Months passed in the blink of an eye. Fall turned to winter.
Red leaves and motes of orange and yellow fell from Konoha's trees in droves. The winds, meanwhile, rustled and stirred with newfound chill and frost. It did not snow in Konohagakure, but that did not mean that it did not get cold.
The air turned blistering; and with the cold it turned dry.
Deep breaths began to sting. Toes started to lose sensation.
Amidst it all, however, the five transmigrators refused to rest. They continued to train, day in and day out; they attended the Shinobi Academy during the day, practiced in the forest thereafter, and continued to regularly visit the Konoha Library. For months, it became habitual.
Soon, the new year passed.
During this time, as their training progressed, the transmigrators' specialties slowly began to reveal themselves.
Ando Kaze continued to hone his chakra control. He was the first to accomplish tree climbing, the first to master water walking, and the trend only continued from there. It didn't take long for the blonde to get comfortable walking on turbulent water, but unlike the rest, he didn't stop there.
Once he felt 100% confident on shaky water, Ando began to experiment with chakra threads. He had no interest in puppeteering, but surely the practice alone further developed his control. And since he aspired to train in medical ninjutsu, Ando figured he needed his chakra control to be as refined as he could conceptually shape it. As such, first it was chakra tubes. Then, chakra sticks. Eventually, it resembled something akin to chakra threads. At present, he was working on chakra thread manipulation, i.e. using the threads to actually interact with reality.
Similarly, Natsuko Sarutobi also finished her turbulent water walking training. Afterwards, she immediately switched gears and began practicing the two ninjutsu alongside Mori Fūma. Unlike her black-haired, black-eyed friend, however, Natsuko was able to successfully learn both the Fire and Earth Release ninjutsu, and it only took her one month of practice for each of them.
Once she felt comfortable with the two ninjutsu, Natsuko started to incorporate nature transformation training. For Fire, Natsuko carefully held a leaf in her hand and attempted to ignite it using only her chakra. Once she mastered the leaf, then it would be a stick, and so on and so forth.
For Earth, she tried a couple of different approaches. First, she gathered loose sand and rocks into her palm and attempted to fuse it all together using her chakra, in an attempt to recreate gravitational pressure, but that turned out to be insanely difficult. So instead she tried the opposite; she held a medium sized rock in her hand and attempted to 'mold' it using only her chakra.
This version of Earth nature transformation seemed to work much better.
As aforementioned, Mori Fūma continued to slam her head against the wall when it came to learning Earth Release: Mud Clone. Thankfully, she realized along the way that it would be to her benefit to also practice her chakra control at the same time. Four months later, Mori could both comfortably cast Earth Release: Mud Clone and comfortably traverse still water. At present, she was still tackling walking on turbulent water and had also begun training her Clan's iconic weapon, the Fūma Shuriken.
Okuda Tomomori followed the other's advice and maintained his daily chakra control training. Although he severely lagged behind the others, he did not give up. After four months, he finally graduated to water walking, and with it, he allowed himself to begin training something else. At the recommendation of the others, Okuda began training with the sword. Likewise, he tripled his physical conditioning quota.
Now, Okuda was just as fast as Ando.
Lastly, Sen Aburame mastered turbulent water walking alongside Ando and Natsuko. Once he accomplished that, he similarly attempted the two ninjutsu and after a month of hard work, Sen had failed to produce even the tiniest spark. He appeared to have an abysmal Fire affinity. Luckily, he was able to perform Earth Release: Mud Clone after only the first week of practice.
As such, he trained his Earth Release nature transformation alongside Natsuko Sarutobi, whilst simultaneously following the teachings provided by his Clan. First, the Aburame Clan provided Sen with his own shōkaichū, otherwise referred to as Neutralising Destruction Insects.
Shōkaichū were pink, little worms and were the most basic, safest insect that the Aburame Clan cultivated. Sen Aburame was granted two worms to cultivate within his body. If he failed to successfully do so, or if one died before their offspring was delivered, Sen would have to personally purchase more from his Clan.
Luckily, this all occurred before our Sen became Sen. The shōkaichū were already in his body and had already been successfully cultivated. What Sen needed to train was the shōkaichū themselves. The worms were able to dig through the ground and locate chakra signatures, but they needed to be trained to be able to actually recognize and identify all that. The worms also needed to be trained to communicate with Sen, and eventually, to coordinate with one another for insect ninjutsu.
In addition to the shōkaichū, Sen's body was also host to kochū–a type of winged worm that carried a paralytic poison. It was an increasingly rare insect used in the Aburame Clan, as many preferred to rely upon the versatility of the beetles (the kikaichū and kidaichū) or of the newer, nano-sized insects (the rinkaichū).
In addition to learning to communicate with his worms, Sen Aburame was also granted the Insect Wall Technique as well as the Insect Clone Technique–both basic Aburame techniques that acted as the foundation for which all insect coordination would eventually evolve from.
Before they knew it, the flowers had begun blooming and spring had fast arrived. Graduation was looming around the corner, meanwhile, only a few months away now.
Then, news struck the Shinobi world hard; Iwagakure had invaded the Land of Grass. The Land of Grass, Kusagakure, was an ally of Konoha.
Overnight, the Shinobi world's tension shattered.