Kakashi:Adjustment
Kakashi was very, very concerned for his blond student. Hearing that his Sensei's son had killed before even leaving the academy had been hard on his newly mended heart; comforting the blond boy in the aftermath of his second kill -which he had clearly found horrifically traumatic- was infinitely worse. Especially since Naruto's description gave the copy-nin flashbacks to his early experiences in the third shinobi war and the mercy killings of comrades tortured by the enemy.
Those flashbacks, combined with distant recollections of how his first few kills had made him feel, prompted the journin to set about working Naruto and his team-mates into the ground. Exhaustion makes sleep easier and allows less time for self-recrimination.
Sakura keeled over first, barely making it to ten circuits of the training ground after the pushups, situps and gruelling spar with her sensei. Kakashi gave her a short, disappointed lecture on the importance of eating properly in order to perform as a kunoichi. He laid out a clear, logical explanation on how dieting was only necessary to preserve one's figure if the woman in question wasn't engaging in physical exercise and how important proper nutrition was to strengthen her muscles and keep her mind sharp. Kakashi sent out many mental thanks to Ame throughout the lecture for explaining to him how to get through to his female student the previous night; he did not understand fangirls in the slightest and never wanted to.
Sasuke lasted through four spars with his sensei and a further five with Naruto, running circuits of the training ground in the intervals when Kakashi sparred with the jinchuuriki. As soon as he started getting sloppy the journin stopped the fight and ordered him to rest.
"Go home, eat and go to bed," Kakashi told the Uchiha firmly. "Training in this state will only result in injuries, forcing you to rest and recover which would set your progress back. There will be plenty of time in the coming weeks for further practice and improvement."
"Hai, sensei," Susuke agreed grudgingly before dragging himself away from the training ground towards the Uchiha compound.
Naruto lasted on and on, through two more hours of sparring both with his sensei and against his own shadow clones. When dinner time came around Kakashi gave up and sent the boy home to wash and change, telling him that Ame wanted him to come to the Hatake compound to share the evening meal with them both. The blond ran off eagerly, leaving Kakashi to amble home wondering if the endless energy Naruto demonstrated was a symptom of his jinchuuriki status. He'd never seen a twelve-year-old so energetic, ever. Rock Lee, Gai's overzealous student, was loud, bouncy and utterly dedicated to improving himself, but Naruto's inhuman stamina left even him in the dust. The boy was a force of nature.
Kakashi told Ame about Naruto's kill as soon as he got home. He had no intention of reporting it to the military police; the yakuza had likely disposed of the body by now, leaving no trace of the girl's existence. She likely didn't even exist in the village's system as a civilian, and reporting her death would only lead to further discrimination against the short blond. Kakashi would never expose his Sensei's son to further suffering if he could help it.
The pain in his koi's eyes was tangible as he recounted the tale. "Poor, poor Naru-chibi. You were right though, Kashi: for a girl like that death will have been a welcome mercy."
"I just don't know how to help," Kakashi admitted in frustration. "I told him what my sensei told me, but I don't know what else to do for him; Naruto is far more driven by his heart than I ever was and my first kills were so long ago I barely remember how they made me feel."
"I'll do what I can for him, Kashi-koi; maybe you could get your team a C-rank in a few weeks to give him something new to focus on, provided the rest of the team is sufficiently improved for the risk to be negligible. I know there's a fixed quota of D-ranks to fulfil but from what you've told me they're competent to get that done in very little time."
"If Sakura gets herself up to scratch I will," Kakashi said, stroking his lover's hair. "Sasuke is highly competent for his age and is quite capable of cooperating with Naruto when it suits him. Naruto may be less perfectly controlled but his imagination and unpredictability makes him the better shinobi of the two, possibly of the entire genin crop. He has more stamina than Gai, which until now I did not believe was even possible. I am only grateful Naruto did not graduate last year and end up on his team; Lee is bad enough but Naruto as Gai's protégée would have driven me stark staring mad."
"Don't wait too long for that first C-rank; I want you here when I give birth, not gallivanting across the elemental nations with your genin team."
"Of course I'll be here, Ame-koi. Barring war or an emergency of national importance; I can't rightly refuse missions of that caliber."
"That is perfectly acceptable. Now come and help me change for dinner."
Dinner at the Hatake mansion -Kakashi still couldn't bring himself to call it a house- was a fairly peaceful affair; it seemed he had managed to tire Naruto out after all. Ame coaxed the boy into a conversation on the various uses of explosive tags -both within and outside the context of combat missions- which Kakashi managed to participate in as well, contributing a few amusing anecdotes.
The journin had not yet been able to find a satisfactory alternative to his Icha Icha to read around his genin, which was mildly upsetting. He felt rather naked wandering around the village without a book to hide behind. Ame had promised to find him something on bijuu and jinchuuriki -he felt Naruto was the student whose needs he was least prepared to deal with- but it would take time to get hold of.
After the meal Ame lead Naruto away for a private heart to heart while Kakashi cleared the table and washed the dishes. Elbow deep in hot water, the journin reflected on the recent twists his life had taken as well as the coming changes. Fatherhood most prominently, both of his own children and the horde of orphans who Ame was arranging to move into the Hatake mansion from River country. He wasn't sure how he was going to cope with his home being invaded by a dozen brats plus caretakers, but at least the new building was big enough that he could ensure privacy when he needed it. His koi wanted some of her family to live close to her, so Kakashi would deal with it. He had had less privacy in ANBU after all.
Ame had, at least, set aside various parts of the house under different levels of seals to restrict access to those not keyed into the security systems. The entire upper floors of the house were sealed against everyone whose blood was not incorporated into the preliminary defences and the basements were even more restricted. Bedrooms had even more specialised seals on, surpassed only by the security on the laboratories and workrooms. His beloved clearly felt that a person could never have too much security and Kakashi couldn't honestly say he disagreed. Not that he knew -or even wanted to know- how the security system worked or what the various seals actually did, especially not the more esoteric arrays she'd engraved on the inside of the load-baring walls and around the estate's perimeter. His gut told him that plausible deniability in this case would be his best course of action.
Plus, he suspected Ame's attempts at explaining what she had done would only make his brain ache anyway.
Having finished putting away the dry crockery Kakashi wandered over to the main receiving room to find his fiancée, who was sitting alone and fiddling absently with a saucer, having sent Naruto home to rest. "Well, koi?"
"You did help him, Kashi-koi," Ame sighed, putting the saucer down, "and I also did what I could. The rest is up to him, though I do believe he will pull through and that the experience will temper him into a fine shinobi. Which reminds me; could you factor in a day off for your team at some point in the next week? I really do not like the vibe I am getting off that seal on his stomach."
"You noticed that?"
Ame gave her lover a look. "Kashi, you know I can see chakra, emotions, memories and even souls. That Naruto has a semi-sentient bottomless pit of youki trapped behind his navel gate is glaringly obvious to me. I just wish that the idiot who did the sealing had had more actual knowledge about bijuu than the average shinobi."
Kakashi blinked at the casual slander of his sensei's intelligence. "Idiot..?" he repeated faintly.
"It is a very good seal, made by a highly competent seal master. Had it been used on any other limitless chakra source there wouldn't have been a problem. Unfortunately bijuu are not actually made of chakra; they run on youki, which unless perfectly balanced with a less volatile form of energy is toxic to living beings. With the seal as it is Naruto might accidentally die of chakra poisoning if he is unlucky. Even if he is amazingly lucky he will still lose decades off his lifespan."
"Oh." Kakashi was stunned by this evidence of his sensei's feet of clay. The Yondaime had been brilliant with seals, but it was equally clear that he had been insufficiently well-informed in other areas to properly apply said brilliance.
"It is a very good seal; very strong and well able to prevent Kyuubi from escaping so long as his jailer lives. It just isn't quite the right seal to ensure the safe harvesting of a bijuu's chakra for its jinchuuriki," Ame amended. "especially considering that the nine-tailed fox has the most dangerous youki of all the tailed beasts. Its power lies in pure youki manipulation to the highest degree. It deliberately shapes said youki to corrupt the bonds holding matter together, rather than simply poison life on a cellular level which is what youki does naturally. That it is also aligned to earth, water and lightening just makes its power more formidable."
"Not fire?" Kakashi asked, remembering the conflagration which had consumed half of Konohagakure the night of the Kyuubi attack.
"Fire isn't an element in the strictest sense; it is just a manifestation of chakra instability, hence why uncontrolled raw chakra causes burns. The true elements are just the four states of being: Earth for solidity, water for liquid, wind for gaseous and lightening for pure energy. The combination elements are the really interesting ones."
"Interesting how?" Kakashi asked. She was turning at least a century of accepted elemental chakra theory on its head, but her interpretation made a surprising amount of sense.
"Well, the so-called fire combinations first, which you don't even need to be aligned to fire to use since it is the most easily element to replicate. Destabilising earth creates lava. Destabilise water and you get steam. Wind, well you get explosions: really big ones. The combination is the most volatile by far. Adding just a hint of wind to so-called fire manipulation does however give it a massive boost. The fire and lightning combination is however the only non-viable mix on the spectrum: because lightening is pure energy, destabilising it just weakens the technique or snuffs it out completely."
Kakashi wished he had pencil and paper so he could take notes. Instead he moved to sit behind his fiancée, cradling her pregnant belly lovingly. "What about earth?"
"Earth is interesting. Because the ground naturally contains low levels of what is generally called sage energy or 'natural chakra' its combinations have multiple tiers depending on whether the moulder has an affinity for that natural energy. For example, if a person has an affinity for 'natural chakra' -which isn't chakra at all really- they can combine the earth and water elements and create wood, the so-called living element."
"Wait up koi; you mean to tell me that the Shodaime's mokuton kekkai genkai was a sage technique?"
"Oh yes. If Senju Hashirama had not had an innate affinity for natural chakra manipulation he would only have been able to produce mud, which is the lower tier of the earth-water combination."
"So it isn't a kekkai genkai after all," Kakashi reasoned. That would explain why Orochimaru's attempts to recreate it were so unsuccessful: he wasn't trying to transfer the correct traits.
"Technically mokuton is just what you get when someone with so-called 'sage potential' has an affinity for both earth and water chakra. Senju Tobirama's incredible affinity for suiton techniques was also a result of an innate sage affinity: water contains traces of natural energies, though not as much as earth."
"So the true Senju kekkai genkai is a sage affinity; that explains more than it doesn't," Kakashi mused. Like for example Tsunade-sama's almost unnatural healing affinity. She lacks an elemental affinity, but is naturally attuned to the human body. "What about earth and wind?"
"Dust or sand as the lower tier. Tiny particles moved at high speeds to create elastic shields or to erode everything in its path. Higher tier is a fungal and bacteriological affinity, which is both incredibly rare and insanely dangerous. We're talking about the ability to poison, decompose or otherwise break down absolutely anything at will. It was a kekkai genkai a long time ago in Iwa, but it was wiped out fairly early in the wandering clans period. No-one's attempted to recreate it since because no-one even remembers it existed."
"I... can understand why," the copy-nin admitted. That was a really scary affinity.
"Metal -generally iron- is the lower tier earth and lightning combination, since the intense energy transmutes the earth into a more resilient form. Higher tier is called flesh affinity and usually manifests as medical brilliance in both healing and successful genetic modification. I think Tsunade of the Sannin has this, though the fact she is unaware of it means she does not exploit it to its fullest. My own innate healing ability is a variation on this, although I lack the proper elemental affinities to exploit it at the highest levels."
Kakashi silently agreed that the earth/sage combinations were by far the scariest.
"Note by the way that despite lacking an earth affinity any half-decent sage can recreate one of these combinations provided they have an affinity for the other element," Ame added. "And that even pure earth manipulation in the hands of a true sage is really, truly scary."
"I hadn't the faintest idea," Kakashi admitted.
"Most sages haven't the foggiest, even the summons like the toads. I only know because the Sanju Shukaku grants me the ability to sense and fully access so-called 'natural chakra' as well as full knowledge of past sage practices. Plus I've experimented a lot."
"Oh." Kakashi really didn't like the sound of that. The idea of Ame 'experimenting' with the sage techniques she'd just told him about sent a chill down his spine that even her penchant for bending reality with seals couldn't match.
"Anyway, that's all the earth combinations. Water next. Water and wind creates what most people mistake for ice but is in fact pure cold as a result of the minute traces of natural energy in water having a slight transmuting effect. Depending on the individuals proficiency they will be able to create solid ice, snow or -if sufficiently talented and driven- the ability to freeze. The freezing ability can be applied to anything containing water, people included. All the Yuki-onna stories come from a kekkai genkai clan from Yuki no kuni which settled in Kirigakure and whose members had the ability to freeze everything they touched."
"That sounds like a very useful elemental bloodline to have," Kakashi commented, "both in the field and off it."
"They were one of the first victims of the bloodline purges, sadly," Ame sighed. "So much skill wasted. A lot of them were medics, since cooling the body preserves it. What the last two Mizukages have done to Kiri is nothing short of criminal."
"What about water and lightening?" Kakashi asked.
"Another interesting one, that: Plasma. Plasma, by the way, is the substance that stars are made of which acts like water, shines like light and evaporates everything it touches. It is far, far hotter than lava and is the Kyuubi's primary affinity."
"Plasma?" Kakashi croaked. "I thought it was fire, or just pure chakra."
"Nope, Plasma. It is fairly rare, since there is a knack to making it. Just as most wind/water users get ice rather than true cold, most water/lightning users get what they call 'lasers' rather than plasma. Laser has a larger proportion of lightning to water than plasma does as well as requiring less power and control. Laser acts like light and cuts and cauterizes rather than evaporating. Last combo is wind and lightening, which is another weird one. You get high frequency sound. Note that most sound-users don't actually know this and are therefore incapable of properly exploiting it. That's all the elemental combinations."
"Arigatou nasai for that, Ame-koi. It was enlightening," Kakashi said thoughtfully, making a mental note to write it all down in the Hatake clan scrolls. This was sufficiently valuable information to be classed as clan secrets. "And it gives me all kinds of ideas for my own affinity."
"Lightening is the intelligence element after all, Kashi-koi," his fiancée teased him gently, rubbing the back of her head against his chest.
"How so?"
"Your body runs on bioelectricity koi. Thoughts are all tiny electrical impulses. Electricity makes your muscles move and your senses feel. A true lightening master can create impenetrable genjutsus, wield your body like a puppet or lift the thoughts right out of your mind."
Like the Yamanakas? It sounds like their bloodline is lightening based. "I never thought about it that way," Kakashi mused. "I concentrated on the pure assault capabilities of lightening, but you are right once again Ame-koi."
"I usually am," Ame said blandly. "But when I'm wrong, boy is it ever big. My slip-ups tend to have emotionally painful and far-reaching consequences."
"I'll take your word for it, koi. Oh, and have I told you how beautiful you are today?" Kakashi asked, tightening his grip on the woman in his arms.
"I don't feel very beautiful. I feel bloated, badly balanced and heavy."
"You're carrying my children in there. I find the way you look very sexy indeed, Ame-koi," Kakashi murmured huskily, running a hand over her belly while the other toyed with the neckline of her kimono. "In fact-" he shunshined her upstairs into their bedroom, making her squeak "-I feel the need to show you exactly how irresistible I'm finding your beautiful body right now."
"Well, when you put it that way," Ame gasped, surrendering gracefully to his eager ministrations, "I can't really resist."
A/N: I am currently suffering from computer issues, but I have enough uploaded that I should -should- be able to not delay my publishing shedule of every other day. Here we have my own interpretation of the elemental affinities and their uses. The idea of 'sage affinity' makes a lot of sense to me and will reappear later in the story at various points.