21- Year 8 AK (After Kyubi Attack)
I left the camp before dawn scratching Alpha behind the ears while doing so. Soon I found myself into a clearing. I had all of my belonging stashed on my person. Storage scrolls were useful that way.
I sat cross-legged on the humid ground. Distractedly, I spun my chakra, letting it flow freely in a way that resonated with the water around me.
The dew rose from the grass, following with familiarity my will, and spun around me lazily, the drops thinning and thinning until a light mist covered the clearing. That hadn't required me more energy than a single kawarimi.
I smiled, looking around to take in the result. My chakra affinity was water, and I had discovered it years before.
The two levels of nature manipulation explained into the scrolls of Konoha's Shinobi Section of the Library came to me with little difficulty, surprisingly, I had my mind set on 'flowing with your emotions' basing myself more on waterbending than the actual chakra manipulation.
My chakra passed through the mist like a net, and on it some of the water condensed. I brought my hands together, forming a rough cup, which filled itself with crystal clear fresh water. I drank it, relishing in my success.
Protected in the mist, I took off my fingerless glove and brought my arm forward, and started collecting the chakra in my hand.
Hands are complex things, in my informed opinion at least. Areas of the human hand include the palm, which is the central region of the anterior part of the hand, located superficially to the metacarpus.
The skin in this area contains dermal papillae to increase friction, such as are also present on the fingers and used for opisthenar area (dorsal) is the corresponding area on the posterior part of the heel of the hand is the area anteriorly to the bases of the metacarpal bones, located in the proximal part of the palm.
It is the area that sustains most pressure when using the palm for support, such as in handstand. There are five digits attached to the hand, notably with a nail fixed to the end in place of the normal claw.
The four fingers can be folded over the palm which allows the grasping of objects.
The thumb (connected to the first metacarpal bone and trapezium) is located on one of the sides, parallel to the arm. A reliable way of identifying human hands is from the presence of opposable thumbs.
Opposable thumbs are identified by the ability to be brought opposite to the fingers, a muscle action is known as opposition The skeleton of the human hand consists of 27 bones the eight short carpal bones of the wrist are organized into a proximal row (scaphoid, lunate, triquetralandpisi form) which articulates with the bones of the forearm, and a distal row (trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, and hamate).
Which articulates with the bases of the five metacarpal bones of the hand. The heads of the metacarpals will each in turn articulate with the bases of the proximal phalanx of the fingers and thumb.
These articulations with the fingers are the metacarpophalangeal joints known as the knuckles. At the palmar aspect of the first metacarpophalangeal joints are small, almost spherical bones called the sesamoid bones.
The fourteen phalanges make up the fingers and thumb and are numbered I-V (thumb to little finger) when the hand is viewed from an anatomical position (palm up). The four fingers each consist of three phalanx bones: proximal, middle, and distal.
The thumb only consists of a proximal and distal phalanx. Together with the phalanges of the fingers and thumb these metacarpal bones form five rays or poly-articulated chains.
Because supination and pronation (rotation about the axis of the forearm) are added to the two axes of movements of the wrist, the ulna and radius are sometimes considered part of the skeleton of the hand.
There are numerous sesamoid bones in the hand, small ossified nodes embedded in tendons; the exact number varies between people whereas a pair of sesamoid bones are found at virtually all thumb metacarpophalangeal joints, sesamoid bones are also common at the interphalangeal joint of the thumb and the metacarpophalangeal joints of the little finger and the index finger.
In rare cases, sesamoid bones have been found in all the metacarpophalangeal joints and all distal interphalangeal joints except that of the long finger.
The articulations are interphalangeal articulations of hand (the hinge joints between the bones of the digits) metacarpophalangeal joints (where the digits meet the palm) intercarpal articulations (where the palm meets the wrist).
And more than that, on each hand there were 57 tenketsus. Well, there were only 7 that one could channel his chakra through, the others were far too small, and they worked more 'reacting' to what you did with the 7 you had control over than anything else.
That was why handseals made sense. Compressing the tenketsus of the hands in certain patterns while channeling chakra corked some tenketsus while letting others outpour chakra, the movements of the chakra on your hands reverberated? resonated? echoed?
Along with your coils, shaping your chakra in a way that (for each set of hand seals) was optimal for a certain jutsu. That was why every jutsu felt a little bit forced when performed, at least in comparison to a seal-less one.
Then it came to the Rasengan, and it took me six months to learn it. It was a headache under the form of a happy blue thingy.
Rasengan required extremely refined chakra control, but not only that, it required the ability to sustain the 'charging' phase of the jutsu.
This meant that you place your hand under a lot of stress and run the risk of rupturing your hand' chakra coils. For those reasons is difficult to master, at twelve, Naruto managed to learn it bull heading his way through.
That is to say that a deaf person can learn how to play a song on the piano if he copies the movements enough times. Naruto had enhanced healing thanks to his status as jinchuriki, and enough raw chakra that he didn't have to bother with the control part.
To help others gain the necessary chakra control, learning to use the Rasengan was broken into three steps: Rotation, the user learned to spin their chakra in multiple directions at once.
To help in this regard, users may be given a water balloon so that they can mark their progress by the churning water; this step was complete once the users are able to burst the balloon with their chakra. The user needs to know which direction their body naturally spins its chakra for this step.
Power, the user must increase the volume and density of chakra they output. To help in this regard, users may be given a rubber ball: there is no water inside to help them burst the exterior and the rubber shell was thicker than a balloon's. Containment: the user must combine the first two steps into a contained sphere.
To help in this regard, users may be given a balloon to help them visualize the intended shape; if the balloon is popped or otherwise moves, mastery is not yet achieved. I had the greatest difficulties in the second step.
If it is because I naturally poured out less chakra than necessary or because I disliked the idea of breaking rubber balls was still unclear. Managing to do it all in secret hadn't been easy either.
I didn't want Jiraya of the sannin coming to know that someone bought water balloons and rubber balls in bulk, so I stole one here and there, leaving the money in the pockets of the owner.
It had been a good training method, but in my team I was the one specialized in subterfuge, as such, pickpocketing was right down my alley.
Slowly but surely, a spiraling ball of bright light blue chakra formed in my palm. And once it stabilized itself, I stopped pouring chakra into the jutsu. It was honestly beautiful.
The deep humming of it was soothing too. I grimaced at the thought of it grinding through meat and bones like it was designed to do.
I let the technique dissipate, I wanted to try and create a Suiton: Rasengan, but I knew that the first attempts would probably backfire spectacularly, and for that reason, I needed to be able to produce a Kage Bunshin.
Sadly, it was a kinjutsu, and as such, not only it wasn't common knowledge, but if I suddenly came to know it, it would have raised questions.
With a twist of my wrist, some of the mist condensed into a razor-sharp, tiny wire, and cut off a leaf from a tree over my head.
I tried to turn the cutting tool into a flowing current that the leaf should have sailed to reach my hand, but I managed to drench the leaf and making it fall faster.
My intent was still not well meshed with the shape manipulation of suiton chakra. But considering that it was something I had never heard about before, it was pretty cool.
I reached over for the leaf and brought it among my closed palms. My mind drifted to 'windy' thoughts. A gale, a kite, the meadows flattening under the force of the wind, trees being uprooted, branches lightly dancing and leaves delicately twirling.
Then I turned my attention inward, and focused on the chakra in my hands. Making it 'sharp' and grinding one against the other, sharpening it further. I pictured the edge of a blade, clouds gathering, cloaks billowing, the howling of the wind itself.
I noticed my chakra finally taking a 'direction' different from the one it took when it flowed into the suiton form. It freed itself on a path I was growing increasingly familiar with.
I exerted that feel on the leaf between my palms, before letting it go. I opened my hands, finding that the leaf had been cut halfway through.
I frowned. "Why not until the end?" I asked myself. Then I noticed a thin red line on my left palm and grimaced.
"Unbalanced." I answered my previous question.
I healed myself and brought the half-cut leaf among my palms once again.
Falling into myself, I reached for the pit of my stomach, visualizing a tiny ember. I went with my mind to the Suna desert, that we had crossed years before to carry a letter.
The heavy heat of a sun that didn't now mercy. The sheer dryness of the air, the scorching heat of a fireball signing my hair during a scuffle, the reassuring warmth of a campfire.
The stones turned cherry red into the fire that we dropped into a pot of water to make stew.
The hunger of the three days no stops run of a few weeks before when we got separated by our sensei and needed to lose pursuers. The need to grow. The rage at the sheer violence that permeated this world I ended up in.
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