Kekkei Genkai

"You did well."

Minato said, his voice low, yet every word seemed weighted with lead.

"If there's anything else you want to hit, go ahead..."

"One punch is enough."

Naruto cut Minato off with Dan, not letting him finish in front of Kushina.

One punch meant it was over. A second punch would just be fooling around.

"Minato!"

Kushina hurried forward and supported Minato Namikaze by the arm.

Kushina told herself this was something father and son needed to settle between themselves. She should not interfere.

"I'm fine, Kushina!"

Minato Namikaze shook his head to show that he was fine. Then his gaze sharpened again, and within seconds, the Fourth Hokage's habitual way of thinking overwhelmed the sentiment of their reunion.

"Naruto, wait a moment."

Minato's tone turned serious. Though his stomach still hurt enough to make his voice slightly weak, his eyes had already taken on the cool gleam of analysis.

"From what I can sense, the structure of the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style containing the Nine-Tails inside you has not been damaged, and the Nine-Tails itself has shown no signs of going berserk."

"If the seal is stable, why am I here?"

"Why is your mother here too?"

"What exactly is going on?"

"That's right, Naruto."

Kushina turned to Naruto as well. The joy of reunion still lingered in the tear tracks at the corners of her eyes, but her curiosity had been thoroughly stirred.

"According to the Sealing Technique contingency plan your father and I set up, my Chakra should only have been activated at the critical moment when you tried to control the Nine-Tails' power, acting as an escort mechanism to help you suppress the Nine-Tails' Chakra."

"But now, the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style is clearly still completely intact. Even the outer seal hasn't been broken, yet the two of us were summoned by you."

"This isn't merely unexpected. This is completely outside the plan."

Kushina paused and felt around her own body.

Even in her Chakra form, she could still sense the state of her own energy consumption. A trace of worry appeared on her face.

"And I can feel that our Chakra is being continuously consumed."

"If you summoned us only because you wanted us to see each other, child, then there isn't much time."

"Mom, Dad, I know you're both anxious, but don't panic yet."

Naruto raised both hands in a calming gesture. "I summoned you because I need your help with something."

"Wait..."

At that moment, Minato raised a hand, using Dan to interrupt Naruto. His gaze was steady and intent. "Naruto, before we discuss helping you, there's a more important question I need to ask first."

He took half a step forward and bent slightly at the waist, bringing his eyes level with Naruto's.

That movement brought his face a little closer to Naruto's, allowing Naruto to see more clearly the gentle yet sharp probing unique to the Fourth Hokage in Minato's eyes.

"Your mother's and my existences were embedded in the deepest structure of the Sealing Technique. Ordinarily, we could only be passively activated if the seal was severely damaged or if you were on the verge of death."

"But you just said that you found us on your own. A level of consciousness control and Chakra interference like this can probably no longer be explained merely by calling you talented."

"So, Naruto, can you tell me exactly how you separated your mother's and my Chakra from the seal's underlying structure and summoned us?"

There was silence for a full three seconds.

Naruto scratched the back of his head.

The motion carried a trace of the original owner's lingering muscle memory, but his thirty-year-old soul controlled the pace unhurriedly while his mind raced at high speed.

Naturally, he could not tell the truth.

He could not say he was a transmigrator, could not say he knew the plot inside out, and could not say he possessed an ability called Absolute Control.

It was not that he did not trust Minato and Kushina. They were already dead, and after their Chakra forms dissipated, these memories could not be read by the living.

But Naruto had formed a habit. His greatest trump card would always remain in the deepest box within his heart, and he would give the key to no one.

He needed to make up a reasonable explanation.

One that could hold up under the rules of this Shinobi World, convince a genius ninja, and avoid exposing himself.

"It started with an earlier mission."

After a moment, Naruto slowly spoke, neither too fast nor too slow.

"While carrying out an escort mission in the Land of Waves, we fought Momochi Zabuza, a rogue ninja from the Hidden Mist, and his subordinate Haku."

"During the battle, Haku struck multiple acupoints with Senbon, and the flow of Chakra in my body completely stagnated for a time. My body was on the verge of death."

Minato Namikaze and Kushina frowned at the same time, but neither used Dan to interrupt him.

Naruto continued, "At that moment, when I was on the verge of death, it seemed that something inside my body was activated."

"It wasn't the Nine-Tails. It was a completely different power. It allowed me to sense the existence of everything inside my body, including Chakra, chakra pathways, Vessel organs, and even the structural patterns of the seal."

"After I regained consciousness, I discovered that I could control this power at will and use it to see into any corner of my body."

Naruto paused and glanced at Minato's expression. The latter was listening with complete focus, and the analytical gleam in his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

Naruto continued.

"After gaining this ability, I tried exploring my Chakra during my recovery, and I discovered the presence of your Chakra deep within the seal's structure."

"Two forces that shared the same origin as my Chakra but differed from it in subtle ways. They were hidden very deeply, but they could not escape my perception."

"I used this ability to separate you from the seal's structure and temporarily manifest you independently in this mental space."

"That was the entire process of how I summoned you."

"Kekkei Genkai?"

Minato Namikaze and Kushina voiced the same question almost in unison.

Their voices overlapped, and the confusion in their tones was exactly the same.

Minato turned to Kushina, his eyes clearly saying: Does your Uzumaki clan have a bloodline inheritance like this?

You're the expert in this area. You explain it.

Kushina caught his look, froze for a moment, and then her expression passed through four stages at incredible speed: confusion → thought → realization → fury.

"You bastard, Minato!"

Kushina grabbed Minato by the ear and gave it a hard twist.

The movement was so practiced that it was obvious she had done it plenty of times while alive. "What does that look in your eyes mean?"

"Are you suspecting that Naruto isn't your son?"

Minato Namikaze:?

Minato's head was twisted to one side, and a huge question mark appeared on his face.

He had no idea how he had stepped on a landmine.

He instinctively raised both hands to explain himself, but with his ear being tugged, all his dignity vanished.

"That's not it, Kushina. You misunderstood!"

Enduring the pain, Minato explained at high speed with the rapid speaking ability he had cultivated while handling urgent affairs in the Hokage Office.

"Our family has no bloodline inheritance of Kekkei Genkai. I know that better than anyone."