Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 117 KAME MODE

Pretty much every turtle was named Kame something. Like Michi’s real name was Kamichi. Kame meant turtle in Japanese so I wasn’t too surprised. And it was easy to remember names since I could just call them Kame and they’d answer. I learned my way around the interior of the 100 mile long reef over the next coming weeks. 

I had thought it would be a few weeks to clean them all off, but the barnacles were a bitch. There were a hell of a lot of turtles too. Once word got around between them there were a lot that swam in for my barnacle removal. By the time I was done more had attached themselves to Old Man Kame again so I had to clean him off again.

He really didn’t care if there was a human contractor. The ancient turtle simply wanted someone to clean him off. I had to spend a lot of time swimming to get them all off of him too. The over mile long turtle simply laid on the ocean floor resting and my ability to hold my breath only got better as I cut off the parasites from he and his family. 

I met a lot of turtles over that time. There were literally hundreds of them at any given time in the reef. There were plenty throughout the world too. Simply swimming as they traveled across the oceans through currents or drifted on the water’s surface. I seemed to remember a giant one that had an island on its back in the Raikage’s land too. 

I learned a lot from Michi as I cleaned the turtles off. He talked about a homeland of sharks and dolphins that were always at war. There was a jellyfish one too, but the sea turtle homeland was more ancient than all of them. He didn’t know too much about all of the ones on land, but he hinted at there being a lot. I only knew of the toads, snakes, and slugs from the Sanins. Then there was the salamander that some kage could summon that the Sanins fought. Kakashi could summon dogs. Guy could summon tortoises. And there were probably another few dozen that I hadn’t heard of. 

When I told Kame I cleaned them all off the other turtles he scoffed and pointed to a huge scroll hanging from a hook. I rolled it out to find the names of other contractors. I didn’t recognize any of them, which worried me, but there were always secret masters out there. 

“Sign your name in blood,” Kame ordered. “Then put your handprint in the open space like the other signatures.” 

I did what he said. Reminded of Naruto doing much the same to be able to summon toads. “That it?” 

“Yep,” Kame said. “Congratulations. You can summon us now.” 

“How…do I do that?” I asked. 

“You stupid?” Kame asked angrily. “You don’t know how to summon?” 

“I mean, I know the seals, but… I’ve never done it before,” I said.

“Do the seals. Pour chakra into the Earth or whatever. The more chakra, the bigger the sea turtle. It’s that simple,” Kame said boredly. 

I did the summoning seals with my hands then poured a large amount of chakra into the cave floor. Smoke billowed out and Michi was pulled from a few feet away to below my palms. I was disappointed. 

“What was the point of that?” Michi asked, unimpressed. “I could have walked.” 

“I don’t know,” I said. “I wanted to see how much it would take.” I had used a good tenth of my chakra. The summoning jutsu wasn’t a joke. I had thought that Naruto just lacked focus to summon anything too big without the 9 tails chakra, but it really did require a lot. 

“Practice,” Kame said. “It will become easier. The burst of chakra you used was too unruly. There was a lot of waste. You poured all that chakra out over 1 whole second. You must learn to be able to pour out that much in a fraction of a second. The connection with a summoning jutsu is almost instantaneous.”

I was surprised by the information. I guessed there was more I needed to pearn. “Thank you Kame,” I said. Unsure how to broach the subject I asked, “what about the Sage Mode?”

“Fuck those snakes and toads,” Kame growled. “If you want to learn Senjutsu. You go to them. They have chosen the land as their home. We are of the water. The sea. The ocean. I do not teach nature ninjutsu.”

“W-what do you teach then?” I hadn’t asked him much about it because everytime I mentioned the toads he got pissed off. 

“I teach becoming 1 with the water,” Kame growled. “If you are interested. And prepared for death. I will teach you. But of your 12 predecessors that have tried. Only half succeeded.”

“I would like to try,” I said. I’d already signed the contract. And I doubted that the toads liked the turtles either. 

“Good,” Kame growled. “Michi, take him to the Whirlpool.”

“Uh yeah sure, Kame,” Michi said. I walked over, picking up the chummy turtle. He pointed and we moved further into the cave. Skirting around the pool that the Kame head poked out of. We headed through a maze of twisting and turning tunnels. Going down and down. 

As we went down it became colder. I made the air hotter around us with my quirk instinctively. Not only had I been practicing my chakra over the last year and a half, but my quirk was in top form as well. 

Eventually I heard the raging sound of what I thought was a waterfall. Walking down another rocky ramp I came into a cave with a giant whirlpool. At least 100 feet across, the whirlpool was the entire area of the pool.

Large stalagmites hung from above just over the whirlpool. The whirlpool never stopped turning. Around and around it went. 

“What do we do here?” I asked. 

“No idea,” Michi mumbled as I set him down. 

“You enter the pool,” Kame’s voice boomed in the room. I didn’t see his head anywhere. I assumed the old turtle had plenty of tricks up his sleeves. 

“And?” I asked. 

“You survive,” Kame said. “What you have been asking about is called Senjutsu. Senjutsu allows someone to pull the energy from nature. The trees, grass, the Earth itself. That energy is then mixed with a person’s chakra to strengthen them for a time.”

I nodded, understanding. In the manga, Naruto had gone to the land of frogs to become stronger. They had taught him Sage Mode. They had a special pool that allowed him to sense and draw in nature energy, but while he learned to use it he risked turning into a toad. He had to learn to focus it. Mixing the energy with his chakra expertly. Becoming one with nature. 

“But you forget we are turtles,” Kame’s voice boomed. “Frogs hop. Empowering themselves to jump further. Snakes strike. All focused on the short term. Turtles last. We survive. We live decades and they live days. In the Whirlpool you will learn to use Kamjutsu.”

I’d never heard of that before. That was for sure. But I was intrigued. 

“Kamjutsu is water energy,” Kame said. “Picture a simple blade of grass. It stores water inside it’s body. It can go days upon days without water. Using only a little to keep itself alive. Then one day there is dew in the morning. The blade of grass replenishes what it had used up. Kamjutsu is much the same. As you use power and strength, the water energy will replenish the reservoir of your power. Allowing you to continue on when others falter. Water is endurance. Whether a trickle or a torrent. The water will wear down everything in its path.”

I started to get excited. “Will it heal me?” I asked. Picturing opening the gates of the body. 

“Some,” Kame said. “But where Senjutsu forces you to become balanced and one with nature. Kamjutsu forces you to become one with the water. You will have to be taken into the pool before you. This is a nourishment pool. You will not need to breathe or eat in there. Once you have been able to tap into the Kamjutsu, you will reach Kame mode. Replenishing your stores of strength continuously. Becoming one with water.”

“You said that others have died?” I asked. 

“Of course. In the nourishment pool there is a time limit. As the pool feeds you, it will feed upon you. Too long and you will cease to be. Becoming a part of the whirlpool,” Kame said. 

I thought for a bit. Sage mode was pretty badass in the show. But the drawback was there was a set amount of strength, and it required time to activate. Like Kame said. Short bursts of intense power. I might not be able to do an ultimate move. But I could keep going. 

“I will do it,” I decided. 

“Good,” Kame said. “Wade into the pool. Let it take you. And become one with the water.”

I nodded. “If I die,” I told Michi. “….nevermind.” There wasn’t anything to say. I doubt they could find me anyway. “I’ll just have to not die.”

“Good plan,” Michi said. “Have a good swim.”

I nodded. Walking to the edge of the pool I was scared. The whirlpool hadn’t slowed down. Simply going and going around as the water twisted to a point. 

Taking a deep breath I ran and jumped in, doing a cannonball. I hissed as the cold water touched me. I regretted being so reckless immediately. I didn’t resurface like in the movies. I was pulled down in the water tornado. Down to the depths. 

I wasn’t sure how long I was pulled down. I just knew by the time I reached the bottom I was out of air. I struggled to push off the ground. My body acting on instinct to try to get to the surface, but the whirlpool was like a weight on my shoulders. 

I panicked, kicking, screaming, but not dying. At first I thought I was drowning but I kept thinking. Blackness all around there was no light. Just touch and thoughts were the only things that let me know I was alive. 

I knew he said I wouldn’t need to breath but it was still surreal. I was at the bottom of a deep pool, and not breathing for the first time in my life. Water had filled my lungs by that point. I could feel the cold leeching the heat from my body like what happened with with my quirk. 

I did something odd. I sighed. No air escaped my lungs but I still did the motions. After playing around and getting used to the weird feeling I began to meditate. 

Simply feeling the water all around me. The weight, taste, touch, coldness, fluidity of the water was my entire world. My lungs opened and closed, as if I was breathing it. I made the mistake of swallowing a bunch and then my entire stomach was filled with it. Water was in everything. 

So I focused on it. Trying to feel it. Understand it. I had water chakra. I had spent hundreds of hours submerging my feet as I tried to understand it. I knew nothing. 

Water was indifferent. You put it somewhere and it stayed there. But also it had a mind of its own. Flowing with the current. Spilling out causing floods. It went where it wanted. 

It was also versatile. Heat it up it turned into steam. Cool it down. It became ice. I did both of those things deep underwater. Trying to feel and understand it. So far underwater it took way more time with the increased pressure and it was good training. 

Water was life. You couldn’t survive without it. Your body was made of 70% water. The Earth was covered in it. Put it in a cup. It became the cup. Put it in a person. It became the person. It was a living breathing indifferent entity that I had to respect. If it chose to no longer supply me with nutrients and oxygen I would simply cease to be. 

I couldn’t tell you how many hours I spent sitting there. I lost track of the hours and days. I simply existed. Then one day I felt it. I felt the water enter my body. 

It wasn’t actually water though. The energy of the water moved into me. Filling me with strength. Or at least replenishing the strength I had lost. Then the connection was gone. I felt cold and scared again. But I was able to strive for something. 

It took me more time to bring it back. A distinct difference in how I felt, I was able to tell when the water energy mixed with my chakra. My chakra surged with power. Taking me back to my peak. The reservoir was refilled and I was whole. Then it would be gone and I’d push for it again. 

I was able to reach the mode a little long each time. Then like a switch was turned on I felt it fully. My chakra was alive with power. As if there was a whirlpool of strength in me. I felt like I could take on anything. I held that power for a long time. It felt like hours. Simply sitting in the eye of the whirlpool. 

Then I forced myself to stop. Letting out an airless breath the feeling left me. Drawing in a water filled breath I was back in the mode. I stood up then. For the first time in a long time I stood and for once I didn’t feel the pressure from the whirlpool.