Testing Part 1

Minato and Kushina are almost 12 and already two of the most accomplished Fūinjutsu users in the village.

(-)

"If you don't hold still, I'm going to knock you unconscious!" Kushina snapped in annoyance as Minato squirmed in front of her.

"The ink is cold!" Minato protested immediately.

"Too bad!"

"It tickles!"

"Suck it up!"

"You're such a perfectionist!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am too!"

"See! Even you admitted it!"

"Why don't you ever fall for it?"

"Because I'm too perfect."

Kushina snorted as she finished off the seal with a flourish. "All done!"

Minato shot to his feet. A complex seal started over his sternum, spreading over his shoulders and down the tops of his arms to wrap around his wrist and followed the same path back up his arms, winding around his shoulder blades. The dark symbols cascaded down the sides of his hips, winding around his legs, looping around his ankles before tracing its path back up his legs and blossoming across his back.

A loud banging interrupted Minato's examination of the seals in a small mirror.

"That is enough you two! I want my room back this instant! None of your damned seals are going to keep me out if you don't open this door in the next five seconds. Five!"

"Right on time!" Kushina smirked.

Minato jerked open the door. "Thanks for letting us use your sealing room, old pervert!" Before Jiraiya could respond, both preteens dashed past him, leaving him to glare angrily at the grossly messy room they left behind. Curious, Jiraiya entered to examine the scrolls they left behind. A peculiar scroll laid out almost reverently caught his eye. He maneuvered he way to it and picked it up, his eyes widening in a mixture of amusement, surprise, and horror.

"Minato!" Jiraiya bellowed, racing out of the room. "Damn you, gaki! Don't you dare try anything!" Jiraiya tore through the village after his student. He caught up as Minato put his hands together in the final seal, facing Kushina, who stood a few steps away with a scrap of paper in hand.

"Hiraishin no Jutsu!" The blond shouted.

Jiraiya let out a sigh of relief when nothing happened.

"Try placing the seal on something solid instead of holding it like I had to do for that faulty explosion seal," Minato suggested.

"No, I know why it didn't work," Kushina replied and turned to one of the training logs, drawing the seal directly onto it, altering it slightly. She walked over to Minato and did the same on the handle of one of his kunai. "Now try it!" Kushina backed away to stand beside the training log.

"You will do nothing of the sort!" Jiraiya ordered, but both ignored him.

"Hiraishin no Jutsu!"

Minato vanished in a spectacular flash of yellow light, reappearing on top of Kushina. They tumbled to the ground. Minato's face landed on top of hers and they instantly broke apart, spluttering and wiping their mouths.

"Ew!" They complained simultaneously.

The last of Jiraiya's patience vanished and he lifted both squirming troublemakers up by the hair.

"Did you see it, sensei? I did the Hiraishin! Just like the Nidaime!" Minato exclaimed.

"Wasn't it awesome?" Kushina demanded. "Hold on, we have to make the seal permanent!"

Completely disregarding his sensei, Minato twisted out of Jiraiya's grip and backed away, focusing his chakra. The lines of ink glowed brightly and Jiraiya felt the heat almost scald his own skin from a distance. Minato grimaced as the lines etched themselves underneath his skin.

"You're both idiots!" The adult snarled and regained his grip on Minato, immediately Shunshining directly into the Hokage's office and throwing them against the man's desk, followed by the only record of the Nidaime's Hiraishin.

"Where did you get this?" The Sandaime asked, forcing patience.

The two Genin glanced at each other, abashed.

"Well," Kushina began.

"Since no one could figure it out—" Minato continued.

"We figured no one would miss it—"

"If we borrowed it for awhile—"

"We're really good with sealing—"

"And being able to use the Hiraishin—"

"Would mean that we could go on harder missions—"

"And get more free time because—"

"We wouldn't have to walk everywhere!"

"You don't mind, do you?" Minato finished.

"This scroll is an official jutsu record. What is the policy on jutsu scrolls?"

The two glanced at each other and shrugged. "They're for all shinobi?" Minato guessed hopefully.

"No, we've gone over this before."

"High-ranked jutsu scrolls are only available with specific permission from the Hokage, Head Jōnin, or ranked ANBU member," Kushina reluctantly recited.

"It's a good thing one of you remembers. So, why do I have the Nidaime's Hiraishin scroll on my desk and a boy covered with very familiar sealing lines?"

"I would've asked, I swear, but you're always busy and Hyuuga-Jiji hasn't been in the village," Minato protested. "You get really mad when I follow Sakumo-san around so asking the ANBU would've gotten you madder!"

The Sandaime sighed and pulled out his pipe. "Don't use that jutsu until I've looked over your seals personally." The Hokage turned his attention towards Jiraiya. "How did they get the scroll? I don't recall a report that the scroll was stolen and it was signed out under your name."

"Damned kids broke into my sealing room where I kept it and turned my own seals against me while I was on a mission."

"So you're telling me that two barely-Chuunin managed to find a way past the S-ranked seals I allowed you to place around your sealing room?"

"They're damn annoying, meddling kids," Jiraiya snapped. "They suck at everything except causing me trouble at every turn."

"Which seals did they get past?"

Jiraiya slapped down three pieces of paper. "You said so yourself that these seals are impossible to get past and survive."

The Hokage glanced over the seals. "How did you get past these seals?" The Hokage demanded of the Genin, holding up the seals.

The two exchanged a glance and fidgeted. Finally, Kushina answered. "The base of the seal is a compass, which is structurally inferior to a spiral and it doesn't have the stability factor that Minato's have to make it harder to destabilize. I just added weight to one side of the matrix and it just fell apart. All of them did. It was easy!"

"You destabilized the matrix of a seal on purpose? Do you have any idea what an unstable seal can do?"

"Of course I know! Remember that matrix I showed you that would forcibly stabilize almost any seal? It works, but the ultimate function of those seals was to protect and there's a ridiculously dangerous number of redundancies so I destabilized all but one and the one prevented all the stuff from basically blowing up and incinerating me. If you took out the redundancies, it would be a lot better seal. The central matrix, the protection factor, makes them unnecessary. The traps on the outside make the attacks but someone added a protection factor on the outside rather than a containment factor so that just made it so anyone could study the seal and tamper with it without getting hurt."

"Simply suppressing chakra allowed us to get close enough. I didn't turn the seals against you, sensei," Minato defended, "I just improved them!"

"If you have time to—"

"Fūinjutsu is a branch of the shinobi arts!" Minato interrupted hotly, knowing exactly where the conversation turned. "Everyone loyal to Konoha who knows more than the minimum of Fūinjutsu is old and in this room right now! Don't try and say we're not using our time properly!"

"Minato!"

The boy bit back the rest of his rant.

The Hokage waited to make sure he would remain silent before opening a drawer behind his desk. "These are the Yamanaka aptitude tests for both of you when you graduated from the Academy. Do you remember taking them?"

The genin nodded.

"Good. Both of you were declared to be best placed as frontline, offensive fighters."

"So?"

"Approximately seventy percent of the active Konoha forces are defensive or support-based."

"So?"

"The only reason I allow the two of you to goof off like you do," the Sandaime raised his voice, "Is because you have the potential to become a damn good tag-team." He slowly rose to his feet, leaning on his desk. "Now, if you don't want that to happen, I will order you to participate in the active Chuunin teams. Now, stop putting your lives at risk by experimenting with seals and focus on training as the frontline fighters the village needs you to become!"

The Genin glared at the Kage defiantly. "Fūinjutsu can be used as a frontline tactic," Kushina shouted back. "And you're the one who promoted us."

"The Nidaime used Fūinjutsu to defeat Uchiha Izuna," Minato continued. "Uzumaki Mito used Fūinjutsu to defeat the Kyuubi!"

"You are not legendary shinobi who can afford the time to dabble in sealing! You are both pathetic at Taijutsu for your rank and neither of you have any skill in Ninjutsu, despite your unusually high chakra reserves, which are being wasted when you're sitting around looking at paper all day!"

"We're just fine in Taijutsu and Ninjutsu!" Kushina snapped. "We could be better, true, but—"

"The fact that Fūinjutsu is rarely practiced makes it an advantage in almost any setting!" Minato added.

"How exactly can you use Fūinjutsu as a frontline boon?"

Both Genin paused, unable to think of a retort.

"I thought so."

"You're wrong! We can beat you with Fūinjutsu!" Kushina snapped back.

"Really now?"

"Yeah! I bet we can too!" Minato agreed with his troublesome counterpart. "We win, you gotta let us do it our way, and if you win, we'll do it your stupid way."

"And how do you think two barely-Chuunin can win against a Kage?"

"An Academy student could take down a Kage if the circumstances were right!"

The Hokage pressed the tips of his fingers together, inwardly impressed at their determination and outwardly annoyed with the insubordination. "Again I ask, how?" Out of the corner of his eye, Sarutobi noticed the rather tall pile of incident reports and remembered exactly how tall it could get when one of the two individuals in front of him did not get their way. "Think on it for a night. If a beat down is what it takes for you to follow orders, then I will comply."

The Hokage found himself disliking the excited looks on their faces.

"Now get out. I have work to do."

The speed at which they disappeared gave Sarutobi a quickly smothered second thought.