My Techniques are a bit off

Konoha Hospital

"Please, I'm begging you!"

Might Guy bowed at a sharp 90-degree angle, his voice filled with desperation.

"It's fine, Guy-sensei," Link said as he gently stepped aside to avoid the bow, reaching out to help Guy stand straight. "Don't get your hopes up too much until we know for sure if I can help."

Link walked into the hospital room, followed closely by Kakashi, who patted Guy on the shoulder as he passed.

"Link… Guy-sensei…" Lee lay in the hospital bed, wrapped head to toe in bandages. He was staring down at his trembling hands, his expression filled with despair. Even the simple act of lifting his hands caused them to shake uncontrollably.

It had been days since his injury, but medical jutsu couldn't fix the severe structural damage to his body. The overuse of the Eight Gates had left his cells overstrained, making them unresponsive even to chakra-based healing. Surgery was deemed too risky, and Konoha didn't currently have anyone capable of performing such an operation.

The medical team had effectively sentenced his ninja career to death.

Link nodded in acknowledgment, stepping forward and placing his hand on Lee to assess the damage. In short, the prognosis was grim.

His body had endured immense trauma, with torn muscles and disrupted chakra pathways from prolonged use of the Eight Gates. A normal person would've died outright.

Focusing his chakra, Link cast Delicate Illness Extraction Technique.

It's working.

As he observed the technique gradually correcting Lee's internal deformities, tiny bits of illness and damage were extracted into his hand. He exhaled in relief—this confirmed it was theoretically possible to heal Lee.

"Ugh…" Lee groaned softly, his body wracked with pain as the technique began repairing his misshapen tissues.

Link didn't hold back, immediately casting another large-scale Delicate Illness Extraction Technique. Sweat began to bead on his forehead as his chakra reserves took a hit.

Though the technique itself was instant, the correction process took time. He kept his hand on Lee's body, closely monitoring the healing process and using chakra to ease Lee's pain.

From an outsider's perspective, it appeared as though Link was continuously treating him.

After several minutes of effort, Link finally withdrew his hand, looking visibly drained. "It'll take about a month for him to recover fully."

In truth, if he pushed himself, Link could've healed Lee within a week. He could afford to burn through his chakra reserves and pop soldier pills like candy.

But there was no need to rush. Simply proving the injury could be healed was already impressive enough. Besides, the more drawn-out the process, the more effort it appeared he had put in—and the more others would appreciate it.

A little strategic effort never hurts.

This was also why he hadn't immediately rushed to treat Lee after the invasion, instead waiting for someone to seek him out.

Lee lifted his head sharply, staring at the much-younger Link with a mix of disbelief and gratitude. Tears and snot streamed down his face as he fully processed what had just happened.

"Thank you… Thank you…"

"Gah!" Might Guy, overwhelmed with emotion, lunged forward and hugged Link tightly, tears streaming down his own face. "You've done it… You've truly done it!"

My new clothes…

Link weakly attempted to push Guy off but found his strength lacking after exhausting most of his chakra. Resigned, he let himself be held, sighing as he noticed his shoulders were now damp with Guy's tears.

Kakashi, standing off to the side, watched the scene with a faint smile and a rare glint of amusement in his eye.

…

Evening, Link's Apartment

It vanished…

Link stared at the shattered remains of a shadow he had created using the tailed beast chakra cubes. The shadow had broken apart before his eyes, leaving him puzzled.

He had successfully created over twenty shadows at this point. So why had this one disappeared?

Was it an issue with the tailed beast chakra, or was there something else at play? Was there a fundamental difference between his own shadows and those of others?

His own shadows, once created, had persisted without any sign of breaking down, continually drawing energy from him to remain active.

But when he attempted to create shadows using someone else as the base, they disintegrated almost immediately, even when he used the same amount of tailed beast chakra as before.

If the problem were insufficient chakra, the shadows should still persist for a while before breaking down, just like in my earlier experiments.

That means the issue must lie with my own shadows.

Link reflected on this discrepancy, his thoughts honing in on the mechanics of shadow creation.

Wait… the logic of the Shadow Clone Jutsu involves splitting half of my chakra with the clone, while their shadow consumes chakra from the host over time.

He realized the key difference between his own shadows and those created from others:

When he created his own shadows, they didn't deplete his chakra stores entirely but continually drained energy from him to remain active. In contrast, shadows made from others started with a reserve of stolen energy, depleting it before drawing from the host.

This subtle distinction appeared to be the critical variable.

Tailed beast chakra seems to grant shadows independence—but only if they don't have a pre-existing energy reserve.

To test this theory, Link sought out Sasuke at the training grounds. After explaining his experimental procedure, Sasuke agreed without hesitation.

The shadow created from Sasuke functioned as expected for a while before Sasuke reported, "It's starting to drain my energy now."

"Good," Link said, feeding the shadow a tailed beast chakra cube.

A few seconds later, the shadow still broke apart, though not as abruptly as before.

So, shadows inherently consume energy to persist, regardless of the source. Even a small energy reserve ties them to their host.

The logic has a flaw…

Something else is influencing the creation of shadows.

Link cast a healing jutsu on Sasuke as thanks for his help, then headed home, determined to continue his research.

~~~

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