A few days later
Akashi was seated in a study room near the library of the estate
He was hunched in front of a stack of books on sealing jutsu.
"Damn it. So many books, so much to learn, so much to memorise." Akashi let out a long sigh as he looked at all the books and scrolls that he needed to not only memorise, but also to understand before he could be considered a beginner.
"And I thought it would be easy."
'Even though mentally older, memorising all that isn't easy.'
"Shouldn't the goals be to understand the seals, instead of blindly memorising what I see?"
He asked the red-haired Kunoichi standing not far behind him.
She was a trusted Uzumaki subordinate whom his grandmother left to take care of him before she left the village for an errand.
"Yes. The ultimate goal of a seal master is to understand the structure of all seals, so that you can decipher, break, and remodel if need be," she said with a nod.
"So why do I need to memorise..."
"Because you are a kid, and a novice, who can't even be considered a beginner yet. Yes, you seem to have an instinctive ability for seals, but it doesn't change that you need to master the fundamentals like everyone else, or you will just blow yourself up one day. You will not be the first Uzumaki to die like that."
She explained with an exaggerated tone.
"Now go back to your memorisation."
"Alright," Akashi mumbled as he turned back to his books
"I know," as someone who had been a student in his past life, he knew how important fundamentals were, but sometimes his childish mind couldn't help but take over.
"It's unfortunate that I don't have a photographic memory!"
"Wait a second! I do have a photographic memory' A light bulb suddenly lit in Akashi's mind as he realized it.
"Sharingan," and a tomoe appeared in his eyes.
With his sharingan activated, he scanned the whole page in front of him with just a single glance.
It wasn't the end. He slowly turned the page, scanned the second page, and continued until he had scanned the entire book.
After closing the book, he deactivated his sharingan and closed his eyes for a second to organize his thoughts and make sure that he had everything in mind.
"I remember everything," he said with glee, a relieved expression on his face.
To make sure that everything was indeed in order in his mind, he took out a blank scroll and started to rewrite the most important part of what he had scanned and his understanding of it.
After a few minutes, he put down the pen and looked at what he had recorded.
"I can't believe that I didn't think of using the Sharingan like that sooner," he said
"I just hope that this memory trick isn't a temporary thing, it would be embarrassing if I forget what I just learned later."
"What do you think, Yaya?" Akashi asked as he turned around to ask Yaya, the maid that his grandmother had put in charge of supervising his study.
She was trusted enough by his grandmother Mikado that she knew that he had awakened the Sharingan even though it was a tightly kept secret.
A wicked expression appeared on his cute face as he looked at the open-mouthed lady in front of him.
"You're going to swallow a fly!" he mocked
With a slight cough, she regained her composure.
"Are you jealous?"
"I'm not? I am just surprised. Don't relax just because you found a new way to use your Sharingan. Sealing techniques aren't that easy to master. You also need to master the exact strokes of the brush, and the exact chakra ratio, while infusing..."
"How about you show me?"
Akashi interrupted
"What?" the red-haired woman asked in confusion
"One must play out to their strength, right?' he pointed at his eyes, his Sharingan, and continued, "So, show me," he said
She realized what he meant in an instant. She knew the abilities of the sharingan so it wasn't difficult.
Akashi wanted her to demonstrate how of create a seal so he could copy it.
He wanted her to demonstrate the exact chakra circulation and ratio needed.
'He really is smart,' Yaya realized. He found a new way to use his Sharingan and is now expanding his options, all that in just a few instants. 'He will become a powerful ninja,' she thought.
"This is a good idea that you have, Akashi, incredibly clever, probably an idea that only you with your special inheritance could have thought of. But I can't show you how to make a seal, at least not yet," she said, shaking her head
"And why is that?" Akashi asked, confusion on his face. He was sure that the idea that he had given was good and Yaya herself had acknowledged it, so it surprised him that she refused to show you how to make a seal.
"Because I don't want you to blow yourself up," she said simply
"Blow myself up!" Akashi looked at Yaya with confusion for a few seconds before he realized what she meant.
"Yeah. Sorry, I got a little too carried away." Akashi apologized sincerely.
'My chakra control is still abysmal, still at the level of a genin, with the sharingan active, chunin, maybe! I really haven't met enough ninjas to compare. I haven't even been authorized to practice justsu yet. I am still stuck at the handsign level.'
"It's understandable," she said, patting him on the head
"You are an incredibly gifted kid, so it is normal to want to skip a few steps and move faster, just don't let it make you do stupid things. Moving too fast could be detrimental to your growth. How about you use your gift to deepen your fundamentals?"
"I get it." he nodded, understanding what she meant. He also felt a little ashamed for losing all caution like that.
But his gaze soon brightened once more as he looked at Yaya. "I still want you to teach me a seal."
"What!?"
Yaya's gaze darkened a little when she heard him say that.
She felt a little disappointed that he wasn't heeding her advice, but before she could say anything, he spoke once more.
"Don't look at me like that. I don't want you to give me something dangerous. You must have a safe seal that I can practice on, right? Grandma said that there are a few seals that the kids of the clans used to practice before they move to the dangerous ones. Show me one, I will practice my chakra control using these."
Maya Uzumaki was once again impressed by Akashi's quick thinking. 'He will go really far.'
"Alright!" she said, nodding her head
A beginner would need to use a special decoction if they wanted to create a real seal, but Maya just took the brush and dipped it in the ordinary ink
She looked at Akashi, who had activated his sharingan and was looking at her with attention
"Like that," she said slowly, infusing chakra in the tip of the brush as she started to write a seal.
Every stroke was slow, precise, deliberate, and very graceful; it was obvious that her calligraphy skills were very standard, a good thing for Akashi.
With his Sharingan, he observed how she circulated her chakra in her body, and how it flowed from the chakra nodes to the tip of the brush, to the scroll on the table.
With her arrangement, he was able to observe the exact ratio he needed.
Even though it didn't take long, once it was done was sweating profusely.
'It was very tiring,' he thought, suddenly realizing that copying Yaya had taken a toll on his chakra, and that his mind felt a little less sharp than before.
It was nothing really alarming, but he realized that depending on the person looking, copying someone's moves could be tiring.
'I didn't feel any drain when I was copying grandma on the training field... I will ask her why later,' he decided before returning his attention to Yaya, who was now looking at him
"Thank you," he said, lowering his head. "It was very useful to me,"
"No need to thank me; this is what I must do," she replied before pointing at the seals she had made
"This is a paralysis seal. A very weak one. Even if you make a mistake on it you will not be injured,"
"Yes," Akashi nodded as he turned back to his study and took an empty scroll and special ink.
He couldn't yet produce an effect like Yaya did without the specially processed chakra ink.
A normal civilian would never have the resources to buy one of those ink bottles, and even if they could, they would cherish it and use it sparingly.
But Akashi was a young master for a reason.
Yaya, seeing that, just shook her head with a slight smile. 'I will let it go for today."
Without any hesitation, Akashi plunged the tip of the brush into the ink, and slowly he started to write on the scroll.
With his sharingan active, he could see the chakra in his own body as he guided it in his hands toward the tip of the brush in the special ink and on the scroll.
With great care and attention, he guided his chakra as carefully as he currently could and in the precise ratio that he saw.
He had a genuinely contented smile on his face that made everyone looking at him realize that he really liked what he was doing.
"Poof,"
a small puff sounded as the seal failed.
He looked at the smoke on the scroll with a little surprise.
"You didn't really think that it would be so easy, right..." Yaya started, but she stopped when she realized that Akashi was too busy analysing whatever made him fail his first seal to even hear her.
"Hu..." she let out a small chuckle at that
"Well. He really is his mother's son."
She just moved a little further back to not bother him as he tried once more.