"We'll definitely win next time!" Nara Shikaku said confidently from the sidelines.
"You're drenched in sweat, huh, little brother Shikaku," Yuki Seisui teased, shooting him a playful look.
"You're still a long way from catching up to me, who's already forged my own custom ninja tools!"
Seisui had that smug, punchable face of his again. Even someone as laid-back as Shikaku found himself wanting to land a good hit on him.
"You're such a show-off," Yamanaka Inoichi muttered under his breath.
"He's always like this," Minato chimed in with a nod. "Don't be fooled by how serious and thoughtful he usually looks, he's rarely acting like a normal person."
"Like right now?" Akimichi Choza added.
"Exactly."
"Hey, you three! Cut it out already!" Seisui's face darkened. "I'm right here, you know!"
"You're saying all that right in front of me! Seriously, do you think this is appropriate?"
"But didn't you say it yourself?" Minato replied at the perfect timing, "Talking behind people's backs makes you a gossiping housewife."
"So you're saying it to my face instead?!"
"Yep."
"You little...!" Seisui chuckled bitterly. "You've chosen the path to death!"
As he spoke, he dragged them all into a practice duel arena.
Of course, this was just playful sparring. The real goal was training.
Minato, Choza, and Inoichi grouped together to practice ninjutsu, while Seisui and Shikaku sat off to the side, playing shogi.
"By the way, that sword move of yours, Draw Slash or whatever, it was pretty cool."
"Was it passed down in your family?"
Seisui captured one of Shikaku's elephants on the board, then shook his head. "Nope, I came up with it myself."
"You can invent your own jutsu?!" Shikaku looked genuinely surprised.
"What's so shocking about that?" Seisui shot him a condescending glance and began explaining, "You know how chakra can be used to produce both repulsive and attractive forces, right?"
"Tree climbing and water walking are based on those principles."
"Right," Shikaku nodded. He did understand that. But knowing it and creating a new jutsu from it were two completely different things. Everyone knew chakra flow mattered, yet few could actually create new techniques.
"If you just think about it for a bit, try blending gravitational force into Water Style, it's really not that hard to make that slash work."
The way Seisui casually dropped the words "not that hard" left Shikaku at a loss. "That's totally cheating, you know? Just messing around and inventing a new jutsu, one that literally pulls enemies onto your blade?"
Seisui looked genuinely innocent. He really thought the move was simple.
Store gravitational pull in a water-based chakra technique, then use the water to wrap around the enemy and drag them toward him. That was the essence of it.
The only tricky part was generating enough water, which burned through a lot of chakra.
Seisui currently sparred with Minato daily, and every time he won, his chakra reserves grew. Even so, he could only use his Water Flow Beheading technique twice in one day.
But still, he felt proud of the chakra he did have.
He was only six years old, and his chakra reserves were already on par with Chunin's.
After all, chakra was the product of both physical vitality and spiritual energy, and Seisui lacked neither.
Thanks to having the template of the Seventh Hokage Uzumaki Naruto and the mental strength of a reincarnated soul, having Chunin-level chakra at this age was perfectly normal for him.
"Checkmate!" Shikaku declared, placing both cannons in the center of the board and putting Seisui in check.
"You're seriously something else," Shikaku said while cleaning up the pieces, sneaking a glance at the others still training hard. He looked a bit envious as he turned back to Seisui.
"How impressive are we talking?" Seisui asked.
Shikaku blinked, then couldn't help but laugh. "So impressive that I can slack off here with you, and my mom still won't notice."
"Well, I'm done playing with you. Time to actually get some training in," Seisui said awkwardly, realizing he had just been thoroughly beaten in shogi. He had expected to completely dominate Shikaku.
Instead, he got crushed.
With a shove, he reset the board and ran over to join Minato and the others in ninjutsu practice.
The Third Hokage had recently handed him a training scroll on the Shadow Clone Jutsu. If he didn't train now, then when?
Soon he'd be able to let his unlucky clones go to school in his place.
Right now, the academy only taught reading and the Will of Fire. They hadn't even begun chakra cultivation.
A clone was more than enough to sit through that.
The world was still in the midst of the Second Great Ninja War, but the Third wasn't far off.
He couldn't remember the exact timeline, but he was pretty sure the gap between the Second and Third Ninja Wars was only a few years.
Not that it concerned him, at least during the Second War, Konoha had enough decency not to send Academy students to fight.
As he pondered, Seisui formed the hand seal for the Clone Jutsu. In the next instant, white smoke erupted, and from it, emerged a limp clone lying face-down with its butt sticking high in the air.
It was Uzumaki Naruto's signature fail-clone.
A brilliant technique, with a built-in failure rate.
"Seisui, what the heck is that?" Minato commented, looking at the pathetic figure.
"It looks so... defeated," Choza added.
"Was that a failed clone?" Choza tilted his head, visibly confused. He'd seen how strong Seisui's ninjutsu and taijutsu were in actual combat. Why did this clone look like a total flop?
Seeing their puzzled faces, Seisui blushed. Sure, it was Naruto's clone technique, but to them, it just looked like he had messed up.
"I'm just experimenting with Shadow Clones," he explained quickly. "Trying to see how they differ from regular ones."
"Really?" Minato narrowed his eyes, clearly skeptical.
Though Minato wasn't convinced, Choza completely bought it. "You really are something else, Seisui."
Seeing Choza's sincere admiration, Minato started to feel ashamed of his earlier doubts. "Now I get why you're able to invent jutsu."
Seisui laughed awkwardly, brushing the whole thing off without a fuss.
No way he was letting them keep hyping him up. If this kept going, they'd start thinking he was some kind of once-in-a-lifetime prodigy.
That kind of flattery was dangerous, it could kill.
==========
Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, half a month had gone by. Seisui now paced restlessly inside the classroom.
Today was a big day, the last day of the month, and also his final chance to win a match.
If he won today's challenge, he'd earn a High-Rank Recruitment Ticket, and finally get to pull off a ten-roll draw full of adrenaline-pumping excitement.
The last time he got a free pull, he received chakra-conductive metal. Whatever he drew this time couldn't possibly be worse than that.
"Seisui, you're acting really weird today," Minato said, watching him pace from his seat.
"Yeah, why'd you come in person today?" Shikaku asked from behind. "Ever since you learned Shadow Clones, you've just been sending those to class."
"What do you guys know?" Seisui rolled his eyes dramatically, pretending to activate a Byakugan with a blank stare.
"I didn't want to come either. Would've preferred to wait quietly at our usual spot and let a clone handle this."
"But Yukio-sensei said it's the end-of-month assessment today, and I had to show up."
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