Under the natural canopy of an Umbrella Tree, Hatani sat chewing on a rice ball while leafing through a small scroll roughly the width of his palm. He read with the rapt attention of a man discovering buried treasure.
On the header of the scroll, a few bold characters stood out: The Fundamentals of Wind Nature Transformation.
It was clear that Asayu, the Ame Chunin, hadn't been content with his rank. Having mastered Earth Style and reached a level of proficiency where he could use B-rank techniques like Earth Spikes, he had begun the grueling process of mastering a second element to pave his way toward becoming a Jonin.
In the shinobi world, promotion to Jonin required more than just a high mission count, contributions to the village, or leadership potential. Mastering a second nature transformation was a significant advantage—almost a prerequisite.
Unfortunately, Asayu had likely spent a small fortune or gone to great lengths to acquire this "secret manual" for Wind Style. He'd barely had a chance to flip through it before he met his end, and now it sat firmly in Hatani's hands.
Ever since Hatani was eight years old—when he'd finally saved enough system gold to purchase the Windranger hero template—he had been trying to understand the wind based on his own limited perspective.
While the system granted him the innate sensitivity and talent of a Windranger, he lacked a formal education. He was a self-taught practitioner in a world of specialists.
Even though his older brother was Namikaze Minato—the future Fourth Hokage—Minato had only been promoted to Chunin the previous year. He was constantly away on missions, which meant Hatani had effectively received zero guidance from his legendary sibling.
As for the Academy?
If you were a commoner student with zero background, the village did its duty: they taught you world history, the method for refining chakra, basic shurikenjutsu, and the Three Basic Jutsu. Beyond that?
C-rank ninjutsu? Elemental nature transformations?
Somebody get a bucket of ice water and wake this kid up from his delusions.
In this world, where lineage and background were everything, there were three distinct social tiers: commoner children, children of average ninja, and the scions of ninja clans.
Clan children were selected and trained from birth. Once they had a solid foundation, they moved straight into secret arts or hereditary family jutsu. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio, the Aburame, and the Inuzuka were the textbook examples of this privilege.
Then there were the "Great Clans" with Dojutsu—the red-eyed and white-eyed fanatics. The Uchiha and Hyuga had highly systematized training programs designed to maximize the potential of their bloodline traits once they awakened. Whether it was Uchiha shurikenjutsu or the Hyuga's Gentle Fist, those styles required their respective eyes to reach their lethal peak.
Below the great clans were the families like the Sarutobi or Shimura. They might not have had Kekkei Genkai or secret arts, but having survived since the Warring States Period, their libraries were stuffed with the accumulated experience, insights, and jutsu of their ancestors. These were resources a commoner couldn't buy with any amount of money.
One step down from the clans were the children of elite ninja.
This was the most varied group. The children of powerful Jonin—men like Sakumo Hatake or Shinko Yuhi—received resources that rivaled those of the clans. Every Jonin was a living encyclopedia, a finely tuned and lethal weapon. Moreover, attaining the rank of Jonin granted them the right to participate in village policy meetings, which translated into significant political pull.
(Note: While some stories treat the Hatake or Yuhi as clans, in this world, they are treated as elite individual lineages.)
Of course, all of this assumed the parents stayed alive. One only needed to look at Iruka Umino's struggle after the death of his parents to see how quickly that status could evaporate.
Then there were the children of the rank-and-file Chunin and Genin. They weren't as well-off as the tiers above them, but they still "won" at the starting line. Even a Genin parent served as a living textbook. They could clear the path for their children, helping them avoid the common pitfalls of cultivation. They could pass down their methods, their tricks, and whatever jutsu they had managed to scrap together during their careers.
Even if the child's chakra affinity differed from the parent's, a ninja parent had the network and the resources—or at least the thick skin—to trade for the proper training methods.
Again, the prerequisite was that they had to stay alive. Otherwise, the Third Hokage would be more than happy to let the village treasury "absorb" the leftover estate.
Namikaze Hatani was the perfect example of this tragedy. His parents had been low-level Genin who died young. He and Minato had actually lived a harder childhood than the kids of civilian merchants. At least those kids had a happy childhood free from the shadow of starvation.
For kids like them—orphans with no resources and no background—the Academy essentially handed them a "How to be Cannonball" starter kit and sent them on their way. After graduation, everything depended on fate.
If you were assigned a responsible, powerful Jonin sensei, you could learn a great deal. If your elemental affinity matched theirs, you might even "freeload" a few high-level jutsu.
But if you got stuck with an average Chunin who didn't care? Your only option was to pray or find a "thicker leg" to cling to as fast as possible.
Hatani had hit the jackpot by being assigned to the same team as Nawaki. Because of the Senju boy, they were assigned Mimura-sensei, an elite Jonin.
However, Mimura-sensei specialized in Fire and Earth. He knew next to nothing about Wind Style. Hatani could learn combat tactics from him, but nothing about his specific nature transformation. For a commoner ninja, the only other way to get a B-rank jutsu was as a reward for high-level missions.
But for a Genin who spent the first ten months after graduation catching cats and pulling weeds on D-rank missions, or occasionally walking a perimeter on a C-rank patrol? Finding a jutsu reward was a pipe dream.
So, in the eight years since he'd entered the Academy as a "ninja candidate," this was the first time he had ever laid eyes on an actual guide for Wind Style. Even if it was only a basic manual, the insights it offered provided a "stone from another mountain" that he could use to polish his own jade—a different perspective to refine his instincts.
Specifically, it gave him a significant breakthrough in how to combine his chakra with the Windranger's innate intuition.
The lethality of wind lies in two distinct paths: Cutting and Pressure.
Having finished the scroll, Hatani fell into deep thought.
"The first path is like Baki's Blade of Wind—using high-speed rotation to slice through enemies. It's lethal at close range, but maintaining that level of rotation over a distance is a nightmare. Without enough mass, the wind loses its edge. To keep it going, you have to pump in massive amounts of chakra, and that consumption scales exponentially with distance. It's inefficient."
He stared into the drizzle, his eyes losing focus.
"The second path is like the C-rank Great Breakthrough—using the massive pressure of the wind to blast enemies away. The ultimate form of this would be a typhoon or a hurricane. But trying to reach that level of power using only human-scale chakra... that seems nearly impossible."
(Note: There's a guy in the anime filler with 'Typhoon Style' who could hold his own against Sasuke's Susanoo. When it comes to power-creeping, the anime writers really know how to play the game.)
Comparing the two standard lethalities of Wind Style, Hatani found that both had pros and cons, but neither quite fit his vision.
"Is there a way," he wondered, "to make the wind maintain the crushing pressure of a storm while keeping the razor edge of a blade?"
The Wind: "Oh, human. Thy name is Greed!"
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