Uchiha Shinji quickly snapped back to his senses and, using "Jikibi," spoke to both Yakumo and Ido simultaneously. "Don't panic—you just successfully activated that dojutsu!"
"We did?"
Yakumo and Ido exclaimed in unison, startled.
After briefly organizing his thoughts, Uchiha Shinji grasped the situation and explained, "The mysterious dojutsu hidden within Koryugan is likely a space-time ninjutsu!"
"S-Space-time ninjutsu?!"
Yakumo and Ido both looked bewildered.
Clearly.
A technique of the caliber of "space-time ninjutsu" was, for academy students like them, a bit too complex and advanced.
"That's right, a space-time ninjutsu!" Pausing for a moment, Uchiha Shinji continued, "My initial deduction is that this technique's ability is to swap your positions."
Ido immediately chimed in, "No wonder I suddenly ended up back in the village."
Yakumo finally understood. The spot she was standing in now was exactly where Ido had been seconds ago. Because the dojutsu had swapped their locations, she'd gone from the village to here in an instant.
After giving a simple explanation, Uchiha Shinji didn't rush to speak further. Instead, he observed quietly while analyzing in his mind.
This dojutsu of Koryugan reminded him of another space-time ninjutsu—the one hidden within Uchiha Madara's Rinnegan, "Limbo: Border Jail."
When "Limbo: Border Jail" was activated, the user's real body could swap places with a special clone, achieving a space-traversing effect.
But upon closer inspection, he realized that Koryugan's mysterious dojutsu was distinctly different from "Limbo: Border Jail."
The limbo clones of "Limbo: Border Jail" couldn't stray far from the user and had to return to the user's body after a certain period before being recreated. Thus, its space-time effect was more about temporarily swapping positions between the user and clone to evade attacks.
In contrast, Koryugan's dojutsu seemed unrestricted by distance—at least, a spatial swap over 130 kilometers posed no issue whatsoever. This made it resemble another space-time ninjutsu.
"Ido is like the Fourth's special kunai inscribed with the 'Flying Thunder God' seal. Wherever she is, Yakumo can teleport to her!"
Uchiha Shinji realized that, compared to "Limbo: Border Jail," Koryugan's dojutsu was closer to the Fourth Hokage's famed "Flying Thunder God Technique."
And Ido was akin to the Fourth's teleportation marker—the custom kunai!
"If that's the case, then this dojutsu of Koryugan is like a youthful version of the 'Flying Thunder God Technique.'"
The Fourth's "Flying Thunder God Technique" excelled in its unpredictability!
For every kunai inscribed with the Flying Thunder God seal, the Fourth had a teleportation marker at his disposal. Plus, he could even inscribe the seal on objects—or enemies—on the fly, using them as coordinates.
By comparison, Koryugan's dojutsu fell short of the "Flying Thunder God Technique" in terms of the number of teleportation markers and its application flexibility.
Soon, Uchiha Shinji identified another flaw in the technique.
It required both Yakumo and Ido to activate it simultaneously for Koryugan's space-time ninjutsu to work.
"No wonder I couldn't figure out how to trigger this dojutsu back then."
Realization finally dawned on Uchiha Shinji.
As it stood, activating this technique required at least splitting off a blood clone imbued with Koryugan's dojutsu power.
That wasn't the hard part.
The real challenge lay in coordinating with the blood clone over long distances—without line of sight or communication, how could they agree to activate the dojutsu at the same time?
On a battlefield, where situations shifted in the blink of an eye, there was no room for prearranged timing or slow trial-and-error.
A single mistake, even a slight hesitation, could determine the outcome of a fight.
"Sigh!"
After sorting all this out, Uchiha Shinji let out a quiet sigh.
The joy of discovering that Koryugan harbored a space-time dojutsu had been dampened considerably by this analysis.
Meanwhile, Yakumo and Ido were caught up in the thrill of mastering a space-time ninjutsu.
In just a short span, they'd already swapped places four or five times.
Hearing Uchiha Shinji's sigh, Ido—who'd just been swapped back—hurriedly asked, "Boss, what's wrong? Why'd you sigh?"
Uchiha Shinji shook his head and said nothing.
After all, it was still a space-time ninjutsu. No matter its limitations, if used well, it could still produce remarkable results.
Whoosh.
At that moment, Yakumo swapped back and asked Uchiha Shinji, "Leader, now that I've mastered this dojutsu, does that mean I can sneak out of the village whenever I want?"
Uchiha Shinji smiled, about to respond, when something struck him, and he froze.
All his earlier analysis had been based on him using Koryugan himself. But if the user was Yakumo, the situation changed entirely.
Uchiha Shinji couldn't communicate with his blood clone from afar, but Yakumo, with Ido, could.
So while the communication issue was an insurmountable hurdle for a typical Koryugan user, it wasn't a problem for Yakumo at all.
With this in mind, Uchiha Shinji formed a new hypothesis and quickly said to Yakumo, "Yakumo, swap back for now—I need to run another test!"
"Oh!"
Yakumo nodded, activating the dojutsu again to swap places with Ido.
Uchiha Shinji didn't waste time. He turned to the newly swapped-back Ido and said, "Follow me!"
Though her mind buzzed with questions, Ido held them back and followed Uchiha Shinji closely.
The two dashed at full speed, soon returning to their meeting spot for the night—a small grove about 45 kilometers from Hidden Leaf.
After confirming the distance again, Uchiha Shinji immediately instructed Ido, "Dissolve your blood clone now and revert to your spirit form!"
Ido complied at once, dispelling her blood clone and returning to her initial spirit state. She reported to Uchiha Shinji, "Leader, that sense of restriction is back."
Uchiha Shinji waved it off dismissively. He wasn't testing Ido's spirit form range right now—he wanted to see if Ido, in spirit form, could still coordinate with Yakumo to activate the dojutsu.
If Ido could assist Yakumo in triggering the technique while in spirit form, then Yakumo would essentially have a "Flying Thunder God kunai" with spirit-level speed, immunity to physical attacks and most ninjutsu, and the ability to communicate instantly.
If that were the case, the value of this dojutsu would be immense.
Aside from barriers and sealing techniques, shinobi had few ways to deal with spirits. If Uchiha Shinji's hypothesis proved true, Yakumo would gain ambush capabilities rivaling the "Flying Thunder God Technique"—because Ido in spirit form would be nearly impossible to defend against.