Can Maito Gai dash freely in the air even without the Eight Gate? Yes, he can

[Selan]

We all know that after he unleashes the Eight Gate, Gai becomes

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that he can

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and

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as

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by simply

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. Basically doing something which is basically the same that

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,

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or

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allow some One Piece characters to do.

But without unleashing the Eight Gate? Well, he can quickly jump in the air, then

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, Ningame, and

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to

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. He canonically did that, and he was able to move very quickly for a massive distance, travelling for all the giant turtle-island (

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) with two simple jumps, in the time span of a few seconds. Theoretically, he can dash in the air by jump, summon Ningame as a platform, jump away, summon Ningame as a platform, jump away, and basically move as he wish by repeating this.

Other than that, it seems that Gai can do his kicking-air move even without going Eight Gate, but with Sixth Gate and Seventh Gate too (but not moving as fast as he does in the Eight Gate state, logically). Just look.

Gai opens the Sixth Gate.

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Then he jumps from the ground towards mid air, where Kisame is standing, and completely blitzes him with that high speed movement.

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Kisame tries to hit him with his sword, but he doesn't even manage to finish the attack he tried, that Gai already kicked him further in the air.

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Gai kicked him above, so Kisame's body was propelled in mid air above, at great speed, and Gai was at that point a lot below Kisame's flying body. But an instant after that, Gai is just right on Kisame's face, and kills him with Asa Kujaku. We are sure that before using Asa Kujaku, Gai was below Kisame who he kicked away, and that after he just used the attack he was above Kisame's dead body being stomped away, so he necessarily moved to reach Kisame, after he kicked him away.

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And how did he do so, if Gai was already standing in mid air? He couldn't have done anything else than make a high speed movement by kicking the air itself, like he did when he unleashed the Eight Gate, just with not that level of speed.

If we see the scene in the

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, this also seem the most logical thing. Because, if he didn't do that, how could Gai, who was already in mid air, quickly disappear and reappear and reach Kisame's body who he kicked away far above his position?

So yeah, long story short, I think that Gai can freely dash and make high speed movements in mid air even without the Eight Gate, but with Sixth and Seventh Gate already. The

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description doesn't mention everything about moving in mid air and the

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description doesn't mention that either, well it's not like the databook descriptions of Eight Gate, Sekizo and Night Guy say something about that, even if Eight Gate Gai can canonically do so. Well I think that we have proof of this,

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, and also because otherwise Gai couldn't have reached Kisame who he kicked above his position.

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[SenseiSama]

flicker is a dodging technique, it's not the same as stepping on air to temporarily fly

 

[Ansatsuken]

Asking a question and answering it himself

Nothing to answer here even though flaws exist there.

 

[Aznkidd]

top tier ninja knows shushinn....

 

[Selan]

People, you don't get the point. Gai jumped in mid-air and blitzed Kisame with that jump, then he kicked Kisame up in the air. At that point, Gai was standing in mid air, with no more momentum, while Kisame was being propelled above, by Gai's kick. So how in the hell did Gai reached Kisame and used Asa Kujaku right on his face? He kicked the air like he can do with Eight Gate, just with a lesser speed. Or he simply can use S/T teleporting and we don't know. Because one can't dash with Shunshin if he has nothing under his feet to start his movement from.

 

[Mad Titan Thanos]

Nice found I agree (unless kishi says its plothole)

 

[Mad Titan Thanos]

top tier ninja knows shushinn....

And none of them have feats of doing shunshin in mid air

 

[Selan]

And none of them have feats of doing shunshin in mid air

Exactly, that's my point. While we know that Gai can dash in mid air by kicking the air itself at high speed, when he is in Eight Gate. If in Sixth Gate he is fast enough to ignite the air and in Seventh Gate he can even create air pressure bombs, I guess he can kick the air to move himself in mid air, just not as fast as in Eight Gate. Because that's the only conceivable way for him to reach Kisame when he is already in mid air and after he has kicked him above.

 

[Aznkidd]

And none of them have feats of doing shunshin in mid air

Naruto can move freely in the air with his clones in part 1

 

[Mad Titan Thanos]

Naruto can move freely in the air with his clones in part 1

thats true

 

[Uchihakil]

Agreed, 5 gates lee was changing positions while blitzing gaara, I think the gates enables one to walk on air