Chapter 16 — Dragon Flame Bomb
The master and disciple duo hid in the back kitchen of a restaurant for nearly an hour, squatting there as they learned. By the time they were done, they were absolutely starving. In the end, they bought two large flatbreads from a street stall before finally leaving.
Having copied a large number of cooking-related techniques with his Sharingan, Madara was now brimming with confidence. He felt like this was a sure win. Without hesitation, he dragged the brat straight to the seafood market, planning to pick out a "destined" fish to take home and cook.
Overflowing with confidence in his newly acquired skills, Uchiha Madara directly chose a fish about the same size as Gion, thinking he'd let the brat have a proper meal for once.
That single fish cost a full 6,000 Berries!
Madara's heart was bleeding!!!
Looking at the excited little brat beside him, Madara couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.
Just how had Hashirama managed to raise something like this?
This was far more difficult than fighting.
Thinking back to his own childhood, Madara felt that he definitely hadn't been this troublesome.
This brat was like a possessed motor—every day, aside from eating and sleeping, she was either finding ways to annoy him or endlessly repeating that unbearable "Will of Fire."
Madara increasingly felt that this little brat was the greatest obstacle to him realizing Hashirama's will in this world.
After returning home, Gion began her daily scheduled training.
Having already mastered the basic Three Body Techniques and hand seals, her Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique had made no progress for quite some time.
Watching her perform the Great Fireball with six seals in five seconds made Uchiha Madara's blood pressure skyrocket. He even suspected that this brat was deliberately messing with him.
Seeing this, Madara adjusted her daily training plan.
Every morning, Gion would now have to spend at least two hours practicing hand seals.
For the most part, Madara took a hands-off approach with Gion—he would teach her, then leave her to it while he went off to communicate with Zephyr, working on creating combat ninjutsu better suited to this world.
But there were only twelve seals in total.
Practicing two hours a day, for an entire month—and you're still at six seals in five seconds?
That said, it wasn't entirely without merit.
In terms of power, Gion's Great Fireball was genuinely impressive.
Judging purely by destructive force, her Great Fireball had already reached the level of a standard B− rank ninjutsu.
As a candidate personally nurtured by Tsuru, Gion possessed monstrous talent and physical constitution. There was no way her learning speed would actually be slow.
In reality, she had already mastered the standard Great Fireball to the point where she could use it freely.
The reason she hid this from Uchiha Madara was simple—
She had witnessed Madara using the technique Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame.
After spending time with him, Gion had developed a general understanding of ninjutsu power levels.
The B-rank technique Madara used far exceeded what she believed a B-rank technique should be—it even approached S-rank territory.
This made her firmly believe that the power of ninjutsu varied depending on the user.
Which meant—
The stronger the user, the stronger the technique.
The reason her hand seals were always so slow was because she constantly tried to inject more chakra into the Great Fireball.
Each seal was accompanied by a massive infusion of chakra, naturally slowing down the sealing speed.
As a battle fanatic in his previous life, Madara had already noticed this at a glance.
Every time Gion formed seals, she mobilized excessive chakra to amplify the technique, which caused her speed to drop drastically.
She was clearly pursuing greater destructive power.
In Madara's view, this wasn't worth the trade-off.
After all, the Great Fireball was only a C-rank technique. No matter how much you trained it, it had an upper limit.
Even if you pushed it to its absolute limits, it wouldn't become A-rank.
B+ was already its ceiling.
So the only solution—
Was to modify the technique itself.
By altering the chakra flow of the Great Fireball Technique, she might achieve what she wanted.
But that level of difficulty was no less than creating a new ninjutsu.
Thinking this, Uchiha Madara muttered:
"So then… brat, can you pull off this surprise?"
In an instant, he used Body Flicker and appeared at the seaside where Gion was training.
There, he watched the brat continuously launching Great Fireballs into the ocean.
This was where Madara noticed a key difference between people of the Naruto world and those of the One Piece world—
Recovery speed and physical constitution.
Under normal circumstances, even a Genin-level Uchiha wouldn't be able to use a C-rank ninjutsu more than five times in succession, and would require significant rest afterward.
But this brat—
She was practically using Great Fireball like it was spit.
When she got tired, she would just pause for a moment—and her chakra would recover.
This level of recovery…
Madara believed that in the ninja world, only the Senju Clan and the Uzumaki Clan could achieve something similar.
But their recovery speed was based on their already massive chakra reserves.
If ordinary ninja recovered chakra at about 1% per second, then Gion's recovery rate was at least 5%.
Despite spending chakra so recklessly, she showed no signs of exhaustion.
Even Uchiha Madara had to admit—her physical constitution was extraordinary.
Just as Madara was still deep in thought—
A massive explosion suddenly erupted.
Looking over, the Great Fireball Gion had just launched exploded with a radius more than five times the normal size.
In an instant, Madara appeared beside her.
Gion's face was pale, barely managing to stand.
Ignoring the weakness from excessive chakra consumption, she excitedly shouted:
"Master! Master! Did you see that?! I did it! My Great Fireball—it's at B-rank now, right?!"
"That's not Great Fireball."
Madara's words caused her expression to freeze. She looked slightly dejected—
But the next moment, her mood flipped completely.
"This level of power has already reached B+ rank. It's extremely close to A-rank ninjutsu. Once you become proficient with it, you can treat it as an A-rank technique."
Even Madara hadn't expected the surprise to come this quickly.
In just one month, Gion had modified a C-rank technique to this extent.
Even compared to Kakashi—who created Chidori at a young age—Gion's talent was not inferior.
One created a technique from scratch, the other modified one—
But Gion wasn't even focused solely on ninjutsu.
She still trained extensively in swordsmanship and taijutsu every day.
Under those conditions, achieving this level of modification—
She could already be called a genius.
Seeing Madara still standing there in a daze, Gion puffed up her cheeks in dissatisfaction.
"Idiot Master! Say something already! I'm this smart—can't you at least praise me properly~?"
Madara snapped out of it and nodded slowly.
"Not bad."
Even though the praise was somewhat perfunctory, Gion was overjoyed.
Madara was an extremely strict teacher. After a full month of training under him, this was the first time he had praised her.
Taking advantage of the moment, Gion immediately pressed further:
"Master, Master—then give my technique a name! This is the first ninjutsu I've created myself!"
A name.
Gion had already thought about naming her improved Great Fireball, but every name she came up with felt childish.
So she set her sights on Madara.
"A name, huh… Compared to Great Fireball, it has superior explosive capability… Then let's call it—Dragon Flame Bomb."
Looking at Gion, who was now staring at him with admiration, Madara casually pieced together a name.
After all, she didn't know there was a technique called Dragon Flame Release Song.
As long as it sounded cool, that was enough.
Gion, who had been on the verge of collapse from exhaustion, suddenly sprang back to life.
She circled around Madara, shouting excitedly:
"Wahaha! Admiral Gion finally has her own ninjutsu! Evil pirates, face my Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bomb!"
She was already imagining herself showing off her technique to her classmates once school started—and basking in their admiring gazes.
Madara grabbed the hyperactive Gion by the collar and dragged her back home.
What a joke—he hadn't even made lunch yet.
Gion secretly glanced at Madara as she was being carried, quietly hyping herself up.
I, Gion—future Admiral—will inherit the Will of Fire! Just wait and see, Master!