Chapter 39 - Break

Soon after Dix was discharged, Iruka asked for a hearing from the Third. He had worry written all over his face as he entered.

"Lord Hokage, thank you for listening to me. What do I do with Naruto? He is a young genius, for sure. I have nothing else to teach him. But... I don't want the Academy to produce another failure by rushing the graduation, just like the last time." he said, kneeling with one leg, his right fist on the ground and with bowed head. The show of respect from a shinobi.

"Don't worry so much, Iruka. You should've asked the kid instead of coming to me. He is not an idiot, you can talk to him. I know, because I did the same. Its all right, I believe, he is different from Itachi. I sense the Will of Fire in him. He cares for his friends instead of craving power mindlessly, and that feeling will keep him loyal. He said he would not graduate, even if I gave him the chance. Once again, because of his friends. So go back, Iruka, keep the classes going and let Naruto be as he is. Try to open up to him and he will do the same." hearing this Iruka's face still had worry on it, but he gave some thought to it, and understood the Third's reasoning.

"Yes, Lord Hokage. I will do as you say." he finished, then left the room.

Back at the hospital, Dix was just walking out the front door, when Hinata jumped him. She was more expressive than ever, her anxiety and timidness, while still there, were slowly fading over time. She had many people to talk with, and Dix supported her and helped her many times in the recent years.

"N-Naruto! What happened to you? Everyone saw you disappear in the middle of class. Then we were told you are in hospital! Many of us were worried..." she said as she took a step back. Hearing the genuine worry in her voice, Dix cracked a smile and patted her head. Even though he did it quite often, Hinata still blushed a bit at his touch.

"Don't worry so much, you'll grow wrinkles! I'm fine, you can see... Apart from a few light injuries. I disappeared because that was a Shadow Clone. Even though I really enjoy going to school, sometimes I send one of those in my place when I am confident at making a breakthrough in my training."

"Ahhh, so that's why you are so strong!" she said with her fists clenched into two little balls and conviction sparkling in her eyes.

"Uhhh, don't get the wrong idea here. You really should attend school normally. I have some special circumstances, which I really shouldn't be talking about. Maybe later." he said with a somewhat serious face, while still grinning a bit.

"Aww, that's no fair..." she retorted and pouted a bit. It was really cute. "At least show me what you work on! I want to see what you can do!" she continued with renewed enthusiasm and expectations. Dix had to think hard about this. He was told he should be more open with his friends, but if he were to show 'it' to Hinata, then if anyone were to get knowledge of this, he would be in huge trouble. He couldn't even fathom what he would do if he got caught... But a little bit of simping never hurts.

"Okay, okay, you got me. I can show you some neat stuff, but not here, it has to stay a secret between us!" Hinata's eyes and smile widened in anticipation. Her snow-white eyes seemed to glow and throw sparkles in the low hanging Sun's light. It was winter, so even though the Sun was about to disappear on the horizon, the time was still young, so Dix had the opportunity to impress Hinata.

"Yeeey, let's go!" she cheered with a nice smile while pulling on Dix's coat to make him move faster. He resisted a bit and tried to calm her down. She was sure to attract attention like this, and if even one of the Hyuga's people were to find them like that, the Clan Head would be sure to hear about this, and he will be in trouble once again.

They moved away from the hospital, and while Dix wanted to go to his own place with Hinata, he wasn't really sure how the demonstration will work out and he didn't want to make a huge mess in his home, so instead he decided to jump up on one of the mountain faces' head. Hinata needed some help at some points, as she wasn't really proficient at handling her chakra this intensely, even though she was taught ever since she was really young.

At the end, he made Hinata sit down on Minato's head, a bit away from the middle and instructed her to stay there.

"You must absolutely make sure no one knows about this. This is my secret project. Don't betray my trust! You must promise!" he said in a serious tone and face. Hinata just giggled a bit and with a small smug grin on her face she promised. Dix moved closer to her and petted her head. This time he only did it so she can't see him activating his Mangekyo Sharingan to look around to see if there is anyone watching or following them. All seemed to be clear, so he removed his hand and walked around 10 meters away from Hinata.

"This is the first time I'm doing this, so be prepared for anything. I believe everything will be alright though." he said then started concentrating.

There was a single image in his mind. He remembers it quite vividly. One of his favorite shows was the Avatar - The Last Airbender. It wasn't his first, but it certainly was the most influential anime-like shows to impact his life. And there was a certain scene at the end, that was etched into his mind even after 10 years of not seeing it. It is the scene when Aang has to fight Fire Lord Ozai, and he activates his 'Avatar state', that gave him incredible and showy powers. He was able to bend all four natural elements of that world simultaneously, and Dix wanted to do the same. He theoretically was capable of it.

Before suffering through the Flying Thunder God Technique training he finished all five natural energy transformation practices. Also he tried to add them to his rasengan one-by-one after each successful training. Now he wanted to combine them all into a single rasengan. He wanted it to look like the same as what Aang did, with the air giving it a spherical structure, while the other elements circle around it in different orbits (A/N: I'll post a picture on discord). The only difference was that he had to control five elements at once, while Aang only had to control four. Obviously its impossible to compare the two worlds, so this is just a numerical difference right now.

After gathering all his knowledge, experience and having a clear image in his mind of what he wants to do, he clapped his hands together, then pulled them away from each other, his palms still facing inwards. He used every ounce of his focus to build the most stable rasengan he was ever able to do.

The Sun was barely giving out any light at that point, so the blue light the rasengan produced beautifully illuminated Dix and his immediate surroundings. Hinata was already losing her mind.

"Woooooooooooooooow! That should be... impossible?" the latest thing they learnt about chakra was that its an invisible energy present in every living being. The exceptions would only be addressed the next year, as there really aren't many people that can condense chakra so much that its visible.

Dix didn't listen or reply to her, he just kept focusing. The blue light of the rasengan was slowly taken over by an even brighter white light. He was infusing the rasengan with wind. In the anime, when Naruto embedded wind natural energy into his rasengan it was extremely destructive. Dix wanted none of that, so he infused as little as possible so its visible, but is still easy to contain. Hinata was having a hard time understanding whats happening... But it was so pretty!

Next Dix continued with the elements one by one. The first two, lightning and water was quite easy. After that, adding earth was way harder, and it started to affect the balance of the construct, while adding the last one, the wind's absolutely counter, the fire, was the hardest. It took him almost a minute to stabilize the first four elements, then he proceeded to add the last.

In the end it turned out to be a huge pile of volatile and unstable work of crap, but he still managed to pull it off. And from the outside, none of that was visible. When Dix opened his eyes to see his handiwork after many minutes of intense focusing, he was shocked at how good the spherical mass of chaos looked. The elements were almost as discernible as in the Avatar series, but they still mingled with each other to form a beautiful mass of something.

Dix himself was having a blast, not to mention this practice was incredibly useful. He will have to practice this later with his clones. He looked up and saw Hinata absolutely flabbergasted. Her face even looked a little pale, but her slate-white eyes seemed to come to life in colors due to the reflections of the rasengan. They were also full of awe and wonder.

Dix decided that was quite enough. He had a few options to get rid of the rasengan, but he had to choose one specific, considering the circumstances. He could, for example, just throw it away, but that would most likely destroy Minato's hair, something which he didn't want to do for many obviously reasons. So in the end he had to manually deconstruct the rasengan one element at a time. It took him another few minutes to do, and at the end the orb of twirling chakra had to be dispersed into the air, so he lifted his hand and threw it up. After a meter or so of travelling it blew up like a blue firework would. The burst of wind woke Hinata up and she was finally able to refocus her eyes on Dix's face. He just put a big grin on his face and asked:

"Hah, so how was it?"

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

You find the official discord for the novel here: https://discord.gg/XCEDp7H9tA

Thanks for the read, I'd appreciate if you were to leave your thoughts in the comments and donate some stones.

Cheers! :D