Ti began to fly.
Training Wind Style under Kazama Etsu felt like Kono's life finally clicked into a rhythm.
Every morning after breakfast she shook Might Guy down for pocket money.
Then she split into two shadow clones.
Academy Kono attended class to learn the basics, kept good relations with the clan heirs, took Sasuke down a peg, cheered Naruto on, and nudged Ino when needed.
Now and then she confided a few carefully chosen "worries" to her growing circle of friends.
The thods for training Yin and Yang Release tied directly into her Reverse Eight Gates research.
The earlier she started, the longer she would have to refine it.
Water-Style Kono headed out to find waterfalls and wildlife, training water nature change in tandem with form change.
Form change was the day's real priority.
It was fussy and varied, but portable across elents.
Master one form and every nature change thereafter could piggyback on the result. For soone born with all five natures, the return on investnt was absurdly high.
Let the clones grind the tedious work.
Leave the hard bosses for the original.
Each day she scooped a pouch of leaves from the roadside and was waiting at the hospital doors before eight. She did not leave until it was nearly ti for dinner.
By now many of the doctors and nurses recognized the pretty blind girl and teased that she was more punctual than they were.
Kono would chat a little, make herself known.
dical ninjutsu was Yang Release too.
If she really did end up working at the hospital soday, early familiarity with the environnt would not hurt.
And there was a bit of making the best of it.
Wind nature change was tougher than she had imagined. At last she understood why the Hyuga in the original story practically never used elental releases.
On paper, elental nature change was also a kind of form change.
But nature change lived at the microscopic level, while form change leaned macro.
The Byakugan's chakra control was unrivaled at the macro scale. Drop to the micro and it lost its bite. She tried everything and found no shortcut.
For soone used to leveling with cheats, the grind chafed.
Four or five days at the hospital and she still had little to show.
Of course hard does not an impossible. With wind as an innate nature, she could follow the hand seal formulas and cast standard Wind Style jutsu easily.
For most people that would be prodigy territory.
Kono was not most people.
In a real fight, where everything changes in an eye blink, spitting out twenty-odd seals for a middling Wind Style was strictly worse than flicking off Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets.
No matter how hard, she had to nail wind as a nature change.
In the ward.
Kazama Etsu lounged back, sipping the juice Kono had bought him, tossing pointers her way.
He looked blissfully content.
At last this little monster had hit a wall.
If she mastered nature change as fast as form change, he suspected the Leaf's jutsu R and D would open a new research topic.
A proposal titled: A Study to Verify the Blood Relation Between Kono Taketori and the Sage of Six Paths.
"Keep going.
"Split a single unit of chakra into two perfectly even halves and hold them in absolute balance. Not one grain more on either side. Push both halves in opposite directions on the sa point and you will get the cleanest tear."
Kono held a leaf on her open palm.
Deep blue chakra crept along the midrib. Its color paled, as if it might dissolve into a breeze at any mont.
Rrrrip.
The leaf made a tiny tearing sound.
Kono flicked her Byakugan open to inspect the cut.
"Fail."
Kazama Etsu did not even look. He narrowed his eyes and passed sentence on her wind nature change.
True wind training, when mastered, split a leaf without a whisper. The fragile blade would simply fall into two pieces.
The facts matched his call.
Though the leaf separated under chakra, a fringe of fine, irregular barbs lined the torn edge.
Her chakra had not reached perfect balance.
"I should be at the balance point already."
Kono frowned.
After so many days, she refused to believe she could not distribute chakra evenly.
"Equal pressure and equal volu, forces in opposite directions, and most important, they must act on the exact sa point."
Kazama Etsu glanced at the serrations. The forces had not bitten on a single locus. That alone produced a sawtooth tear.
Kono tossed the split leaf into the bin with a sigh.
She pulled out another and went back to feeling for the balance.
Wind's demands were brutal. Every factor had to be perfectly even. It was like those balance acts in her previous life.
Miss the true fulcrum by a hair and wind chakra collapsed.
Watching her struggle soothed Kazama Etsu's soul.
Now that looked right.
This was how you forged strength.
He had been drenched by the rain. He saw no reason to let Kono keep her umbrella.
"Quiet your mind. The more you rush, the further you get from that special state."
Kono's lashes fluttered.
He was guiding her, yes, but his tone dripped with schadenfreude.
Infuriating.
Rrrrip.
A slip, and the leaf sheared cleanly in two.
"Fail."
"╰_╯"
She sighed, dug deep into her pocket.
She needed wind nature change down before autumn. Once the leaves turned brittle, the drill would only get harder.
…
The day vanished.
Kono trudged back to the Hatake compound, drained. Wind still would not yield, but the key points were in her grasp.
It was only a matter of ti.
"You are late today. Your shadow clones are waiting in your room."
In the kitchen, Might Guy worked the pans in an apron. His technique had grown smooth.
"Got it. Kakashi still out?"
Kono sounded genuinely puzzled.
She had wind, water, yin, and yang lined up. Maybe she could squeeze lightning nature change out of Kakashi.
But a quick Byakugan sweep as she ca in had found no trace of his chakra.
"ANBU seems slamd lately. He has not been back in days."
Lately.
Kono thought a mont. At this point in ti, ANBU would be busy because of the Uchiha.
The massacre had nothing to do with her and she had no intention of wading in.
From now on she should co ho earlier. The less chance of seeing sothing she should not, the better.
Decision made, she pushed open her bedroom door.
Academy Kono and Water-Style Kono sat waiting on the bed.
Both looked grim.
"What happened?"
Kono sensed sothing off and closed the door behind her.
Water-Style Kono's tone was heavy. "Block out the fatigue first. We will dispel and you will know."
Kono shut her eyes.
Body Mastery kicked in and muted her sense of exhaustion.
"Done."
"Release."
Boom.
Both clones blew into smoke. Their mories, sealed in chakra, poured back into Kono at speed.
"Ugh…"
For an instant her body felt a shade heavier. Her brain stalled under the flood of information.
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