When the sixth year started, the students immediately felt a change of atmosphere. Their two teachers were more demanding, less tolerant of mistakes, and rewarded success in a more concrete way – they often liked to explain how the one to master an exercise first would be an incredible shinobi thank to the skills that they did their best to acquire and work on, and how these skills would probably save their life many, many times. Surprise evaluations had become something of a norm, just like presentations from active duty shinobi who came to class to talk about their specialty in the hope of inspiring vocations in most promising students.

The students were now all able to communicate with the Konoha Sign Language: Iruka assured them that, after a few months in their Genin team, they would have adapted it to take their specificities and needs into account. Hitomi made sure her cats could also understand it, even if they obviously couldn't answer her. Her felines formed, after almost six months of hard work, a very fine team, able to fight without any word exchanged, coordinate even when they couldn't see what the others were doing. Hitomi was particularly proud of Kurokumo, who had gained in self-assurance, and of Hokori, who mingled enthusiastically with the others now.

A Saturday morning, as Hitomi was preparing to go run with her felines, her mother stopped her in the kitchen. She was wearing a training outfit, her hair gathered in a ponytail, her weapons strapped to various parts of her body, where the hand could grab them easily. It wasn't rare nowadays for the girl to see Kurenai in such an attire: the Jōnin wanted to be in top condition for her future team and the time was approaching quickly.

"Today, you train with me," her mother said with a smile. "It's time for you to discover your elemental affinity."

The girl's eyes went wide with joy and she started bouncing around, overexcited and suddenly so full of energy she caught Hokori by surprise. The young cat couldn't suppress a hiss but settled down next to her. "Really?" Hitomi chirped. "I can't wait! Is that chakra paper?" she added, pointing to her mother's hand.

The young mother let out a little laugh, endless tenderness in her eyes. "Yes, it is. Come, let's go in the garden. If you have a fire affinity, I don't want you to torch the house."

They found themselves on the little patio overlooking the garden. Hitomi loved to sit there, her legs hanging over the wooden edge, to watch as the sun set. She feared she would be too tall one day to be able to do that.

"Now, take this," Kurenai said as she handed her a sheet of chakra paper, "and infuse your chakra inside. If you have a fire affinity, it will make it burn. Wind will cut it in halves, lightning will crumple it, earth will crumble it and water will drench it."

Hitomi knew how that paper worked but allowed her mother to explain. She had read books about how the Hashirama wood was prepared to create it. Sometimes, she wondered about the shinobi world and its dependence on legends and their heritage. What would the world be like if Hashirama Trees had been infertile, or if they hadn't existed at all? With a smile, the girl took the almost translucent sheet of paper her mother was handing her and, without any real need to focus, she obeyed her instructions. A delighted giggle escaped her lips as the paper filled with water and turned into a little squishy ball in the palm of her hand. All the affinities would have been nice for her, but water? Water was awesome.

"What do I need to do now?" she pipped.

"Now, you'll have to learn to infuse your chakra with your water affinity so you can use it for Water Release techniques. Wait here, I'll go grab the scroll you'll use to train."

Quivering with impatience, Hitomi obeyed under her cats' interested stares.

"Water, uh?" Haīro said. "You know cats don't like water, right?"

She beamed at the grey cat, enthusiastic beyond belief. "And I don't like to find balls of cat hair under my pillow, and yet it happens at least once a week. You'll learn to deal with it, I'm sure. Anyway, do you know how to swim?"

Four horrified pairs of eyes met her scarlet stare. As for Sunaarashi, she just licked her paw and rubbed it against her ear. "Of course I know how to swim. I love fish."

The logic couldn't be disputed, that was for sure. Hitomi decided not to push further, seeing her mother coming back to her, an ornate scroll in her hands. It looked brand new. Had Kurenai bought one scroll of each affinity, just in case?

"Here, those are the instructions you'll have to follow to create water chakra. This scroll also contains a few D-ranked techniques you'll be able to learn once you're past the first stage. For the rest, you told me you and the boys had found scrolls for all the primary affinities in the Uchiha library, right?"

"Yeah, we did! I'll consult them once I'm done with this one. Thanks, Mom, you're the best!" The girl then moved to the side and started to read. She had needed some time to grow accustomed to reading from scrolls, but she didn't even notice it anymore. She learned water chakra needed prolonged contact with water. The first step was to go find a big enough pond, lake or river and float there, meditating as the body gave in to the current and other forces there.

Worrying her lower lip, Hitomi went to find her mother, who was reading a scroll about team strategies. "Mom, I think we need to go shopping. The last swimsuit I have is from when I was eight, it doesn't fit anymore."

Looking up from her scroll, Kurenai stared at her daughter. Hitomi wasn't in the habit of asking for that kind of thing: oh, the young mother wasn't stupid, she could see her sweet girl loved spending time in shops, trying out outfits and clothes until she found what she was looking for. And yet, she didn't ask that often, as if the idea of frivolity was upsetting to her. A quiet smile on her lips, the Jōnin closed her scroll and got on her feet, taking Hitomi by the shoulder to make her follow. "Come on, sweetheart, don't look so embarrassed. You can say it's part of your training, hm? After all, you're gonna spend quite some time in water for some of those techniques…"

A good part of the afternoon was spent looking for the perfect swimsuit. Hitomi was still far too young for a bikini – anyway, it wouldn't have been comfortable – but most one-pieces were conceived to appeal to civilians: their cuts were impractical, or in bold colours. Finally, they found what they were looking for in a little shop in the Aburame lands, open to Hitomi because of her friendship with Shino. It was a dark red one-piece, its simple cut leaving plenty of space for the body to move but still fitting enough that it wouldn't slip as she swam.

"Do you still want to do this today? If you want to practice kenjutsu today, we can go to the river tomorrow."

"No, Mom, I'm okay. Swimming in the dark doesn't bother me. Besides, you'll be watching over me, right?"

The sun was setting when mother and daughter reached the part of the Nara lands where a decent river could be found. The current wasn't that strong, but the river was deep, too deep for Hitomi to be able to walk. It wasn't any bother for her. She sent chakra running in cycles through her body to keep it warm, entered the river one step at a time then started floating. She had tied a rope to her wrist and given the other end to Kurenai, so she didn't have to worry about anything and could just lose herself.

"Shikamaru would like this," she mumbled before falling in her Library, her eyes closing on their own. At the highest point, where her mind looked like the sky at dawn, she sat on a rocky spire and started meditating. She had no difficulty whatsoever finding her Gates; their warmth made her want to curl up against them to sleep, but she couldn't. She had work to do, had to find the peculiar spark that would infuse her chakra with her main affinity. She tried a lot of things during the following three hours but, when Kurenai brushed a hand against her shoulder to make her come back to the physical world, she hadn't found a solution to the mysterious equation her mind was presenting her with.

She couldn't stop thinking about it, even during the night, as she roamed through her Library on the lookout for something that could help her succeed. Unfortunately, she had to admit her defeat some time before dawn. The canon hadn't given enough information about that, but it was her fault too, since she had never really studied affinities beyond what the Academy had taught her. It had seemed so uncertain, so far in the future…

With a little sigh, she left her bed in the quiet light of dawn, waking her five cats up with the whisper of fabric against her skin. She dressed up, her swimsuit dried by a bit of fire chakra from her mother the previous night under her clothes, she watched the felines woke up and stretched languidly. Sunaarashi had been lucky – or clever – and laid down where the sun was pooling now, and took solace in the warmth and light.

Wearing a light yukata in a lovely mint colour, she walked to the place where her mother had led her the previous day. She hadn't wanted to wake Kurenai up today: she knew that, the next day, she would have to pass an aptitude test in the Tower, and would need all the energy she could muster. The mere principle of that test was stupid in Hitomi's opinion. A ninja's power didn't matter when it came to raising kids to follow his footsteps. If they didn't have any educational skill, their students wouldn't learn anything. That was why people like Ebisu were so valuable: they didn't have any flamboyant jutsu, weren't even incredibly good in one particular skill, but they knew how to teach, really teach. And yet the Hokage persisted on testing his Jōnin's strength and power like a fucking moron.

Once she was at the river, she shrugged off her yukata without fear of being spied upon. She had five brave warrior cats to protect her, and she knew how any Nara would react if someone was seen ogling a woman – or worse, a girl. An angry Nara was terrifying, because fury provided them with a motivation they never had otherwise, a motivation that allowed their sharp mind to focus all its incredible strengths against one problem. No one wanted to become the enemy of such a phenomenon.

Once she was floating on the water, the rope stuck between Hoshihi's jaws, it only took her moments to find her Library. Like the previous day, she climbed on the summit of the rocky spire, crossed her legs and started meditating, trying to perceive the natural current of chakra through her body. The influx was warm, peaceful, comfortable. She could feel the places in her limbs where it was a bit weaker, like behind her right calf, and the ones where it was particularly vigorous, like her hands and feet.

Suddenly, a reflection far beneath her attracted her attention. She looked down and a shiver of horror ran down her spine when she realised the two first floors of her Library were completely immersed in water. The only thing stopping her from jumping to save her books, her precious memories, was a feeling of strangeness. No book floated at the surface, and there was no way the ones that were already under the waves rising faster and faster could have stayed in place if this had been real.

Perched on her stone spire, the impossible equilibrium maintained by constant tension and iron will, she waited. The water was slowly, regularly rising, and soon the fresh liquid was lapping at the edges of her spiritual form. She stayed still and allowed it to engulf her. In this mental world, she didn't need to breathe and could open her eyes; her movements didn't meet any resistance like they would have if she had been swimming. She relaxed from her meditative stance and let her whole being rest easy in the ascending current.

And then.

Then she felt…

The water wasn't just water. Her chakra was so tightly mingled in it she couldn't determine where the liquid stopped and her energy started. She opened her eyes, her real ones this time, and the river exploded around her, its water reacting to her every subconscious solicitation.

"Oi, careful, Lady Summoner!"

Haīro's annoyed hiss made her giggle, the sound wild and exalted; the power running through her meridians was tumultuous, fresh and pure like water, and she had the impression that she would never see the end of it. The euphoria sung inside her high and clear, her heart thundered blissfully in her chest – she felt powerful, unstoppable.

And that last feeling allowed her to go back to herself. She wasn't unstoppable, far from it. This impression of imperviousness could only lead her to one end, the most sinister of all, and she didn't want it. Her loved ones expected better from her than complacency. She closed her eyes again, isolating herself from what her body was experiencing, and meditated for several more hours under the sun's warmth, until she had gotten control of her mind back.

It took her several careful attempts to successfully create water chakra at will without losing herself in this attractive new skill. Only then did she leave the water, dried her body and dressed up again, indicating to her feline team it was time to leave. They had spent most of the time taking turns hunting as she was mastering her affinity, respectful of her efforts to bend her mind around new concepts and dangers. Well-fed and happy, they were chatting about the preys they had caught, tail and whiskers held high in pride and satisfaction.

"Hitomi, there you are!" Kurenai sighed with relief when she saw her daughter coming home. "I should have known you had gone back to training. Next time, leave a note to tell me where you are, alright?"

Caught out by the request, Hitomi nodded. She hadn't even thought about doing it. Usually, Kurenai knew where she was, without her needing to tell. She just knew, and Hitomi hadn't even considered that leaving without warning could worry her mother. "I'm sorry, Mom," she said as she lowered her eyes. "I'll tell you next time, promise."

"It's okay, sweetheart. Let's talk about your training instead. Did you have any results this time?"

"You could say that, yes!" Hitomi grinned and focused water chakra on her palm, making water ooze from her skin. Without a technique to make anything of it, the result wasn't that impressive, but it was the first step they needed to get back to work. The afternoon was already well-advanced, so they didn't have much time for a new technique before dinner, but each moment could be used in a smart way and they fully intended on doing just that.