Huh? Is Developing Ninjutsu That Hard?

"Cooking isn't hard at all, but making a meal people actually like is incredibly difficult."

Beside the waterfall, Kazama Kaguya scrubbed a pot, his face full of resentment.

His schedule was already packed, and now he had to wait on some pampered lord. It was pure torture.

The worst part was that Kisame Hoshigaki was incredibly picky.

He might look like a shark, but his diet had nothing to do with one.

He never ate fish, and raw fish sashimi was absolutely forbidden at his table.

But he did like crab.

Waterfalls and streams were everywhere along the border between the two countries, so river crabs were plentiful—and plump.

But they had a lot of shell, smelled strongly of fish, and were incredibly hard to cook. Without some seasoning skills, they were genuinely awful to eat.

Today, Kazama Kaguya had remade the dish eight times before he'd just barely managed to satisfy him.

"Damn Shark Face. Eating all those river crabs—one of these days, they'll crab him to death."

Kazama Kaguya manipulated the water, scrubbing the iron pot with all his might as he tried to wash away the fishy smell of the crabs.

Kisame Hoshigaki picked his teeth beside him, looking pleased. "Not bad, not bad. Your cooking's improved since a couple of days ago. An excellent ninja needs a skill beyond fighting."

He was getting more and more comfortable playing the role of "guiding Jonin," and had completely taken control of the situation.

After picking all the scraps of meat from between his teeth, he looked at Kazama Kaguya with satisfaction.

"Since your river crabs turned out pretty well today, I'll give you a little more guidance."

"B-rank jutsu shouldn't be difficult for someone with your talent to develop. But A-rank jutsu are very difficult, to be honest. I've only developed one myself."

"An A-rank jutsu needs either extreme shape transformation and sustained attacks, or some special effect. To achieve that, you can start with combination jutsu or layered, multi-stage shape transformation."

Kisame Hoshigaki's advice ended there.

Kazama Kaguya had been hoping for a more detailed explanation, but in the blink of an eye, Kisame Hoshigaki had Body Flickered away.

"Great. What a pampered lord."

Kazama Kaguya shook his head, put away the iron pot, and found a place to continue developing jutsu.

His "Storm Release: Thunder Roar Cannon" was already a proper B-rank jutsu.

According to the task Kisame Hoshigaki had given him, he still needed to develop three more B-rank jutsu and one A-rank jutsu to meet the requirements.

But once you had the basics, developing jutsu was all about creativity.

And creativity was the one thing Kazama Kaguya had in abundance.

Before he'd crossed over, he'd seen all kinds of bizarre moves. He didn't need to figure out how to develop them—he needed to work out how to turn them into reality using chakra.

"Three B-ranks, one A-rank. Start with the easy ones."

Muttering to himself, Kazama Kaguya began considering which techniques would work best with his chakra.

Soon, he settled on his first idea.

Sage Art: Storm Release: Light Fang.

This was a technique used by Six Paths Madara. It was powerful, and because it incorporated Senjutsu Chakra, it could break through the defense of Truth-Seeking Orbs.

Kazama Kaguya planned to develop it.

Even without Senjutsu Chakra, the jutsu's offensive power would easily put it among the B-ranks.

He got right to it. With Madara's demonstration to draw on and Kazama Kaguya's absolute control over chakra, developing the jutsu took only two hours.

"Storm Release: Light Fang."

There were no Hand Seals. Without a sound, a purple beam as thick as a pencil shot from Kazama Kaguya's mouth.

It lacked the Thunder Roar Cannon's imposing spectacle. Apart from the purple laser, there wasn't the slightest sound.

But that little-finger-thick purple laser moved at a terrifying speed, too fast for the naked eye to follow. It pierced through several mountains before disappearing into the distant horizon.

It was Storm Release chakra compressed to the extreme, with a jaw-dropping ability to pierce and cut.

"Excellent. A superb single-target attack that breaks through defenses by focusing on a single point. It strikes with incredible speed and can kill in one blow, as long as the target can't dodge."

Kazama Kaguya was very satisfied with the move.

He began developing his second B-rank jutsu.

This time, his idea came from the same place as the Thunder Roar Cannon.

The jutsu didn't have much offensive power, but it had incredible restraining ability.

It could also work in tandem with the Byakugan, giving it a very high ceiling.

"Storm Release: Nine Luminaries Bind."

Nine wedge-shaped, bright blue bolts of light, each about a foot long, quickly took shape, faintly flickering with electricity.

When fighting an enemy, as long as the Byakugan could see through their chakra points, Storm Release's homing ability could bypass their defenses and ensure a hit.

The attack could suppress chakra flow by striking their chakra points, while also controlling lightning to paralyze their body.

If necessary, the bolts of light embedded in the enemy's chakra points could explode, destroying the chakra pathways and causing actual damage.

There were no enemies around now, though, so its practical combat ability would have to be tested later.

Still, there was no doubt it was an excellent B-rank jutsu.

Finally, since he didn't lack offensive power, Kazama Kaguya developed a B-rank jutsu meant purely for support.

He planned to use it specifically against ninja who fought with their eyes, such as members of the Uchiha Clan.

"Storm Release: Solar Flare."

As chakra surged, a ball of light the size of a bowl suddenly condensed.

It was silvery white, and at first glance looked like a smooth Dragon Ball. But the next instant, an unbearable burst of light erupted from it.

The world around him turned blindingly white.

The light exceeded the retina's ability to process it, covering an area over a hundred meters around him.

This was the ultimate expression of Storm Release's "light" attribute. Any eyes that dared to look directly at it would have their retinas burned out in an instant, leaving them blind.

Of course, the Byakugan was an exception if its user closed their eyelids.

The Byakugan's vision wasn't affected by light.

"Storm Release: Light Fang," "Storm Release: Nine Luminaries Bind," "Storm Release: Solar Flare," and the updated "Storm Release: Thunder Roar Cannon."

In just one day, Kazama Kaguya had developed four B-rank jutsu, greatly bolstering his combat strength.

"Good. Now for the A-rank jutsu."

Kazama Kaguya sat down and began thinking over the tips Kisame Hoshigaki had given him.

He could rule out combination jutsu right away.

Apart from Water Release, he didn't know any other chakra natures, and they wouldn't be very compatible.

That left layered, multi-stage shape transformation.

Ever since Kazama Kaguya had become an Otsutsuki, he'd effectively gained administrator privileges over chakra, this energy.

After several days of study, along with the experience he'd gained developing B-rank jutsu, he'd begun to grasp the basics of layering multi-stage shape transformations.

He formed beams of light, then began practicing adding a second and even a third shape transformation to them.

The blue-silver beams of light shifted shape around him without pause.

One moment, they became chains; the next, they took the shape of dragons. Then they burst into a dense web of lightning, or became incredibly stable.

"Extreme shape transformation, multiple stages, sustained attacks."

Kazama Kaguya murmured the requirements for an A-rank jutsu. The more he thought about them, the clearer an idea became.

He couldn't develop an A-rank jutsu with a special ability just yet.

But he was confident he could make an A-rank jutsu that met the requirements above and packed explosive power.

"I need to develop a Storm Release A-rank jutsu with an extremely long range and overwhelming power."

If he was going to do it, he would make it the best and strongest.

This would be the first A-rank jutsu Kazama Kaguya had ever developed.

When it debuted, it had to be explosive, eye-catching, and enough to shock the world.

With his mind made up, Kazama Kaguya threw himself into developing the jutsu, neglecting sleep and food.

For two whole days, he worked like a man possessed, failing countless times only to get back up again.

Storm Release's light and thunderous roars echoed across the borderlands, drawing patrols from Konoha and Takigakure to watch from a distance again and again.

His body was covered in blackened scorch marks.

They were the result of failed experiments, when his own Storm Release had exploded and injured him.

On the final day, as the last rays of the setting sun faded, a pillar of light rose into the sky.

The A-rank Storm Release jutsu was complete.