7 Elemental Affinity
Ryo began the day by making a proper meal for himself, something real instead of the ninja ration bars he had been eating for a while. It was still 5 AM, and Ryo had prepared fried eggs with bread, simple but tasty.
After eating, he cleaned up quickly and left his house. Since he only had classes in the afternoon, he had the entire morning free. He walked to a training area further from the city center, one that he had observed to be mostly empty.
Starting his training, Ryo diligently went through the physical exercises. He knew he couldn't neglect his physical fitness, but he also understood that he couldn't push himself too hard as his body was still growing and developing.
"I can now control the movements of the gold coin with more precision," Ryo thought as he threw the coin into the air with one hand and made a seal with the other. The coin hovered in the air as if held by an invisible hand, and then Ryo made a forward motion with his hand, causing the coin to shoot forward. It hit a tree 10 meters away, embedding itself in the wood right in the middle of the target.
He had been practicing this for a while, but he always ran out of chakra. However, in recent days, his chakra reserves had been increasing rapidly, allowing him to throw the gold coin with enough force to pierce three inches into the tree, and sometimes even penetrate it completely, depending on the tree.
Breathing heavily, he then used another hand seal to bring the coin back to him, stopping it in the palm of his hand. "I can launch it with enough force to pierce a tree only once, or twice if I don't bring the coin back to me and let it continue its path to another target. It could catch someone off guard, but it's a lethal move, and since I can't use it more than twice, it's still my trump card."
After finishing his training, Ryo sat on the ground, breathing heavily as sweat dripped from his face. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, swallowing nervously as he looked at it.
"I imagine my elemental affinity might be fire. Or maybe wind... I don't think it'll be something particularly useful, though. Wind would be good, but not as useful as water or earth."
Thinking this, Ryo began infusing chakra into the chakra paper, and slowly the paper began to change. But something happened that shocked Ryo.
-- What? Is this possible?. --
he exclaimed loudly as he stared at the paper in his hand. Ryo hadn't heard of anything like this in the anime, at least not confirmed with a chakra paper.
"Wasn't the paper supposed to show only one element? What's with the dual affinity?"
In his hand, the paper was both turning to mud on one side and being sliced in half on the other, each half falling to one side.
"Do I have a Kekkei Genkai?"
He covered his mouth with his hand, hiding his smile. Even though he tried to suppress it, his hand was trembling as he thought about what his Kekkei Genkai might be. Remembering the anime, he had some difficulty recalling some things, but he remembered some users.
"The son of Gaara and his father had this, right? What was it... Ji... Ji... Jiton! Magnetism control."
Thinking this, he looked at the gold coin in his hand, considering numerous possibilities.
"Do I no longer need scrolls to control the gold coin? No, that seems too overpowered," he thought for a few more seconds before sighing. "No, not until I have an absurdly large chakra reserve to control all the coins with Jiton, and each one individually. I can't do that right now."
The possibilities had just opened up for Ryo, and the art of his family couldn't have fit him better. "Maybe one of the ancestors who created this art had Jiton!"
Renewed with energy, Ryo was ready to continue training, but he was out of time. This had taken up almost the entire morning.
Having to return home, he then got ready for another day of school at the academy. Upon arriving at the academy, Iruka looked at everyone before speaking.
- Today, we're going to start with a new area in the curriculum: taijutsu! Many of you may already know some, but we'll start from the very basics, and I'll teach you Konoha's taijutsu style. Follow me to the training area. -
He had a calm voice as he looked at the students and then began walking out of the classroom, followed by the students behind him, some excited to finally start personal combat training, and others less so, mostly those who were just there to fill in, the extras.
"Finally, we're going to start training taijutsu. I hope the next one is ninjutsu. I need to learn the Transformation Technique and the Clone Technique, but the Shadow Clone might take longer to master."
Both he and Naruto were excited for the class, though Ryo showed it in a more reserved manner, without much display. Naruto, on the other hand, was happy and energetic as always, shouting,
- Let's train taijutsu, Dattebayo! -
The class itself was quite basic, as most of the students hadn't trained yet. Iruka began by demonstrating basic stances and techniques, kicks, punches, and defenses for each. Naruto watched all of this with shining eyes before turning to Ryo.
- Ryo, look at how cool Iruka-sensei's kick was! Imagine me fighting, leaping and kicking the enemy! -
Naruto then jumped into the air, almost a meter and a half high, and kicked the air. Watching this, Ryo widened his eyes.
"So, that's how he made it?"
What Naruto did there in front of him was a kick with a dab, putting his arms to the side while kicking to the other side. Ryo let out a slight whistle as Naruto landed on the ground.
-- Very good, Naruto. Actually, it was a really cool kick. --
Iruka saw this but didn't say anything to them, continuing the class as everyone paired up to do the exercises. One would attack, and the other would defend, then they would switch. Iruka had chosen the pairs, and as a result, Ryo ended up paired with Uchiha Sae. Looking to the side, he could see Naruto with a serious look in front of Sasuke. Ryo chuckled inwardly before looking at Sae and speaking.
-- You can go firts, Uchiha Sae. I'll defend the attack first,--
Ryo said. Sae agreed without many questions and immediately charged towards Ryo, throwing a straight punch. Ryo closed his guard as Iruka had instructed them. However, as the punch came, he felt his arms hurting as he was pushed back by the force of the blow.
- Miss Sae, this is just practice; you don't need to put so much force into your strikes!-
Iruka shouted as he ran over to where Ryo lay on the ground, looking up at the blue sky once again. "This is becoming a habit," Ryo thought as he sat on the ground, watching Iruka approach. However, he quickly raised his hand to stop him.
-- I'm fine, Sensei. I didn't position myself correctly, so the impact threw me off balance. It won't happen again,-- Ryo assured him.
- Alright, but be careful. Practice this all week; I don't want anyone getting hurt, okay? -
Iruka addressed not just the two of them but the whole class, finishing with a glance at the Sasuke and Naruto pair, who were poised to throw punches at each other but restrained themselves in the end.
"How does she have so much strength? Or is it that my body isn't strong enough yet?" Ryo pondered as he got up, arriving at a more logical conclusion. "I still haven't fully adapted to this body. Even though I train every day, it's not like I have to have exact control over it yet, but I need to in combat."
Facing Uchiha Sae, he dusted off his clothes and raised his guard in Konoha's taijutsu stance. Sae nodded, indicating that she was ready to defend. Ryo took a deep breath as he launched himself forward to deliver a punch to the girl.
