Chapter 12   - Ch12. Tree? It's fake! ... Well, figures.

It took Konan three days to learn how to 'move' the nature energy around.

In that time Rei found out their bodies were strengthened quite a bit and could now crack the bark of a tree with his punch. He also managed to coat a kunai in the lightning chakra, making the chakra vibrate at high speed for better sharpness and penetrability.

He now trained with a chokuto he scaven-, ahem, found lying on the ground without an owner. Correction, without an owner who would care.

He could only slash and slash again since he knew nothing about kenjutsu but... slowly, he found out when and where to put more strength and how to handle the sword. Even if it was just waving it around. The second he added lightning chakra, it became a deadly weapon even without any skill with it.

"Rei, Rei!" Konan approached Rei, a question all over her face.

"Hmm?"

"Do you know if I could coat my paper in the nature chakra to make them also invisible to chakra sensors?"

Rei's mind stilled. Possible but...

He instantly held his chokuto in front of him and coated it in his lighting chakra.

"Konan. I am going to do something possibly stupid." Rei smiled brightly at her, making Konan want to smack him.

Rei pulled the raw nature energy and fed it into the raiton chakra without having it go through his body. The lightning instantly grew, the chirping sound was now ferociously reverberating through the woods and the ground under the blade of his chokuto was cracking every time a stray lightning bolt struck it.

The most surprising was the color though. The lightning was pure abyssal black. Not like the one used by 3rd Raikage or Darui. That could be described as light black. This was the blackest of black and Rei had to gulp as he felt the danger from it.

He instantly ceased channeling the nature energy and the lightning simmered back into a controlled blue coating around the blade. He nodded to himself.

"Yes. It is very possible, alright." He told Konan and praised her for the idea with a head pat.

Konna smiled and put a paper on the ground, taking a few steps away from it in case it had a dangerous reaction.

In hindsight, that's what I should have done.

Rei thought with a sweatdrop...

Konan started channeling the raw nature energy into the paper. It was messy and half of her chakra mixed with the nature energy and was absorbed by the ground instead of the paper. But the paper was now simmering with the wind, pulsing with sharpness. It was no longer just a coating of blue futon chakra. It was a translucent wind-like coating that looked extremely sharp.

Konan flung it into the nearby tree and...

Both Rei and Konan were gaping. The paper was so fast it was hard to follow! Moreover, it didn't pierce through the tree as expected. It completely felled it into two pieces on impact and went on, felling ten more trees behind it until the futon chakra dissipated, making the nature energy disperse!

Rei looked at Konan and patted her head with a sigh.

Demolition master, indeed.

Then his eyes fell on the spot where Konan channeled the raw nature chakra mixed with her chakra into the paper.

His jaws dropped again. He yanked Konan towards the place.

Konan was confused. She was full of ideas on how to use her new findings to decimate Rei's enemies. What could be so important he had to interrupt her? She was on the verge of pouting!

But when she saw a small budding sapling slowly growing out of the place the paper was previously on, she tilted her head.

"Mokuton." Rei watched the sapling stop growing when it reached 4 feet because of insufficient chakra. "What did you do?" His head snapped to Konan who nervously fumbled with her fingers.

"I mixed my chakra with the nature energy and wanted futon chakra..." Konan trailed off, not knowing if she did something wrong.

"Of course!" Rei slapped his forehead and started to laugh hysterically.

"You have Wind prevalent with Earth and Water secondary! You just pushed your earth and water natured bits that were still mixed with raw nature energy to the ground while leaving the futon mixed with nature energy in the paper!"

He still chuckled as he explained what just happened and started to mix an entire fifth of his chakra with nature energy and pushed it deep into the ground.

Konan and Rei had to jump away as a tall thick tree quickly rose from the ground. It was not a giant tree that could be found in Konoha but it was still a full-grown tree.

"Oh, well... looks like I gained a 'Kekkei Genkai' too. Even if it is a fake one. Well, figures the Mokuton is not really a Kekkei Genkai of Senju. Instead, it is their attunement to the nature chakra and Hashirama just mixed his elemental chakra with nature chakra. He was supposed to be an incredible sensor, after all." Rei chuckled. "The only Mokuton reproduction is through his cells… yup, it makes sense since his body would get used to channelling it…"

"Rei?" Konan asked, not understanding as he mumbled to himself..

"Listen, Konan. This..."

Rei explained. He explained about Hashirama Senju. The Senju clan. Konoha. And how dangerous it would be to show anyone this ability.

Konan furiously nodded. She had no intention of going to Konoha! Konoha-nin killed her parents! She still held a grudge. That's why when she found out it was Konoha-nin attacking the town, she may or may not have used more exploding tags than she should and made sure lots died! But... Konan was sure Rei noticed. After all, he was creating these tags. She was happy when he decided to say nothing about it. She really loved Rei!

"We will have to train Earth and Water manipulation." Rei sighed. "Thankfully my absolute control means that unless I mean it, no tree will grow no matter how much chakra and nature energy I push into the ground... Really now. I would never know I could do this without a coincidence like this." Rei started chuckling again. It was quite hilarious. He wondered how many Senju actually were able to do Mokuton only to fail at the most basic of things. Intent. They unconsciously didn't believe they could since not once during childhood they unconsciously raised a tree. So, no tree was ever created by them...

Konan never heard of Mokuton so for her creating the tree was nothing extraordinary.

It was a huge mind-opener for Rei if nothing else.

"Well, you Konan will have to train hard to not unconsciously call forth trees." Rei patted her head with a proud smile, making Konan happy. "Your control is pretty much iron-clad but mistakes do happen. We will work on it, kay?" Rei kissed her cheek, determined to train Water and Earth control alongside Konan.

...

A week later, Konan sat cross-legged with a serene smile on her lips and her hands outstretched to the sides, her elbows bent toward the ground and above her palms, a paper floated. On her right one was a paper brown as earth, a clear sight of mastered beginner exercise for Earth nature, and on her left was a paper soaked, dripping cold water onto her palm. For two hours straight, the water didn't stop dripping from the still to the brim soaked paper. A clear sign of beginner level mastery of Water manipulation.

Rei could only sigh as he sullenly watched the soaked paper in-between his palms.

Yes, Yes. I managed only one nature in seven days. F.u.c.k you too.

He thought depressingly. He could not fault Konan though. He knew what his problem was. He might have all natures but Konan was unconsciously using Earth and Water chakra since she learned how to harden her paper or make it not become soaked underwater. From there, it took only slight tweaks to master the first exercises of elemental mastery.

Yet again, the superiority of the elemental Kekkei Genkai holders was thrown into his face. They just could, so they did. They instinctively knew how to do this after using their Kekkei Genkai long enough. No wonder they could reach FAR ahead of the normal ninja. Their minds were geared to master their own element in the quickest time possible. Rei was sure this was not the only time Konan would overtake him in Wind, Earth, or Water. But he knew she had nothing on him in Lightning and most likely Fire too once he started to train it.

Rei, on the other hand, had to do the entire process by ear from start to the end and even then it was possible only due to his exceptional control.

But... If a normal ninja saw him complaining about mastering the first exercise of his element in a week, he would choke on his blood. People train years to do so...

But Rei couldn't help but smile at his observations during these three days as his mind swirled in giddy thoughts.

We now have Mokuton~. The raw nature chakra leads our Earth and Water natured chakra to form the tree. It is the known pinnacle of Earth and Water chakra manipulation and we can do it unconsciously! All we have to do is find out how our chakra does it and BAM! Hehe~...

Oh, Rei was very excited about finally having an elemental Kekkei Genkai Holder advantage, alright!