Chapter 39 – Konoha Gold (Part 6)
Minamoto Ren rummaged through his ninja tool pouch and pulled out several dozen pages.
They were fragments of a sealing scroll—what remained of the final section of Fire Release: Dragon Flame Release Song Technique.
He had carried them since before this mission, intending to consult Orochimaru when he returned.
But Orochimaru hadn't returned.
Instead… the Seven Ninja Swordsmen had arrived.
Ren sighed and, under the dim light of a fire striker, spread the scroll fragments before Namikaze Minato.
"Help me take a look at this ninjutsu—an A-rank. Dragon Flame Release Song Technique. You ever seen it before?"
Minato blinked in disbelief.
Seriously? With enemies still around, rations for only three days, and the risk of discovery… you're learning ninjutsu now?
"Come on, help me out. I'm just one step away. Look—this last section, the sealing formula…" Ren spoke earnestly.
He needed this A-rank technique. His current ninjutsu lacked burst power.
Seeing Ren's expression, Minato forced himself to focus on the scroll.
Minato was a genius in every sense—his talent rivaled, perhaps even exceeded, the Third Hokage's in every area.
After all, Hiruzen Sarutobi had never mastered the Flying Thunder God Technique; he lacked talent for space-time jutsu.
"Hm… sealing techniques—I've studied some before. These formula chains here seem meant to lock onto a target's position. But if there's targeting, there should be guidance afterward, right? Where's the guidance?" Minato finally asked after poring over the text for three straight hours.
By now, everyone else had gathered around.
With nothing better to do—and their lives not entirely in their own hands—any distraction was welcome.
Ren immediately sat across from Minato, eyes fixed on the spot Minato pointed out.
"Yes! There is guidance—don't worry about that part for now. What I need to know is how to link the guidance to the targeting!" Ren was practically buzzing with excitement. He had known Minato would get it.
Senju Nawaki fell silent.
Earlier, when Ren had declared "The next Hokage will be either Minato or me," he had bristled.
But now, watching them discuss something he couldn't make heads or tails of… he felt crushed.
Learning ninjutsu was like that—
A few soared in the sky.
Most lay buried in the pit.
"Linking… Now that you mention it, that's tricky. The speed of Dragon Flame is too fast. Without guidance, it'd just fire in three straight lines—wasting chakra with no real impact. Yes… I see the problem." Minato's mind leapt between points rapidly.
Ren's head itched—the sensation of being right on the edge of a breakthrough.
"What if you engrave the sealing formula onto yourself?" Minato suggested.
"Engrave it on myself… to guide myself?" Ren shot back immediately.
"No. You're not telling me how the tracking part works, so I'm guessing here. What exactly is this technique's guidance system?" Minato was getting impatient.
"Doesn't matter what it is—just tell me how to link the guidance to the sealing array!" Ren had no intention of revealing it was Sharingan-based tracking. That sort of thing couldn't be discussed openly.
"Then there are only two ways—chakra linkage, or stacking one jutsu atop another. Does the earlier part mention anything about stacking techniques?"
"No. Not a word about it. It must be chakra linkage." Ren frowned.
The two of them went back and forth for over an hour, voices rising and falling like a heated shogi match.
Even Hyūga Haining, still mired in grief, found himself drawn to their argument.
"What, do you even understand chakra linkage? That 'ninjutsu genius' title of yours—did Jiraiya-sama buy it for you?"
"Bullshit! You gave me only the third section, nothing from the start—how am I supposed to understand?" Minato's face flushed red.
"But at that speed, using chakra linkage still means relying on human reaction, doesn't it? I think it's wrong." Ren dismissed their earlier theory.
Minato fell silent.
He felt it too—something off.
It was instinct, like glancing at a completed fill-in-the-blank and knowing deep down it was wrong, no matter how reasonable it looked.
The two locked eyes across the space between them, minds racing at full speed.
"There's… one more possibility."
Namikaze Minato spoke slowly under Minamoto Ren's intense gaze.
Every head turned toward him—the world seemed to narrow to this single point.
"This is just a guess, I'm not guaranteeing anything," Minato said, clearly feeling the pressure.
"I once heard my teacher Jiraiya mention that, in certain clone techniques, there are specific hand seals that allow the clone and the original body to share senses."
"If you take one of those seals—say, the one that shares vision—and imprint it onto a jutsu… then the jutsu itself would…"
"…would aim on its own!!"
Ren shot to his feet, the realization hitting him like a thunderclap.
He got it. Completely.
No wonder. No wonder he could never figure out how the eye-tracking aspect meshed with the sealing formula.
So that was it!
The "eye technique tracking" was merely a type of tracking—
The real secret to giving a jutsu autonomous target-seeking ability… was Sensory Sharing Tracking!
By using a sealing technique to embed the dynamic vision of the Sharingan—the "sight" produced by a clone—directly into the Dragon Flame, this was the true "finishing touch" to the dragon's eye!
Genius. Whoever invented this was an absolute genius.
"Minato, you really are a damn genius! When we get back to Konoha, dinner's on me!" Ren, unable to contain his excitement, pulled Minato into a bear hug.
"Hmph. I wonder who it was just now who was trash-talking me…" Minato replied, returning to his seat with a faintly smug look.
Ren moved to a spot a little away from the others, clapped his hands together, and began forming seals.
The seals themselves weren't complex—the real difficulty lay in understanding how to direct the chakra inside your body, and deciding exactly what effect you wanted it to produce.
People like Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara never cared much for hand seals.
They'd just bring their hands together, their chakra would flow exactly as needed, and the desired effect would naturally follow.
Of course, that was partly because ninjutsu in their era wasn't as intricate—and partly because their chakra control and understanding of ninjutsu were on a monstrous level that normal people could never hope to match.
When Ren completed the final seal, he pushed only the tiniest amount of chakra forward, exhaling a small flame carved into the shape of a dragon's head.
Though miniature, the black sealing marks etched across the dragon's surface were perfectly clear.
Its eyes in particular glimmered as they scanned the air for enemies.
In moments, it locked onto the nearest target—Senju Nawaki—
and roared toward him, igniting his hair in a flash.
"Whoa! Boss! What the hell?!" Nawaki yelped, flailing wildly to put it out.
Ren burst into laughter—deep, unrestrained.
Because even without using the Sharingan's dynamic vision this time, the jutsu still had a degree of tracking ability.
And that could only mean one thing—
This A-rank Fire Release technique, one he had spent months trying to master…
Minamoto Ren had finally done it.