The beginnings were, quite frankly, brutal for Hinata, but days quickly turned into weeks as I met her every day at the training ground.
I started to notice her condition improving noticeably week by week, along with her mental state, at least, that's what I think. By the end of the second month, she seemed to be able to sleep just fine. Even the spinning she complained about vanished, unless she used her Byakugan.
I'm not sure if she formed her mindscape so quickly, or if just having a basic level of control over her spirit calmed the raging storm inside her. Either way, I certainly won't complain.
The most tedious part will be forming her spirit weapon, but that will be completely in her hands. Now that she could at least find her spirit, I thought that teaching her Haki might help her understand a lot more about her spirit and its uses.
So that became our next goal, and once again, I was taken aback by how quickly she managed to learn. Let's just say that her mastery of Observation Haki came to her even more naturally than it did to me.
Within only a month after awakening it, she was already doing much better than I had when I started. However, she struggled with Armament Haki, and there was no sign of Conqueror's Haki so far.
I give it two or three years at most until she can sense farther than I can with her Observation Haki. When you add her Byakugan to the mix, I don't think anyone will ever be able to hide from her.
Even now, she could see much further than I expected; she could clearly identify the tenketsu points of people almost half a kilometer away. I distinctly remember that Neji could see them clearly only within twenty or thirty meters a year ago.
From what Hinata told me, she had always been able to see farther than most in her clan. It's no wonder both Toneri and Hamura recognized her Byakugan as the purest in the original timeline. That difference in eye performance is just pure insanity.
She also adapted well to the light Taijutsu training we started; mostly, she enjoyed the idea of grappling enhanced by Gentle Fist.
A part of her Hyuga bloodline allows her to naturally expel chakra from all her tenketsu points, something that is borderline impossible for anyone else to learn; any Hyuga can do it with relative ease.
Just imagine getting your hand caught in a bar and suddenly losing all sensation because your muscles, nerves, and chakra pathways are impaled by Gently Fist. The fact that it would effectively be painless if done correctly made it even more appealing to the gentle Hinata. I'm creating a monster, aren't I?
Thankfully for the balance of the universe, and to my eternal mild annoyance, she remains reluctant to learn Ninjutsu. However, she finally started asking me about her nature affinity after I immobilized her arms using a bootleg version of Gentle Fist enhanced by lightning chakra.
Today, we would find out what her affinity is.
She took the chakra paper from me with curiosity in her eyes and channeled chakra into it. I watched with interest, as I had no recollection of ever hearing about Hinata's chakra nature in my past life.
To both my and Hinata's surprise, the paper crumbled into a ball and then violently caught fire.
"Lightning and fire, huh... can't say I expected that," I said, contemplating the results. These affinities didn't fit her character at all, but on the bright side, I could easily teach her lightning manipulation.
"I-is that... bad?" she asked, seemingly nervous about the result.
"No, not at all," I quickly reassured her. "It's just... both fire and lightning are primarily offensive and have little to no defensive capabilities. I actually expected you to be aligned with water," I explained, feeling a bit excited.
"But this is a good thing! I can actually teach you a lot about lightning, and a bit about fire, too." I finished my brief tirade, thrilled that I finally had someone who would theoretically be able to use all the lightning jutsu I had created.
And spending so much time with the fire-aligned Uchiha meant I had seen a good chunk of their nature transformation training, so I could help her there, too.
Loos like it's time to resume my ninjutsu training, this time mostly focused on lightning. There are so many jutsu I want to recreate or invent... decisions, decisions.
The first one I really want to master is the famous Lightning Chakra Mode or Lightning Armor that the Raikage uses. Unfortunately, I've never actually seen anyone use it, so I would probably have to brute-force its creation.
The second big one on my list is Kirin, for obvious reasons.
It's actually easier to work on than the chakra armor, mostly because I already know how it functions from the story, at least partially. It might also help me with my future sage training, as Kirin involves manipulating natural lightning.
It seems the first major jutsu has been chosen; now I just need to figure out where to safely train something as massive as a god-damned Kirin.
Which reminds me that I should start teaching Hinata the first step of lightning manipulation. That's probably a good idea. I just need a lightbulb for that.
Since she's only training in taijutsu and haki right now, it shouldn't be too difficult to fit in a bit of nature transformation training. I'll have her do her meditation exercises at home; such exercises are common enough that they shouldn't raise any questions. Hinata looked a little unsure, probably about learning ninjutsu.
"And then, of course, there's medical ninjutsu... which I completely suck at. But I thought you might appreciate learning at least the basics of it," I admitted, acknowledging my lack of progress in that field.
Suddenly, she appeared much more interested. Leave it to my outside knowledge to help me encourage her to learn any kind of ninjutsu.
The issue now is my lack of knowledge in that area. I only know one basic healing jutsu, simply called "Healing Touch," which does exactly what the name implies: it heals the area you touch according to your knowledge and control.
The only way I can effectively use it is to heal shallow cuts and bruises. I can also heal eyes decently well, but that's only due to an unhealthy amount of practice I had on Itachi and Izumi.
Ironically, the famous Mystic Palm jutsu that every single medic seemed to use in the anime is notoriously difficult to learn. Even trying to do so would require me to leave one of my clones working on it full-time for several years, which isn't happening.
I already leave the four clones I can make safely study ninjutsu theory, fuinjutsu and chakra theory. And even just a few hours of that each day makes my head spin. No wonder no one really uses them for training; it just isn't worth it if you're not a jinchuriki.
They're useful, absolutely, but I have to use them sparingly and have them study instead of mastering ninjutsu. I'm pretty sure getting feedback from four clones practicing jutsu for a few hours would send me to the hospital for weeks.
My thoughts were interrupted by Hinata, who looked a little worried about me, probably because I wasn't very responsive while deep in thought.
"A-Are you... okay, Ryuu-kun?" she asked, tilting her head slightly in confusion.
"Oh, yeah... I'm fine, just thinking. Sorry about that," I replied with a sheepish smile. "I was trying to figure out where to start, but ultimately, you'll need to read up on anatomy on your own. I'll teach you the basic healing jutsu, though." There really wasn't enough time to go through anatomy books with her, and considering I've only read the parts concerning the absolute basics… and eyes, I probably wouldn't be much help, anyway.
I wonder if I should teach her about Shadow Clones... even one would help her learn much faster.
"I wonder..." I murmured as I tried to feel her chakra. She definitely had enough to safely split it once, maybe even twice. With proper warnings in place, it might work to both of our advantages.
"Actually, there's one more jutsu I want to show you," I said slowly. "It's the best learning aid you can get, but it can be dangerous if you're not careful." Her attention was fixed on me as I quickly created a shadow clone, earning a surprised yelp from her as she scanned it carefully, even activating her Byakugan.
"It still spins…" She pouted as the weird spiral visions came back to her. But she collected herself almost instantly.
"It's... solid? A-And I can't tell which of you is real." She stuttered slightly, likely tripped up by her surprise.
"Correct on both counts. This is a shadow clone. It's a perfect replica that uses half of the user's chakra," I explained, earning a nod of understanding from her.
"It can use any jutsu that the caster knows, and whatever the clone learns will transfer back to the caster upon its destruction or when dispelled." Her eyes lit up as she instantly understood the usefulness of it.
"Y-You want me to learn together with my clone?" she asked, but I shook my head slightly.
"Not exactly. I want you to train while your clone studies. It can focus on anatomy, chakra theory, jutsu creation... anything, really. The clone sends back everything it experiences, including the exhaustion," I explained as her eyes widened in realization.
She quickly nodded, her earlier reluctance about ninjutsu momentarily forgotten as she started asking for more details. Such moments bring a smile to my face.
Everything was going surprisingly well, perhaps too well, and my bullshit senses weren't just tingling, they were on ringing the alarm bell.
Thankfully, this time, I was assigned relatively normal missions, a decent portion of them solo, which caught me off guard. It seemed that Hiruzen was testing me again, or perhaps he wanted to ensure I had a decent mission record to my name.
As it stood, my file contained about two dozen D-ranks, three C-ranks, one B-rank, and two S-ranks. It's no wonder he was sending me out more often. The B-rank was likely from my successful attempt to save Hinata, which was easy enough to explain.
However, the two S-ranks stood out like a sore thumb on my record.
I knew one was for my role as a saboteur during the war, and considering the crazy shit we got away with, it definitely warranted that ranking. But the second S-rank puzzled me; it could only be related to that whole Uchiha fiasco.
Until now I had no idea that Hiruzen had given me an S-rank mission for my record for that massive clusterfuck of a night... We both really need to work on our communication.
The missions themselves were manageable, primarily C-ranked and B-ranked, most involving the pursuit of low-level missing-nin. Mostly academy dropouts or lifetime genin who had taken to robbing people across the country after leaving their respective villages.
Did I come across as someone who enjoys killing people? Or were these just the most accessible missions available? What struck me as odd was that I often found myself in command of a chunin team for most of the B-rank missions. Just imagine an eight-year-old commanding people in their twenties.
I geniuenly preferred to tackle missions solo whenever possible. At least I wasn't being sent to assassinate some random merchant; I wasn't sure if I could kill an innocent person like that.
I truly couldn't figure Hiruzen out. That old man had been playing politics for longer than I had been alive, even if I included my previous life.
My annoyance came mostly from how these missions cut into my training time with Hinata. I could summon a cat to keep an eye on her, but it wasn't the same as actually being there to help.
On the positive note, Hinata had found a new feline companion during my summoning practice. A young, light brown sage kitten that she with absolutely zero hesitation named Mochi. With a bit of luck, she might be able to sign the cat contract in the future.
Given Hinata's rapidly improving condition and her spirit becoming more stable, I relaxed my schedule of seeing her every single day. That being said, we still trained together whenever we had free time.
Plus, she had managed to learn the shadow clone jutsu quite quickly, which meant her learning rate would begin to skyrocket soon.
I also wanted to make time for Sakura, too. What kind of older brother would ignore his adorable little sister?
Unfortunately, Sakura didn't have the best impression of the academy so far. Some of the instructors insisted on holding her to my standard, which is, to be honest, absolutely insane.
Like me, she found it jarring that they were taught very little about chakra or jutsu in general. The light sparring didn't really count as proper training either, but she still hated it because, if she lost, she would get dirty.
It became my self-appointed job to try and help her out, mostly by offering her guidance. As expected, I wasn't very successful with this approach, but at least I can say I tried.
So, I started leaving her some scrolls with my notes on chakra theory and a few useful jutsu that I had come across. She could learn from them whenever she wanted, though I wasn't holding my breath.
Ino was just like her, with the added complication of developing a crush on Sasuke. At least Ino didn't drag Sakura into her boy-crazy antics… mostly because Sakura, for some inexplicable reason, was joining in willingly.
Seriously, were seven-year-olds in my past life like this? Or is it a side effect of being trained as child soldiers that makes them chase boys so soon?
Well, at least their friendship seems strong, unlike in the original timeline. Hopefully, I can step in and prevent them from falling out as they did in the anime. I can't let my little sister lose a good friend over a childhood crush.
Beyond that, I could only hope for the best. I didn't have enough free time to really look into Sakura's academy class in detail, but from what I overheard and was told, they all seemed fine.
Noriaki, notably, seemed to be having fun at the academy. It was probably the first time in a long while that he got to be himself, and honestly, I wish I could say the same about my own academy experience. He had also been adopted by a civilian couple, which is great for him; a stable home life will only help him adjust to his new life.
Sasuke… he was a complicated case. He clearly understood that his brother wasn't the monster the village leadership portrayed him as, like the other Uchiha. However, he still preferred to be a loner, unwilling to let others get too close.
That was until his little fan club formed, making him realize he needed someone sane in his life. In a surprising turn of events, he asked Izumi for help with his fangirl problem. Definitely a good choice for a sister figure, if you ask me.
Even though I have no idea what she did, judging by the fan club's reaction, I'm pretty sure they'll leave poor Sasuke alone for a while. At least it seems he won't have to face things completely on his own this time.
Despite that, I'm sure neither Ino nor Sakura will give up easily; they are both pretty headstrong. But if they ever go overboard or start getting too stalkerish for my liking, I can just alert Izumi about their antics and let her handle it. I couldn't help but smirk. Sometimes my genius is... It's almost frightening.