Minato returned her drafted seals with heavy annotations and then didn't even give her time to study his notes before he clapped his hands together and announced training was ending early. That came with immediate surprise from Rin and immediate protest from both Obito and Kakashi. Amused, Minato shut those down, pointedly saying to Obito, "I was under the impression that you and Kyoko-chan had plans today."
Obito squinted. Then his eyes widened. "Oh, yeah!" He rushed to collect his things. "C'mon, Kyo-chan! We should hurry!"
"Tousan told us to be back at noon."
"We're gonna be late!"
"That's not for at least a half hour," Kakashi said. "Pretty sure you're fine."
"What's happening at noon?" Rin asked, stopping by Kyoko and tilting her head to catch a glimpse of her fuuinjutsu work as she stored it away.
"It's Shisui and Kyoko's birthday!" Obito sang.
"Oh! Happy birthday, Kyoko-chan! I wish I'd known; I would have brought you something."
Kyoko gave her a smile, getting to her feet. "You don't have to."
"No. I'll have something for you tomorrow. We're meeting tomorrow, right, Minato-sensei?"
"Yes, and then I want you to take the two days after that to rest up for the Exams. We'll meet the morning of outside the Tower, but don't worry about those details until tomorrow. Go ahead and go for today. And happy birthday, Kyoko-chan."
"Thank you, Minato-sa— San," Kyoko said catching herself. Just barely. "Niichan, are you ready?"
"Yep." Obito turned his back to her and crouched down, hands out at his sides. "Hop on!"
With Kyoko riding piggyback, the two of them were home quickly and found Kagami, Shisui, Mikoto, and Itachi waiting on the engawa for them. Obito waved before quickly grabbing Kyoko's knee again so she wouldn't fall. "Where are we going?"
"The clan's fourth training ground." Kagami took the baskets in hand and stepped down from the engawa. "How was training?"
"It was great!" Obito said, falling in step with them as they started walking and bouncing Kyoko on his back in excitement. "We're gonna dominate at the Exams! They're not gonna know what hit 'em. Rin and I are gonna be like bam, bam! And then Kyoko's our secret weapon, and she swoops in and goes wham!"
Mikoto chuckled. In her arms, Itachi mimicked her. "So long as you remember that combat is not the only important aspect of the Exams, Obito-kun."
They set up at the training ground next to the branch off of Naka River that streamed through it. Kagami had brought a blanket that they laid out, and Mikoto had made a purin for each of them. Although Obito tried dominate the conversation, Shisui stole the majority of the attention as hedemonstrated what he'd been learning in his training, including henge and kawarimi. Kagami was a mix of pride and nervousness as his son showed off, but Kyoko was delighted.
"How's your bunshin?" she asked, finally abandoning the food to join him.
Shisui held his hand up in a so-so motion. "We started yesterday. Obasan said I did well for my first try."
She brought up her sharingan. "Show me."
Shisui put his hands together in a ram seal. Then snake. Finally tiger. She knew what his system should look like when he was creating a clone, and the chakra he'd pulled up was a bit too much. It also didn't hold together on his final seal. He was relaxing his hands too soon, something that would be fine once the jutsu was mastered and his chakra system had a memory of what it should do. But while he was learning the jutsu?
His clone appeared, hazy and see-through, for only a second before vanishing.
"Here," she said, stepping forward. She took his hands in hers and guided them back together. "Do your tiger seal again." Once he'd done so, she pressed his hands together. "Hold this until after your clone is done. You're stopping too soon. Keep the chakra shaped until the clone is made." She pulled back. "Do it again."
Shisui moved through the signs again, slower this time. When he got to his tiger seal, she reached out and pressed his hands together. "Hold it," she directed. She watched with her sharingan as his chakra struggled to mold just right. Kyoko shifted the placement of his index fingers just a bit, tilting them forward.
Shisui blinked. "But that's not—"
"Finish it," she said, holding his hands in place. His chakra had settled into the correct shape.
He frowned. "Bunshin," he said, releasing his chakra.
His clone appeared, visually solid, and stayed.
"I did it!" Shisui shrieked in excitement, yanking away from her to jump up and down. "Did you see that? Tousan, did you see? Obasan!"
Excitement thrummed through Kyoko, because that fact that he'd managed that meant— "Shisui, give me your hands." She managed to grab him despite his jumping around. "Tiger seal again. Good. You need to be able to hold it perfectly while learning your next jutsu."
His wide eyes turned to her. "My next jutsu?" He grinned. "Okay. What is it? Show me!"
"Hold that," she said, having rearranged his hands back into the adjusted tiger seal. Then she stepped back from him and brought her own hands up in the seal. "Watch. This technique only uses the one sign."
"Kyoko," Kagami said in alarm. "He's too—"
She activated her shunshin, landing beneath a tree across the training ground. She'd turned mid-jutsu so that she was facing them still, which meant she was able to see both Kagami surging to his feet and Shisui excitedly dumping chakra into his own attempt. He lurched forward briefly in the initial burst of chakra and then tripped, falling on his face only two feet from where he'd been. Obito started howling with laughter, and even Mikoto lifted her hand to hide her smile.
Kagami, however, was at Shisui's side immediately, speaking softly to him as he helped his son up. In contrast to Shisui's delighted babbling, Kagami's expression was creased. He looked up towards her. "What were you thinking?"
It had been a long time since she'd heard that sharpness to his voice. Certainly not since she'd come back. It caused her to falter for just a second, because how was she supposed to explain that Shisui had originally snuck around and learned shunshin on his own only a month from now because the Academy had felt even more stifling for him that it had for her? "I was thinking he should learn shunshin," she settled on. The words felt clunky in her mouth.
"Shisui doesn't know bunshin yet. He shouldn't be moving on to other jutsu, especially higher rank ones, before he can do the Academy Three. Pushing him before he's ready is irresponsible. Training accidents for shunshin can be very serious."
She knew that. She and Tsunade had treated several of those injuries in newer genin. But also, she'd learned shunshin before she'd figured out the Academy Three because Shisui taught it to her before either of them had managed a successful clone. And that didn't even quite matter because— "Shisui just did bunshin," she pointed out.
"Assisted," Kagami corrected. "He did an assisted bunshin, because you helped. Moving that fast is not a safe way to train. Is this how you train with Hatake?"
She bristled at the merest implication of criticism towards Kakashi, even though she knew without a doubt that he was often more than reckless in his training. She'd stitched him up enough times to know that. But she'd spent so long biting her tongue when authority—Hiruzen, Jiraiya, Fugaku—dismissed or condemned Kakashi, and her ability to do so had only gotten thinner an thinner over the years. Genma had once told her that she got particularly nasty when she finally got angry, and Kagami definitely didn't deserve that. Not when he was so concerned simply because he didn't know that she knew Shisui's capabilities better than anyone, even Shisui himself.
So she moved to the picnic, picked up her things—her kunai pouches and her tanto—and announced, "I'll be back after dinner."
"Leaving?" Mikoto asked, all of her previous amusement gone and replaced by a levelness that was always dangerous with her.
Kyoko turned briefly towards her. Then she followed Mikoto's nod to her father. "I'm sorry," she said, measuring herself. "I'll be back after dinner."
Kagami's internal wrestle was visible for a moment. "Okay," he said softly. "Please be careful."
Next to him, Shisui looked worried.
She nodded and then shunshined away.
In the moments after she knocked, she considered the possibility that her unannounced visit might not be welcome. That thought only lasted up until Kakashi opened the door, blinked at her, and immediately stepped aside to let her in.
"I'm going fishing for dinner," he said, leaving her to shut the door herself as he turned and retreated back into the house. "And I only have the one fishing pole."
"That's alright." She left her shoes by the door and followed him into the kitchen.
Kakashi had his spice bottles out on the counter, and he was going through them with careful consideration. As she joined him, he looked up and said, "I'm only cooking you a fish if you catch it yourself."
"With no pole?"
There was a brief movement to his mask that she recognized as him poorly hiding a grin. Actually, not so poorly, she supposed. The mask was doing the hiding for him. "Well," he said, "I only have the one."