59 Whirlpools

Flickering over to our village's dock, we searched for the ship we were going to take. "Ah, found it, brats. Over here," Hanzo shouted from near a medium-sized ship that looked like it could hold us and maybe a few more people as well. We all went over to the ship and boarded it and looked around the cabin. "There isn't much room for anything else besides sleeping and eating, but that's all you'll really be doing on the water anyway. There's also a bathroom in the back of the ship," Hanzo explained.

We nodded and returned to the tip of the ship, looking out over the open river ahead of us. "Since we're still in the village's river, we need to sail until we hit open waters. After that, I'll show you how our whirlpools are produced and how we are able to bypass them to get to the mainland."

"Sounds good. I've always wondered about that; it's never seemed like a natural occurrence to me," I spoke up as we started to get the ship up and running. As we navigated to the open water, I found myself unusually at peace with the rocking and swaying of the ship on the river's water.

"You look like you're about to fall asleep right now. Did you get enough sleep?" Kiyoko appeared in my eyeline, snapping me out of the semi-trance I had been in.

"Yeah, I feel fine, just super relaxed right now," I told her as I looked out to the ocean on the horizon.

"We're almost at the ocean. Make sure you are paying attention because I won't be telling you guys twice. Got it?"

"Yes, sensei," all three of us replied, already used to his shenanigans. "Okay, good."

Sailing for around 10 more minutes, we left the river of our village and entered the open water, causing me to close my eyes and appreciate the salty wind on my face, as did my other teammates as well.

"This really is an amazing sight," I sighed. Even in my past life, seeing and sailing on the sea had been on my bucket list, but for obvious reasons, I had never gotten the chance to do it. Now standing here on the bow of the ship, I felt a deep contentment.

"Alright, that's enough of enjoying the wonders of the world. Now, get ready to learn about how our village's whirlpools work," Sensei said in a flat tone, over the crashing of the waves against the ship.

Looking out over the water, I started to see a swirling area of water. Calling over to our sensei, I pointed it out, and he bobbed his head up and down. "Yup, that's one of the whirlpools that protect our island. Now, what you can't see are all the small stone monoliths underneath the water that are causing such a big swirling mass of water."

Being really intrigued to learn more about who put these things in place, I watched our sensei intently. "These stone monoliths are said to have been made and set in place by the first Uzumaki patriarch. He set up these ancient structures all over the perimeter of the island in order for the island to have protection from any outsiders that would decide to make the journey to the island," he explained, looking at me before continuing his story. "We have no idea how those pillars work, nor do we have any idea what the seals inscribed on the stone pillars are or what they do. The best explanation we've come up with is that he used his own sealing language that he didn't bother to explain to the other clansmen."

Benimaru yawned and closed his eyes. "That's cool and all, sensei, but why should we care about it?"

Thunk

"What do you mean 'why should I care about it?' You're living here comfortably in a village surrounded by a natural defense. I thought you were smarter than this," Kiyoko looked at Benimaru with disapproval in her eyes.

Rubbing the spot on his head, he groaned, "I was just kidding. God, I try and tease Shiran one time and I get thunked in the head."

A light blush spread across Kiyoko's face as she tried to defend herself but failed in the face of a disgruntled Benimaru. Smirking, I looked at Benimaru. "Just because my clan is so much better than yours doesn't mean you have to be all upset about it, Benimaru."

Benimaru looked at me remarkably calmly for how he would usually respond before his mouth quirked up in the corners. "You know what, Shiran?"

I looked at him, challenging him. "What?"

"Jump off the ship," his voice echoed across the vast ocean.

Feeling my body stiffen up and chakra flood into my system, I raised an eyebrow as I looked at my internal chakra network through my M.E. 'This is quite interesting to see happening in real-time. It's almost like he's put my mind under a genjutsu; the chakra floods my mind and body and causes it to do something.' Trying to break my chakra flow, I realized that I couldn't even control my own chakra.

Smiling, I looked at Benimaru while I was walking away, over to the ship's railing. "I have to admit, your kekkei genkai really is a cool thing. It's almost as if you've put me under a very strong genjutsu. It's worse though because it's controlling my body down to the point where I can't even break my chakra flow to try and regain control over myself."

A broad, victorious smile came to his lips as he looked like his head was the size of the ship's sail. "You can't beat me in a battle anymore if you can't control your body, Shiran."

"That would be true if it didn't have any weaknesses, but as of this one exchange, I've found at least two right now," I informed him as I was nearing the edge of the boat.

His smile faded as he started to consider my words. "You couldn't have found any weaknesses yet. You've only been under its effect for at most half a minute."

"Let me tell you one of them right off the bat; it's chakra consumption. Being under this while monitoring your chakra has allowed me to understand that, that one command took a sizeable chunk out of your chakra reserves and every second I'm under this your chakra depletes fairly quickly." I spoke slowly as I started to put a foot onto the ship's railing.

He looked at me as his smile started to disappear. "The second weakness is mental fortitude. From what I can see your bloodline allows you to override the subconscious mind of the person that you want to control," I said, and he paled slightly. "From what I can tell so far, the more mental strength the target has, the slower his body responds to your commands." I started to move extra slowly as I completely stood up on top of the railing, looking out over the ocean. "And if I have a completely fortified mind, you can't make me do anything." I finished with a smile, staying right where I was watching the waves flow.

"Why can't you let me have nice things, Shiran?" He looked at me with dead eyes.

I shrugged and turned back to face my teammates. "Because the battlefield waits for no one. If I sugarcoat things, then that's just doing a disservice to you and your growth. If I point things out early on, you'll be able to improve on them before enemy ninjas make you do it in the middle of battle."

He looked at me in the eyes and nodded. "I still hate you, though."

I grinned at him as I responded. "You're just jealous of how powerful I am. It's okay, I can read between the lines here."

"So who lets you know where your faults lie if you let us know where ours lie, then?" Kiyoko asked with a tilted head.

"Well, the couple of people that come to mind are my seal teacher, Yoko; she lets me know what I suck at and how to improve. Both my mom and dad. The last one is that annoying-" Hanzo looked at me, "-ly powerful ninja over there." I pointed towards our teacher. "But he doesn't explain anything to me; he just beats me and lets me fall on my face until I work out what I'm coming up short in. You guys know how he is." They both nodded in sympathy as they knew very well the style of training and 'teaching' Hanzo loved to use.

Suddenly, our teacher spoke back up while jumping off the ship onto the water's surface. "This is how you disarm the whirlpool seals for enough time to let us pass through."

All of us watched intently as we saw our sensei make a series of 25 hand seals and slam his hand onto the surface of the water. Most of the hand seals were ones we were familiar with, but about half of them were completely unique and ones that we had never seen before.

Jumping back onto the ship, Hanzo addressed the unique hand seals. "Each whirlpool has a different combination of seals, along with their own unique hand seals thrown in as well. For this whirlpool, the combination had 3 unique seals mixed in, while in others, the number could go up to as high as 6. This is made to ensure that you don't disable the entire defense system when you just wanted to take one or two whirlpools down."

We nodded as we watched the water stop turning and completely flattened out, allowing the free passage of our ship.

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(A/N: Not much action, but there are some important things that will reappear later down the line around the beginning of the 3rd shinobi war or so.)

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