One day later
( DAIKI )
I loved training ground eleven, there was just so much water...
The Hokage's sudden orders had come as a surprise. At the crack of dawn he excused me from my task of being an over-glorified sensor, spouting some bullshit about 'the saplings of the next generation needing a solid ground'.
I was thankful for the end of my embarrassing punishment, but the fact that he added to my team Naruto and Sakura, spoke for itself. Basing myself on the manga,I suspected that Kakashi had dragged Sasuke away on a training trip.
And it also fits with the two of them meeting during the night after Kakashi visited the Hokage's office. I added the not-insignificant information to my reasoning.
Sage Mode was one of the three things totally overpowered, along with the sharingan and the mokuton. And fuinjutsu, but the last was not something one could become a master of without either several decades of study or being a genius.
I had donned all of my weights, and I went through push-ups, sit-ups and all their siblings for hours, pushing my body like I hadn't been able to do during the last few days.
I was performing a single hand-stand on my fingertips above water, slowly lowering myself until my nose touched the water before extending again my arm.
In the meantime, most of my focus was geared toward making my chakra change its nature. The difficulty was that I couldn't use said change in nature to keep myself above water, so I had to carefully mold the chakra leaving my hand from my fingertips, stabilizing the water.
The hand not busy keeping me from dunking into the large river that crossed the training ground (a side effect of my Suiton: Dai Bakusui Shōha, months before) had the palm turned upwards. My pinky lightly touched my thumb before distancing itself. zap
A flicker of sparks ran between my two fingers, an uncomfortable tingle running down my arm. I scrunched my face in concentration, trying to reduce the tingling: if electricity wasn't focused only in my hand it meant that I couldn't control it.
"Raiton is such bullshit." I mumbled.
Along with Doton, it was the last element I still had to become comfortable with. Oh I could rise a earth wall, or even throw a little bolt, but the transition wasn't smooth, not yet.
Earth was a powerful element. I mostly understood earth. Unmovable, patient, stubborn, passive and yet unrelenting, strong beyond measure, uncaring of anything else.
I lowered my hand, hovering the palm less than an inch from the surface of the water. My neutral chakra was flowing, naturally mimicking water, but I fell in myself, imagining the unbelievable titanic power unleashed by earthquakes, the density of the ground, the solid foundation upon which life grew outside of the seas.
In the same way it flowed into water natured, it freed itself into wind natured, and it burned its way into fire natured, my chakra pushed itself into earth natured.
With a decisive effort, I willed it to reach through the water until it made contact with the muddy bottom of the river. I pushed my chakra into it, forcing it into the ground, shaping it to match my intent.
I yanked my hand upwards, and the ground under the river followed suit.
A column made of jagged rock and barely hold together damp dirt rose from beneath the river, crossing the few meters that separated us and almost nailing me into the chin, it breached the surface of the water and kept rising for another couple of meters before the chakra I fed to it was spent.
I took a deep breath and pushed myself off the water, landing on the top of the earth construct I had just created. Perched like a strange vulture,
I rose, easily balancing myself on a single foot. I took a deep breath, spinning my chakra tightly along my pathways, feeling the pressure against the tenketsus through which I didn't allow it to escape.
I relished in the familiar and thrilling sensation, I exhaled, feeling for all the water around me. The small river collected placidly the waters from the surrounding training grounds. The marsh had risen of another meter, thanks to the waterproof wall surrounding the entirety of the training ground.
Since the beginning of the second stage, I hadn't bothered closing my gates, I had let my chakra blaze brightly, and I was sure that if I walked among my peers I would have arched more than a few eyebrows.
For the space of a split second, I stilled, feeling the life and the energy all around me.
I recognized five kids crossing the wall of the training ground and an... observant? presence on the outskirts of the marsh, a hundred meters or so following the current of the small river, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
The fact that he reminded me of a small amphibian, however, spoke loads.
I let go, my heart beating his steady rhythm and the air once again entering and leaving my lungs. I called forth my chakra freeing it into his wind nature, shaping it with Boar, Monkey and Dragon.
I folded it, letting the tension I was used to settle in the tenketsu at the base of my throat, then I twisted my chakra into a hungry, raging fire and went through Boar, Horse, Tiger.
I blew my katon technique while letting go of my fūton one, molding them together, whispering: "Ninpō: Shiroi honō!" (White blaze) and I let the wall of white-hot fire sweep over the surface of the river.
I kept feeding chakra to the technique, I chanted: "Hinokami no mai." (Dance of the fire god) clapping my hands together in a Bird seal, shaping the wall of white-hot fire into a bird of prey, its wingspan easily covering ten meters.
Directing the vast phoenix to fly in an upward spiral, faster and faster, the technique naturally evolved into a fire twister, copious amounts of vapor generating on the surface of the river sucked in by the vacuum generated by the air consuming justu.
The white flame however, was so hot to burn the hydrogen and oxygen that composed the vapor, growing upwards with a song made of howling wind and crackling fire.
I wrestled with the technique, forcing it to develop only upwards, and held it for twenty seconds, each one of them felt as long as an hour, and when I felt my tenketsus were about to got damaged by the effort I was subjecting them to, I cut off the technique.
A breath later, I clapped my hands in a snake seal and, with a heavy grunt, I yanked upwards the river around me with a wordless suiton manipulation.
The water rose sharply in a twisting cocoon around my previous technique, too much and to heavy to be burnt by the Hinokami No Mai once that I stopped feeding chakra to it.
I kept the water up, shaping it in a sphere and burning loads of chakra to make it spin as slow as I could. Water flowed, and stilling it was something that turned every suiton technique into something with an unbelievable chakra cost. But the whole point of what I was doing was exercising my chakra pathways, so I didn't mind.
I slowly picked up the spinning speed of the ball of water before suddenly letting it fall into the river.
When the rippling wave hit the rock perch I had made for myself I let my chakra flow into water natured and coaxed the water sprout to land into my cupped hands. I drank, because futon and katon combinations made me fucking thirsty, and the hassle began.
"Woah! That was so cool! But I bet Kakashi-sensei can still beat him!" An unmistakable overexcited voiced rang in my ears.
"Naruto, nobody bet on a fight between our senseis..." a drawl tried to reign in the blond menace.
I turned on my perch, recognizing the five lives I had felt before. Frankly, I had been so absorbed by the training that they had left my mind completely.
The Hinokami No Mai was a bullshittingly complex shit to contain. I made it thinking of wide-scale destruction after all, even if training my control over it was still a great idea.
My three genins, along with Naruto and Sakura, had reached the center of the training ground, and from the wet clothes dirtied with mud.
I could tell that both Naruto and Sakura had tried to water walk over the marsh, likely eager to show off that even if they had been disqualified due to external influence, they were just as strong as the members of team ten.
Which was bullshit. Sure, short of killing Naruto, he just wouldn't stay down, both due to his Uzumaki blood and terrifying chakra reserves.
I flickered in front of them, causing Sakura to give a surprised yelp. My team was used to it and Naruto was keeping his eyes closed, pouting with a strange expression on his face for the missed opportunity of picking a fight upon who had the stronger sensei.
"Hello, ducklings." I smiled, receiving scattered answers from the genins.
I turned my head towards the two members of team 7: "First thing first, I'm Daiki, calling me sensei is fine, shutting up and listening is better."
My no-nonsense attitude caused Sakura to straighten her back and Naruto to put up a... suspicious attitude? I can't be bothered to actually care. I realized.
"Team 10, on the water, warm up and sparring, no jutsus." I dictated, and my team obeyed, picking up on my need to organize the other two.
"You don't know how to walk on water." I stated, "It's simple enough, you only need..."
"No way! Teach us that awesome white-fire-twister jutsu!" Naruto interrupted me.
I blinked, more surprised by the dumbness of the act than offended by the lack of any form of respect.
"Naruto! You need to listen to Daiki-sensei!" Sakura punched him on the back of his skull almost faceplanting him on the mud. Which was impressive, by the way.
But at least we had reched a point in the timeline in which Sakura no longer used the -baka suffix. I choose patience over bitchslapping him into submission.
"Thank you Sakura." I smiled. "All and every jutsu are better executed with a higher chakra control, Naruto you get away with spamming kage bunshin randomly because of your vast reserves, but what will happen if you have to fight on water?
And trying to perform the Himokami No Mai with a chakra control lower than the one of a med nin would likely shred your head away from your neck, with shards if your spine flying around and kill your teammates." my tone was cheerful and deliciously mocking of his positive attitude.
Sakura turned a bit green, and Naruto took a step back, paling. I nodded appreciatively.
Orochimaru didn't have the time to mess up with his seal, so his chakra flow shouldn't be impaired.
"I'm guessing you already know how to tree-walk." I started again, enjoying the silence brought by Sakura's punch. And more or less quickly, I explained how to perform the exercise before going back to my team.