12 12: What Even Is Chakra Paper?

The distinct clashing sounds of combat echoed out from behind a wall. The wall that surrounded the back yard of the Himiko-Ryoku residence.

Passers-by typically decided to stay away from the thing when they heard those sounds, which had been occurring almost every two days for the past six months now. A few weeks ago a bystander almost lost his family jewels to a stray shuriken that flew over the wall and nobody else was willing to take that risk ever since.

- - -

Seija's back hit the wall hard as she quickly ducked under yet another jab from her mother's chakra-covered fingers which swiftly became embedded in the wooden surface.

Himiko's other hand lashed downwards and put a kunai to her throat.

"Haaah... haah... you win again, mom." Seija panted.

Himiko removed the knife and extracted her fingers from the wall beore responding. "Hmm... Seija! This training is missing something."

Seija caught her breath and stood back up, leaning against the thoroughly battlescarred wall.

"Like what?"

"I'm going to go back to the basement to get something, wait here."

She vanished from sight with the Body Flicker Jutsu, leaving Seija by herself in the yard for a moment. In a few seconds, she was back.

"Ok, Seija. I've noticed something in our most recent sparring matches."

'Noticed something? What's she holding there?' Seija wondered.

"You've been getting cornered more and more frequently. This isn't a problem at all, in fact it's a sign that you're managing to hold me off until your back hits the wall. What's missing is that you have no way to retaliate and force me to back off once that happens."

'True enough. My arms and legs are still too damn short to really strike back against her. All I can do is block and dodge.'

Himiko continued once it looked like Seija was listening and pulled a few slips of paper out of her pocket.

"What I have here is a few pieces of Chakra Litmus Paper. Now, this may not end up being necessary since we sort of already know your chakra affinities from way back in the chakra-flare days. However, it would be good to confirm for sure what your strongest elemental affinities actually are out of the four that you showed a higher potential for out of the main five."

Seija recognised it. 'Oh! This is that stuff from one of my memories! Naruto got wind as his highest, right? Something about the paper tearing in half? Wonder what mine is.'

"So here, take this paper and watch closely at what I'm doing. This shouldn't be any issue for you to do since you can already push your chakra out of your body, but I want to demonstrate it anyways."

She held a piece of paper between her index and middle finger.

"When you push any amount of your chakra into this paper, it will undergo a reaction based on which element you have the highest affinity for. This is mine:"

She raised her hand holding the paper and let her chakra flow into it. In just a second the paper turned brown and crumbled to dust.

"That is the reaction for the earth affinity. That means that earth is my highest affinity and I will have the easiest time learning and performing Ninjutsu from that element. Now, what's extremely important to remember is that this paper only shows the highest affinity!" Himiko especially emphasised that last point.

"I have seen far, far too many young shinobi learn their highest affinity using this paper and then focus solely on that, ignoring all other elements! This, Seija, is an unforgivable mistake and I will not let you make it too!" She was almost shouting at this point.

"Uh... I understand, mom... but isn't it still best to focus on your strongest element anyways?"

"*Sigh* Yes, it is. But I'm talking about totally ignoring other elements. Since the paper only shows your highest, you have no way of knowing how far, or more importantly how close your other affinities are behind it. Imagine, hypothetically, a shinobi that only uses Wind Style, because it's his highest." She started yet another Himiko-brand educational rant.

"That shinobi fights in a war and defeats many foes with his powerful Wind Style Ninjutsu. But one day he faces a Fire Style user who overpowers him, because fire consumes wind and becomes stronger." She paused for a moment at Seija's confused expression.

"I can see that look on your face Seija, I'll explain which elements are strong against which later. Anyways, the Wind Style user is defeated, and returns home burned and crippled, never able to fight again. While stuck at home, he practises other types of Ninjutsu, since he has nothing else to do. Then he discovers that his water affinity was actually almost as high as his wind, let's say... about 90% as high. He laments his missed opportunity that would've saved him from his fire-wielding opponent and wishes he could've gone back and trained his Water Style while he had the chance."

Himiko breathed heavily once her rant was finished. Seija was going over the words in her head an swiftly agreed with them. She absolutely didn't want to end up like that.

"I don't want that to be you, Seija. You're an amazing child, I bet you could master any element that you set your mind to, so we're going to be practising all of them to try and figure out your exact affinity for all of them on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest one shown by the paper, and whatever the other ones are being less than that, depending on how much chakra of that element you can produce. Fortunately we have an old Jutsu that we stole from Danzo that can test just that."

"Now, push some chakra into that paper. Let's take a look and see."

Seija did just that and let her chakra flow. The paper immediately wrinkled around her fingers, before turning brown and crumbling to dust.

"Hah! Should've seen that coming. Your earth and lightning affinities are equally high. They were the first ones that appeared during your chakra-flare incidents so that makes total sense. We'll label them both as 10."

Seija quirked an eyebrow.

"Lightning?"

"Yes, that's what the wrinkling reaction was. If it was fire, it would turn to ash. If it was wind, it would've split in half. And if it was water, it would've become soaking wet. It wrinkled around your fingers and then turned into brown dust, which means it was lightning and earth."

"Cool! So uh... how do we figure out the affinity level of the other 3?"

"With a Justu we found in Danzo's lab. Weird thing, honestly. It barely even functions as a Jutsu and it has far too many hand signs to be useful in combat, 83 to be exact."

"Huh?! 83 hand signs for a single Jutsu?!"

"I know, right? We think it's because it was abandoned shortly after its creation and was left written down in its least efficient state. There are probably as many ways to optimize this thing as there are individual hand signs in existence, but for now all we need is for you to be able to cast it." Himiko fished a small scroll out of her back pocket.

"What this Jutsu does is it lets you take a chunk of your chakra and compress it into a physical, solid blob. Then, all you have to do is add a nature transformation, such as any of the five basic elements, and it'll slowly produce a substance from that element until the chakra runs out. Practically useless unless you want to make a campfire, a temporarily refilling pot of water, or a nice cool breeze for a hot summer day, but for our purposes we can use it to figure out how high your affinities are by comparing the time that each element lasts compared to the others!"

'That... seems oddly convenient. Almost like it was made for testing chakra natures... and they just happened to steal something that would be perfect for me to practise with years before I was born? Hey, Firewall?'

"[Yes, Seija?]"

'What happened to my luck wishes, exactly? How long before my birth did they activate, and have they worn off yet?'

"[Your luck wishes activated twenty years before you were born. It was what you requested from the Great System to make sure that your birth would be as advantageous as possible. It wore off on your fifth birthday, meaning that it lasted exactly 25 years, and ended on the day that I re-awoke.]"

'Wait a god-damn second! That's why I had that memory surge during my awakening, isn't it?!'

"[Correct.]"

Seija almost felt cheated. She thought she had done so well to pull through her awakening... but it was all luck after all?!

'Surely not...'

"[It was not. The memory surge itself was caused by your luck, however there were a number of events entirely caused by you that allowed it to occur in the first place. For instance, had you not been so fixated on discovering what was so strange about Nagato, your memories would not have been primed to emerge like they did, no matter how much luck you had.]"

"[To analogise: had you not posessed the fortitude to push through the pain, none of it would've even helped. Any multiple of zero is still zero, it was your own actions that increased your chance of success above zero to then be multiplied by your luck.]"

'That's... *sigh*... Thank you, Firewall. I thought the Great System said you had no personality? You're being very reassuring today.'

"[Keeping you safe is in my programming. Maintaining your mental health is a key component of that objective. Thus, you should be happy, and I should do my utmost to ensure that you remain happy.]"

Seija was broken out of her reverie by her mother clapping in front of her face.

"Oi, Seija! What are you zoning out for?! You've got a Jutsu to learn and those 83 hand signs aren't going to memorise themselves!"

"Ah! Right! Sorry mom, I was just thinking about how convenient it was that you had such a Jutsu on hand!" Seija spoke completely truthfully. It was always less suspicious that way.

"You won't be saying that once you're through the whole thing. You're lucky that part of the Jutsu's ridiculously long list of signs is to perform the nature transformation for you, or else you would have to learn that right now as well! You just have to pick the right element at the end by changing the final hand sign depending on your target. Remember: it's Tiger for fire, Snake for earth, Dragon for lightning, Bird for wind, and Dog for water." Himiko stood back up, leaving Seija to her learning.

"Let me know when you finish. It'll probably take a few days. For now I need to go out and buy a pocket watch like Fuso's to time you with."

"Ugh... that's an excuse mom! I know you're jealous of Mrs Fuso's watch~" She teased.

Big mistake.

"...You know what? You've asked for it now. Time limit: If you can't get at least the first 70 signs perfected before I get back, you're going to go help Nagato with his history homework." Himiko said sweetly, mirthful eyes practically glowing behind her seal.

Needless to say, as talented as Seija was, she could not get past even the first 40 signs before her mother returned.

At least Nagato was happy to have some help. History in a world where major ninja villages didn't even exist until 50 years ago was mind-breakingly boring. And Seija had to admit that she at least enjoyed hearing Mrs Fuso's stories about lands she and her husband Ise had travelled through before they settled down in the Land of Rain.