Introducing the Rasen Senkou Chou Rinbu Kousan Shiki.

Sorry it's short, I've barely been home since the new term started, so I figured I'd just post this section before I finish the rest of it.

(which will be sometime next week, considering my school work/social life/writer's block)

43. The Dance

Thump.

Despite the sharpness of the steel, the sound was soft when the pointy objects fell synchronously to the ground, piercing the grass around a straw-dummy (which Kushina had taken the liberty of naming 'Danzou'). Kushina stood observing their positions with a critical eye, but couldn't find much to criticise; his skills in throwing weapons were good as always, and his accuracy was astounding. Plus, this new technique seemed to make sense.

"So basically," she began. "You surround the enemy with kunai."

"Yep," the blonde next to her replied. Minato had spent a while developing new techniques he could use his Hiraishin kunai with, and had recently come up with a new idea. "Most people should know how it works by now, but that doesn't mean they know what to do when they see it. If I manage to surround an enemy with the kunai, he won't be able to escape unless he uses space-time techniques as well. And it's easier to make a surprise-attack when he can only make a guess at which kunai I'll appear by."

"Or you could use several of them," Kushina suggested. "In case there's more than one or you have to strike more than once."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same."

It had been two months since he had seen Kushina. He had thought Konoha had finally come to a state where long-term missions were no longer needed, and he had enjoyed the summer, especially because he could finally spend several days in a row with his girlfriend – but it didn't take long before Kushina's team had been called and sent in a hurry to the North. She had come home earlier that day, but was eager to see whatever Minato had come up with as soon as he had mentioned he had made new techniques.

Minato crouched, rolling out a small scroll to show her his second idea. It was filled with an orderly seal; strange swirls and letters made one large circle, with several smaller circles inside, and from the inner circle, several lines shot out. Kushina tried to read it.

"Summoning, right?" she asked.

"Yeah. I did something similar a while ago when I was ambushed in the Rain, but it took a lot of time and effort back then because I had to place small seals all over the place in order to make my attack. I've been trying to draw a single seal to make it easier ..."

"How long did you spend on this?" Kushina asked, tracing a finger along four lines.

"A while," Minato admitted. "A few months. Here are the hand seals -"

He handed her a note with several seals scribbled down. She performed each of them in the right order and placed her hand in the middle of the seal. The lines shot out in front of her, crawling quickly across the grass and covering a wide area with black ink. The new seal was too large to make out from their position.

"What does it look like?" Kushina asked.

"A sort of non-proportional star within a pentagon," Minato replied. "Both the star and the pentagon is filled with smaller lines of markings, so you're able to summon kunai from more spots. Try."

"What do I do?"

"Just send your chakra from your hand to the seal. Imagine using the chakra to push something up from the ground."

Kushina took a deep breath, concentrated and sent a shot of chakra out of her palm – nothing happened. She grumbled a little, but closed her eyes again and repeated; she increased the speed of the chakra stream, and as she opened her eyes, she saw about a hundred kunai shoot from underneath the ground and up in the air.

They fell pointlessly to the ground, and Kushina smiled.

"Cool."

"I was thinking," Minato said, taking a sip of iced tea from a bottle Kushina had brought. "We could try out the other technique. I haven't seen how well it works yet."

"So you want me to be the sentenced victim?" Kushina grinned. "Sure. I'll try to give you a hard time, at least."

And she did. After Minato had made a reverse-seal and made the large pentagon star with all the kunai disappear and gone to pick up the weapons surrounding the dummy, Kushina had positioned herself in the middle of the field with one of his swords and allowed him to throw his kunai at several spots close to her. He had then appeared at different spots, using his second sword to attack, and as the time dragged on, Kushina reacted more and more quickly and noticed the pattern he was using.

Although she theoretically had been killed at least fifty times, she was pleased with herself as Minato dumped on the ground, drained of chakra and breathing heavily.

"Have you given it a name yet?" she asked, breathing quite heavily herself, and sat down next to him.

"Not yet," Minato replied. "It still needs some work, it's got a lot of potential … I mean, I could use Shadow Clones to make it more effective, or change the positions of the kunai and work out different patterns."

"Sounds far too complicated for me," Kushina smiled, letting her back fall down on the cold evening grass. "But it still needs a name."

"You're right," Minato said. "So it's a circle … Round … Or it could be something else. A spiral. Spiralling … Or maybe both? Flash ..."

"Why Flash?" Kushina asked.

"Because you can only see me for moments at a time. Spiralling Flash … Round … Formula? Nah, it doesn't sound too good … Dance Formula?"

"Okay, slow down," Kushina laughed with a cocked eyebrow. "You can't give it a name that long."

"'Course I can," Minato smiled innocently.

"Hey, why not add another move to it?"

"Like what?"

"Well, if you're facing something bigger, and you need someone to make the final blast ..." Kushina sat up again. "I've got a lot more power to my attacks than you have. You could pick me up when you've cleaned up the smaller stuff and throw me, like you did the last time."

Minato considered this for a moment, but couldn't help but look amused. "Not too bad. How did you come up with that so fast?"

"I was just thinking," Kushina said, looking up at the sky with a content expression. "Most dances require a dancing partner, don't they?"

As Minato's smile widened, he couldn't help but notice that Kushina's free, flowing hair had grown longer.

By the way; the Naruto manga takes too damn long! The past few chapters have been all nostalgia and tears. Not that that's bad or anything, but seriously, every chapter contains one technique each that either fails or halfway-works-but-not-quite-yet, and then, someone makes some kind of emotional statement. I mean, come on.

And Obito needs to spit out Kakashi sometime soon, I want him to have some screen-time.

(Naruto ch. 645)