Fighting on the water’s surface is a staple of the Naruto franchise. But how does Naruto walk on water?
Naruto is able to walk on water by continuously emitting a small amount of chakra from his feet. There needs to be a constant adjustment of chakra for Naruto to allow his body to stand on the surface.
Any ninja performing the technique must fine-tune the chakra to their body weight. Jonin Ebisu teaches him the technique after a personal request from Kakashi. Later, Naruto is able to walk on water more easily after Jiraiya fixes his Nine-Tails seal. Naruto had control issues due to having so much chakra.
Ebisu teaches Naruto how to walk on water
In chapter #90, Naruto is taken under the wing of jonin-level trainer Ebisu. Kakashi personally requested that Ebisu work with Naruto due to his lack of basics in comparison to Sasuke and Sakura.
The two travel to a hot spring to begin their first training drill: walking on water. This technique is the next level of the no-hands tree climbing exercise that Naruto completed while in the Mist village.
Ebisu explained that for tree climbing, you only need to gather a necessary amount of chakra in a specific place. The chakra needs to be maintained for the entire time. Ninja must simply keep their foot attached to the tree like a suction cup thanks to the wood being a stationary object.
In order to walk on water, Ebisu continued, you have to continuously emit a small amount of chakra from your feet into the water’s surface. There needs to be a constant adjustment of chakra to allow your body to stand.
This type of chakra control is more difficult than mere maintenance. And is a type of control exercise where you learn to regulate your expenditures on a fixed quantity of chakra!
Ebisu to Naruto | Chapter #90
The trainer then does a live demonstration for Naruto. First, he gathered chakra to the soles of his feet. Then, while continuously emitting chakra at a set amount, Ebisu fine-tuned the stream to his body weight.
So there’s the answer. Naruto is able to walk on water by continuously emitting chakra from his feet. He then fine-tunes the chakra to float his body above the surface.