Oddity by KKephemeral

Chapter 14 - The Trials of Waterwalking

My ninjutsu training had come to a standstill in the following weeks. Even Biwako was surprised that I hadn't bugged regarding jutsus. While she hadn't yet shown it outright, I could clearly see the suspicion on her face whenever I said I was going out to train.

And strangely enough, she didn't ask me what I was training in either. Either my stubborn desire to figure things out on my own had convinced her that it was one of those things that I was pigheaded about or she thought that I had lost my interest in jutsus after failing to perform a D-rank jutsu. Either way, I didn't care about that much.

My mind was fully focused on figuring out the method to transform normal chakra into water natured chakra. And I had indeed picked a perfect training spot for it if I have to say myself. The Naka River was an ideal place for me to train.

It was isolated, had an abundance of water and rarely saw anyone near it. I had identified this small hidey-hole of my own while going on one of my morning laps. As luck would have it, the place had a natural source of water flowing just near it. It was just perfectly situated within the village borders while also receiving only a few visitors – the reason being it very close to the Uchiha's famous Naka shrine. Hell, even the Uchihas avoided the place in respect.

Immediately, I knew that this would be the perfect spot for me to figure things out. No one would expect a Senju to hang around the Uchiha section of Konoha. The fact that it was a river, which suited my affinity tremendously, was just the icing on the cake.

I exhaled heavily breaking out of the water as I struggled to swim against the current. I slowly swam to the share shivering with the wet cloths and threw myself on the bank with a huge sigh.

Repeatedly drowning in water was not a cool thing to experience. If this continued, I might even begin to hate water completely. And wouldn't it be ironic! A water natured shinobi hating water. I chuckled at the thought and reviewed my training to grasp what I had done wrong.

As you might have guessed, I am training in the art of water walking. Sure, it was a chakra control exercise and not ninjutsu, which might have defeated the entire purpose if not for the fact that it allowed me to be in touch with my element.

For the past few weeks, my progress had come to a standstill as I banged my head against the chakra nature problem. I had only been practicing my taijutsu forms and keeping up my shape with my morning runs. And ever since I went back to attending the academy, I couldn't spend as much time as I would have liked on the chakra nature problem either.

It began to frustrate me a lot since I felt that this was the time I need to progress further and further and not stay standstill in a place. And the news trickling into the village regarding the ongoing war didn't help me either. So, I had taken up the habit of strolling through Konoha to take my mind off things (it worked - partially).

As I was roaming around the village one day – mulling things over in my head and trying to figure out how to change my chakra nature, suddenly a light bulb went on in my head. In regards to chakra control, I had already mastered the art of tree walking. And the next logical step in that direction was water walking. That meant spending a lot of time near a flowing water body.

And guess what, it conveniently aligned with my intentions of knowing my own chakra nature a little better. To any onlookers (cough-Hiruzen-cough), it would look as if I had gotten tired over the chakra nature and had turned my attention elsewhere. But, on the other hand, I could try to work on two things at once.

Overjoyed by own cleverness, I soon began to search for a perfect spot to implement my plan. And thus, I came across this isolated patch of land where the river flowed near to the Naka Shrine on one of my morning runs.