Breakfast was rice, grilled fish, and the kind of miso that tasted like someone had been patient with it. Akane watched Renga's chopsticks the way a weapons instructor watches a stance—correcting a grip here, nudging an elbow there. Renjiro read a folded mission bulletin in silence; without looking up, his hand kept drifting over to refill Renga's bowl.
"After we eat," Akane said, "brushwork."
"Huh—brushwork?" Renga blinked.
Akane's mouth quirked. "You begged me to teach you seals, remember?"
A memory flashed: four-year-old Renga's biggest eyes, dramatic sighs, and solemn promises to practice every day if Mom taught him fūinjutsu.
"Oh. Right. I do remember. I… wasn't expecting we'd start today."
"We are," Akane said. "The Academy starts soon, and fūinjutsu is meticulous. With classes and seal lessons, your plate will be full."
Renjiro lowered the bulletin. "Once you get the feel, it comes easier. It's in your blood." He shot Akane a teasing look. "And since your mother is a terrible teacher—"
Akane tapped his wrist with her chopsticks.
"—I asked your aunt Kushina to stop by a couple times a week," he finished, unfazed. "Different perspective."
Aunt… Kushina? Renga's thoughts tripped. No way. That makes Naruto my cousin. Old memories surfaced—Kushina's laugh, bags of snacks, more ramen than any sane house should hold.
"Uh—yes, Auntie Kushina," Renga said, trying not to grin. "When's she coming?"
"This week," Akane said. "Today is my lesson. Fūinjutsu is one of the reasons our clan is famous."
"Speaking of Uzumaki…" Renga tried to keep it casual. "Why did you two come to Konoha?"
His parents exchanged a look.
Renjiro sighed. "Son."
He set the bulletin down and met Renga's eyes. "That story is for another time. How about this: finish near the top of your class, and we'll tell you the full history. For now—focus on your studies." He nodded at the plate. "And your fish. It's getting cold."
Renga glanced down and finished without arguing.
—
Later, in the study, Akane set three heavy books on the low table. Paper rustled; ink and cedar hung in the air.
"First step is theory," she said. "Every mark means something. Symbols aren't decorations—they're decisions." She slid the brown-covered volume toward him. "Start with this. Foundations of Fūinjutsu: Script and Flow."
Renga set his palms on the cover, breathed the way she'd taught him—four in, four steady, four out—and opened to the first page.
The book answered the simplest question first: why ink and parchment. Chakra-ink carried breath cleanly along a line; good paper held a pattern without warping. Blood was powerful, the text warned, but for oaths and ancestry only. Ink is honest; blood is binding.
Next came the heart of the craft: matrices. A seal wasn't a pretty circle or random squiggles; it was a sentence made of symbols with meanings. Arrange those symbols in a valid order, feed chakra through the Matrix Core, and the matrix would parse the chain, distributing flow to each part in the order the symbols were placed. If your grammar was clean and your matrix sound, the effect ran—storage, restraint, muffle, heat, even explosion. If not, it sputtered, leaked, or bit back.
Then the building blocks—short, practical entries with small diagrams:
• Leaf Anchor (compass): draw first; keeps arrays oriented so they don't twist.
• Spiral Core (buffer): one-breath, continuous line that evens flow.
• Carrier Lines (threads): thin curves that move chakra between parts; sharp corners leak.
• Gate Marks (open/limit): throttle branches; balance NE↔SW, NW↔SE.
• Reservoir Nodes (wells): tiny sips for steady output.
• Amplifier Crests / Dampener Bars: gently boost or halve a branch—never stack amps on beginner seals.
• Timing Dots (beats): pace a drip, fade, or pulse—place where you exhale.
• Release Word Sigil: short, plain words (never names) to end the effect.
• Ground Mark: last stroke; binds the array to the surface.
• Checksum Knot (Uzumaki tie): safety flourish that catches sloppy arrays before they arm.
One spread summarized the safe grammar to memorize:
Preamble (Anchor → Spiral) → Body (tokens + modifiers) → Bridges/Gates → Matrix Core → Signature (Timing / Release / Ground).
A margin note set a limit: beginner seals used six parts or fewer; bigger chains waited until control improved.
Renga underlined order three times. The more he read, the more sealing felt like clean code—human-readable, strict about syntax, unforgiving about sloppy style. He copied terms, sketched small grids, and boxed rules that felt like traps: never snap stroke tails; never ground before the signature; never fancy release words. When his wrist ached, he flexed; when his mind fuzzed, he reread the creed: Seals begin with truth. If the hand lies, chakra will too.
The shōji slid a hand's width. "Renga, dinner," Akane called.
He didn't answer. He was comparing a Storage template's gates—NE versus SW—and jotting balance or one side drains faster.
"Renga," Akane tried again, amused now, "before your food gets cold."
Still nothing.
"RENGA UZUMAKI."
He jumped, brush wobbling. "—Coming!"
Akane stepped in, taking in the open pages and the dense notes. Her hair lifted a finger's breadth, then settled. "Someone was very eager to start fūinjutsu," she said, fond and firm. "Come. Dinner. Breaks are part of training."
Renga slid the brush into its rest; the bristles trembled once, then stilled—like his breath. He tucked a paper scrap in as a bookmark, closed the cover with both hands, and stood. "Yes, Mom."
—
The next two weeks fell into a rhythm. Renga woke before the sun, copied spirals until the page looked like a shell's cross-section, ate with his parents, then went back to strokes and symbols. Lunch, seals. Dinner, seals. Bed, dreaming in gates and threads.
Akane and Renjiro traded looks over miso. "We've created a monster," Renjiro murmured, not unhappy.
They tried to pry him away—walks to the park, time with kids his age. It never stuck. The moment they blinked, Renga was in the sandbox drawing neat squares and circles in the dirt, explaining to a puzzled boy why Gate Marks mattered. He even made a tiny storage seal for his kit: brushes, ink cakes, scrap tags. He hid the scroll in the inner sash of his shirt where parental inspections mysteriously failed.
Akane found it anyway. She only laughed. "If you're going to sneak your tools, at least laminate the scroll's edge," she said, and handed him better paper.
By the end of the second week, his spirals wobbled less, his tails snapped less, and once—just once—he filled a whole practice sheet that even Akane left unmarked.
That was the day Kushina came.
When the door slid open, the room felt brighter for no good reason. Red hair like a banner. Eyes that smiled first and narrowed second. She looked so much like Akane that Renga's brain did a small double take—same bones, same heat, a younger flame.
"Oh my gosh—there's my little shinobi!" She swept him up. Renga swore he felt vertebrae negotiate new contracts.
When she set him down, she poked his cheek. "I hear fūinjutsu kidnapped you from family time, dattebane." The tease held pride.
At the word fūinjutsu, Renga lit up. He tapped the seal stitched under his shirt hem. A soft rustle, a faint warmth—his small storage scroll uncurled into his hand, and a notebook winked out of it like a magician's coin. He thrust it at her.
"Sealing is amazing—look!"
Kushina flipped through pages. Her brows climbed at his neat headings—Matrix Core, Gate Balance, Release Words—and his tidy trap-boxes of don'ts: never ground before signature; never fancy release words; balance NE/SW. She checked the scroll stitching, the anchor placement, the checksum knot tucked near the spiral tail.
"Wow," she said at last. "This is meticulous." She flicked the edge of the notebook so the paper whispered. "You see the structure already. Good anchors, honest lines. And your storage scroll? Clean work for your age—no leaks, proper release."
Renga tried not to explode with happiness.
Kushina tapped his notes with a nail. "Two reminders anyway: ink first, blood much later—and never stack amplifiers on beginner seals unless you want a sputter. Next visit, you're showing me a spiral I can balance a coin on while your uncle Renjiro walks past with a full yoke." Her grin sharpened. "Distraction is part of war, dattebane."
"I can do it," Renga said, gripping the notebook like a lifeline.
"I know you can." She ruffled his hair; it floated a finger's width and settled, Uzumaki temper peeking and vanishing.
From the kitchen, Akane called, "Ramen or curry for our guest?"
Kushina's eyes went bright. "Ramen!"
Renga laughed. The room felt like a seal array that had just clicked: anchors true, lines clean, flow steady—and a new token added to the chain.
Stinger: Flow steady; tails still rough. Pattern advancing.
A/N — Fan-Fic Fiesta: If you enjoyed this chapter, please Add to Library and drop a Power Stone so Crimson Archivist climbs the event rankings. Your support = faster updates!