A month had passed since Minato’s visit to Hiro’s apartment. At this point, he had chalked it up to be a one-time interaction, never to happen again. He was sitting cross-legged on top of his twin-sized bed, with a leaf stuck to his forehead.

“If I cannot hold this leaf on my forehead for ten minutes then I will do one hundred pushups, one hundred squats, one hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run!” Hiro declared, but he had a feeling that he would fail. In fact, for the past month, he has failed at both the physical, and concentration tasks every day. However, his training must be doing something as he was no longer dead last in the physical portion of the academy, but he was close.

Yesterday he was able to achieve nine minutes with the leaf concentration technique, and today, it ought to be possible for him to reach his goal of ten minutes. He found that His chakra control was superb, genius even, but it seemed fate wanted to mess with him as he had chakra reserves so pitiful, that he would run out of chakra as he completed the leaf concentration task. All he could do was curse his genetics.

Hiro squinted one eye open and peeked at the clock sitting on his nightstand to his right. ‘One minute left until I’m there, today is my day.’ Hiro thought.

Just when the clock was ten seconds away from hitting an hour, Hiro heard a blood-curdling scream that made him lose concentration. The leaf drifted off of his forehead and fell in his lap.

‘Someone better be dying. Who screams at the top of their lungs when living in an apartment building with these thin walls!?’ Hiro snarled but quickly smiled as he realized what had happened.

“Get OUT! How did you get in here?!” Hiro could hear the panicked voice as he put his ear to the wall to hear better.

“OH, it’s just you… sir? Um, could you wash my back? Wait where are you going?”

Hiro smiled as this couldn’t have gone any better if wrote what was going to happen in a book. He hopped off of the bed, rushed to his door, and stood there, looking at it with his arms crossed as if he were disappointed.

In one swift motion, a stressed-looking Minato opened the door and slammed it behind him before plopping his back against the door and spreading his arms as if he were going to stop a rhinoceros from charging through it. Hiro was busy wondering how he opened the door but quickly chalked that up to “ninja stuff”.

“I’m at a loss for words here. The hokage spends his free time spying on women in their shower? The most shocking part is that you are into bigger women.” Hiro said while trying his hardest to contain his laughter.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Minato looked at the boy with a rollercoaster of emotions as it all started to click at that moment. Not only had the boy confirmed that his ability was executed using fuinjutsu, but he was so confident in this that he found his marker, cut it out of the book, snuck into his next-door neighbor’s shower, pasted it on the bottom of the faucet, and left without being caught.

“I’m not sure whether I should be impressed or upset,” Minato said while staring off into space, no doubt scrubbing his mind of what he just witnessed.

“I’m not sure what you are talking about,” Hiro said smugly.

“Mhm, how did you find the marker for the flying raijin.” Minato said, already having given up scolding the boy, lest he spread a rumor of what happened here. What would Kushina do if she heard?

“The flying wha?”

“Flying raijin, it’s the name of the fuinjutsu I employ for my teleportation. I admit it, you were right about my jutsu on the day that I was at the academy. Right on the money actually, that's why I decided to meet you, but after this, to say I’m impressed is an understatement. How did you know?” Minato was astonished.

“Lucky guess I guess.” Hiro shrugged.

‘Alright then keep your secrets’ Minato thought

“I haven’t seen a mind like yours since myself!” Minato declared as he pointed a thumb back at himself with a smile.

‘The boy has my wits and Kushina’s scheming ability, I have a feeling he is going to be a handful when he graduates.’ Minato shuddered.

“How would you like to learn fuinjutsu under a master?” Minato asked as he shifted his backward-pointing thumb to a Hiro-pointing index finger.

Hiro’s eyes widened “You mean you’re going to teach me all you know about fuinjutsu, and I’ll become the next yellow flash!?” Hiro asked as his eyes sparkled. This was simply too good to be true, he was going to be taught by the fourth Hokage himself?

“Uh sorry no, that’s not what I had in mind.” Minato gave a nervous laugh and scratched the back of his head.

Hiro’s head drooped in shame.

“But I have something better.”

Hiro perked back up slightly, “What’s better than that?”.

“Well, I want to introduce you to my wife, I think you two will get along. In my opinion, she’s better than me overall with fuinjutsu, she’s even taught me a thing or two.” Minato said positively.

Hiro was shocked. First, he thinks he will be taught by the fourth, then he gets let down, then he gets told he will be taught by one of the last living Uzumaki? It seems that both of them have caused each other a rollercoaster of emotions today.

“I don’t know I thought you were the best around the world.” He said skeptically.

“Well if you don’t wish for a fuinjutsu teacher then I’ll be on my way. You probably don’t deserve it after all, I mean, prank you pulled on me...” Minato turned around to leave but also to hide a smirk.

“Nobody is going to believe you. Perhaps I should investigate what that sound was next door?” Hiro said eerily calm.

Minato couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t seen such underhandedness in his life, and that includes the war.

*Sigh* “Okay kid hold on tight, and not a word to Kushina about what happened.”

‘Phew that was too close, I almost missed the opportunity of a lifetime.’ Hiro reached for Minato’s outstretched hand.

“By the way, who’s Kushina?” Hiro said as they warped out of the apartment.