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The location of the Hidden Leaf Village was chosen because the founders didn't want to settle in their former enemies' home, so they left their ancestral homes to settle in a neutral location. The history books discussing the village's founding put that reason in flowery prose and claimed it was for new beginnings that would eventually usher in the Age of Shinobi.
But the main reason behind the move was, above all else, water.
Not only did a great river pass through the village, but it was also a location where three major tributaries joined the river, making it so that the village would have access to all the fresh water—the most important factor for a settlement—it would ever need.
It was said that once Uchiha Madara saw the land, he refused to settle for anything else. When the word reached the Fire Daimyo, he disregarded all of his advisors and samurai retainers and gifted one of the most prosperous lands across the nation to the shinobi for their village.
A little distance outside the village, a young and old pair stood in the middle of that very river. Both were drenched from head to toe, but while Maruboshi stood atop the river surface, Takuma was submerged up to his belly button, applying the concept of chakra adhesion and water's principle of cohesion so he could stand upright halfway underwater.
He softly heaved with his hands on his waist, wearing nothing but a pair of swimming trunks. They had been doing this for a few hours, and the water, which felt refreshing at first, was an energy-draining parasite.
"Again," said the old mentor.
Takuma groaned as he weaved a long set of hand seals with his water-wrinkled fingers. Chakra flooded his pathways, rushing down his body as it shifted from neutral to water-natured, then seeped into the river through his feet. He frowned as the surging river tried to sweep his chakra away. Just as he was a few hand seals away from finishing, the water around him suddenly separated from the river's flow until he joined his hands in the last seal.
Water Release: Water Dragon Missile Jutsu
The surrounding water violently erupted, defying gravity as it swirled upwards into a towering column. The liquid mass rapidly turned and twisted, coalescing into a dragon's head, with shimmering translucent scales defining its serpentine body.
The dragon's body dwarfed the two shinobi, while the head sprouted a pair of long horns, flowing whiskers, and a glowing yellow glare. With a deafening roar akin to a crashing wave, the dragon arched its back before surging forward with terrifying speed for something of its size, dive-bombing towards the river's surface with the crushing weight of a tsunami, intent on obliterating everything in its path with high-pressure impact.
The river exploded, sending massive, violent waves higher than its tallest bank outwards in all directions. Maruboshi remained still on the rolling surface as though he was stuck to flat ground, but Takuma raised his hands to protect his face as he struggled to keep his footing inside the water in the face of wave after wave hitting his body.
But in all that struggle, his heart was pumping with exhilaration, his previous fatigue forgotten as he felt the rush of power that came with using a B-rank jutsu. There was nothing else like it. But the feeling faded as the water began to settle and the existing fatigue returned.
"Let's go," Maruboshi said, ruthlessly not allowing much time for rest.
Takuma knew that there was no use in asking for a break. When Maruboshi got into it, training was as tough as hell itself. Back in the academy days, he would have him run as punishment if he let the coins stuck to his body for chakra control training drop during spars where he was thrown around like a bag. Of course, coins dropped every spar, causing him to run after every spar, progressively making him more tired, causing more coins to drop.
It was truly a vicious cycle.
He turned around and began running on the spot with half of his body inside the water. Maruboshi weaved hand seals, and suddenly the elliptical pocket of water around him reversed flow, pushing against him. Moving immediately became ten times harder thanks to the river's flow pushing against every inch of his submerged body, forcing him to fight the water for every step.
Between each use of the ninjutsu, he had to wade through five kilometres of water pushing against him within a set amount of time.
Water Dragon Missile Jutsu was Takuma's fourth B-rank jutsu. One of four he currently had in his arsenal.
It was a popular Water Release ninjutsu because of its power and range. Water was moulded into the shape of a dragon that crashed into the target, causing great physical damage. It employed water's principle of cohesion and the principle of continuity to give the dragon its shape and used water's principle of momentum to propel that great water mass towards the target to cause great damage. It was easy to learn but hard to master. Ideally, the user pulled from a pre-existing water body to create the dragon, as creating substantial amounts of water wasn't just among the harder things to do via Water Release, but also required a proportional amount of chakra.
Most higher-rank Water Release ninjutsu that required a substantial amount of water had to concern themselves with balancing the two core components of water creation and water control. Some made it so that water creation was given more weight, so it was easier to create water because the presence of a sufficiently large water body wasn't always guaranteed, but this came at the expense of making it harder to control and wrangle the created water.
Some even gave both components equal weight.
Water Dragon Missile Jutsu, on the other hand, went the opposite route, where control of water was made easy at the expense of making it harder to create water, and that lowered the entry barrier for those interested in learning the B-rank ninjutsu, but conversely restricted the usage because until the user reached the level of mastery required to create water, they would be limited to using it only with a water source nearby.
Takuma was currently under that limitation because he hadn't reached the required mastery.
Fortunately, the amount of chakra wasn't a problem because he had chakra in abundance. Despite that, training was tough even for him. For many, using a B-rank jutsu once per day was the limit, severely limiting how much they could train. On the days he trained B-rank jutsu, he tried to limit himself to one clone because he couldn't part with that much chakra and still train effectively.
But until he reached the level of mastery required to use Water Dragon Missile Jutsu without a readily available water source, Takuma's third B-rank jutsu was there to bypass that limitation at the chakra cost of another B-rank ninjutsu.
Takuma waded through the water, which was doing multiple things, like training his lower body, improving his general chakra control against the turbulent flow, and practising water's principle of cohesion to create firmer underwater footholds.
"How am I doing?" he asked Maruboshi, who was walking beside him atop the water surface.
"You've got the shape of the dragon down, but you need to work on its speed. Both the speed at which you form water into the dragon's shape and the velocity at which you send it forward towards the target require improvement. Have you been working on the hand seals?"
"A little," Takuma replied, clearing his throat.
Water Dragon Missile Jutsu had a high amount of hand seals among the B-rank ninjutsu at a total of forty-four seals, so Maruboshi had advised him to learn to sign faster, reducing the time it took to get the jutsu off the ground by a few precious seconds. But even with his clones, hand seals were low on his list of training priorities, especially when he didn't even have a high enough mastery for the ninjutsu.
He eventually covered the five kilometres.
"This will be the last time," Takuma said, feeling his reserves after training B-rank ninjutsu for a few hours.
"I'm surprised that you lasted this long. You truly have monstrous chakra reserves," Maruboshi replied.
"They could always be larger," Takuma said, feeling an ache settle in his hips.
With his foundational energy imbalance, his spiritual energy was leading over his physical energy. As long as he built up his physical energy, he could increase his chakra reserves. He was fifteen years old; he didn't have to worry about his physical energy gains plateauing anytime soon.
There was no way to know how his strength and conditioning training would influence his physical energy, but given past trends, he was anywhere from a couple of months to half a year away from having just enough for a fourth clone. By then, Takuma hoped Inenpachi would have a rough version of the updated method.
"Given this is the last one, how about we have a competition?" Maruboshi said.
"I'm tired, and I don't want to be blown away," Takuma said. Maruboshi also knew Water Dragon Missile Jutsu. Despite the old shinobi's age, the difference in skill between them was going to be visible. If they clashed, he knew he was going to get hit by something, and he was in no mood for it.
Maruboshi's lips twitched. "It's okay. I'll match mine with yours, my boy. I promise."
"...Then, that's not a competition." Takuma sighed and lifted himself to the surface with a groan. "Alright, let's do it."
"Ready?" Maruboshi asked as they stood at a distance from each other.
Takuma nodded and began signing through the forty-four hand seals. On the other side, Maruboshi's bony yet nimble fingers moved faster, finishing two seconds earlier and still looking like he was taking it easy.
The water under their feet stilled for a moment before it began to froth violently and two large pillars erupted around them. Maruboshi not only began earlier, but his dragon formed faster. As he promised, the size of their dragons was similar, but unlike Takuma's dragon, Maruboshi's had a more defined shape with scales that shone beautifully in the sunlight, longer horns, and whiskers that legitimately seemed to float in the air. It looked more majestic and regal in comparison.
Maruboshi waited until Takuma was done forming his water dragon. Both of them nodded before sending their jutsu forward. The two surged forward as they rushed towards each other, bodies winding as their forms ascended. Their heads clashed, locking their horns. The river water rose in waves that passed beneath their feet.
The dragons pulled back and stilled with their heads high up in the air before charging forth with much greater momentum. Meeting in the centre of the stream with a bone-rattling crash that sounded like a dam bursting, the two beasts seemed to wrestle, their liquid horns locking together in a stalemate of raw chakra control, before losing cohesion and exploding outward.
The force of the impact sent a tide of spray and foam plunging down to the banks. The sudden deluge uprooted a few trees lining the shore, while heavy boulders were tossed aside like pebbles. The riverbed itself was briefly exposed, a muddy scar in the earth, before the displaced water came rushing back in with violent turbulence.
A thick, heavy mist instantly blanketed the area, obscuring the combatants and almost turning the riverside into a drenched, unrecognisable marshland.
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