Night.
The tent was full of damp clothes, and the air reeked of mildew.
"Damn weather." Uchiha Fugaku touched the Combat Suit he was supposed to wear tomorrow. It was still wet.
"If we don't dry them, the cold will stiffen our joints during tomorrow's training and affect our movements." Nishikawa Tetsu was calculating the humidity. "I recommend starting a fire to dry them, but the tent isn't well ventilated, so we could get carbon monoxide poisoning."
"No need to go to all that trouble."
Fugaku suddenly yanked the clothes off the line and piled them in front of himself.
"Watch closely. This is the Uchiha Clan's precise control of Chakra."
He took a deep breath. Without forming Hand Seals, he pressed his palm against the damp clothes.
A faint red Chakra glow appeared. It was an application of Fire Release Nature Transformation—producing heat without open flames.
"Fizz..."
White steam rose as the clothes visibly dried and warmed.
"That's amazing!" Minato's eyes lit up, and he immediately shoved his own clothes over. "Senpai! Dry mine too! These wet underwear have been bothering me all day!"
"Get lost!" Fugaku snapped. "I'm the Young Clan Leader of the Uchiha, not a clothes dryer!"
Despite his grumbling, he saw the hopeful look in Minato's eyes—and Tetsu silently offering him a pair of socks...
Fugaku scowled and snatched up their clothes. "Don't expect me to do this again! Just this once!"
After training together for the past few days, Tetsu had gathered a great deal of data on Namikaze Minato.
This future Fourth Hokage was still green, but his terrifying talent was already beginning to show.
"Minato."
Tetsu suddenly spoke. "There's something I want to discuss with you during our break."
"Hm?" Namikaze Minato wiped his sweat and looked over. "What is it?"
"Your fighting style."
Tetsu pulled the small notebook he always carried from his Ninja Tool Pouch and opened it to the page with Minato's data.
"Your physique is unusual. Your nerve conduction speed is about 1.5 times that of an average person, which means your reflexes are incredibly fast."
"And your muscles have tremendous explosive power, but you lack endurance. That means you're not suited to prolonged positional battles or Ninjutsu clashes like Senpai Fugaku's."
Uchiha Fugaku raised an eyebrow nearby. He said nothing, but his ears perked up.
Namikaze Minato paused, then gave a wry smile. "That's true. I'm not good at drawn-out battles of attrition, so lately I've been practicing how to conserve my stamina."
"No, that's the wrong approach."
Tetsu shook his head, his tone firm. "In this world, being good at everything usually means being mediocre at everything. If your talent lies in speed, then you should take it to the extreme."
"To the extreme?"
"Exactly. You should give up large-scale Ninjutsu, and even broad, powerful Taijutsu. Focus on developing the Body Flicker Technique."
Tetsu pointed to Minato's leg muscles. "Put all your Chakra into boosting your explosive speed for that one instant. Pursue the utmost speed."
"But what if I move too fast for my dynamic vision to keep up?"
Minato raised the crucial question. Not everyone had the Sharingan. "At that kind of speed, my surroundings would blur, and I could easily have an accident."
"That brings me to the second concept I wanted to explain—dynamic vision counter-training."
Tetsu had clearly come prepared.
He took a handful of small stones painted in alternating black-and-white stripes from his bag.
"Senpai Fugaku!" Tetsu called over. "Could I trouble you to activate your Sharingan and help with an experiment?"
Fugaku snorted. He had no idea what the kid was up to, but he still came over. "If you're planning to use me as a target, you'd better hope your theory works."
"These are black-and-white strobe stones," Tetsu explained. "I'll throw them along irregular trajectories. Minato, you need to sprint at full speed and catch them before they hit the ground."
"At high speed, the black-and-white stripes will cause strong visual persistence interference. You need to learn not to 'look' with your eyes, but to sense things using your peripheral vision and Chakra."
"Only by overcoming visual persistence can you see clearly while moving at top speed. As for Senpai Fugaku..."
Tetsu looked at Fugaku, the corner of his mouth curling upward. "Please use Shuriken to knock the stones out of Minato's hands. That'll test whether Minato's speed can fool the Sharingan's dynamic tracking."
"Knock the stones away?" Fugaku sneered as the Three Tomoe appeared in his eyes.
"Begin!"
At Tetsu's command, several stones flew into the air.
"Whoosh!"
Namikaze Minato shot forward like a streak of gold.
"Clink! Clink!"
Almost simultaneously, Uchiha Fugaku's Shuriken flew through the air.
At first, Minato was a complete mess.
He was moving too fast, and everything he saw was doubled. Several times, the Shuriken nearly sliced his arm, and once he even crashed straight into a tree.
"Too slow! Your intentions are obvious!" Uchiha Fugaku criticized mercilessly.
But with Tetsu continually correcting him—telling him not to look directly at the target's center and to establish spatial coordinates using his peripheral vision—Minato improved at a frightening rate.
Over the next half month...
Every day, the clearing in this forest in the Land of Rain saw a chase between golden flashes and red eyes.
Meanwhile, Tetsu crawled through the mud, gradually expanding his Chakra reserves with his "extreme breakthrough method."
The days were tedious and painful, but all three of them grew sharper by the day.
Then, one evening...
"Whoosh!"
Tetsu threw a stone.
A streak of golden light flashed.
Namikaze Minato appeared ten meters away in an instant, the stone held firmly in his hand. At the spot where he had been standing, an afterimage still lingered, slowly fading away.
"Clang!"
Uchiha Fugaku's Shuriken pierced the afterimage and stuck in empty space.
"This..."
Uchiha Fugaku watched the fading afterimage, his Three Tomoe spinning wildly.
Just then, his eyes had seen Minato—but by the time his body reacted and he threw the Shuriken, Minato was no longer there.
You call that a Genin?
"Success."
Tetsu recorded the data nearby. Though he was covered in mud, his eyes were full of excitement. "The nerve response delay has been reduced to 0.08 seconds."
The future Yellow Flash now had what it took to become the Yellow Flash. At this rate, he should be able to learn the Flying Thunder God even earlier.
Minato looked at his hands. The feeling of controlling top speed, of seeing the world slow down around him, enthralled him.
He turned to Tetsu and flashed a radiant smile. "Thank you, Che! This training method is incredible!"
"Hmph."
Uchiha Fugaku put away his Shuriken. He was a little annoyed that his prediction had missed, but there was a deeper note of respect in his eyes.
He had to admit that these two commoners—one with the mind of a monster, the other with the body of one—had earned the right to stand alongside the Uchiha.
Just then...
"Poof!"
A cloud of white smoke burst in the middle of the clearing.
A Toad with a huge scroll strapped to its back dropped from the sky.
"Sorry to interrupt you three." The Toad exhaled a ring of smoke, its voice deep. "Jiraiya has urgently summoned Team Five."
The three exchanged glances, their expressions instantly turning grave. The relaxed mood from training vanished without a trace.
They all knew what this meant.
Their ordinary, grueling training was over. The real war was about to begin.
Uchiha Fugaku adjusted his Ninja Tool Pouch and leaped away first, his voice echoing through the rain.
"Let's go."
Before you continue