Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-3279282-20140413164418/@comment-4912646-20140414014913

Omnibender wrote: As cringe-inducing as I find that moment, I must play devil's advocate here. Naruto used many shadow clones to learn wind nature transformation, and the only canonical technique we've ever seen him apply that to is an extremely complex S-rank technique. What the Alliance did was broadcast to every one on the field (at least chunin or higher I suppose), the hand seals to the easiest, most basic earth wall that someone who has probably used Earth Release his whole life knew. The level of complexity is not the same. And just because the entire alliance used Earth Release, it doesn't mean that only the Iwa-nin knew it. There's still some people in other villages who know ER, and probably a few people from Iwa that don't.

I agree with that reasoning, but if that is the case, doesn't it raise the question of what should be considered "having" a chakra nature in the first place? We know with absolute certainty that specific genetics are not required to use natures, though they do seem to determine which affinity a person has, as in Naruto's chakra naturally has traces of wind nature, Uchiha have traces of fire, etc. Anyone can potentially master all five natures with enough training and/or skill, as Hiruzen did. The Rinnegan makes this easier, as the databook said.

So if Naruto now has the ability (kekkei genkai or not) to use Lava Release, does that mean he can also use low-level Fire and Earth techniquesif he chose to? Going by the earth barrier incident, any average ninja, at least chuunin and up, could use low-level elemental ninjutsu, so doesn't everybody technically "have" all five natures to begin with? The nature transformation issue has gotten really convoluted, and it already was to begin with to some extent.