Young Minato Namikaze

Three days later.

At the Ninja Academy gates.

People came and went.

Tsunade had changed into a student outfit.

Student Tsunade~

Since she was coming to school, she might as well dress the part~

Nawaki wore a backpack and tugged Kushina by the wrist, his face full of impatience.

"I'm in third grade, sis. I can take her to the office myself."

"Go home and catch up on sleep. You don't need to come."

Tsunade shot him a sidelong glance.

"Shut up. Lead the way."

Nawaki pouted and muttered under his breath, but he didn't dare argue.

Kushina carried a shoulder bag that was clearly a little too big for her. Head down, she followed close behind Nawaki.

Her short red hair hung down on both sides, hiding most of her face.

She was nervous.

Her palms had been sweating ever since they left the Senju residence.

Tsunade walked behind them, watching the two little figures ahead.

Dropping off Kushina was only part of why she had come today.

Her real target was a kid in second grade.

Minato Namikaze!

She had asked around before coming.

The future Fourth Hokage was currently in second grade.

He was a treasure.

She couldn't pass him up.

As it happened, Kushina had learned some ninja basics in the Land of Whirlpools.

She could go straight into second grade!

At the school office.

The Chunin teacher responsible for placing transfer students checked the form.

"Kushina Uzumaki, right?" The teacher looked up at her red hair.

"Yes," Tsunade answered for her. "She's learned the Basic Chakra Extraction Method at home, and she can hit a target with a shuriken. Put her straight into second grade."

Once the Chunin teacher recognized Tsunade, his manner grew much more courteous.

The Senju clan's eldest daughter. The Third Hokage's student.

"No problem. Class Two has an open seat. I'll take her there now."

Nawaki cut in from the side. "Huh? She's not coming to third grade? I wanted to look after her."

Tsunade smacked the back of his head.

"Get to class."

Nawaki ran off, clutching his head.

Tsunade followed the Chunin teacher and Kushina to the door of Class Two in the second grade.

The hallway was quiet. Class was in session.

The Chunin teacher opened the door and spoke briefly to the homeroom teacher at the front.

The homeroom teacher nodded and beckoned toward the doorway.

"Come in."

Kushina gripped her shoulder bag's strap and edged into the classroom one step at a time.

Tsunade stayed outside, leaning beside the window to look in.

More than thirty children in the classroom turned as one to stare at the front.

"This is your new classmate. Let's welcome her."

The homeroom teacher wrote her name on the board.

"Go on, introduce yourself."

Kushina kept her head down. Her voice was tiny.

"My name is... Kushina Uzumaki."

The children below whispered among themselves.

"Her hair's so red."

"That's weird."

"Like a tomato."

"It's so ugly."

They weren't speaking loudly, but their voices carried to the front of the room.

Kushina ducked her head even lower, her face red down to her neck.

Watching through the window, Tsunade's expression darkened at once.

A time-honored Konoha tradition.

Shutting out outsiders.

Bullying.

How had White Fang died? Rumors had driven him to his death.

How had Naruto grown up? Under the cold stares of the entire village.

Now a little girl had barely transferred in, and these brats, who couldn't even extract Chakra properly, were already attacking her with words.

They had learned by example.

The homeroom teacher tapped the blackboard.

"Quiet."

It did little good.

Several boys laughed outright.

"Look at her. She's about to cry."

"That tomato's ripe."

A chubby boy in the front row led the taunting.

Tsunade fixed her eyes on him.

An Akimichi?

No, no face markings.

A civilian ninja.

An heir to the Will of Domination?

Fine.

She committed the boy's face and seat number firmly to memory.

After school, she'd find an empty alley.

Throw a sack over his head.

Beat him up.

She didn't care that he was only a kid.

A nasty mouth came with a price.

Kushina stood at the front, twisting her fingers together, her eyes red.

But she held back her tears.

The homeroom teacher pointed to an empty seat by the window in the last row.

"Sit there."

Kushina walked over with her head down and sat.

Tsunade's gaze followed Kushina, then settled on the boy beside her.

A head of brilliant blond hair.

A blue-and-white jacket.

Even in the last row, he sat perfectly straight.

Minato Namikaze.

Minato hadn't joined the other students in mocking her.

He turned to look at Kushina, then at her red hair.

Then he faced forward again and continued listening to the lesson.

He hadn't piled on, but he hadn't stepped in to play the hero, either.

That fit a precocious seven- or eight-year-old.

Smart, careful not to make himself a target, and capable of making up his own mind.

Tsunade withdrew her gaze and left the window.

She didn't go far. She climbed straight up the tallest tree on the school grounds.

Its thick canopy hid her perfectly.

From there, she could see half the playground and the school building.

She didn't intend to leave all day.

She wanted a good look at the future Fourth Hokage.

Noon.

The bell rang.

The hallways grew noisy as students poured out in groups.

Those with packed lunches went to eat on the playground; the rest headed for the cafeteria.

Inside second-grade Class Two.

Kushina remained in her seat.

She took a tightly wrapped lunchbox from her bag and lowered her head, preparing to eat alone.

The other students kept their distance, deliberately or otherwise.

"Don't play with that tomato."

Bits of conversation reached her ears.

Kushina tightened her grip on her chopsticks.

A shout came from the classroom doorway.

"Kushina! Time to eat!"

Nawaki strode in, swinging two large lunchboxes.

He paid no attention to the looks around him and went straight to the last row.

He pulled out the chair beside Kushina and plopped down.

"Yours is too small. My sister packed a big one for you this morning. Eat this."

Nawaki pushed a lavish three-tier lunchbox toward her.

Kushina stared at him, stunned.

The other students fell silent.

Nawaki.

He was a notorious troublemaker at school, with a powerful family, plenty of strength, and no fear of a fight.

Few dared mess with him.

The chubby boy who had led the taunting in the front row tucked his neck in and slipped out of the classroom with his lunchbox.

Kushina watched Nawaki open the lunchbox. The aroma of meat cutlets rose from inside.

"Thank you..." she said softly.

"What for? I'm going to be Hokage someday. Of course I'm going to look after you."

Nawaki stuffed a piece of rolled omelet into his mouth and said indistinctly, "If anyone picks on you, tell me. I'll beat them up."

Kushina lowered her head and pressed her lips together.

At the desk in front of her.

Minato Namikaze put away his textbooks.

He hadn't brought lunch.

He stood and glanced at Nawaki, who was shoveling food into his mouth, then at Kushina.

Then he left the classroom without a word.

Outside the school building.

Up in the tree canopy.

Tsunade held a senbon between her teeth.

She watched Minato leave the building. He didn't head for the cafeteria or the playground.

Instead, he walked toward an old building behind the school.

It was the Ninja Academy library. Few students went there.

Most of its shelves held dry theory books and village records. It didn't even stock basic ninjutsu scrolls.

Tsunade spat out the senbon.

She leaped down.

And followed him without a sound.

The library's first floor.

The old man at the check-out desk was dozing.

Minato Namikaze slipped past the desk as if he knew the place by heart and headed for the innermost row of shelves.

The light was dim, and the air smelled of paper.

Tsunade crouched outside the window and peered through the gap where it hadn't quite closed.

Minato searched the shelves at the back of the first floor.

Before long, he pulled out a book with a battered cover.

It was a thick volume.

He carried it to a table in the corner and sat down.

From his pocket, he took out a notebook and a pencil.

Tsunade squinted through the gloom at the book's cover.

The title was long.

The History of Konoha's Founding and a Critical Study of the Life of the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama.

Tsunade had heard of the book.

It was full of empty praise, with the occasional theoretical note Tobirama had written while developing ninjutsu.

It didn't contain a single complete sequence of hand signs.

Minato opened the book.

He skipped straight past the lengthy account of Tobirama's life and turned to the latter half.

There was a page discussing the "concept of Space-Time Ninjutsu."

Tsunade watched his movements.

Minato kept his head down, reading intently.

After each passage, he drew a few strokes in his notebook.

They weren't words. They were lines.

Crooked, intersecting lines.

At first, Tsunade couldn't make sense of them.

But after a few minutes, her eyes widened.

A formula.

A positioning formula derived from a combination of Sealing Jutsu and Summoning Jutsu.

The beginnings of Flying Thunder God's coordinate system.

And this was a seven- or eight-year-old child.

With nothing but a battered village history that barely contained anything useful, he was working backward to derive the Second Hokage's space-time formula on a sheet of scrap paper?

It was absurd!

But the proof was right in front of her.

Was this what a genius looked like?

Tsunade's heart beat faster.

Something had been troubling her for a while.

How was she going to get to the Land of Whirlpools?

Given the distance, even a jonin traveling at full speed would need three days to get there from Konoha.

Bringing others along would take even longer.

If the Uzumaki came under surprise attack, it would be too late by the time Shino Aburame's insect warning reached her and she set out.

She would arrive only in time to collect the bodies.

To save them, she had to be fast.

Fast enough to cross space itself.

In the entire Shinobi World, only Flying Thunder God could do that.

But Flying Thunder God wasn't something a normal person could learn.

It demanded an outrageous talent for sensing space.

Even Hiruzen Sarutobi and Hatake Sakumo couldn't learn it.

Tsunade couldn't either.

Her talents lay entirely in Chakra control and physical enhancement. She knew nothing about space.

But Minato Namikaze could do it!

More than that, he could take the technique further than anyone before him.

Tsunade looked at the blond boy in the corner, still painstakingly working out the formula, and made up her mind.

She would step in early.

She couldn't let him fumble through it alone.

That would take too long. By then, the Land of Whirlpools would already be gone.

She had to help him.

She would push Minato Namikaze to master Flying Thunder God as quickly as possible.

As long as he could establish coordinates and take her there...

Even if he could only take her, there would still be hope for the Land of Whirlpools.

The ticket for a direct trip over that distance was sitting right in front of her.

Tsunade drew her gaze back.

She quietly slipped down from the windowsill.

Then she turned and left.

She headed straight for the Hokage Building.

Her target: the Book of Seals!