Chapter 18 - Youth! (1/2)
Today was a Taijutsu training day at the academy, so Minato came by himself and not one of his clones. Speaking of clones, the number that he can produce increased a lot since the first time. He can now create how many he wants to, but not without a price.
With all the training he has done, because of his small body and small chakra reserve, and with the fact he doesn't focus only on raising his chakra level, he only has around mid-chunin level of chakra even after 5 months of intensive training. The more clones he creates, the less chakra he and they have. But the training he does not require him to burn through the chakra with a single jutsu, so he usually creates 10 of them, with each having around mid-genin level of chakra, any less and the training will become ineffective.
He trains by himself all things that have to do with the body, including the reflexes and muscle memories, while his clones take care of the training for his chakra control, genjutsu, fuuinjutsu, shunshin, henge, kawarimi, Hyper intuition ... And even if he has discovered that he possess the 5 elementals affinity, he still decides to shelve them for later, because it would take too much time to train them now, with no real use to them with chunin-level of chakra.
And today, instead of hanging out with the band, he decides to look for Maito Duy, having already completely mastered the Swift style body and mind, thanks to all the experience of Minato and the battle experience room in his mind, that work in conjunction with his body.
To outsiders, it looks like he battles an invisible enemy, while for him, Minato past adversaries that he choose attack him. He just visualizes all Minato's past battles, and recreate them in the real world. Unfortunately, such methods don't train the instinct of the body, after all, his body knows that he is not between life and death, and doesn't react like it would if he was in danger.
After Minato left, Kushina, Mikoto and Tsume went to Ichiraku Ramen, the three have received a good amount of money anonymously for their birthdays, which all of them know from where it came but didn't say anything. And so, even without Minato, they still have enough to pay for the ramen absorber Kushina. After finishing eating, they began one of their private girl's chat, but this time it was different.
”Minato is already so strong, but he still wants to master another Taijutsu style, compared to him my training seems pretty pathetic.” said Tsume, ashamed of herself for the first time.
”You're right, call it a gut feeling but it each time I spar with him, I have the impression that the gulf between us becomes bigger and bigger 'ttebane. All the training I do seem worthless, the stronger I grow the bigger the gap between us widened” Sulked Kushina, even ramen was not enough to lift her mood today.
After hesitating for a bit, Mikoto spoke ”Even with my father, the Uchiha clan head training me, I have the impression that his training is less effective than Minato's, even though he is an academy student like us.”
A light bulb went up on Kushina's head ”It's the solution! We must become Minato students!”
”But will he even agree? He must have some secret training method, and I doubt he will willingly spread it. After all, all our clans become stronger only thanks to some secret techniques” exclaimed Tsume, excited at the prospect of growing stronger but at the same time not expecting Minato to divulge his secrets to them even if they are friends.
”Tsume is right Kushina, it would be improper to ask him to teach us. And even if he was willing, if the higher-ups of the village discover it, they will force Minato to hand it over, or will take it from us” interjected Mikoto. Even if she wants to grow strong, she is not willing to put Minato in harm's way for it.
A troubled look appeared on Kushina's face. She doesn't want to bring any harm to Minato, after all the things he has done for her, and her secret not so secret crush. Tsume was the same, just unaware of it, and Mikoto haven't developed a crush on him but cherish him as a close friend.
”Well, Minato is the genius between us, so maybe he will have a solution” Raised Kushina while blushing. Even she was not so thick-skinned to ask for help and ask the helper to find a solution for said help.
”Hm, you're right, it's the only way to catch up to him anyway. If we don't even have the guts to try it, we won't even have the chance to stand next to him in the future, and I won't be left behind!” Declared Tsume passionately. Kushina and Mikoto agreed, instead of seeing the back of Minato's brillance, standing next to him and helping him is far better even if they have to suffer for it.