Hidden Leaf, Hidden Talents 80 (Patreon)

The storage room smelled like dust and old wood. Ration crates lined the walls in uneven stacks, some piled high enough to block the light from the single window near the ceiling. Every box had a label. Every label had a number. And somehow, despite all that organization, half the numbers were wrong.

"Seventeen," Mikoto said, counting the pouches inside the crate she'd just opened. "Not twenty-three."

The chunin standing beside her, a man with forgettable features and a clipboard that seemed permanently attached to his hand, made a small noise of frustration. "That's the third one today."

"Fourth," Kushina corrected from across the room, where she was retying a storage binding that had come loose. "You missed one earlier."

The chunin sighed and made another note on his clipboard. Mikoto felt a twinge of sympathy for him. Inventory work sounded simple until you actually had to do it, and then you spent three hours chasing down why the numbers didn't match.

The three genin helping them weren't making things easier. Two of them were arguing about the best way to stack boxes, while the third kept getting distracted by something outside the window. Mikoto had given up correcting them about ten minutes ago. At this point, as long as nobody dropped anything explosive, she was willing to call it a success.

She sealed the crate shut again and brushed her hands together, frowning at the grey dust that still clung stubbornly to her fingers. "I think that's the last of this section," she said, straightening up. "We just need to check the ones in the corner and we should be done."

Kushina made a noise of acknowledgment, still focused on her binding. The knot she was working on was giving her trouble, refusing to stay tied no matter how many times she tried.

Mikoto was about to offer to help with the knot when movement near the entrance caught her eye.

A shinobi appeared in the doorway, and Mikoto knew what he was before he even took a step. She'd been on the receiving end of that look enough times to recognize it instantly. The quick sweep of the room, the way his eyes locked on and his feet started moving the moment he found who he was looking for. Definitely a messenger. He spotted Kushina and headed straight for her.

He stopped beside Kushina and spoke in a low voice. She couldn't make out the words, but she saw him hand something over. Then he was gone, slipping back out the door as quietly as he'd come.

Kushina stared at the letter in her hands.

For a moment, nothing happened. She just held it there, staring at the seal with a slight furrow in her brow. Then her fingers moved, breaking the seal, unfolding the paper.

Mikoto watched her friend's expression change.

It happened slowly, like watching clouds roll in before a storm. The slight crease between Kushina's eyebrows deepened. Her lips pressed together. The color, what little there was in her already pale face, seemed to drain away.

"Kushina?"

No response. Kushina's eyes moved across the page once, twice, three times, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was reading. Mikoto was already crossing the room before she realized her feet were moving, and when she touched Kushina's arm, her friend didn't even flinch. "Hey, talk to me. What's wrong? What does it say?"

"It's my father." Kushina's voice came out soft, distracted, like she was still halfway inside her own head trying to sort through what she'd just read. "He's sick."

"Sick?"

"He collapsed a few days ago." Kushina swallowed. "They're saying he's not getting any better." She shook her head. "I need to go back. I have to—I need to put in for leave, I need to see him."

"Kushina..." Mikoto tried to find the right words. The comforting thing to say, the thing that would make this better somehow. But nothing came. What was there to say? ‘Everything will be fine?’ She didn't know that. It might not be fine. People got sick and didn't get better all the time.

"Go," she said instead. "Put in the request. I'll handle things here, don't even think about it, alright? Just go."

"Yeah." Kushina nodded, though her eyes were still on the letter, like part of her hadn't fully left it yet. "Okay. Thank you."

Kushina was out the door before Mikoto could say anything else, letter still clutched in her hand as she brushed past the genin without really seeing them. The chunin with the clipboard opened his mouth like he wanted to ask something, took one look at her face, and thought better of it. A few seconds later Mikoto was standing alone in a room full of ration crates and people pretending to be very busy with their work.

"Should we... keep counting?" one of the genin asked after a brief pause.

Mikoto nodded. "Yes. Let's just finish up."

They went back to work. Her hands moved automatically, opening crates, counting supplies, making notes. But her mind was elsewhere.

She was thinking about what she'd overheard back in Konoha, before they'd deployed to the outpost.

It had been an accident, really. The elders visited her grandfather from time to time, usually staying late into the night to discuss things that weren't meant for younger ears. Mikoto had been on her way to the kitchen for water when she'd caught the sound of voices drifting from the sitting room. Normally she would have kept walking, because eavesdropping on her grandfather's guests was a good way to get lectured for a week. But she'd heard the word "Uzu" and stopped. Kushina had mentioned it before, how that was where she'd grown up, where her family still lived. Hearing it come up in one of her grandfather's late-night meetings made her curious enough to linger.

They'd been complaining. Kumo was getting involved somehow, and Konoha had to send more manpower to Uzu even though they were already stretched thin on the western front. She hadn't thought much of it at the time. Political discussions weren't really her concern, and she'd had enough on her plate without trying to make sense of whatever the elders were worried about. But now those voices kept coming back to her, replaying in her head whether she wanted them to or not. The elders hadn't spelled it out in so many words, but the frustration in their tone had painted a clear enough picture. Konoha had already sent some people to Uzu, and the Uchiha clan had been asked to contribute men as well. Asked, but not really given a choice in the matter. That was what had made them so irritated, having to spread their forces even thinner when the western front already demanded so much. And Kushina, who had just found out her father was sick, was planning to walk right back into that mess.

Mikoto finished counting the last crate and set down her pen. She tried not to think about the part where her grandfather had appeared silently behind her in the hallway and nearly scared her out of her skin. Or the two weeks of scrubbing the dojo floors that followed. Uchiha ears were sharp, he'd said, but Uchiha manners should be sharper.

"I need to step out for a minute," she said to the chunin. "Can you handle the rest?"

He nodded, already turning back to the remaining crates.

She stepped outside, and the afternoon sun immediately hit her face. Squinting against the glare, she looked around the outpost, trying to spot a familiar figure among all the shinobi going about their business.

Shinji had clones scattered all over this place. She'd lost count of how many times she'd seen them wandering around, chatting with officers, sparring with whoever was unlucky enough to get matched up with them. They all had that same lazy walk as the original, like they had nowhere to be and no intention of hurrying even if they did. If she could track one of them down, she could at least pass along what had happened with Kushina. Maybe he could send a clone to keep an eye on her during the journey back to Uzu, or at least make sure she didn't run into trouble along the way. Mikoto was stuck here on assignment, but clones didn't exactly follow the normal chain of command. Being disposable copies had its perks.

She started walking without any real destination in mind, just hoping to run into one of Shinji's clones along the way. The outpost was busy as usual, shinobi coming and going in small clusters, but none of them had that familiar black hair and perpetually unbothered expression she was looking for.

"Uchiha."

She turned.

A kunoichi was approaching her, someone Mikoto didn't recognize but whose body language she could read from ten meters away. Chunin vest, standard uniform, walking like she had a purpose and a list of names to get through. She had seen that look enough times to know what it meant.

"You're being summoned to HQ for a mission briefing," the kunoichi said. "They're requesting that you report as soon as possible."

Mikoto suppressed a sigh. Of course this would happen right now, the one time she actually had something important to do.

"Understood. I'll head there now," she said, because what else could she say? Orders were orders.

The kunoichi nodded and left to deliver the same message to someone else, probably one of those genin she'd seen standing around earlier.

Mikoto looked around one more time, hoping to spot a familiar face. Nothing. She would have to try again later. After the briefing.

Reluctantly, she turned and headed for headquarters.

The guards at the entrance gave her a brief look, apparently decided she wasn't interesting enough to stop, and let her pass without a word. The briefing room wasn't hard to find, and the moment she stepped inside, her eyes landed on exactly who she'd been looking for.

Shinji. Or one of his clones, anyway, not that it made much difference. He was standing near the far wall with Commander Minoru and a middle-aged man whose sharp, tired face and dark ponytail practically screamed Nara. The three of them were deep in conversation, voices too low to make out from the doorway, but whatever they were discussing was apparently important enough that none of them bothered to acknowledge her.

There was a woman with them too. Mikoto almost missed her at first, too busy looking for Shinji, but once she noticed her it was hard to look away. Long dark hair, sharp features, a half cloak draped over her left side. She had reddish eyes and a face that belonged in a painting, all of it adding up to someone who was hard to ignore.

Mikoto pulled her attention away and scanned the rest of the room. Three genin stood stiffly near the center, looking about as comfortable as mice in a snake pit. Their eyes kept darting around, from the jonin to the commander to the maps spread across the table, and it was painfully obvious they had no idea what they were supposed to be doing with themselves.

She recognized two of them vaguely. Academy graduates from a different class year, maybe? She couldn't remember their names.

Commander Minoru glanced in her direction, said something brief to Shinji and the Nara, and then turned to face the room properly. Whatever they'd been discussing, it seemed like they were done for now.

“Alright. That should be everyone,” Minoru said. His gaze swept across the gathered genin before he continued. “Let’s get started. You four will be joining nine others who’ve already been briefed, along with four chunin on a support mission. Your assignment is Casualty and Evacuation Support. In simple terms, you’ll be assisting the med-nin with triage and escorting the wounded from the arrival points to the evacuation routes we’ve set up.”

He gestured to the woman standing beside him. “This is Aya. She’ll be leading your squad. She’s one of our best sensors, so when she gives an order, you’re expected to follow it without hesitation.”

Aya. So that was her name. It sounded familiar somehow, though Mikoto couldn't quite place where she'd heard it before.

The briefing continued with the usual details. Logistics, expected duration, supply allocation, emergency protocols. Mikoto absorbed it all without really thinking about it, her attention drifting back to the group near the far wall every few seconds. Shinji's clone was still there, the Nara leaning in to murmur something in his ear. She needed to talk to him about Kushina, but interrupting whatever they were discussing didn't seem like a good idea. After the briefing, then.

"Any questions?" Minoru asked, scanning the room.

Nobody spoke. The other genin were clearly too intimidated to open their mouths, and Mikoto's questions had nothing to do with the mission anyway.

"Good. You're dismissed. Report to the staging area in one hour."

The room began to empty. Genin filed out first, practically fleeing, probably grateful to escape the atmosphere of a room full of higher-ups. Mikoto fell into step behind the chunin who'd been standing near the door as he headed for the exit, figuring she might as well ask.

"Does he come by often?" she asked, tilting her head back toward where Shinji's clone was still deep in conversation. "The clone, I mean."

The chunin glanced over his shoulder, then shrugged. "Sometimes. Every few days, maybe? Depends on what's going on."

"And the talks? Do they usually take long?”

"Could be an hour, could be half the day. Hard to say." The chunin shook his head. "Command loves those clones though. Recon, running messages, backing up patrols, you name it. Half the stuff we've pulled off against Suna lately wouldn't have worked without at least one of them pitching in."

Mikoto nodded, filing that away. It sounded like catching him right after a briefing wasn't going to be easy. Maybe she'd have better luck at the hospital, she'd seen a few of his clones hanging around there before.

…..

The weapon shop smelled like oil and old steel.

Shinji stood in front of a display case, staring at his tanto's reflection in the glass. The blade had seen better days. Actually, that was being generous. The blade had seen better months, better years, better entire lifetimes. The edge was chipped in three places, there was a hairline crack running up near the guard, and the whole thing had developed a subtle bend that made it look like it was trying to curve away from him in embarrassment.

"That thing's seen some action," the shop owner said. Older guy, mid-fifties or so, with hands that looked like they'd been shaking hands with grindstones for decades. He leaned over the counter and squinted at the chips along the edge, giving the tanto the same look a doctor might give a patient who'd been ignoring their advice for years. "Hm. Yeah, definitely been through it."

"Something like that."

"Suna campaign?"

Shinji glanced over. "Does it matter?"

"Nah, not really," the man shrugged. "Just curious, is all. Used to get shinobi in here all the time, but lately it's all bulk orders shipped out to the front lines. Nobody comes in person anymore, so when one of you actually walks through that door, I get curious."

Shinji could fill in the blanks on why nobody came in person anymore. Corpses made bad customers.

“I need a replacement,” he said instead. “Something longer than this. More reach, but it still needs to work in tight spaces."

The shop owner didn't answer right away. His eyes moved from Shinji's face to his hands, lingering on the worn tanto in his grip, like he was reading a story written in calluses and scratches. Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him. He disappeared into the back room for a moment, then returned carrying something wrapped in dark cloth.

"Wakizashi," he said, laying it on the counter and carefully unwrapping it. "Made this one myself about two years back. Been sitting in my personal collection ever since."

Shinji looked down at the blade.

The first thing he noticed was the color. Matte-black steel, dark enough that it seemed to drink the light from the room rather than reflect it. The blade was straight, not curved like most Japanese designs, which made it stand out. Sixty centimeters of metal that looked like it had been carved from a shadow.

The tsuba was rounded, simple but elegant, with a flower pattern carved into the surface. Subtle enough that most people would walk right past it, detailed enough to show real craftsmanship if they bothered to look. The handle was wrapped in dark gray leather over a wooden core, flat enough that it was obviously designed to sit close to the body.

He picked it up.

The weight hit that rare sweet spot where he stopped thinking about the blade as a separate object. Most weapons had a presence to them, a constant reminder that he was holding something that wasn't part of him. This one didn't. It just sat in his hand like it had been there all along and he'd only just now bothered to look down and notice. The leather grip helped with that, soft enough to feel comfortable but firm enough that it wasn't going anywhere. If it had been a chakra blade, it would've been perfect, but weapons made from chakra-conductive metal didn't exactly grow on trees.

Still, even without that, the craftsmanship spoke for itself. He drew it slowly, and the blade slid free without a sound. The leather dampened any noise the metal might have made against the scabbard, turning what should have been a distinctive ring into nothing but silence.

“Silent draw,” the shop owner said, watching his reaction. “That one took me a while to get right, actually. Most sheaths are wood or lacquer, and they’ll ring the moment the blade comes free. You can’t really help it, that’s just how those materials behave.” He tapped the side of the scabbard with one finger. “So I started lining mine with treated leather instead. It adds a little weight, sure, but if you need the blade out clean and quiet, it’s a trade-off that’s worth making.”

Shinji examined the edge. Sharp, obviously, that went without saying. Clean grind, no visible imperfections he could spot, and he was looking pretty hard. The matte finish was what really caught his attention though, or rather, what didn't catch his attention, because that was the whole point. A polished blade looked impressive right up until it reflected sunlight into an enemy's line of sight and told them exactly where you were.

Which brought up a question that had been quietly nagging at him since the owner disappeared into that back room.

Why bring this out for him?

Shinji was, by all appearances, a teenager. A tall one, sure, but still a teenager. At best he looked like a chunin, and that was being generous. Most shop owners would've shown him something mid-range, maybe pushed him toward the slightly overpriced stuff that looked fancy but wasn't anything special. They wouldn't pull out a personal collection piece wrapped in cloth like it was a family heirloom.

So could the owner see through him too? Had he looked at some random teenager and somehow figured out there was more going on than met the eye?

Shinji couldn't tell.

"How much?"

The owner named a price.

Shinji's eyebrows went up. That wasn't just expensive, that was robbery in broad daylight. For that amount of money, he could probably buy a small house in a small town. Maybe two if he smiled at the seller and threw in a sob story about his dying grandmother.

"That's..."

“One of my best pieces,” the man said calmly. “If you’re looking for something cheap, there’s a shop two streets over that’ll sell you mass-produced steel for a tenth of the price. It won’t last you a month in real combat, but it’ll save you some money.”

Fair point. A proper blade was an investment, and Shinji had learned the hard way that cutting corners on equipment was really just borrowing time at a very high interest rate.

Still. That price would eat more than half of what Ryouma had put in his new bank account.

He thought about haggling, then decided against it. One look at the shop owner told him that haggling would be a waste of breath. The man had decided what his work was worth long before Shinji walked through that door. Besides, the quality justified the price, and weapons like this didn’t exactly line the shelves of every shop. Finding another this good would probably take months.

"I'll take it."

The transaction didn't take long. Shinji counted out the money, the owner counted it again, and then they were done. He walked out of the shop with a new blade at his waist and a wallet that felt noticeably lighter than it had five minutes ago.

He should probably ask Ryouma to transfer more funds. Actually, they should probably start thinking about expanding beyond just alcohol. Whiskey was great as a long-term investment, but the aging process meant it would be months or even years before they saw real returns. They needed something with quicker cash turnover. Something that moved fast and didn't require sitting in barrels for half a decade.

He'd figure it out later. Right now, he had a new toy to play with.

The clearing he found was about ten minutes outside of town, a small gap in the trees where the undergrowth had thinned enough to give him room to move. Not much to look at, just grass and dirt and a couple of logs slowly returning to nature, but it had space and privacy, which was all he really needed.

Shinji stood at the edge of the forest and let himself breathe.

Wind came through the trees and did what wind always does to leaves, making them move and sound like they were whispering about something. A few let go of their branches and floated down in lazy spirals, in no hurry to reach the ground.

He closed his eyes.

His hand came up to rest on the handle of his new blade.

More wind. More silence. The leaves kept falling, little splashes of color against the gray-brown backdrop of the forest floor.

The wakizashi was, at its core, just a longer tanto. The basics were the same, nothing that would require him to relearn everything from scratch. But the extra reach changed things. It opened doors that his old blade couldn't even knock on. More room for footwork, more options for those techniques that needed him to pull back and push forward almost simultaneously. A longer blade meant a longer list of ways to end a fight.

And thanks to his clones, he was getting pretty good at using it right.

The group he'd stationed at the outpost had been remarkably productive. Every day they sparred with kenjutsu practitioners from the camp, trading blows from morning until night, honing their swordsmanship through sheer volume of practice. One of them had even managed to get a few pointers from Sakumo once, which was like finding a gold nugget in a river you'd been panning for weeks. The White Fang was legendary for a reason, and even a few tips were worth their weight in diamonds.

All of those experiences, all of those hours of training and fighting and learning, flowed back to Shinji every time a clone dispersed. He'd been getting stronger day by day without lifting a finger, growing more skilled through the secondhand experience of countless bouts. It was cheating in the most beautiful way possible.

So naturally, now that he had a shiny new blade, he wanted to swing it around a bit. He tightened his grip, took a breath, and was just about to draw when a clone dispelled somewhere far away and dumped its memories straight into his head.

Perfect timing, as always.

One of his clones at the outpost had just gotten an update from Mikoto. A letter from Uzu had arrived for Kushina, and the news wasn't good. Her father was sick, sick enough that she'd already gotten permission from HQ to head back home. Shinji's hand slipped off the sword handle before he even thought about it.

Good thing he'd kept clones stationed around the team. Insurance, he'd called it at the time, and now he was glad he'd thought to do it. This way, he was never completely out of the loop. Whatever happened at the outpost, whoever came or went, he'd know about it.

Though knowing Mikoto, she'd probably already figured out what to do. Shinji's clones had been hanging around long enough that asking them to escort Kushina back wouldn't even be a question. She was good at that sort of thing, noticing problems before they became problems and solving them before anyone had to ask.

But still. It was good insurance. Just in case she got distracted by something else, or in case the team received sudden orders that pulled them away from the outpost. This way, he could track them quickly if anything went wrong.

More importantly, though...

He thought about fuinjutsu. The sealing arts that the Uzumaki clan had spent generations perfecting, secrets they didn't exactly hand out to just anyone. Kushina had taught him the basics back in Konoha, enough to get his feet wet, but they'd never really gotten into the advanced stuff. Something always came up. Missions, training, the war grinding on in the background. The lessons kept getting shelved for "someday," and someday never seemed to arrive.

But now?

Kushina was heading toward Uzu, which meant she'd be traveling through Fire Country. Based on timing and location, she and his clone should be passing through Tanzaku Quarters or nearby towns on their way. If they didn't dawdle along the way like Shinji and Konan had been doing, they'd probably arrive somewhere in the area within two or three days.

This could be a chance. If he timed it right, he could intercept her somewhere along the route and tag along for the trip to Uzu. Her father being sick was unfortunate, but it also meant she'd be staying home for a while, surrounded by family members who'd spent their whole lives mastering the sealing arts. If Shinji played his cards right, he might be able to stick around long enough to pick up some of that knowledge. Learning fuinjutsu from the source, directly from an Uzumaki household, that wasn't an opportunity that came around twice.

Simple enough, right? The plan practically wrote itself. All he had to do now was wait for Kushina and his clone to pass through the area, which meant... what, two or three days of just sitting around?

Shinji let out a long sigh and looked back at the clearing.

He wished he could stay. Really, he did. The idea of spending time in Uzu, soaking in fuinjutsu knowledge like a sponge in an ocean of ancient sealing arts, sounded almost unreasonably appealing. But that was the thing about "almost." It was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. There was no way he'd master anything substantial without dedicating months to it, and by then, who knew what state the frontlines would be in? War had a nasty habit of not waiting for anyone's personal development arc.

As the saying went, responsibility over pleasure. Or was it duty before desire?

Shinji sighed again. He'd been doing that a lot lately, hadn't he? He created five clones and gave them their orders. All of them would take over the Ryouma persona and look after Konan and her training.

He should really do his best to wrap up this war as soon as possible. Then he could visit Kushina in Uzu afterward, make sure she was doing okay, check on her father, be a good friend and all that. And if he happened to get his hands on some rare Uzumaki fuinjutsu while he was there, well, that was just a bonus. A completely unrelated bonus that had absolutely nothing to do with his sudden surge of motivation.

With that settled, he took off, sprinting out of town and heading west toward the outpost. Konan was probably going to give him an earful when he got back. So he made a mental note to bring back something nice for her. A souvenir, maybe. Something to soften the blow of him vanishing without a word.

And while he was at it, he should probably think of something for Kushina too. She was going through a rough time with her father being sick, and showing up out of nowhere without even a small gesture felt a bit... inconsiderate? Mikoto would probably appreciate something as well. She'd been holding down the fort at the outpost, keeping an eye on everyone, doing the responsible senpai thing while he was off gallivanting around the country.

Three gifts. Three girls. This was starting to sound expensive.

Shinji briefly wondered if Ryouma would notice if he skimmed a little extra from the business funds. Probably. The clone was annoyingly meticulous about bookkeeping.

But then he thought about it a little more and shrugged. He was going to rotate out the clone playing Ryouma soon anyway. That clone had been enjoying the role a bit too much for a bit too long. Time to remind him that privileges were meant to be shared. Actually, maybe he should make it a competition. Whichever clone brought in the most money got to be Ryouma next. Now there was an idea. He was starting to get some wonderfully devious plans for growing his fund.

……

Somewhere in Lightning Country, Minato Namikaze was having a long day.

He wasn't the type to question orders. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He questioned plenty of things, internally, where it was safe and nobody could call him insubordinate. But when Jiraiya-sensei told him to do something, he did it. That was how the chain of command worked, and Minato believed in the chain of command the way some people believed in gravity. It was just there, arguing with it seemed pointless.

So when Jiraiya had pulled him aside earlier that morning and told him to deliver a message to a contact at a certain inn on the outskirts of town, Minato had nodded and said yes without hesitation.

But something about the whole thing felt off.

Maybe it was the way his sensei had explained the mission, vague and brief, like he was leaving out important details on purpose. Or maybe it was the faint amusement in his eyes, the glint that usually meant someone was about to be the punchline of a joke they hadn't heard yet.

Minato didn't like it. But orders were orders.

The rooftops of the town passed beneath his feet in a blur of tile and shadow. It was late enough that most people were already asleep, which made moving around a lot easier. No crowds to avoid, no curious eyes looking up at the wrong moment. Just Minato and the moon and the quiet hum of a town winding down for the night.

The inn came into view ahead, a modest two-story building with a faded sign and warm light spilling from the windows on the ground floor. Looked peaceful enough. Looked normal enough.

He landed on a rooftop across the street and paused, scanning the area out of habit.

That was when he felt it.

A presence. Above and behind him. Moving fast.

Minato threw himself sideways, and something dark blurred past close enough to clip the air by his ear. He hit the tiles in a roll, came up with a kunai already in his hand, and finally got a look at his attacker.

A man in black. Dark hair, about his height, his face hidden behind a cloth mask. Everything about him screamed danger, from the way he stood to the way he breathed and the way his eyes tracked Minato through the shadows, it all said “professional” in the most dangerous sense of the word.

Minato's grip tightened on his kunai. His mind was already racing, cataloging details, calculating angles, running through options. The man hadn't followed up on his initial attack. He was just standing there on the higher rooftop, looking down at Minato like he was waiting to see what would happen next.

An enemy black ops? A spy from another village? Someone who'd been tailing Jiraiya-sensei? The possibilities ran through Minato's head even as his feet started moving, because standing around waiting for answers wasn't going to help anyone.

He closed the distance in a shunshin, kunai carving an arc toward the man's throat. The man didn't retreat. He swayed past the blade and drove a palm toward Minato's chest, forcing him to abort the slash and twist mid-motion. Minato's free hand caught the palm strike, redirected it, and he used the momentum to spin his body into a rising knee.

The man flowed around it like smoke, slipping past the knee and answering with a ridge hand strike that forced Minato to throw himself backward. He turned the retreat into a backflip, one hand brushing the tiles before he launched himself forward again. His kunai came in low this time, then high, then low again in a feint that turned into a spinning heel kick aimed at the man's temple.

Blocked, redirected, countered. The man's fist grazed Minato's ribs as he twisted away. They separated for half a second, then crashed back together, limbs blurring, bodies corkscrewing through the air as they traded positions on the rooftop.

Three exchanges. Four. Five.

Minato couldn't land a clean hit. Every punch he threw was parried or redirected. Every opening he found closed before he could exploit it. The man moved like water, flowing around Minato's attacks instead of meeting them head-on, always slightly ahead, always one step faster than he should have been.

Then the man started hitting back.

A fist found Minato's jaw before he could slip it, snapping his head to the side. He brought his arms up to guard and caught the next two strikes, but the third slipped through and buried itself in his solar plexus. He gasped, doubled over, and barely managed to deflect a knee aimed at his face. An elbow came down toward his shoulder. He rolled with it, took the hit on his arm instead of his collarbone, and tried to create distance. The man didn't let him. Another punch, blocked. A kick to his lead leg, not blocked. His knee buckled. A heel kick to his chest sent him reeling backward, feet sliding across the tiles.

And then the man just... stopped. He let Minato stumble back, didn't pursue, and his hand drifted down to rest on the hilt at his hip.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Minato stared at the man, breathing hard, trying to figure out what he was planning. The hand on the hilt didn't move. The man's posture stayed loose. Nothing about it should have been threatening.

So why did every instinct Minato had suddenly start screaming?

His head jerked back before he even knew why. The man hadn't moved. Hadn't drawn. His fingers were still loosely curled around the handle. Then he felt it. The sting across his cheek, the warmth of blood trickling down his jaw. Minato stared at the sheathed blade, trying to make sense of what just happened. It had never left. He was sure of it. And yet he was bleeding.

Something cold crawled down his spine. This guy was on another level. Staying at sword range was suicide. Minato flickered forward on instinct, Shunshin closing the gap before the man could draw again. Inside the blade's reach, where steel couldn't swing freely. He threw an elbow at the man's ribs, desperate to keep him off balance. The man caught it with his free hand and answered with a knee toward his stomach. He twisted away, took a glancing blow to his side instead of a direct hit, and used the momentum to spin into a kick aimed at the man's temple.

The man swayed back just enough to let the kick sail past his chin, then answered with a kick of his own. Minato got his arms up in time to block, but the impact still launched him off his feet.

The world spun. He hit the rooftop tiles hard, rolled with the impact, and came up with shuriken already leaving his fingers. Three of them in a spread, more to buy time than to hit anything. The man swatted two aside with his kunai and leaped over the third, launching himself into the air to close the distance.

Bad idea.

Minato's hands were already moving through seals before his feet found solid footing.

Fūton: Shinkūgyoku!

He took a deep breath and exhaled a barrage of wind bullets, each one punching through the air fast enough to tear flesh from bone. The man was still midair, nowhere to dodge, nothing to push off of, no way to—

A second figure burst into existence beside him.

Shadow clone. Wait, shadow clone? That was—

But Minato didn't have time to finish the thought. The man had already grabbed his clone by the forearm, using it as an anchor point to spin his entire body in a horizontal corkscrew. At the apex of the spin, he released, converting all that rotational force into momentum as he shot toward a nearby wall. The wind jutsu screamed through empty air where he'd been, ripping the clone apart into smoke. The man's feet kissed the wall for a fraction of a second before he pushed off, launching himself at Minato like an arrow leaving the bow.

One moment he was at the wall, the next he was right in front of him. Minato's kunai came up just in time to catch the man's own, sparks flying where the blades met. The man twisted his wrist and slid his kunai along Minato's in a grinding arc, angling for his throat. Minato rolled his shoulder and stepped through, redirecting the blade past him and trying to counter with an elbow strike. The man was already gone, circling to his flank, kunai coming back around in a tight arc that forced Minato to spin and block again.

High. Low. A thrust that turned into a slash halfway through. Minato blocked, parried, deflected, his kunai working overtime just to keep the steel from finding flesh. His eyes tracked the blade, his body moving faster than his thoughts could keep up, but he was losing ground. Literally. Each exchange pushed him back another step, another half-step, the edge of the rooftop getting closer with every passing second.

This wasn't working. He needed to do something fast.

Minato let the next slash push him back, but instead of resisting he went with it, using the momentum to spin into a full rotation. His hand found another kunai from his pouch, and he came out of the spin throwing, two blades in quick succession aimed at the man's chest and throat.

The kunai were still in the air when the clone Minato had hidden before the fight started made its move, stepping out of the shadows at the man's back with a kunai mid-thrust. Nothing but an illusion, a basic clone that would pop the moment it was touched, but the man didn't know that.

The man's head snapped around at the presence behind him, body turning on instinct. His kunai came up in two short arcs, deflecting the thrown kunai without even looking at them, and in the same motion he was already turning to deal with the clone at his spine.

But that was the trap.

Shunshin carried Minato to where the man's back would be the moment he finished turning, kunai driving toward his spine before his feet even touched the rooftop.

The man wasn't there.

No, that wasn't right. He was there, but he was moving, his body twisting in a way that shouldn't have been possible from a standing position. For a split second, Minato thought he saw something flash across the man's eyes, a flicker of lightning that was there and gone so fast he might have imagined it. One moment Minato's kunai was aimed at his back, and the next his jaw exploded with pain and the world was spinning around him.

The man didn't give him time to recover. A fist drove into his solar plexus, followed by a knee rising toward his chin, then a horizontal palm aimed at his throat. Minato got his arms up in time to catch the first two, absorbing the impacts with his forearms, but the palm was a feint. The man's body kept rotating, and his leg came around in a roundhouse that Minato didn't see until it was already connecting with his side.

The kick sent him flying. He crashed through a chimney like it was made of paper, the chimney blowing apart in a cloud of grit and splintered stone as he slammed through, and he tumbled across the tiles in a graceless sprawl before skidding to a stop. He was back on his feet a second later, but his ribs were screaming and his vision was swimming.

He blinked hard, and when his eyes focused the man had already closed the gap, standing so close that he could feel the heat coming off him.

Minato didn't even have time to raise his kunai. Something swept his legs out from under him, and then his back hit the tiles and there was cold steel pressed against his throat.

And then the man stepped back.

Minato blinked.

The man reached up with his free hand and pulled down his mask.

"Yo. Long time no see, yeah?"

Shinji's face looked back at him, relaxed and unbothered, like he hadn't just spent the last several minutes trying to murder his friend.

Minato stared.

His brain, which had been working overtime to process the fight and prepare for death, ground to a complete halt. For a long moment, he just lay there on the rooftop tiles, looking up at his friend familiar face, trying to reconcile the person he was seeing with the monster he'd just been fighting.

"Shinji," he said finally, his voice coming out flatter than he intended. "What the hell."

"Surprise?"

Minato let his head drop back against the tiles and stared up at the night sky. He took a long, slow breath. Let it out. Took another one.

"I thought I was going to die," he said.

"Yeah, you looked pretty stressed there at the end." Shinji tucked his kunai away and offered Minato a hand. "Sorry about that. The old pervert and I made a bet on how long you'd last against me. He was convinced you could hold out for at least five minutes, and I told him three, tops. For what it's worth, you made it past four, so technically we both lost."

Minato took the hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. His jaw was throbbing. His pride was in worse shape.

"Wait, Jiraiya-sensei set this up?"

"Who else? He probably spent all day grinning about this." Shinji tucked his hands into his pockets. "For what it's worth, though, you've gotten a lot better. That shunshin feint you pulled actually almost got me."

"Almost," Minato repeated.

The word sat in his mouth like something bitter.

He'd thought he was closing the gap. All those months of training, all those hours of practice, pushing himself harder than he'd ever pushed before. He'd improved, he knew he had. The Minato who'd graduated from the Academy wouldn't have lasted ten seconds against someone like the man in black. The Minato standing here now had lasted... what, a few minutes? Maybe longer? It felt like hours while it was happening, but fights always felt longer than they actually were.

And in the end, it hadn't mattered. The gap between them was still there. Still vast. Maybe even wider than before, because Shinji had obviously been improving too, probably faster than Minato could even track.

What Minato didn't know, couldn't know, was that Shinji's growth wasn't just natural talent at work. While he was out here training and sweating and pushing himself to the limit, Shinji had an army of clones doing the same thing around the clock. Every spar, every drill, every hard-earned lesson flowed back to the original, compounding experience at a rate that no normal person could match. Add in a lifetime's worth of memories from a world Minato had never heard of, fighting knowledge from arts that didn't exist in the Elemental Nations, and honestly? If Shinji couldn't beat Minato with all of that stacked in his favor, he might as well retire and open a dumpling stand. The clones would be great for kneading dough, at least.

"Hey." Shinji's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "You okay? I didn't hit you that hard, did I?"

"No, I'm fine." Minato shook his head, trying to snap himself out of it. "Just... processing, I guess."

"Take your time. We're not in a rush."

Now that the mask was off, Minato could see it was definitely Shinji. Same as always. Calm, unbothered, looking like the world could be ending around him and he'd still find time to yawn first. Part of him wanted to be frustrated by it. The rest of him was just glad to see a familiar face after nearly getting killed by that same face a minute ago.

But something felt off.

Actually, now that he was paying attention, something had felt off since the fight started. A subtle wrongness that he couldn't quite put his finger on, like looking at a painting that was slightly crooked.

"Shinji," he said slowly. "That was you fighting just now, right?"

"Define 'me.'"

“That’s not really an answer.”

Shinji's expression flickered, just for a moment, before settling back into its usual calm. "You noticed, huh? I figured you might. Your sensor skills have gotten pretty good, huh. Last time we met you probably wouldn't have noticed the difference."

Minato's stomach sank. He'd been hoping he was wrong.

"You're a clone," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Guilty as charged." Shinji, or rather the thing wearing Shinji's face, spread his hands. "Shadow clone, in the flesh. Well, not flesh exactly, but you know what I mean."

A clone.

He'd lost to a clone.

Minato had known Shinji could make shadow clones, obviously. Everyone knew that. But he'd always assumed they were like normal shadow clones, useful for distractions and reconnaissance but not much else. The idea that a clone could fight like that, could move like that, could push Minato to his limit and still win decisively...

It wasn't fair. It wasn't even close to fair.

"Hey, uh." Shinji rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't feel too bad about it, okay? You've gotten a lot stronger since the last time I saw you. And I mean that, I'm not just saying it to make you feel better. Well, I kind of am, but it's also true, so..."

He trailed off, clearly aware that he wasn't helping.

Minato stared at him for a second, then let out a breath that was half sigh, half laugh. Trust Shinji to be completely useless at pep talks.

But that was fine. Minato didn't need someone else to pick him up. He'd been doing that himself for as long as he could remember. So Shinji was ahead of him. So the gap felt impossible. So what? Impossible was just another word for "not yet." He'd figure it out. He always did.

One day, he'd stand at the top. And when that day came, he'd look back at this moment and remember exactly how far he'd climbed.

They stood there for a moment longer, two friends on a battered rooftop, surrounded by broken tiles and chimney debris.

Eventually, Minato stopped leaning against the chimney and stood a little straighter. He hadn't climbed all the way up here just to reminisce and trade punches, after all.

“So,” he started, and even he could hear the sigh he was trying to bury beneath that single syllable. “Jiraiya-sensei sent me to deliver a message to one of his contacts. Apparently Kumo’s moving ahead with the biju sealing sooner than expected, which means the whole mission timeline just got pushed up. Whoever this contact is needs to get to the rendezvous point as soon as possible.”

He paused.

Looked at Shinji.

Shinji looked back at him.

The silence stretched for about three seconds—three seconds Minato spent desperately hoping the universe would prove him wrong for once. It did not.

"It's you, isn't it."

"It's me."

"Of course it's you."

"Okay, in my defense, about seventy percent of this situation is the old pervert's fault. Maybe eighty, actually. He's the one who made that stupid bet in the first place. I'm just a young, naive jonin who got swept up in the schemes of his elders.”

Minato rubbed his aching jaw and decided he was lucky it was still attached. Naive wasn't exactly the word he'd use for someone who'd just beaten him senseless, but sure. "How long were you waiting up here?"

“About an hour,” Shinji said. “I brought snacks.” He gestured vaguely toward a nearby rooftop. “There should still be some left, if you want.”

“You ambushed me,” Minato said, incredulous, “and now you’re offering me snacks.”

Shinji shrugged. “It’s called being a good host.”

……

From a rooftop a few hundred meters away, Jiraiya watched the two of them share snacks like they hadn't just been trying to kill each other thirty seconds ago.

He wasn't paying attention to what they were eating though. His mind was still replaying the fight.

Minato had done well. Better than well, actually. The kid had real talent, and with a few more years of experience under his belt he'd be a force to reckon with on any battlefield. Jiraiya was proud of how far he'd come.

But Shinji...

Jiraiya had known the boy was talented. The intels said as much, and Tsunade never shut up about how her student kept surpassing every expectation she set for him. But reading about someone's abilities and seeing them firsthand were two very different things, and nothing had prepared him for what he'd just witnessed.

The taijutsu alone was beyond jonin level, and that much was obvious from the first few exchanges. Minato wasn't bad at hand-to-hand combat by any means, but Shinji had been reading him like a book the entire time, countering every move before it fully formed, turning Minato's own momentum against him again and again.

The kenjutsu though, that was what really caught Jiraiya's attention. The style reminded him of samurai from the Land of Iron with its emphasis on the fast draw, but it was more sophisticated than anything he'd seen from them. More refined. The draw had been so fast that his student hadn't even registered the blade leaving its sheath before the cut was done and the sword was already back in its sheath.

But there was something else underneath all of that. Something that nagged at Jiraiya until he finally placed it.

Lightning.

Not the jutsu, but the idea behind it. The Raikage had made a name for himself by running lightning chakra through his nervous system, pushing his speed and reflexes past what should be humanly possible. Shinji was borrowing from that playbook, using the same principle as a base and layering his kenjutsu on top of it. Samurai quick draw meets shinobi nintaijutsu, blended together into something that was nastier than either of them had any business being.

Jiraiya should have been proud. He was proud, in a way. His son was a genius, a prodigy, maybe one of the most talented shinobi of his generation. Any father would be happy to see their child turn out like this.

So why did his gut feel like it was trying to warn him about something?

He thought about it for a moment, and then the answer came to him.

Shinji was a genius with the combat skills to back it up. He was also, from what Jiraiya had both read in reports and witnessed firsthand, completely incapable of staying out of trouble. The boy attracted danger like honey attracted flies. He made decisions that gave his superiors gray hairs. He had a talent for being in places he shouldn't be, doing things he shouldn't do, and somehow walking away from it all without a scratch.

Now imagine all of that, except now he could fight like this.

Yeah. That was the source of the unease.

Jiraiya made a mental note to buy Tsunade a drink next time he saw her. She deserved it.