#{chikaratochakra

[peepingtoad]

Just Jutsu Things; Toad Witchery 

So since I headcanon that the first ever Perfect (as per my personal ranking system) Toad Sage was Takiyasha-hime (based on this legend) it’d make sense that the bookish toads of Myōbokuzan have many tales, legends and techniques from back in her time contained within their vast archives.

While such documents certainly helped Jiraiya to start honing his Sage Mode much later in his life, particularly after spending time in the Pure Land and being returned from the dead (but I’ll go more into that later), there were instances when he was much younger that saw him unknowingly draw some inspiration from her legacy.

In her day, Takiyasha-hime was chiefly regarded by people as a witch of sorts, particularly given that she hailed from the little-documented period that Gamamaru describes before Hagoromo had spread chakra throughout humanity, wherein Senriki was the practice that later came to be known as Senjutsu. 

And because the power that predated chakra was built from within rather than inherited (credit to @shikkotsunin who explains it well here, I’m lazy and theirs makes so much sense already LOL), meaning that few people unlocked it in any meaningful sense at all—much less went on to traverse any Sage Path—one can imagine that the rumours of an intimidating swamp woman who was rumoured to turn folks into frogs would earn her a reputation for witchcraft.

... Or so the stories say.

Flash forward to nigh on a thousand years later, to a young Jiraiya reading some weird old stories he’d dug up from the archives, finding himself both utterly delighted and weirded out by them. They seemed pretty outlandish and didn’t document any particular method Takiyasha-hime may have used to physically turn people into frogs—no hand seals, nothing—which made it seem like little more than just baseless accusations and hearsay... and yet, he found himself inspired. Learning what he had already, and seeing the endless possibilities that being a sage opened up to him... well, why the hell not?

So it was that with a whole load of reverse-engineering and creativity, the Turning into a Frog Technique (Kaeru Kaeru no Jutsu) was born, and used to the similar effect of terrifying the shit out of people! And while the idea of turning folks into frogs may not have been his own brainchild, the actual theory work behind making it a reality—and, of course, the incredible punning—were all his own special brand of stupidity genius.

This, among numerous other things (again, a subject for later delving), would later contribute to enemies coining the term  'Sato no Kyōki' (The Village's Madness) during the Second Shinobi World War, a title that would stick with him well into the Third and beyond.

[peepingtoad]

What it can be like to ‘feel’ Jiraiya’s chakra, as a sensor:

A balmy breeze, humid downpour, crackling flames, warm honey, soaked summer soil, wet leaves, clear bells and chimes, rolling droplets, warm yet choppy winds, coals, geysers, forest fire, breathing steam, a molten tar pit, submersion, boiling/crackling oil, blistering sunlight, brass.

Of course, these vague sensory qualities all depend on his mood or activity, the exact root of his motivations at the time while exerting his chakra or the underlying emotions that bleed through unbeknownst to him. It would take a lot of getting to know him for any sensor to be able to read his heart by chakra alone, but his chakra in itself is huge, and often an intense enough sensation that it can be overwhelming regardless of whether he’s in an intense state of joy, sadness, rage or passion.

As a rule of thumb, his general chakra ‘feel’ is very pleasant, warm, welcoming, full of vitality, of love... and a bit of darkness and depth you can’t quite place. But when out of control (even if the emotion is ‘positive’) it can become crushing. Sickly. Too much of a good thing. Smothering and stifling.

[peepingtoad]

Just going to make it Official.

Broke: Jiraiya couldn’t attain Perfect* Sage Mode Woke: Jiraiya just didn’t attain Perfect* Sage Mode

Jiraiya probably could have gotten Perfect* Sage Mode in his lifetime had more time been devoted to it. The chakra control he exhibits is flawless (see double rasengan, carving the message on Fukasaku while his network is fukt by black rods, probably more examples I can’t pull from memory right now), which indicates he probably does in theory have the control to do Perfect* Sage Mode.

I believe the difficulty for him lies in that invoking Sage Mode at all depends on where an individual’s proficiency in the following two areas sit in relation to each other:

Chakra control/balancing

Internal chakra reserves

From all indications, it seems that Nature chakra has to be balanced perfectly with all of one’s internal chakra, so by that logic a huge chakra reserve would require a lot of Nature chakra to be taken in, thus affecting the ease of balancing, how long it would take to be able to invoke Sage Mode once you start moulding it—and then, of course, how long one would be able to sustain it once invoked. (There are pros and cons to both.)

Meaning that if one had a lower chakra reserves than usual, but control that was as perfect as could be, then balancing it all and achieving Sage Mode would be easier than for somebody with huge reserves and not so good balancing ability. The difficulty for Jiraiya therefore lies in the fact we are told he has crazy huge chakra reserves... while we are also shown he has amazing chakra control. In specific one-off applications such as the rasengan, finger carving seal etc. that aren’t using the Whole Load (lol) at once, he can clearly control it to a very delicate degree, but I imagine when taking in the huge amounts of Nature Chakra needed to make any difference to his already mammoth innate chakra... that renders it a completely different kettle of fish from the former.

Hence his tendency to go Rather Froggy. 

And this is where we come to one big thing that was hindering him: vanity. Yes, it was a throwaway line when he said that his ‘Honoured Sage Mode’ displeased the ladies so he disliked using it, but you know what? Give me stupid shit and I’ll eat it. Yes, a lot of it was that he probably didn’t find the time to hone the ability that was coming to him very slowly already alongside everything else, but I also 100% fully believe that he’s a stupid vain brat boy who didn’t want to keep going through the ugly step to get to the super sexy Kabuki Bastard Mode that I’ve sketched but still not cleaned up enough to post. 

On top of that is his pride, not liking to acknowledge the fact that his tendency to be a very slow, steady learner means it does take a great deal of time for him to truly reach his potential in most areas. So when it comes to the immensely difficult (and dangerous) Sage Mode, it’s an unfortunate and rather sore spot that because he forewent spending time training it in favour of his other goals, he couldn’t reach his pinnacle in the arena of Sage mastery. Further to the ‘ugliness’ in appearance of his Incomplete Sage Mode, the ‘ugliness’ of it was also a very strong physical reminder of his failure to succeed.

TL;DR HE STUPID

[peepingtoad]

Speaking of Toad Flatness — Shadow Manipulation Technique:

Crazy how this jutsu is kinda like a Yamanaka jutsu and a Nara jutsu got mashed together, when you think about it (which I only did Just Now pff)!

Of course, the limitations in terms of Jiraiya’s shadow manipulation here is that its longevity only goes as far as his ability to hold his breath rather than his chakra pool (which would be way too OP), and the mind control element is also not as hardcore as a Yamanaka’s in that he can’t access the mind so much as hijack it to control speech and movement (again, would be way too OP if he could pry for intel)... but this leads me to believe that he was actually pretty purposeful in drawing inspiration from Konoha’s clans for a few of his jutsu in his younger years.

Of course, the clans are pretty secretive about their techniques, so aside from growing up alongside peers from said clans and watching what they do, it’s not exactly as if he could find concrete info on them very easily. However...

This is where my headcanon about his work on standardised sealing formulae comes in, and perhaps just a little magic touch of favouritism that comes from being Sandaime’s own student comes into play alongside that. Being so involved in creating seals and training materials that would be used by the whole village, Jiraiya will have had access to many areas of the Konoha archives, and in doing so perhaps stumbled on enough documentation about the basic theories behind certain clan jutsu to come up with his own versions, despite not having the teachings that would make them as crazy-powerful as those who learn within the clan itself.

And with regards to Toad Flatness, it may well sound like it’s a toad-themed jutsu by nature, trained to him by the Toads of Myōbokuzan, however I find it equally likely that Jiraiya developed this one all on his own after reading about the Yamanaka and Nara, and simply opted to theme it based on his (probably accidentally) becoming flat during utilisation, and his knowledge that completely flat toads exist.

Another application of clan techniques (and because it’s nice to keep Ino-Shika-Chō together), which he’d truly make his own when combining it with senjutsu, is the Akimichi’s use of food pills/calories as fuel to promote growth, strength and regeneration. Through this principle, Jiraiya would end up developing Hair Needle Senbon in such a manner that he could theoretically sustain it indefinitely, except using nature energy as opposed to food/calorie energy, which can run out.

It was of course later on that Chōji also adapted his Spiked Human Bullet Tank jutsu to utilise his hair as opposed to strings of kunai, so maybe there’s a possibility that Jiraiya documented his use of nature chakra to promote growth/regeneration, which Chōji then adapted to improve on his own jutsu? It’s certainly food for thought (pun very intended).

Of course, the irony of Jiraiya adapting Akimichi styles lies in the fact he actually is a distant relative to the clan despite it being unknown—which probably means that methods that work well for Jiraiya could naturally work pretty well for an Akimichi based partially on some shared genetic makeup, and vice versa.

Knowing that Jiraiya is a ridiculously stealthy and ever curious guy, going so far as to carve it out as his niche from the Third War onwards, there are probably a number of other jutsu in his arsenal that have had inspiration drawn from Konoha’s rich tapestry of clan hiden... however those are probably best left for another post, along with the potential controversy of a bastard mongrel boy creating bastard mongrel jutsu!

[peepingtoad]

@minaa-munch​​ said: Do you have any headcannons with regards to Jiraiya and fuuinjutsu? The Sannin are part of the few shinobi who exhibit sealing prowess after all. | headcanon asks | always accepting! |

Hello again! First off, great question because it’s always been vexing to me that the Sannin are all so skilled in this area, and yet fūinjutsu overall is such an underexplored, underexplained discipline in general. On the other hand, this gives us a lot of room to have fun with it (which I think I’ve yet to really make any specific headcanon for) so here we go!

What I’ll say first is that I’ve been waiting (I dunno why, because nothing was stopping me) for a reason to post this particular thing for so long now, but in regards to the origin of Jiraiya’s skill in fūinjutsu, I see Danzō being the one to introduce him to it and initially mentor him in his youth—I’d say from perhaps age 13 or 14, for a couple of years. And for this I’ve thought of a few main reasons it’d come about:

Plain and simple, Danzō is keen to piss off Hiruzen by snagging his students because he’s a salty and bitter old goat—and at this point Orochimaru isn’t quite on the cards, what with still comfortably being Hiruzen’s favourite. Meanwhile Jiraiya is underestimated and somehow, despite being the way he is, manages to fly under the radar a lot. The raw potential is there too, and it’s intriguing to him.

To expand on Jiraiya going unnoticed, he is also basically an orphan, with no parent present enough to ever interfere. This is an important factor that Danzō no doubt values in the early stages of building ROOT—and whatever its intentions were at the time, Danzō was not particularly a shady guy at this stage. He could scope out the talent relatively unbothered.

But young Jiraiya’s talents are definitely something he’s seeking out, knowing he eventually wishes to operate from the shadows, to have people who can blend in seamlessly—and Jiraiya, being so personable and capable of ‘acting natural’ to the most human degree, is a great candidate for such a job. Sometimes he barely even seems like a shinobi at all, and that’s a strength for a spy.

Of course, after a few infuriating years he learns that basically everything about Jiraiya as a person is fundamentally unsuited to the type of work he wishes to do through ROOT. What a waste of time, huh?

So with some degree of general mentorship and information-digging going on, Danzō offers some training across various specialties and thus discovers that Jiraiya has a natural flair for fūinjutsu. In fact, despite being a slow and steady learner in many other areas of shinobi discipline, he takes to this like a fish to water. Book-learned basic principles aside, I imagine it’s a very hands-on, intuitive skill that requires great creativity to expand on the knowledge already possessed—which is probably minimal, besides Danzō’s own and the previous Hokage’s contributions, based on how relatively early Konoha is in the whole ‘document everything’ game (relatively).

Needless to say, Jiraiya has the creativity down pat. He designed the seal to suppress the Kyūbi chakra, after all, and was even proficient enough to seal Amaterasu. Hell, his toad-themed jutsu in themselves are quite the exercise in creativity, so even though Jiraiya turned out to be no good for ROOT, he would use that brilliant(!) mind to go on to play a part in developing many seals commonly used among Konoha shinobi today.

His main forte, or at least the area of fūinjutsu where he really went wild, is the design of numerous paper/scroll/tag-based seals, lending to the general convenience of use for shinobi of all ranks. They’re easy to pack, carry and replicate which helped to ensure that units were more prepared than ever. Chiefly, sealing elemental jutsu (exemplified by sealing Itachi’s Amaterasu fire) and weapons within scrolls, along with chakra suppression, vocal silencing, paralyzing and tracking seals. He didn’t invent these manners of sealing by any stretch, but made the designs more... streamlined? Accessible? More simple to draw and execute, I imagine, being generally simpler himself and not so constrained by the rigid teachings of any given clan. 

As an aside—the reason he was so focused on sealing objects at all was so that he could bring Items He Should Not Have into Places They Weren’t Welcome, while being more difficult to notice doing so. Make of that what you will. (It’s booze-related because isn’t it always? Hell, maybe even some of that dank Myōbokuzan kush that the toads are blatantly always smoking in those fancy kiseru... am I joking? Who knows)

Anyway. His weapon seal would go on to inspire Tenten’s technique of sealing many weapons at once. Again by no means did he invent this technique, because this is Tenten’s baby (plus he’s no bukijutsu specialist!), but the theory had its basis within the seals he designed for simple and chakra-efficient storage of weaponry.

Again being very much geared towards paper and tag seals, much of Jiraiya’s training that was unique to Konan, along with combining toad oil/fire and paper, was teaching her fūinjutsu and brainstorming ideas to make her paper jutsu even more formidable and unpredictable than before. We of course see her using all those explosive tags in the fight with Obito, but I think Konan + paper seals doing all sorts of shit, releasing sealed jutsu and who knows what else... was a missed trick!

While I believe Mito definitely had influence on Jiraiya’s fūinjutsu, I think it was indirect, and any learnings of Uzumaki sealing will have been passed to Jiraiya through Kushina and/or what Minato learned through Kushina (who in turn learned most heavily from Mito). My reasoning for this is that as the first jinchūriki, Mito seemed to be far more isolated than later hosts would be, particularly in her older years—and I don’t see there being much inclination to share Uzumaki sealing secrets with someone with no ties to the clan. Kushina and Tsunade? Yes. Random little ragamuffin? Perhaps not.

... I’ve already rambled on a fair bit and think I’m out of proper ideas for now, so I’m just gonna take a moment to list some short/stupid fūinjutsu-related headcanon ideas now:

When he calls Orochimaru’s work sloppy that one time, it’s a big ol’ front. But he does still think this is one area where he’s better than Oro. Nyehhh.

Why yes, of course he has seals for sexual use! Climax-blocking, stamina refreshing, instant shibari (chakra or actual rope), all over stimulation via the mildest raiton contained in a seal? You bet!

Released a book of ‘prank seals’ including ‘poof the object into nonexistence’ and ‘release deluge of oil’ and ‘suddenly frog’ amongst many others. This book is illegal in most countries.

He once sealed (and I guess, technically stealed bwahahaha) a hotel jacuzzi when he was drunk, forgetting that there was no such thing as plumbing on the road, and its not exactly the same experience having to make all that hot water yourself

No appropriate place to piss? SEAL IT. BANISH IT. OR USE IT AGAINST YOUR WORST ENEMIES.

Once heroically sealed an entire town’s vermin infestation, forgot about it, then accidentally released it later. Is now barred from that ryokan, forever.

Has an entire scroll devoted to condoms

And another devoted to flavoured lube.

Not so stupid, but the need for rapid seal-drawing helped him to develop his ambidexterity to the point where you can barely tell what his dominant hand originally was (however he places down his left hand to summon in all early manga panels I remember at least, which indicates that as a child he signed it with his left hand).

He’s able to store Gerotora easily with a seal concealed in his throat. That’s why it’s so easy for him, not because of some other gutter-brained reason, honest.

He got really good at kanji through learning fūinjutsu. It arguably helped him along in his writing career—especially when writing more traditional style poetry.

[peepingtoad]

🔪 — melee weapons + 💃 — dancing !

Muse skillset symbol meme

🔪 — melee weapons

While he could pick up most weapons and be fairly proficient at using them, he’s no kenjutsu specialist. As with most shinobi, particularly those who have seen war, he’s good with a standard range of weapons from swords to scythes, but he never opted to invest time mastering any particular weapon to the level of, say, Orochimaru since senjutsu armed him better than anything else could.

Unless you class ‘swinging a big ass rock’ as using a melee weapon—because he’s highly proficient at that, and it’s helped him out in a pinch more than once!

💃 — dancing

Despite being surprisingly nimble and well balanced in battle, Jiraiya is still… kind of clumsy. His footwork when dancing is lacking, unless he’s throwing his kabuki moves (and even then he’s prone to overbalancing if he’s knocked at all—or drunk, which is often). Slow dancing isn’t too bad for him, although his dancing partner is definitely best off watching their own feet at all times. One thing he does have is a good rhythm about him; the guy is very good at moving his hips, and that thigh strength is immense. And as with… other areas… his stamina is almost inhuman.

You know that means he can slut drop like a champ.