Seeing the test results, Kakashi felt another headache coming on.
He was known to possess all seven Chakra Natures: Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Water, Yin, and Yang. And indeed, he did have all seven, but their strengths varied significantly.
Without a doubt, Kakashi's Lightning Release was the strongest. His self-created technique, the Lightning Blade, was recognized as an S-rank Ninja Technique, and his mastery of Lightning Release was undoubtedly at the Kage level. His Water Release was on par with Zabuza's, and his Earth Release was also quite impressive—both of these Release Techniques were roughly at the Jonin level. His Fire Release, however, was weaker, limited to only being able to perform the Great Fireball Technique. As for Wind Release, Kakashi had never used a Wind Release Ninjutsu in his life. He merely possessed the Chakra Nature for it.
In the original timeline, when Naruto was practicing the Wind Release Rasenshuriken, Kakashi had him seek guidance from Asuma instead of teaching him himself. This was because Kakashi's Wind Release was simply not up to par.
If we were to quantify Kakashi's abilities using a panel, it would look something like this: Lightning lv5, Water and Earth lv4, Fire lv2, and Wind lv1.
Kakashi first used a D-rank Genjutsu, the Hell Viewing Technique, to send Sakura on her way. Sakura's hand seal proficiency was top-notch, but her understanding of Ninja Techniques and her total Chakra reserves were barely third-rate. After many days of practice, she still hadn't mastered the Water Prison Technique, so Kakashi decided to let her try her hand at Genjutsu.
Sasuke was easier to handle. The two had interacted before during the awakening of Sasuke's Sharingan, and their personalities were quite compatible. Kakashi was confident in Sasuke's training and gave him a scroll on Lightning Style Chakra Nature Transformation, telling him to go practice.
Naruto, however, was a headache. Kakashi's Wind Release was simply not up to the task.
With no other choice, Kakashi had to ask Asuma for help, hoping to teach Naruto the basics himself and then have Asuma provide additional guidance.
When Ino heard that they were practicing Wind Release, the queen of self-improvement came over to observe. She happened to have Danzo's scroll on Wind Style Chakra Nature Transformation. Previously, she hadn't had the time to practice it, and there was no one to teach her. Now was the perfect opportunity to learn alongside the others.
Although Kakashi's Wind Release was only at a beginner level, he was an absolute expert in the field of Chakra Nature Transformation development.
Leaving aside Yin and Yang Release, there were five basic Chakra Natures: Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, and Water.
For a ninja, the first Chakra Nature was the easiest to develop. This was the Chakra Nature with the highest personal affinity. With a bit of brains and hard work, almost any ninja could develop it.
Why "almost"? Because there were some who simply couldn't develop it, no matter what. For example, Rock Lee, or Guy's father, Might Duy, who had kicked the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist into the "Three Treasures" of the ninja world.
These two had such low talent for Ninja Techniques that they were naturally cut off from Chakra Natures. They had none of the seven Chakra Natures, and there was simply no way around it.
They had Chakra, but no Chakra Natures. According to traditional views, such individuals could not become ninjas.
It was only due to the Third Hokage's special approval that Might Duy was able to enter the Ninja Academy, which later led to the emergence of Rock Lee.
These two were exceptions. Most ninjas could develop their first Chakra Nature. If the difficulty of developing the first Chakra Nature was a 1, then the difficulty of developing the last Chakra Nature, due to the mutual suppression of the different Natures, could be a 10 or even higher.
Jiraiya was missing the Lightning attribute, Tsunade was missing the Wind attribute, and the Third Tsuchikage was missing the Water attribute. It wasn't that they lacked talent or insight, but rather that spending a great deal of time and effort to develop new attributes wasn't worth it. Wouldn't it be better to use that time for peeping or gambling? Ino already had the Water and Earth attributes, which were her naturally affinitive attributes. Learning the Wind attribute would be more challenging, but fortunately, Wind could counter Lightning, though it was countered by Fire. However, Wind had no direct relationship with her existing Water and Earth attributes, neither countering nor being countered by them. With her high Ninja Skill of 9 points, her learning progress was extremely fast.
With Danzo's development methods, Asuma's guidance, Kakashi's experience, and Ino's own high attributes, she temporarily gave up practicing the Water Severing Wave. Instead, she gathered all nine of her Shadow Clones and trained day and night. After three days, she finally completed the learning of Wind Style Chakra Nature Transformation.
On her status panel, a white mist appeared next to Water and Earth, and similar mists formed at the intersections of Water-Wind and Earth-Wind.
The combination of Water and Wind resulted in the Ice Release used by Haku, while the combination of Earth and Wind led to the Magnet Release used in Sunagakure.
The two mists were hazy, and their interiors were unclear. Ino didn't have any Pot Points, but judging by their appearance, they were similar to the earlier mist suspected to be Wood Release—still lacking the necessary conditions.
She had mentally prepared for this and wasn't surprised.
Ino learned the usage of Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall from Kakashi—specifically, the version with dog heads.
Kakashi explained that when he was working in the Anbu, he added the four dog heads to the Earth-Style Wall during missions to let his teammates know it was their own barrier.
Ino didn't believe a word of it. Blaming it on his teammates? Who was he trying to fool? She saw right through his secretly perverted nature! After mastering the Earth-Style Wall, she divided her Shadow Clones into two teams. Like a game of soccer, at her command, the left team would use Water Severing Wave while the right team used Earth-Style Wall. After 45 minutes, they would switch: the left team used Earth-Style Wall, and the right team used Water Severing Wave. The Genin were training against the clock, while the Jonin took one of Ino's Shadow Clones to search for Zabuza's traces.
The three members of Team 7 experienced the intense competition within Team 10 for the first time, and they felt immense pressure.
Sasuke turned the pressure into motivation and, after three days, developed his own Lightning Style Chakra Nature Transformation. Kakashi truly admired this kid and, after some thought, taught him his signature technique from his youth—Chidori.
Lightning Blade was an improved version of Chidori, but they weren't the same Ninja Technique. The former was an S-rank technique, while the latter was A-rank. Lightning Blade was more condensed, while Chidori was more scattered. Just like how the Second Hokage improved the Water Dragon Bullet and Water Formation Wall, Lightning Blade required only three hand seals, while Chidori needed five.
Sasuke was ecstatic—an A-rank Ninja Technique! How many people in the Shinobi World could use A-rank techniques? Ino had given him tremendous pressure, and he began training day and night, pushing himself to the point of injury, yet he gritted his teeth and persevered.
This technique was too difficult, and his foundation in Lightning Release was also weak. Ino had progressed step by step from D-rank to C-rank to B-rank, steadily advancing. Sasuke, on the other hand, was like someone who had just learned Arabic numerals but skipped over addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, jumping straight to quadratic equations. How could he handle that?
Kakashi had never taken on a disciple before, and after teaching Chidori, he realized this problem. He wanted to teach Sasuke a simpler Lightning Release Ninjutsu as a transitional step, but Sasuke simply refused to learn it, stubbornly fixating on mastering Chidori!