Team Bonding and Personal Project

(Evening)

"You're late sensei." Kamui stated, annoyed at the woman being twenty minutes late.

"Well, this isn't mission related. Being a little late isn't that bad." Yugao defended, a little frazzled at having to rush all the way over. She had been showing Hayate a few new 'tricks' she'd been practicing when she realized what time it was. She set a new personal record for the fastest shower, prep, and arrival, clocking in at 10 minutes after her realization.

They were currently sitting at a park for a short team bonding session.

"Hmph. You'd think a sensei would set a better example. Isn't she just like that always-late jonin you told us about Kamui?" Naga coldly asked, unamused at being made to wait.

"Oh, come on Naga. Clearly, she must have been doing something important. I mean, there's probably a really good reason for this." Himiko responded optimistically, eliciting twitches from the Kamui and Naga whose noses revealed the truth.

The evidence of Yugao's activities, while faint after her quick shower, were still detectable for those with strong noses. Had any Inuzuka been present, they would have smelt the same thing.

"Let's shift topics." Yugao's eyes twitched at being exposed by her students. While Himiko may still be ignorant of the truth, Kamui and Naga's judging eyes revealed their revelation. Focusing on her two new students, she asked, "How are you two settling in? I just received word from the Hokage that you two are now fully registered as Konoha genin, though you've been placed on the same fast track as your teammate."

"It's been a little dull, but the past week's been cool. I mean, they finally gave me permission to really explore the village. The culture here is so different than back home. I mean, I haven't seen anyone wearing closed-toed shoes since I got here; it's always sandals." Himiko explained with a broad smile.

Naga's eye raised at the comment.

"Aren't you wearing sandals?" Naga asked skeptically.

"Not for long. I just didn't want to stick out too much. Now that I'm in though, I'm going back to what's practical." Himiko replied dismissively. "Speaking of which, why do you wear open-toed shoes for everything?"

"They just do that around here, specifically in lands where shinobi culture is dominant. I've read that close-toed shoes are used more in the minor nations, particularly ones with either colder climates or a lessened influence by shinobi culture." Kamui explained. She hadn't considered the question herself. Although she knew it wasn't ideal given their profession, she'd simply never gotten around to considering it.

"Basically, it was the preference of our ancestors during the warring states era, specifically with the Senju and Uchiha Clans. Most of our history in the last one hundred years revolved around everyone else copying their ideas. They were the strongest, so they must be right. At least, that's the mindset." Yugao added on, remembering her own questions on the matter in her younger years.

"What about you Naga?" Kamui asked, wanting to move on in the conversation.

"Hmm… Well, I've been pleasantly surprised." Naga replied with a hesitant smile.

"About?" Kamui asked.

"I was half expecting a cesspit of lies and hypocrisy. That's how Konoha was described by the scientists I grew up with after all." Naga pensively explained.

"What did you find?" Himiko asked, interested in how this wonderful village looks to another shinobi.

"It's… odd… seeing so many people ignorant of the shinobi world. I've found myself interested in studying the mindset of these civilians, the ones who hadn't had to experience the reality of this world." Naga explained.

"Give it time. I've seen plenty like you, lost souls whose first impressions of Konoha were built off enemy propaganda. As in all things, the truth can be gleamed by piecing together many different perspectives. While the views you've been fed aren't wrong per say, they aren't the whole picture either. I recommend you slowly build a more complete understanding of the village, one informed by your own experiences. Be careful of rash conclusions, ones born of haste and heightened emotion, as those often birth dangerous conclusions." Yugao calmly suggested. Pausing and noticing all three were paying close attention to her words, she decided to add one final point, "Oh, and this applies to most conclusions, ranging from those regarding the other villages to more micro-examples we'll encounter on our missions."

The group continued their conversation for another 20 minutes or so, discussing some of the different restaurants Himiko visited during her stay. Naga wasn't as adventurous, so they also spent time trying to convince her to get out more. After all, without prompting, she was perfectly content to eat a basic meal at home, rather than 'waste time' eating at the various restaurants.

Kiri Simulation Zone (The Next Afternoon) (Kamui's Point of View)

Kamui sat on a small chakra-made glacier on top of the water.

She had reached the stage in her earth sensing technique where she could leave its further advancement to her shadow clones and on-mission experience. Earth was by no means mastered, but the gains were diminishing, and progress would mainly stem from consistent use.

Instead of overfocusing on diminishing returns, last week, she decided to move on to connecting with and sensing through water. The water stage was perfect to train next. It's harder than earth, but with the heavy moisture in this zone, it serves as a great introduction to air. After all, the moisture in the air is as much water as the lake below.

["Kamui, we've been at this since the sun rose. I believe it's time to move on."] Yume advised, noticing Kamui's diminishing focus as the monotony set in.

*Sigh* 'That's a good idea. I think it's time to finish up our little project.' Kamui thought with relief, happy to be done with this excessive sitting.

Meditating for long periods on water-sensing was hard for her. It wasn't so much sitting still as it was clearing her mind to focus on the water's movements.

Water was different than earth. Aside from the natural movements of the tectonic plates, earth moves very little, so changes are easy to spot. Water moves based on any number of factors, so a baseline needs to be taken and accounted for before anything else. Basically, to use water reliably, Kamui had to spend some time understanding the natural flow of water through the combination of her earthen and water sense. Eventually, wind would be added.

Actually, wind would be another valid element to learn second; it would make determining the natural movements of the water easier. Kamui just determined water to be better to learn first. It helped that she didn't know how to go about starting wind's training yet. With water being closer to earth at the start, it made more sense to start with that.

Finding the baseline wasn't the boring part; it was tracking and interpreting changes over the course of hours. Right now, it took an hour to roughly understand the basic movements of the lake around her and that was with Yume's help; only then was she able to try finding changes made by her clones, which wasn't easy. With the baseline taking so long, it was challenging to keep track of all the information as she looked for the change after the fact. Needless to say, it would take a while.

Kamui stayed sitting, focused on her animal-path, and placed her hand on the ice.

'Summoning Jutsu'

A cloud of smoke popped into existence, revealing a thin, smooth, silvery-white handle with a scale-like pattern. The handle itself brimmed with life energy, having been carved from one of the thickest branches of the central tree in Kamui's core dimension.

Oddly enough, this was Kamui's idea and was her solution to keep away close-range specialists. Her goal had been to create the ultimate sword from the elements, one that could cut without any effort. By creating the ultimate sword, she would be deadly in close range even without it necessarily being her specialty.

With this, she could focus on improving her mid-range combat by having a suitable deterrent at close range. Sure, she could switch to a close-range-focused style, but that wouldn't be too feasible as her abilities matured. With more information being interpreted passively by her various abilities which slowed her reaction speed, she seriously had to consider that it would be best to leave most of the close-range fighting to Naga. Sure, she would make sure her close-combat abilities were at the highest level, but she knew she'd never be comparable to shinobi like her mother and father whose reaction speeds were divine. It also helped that she could later employ the finished products on range-typed weapons as well.

The question came to the materials. What would be needed to forge the ultimate sword? Kamui's answer was simple. Since she specialized in manipulating the elements, why not just use all of them to create the sword.

The handle, being wood release, was composed of the fusions of the earth, water, and yang releases, while the blade would be made of the combination of wind, lightning, fire, and yin releases. The handle was easy enough. She already had wood that would channel her chakra perfectly with her core realm's tree; it just needed to be carved.

Yume completed this part herself. She extracted the branch, used wood release to shape it, added the appropriate seals, and connected it to Kamui via the animal path. That way, Kamui could summon it rather than needing to push it through the pathway, which was still being developed. It would also let the sword return to the tree to be nurtured by its life-energy and strengthened over time.

The blade was the biggest project. The first stage was something she had previously completed and was what gave her the idea in the first place. She had made it for her sensei at her request before the Kocho island mission. She combined the cutting aspects of both wind and lightning.

Wind was the base. Then, she gradually added lightning to steadily increase the frequency of the sharpened wind blade. It eventually culminated into something she called sound release. By combining the cutting power of both, she created an extremely sharp blade capable of cutting most substances with ease. Her sensei's sword was the result of this combination.

The second stage, the one she was working on now, required her to continuously add fire to the sound-release blade. That's where the biggest problems were. She was having a hard time stabilizing the blade at the higher temperatures. The goal was to combine the intense heat of scorch release with the sharpness of sound release. She couldn't even consider adding yin-release yet. Though, she was pretty sure she'd just apply a subtle genjutsu and call it a day. Long story short, it was a work in progress.

The name of this 'ultimate sword' was Dragon Song.