Hokage Briefing and Family Conversation

Hokage's Office (Minato's Point of View)

Minato was having a great day. Everything was right with the world. He had finished with his paperwork early and there hasn't been a single complaint or emergency all day. Life was good. This was turning out to be his best work day in recent months.

That is until he heard a rapid series of knocks from a clearly panicked individual.

"Lord Fourth. I have something urgent to bring to your attention." Minato sighed.

'There goes the best day in recent memory. I guess I'll have to settle for best morning.'

"Come in."

The door opened, revealing Iruka Umino. Minato's tired expression went stern. If Iruka was here at this hour, then it was something likely related to the academy class his children were in. He was their teacher after all.

"What happened Iruka?" Minato asked impatiently.

"It's about your daughter sir. She did something outrageous and I'm expecting trouble with the Hyuga clan." Iruka said, causing Minato's vigilant expression to tighten as he sighed in resignation. He had expected something like this to happen, but wasn't this a little fast?

"What did she do?" Minato asked tiredly.

"Well, today she spared against Hinata and handily won." He started.

Lifting an eyebrow, Minato was failing to see what the problem was.

"After the match, Mizuki noticed a few instances where Hinata's Gentle Fist made contact with Kamui and didn't have an effect. The problem was that he asked for the explanation from her and she proceeded to provide it to the class." He continued.

Minato's hand covered his face as he started to see the problem. His daughter saw the world differently than others. She probably didn't realize that she was doing anything strange with whatever method she used. Based on previous interactions, she probably thought it was 'only natural' and 'basic'.

"She developed, in her words, a basic method to prevent Hinata's chakra from penetrating her skin. According to her, she partially transformed her chakra to lightning nature and coated herself with it. She then used the resulting frequency to disturb Hinata's chakra spikes before they even reached her body. According to her, she thinks it should work up to the jonin level and would trust it up to mid-chunin. She even mentioned that those estimates are based off the fact that she's currently an academy student and would likely adjust it at higher levels." Iruka explained resignedly.

Minato groaned into his palm.

"And you said she explained this to the class at Mizuki's request?" Minato asked realizing one of the problems. They already had suspicions concerning this instructor, but those weren't enough to act on. This was a big move on his part. Any sane ninja wouldn't ask something like this to be explained in a public setting, especially when it involves clan techniques. The fact that he did so is enough to consider him intentionally weakening the leaf village by revealing secrets in a semi-public forum. The fact that he was an academy teacher, the ones who are held the most accountable for these types of rules, made it worse. After all, academy instructors are in close proximity to the next generation of the various shinobi clans at all times. They were required to be solid on these issues.

"Yes, lord fourth." Iruka answered, while leaving out Hinata's acknowledgement. He knew that something like that was better left unsaid. He was probably the only one who saw the gesture anyways. Everyone else was focused on Kamui during the event. 'Let us adults take the punishment for this one.'

"How did she come up with something like this at an academy lecture?" Minato asked mostly to himself.

"Actually, lord fourth, she told us how." Iruka said prompting Minato to look at him, ready for the explanation.

"According to her, she read a journal at the public library from a merchant who pointed out that Hyugas never took missions to the land of iron due to the expectation of heavy armor. It even gave a basic explanation of what he noticed the Hyuga ninja was doing with the art during combat. Basically, she inferred that a barrier could be used as basic protection against the art. Her words were basically that the method was extremely simple and only worked because the gentle fist art was so basic a technique." Iruka said internally wincing at the look of horror on the Hokage's face.

"That was in the library!?" He shouted, causing the anbu hidden in the ceiling to flinch in surprise. Minato was rarely this agitated, but they definitely understood why he was in this case. Information like that should definitely not be sitting in the public library.

"According to her, it was verified by the Hokage, or at least it was marked as such. It was authored a couple of decades ago, so it would have been the third who lead the village at the time."

"No way. There is no way that's the case. Rabbit!" He exclaimed, causing a single anbu agent with a white rabbit mask to appear kneeling in front of him.

"Go to headquarters, build a squad, and conduct a full investigation on this section of the library. I want every book read and analyzed. Bring me every book that you even think should be reconsidered with an executive summary on your findings." He said shortly.

"Yes Hokage!" She exclaimed and vanished.

"Now, Iruka." Minato said as he turned his head toward the visibly nervous instructor.

"Bring Mizuki to my office. He will no longer be welcomed as an academy instructor and I would like to speak with him. Ibiki will want words as well." He said with a calm expression, causing Iruka to shudder in fear. This needed to be handled quickly and efficiently before the Hyuga came running into his office.

"Yes, Lord Fourth." Iruka quickly replied.

"Also, make sure every instructor knows not to question how my daughter does the interesting things she does. Her mind works differently than ours and I have no doubt that she will do something like this multiple times in the future. I will not stifle her creative mind as it will be a treasure towards the development of the leaf, but I will remind her not to explain her techniques out loud unless it has already been covered in class and to keep it at that level. If she is to explain something, you will review it in private to ensure she doesn't say anything troublesome out loud." Minato finished. "You are dismissed."

"Yes, Lord Fourth!" He exclaimed as the shadow clone popped.

"Really Kamui, your mind can be just as much trouble as it is a blessing." He said to himself.

Namikaze Residence (Dinner Time) (Kamui's Point of View)

Kamui arrived home a little later than usual due to training, just in time for dinner. Sitting at the dinner table, Kamui noticed that her parents were looking at her with weird expressions. Naruto was oblivious of the mood and her two Uchiha siblings, who decided to join, were looking at her with mirthful grins. Deciding to figure out what was going on, she asked the golden question.

"What's up?"

"Well, I heard that you countered the Hyuga's technique during class today." Mikoto decided to take the lead.

"Yeah. It wasn't too hard." She said as she sat down at the table. "Their technique was pretty simple. It was probably the junior version of their technique. My counter was pretty basic though. It's probably a widespread technique. I heard the Raikage of the cloud village are known for something similar, but more advanced." She said in a calm manner.

Kushina was doing her best to keep her laughter under wraps. It was hard though. This little girl basically deconstructed the Hyuga clan's foundational technique and called it basic. She even had the nerve to use the Raikages' usage of their lightning armor as a citable example of widespread usage.

"You think that technique was the junior version of their technique?" Kushina asked with clear mirth in her voice.

"Well, it has to be. With their eyes, I imagine they have expert long-bow marksman, special senbon throwing techniques, secret medical jutsu knowledge, and so much more. What Hinata showed was cool, but it was basic. There's no way that was anything but the genin-level technique." She said dismissing the notions that what Hinata did could be anything but the basics.

Kushina exploded in laughter with Mikoto joining soon after. Sasuke and Itachi eventfully joined in their own subdued way, while Naruto still didn't get what was going on. He wasn't familiar enough with clan politics to understand the situation; unlike Sasuke and Itachi, he was raised mostly as a normal kid and hasn't really started to learn much about being a ninja yet at Kushina's request. She wanted him to have the beautiful childhood she never had. Really, the main reason he started training recently was due to him having to go to the academy and having additional expectations on him for being the Hokage's son. A similar train of thought also applied to Kamui. She had just been conditioned by the entity inside herself to seek knowledge ahead of time.

"This is gold! She basically put the Hyuga on blast in front of every major clan in the village!" Kushina spat out through her giggles.

"Yeah…. Kamui." Minato said, getting her attention.

"Yes dad?" She asked innocently, starting to get a creeping suspicion that she may have done something ill-advised.

"What Hinata did was the foundational technique for the Hyuga clan's entire repertoire. There are a few long-distance variations, but that's it. What you did was give everyone in that classroom a technique to counter that and a development model of how to take it to higher levels. We're expecting some complaints from their clan tomorrow." Minato said sheepishly, slightly embarrassed for the Hyuga clan.

"That can't be. How could no one have developed a counter to their technique by now then? All it took was a small application of nature transformation." Kamui asked incomprehensively.

"You have to understand. Ninja battles are mostly fought covertly. There are overt missions where techniques are shown on full blast, but some clans don't take these. The Hyuga are one of those clans. There are only two instances where they blatantly show their technique. Academy spars and the Chunin exams. While there are plenty of instances of Hyuga clan members working in units with other shinobi, no one is thinking about how to counter their comrade's techniques. On the two occasions I did mention with inter-village shinobi fighting Hyuga, the participants are usually too young to identify a foundational level counter like that. The funny thing about clans is that they hate innovation. They will use the same techniques their ancestors developed hundreds of years ago and their children will do the same. Basically, you've forced their clan to have to develop a whole new repertoire of techniques to address the fact that our enemies will eventually find out what you just said and implement it. It's actually unprecedented funny enough." Minato explained.

"Good!" Kamui exclaimed, causing everyone in the room to look at her with incomprehension.

"A foundation set in such a way was weak in the first place. Now they have the drive and protection to fix it. If the third was still the Hokage, I'd be worried. With you though, the other villages still won't want to go to war with us. The Hyuga have time to fix this problem and come out better than ever! Plus, even if the enemy did learn the counter in the short term, it's not like the Hyuga clan members will be working by themselves too often. Shinobi work in squads after all." She said confidently. Her mind working in a manner incomprehensible to the trained shinobi in the room. Basically, she had called their method of relying on their techniques' natures remaining a secret, a massive weakness. She called their standard modus operandi as shinobi a foundational weakness. It simply went against the thought process shinobi were conditioned to operate under.

Minato chucked. "Well, I would agree. That said, as Hokage, I've let the academy staff know never to question you on your techniques and am requesting that you run any explanations you plan to give the students by Iruka before giving it to any member of the class. He's the instructor I trust the most at the academy and he has enough common sense to know what should be shared." He said with a smile. He really couldn't punish her. She was eight and had no comprehension of what was normal. She literally read a book, looked at the technique, and innovated. A mindset like that should be cultivated, not stifled. That said, safeguards will be built around her to prevent something like this from happening too often.

"Sure. I can do that. Are you going to be okay with the Hyuga though? For all my talk, I can still tell that they're going to give you a lot of lip." She asked with concern.

"Leave that to us adults. We'll handle this. There are cogs working in the background that you don't know about yet. We've got this handled." Mikoto said to reassure her daughter.

"Cool." Kamui said.

The large family proceeded to eat their meal in a festive manner. For all the seriousness of the situation, they were glad that someone from their family made such a discovery.

"Oh, Sasuke." Kamui called out.

"Yes Kamui?" He replied.

"Did you manage to find out your chakra nature." She asked, remembering their previous conversation.

"I did. Itachi gave me the test and it showed that I have an affinity for lightning." Sasuke said with an uncharacteristically wide smile. The result showed that he did have talent. It just wasn't in the standard fire style jutsu. He didn't have to feel bad that it took him longer to learn them.

"That's great! Hey Itachi, I'm surprised you didn't give him that first."

"Honestly, I didn't expect it to be a problem. I didn't think it mattered too much at the time. Even if he didn't have a fire affinity, he would still have to learn the Jutsu denoting the Uchiha rite of passage. It's the reason the Hyuga follow a similar principle in their clan. The required testing materials are expensive and are used sparingly. Considering Sasuke's still at an age where his chakra is at its most malleable, it's not standard practice to use it." Itachi responded, clearly not understanding the frustrations of his brother.

"Really, are we that short on litmus paper that the clans aren't able to use them freely?" Kamui asked.

"Not really." Her father started. "Litmus paper is used more by shinobi without clans to help focus their efforts. Despite the price, the leaf has plenty in stock; that's not the issue. It's just that clans in the leaf village are very stuck up on traditions in the types of techniques their children learn. Therefore, it's actually standard practice for the clan kids to get tested as chunin by their jonin instructors."

"That doesn't sound very efficient. Wouldn't it make the clans stronger if all their kids learned techniques that suited their natures at the start? These clan techniques sound cool, but it doesn't do anyone any good if the shinobi sucks at using them."

"Don't worry about it too much for now. It's just how the clans think. If you want to change it, become the strongest you can be, learn all you can, and then submit a proposal to those clans. If you're at a high enough level, it may be considered. What many don't know is that the second Hokage worked with the Sarutobi, Yamanaka, and Nara clans plenty of times to strengthen their clan jutsu. You could always do the same when you reach such a level" Mikoto interjected with her own thoughts.

"I guess I'll just have to do that then." Kamui said with a bright smile causing everyone to chuckle.