Disclaimer: As expected, still don't own Naruto. I wouldn't hold my breath, either.

Chapter 8

"GOOD MORNING, Auntie!"

Kushina woke up to an excited Hinote jumping onto her. The girl had spent a few days down, after a close encounter with Orochimaru. That the snake sannin had been interested in the girl was hardly surprising–her problems were quite unique, and Orochimaru was known for his interest in rare abilities and anomalies–but both Kushina and Minato had found it worrying.

Her fiance had never trusted the man, and Kushina knew his instincts were often right when it concerned people's characters. Even if the one concerned was one of the students of the Hokage, himself.

But no matter. Kushina put her overly excited niece down on the floor, then got up herself. It wasn't that common for Hinote to be up and about this early, but the girl had a way of getting way too hyped up for learning new things. It was a delight, really, but Kushina had to wonder how she had maintained such an erratic behavior pattern growing up under Fugaku. Itachi-kun was much closer to what one would have expected, with his somber and studious disposition.

Although both of Miko-chan's kids are veritable prodigies. In about a year, Hinote had progressed from knowing just a few basic symbols to building seallets. She seemed to have a knack for combining symbols in unexpected ways. From what Kushina heard, Itachi was no less impressive. The kid had Fugaku, of all people, singing his praises left and right. What did they feed these kids?

Minato had already gotten up–in fact, he was already working on breakfast when Kushina got to the kitchen. He seemed to be sleeping less and less as the Hokage Inauguration (and their wedding!) approached. Kushina kissed him good morning and started the rice.

Hinote, meanwhile, seemed very intent on watching. The kid seemed quite intent on learning to cook, much to Kushina's delight. It was nice to see Hinohino participating in their family activities. She stopped. Since do I think of us a family? Hinote had completely integrated herself into their home, their very life. What if Miko-chan wants her back? She wasn't quite sure what to think. Hinote might be Mikoto's daughter, but Kushina felt very much connected to her, and so did Minato.

After breakfast, Auntie guided me through building a lighting array. The way symbols interacted in a seallet seemed to obey specific symmetry groups, so I felt pretty at home constructing them. Not that I could tell Auntie–I was pretty sure they had never heard of group theory in these parts.

This array used five small seallets–one base seallet as centerpiece, another for receiving chakra, two more to modulate the input, and a fifth to convert the chakra to light. Pretty simple, as arrays go. Still, it was my first array! The culmination of months on months of study and hard work. I was very excited to test it out.

I put my right hand on the array and looked at Auntie, waiting for her to give me the "go" signal. I felt inside me for my chakra. You'll work with me today, right? No answer came, of course. It churned on within my coils, as it always did. Yomogi-san had been particularly interested on the results of today. We had made some progress with our investigation on my chakra's peculiar violent nature, but she thought noting how it interacted with fūinjutsu would provide interesting data.

That in mind, she and Rin-chan were also here, having arrived while I double-checked my last seallet for mistakes. By now, I felt pretty comfortable under Yomogi-san's intense Byakugan stare–and not a moment too soon, as she seemed intent on observing every last detail of our little experiment.

"Whenever you're ready, Hinohino!"

I channeled my chakra through my palm. The seal did light up for a moment... then it exploded.

WHY!?

From the notes of Hyūga Yomogi:

Today subject attempted channeling chakra (untransformed) through a simple sealing array (fire-lightning type, chakraluminescence). The resulting explosion (SEC 10CT) seems to have stemmed from an attempt, by the seal, to modulate the subject's chakra input.

According to the resident authority, this modulation is supposed to occur by means of accumulation and release of excess chakra as necessary, smoothing over natural variations, over time, in a user's channeling. This reinforces the prior hypothesis that the subject's chakra exhibits volatility primarily when concentrated.

Attempting to use a seal made by another resulted in the destruction of the sealing paper when the subject's chakra met with residues of the original seal-maker's chakra. Once again the subject's chakra displays corrosive behavior in the presence of foreign chakra.

This bears further study.

Okay, I can do this. Turned out I couldn't power seals myself–not without them going boom, at least. I was pretty upset for a while, till I concluded it didn't really matter–while I couldn't actually write many seals myself (soft wards like the one I had in my eyes should be ok, according to Auntie, since they didn't need chakra to power them), but I could do theorycraft. It was the most enjoyable part anyways, so there was no problem!

Otou-san will be disappointed, a part of me remembered. Theorycraft isn't any good in actual battle. I shook my head. I'll just work harder on my bukijutsu, then! And so here I was, knocking at Kakashi-san's door, to beg him to help me train. I'd been feeling guilty about taking Auntie's time lately, ever since that talk with Rin-chan. Also, if Uncle's word was anything to go by, Kakashi-san was a genius.

The door opened.

"Please help me train!" I immediately threw myself to my knees.

"Oh, great, you're here too-" started a tired-sounding Kakashi. I could almost see his 'why are you dogeza'ing in front of my door' expression in my mind.

"Hey, who's this? Kakashi, my rival, you have a disciple already? Hello, disciple-chan!" said a loud, unknown voice.

I risked a glance up. A green-clad shinobi with huge eyebrows was looking down at me with a literally shining smile. Behind him, Kakashi-san looked equally divided between annoyance, amusement and momentary relief.

"Who are you, shinobi-san?" I managed.

"I am Might Guy, Kakashi's youthful rival!" Might-san was boisterous and energetic to a fault. He was also… doing a handstand? I just stared.

The noise of two hands clapping awoke me from my reverie. Kakashi-san looked excited.

"That's right, I was helping her train. I bet you can't help her more!" He intoned with barely restrained mirth.

A dangerous glint appeared in Guy's eyes.

"Alright, Disciple-chan! Follow me to a youthful training!" He jumped out the window. "Come on!" I heard from down there. "If you're afraid, I'll catch you!"

I looked at Kakashi-san questioningly. "Your problem now", he mouthed. How he managed to with that mask of his, I'll never understand. Maybe some kekkei genkai? Resigned to whatever gruesome fate his overcaffeinated rival had for me, I jumped.

All things considered, Guy was a pretty good, if a bit too tough, teacher. He seemed overjoyed to know I was training in bukijutsu ("not as fun as taijutsu", he said, "but still a youthful pursuit!") and he sounded pretty knowledgeable about the stuff.

We started on body training, and I quickly learned the answer to the question: "can someone's standards of what constitutes a good workout be harsher than otou-san's?" Yes. Oh so definitely yes. Guy-sensei–he'd been very hyped about being called that–had me doing handstand runs, jumping jack obstacle courses, and swimming against rapids.

There didn't seem to be any specific training regimen. Guy-sensei seemed to just know which of my muscles were rested enough, then managed to come up with some crazy activity that exercised them. He accompanied me on all of them, wearing deceptively small weights. I wonder how those are made? Probably one of the production clans.

"You know, Hinote-chan. I think this I the first time Kakashi has ever challenged me on anything. You must be pretty special to him, for him to stake out his pride like this!" He gave me another one of his blinding smiles, which I now knew were part of his 'Nice Guy (TM) Pose'.

Really? Me, to Kakashi-san? I didn't know how to take that. And I didn't have long to consider it–Guy-sensei was already handing me a bō and starting me on drills.

It turned out to be one of the best work-outs I'd done in my life. Guy-sensei had said I had potential to be a bukijutsu master, which had me smiling all the way back. Well, anyone would have potential if they trained as hard as he does. Still, it was hope.

That's probably part of why I didn't noticed Orochimaru-sama until I bumped into him.

A/N: Ok, so this is late. I apologize. Pokémon Go did not help, I assure you.

So we have the first appearance of Guy! I hope you like my take on him - I couldn't find that much material on a young Guy, so I took some inspiration from Lee... And some from my deranged brain, I guess.

We have another cliffhanger! Should probably help avoid another late chapter - I should have one particular friend poking me for a continuation if I tarry.

Also, shoutout to everyone who reviewed! We have broken ten reviews! Let's celebrate! Until I publish Chapter 9, any reviewer may ask me a question about the characters and the setting (I have made some changes, after all). I promise to answer it if it's not spoilery!

Thank you very much for reading!