“Who’s Kushina?” A feminine voice hissed in repetition.

“Minato! The audacity you have to bring some slut here! Who’s Kushina you ask? I’LL SHOW YOU WHO-” The red-haired woman rounded the corner and stopped as she saw the child.

“Minato! You said you would be home by 7:30, it’s 7:32, where have you been huh!?”

“And who might you be little guy?” Kushina made a complete one-eighty as she spoke in an unnaturally high voice while leaning over in front of Hiro as if she were speaking to a dog.

‘Talk about bipolar’, Hiro was shocked at the sudden changes in attitude. Did she think he was a woman? It seems his prepubescent voice did Minato no favors in this situation.

“Name’s Hiro Tanaka.” He said nonchalantly.

Kushina turned to the blonde, “Minato, what’s this boy doing here?”

“Remember the boy I told you about? The one from my speech at the academy.”

“Ohh yeah, what’s he doing here?”

Minato turned to look at Hiro, “Hey, why don’t you check out the backyard? I have some weapons and training equipment out back.” he turned and pointed at the backdoor.

Hiro wasn’t oblivious enough to not take the hint. Clearly, the adults needed to talk. Hiro simply sighed and walked to the backdoor before stepping outside.

The second the backdoor closed, Kushina spoke, “What’s the matter?”

“You know how I told you how insightful and intelligent the boy is? Well he’s even smarter than I thought, it’s as if I’m talking to someone my age when we speak.”

“Yeah, he hypothesized the secret to your flying raijin from scratch. What do you mean? What makes him so much smarter than before.” Kushina was eager to know what the big deal was which prompted Minato to bring him here.

The backyard of the house was unlike anything Hiro had seen, at least not in this lifetime. In the middle of the evenly cut lawn was a koi pond with several multi-colored fish swimming in circles. To the left was what looked to be a concrete slab, perhaps an area to spar. On the right side were two training dummies with a few kunai and shuriken sticking out of them. This whole view was topped off with the Hokage monument peeking over the wall that surrounded the backyard.

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“Woah! Pays off to be rich huh? This is totally gonna be me when I become a legendary ninja in the future.” Hiro boasted.

The training dummies immediately caught his eye, or more specifically what was embedded in the training dummies. The shops around the village that he had seen were either scalpers or expected every ninja to be rich—many were—because Hiro couldn’t afford any ninja tools to save his life. The best he could afford were wooden tools, but what was the point of those? They would be lighter, fly differently, and be warped too easily. That would be like training to be a lumberjack by chopping styrofoam instead of wood.

With a great effort, he pulled out the kunai from the dummy’s chest and his eyes widened. He would have recognized this kunai anywhere. It had three prongs and a wooden handle with seals on either side. His first kunai training was going to be with one of these? Hiro was completely fanboying as he inspected the blade.

After staring at the kunai for a while, Hiro aimed and threw it as hard as he could at the target’s head. It went about ten feet in front of him before hitting the ground. Was this kunai heavier than normal? His skills were so poor that he couldn’t even make it stick in the dirt, the handle bounced off of the ground. Hiro could only sigh, perhaps he needed to move a little closer to the target.

He continued to throw shuriken and three-pronged kunai at the dummy until he heard the door open from behind him, with Minato and Kushina stepping out.

“Oh, dear your form is all wrong. Here, do it like this. A shuriken has four sides for a reason y’know?” Kushina rushed up to Hiro and began showing him some proper throwing techniques.

Minato smiled at this sight. ‘She likes to act tough, but I know she’s a total softy for kids.’

--------Moments Earlier--------

“I don’t know about this Minato, you really think this kid is worth taking under my wing?”

“This boy has potential I can feel it, plus I think it would be good for you. I know you have to stay cooped up all the time, due to your jinchuriki status, so this will be good for you and him. There is no sense in wasting your talents, why not invest them in the next generation?”

“If I wanted to do that then I would teach at the academy,” Kushina argued.

“We’ve had that discussion, you and I both know that you don’t have the temperament for that.” Kushina wanted to retort that statement but simply pouted.

Minato continued “The boy is an orphan with a sharp mind and a bright future, but he has no support. What happens if he gets discouraged and sees all of his classmates receiving support from their families and clansmen? Those are the types of kids who end up becoming rogue ninjas. I’ve seen it before.”

Kushina couldn’t deny Minato’s point, but she felt nervous as she had never had a student before. “Fine I’ll give it a shot, but this operation ends if he’s a dud,” Kushina said while looking away.

--------

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“So You’re gonna be teaching me fuinjutsu? Hmm, we’ll see if you're fit for the job.” Hiro said smugly as he crossed his arms.

“Ugh! Me? Not fit for the job?! It’s you who might not be fit to be taught!” Kushina snapped as she fell for Hiro’s obvious bait.

Minato just sat back and watched as his wife and a five-year-old fought like cats and dogs for a few minutes. He would let them hammer out the details of their future lessons while he goes to sleep. It has been a very long day, he must have set a world record for the amount of paperwork completed in one day. His work was done.

Hiro exited the front door of the residence and began wondering how he got into this situation. He was supposed to be laying low, but now he was set to go to the Hokage’s house every day after school for tutoring! He didn’t know when Naruto would be born, and consequently, when Obito would break out the nine tails. That was exactly the kind of thing that he didn’t want to get mixed up in, however, this situation just kind of… happened. His main focus at the moment was trying to cope with the inevitable fact that this nice couple would die in the near future.

The young boy paused as he was walking down the street. Where was he? What kind of irresponsible people let a five-year-old walk home alone? That wouldn’t be an issue as Hiro could take care of himself, but Minato teleported him here! He turned around to go back to the house but quickly realized that he wandered off from their home while daydreaming.

‘They have a lot to learn before becoming parents’ Hiro deadpanned.