WE OWN NOTHING

JONIN LEVEL CLEARENCE ACCEPTED

Excerpt from:

A Beginner's Guide to The Fantastic World of Nature Energy

Written for the Konoha Archives by:

The Man Without Enemies in the North, South, East, West

Or the Heavens, The White-Haired Frog- and Lady-Tamer

The Mighty Jiraiya of the Sannin!

Edited for Time and Spelling by Hiruzen Sarutobi and Minato Namikaze

Chapter 4: The Drawbacks of The Exalted Sage Mode!

...And when it comes down to it, Sage Mode is pretty awesome, right? I mean, you can break steel with your bare hands, become in tune with the power of nature itself, and generally be an all around badass!

Of course, all things have a price, and Sage Mode does have some rather, shall we say, unfortunate drawbacks and side effects.

The first side effect is, unfortunately, how you perceive wildlife around you. Since you are connected to all things in nature when using Sage Mode, you may find yourself unwilling to indulge in meat, like barbecue or fried chicken, after you find yourself connected to the origins of said meat. In the grand scheme of things, this side effect is pretty negligible, and of course I never fell prey to it (no matter what Ma and Pa may tell you.)

The second and third drawbacks are largely based on how you acquire the Natural Energy to actually enter Sage Mode. As any decent practitioner knows, you have to be completely still in order to gather the Nature Energy, and I mean COMPLETELY STILL. If you aren't, the energy becomes unbalanced, and it will most likely cause you to undergo Petrification.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Oh Great and Mighty Jiraiya, but that makes Sage Mode useless in a combat scenario, doesn't it?" Well, my dear young pupil, there is a simple way of averting this problem, at least when allied with the Toads. With the aide of Ma and Pa, the master of Sage Mode (me) can enter this final form on the go! All the master (me) has to do is summon them and have them merge with me! Then they can gather the necessary Nature Chakra for use at the bidding of the summoner (me)!

(I'm willing to bet money that the Slugs, the Snakes, and the other summons of the world have their own versions of this, but Tsunade won't talk, Orochimaru is a criminal, Sensei never took the next step with Enma and the Monkeys, and every other summoner I've ever met has either tried to kill me or capture me, so I guess I'll never know.)

All joking aside, there is one final drawback to the training and use of Sage Mode. As previously mentioned, during the necessary training to master the power of Nature, the pupil must allow themselves to become one with Nature. This sounds pretty simple right?

Wrong. To become one with Nature, you must accept it into your heart and soul, and let it's raw fury and emotion flow through you until you and it are one being with one mind. Failing this process can have devastating consequences on your psyche and body. I've heard rumors of prospective sages driven mad by their failed attempts at the Merging, as I call it. It is not an easy process.

To complete the Merging, you must be at peace with both yourself and Nature. Taken separately, these tasks are challenging, but if you put them together, the assignment then seems to become an insurmountable monument. There is a very good reason why there are so few sages in the world.

Apart from fusing with a summon and having them gather the energy for you, there is no other way to attain Sage Mode in it's final, perfect form. I heard a rumor that the Uzumaki Clan were trying to develop a seal that would do the job, but the same rumor says that Uzushio fell not long after they started to work on it. And with the island blocked off by an impenetrable barrier of reefs, seal-generated whirlpools, and Giant Death Sharks, there is no way to determine if such a seal ever existed.

Of course, if we're gonna be talking seals, I got tons that can...

REMOVED DUE TO TIME CONSTRAINTS

AN:

Isn't that Interesting?

Might be Important. Might not. Who Knows?

-Z