CHAPTER 106

The information that shocked Mizuki came from something long since cast aside—a remnant of a battle that had taken place over two months ago.

During the skirmish with Hōzuki Suigetsu in the Land of Waves, Mizuki had managed to seal a portion of Suigetsu's liquefied body using a sealing technique. It had happened in the chaos of battle—Suigetsu, using the Hydrification Technique (水化の術), had reformed after being scattered, but Mizuki had secretly taken the opportunity to isolate and seal a sample of his hydrated state.

Since then, the sealed residue—a stagnant pool of what appeared to be ordinary water—remained inert. Suigetsu had shown no signs of injury afterward; he'd returned to human form with all his limbs intact, albeit in poor condition. Mizuki could only speculate whether the sealed liquid had any lingering value. Was it a side effect of the Hydrification Technique? Or a byproduct of the sealing process? With no point of comparison, and no notable changes, Mizuki had mostly ignored it.

Until now.

According to Tsubaki's recent report, something had changed.

"Is there any reliable truth in this world? Can something actually grow from a pool of water?"

In a world where chakra could reshape the laws of nature, Mizuki—who still clung to the belief that knowledge was power—often felt his worldview shaken.

He remembered clearly: although he had sealed a portion of Suigetsu's liquefied form, the latter had suffered no permanent damage. That made what he now saw all the more baffling.

After returning to Konoha, Mizuki had studied the sample, curious about Suigetsu's clan technique. But over time, his analysis had revealed nothing unusual. The substance behaved like water in every measurable way—viscosity, temperature, chakra conductivity—it was indistinguishable from regular fluid. Out of scientific habit, Mizuki kept a small portion sealed away.

He hadn't expected it to change.

"I haven't seen it firsthand yet... so I can't make a definitive judgment."

What Tsubaki observed wasn't a regeneration of limbs or anything humanoid. Rather, the fluid had begun to show biological activity: cell-like structures, visibly alive under a microscope. But whether they were viable organisms or some form of mutation remained unknown.

"What triggered the change?" Mizuki mused, going over every detail.

Only one anomaly stood out.

The inert fluid had finally reacted—but only when it was exposed to Mizuki's own Splitting Agent, a substance he'd long ago developed for breaking down single-celled organisms. This reaction was further amplified when Tsubaki applied chakra with a water-nature transformation. The dormant liquid became turbulent. Then it changed entirely.

"A double stimulus… potion and chakra."

He remembered the fight: Suigetsu had evaded fire-style jutsu with his liquefaction, but when exposed to Mizuki's experimental potions, he'd clearly been affected. The sealing had worked on a portion of his body, but the precise mechanism remained unclear.

The Hydrification Technique, unlike a kekkei genkai like Ice Release, wasn't a chakra nature combination, but rather a Hōzuki clan secret tied to their unique physiology. Mizuki hypothesized that while outsiders could perhaps mimic the technique, without the clan's inherited traits, it would be extraordinarily difficult—much like how the Yamanaka clan's mind-transfer technique was functionally impossible to replicate without their lineage. Similarly, without Uchiha blood, no one could awaken the Sharingan no matter how much their chakra grew.

Still, Mizuki's curiosity wasn't about replicating Suigetsu's technique. His interest lay deeper—in the biological implications of hydration and transformation.

He recalled another technique: Inorganic Reincarnation (無機転生). Used by Kabuto Yakushi under the influence of Sage Mode, it animated inorganic matter with natural energy. Could something similar be at play here?

If natural energy could grant life to stone, wasn't it feasible that chakra could coax dormant cells in water into growth?

Of course, Inorganic Reincarnation was a true senjutsu—something Mizuki couldn't hope to use. Suigetsu's technique was no such thing. If it were, Mizuki wouldn't have survived their encounter.

Still… he couldn't shake the feeling that the Hydrification Technique hinted at some deep, unknown biological truth.

Konoha had its own strange techniques too—he thought of the Spiritualization Technique (霊化の術), which allowed the user to project their soul out of their body. Theoretically, the energy required to manifest the soul as a visible, interactive force should be astronomical. According to real-world physics, converting human mass to energy would cause an explosion. Yet in the shinobi world, such a jutsu simply worked.

So either:

The theory of relativity didn't apply in this world.

Or the soul was something different—something that existed outside the bounds of conventional energy.

Mizuki shook his head, pulling himself back to reality.

"I let myself get too distracted with the Chūnin Exams," he muttered. "Didn't even check the samples properly..."

He blamed his lack of staff and overwork. Tsubaki was competent and trustworthy, but chakra control and ninjutsu were her strengths. She wasn't a biochemical researcher.

The Splitting Agent had originally been developed for use on simple organisms. It acted like a corrosive, rapidly breaking down cell walls and destabilizing structures—similar in some ways to his "Omnipotent Agent," but with less finesse. Mizuki had dismissed it for a while, until he began thinking about countermeasures—like the Anti-Growth Potion—and their interactions.

Now, something had clearly shifted.

"Did I sever the link to the original owner?" Mizuki wondered aloud.

If the pool of water retained a genetic or chakra imprint from Suigetsu… then what did that mean for the thing growing inside?

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