Grass Village's Fire Style Secret Technique

Inside Madara's Underground Base.

Liao Wu was fighting White Zetsu Clones.

A dozen or so White Zetsu Clones, their skin gleaming bluish-white, surrounded him.

They simply stared at Liao Wu with hollow eyes, eerie smiles curling across their faces.

Their Chakra was scattered, yet it held a strange sense of synchronization.

One White Zetsu Clone charged, its arm transforming into a sharp Wooden Thorn.

Liao Wu kicked him away, and the rest rushed him at once.

Liao Wu quickly formed hand seals.

"Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"

Snake—Ram—Monkey—Boar...

Things were different now. Liao Wu was no longer the Ninja who had fooled the Anbu with a Fake Hand Seal that day.

In nearly a month, Liao Wu had studied the entire Uchiha Clan's Fire Style Scroll and mastered almost every Fire Style technique the clan possessed.

Raging flames burst from his throat and surged toward the White Zetsu Clones like a flood of molten lava.

Obito and Ryūsetsu hung off to the side like bundled dumplings, watching the battle in a daze.

A storm rose in Obito's eyes, and they widened sharply.

He had read Madara's Uchiha Fire Style Scroll alongside Liao Wu, but he lacked Liao Wu's talent. He couldn't learn a single Fire Release Ninjutsu technique from it.

Yet Liao Wu had learned every Fire Style technique in just one month.

Teacher Minato was right. The only thing that had ever held Liao Wu back was his frail body.

Once that limitation was gone, Liao Wu had the potential to stand among the Sannin.

"Aaaah!"

Several White Zetsu Clones caught fire and let out deafening screams. Their blue-green bodies rapidly charred and crumbled.

But some used the Root Concealment Technique to slip underground, using the earth to evade Liao Wu's Fire Style.

The Root Concealment Technique and Mayfly Technique seemed similar, but they were actually quite different.

The Root Concealment Technique merged the user's body with the natural earth, allowing him to move freely through it.

The Mayfly Technique, on the other hand, used Chakra to guide the body into Cellular Fusion with the earth's Organic Network.

It used Underground Water Veins and plant roots to form a "Moving Channel" for travel.

The Mayfly Technique was more versatile, allowing movement through earth, plants, and Underground Water Veins alike.

Suddenly, the White Zetsu Clones underground stirred.

Wood Style: Pitcher Plant Technique!

All the White Zetsu Clones underground merged into one, becoming a Giant Wooden Pitcher Plant that burst from the ground beneath Liao Wu.

Liao Wu leaped clear. The Pitcher Plant reached for him with nimble vines, while a huge calyx opened at its center and gave off a rotten stench.

"Ah, what a smell..."

Tobi caught a whiff and nearly gagged.

Liao Wu could barely stand it. He dodged the Pitcher Plant's vines and used Body Flicker to appear before him.

"Fire Style: Great Fire Heavenly Prison!"

Blood-red Chakra light flared in Liao Wu's hand and struck the Pitcher Plant from a distance.

Chains condensed from Fire Element appeared around the Pitcher Plant, their Curse Mark links binding him tight.

Great Fire Heavenly Prison was not an Uchiha Clan Fire Release Ninjutsu technique. Liao Wu had asked White Zetsu to steal it from Kusagakure.

Fire Style: Heavenly Prison was a Fire Style Sealing Technique that prevented its target from gathering Chakra. If the target strayed too far from the caster, the flames would burn him to death.

In the Original Work, even Naruto was sealed by Heavenly Prison. Great Fire Heavenly Prison was its advanced form; in Blood Prison, it had even restrained the Ancient Monster Satoru.

If Great Fire Heavenly Prison could restrain a monster like Satoru, whom even Sage Naruto had struggled to defeat, what chance did a Pitcher Plant formed from a few White Zetsu Clones have?

"Damn it! That's our Grass Village's Secret Technique!"

Ryūsetsu ground her teeth in fury. It was one of Grass Village's Fire Style Secret Techniques.

She had given it away because she couldn't endure Liao Wu's tickle torture, and he had promptly sent White Zetsu to steal it from Grass Village.

Liao Wu had stolen all three Fire Style Secret Techniques of Grass Fruit—Heavenly Prison, Great Fire Heavenly Prison, and Heavenly Prison Fire Sword—along with Ghost Lantern, a technique belonging to Grass Flower.

The Pitcher Plant couldn't break free. Liao Wu gathered an azure-blue sphere of spiraling light in his palm.

"Rasengan!"

The Chakra at the sphere's edge churned like a boiling whirlpool, drawing in the surrounding air with a shrill hum, as if it could grind everything nearby to pieces.

Obito shouted excitedly, "There it is! Teacher Minato's Rasengan!"

Liao Wu turned and snapped, "It's my Rasengan! I developed it first. The patent's mine, and anyone who uses the Rasengan owes me royalties!"

That was the trouble with having no reputation. Liao Wu had developed the Rasengan and taught it to Minato, but he himself had seen precious little combat.

It was in Minato's hands that the Rasengan became famous, leading some Ninja to believe he had developed it.

With a thought, Liao Wu made his Rasengan grow larger.

Big Ball Rasengan!

There was nothing technically complicated about this move: he just made the sphere bigger. But it required far more Chakra, and the difficulty of controlling it rose just as sharply.

That was no problem for Liao Wu.

He was a medical Ninja, and advanced Chakra control was the first thing a medical Ninja had to learn.

Liao Wu slammed the Big Ball Rasengan into the Pitcher Plant. It was like being struck by a small typhoon. The high-speed spinning Chakra tore through his woody outer layer and drove deep into his body.

In the blink of an eye, Liao Wu had finished off the Pitcher Plant.

Liao Wu dusted off the hem of his clothes and gave Uchiha Sasuke's cold smirk. "My hem's barely dirty!"

White Zetsu Clones were no pushovers.

At their core, they were Plant-based Biological Weapons, with individual strength roughly ranging from Genin to Chunin level.

They fought mainly through numbers and special abilities; their individual combat power was limited.

During the Fourth Shinobi World War, they had served as cannon fodder, whittling down the Ninja Alliance's forces.

They were not especially strong alone, but they were extremely troublesome. White Zetsu Clones needed no sleep, food, or air, and could survive in any extreme environment.

They could also move through floors and walls. Let your guard down, and one would pop up like a Potato Mine.

Beyond that, White Zetsu Clones were troublesome for their shapeshifting, Chakra absorption, and Wood Style abilities.

An experienced Chunin could handle one White Zetsu Clone easily. Faced with a whole group, even a Jonin would have to run.

Elsewhere.

Black and White Zetsu emerged from the wall.

White Zetsu assessed Liao Wu. "He's stronger than the average Jonin. A born Ninja. Stealing that Secret Technique from Grass Village for him wasn't a waste after all."

Liao Wu learned Ninjutsu quickly, thanks not only to his formidable Ninja Talent but also to Madara's guidance.

Madara had woken once while Liao Wu was studying Ninjutsu. That face, so like Izuna's, had stirred in him an urge to teach.

Of course, the most important factor was the remarkable copying ability of White Zetsu Cells.

White Zetsu Cells could absorb a Ninja's Chakra and mimic him perfectly. They could copy not only Chakra, but Ninjutsu as well.

Using that ability, Liao Wu had absorbed Madara's Fire Style Chakra and quickly mastered all of the Uchiha Clan's Fire Style techniques.

Of course, it also helped that Fire Release Ninjutsu rarely reached A-rank difficulty. Most techniques in the Uchiha Clan's Fire Style Scroll were B-rank.

White Zetsu Cells could not copy A-rank techniques or Forbidden Techniques.

After Madara fell asleep, Liao Wu still wanted to learn more Ninjutsu. He set his sights on Grass Village's Fire Style Secret Techniques and told White Zetsu to steal them.

White Zetsu refused, so Liao Wu cried, made a scene, and threatened to hang himself. Finally, driven to distraction, White Zetsu had no choice but to pay Grass Village another visit.

A small Ninja village like Grass Village had no way to counter White Zetsu's infiltration skills. To him, the place might as well have been his backyard.

Black Zetsu scoffed at White Zetsu's praise. "He's just an ordinary Ninja! If he never awakens the Sharingan, he'll be useless his whole life."

Black Zetsu had skulked around for over a thousand years. What kind of genius hadn't he seen?

Why bother studying B-rank Ninjutsu? A glance with the Three Tomoe Sharingan was enough to learn them, and an Indra Reincarnator could even invent techniques from scratch.

In Black Zetsu's eyes, Liao Wu was still confined to the realm of ordinary Ninja, fit only to sit with the mediocre.

To sit at Madara's table, he would need at least a pair of Mangekyo.

His inability to awaken the Sharingan was Liao Wu's greatest problem for now.