Chapter 79: A Multitude of Ways to Roll Meatballs

“Wind Style: Spiraling Shuriken!”

Naruto hurled the whirring spiraling shuriken from his hand. The moment it left his grip, its size increased rapidly, swelling from a palm-sized sphere to one as large as a concrete pillar. The four wings whirling furiously around the orb expanded too, growing to the size of a horse-drawn carriage.

When the spiraling shuriken struck the surface of the sea, it exploded with a sudden force, raising a violent typhoon and stirring up a tempest over the waters. Numerous unlucky aquatic creatures were swept up by the raging winds and flung onto the shore.

Jiraiya examined these hapless creatures and found their bodies covered in countless fine wounds. With the slightest pressure, their forms would spread open like an accordion, then dissolve into a mass of fluff.

“So this is the result of adding nature transformation to the Rasengan? The wind element’s cutting property is being used to its absolute limit!” Jiraiya exclaimed in awe. “Pure perfection in shape transformation, fused with the pinnacle of nature transformation—it brings out the destructive power of chakra to its utmost!”

“That’s right,” Naruto replied. “If you looked at the remains of these creatures under a microscope, you’d see that every single cell has been destroyed by chakra. That’s the effect of the Rasengan combined with a nature transformation.”

“Can you add other nature transformations as well?” Jiraiya asked.

“Of course.”

With that, Naruto proceeded to demonstrate every nature transformation he had mastered, one after the other, before Jiraiya.

“Fire Style: Spiraling Cloud Burst!”

Naruto spat out a blazing orb of energy, which transformed into a miniature sun hovering above the sea, instantly boiling the water for hundreds of meters around.

Then, a sphere of lightning appeared in Naruto’s palm, arcs of electricity bursting and spinning in his hand to form a powerful electromagnetic field.

“Lightning Style: Arcing Cloud!”

The lightning shot forth, dispersing in the air and becoming a cloud of chakra pulsating with electric arcs. As it drifted forward, it relentlessly unleashed penetrating bolts of lightning in all directions, bombarding the surroundings with wild abandon. Amidst the storm, countless shards of metal, drawn by the magnetic field, shot about in unpredictable trajectories.

“Water Style: Cage of Death!”

With a sequence of hand seals, a massive water prison three meters in diameter formed before Naruto. Its surface appeared calm, but Jiraiya could see that anything caught inside was spun to shreds, ground to pieces by the swirling currents.

The force of water moving at such high velocity was already formidable, but with the addition of these fragments, it became an unstoppable high-speed water blade.

“Earth Style: Meteor Crash!”

The final earth-style Rasengan was less flashy by comparison. After Naruto slammed both palms to the ground, a rapidly spinning ball of earth took shape before him. When he threw the ball and activated the explosion with a hand sign, the sphere disintegrated mid-flight, sending a barrage of fragments flying at speeds too fast to track, smashing everything in a wide arc ahead. Jiraiya judged from experience that this strike could level half the buildings in the Hidden Leaf Village.

“Naruto, you truly are a genius!” Jiraiya said, full of heartfelt admiration. “Even your father, with all his brilliance, never completed such a jutsu. He couldn’t perform a perfect shape transformation while also infusing nature transformation. But you’ve done it—and done it so well.”

“In truth, it’s just a little trick,” Naruto replied, shaking his head. “It’s just that the trick lies outside your usual thinking, so no one’s managed it before. Once you know it, you’ll be able to do it right away.”

That blind spot in their thinking was indeed hard to find. Naruto himself discovered it out of desperation, while experimenting with channeling mechanical energy to assist in forming the Rasengan. When he realized it, he slapped his forehead—how had he never thought of it before? It was so simple!

Jiraiya was curious. “What’s the trick? Can you tell me? If you teach me, I’ll treat you to a feast in the Land of Hot Springs…”

“No, no, I’m still too young for that—wouldn’t want to harm my health,” Naruto quickly protested, waving his hands. “Come closer and I’ll tell you.”

Jiraiya leaned in, and Naruto whispered, “Do it like this, then like that. First this, then that, just like so and so…”

After listening, Jiraiya’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. He slapped his forehead.

“It’s really that simple?!”

Naruto nodded earnestly. “Yes, it really is.”

Jiraiya almost couldn’t believe it, but then stretched out his hand. The original Rasengan didn’t require any hand signs, but the process of adding nature transformation did. This was Jiraiya’s first attempt at combining nature transformation with the Rasengan, so he proceeded with extra caution.

“Earth Style: Meteor Crash!”

When he pressed both palms to the ground, however, instead of the spinning earth sphere Naruto had demonstrated, the entire beach turned into a vast, muddy swamp, which then began to churn violently under his chakra’s influence.

“Huh? That’s not right! Why did this happen?” Jiraiya hurriedly dispelled the jutsu, making the swamp vanish at once. The ground was left with a deep, scratch-covered pit, quickly filled by the incoming sea. The swampy mire was washed away, and for several nautical miles the seawater took on an indescribable hue.

Naruto shook his head and said, “You mixed up the order of nature and shape transformations. You should first do the shape transformation, then change the chakra inside to earth nature. Also, your earth chakra’s frequency was off.”

“That matters too?” Jiraiya looked completely bewildered. After so many years of practicing ninjutsu, he’d never known such a distinction existed.

Naruto nodded, resigned. “There really is a difference.”

“No point in just talking about it—let me show you.” Saying this, Naruto pressed his hands to the ground. He first infused earth chakra, then began to rotate and compress it. Before their eyes, the ground rippled with massive earthen dragons, jagged rocks and muddy swamps everywhere, gaping holes filled with muddy seawater—a scene straight out of hell.

“This is what happens when you do nature transformation before shape transformation,” Naruto explained. “I call this move Earth Style: Prison of Stone.”

“And if you do nature and shape transformations at the same time, this is what happens.”

Once more, Naruto pressed his hands to the battered earth. The jagged rocks seemed to come alive, transforming into rock dragons, trapped in the earth, writhing, soaring, and gnashing their teeth above the endless abyss.

“I call this one Earth Style: Abyss of Trapped Dragons.”