Naruto : Monsters: Chapter 48

"Like I was saying," Naruto continued, giving her clone a long gaze and looking away only after she was certain they'd behave, "Why do I have to bother with training my earth affinity?"

"So I can start teaching you an earth jutsu. The Doton – Moguragakure no jutsu to be precise."

...

Moguragakure no jutsu – hiding like a mole technique – was perhaps the most stupidly named jutsu in the entirety of the ninja world, but nevertheless it was also an incredibly useful one. 

It allowed its user to dig through the earth by temporarily turning the ground around them into fine sand. Actually it might have been better to say it allowed the user to swim through earth. 

And despite it being officially listed as a C-rank, the chakra requirement was closer to B-rank or even A-rank depending on how long you stayed underground, the constant stream of chakra needed to maintain the jutsu a massive drain. That obviously wasn't an issue for Naruto while Shikamaru's natural earth affinity would hopefully allow him to keep the chakra cost low.

"Don't you want to learn how to move underground?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto's reply was almost immediate. "I do!" she affirmed excitedly, "moving underground sounds so awesome. Can you imagine how many more traps I could make or how much easier it would be for me to hide?"

Mentally, I sent a prayer to all of the poor souls that would be unlucky enough to run into Naruto on the battlefield. Near endless waves of hidden clones that can attack you from both above and below while you tried to navigate through a minefield of traps. Poor sods will never even see it coming.

"But what I don't get is why do I have to improve my earth affinity to learn it? I've seen Hikaru use several different types of elemental jutsu but he hasn't ever trained anything but his lightning affinity."

"That's because our little genius here is actually good in ninjutsu," Kakashi reached out and ruffled my hair like a dog, "now aren't you, boy?"

I swear if I still wasn't so out of breath I would have said something nasty to the man. Instead, I had to settle for biting his fingers whenever they strayed too close to my mouth. Though I only ended up amusing the jerk when he pulled his fingers back at the last second so I ended biting nothing but air instead.

"Nice try ducky, better luck next time." Kakashi patted my head once more as if to make a point before turning back to Naruto, "But you on the other hand aren't so good in ninjutsu, now are you?"

Naruto looked away with a frown but didn't refute him. "It's not my fault that those stupid jutsu don't work."

"Actually, it is totally your fault." Kakashi countered. "Your chakra control is so terrible that most of the time the jutsu just fall apart at the seams."

"Anyway," Naruto interrupted loudly, cheeks turning red, "my point is why do we have to train this way? Can't we just skip the affinity training part, go straight to the good part and practice the jutsu itself."

Kakashi sighed and shut his book once he realized that Naruto wasn't going to stop pestering him until he gave her a proper answer. Stowing it away in his side pouch, Kakashi turned to give Naruto his full attention.

"Well my annoying little chatter mouth of a duckling," Naruto poked her tongue out at the insult. "Normally you would be right, I shouldn't be training your earth affinity for a single jutsu, the process just takes too long to get any real results to be worth it. 

And had I been trying to teach you any other earth jutsu I wouldn't have bothered with it, but this is different. The Doton – Moguragakure no jutsu is not a complicated technique. 

Actually compared to most it's almost stupidly simple. All you need to do is figure out how to soften the ground with your chakra and that's pretty much it. And since that's basically the exact same thing as basic earth affinity training, learning one means learning the other."

If the foundation for building up wind affinity is to train your chakra to cut then to train your earth affinity you had to teach your chakra how to crumble. Which is where the burying them up to their armpits part came in.

Shikamaru, unsurprisingly, has been slacking off at his affinity training so having him go through basic training will actually be good for him. Naruto, on the other hand, has already trained her wind affinity to a pretty high level. That's the upside to having an endless supply of chakra, you could train for as long as you wanted instead of as long as could. It helped speed up the training process nicely. So having her get started on a second affinity wouldn't be a bad idea.

"But luckily for you, you only need to complete the very basics of the earth affinity training to learn the technique." Kakashi continued. 

"After you got that part pat down the rest will be easy, all you need is a little bit of experience on how to navigate underground and you're done. There is a reason why over half of the ninjas in Iwa know this jutsu. 

Of course, you'll still need years to properly master it but if it's for something simple, like hiding underground or even travelling for a short distance then the basics are enough. And at the rate the two of you are going, I'd say you should be done in about, oh a couple of more months or so."

"Isn't there at least a better way to train?" Naruto made a face, "I keep getting dirt in my pants and I can't even do anything to scratch it. It really itches too. Are you sure there isn't a better way?"

"There isn't," Kakashi answered unsympathetically, pulling his book back out and flipped it open. "Well there is, but as tempting as it is to bury you headfirst into the ground and watch you kick your legs in panic as you slowly run out of air, I don't think that Hokage will find it anywhere near as funny as I would if I ended up suffocating you."

"Ok, ok, I get it," Naruto grumbled and turned back to the board game, slamming down a stone in frustration. "I'll learn the stupid earth affinity. But I still say this makes me look like a potted plant rather than a ninja."

"Oh, it does." I snickered at the girl. "Trust me little sunflower, it does."

She stuck her tongue out at me.

"Alright, I understand why the Boss here has to be buried in dirt," One of Naruto's clones spoke up and pointed at me, "But why does Hikaru get to cop out of the training. He doesn't know how to use the Moguragakure no jutsu." The clone paused, shooting the real Naruto a questioning look, "He doesn't, does he Boss?"

"No, I don't," I answered the clone instead. "And that's because I can't use it."

Naruto, the real Naruto that is, looked surprised, "How come? I thought this would be easy for you."

"That's because I have a natural lightning affinity."

"So?"

"Think of it this way, Naruto. If learning a new jutsu is hard and learning a jutsu outside of your element affinity is stupidly hard, then learning a jutsu that clashes with your element is unbelievably stupidly hard. And for someone with a powerful natural lightning affinity like me, earth jutsu are the hardest type to learn." I explained to my blonde haired friend.

"While I can use a couple of earth jutsu, I'm not very good with them and you can't afford to be anything less than perfect with a jutsu like the Moguragakure. If I screw it up then I'd end up getting buried alive, either crushed to death or trapped with no air. And since neither of those prospects is in any way appealing to me I'm going to have to take a pass on learning it."

"But doesn't Kakashi-Sensei have a Lightning affinity too?" Naruto pointed out. "So how come he knows the jutsu?"

"That's because he's a Jounin, and all Jounins are expected to have at least two affinities." Actually, I think Kakashi probably had more than two. "You can get around the affinity issue by developing multiple affinities, at least to an extent, but since training a new elemental affinity takes so long that's simply not an option for me right now."

"Exactly," Kakashi chimed in. "Which is why I designed a completely different training program for Hikaru than the rest of you. While Shikamaru and you will be broadening your skill-set and be learning earth elemental techniques, Hikaru here will concentrate one mastering his lightning techniques and perfecting his current fighting style."

And he had, he actually had. I couldn't believe it at first, but Kakashi really did create a training program for us.

...

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