"Ah, who made that waterspout?"
The area around the waterfall was covered in traces of destruction from ninjutsu.
Kisame Hoshigaki appeared with a Body Flicker, mud and water splattered across him.
He used Wind Release Ninjutsu to blow away the thick mist. With a grave expression, he looked at Kazama Kaguya and asked, "After laying down the Mist Technique just now, did you use the B-rank Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique?"
"No. I used the D-rank Water Release: Water Shockwave. It's just that the chakra shot out too fast, and I couldn't rein it in." Kazama Kaguya looked a little embarrassed.
"Too fast? Couldn't rein it in?" Kisame didn't understand what he meant. With disbelief written all over his face, he said, "Even if you put out too much chakra, a D-rank jutsu couldn't do this, could it?"
He looked at the huge circular crater in front of him, over two meters deep and more than thirty meters wide, and furrowed his brow.
"D-rank Water Release: Water Shockwave can only form a circular wall of water within three meters of the user. Its power is limited. It's a basic jutsu of the shockwave style. Even if you increase your chakra output, you can't get an effect like this."
"The Mist Technique blocked my view just now. Do it again so I can see."
Kazama Kaguya had no objections.
He immediately brought his hands together.
Then, under Kisame's bewildered gaze, a powerful torrent of water, fifty or sixty meters high, appeared out of thin air. Its multiple rotating, circular shockwaves swept across the crater once again, like a waterspout.
"???"
Kisame was dumbfounded.
He didn't look at the damage the jutsu had caused. He simply stared at Kazama Kaguya's hands without blinking.
"Hands together? Wait, what kind of seal is that?"
He'd studied ninjutsu his whole life, but had never heard of a hand seal made by simply pressing one's palms together.
Clearly, that went against everything a ninja knew about hand seals.
Kazama Kaguya knew perfectly well that there was no such seal.
Still, seeing Kisame so bewildered was pretty satisfying.
He once again pressed his palms together and smiled as he explained, "Don't mind it, Teacher Kisame. I was just influenced by a certain senior. After all, performing a jutsu calls for a bit of ceremony. If I didn't make any hand seals, wouldn't that be disrespectful to the jutsu?"
"????"
Kisame looked even more puzzled this time.
He understood every word Kazama Kaguya said, but somehow couldn't make sense of them together.
"So your hands-together seal is a way of showing respect for the jutsu? In other words, you can skip that entirely and release the jutsu directly?"
His words were full of questions, and the question marks on his forehead nearly turned tangible.
Kazama Kaguya nodded, confirming Kisame's guess. "That's right. I just realized I can perform jutsu without hand seals."
"Perform jutsu without hand seals???"
Kisame felt like he'd learned something new all over again.
Hand seals were a means of controlling chakra, invented by Indra, the founder of ninjutsu.
Hand seals had always been necessary to perform conventional jutsu.
Using both hands was the most common method.
Besides that, certain geniuses could use their feet to form seals or even make them with a blink of the eye, after years of arduous practice.
Those with Kekkei Genkai could forgo hand seals to a great extent when using abilities like the Sharingan, Shikotsumyaku, and Byakugan. But those were Kekkei Genkai abilities, not conventional jutsu.
Kisame could understand simplifying hand seals. He could do that himself, releasing D- and C-rank jutsu with just one seal.
But no matter how much you simplified them, you still had to make a seal—unless it was a jutsu that required no hand seals.
Without hand seals, chakra became extremely difficult to control. It could weaken the jutsu or even cause it to fail.
But performing jutsu without hand seals was, frankly, far too advanced. He'd never heard of it, and he couldn't understand it.
After all, the God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju—the one who could seemingly produce anything with a clap of his hands—was long gone.
Kisame fell into thought, trying to come up with an explanation.
He racked his brains, turning over everything he knew, and muttered to himself:
"The essence of ninjutsu is the conversion of energy and matter."
"Hand seals are not only a bridge between the internal and external; they're also a means of controlling both."
"If you can perform jutsu without hand seals, then after ruling out every other possibility, the only explanation is that your affinity with chakra far surpasses anything I imagined."
"Using chakra might be more like an instinct for you. You don't need hand seals to help you."
He looked at Kazama Kaguya as he laid out his theory.
Those words came close to revealing Kazama Kaguya's true nature.
Everyone knew the Otsutsuki were the source of chakra.
Pure-blooded Otsutsuki shared at least one ability.
They had perfect control over chakra.
Ninja? They were just a high-attack, low-defense class formed by people who practiced the ninjutsu developed by Indra after the Sage of Six Paths of Ninshu shared the seeds of chakra with them.
If Kisame had known the Otsutsuki Clan existed, Kazama Kaguya's identity would have been exposed long ago.
Kisame's gaze shifted between the boy's pale, almost-white eyes and the small, pale bony horns on his head. He also recalled the boy's ability to fly and use All-Killing Ash Bones.
He couldn't help feeling that the boy was becoming more and more of a mystery.
Suddenly, a thought surfaced from the depths of his mind: This boy doesn't seem human.
Kisame's strange gaze made Kazama Kaguya uncomfortable, so he quickly changed the subject.
"Teacher Kisame, how should I continue training my Water Release?"
"Training? What for?"
Kisame dropped his scrutinizing gaze and said with exasperation, "You can perform jutsu without hand seals already. What's left for me to teach you? How to form hand seals?"
He was at a loss.
He'd planned to put the little brat through his paces in his own area of expertise.
But clearly, Kazama Kaguya's approach had thrown his plans into disarray.
Even now, all he could think about was the image of those hands clapping together—absurd and powerful.
For once, he fell silent.
But Kazama Kaguya wasn't about to let such a good opportunity go to waste.
He jogged over and said, "Teacher Kisame, I only know these two Water Release jutsu for now. There's plenty you can teach me. I'm willing to learn any Water Release jutsu you know. And when it comes to Taijutsu, I have no experience fighting on a battlefield, so I'll need you to show me the ropes."
"You're an elite who developed the shark style. If the Fourth Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura, weren't the perfect Three-Tails Jinchūriki, you'd have everything it takes to become Mizukage, with your abilities and loyalty to the village."
Kazama Kaguya put on a humble, eager-to-learn expression and showered Kisame with praise, giving him all the respect he could ask for.
Kisame was left awkwardly flustered. He stammered, "Huh? Mizukage? Me?"
"Of course, you, Teacher Kisame. You're a ninja with a title—the 'Tailed Beast Without a Tail.' Everyone in the Ninja World knows your name. You're one of a kind in all of Kirigakure."
"..." Kisame's shark-like face flushed from all the praise.
A strange reddish tinge appeared on his blue-gray face.
He'd always had a cold, tough-guy image. Plenty of people had whispered about his unusual appearance behind his back, but this was the first time anyone had praised him so effusively to his face.
Looking at Kazama Kaguya, he couldn't help feeling a little fond of him.
But the next moment, he remembered how Kazama Kaguya had tricked him before, and how he'd planned to "give his all" in training the boy.
The blush on Kisame's shark-like face quickly faded, replaced by a flash of irritation. He thought to himself:
Damn it, I almost fell for his tricks again.
He's buttering me up now so I'll go easy on him during training, isn't he? Hmph. Not a chance!
Before you continue