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"It was made wi..." the boy wanted to divulge the details behind its making, but Karna suddenly started eating paying him no heed. The blond kid didn't disturb Karna and quietly moved his eyes to the training ground beneath the tree.
A large, muddy field came into his view. It was crammed with giant craters. It made him question what kind of training Karna was doing before his arrival.
'No wonder no one believes Master to be eight.' the blond kid thought when he looked at the devastation Karna had caused.
Karna finished his yakitori and threw off the skewers, but before he could speak and show his gratitude, the blond boy abruptly spoke up, "So, it was that good, huh? If I had known earlier I would've gotten a lot more."
"Cough, cough." Karna coughed slowly with his cheeks reddening a little.
"Anyway, did you master the jutsus I taught you last month?" Karna asked as he got up and began descending the tree.
"Yes, master." the blond boy said as he followed along.
"Well, then. You're ready to graduate from the academy." Karna swiftly landed on the ground with no dust following. On the other hand, the blond boy landed with an immense thud making dust rise all around him.
"A...Are you sure, master? Can we not graduate together? I could pull some strings to put us in the same squad." The boy asked with a determined voice.
"No. I want you to graduate early and earn the acknowledgement of the higher-ups. You don't need me for that. You're already very strong, Kenji. You just don't know it yet." Karna said as he turned his face from Kenji and began to take slow steps ahead.
'You're probably one of the strongest 12-year-olds in the entire world.' Karna thought inwardly.
Kenji's face brightened a little as he took a deep breath after hearing Karna. His eyes turned sharp and his face adorned a focused expression.
"Prepare yourself for the future and wait until the time is right for me to act," Karna said as he kept advancing.
"I will master."
"Don't be so stiff. You'll just have to trust me."
"I trust you master!" Kenji replied, his voice slightly becoming louder in the end.
"Good. Then, I'll be taking my leave first." Karna said as his body broke apart in fragments of cold wind, indicating the unprecedented level he has reached with his body flicker technique.
Borders of the water country,
In a bustling market brimming with people of all kinds, a boy suddenly appeared out of nowhere. His abrupt arrival went unnoticed by everyone as if he was but a mere spectre. He walked slowly through the buzzing street maintaining a sense of tranquillity, undisturbed by the vexing noise around him.
He stopped by the side of a food stall crowded with people. Smoke and the scent of barbecue permeated the area around the stall, making people curious about the source of the exotic smell. He slowly entered the stall from behind unlike the people standing in the line before him, attracting angry gazes targeted at him.
Within the food stall, an elderly man wearing an apron was grilling skewers of different kinds and a petite girl was trying to calm the overeager people standing in the line.
The boy tapped on the shoulder of the girl, making her look back with annoyance. But, when she turned back, an arresting view welcomed her sight. The boy with the most exotic features— Dark, curly hair parted in the middle that reached down to the back of his nape, sharp yet arched eyebrows, golden eyes with a dark slitted pupil that appeared as if the sun was split up in two, a greek nose and an oval face devoid of any fat— was gawking at her.
"Umm, miss?" He interrupted, bringing her back from her stupor.
"Oh, um, Hi! How can I help you?" She asked trying to fix her posture by brushing aside her messy hair and puffing her chest up as much as possible.
"Can I order some Yakitori?" he hurriedly asked while her cheeks kept reddening at a speed noticeable to the eyes.
"Y...Yes, sure. How many do you need?"
"A hundred?" he asked looking at the long line before the stall, uncertainty lacing in his voice.
This time, along with the girl, even the elderly man looked at him with narrowed eyes. Yakitori has become recently famous and its price in the market has also skyrocketed. Hence, to order this much yakitori at once, meant the boy before them was quite well off. The kind of well-off where he could either be from the nobility or a ninja.
"Right away, sir." the elderly man understood that it was a special situation and soon began to prepare the order.
After a while, the petite woman handed the boy two large boxes filled with hot yakitori. The boy looked at the boxes with gentle eyes and quickly handed the woman an inflated bag that he took out from his pouch.
The woman took the bag and looked inside it. Her eyes widened looking at the contents of the bag.
"Oh my god! Sir, this is too much. I can't take this." the girl said as she hurriedly tried to return the small bag.
"The extra is for the customers you lost." The boy gently pushed her hand back and forced her to take it back.
"B...But, sir." The boy gave her no time to retort as he swiftly exited the stall and began walking on his way.
"Sir, can you at least tell us your name?" the girl peeked outside from the back of the stall and shouted loudly, attracting attention from everyone around her.
"It's Karna, Karna Yagami," a voice reached the girl's ears, but that boy from before was nowhere to be seen in the lively streets.
Later that night,
Karna— with his eyes closed— sat on the floor with his legs on top of one another in a humble two-storeyed building designated for the people of the second caste in Kirigakure. His breath was in a state of harmony and his body sat motionless without flinching.
'C'mon, I can do this.' Karna thought while a thick drop of sweat gently trailed down from the side of his temple.
As the oxygen entered his body he can feel it passing through his blood streams to his kidney to his entire body. However, unlike his blood vessels— fit as a fiddle— his chakra nodes were in a complete mess.
'Let's remember what Father said.' He thought as he remembered the time his father broke down the book, 'Ins and Outs of the chakra circulatory system', to him.
"Remember, Karna, most people only have an affinity for a single chakra nature like you and me, but we can still use jutsus of other chakra nature, albeit, with extensive training and effort. Now, you may ask why can we use jutsus of another chakra nature. Well, you see chakra is the combination of Yin, the spiritual energy, and Yang, the physical energy. We can bring out this energy from within us by using different nodes of different sequences and we do that using hand seals. In summary, every chakra nature follows specific nodes and sequences, and when we pass chakra through them, we can use jutsus from all chakra natures."
"But, then why can't we perform kekkei genkai?"a young Karna asked with curiosity.
"Nice question! assuming that the kekkei genkai you've mentioned is combining two different chakra natures, such a feat can only be achieved with a genetic factor to work like an anchor. For example," Kyo stretched his left hand and performed a seal with the other, creating a small ball of water in his left hand.
"Now, focus here," Kyo said as he tried to form another seal with his right hand, but the moment he changed his seal the water splashed all around his hand.
"To merge two chakra natures simultaneously it needs a catalyst. When you try to bring out your chakra and you possess a single affinity, your chakra would always want to come out of specific chakra nodes designated to that affinity, but when you possess an affinity for two different chakra natures, it will want to pass through specific chakra nodes designated to the two chakra natures you have an affinity for and merge together to create an advance chakra nature; that's how a kekkei genkai is performed. Unless you have an affinity for the chakra natures you want to combine, it is virtually impossible to create a new chakra nature as it will then be comparable to having two brains at the same time, which is impossible. Sometimes, skilled shinobis can mimic kekkei genkai by combining two jutsus, but it will never be as powerful as the real deal. Are you clear about chakra now?"
"Ah, I understand now." A young Karna nodded enthusiastically.
'When l acquired five chakra natures I thought it would take me ages to even learn a basic chakra nature since the difficulty was insane, but surprisingly, my dojutsu made it extremely easy. Moulding chakra became something as easy as breathing for me. Not to mention the hax ability of my dojutsu that lets me instantly master a jutsu by only performing it once. That's how I realised without a dojutsu having all chakra nature is like having the power to end the world but instead, the power consumes the possessor.
'Anyway, as Father said, my chakra always wanted to come out of five different chakra node sequences, but it collapses before it could manifest for some reason. Hence, I focused on mastering only one at a time and after I've mastered three— wind, lightning and water— I think I can combine them now. Let's start with two at a time.' Karna thought as he opened his taiyougan and looked at his navel.
A strand of chakra stretched out of his core and moved through the chakra pathway system like a snake slithering on its way. Suddenly, it divided into two and passed through different nodes located at his right hand together.
'It's here,' Karna thought and a thick, grey chakra gradually materialised on his right palm.
He tried to move his wrist but his wrist seemed to move quicker than it usually did. Karna squinted his eyes with confusion upon the unusual discovery.
He went on to coat his entire arm with the same chakra and deactivate his taiyougan.
"Now, let's see," he muttered as he quickly moved his arm as if he was throwing something in the air.
"Huh? What the heck!?" Karna exclaimed with enlarged eyes because when he moved his hands he couldn't keep up with its speed. He could feel the motion and say that his hands moved extremely fast, but his usual eyes couldn't track the movement at all.
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Up next: "Flashback:1"
~Kenji attacks Karna.