20 Water & Lightning Transformation

"FINALLY! After two weeks, I'm finally done with the first step of the water transformation." I smiled broadly, mostly in relief than anything else because I could finally progress in my training again.

Honestly, I was quite happy with myself because of this accomplishment. It took me more than three weeks to get to the point where I could make an entire leaf wet in a controlled manner. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't control the amount of water chakra that was being outputted.

However, after what Miki and I had talked about, things got a little easier. And when I spent the following weeks sitting in the water, my understanding of the water element compounded, and I ended up being able to control the output of the water chakra I would produce.

Now I was just waiting for my parents to get back from the park with Kushina so I could show them my progress.

----

45 minutes later

"Finally, you guys are back home. I thought you guys forgot about me and decided Kushina was an only child now." I looked at them with a faux-hurt look as they walked through the front door.

"Big brother Shi!" The redheaded missile launched itself into my chest, knocking me over in the process.

I smiled brightly, standing back up and picking up the unruly little two-and-a-half-year-old girl, who launched herself at me with no regard for anyone's safety, from the floor in the process, and ruffled her hair.

"How was the park, Kushina? Did you make any new friends?"

Kushina nodded her head up and down repeatedly, almost looking like her head was going to fly off if she kept going.

"I met someone that looked like a shark. He was really funny and made me laugh a lot."

I smiled and listened to her recount the day she had while I burned the image into my brain with a hot brand.

"Sounds like you had a fun day, little tomato," I said, giving her a smirk, knowing that the nickname was going to push her buttons just right.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING TOMATO?" The little tomato was outraged at being called that nickname, as her hair floated upwards indicating her anger.

I laughed as her hair only got more wild. "And besides, we have the same color of hair. You can't tease someone and have the thing you're teasing them about." Little Kushina pouted and muttered the last little bit of that sentence out.

"True, we have the same color of hair, but you still have a chubby face, and combined with your bright hair, I think the nickname suits you perfectly." I gave her an innocent smile as she pouted more.

"Would you like to see what I've been up to all day?" I asked her, knowing that she was going to say yeah.

"Yeah, show me!" Kushina's face lit up like a Christmas tree, wanting to see what her big brother was doing every day.

I pulled out two leaves from my back pocket and showed them to Kushina, to which her expression turned odd.

"You've been collecting leaves this whole time?"

Chuckling, I let her question go unanswered as I told her to watch the left one closely, which she did.

As her attention was fully on the leaf, I started to crumble the leaf little by little from base to tip by inserting some of the lightning chakra that I've been able to produce for a while now.

Her big eyes looked into mine, and I could practically see the stars in her gaze.

"How are you doing that?" She asked as I uncrumpled the leaf and stuck it back into my pocket.

"It's something to do with my chakra nature. You'll learn all about it when you start to get older as well." Kushina nodded at that and focused on the second leaf I had.

"What's the second one going to d-" Before she could finish the question, I answered it for her by turning the leaf completely wet from the inside out.

"Wow, big brother is AWESOME!" I cracked a lopsided smile and said in a cocky tone.

"Of course, I'm awesome. I'm going to be the strongest shinobi in the ninja world. It goes without saying that the strongest is always the most awesome."

When I turned to look at my parents, I saw my mom's jaw, not all the way on the floor, but somewhat slack. My dad, on the other hand, had the biggest 'I told you so' smile on his face while he turned to look at Mom.

----

Kumiko turned to look at her husband, who had the most prideful look on her face that she had ever seen. Even the times when he was talking about his accomplishments in the First World War didn't compare to the look he was giving now.

"How does he know how to do that, Haru?" She looked toward her son astonished at what she'd just witnessed.

"He's just an amazing prodigy. I gave him the theory on how to train the change in chakra nature, but I didn't give him the method of training them. I told him if he wants to train it, he'll have to figure it out on his own. I didn't expect that while being left with only his resources he would be able to complete the first step of three within three weeks." Haru said while shaking his head at the absurdity of it all.

Kumiko looked thoughtful for a second before she turned back to Haru and said, "I think that when he gets into the academy, we should start to teach him some of our elemental jutsus. From what you said, he's already gotten the academy three jutsu down and if that's the case then there's no reason to be holding him back while he's studying in the academy."

"I agree 100% with your line of thinking, honey. Once he gets settled into life at the academy, we'll give him some C and D rank jutsus of each element. That should be enough to keep him interested in learning new things and not getting complacent." Haru nodded in agreement with his wife.