The two years passed quickly. That was most likely because I kept so busy. Every moment I wasn't at the Academy I was training. Either Misa and I would get together to train or Shikaku or Aiko would pull me aside for one-on-one training.
Once my chakra control was 'acceptable', Aiko mainly taught me medical techniques and poisoncraft. As a former iryõ-nin, she'd had to get very familiar with the most common poisons so she could treat them.
She helped me cultivate a garden spanning almost the entire yard filled with everything from lethal poisons to sedatives that would knock the target unconscious.
We also split up a section of the yard for tea leaves. Aiko encouraged me to keep at it so I had something that wasn't ninja related to focus on.
I hadn't intended to become so knowledgeable about poisons when I first showed an interest in them, but the added versatility to my repertoire could only help me, especially with how good I was with throwing weapons now.
My accuracy with throwing weapons had improved to the point where I would only miss if my target did something to block or dodge my throw. The poisons made my shadow and chakra string throwing a much more viable method of combat.
Aiko also supervised me and closely monitored my physical condition as I slowly built up an immunity to the poisons I intended to use in the field.
Yes, I might have promised by mother to not take any poisons inside my body but she was now dead. And if I ever fight someone like Orichimaru, a little immunity to some of the poisons might save my life or at least weaken the effect of Orichimaru's much dangerous poisons.
Besides, Aiko was meticulous in her care, measuring out precise doses and watching me like a hawk for hours at a time after I took the miniscule doses of watered down poison.
Some of the poisons I would be using could kill with a single drop, so she'd had to drastically dilute the solution to make it safe for me to imbibe. I don't have fond memories of my experiences during that time. There was a lot of vomiting and… Well, best to spare the details.
When I wasn't in the garden with Aiko, she tended to take me to the hospital. She'd taught me the Mystic Palm Technique after a month of working in the hospital with the iryō nin when she saw I was serious about learning how to heal people.
I practiced with a frog until the poor creatures stopped exploding, then steadily progressed to the point where I could work on patients.
I wasn't as good a medic as Aiko was, but she had shown me a lot, and I was confident I could serve as a team medic if there was no one else available.
I was much better with Yin chakra so it made sense that I was not that good with iryõ jutsu which uses yang chakra.
My training with Shikaku was far more intensive than it was with Aiko.
For a lazy guy himself, he pushed me hard, schooling me in Nara taijutsu and techniques and moving at a pace so fast we could outrun trains.
Yup, I was taught body flicker jutsu. Something that was not taught to academy students since it required a lot of chakra control as well as some physical durability.
Shikaku main focus was getting my ninjutsu to a passable level, but he recognized my abundant talent for everything Yin related and played into it. With his input and guidance, I was able to create two new techniques using shadows.
The first was a blatant copy of other techniques, just flavored with shadows. I called it the 'Hiding in Shadows Technique'.
It did exactly what the name makes you think of, let the user meld into shadows to hide themselves.
The inspiration came from the Hiding in Water Technique, something I'd initially wanted to learn before Shikaku told me Konoha was limited in the vein of water jutsu it had at its disposal.
Most water jutsu he could get his hands on were too advanced for me to learn quickly, so I focused on the few I could master fast.
The second shadow jutsu I made was called 'Transport Via Shadows'. I ripped the name from D&D, and the mechanics from the substitution technique.
Transport Via Shadows' range was nowhere near that of D&D's Transport Via Plants, but it was more versatile than the Substitution technique.
You needed something of equivalent mass in range to substitute with when using the Substitution technique.
Transport Via Shadows only required a shadow to be in your range. You infused your chakra and swapped places with the shadows for a brief moment. The second your chakra left the shadows, they scattered in the light and reconstituted themselves beneath you. The technique wasn't as fast as the Shunshin Shikaku taught me, but he was impressed with it nonetheless.
It was funny to see Shikaku face when he developed these techniques. He had muttered "what a troublesome brat" and that it shouldn't be possible.
According to Shikaku, no one had such mastery over shadows in the Nara clan since foundation. I blamed it on my abundant yin chakra which might be because of the reason that I died.
If I am not wrong, Yin is assosiated with death and rebirth.
Shikaku took both shadow jutsu as well as False Barrage and added them to the Nara Library which I took as a compliment. Sure, he might have just been storing them so someone could improve on them later, but I liked to think they were good enough that he wanted future generations of Nara to be able to use them.
Despite Shikaku's personal tutelage, I was only able to learn three elemental ninjutsu, one of each of Suiton, Doton and Katon, each one taking me months to learn – Fire Dragon Bullet, Rock shelter jutsu and the most rudimentary Water Clone jutsu.
Once I had the jutsu down I could cast it without issue, but learning fire, Earth and water jutsu was just extremely difficult for me for some reason. And both me and Shikaku knew that I would not be learning more of ninjutsus since it took me a lot of effort to learn them. Two years for C rank jutsus was a very long time.
What wasn't difficult, was the techniques I made from earth, water and fire.
---------Author Notes--------
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