Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!

"Keh!" Koneko shouted out as she punched a bear in the jaw, breaking it's neck and sending it's corpse flying through a tree. The tree fell to the ground, and Koneko landed softly on her feet, panting only slightly. She was into the 11th day of her journey to find Sage Mountain, and she was still hot on the trail. With each passing day she was getting closer, but sadly, her snacks were starting to run out. She had packed snacks for a month, but she had been using those snacks to help her replinish her lost chakra when she spent entire days mountain climbing.

Going up and down, up and down, using her chakra day after day was extremely exhausting on her chakra reserves.

She wasn't hunting this bear, she was fighting over a fish that this bear had caught. She wanted to eat the fish, and she was going to get the fish. The bear was a male bear, thankfully so she didn't just kill a mother bear. Koneko walked over and she grabbed the fish off of the ground, and she placed it in the water to wash the dirt off of it. Koneko created a blue, small, fireball in her hand using her chakra and she through it on the ground. It burst and roared to life as a small flame.

This was something she already knew how to do with chakra, even if it was a skill she prefered not to use before she started her training.

She was still a Nekoshou, so fish organs and scales didn't bother her stomach. She just wanted it to be cook, so she got out a stick and stabbed it into the fish, before holding it close to the flames to cook. Her journey was not an easy one, that was for sure. She was covered in scrapes, and her feet had never been more sore. Her knees were scrapped, the same with her elbows, and her hands had never felt more used. Her clothes were scrapped up as well, the entire left sleave missing, and the bottom of her skirt was ripped.

"The training will be worth it." Koneko reminded herself, knowing that this training made legends. Those who took the training never fell to the malicious nature of mother nature, and the way it only wanted the strongest to survive. If you weren't strong, mother nature made sure you were food for somebody stronger than you. Koneko was stronger than the bear, so she had killed it and taken it's food... well, she didn't plan on killing it until it attacked her. She was just going to steal the fish.

Foolish bear, attacking her like that.

Koneko closed her eyes, and she sensed the general direction of Sage Mountain. She opened her eyes, and she looked and saw a rather large river that she would have to cross. She saw a log going down the river, before it was sucked into the heavy rapids and crushed against rocks. Koneko gulped deeply, and she shivered.

It was a bad time to not be able to swim.

Koneko smelled that the fish was ready after awhile, so she started to eat it on the stick, and she put the flame out with some dirt. Standing up, she grabbed her now smaller backbag (most of it had been snacks) and put it on her back again. Now, the backpack was only about as large as she was, so not very large compared to earlier. She walked and ate at the same time, at least glad that she was out of the mountains and back on flat land.

She couldn't, not allowed to, fly over the river, and she couldn't take the long way and go find a bridge either. That would ruin her sense of direction, and possibly make the journey take severel more weeks in order for her to do that. If she was lucky, and didn't just find that the river emptied into the ocean. So, she had to go across it somehow, but she couldn't swim and didn't like the look of those rapids.

Just a great day to be her.

There had to be some kind of trick to do this, like when she ran up the side of the mountain. Someway to use her chakra to allow her to make the impossible, possible. It was too bad that she couldn't walk on water, because that would be a godly ability for her to use right now.

Koneko blinked.

"Why couldn't I walk on water? I just got done rejecting the notion of gravity." Koneko questioned herself. If she could use chakra with her feet to walk up a mountain, she could do the same thing with water, right?

Chakra makes the impossible, possible.

Yes, she could make this work. Koneko looked at her feet, taking off her shoes, before she sat down and started to undress herself. She pulled out a white swimsuit, a school issues one, but with her own prefered color. She stripped out of her clothes, her small body on display for the world around her. She really didn't have big breasts, but she had soft nipples for the tips. She opened up her swimsuit, before she slipped herself into it. Her nuditiy vanished when she put it on, and the swimsuit clung unbelievably tight to her body.

At least the water would clean her off, because she was a little dirty... pretty dirty.

"Okay, how is this going to work?" Koneko talked to herself, days with no sentient conversation with somebody led you to talk with yourself. Koneko looked at the edge of the river where it was more shallow, and she walked towards it. She put chakra around her feet, before she took a step... and failed.

Her foot reached the sand under the water without even looking like it was going to stay afloat on it.

This was not the same as clinging to the surface of something.

So, she pulled her foot out and moved her body into the water, before she sat down and let the water pass over the lower parts of her body. She thought about the water, having nobody to teach this to her. This wasn't even a Chakra Control method for Youkai, for Youkai, the way you learned to control your Chakra was by simply learning how to form Youjutsu with it, and going from there with it. They expected you to get more experienced with it as you used it, and allow your natural born skill to decide how good your control was.

This was not like that.

For the first time, she was actually having to actually control the amount of chakra she put into something, the concentration of constantly putting chakra into it, and the way she put chakra into it.

"Why does water have to move?" Koneko asked herself as she slapped the water with her hand. Chakra control was suppose to be easier for her, she was a girl. It was a fact that while in most cases men had more chakra, women had better control over it. Yet, she was sure that she had some pretty bad control if she wasn't figuring this out right away. "The rocks didn't move... I touched it, and stuck." Koneko complained to herself as she slapped the water again.

Of course, her frustration with this might simply be because she couldn't swim, and she didn't want her journey to come to an end for a lame reason like that.

Maybe she could fly, and Naruto would never know that-

Koneko slapped her cheeks HARD enough that she left red marks on them at the very thought of cheating. For one, Naruto would know for sure, and he would forbid her from ever training with him if she took a shortcut. Several Youkai had went to Naruto, made it to Sage Mountain, only to be sent right back because they cheated. Cheating and taking shortcuts was not an option for this journey, you had to show your determination.

"How?" Koneko asked herself as she let the water run over her dirty hands, cleaning them. She cupped her hands and started to splash water on herself, drinking some of it (it was fresh water, so drinkable, if a bit impure). Water was fun to play in, when she didn't have to worry about drowning.

The way it moved over her skin, and changed directions when it went down her body, was an enjoyable sensation. The water warming itself as it absorbed the heat from her body, and losing it's coolness. The sun warming it as well, allowing her to bask in it.

If only she was as adaptable as water, she would figure out how to cross this river for sure.

"Adaptable?" Koneko asked herself as she placed her hand in the water, and she watched as the water changed directions around her hand. She watched it for entire minutes, and she moved her hand around in the water. The water always changed directions, flowing around her hand the second she moved it. The hand moved, and the water adapted to the changes of her hand instantly, as if her hand was no bother to the water in the slightest.

With mountain climbing, she had only needed to adjust for her own body weight, which wasn't much.

Koneko stood up, before she stepped out of the water and started to push chakra out of her feet, and down towards the ground. Koneko took a step on the water, and her foot only sank a few inches, up to a little above her ankle. She pushed more chakra out of her foot, and her foot went up to the top, standing on the water.

A blinding smile came over her face.

"It isn't the same... I need to push chakra out, and change the chakra amount to adjust to the water." Koneko whispered to herself as she did the same with her other foot. She held the position for awhile, and she changed the amount of chakra to her feet as she took another step into deeper water. Koneko didn't change the chakra, and took a step back, but didn't sink.

It wasn't like with sticking to things, this time, there was a little more room for leniency when it came to putting too much chakra into her feet.

Koneko pushed even more chakra, and the water under her exploded outwards, and her feet sank to the bottom, with the water running over her feet again. Koneko frowned, before she stepped out of the water, using less chakra, and put her feet on top of it again.

Okay, not as much leniency for error as she thought.

Koneko grabbed her bag, before she threw it hard enough that her bag went all the way across the river. Now, if Koneko wanted to sleep in a tent tonight, she would have to make it across the river before night fell. She also wouldn't have to worry about her bag getting wet at this rate, or water flowing into it and ruining all of the stuff she brought. Koneko took a shaky step, she was not used to walking on water, and moved slowly across it, baby steps in the amount of progress she was making. She watched her feet, and she watched the water as she moved, not even affected by the increasing speeds of the water as she used more chakra to keep herself standing on top of the water. If she used took much chakra, the water would be pushed down, and she would still sink. If she used too little, she just wouldn't float. This time, she had to adjust to the water itself, which took a hell of a lot more effort than simply sticking to something.

"This... is so hard." Koneko said with a wince as she nearly lost her concentration and feel into the water.

She needed to stau focused, she needed something to keep her focused on her task. Like with power and how she climbed the mountain. Yet, she couldn't take her eyes off the water, or she wouldn't know how much chakra to put into her feet.

"A leaf?" Koneko asked as she saw a leaf floating on the water, without a care in the world. She leaned down and picked it up, nearly losing control, before she crushed the leaf in her hand.

Leaves didn't think about how they floated on the water, they just did it!

She didn't need to think either, she had to simply trust her body to know the right amount of chakra, and do this as if it was second nature. She couldn't let her thoughts and insecuried ruin this for her now. Koneko broke into a run, and whenever she was about to slip, she ran faster and changed the chakra amount into her feet. Koneko, without the friction of the ground, actually ran faster than before. She skated along the water, and she smiled to herself.

"Oh no!" Koneko shouted when she lost control and fell into the water.

She hit her face on a rock, and she looked up and saw that she made slipped... in the shallow end of the other side of the river. Koneko smiled to herself, before she laughed a little. She never needed to be afraid of water again. Koneko laid down in the water, her face being the only thing that was outside of it, as she looked up at the sky with a proud look on her face. She had done it, she had walked on water, and she had made it to the other side. She had slipped, and fell, and failed near the end, but she had done it!

She let the water run over her, before she splashed her arms around, and sat up. She reached into the side pocket of her bag, and took out some sandles. She would walk in her swimsuit until she dried off, and changed back into her other clothes.

The days she spent climbing the mountain had increased her chakra reserves, not much, but enough that she still had plenty of chakra left after crossing the river, using more chakra than she did when she stuck to things.

"Sage Mountain, here I come." Koneko whispered to herself, eyes closed as she sensed the location of Sage Mountain again.

It was only a matter of time.

Chapter End!
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