Chapter 7 - Natural Talent? I can do it better.

[F] Concentrate on Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and training physically, equally. But try and study a little Genjutsu too during any second of free time. During the whole two weeks. (This option is only available due to Trait: Crazily Ambitious)

…

Ambition molds a person's will to give it your all, towards a certain goal. A willpower drive so hard that makes one break and rebuild themselves stronger. Even though Shinji had trained yesterday after coming out of the hospital, and was now able to use the Replacement Jutsu with only one hand seal. He woke up like a lion, full of energy and ready to pounce into his training.

He remembered the answer he gave Yamato yesterday. He doesn't want to have a weakness, and a crazy idea has appeared in his head. Normally many people wouldn't be able to train all day long, but Shinji doesn't mind. What would he be doing if he wasn't training? Watching clouds? To him, that sounded boring as hell.

Walking out of his apartment after brushing his teeth, Shinji ran through the village and arrived at the training ground exactly at 6 AM. Yamato was already there though his teammates hadn't arrived yet. Excitement burst inside his heart, and it made his body shake.

"Well, you seem excited," Yamato smiled. "The meeting time was half an hour later though."

"Yes, I know, but I thought I could start earlier and do some warm-ups before everyone else arrived." Shinji smiled in excitement, he had never before had a jonin teach him. Jonin were top-class ninja, and each of them was a powerhouse in their own right. "So can we start training a little early?"

"Sure," the jonin shrugged and he started. "Have you ever heard of the tree walking exercise?"

Shinji frowned, trying to think where he had heard about it. Then he remembered that when he read the book the Hokage had given him, there were terms like tree and water walking mentioned. Though no explanations how to do them. "I have heard about it, but don't know how to do it."

"You don't?" Yamato looked a little surprised, almost bewildered, as if he had heard something outrageous. "Then how were you able to use Substitution with so little hand seals?"

Shinji shrugged. "I just kept doing it and tried to feel the chakra inside of me, regulating the flow. While at the same time trying to make it move the way it does when I do the hand signs."

His jonin teacher didn't say anything at first, having a contemplating look on his face. Walking towards a tree, Yamato put his foot on it and started walking sideways. "Can you do something like this?"

"No, I haven't tried it before," Shinji honestly said.

"Then this is the exercise we will do today. Before you start learning any jutsu, we need to get your Chakra Control to an acceptable level." Yamato instructed him, mentioning towards the sole of his feet. "To walk up walls like this, you just need to concentrate chakra into the sole of your feet. Keep a constant but concentrated flow. Do you know the leaf-sticking exercise? Where the teachers had you stick leaves to your forehead in the Academy?"

"Yes," Shinji nodded.

"It's kind of like that, except this time you'll try and stick yourself to a tree and walk upward," Yamato explained. "The longer you can keep that the better, if you can stay like that for an indefinite amount of time then that's when you can consider the technique mastered."

Shinji recounted everything that his teacher said and did the tiger hand seal to help himself concentrate his chakra easier and it worked as chakra gathered to the bottom of his feet. It was a little harder than normal to gather chakra there, but Shinji got the hang of it relatively quickly. He went towards one of the trees and put his foot on it, after tugging a little hit foot slipped, trying again he put a little more chakra, but this time the tree cracked a little.

The third time was the charm as he found the perfect amount of Chakra needed and he started walking up the tree, at first he kept his hand seal, but after a while, he let go and casually started strolling until he stood upside down in a branch.

"As expected," Yamato nodded, with a small smirk on his face. "You moved to the third step before doing the two before it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shinji raised a questioning brow. He didn't know what his jonin teacher seemed to be proud about.

"You can even talk while holding that position? You're either talented or just crazily hard-headed. I have never heard of someone trying to lessen the hand seal usage of a Jutsu without at first having basic chakra control," the jonin shook his head, but that confused Shinji a little. Because while Yamato's words were disapproving of such a method, the pride in his voice was unmistakable. "Now, before at least learning how to walk on water, don't try mastering how to do the Substitution without hand seals. It will just be a waste of effort on your part. Honestly, it's surprising you were able to go this far without even mastering the basics."

"So when do we start learning water walking?" inquired Shinji. Who was always hungry for progress. Feeling excited at the prospect of advancing, he could now feel that his hard work hadn't been for nothing.

"First try and keep walking around the tree for half an hour, and if you can do it without difficulty. It will show that you've mastered it."

"Can you give me a book about Genjutsu or something to read while I am doing this? Just walking around feels like a waste of time."

Yamato shrugged and took out a strange scroll, rolled out in the grass, and bit his finger to draw some blood. With a puff of smoke, a dozen or so books come out. He throws one of them at Shinji who catches it easily.

The jonin looked at Shinji, and couldn't help it as a smile made its way to his face as the genin started reading, while easily walking up and down the tree without seemingly any trouble at all. He didn't even seem to need to pay attention to holding himself up and was already doing so instinctually.

…

Half an hour later, Kota came to the training and he stumbled upon a strange sight, Shinji with one leg touching the tree, standing upside down, and reading a book. Normal people would ask why he is doing something this weird. But Kota was anything but normal, instead, he rushed at the tree, while yelling. "I can do that too!"

He was stopped from face-planting into the tree by Yamato grabbing him by the back of his shirt. "Oy, oy, don't rush in like a bird into a window. You've no idea how to even do that."

Kota smiled confidently. "Don't worry, teach. I can do it."

Yamato forced a smile, but his eyes were dull as if he was looking at a wall. No, even walls knew how to at least not to do something. Kota's IQ was in negative numbers here. "Stop, or I will smash your face into a tree before you can do it yourself."

The brash genin felt a chill run down his spine and rapidly nodded. "Y -Yes! Sir!"

..

Yamato explained to him what to do and Kota tried the tree walking exercise, but unlike Shinji, he had no success. As in, no progress at all. Yamato tests his Chakra by having him try and push as much chakra as he can against his hand, and as expected Kota had lower than average chakra reserves, which was normal amongst civilian-born children.

"It's weird if you're that bad at Chakra Control with so little chakra. Haven't you learned the leaf sticking exercise in the Academy?" The jonin was confused too, feeling that while Kota wasn't exactly inept in jutsu and genjutsu. He wasn't much better either. "You'll have to put more effort in taijutsu, especially if you want to become an S Rank Ninja. Ninjutsu will unlikely ever be your forte."

Sayuri had joined them too, and she had chakra reserves even lower than Kota, but she was good at controlling Chakra and almost did the exercise as fast as Shinji. The latter was standing in a tree, like a bat, upside down. "Don't worry too much about it, Kota. Something like this won't stop you right? If your fate is to be a normal ninja, then you simply have to change that fate."

Kota smiled, nodding at that and getting up resolutely. "Of course, there's no way that I am going to give up this soon."

Shinji had the ambition to fulfill and whether he liked it or not, didn't matter, but his genin team was bound to have a big impact on his journey as a ninja. For him to be worth anything, his team has to be amazing too. Though Kota didn't have the talent, at least he had the ambition. While Sayuri was the opposite, she was somewhat talented but didn't have the ambition to be more.

Yamato finally had prepared everything and called his students everyone over. "First, before you start learning any jutsu, you need to know your Elements. You can learn jutsu that belong to your element easier. Also, they generally cost less chakra to use. Though the opposite elemental jutsu to your natural element will be unlikely. For example, you usually won't see someone with a lightning element use wind jutsu. But that shouldn't be something you have to worry about, yet."

He shows them three papers the size of a human's palm. "Run chakra through them. We will see what elements you have," and Yamato displays by running chakras through his paper causing it to dampen and crumble to dust. "You see, since I have natural water and earth elements, I will have an easier time learning jutsu from them. But I would have a harder time learning fire style jutsu and lightning style."

Kota is the first one to step forward with an executed smile and grab the paper offered by his jonin teacher.

Shinji observed this by the sidelines. He knew that no matter what element he ended up with, then it should be okay. Initially, he had been a little nervous in case he would get water, since finding a teacher for it in the Land of Fire didn't sound easy. But since Yamato was a water-style user, then it shouldn't be a problem. Each element had its weaknesses and strengths.

Though he wished he had an element with a lot of destructive power and was easy to use. Something like fire affinity, which was the most common in the Land of Fire, is something he would be okay with.

"That's… amazing!" Yamato's exclamation brought him out of his thoughts and saw that Kato's paper had wrinkled, caught a little on fire, and some parts of it had crumbled into dirt. "Three natural elements, and with earth and fire counteracting each other means that the normal difficulty an earth-style user would have learning lightning jutsu wouldn't be there at all. But… it's a shame your chakra amount is so low. People like you with so many natural affinities are very rare, and even when they appear, they're usually Kekkei Genkai users."

Kota stared at the paper and frowned. "It feels like the heavens are playing with me. Using the carrot and stick method."

"Don't worry about it," Yamato reassured him. "Chakra can increase naturally with hard training and studying. Though I don't know if you'll ever be able to be a ninjutsu specialist. But ninjas mostly fight stealthily, so big explosions aren't that good."

"But they're so cool~" Kota whined, then he stared at Shinji. "But I guess we know who will be Ninjutsu Specialists. He'll be spamming jutsu in no time, and destroying armies."

Shinji within an instant was able to read Kato like an open book and see that his teammate was jealous. Or more correctly, he was envious of his chakra reserves. Both were civilians, but the distance of chakra reserves, something decided mostly at birth, destined the roads they would walk as ninjas.

At first, Shinji thought about saying some reassuring words to his teammate but understood that saying anything would just make him sound arrogant. Instead, he waited for Sayuri, who was staring at him. He caught her doing so and she just looked away, embarrassed.

'What was that about?' he wondered but decided to dismiss such thoughts. Sayuri went and took her paper, which quickly split in two.

"Oh? Wind. That's a little rare, but I know someone who can teach you about wind jutsu, so just channeling wind chakra through your weapons at least." Yamato nodded. "Also the same stands with you, Kota, I have a friend who's quite good with lightning. He owes me a couple of favors, though I can't promise on him being punctual."

Shinji takes this as his turn and drops down from the tree he had been hanging for the last hour or so. "Sensei, I don't think the tree walking exercise is useful to train my Chakra control."

"You and Sayuri should start water walking soon, but first, let's see what affinity you have," Yamato offered him the chakra paper and Shinji took it.

Looking at the small piece of paper he felt his heartbeat up to his ears, and the blood on his body seemed to freeze. This test would determine so many things for the future, and it wasn't something he would be able to change.

The paper in Shinji's hand split in two and became a little damp. Wind and water, he didn't know whether this was a good combination. This was a situation where Shinji wasn't too knowledgeable. He knew that Tobirama was well-known for his water style, but how good would he be with it? Yamato complimented his chakra amount, but just how good would that be?

Shinji had a vision of himself in the future, someone he wanted to be. While he was impressed by Tobirama, he didn't know exactly how much water-style jutsu added to his strength. After all, he didn't want to take the books he had in school as proof, since they were made with propaganda and a little brainwashing in mind.

"Two elements, wind and water, that's good since I can teach you quite a lot about water style. I would consider it as my strongest element amongst it and earth," Yamato seemed glad to be able to have the opportunity to teach Shinji something. After all, having another jonin teach his students wasn't something easy to do. "Anyway, we have to get you to learn water walking, and then you'll be able to start learning jutsu. Having good Chakra Control will help you master Jutsus easier."

Yamato, Shinji, and Sayuri walked away to learn water walking while Kato was left behind to keep trying to learn the tree-climbing exercise. The jonin then made some small talk and asked Shinji. "By the way, Shinji, what kind of Water Jutsu would you like to learn first? I have recommended C Ranks that would work well for you. It will help you get a handle on water-style jutsu. There's no wrong choice here, just which one do you think sounds better for you to start with?"

As the jonin explained to him about the basic jutsu he could learn. Shinji frowned, thinking about the answer.

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A - [Water Style: Wild Water Wave] (C Rank)

The user spews water from their mouth in a waterfall-like fashion to wash away the target. One can freely control the power of this technique by the amount of chakra kneaded and then released. While considered to be a basic Water Release technique, it has many variations.

B - [Water Style: Water Bullet] (C Rank)

The user then spits the water from their mouth as orb-shaped projectiles, whose destructive potential are determined by how much chakra is placed in them.

C - [Water Style: Water Prison] (C Rank)

This technique traps a target in a sphere of water; the water can either be drawn from the surroundings or expelled from the user's mouth. The water that the sphere is made from is noticeably heavy, which restricts the target's movements and can make breathing difficult.

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Status Updates:

Replacement (E Rank) [Mastery 80% -> 94%]

Chakra Control 1 -> 2 (Average Genin lvl)

Genjutsu 0 -> 0.3 (Learning the basics of how it can be cast, dispel, etc)

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Relationships:

Kota 8/10 (he is a little jealous of Shinji and his chakra reserves)

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