Konoha Hospital.
Morning light seeped through the frosted panes, turning the antiseptic air a hazed gray-blue. Kazama Etsu lay flat on his back, dark green eyes fixed on a ceiling he knew too well, as lifeless as moss-choked water.
He had lived in this ward before. It might even have been this room.
Back then they had carried him off the Kumogakure front like a broken toy, all four limbs snapped and misaligned, a marionette ruined by a careless child.
Kyoko, Rin'yama, sensei...
With time, faces blurred. Even their features grew hard to recall. What visited him in the small hours now were only charred heaps of flesh on a blackened field.
"Kazama Etsu, stop leaning on a bit of talent to dodge training. Your Wind Release is nowhere near complete."
"What does it matter? Rin'yama will never beat me anyway."
"Pride will get you lost."
His teacher's scolding still rang in his ears. Back then, it had only annoyed him.
Until he met Kumogakure's elites on the battlefield and his team clawed open a window at the cost of everything, all for the one element that countered lightning.
And he had—
Etsu shut his eyes. The scene unspooled yet again. His hands were slow. His technique was thin. The wind he took pride in failed to pierce even the enemy's skin while his comrades watched with pleading eyes.
The despair on his teacher's face, on his friends' faces, would haunt him forever.
Footsteps and a nurse's voice drifted down the corridor.
"Kazama Etsu... here we are."
"Thanks."
The door clicked open.
A silver-haired blind girl stepped in, a neatly wrapped lily in her hands.
Why is she here? It is not even a rest day.
Etsu watched Konome set the lily on the bedside table and close the door, his confusion deepening. "Why did you come?"
"To visit my teacher."
"Tell the truth."
"I want to learn Wind Release nature transformation."
Etsu stared at her calm face, hardly believing his ears. She had played the novice and kicked him into the hospital, and now she wanted him to teach her ninjutsu.
Do I look that magnanimous?
"No."
"Your sealless Water Release is still raw. Do not bite off more than you can chew. Go home and train your water."
Blunt, with no room to bargain.
Konome smiled.
Put yourself in the other's place. If he truly meant to brush her off, he would have stopped at the first word. The jab that followed sounded more like a hint.
Kazama Etsu was not bad. Better than Kakashi by a mile.
"What is wrong with my Water Release?" she asked, sincerely.
She truly did not know. Ever since she had devoured and fused with the Three Tails' power, water had moved for her like a limb. Techniques that others could not hold together obeyed like instinct.
If that was faulty, she could not see how.
But in the elite class the ordinary-seeming Iruka had taught her a real lesson. The spark of her reverse Eight Gates had come from that hour. After that, she no longer dared to underestimate any shinobi.
Etsu noted that she took his criticism without bristling and instead asked to learn. He nodded inwardly.
A towering talent, yet humble and hungry. Far better than he had been. If he had studied as hard as Konome, then... they might all still be alive.
Memory curdled. His eyes darkened. He spoke in a voice that sounded half like a recollection, half like a lecture.
"Nature transformation and shape transformation support each other. Limp on one leg and you will never become strong. Your water's nature is passable. Your shaping is miles off."
Konome lifted her hand.
A clear stream coiled in her palm and stiffened into a sword of water.
"Like this?"
Etsu snorted. "Using flowing water to mimic a rigid blade. That is a foolish use of shape transformation."
Konome did not take offense. She waited for his theory. A teacher who would actually teach was worth gold. At the Academy, the terms nature transformation and shape transformation appeared only as glosses.
"Do you know why so many techniques take the form of beasts?"
"Beasts?"
She sifted through water techniques. The ones that stood out were Water Dragon Bullet and Hoshigaki Kisame's Great Shark Bullet. Shaping a technique into a creature did not raise its power. Why do it?
"You probably think it is cumbersome and does not make the jutsu stronger, which is stupid," Etsu said, gazing at the ceiling, as if speaking to her and to his younger self.
"Beast forms do not add raw power, but they make a technique vastly more nimble.
"A jutsu that hits like a hammer means nothing if it never lands.
"Agility, persistence, control. Once you lock on, beast-shaped techniques almost never miss."
Water gathered with a hush in midair, then stretched, sprouted four limbs, and under Konome's hand turned into a dragon. It writhed, but mechanically, without the life he described.
"Shape transformation is not about the surface. The inside must also be the body of a beast. Use chakra's mimetic capacity to generate a true swimming dragon. That is real shaping."
He flicked his eyes toward the four-nubbed water noodle in her hand and decided her shaping was an eyesore. He forced his fingers through seals.
A breath rose in the room. A transparent serpent of wind coalesced in the air. Head, body, tail, all condensed with the fidelity of a living snake. Even the scales at its brow were cleanly set.
The serpent hissed.
For a heartbeat Konome could not tell if she was hearing a snake or the wind itself.
The serpent drew back its head, the long body tensing like a spring.
It fired.
Fast.
Gray flashed in Konome's Byakugan. The wind snake was already upon her, fangs split wide for her throat. Instinctively she raised a hand to block.
The serpent veered, coiled once around her palm, and snapped back to Etsu's side.
A drop fell.
A fine red line opened on the pale heel of her hand, running from thumb to pinky, a little concertina of blood.
"Wind Release, Serpent Glide," Etsu said, fingers holding the last seal, voice flat.
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