Kagome stifled a laugh as Minato face planted into yet another tree. Kagome looked down at weapon Minato was trying to combine with Fuinjutsu. It was a three-pronged kunai with the Fuinjutsu tag wrapped around the hilt. From what she had read this morning he was trying to reproduce results made by the second Hokage. Basically, it was teleportation, how crazy was that? However, the second Hokage never wrote down exactly how he was able to do it. Other than needing their own personalized seal, which Minato had made and attached to the kunai.
Kagome had an idea, "Hey dork, come here." She called out to Minato as she stood up. It looked like all of his equations were correct, from what she could tell anyway. She was by no means an expert on Fuinjutsu, but sutras she did know. And some of the higher-powered sutras needed a bit of an extra boost.
Minato practically had a pout on his face as he made his way over to Kagome, "Sorry you have to keep healing me."
"It's no problem, lets my Ki get some exercise. Sit down, I want to show you something." Kagome said, "Well, uh, after I heal you." She snickered. He already had a black eye and his nose looked broken. He had kissed that last tree hard. Minato always activated a small privacy seal when he practiced. It would alert him immediately if anyone would try and interrupt them. So, she didn't have to be afraid of being found out when using her abilities out here. Minato would let her know if anyone was close. She searched quickly for any auras close to her, and when she only detected Minato's and herself, she activated her healing ability started healing her idiot brother. Always better safe than sorry. Yes brother, she thought of Minato as her brother. Only inside her mind though, she wouldn't inflate his ego any more than it already was by calling him brother first. She had to really watch herself when she spoke to him lately, it was becoming almost natural to want to call him Minato-Nii.
"What did you want to show me Gome?" he asked ignoring her laughter.
"Right, this is another of those things that Hokage-sama already knows and you can't tell anybody. Promise?"
"Of course."
"Good, give me two of your blank sealing papers, an inkwell, and a separate ink dish."
"Well, aren't you being demanding this morning." Minato teased.
"Come on, I think this may help you with your tree-hugging problem." Kagome gave him a look, why was he being so annoying today? He was in an overly good mood. Was it because of the fort sleepover last night? He did hand over the requested items though.
"Thanks." She quickly drew the sutra for binding, this was a normal binding. It would freeze the recipient it was placed on. Though these worked better on demons than normal humans. However, someone with enough power would be able to break it.
Without any warning, she plastered her sutra to Minato's forehead. With a flash of her power, it stuck there, effectively freezing him. She saw his eyes go wide in a type of panic as he realized that he couldn't move.
"Right about now you'll realize you can't move any of your muscles. What I just used is a basic binding sutra. Anyone from my village that had Ki was able to use them. However, if you flare your chakra, you'll most likely be able to break it." Kagome talked him through it.
Minato did just that, he sharply flared his chakra and the paper ripped. Effectively freeing him from the binding. He ripped off the rest of the sutra off of his forehead and stared at her with wide eyes, "How did you do that?" that felt like being under the effects of the Nara family jutsu, only no shadows. Just a piece of paper. That was low key terrifying.
"As I said, it was a sutra. Grandma Kaede and big brother Miroku taught me how to make them. I'm able to do a whole bunch of things with them. With the one I just made it makes it so whomever I place it on can't move. It's a pretty basic one, one of the first ones I learned how to make actually. As you can probably tell it doesn't take much to break one like that. However, if I do this." She dumped out a small amount of ink into one of the dishes he had brought along. Then she cut her fingertip and let her blood mix with the ink. She ignored Minato's shout of shock and easily healed her fingertip over to satisfy him.
She grabbed the second sheet he had given her and quickly wrote the binding sutra once again. This time Minato knew what was coming and offered his hand to her, "How about not using my forehead this time?"
"Fine, I got that habit from my grandpa. He'd do that to practically anyone." She placed the sutra onto his hand and with a flare of her Ki activated the sutra. Kagome smirked as Minato flared his chakra to break the sutra only to fail this time, "It's a lot stronger this time because my blood was mixed in with the ink. It will take quite a lot of power to break this one." What she wasn't going to tell him was it would take someone with more power than her own. Basically, that meant people on par with Sesshomaru and Naraku. She reached out and ripped off the sutra allowing him to move once again.
When Minato only looked at her with a face full of shock, she rolled her eyes, "Try adding your blood to the Fuinjutsu seals. Maybe your recipe is just looking for a specific DNA signature, aka you."
Minato's eyes lit up in excitement and scooped her up into a big hug, "Kagome you are an absolute genius! How had I not thought about that?" blood was normally only used for summoning jutsu, but for something like this it would be perfect. He set Kagome down and plopped onto the ground to write a new Fuinjutsu seal, this one mixed with his blood.
He waited a few minutes for it to dry before wrapping it around a new kunai and sealing it on. He threw it to a faraway tree and took a deep breath. He had been working almost half a year on this. If this was really all it took, he was going to be slightly annoyed. Honestly, how did he not think about this before? This was almost like a type of summoning; he was summoning himself. With a steadying breath, he activated his jutsu and for the first time ever it was successful. He stopped right before running into the tree. A huge grin split his face and he jumped up in excitement, "It finally worked!"
Kagome laughed happily, "Congrats."
With a happy sigh, Minato plopped onto the ground, "So, are you going to watch me train all day? Or, are you going to do some training of your own?"
A frown pulled at her lips, "I've been meaning to talk to you about this Minato. I am beyond serious when I say I want to become a kunoichi. I appreciate that you are helping me get better physically, but I can work on most of that by myself. If I am going to be a kunoichi I need to be able to use my chakra, do jutsu's, that stuff. When are you going to teach me how to use my chakra?" he had taught her how to fight, quite efficiently at this point. They had even moved onto weapons like kunai, senbon, and shuriken. She was doing her best to convince him she wanted to start training with a tanto as well. Sesshomaru had trained her a bit on how to use a sword, but a full sword would be a bit too long for her right now. Using and manipulating her chakra was what she had been looking forward to since she had left the hospital though. That was three months of her being extremely patient. Her chakra pool grew every day and she was itching to see what she could do with it.
Minato paused; it wasn't like he didn't want her to go through with being a kunoichi. He just wanted her to be safe. She had lost so much in such a short time, he just wanted her to have as normal a life as she possibly could from this point onward. In the back of his mind, he had been hoping that she would just choose to be a civilian, it was safer. He was okay with teaching her how to fight, that was basic self-defense. She did still possibly have a crazy kunoichi after her. She also had to protect that damned jewel that hung around her neck for the rest of her life, which he thought was beyond unfair. Wasn't the burden of the jewel enough for her? Why did she want to become a kunoichi so badly? Before he brought her here, she had never even heard of them. So why? He looked over at her and saw the burning determination in her eyes, she wasn't going to be giving the idea up. For some reason, this was extremely important to her.
His mind drifted back to one of the conversations he had with the Hokage about her. For someone so young, and new to the village, the Hokage held her in strangely high regard. He practically respected her, and how she gained that respect he had no idea. Minato had brought up the fact that Kagome had started thinking about wanting to become a kunoichi. The Hokage had nodded like he had expected nothing less.
"Kagome-chan is not one who likes to be idle. She had a very tough life before coming here. Full of trial and hardship. Her friends and family were the only things pulling her through that time." He fell silent for a moment before continuing, "If she does indeed want to continue on her path to becoming a kunoichi, I want you to follow some guidelines. Kagome-chan is extremely smart and learns things very quickly."
The Hokage had gone on to explain what he wanted him to do with Kagome. The new school year didn't start up for another few months. The newest batch of genin had just graduated not too long ago. He was to train Kagome hard just like she was a genin and he was her teacher. Then when the school year started up again, he would enroll her. She would have to attend the school for a year, at the minimum. Mainly so she could interact with children her age. Then if she passed a test she would be allowed to graduate early and become a genin.
Minato was really not looking forward to the whole graduating early part. He knew Kagome was smart. To be honest she probably already read all of the books from the last year of schooling requirement. She was a prodigy in the making. But he knew what being a prodigy did to people. They were forced to do things beyond someone their age should ever have to do, and usually became damaged in one way or another. He didn't want that to be her fate. He didn't want to see the bright, sunny, bossy, smart girl become closed off to her emotions and traumatized. So, he had been holding back on his training just a bit. Sure, he pushed her pretty hard during their sparring matches, but he had held back on putting weapons into the equation for a few weeks. She had been ready to implement them a lot faster than he had brought them in. She already had a pretty good basic fighting style before he had started teaching her anything.
If he started teaching how to control her chakra, which she really did have a lot of, it made things final. If he started teaching her, she would become a kunoichi. In a little over a year, she would be going out on missions. There was no going back after the next step. Why couldn't she just become a civilian? He would protect her, and even if he wasn't around, she already had a good system of others that could protect her.
He would be getting put back on the rotation for out of village missions within the week. He would need to find someone who was willing to watch her during the time that he was gone. Sometimes missions could take up to a month, if not longer. He knew Inoichi or Shikaku wouldn't mind watching her, but what if they had to go out on a mission also? He knew Kagome would complain and say she could take care of herself. Which he didn't really doubt, but he wasn't about to leave his seven-year-old little sister home alone. Yes, he thought of her as his little sister. He had been for over a month now. He just wasn't sure if she would be okay with allowing him that close. She had just lost her family. He didn't want to seem like he was trying to replace them. In fact, he had plans in place to officially adopt Kagome into the Namikaze clan by the end of the year. He would hold off until her year of having to stay within the village ended. After that point, she could theoretically decide she wanted to move out. Either out of his house or the village entirely. So, while he really wanted to claim her as his sister, he was holding off for now.
Back to the problem at hand though, his mind had gone on a bit of a tangent. Should he start teaching her how to use her chakra? By all means, she was ready. He could hold off for a bit yet, saying she needed to perfect her weaponry skills more. She needed to practice accuracy with kunai more. She was still rather abysmal with shuriken, she still had trouble holding them. She was scarily good with senbon already though. He would have thought that would be the hardest for her master, but she hit the bullseye nearly every time with them. He had set up dummy human and had her attack it with her senbon, she had hit many points on the body that would have either killed or incapacitated her enemy. She knew the human body extremely well. If he didn't know her so well, he would try to push her to become a med-nin. They weren't always on the front line and were a bit safer. Kagome wasn't one to stay on the sidelines, however. She was a fighter. She had expressed interest in learning how to use a tanto, he could push chakra lessons back by introducing that.
But that was just an excuse and he knew it. She was ready to start, and pushing lessons back would only hold her back. If he held off much longer, she was going to start getting antsy and he didn't put it past her to just go and find somebody else to teach her. He was already pretty sure that she and Shikaku did more than just take care of the deer when she went to visit. She could always ask either Shikaku or Inoichi to teach her, neither of them would probably say no. She had them practically wrapped around her finger. She also had a very strong connection with the Hokage, if all else failed she could probably go to him and he would find her a willing teacher. He didn't want her to be taught by someone else though. If he was going to go through with letting her become a kunoichi he wanted to know that she was being trained correctly. The only way he would know that was if he did that himself. And there it was, the answer he knew that he knew he would eventually get to. It was time to start seriously teaching her. He would push her to her limits, drag out her full potential. For if he didn't, he was scared of what would happen to her.
Minato let out a sigh, with how much natural chakra she had the first thing she would need to learn was control. Control was going to absolutely vital, or she would have trouble with the simpler jutsu's that he knew would be on the final test. Alright, first things first then.
"Okay, fine. You win, we'll start on chakra training today." Minato sighed out.
Kagome practically lit up, "Really!" she lunged and glomped Minato in a big hug, "Thank you Minato."
"We're going to be doing things a little out of order than the school usually teaches. This is something that is usually taught to genin that have just graduated by their teachers. I know that you've meditated and practiced focusing the chakra in your body. You have also read up extensively on the subject. So, we can skip those two. You can do more of that in your free time. What I want you to start practicing as of today, is to climb a tree."
Kagome's brow wrinkled in confusion, "Climb a tree? I've been climbing trees for years, that's not really a challenge."
Minato smirked, "I want you to climb a tree, without using your hands."
Kagome's eyes went wide, "Without my hands? How does that even work?"
"I'll show you once, but then you have to figure out the rest by yourself. Watch closely." Minato walked to the nearest tree and easily planted his foot on the trunk of it. Then with chakra control that was as easy as breathing nowadays took a step upwards. He easily and slowly walked vertically up the tree with his arms thrown behind his head in relaxation. He looked down to see Kagome's eyes widen in excitement and awe, "See, easy. Or at least it should become as easy as breathing if you want to have any basis in chakra control. You should eventually be able to do this as easily as breathing. Shinobi use this tactic in their everyday lives, to stick to branches as they jump through the treetops, traveling along rooftops, infiltration. Now, it's your turn. You don't want to use too little as you'll just slip right off, but you don't want to use too much or you'll completely destroy the tree. Balance is key, find the right amount to make you stick to the tree."
Kagome walked up to the tree and thought over what she needed to do. From what she had sensed when Minato had done it, all she had to do was direct her chakra to her feet. She had read that feet were the hardest part of the body to focus chakra into. Minato was right, he was doing things out of order. From what she had read people usually started with sticking leaves to themselves for as long as they could without shredding the leaf. This wasn't the hardest one either, from what Inoichi had told her she would eventually be able to walk on the surface of the water. How epic was that going to be? But first, she needed to get to the top of this tree.
"Getting a running start helps some people." Minato gave her the only hint he was going to give her. If she was going to do this, she was going to have to figure stuff on her own. Find her own answers, otherwise, she won't be able to think for herself later on. He threw a kunai down at her feet, "To mark your progress."
"Running start. Right." Kagome bent down to grab the kunai before taking a few steps back. She took a deep breath to steady herself before running towards the tree. She was going to start off low and work her way up to more. She didn't want to hurt the trees. As soon as her foot made contact with the tree she pushed upwards. A smile built on her face as she felt herself stick. She managed one more step before suddenly losing her grip and falling to the ground with an 'eep!' She managed to remember to mark her progress quickly with the kunai before she fell. She landed hard on her butt and a frown pulled at her lips. Okay, this was probably going to take a while.
Minato jumped down and started walking off, "Alright, we'll move onto something else as soon as you manage to master that. If you don't manage to get the hang of that, stop at lunchtime and come home. I'll send a clone to get you when it's time and lunch will be waiting for you. After lunch, we'll move onto weapons training. We'll see where we go on from there. Mornings will be dedicated to you climbing this tree until you get it down pat. Well, good luck Gome." With a quick wave goodbye, he disappeared into a bunch of leaves. He had some things he had to do. He needed to get a chakra paper, to see what nature release she had once she completed her challenge. He also needed to get some new equipment, weapons, proper fighting attire for Kagome, bandages, and possibly a practice tanto. He had to go inform the Hokage that Kagome was indeed serious about becoming a kunoichi and to enroll her for the next school year. Finally, he had a lot of Fuinjutsu tags to re-write only with a blood mark on them. His new jutsu was finally complete, maybe it was time to start on a new one. A completely new one this time, not just a lost art. There was an idea he had from the tailed beast's attacks, perhaps it was time to move onto that.
Kagome looked at the spot Minato disappeared in shock. He was leaving her, just like that? She glanced back at the tree, how was she going to do this exactly? She was learning a technique that most didn't learn until after they graduated. She was at an extreme disadvantage. Those kids had years of teaching and learning small tricks and practice on how to use their chakra. She had perfect control over her Ki, but she wasn't entirely sure how to perfectly channel her chakra. It wasn't something she had ever done before. She must have been on sort of the right path because her first step stuck. It had been the follow-up that had failed her. She wished that she had her books about chakra control with her. Something to point her in the right direction. At this rate, it was going to take weeks to get to the top of that stupid tree, and she refused to be stuck on something so trivial for so long. She was a fast learner, always had been as long as it wasn't math. The only thing she had been stuck on for a while in the feudal era was her archery skills, and honestly, most of that had probably been from Inuyasha always dissing her every time she tried.
With a steadying breath of determination, she dashed towards the tree once again. As they said, practice makes perfect. It seems that Minato was finally taking her seriously, especially with him excepting to teach her about her chakra and increasing their practice time. In the past, they had only practiced until lunch and then the rest of the day was hers to do with as she wanted. She wasn't going to waste this opportunity. She was going to show Minato that she was determined to become a kunoichi and she wasn't going to go back on that. She wanted to be able to protect people, especially the people that she cares about. To do that she had a lot of catching up to do. Most of her precious people were years older than her and she would more get in the way than anything. Sure, she could protect Guy. But she had only met him yesterday and he was two years younger than she was.
Kagome practiced without a break until Minato's clone appeared to tell her lunch was almost done before disappearing into a poof of smoke. Kagome fell to the ground, gasping for breath, tired beyond belief. She had made some progress, but not enough for her tastes. It was really starting to annoy her. How was it that she could stay sticking to the tree for like five steps, but then it suddenly cuts out and she plummets to the ground? One would think that once you made it that far you would be good the rest of the way. What was she doing wrong? With a sigh, she grabbed all of the stuff that Minato had left behind when he made his escape and headed back home. She would read up as much as she could on the subject tonight and try again tomorrow. She would get this, she had to.
Minato startled slightly as the memories of his clone came back to him. He was impressed, he really was. She had almost made it to the halfway point of the tree in one day with absolutely no prior practice. At the rate she was going she would probably have this mastered within the next couple days. She just needed to find her proper flow and be able to hold it for the long run. He had made a filling lunch with a good number of calories. She must have burned through a lot today and she needed to refill. With a start of realization, he realized that he had more homemade meals since he took in Kagome since the year his dad died. It was troublesome to only cook for one, but now that there were two of them it was worth it.
As Kagome walked through the door Minato had to hide his laughter, she looked absolutely exhausted. Not that he blamed her with it being the first time ever using her chakra beyond her kekkei genkai which seemed to come to her naturally.
"Why don't you go take a quick shower before we have lunch." Minato offered.
Kagome nodded wordlessly with a yawn as she walked past him. She couldn't believe how tired trying to use her chakra made her. She never really had this problem with her Ki. She had her days where she would be tired, but those usually occurred when they had a big or long fight. She happily warmed up her tired muscles, from constantly falling to the ground, under the hot water. She kept it short since she knew that Minato would have lunch done soon and she didn't want to make him wait.
As she plopped herself down at the kitchen table, she turned her attention onto Minato as he started talking, "Despite what you may be thinking, you did really well today."
Kagome glanced up at him, "How do you know?"
"Oh, have I never told you? My clones are different from most. I use shadow clones. They are solid compared to normal clones, and I get the memories from them once they disappear."
"Ah, your clone looked to see how high my best mark was before he disappeared."
"Yup, I asked him to before he left. I wanted to see how much progress you made. You made it about to the point it would take a genin the entire day to make. You'll get there in no time at this rate." He complimented her. He wasn't lying either. His teammates had tried to climb their trees for practically the entire day and barely made it to the point she had made. His dad had shown him how to do it prior to Jiraiya teaching them.
He cleared his throat before starting to fill up his plate, "Alright, let's eat up and then get back out there. We'll keep this pace up for the rest of the week and then I'll see where we stand. Deal?"
Kagome nodded as she followed his lead and grabbing food, "Deal."
Minato's mind drifted as he ate. He wasn't sure how well Kagome was going to take the news that she would have to attend the school. He knew that she was hoping to get around that, and the Hokage was certainly helping her in that regard. He had noticed her avoidance of other kids recently and had been troubled by it. He was worried that she was already starting to distance herself. He realized that wasn't true yesterday when she brought that Guy kid home. He still wasn't sure why she was keeping away from other kids, but he hoped her meeting Guy would put a stop to that. Once she graduated, which he knew she would, he wondered what kind of team she would be put on. It wasn't unheard of, but it was strange to have a kid so much younger than the others on the same team. It was more likely that she would be pushed towards a certain type of specialization. Then once she got a bit older, she could be put on a team with others. He was really hoping she wouldn't catch the notice of the wrong type. He had heard rumors of kids with exceptional talent being recruited to a secret section of Konoha. He also didn't want her dragged into Anbu too soon. While he could see her talent simmering and waiting to bloom, she also deserved a childhood. One that at this rate wasn't going to last as long as he was hoping it would.
Well, it was his jobto make sure she was ready for the trails she was soon going to be facing. Shewas going to make enemies, prodigies always did. While they always had admirers,they also had the jealous people as well. He was going to have to keep bothaway from his little sister. Until the school year started up, he was going tohave a lot on his plate. It was a challenge he was not going to take lightly.