Haruto wiped the sweat off of his forehead and heaved a sigh filled with worry. "This is still harder than it looks…" Haruto said out loud, but kept the other part inside his head, 'And you aren't a good teacher Kakashi-san…'
Kakashi's teaching was very hands off. He wouldn't explain the tips and tricks like a textbook, instead he let Haruto fumble around on his own with the jutsu until he got it right. Thankfully the least chakra density of the tenketsu in the jutsu was written in the scroll, else Haruto would've had to really start from scratch when he was learning the jutsu.
For example, as Haruto applied the jutsu to the dead fish that Kakashi had fed a poison pill to, he barely understood how he had to extract the poison from the fish.
And when he asked Kakashi about it, "Sensei… how do I identify where the poison is inside the fish and extract it? The poison extraction jutsu only gives me a view of the internals of the fish, not the poison!"
Kakashi simply said, "Well… you just gotta figure it out you know… find out what's different about it and then pick that out with your skilled chakra control."
Haruto nodded absentmindedly before understanding that Kakashi, a genius, was going to be of no help to him since he didn't speak in the common tongue.
So Haruto focused on the fish, in fact with the poison extraction jutsu he felt a sixth sense extend outwards from his mind when he inserted the chakra from the jutsu into the fish. Haruto had awakened the ability to map its internals.
The map was blurry and very unclear with cells blending with each other into one big bloody mess but Haruto persisted.
He hadn't cured even a single fish by now and each fish could only last for about forty minutes before the poison spread too deep into its body for him to be able to extract it, causing the fish to turn blue and appear even more dead than it already was.
Now on his fifth fish, Haruto finally gave up with a frustrated sigh.
He stopped Kakashi from murdering another fish and feeding it a poison pill before picking up the fish and killing it himself.
This wasn't an act of violent outburst against the fishes to take some grand revenge for failing to help him in any way, even though Haruto wished it was. Instead this was a calculated step Haruto took to study the fish's internals.
Haruto pulled out a kunai and sliced open the fish cleanly in half much like he would if he was using a knife and peered at the fish's internals for a solid hour.
He watched the tiny brain, the heart, the vertebrae, the gills, its digestive system, the guts of the fish, and also how its blood vessels all connected to each other very carefully.
Eventually, once Haruto had a mental map of where everything was, he quickly performed the poison extraction jutsu once again, this time infusing his chakra into the sliced up fish to feel its internals and match the sixth sense he had developed with whatever he was actually seeing to put things together inside his head.
Kakashi of course watched Haruto with some interest at first, but he quickly got bored and began reading Icha Icha Paradise with renewed vigour.
Finally when it was the end of the day, with the sun appearing to nearly have set, Haruto pulled out one more fish from his bucket and slapped it onto the tree stump he was training on.
"Oh… you're excited." Kakashi remarked blandly while checking the sun for the time.
"I think I've got it, Kakashi-sensei!" Haruto exclaimed loudly, enough to wake Naruto up from his impromptu nap that he'd suddenly taken when the ingredients all blended up together in his head after he'd been staring at them for a while in order to memorise them.
"Oh!!!" Naruto looked excited too, since it was already evening and that meant that he could learn the fireball jutsu from Haruto.
Kakashi added the poison pill into the dead fish's mouth and waited for it to dissolve while Haruto quickly formed the handseals required for the jutsu and brought his right hand towards the fish's head.
Haruto's focus peaked as he felt around the insides of the fish with his chakra molded into the poison extraction jutsu.
For a few minutes nothing happened. A few minutes was already longer than Kakashi's entire poison extraction jutsu demonstration so Naruto assumed that whatever Haruto was doing had failed.
Only, Kakashi hadn't given up yet. He paid full attention to the fish and soon enough, almost as a reward to Kakashi's patience, Haruto extracted the first bit of his chakra back from inside the fish. And along with it came out a thin stream of poisonous liquid.
Kakashi quickly pulled out a small vial and bottled up the liquid and inspected it carefully.
"Hmmm… There's some blood mixed in with the poison and some of the poison is missing but it's good enough for a first attempt. Good job Haruto, you learnt the jutsu faster than I did, you might have a real talent for the healing arts."
"Faster than you did?" Haruto asked with clear surprise.
"What? You didn't think I got it immediately on my first try did you? As efficient as it may seem right now, I had to practice the jutsu quite a few times with the help of my teammates before I was able to perform the basics of the jutsu."
"Wow… so Haruto nii-san's a genius!?" Naruto asked with some excitement that he did his best to hide behind his cold facade, but he was too young an actor to pretend uninterested in the gossip.
Kakashi smiled behind his mask as his lone visible eye crinkled into a line. "He must be." Kakashi reaffirmed.
"You're praising me too much… I'm sure if you used the method I used you'd have gotten it even faster Kakashi-sensei."
Kakashi smiled and left the conversation there before speaking quickly, "Alright… you two may leave now. Today's work here's finished, meet me tomorrow at ten am here once again and we'll catch up from today."
"Leave!? No! It's time I learnt the explosive jutsu!!!!"
Kakashi was about to open his mouth to argue that Haruto was probably tired but then he wisely shut his mouth when he saw Naruto's glare.
"Alright… up to you but don't stay out too late… kids have been going missing in the village for a while now… stay safe." And with those words Kakashi vanished in a swirl of leaves.
Naruto with an excited look on his face turned to look at Haruto.
"Are we going to start now?"
Haruto looked at the setting sun and sighed deeply before speaking up since Megumin was excited to have a grand disciple inside his mind and would not shut up about it.
"You must remember, the fireball jutsu that you'll perform will be really weak at the start and won't grow stronger unless you do a lot of hard work and study."
"Un." Naruto nodded, and it was clear he was too excited to let the words sink into his head.
***
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