426 days since the Uzushiogakure Massacre
Uzumaki Kushina
"Kichiro?" I asked cautiously as he quickly put out the third seal that had started smoldering.
"Yes?"
"What are you trying to do?"
"Make an explosive tag?"
"Liar."
"Fine, I'm trying to make an empty seal that can just absorb any chakra put into it."
"Why?"
"As a decoy. You know how you have to use chakra to neutralize a seal, right? Well if someone thinks they have to neutralize it, they can pour as much chakra as possible into it, but it won't go anywhere, it'll just make them tired."
"A draining seal?"
"No, a seal that voluntarily accepts chakra, but just stores it and the chakra can't be accessed later."
"Then just make a chakra storage seal and take out the releasing notation."
"Oh."
"Kichiro, I'm not sure you should be working on seals without supervision."
"Probably not."
"Promise me you'll make sure I'm in the room while you're working on things, okay? No new projects without my okay."
"Kushina!" He whined, but both of us were immediately distracted when something exploded in Minato's face. "At least I haven't had anything do that," he quipped. I slapped his arm then hurried over to help Minato.
"Honestly, it's like the two of you are children!" I complained.
"Kushina, we are children," Kichiro responded, uncharacteristically grave as he started healing the mild burns on Minato's face. "I'm barely eight, Minato is still seven—on Uzu, we would still be in primary school, not experimenting with advanced theories while training to be ninjas."
I grumbled, but didn't argue.
