Hours upon hours of work.
Shamal was almost horrified at having seen her mistress's body from the inside. She hadn't ever really understood the kind of damage that her mistress's body had endured until she began to see how a healthy Chakra Coil looked like. It was truly a stark difference. As they reconstructed, slowly, carefully and methodically, they also altered, just as slowly, carefully and methodically. Shamal was thanking her expertise at healing her comrades, now, as the Wolkenritter's magically constructed bodies and the ethereal nature of the Linker Core were not entirely different from the chakra coils. While the energy they manipulated was very different, their composition was not.
Much like how the Linker Core was, in essence, made of mana, the chakra coils were made of chakra. It was an odd coincidence, but one that they could exploit.
Naruko's body had no chakra in it, and so the Chakra Coils had atrophied and withered. Reconstructing them would've been impossible without any chakra to feed through them so that they lasted. However, by changing their composition…
Chakra was much more heavily physical than it was mental. When it came down to it, the spiritual energy needed to mold it was needed to do exactly that, mold the physical component. The Linker Core worked in reverse, using physical energy to manipulate mental energy. In both cases, both forces were necessary, but for different reasons.
It was, therefore, natural that the Chakra Coils be composed mostly of the physical component of Chakra, while the Linker Core would be equivalently composed of the Spiritual Component, as Tsunade put it.
To Shamal, Chakra was just another word for Mana. Of course, there were noticeable differences, based on the odd composition of it, but fundamentally they were close enough to be considered the same thing used in different ways. However, the human body of this world was a fair bit different than she was used to because it seemed that, at some point, humanity had been infused with mana and developed a way to handle it, in this world.
If Shamal had to guess, she would say that somewhere in her Mistress's ancestry, and probably in the ancestry of everyone with the ability to use chakra, there was some sort of eldritch abomination made of raw mana. Having magical circulatory systems of this sort would most likely kill your average human being, but she imagined that beings who had evolved those naturally would likely have adapted to it.
Tsunade seemed legitimately impressed at the power of the chakra that the Linker Core fed through Naruko's coils as soon as they opened them up.
It was definitely an odd thing on her senses, as everything she knew about chakra manipulation told her that such an unbalanced combination of physical and spiritual energy should just fail to produce anything, and yet… She saw Shamal using it over and over again, and she even got the explanation about why and how it worked during the middle of the operation. Manipulating it seemed simple, as well, as it responded incredibly well to Tsunade's physically oriented chakra.
The operation went a lot smoother than either thought it would. Despite everything else, they were surprised to find that the other could anticipate so well to whatever they would say or do. Probably the result of sheer experience working in their favor.
Despite reaching the final stretch, neither had slowed down. The tests they'd made had been positive, so far. What remained was to finish stretching Naruko's shriveled coils to their proper places and recomposing them into the proper composition they'd need to have to support the mana that would flow through them. This would be the most exhausting part of the operation, as they'd have to use their own chakra and mana to build the new coils, while at the same time converting it into as close an imitation as possible to Naruko's, so that she would not reject them.
It had felt like an eternity.
"Should've had a nap first," Tsunade muttered, as an assistant cleaned her forehead from sweat. "You holding up okay there?"
Shamal nodded. "I've had worse vigils," she muttered. "Though not quite as stressful, I admit."
"This is probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I've reconstructed chakra coils twice, and both times, it was on otherwise healthy shinobi who'd burned themselves out," Tsunade muttered. "But we're done," she said. "And as for the result… Well, everything on our side went well. Everything else, well, it depends on her." Shamal nodded. "I trust in my mistress's strength. I have no fear," she said.
"Anyway, I'm going to go to sleep the rest of the day away. Now, make sure that there's somebody watching the kid at all times… We don't know what the results of this operation will be like, so it's probably best that we don't drop her from our sight," Tsunade said. "But you should get some rest, as well. Since it's just monitoring, any given nurse here can do it."
Shamal nodded.
***
Naruko's eyes opened slowly.
"…I'm hungry."
She was alone.
Where was everyone?
Plus, her body just felt so… sluggish. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. Why was nobody there to greet her when she woke up? Why was she not in her room, and why were none of her knights helping her keep warm at night. She frowned. It seemed she'd have to punish… wait, who had she gone to sleep with?.. Odd, she couldn't remember.
Oh, well, whatever.
Naruko swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand.
Her chin hit the ground mere moments afterwards, as her legs became wobbly within seconds and failed to support her weight. She glared at the ground, as if it'd hurt her, and then glared at her legs, as if they'd betrayed her. She lifted herself up, but noticed that her arms and legs were both really, really tired. Well, that just wouldn't do… What could she do? She couldn't stay in bed all day. She had breakfast to make!
Wait, she knew a solution!
"Sleipnir," Naruko muttered. Six stylized wings sprouted from her back, breaking through her flimsy gown and causing it to drop. She looked around the room she was in. There weren't any clothes for her to put on. What to do, what to do?
Who needs clothes?
"Manifest Barrier Jacket," Naruko said, crossing her arms. A simple black dress that fell to mid thigh appeared on her, trimmed with golden lines in the shape of an x, meeting just at the center of her chest. It was sleeveless. There was also a pair of fingerless gloves on her hand in black, and simple looking black boots on her feet. Naruko nodded and smiled as she floated above the ground. "Now, I should get home."