“If this is another—” we both began angrily, and stopped. Blinked, in unison. Slowly smiled, still in unison.
“I’m earth-natured,” I said.
“I’m water,” she confirmed.
“So that’s how we make an aspect!” We both exclaimed. Then we embraced, and flowed back together.
A moment later I opened my eyes on the real world, once more alone in my head. The split had been purely temporary, and easily reversed. But this time I had only a little bit of a headache, and after a short rest and an hour of trial and error I managed to do it again.
Once I’d found the trick it was easy. I could split myself temporarily along any pair of affinities, and merge again just as easily. While I was split my aspects could trade control of my body back and forth just like I’d done with my original healer/warrior dichotomy, and one of us could make a clone for the other to use as a body. Better still, once there were two of me we could trade bits of personality and memory back and forth just like I’d done with Naruto’s version of me. That was more of a strain, but as long as I was careful about merging in an orderly fashion when I was done it didn’t seem to do me any harm.
But my chakra was noticeably weaker when I split myself, and I found that I didn’t always like the tradeoff. Besides, newly-formed aspects based on different chakra natures turned out to make for poor company. They were essentially me with a slightly different emotional mix, which meant we tended to talk in unison and think exactly alike most of the time. Maybe if I kept the same split for a few weeks that would change, but at the time I was still fascinated by the splitting process itself. If I could learn to do that as fluidly as I wove my combat techniques I’d be immune to three-fourths of the mental attacks I’d ever heard of, including Sharingan genjutsu.
So instead of settling on a new division I practiced splitting and merging myself in different ways, until the process was as natural as water walking. That, and my ongoing project to master fire and water techniques, occupied my training time all through that summer and fall.
“Lord Tashimoto requires your presence in the capital, to attend to his pregnant wife,” the samurai insisted. He had three men with him, all armored and armored in traditional fashion, and from the strength of their chakra they had better training than your usual soldiers. They might actually be able to match a genin team in a fair fight.
I crossed my arms and scowled at them. “If I go to the capital I’ll get dragged into your politics, and I have no interest in wasting my time on court intrigue. If Lord Tashimoto’s wife needs healing she can see a doctor there, or come out here and wait for me just like everyone else.”
The samurai’s hand fell to his katana. “That was not a request, honored healer. If you will not come voluntarily we will bring you by force.”
I called up the full force of my chakra to form a swirling blue aura of power around me, and focused a Killing Intent genjutsu on them. The leader paled and took a step back. One of his men passed out from fear, and another wet himself.
“You have no power to compel me, little man,” I growled. “Now take your arrogant presumption and go, before I change my mind about letting you live!”
They left in such haste they almost forgot to take their unconscious companion with them. I dropped the aura as the door slammed shut behind them, and turned back to the cluster of patients waiting by the fireplace.
“Now,” I said with a friendly smile. “Who was next?”
Fire and earth make a lovely combination.
I’d never been very impressed with Konoha fire techniques. I mean, how many different ways do you need to be able to breathe fire at your enemies? After mastering Fire Dragon I’d quickly used my knowledge of shape manipulation to experiment with other approaches, and for awhile Fire Claw and Flame Shield were part of my close combat style. But without the air influence of a big exhalation it was hard to get any range out of a fire attack, and harder to get enough intensity to do fatal damage to a serious opponent.
It was a cold winter, and a mountain covered with several feet of snow seemed like a good place to experiment with alternatives.
Making a fire-natured Rasengan was the obvious way to beat the penetration problem, although I must have blown up a hundred shadow clones before I got it to work. Considering that I usually master A-rank techniques in two or three tries I doubted anyone else would be duplicating that little trick. Flame Rasengan created a whirling ball of plasma that gave off an eerie keening sound and carved through stone as easily as air, and for a few weeks I thought that was going to be the big payoff from my extended foray into fire techniques.
But mixing fire with earth made lava. I could shape it like water, throw it, project it in streams that would melt steel and vaporize living tissue. Ok, so it took a lot of chakra to make, but it was incredibly useful. I burned my arms off a few times before I got the hang of fireproofing myself, but that project led to a neat little Lava Clone technique and hinted at the possibility of actual elemental transformations. Of course, screwing up a technique to turn myself into flame or lava or even earth would be instantly fatal, so that research would have to wait for a series of short loops.
Still, it was the biggest increase in my combat power I’d seen in years. I couldn’t afford to throw around big, slow-moving blasts of lava that a serious enemy would just dodge, but over the course of the winter I carefully crafted efficient techniques for forming weapons out of the stuff. First kunai, then a proper sword, then a whip. They were all made of white-hot liquid stone, which was impossible to parry and did horrendous damage to anything they struck. I could one-punch just about anyone I normally fought with a weapon like that.
I’m sure Orochimaru would just hit me with a water jet and let the resulting steam explosion flash-fry me, but he’s not exactly your normal opponent.
Astoria’s business card was one of the last things I found in my mental housecleaning. At first I wasn’t ever sure what the little rectangle of paper was, since the last time I’d seen the thing it was still glowing from her touch. It said:
Astoria of the Fertile Field
Goddess Third Class, Category Two, Trainee
Office of the System Administrator
3325-4343-3032-5546-3183-2951
I gave the long string of digits a contemplative look, and groaned. My demon memories informed me it was a comm code, but I didn’t have access to either of the celestial systems. I couldn’t just summon a terminal and call her, and she probably wouldn’t appreciate being the target of a demonic communion ritual.
“Well, there’s bound to be another way,” I said to myself. “Maybe the Hyuuga know a communication technique that isn’t based on human sacrifice? I’ll have to ask Hinata.”
Aspecting myself was a neat way to gain an instant ally, but the fact that I had only one body was a serious limitation. I could give her a clone to inhabit, but shadow clones are fragile and elemental clones are much weaker than my real body. I’d actually hit the limits of human ability in that department, and I was loath to give up the advantage of being as fast and strong and tough as it’s physically possible for a person my size to be. So one fine spring day I set out to try something different.
I knelt on the soft new grass in a hidden hollow on the lower slopes of my mountain, and drew a sharp shard of glass across my wrist. The blood that rushed out was full of my chakra, and I shaped it into a ball with an improvised technique. After a moment I healed the wound, and turned my attention to the blood.