Copycat Lessons
Shirubā stood for a time, puzzled by the Hokage’s request, to turn a piece of paper to dust would obviously take chakra of some sort. He thought back to the ninja who, through some exertion of chakra brought most of his home to ashes with fire. What was dust he thought, what composed it, just glancing to the dirt covered ground brought him the answer.
Earth and dust were all the same thing, this understanding did little to bring him closer to his goal. Turn paper to dust. He sat down, cross legged, he reached his free hand out and took a hand full of dirt, running his fingers through the dryness of it. He let it slip away from his palm, looking to the paper, and he imagined it falling away from his fingers in the same dry way.
Slowly Shirubā built the chakra up, letting it build in him like stones, once it was built high enough he directed it down his arm as freely as dust. Once the dust reached his palm he saw the paper go brown, cracks formed and the paper fell away as dust. “Good assessment skills, you figured out the element you were attempting to emulate with your chakra quickly.” Tobirama placed a hand on his head. “What are the effects for other nature transformations?” Shiruba looked up at him, gold meeting red.
Tobirama pulled one of the other pieces from his pocket, standing now in front of Shirubā he held it between his index and middle finger. “Wind,” the paper split, clean and evenly down the middle. “Lightning,” the paper on the right crinkled up. “And, as you might have guessed, Fire.” the piece to the left caught flame and turned to ash.
Shirubā looked on highly impressed by this display of chakra mastery, both in the Hokage’s skill with elemental chakra transformations, but also his ability to channel his chakra so precisely that the two slips of paper could be selectively affected. “Will I be able to use all of the chakra transformations like that?” Tobirama shrugs, “There is no way to know how many you will be able to use, you have shown yourself capable of at least Water and Earth.” Shirubā nods his understanding.
“Are you going to teach me Jutsu in those elements, or do you want me to try and figure out how to use the other elements?” He turns his head somewhat to the side in question. Tobirama seemed to ruminate on it for a few moments, he could see the value in either choice. Developing his ability with each element would grant him more versatility when he started to learn jutsu, however if it came to be he only had an ability with the two nature transformations then it would be wasted time spent on a task the boy couldn’t complete.
He also had to consider the fact that there was only so much time before this boy’s graduation examination, and more pressingly the war that at this point seemed an inevitability. “For the time being I think it would be best for you to focus on learning jutsu that match the elemental affinities that we know you can make use of.” He said an air of finality. Tobirama spent the next few hours teaching Shirubā the combinations of hand signs that would let him call on certain jutsu from either element. Eventually the time came where he said he was out of time and the Shadow Clone vanished in a puff of smoke.