Rasengan Training (Short) [A month before the Last Chapter]

"Here you go, Ki-chan. Some water balloons like you asked."

My smile grew three sizes this day once I heard the hearty thump of Tsunade setting the overfilled barrel of jostling water balloons on the ground next to me. I bounced in place at the sight of my first step towards making one of the most iconic jutsu in Naruto ever. The Rasengan.

Thrilled, I rushed over and hugged Tsunade's waist and excitedly thanked her, for once acting like a rambunctious four-year-old than my usual weird, eccentric self. "Thanks, Tsuna-nee! You're the best!"

Her smile was mirthful as she ruffled my hair. "Honestly they're just water balloons, there's no need to get so excited over something so simple." True, but you're only saying that because you don't know their true purpose! Muahahaha!

And so, after I was given a stern warning about not going around and causing too much trouble (especially for her) with them, Tsunade let me off with pat to the back to return to whatever duties that demanded her time. Which left me to my own devices, and so I ran!

I ran so fast as my body allowed me to as I vacated the premises of the compound, zipped through the busy streets of Konoha and rushed through the thick brush of the familiar forestry that was within the village's walls. In my old life, I would have already been exhausted as soon as I left through the compound's front gates. But not anymore now.

I was fast. Faster than any other four year had any right to be, and it was all thanks to mother being the terrifying spartan trainer that she was. My speed was par for the course for most clan children who were my age, but I'd have to say that I was a bit faster than my old pals. Okay…so my only real competition in terms of speed are Tsume, Nonou, and Hizashi (haven't had the opportunity to race against Hiashi lately, between his new duties being taught to him in the Main Branch, he rarely hangs with us).

Choza didn't find fun in games involving the need to run, and he freely admits it whenever he opts out to simply watch the clouds with Shikaku whilst eating potato chips.

Inoichi would much rather read than run, but there were a few times that he caved into good old peer pressure.

And Shikaku, well, you don't need me to explain much more beyond him being a Nara.

Out of my age group, I was indeed the fastest.

Beyond that I'd rank myself the second strongest. What? He might not have been Hashirama, but my grandfather was still quite the shinobi and a Senju to boot. So natch, I inherited the clan's natural strong body and vitality along with whatever cool traits that I got from mother's side of the family tree.

Not saying that I'm beginning to destroy boulders with a single finger like Tsunade and recently Nawaki, but I'm certainly stronger than any four year had any right to be. The honor of physically strongest went to Choza, an Akimichi.

The most skilled went to Hizashi, but until Hiashi ever decides to grace us with his presence, it'll be hard to get a definitive answer on which of the twins will get that title.

The most intelligent went Shikaku, obviously. Coming at a close second was Inoichi and I'm at third place.

Finally, the one with the most reaction time was obviously Tsume. The Inuzuka clan literally took on the traits of their loyal companions, ninken. So, her being able to avoid getting knocked on her ass by a stray ball thrown by yours truly at quite the speed was natural. I also came in second to her while the next person that I knew with the better reaction time was Minato.

We might have only played once so far (man, I have to seriously find a way to coordinate times when we'll see each other) but those rounds of blindfolded tag and regular tag showed me how amazing he was reflexively. Plus, he was an orphaned civilian kid, so that by itself was incredible.

Now why was I randomly sharing news of how I ranked myself and my friends in terms of skillset during my quick little run to Senju Park? Just to pad out the time while I take in the beautiful sights of the village and try to outrun the two hidden chakra signatures following me. I knew it was a lost cause trying to shake father or Danzo's ROOT agents, but the challenge to just blip out of their range and freak them out felt more appealing to me.

Also, I needed to find out a way to secure a secret location for any secret training that I want to keep from prying eyes, so using these two bozos would be perfect for that one day.

After a few more minutes of traversing through the thick, tall tree forestry of Senju Park, I found a familiar forest clearing to finally put down the water balloons and take a short breather. Yep, Senju Park. Sort of like how Nara have their own portion of land that inhabited their lovely deer, the Senju clan simply owned multiple acres of forestry across the village.

And considering we lived in the Hidden Leaf Village, that meant quite a substantial amount of land especially since one half of the village's foundry and my clan's most influential clan leader literally grew everything himself. So that would by extension lead to automatic dibs over land. Senju Park was and wasn't the exception.

You see during the times that father and mother took me on lovely strolls through this large expanse of nature, father shared a tale that surprised me. You remember that image of Hashirama and Madara shaking hands around their clan members to signify peace between them? That was done here in Senju Park, except it wasn't called that back in the day. It was called the Forest of Reconciliation.

Grunkle Hashirama created the thick brush to give both clans privacy from the other worried ninja clans that were desperate to keep apart the two most powerful clans in the world from burying the hatchet. The land would soon be shared between the Uchiha and Senju…for a time. When I asked father why the name was different and how we became the sole owners over it, he gave me that nostalgic, strained smile of his and told me that after the passing of the First Hokage, things just…changed.

I connected the dots, then sought the clan's archives for further answers and clarified my suspicion. Yeah, so…Grandpa Tobirama was…ugh, it gets so political…

So essentially the Uchiha are still essentially mentioned on the plaque for being half of the clan that represented that founding of Konoha, but they were officially filched of half of their ownership of the land when Grandpa Tobirama became Second Hokage and implemented the Uchiha Police Force into the village. The Uchiha were still given land, but the land that they did have that was much deeper in the village's center was essentially repossessed?

Again, another in-depth look to how reasonable and unreasonable the grudge that the Uchiha clan has against my clan.

But enough about my uncomfortable family history! Its time to get started on the first towards making a real-life rasengan…and actually succeeding. The area was wide and gave me a good view of my surroundings, makes me glad that I paid attention the many times that parents brought me here to memorize the path.

"Okay…" I took a deep breath, grabbed a water balloon from the basket and intently looked at it. I slowly recalled my knowledge on the steps that I needed to take in order to burst the balloon.

So first: Rotation.

I swiveled the contents of the balloon in my hand in mock demonstration of what I needed to do with my chakra. My chakra must be expelled and spun in multiple directions at once.

Second: Power.

Then I had to increase the density and volume of my chakra from it's normal output, which would work best with air balloons.

Thirdly: Containment.

Finally, I'd have to use the past two steps in order to contain the shape of my chakra into a sphere, which I could then use the balloon as a benchmark to measure my progress.

They were all easy steps to understand.

So, I believe that I could naturally get this down pat by the end of the day…NOT.

Chakra control is a necessary factor needed to help give me an easier time on what I'm doing. I've been getting better with tree-climbing, but I've barely begun to dip my toe in to water walking exercises with Uncle Cyclops yet. Meaning, my prowess with gathering and maintaining chakra would be sufficient (tree walking), but my ability to release a steady amount of it (water walking) was still sorely lacking .

Well, I thought the latter to be true, unless me struggling to stick a leaf on my finger for most of my new life before getting taught to climb trees by Uncle Cyclops counted. Using a steady stream of chakra to attach a part of my body to a different surface and maintaining that chakra to keep the new surface attached.

Hm…

I guess I better put into practice…if this young body of mine could actually keep up with the rigors for attempting this training. Yeah, unlike Naruto, I'm going to be struggling with this. I was essentially 8 years younger than him when he took a crack at this because despite me still technically being a descendant of a Senju and Uzumaki (thank you, Grandma) I was still a kid with developing chakra reserves that wouldn't come close to a much older Uzumaki Jinchuriki to the Nine Tailed Fox.

Or it could and I might have some leeway to use more rasengans than the average shinobi and half as much than what Naruto is capable of, but that's the future, this is the here and now…

And right now…I'm just going to take a crack at developing the jutsu with this water balloon. I closed my eyes and focused. Drawing upon the warm hodgepodge of energy in my core was basically second nature to me now, and guiding it through the chakra network in my body to the hand holding the balloon was not as taxing as I thought. I felt the balloon begin to thrum and vibrate in my hand as it began to fill with my inner energies.

Good. First substep to step one, complete. Now I have to concentrate and steadily release a stream of it into the balloon like so…

It jostled in my hand for a moment before it returned to thrumming in place.

Okay, I got it move just a little bit, so progress! If I could just…

I concentrated and focused on moving what amount of chakra in the balloon to swirl it's contents.

Again, it wibble-wobbled for a second before it lamely thrummed in my hand.

…This was going to take a while…

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

And it did!

…take a while. It did take a while. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

The sun was already beginning to set, and I was down to like 3 water balloons. Don't take the decreased number of the items to mean that I've been succeeding because that would be fucking lie! Moving my chakra to the balloon was easy but getting it to swirl the water in it was a whole other story. Each attempt that I made to swirl it came up short.

It would jostle for a while before returning to be inactive. It sucked!

I wasn't pissed, but I was frustrated. So frustrated that I popped a majority of the balloons in my hand just to get some revenge (I just wanted to vent) for denying me what I wanted. And like with anyone who sought out revenge, you never turn out satisfied in the end.

No, by the end of it, you're dragging your sorry ass back home drenched in water and itching in places you wouldn't have thought imaginable. Also, the chakra cost to maintain and use (struggle in vain) it to manipulate something else was exhausting for my impressive yet childish reserves of chakra.

*SIGH!*

Okay, that was day one on Project Rasengan. Today's failure was a little humbling for me. I knew that I wasn't going to master the rasengan in one go, but I at least thought that I could get the first step of rotation down pat. Egypt wasn't built in a day, and it took Naruto and Minato a considerable amount of time to form theirs (plus, they weren't infant-children).

Patience was key, and I'm bound to get it right sooner or later. My memory about how the technique is formed is flawless. I kept the memory of Naruto's training arc with the jutsu after watching it the first time through on Cartoon Network.

It was going to be a cinch.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Day 2)

"Dang…" Okay, I was able to get it to swirl back and forth twice. Progress!

Too bad that after that attempt, it went back to jostling once.

But…I can retrace my steps and get an idea for what I'm screwing up on.

Yep! I can already tell that I just made a small breakthrough.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Day 5)

"…" I glared at the unmoving balloon in my hand as it kept jostling without a single swirl from the water within.

I took a deep breath and calmed myself.

O-Okay, so I hit a roadblock, but I'll find my groove soon.

…Hopefully soon enough.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________(Day 10)

"Yes!" Guess who found his groove, yall!?

This guy!

I excitedly looked at the balloon in my hand that actually felt like it was swirling with the stream of chakra that I was beginning to start swirling in it. Yes! Finally, considerable progress at last!

*POP!*

Whoops! I got too excited that I popped it, but no worries, I still have a whole new batch of balloons to test it on. I had to hurry otherwise though. The whole sensation I felt when finally getting it right hadn't stuck yet.

So I'd need to hurry and be careful not to pop any more.

Tsunade was beginning to get a little (okay a lot) fed up with my constant requests for water balloons by the day. I really didn't want to further piss of my supplier any more than I had to. I had tried to look to Nawaki to purchase the objects for me as a back-up supplier but…___________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Day 7)

"Umm, Nawa-nii, what are we-?"

"Hold, Kisuke! Prepare yourself, for today, we'll finally take down the filthy Mutt Menace that is that bastard over there!"

"Who are you calling filthy mutt, Senju!?"

"You, you bastard! Now prepare for the first bath that you probably had in months!"

"Oh, it's on, tree hugger! Tsu-chan, with me!"

"YAHOO!"

I had no clue how things devolved into a straight up water balloon fight in the middle of town, but I wasn't going to question it this time! Let's freaking GO!

"*GASP!* Such YOOOOUTH! Brazen youth of Konoha, allow me to partake in your epic contest of might and gu-bwhaaaaarg!"

And with the arrival of Might Dai, who I definitely did not bean in the face upon his arrival, just officially made things into a party.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

What was supposed to be a productive day of training became one of the most entertaining moments in this new life.

Too bad that escalated a little too quickly when Nawaki started filling his balloons with Tabsco sauce and Koga used Hachika's…well, he used the ninken's fluids to get even with my cousin. Thankfully, Dai was there as a reasonable adult figure (for once) to stop things before either Tsume or I got hit in their crosshairs.

But enough about my cousin and his teammate making a fool of themselves, I had to keep my groove up and continue wor-!

My good mood fell once the loud slam of a familiar white tiger's large paw smashed down on the basket and popped all but one water balloon that rolled over to me. I slowly looked at it, then to my mother's towering tiger summon that was looking at me in annoyance.

"Little cub, I was roused by my slumber and requested by your unruly mother to bring you back." Ah, so he was pissed because he didn't catch his mid-day nap. Good to know.

Also it was so nice that he just so happened to land on my glorious basket of dreams and wonders (cheap water balloons).

I picked up the balloon and looked the tiger in the eye.

"…"

"Come, I won't tolerate for any foole-"

"You threw off my groove!"

Now I might have earned that rough trip back home with the collar of my top between the fangs of the soaked tiger summon, but I found that it was refreshingly worth it.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________(Day 19)

I never did manage to recover my groove since that day.

So it was back to me just flopping about with getting over my roadblock.

"Stupid Hageshi…" I spat and wasted another one of my water balloons by lamely throwing it across our compound's training ground and at unmoving hay target that hung from the gated walls.

"Is something the matter, Kisuke-sama?" I groaned and looked over at our current house guest and my old friend, Nonou. Uncle Cyclops dropped her off while he was busy preparing something with the Hokage and the other two members of the village's council with Aunt Koharu and Uncle Homura.

It was probably about that super important mission requiring the Hokage to join in with an elite task force of shinobi to the Kagero place.

Yep, you know those two old fogies in Naruto that kept being a pain along with Danzo? I've met them and they were pretty cool to meet. I was expecting to get annoyed if they tried to do the whole brick-walled shinobi spiel about needing to do this for the future good will of the village and blah blah like Danzo. But no, they were quite pleasant to have around when they visited.

Probably helped that I'm the grandchild of their old sensei, who's a weird prodigy (if that's what everyone thinks, then fine…) in his own right.

…Now I'm not heaping praises upon them, but they are still nice to have around. A bit cold around my mother for obvious reasons regarding her previous affiliation to Kumogakure, but nothing too much that earned my dislike. Heck, in comparison to Danzo, I'd say that mother and those two got along better.

Trust me, mother and Danzo should not be left alone, and god forbid if you try to break them up and you're not father.

"No, Nonny-chan…" I groaned and tossed another water balloon that barely reached three feet before splattering on the ground. "Also, you don't have to call me that."

"Call you what?" She tilted her head with the innocent curiosity of a child her age, but I sighed in frustration. Frustration that built up over the years since I've made friends with the adorable brunette. After a while since our first meeting, she's slowly started to get taken with adding the honorifics of "-sama" with my name.

It was concerning as it was too stuffy for my liking. I knew that Danzo probably had something to do with it, but if I were to ask Nonou, she would just deny it along with any accusation that she's addressing me this way because she was told to.

"Kisuke-sama. Just call me, Kisuke, Nonny-chan." She furiously shook her head.

"No, Kisuke-sama is Kisuke-sama." It almost made me mad to consider that she was aware of what she was doing, but no, along with that self-same answer I get for requesting her to just call my name, she kept that serious look in her eye. A serious look that shouldn't be displayed by a four-year-old girl like her nor my own that challenged her to reconsider.

"…What has you so dower, Kisuke-sama?" I sighed and gave up the drawn out staredown as soon as she changed subject. It was a good detour from thinking about my problem, but it only delayed it at best.

"I'm just being stupid…" I waved her off and buried my face into my hands.

"Stupid?" Ah, she did that cute tilt of her head, unlike me, she and the others were natural born talents with unknowingly weaponing their innocence. "Kisuke-sama being stupid?" You don't have to say it as if it's the weirdest thing to ever hear, ya know. "How?" She look at me in disbelief and it sort of warmed my heart that she thought so highly of me (I hoped that was the case).

"Lets just say…" Nope, don't want to accidentally spill about secret training, otherwise she'd just tell Danzo should he ask. Kind of like the time with that one visit that Danzo congratulated me on making a new friend as of recently.

…Yeah, you remember that other presence that was hidden and surveilling me at the park? That was Nonou.

Apparently, Danzo was beginning her secret ROOT training regimen thing with her a little early. Now I wasn't freaking out or shunning the guy when I pieced that together since Nonou wasn't being deployed on missions or whatever subterfuge that a young girl like her can pull off.

She was basically just shadowing me in silence and being super vigilant. There was no denying her chakra signature to me, so I tried to greet her, but like with every hide and go seek game that we played, she was just too difficult to find and track down. The effort was worth once I caught a glimpse of her once, but afterwards…bleh…

I just decided to let her do her thing, the same way that I let her do her thing with not wanting to see my other friends. She only seemed focused with hanging out with me which was concerning and sketchy…probably must be something to deal with Uncle Cyclops.

Still it was comforting and entertaining to feel her chakra signature spazz out whenever I accidentally go too far with my antics whenever she's hidden. Didn't miss the way her signature sizzled in anger whenever I had a bone to pick with Tatsuo, or the way her signature froze up in a panic when I crashed into that tree when I played blind tag with Minato.

I enjoyed having Nonou as a friend, and a sort of confidant whenever I wanted to vent or just randomly blow out the lines. Which made it difficult on what to say around her with Danzo as her guardian. Getting her to promise me that she wouldn't tell a soul would be extremely difficult for her unless I was specific to exclude Danzo.

Living with a guy like him was bound to instill such blinding obedience in her, and sometimes that obedience would sadly outweigh a promise between us…most of the time. A rare occasion here and there, but that's only when I have to share something REALLY personal with her.

"I've been struggling with trying to understand something with how chakra works…"

"Like?"

I blew my lips and looked to her with puffed out cheeks. "With how it rotates…" I've been going my notes from what I could remember on the Rasengan, but they've been annoyingly useless with solving this conundrum.

Was I missing some small detail that flew over my head when I tried recollecting it?

"Rotation?" Nonou that head tilting action is cute, but I'm too worked up to fully enjoy it…

…Ah, what am I kidding I could never get tired of that. "Yeah…it's like when we draw upon our chakra from our center and flow them out through our coils whenever Uncle Cyclops wants us to tree-climb."

"I see…" She nodded and scooched closer to me.

"Nonny-chan?" I blinked as her hand plopped itself atop my head and slowly rubbed through my mess of white hair. This was strange, but not wholly unwelcome. Usually, I would be the one giving her the head pats whenever she seemed down, and she really seemed to like them.

"…Hm…" She looked to be in deep concentration as her hand continued searching for…something. "There." Soon it stopped at the center of my head and really ground itself to feel the roots of my hair. "Counterclockwise."

"Eh?"

"Your chakra…it runs counterclockwise."

Say what? "It…does?" W-Was that a thing? "How could you tell?"

"Your hair…" She tapped her finger at my head's center.

That doesn't answer enough of the load of questions that I had in mind. "How can you tell just by feeling up my hair, Nonny-chan? Did you sense it through something?" Which would be a surprise if she did since she hasn't shown any signs of sensory capabilities, unless she's really good at hiding them (again, her guardian is Danzo).

She shook her. "Danzo-sama once told me that when manipulating chakra, a shinobi must be aware of the direction that their physical and mental energies flow to optimally manipulate their chakra. Going against that natural clockwise or counterclockwise flow would just make any manipulation of your chakra that much difficult."

Wait…was that even a thing in canon? Using my hair to determine how my body naturally flows chakra? It seemed so insignificant, but…maybe that's why I haven't been able to grasp the water balloon exercise yet.

I plucked another water balloon from the basket and really concentrated. Up until now, I've just been randomly trying to rotate my chakra in the hopes of making it burst. That was supposed to be the way, but I was getting so frustrated that I never took into account in which direction that I was supposed to spin my chakra then erratically spin it in all directions to make it pop.

And so…visually projecting what I thought was the counterclockwise flow in my head (if I was wrong, I'll just do it the other way), I flowed my chakra into the water balloon, and worked my magic.

First spinning it counterclockwise. The thrumming of my chakra soon evolved to an audible loud swishing within the rubber balloon. YES! It worked. Finally, I was getting somewhere. Now to really get to business!

"Kisuke-sama?" I was too enthused by the solid benchmark that I set with my newfound progress to give Nonou a response (sorry!).

I took a deep breath and focused. I felt the singular flow of the water begin to shake and quiver in my hand. Five seconds later and I could feel the counterclockwise rotation of the manipulated water begin to furiously spin in all directions. I could feel the rubber exterior of the balloon quake in my palms.

So close…

So…

…close…

Concentrate…

CONCENTRATE…!

*POP!*

"Success!" I jumped off my seating and fist pumped my now wet right hand in victory! I managed to get my groove back, solve my roadblock, and pop my first balloon all at once!

"Nonny-chan, I did it!" I happily turned back to the girl, who looked so crossed between awe and something difficult to discern in her eyes. But that soon ebbed away as her smile soon grow to be just as big as my own.

"Kisuke-sama, I'm so glad!" She hopped off from her place on the bench to run over to me and grab my hands. "I'm so glad that you were able to do it." I doubt she has a clue or any context on what I did, but the sheer joy that she had at my accomplishment was just too pure! Ugh, she was so close to matching Minato in that aspect.

Close, but not at that level yet, but still it was so cute and endearing. "It's all thanks to you, Nonny-chan! I couldn't have done it without your help!" Also Uncle Cyclops…you know just for this, I'll actually call him by name the next time that he comes over.

Once.

That seems like a fair form of recompense for indirectly helping me to form a rasengan.

"I'm so glad…" Her smile radiated even more joy. "I managed to make myself useful to you, Kisuke-sama! I'm so happy!" O-Okay, that comment sort of made it difficult to swallow that joyful smile. I really wanted to talk her out of that mindset that keeps rearing its ugly head out, but she was so happy (and I was still in the high of my success) that I just couldn't bear to correct her.

"Thanks, Nonny-chan, you're the best!" I patted her head and much to my surprise she patted my head back as well.

"You're the best, Kisuke-sama." She gently smiled.

"We're both the best!" I grinned and fit of laughter was shared between us as the scene of two young children patting each other's heads was plain to see for anyone that happened to stumble upon us.

"Now isn't this a lovely sight." Like father.

"Father?" I blinked in surprise with his arrival as he walked out towards us from the interior of the compound.

"Senju-hika, I wish that you had an efficient day and please allow this one to express her gratitude for allowing her into you residence." One-half of the head patting dropped our playful moment to graciously bow her head to him.

Father for a split second shared the same exasperated look as me and shook his head. "Like before, Nono-chan, you don't have to be so formal whenever you wish to visit." He sighed and tiredly smiled. "I swear, I'm beginning to worry that Shishou will transform you to become just as stiff as he is."

Sweet, adorable Nonou as stiff as Danzo? Yeah, right as if I'll let that ever happen! I'd rather die than let her become as cold-hearted and calculated as Uncle Cyclops.

"You're presence here as a close friend of Kisuke's and the clan is enough to at least not be so high strung with such posturing, yes? So, relax…" Father's gentle words did inspire Nonou to raise her head, albeit with hesitation.

"H-Hai, Senju-hika…"

"Again, you may call me Tanjiro-san, Nonou-chan, such formality isn't really-."

Nonou furiously shook her head and a bout of deja vu hit me. "No, Senju-hika is Senju-hika."

"I-I see…" Father looked to me for support, but I exasperatedly shook my head.

"Nonny-chan is very stubborn, father."

"It would seem so." His gaze lingered on the girl for a while. W-Was he remembering something or someone, I have no clue. Again, ninjas make it so hard to read their emotions sometimes.

Shaking his daze off, he turned to look at both of us. "Now what were you two getting all excited about?"

Crap…I have to think of somet-aha!

"Nonny-chan just helped me figure out a tough chakra theory question that Kiyo-nee gave me when last week." Time to test out my skills in deception. It was a simple fib that couldn't be too hard to muck up. I gave Nonou a look for a split second when I noticed her raise an eyebrow at me.

She immediately complied with my wordless request and nodded along with me.

"Oh, really?" Father's smile grew and I couldn't help but notice (and yet again not decipher) that look in his eye as it directly focused on me.

Pulling the wool over a shinobi's eyes was incredibly difficult, but pulling the eyes over my father, the son of THE Tobirama was seemed next to impossible. Hell, even the wily Nawaki can't even get away with trying to sneak curfew without father making a shadow clone to subdue the poor boy's distraction shadow clone and his real self before tying him upside down on a tree outside for the whole night (heh, irony).

I gulped, ready for him to blow my lie out of the water.

"Okay." But I was instead floored by his sudden acceptance.

"R-Rea-?" I coughed and steadied myself. Couldn't give myself away. "I mean, great! Glad that you understand, father!" Now to switch subjects. "Anyway, father, you're finally back and early too!" As of late, he's barely been home as much as I would like. But like I told myself countless times, I wasn't going to be a Boruto.

I understand my father's duties as a shinobi and now director over ROOT (though I still lack full context to what the organization does in comparison to it's canon counterpart). The fact that he's actually making time to come home and visit us without crashing on the couch (*COUGH!* Naruto *COUGH!*) made it easier to adjust to his long absences.

He happily nodded. "I managed to get afford myself a brief reprieve for the rest of the day until dawn tomorrow." Which was probably the best he could manage, especially with the hectic Kagero mission popping up and having our Hokage participate in it away from the village. "I wanted to see if we could catch up on your kenjutsu training with a touch of seeing your progress under Aunt Mito in regard to your fuinjutsu."

"P-Please!" I hoarsely clasped my hands together and begged.

Father coyly laughed at my display. "I see that in my absence that your mother has yet again taken it upon herself to train you, yes?" I numbly nodded.

In the event that father wasn't around to train my technique with the sword, he would at least try to get someone else to pick up the slack such as Uncle Sakumo, who was a damn good Master Swordsman himself. Also quite a bit of a hardass when it comes to teaching the art, but it was a beneficial experience.

After getting my shinai smacked out of my hands seventy five times by him, I was finally able to assume the correct stance and grip to wield a sword.

But Uncle Sakumo was quite a busy man like father and wouldn't always be around to help, and so that left mother…

And like how she handles my Taijutsu training, her spartan methods when it came to kenjutsu were just as brutal. She prides herself in her skill with the sword despite it coming up short in comparison to her contemporaries back in Kumogakure who threw themselves into the art while she fully subscribed her to full-on Taijutsu.

Swordsmanship and the ability to use Chakra Flow were their bread and butter, and mother sure loved to show me how true that is by demonstrating it in our spars. Of course, she hasn't gone to the point of using any chakra flow, but unlike father and Uncle Sakumo, she doesn't hold back. Or more like she's been far too rusty with the art that she can't hold back because at least with her taijutsu training, she knows not to accidentally knock me into unconsciousness with a concussion!

*SIGH!*

So learning under father would be a pleasant change of pace. "P-Please, father…" I begged.

"Of course." Thank you chad dad, I knew I can count on you. "And your welcome to join us, Nonou-chan."

"No, Senju-hika, this one couldn't possibly-!"

"Come on, Nonny-chan, it'll be fun!" And very useful for the future if you begin training to expand your repertoire this early.

"I-I…" She withered under the might of father and I's bright smiles. "If it is Kisuke-sama's wish, then I'll happily accept…" The father-son combo prevails again! Not even mother can get into a tiff with the both of us if we used our charm against her.

Also, not so nice to be on the other end of a stubborn friend, huh, Nonou? I snickered to myself.

"Now we can't get underway with anything with a mess like this…" Father pointed to the dregs of water balloon pieces across the semi-wet training grounds. "To attempt to train with such potential hazards on the field is dangerous, and I would very much like to avoid getting a scolding from your mother and Shishou in case either of you got into an accident, understood."

So basically: Children, clean up your mess.

"Yes, father!" I saluted, took Nonou's hand and began leading her to the mess we made. "Lets do our best, Nonny-chan!"

"H-Hai, Kisuke-sama!" Aw, she's so adorable when she gets red like that. Must really be excited to train and hang out with father and I.

"By the way, Kisuke-chan?" I stopped in my tracks to notice father now carrying the basket of water balloons. His question quite obvious and didn't need saying since he gave me a weird, inquisitive smile.

"O-Oh, Tsuna-nee has been helping me lately by buying a lot of those for me." I chuckled.

"I see…makes sense, I have been hearing a lot about these lately…" Father's smile grew.

"Y-Yeah?" I gulped.

"About some trouble happening down in the shopping district, regarding an all-out water balloon fight involving Dai. There were many complaints about most of said water balloons containing contents that were far from water…"

"Nawa-nii and Koga-nii were having too much fun." I didn't bother not trying to throw them under the bus, they really did take things too far.

"It would seem so, and it also means that I'll have to have a quick chat with Nawaki when he returns home." Oh, that wasn't a good smile on father's face. Rest in Peace, Nawaki. "But I see that you've been enjoying yourself with these, so I won't say no to you wanting for more in the future."

"R-Really?"

"Of course, its not everyday that you willingly ask for much or anything this mundane, Kisuke-chan. So just enjoy yourself…" He flippantly waved at me.

L-Look, I know that I'm basically an older soul in the body of a young child and acts and does things from away the norm, but you don't have to look so relieved when I actually choose to do something normal for my age.

"I only hope that your enjoyment with these water balloons bears you the results that you seek."

"Huh?" I didn't catch that last part as father was already treading his way to a nearby bench while picking up…some ice off the ground where I successfully popped my balloon…wait…where did that come from and why did the piece look so black?

After that day, I soon realized and pieced together what my father's Kekkai Genkai was, especially after another extensive look at my family's recorded tree in the compound's archives.

Still had no clue about that black piece of ice though…

___________________________________________________________________________________________________(Day 27)

"Kisuke?"

"Yes, Minato you wonderful, curious lambchop?"

"W-Wha-!" Hah, compliment was super effective! "Why are we playing with water balloons?"

"To be the best, Minato…to be the best…" I sagely nodded.

It just so happened by "coincidence" that we met up in the same park and sitting under the same tree where we first met like the last couple times that we met again. No seriously, I was angrily dropped off here by Tsunade after father convinced her to keep buying more balloons and take me out to play. Obviously, the task of purchasing a basket full of balloons and having to fill them up almost daily have begun wearing her nerves (not her pockets though because in the grand scheme of things they were gosh darn cheap).

To be honest if father hadn't been insistent with her, she probably would have cut off my supply. It was also odd that father encouraged her since it seemed pretty wasteful to indulge in my sudden mundane interest in them.

…Meaning, he probably has an inkling of what I'm doing…probably. Look, I'm in a ninja world and it's hard to get a definitive thought of any of these guys, okay?

Now here I was…about to introduce my new friend (and partner), to the first step of a jutsu that he created in another parallel timeline or dimension…

Confused, the poor boy looked to water balloon then back to me in question. "To be…the best?"

"Of course! This is only the pathway to bettering your chakra control, but also to a totally neat and original idea that I have in mind!" I bit down the guilt I felt when I felt Minato's eyes glimmer in admiration as he excitedly leaned closer to me.

"R-Really, Kisuke? That's amazing what's your idea about!?" Guh! Don't look so happy, I'm basically plagiarizing your jutsu from another life, man!

"Well, it involves making this balloon." I steadied a balloon in my hand, and sent my chakra into it.

"Mmm-hmm!"

"Go POP!"

A moment of silence occurred as the rapid multi-directional spiraling of my chakra and the water in the balloon ceased.

…

"E-Eh…?"

"N-No, wait, let me try again…" I desperately concentrated once more and…

*POP!*

"Like that, it involves making that balloon pop like that." I coughed to myself to hide my earlier embarrassment.

Yeah, I still haven't gotten the water balloon exercise to a T yet. I could do a couple of times, but the success to failure ratio was still in the latter's range. I couldn't push myself to do it for a whole day straight unless I wanted to have severe chakra exhaustion.

So before moving onto the air balloon exercise, I'd have to focus on popping ten water balloons in a row. Yeah, it's not going to be easy with my current age and body. It was definitely a miracle that I managed to be able to pop one at all.

"Wow! How did you do that?" My usually reserved friend gaped.

"That my good friend was the power of Rotation."

"Rotation?" I nodded to his query.

"Yep, all I did was spin my chakra all over the place in the water balloon then pop!" I flippantly explained with a twirl of my finger. "You just have to control your chakra to be injected into the balloon then get it going."

He frowned. "Sounds hard. I-I'm still trying to stick the leaves to my fingers for more than a minute like you said." Which was considerable progress since he literally started doing it this month while it took me a long while to get it down… Well, I was a really small infant when I tried this so that might have made my learning curve difficult back then.

"D-Do you really think that I can do something so advanced as this?" Ah, there goes that lack of self-esteem.

"Minato, you cherished little cinnamon roll." I ignored his precious, embarrassed squeaking to get to my point. "It's not a matter IF you can do it because you'll definitely get this down once you're ready." And by learning the Rasengan much early in his life, he'll be able to focus more time on trying to imbue his Chakra Nature into it with the time that his canon counterpart used just to create the base rasengan.

I took in a sharp breath and bitterly smiled. "And when you finally get this and the other steps that I have for the future down, I'll even leave naming any and variations of the base technique to you."

"REALLY!?" Wow, this has to be the first time that I've seen the boy literally explode with excitement. Only makes my horror/joy at giving him the trademark to name my original rasengan techniques worsen.

"Of course, pal." I patted him on the shoulder.

"Oh! Oh! Then can I name this water balloon exercise the Rapid Swirling Tidal Trial of Light and Dark!?"

The fuck?

I did my best not to grimace at the cringe of that name alone. Like where did he even get the Light and Dark part from. "Well, I don't think the water balloon exercise needs a name, but I-I like your enthusiasm, pal."

"A-Are you sure because I have a ton of other names that can really work for it like-!"

And like that I was subjected to the cringest park visit of my life by hearing Minato list off the most complicated and hard to spell names that I have ever heard in my new and past life. Not even canon Minato's weird ass names were nine characters long!

Ugh…

Though it did make me happy to see my new friend happy, and the small success of my Rasengan training did lessen was a nice touch.

Also, a part of me couldn't wait to employ one of my techniques and look at the faces of my enemies as I speak out Minato's long ass and ridiculous name at them.

It'll be glorious.

I leaned back and grimaced as my hand sunk into some black, murky as hell water that stained the grassy and dirty ground. "Yuck!" I shook it off and returned to listening to my friend rave on about whatever ridiculous naming scheme that seemed to pop up in his head.