"Okay, Kagen, try again." Aiko said patiently. She'd taken me out to a deserted grove in the Nara Forest to practice my nature transformations. I'd mastered water walking and the Shadow Imitation Technique a short while ago and she'd had me jump straight into this immediately after.
I was surprised at how quickly I was able to grasp the Shadow Imitation Technique, it had only taken me a day to cast it and another week to be able to control my shadows pretty much however I wanted, but then, I was a Nara.
I didn't have a kekkei genkai, but I did have generations worth of shadow users in my blood. Every Nara who became a ninja was taught the technique at one point or another, and it had been this way for years upon years.
I hadn't picked up the nature transformations as easily though. I'd been at it for close to a month with slow progress. Whenever I wasn't at the Academy or training with Misa, I'd been working with Aiko for infuriatingly little progress. If I had to guess at the reason for that, it was, again, that I was a Nara.
Due to the aforementioned generations of shadow users in my blood, I was heavily predisposed to Yin chakra. That was good for certain things – namely the Shadow Imitation Technique and genjutsu which both drew heavily upon Yin chakra – but that made it harder for me to use elemental ninjutsu or elemental transformations. Don't ask me how that works, I don't know about it myself.
It didn't make it impossible, just harder. I wasn't incapable of using elemental ninjutsu by any metric, but I wasn't picking it up as easily as I had tree walking and the Shadow Imitation Technique.
Of course, that was just the theory. I didn't exactly have a way to prove my hypothesis, but whether I was right or not, it didn't change the face that nature transformations were ungodly difficult for me.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, sitting cross legged on the ground to focus. My chakra was predisposed to water, earth and fire.
I should be able to turn it into water, earth and fire. I held a hand up in front of me without opening my eyes, picturing fire in my hand.
I knew the recipe for fire – fuel, heat, air. Air was abundant around me. My chakra would be the heat and the fuel. I condensed my chakra in my hand and opened my eyes.
I sighed as I opened my eyes to see my hand empty. I looked up at Aiko and said, "What am I doing wrong?"
"This is a very advanced exercise, Kagen. Don't let yourself become frustrated. You're doing well. Now try again." Aiko said, an encouraging smile on her face.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again.
Heat. Fuel. Air. That was all I needed to create fire. I lifted my hand again and sent my chakra into it, willing it to heat up, to fuel a flame.
I opened my eyes, a triumphant grin broke out across my face as I saw a flickering flame like a candle's hovering just above my palm.
"Yes!" I cried, leaping to my feet and throwing my hands into the air, unintentionally causing the flame in my hand to wink out. I stared dumbly at my hand, looking up when I heard Aiko laughing.
"Well done, Kagen. We'll spend the rest of the day getting you used to doing that consecutively, then we'll move on to water. After that, we can move on to teaching you elemental ninjutsu."
My victorious smile turned into a thoughtful frown.
"What's wrong, kid?" Aiko asked.
I shook my head. "Nothing's wrong. Just… Do you know any genjutsu you can teach me? I feel like it would be easier for me to use genjutsu than ninjutsu, and I'd rather know both than just one."
Aiko pursed her lips looking at me funny. "Where did the sudden urge to learn genjutsu come from?"
If I were to be honest with her, I would tell her it was because I was heavily skewed towards yin chakra thanks to my heritage and wanted to take advantage of that fact, but I didn't know if a kid was supposed to know that. We certainly hadn't covered it at the Academy yet.
"Genjutsu lets you mess with people's perception of reality. That's really useful in a fight. With that, the Mystic Palm Technique, the Shadow Imitation Technique, ninjutsu, poisons and my senbon and kunai, I'd be much more well-rounded."
"Are you sure you're not spreading yourself too thin, kid? There is such a thing as being too well-rounded. If you don't have a specialty, you won't have a reliable way to win fights."
That was an excellent point, one I had considered myself on several occasions. She was the expert here. It wouldn't hurt to ask her opinion.
"What do you think I should do?"
Aiko raised an eyebrow at me. "You're asking me?"
"Why not? You've been teaching me."
Aiko was silent for a moment. There was a calculating look in her eye. "Learn water transformation and earth transformation then a low level fire jutsu, a low level water jutsu and earth jutsu. After that, I'll teach you the Mystic Palm technique and see if I can track down a genjutsu teacher for you."
I frowned. "You don't know genjutsu?"
She shrugged. "I know two, but both of them are too advanced for you right now. I wasn't a genjutsu specialist. I focused on using the Shadow Imitation Technique and healing. I was a support nin, but I don't think that's what you're wanting, is it?"
I shook my head. "I want to be a heavy hitter."
Aiko chuckled. "What kid doesn't? Practice your transformations, Kagen." She walked away, a pained grimace flashing across her face as she faltered for a moment before moving on.
I frowned as I sat back on the ground. I had a lot to think about. Namely, what I wanted to specialize in. Aiko was right. I couldn't be a jack of all trades, master of none. That was a good way to die in this world. I needed a way to kill people fast and reliably or I would be the one that wound up dead. Having versatility was good, but I needed to find something to focus on.
I sighed as I thought everything over. As much as I wanted to fling around jutsu like a magical grenade launcher, that didn't seem like the correct path for me.
Ninjutsu was great, and I would learn as many jutsu as I could, but I didn't have the chakra capacity or the affinity for ninjutsu to be a jutsu-focused ninja. I would either need Sasuke and naruto levels of chakra or to be so efficient with my transformations that I used a pittance of chakra for every technique. If the struggle I was having with the most basic of transformations was anything to go by, I wouldn't be able to achieve that level of efficiency.
So what should I do instead? My chakra control was great, but nature transformations were tripping me up for some reason I couldn't figure out.
I'd learned the Shadow Imitation Technique easily enough though. That relied on yin chakra, so maybe that's what I should do, focus on techniques that required yin chakra and chakra control not dependent on a nature transformation.
There were other shadow jutsu the Nara clan had developed over the years, so I could seek those out and learn them. If I could pick them up as easily as I did the Shadow Imitation Technique, I could start practicing with them before my first year at the Academy was over.
There was also the fact that I was already getting pretty good with my chakra string projectiles, so it would probably be wise to double down on those – to find genjutsu and shadow techniques that would synergize well with them as well as getting those poisonous plants from Yamanaka flowers when my parents got back in town. I wonder if Aika would count as a guardian?
I tilted my head to the side, a, "Huh." escaping my lips as I thought of something else.
Why couldn't I just make new techniques? It wasn't like I didn't know the theory. I had really good chakra control too, just not for elemental jutsu, so I'd have to make genjutsu. Or… Could I make new techniques using the Shadow Imitation Technique as a base? Make new shadow-based jutsu?
Now there's a thought.