Naruto: The Strongest Suiton User

Chapter 7: New Ninjutsu

Huff! Huff—!

Sakura panted heavily, her eyes fixed on Sasuke, who was struggling to get back on his feet. Despite her victory, the intense physical confrontation, combined with the mental strain of simultaneously manipulating chakra-infused water to assist in combat, had doubly exhausted her stamina and spirit! However, Sakura felt that she had gained a great deal and was filled with a sense of pleasure.

Sparring with Sasuke was a completely different feeling compared to sparring with Naruto or Hinata. Naruto, the ninja who would one day stand at the pinnacle of the ninja world, was still a naive shinobi who only knew how to attack in straight lines. The moves that were ineffective against Sasuke were quite effective against Naruto. After this fight with Sasuke, it suddenly became much clearer which of the things she had practiced were useful, which were useless, and which were wrong. Some things are useless if you only know them on the surface; you have to practice them personally for them to be of any use!

Whew—Sasuke wiped the red marks and blood from his face with the corner of his sleeve, which made his expression look a bit ferocious.

To have a great advantage and then be unexpectedly turned on—this unforeseen defeat was a bit difficult for Sasuke to accept at first. But he was, after all, a future "Kage-level" powerhouse. Sasuke still possessed the composure to admit defeat, learn from the experience, and rise to a higher level.

After taking a few deep breaths and calming his anger, Sasuke formed the Seal of Reconciliation and said to Sakura.

"That was a good move!"

Considering she had used twenty or so moves and only the last one worked, Sasuke's praise sounded a bit sarcastic. Sakura scratched the back of her head and laughed awkwardly. "Are you talking about that Sun-Chaser Chain Punch?"

"No, not that one. While that move is very powerful, what I'm more interested in is your footwork from just now."

"Hmm... that move, I call it 'Entering the Stance'."

"Entering the Stance?"

"That's right. Horse Stance—the stance you usually take, I call it a Horse Stance. That step I took forward just now was perfectly timed to disrupt your recovery of balance." To explain the footwork of that particular martial art in detail, she would probably have to explain its entire theoretical system and fighting methods thoroughly.

However, if words couldn't make it clear, then practical application would have to do.

"Shall we go again?" Her stamina had mostly recovered, so Sakura didn't hesitate to issue another challenge.

"Hn!"

Prejudice stems from ignorance.

In her previous life, Sakura had been a bit of a low-tier Sasuke-hater and had always held a certain degree of prejudice against him. When she was in university, her roommate was a Sasuke-hater who often cursed Sasuke for being arrogant and impulsive, resulting in him being played for a fool by people like Madara. Influenced by him, Sakura had never had a good impression of Sasuke.

However, after having more in-depth contact with Sasuke in this real world, Sakura gradually began to understand him. The image of Sasuke in her heart slowly transformed from the two-dimensional manga character into a real person of flesh and blood. Sakura also gradually discovered how shallow her previous understanding had been.

Imagine this: when you were less than ten years old, your brother suddenly and cruelly murdered all of your relatives and clansmen, but spared only you. Then you were left to live alone in this world, without even a single relative to take care of you or depend on. What kind of person would you become?

Moreover, Sasuke's situation was a bit more complicated. In fact, the news of the Uchiha's planned rebellion was not tightly sealed. On the contrary, in order to legitimize its actions, the village had already informed the upper-echelon ninja (mainly Jonin and other relevant personnel, as Jonin held a high political status in the village) of this news. This was to show that the village would not annihilate a clan for no reason; only when that clan became a common enemy to everyone else would the village be forced to use the most drastic measures against them.

Logically, an operation like this should not have left any survivors. However, Uchiha Itachi, as an important and deeply trusted double agent of the Hokage, saved Sasuke, which left an awkwardness to the whole affair.

On one hand, Konoha's Uchiha were a very powerful and important military force. The annihilation of the Uchiha was like cutting off one's own arm. Leaving behind a bloodline meant that perhaps the Uchiha clan could be rebuilt in the future, and there were many in Konoha who wanted to share in the power of this Kekkei Genkai. On the other hand, it was also to appease a powerhouse like Uchiha Itachi. He had already done so much for the village; if even an innocent person like Sasuke could not be saved, it might dishearten the other Jonin and cause a very negative impact.

But for the average person, the surname "Uchiha" had undoubtedly become synonymous with being a traitor and a snitch. From their ancestor Madara Uchiha to their present-day intention to rebel, it all pointed to this. Therefore, getting close to an Uchiha was seen by many as a very wrong action. To put it more seriously, it was like a modern-day celebrity meeting with a separatist, causing a terrible public reaction. Although the young Uchiha Sasuke was innocent himself, his surname had become his biggest stain.

This caused many people to subconsciously avoid Sasuke.

For a considerable period after, the three of them began to take turns in the roles of challenger and challenged. The one who improved the most was Sakura. Her weak point, taijutsu, progressed rapidly with the help of numerous high-quality sparring partners (Sasuke), instructors (Hinata), and a punching bag (Naruto). She could now fight evenly with Sasuke even without using her specialized nin-taijutsu. As for Naruto, he also grew up under Sakura's "loving punches" and "loving kicks."

The initial bond and friendship among the three of them were established during this time.

Although, the three of them didn't quite agree on this point. This is how they saw each other: In Sasuke's eyes, Sakura was an unfeminine violent maniac, and Naruto was a brainless idiot. In Naruto's eyes, Sakura was an unfeminine violent maniac, and Sasuke was an asshole who only acted cool to attract girls' attention. And in Sakura's eyes, Naruto and Sasuke were: little brats who didn't know anything!

The days at the academy passed peacefully like this. Apart from occasionally sparring with the two protagonists to build a good relationship, Sakura's main energy was still focused on practicing ninjutsu.

As she grew older, her practice and understanding of ninjutsu progressed faster and faster along with her increasing amount of disposable chakra. Around the age of ten, after entering the fourth or fifth grade, Sakura could clearly feel her body beginning to develop. Her physical strength grew rapidly, and combined with her surplus of spiritual energy to form chakra, her chakra reserves also began to increase at a rate that was noticeable month by month.

The ninjutsu she could access and practice also changed from low-level to mid-to-high-level ones. However, the ninjutsu available for learning at the Ninja Academy were mostly common, unremarkable ones, like Water Style: Water Bullet. The truly powerful ninjutsu would have to wait until after graduation to be taught by a Jonin team leader.

Sakura didn't pay much attention to those mediocre ninjutsu; it didn't matter whether she learned these B-rank-at-best jutsu or not. However, the Ninja Academy also had records of some lost ninjutsu. One was a powerful S-rank offensive ninjutsu created by the Second Hokage: Water Style: Water Severing Wave. The principles of the jutsu, the hand seals, and all other information were lost with the Second Hokage's death. The only remaining record was a simple description from a ninja who had witnessed it: "A very thin stream of water is ejected from the mouth, cutting through all enemies."

Sakura immediately reacted: Isn't this just a water jet cutter?

A ninja without sufficient knowledge of physics might find it hard to understand why soft water, under high speed and ultra-high pressure, would become harder than steel and could cut through iron like mud. That's why no one had been able to re-develop it since. But for a transmigrator who had done well in physics, the secret behind it was plain to see. Sakura could even judge from the description left by those who had seen the jutsu that the Second Hokage's version was still a far cry from the industrial water jet cutters used in her previous life. Because if one were to truly eject a water jet from the mouth, it would require creating ultra-high pressure inside the oral cavity, which would be no different from detonating a bomb in your mouth. No ninja who didn't want to commit suicide would develop such a ninjutsu.

The Water Severing Wave gave Sakura inspiration, but she didn't intend to reproduce this ninjutsu. Instead, she planned to develop her own new ninjutsu that fired a water jet. The key to this ninjutsu was to apply immense pressure to the water.

The effect of creating pressure was more common in Earth Style. Water Style also had jutsu that created heavy pressure, but they usually did so by creating a large amount of water supplemented with chakra to generate water pressure. However, the water pressure Sakura needed to complete this ninjutsu had to be at least 100 megapascals, which meant she would need to create a water column 10,000 meters high. It was better not to be so fanciful. The problem was that Sakura didn't know any Earth Style masters in her social circle, so she could only turn to Iruka-sensei for help.

When Iruka-sensei heard Sakura say that she was developing an S-rank ninjutsu that was extremely powerful, had low consumption, and required an extremely high level of chakra control, he was also greatly surprised. He immediately agreed to help contact an Earth Style master to answer Sakura's questions.

However, Sakura never would have thought that this so-called Earth Style master would be him.

PS: Although the protagonist isn't a Sasuke-hater, the author is!