The loss of Iwao as a friend hit me harder than I expected. It didn't sit well with me that my mere existence caused the boy such stress, and it sat even worse with me that I couldn't do anything to fix it. The kid refused to see me, and I knew that going to his father was the last thing I should do.
The only thing I could think of was to have Akane-obasan reach out to Yuudai, which she claimed to have done before I approached her. She said, and I quote, "best friends fighting broke her heart." I believed her when she said she spoke to the man, but nothing seemed to come out of it.
I tried to keep a level head about the whole mess—Iwao was a kid, I couldn't blame him for acting so childish—but my unwarranted frustration won out. The little shit wanted to give me the silent treatment? Fine. He was kind of holding me back anyway.
I refocused on my physical conditioning, something I knew that I was far behind in. I really didn't want to fail utterly in taijutsu, but that was starting to look unavoidable. I would already be a year behind my year-mates in physical development, so I needed to find some way to compensate.
My chibi-ness most definitely did not lend itself to the defensive nature of the Stone Fist. All my blocks would break with even the slightest amount of pressure, and I could be forced out of my strong stances way too easily. Until I grew up, it seemed hopeless.
With my metaphorical back against the wall, I sought help from the only remaining resource I theoretically had available to me.
"Sensei?" I broached hesitantly, approaching the sexy woman the moment she appeared with her team.
"I'm not your sensei," she said flatly, eyeing my dripping form. "So don't refer to me as such."
"Well, I don't know your name?" I pointed out, the question implied.
"Then don't refer to me at all."
Yikes. I almost turned and walked away, but I really needed guidance.
"I turn four in six months," I began. "And the next academy semester begins with the new year. So I have approximately seven and a half months before I start at the academy. And my taijutsu is…lacking. My body is too small to be compatible with the Stone Fist."
Sexy-sensei's eyes flicked away from mine in disinterest. "That's a shame."
When there was clearly no follow up incoming, I tried again. "Is there any advice you can give me?"
"A little piece," she allowed. "Don't whine about your body being too small, or your muscles being too weak. You're starting the academy early, so you'll have to cope with those disadvantages. You won't be given exceptions, allowances, pity or mercy, especially when it was your own choice that put you in this situation."
"…I meant about my taijutsu," I muttered, embarrassment burning in my core. Excuse the fuck you, I did not whine.
"Iwagakure does not coddle her shinobi," she said. "She knows that the best lessons are the ones a person teaches themselves."
"So what, I'm supposed to just let the older kids beat the shit out of me every time we spar?" I asked incredulously.
"Exactly," she said in that same, infuriatingly bored tone. "You let the older kids beat the shit out of you. If you have potential, you'll grow stronger with each loss."
I sighed. That didn't sound like a good time to me. But if that was the reality, I had better start getting used to it now. The last thing I wanted was to cry like a bitch in front of my classmates. I settled into a ready stance.
"I'm not going to fight you, kid," she said. "You won't learn anything from fighting someone on my level, not unless I consciously edit my fighting style to allow you to learn from it. And I'm only paid to babysit three brats, not four."
"What about them?" I asked, gesturing to her team, each of them performing various exercises on the surface of the water.
"They have their own training to worry about," she said flatly. "The faster they make chunin, the sooner I can wash my hands of them. I won't let you delay their training in any way."
Aha! "What if I'm part of the training?" I said eagerly.
"And how could you possibly assist in their training?" she prompted.
"The whole point of them practicing here is to get them used to fighting on water," I stated. "So them sparring with me while on the water would put their ability to the test."
"Sparring each other and myself would be a much better exercise," she pointed out. "And you don't know how to walk in water."
"I can learn," I protested.
"It's the last in a chain of progressively more difficult techniques," the jonin stated. "You will not be able to learn it in a year, much less seven months. And even if you could, you don't have the chakra to maintain it for more than a couple minutes."
"You've underestimated my chakra capacity before," I pointed out.
"I did," she allowed. "But only because I didn't care enough to look. If I put in even the slightest effort, like I am doing right now, I wouldn't have had to estimate at all."
That's right—Sexy-sensei was a sensor (wow, try to say that three times, fast). I had almost forgotten. Not. That little factoid was in the forefront of my mind whenever I was in her vicinity, because I did not want her to see all of the meddling I did with my internal chakra.
Every week, prior to my regularly scheduled swim, I made sure that my canals were at low-tide. That meant I wasn't actively stuffing them full of chakra by tricking my Gate of View. It also meant that I ensured my overall chakra level resembled something normal. After getting a good night's sleep—my allotted once per week—that night, I would cycle to high-tide over the course of the next several days.
I took a deep breath. "You don't want to coddle me, and you don't want extra work. I get that. I don't want to be coddled. All I'm asking for is a sentence, a phrase, hell, even a word. Can't you please tell me something—anything—to point me in the right direction?"
She studied me for a moment, before her eyes slid off me once more.
"I just did. Now, get out of my face. Your voice is too shrill, and it's giving me a headache."
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
I had no fucking clue what Sexy-sensei meant. And I really wished I was paying better attention to the few sentences she spared me. But I just thought she was blowing me off, not giving me codes!
Stupid, Kasaiki. Stupid.
I'm training to be a ninja. A mysterious voice should be repeating the phrase look underneath the underneath in my brain at all times.
The first thing I did when I got home was to grab a pen and a piece of paper and try to plot out the encounter to the best of my ability before I forgot even more. What happened first? I asked for her name, and she refused to give me it. I could find a lesson hidden in there pretty easily, but not one that had any relevance when it came to taijutsu.
Next, I asked her for advice. She turned me down and told me not to whine about having a physical disadvantage (I remember that part pretty damn well). Though her exact wording escaped me; I was a bit distracted by my burning embarrassment.
Then she gave a speech about Iwa not coddling her shinobi. Again, I didn't remember the exact wording. I think she said that the things I learn for myself are better—well, not better, more impactful maybe—than the lessons I learn from other people? There could be something in there.
I said something about letting kids beat me up, and she agreed. Told me I should let that happen—seek it out even. Which was a weird thing for an adult to condone, but such was the world I lived in.
After that, I got in my fighting stance. Not really because I wanted her to beat the shit out of me, but because I thought she might be impressed if she saw my resolve. She refused, saying that I wouldn't learn anything from fighting her. Because I'm stubborn and can't take no for an answer, I asked her if I could get one of her brats to beat me up. She also refused that request, and said that I couldn't practice with them because I couldn't water walk. I told her I could learn, and she said I couldn't. That it was too chakra intensive, and that there were a bunch of steps I needed to complete first.
There might be something there, but I'll come back to that. She had also said something that referenced her sensing ability. If I was to take the just in the I just did most literally, that statement would have been the last thing she said. So was sensing the key? Chakra Sensing™ is a whole thing, and not something I'm capable of. I think. I'm pretty sure it's not a skill that can be learned, but what if I'm wrong? Maybe she thinks I should pursue that, and try to read an opponent's moves with it. Kinda like the Naruto version of Observational Haki. That would be pretty sick.
After a couple days of research (i.e. asking Kazuhiro, finding out he knew nothing on the subject, and writing up a list of questions for him to ask his colleagues) I got the information I was looking for. With a heaping side of disappointment.
First off, I was right. Chakra sensing was an innate trait, not a skill that could be learned. And even if I did possess the gift, it certainly could not be useful in a straight bout of taijutsu. Sensors "saw" chakra presences as incorporeal blobs of light, not as bodies. They couldn't tell if someone was about to throw a punch or a kunai, and they certainly couldn't predict where. The closest thing I found was that powerful sensors could detect intense emotions within chakra. That might tip you off to an unexpected attack, but in a fair spar there was little utility.
Defeated, I returned to my list. My eyes kept getting drawn back to a specific entry. The one where she explains why I can't water walk. It's the only point where she describes (relatively) specific information, information I could seek out myself.
Luckily, due to my foreknowledge, I didn't have to go through all that trouble. The first step was the leaf sticking exercise. I think, and this might be fanon, that the goal was to be able to stick bunches of leaves to all different spots on my body and make them rotate, do a jig, or some stupid shit like that. The next step was tree walking, and then water walking was after that.
Naruto was able to learn each of those last two things in a couple days, if that (my memory was a bit hazy on the matter), and he was a certifiable dumbass. But Sexy-sensei said it would take a year to reach that point. The math doesn't track; maybe it's a lot more difficult in real life than it was in the anime?
"Nii-san," I pestered Kazuhiro. "Can we spar?"
My god-brother looked at me strangely. "You want to spar? Last time, you got really frustrated."
"Yeah," I admitted. "But I won't be full-grown for a long time, and I can't wait that long to get good at taijutsu. So even though it's really annoying, I have to practice."
Kazuhiro smiled gently. "That's a very mature way of looking at it, Kasaiki-chan." He clapped his hands and stood up from his armchair. "Why don't we both change, and meet out in the backyard."
When we were both ready, I told him, "don't hold back as much. I need to know exactly what weaknesses I have to overcome." I got some information from our last attempt before I called it off early, but I would like a more comprehensive and specific list. I even brought out some paper to write down my thoughts on.
"You call it when you're ready, imouto," he said gently, standing tall and relaxed.
I took a deep breath, sinking into the low, strong ready stance of the Stone Fist.
"Alright. Hajime!"
Kazuhiro flashed towards me with a simple straight, clearly holding back a lot, but hopefully not as much as last time. I barely had time to throw up a textbook block before his fist made contact, bruising my little baby arms and knocking me backward. Despite my stance, I couldn't stay on my feet, though, counterintuitively, I stumbled forward before tripping. That was because, in order to keep myself from being knocked on my ass, I had to shift my weight forward to resist Kazuhiro's momentum. After I weathered the blow, my overcompensation cost me.
Last time, Kazuhiro stopped after each hit, giving me time to collect myself before attacking once more. This time, he flowed into a spinning hook kick (which was also a lot slower than I knew him to be capable of). Thinking quickly, I rolled under the blow, though it still clipped my shoulder. The pain distracted me from rising as quickly as I needed to, and Kazuhiro pressed me gently into the ground with the same sandaled foot.
"Unlike shinobi of any other nature, ninja with earth affinities can sometimes find it advantageous to be knocked to the ground," Kazuhiro lectured as he allowed me to push myself up. "But that's only after you learn some Doton ninjutsu. Until that happens, being forced to the ground is the last thing you should want during a spar."
"Yeah, I know," I sighed, rubbing my aching shoulder. "I just don't know what to do to keep that from happening."
"You could practice dodging," he suggested.
"I would love to. But in the academy, I'll be graded on my ability to use the Stone Fist," I pointed out.
Practitioners of the basic Iwa taijutsu style could and should dodge in many circumstances. Simply allowing powerful hits to connect would be stupid. However, the offensive half of the Stone Fist, which was integral as it created openings for Iwa nin to disengage, was almost entirely retaliatory. If I exclusively relied on dodging, I would never be able to get in a lick of my own.
"Let's go again," I said distractedly.
He nodded, and as soon as I was in my ready stance, I shouted again, "hajime!"
Kazuhiro came fast once more, opting this time for a left cross. Using a different cross block, which supported my right arm with my left fist, I weathered the blow, even though the pain in my shoulder flared in protest. He must have hit softer, because I wasn't immediately thrown off my feet this time.
Likely in response to my last comment, he was allowing me the opportunity to launch a counterattack. But the moment I tried, easing the support from my left arm in order to strike out with it, his fist slid past my guard and decked me in the sternum, knocking the wind out of me.
"Shit, I'm sorry!" Kazuhiro yelped, rushing to where I had fallen, wheezing. "I'm so sorry, Kasaiki-chan, are you okay?"
"Yeah," I choked out. "I'm fine, you didn't do anything wrong. It was my stupid, skinny forearms."
My childlike arms were too slender, and though it wasn't supposed to work like that, I had caught his punch with both my forearm and the opposite hand that had supported it. As I removed the hand, Kazuhiro's fist had rolled right off my remaining defense, and in the worst way possible.
"I don't know what to do, nii-san," I bemoaned. "I can't stay on my feet if I get hit. And even if I do manage to, I can't counterattack and maintain my block at the same time."
"I'm sorry, imouto," he said regretfully. "I don't know how to help you. Perhaps if you spoke to the academy-sensei and explained the situation, they might make an exception."
No. Like Sexy-sensei said, I would be given no exceptions, allowances, pity or mercy. Not when it was my choice to enroll in the academy, early at that. And frankly, I didn't want any.
Then, as I thought of the infuriating but gorgeous jonin, her hint came back to me, and I grinned as the pieces clicked together.
"I know that look," Kazuhiro said with fond exasperation. "You've thought of something ridiculous, haven't you?"
"Yep!" I chirped. "Can we be done now? I have some more training to do."
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
I thought I had good chakra control. Excellent chakra control, even, considering all I had done with my submarines and canal mapping. Apparently, I was completely mistaken.
I had phenomenal chakra control, while it was inside of my body. But as soon as I let it out, all that control? Kaput.
"There are three facets of chakra control," Kazuhiro confided to me as I approached him, nearly in tears from frustration, after I had practiced for three whole days without seeing any results (while fucking up my tide system for a week in the process).
"Three facets?" I repeated. I had heard nothing of the sort in the anime.
"Yes," he confirmed. "First, there is internal chakra control. Then there is chakra intensity awareness. And finally, external control. The first, as its name suggests, refers to one's ability to control their own internal chakra. It's only useful in very select circumstances."
What the fuck? The one thing I was exceptional at was only useful in very select circumstances? The statement pissed me off so much, I could barely comprehend what he said next.
"Then there's chakra intensity awareness, which is your sense of how much chakra you put into techniques. This is integral when it comes to ninjutsu, because all of them require specific amounts of chakra. Underpowering them will cause them to fail, and overpowering them will cause them to fail catastrophically. Usually, there is a certain threshold of tolerance, which varies from jutsu to jutsu, but you want to develop your intensity awareness to the point that you always stay on the low side. Adding more chakra won't improve a jutsu's effectiveness; it will just wear you out a lot faster, which can easily spell death."
I took a deep breath to calm myself. "And the last one…I assume that's what I'm struggling with now."
"Exactly," he confirmed. "External control is crucial for the exercise you are working on, along with learning shape manipulation, which is a component of most jutsu C-rank and above."
My frown deepened. "How do you mean?"
"Think about the Kawarimi no Jutsu," he said. "It is, by design, incredibly simple. The hand seals mold the technique, and all you have to do is aim and release it. For more advanced jutsu, you have to do a lot more. Take your father's Doro Nami O Tsukamu no Jutsu, for example. The jutsu itself softens the ground and forms the wave, but I can manipulate its shape. Not much, but that's only due to my skill level. I am only capable of making the wave about five meters wide, but your father was capable of creating a full ring around himself. That takes a great deal of external control."
"What about jutsu with complex shapes, like the elemental dragon jutsu?" I asked. I could only imagine the skill that it took to shape chakra in such a fashion.
"…how do you know about those jutsu?" Kazuhiro asked, confusion evident, and I winced internally. In my excitement, I forgot I wasn't supposed to know about that yet.
"Iwao told me about them," I claimed. It seemed likely to me that his father would at least tell him about some things; maybe he had even received a demonstration. And it wasn't like Kazuhiro could verify with the kid, since we weren't on speaking terms.
He accepted the answer. "Some jutsu have shape manipulation built into them," he explained. "The ones you're referring to are like that; in fact, their shapes can't be modified further at all as a result. For that reason, such jutsu require many, many hand seals, and while they can be deadly, they are mostly just for show and intimidation."
The second hokage, Senju Tobirama, was said to have the strongest suiton affinity in the history of the elemental nations. He could perform the water dragon jutsu with a single seal. I had recently learned that, while some hand seals could be dropped with a great deal of practice, usually around a half to two thirds of them were integral to the jutsu itself (though the number could be decreased further by merging seals into hybrids, something I still didn't know much about). So was Tobirama even using the water dragon jutsu? Or was it pure water shape manipulation? Either way, it was a massive flex.
We were getting off topic.
"So my external chakra control is shit," I surmised.
"Language, Kasaiki-chan," Kazuhiro chided, "You can't swear much in the academy—people will think I'm a bad influence."
"I'm sorry, nii-san. I'll try," I promised, and he nodded.
"Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do except practice. Likely, your intensity awareness plays a role too. But once you have a better picture about how much chakra it takes to stick something to you, that will likely improve."
A better picture. Of how much chakra. I slapped a palm to my forehead.
"Are you okay, Kasaiki-chan?" Kazuhiro asked, a smile tugging at the corner of his lip.
"Yes, nii-san. Your imouto is just a moron, is all," I told him.
"Now I know for a fact that's not true," he said, patting me on the head like I was a dog. "Now, don't miss dinner tonight, okay? I know how you get when you discover something."
"Okay!" I laughed sheepishly before retreating back to my room.
I didn't have to estimate chakra output, and I didn't have to go by feeling either. I could measure my output in Hikari. Or, rather Centi-Hikari, as the needed output was so slight.
After a great deal of trial and error, I came up with a quantifiable measurement, which was extremely helpful. But that was only a part of the equation; the rest of my difficulty came from the action itself. Simply, I had naturally shit external chakra control, and I needed to remedy that as soon as possible.
Hell, even Naruto (the man) had better external chakra control than me, and oh boy was that realization depressing.
I could think of no other reason he was able to learn tree and water walking in such a short period of time. He wasn't just better than me—he was great in general. It was his intensity awareness (and I assume his internal chakra control) that was epically shit, and that was what held him back when it came to finnikey work, like leaf sticking and the Bunshin no Jutsu.
For me, my chakra lost all cohesion as soon as it left my tenketsu. It took a phenomenal amount of effort to reign it in. And on top of that, chakra wasn't inherently sticky like some fics claimed; I had to actively manipulate it to grasp onto objects.
But I needed to figure it out now. Even if I was barking up the wrong tree, and my taijutsu-related application didn't work in practice, this training wouldn't be a waste of time. It would still be incredibly helpful in the future.
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
AN: Some of my commenters stated that they really liked my speculations on chakra theory. Well, here you go! Basically an entire chapter on chakra speculation!
I've always thought it was weird that most fanfic authors treated chakra control like some arbitrary score, even in non-gamer stories. That by "raising your chakra control" you could just automatically do everything better. I think ninja should still have to actively hone their chakra control for each new exercise they seek to accomplish. If you work out, but only do leg day for a month straight, is your upper body going to get stronger too? If you play the violin, can you suddenly learn to play the cello as well? Yes, some of the skills might translate, but they're completely different actions. Learning to tree walk (by manipulating chakra through the tenketsu in your feet) isn't going to magically grant you the ability to, for example, perform precise chakra exercises with the tenketsu in your hands. Those are my personal thoughts on the matter.
…whew. I guess I had to go off a bit. Been holding that in for a while now. None of my IRL friends are into Naruto fanfiction, so I don't have anyone to rant to.
On a completely different note, this is a big milestone for me. With this chapter, Wannabe Gamer of Iwa has surpassed the 40,000 word mark! Personally, when I'm looking for fanfic, I filter out anything that is less than 40,000 words, because I don't like to become engrossed in a story only for it to end before I can really enjoy it. And flash fiction isn't really my thing. So now, this fic is one that I would personally read! Hopefully, I'll get some more traffic from people who behave the same as me.
Have a great week! I'll see you in the next.