Inspiration

After assigning his three disciples a month of training, Fugaku finally had some breathing room. There were no urgent missions on the battlefield for now, and he was in no hurry to respond to Root's orders. He could devote all his attention to the scrolls in his hands.

He had studied the nature of earth for some time, but he needed to settle down and think through a few problems. The most important was how to isolate and draw out its different properties.

On the Back Mountain of the Uchiha District, earthen-yellow light flashed repeatedly in Fugaku's hands. At times, red light flickered in one hand while earthen-yellow light flashed in the other.

Controlling two types of Chakra at once, he caught a falling leaf between his hands. He pictured flames burning and imagined Fire Release Chakra blazing in his palms.

Fire Release was a type of Chakra nature many Uchiha children encountered from an early age. Fugaku knew a thing or two about controlling it.

Warmth spread between his hands, then quickly turned searing. He opened his palms, and the browned leaf burst into flame.

To burn the leaf, he had used a property of Fire Release Chakra to ignite it from the outside. That was easy enough. It was only a trial, meant to help him get a feel for using earth's properties to crush a leaf next.

When he ignited the leaf, he had isolated one of fire's properties—intense heat—and raised the leaf to its ignition point.

Earth was harder than fire. After all, heat was one of Fire Release Chakra's most prominent properties, while earth's ability to break things down was far less obvious.

Chakra Paper crumbled on contact with Earth Release because it was specially made to be highly sensitive to Chakra. That sensitivity allowed