13: Unfortunately, There's More.

Seija was pissed. Absolutely livid. Fuming, if you will.

'It's just one more fucking seal! How fucking hard can it be to just cast it?!'

It turned out that consecutively weaving 83 seals in a row is actually really bloody difficult.

Each seal is slightly harder to cast than the one before it. Not by a lot at first, but it adds up when you have to go through so many in a row.

'Agh! Again!'

Himiko was sitting off to the side next to a fold-out table, silently giggling to herself like a schoolgirl while she taught a mathematics lesson to little Nagato. It had been a rare two sunny days in a row in the land of rain. Not like the last five days since Seija started attempting this Jutsu.

"Haaaaah... Mom! Get the timer. I'm acing this in one go this time."

"Uh-huh, just like the last seven times you claimed that?"

"Watch!"

She began. If nothing else this was a good excercise for her wrist felexibility and the speed of her fingers. She had no doubts that after this she would be able to cast just about any other C-rank or lower Jutsu in less than a second.

'Ox, Boar, Dog, Bird, Dog, Tiger...'

Up past 69, restraining herself from giggling. That had cost her a successful cast yesterday and she wasn't going to make that mistake again.

'Snake, Ram, Dog... Snake!'

[Hijutsu: Slow-Burn Chakra Compression]

She released the poorly-named Jutsu into a thick steel dish her mother had placed in front of her, and made a careful note of how much chakra she had fed into it. Exactly 2% of her total by her Byakugan's measurement. She'd have to do it the exact same way the next four times.

Immediately a small pile of pebbles started to grow out of the chakra blob in the bottom of the dish.

"Time it, mom!"

"Oh! Well color me impressed darling, I've underestimated you." As she took note of the exact time on a piece of paper, down to the second.

"...Congratulations, Seija..." Nagato's small voice called from the side.

"[Congratulations, Seija.]"

'Why do I feel like you're all being so condescending about this?'

"[I am not. Nagato may be. Your mother absolutely is.]"

'Hmm... I've got my eye on you, Firewall.'

"[Instead, would you like to put your eye on the Global Network? You have not checked it in some time now.]"

'Well I'm sure we have time while we're waiting for this chakra blob to run out. Sure.'

[-World Message-]

[-Reincarnator #16 has been born.-]

[-Reincarnator #17 has been born.-]

[-Reincarnator #18 has been born.-]

[-Reincarnator #19 has been born.-]

But listed only three days later...

[-Reincarnator #19 has died. Cause of death: stabbed by Iwa Shinobi.-]

'Jesus, what happened to number #19? Did their parents piss off the wrong people or something?'

[-Reincarnator #20 has been born.-]

'That's the most recent one.'

"[Would you like to check the Global Chat, Seija? Reincarnators #5, #6 and #7 have joined.]"

'Sure, I'll take a peek.'

[-Global Chat-]

[-Due to the number of people in the Group Chat having increased past one the Group Chat is now back online.-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "Finally! Someone new! The other two are uncultured jerks who will never understand true beauty..."-]

[-Reincarnator #5: "Oh, in what way? Name's Taichi, by the way. Are we supposed to share names on here?"-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "They just didn't understand the glory of the Harem system. Number #1 just muted straight away, and #4 is a prude who just doesn't understand true love. Oh and no one else has shared their names, just you."-]

[-Reincarnator #4 has unmuted the Global Chat.-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "OK, FIRST OF ALL-

Seija skipped that conversation. She glanced over at the pile of pebbles and searched through it with her Byakugan. She made sure Nagato was looking away beforehand, of course.

'Not long now. Still time for more.'

She checked a little further down the Chat Log, past a few months' worth of text.

[-Reincarnator #6: "Seriously, number #2. This is going too far. As a woman, it disgusts me that you would treat us this way."-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "Babe, I'm a woman too and I'll treat you just as bad. Number #2, watch yourself, Konan is MINE!"-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "Ohoho? You think Konan's interested in a lesbian like you? I admire your spirit but-

'Jesus Christ, are they still going?! And now there's another Harem user. A woman this time? Well, I'm immune either way, so it won't be an issue.'

She paused.

'Unless they seduce someone important to the plot. Oh well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Who is Konan anyways?'

She searched her memories and froze stiff on the spot. The pebbles were almost done but she wasn't watching.

'I don't remember her face or who she was as a person... but I think Konan is the name of a girl who becomes one of Nagato's closest friends...

'...Shit. Looks like I'll deffinitely have to deal with them eventually after all. I guess I can hope that #2 and #7 get competetive enough to fight each other over it. Or that #6 deals with them herself. But #2 has the age advantage. Unless the other two have really good teachers or genetics like me, he'll be stronger.'

"[They do also have their systems. If #6 is more proactive she could also become stronger through her system rewards or wishes. #2 and #7 are limited by the fact that they can't really make any progress with their own systems until they hit puberty. Right now #2 should be a bit over six years old, and #7 should be around five years and three months. They have a long time to wait before they can really use that power. Though that gives them more time to train their true abilities, like you are, without wasting time completing quest objectives.]"

'Right. Thanks for reminding me. It's easy to forget that some people simply won't work as hard.'

"[That is how humans are.]"

'True enough. Though they could also just become more mature as they age and drop the issue entirely... God I hope that's what ends up happening.'

"Seija. Looks like it's time! That was exactly 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Better get started on the next one!" Himiko once more donned her saccharine smile.

"Ugh... here we go again..."

'Dog, Horse, Monkey...'

- - -

Seija flexed and cracked her fingers with satisfaction. That was all five done in half an hour.

As expected, lightning was exactly the same as earth: the sparks lasted 3 minutes and 40 seconds.

Fire and wind were next. She chose fire for the third one which made Nagato focus harder on his schoolwork rather than her. He'd seen what burn wounds did to people at the clinic and wasn't too enthused by his blatantly battle-junkie friend gaining the ability to create fire on the spot. He didn't want to think about it.

Fire lasted for 3 minutes and 25 seconds, perfectly proving her mother's point about making sure you know how high your affinities were just in case some turned out to be close behind the main ones. They set fire as a 9.3 out of 10.

Wind lasted for 3 minutes and 19 seconds. They set it as a 9. Also incredibly high.

Water, as expected, ran out the fastest. What surprised them though was that it wasn't as fast as they thought it would be. There had never been a water-based chakra-flare incident, so they had assumed it would be lower. Water lasted for 2 minutes and 48 seconds. A 7.6 on the scale. They had been expecting maybe a 4 or 5, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Seija wanted to compare her affinity level with her mother, and quickly came up with an explanation for her chakra quality theory. 

"Hey mom, I just remembered I was going to ask you something."

Himiko turned away from where she was helping Nagato pack his books into his bag.

"Oh? Well fire away, dear. What is it?"

"Is it normal to not use any chakra while climbing?"

"Hm? What do you mean?"

Seija demonstrated by walking straight up the tree and hanging upside down from the lowest branch.

"I mean that my chakra pool isn't going down at all while I'm doing this. Is that normal?"

Himiko fell into thought at that before deciding to use her Byakugan. She led Nagato back into the house and had Ryoku take him home in her stead. Returning to the yard and activating it, she confirmed that Seija's chakra really was regenerating faster than it was being used.

"That's very interesting! And it explains a lot. I thought it was odd that you could use the Substitution Jutsu so many times in a row. So this was why... surely it would also mean that your chakra is more efficient for casting Jutsu..."

"Does that mean we can't compare affinities?" Seija decided to throw out that question now.

"Oh? You wanted to compare with me? Well it'll be rather difficult now, what with your chakra quite literally being better than mine. *Sigh* I can't say I'm not a little jealous of that..."

And it was safe to say that the difference in their chakra qualities would heavily influence the outcome of their comparison. Her mother would likely have to put in way more chakra to get the same level of raw energy into the chakra blob, and they had no way of knowing what the ratio was between them. Or if her high quality chakra would be more or less efficient with stronger or weaker techniques.

In the end they were forced to conclude that at least for now there would be no way to truly compare with each other.

"But enough about that! Now we know your own affinities for sure. We'll have to go filtering through the scroll shelf for some easy C-rank elemental Ninjutsu for you to learn! Ryoku and I never really saw a reason to look through or categorise them, since I already knew all the Jutsu I wanted and he obviously had no use for them, so this is going to take us the rest of the day."

"Hold on a second, mom. C-rank? The only other Jutsu I know are E-rank, shouldn't D-rank be the next step?"

"Actually no." Himiko explained, "Just about any elemental Ninjutsu is automatically considered C-rank due to the difficulty of performing Nature Transformation. And you would be hard-pressed to find an elemental Jutsu incapable of threatening your opponent. It's another one of the many reasons why that chakra blob Jutsu was so unusual. For an elemental technique to be so harmless is almost unheard of."

Seija would have her work cut out for her, it seemed. Though this time she was excited. After all, what she would be learning now would not only massively amplify her combat strength, but it would be more than just mindless repetition. It would be a real test of skill to learn these Jutsu... and Seija couldn't be happier.