10 - Kushina's kidnapping event approaching !

Nori was currently walking towards a fairly popular dango stall in Konoha. He was in a very good mood now.

After all he had recieved many jutsu scrolls from Orochimaru and could not wait to start practicing them.

One more thing was their last conversation before separating.

Nori had asked Orochimaru to keep his real abilities and talents secret from others.

To his surprise, Orochimaru agreed on the spot which made Nori feel very happy.

He wanted to stay low key for now and just focus on practicing while completing some missions according to Orochimaru's whim.

War would start in few years time if nothing unexpected happens so Nori did not want to waste time on excessive amount of missions. He was better of training and increasing his strength instead.

As of the problem of finding corpses for using his power and absorbing their residual and bloodline chakra? Nori did not worry about that much. After all he became a Shinobi now so he just had to take a mission once per month at least and use his power on enemy after killing him.

Nori wanted to encounter enemies belonging to famous clans from enemy villages but he knew that was unrealistic.

First of all Nori was just a genin so his rank was too low to take missions which have higher priority of engaging with enemy shinobi.

Second , bloodline clans were protective of their members so they were mostly sent out for just important missions. The young people from clans, wont be setting foot into Land of fire often as it was enemy territory for them and they were not experienced enough yet.

Of course a chance encounter could be possible but that was up to fate.

Soon Nori saw the dango stall in distance and started jogging towards it. He could see familiar figures sitting on wooden chairs already and could not help but smile.

Choza , Shikaku and Inoichi were already present but it was still more than twenty minutes ahead of the appointed time. Choza was already eating so it must be him who forced the lazy Nara to accompany him then.

" Oye Nori!! Come sit . These dango are really delicious."

" Hahha.. Choza, you find most of the food delicious anyway. Hello Shikaku and Inoichi, it's been a while. "

" We were just attending class together yesterday , what it has been a while?"

" You guys are being noisy. What a drag.."

The atmosphere was friendly and Nori liked it very much. Their casual talk continued and they started snacking on the sweet dango while waiting for Minato and Kushina.

For Fugaku, Nori felt helpless. The Uchiha clan were too strict. Fugaku always left after class immediately because he had to train with private instructor of their clan. That's why they could only spar in early morning or in breaks between classes.

As expected, it did not seem like he could come today either.

Choza and Inouchi were the only ones who were mainly talking. Shikaku just interjected sometimes but was busy yawning otherwise. But one sentence of his caught Nori's attention.

" Man.. Nori has already graduated and Minato was accept by Jiraya san as his personal disciple. That's Hokage sama's grand disciple essentially! My mom was nagging me before I came here. She said to take you two as my examples and work harder.. Now She wont stop nagging me like this until I graduate. What a drag.."

Nori was surprised by this news as he had heard nothing about this before. It could only mean that Minato was accepted by Jiraya today after his test.

After all Minato was too honest to keep such things secret from Nori who was his best friend and rival. Before the test, Minato was there to see Nori off and Jiraya was present in the training room during the whole test duration. So they must have met after Nori and Orochimaru left the academy grounds.

Anyway it was good news for Minato. From the anime it could be seen that Jiraya was one of the best teachers despite his pervert personality. After all Nagato , Minato and Naruto were his students in the story and the three of them were super powerful.

' Now Minato's progress will be rapid too.'

Nori felt some fighting spirit burning inside him. He may be an adult inside but he also did not want to lose to Minato and others even though they were technically just kids currently.

Minato did not come in the end but Nori did not mind as Kushina came on time and he had fun listening to her triumphs of beating some bullies who came after her.

This red haired girl was considered an outsider by most of the kids in their class and they regularly tried to bully her.

Nori had graduated now so they will become more active from now on as they feared him getting revenge for Kushina but now he wont be in the academy.

Kushina though was strong and had a very hot temper so Nori was more worried about her becoming more isolated from other kids.

Minato and Ino Shika Cho trio were the only ones who had good relationship with her so Nori decided that he would remind them to take care of her from now on.

It was no secret in the academy that Nori the genius considered Kushina as his little sister. So he hoped that his reputation becomes a deterrent for the bullies.

While returning back to the dormitory apartment, Nori's mind was filled with thoughts about Kushina and his own future training schedule.

He remembered that in the anime , there was an episode where Kushina was kidnapped by the some Kumo shinobi. He calculated the timeline and concluded that it should be happening soon.

Now Minato would be busy training with Jiraya so Nori was becoming more and more worried that no one would be there in time to help her.

After thinking about some kind of solution to this problem , Nori came to an answer.

Shadow Clones!

They were perfect coly of the user with half of their chakra pool. So Nori could just send one to follow Kushina secretly and protect her in the morning and after end of the classes.

Looks like he had to ask Orochimaru to teach him the B rank jutsu as soon as possible. After all currently he was the only source from where he could hope to get the jutsu!