A New Kekkei Genkai...?

Sakura's encounter with an Electromaster of Raiga's calibre had given her much to think about; namely the direction in which she needed to focus her energies. So far, she had adopted a rather happy-go-lucky approach to her training— practising the skills the System hand-fed her, absorbing the breast chakra of each female enemy she came across, learning the main characters' signature Jutsu like a good little transmigrator— but it was becoming increasingly clear to Sakura that learning things at random was detrimental to her growth as a kunoichi.

Not every Jutsu was worth learning, and not every skill was necessarily a good fit for her.

For example, take the Chidori, which Sakura had diligently practised every day since she'd learned it, yet had never used in battle. She didn't possess the dynamic vision to use the Chidori without passing for a headless chicken, so without the Sharingan, what possible use could she have for such an incomplete Ninjutsu?

For the time being, Sakura was a jack of all trades, yet a master of none.

While it was undoubtedly essential for a shinobi to have options and a diverse skill set, there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. There was only so much time in a day, and Sakura only had so much time to train— which meant that she urgently needed to identify her strengths and capitalise on them.

…and it's not as if specialising was a bad thing— take Naruto, for instance. The Naruto from the original timeline had only ever learned two moves, but through craftiness and sheer guts (and infinite chakra), he had managed to save the world armed with only Shadow Clones and spinning balls of chakra!

'So, what are we good at?' said Inner Sakura. 'Shall I make a list?'

Genjutsu was the first thing to come to Sakura's mind.

Her body housed multiple physiques within its small frame, but she had only obtained a single Kekkei Genkai so far: the bloodline that manifested illusions into reality, capable of turning Genjutsu into a lethal weapon— the Kurama clan's Kekkei Genkai.

And yet… Genjutsu didn't possess the same oomph as Ninjutsu. Many things in this world were incredibly resilient to Genjutsu, including many endgame bosses. While Sakura's Breast Illusion Genjutsu could enthral all men, her technique could be easily broken— women, Jinchūriki, the LGBT community, even something as simple as breaking line of sight…

'Keeping Genjutsu in our arsenal is a must,' said Inner Sakura, 'but it can't be our only weapon.'

Then, how about Kenjutsu?

Sakura had inherited Manyuu Chifusa's sword skills, but those would become increasingly obsolete as time went on. That's not to say a samurai's skills were completely useless— Kakashi's ancestors had managed to adapt their Hatake family Kenjutsu to something useable by ninja after swapping jobs from samurai to shinobi. If the White Fang was anything to judge by, the way of the sword was an extremely powerful path to follow.

Sadly though, the White Fang had committed Sudoku (and was currently trapped in limbo, unable to reach the Pure Land) and his son Kakashi was in love with the idea of love (and Sasuke), making them less than stellar teachers. And without their help, Sakura didn't think she'd be able to evolve her swordsmanship to the levels needed to fell a goddess, so Kenjutsu was a no-go.

As for Taijutsu…

Sakura could easily follow the original Sakura's path with Chakra Enhanced Strength, but this was a path that led nowhere— gorilla strength was useless without the ability to strike one's target. Even though Lady Tsunade was the strongest human in the world (physically), she stood virtually no chance against someone who had unlocked their Eight Inner Gates.

Taijutsu was a great tool to use in close combat, but Sakura couldn't see the value in specialising in Kung Fu unless it had anything to do with the Eight Gates. And realistically… Sakura didn't think she'd be able to endure Rock Lee's training and open more than one gate! Furthermore, Sakura preferred to fight using her head… but having a time limit imposed upon oneself encouraged the fighting style of a berserker.

At any rate, if Sakura couldn't have the Eight Inner Gates, then Taijutsu wasn't worth the time investment for her— she'd still train her body, make no mistake, but no more than the average kunoichi.

…which left only Ninjutsu.

Of the five nature transformations, the one Sakura excelled at the most was fire. She was also highly proficient with wind and skilled with lightning, but beyond those three natures… she was appallingly ordinary with water and had never tried changing her chakra's nature to earth.

"Fire, lightning and wind," Sakura muttered to herself. "Destructive, lethal and versatile, respectively…"

Mechanically, Sakura sat in the lotus position on the Curry of Life Shop's tatami floor and closed her eyes.

Breathe in…

With practised ease, Sakura began moulding some chakra.

Breathe out…

A thin wisp of green chakra escaped Sakura's pink lips— she had successfully performed a wind chakra transformation.

Breathe in…

Sakura sucked in the pale green gaseous chakra and sent it spiralling back into her chakra pathway system, before sealing it into her right breast for later use. She had used up the entirety of the wind chakra she had accumulated over the past weeks to punch a lightning bolt, so she needed to replenish her emergency supply…

'Remember how Raiga cancelled our fireball?' Inner Sakura piped up. 'Electricity has a strange effect on flames, it seems…'

If Lightning Style could kill fire itself, then could it also perform the reverse? Flames were chaotic by nature, but if Lightning Style could somehow tame Fire Style, then wouldn't it also be capable of enhancing it? Enhancing a flame's shape, range, combustion rate…

Sakura's breathing quickened.

Had she accidentally come across something amazing? She just had to try! As fast as she could manage it, Sakura kneaded some more chakra and transformed it into lightning-attributed chakra, before sealing it into her left breast. This process took slightly longer than it had for the wind transformation, since her aptitude with lightning nature transformation was lower and since she didn't have nearly as much experience with this element.

Her eyes snapped open.

Sakura stood up and headed for the dining area, where Naruto and Sasuke were still reluctantly poking at their cold and unfinished plates of curry, and grabbed two spoons— one for each hand.

First, Sakura concentrated on the spoon in her right hand— moulding chakra, converting it to the fire nature, coating the utensil with it— and with a fwoosh, the spoon lit up with azure flames. Then, Sakura concentrated on the spoon in her left hand, and soon enough, it was crackling with electricity.

"How are you doing that?" Sasuke blurted out, a brief look of shock flashing across his handsome features. "That shouldn't be possible."

Somehow, Sakura was performing two distinct nature transformations at the same time, right before his eyes…

"Whaddya mean?" asked Naruto in confusion. "I've seen you do the same thing plenty of times, ya know?"

Naruto was referring to Sasuke's Great Fireball Jutsu and his Chidori.

"Should have paid attention at the academy, you dunce," Sasuke muttered irritably. "Not at the same time; it would be like trying to look left and right at the same time— not possible. The only way to use two natures at once is with a Kekkei Genkai— but even then, there would be only one activation, and the two natures would meld together to create a new nature."

Sasuke's words gave Sakura pause— even though she was just letting one of her Breast Seals leak chakra into her left hand for the lightning part (leaving her only the fire half of the work to consciously think about), it was still taking all of her concentration to keep both nature transformations running in parallel.

So, instead of the difficulty being something on the level of doing calculus with your right hand and your taxes with the left at the same time, it was more like trying to draw two perfectly parallel lines at the same time with a pen in each hand.

Then, why not combine the two natures into one? And then, what if she added wind to the mix…?

'You're getting ahead of yourself again,' said Inner Sakura lackadaisically. 'Start small.'