Above a wooden platform that stood as the highest among its bunch, a young boy was standing with only one foot keeping its soles in contact with the column. His posture was straight while one of his hands stayed behind his back and the other formed a one-handed tiger hand seal. Beads of sweat dripped off his forehead, going all the way to his chin before dropping to the floor way below.

Opening his eyes, Raijin turned to having both feet in contact with the wooden surface once again. 'Two and a half hours — that seems to be my record up here since the day before yesterday. I still can't believe that a bird landed on my head thinking that it was some kind of nest the day before, it broke my streak of serial records in here!'

Despite being a bit bummed up about his lost streak, he couldn't help but feel happy about his progress. 'One month. That's what it took for me to master this balance-based training.'. Raijin didn't waste his time with small children's games in the past month. On the contrary, he was focused on getting to the vacant training ground and starting training as soon as morning arrived and as long as he would last.

With this commitment, Raijin's physique and mind experienced a great change. His love for training stood as the most noticeable, as since day one he understood that what he felt as his most predominant desire was to suffer working out — painstakingly going through laps around the running circuit was something that made him feel truly alive and inspired him to get better each day.

While, on the surface, there was just some added definition to his body, what really changed for the better was his endurance and strength – it was more of a qualitative change than anything else. 'My strength improvement could be considered normal since the added combination of chakra and body development is pretty nuanced.'

'However, I think it can also be attributed to my physical energy catching up with my spiritual energy in chakra terms. After all, I could also sense an increase in my chakra pool lately, which is something good all things considered.' Raijin felt that the intense growth he experienced in the last month would only last for a limited amount of time due to his hypothesized condition, which presented no inconsistency as of yet.

This feeling made him develop an additional drive when training, as he was always searching for ways to grow and made the workouts more challenging as time went on. This caused the sudden shift in his previously decided regimen, which now consisted of two-hundred and fifty push-ups, three-hundred crunches, three-hundred and fifty squats, a forty-five-minute forearm plank with body weight, one-hundred pull-ups, and seventy-burpees – all of them in sets of five.

While those numbers are too unsettling for an earthling, to a boy from the Naruto universe with Raijin's special conditions, it was not that much of a deal. But even then, after completing this workout and the other segments of it such as his daily balance and climbing training, he was very exhausted.

In those moments, Raijin could only find solace in meditation. This practice would be incorporated with his chakra manipulation training which he could now do for a total of two hours. It reenergized his body and mind, but he was aware that his chakra was being used up for recovery, so he would be careful to not have a chakra exhaustion accident.

'Even after all this, I think I might not be up to par with clan-trained kids like Neji or geniuses like Minato at the start of the academy. I will have to work harder on my fundamentals to not be cannon fodder in the future.' Such work, however, was promptly interrupted by his growling stomach, which demanded food to be ingested after this strenuous training session.

"Well, I guess it's time to go back to the orphanage." With this sentence, Raijin paced through the wooden platforms quickly, not even feeling insecure about slipping or tripping on something on the way.

~~

Minko couldn't quite understand the boy anymore. A kid she once felt was too self-conscious and melancholic now brimmed with determination and drive. Raijin had experienced such a drastic change that she started to question whether the event that took place on the way back to the market would affect him that much.

'Maybe I am thinking too much on the matter, sigh I am getting too old for this.' She would then look at the huge dining table that occupied the center of the kitchen, stretching to a size that could fit twenty-eight children, despite there being only twelve in the orphanage as of now.

At that dining table, the kids were currently devouring their meals, most pretty much not caring about moderation. One of those kids, surprisingly, was Raijin — he would get enough food stuffed in his mouth with his spoon and then chew for a few seconds and repeat. His hunger seemed insatiable as he continued to eat his meal with a beast's eyes.

When finishing all the food, the kids dispersed to do their things. Some went directly to the bathroom to brush their teeth, while others were going to sleep due to their drowsiness after eating a full nutritious plate. Raijin, however, would do neither as he was stopped by Minko when going to his room.

"Raijin, can we talk?" Minko said with a hoarse voice. She wasn't overly pressuring Raijin to stay, as he could choose to not speak with her, but instead adopted a warm expression and a curious gaze.

Raijin stopped before her. "Uhm… Sure." He felt like he needed to mend his relationship with the orphanage's caretaker. After all, she offered him opportunities by the potential training he could get from her as a retired Jounin and she also showed him kindness by saving him before. It would be ungrateful of him to ignore her from then on.

Minko showed the way to her office located on the second floor of the orphanage. Up in there, there was just her office as the head of the orphanage and also a door leading to an archive room. She then proceeded to sit on the chair behind the desk and pointed for him to do the same in the chair in front of it.

After a few seconds of silent staring, she started speaking: "Where are you training?" Her gaze peered through Raijin. With squinted eyes, her face rested upon her hands while talking to him.

"In one of the vacant training grounds within the village, Minko-sama. It's not too far from here, just about ten to fifteen minutes away." Raijin answered sincerely. This time, he wouldn't lie to her as he was committed to the truth.

"Uhm…" She analyzed every bit of word and expression presented by the boy. Seeing nothing wrong with his answer, she followed: "What are you training for?" 

"I want to be a Shinobi, Minko-sama. That is my dream." Raijin's eyes were glued to Minko's. Her face seemed to turn more serious as his answer came to fruition. The moment when he became aware of this, a poof could already be heard from inside Minko's closed hand.

Opening the palm of her hand, she presented to him a paper and positioned it on the table that separated them. "This is a chakra receptive paper." She tapped the desk while saying her sentence. "There are currently two types of them: one that indicates your strongest affinity of all five basic nature transformations and another that says which affinities you have that surpass twenty-five percent of natural aptitude."

"The second one, however, is way more expensive due to being made of harder-to-find materials and more market value. This one here is from the first type, so it doesn't matter which affinities might suit you, only one will be displayed here and that is your strongest of them." She dragged the paper to his side, indicating for him to take it.

"Now, you will guide your chakra to it." When finishing her sentence, Minko could see Raijin's shocked expression caused by the discovery of his capabilities of using chakra at a tender age. "Don't get me wrong, I could see that your chakra reserves were getting bigger day by day, so it only made sense that you were able to use it. I'm a sensor, that's why I was able to see it."

Raijin managed to calm down a bit after her explanation. With anxious breaths, he raised the chakra paper with his hand. Closing his eyes and focusing on his chakra once more, he directed it towards the paper. After a few moments, he could see the result — a wet texture formed on the paper held by his fingers. 'Water affinity, huh? Interesting.' Raijin thought excitedly.

~~
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A/N:
Raijin just discovered his strongest natural affinity! What will he do with this information, I wonder?
Thank you for your continuous support, people!