Dsiaclaimer: I do not own Naruto
It seemed like I wasn't going to get away from this hyper duo so soon. After we had left the tower Minato had a hushed conversation with Kushina which left her, if anything, more energetic than before, she did a sort of hopping dance away from Minato fist-pumping as she went. It could not bode well.
Minato approached me after speaking to Kushina, "I have good news and bad news" he said, keeping his face strangely blank.
"What's the good news?"
"The good news is you'll not be staying at the orphanage, the hokage has seen fit to grant you lodgings." Still his face seemed carefully blank
"Ok… what's the bad news"
Finally he cracked a beatific grin as he said "we'll be you-"
I heard no more for I was tackled and the world once again became a blur as all the colours bled into each other "We're going to be neighbours isn't that great Kei?" Kushina cried as she spun at ever faster speeds. I think at some point the blood must have drained from my head because the next thing I knew I was standing, somewhat wobbly, on the ground with Minato asking if I was ok.
"Erm, I think I'll be fine" I said, being careful not to move too much as I felt I could easily lose my balance.
"Good. Because Kushina has a second bit of news for you" Minato said
"Oh?" I eyed Kushina warily hopeful whatever it was wouldn't cause her so much excitement she would swing me around.
Kushina looked somewhat sheepish about how she had behaved but still smiled happily as she said "I've heard you might have an aptitude for fuinjutsu and as one of konoha's only real experts it would be irresponsible of me to let that slide so I'll be training you on weekends, though perhaps not until you start at the academy and only if you pass my test."
I grinned in excitement but then quickly remembered "Wait but I'm only 3, that means I won't learn anything for 2 years assuming I can start at the academy when I'm 5."
Minato stepped forward "normally that would be true but we're currently at war and the Hokage has allowed the option in your case to start when you are 4."
I thought about it. My next birthday was still 8 months away but at least it would give me time to build up my strength and knowledge for the academy beforehand. Eventually I nodded to Minato and said "ok. I'll start when I'm 4. Thank you" I added the thanks knowing he must have said something to the Hokage to convince him to let me begin early.
Minato waved away the thanks and said "With that out of the way let's get you to your new home."
The apartment was pleasingly Spartan. I did not judge myself a materialistic person and having too many things in a home often made me feel more crowded than restful. It had everything I could need of course, a kitchen, again that strange mixture of modern technology and older, more traditional methods, there was a refrigerator but no plug sockets, instead it seemed to be connected directly to the mains. There was a sink but the taps were separated hot and cold. Minato informed me that the hot water came from a tank of water kept above the building, a failsafe in case water supply is cut off during war to ensure people can still heat their homes and get warm water, he warned me however that it was not reliably safe to drink, the cold water came straight from the river and was as clean as could be found. Joining onto the kitchen - my kitchen I reminded myself - was a living space sparsely furnished with a table, seiza mats and an empty bookcase in one corner, the bedroom was a small room just slightly larger than the futon placed inside it. The bathroom was similarly equipped with the necessities of a toilet and bath.
Having given me a tour Minato and Kushina left saying they would return in the evening, I breathed a sigh of relief as they left, they were great friends but their energy, properly harnessed, could probably power the entire village, it left me mentally drained after just an afternoon. Smiling around my new home I decided I would take the opportunity to nap after the day's events.
Murmurs from the next room woke me up, the next thing I noticed was the smell of food which made me painfully aware that I had not eaten anything since that morning, I climbed out of the futon and walked into the next room.
"Kei!" Kushina exclaimed "We brought ramen, you have to try it. It's the most delicious food you can find, the way the noodles combine with the broth, and then the toppings, have you ever tried ramen before Kei?"
It took a couple of moments to take in what Kushina had said, it seemed like it had all left her mouth in the same breath, luckily Minato stepped in to rescue me.
"Slow down Kushina, besides we need to introduce him to our friend"
It was only then that I noticed the man leaned against the wall by the door, he had an unassuming profile but I knew better than to judge a book by its cover and could tell that whilst his chakra reserves weren't large by any means what he did have was perfectly controlled.
"Sakumo this is Keiko. Keiko, Sakumo" Minato said
I reached out my hand which Sakumo took in a hearty grip that dwarfed mine.
"So you're the one Minato's been talking about all day." Sakumo said smiling
"Sakumo!" Minato admonished hiding his face
"Don't worry" Sakumo continued his smile deepening "almost none of it was bad"
"Almost?" I chuckled "I hope my reputation isn't ruined already"
Sakumo smiled and shook his head "Not yet. Anyway I need to be getting back, you'll think on my proposal Minato?"
Minato nodded expression considering "I'll let you know as soon as I make my decision."
Sakumo waved to the rest of us as he opened the door behind him and left.
"Is he a ninja too?" I asked as I sat down to eat down to eat.
"One of the best." Minato responded.
Nodding I took my first bite and immediately groaned at the richness of the broth. Kushina wasn't kidding and a glance at her revealed her eyes shouting 'I told you so' over the rim of a bowl she was making quick work of.
It didn't take much longer for me to finish my bowl and as I sat back, uncomfortably full, I realised that the empty bookcase that had sat in the corner was now sat there conspicuously not empty. Kushina saw me looking at the bookcase and jumped up.
"OK Kei, listen up. I've filled your bookcase with the main reading materials you'll need for learning fuinjutsu, should you pass my test this week I've decided I will unlock level 1. From then on you'll have a challenge to prove you've really grasped what there is to learn before moving to the next level. The scrolls go all the way to level 5 which in Konoha is considered master status" Kushina explained, uncharacteristically serious.
Getting up and walking over I gazed in wonder at the knowledge on offer, the bookcase was not small by any stretch and each shelf had been almost packed to overflowing with scrolls.
"Any questions?" Kushina asked, she stood arms crossed grinning next to the scrolls.
"Just one," I said, hand reaching for one of the scrolls "What's to stop me just picking up an- agh!" I jerked my hand back, when my hand came within proximity of the scrolls my fingers felt like they had been burned with an icy cold
"That." Kushina said chuckling as I clutched my injured hand "Not to worry though, so long as you don't try too many times there shouldn't be any lasting effects. Your hand might be numb for an hour or two though."
Kushina and I arranged a time in a few days time for her to test me on fuinjutsu, apparently she wanted to test my skills as they stand and my willingness to learn the skill. It set me on edge a little, it was the first time in a very long time since I had been seriously tested on something that would have large consequences, certainly the first time since entering this life. As I had nowhere to aim my my anxiety I decided to use the days between then and now training as intensely as I could. The next morning I had asked Minato if there was anywhere I could train and he had taken me to training field conveniently behind the buildings we were housed in saying it wasn't an area I would be able to train more flashy ninja techniques but for taijutsu it was more than enough.
I began training that morning by punching and kicking a practice log embedded in the ground, I grimaced realising how soft this body was, I had trained some stamina into it but my strength was still absent and my body lacked the marks that could only be gained by endless training, my knuckles lacked calluses and as a result punching the log had begun to cause my skin to split and flay, despite this I carried on into midday at which point I wrapped my hands in bandages and went back inside to get something to eat.
"Ko!" Minato greeted "Good timing, I knew you didn't have any food stocked so I went to the market and got you some." He seemed to be just finishing unpacking.
"You didn't need to do that Minato" I said concerned. I did not like the idea of him spending his time looking after me, he had already done so much.
"Nonsense Ko, you're 3. As mature as you are you can't do everything yourself." Minato replied
As much as I wanted to disagree I knew I couldn't. I was, at least physically, 3 years old and if I were in his position I know I would feel remiss if I were to allow someone my age to forage for themself alone.
Suddenly Minato looked at me in concern, or more specifically my hands, "What have you done to yourself?" he asked aghast. I looked down and saw my hands had bled through the bandages and the are around my knuckles was a striking crimson.
I chuckled nervously "It's nothing to worry about, I just trained pretty hard, I bandaged them properly though!"
Minato shook his head, kneeling down to examine my hands he said "Normally I'd insist you go to the hospital to get this looked at but since we're currently at war, bandaging would likely be all they had time for with something this superficial. That being said, lets change these since they're already bloody, but I don't want to see that you've damaged yourself so badly in future in simple training.."
I grimaced properly chastised, he was right but there was a part of me that couldn't stand to be encased in a body so ill trained. I looked at Minato and nodded, he smiled back and and helped remove the bandages on my hands telling me he would take care of the mess, he worked fast and soon his hands overtook mine and moments later I found myself freshly bandaged with the bloodied bandages nowhere in sight.
"Well I need to go run some errands but there's food in the kitchen now so there's nothing you should need to go out for, there should be some clothes in the bag on the counter as well." Minato said
He certainly was thorough, I was grateful he did so much for me - I would have no idea where to begin even getting the money together for clothing. I said goodbye and he quickly vanished.
After cooking myself a meal I decided to start with my other area of training - muscle buildup, I still felt thin and sinewy in this body despite my kata practice and it seemed like the best option in the short term to adapt my body for my fighting style other than physically building resistance to the strong blows it delivered.
I spent the afternoon doing weight training with the heaviest objects I could find in the house and when evening came I used my bathroom to clean and went to sleep.
The next few days followed the same rhythm as the first. I learned to better measure my blows so I did not do too much damage to my hand and it seemed to be healing gradually. Almost a week later I came home at midday to find Kushina already sat at my table with some scrolls, brushes and ink layed out in front of her.
"It's nice to have a visitor" I said smiling at Kushina, she was the first person I had seen in the last week, my cupboards kept getting replenished so I hadn't really had any excuse to go out and explore the village.
Kushina smiled back looking a little guilty "Yeah, I'm sorry about that Kei, with the war on and my own training to keep up it's been difficult to find time for social calls. I think Minato is the same."
"Oh, It's not a problem" I said, not wanting Kushina to think I being surly, "I was used to being left to my own devices at the orphanage. The other children there weren't the biggest fans for whatever reason."
Kushina looked up at that, looking a bit guilty and then she saw my still bandaged hands "Well I can see why" she said, jumping up and encasing me in a headlock "what kind of idiot hurts themselves training" I tried to whine back an excuse but she carried on "Don't tell me you haven't been injuring yourself training, Minato has told me everything" She released me and took my hands in hers "You will need to take care of these, from now on they're going to be one of your greatest assets - you can't make seals without hands!"
I chuckled uncomfortably as she unwrapped my bandages, hoping they had healed enough not to get me berated any more.
"Well. They don't look too bad." she said consideringly "Take a seat, it's time for your first test"
I sat down at the table and observed what she had put before me, there were 2 scrolls, 1 blank and the other containing a multitude of different runes. They started off easy enough, many of them appearing similar to characters I had seen in my last life, but as they disappeared into the rest of the rolled up scroll I could see other non-standard characters. A spiral that ran jaggedly in circles until finishing in its center, a character that looked kind of like a trident but with 2 prongs at the bottom as well. I looked up at Kushina in askance.
"What you need to do is copy all of the characters in this scroll into the empty one in front of you, don't worry about what they mean they'll teach you that in school anyway, what's more important for now is that you have perfect handwriting, the sigillography of fuiinjutsu is very precise and mistakes can easily be fatal" Kushina said from somewhere behind me.
I turned around to look at her "You know I can read perfectly well, right? I know what a lot of these characters represent."
Kushina looked at me for a moment, "Huh. Well Minato did say you were advanced. Lets see how advanced you are. Get writing!"
In the end it wasn't that hard. I had taken calligraphy as one of my many hobbies in the latter years of my old life but there were certainly some things I had to adapt to. My hands for one were much, much smaller than I was used to them being, I had mostly fixed that by taking up a new grip on the brush, the other problem was the equipment, the brush was much tougher and less malleable than I was accustomed to causing me to apply too much pressure in some areas which had caused blotting, the other problem was the ink, it was made using an older technique involving an inkstick which was ground with water into ink, I hadn't made ink this way before and my first attempts were clumsy coming out either took thick or to runny it was only halfway through copying the characters I found the right balance.
Kushina sat in front of me looking at my finished work intently, for my part I sat broiled in anxiety fearful I might not have met Kushina's standards, thinking about how I should have tried to create the ink correctly before putting brush to paper.
"Hmmm" she said at last looking up at me "It is definitely more than I expected" I sat expectantly waiting for her verdict "You pass" she said at last her face breaking into a grin for the first time since we started.
"Thank You Kushina-sensei" I said bowing my head and letting out at least a small sigh of relief.
"None of that" Kushina said, waving away the title "Just call me Kushina, I'm not that old yet!"
"Yes Kushina… sensei" I said grinning teasingly at her
"Gragh!" She groaned putting her head into her hands. "Anyway, there's one last thing I want you to look at"
Kushina sat back up and pulled a scroll she had been hiding up a sleeve out and rolled it out in front of me. It was… complicated to say the least, lines crossed each other almost chaotically, there were many characters I hadn't even seen on the scroll Kushina had me copy out and on top of that some parts of the scroll seemed like seals unto themselves. I looked up after a time feeling unsure what Kushina was asking of me.
"Kushina… I hope you're not going to ask me what this is because I..." I trailed off shaking my head
Kushina laughed "No, I wouldn't expect you to know what this is at all, let's just call it a project. However there's been some problems recently and the seal won't even begin to activate, it just explodes. I was just thinking maybe you could see if there were any flaws, fresh pair of eyes and all that."
I raised an eyebrow before looking at the scroll again trying this time not to see the individual parts but the seal as a whole, if there was something stopping it from getting going at all I reasoned to myself it can't just be a small omission, there must be something intrinsically wrong with the seal's design. I sat there for some time looking and eventually I realised that the seal as a whole wasn't balanced, the elements that I could see activated the seal which were not too different from the sealing scroll Minato showed me and were connected to each side of the seal but one of them had several lines stretching away to connect to another line that did not lead anywhere but to the central part of the seal, they seemingly had no use other than to power the seal, normally the energy would find its way there anyway which made the lines superfluous. Whilst the energy they took was likely to prevent other smaller parts of the seal from becoming overpowered they added nothing themselves, otherwise the seal seemed like a masterpiece.
At length I finally looked up to tell Kushina and realised that whilst I was looking at the scroll it had become nighttime and kushina was eating a cup ramen. Closer examination revealed it to be her 3rd. I sighed, I couldn't complain since Kushina and Minato had bought them for me in the first place but it was amazing how quickly she got through them. At my sigh she looked up and realised I had finished looking at the scroll.
"So. Find anything?" Kushina asked
"Just this" I said point to the part of the seal where the lines were, "I can't fully explain why but it seems like these lines are both necessary and superfluous, they might be causing the problem"
Kushina put her empty cup noodle down and leaned over "ahh interesting, you might be right Ko though I think I'll need to do some thinking on how to solve it. What did you think of the rest of the seal?"
"... Beautiful" I said running a finger down one edge "I can't imagine the time that must have gone into this"
Kushina smiled "You're right about that too! Anyway seeing as you passed my test - " She performed several hand signs in a blur as she got up and approached my bookcase, she then slammed one of her hands into the side of it and a ripple of chakra radiated from where she made contact "You get access to the first level, that should keep you busy for a while. Let me know if you need any help."
AN: I had some free time so I wrote this up, I have a fair chunk of the next chapter done as well so you can expect that to be up within the next couple of days as well. See you next time.