The sun... Aethir rested on his back, eyeing the giant far away ball of fire, shining it's light onto the earth around him. 'Fire...' Aethir exhaled for a few minutes, rolling onto his side. The sun now beamed on his side, feeling an increase in heat. 'What is fire? I mean...if I ask that, then I have to ask what lightning and water is... Maybe I should understand what I know before I understand what I...don't...know... Wait what...?' The boy sat up, thinking for a bit. "Heat...Fire...Water...Cooling...Lightning...What is lightning...? The bolts are hot...but it's not fire..." Aethir tilted his head, scratching it with a perplexed frown. "If I'm going to become stronger, I'll need to train more than just my muscles and body... I need to really understand what all of this elemental stuff does..." he spoke. When he was young, Aethir had naturally, almost effortlessly, could manipulate suiton chakra. The same could be said for his raiton chakra, only he had to practice to get better at it. "Hmm...If I recall...There was something about natural chakra...affinities...? What was it..." the man tilted his hand, thinking back to when he was researching some things about chakra, ninjutsu, and fuuinjutsu.


Aethir, in Konoha, had stopped in a bookstore to read about the basics of ninja. This mean the first creation of shurikens to the first discovery of the use of chakra. Days turned into nights, people coming by to either greet him for the first or for the thousandth time as he continued to read nonstop, only going home when the shop closes. He'd wait outside the bookshop early in the morning. The owner would greet him as he was busy reading his research notes as he unlocked the door, not being too insensitive to not return the greeting. "So, what do you come here early to read, Aethir?"  "Eh? Um...I read the ninja art books..." The owner halted his unlocking of the door to stare at Aethir. "Any particular reason?" he said with a curious look, Aethir smiling to the man with a nod. "I...just need to understand the use of shurikens and such. I always relied on my physical abilities- ...I mean...my Taijutsu. That's what they call it...right?" Aethir blinked as the man laughed, shaking his head. "I wouldn't know my boy! But I'm with you there. Best weapon is a man's fist and legs! None of this...throwing ...sword...neenbootsu tricks. Just good 'ol fashioned hand to hand!" Aethir nodded as the man went on while unlocking the shop. "I thought the same...until I ran into people who use kenjutsu... The art of using a sword. Along with people who use advanced ninjutsu, along with elements I've never known. It's best to be aware you see." Aethir spoke as he walked through the door of the shop which was being held open by the owner.

Aethir flipped the pages of the ninja book, the book speaking of the purpose and functions of shurikens, kunais, and different types of tags. "Tags...? Explosion tags...Are these fuuinjutsu related tags...?" Aethir blinked, reading deeper into the tag section. Eventually, he stopped to jot down some information in a notebook, Aethir nodding to himself. "Fuuinjutsu...explosion....tags...and explosive...ninjutsu..." Aethir paused, blinking. "What creates an explosion...? Fire is involved in an explosion...so...is it Katon...?" he froze, staring off as he thought about this, eventually going back to writing. "Katon...explosion...related..." the ronin continued to write and study. Eventually, he reached the part of academy jutsus, Aethir nodding as he's reading. "Chakra strings...Supernatural walking- I know how to do this..." he was about to skip the page before sighing... "But it's best to read it anyways..." he nodded, beginning to relearn the academy techniques and jutsus.


"The sun...is fire, right? It provides heat like fire...Light like fire... But so does lightning..." Aethir rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment. "Perhaps lightning is another form of fire...Can fire take form of some other entity...?" he stared at the sun, soon forced to look away due to being blinded. "A flash...Flashes from the lightning... Both lightning and fire can create light and heat, but lightning is obviously much faster. So since lightning has speed, can I assume that fire's heat is much more significant? I can also assume that fire is much brighter than lightning since we're able to see a lightning flash...but not the sun."  Aethir scratched his head, groaning. "Why can't these things be as simple as water...? Water is just another stage of phsyical form. Before solid, like doton, and before gas, like fuuton. Fuuton is quick, but lacks any damaging substance. Doton is durable but lacks speed... Water...is a mix of these two, plus beneficial to ingest. To take into the body..." Aethir sighed, sitting up while looking at his hands. "Hand seals... Why does it matter what hand seal comes first?" he pondered, remembering what he read. "To conduct and manipulate the chakra into a certain form. It's like weaving something out of yarn. You can make a yarn hat, a yarn sock, or a yarn quilt... The hand signs makes the chakra take shape, along with increasing the overall power of the chakra...I think."

Suddenly, the ronin laughed. He shook his head while placing a hand over his right eye, sighing. "Look at me... Talking as if someone's around to hear me." he sighed, lying on his back and closing his eyes. "The purpose of shurikens is to serve as a projectile...Like an arrow, only convenient to carry. Fuuma shurikens are a larger variation of projectiles, focused on dealing massive damage, sacrificing speed..." Aethir went over the details of shurikens, kunais, and arrows, eventually reaching what he was stuck on... Ninjutsu. "Chakra... Chakra can be altered into a certain element. Physical manifestation of Water, Lightning, Fire, Earth, and Win. These elements can be merged to form unique forms only available to certain blood." Aethir nodded. "So I can't make...say...Lava out of my chakra. But maybe I can make lava naturally...Or how I can't make ice out of my chakra...but I can make it naturally..." he nodded once more. "So...I can make water and raiton just fine... So I can conduct raiton, extending it's range with my water... Okay...And if I use fire on water, I can create steam...right?" Aethir nodded, thinking for a moment. "But if I do learn fire... What can I do with a combination of fire...? Maybe..." Aethir looked down to the ground, gasping. "Explosion. If I can somehow...compress the chakra and then suddenly distort it so that the compression is set unbalanced, I can probably cause an explosion..." He then closed his eyes to picture himself focusing katon chakra into the ground, molding it and pressurizing it into a ball...then distorting it to cause some sort of detonation effect. "Fire isn't a solid like Earth...and isn't a liquid like water...If air can pass through, so can fire...right?" Aethir nodded, taking mental notes of this. "Suiton...Raiton...Katon...and Doton...But what use will I have for Fuuton?"

Aethir thought and thought as the went blew, the boy failing to understand or think of any reason for it. "Raiton isn't physically solid, nor is it are. So in a sense, it's like hot water flames... So in a way, I have the three stages of physical matter down. Gas, liquid, and solid. Katon, Raiton and Suiton, and Doton...But damn it, who knows Doton...?" Aethir folded his arms, instantly remembering Iwagakure. Iwagakure, the village full of rocks and what not. "I see...So there's another reason for me to go..." he nodded, pondering on this some more. "Iwagakure... Sunagakure is the land of ...wind, right? Kumo, I know raiton already...And Konoha is the land of fire... Kirigakure is where I honed suiton..." he nodded with a smile. "Okay. Then Iwagakure it is. Then I'll go to Sunagakure. And then..." he was silent, thinking of another plan. "...Well by then, I should know who I am, right? ...Bah, we're not focusing on that right now..." he sighed, scratching his head. "Okay...Fire is to air...As Raiton is to liquid. I know it sounds weird, but hang in there... Doton is to solid... While Suiton is to liquid. Two liquids, one air, and one solid..." he nodded with a smile. "Now the hard part...Katon and Suiton is to gas...Steam...Katon and Doton is to liquid...Magma. Doton and Suiton is to mud...Solid...Raiton and mud- ...Whoa...!!" Aethir gasped, gaining an idea. "The mixture of ...elements...What if I can..." he pondered this before standing up to try it out.

"Ugh...You dolt, you don't know how to work Doton..." he sighed, scratching his head, sitting back down. He then started to think of the other combinations in his head as he went back to looking at the sun, lying down on the ground. "Well I never read THAT in those ninja books...hmm...As a matter of fact, I've yet to practice fuuinjutsu..." Aethir stared at his hand, blinking, slowly looking around, then quickly formed random hand signs. "HEEEERE GOOOOOOOES!!!" he shouted, slamming his hand on the ground...seeing nothing happen. "There we go, practice is over." he sighed, lying back down. "Well there goes my motivation..." he said with a smirk, eyeing the sky. "Fire...Ball of fire in the sky. The sun. How can the sun burn forever...? Chakra... Can the core of the sun be fueled with chakra...? Or maybe it produces a gas with a mix of such an intense amount of heat... To the point where it's a never ending inferno..." Aethir closed his eyes as the sun's warmth continued to grace him. 'Inferno...Inferno...Heat...and inferno...' he chanted in his mind, being lead by his mind to some other time from his past.


"Aethir..." A black haired young boy eyed a sobbing child as he had an arm extended, a nasty burn on it. "You know not to play with the lamps."  "But I've never seen purple fire..." Aethir frowned, silently sobbing as the obviously older boy sighed. "The flames are normal. The lamps just make the flame and light appear purple... Flames can't be purple, Aethir." The little boy gasped, then slowly looked over to the broken lamp with a small flame flickering on the glass from the spilled oil. "Damn... This is going to leave a bad scar if I don't heal you." Aethir looked at the boy with a curious look on his face. "Heal...?"  "Don't tell father about this... Okay?" Aethir stared then slowly nodded. Suddenly, a strange feeling filled Aethir's arm, the burning sensation turning into a chilling feel, soon turning into numbness with small needs digging in the skin... "Ngh...Ow..." Aethir winced, but then gasped as he saw his arm produce new skin cells to cover up the burn wound, dead skin peeling and being removed from the arm by itself. "Eh? ...Shiki, how do you- How did you-"  "This..." Aethir eyed the boy before him with a curious stare, droplets of tears running from his eyes, "This is medical ninjutsu. I'm skilled enough to become a jounin in the medical field..."  "J...Jou...what? What's a junior...?" Shiki couldn't help but laugh as Aethir tried to speak of the ninja ranks. He patted the small boy on the head as he slowly rubbed his now healed arm. "Be careful of the lamp. And don't tell father...He hates ninja related things, remember?"  "I know." Aethir nodded with a smile. "B-But that's cool! Why don't you do that more often?!"  Aethir smiled wider then frowned as Shiki simply turned away, walking down the hallway. "I'll clean this up. You go play with the others, okay?" Aethir slowly nodded to Shiki's words, slowly turning and walking the other way. 'Medical ninjutsu is cool...' he smiled, eyeing his newly fixed arm. He then stopped to look up at the flickering flames inside a purple candle, the purple light shining on him. He wasn't entirely sold on the idea of flames being stuck to one color... "I'll find a way. Just like how Shiki fixed my arm...Purple flames...!!" he nodded, then gasped as he heard something his the ground next to him. A child was eyeing Aethir as if he were an intruder. "Ninjutsu...!" they simply stated, Aethir slowly shaking his head, about to explain before the child ran off to tell his father.

Later, the child Aethir, hiding inside the walls of Lamdem's chambers, panted heavily as cries of pain was heard, along with angry grunts. The source of the angry grunts shouted at someone, wanting to where they learned ninjutsu, or how one of their orphans know of such a thing. Aethir buried his head as he heard a familiar voice's plea. It was Shiki, stating that he didn't know what they were talking about. Suddenly, a bright light flashed, Aethir lifting his head as he stared at Shiki getting shocked with another barrage of lightning. He breathed heavily and quicker, slowly seeing Lamdem turn to look at his direction, Aethir's eyes widening...

"Hey..." Aethir peeked inside Shiki's room, the two of them being away from Lamdem. Shiki panted, smiling to Aethir with an exhausted and pale smile. "Ah...Aethir. Where have you been? Ah it doesn't matter...Look." Aethir stared uneasily at one of Shiki's charred body scars that Lamdem's lightning left. He then stared with amazement on his face as the scar turned into a renewed piece of flesh, Aethir smiling as he saw the dead charred piece of skin be replaced. "Wow...!! You can do it to yourself?"  "I can...but it's so exhausting...I'm nearly out of chakra." Aethir blinked as Shiki smiled wider. "I looked a lot worst than I do now. The dead skin around me shows... But..." Aethir tilted his head as he stared at the dead skin peelings on the ground. There were a lot of them, charred and in long strips, Aethir frowning at the site. "But...I'm nearly done...see?" Aethir puffed out his cheeks, soon rushing his hands towards Shiki's scar mark, humming loudly wit ha determined look on his face. "...Aethir, what are you-"  "I'm healing you...!!" Shiki stared, waiting to see the results, soon laughing a bit. "Aethir...You don't know any medical ninjutsu."  "Y-Yes I do!! It just takes...a few days to kick in...!!" Shiki wasn't expecting the answer ans simply laughed loudly, Aethir blinking then smiling, glad that he was able to make his brother laugh.


"I have no clue how I started day dreaming about that..." Aethir sighed with a smile, shaking his head as the sun had moved to the evening position. He sat up with a sigh, eyeing his feet, pondering about something. "Medical Ninjutsu... To heal one's friend or self... Surely there's some limitation...Yes?" he rubbed his chin, thinking. "If chakra manifestation can be manifested and altered into elements... Then it too can be altered into some sort of healing property... Is it vitamins? Acceleration of blood cells and tissue fibers...? That'd be the logical answer. Acceleration of tissue fibers... So if chakra can be accelerated, it's safe to assume there's a decelerate function..." Aethir looked up at the sun once again. "Maybe the gas is being struct like a match. Friction, given enough speed, can burn. So therefore, it leads to an infinite inferno..." Aethir stared at his hands, thinking of elements he may know. "Form and shape the chakra into what I desire. That's how ninjutsu works! The acceleration of the body's healing properties is medical ninjutsu! So if I fuse the two..." Aethir closed his eyes to feel his body slowly rise in temperature as his chakra accelerated and began to be molded into Katon. "And if I change the property...and decelerate..." he nodded, feeling a cooling sensation in his body, lowering the chakra flower and temperature of his body. "So with the rise in temperature, one can perform tasks faster than usual...right?" Aethir pondered, thinking of physical activity with a low body temperature versus a high temperature. "Yes...Less risk of nerve shock I think..." he smiled, finally understand how this chakra thing works. "So I can raise and lower my body temperature...but not by much. Just to warm up my muscles to prepare for training, huh? ...So that means I can skip the warm up..." Aethir nodded, taking mental notes of his findings.

Aethir slowly made his way from the woods, jogging back to town. He then felt his muscles feel a bit stiff, deciding to test out his theory. "If I accelerate...the body temperature, the muscles should loosen up, right...?" he said, continuing his job while increasing his chakra flow, molding it into Katon. "But surely I have to be careful not to create flames inside my body...right?" he nodded, slowly down the acceleration a bit, not wanting to be a human torch of some kind. But this increase in body temperature was enough to making his muscles feel lose, Aethir smiling as he broke into a eighteen meter per second sprint. Zipping past trees, the ronin was smiling away, eager to get home to write his finding in that book of his. As he ran, it did occur to him that he had been self taught in most things he's learned... Like how to use ninjutsu, taijutsu, and all the other sort of tricks he's done.
As he got home, Aethir quickly took his notebook, scribbling in it everything he's found out about today. But before he concluded, Aethir nodded, scribbling  little note inside the book. "Medical...ninjutsu...acceleration of cells...And Katon...loosening of muscles..." he nodded, pausing to think before writing. "The use of fire can be both helpful and offensive. Helpful as in it can be used for medical purposes... Offensive as it can be used for great destruction..." he nodded once more before closing the notebook. With a huge sigh, Aethir laid back into his chair, staring at the ceiling. "The sun..." he began to speak, thinking for a moment. "How can the sun burn forever like that...? Flames that never are truly put out...And if such flames exist, what does one do against them? ...Hmm..." he pondered this as the sun slowly vanished on the horizon beyond Konoha's forest...
Word count: 3177
Katon D -> C 3000/3000