to continuous or precise manipulation of their surroundings. 

‘Doesn’t matter, once I find a suitable place I will think of a solution’ Finished with that thought Tomoka made five new clones and gave them her orders. Moments later the clones left to accomplish their mission. 

With that out of the way Tomoka decided to finally go do that which she had purposely avoided. A necessary mission albeit one she disliked with a passion. With a heavy sigh Tomoka began walking around Konoha’s less traveled paths as these were the locations her target would probably use. 

[Are you finally going to go find him?] Kurama asked with mixed emotions. On one hand he was excited to see Tomoka struggle. On the other… he was worried for himself or rather his other self. 

‘Yeah, now that my plans are back on track I don’t see any reason to push this event away anymore. As much as I dislike Naruto, meeting him might change things for the better, who knows’ That’s right, it was finally time for Tomoka to meet Naruto.

Time flew by as she continued looking at unpopular parks while traveling through less used streets. As she did she received a message from one of her clones. Her mother suspected nothing, it seems that the clone had managed to fool her and take Tomoka’s place. 

With that out of the way the little girl continued searching for the blond boy. Unfortunately for her, or lucky depending on how you see it, she couldn’t find Naruto. Afterall, she couldn’t go asking around for him nor did she have any info of where he would normally go. 

With a heavy sigh Tomoka decided to rest for a bit, she had been walking for hours and a few more the sun would set. With nothing better to do she decided to sit on one of the benches and rest. However, it was at that moment that she noticed something. 

A blond boy walked to one of the empty swings. He looked grim and dirty, his clothes barely holding on. On his face a pair of sad blue eyes looked at the ground while on his cheeks whiskers-like marks made themselves known. 

Seeing those whiskers-like marks made Tomoka wonder for a moment. Why didn’t she have any? Afterall, she was also Kurama’s jinchuuriki. These thought came as her last attempt at pushing her meeting with the boy away.

‘Whatever, here goes nothing’ With that though Tomoka stood up and walked towards the swings.