Seals are Hard

Fuinjutsu is a bitch.

To explain the basics of seals, it's 4 dimensional trigonometry. The core concept is that a seal, well, *seals* something in a temporal or spatial barrier.

Seals can be divided into more or less three categories.

Chakra/Energy seals held Energy in some form to be released later or controlled a system of Chakra. This includes the Caged Bird Seal, explosive and shock tags, and the cursed seal of heaven to name a few.

Space/Time/Gravity seals directed space in some form, as time is gravity which is the origin of space. Storage seals, the Hiraishin Kunai, and barrier seals fit this category.

Then summoning seals come in. Summoning seals range from the obvious kuchiyose, to the less obvious Chakra Chains technique, to the incredibly obscure Shiki Fun.

All three can be combined as long as the matrices of the seals match. No odd shapes can directly interact with even ones.

Where seals become difficult is the fact that you're turning a Four dimensional space into a three dimensional space and translating that 3d space onto 2d paper. It was a *lot* of math.

It was turning something incomprehensible into volume, then turning volume into area.

All seals required a key. That key could range from another seal to a Jutsu to a physical key.

The Hiraishin was a combination of *everything* listed so far plus a Jutsu.

Currently seven of the rookie nine were making explosive tags. Sasuke and Kiba were absent, as Sasuke didn't have time for the practice and Kiba didn't have the patience.

"Naruto, check mine.", Sakura spoke up. She had struck up a decent friendship with Naruto and Sasuke, being in such close contact with Sasuke had killed the obsessive part of her crush early on. She could hold pretty in-depth conversations with most anyone that would talk to her. The nine had figured out who would be placed on which team already, so she, Choji, and Kiba had started practicing Iryoninjutsu for their respective teams.

The Academy reform saw the introduction of Iruka and Mizuki to their class. The class had not taken well to Mizuki at all, but it's not like their academy instructors would teach them much anyway.

Iruka had been in full-support of their little study group, despite a clear disdain for Naruto, and began throwing more advanced content at the group, allowing them to research and report to him instead of sitting through lectures.

Mizuki, despite being a walking pile of shit, was helpful in teaching them Taijutsu. The only person in the group using the Academy style was Sakura, so she needed the most help. Otherwise he helped make the individual styles of each member mix into the basics along with generally keeping them fit.

"Your tags are fine Sakura, they're not particularly efficient but you're also, you know, Nine, so that's irrelevant."

"You're younger than me and your's are perfect though!"

"And I come from a clan known for Fuinjutsu based *bloodline limits*, so…"

"Doesn't mean I like feeling inferior."

"Couldn't tell."

"Shut up."

"Will do. Anyone else done?"

They went on like this for a couple hours before calling it a night. This hadn't been what Naruto was expecting from life, but having friends wasn't at all unwelcome.

He made it home and went up to check on his now rather luscious garden. Sometimes Into or Hinata came over to help him. He had taken over the top of the building over time, the value of the building dropped so far that he had been slowly buying rooms one at a time until he owned the four top floors. He had turned the roof and balconies into gardening space, it was his only hobby at this point other than writing seals.

Money came from selling seals and modified kunai. The business made more than he thought he would, as Ninja made as much as civilian royalty and paid heavily for equipment. He knew a lot of 'commissions' came from the Hokage as some sort of guilt pay to his ward, though.

Most of what Naruto grew was for his own diet, but he kept a lot of flowers and poisonous plants as well. He liked to plant in such a way that it created what he called 'organized greenery chaos'. There was no defined pattern in the way he grew his flowers and vines, making a beautiful display that even the most violent of his 'fans' wouldn't destroy.

He even made a Bench for the ANBU in the middle of his Lily garden.

After making 20 or so clones to water everything for the day, he went into his bedroom to finish a storage seal he'd been working on.

The plants calmed him so he could focus on the intense mental calculations he had to go through to make the 'stasis seal' work. The seal was technically far beyond his current capabilities. He did what he could every day, but his current attempts were futile.

The idea was to have a matrix that would separate a 10 x 10 x 10 meter space from the surrounding flow of time, effectively 'freezing' everything in the space. A secondary seal would then reduce everything inside into a storage seal or just...destroy it.

Currently he was on the 'stop time' part.

'Fucking math'

-----

Sasuke stood in his Dojo. He went there every day to practice his Sharingan.

It baffled him to this day, just *why* Itachi had done what he did. To take out every adult in the clan, then give two remaining members the most powerful form of the Sharingan.

He remembered his brother's face that night. The remorse in his eyes as he stood above their parents' corpses. He had never seen Itachi cry. Then everything went black, and he woke up with his own father's eyes.

Izumi had been his comfort since that day. She had kept him sane, while handling the 22 younger orphaned Uchiha with a grace he hadn't expected from her. Most of the children went to foster homes in the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi clans, with one going to the Abrame.

It was Izumi that had dragged his body to the hospital, who had helped him clean the blood at the compound over months.

She had smiled bigger than he'd ever seen when he slipped and called her Kaa-san a month or two ago.

But it still bewildered him as to why she and him had been Itachi's 'chosen'.

He had made a vow to himself that he would find out why Itachi had been forced to kill his clan and Sasuke knew he *was* forced.

For now, he would train.