Hagoromo's first meeting with Uzumaki Kushina effectively ended there.
Becoming Kushina's disciple carried an unspoken implication: if Kushina was his squad leader, then Hagoromo was almost certainly not going to the front lines. That was his own judgment.
He already knew that Kushina had only one student—him. There was no way to form a standard four-man combat unit, which clearly wasn't how frontline squads were organized.
After all, Uzumaki Kushina was the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki.
If a Jinchūriki could perfectly control their tailed beast, they would represent overwhelming combat power. However, Konoha's high command would never deploy the Nine-Tails' host to the battlefield.
The reasons were simple.
First, even though Kushina was an Uzumaki, the Nine-Tails was fundamentally different from other tailed beasts. She could not achieve perfect control over it.
Second—and far more critically—Konoha could not afford to lose the Nine-Tails.
If the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki appeared on the front lines, the enemy would stop at nothing to assassinate her. Destroying an opposing village's Jinchūriki was an obvious strategic priority that required no deliberation.
Reality unfolded exactly as Hagoromo had predicted.
While other squads were quickly reorganized and sent to the battlefield, Kushina remained firmly within the village, with no intention of going anywhere. Hagoromo didn't even need to take on low-level D-rank missions.
His daily responsibilities boiled down to just three things:
Learn ninjutsu from Kushina
Watch Kushina conduct all kinds of bizarre research
Team up with Kushina to wreak havoc throughout Konohagakure
In fact, on the very second day after Hagoromo became her student, Kushina couldn't wait any longer and immediately began teaching him new jutsus—without him even asking.
She wanted Hagoromo to surpass Hatake Kakashi as soon as possible.
If her student defeated Minato's student, wouldn't that mean she had defeated Minato?
From this perspective, Konoha's higher-ups treated Hagoromo as Kushina's toy. Kushina, in turn, unconsciously treated Hagoromo as a toy as well. And Hagoromo truly fulfilled his role perfectly—
—except he had no idea that he himself had become Kushina's emotional stabilizer.
"So… what ninjutsu should I teach you first?" Kushina muttered to herself, rubbing her temples.
Four Symbols Seal…
Of course, that was only Hagoromo's internal answer.
There was no way he could say it out loud.
Setting aside the fact that the Four Symbols Seal was an S-rank forbidden fūinjutsu, even if Kushina asked how he knew its name, he'd have no explanation.
How could a freshly graduated Academy student accurately name an Uzumaki clan forbidden sealing jutsu?
He couldn't explain it—so he couldn't say it.
Kushina did know the Four Symbols Seal, but there was no chance she would casually teach such a forbidden jutsu. More importantly, she didn't believe Hagoromo could currently learn such a high-level seal anyway.
As for teaching fūinjutsu at all—she had no plans to start that yet.
Sealing jutsus were far more difficult to learn than ordinary ninjutsu. Their complexity demanded a deep understanding of formulae and structure. Generally speaking, the learning difficulty of A-rank fūinjutsu was equivalent to—or even exceeded—that of S-rank ninjutsu.
As for an S-rank seal like the Four Symbols Seal, someone without extraordinary talent might never master it in an entire lifetime.
"I've got it," Kushina suddenly said, her eyes lighting up.
"Let's start with something extremely practical—Shadow Clone Jutsu."
Shadow Clone Jutsu was a B-rank jutsu. Based on her assessment of Hagoromo's chakra reserves and control, learning it shouldn't pose any real difficulty.
After all—he had already created an A-rank jutsu himself.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu it is. I'll show you the hand seal first—"
Without waiting for Hagoromo's consent, Kushina launched straight into teaching mode.
Naturally, Hagoromo had no reason to refuse such a practical jutsu.
Shadow Clone Jutsu required only a single hand seal—the Ram (壬) seal (Hitsuji), one of the basic twelve. Every Academy graduate already knew this, but Kushina still demonstrated it carefully and explained how chakra should flow during the seal.
She even performed it herself.
Two identical red-haired "demons" appeared in front of Hagoromo.
Hagoromo nodded to show he understood, then immediately began trying it himself.
For someone with his kind of brain, the difficulty of this jutsu was negligible.
He didn't rush to form the hand seal. Instead, following Kushina's explanation, he first guided his chakra through the required pathways. Only after becoming familiar with the chakra circulation of the jutsu did he form the seal.
Kushina nodded approvingly.
She could tell exactly what he was doing. Rather than blindly practicing, he started by mastering chakra flow first—proof that her student was unusually mature.
As the seal formed, chakra flowed in perfect coordination—
—and the B-rank jutsu succeeded on the first attempt.
An identical copy of himself appeared before him.
Hagoromo immediately felt his chakra drop to roughly half its normal level. This was the one downside of clone jutsus: the user's chakra was evenly divided among all clones.
He promptly dispelled the Shadow Clone, and the unused chakra instantly returned to his body.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu—mastered," Hagoromo said calmly.
"Let's move on to the next jutsu, Kushina-sensei."
"…Already?" Kushina stared at him.
"You just learned it. Don't you need to practice?"
She wasn't surprised that Hagoromo learned it quickly—what surprised her was that he wanted to move on immediately.
Even with her competitive feelings toward Minato, Hagoromo's pace felt dangerously close to being overly impatient.
"Practice?" Hagoromo replied seriously.
"I don't need to. The moment I learned it, my proficiency was already maxed out."
To prove he wasn't lying, he formed the seal again.
Another shadow clone appeared instantly.
Kushina: "..."
This was the power of talent.
If one compared intelligence and learning capacity, not only did Hagoromo fear no one in the Naruto world—he didn't even fear protagonists from other genres.
Something felt off to Kushina, but the fact remained: Hagoromo had indeed mastered the jutsu.
So with a mix of satisfaction, shock, and helplessness, she began teaching him the next jutsu.
She had once claimed she would compete with Minato for the Hokage position—but by now, she had effectively given up.
Or rather—she had conceded.
First, Minato Namikaze was simply too outstanding.
Second, being the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki was the greatest obstacle to becoming Hokage.
But after witnessing Hagoromo's learning ability, she was finally certain of one thing:
Her student defeating Minato's student was not only possible—it was inevitable.