Hokage's Office (Tsunade POV)
The Hokage's office smelled of ink and old storms.
Stacks of papers crowded the desk, but Tsunade's gaze fixed only on one scroll.
Jiraiya's handwriting. Sharp. Careful. A hand that wanted no one to mistake its meaning.
She read the line again, lips tight.
—The brat's "Rasenringu" has surpassed A-rank. I classify it as S-rank, incomplete but stable. A ringed spiral sphere reinforced by chakra rotations, capable of cutting, piercing, and detonating. Its destructive radius approaches that of a bijūdama. If he stabilizes the core, it may rival one.
The words sank into her chest like a weight.
"An S-rank… just shy of a tailed beast bomb," she muttered.
Her hand hovered over the sake bottle at her elbow. She didn't touch it.
Minato's Rasengan was genius. But this? This is a step beyond—into the fox's domain.
Her jaw tightened. Pride, fear, responsibility—all twisted together in her ribs.
She read on.
—He nearly shredded his forearm forcing containment layers. Two clones dispelled from overload. Learned faster for the mistakes. He laughs through blood. The fox mocks him, then corrects him. Somehow, they make it work.
Tsunade pressed her palm to her forehead. "Idiot brat… reckless like his father."
The door opened quietly. Shizune slipped inside, brush and board in hand. "You called, Lady Tsunade?"
"Shut the door."
Shizune obeyed. Tonton padded in after her, curling beneath the desk.
Tsunade tapped the scroll. "The brat's made an S-rank ninjutsu. One that almost mirrors a bijūdama."
Shizune's breath caught. "That's—surely impossible."
"Impossible?" Tsunade's tone was sharp, cutting. "You've seen him. He eats 'impossible' for breakfast."
Shizune faltered but said nothing.
Tsunade's eyes dropped to the next lines. She read aloud, voice low.
—Told him the truth about his parents. He already knew. Didn't break down. Said it felt like wearing a coat he'd carried all along. Claimed his father's fire, his mother's guts. He knew I was his godfather before I said it.
Her heart clenched. "…Already knew?"
She shut her eyes briefly. How? Whose voice told him? The fox? Or something deeper?
Her eyes snapped open. "Shizune."
"Yes, milady?"
"Effective immediately: Naruto Uzumaki's file is sealed. Classified above ANBU. Not the Council. Not the elders. Not Danzo. If anyone asks, you tell them he's learning how to sit still. Nothing more."
Shizune quickly jotted the order.
"Double patrols on the northern routes. Akatsuki won't walk in—they'll seep in through cracks. Seal those cracks."
"Yes, milady."
"And…" Tsunade hesitated, voice softening. "Keep an eye on Hinata Hyūga. Don't let anyone tell her to shrink herself. If she wants strength, we make room. She's one of the few bonds that brat will listen to."
Shizune blinked, then nodded slowly.
Tsunade leaned back, staring at the Hokage Monument through the wide office window. Minato's stone face stared back. Calm. Distant. Heavy with expectation.
"You'd laugh, wouldn't you?" she whispered. "Or worry. Maybe both."
The scroll still burned in her hands.
—Approaches bijūdama output.
Not the growth of a boy. The growth of a weapon. A weapon she was sworn to protect and yet feared losing control of.
Shizune's voice trembled from the side. "He's… still just a boy."
"No," Tsunade said sharply. Her hand curled into a fist. "He's Minato's son. Kushina's son. And Konoha's jinchūriki. He doesn't get to be just a boy."
Silence filled the office, heavy as thunderclouds.
Finally, Tsunade set her brush to parchment and dictated her reply:
"Tell Jiraiya three things. One—if he teaches Naruto the Flying Raijin before that brat masters the formulae blindfolded, I'll kill him. Two—when he inevitably does, start with theory, seals, and ethics. No shortcuts. Three—bring the boy back alive."
Shizune hesitated, but scribbled every word.
When she left, Tsunade lingered. Alone, she touched the bottom of Jiraiya's report, where he'd doodled a smiling toad. Childish. Infuriating. Comforting.
She wrote one more note, this time in her own hand.
—You're a fool, Jiraiya. If you die, I'll kill you. Teach the boy as if the world depends on it—and as if he's still a child. Because both are true. And when you tell him about Minato, don't tell him a legend. Tell him Minato snored. Tell him Kushina laughed when angry. Tell him they loved him in advance.
She sealed the message for the next toad.
Her hand drifted to the sake bottle once more. This time, she left it closed.
Instead, she raised two fingers in salute toward the Monument.
"For his sake," she whispered to the silent stone.
The village outside breathed on, lanterns glowing, roofs whispering in the wind. And for tonight, that was enough.
Training Plateau(Naruto POV)
The night sky was wide, a black canvas brushed with faint stars.
Naruto sat cross-legged on a stone plateau, wind tugging at his orange cloak. His clones flickered and popped in the distance, training with a steady rhythm.
But his real focus was inward.
Water lapped at his ankles. The damp, echoing corridor stretched endlessly, ending at iron bars. Beyond them, two massive eyes glowed red.
Kurama's tails swayed in the gloom. The air was heavy with his presence, suffocating yet familiar.
"You again," Kurama rumbled. His voice reverberated like thunder rolling through stone. "What madness are you bringing me this time, jailor?"
Naruto met his gaze. He didn't flinch. "Rasenringu isn't enough."
Kurama's lips curled back from his fangs. "Isn't enough? Fool child, you wield an S-rank technique that brushes against my own strength—and you call it not enough?"
Naruto's hands tightened into fists. His voice was quiet but certain. "I know what's coming. Madara. The war. Bijūdama won't be just something I have to block—it'll be something I have to answer."
Kurama's tails lashed against the bars, sending water rippling at Naruto's feet. "You speak as though you've seen it."
Naruto's heart pounded. He hesitated, then forced the words out. "Maybe I have."
For a moment, silence pressed down heavier than any chakra.
The fox's eyes narrowed. "Prophecies. Dreams. Or something darker. You carry knowledge you shouldn't. That stinks worse than fate."
Naruto's voice steadied. "Call it whatever you want. I don't care. What matters is using it."
Kurama snorted, a low growl vibrating the chamber. "So what now? You intend to mimic a tailed beast bomb with your human toy?"
Naruto's eyes sharpened. "Not mimic. Refine."
Kurama's laughter shook the walls. "Refine? You think you can improve on my jutsu? Boy, my chakra condenses the very laws of nature into singularity. Your pitiful spiral sphere is a candle beside the sun."
But Naruto didn't retreat. He stepped forward, until the bars' chill brushed his fingertips.
"Then teach me," he said. "Tell me what makes bijūdama what it is. If my Rasenringu's just a candle, I'll forge a lantern to hold a sun."
Kurama's eyes blazed, but in them flickered the faintest ember of respect. "Hmph. Reckless. Idiotic. Suicidal. Fine. Listen well, brat. Our power is not spun. It is compressed. Yin and Yang, malice and will, pressed tighter than the earth's core. Balance is the prison. Shape is the key. Fail, and you'll rip yourself apart from the inside."
Naruto nodded once. "Balance and compression."
He formed a clone beside him. The copy grinned. "Guess we're about to blow ourselves up, huh?"
"Yeah," Naruto muttered. "Let's not."
They extended their palms together. Chakra bloomed—blue spirals, familiar, stable. The first ring formed, humming like a turbine. Then Naruto forced it inward, tighter, smaller, dragging the energy toward the center.
The clone gritted his teeth. "Too much—shearing—!"
The rings buckled. The sphere shrieked, unstable. It burst, tossing Naruto backward into the water.
"Ugh!" He spat, shaking his stinging arm.
Kurama laughed, a low, cruel rumble. "Already failing at the first step."
But Naruto pushed himself up, grinning despite the ache. "Good. Means I'm close."
Again.
They tried once more. This time Naruto visualized a marble. A tiny, dense core—not spread wide, but clenched tight, a bead of contained destruction. The rings spun around it, faster and faster, forcing it to stay.
The core glowed. White-blue, trembling, but holding.
Kurama's eyes narrowed. "You actually…"
The clone vanished as the sphere stabilized. Naruto held it alone now, sweat pouring down his temple. The chakra sphere hummed with a terrifying pitch, vibrating through the water.
"This…" Naruto gasped, "…is the next step."
The sphere detonated.
The world went white.
When his vision cleared, the plateau above him bore the scar: stone blasted into a deep crater, the walls blackened. Naruto panted, staring at his smoking hand.
"…Closer," he whispered.
Kurama loomed, his expression unreadable. "You walk a path no human should. That power belongs to beasts. Yet… you bite into it anyway."
Naruto smirked tiredly. "Then maybe I'm a beast too."
Kurama huffed, a sound between amusement and warning. "Careful, jailor. Keep walking this path and the world will call you monster long before hero."
Naruto's eyes burned, unwavering. "Doesn't matter what they call me. If it saves the people I care about, I'll carry both names."
For once, Kurama said nothing.
Outside on the first test. The training ground still smoked.
Chunks of rock lay scattered in jagged heaps, a crater yawning at the plateau's center like some giant's fist had smashed it. The night air reeked of ozone and burnt stone.
Jiraiya crouched at the edge of the pit that was a mile wide , one hand pressed against the ground. He traced a finger along the blackened cracks. His brow furrowed deeper with every line.
"…Brat," he muttered, voice low, "do you even realize what you've done?"
Naruto stood on the far side, panting, his palm still trembling faintly from the backlash. Sweat clung to his brow. But his grin was bright and unyielding.
"Of course I do. That was just the start."
"Just the start?" Jiraiya snapped, standing abruptly. His cloak billowed in the updraft of scorched air. "That blast—you compressed chakra into something just shy of a bijūdama! You're walking a knife's edge between genius and suicide!"
Naruto tilted his head, unfazed. "Then I'll learn to balance on it."
The fire crackled between them, a fragile heartbeat in the silence that followed.
Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. He saw Minato there—reckless confidence hiding razor focus. He saw Kushina too, stubborn defiance wrapped around a fierce heart. And beneath it all, something else. A pressure. A destiny straining at its leash.
"…Kid," Jiraiya said finally, softer now. "If the world knew you could do this, they'd stop calling you 'the Nine-Tails' and start calling you a demon in your own right. Are you ready for that?"
Naruto's grin faltered, but only for a breath. He placed a hand on his chest. "If it means I can protect them, then yeah. I'll take that name. I'll take all of it."
The conviction in his eyes hit Jiraiya harder than the blast crater had. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Damn brat… You'll give me gray hairs I don't even have left."
Naruto chuckled. Then his expression turned sharp again, serious in a way that made Jiraiya uneasy.
"There's something else I want you to teach me."
"Oh no," Jiraiya muttered. "Not another death wish."
Naruto stepped closer, the firelight catching on his whisker-marked cheeks. His voice dropped, low and certain.
"Teach me the Flying Raijin."
The night seemed to still. Even the fire crackled more quietly, as if it knew the weight of the words.
Jiraiya stared. His mind reeled. For a moment, he could only see Minato—smiling, flashing across battlefields faster than sight, a storm made flesh. Enemies dropping before they understood they were already dead.
"…Naruto." His voice was rougher than he intended. "That's not just any jutsu. That's the jutsu. Entire nations feared your father because of it. Whole wars bent around the thought of that kunai appearing in their midst. And you—what makes you think you're ready to bear that weight?"
Naruto's fists clenched at his sides. "Because I have to be. If I can make Rasenringu into something to rival bijūdama, then Flying Raijin is the next step. I can't protect anyone if I'm always too slow."
Jiraiya's jaw tightened. He wanted to say no. He wanted to tell the brat to slow down, to be seventeen, to eat ramen and laugh and stop sprinting toward the edge of the world.
But the firelight caught Naruto's eyes, and in them Jiraiya saw the same unyielding glow Minato had carried when he'd first unveiled the technique. A light that didn't ask permission.
Jiraiya exhaled slowly. "I couldn't master it, you know."
Naruto blinked. "…What?"
"I tried," Jiraiya said, folding his arms. "Your father's genius wasn't just talent. It was… surgical. He wove seals and space-time like threads on a loom. I'm a sledgehammer. He was a needle. I never got past the second step."
Naruto's lips curved upward. "Then I'll do what you couldn't."
Jiraiya's eye twitched. "Cheeky little—" He broke off, groaning into his hand. "Alright. Fine. I'll show you the theory. The seals. The risks. But don't think for a second that this is some weekend training exercise. Even Minato bled for this technique. You fail at the wrong step, you'll leave half your body behind in another dimension."
Naruto's grin widened. "Guess that means I'll just have to succeed."
Jiraiya sighed again, long and weary. He looked at the blasted crater one more time, then back at the boy standing before him.
"Minato," he muttered under his breath, "your kid's going to surpass you, and it's going to kill me before he gets there."
Naruto didn't hear. He was already scribbling patterns into the dirt with a stick, brow furrowed, muttering about seals and timing. The firelight caught his face, fierce and alive.
Jiraiya watched him, heart heavy but strangely warm.
Minato… Kushina… He's yours, through and through.
The sun hadn't even risen yet, but the plateau already looked like a battlefield.
The air shimmered with chakra, the ground cracked and groaning underfoot. Dust swirled in every direction. At the center stood Naruto, hands in a seal, grin sharp and unyielding.
"Alright! Let's do this!"
Poof!
Smoke erupted in waves.
One clone. Ten clones. Fifty. A hundred.
And then—
Boom!
A thousand Narutos filled the plateau, each one grinning like an idiot, holding identical kunai marked with freshly inscribed seals.
Jiraiya's jaw dropped. His pipe nearly fell from his mouth. "A—A thousand!? Are you insane!?"
"Probably!" the Narutos shouted in chorus.
The clones scattered instantly, some scribbling formulae in the dirt, others experimenting with kunai throws, still more trying to stabilize the teleportation anchor seal. The plateau became a storm of orange blurs and frustrated shouting.
"Hey, my kunai went backwards!"
"This seal looks like a ramen bowl—wait, that's actually kinda cool."
"Shut up, focus!"
"Dattebayo!"
The ground shook as fifty clones overloaded their chakra and dispelled at once, memories slamming back into the original. Naruto staggered, clutching his head. "Ow, ow, ow—man, it's like getting smacked with a hundred textbooks at once!"
From behind, Jiraiya's voice roared like thunder. "Textbooks don't explode when you mess them up, you reckless brat! You'll rip a hole in space and scatter your guts across dimensions if you keep this up!"
Naruto wiped the blood from his nose and grinned anyway. "Then I'll scatter them neatly!"
Jiraiya facepalmed so hard it echoed.
Deep in his seal, Kurama stirred, his laughter booming through Naruto's skull. "Idiot human! You think you can chew space-time like candy? You'll choke before you swallow it!"
Naruto smirked. "Then watch me swallow the whole bag."
Kurama growled, amused despite himself. "Hmph. If you manage it, jailor, the world won't be able to cage you."
Another fifty clones popped. Then another hundred. The feedback slammed into Naruto like a wave. He staggered, but didn't fall. His breath came ragged, but his hands never stopped forming seals.
"Too slow," he muttered, eyes blazing. "Not precise enough. Do it again."
The next thousand popped into existence. The plateau groaned beneath them. The sky itself seemed to wince.
Jiraiya stood at the edge of the chaos, half in awe, half in terror. He muttered under his breath: "Minato, Kushina… your boy's either going to surpass every Hokage that ever lived… or blow himself straight into legend."
Naruto didn't hear him.
He was already gone, lost in the storm of his own determination, chasing a flash of yellow across a battlefield only he could see.