The Water-Style Konome dispelled her shadow clone.
Konome Taketori closed her eyes and sorted through the memories that flowed back.
In the span of a breath, she had already mastered how to cast the serpent in pure form change.
She lifted her hand.
Her heart gave a tight beat.
Deep blue chakra melted into flowing water.
No hand seals.
Water-natured chakra spilled from the meridians and tenketsu of her palm, coalescing in an instant into the shape of a snake.
This time it moved even more nimbly than the clone's attempt, as if she had rehearsed the form change countless times.
"You mean, you already learned it?"
"Mm."
Seeing the look on Kazama Etsu's face, as if reality itself had refused to load, Konome had to fight a smile.
The difficulty of form change lies in how the inner structure cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Which is exactly where the Byakugan excels.
In her sight she was observing not only the serpent's interior, but doing so from a full three hundred and sixty degrees.
Add the Byakugan's farsight.
Every tiny motion of the wind-serpent was magnified without limit.
Add precise chakra control on top of that and any intricate form change placed before her could be fully replicated in short order.
The Byakugan and chakra were simply too compatible.
The Byakugan might not seize nature change so easily, but for form change it was like eating and drinking.
Kazama Etsu fell silent.
He suddenly felt as if his years of sweat had been spent on a dog.
He thought of the hardship he had endured to master serpent form, how he had practically slept with slick-scaled snakes in his arms, then looked at Konome toying with Water Style as if it were nothing.
His fractured ribs felt even heavier.
"You… practiced this before, didn't you?"
Watching him lying there about to shatter, Konome could not help a twinge of pity.
However simple she made it look, the gap between an ordinary shinobi and one born with a kekkei was enormous. A single glance at the fine lattice of damage along his meridians told her how much pain he had paid to train.
If she did not soften the blow, would he renege and refuse to teach her Wind Style?
"My family used to raise snakes. I had a base to start from."
"Oh. That explains it."
Konome's high-EQ answer eased his mood a shade.
True or not, it sounded nice.
"Sensei, I don't think the slender snake form suits Water Style."
"Wind hits hard by itself. The smaller the serpent, the quicker it is, which plays to wind's strengths.
"Water's nature is pressure. If you turned the water snake into a thick constrictor and let a python's crushing coils combine with water pressure, wouldn't that be better?"
Kazama Etsu's expression lightened a fraction.
Konome laid out the thought as it came.
As she spoke, she rebuilt the serpent's body, thickening it until it was broader than an adult's thigh.
She guided the massive water python to wrap her forearm and twist. Water pressure fused with a constrictor's body mechanics. Even her iron bones throbbed with a sharp pain.
It would work.
She loosened the coils and rolled back her sleeve for a look.
On the pale outer forearm, purpled spirals dented the flesh.
The sight of the vicious marks made her eyes brighten despite herself.
The python had barely exerted any strength and still wrung her arm like that. If it used full power, even steel would likely end up snapped.
"You can just test it yourself. No need to ask me."
Kazama Etsu's face went wooden. He had nothing left to say.
Damn it.
He had just watched Konome go from not understanding form change at all to inventing a jutsu and succeeding on the first try.
A python's killing squeeze combined with water pressure. A genius concept, tossed off as if it cost nothing, and the effect was superb.
What could he add?
Name her new technique for her?
"Sensei, what do you think I should call it?"
"Name it yourself."
His tone cooled, as if he might bite. "Once you decide, I will teach you wind nature change."
Konome thought and thought, yet no good name came.
She was hopeless at naming. She could not compare to Namikaze Minato in the slightest.
Just listen to that man's move names.
Rasengan Flash Super Wheel Dance Howl Third Style. That name alone is pure fire.
Lacking both naming sense and taste, she could not conjure anything to rival "Rasengan Flash Super Wheel Dance Howl Third Style," and at last she could only give up with a sigh.
The realms between geniuses are different.
Konome looked properly regretful. Kazama Etsu had no idea what new illness had seized her.
He no longer wished to know.
He had only one thought left. Teach the wind change, then get this little monster out of his room before she eroded his will.
"Wind nature change is not sharpness. It is tearing. I said this already."
"Tearing?"
"That is right. Keenness is only the appearance. Tearing is its core. A single unit of wind-natured chakra must generate two completely opposite forces."
He explained for a long while, yet Konome still looked a bit foggy.
So he plucked a petal from the lily on his bedside table and tore it into two halves by pulling one end forward and the other back.
Like ripping paper.
The image made her understand at once.
She had never really grasped how wind equated to sharpness. Even pressurizing water into a cutting jet seemed far more straightforward than wind.
So that was the principle.
Wind did not slice. It pulled in two contrary pressures and tore. No wonder she had spent a full day at the Academy without finding a single thread to follow.
She had been pushing in the wrong direction.
Seeing that she understood, Kazama Etsu moved to the next stage without delay.
He had now grasped the absurd scope of her talent.
His teaching became brisk and to the point.
"Tear comes from two opposite forces, which expresses wind's dispersal. Besides dispersing, wind can also gather.
"If you compress wind chakra to the utmost, you can form an air cannon of tremendous power. To disperse and to gather at will, to hide the blade within finesse. Wind is, without a doubt, the most powerful nature change."
Konome nodded, silently editing out that last bit of bias.
Most powerful or not, that could be debated.
But the way wind scattered and gathered, its supreme nimbleness, and the potent offense that followed had already set her heart racing.
To wring out every drop of combat strength, she had altered her body too far.
Her startling body mass multiplied the impact of her taijutsu, yet inevitably dragged down her speed.
Not simple straight-line acceleration.
The trouble was agility through turns.
The inertia from that mass made changing lines mid-attack painfully difficult. Every strike was straightforward and heavy.
If it hit, one blow was enough.
If it missed, she could be kited to death.
The Eight Gates had eased some of the burden. Perhaps nimble Wind Style could erase the flaw entirely.
Beyond that, taijutsu had another fatal issue.
Once chakra suffuses flesh and blood, a shinobi's body reduces blunt damage by an astonishing amount.
Like a fully inflated tire. Out of ten parts of force, at least seven are swallowed by chakra. Wind's tearing could lend her taijutsu a new edge.
One punch would be blunt impact and tearing together.
Like ripping open an enemy's armor, then striking the soft flesh beneath.
Who could withstand that?
"Let's start now."
Konome licked her lips, unable to wait.
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