I arrived early the next morning—fifteen minutes, nothing too crazy—and approached Yoshiro-sensei with a small packet in hand.

"Good morning, sensei," I greeted.

"Imai-san," he returned. "Is there something you need assistance with?"

"I have a proposal for my independent study," I told him, neatly placing the packet on the desk he sat at for examination.

"Thorough, aren't we?" he deadpanned, sliding it towards himself. He cocked an eyebrow. "You're trying to test your affinity? That's typically reserved for semester nine."

"Then perhaps you might see fit to grant me independent study for that class as well, when the time comes."

"I would have no issue with this," he said. "If I thought you were merely going to stop at learning your elemental affinity. But though I have only known you for less than two weeks, I have a moderately firm grasp on your character." He straightened in his seat, and even though I was standing his eyes were level with mine.

"Nature transformation is dangerous. It is a chunin level skill for a reason. When performing a simple elemental jutsu, you are merely channeling the element temporarily. When you transform your nature, your chakra becomes elemental. Greatly boosting the power of jutsu corresponding to that element, yes, but there is a great deal of risk. If improperly controlled, organs, muscles and bones can take on characteristics of said element. When I was first learning the skill, I had to visit the hospital because my femur broke during training. The medic nin found that my bones bore traces of my earth element, and had become brittle as a result."

I remembered Kakashi warning Naruto about how he could damage his chakra pathways while learning the wind nature transformation. Results—and risks—may vary based on said elements, I guess. And he was a jinchuriki with ultra regen; the rest of us were a hell of a lot more squishy. However—

"You misjudge me, sensei," I said. "Nature transformation isn't currently my goal. My aims are completely different." He raised an eyebrow, and I nodded at the packet that he hadn't flipped past the first page of. "Learning my affinity is only a prerequisite. I've laid out my plans in detail there."

He flipped the page and his frown deepened, though not in annoyance. "You want to…study the nature of elemental affinities themselves?"

"Correct," I said, inwardly nervous. I was trying to project myself as someone Yoshiro-sensei could respect, but I was walking a very fine line. The man held a lot of power over me, and if he decided my behavior was inappropriate for a student, I could face serious repercussions. I was already kinda on his shit list from my prior actions. I think. It was really difficult to tell with the man.

"The things people have told me about chakra affinities do not line up my understanding of chakra as a concept. I want to know why and how."

Yoshiro-sensei regarded me for a moment. "I thought you were aiming to be a frontline combatant. The strongest frontline ninja you will ever meet, I believe you said. Why the sudden interest in research?"

"I pursue knowledge in the interest of furthering that goal. Please see the top half of page three." That was where I explained the observation I made to Kazuhiro the night prior. "I believe there is a well of power somewhere that those with affinities can tap into," I state. I didn't explain where I thought that well of power was; if I did, I would get shut down immediately. "If I can figure out how to expand that well, and possibly utilize it in other ways, my combat ability may grow exponentially. How I plan to do that is also detailed in that packet."

Kind of. What I wrote on the subject, in essence, could be summed up in a single sentence: find my affinity and try to figure it out from there. Hopefully my flowery speech and postulations distracted from that. I did have a real plan, but it involved my chakra mapping, which I would probably never tell anyone about.

"If this is what you wish to spend your time doing, then you have my permission," Yoshiro-sensei finally said, and I could have sighed in relief. If he refused, I would have done it anyway, but it was nice to be given class time to do it in.

"And in a remarkable stroke of luck for you," he continued, "Batch sixty-three has their affinity discovery class at this exact same timeframe. I would be willing to write you a note to give to their instructor, Maki-sensei, who would allow you to sit in on their class so that you may receive actual instruction on the matter. As it is only the second week, I doubt they have gotten too far."

Holy shit that was fucking rad. "That is a remarkable stroke of luck," I agreed. "I will gratefully accept your offer. Thank you, sensei."

Nodding in lieu of a you're welcome, he took out a piece of paper and jotted down said note. The rest of my batch had arrived, and class was about to begin.

"You will find them in building one, room five-hundred and twenty. You are not excused for being late to your next class. Best get going, so you disturb them as little as possible."

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

I crossed over to the First's building in no time at all, nearly skipping up all five flights of stairs. The door to room five-hundred and twenty was closed, but I could hear speaking from just behind it.

I knocked on the door, and waited politely for a moment as the speaker cut off. Then, I opened it.

"Pardon my intrusion," I said in a clear voice. "Are you Maki-sensei?"

The man, much buffer than Yoshiro-sensei and with a dark goatee that juxtaposed his shockingly light blue, almost white, eyes, nodded slightly. "Is there something I can help you with?"

I entered fully, wordlessly handing him the note.

"Chibi?"

God damnit.

"Oh my kami, it's her!" another girl didn't whisper at all.

"What are you doing here?" Hanabi exclaimed.

I gave an authentic, put-upon sigh. "This is your class? Great."

"Oi, that's no way to talk to your—"

"Is he serious?" Maki-sensei exclaimed, cutting over Hanabi's voice with well-practiced ease.

"Yes, sensei," I said simply, as the other students began to whisper to themselves.

"Don't you have your own class to attend?" he asked, and the whispers grew louder.

"It's mathematics for this period," I informed him. "And I tested out of Mathematics for the duration of the academy."

"For the duration?" he clarified. "The entire duration?"

"Yes, sensei."

"But this…this just isn't done. Yoshiro-sensei has the first years this batch—can you even mold chakra?"

"Chibi's pretty nuts, sensei," Hanabi said. "She can already do jutsu."

"Huh," Maki-sensei said, utterly flummoxed. "Yoshiro-sensei outranks me, so I guess I have to abide by his wishes. It seems like you know some of my class already, but for the rest of you, this is Imai Kasaiki. Apparently, she'll be sitting in with us for Affinity Discovery this semester."

"What the hell?" One of the boys exclaimed. Maki-sensei must have a very different teaching style than Yoshiro-sensei. "A kid gets to skip ahead that much? And how do you all know her?"

Fuck it. Time for chaos.

"Sometimes they watch me naked," I said stoically.

The room went very, very silent. And then it got very, very loud.

"Woah, woah," some girl shouted.

"—naked?" That was a guy.

"What do you guys—"

"DON'T SAY WEIRD STUFF LIKE THAT!"

"Hold on, hold on, let us explain."

"You do look at her naked? All of you? She's, like, five!"

"I'm four, actually," I add.

"That's even worse!"

Hanabi was holding her sides, chest heaving with laughter so intense that she couldn't even make a sound.

"In the showers!" Some girl finally screamed. "The showers!"

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense."

"Sensei, she cannot take this class with us," one girl said seriously. "She's exactly like Hanabi-san. We can't take another one."

"As if," we both said at the same time. We glared at each other. "Stop doing that."

"See, sensei?" The girl begged. "Can't you see how bad of an idea this is?"

"Unfortunately, it's out of my hands," he said, voice tinged with irony. "Imai-chan, since you are already so well acquainted, why don't you take a seat next to Ichikawa-chan?"

"You're even putting them next to each other?" The girl exploded. The seat next to Hanabi—which was definitely empty for a reason—was a buffer between her and miss sharky, who would otherwise be directly to her right.

"Don't worry," I said as I slipped past her. "Prey evolved side-facing eyes for a reason."

She looked confused, and the class was quiet until my meaning sunk in.

"Holy shit," a boy said in wonder. "They are exactly the same."

"Fuck you! / Go to hell."

Hanabi frowned at me. "No, no. Say fuck you, or fuck off. Go to hell is too many syllables—that ruins the severity."

"I don't swear."

Sharky gaped at me. "See! See!" she yelled to the class. "She doesn't swear! She's nothing like me."

"My nii-san told me that it reflects badly on him if I swear," I drawled. "Bitch."

"As amusing as this is," Maki-sensei cut in over the laughter. "And it is very amusing, class has been delayed for long enough. Imai-chan, we were about to break into groups. I'm not sure what you know about this process—"

"Everything."

"…right. Well, do you know what your most likely affinity is?"

"Earth."

"Perfect. You'll be with the largest group then, including Ichikawa-chan."

I shot my self-proclaimed senpai a look. "I didn't peg you as an earth girl."

She grinned sharply. "I'm not. Lightning. But I got Static down in under a week. First one in the class to learn mine."

"Aki-kun pulled off Soil only a couple minutes after," the annoyed girl to my left muttered.

"It took both of you a week?" I said, unimpressed. "That's embarrassing. It's just a E-Rank."

"Fighting words. I hope you can back them up."

Maki-sensei came around with a metal bin, stopping by the single Suiton kid—lucky son of a bitch—to present a wooden tray that he then filled with water. Then, he came our way, passing out additional trays that were, this time, filled with dirt. Out of the twenty-nine students in the batch, twenty of them were in the earth group. Of the ten remaining, five seemed to be working on fire, four on wind, and the last on water. No lightning anymore, but apparently Hanabi would have been in that group. Some of them might have incorrectly guessed what their affinities were, however; that was the whole point of this exercise. To make absolutely certain.

"Imai-chan, the seals for Doton: Dojō are Horse, Monkey and Snake." Maki-sensei demonstrated the technique on the tray in front of me, releasing his entwined his fingers to gently prod the dirt. Immediately, ripples formed on its surface. It reminded me of those machines you could find in science centers on Earth, where they pumped sound waves into sand.

I nodded in thanks and ran through the signs on repeat, gaining familiarity with the sequence. Then, I closed my eyes and turned my awareness inward.

Horse. Then Monkey. I pulsed chakra through my hands, examining the relationship between the signs. Watching how the chakra changed. It was strange; the chakra sat in the canals in my hands, almost trembling in readiness. Poised to bust out of my tenketsu. At the slightest inkling of thought, it would eagerly escape.

Horse, Monkey, Snake. Still, I didn't let it go, and with the third seal, it mutated. It was as if the first two seals were minor ingredients, while the third changed the dish completely.

So, that's what Doton chakra feels like. I expected it to feel foreign, like there was some alien chakra within my canals. But it wasn't. It felt like a part of me, but one that I hadn't noticed before. Like a freckle on my back.

I hadn't studied hand seals yet, just how to perform them. I should though; they were super cool, and not discussed in the anime, like, at all. Apart from a pathetic few tidbits, half of them contradictory, I knew nothing about how they related to one another or what purpose each of them had. From this exercise alone, I was pretty confident that the Snake seal was integral when it came to Doton techniques, like the Tiger seal was, according to Sakura, integral to Katon techniques.

"Oi, chibi." I opened one eye annoyed. "Are you actually going to try the technique sometime soon?"

"Stop being annoying, Hannabi-san," I said, closing my eye once more.

"That's like asking a bird not to fly," one boy muttered, eliciting a cutting rebuttal that I tuned out.

Horse, Monkey, Snake. But what do I do with that chakra? For the Kawarimi, the seals created a tether, an amorphous blob of chakra that I simply launched at something. It wanted to shoot. This kinda did too, but not from a single point. It felt slower, and more widespread.

The function was coded into jutsu; that was something I learned from Kazuhiro months ago. My issue, whenever it's come up before, was external chakra control, which I was pants at. Now, I just needed to make sure the jutsu chakra stayed coherent, even outside of my body. It didn't have very far to travel in this case, thankfully, so I didn't think I should have a problem.

Horse, Monkey, Snake. The energy trembled in my hands. Okay, okay. Enough edging. I let the chakra flow from my left hand into my right, taking a shortcut through the palm of my hand rather than trying to bring it through my chest. Something told me that would be a bad idea. Then, with all the power in my right, I poked the dirt in front of me. It rippled.

"Um, what the fuck?" the girl next to me exclaimed as I surveyed my dirt critically. The ridges weren't as defined as Maki-sensei's were, and they didn't extend all the way to the other end of the tray. I think I underpowered it.

Everyone turned towards her, and then me.

"Did she just—"

"No way."

"—her first try?"

"Son of a fucking bitch!" Hanabi said, aghast. "Kami fucking damnit!"

Maki-sensei had sprung to his feet, and in less than a blink later, was standing over my desk.

"Gomen, sensei. I underpowered it. I can do better." I took the lip of the tray and shook it back and forth, leveling the surface once more. Then, with the whole class' eyes on me this time, I performed the jutsu again. Better, but not perfect.

"There's no way!" Hanabi shouted. "You definitely knew how to do this already!"

"Being a sore loser isn't a very attractive trait," I said. "But think whatever you want. I don't care at all."

"How did you do that?" the guy in front of me asked.

"I just did the seals and released the chakra," I said for everybody to hear. "I'm sorry, and I'm not even saying this to be mean. But I genuinely have no idea why you're all struggling with this."

Maki-sensei sighed wearily. "Every once in a while, someone will pop up with extraordinary talent in a particular area," he said to his class so they wouldn't feel too bad about themselves. "Don't take it to heart. Imai-chan also seems to have a strong affinity for the earth element."

I frowned, because I didn't think that was true. I imagined that, if I had a strong affinity, my Shōmon would be a lot bigger.

"I think you can safely say that Doton is your affinity," he told me. "You probably don't have to attempt the others."

"I would prefer to, sensei," I said. "If only to gain exposure to the other elements."

"If that's what you wish, I won't stop you. Do you want to start on another one now?"

"I think I'll wait for tomorrow, if that's okay. I would like to mess around with this a bit more."

"Knock yourself out."

I turned back to my dirt for a couple minutes, before sighing.

"The snake seal is the final ingredient. Horse and Monkey create a product, and Snake turns that product into earth chakra. If you're messing up, it might be because the product of Horse and Monkey is imperfect."

I suppose, in retrospect, I did tweak my chakra between the first two seals. It was something I did instinctively so that one could flow better into the other.

"Or you're overpowering the jutsu. That's all I can think of."

By the end of class, Hanabi had successfully executed the jutsu.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

I left a bit earlier than the rest of Batch sixty-three, as I had to cross buildings to get to my next class in time. Someone in the Iwa eduction system had mercifully realized that immediately transitioning between two different subjects was terrible for concentration, so we had a fifteen minute break to separate them. But I didn't want to push my luck and risk Yoshiro-sensei revoking my special privileges.

Most of my class was milling about in the halls outside of the classroom, desperate for a change of scenery, no matter how brief, after an agonizingly boring hour of math. It was interesting to see what cliques were developing, though none of them took me by a lick of surprise.

The civilian born all sat together, with the rest of the students avoiding them like a plague. Some of the strongest kids—Doi Hayato, Higa Mari, Hirose Daigo and the Konjiki twins—sat by themselves, with everyone else being too intimidated to talk to them. Those with middling potential—like Asa Hifume, Ishimoto Eiji, Nagao Takeshi and most others with jonin parentage—stuck together, but the biggest group by far was led by Iwao. I know, shocker.

He had gathered the kids of the lower and mid-level shinobi like gnats. They hung onto his every word, and I could tell from distance from body language alone that they were all vying for his attention. The only one in that group with any substance was Ashikaga Takeo, who looked out of place. Felt out of place too, if her blank facial expression was any indication. I bet she thought that she should stick with Iwao because their fathers were close. Maybe she had even been asked to be his bodyguard.

I slipped through the crowd and into the classroom, finding it more comfortable to sit in an actual seat instead of the floor. But I stopped just before my seat, because my bag was on my chair. And I did not leave it there.

SIghing heavily, I undid the tie. I didn't have anything sensitive or valuable in here, but I wasn't surprised to find my lunch missing. God fucking damnit. With all the physical activity they put us through, I would be miserable if I didn't eat anything. And I didn't have any money on me, so I couldn't even pop out of the academy to get something to eat at one of the shops. I'd have to ask if anyone in Batch sixty-three had anything they could spare, if I would pay them back in interest tomorrow. Asking my own class wasn't an option.

One thing was for sure; I would be taking my bag with me everywhere I went going forward. I was an idiot for not seeing this coming.

Then, I noticed that my missing lunch wasn't the only thing disturbed. The thieves had left something as well.

Now you can starve for something other than attention, the note kind of translated to. My first thought was that Iwao was the culprit, but Iwao had taught me how to read. I knew what his handwriting looked like, and this wasn't it. Also, there was a slight grammar mistake as well, one that Iwao wouldn't have made.

It was probably one of his dick riders, though. Probably as a way to curry favor; I had noticed that group eyeing me the last couple of days. Iwao must have told them about our "beef," and they wanted to act on it.

Annoying, but I ultimately didn't care. Schoolyard bullying wouldn't work on an adult, and they deserved my sympathy and understanding. I would not treat them any differently after this, and I would not seek retribution. Really, I wouldn't.

After conditioning, I bought an apple and a cup of something I would liken to trail mix from one of the girls in Hanabi's class for an outrageous two-hundred and forty yen (to be paid the moment I set foot in class the following day). Immediately after that, during my spar, I punched Watanabe Misao (I noticed him snacking on one of my hard boiled eggs, identifiable by its ginger and soy sauce marinade, on my way back from the showers) in the stomach so hard that he puked.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

Yoshiro basked in much-needed silence, alone in his classroom. His students had left long ago, but he remained, flipping through a dusty binder he hadn't needed to use in years. Switching from the sixth year curriculum of last year to the first year curriculum for his new batch was jarring, and he frequently needed to remind himself what five-year-olds were supposed to learn about.

There was a knock on his door.

"Enter," he called, knowing who it was already. Sure enough, Surume Maki, a chunin, unlike himself, entered.

"Pardon my intrusion," he said.

"No intrusion. I expected you," Yoshiro said. "I apologize for springing an extra student on you. It was rather impromptu."

"It's no issue, sir. I can certainly see why you sent her over."

Yoshiro sighed. "You can, can you? We did not speak about the matter upon her return."

Maki nodded. "From what little I've seen, she's a ninjutsu prodigy. She successfully performed the Doton: Dojō no Jutsu on her first attempt. It caused…quite a stir. One of my students stated that she must have known it beforehand, but I don't think she did."

There was an implied question there.

"I do not know for certain," Yoshiro answered. "If she had learned it prior, she hadn't revealed as much to me. Though she does have an impressive knowledge base on the subject." That packet was evidence enough.

"Considering her age, being able to perform it at all is impressive," Maki-sensei said. "And even my top students took nearly a week to learn their first."

"Tomori Aki and Ichikawa Hanabi, correct?"

"Yes. Apparently, Ichikawa-chan laid claim to Imai as a kouhai even before today, much to her displeasure. It's a joke among the class that they're clones."

Yoshiro knew of the precocious kunoichi of Batch sixty-three. He kept an eye on all talent in the academy, even those that were not part of his own batch.

"She must bring out a side of Imai-san that I haven't seen, then."

"Your student is much more refined, but the confidence and the penchant for chaos is certainly there," Maki said. "Which is why I'm pretty sure that her accomplishment today was genuine. Ichikawa-chan wouldn't claim a victory she didn't earn. It would be beneath her, even if she hates losing."

"I agree. Imai-san likes to show off, though she pretends she doesn't, but I believe she would be more likely to do so in this case by announcing that she had already learned the technique beforehand."

"I told her and the class that it was likely due to a strong earth affinity," Maki admitted. "And she probably does have one. But that would have little bearing on her proficiency in learning a technique, only using it. She's a once in a generation talent."

"I know. Infuriating, isn't it?"

Maki chuckled at the unexpected comment from his aloof superior. "My class certainly thinks so."

"Imai has a keen mind. She understands things that kids her age—and even some adults—can't comprehend. But that's not her greatest strength. What sets Imai-san apart, if one of my trusted sensor colleagues is to be believed, is her chakra control."

Maki frowned. "There are plenty of people who have great chakra control. Is she so far above the ordinary medic-nin?"

"I'm not referring to external chakra control, which medic-nin spend decades honing. No, Imai-san's strength lies in her internal chakra control. When you learn a jutsu, what do you find most difficult? Weaving signs is easy, managing chakra amount is only a matter of repetition and familiarity. What most people struggle with, above all else, is the in between. Linking each hand seal to one another. When casting a jutsu, each hand seal creates a change in the chakra molded, with each subsequent seal adding to the amalgamation of the ones before it. Connecting the amalgamation to the next seal requires micro movements, performed by the user's very chakra. Each one is so slight that they are almost impossible to identify or explain, but without them, the chakra forged by each hand seal fizzles out. If there is a disconnect at any part of the sequence, be it at the beginning, end or somewhere in the middle, the jutsu will fail. Usually, extensive trial and error is required to figure out how to properly link each seal, in order to successfully cast the jutsu."

"But Imai's internal chakra control makes it so that she knows exactly how to link each seal together," Maki realized. "She said that she didn't understand why people were having any difficulty learning the jutsu. She was telling the truth, wasn't she? Her innate understanding makes it so that automatically understands how to link seals together."

"I'm not certain innate is the correct word," Yoshiro said. "I have a hunch that it's something she has actively worked to achieve. Perhaps it is her intelligence that allowed her to develop such a skill, to the point that she doesn't so much as notice any more."

"So what does that mean for her?" Maki wondered. "Can she learn any non-bloodline jutsu?"

"I'm not certain. You could be correct with your earlier theory that affinity plays a role. However, being able to learn ninjutsu is one thing. Being able to cast them is another. Anything C-Rank and above might cause her a lot of trouble, unless her external chakra control is as prodigious as her internal chakra control."

Maki hummed. "So what's your plan for her?"

"Stay out of her way. So far, it seems like her best teacher is herself. There are fundamental gaps in her knowledge that keep her in line with her peers—her interests clearly do not lie with survival, and her knowledge of kanji is surprisingly lacking, all things considered. I'm certainly not going to give her preferential treatment; that's the last thing her ego needs. She's undefeated in taijutsu so far, but I've strategically been giving her wins. In a week, that will change for maximum psychological impact."

"Wish I could do that with Ichikawa-chan," Maki said regretfully. "She needs some humbling, but the only one who can give her a challenge is Aki, and I can't pit them against each other every time. She even came out victorious in the last batch's final exam, and I paired her with one of the bottom five."

"Imai-san might get there eventually, but not as a four-year-old."

Maki pursed his lips. "Good luck with that, then. I'll leave you to your business."

He took a step, then hesitated. "Should we put her on the higher-up's radar?"

Yoshiro had thought about it several times. "We can wait for the end of semester report. It's only the second week. A lot can change between now and then."

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

AN: Hey y'all! Hope you had a great week.

I don't like to explain my work or my future plans for writing, but there are a couple things I wanted to mention in broad strokes, just so people know what to expect from this fic going forward.

First, and I'll preface by saying I highly appreciate any engagement or interaction with this fic, I've received a couple of comments in both reviews and PMs about choices I've made in the story, specifically about what the commenter would do differently if they were in Kasaiki's position. I don't mind this at all; I'm actually the type of writer who might incorporate ideas if offered. But when I began to write this fic, one of the things I set out to do is to showcase either powers/techniques I came up with, or powers/techniques that don't get a lot of screentime. No hate at all to any other authors (I still binge this content) but I'm getting a little tired of every OC coming up with the same training regiment/same abilities. Not pretending like I'm completely original or anything, but I just wanted to do something a little different.

Also, I'm taking the "Naruto power system is genuinely challenging" approach. My characters aren't going to just be able to learn techniques simply by virtue of trying hard enough. I'll tell you right now, Kasaiki has some areas that she's talented in, and some areas that are going to be an issue for the entirety of the series. Some skills will simply be beyond her, and that's okay.

That's all for now. Please let me know what you think!