63

                                    

                                          
Three days passed before Sora was finally able to return to training. As she returned to the area they had been training in, Naruto spotted her smiling. She looked at his hands to see they were back to being in pain. Naruto noticed her look and smiled. 
"What you did helped; it just started returning," He said nervously. 
It wasn't a lie. He had pretty much gotten better, but as he started training after it, it slowly came back. He looked at Sora, having a feeling what she had done was why she was gone for three days. Jiraiya had told Naruto not to let her do that to him again for her sake, and then she disappeared for three days. He was able to put it together. 
"How are you doing?" He questioned. 
"I good. What about you? How is your training going?" She questioned.
"Well, I can make the rubber ball pop a little bit. But not explode yet," Naruto said sheepishly.  
"Jiraiya Sensei said this step was forced right. The first rotation, right?" Sora said. 
Naruto nodded. Sora thought about it for a moment as she looked at a tree, wondering how she could help. She took a deep breath, focusing on her chakra as tiny ice crystals formed in the air.
"This is just my understanding of what is happening. This isn't even close to the jutsu you are trying to learn. I'm just taking the basic ideas and showing you physically," Sora explained.
Naruto nodded. The ice began to rotate around one another, the one in the centre staying completely still. 
"This is the first step of rotation, and this is the next force," She said, performing another hand sigh.
The crystal expanded, spinning faster. Sora wasn't performing any particular jutsu; she was just winging it and hoping it worked. 
"See how I use that one ice shard in the centre as a focal point. That helps me control my chakra to increase this force," Sora explained. 
Naruto observed as Sora stopped making the ice disappear. She hoped seeing it physically would help him understand it more. 
"Jiraiya is right. This is something you need to figure out on your own. I probably shouldn't be helping like this. That is all I can do to help anyway," Sora said. 
"Thanks, that helps a lot," Naruto said happily as he returned to training.
Sora moved off to her area, waiting for Tatsuo to show up. But he was there standing next to Jiraiya, who watched Sora impressed.
"She has a pretty good understanding of it just by watching me and Naruto. She is an intelligent one," Jiraiya said impressed. 
"Yeah, which she doesn't realise herself," Tatsuo sighed. 
Sora sat alone now, thinking back to what she was doing earlier. She hummed in thought. What would the last step be? She began thinking back to the times Jiraiya had done it as she redid what she showed Naruto, getting to the second step. Despite its focal point, it was still all over the place. She performed another hand sigh, focusing on making the crystals spin even faster and bringing them closer together, but as she did, they cracked and shattered. 
"Compression and maintaining it," Sora mumbled, guessing that would be the next step. 
She found herself wondering how she could use this to create her own things. First, her ice crystal didn't have enough stability and strength to withstand the third step. Thus, if she wanted to continue this theory, she would have to perfect her ice first.
Jiraiya, still watching with Tatsuo, looked at Sora, shocked. She had figured out the next past so easily and started putting it into practice. She wasn't doing the Rasengan at all, but she was doing something that used the same principles as it, creating her own thing. 
"Who is this girl, Tatsuo?" Jiraiya questioned. 
"The long-awaited child of the Hisha clan," Tatsuo said, looking down at her. 
Tatsuo finally went to Sora, who looked up at him.
"You haven't been able to start using abilities with you, Korigan, yet; this is because if you start using abilities, the time you can keep it activated will decrease. So, at your stage, you will probably only be able to do one thing safely before you have to deactivate it, and that's something basic you can do. So once you can activate it for one minute, we can start working on actually using it. You could probably only have it up for thirty seconds before it becomes dangerous," Tatsuo explained. 
Sora looked down, so she had to increase her time by fifteen seconds. She bit her lip. It had taken her ages to get it up to forty-five seconds. She took a deep breath, all she could do was keep going, there were no shortcuts in this. So, she would have to keep doing what she had been to get anywhere, no matter how tedious it was. 
~~~~
Naruto laid down exhausted as Jiriya watched from behind a tree. He was resting, but he soon stood up, thinking back on what Sora had shown him and what Iruka had told him at one point. He changed the symbol on his hand to that of the leaf village. He stood up, grabbing another rubber ball, trying once again to keep Sora's explanation in mind as he concentrated. 
The rubber ball exploded, sending Naruto flying. Jiraiya got behind him, stopping him from going any further. He looked down, impressed with him. Now, they would be able to move on to the third step. But before that, they would find Tsunade, Jiraiya having information on where she was.
So, the group began preparing to move on to the next town. But after some complaints from Naruto, Jiraiya agreed to show him the third step before they headed out. He threw a balloon at Naruto. The goal was to not pop the balloon while doing the other two steps. Jiraiya showed Naruto why the last step was important, and Naruto gave it a try confidently. But he was very quickly humbled, realising this was nothing like the other steps. 
Naruto wanted to wait a bit longer, but they needed to get moving to find Tsunade. There was no guarantee she would stay there for long, so they began travelling to where she was.