Minato: Seal
"That Seal is wrong."
Minato blinked, frowning at the interruption. Usei had brought him meals three times a day for the past two days, as well as paper and ink for sealing to help him pass the time. He'd met another two geese, one of which had been taller than he was, and half a dozen fuzzy goslings. Unfortunately chakra exhaustion was not a minor affliction and he wouldn't be able to move far from his bed for another four days.
"I know it's wrong, Usei-chan;" he replied absently, "I just can't figure out how to make it right."
"It is supposed to be a beacon and an anchor," Usei said slowly, tracing the curving lines of one of the many discarded seals littering the area, "but you haven't got the match-up quite right."
"You know fuuinjutsu?" Minato was surprised. She wasn't even six yet. True, Kakashi-kun had been a genin by the time he was her age but seals were one of the more esoteric ninja arts.
"No; not yet anyway. I know you, though," she added absently, staring at a point somewhere in the middle distance over his right shoulder, "and this-" she flicked the seal he'd just completed "-isn't quite you."
Minato felt something slide into place in the back of his mind, something that had been nagging him for years about this technique. He grabbed a fresh piece of paper and pushed it and the calligraphy brush into her tiny, soft hands.
"What am I then, exactly, if not that?"
Usei gripped the brush, smoothed out the paper and readied the ink. "You are..." hands unbelievably steady for one so young, she dipped the brush into the ink. "...this."
Minato watched, fascinated, as a design emerged beneath her dancing brush. The seal was elegant, intricate and utterly perfect. He could actually feel it forming, his chakra resonating with the design.
"And there you are," Usei murmured, laying down the brush.
Minato stared at the finished seal, then at the not-quite-six-year-old who had just drawn it. He knew that it would have taken him months, if not years to achieve what she had laid out in mere minutes.
"How?"
Usei shrugged. "I can see you. All of you; who you were, who you are and who you will become. Inside and outside, a comprehensive whole. This seal," she tapped the edge of the paper, "is just me drawing what I can see."
"Oh." Minato decided that he didn't want to know any more about it. He had the seal he needed for his jutsu; that was more than enough. Now how to pass the time...
"Usei-chan, would you like me to teach you fuuinjutsu?"
Words and phrases used in the last two chapters
yogensha = seer or prophet
arigatou = thankyou
saotome = little girl
gomen nasai = very sorry; apologies
anata no namae wa nan desu ka? = what's your name?
watashi-wa ... desu = my name is ...
konnichiwa = hello, greetings
translations courtesy of Wictionary.
A/N: this the third section of the five-part prologue.