WAB: Chapter 10

Over the course of the next couple of months, most of my time was dedicated to training. In large part, this was because I had enough Ryo thanks to my several bounties and high-ranking missions that I could afford it. Not only that, but with the Village at least temporarily at peace, it wasn't quite so pressing that I take constant missions as I had been doing. With those reasons and the rather large number of training exercises I had obtained in-hand, I was able to buckle down and really get to training. With Fire, Lightning, Yang, Earth, and Wind Nature Transformation Exercises, I had quite a bit to train.

I decided to start by finishing the Yang Chakra Exercise. I had already finished the First Stage, growing a leaf with Yang Chakra without causing the leaf to mutate. The Next Step would be doing the same to an animal. Much like how the traditional method of learning the Shōsen Jutsu (Mystic Palm Technique) was to heal the wounds of Fish, the traditional method of doing this was to grow a fish from small to large. Staring down at the bucket filled with Hanguri Gulf Saury, I shook my head, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.

Theoretically, this should have been easier thanks to my getting the first stage down. In practice, it was anything but. In order for me to do this, I needed to first figure out where the Tenketsu and Chakra Pathways were on the Fish. This would help me to more easily inject Yang Chakra into the Fish and circulate it evenly. The theory was that if you could do that with a fish, then you should be able to do the same with a human, as the basic practice wouldn't change, only the shape of the pathways and number of Tenketsu. In practice, however, it was a lot harder to figure out than that made it seem.

The First Fish I tried it on wound up mutating into a mass of fleshy tendrils. I had to use the Katon: Hi no Yajirushi (Fire Release: Arrow of Flame) technique to destroy the damn thing and put it out of its misery. The next several attempts went similarly, and by the end of the first day of training, I had only managed to limit the level of fleshy tendrils the mutation spawned. It took me five days, in fact, to stop getting tendril mutations in my fish. The next five days were spent trying to avoid other, less horrific mutations. Fins spouted claws, teeth became serrated, scales hardened to the consistency of stone, bones thickened, and so on and so forth. Random mutations, which by themselves wouldn't be terrible, if only they were stable.

In the end, it took me just under two weeks to master the second stage of the Yang Chakra Exercise. However, by the time I did, Yang Chakra not only leapt to my call quickly, but also did what I demanded of it far more easily as well. It seemed the Nature Transformation Exercises were meant to get you over blocks by training your affinity intensively more than anything else. I had no idea how some Ninja, like Lord Third, could have managed to Master a Nature Transformation Exercise in just a few days, as he had supposedly done for the Fire Nature Transformation Exercise. It seemed practically impossible to me that something like that could be done. However, I guess that's what it meant to be the God of Shinobi. You got to do shit that no one else could.

Once I was finished with the Yang Nature Transformation Exercise, I moved on to the Fire Nature Transformation Exercise. The First Stage of Which was to burn a hole through the exact center of a leaf without the fire spreading and burning the rest of the leaf. That stage took me a bit as the fire kept wanting to spread, and I needed to work on confining it. By day three, however, the leaf was no longer burning entirely, and by day five, I had confined the flame to the inside of the leaf, though in a much larger radius than the exercise called for. In the end, it took me a week to master the first stage and then on to stage two.

This was similar, except instead of doing it to something as flimsy as a leaf, you had to do it to a wooden board, increasing the power output substantially while still confining the flame to the exact center of the board to maintain control. This seemed like it would only take me a week, owing to the fact that Fire was my Primary Natural Affinity. Of course, the same could have been said for Yang, which I also had a strong Natural Affinity for, but the Yang Exercise was a lot more involved because of the Nature of Yang as an internal Nature. Internal Chakra Natures could be a lot trickier to work with, after all. There was a reason that the more powerful Yang and Yin techniques tended to be restricted to various Clans, after all.

It would help if I had Shadow Clones to cheat, but I didn't have the Chakra reserves of our resident Jinchuriki to allow me to just span the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique) like that. The Iwa Bunshin no Jutsu (Rock Clone Technique) that I had likewise didn't come with the same training aides that Shadow Clones did. I was stuck doing this the hard way, as per usual. It seemed there was nothing for it. I would just have to put in the work personally rather than rely on a cheat technique.

By the end of the first five days of Training, I had gotten the flame to burn a hole through the center of the planks of Ironwood that I was using to train with. It was still larger than I wanted it to be, similar to how it worked with the Leaf for the first stage of Training. Fortunately, it only took me two more days to get it where I wanted, and by the end of my First Month of training, however, I had finally managed to master the Fire Nature Transformation Exercise. I could now move on to the Lightning Nature Transformation Exercise.

This, it turned out, didn't use a leaf. Instead, it used a metal needle. The goal of the exercise was to hold the needle in your bare hand, channel Raiton (Lightning Release) Chakra through it, and have one end glow without shocking yourself or having the chakra spread to the rest of the needle. This, it turned out, was easier said than done, as Lightning naturally wanted to conduct through the whole needle. That was just simple science. The goal here seemed to be to force the science into doing what you wanted through the use of Chakra.

It took me three days to stop shocking myself, though. That was a pain in the ass, or the fingers as the case may be. However, by the time day five rolled around, I was able to confine the sparks to the top third of the needle. It would take me two more days to trim that area down further so that only the end of the needle was electrified, but thankfully, my Natural Affinity for Lightning was helping me out here, even though it was more minor than my Fire and Yang Affinities. I finally managed to get the First Stage down in just eight days of training, though, and could move on to the next stage.

The Second Stage of the Lightning Nature Transformation Exercise involved a pair of two-foot iron spikes. The goal was to take the control you learned in the first stage, scale up the power to produce bolts, and then direct those bolts from the tip of one spike to the tip of the other. It was the second most involved of the Nature Transformation Exercises I'd dealt with thus far, after the Yang Nature Transformation Exercise. Thankfully, it was still a lot less involved than that one had been, just by dint of not involving a living creature and its tenketsu and chakra pathways. I could do this.

It took me four days to get the first spike properly electrified. The extra power required me to spend time increasing my control to match, and for the first few days, I had to keep a Medic-Nin on standby to heal my palms from electricity burns. Thankfully, I had the Ryo to do so, and Sakura was willing to do it for a nominal fee, as she needed practice healing electrical burns anyway. Apparently, Tsunade-Sama counted it as extra training for her, which seemed fairly par for the course for her, now that I think about it. Regardless, by the eighth day, I was able to get the Lightning to project off the tip of one spike. I spent the next three days working on directing the Lightning toward the other spike, but finally managed on the eleventh day of training with the Lightning Nature Transformation Exercise.

"Finally." Huffed Sakura as I managed to get the second stage down.

"What? I thought this was good training for you?" I questioned.

"It is, but I got tired of healing electrical burns four days into this." Admitted Sakura.

"Oh yeah?" I queried.

"No offense, Choji, but you're kind of a training maniac. Once you put your mind to learning something, you just don't ever stop till you've gotten it down." Sighed Sakura.

"And just what's wrong with that?" I asked.

"Nothing. It's not exactly normal, though." Sakura pointed out.

"It's important." I protested.

"I didn't say it wasn't, but you could stand to take a break every now and again, you know." Grumbled Sakura.

"You might have a point. Why don't I treat you to dinner as a thank you?" I questioned.

"All right. Where?" She queried.

"Yakiniku Q sound good?" I asked.

"All right, just let me go home and change first." Nodded Sakura.

With that, Sakura ran off to get changed back at home, and that was how, instead of spending the evening working on the Doton (Earth Release) Nature Transformation Exercise, I wound up treating Sakura to dinner at Yakiniku Q. Honestly, while I wasn't the same as the Canon Choji by a long shot, even I had to admit that his choice of favorite resturant in Konoha was spot on. Yakiniku Q was amazing, and as such, the standard dinner spot for anyone who could afford to hang out and eat there. Unfortunately, it seemed that wound up meaning that I wasn't the only one who had the idea to eat here.

Sakura and I would wind up meeting some pretty illustrious company while at Yakiniku Q, and I would be getting a lot of news that would determine what I was doing for the rest of the year as well. . .

XXXX

As Sakura and I arrived at Yakiniku Q, we were greeted by the sight of two masked ANBU standing out front. The first one was wearing a Cat Mask, and the second one was wearing an Eagle Mask. I frowned on seeing that, but they let us in, so I just shrugged it off. We got our table, wondering just what that meant, ordered, and began to put meat and vegetables into the hotpot set in the center of the table. It was while we were beginning to fill our bowls for our first taste of Hotpot that I found out exactly what was going on.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't my apprentice out on the town, and with Choji, to boot! I wonder what Ino would think?" Came a familiar voice.

I turned to see Tsunade-Sama making her way over to our table, a bottle of Sake in one hand, while her beleaguered assistant Shizune trailed behind her, clutching her pet pig in both arms. Tsunade's expression was filled with mischief, and Shizune's was apologetic. I'd heard that Tsunade-Sama could be something of another person when she was drinking, even saw some of it on-screen back when this was just a piece of fiction to me, but seeing it in the flesh was something else.

"Tsunade-Sama." I nodded.

"You wouldn't be trying to two-time my apprentice with my other apprentice, would you, Choji?" Questioned Tsunade.

"It's not like that, Tsunade-Sensei." Tried Sakura.

"No? Then what is it like?" Queried Tsunade.

"Sakura helped me in my training. This is a thank you dinner." I answered.

"Is that all? Awfully chummy of you to take her out for a thank you dinner even after paying her a C-Rank Mission Payment already, isn't it?" Asked Tsunade.

"I assure you, there's nothing going on here." I insisted.

"Besides, Choji's not exactly my type. I prefer less rugged types." Added Sakura.

"Into Pretty boys, eh?" Questioned Tsunade with a chuckle.

"Tsunade-Sama, please." Tried Shizune, attempting to get Tsunade back to whatever private table they had.

"I mean, she did pine after Uchiha Sasuke for the longest time." I snorted.

"She did, didn't she?" Queried Tsunade with a grin.

"Ugh, don't you team up with her!" Groused Sakura.

"Sorry, Sakura." I shrugged.

"Anyway, I just stopped by to give you some news." Mused Tsunade.

"Are you sure you didn't stop by to tease me?" Asked Sakura with a frown.

"That's the perks of being your Sensei, Sakura." Grinned Tsunade.

"What news? Can we get back to that?" I questioned.

"Shizune, tell him." Intoned Tsunade.

"Ino and Shikamaru will be returning from their diplomatic postings in Oto and Suna soon." Informed Shizune.

"How soon is soon?" I queried.

"In time for the Bon Festival." Explained Shizune.

"Which, if you really aren't trying to two-time Ino, should be good news." Smirked Tsunade.

"How so?" Asked Sakura.

"Because it means you can take Ino to the Festival as a Date." Remarked Tsunade.

"We've also heard back from Jiraiya-Sama as well. He and Naruto will be returning in time for the Fox Festival." Added Shizune.

"So three and a half months and five and a half months, respectively." I mused.

"Everyone's coming back to the village." Mused Sakura.

"We've also got more news for Choji specifically." Continued Tsunade.

"Lay it on me, then." I insisted.

"The War God's Tournament in Iron Country is coming up at the end of the year. Because of how the Chunin Exams panned out, Shogun Mifune has asked for participants from each of the Five Major Hidden Villages to attend in the spirit of keeping the peace in the Elemental Nations. Tsunade-Sama has decided to send you with the Konoha Delegation." Informed Shizune.

"The War God's Tournament? That's big." I mused.

"Really big." Agreed Sakura.

"You won't be going alone, though. We're sending Rock Lee and Hyuga Hinata as well, with Maito Gai acting as the team coach. We want you all to at the very least beat enough of the Iwa and Kumo-Nin to show the world that Konoha isn't as overstretched as some people think." Explained Tsunade.

"I'm honored you thought of me, Tsunade-Sama." I nodded.

"Yeah, this is a big deal for anyone, but Choji's mainly a Taijutsu and Bukijutsu specialist, so it's an extra-big deal for him." Concurred Sakura.

"Don't get cocky, Brat. You can bet your ass every Village will be sending its best." Scoffed Tsunade.

"I would take the opportunity to train while you can, Choji-Kun." Affirmed Shizune, getting an affirmative oink from Tonton.

"Come on, Shizune, let's go. I need a refill." Huffed Tsunade, turning around and heading back toward their private table.

Dinner finished in a bit of stunned silence for Sakura and I. The War God's Tournament was a big deal. It would only spur my training on further if I wanted to be ready for the Tournament in time. True, Pure Ninjutsu was against he rules of the tournament, along with Genjutsu, but Nintaijutsu was perfectly acceptable, as was anything relying on pure shape or nature transformation, like the Raikage's Raiton: Inazuma no Manto (Lightning Release: Cloak of Lightning) or the Rasengan (Spiralling Sphere). I definitely wanted to get my Nature Transformation Exercise Training Finished before then.

Including potentially mastering the Suiton (Water Release) and Kōton (Steel Release) Nature Transformation Exercises as well. . .

XXXX

The next day, I threw myself back into my training, starting with the Doton Nature Transformation Exercise. The first step of this turned out to be similar to the first step of the Raiton Nature Transformation Exercise in that it didn't involve a leaf. Instead, the goal was to split a rock down the middle using only Chakra without causing any supplemental cracks or pieces to fall off. It was a lot harder than it looked, actually, especially as you were supposed to do it cleanly, with no chips or chunks of stone coming off the split. It all needed to be one, continuous, clean fissure down the middle.

It took me five days just to stop crumbling the rocks into fragments. It took me four more days to stop getting four or three separate chunks. By the time eleven days rolled around, I had just barely managed to get that one, continuous, fissure down the middle, but it wasn't clean. There were chips and pebbles coming off it, and the sides of the fissure were rough. It took me another day to finally get the fissure clean. This had by far been the longest amount of time it had taken me to get a step down, and the exercise wasn't over yet. I still had the second step to get down before I could call the Earth Nature Transformation Exercise mastered properly.

Thankfully, there weren't extra steps involved in the second step. It was literally just a matter of scale. I was supposed to do the same thing as the first step, get a single, continuous, clean fissure down the middle of a rock, except this time that rock was the size of a shed. I would have to increase the power output in order to crack this boulder in half, while also maintaining enough control not to shatter the boulder into a bunch of pieces or cause the fissure to be rough with chips and pebbles coming off it or anything like that. The process seemed simple, but if it was, it was deceptively so. The second step was a lot easier said than done, and took me fifteen days to fully master it, half a month. Ten of those were just avoiding turning the boulder into two-to-three smaller rocks, while the remaining five had me working on cleaning up the sides of the fissure.

Next, I moved on to the Wind Nature Transformation Exercise. This had me cutting a leaf in half with Wind Chakra without shredding the leaf, in a single clean slice. It took me five days to stop shredding the leaf, and six more to manage to cut the leaf all the way through in a continuous slice without causing supplemental cuts into the sides of the cut. Eleven days to get the first stage down. The second stage was one that was likewise going to be difficult, as it required me to dial the power up substantially.

That was because the second stage of the Wind Nature Transformation Exercise required you to split a waterfall in half. I found myself wading into an offshoot channel of the Hasegawa River to do it, one which fed into the Natural Hot Springs that the Konoha Onsen used for this training in just my boxers. The river water was cold, as the Hot Springs didn't heat it this far upstream. Fortunately, I was able to endure the cold, even if there was a certain amount of shrinkage every time I got in the water. It helped that we were at the start of summer in Fire Country, of course. If I needed to warm up, I could just climb out of the water and let the sun warm me up.

Regardless, this took me another sixteen days to master. Twelve of those were spent just reining in my chakra enough to avoid scattering the waterfall into droplets, dialing back the power. Unfortunately, that meant that I barely made a dent in the waterfall, cutting into it just a bit, though not nearly enough to split the water. The remaining four days were dedicated to slowly increasing the power to find the middle ground where I wasn't scattering the water into droplets, but could still punch through the entire sheet of falling water. On the sixteenth day, I finally cut the waterfall clean through, mastering the Wind Nature Transformation Exercise entirely.

At this point, I had Yang, Fire, Lightning, Earth, and Wind Mastered, which left me needing the Nature Transformation Exercises for Water and Steel left before I had my full slate of Elemental Chakra Natures mastered. I could try and bug Ino for the Yin Nature Transformation Exercise as well, which would allow me to effectively one-up Lord Third, as he had only had Fire, Lightning, Earth, Water, Wind, Yin, and Yang mastered. That was enough to earn him the moniker of the Professor, though. If I could one-up him, I wondered what my Moniker would be? Would I even get another one? I wasn't sure.

However, that was premature. For now, I had to grab the Water and Steel Nature Transformation Exercises. The second would require a trip to Sea Country to visit the ruins of Kyūden Akimichi and the Village of Kōtetsu no Kaigan. That wasn't something I could just up and do, as it would require planning. However, that didn't mean I couldn't find the Water Nature Transformation Exercise. My Cousin had given me a line on that earlier. I just had to go bug Ebisu for it. It would turn out that getting the Water Nature Transformation Exercise from Ebisu would wind up being something that would take me out of the village, as he had an errand for me to run in exchange.

And that, it turned out, would see me face to face with another Yokai, as the errand would take me to a disused shrine that had become the lair of a vicious Kanibōzu. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we have the next chapter. It's a lot of training, but also contains a bit of setup for future events around the return of Ino, Shikamaru, and Naruto, as well as the War God's Tournament in Iron Country. Choji now effectively has five Chakra Natures mastered to the level of a Natural Affinity or beyond. The requirement to be promoted to full Jonin is only to have three Chakra Natures mastered to the level of a Natural Affinity or beyond. His goal is to become a full Jonin by the time the Konoha Team leaves for the War God's Tournament in Iron Country at the end of the year.

At any rate, the next chapter will involve the errand that Choji is running for Ebisu in order to get the instructions for the Water Nature Transformation Exercise. Then we'll have one more training chapter before Ino and Shikamaru return to Konoha. I'll also have a few images out after then as well.

Stay tuned. . .