Over time, her skill naturally surpassed Minato's.
"Hehe! I win again!" Kushina's face was full of the joy of victory.
Although Minato lost, he was quite happy. "One more round! I should be able to win this time!"
Kushina pouted. "Bring it on! I might not be as good as you at Ninjutsu, but I'm definitely better at gaming!"
Torifu didn't pay any more attention to who was winning or losing. Although the large dinner gathering was lively, too much liveliness could cause a headache. All he wanted now was to rest well and recharge his spirit. He still had to supervise Yahiko and Konan's training this afternoon. It would be embarrassing if he suddenly fell asleep halfway through.
He lay down on the bed and quickly fell into a deep sleep. When he finally woke up, it was already two or three in the afternoon. Torifu rubbed his head to clear his mind, then pushed open the door.
He found Yahiko and Konan consciously training in the courtyard. Minato was sitting nearby, playing on his phone with Kushina. Kushina's face still wore a triumphant smile. Minato also had a smile on his face.
Torifu started to understand what was going on. Minato was likely letting Kushina win on purpose. This young man had quite a bit of foresight and knew how to maintain his friendship. He and Kushina were still purely platonic friends. After all, what could a ten-year-old child understand? They hadn't even hit puberty yet.
"Yay! I won again! Haha, Minato, you're a bit weak!" When Kushina looked at Minato, the smile on his face disappeared, replaced by an annoyed expression. "Ugh, how did I lose again! Let's go again!"
Kushina wanted one more round, but her grandfather should be sober by now, and she needed to go home to check on him. "No, I have to go home. Let's play next time." With that, she waved to Minato. "Bye, Minato. We'll play together again next time."
Minato nodded. "Alright then, we'll play together next time." Kushina skipped away from the Kumotsuru Clan Compound.
Torifu walked up to Minato and rubbed his hand roughly over his head. "You little rascal, you've got quite the scheming mind. You're already deliberately losing to a girl to make her happy."
Hearing that he had been exposed, Minato scratched his head sheepishly. "Hehe, Big Brother, you caught me."
"It would be strange if I didn't notice! But what you're doing isn't wrong. If you let Kushina lose all afternoon today, she definitely wouldn't want to keep playing with you. I have to say, you're a pretty smart kid."
Minato scratched his head. "I mainly hadn't gone to play with Kushina for a while, and she was unhappy, so I wanted to cheer her up."
Torifu nodded. "No big problem, but that trick won't work so well a second time. You need to keep innovating to keep Kushina motivated to play with you."
Minato looked thoughtful. "Understood, Big Brother. I'll try my best."
Torifu said no more and turned to walk towards where Yahiko and Konan were training. He placed a rocking chair nearby and watched them train leisurely.
After about an hour, Torifu spoke. "That's enough for today. You can rest now."
Yahiko was the first to open his eyes, slowly ending his seated meditation posture. "Sensei, I feel like my chakra has increased a lot again. I definitely won't have any problems at school tomorrow now!" Konan also emerged from her meditative state. Her feeling was the same as Yahiko's; the chakra inside her body had grown quite a bit. Maybe she could even get a good ranking at school.
Torifu hadn't intended for them to compete for first or second place; gaining knowledge was the priority. Everything else was trivial. But seeing their spirited expressions, Torifu naturally couldn't dampen their enthusiasm. "Excellent. I'm very satisfied that you two are in this state. You must continue to work hard at school and constantly surpass yourselves."
"Yes!" It felt like he was training new recruits.
Time flew by quickly, and the sky gradually darkened. Torifu went to bed early as well. There were still many things he needed to do, and he didn't have a habit of staying up late.
Two months later, in the early morning, Torifu woke up from his sleep. After washing up, he prepared to sit in the courtyard and bask in the sun as usual.
But he looked up and saw a thin layer of clouds in the sky. If they were allowed to gather for a while, it would definitely rain. On a normal workday, Torifu wouldn't bother with them, but today was a holiday. How could such a beautiful day be gloomy? So, he flew up into the sky and pushed all the clouds far away.
The people in the village were already somewhat used to this sight. The Hokage's Cloud Release was a well-known ability. Pushing away the dark clouds probably wasn't too surprising. But Yahiko and Konan were always utterly stunned whenever they saw this. They practically tilted their heads back, watching Torifu's movements in the sky without blinking.
"Minato, was Sensei always like this before we came?"
Minato, who was playing a game nearby, nodded. "Yeah. Big Brother really loves basking in the sun and hates cloudy days, so this happens often. Don't worry too much about it. Even the villagers are used to it by now."
The villagers might be used to it, but they certainly weren't. They had only been here for two months and hadn't seen this many times. How could they be used to it?
Torifu, having completed this feat, slowly descended to the ground. He couldn't help but laugh at Yahiko and Konan's surprised expressions. "You're going to twist your necks. What's so interesting about this?"
Yahiko and Konan had been attending school for two months now. The first week was a bit hard to adapt to, but after that, everything returned to normal. Their training progress was already a bit ahead of their classmates. This was all due to Torifu's private tutoring. There were also many classmates who were willing to befriend them. This was mainly because of Yahiko's optimistic personality and generous nature; people with that personality tend to make friends easily.
The two children returned home with smiles on their faces every day after school. This was much better than just staying home and only training every day. At their age, they needed to make some reliable friends—at least one or two. Torifu trusted that they could handle this themselves, so he didn't worry about it. After all, his own wedding preparations were keeping him busy enough.
"Hurry up and start training. You can have free time after two hours of practice. You can go play with anyone you want then."