Chapter 11 Elements

At first, he felt nothing, only emptiness.

He was about to complain to the Kyuubi that things weren't going as expected, that he wasn't feeling anything - let alone an energy as heavy as earth-attribute chakra - when he noticed something... different.

It wasn't chakra, at least not the kind he could sense, more like... the potential of it, something dormant between his ribs.

He touched it tentatively, trying to pull it out from its hiding place, but it remained stubbornly hidden, buried deep within his bones.

Instead of forcing it like he usually did, Naruto stopped and thought.

Be patient, kid. He seemed to hear Kyuubi saying, try to look at it in a different way, you might find something new.

Chakra itself was alive, Kyuubi actually said so. So it needed something, needed him to do it a certain way.

If he wanted to harness chakra, he had to learn to work with it, not against it.

The Nine-Tails said that earth-attribute chakra represents strength.

So, how does he draw on this power?

He tried to recall the fight with Sasuke, how he had summoned powers he didn't have, how he had made muscles move that shouldn't have moved, just because he couldn't lose again, absolutely not again.

He recalled the feeling, the feeling of energy pouring out of him, and how he had to dig deep to access this power.

So Naruto calmed down and approached the energy from deep within, pulling at it with all his might, as if he had nothing but longed for more.

Like broken stone or fractured bone, something cracked, something awakened.

A surge of energy roared in his ears like surging blood, shaking his bones like an earthquake.

Energy surged outward, rushing to his fingertips and flowing through his body.

He could smell the freshly turned earth, taste the lingering stone dust on his tongue, and feel his bones turning into solid granite. No force in the world could shake him.

"That's pretty impressive on your first try, kid."

Naruto slowly opened his eyes, looked around blankly, and asked:

"what is that?"

He moved his fingers and neck, and even though the strange power had faded, he still felt more...stable than ever before.

It was as if he had found a fulcrum that would not budge, a force over which he had complete control.

"You, who have never practiced chakra before, have just awakened your earth attribute chakra system."

Naruto blinked, confused but trying to make sense of the shaking scene before him, because he could tell that the Kyuubi was almost... proud of him.

“This is so weird,” he said, because he felt the need to speak out about the feeling. “It’s not hard… but it feels weird.”

...Kyuubi was amused by him.

A sharp, short laugh turned into a coyote-like chuckle that Kyuubi was clearly trying to hold back, but failing.

"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?" he asked.

Kyuubi tried to control himself, but was not completely successful, and another burst of laughter came from behind his claws.

"You know, it might take an adult ninja several years to activate the chakra attributes that they are not naturally good at, and you only took ten minutes."

It might take another ten minutes for him to really understand this, because he was never a genius, but Kyuubi just said that he was like...

"Genius." Kyuubi grinned, revealing his fangs. "I think that's what you mean."

Naruto gasped, this had nothing to do with earth attribute chakra.

"What's next?" he blurted out, "Water-attribute chakra, right?" Once might be a coincidence - but what if he could do it twice, three times? He might really believe that he was a genius.

Kyuubi hummed in approval, so loud it nearly ruffled his hair.

“You’re full of energy,” it said, grabbing the second energy ball, the one that looked like molten crystal. “Okay, let’s continue.”

Naruto entered a shallow state of meditation once again and waited patiently.

"Water Chakra represents understanding. It is known for its adaptability and fluidity," Kyuubi said, pressing the second energy ball to the left of the first, into the space above his heart. "It exists in the blood."

This force was strong, too, but it was faster, smoother, more elusive. He felt it, savored it, focused on his blood.

At first, he tried to focus on his own heartbeat, but he felt a different force in it, something frantic and intense that didn't match what he was looking for.

So he tried to feel the energy of the blood further away, deeper in his chest and higher in his throat.

He finally found a hint of matching energy there, hidden in the sound of a heartbeat, but every time he tried to grasp it, it slipped from his fingertips, eluding him just like the earth-attribute chakra he had tried to capture before.

understand.

But what to understand? An understanding of water? An understanding of chakras?

Or his understanding of himself?

The question echoed through his veins like a hint.

Getting closer and closer.

What did he know best? He knew about fighting, even though he wasn't very good at it.

He understood Kyuubi because Kyuubi was like him in many ways.

But he never tried to understand these things...he just did it, that's all.

Maybe that's the key. Maybe in order to understand something, you have to let it come to you?

It's worth a try.

So, he no longer deliberately looked for that power, but waited quietly, opening his body and mind, allowing the energy to come to him when it wanted.

It was just a trickle at first, the first sign that it was about to change, and then, as if it could no longer be contained, the energy burst forth, rushing through his veins like a flash flood, squeezing his meridians, the pressure growing until it was almost painful.

The energy tasted like ocean breeze, salty and a little fresh, and smelled like the scent of dirt on the sidewalk before a storm.

He felt numb all over, as if he was in a rushing river, with a torrent of chakra rushing through his internal organs.

He felt a bit like how his apartment looked in the morning, clean and shiny, as if it had been stripped of everything he didn't want or need, but he had no idea where to put it.

That feeling, combined with the sense of stability that remained in his bones... it was a strange and intoxicating feeling, and he hadn't realized until now that he had been missing a more powerful feeling.