I stuck my hands on my hips and puffed my chest up proudly. The rippling water beneath me held me aloft as easily as concrete would. My shadow was outlined by the reflected light of the sun, creating a humanoid silhouette on the surface of the water.
Aiko clapped slowly from where she watched on from the edge of the lake. "Good job, kid. I know some genin who haven't been able to figure that out yet."
I'd been training with Aiko for a little over two months now. Our main focus had been getting my chakra control down so I could move on to more advanced exercises. I'd mastered tree walking a while ago and could now stand on the surface of water without falling in.
All of these lessons made me wonder why Naruto and the others had not been taught Chakra control sooner. It was not a dangerous thing to learn and was something that every shinobi needed to master to become a good shinobi.
Mastering chakra control meant that you would waste little chakra when using it, you could walk or run on any surface and learn genjutsu or iryõ ninjutsu in the future.
Mine and Misa's lessons had shown similar progress. Misa had rocketed up the academic rankings in our class, hovering just outside the top five. I, on the other hand, had risen to the middle of the upper echelons of taijutsu in our class. I was beating clan kids with ease. The only ones above me were the Hyugas and Uchihas, but I was closing the gaps on them as well.
Things had fallen into a routine. I would go to class and study on my own while Akira-sensei covered stuff I already knew. Then I would spar or race my classmates. Then I would train with Misa. Then, if I had time at the end of the day I would train with Aiko. My weekends were also spent with Aiko, practicing my chakra control and going over chakra theory.
"I think you're ready." Aiko said as I walked off of the water and back onto solid ground once more. I had yet to perfect water walking. While I could do it, it took a lot of concentration to ensure I didn't fall. I would need to be able to walk on water like it was second nature before I would feel confident saying I'd mastered it.
"Ready for what, Aiko-san?" I asked, tilting my head curiously. She hadn't given me any hints that this was some kind of test.
"I told you to drop the honorifics, brat." Aiko said irritably, but with a fond smile on her face. "I think you're ready to start learning the shadow imitation technique."
I froze where I stood, my breath catching. "Really?" I asked hesitantly, not sure I'd heard her right.
The Shadow Imitation Technique or some would call it as Shadow Possession Jutsu was a great tool. It required precise chakra control and a good helping of focus, but when it was used effectively, it could be used to take out or stall entire squads of enemy ninja. Of course, it was more useful in certain circumstances than others, but I'd been wanting to learn it for a while.
"You've got the Academy three down and can treewalk without issue. If that doesn't say you're qualified, I don't know what does." Aiko said, ruffling my hair. She liked to do that for some reason.
The Academy three were all very simple jutsu, though I supposed that was probably the point. They were made to help keep bulk of the ninja alive. They were the three main jutsu that all ninja needed to know, meaning they were the only three a lot of genin in the genin corps knew. The better they were suited to keeping those genin alive, the less they'd have to be replaced.
The clone technique was easy, but only situationally useful. The clones it made were illusional and after being subjected to minimal disturbance, they would disappear. You could program simple instructions into them when you made them, but those instructions couldn't change and the clone would follow them exactly. If you told the clone to walk in a line, it would walk in a straight line. But it would still be an illusion.
The substitution technique was far more useful. It was basically a short range teleport that swapped your position for something of semi-equivalent mass in response to an attack. It wasn't the fastest technique and there were ways to track where the user went, but it was good if you had no other options to get yourself out of a jam fast.
[Author Note: I know that in manga, it is said to be a swapping technique and not a teleporting but we are going with my theory.]
The henge was the only technique I'd learned before I'd even gotten to the Academy. My parents had taught it to me after a lot of begging and pleading. I'd thought I'd be able to use it to sneak places I shouldn't be, but there were ways to see through it. Even if you made a perfect replica of whoever you were pretending to be, something I was now capable of, chakra sensors or certain kekkei genkai could still spot a henge.
Aiko groaned as she reached behind herself and pressed a hand into the small of her back, her face contorting in discomfort.
"Aiko-san?" I asked, walking up to her to see if something was wrong.
She chuckled at me, her hand adopting a green glow as she pressed it into her back. "I'm alright, kid. Just my old bones telling me to take it easy."
My eyes had drifted from the pained area on her back to the jutsu she was using. "What is that?" I asked.
"The Mystic Palm technique. Iryõ-nin use it to speed up healing. I was planning on showing you how to use it once you had the shadow imitation technique and your chakra control down." Aika explained, sighing as her pain lessened, her jutsu canceling at her command.
I pursed my lips as I looked up at her. "Can I really learn it? I read that not a lot of people ever master it."
Aika smirked at me. "Good to see you're actually reading all those books I give you. Yes, I think you can learn it. You're young, but you already have amazing chakra control. Control is the main thing a ninja needs to learn it, so I think you'll be able to learn it in a year or two."
"A year?" I asked, feeling a little dejected. I understood it wasn't all that long in the grand scheme of things, but I still wanted to make as much progress as possible as fast as I could.
Aika ruffled my hair again. "Don't you worry, Kagen. You won't be sitting around for a year. I'll start you on the Shadow Imitation Technique, then teach you some basic nature transformations as well as some low level jutsu for water, earth and fire."
That caused me to perk up. "How soon can I learn the jutsu?" I'd been drafting various plans in notebooks I kept in my room since learning my chakra affinities. I knew a lot more about heat transfer, how water worked and properties of fire, water and Earth than this world did thanks to my first life.
While my degree hadn't been in any of the sciences, I'd done chemistry and physics electives. I had some plans to do something amazing with my affinities. If everything worked out, I would be a force to be reckoned with, but before I could try any of that, I actually had to learn to use the elements.
"After you learn the Shadow Imitation Technique." Aiko said firmly, fixing me with a serious gaze. "And don't try anything on your own."
I sighed, unable to stop myself from rolling my eyes. "I know. I don't want to burn myself to ashes any more than you want me to burn myself to ashes." I understood why having someone supervise my experimentation and growth was important, but that didn't make it any less annoying. I really didn't like being treated like a child.
"Good." Aiko said with a content nod. "Now run home. Your parents are probably wondering where you are."
"Bye, Aiko-san. Thank you for your help today!" I said, jumping up into the air to leap between the trees.
---------Author Notes--------
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