c16 — Dragon Flame Bomb
The master and disciple hid in the restaurant's back kitchen for nearly an hour. After confirming that no Marines were chasing them just for loitering, they finally gave up their stealth mission.
Defeated by hunger, they bought two large sesame cakes from a nearby stall before setting off again.
After using his Sharingan to copy the restaurant chef's cooking techniques, Uchiha Madara now brimmed with new confidence.
Feeling invincible just like when he first awakened his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan Madara decided it was time to seriously tackle their food crisis.
He took the kid straight to the seafood market, intending to select a fated sea fish to personally cook back home.
Still drunk on his "newly acquired" culinary prowess, Madara picked a fish nearly as large as Gion herself.
A single fish cost them 6,000 Berries!
Madara felt his heart physically bleeding inside his ribcage.
Watching the excited brat practically bouncing beside him, Madara had a sudden headache.
How the hell did Hashirama put up with this kind of thing?
This was a thousand times more exhausting than fighting against the entire Allied Shinobi Forces.
Madara reminisced gloomily:
Back when Hashirama first roped him into raising little Tsunade at the Senju compound, the girl at least didn't drain him dry like this lunatic.
Gion was like a hyperactive little bijuu—eating, sleeping, training, and somehow still finding new ways to get under his skin.
Otherwise, why would he have had to constantly repeat the "Will of Fire" mantra to himself just to keep his temper in check?
Madara secretly believed that this brat was the greatest obstacle between himself and achieving the "Eye of the Moon Plan" in this world.
When they returned home, Gion immediately threw herself into her regular training.
After previously mastering the basic Three Body Techniques—Transformation, Clone, and Body Flicker—and memorizing the basics of hand seals, her progress with the Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu (Hōsenka no Jutsu) had completely stalled.
Watching her struggling to spit out a fireball, needing six full hand seals and nearly five seconds to complete it, Madara's blood pressure exploded.
He even started wondering if Gion was purposefully sabotaging his mental health.
Determined to fix the situation, Madara updated her daily regimen:
From then on, she was required to spend at least two hours every morning solely on hand seal speed training.
True to his personality, Madara didn't micromanage once he taught the basic method.
He left Gion mostly alone, investing most of his time corresponding with Zeffa (Zefa), designing a brand-new combat ninjutsu system tailored for the pirate world's battle standards.
Still, even Madara found it hard to tolerate.
Twelve basic seals. Two hours of practice. A full month gone.
Yet she could only manage six seals in five seconds?
Even Madara, whose patience once endured endless negotiations with Tobirama Senju, found it laughably slow.
That said, it wasn't without merit.
Gion's raw Fireball Technique was genuinely impressive.
In terms of destructive force alone, the fireball she unleashed already achieved mid-level B-rank ninjutsu by the Hidden Leaf's standards—matching elite Jonin-level attacks.
As a Vice Admiral candidate personally trained by Tsuru (Crane), Gion naturally possessed monster-level talent and a monstrous physique.
Her learning capacity was too terrifying to be judged by normal standards.
In truth, she had long since mastered the "conventional" use of the Fireball Technique—capable of molding and releasing fire chakra easily.
She simply chose not to show Madara her full control.
The reason?
After watching Madara casually wipe out a sea beast using Katon: Gōka Mekkyaku (Fire Release: Majestic Destroyer Flame) one day, Gion understood something crucial:
Madara's so-called "B-rank Fire Jutsu" was anything but normal.
The Great Fire Annihilation unleashed by Madara easily dwarfed the power of average A-rank attacks, and its scale bordered on S-rank.
That day left an indelible impression in her mind:
The stronger the person, the more terrifying their jutsu output became.
Thus, Gion stubbornly believed that if she poured more chakra into each hand seal—even at the cost of speed—she could push her Fireball Technique's destructive power far beyond normal limits.
Unfortunately, her efforts were visibly slowing her hand-seal speed to a crawl.
As a veteran warrior who fought Hashirama Senju himself, Madara saw through her technique immediately.
She was injecting too much chakra during each transition, causing a lag in movement.
From Madara's perspective, however, this approach was ultimately inefficient.
After all, the Fireball Jutsu was originally only a C-rank ninjutsu in Konoha's records.
No matter how much chakra Gion pumped into it, there was a natural ceiling to its growth.
B+ level was already the absolute maximum for that jutsu.
Even if she spent a lifetime perfecting it, it would never evolve into true A-rank might.
The only way forward was to modify the ninjutsu itself, adjusting the chakra manipulation method of [Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu] to suit her needs.
But this was no simple matter—it was on par with creating an entirely new technique from scratch.
Thinking of this, Uchiha Madara murmured to himself:
"So, brat, are you going to give me a surprise?"
In an instant, he appeared at the beach where Gion was training, watching the little devil repeatedly spit [Great Fireball Jutsu] into the sea with reckless abandon.
It was then that Madara keenly noticed another fundamental difference between the people of the One Piece world and those of the Naruto world: their physical resilience and recovery speed.
Under normal circumstances, even a high-level ninja—unless blessed with the vitality of an Uchiha—would struggle to use a C-rank ninjutsu like the Great Fireball more than five times consecutively without exhausting their chakra and needing to rest.
Even characters like Kakashi, with massive reserves, were strategic in chakra usage to avoid collapse.
Yet the little demon before him treated the [Great Fireball Jutsu] like spitting saliva.
When she tired herself out to the point of collapse, her chakra would begin to regenerate at an astonishing rate.
In the Naruto world, such stamina and recovery capabilities were seen only in special bloodlines—namely, the Senju and Uzumaki clans.
And even then, their rapid regeneration was due to enormous chakra reserves, not because of innate recovery speed.
If a normal ninja could recover roughly 5% of their chakra per minute, Gion's recovery was easily ten times that amount—at least 50%!
Such reckless use of chakra without crashing into exhaustion was so absurd that even Uchiha Madara had to silently praise her monstrous physique.
As Madara pondered this, a sudden, massive explosion tore through the beach.
Looking over, he saw that the radius of the latest fireball Gion unleashed had expanded to nearly five times its previous size.
He quickly moved beside her.
Gion, pale-faced and barely standing, wobbled on her feet.
Ignoring her overwhelming fatigue from heavy chakra loss, Gion still beamed with excitement and shouted toward Madara:
"Master, master! Did you see that?! I did it! My Great Fireball's strength went up, right?! It's gotta be at B-rank now!"
"...That's not a fireball."
Madara's next words caused her smile to freeze, her face clouding over in disappointment.
But then, Madara continued, and her gloom turned into radiance:
"This power has already reached B+ level. Once you fully master it, it'll qualify as an A-rank ninjutsu."
Even Madara himself hadn't anticipated such a swift breakthrough.
In just one month, Gion had successfully transformed the original C-rank [Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu] into a completely new level of technique.
When compared to prodigies like Kakashi Hatake—who created [Chidori] as a teenager—Gion's achievement was not inferior at all.
Though Kakashi had created a new jutsu entirely and Gion had merely transformed an existing one, the difficulty involved still marked her as a top-tier genius.
Especially considering that Gion was not a ninjutsu specialist.
Every day she split her training hours between swordsmanship, physical conditioning, and chakra control.
As Madara remained frozen in thought, Gion grew impatient.
With an angry pout, she shouted:
"You idiot master! Can't you praise me properly?! I'm super smart, you know! Praise me!"
Snapping out of his daze, Uchiha Madara slowly nodded at her.
"...Good."
Though the praise was as minimal as it could possibly be, Gion was delighted.
After a month of brutal training under Madara's famously harsh standards, this was the first genuine compliment she had ever received.
Emboldened, Gion pressed further:
"Master, master! Since this is the first ninjutsu I developed myself, you should give it a cool name!"
She had racked her brain for days trying to come up with a good name but every idea sounded childish.
In the end, she pinned her hopes on Madara—after all, who could name a jutsu better than the man behind legendary techniques like [Gunbai: Uchiha Reflection] and [Limbo: Border Jail]?
Madara, glancing at her earnest, expectant face, simply picked a name off the top of his head:
"Since it's more explosive than a standard Fireball Jutsu, let's call it [Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bomb]."
He didn't bother mentioning that he had borrowed inspiration from his own old technique [Fire Style: Dragon Flame Song Technique (Katon: Ryūen Hōka no Jutsu)].
She wouldn't know the difference anyway.
Hearing the new name, Gion, despite being physically dead-tired, instantly became hyperactive again.
She hopped around Madara excitedly, yelling:
"Wow, hahaha! General Gion finally has her own jutsu! Watch out, evil pirates! Face my [Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bomb]!"
Already, she was imagining how she would dazzle her friends at the Marine Academy once classes started again, picturing their wide-eyed admiration.
Seeing her bouncing around like a hyperactive rabbit, Madara decided he'd seen enough.
Without hesitation, he grabbed Gion by the back of her collar, slung her over his shoulder, and began the march back home.
What nonsense. I haven't even made lunch yet, he thought grimly.
Still, hanging upside down, Gion peeked up at Madara carrying her and secretly clenched her fists in determination.
I, Gion, the future Marine Admiral, will inherit the Will of Fire! Just wait and see, Master!
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