Every year, the Konoha Ninja Academy entrance exam was considered a major event in the village.
At that moment, the schoolyard was packed with people, their voices blending into a noisy din.
Hundreds of children around five or six years old stood in long lines. Minato waited quietly among them, joining the other examinees as they took the entrance test in groups of three under the Ninja Academy teachers' supervision.
Thwip, thwip, thwip—
As three shuriken struck the bullseye with pinpoint accuracy, the black-haired boy straightened up. A hint of pride appeared on his slightly flustered little face.
"Shinnosuke Sarutobi, full marks!"
The Chunin responsible for scoring announced loudly, making sure everyone could hear.
Whoosh—
The parents watching from the edge of the schoolyard erupted in excitement.
"Just as you'd expect from Lord Hokage's son..."
"Looks like young master Shinnosuke will be the top student of this year's class, doesn't it?"
Hearing the parents' awed comments, Hiruzen Sarutobi, standing at the front of the crowd, chuckled and took a deep puff from his pipe, clearly in a good mood.
"Hey, not bad, Shinnosuke."
Behind Hiruzen, the white-haired Jiraiya, still a young man, folded his arms and laughed. "He's a genius, just like me!"
At that, Orochimaru, standing beside him, glanced at the target. A faint smile played on his lips, carrying a trace of disdain.
He wouldn't deny that Jiraiya was a genius. Though he'd been a dim-witted dead last back in school, his current strength was in no way inferior to Orochimaru's. In a head-on fight, he could even edge him out.
But if this little brat Shinnosuke counted as a genius, then the title had become far too cheap.
Anyone with a brain could get good at throwing shuriken after a few months of practice.
Back in the day, Jiraiya's shuriken hit rate had been lower than his odds of winning the lottery. He couldn't even perform a single ninjutsu, yet that hadn't stopped him from getting into the academy.
At the same age of five or six, his chakra reserves had been twice Shinnosuke's.
With the amount of chakra Shinnosuke had, the best he could ever hope to become was an elite jonin.
Tsunade seemed to share much the same opinion. Impatiently twirling her ponytail around a slender fingertip, she could only hope the entrance exam would end soon so she could go enjoy a good round of gambling.
As the three direct disciples of the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, they had naturally come to watch their teacher's child take the entrance exam.
But they'd only come to take a look. Shinnosuke's talent clearly wasn't worth their attention.
"Next group: Naoto Tsuchiya, Rin Toyama, and Minato Namikaze!"
Hearing his name, Minato quickly stepped forward.
As soon as he took his place, the girls behind him began to stir.
"Hey, look at that boy! Isn't he so handsome?"
"Yeah! And he has such a lovely aura, too. His smile is so warm..."
"Exactly! You know what you're talking about~"
Hearing the chatter behind him, Minato smiled sheepishly and awkwardly scratched his cheek with his index finger.
The teacher beside him was used to it. Children in the Shinobi World tended to mature early, and something like this happened almost every year.
The little blond boy in front of him really was handsome—more than worthy of the highest compliment a man could receive. He was even a little more handsome than the teacher himself had been back in the day.
His golden hair shone like a tiny sun, and his vivid blue eyes resembled two exquisite sapphires.
His fair little face still had a touch of baby fat, but his well-proportioned features were bound to make him handsome for the rest of his life.
Of course, for a ninja, good looks were only a bonus at best.
Strength was what mattered most.
Just as the teacher was thinking this, the boy before him suddenly flicked his fingers open. Three shuriken appeared from between them as if out of nowhere. He flicked his hand, and the three black streaks flew straight into the bullseye ten meters away with a single dull thud.
Huh?
At the front of the crowd, Hiruzen Sarutobi froze for a moment. Even Orochimaru and Tsunade, who had been distracted just moments ago, turned to Minato in surprise.
"That was some beautiful shurikenjutsu..."
Jiraiya rubbed his chin, eyeing Minato's handsome, adorable little face with interest. "Hmm~ He's as dashing and handsome as I am, too!"
As the saying went, an amateur watched for the spectacle, while an expert watched for the skill.
Each finger differed in length and strength, so every shuriken thrown varied somewhat in force and trajectory.
For three shuriken to hit the bullseye at the exact same moment, as Minato had just done, took not only exceptional shurikenjutsu but also excellent dynamic vision, muscular control, coordination, finger flexibility, and more.
In other words, talent!
Even among the Uchiha Clan, whose members could make shuriken dance through the air, few in the entire village could match what Minato had just done at his age.
"Minato Namikaze! Full marks!"
The teacher in charge of scoring announced loudly, looking at Minato with undisguised approval.
"Hmph, not bad. But I won't lose to you!"
The boy beside him, Naoto Tsuchiya, looked eager to give it a try. He suddenly threw his hand, sending three shuriken along wildly crooked paths.
Two fell to the ground. The last one struck Minato's target...
"Naoto Tsuchiya, zero points."
"Damn it!"
Hearing his score, Naoto flushed red. He wiped away a tear and ran off, prompting a burst of laughter from the crowd.
Minato was speechless. He wanted to laugh, but it didn't feel very polite.
But when he saw Naoto throw himself into his mother's arms and burst into tears, his amusement immediately disappeared.
The kid had one more mother than he did.
And quite possibly one more father, too...
It all went back to half a year ago. Back then, he'd still been an ordinary little boy.
His father had been a Chunin in the village, but because his mother's health wasn't good, he'd left the ranks of the ninja and gone into trade instead. Their family had been fairly well-off.
But misfortune always came too suddenly. Caught in a sudden landslide during a rainstorm, the trading caravan had been struck by falling rocks as Minato's father tried to save someone. He had been gravely injured and died before he could receive treatment.
And just as that unnamed Roronoa Zoro from the neighboring series had once said, disasters always came one after another. That was simply the way of the world.
When news of his father's death reached home, his mother's condition worsened. In barely a month, grief had consumed her, and one night she passed away suddenly.
The very moment Minato watched his mother die, a cold force erupted in his mind. Countless fragments of memory, like shards of a broken mirror, flooded into his brain and left him with a splitting headache.
In those memories, he'd once been an utterly ordinary college student, mild-mannered and humble, beloved by his parents and teachers.
After his parents died in an accident, he'd begun working his way through school. Because of his gentle personality and handsome looks, a wealthy senior from the school's anime club had roped him into a job: cosplay as Minato Namikaze at an anime convention for three hundred a day.
But after the convention ended, as he was carrying a box of figurines across the street, a huge truck came speeding toward him.
Perhaps it was the skin bonus from cosplaying Minato Namikaze. In that instant, his body instinctively lunged forward, turning into a flash of yellow and narrowly dodging the savage collision.
But before he could get back up, the huge truck transformed right there into a Cybertronian. It twisted around and threw a punch!
Then everything went black. In the darkness, he could only faintly hear an electronic voice, which seemed to say mockingly, "It's time to go to another world, kid!"
Once he'd sorted out his memories, Minato's consciousness found itself in a strange space.
The space was brightly lit and had no visible boundaries, as if time and space didn't exist there. The only things in it were three statues standing before Minato.
The moment he recognized them, Minato was stunned.
There was no other reason: the three statues were the figurines he'd been carrying in the box before he crossed over!
The first statue was of Hashirama Senju, the First, wearing red armor with a Wood Dragon coiled behind him!
The second was of Madara Uchiha, also wearing red armor, with his Mangekyō Sharingan activated and a half-body Susanoo standing behind him!
And the third was Marine Admiral Kizaru, Borsalino, from the neighboring series. When packing his figurines to save space, Minato had casually stuffed him into the box.
As if they sensed Minato looking at them, the three statues suddenly trembled and turned into red, yellow, and green streaks of light that darted into his body.
When he woke up again, he'd been taken to Konoha Hospital after passing out. With help from his parents' friends and neighbors, his mother was buried beside his father.
The situation was downright hellish. That day, he'd lost his mother, but at the same time, he'd awakened Kizaru's Glint-Glint Fruit abilities, Hashirama Senju's Wood Release, and a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan...
[Disclaimer: This story uses Naruto's birth year of 51 and Minato's age of 24 at death from the original as its basis, since that gives the timeline a little more room. Also, given the inconsistencies in the original timeline, there may be errors in some characters' ages and the dates of events that happened around the same time. If you want to criticize anything, please criticize the original first. Thank you!]
[Disclaimer: The author owns all three original manga editions—black-and-white, color, and full-color—as well as the official databooks. For some disputed details, this story will use the more reasonable version. If you want to criticize anything, please criticize the original first. Thank you!]
[Disclaimer: Unless absolutely necessary, the author doesn't like adding headcanon or fanfic-only details. Please don't criticize the author based on fanfic-only details from other works. Thank you!]
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