Thoughts Triggered by Water Release Ninjutsu

"Take this, you stuck-up Sasuke."

"Damn it, you dead-last, watch this!"

The two went back and forth, splashing water at each other in a heated struggle.

As they fought, they suddenly noticed something strange, for they both spotted Hui performing hand seals to cast a technique.

"Whoa! That's amazing, is this ninjutsu? Hey, hey, Hui, can you teach me?"

As a model student, Sasuke knew just by looking at the seals Hui was forming that it was merely a basic ninjutsu.

"Hmph, that's just a basic Water Release technique. To get this excited over that—a dead-last really is a dead-last."

Sasuke suddenly realized something was off. Water Release? Who in the Uchiha clan could use Water Release? Chiyuki-nee-san counted, perhaps. Aside from her, there didn't seem to be anyone else.

The ninjas monitoring from the sidelines had already assumed combat stances. In a ninja's battle, trusting the opponent's hand seals and underestimating the power of a technique was a grave taboo.

Hui noticed nothing; his entire focus was on the sphere of water in his hands.

At first, he had only been curious to see how large a water sphere he could create. But as the sphere grew larger and larger, he discovered a problem: although he was by the river, was there really that much moisture in the air? Or were these all being converted from his own chakra?

That wasn't right; in terms of mass, it made absolutely no sense. The water sphere before him had clearly exceeded his own volume. Obviously, its mass was greater than his own. Moreover, his father had verified for him before that chakra was matter.

The phenomenon before him left Hui bewildered, unable to find an answer.

He released his hold on the water sphere, and it fell onto the sand and stones by the riverbank before merging into the water.

Hui looked at the soaked sand and stones, his brow furrowing once more.

At this moment, Sasuke and Naruto walked from the river to Hui's side.

Naruto was about to speak, but Sasuke covered his mouth and gestured for him to be quiet.

Seeing this, Naruto also quieted down.

If a ninjutsu was not triggered from a ninja's hands and the chakra dissipated, the traces of the technique would quickly vanish from this world.

But just like this water sphere, once it made contact with a large amount of solid matter, the ninjutsu chakra behaved exactly like the matter of this world—soaking and flowing just the same. There was no difference from real water.

From the perspective of matter, Hui could understand it. The ninjutsu chakra exhibited the same properties as matter.

But what Hui could not understand was the mass. If he remembered correctly, his father had told him that mass and energy were always conserved. Matter could not be created out of thin air, nor could it be annihilated. Yet, everything before him was challenging this law.

Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. Did that mean the words his father told him were actually wrong?

Hui felt that even if his perception had a large margin of error, it wouldn't be so off that he couldn't distinguish between existence and non-existence.

Hui picked up two stones of similar size—one soaked by the ninjutsu and the other by normal water.

Hui attempted to understand the problem through a comparative experiment.

Time passed minute by minute. Under the scorching sun, Hui saw the result he was looking for. The ninjutsu water evaporated faster. Or perhaps it wasn't evaporation, but a complete disappearance.

This phenomenon once again made him doubt the conservation of mass and energy.

Hui was lost in thought staring at the stones when suddenly, a shadow blocked them. He jerked his head up to see Naruto's worried expression.

Seeing that Hui had finally come to his senses, Naruto said, "Hui, are you really okay? You've been staring at these broken stones for ages."

Sasuke, standing to the side, didn't say anything, but it was clear he felt the same.

"Ah, sorry, sorry. I was distracted. You two are training quite well, haven't you noticed? You can both run on water now. You're truly a match made in heaven," Hui said with a hint of apology.

He hadn't forgotten that his father told him to keep it a secret. For now, he could only bluff his way through. Hui thought to himself.

Sure enough, upon hearing Hui's last sentence, the two began their classic routine.

Phew, that's settled.

The masked ninjas on the sidelines watched these brats staring at stones for so long and couldn't help but chuckle. Kids will be kids, after all.

Seeing that the time was about right, Hui called the two of them back from the water.

"It's getting late today, let's continue training tomorrow. We've all pretty much mastered water walking; tomorrow we'll move on to tree climbing and wall walking. I haven't practiced that either, so I'll join you tomorrow."

And so, the three went home separately, and the masked men on the sidelines breathed a sigh of relief.

Back home, while eating, Hui stared blankly at the soup on the table.

What Father told me definitely can't be wrong. But my chakra can actually create matter heavier than my own body weight—that's just unscientific. Could it be that I'm special? Because of that thing on my back?

Hui's gaze slowly unfocused, his thoughts drifting further away. In the ninja world, there were plenty of Water Release users, and it seemed Earth Release had similar phenomena. It wasn't that he was particularly special.

Following the method his father taught him, how should he understand this? When it came to understanding energy, he could always get the answer from his father's hints.

Now, he just didn't have a hint—he just didn't have a hint. Hui bit his lip, feeling that he was truly a failure.

For such an obvious problem, he didn't even have a way to explain it.

Chuanhe had originally found Hui's expression a bit strange, but as he watched, he seemed to understand something. Was he thinking about something? Not bad, not bad.

My teaching isn't completely useless, after all. Yuki, did you see that? It's not that my teaching is the problem.

The gears of time continued to turn forward. The food and soup on the table were no longer steaming. Chuanhe didn't mind; he just waited quietly.

Finally, the light returned to Hui's eyes. He looked at his father, who was smiling across from him. Hui scratched his head in embarrassment. "Sorry, Father, I was thinking about some things just now."

"Oh? Tell me about it."

"I verified it today, and it seems that chakra does not conform to the conservation of mass-energy."

"How did you verify it?"

"I tried using the Water Ball Technique to create a massive sphere of water. The volume of the water produced was larger than I am. By all logic, even if every bit of chakra in my body were converted to water at a one-to-one ratio, it shouldn't have that much mass."

"I conducted a small experiment to test this phenomenon. I used two stones of similar size as a comparison, soaking one in physical water and the other in ninjutsu-created water."

"The result I obtained was that the evaporation rate of the ninjutsu water far exceeded that of the normal physical water. This discrepancy is large enough to rule out almost all external interference."

"In the end, there was no change in the mass of either stone. Father, you once said that matter can neither be created nor destroyed out of thin air, and that it follows the principle of the conservation of mass-energy."

"So, in my view, this should prove that the conservation of mass-energy is incorrect."

Chuanhe burst into laughter upon hearing this, leaving Hui, who sat opposite him, feeling somewhat bewildered by his father's sudden mirth.

Could it be that he had made another low-level mistake? Hui had verified the process several times himself; it shouldn't be wrong.

Once he had finished laughing, Chuanhe spoke in a tone still laced with amusement: "No, the conservation of mass-energy still holds true in this world."