Chapter 5: The Seal of Translocation
The puzzle consumed them. For days, Minato would practice activating his core, bathing the training hall in a serene blue glow, yet remaining stubbornly motionless. Edgeshot watched, his sharp mind dissecting every detail of Minato's initial, successful use of the power.
"Let's go over it again," Edgeshot said one afternoon. "Every detail. You saw the girl. You looked for a hero. You felt the desperation, then the resolve. The aura appeared. Then what?"
"I… I moved," Minato said, frustrated. "I was on the ground, and then I was next to her."
"Your focus," Edgeshot pressed. "Where was it? When you decided to act, what, precisely, were you looking at?"
Minato closed his eyes, recalling the moment. The terror, the world slowing down. "I… I was looking at the ground. Right below her. I was thinking that was where I needed to be to catch her."
Edgeshot's posture straightened slightly. A theory was forming. "Your will had a destination. A specific, intended endpoint that your eyes were fixed upon. Your power created a bridge between point A, where you stood, and point B, where you needed to be. Now, you are activating the power without a defined point B. You are building a key without a lock."
The analogy clicked in Minato's mind. That made a strange kind of sense.
"An experiment," Edgeshot declared. He picked up a small, smooth stone from a decorative plant pot in the corner. "Forget moving your body. Just focus on the stone. Channel your core, that azure energy, and try to infuse it into this object."
It was a strange request, but Minato complied. He held the stone in his palm and focused, trying to push the energy from his body into it. It was like trying to pour water into a sponge that was already full. For an hour, nothing happened. Then, finally, with a surge of concentration, the stone flickered with a faint blue light. It had accepted a tiny fragment of his energy.
"Good," Edgeshot said. "Now, throw it."
Minato tossed the faintly glowing stone across the room. It landed with a soft clatter twenty feet away.
"Now," Edgeshot commanded, "activate your core. But do not think of moving. Do not think of a destination. Focus on one thing and one thing only: that stone. Feel the piece of your energy that resides within it. Connect with it."
Minato did as he was told. He ignited his aura and stared at the glowing stone. He reached out with his senses, feeling for that tiny, familiar spark of his own energy. He found it. He focused on it, pulling at the invisible thread connecting them. He didn't try to move; he simply willed himself to be with that piece of himself.
FWOOMP.
The world twisted for a fraction of a second. He felt a bizarre sensation of being turned inside out, and then he was standing on the other side of the room, the glowing stone at his feet. He stumbled, disoriented, his head spinning. But he had done it. He had moved.
"It seems," Edgeshot stated, "that your Quirk is not true teleportation. It is translocation. You cannot simply go anywhere. You can only go to a place that you have 'marked' with your energy."
This was the grand breakthrough. The key to everything. But throwing energized pebbles around was impractical. They needed a more reliable, permanent, and faster method of marking. Drawing on his own ninja heritage, Edgeshot proposed the creation of a unique seal, or fūin.
Minato spent the next week designing it. He settled on an intricate, circular pattern of characters that were both unique to him and simple enough to be applied quickly. He learned to infuse his core energy into special ink, creating paper tags he could slap onto surfaces. Better yet, he had Edgeshot's agency custom-forge several three-pronged kunai—throwing knives used in classic ninjutsu. They were perfectly weighted and, on the ring of their handles, he painstakingly engraved his translocation seal.
The training transformed overnight. It became a dance of incredible speed. Minato would throw a sealed kunai, and in a brilliant yellow flash—the streak of light his instantaneous movement created—he would vanish and reappear where it landed. He learned to leave his mark on a surface with a simple touch of his palm, a glowing blue imprint of his seal that would linger for several minutes. He could throw a kunai, teleport to it, grab it mid-air, and throw it again, chaining his movements together in a dazzling, unpredictable sequence.
He was no longer a boy with a locked power. He was the master of his own unique art. He held a sealed kunai in his hand, feeling the familiar hum of his core within it. He was ready for whatever came next.
.
.