Whoosh!
Minato opened with shuriken.
Several wooden shuriken spread outward in a wide fan, covering the space around Mirai from multiple angles.
Ichimei Toriyama nodded approvingly.
Minato’s throwing technique was already comparable to a chunin’s.
Unfortunately, his opponent was Mirai.
“Adamantine Sealing Chains!”
Mirai swept one hand forward.
Two chains burst from his sleeves and whipped through the air, becoming weapons in their own right as they knocked every shuriken away.
Minato had clearly expected that result.
While Mirai was defending, he was already forming hand seals.
“Ninja Art: Clone Technique!”
An identical blond copy appeared beside him, and both rushed Mirai together.
The students watching immediately erupted.
“He already knows the Clone Technique?!”
“Isn’t the graduation test usually one of the Three Basic Techniques?
Doesn’t that mean Minato is only in second year and already meets the graduation requirement?”
“Damn it!
Minato Namikaze barely says anything normally.
How is he stronger than me?!”
Mirai watched the two Minatos approach, surprise flashing in his eyes.
‘Is this your tactic, Minato?’
Unfortunately for him, just like Naori, Minato didn’t know that tricks like clones and transformations were useless against Mirai.
Mirai admired the idea, but admiration wouldn’t make him hold back.
The clone threw a wooden kunai.
Mirai tilted aside and let it fly past him.
Everyone assumed that part of the attack had already failed.
Then the kunai transformed into Minato himself.
“Transformation Technique?!
When did he—?” Toriyama’s eyes widened.
He’d been watching from the beginning and hadn’t caught the moment Minato transformed into the kunai and allowed his clone to throw him.
Had Minato done it at the same time he created the clone?
Mirai, however, had known from the start.
Nothing based purely on visual deception could fool the Mind’s Eye of the Kagura.
What kind of normal wooden kunai was packed full of chakra?
A smile appeared on Mirai’s face as his chains swept across and stopped Minato’s close-range strike too.
‘Is that it, Minato?’
The thought had barely formed when something changed.
A shuriken suddenly shot from inside the clone Minato had left behind!
It was extremely close and moving fast.
Mirai only had time to turn his head slightly.
Whoosh!
The wooden shuriken grazed his cheek and buried itself in a nearby tree.
Mirai touched his face and looked at the smear of red on his fingers.
No wonder it stung a little.
Then he smiled.
As expected of Minato.
The initial shuriken had been a feint.
While Mirai’s attention was elsewhere, Minato used the Clone and Transformation Techniques together, turning his real body into the weapon carried by a clone.
After being dodged, he reverted at close range and attacked.
It was already reminiscent of the future Minato’s signature follow-up with the Flying Thunder God—only much more primitive.
But even that hadn’t been the real finishing move.
More accurately, Minato’s own close-range attack had been another decoy.
The actual trap was a delayed mechanism he had hidden inside the visual deception created while using the Transformation Technique.
A physical trap didn’t release chakra, so even Mirai’s sensory ability hadn’t picked it up.
Every step flowed into the next.
That was Minato’s tactic.
“Mirai, are you hurt?” Minato asked quickly, concern replacing his battle focus.
Mirai shook his head.
“I’m fine.
Minato, that was pretty good.”
He smiled.
“Tactically speaking, you won.”
Minato scratched his head awkwardly.
“Haha…
not really.
If we kept fighting, I’d be out of tricks.”
He’d already shown everything he’d prepared, while Mirai still had plenty of options left.
Mirai shook his head again.
“No.
A win is a win.
If this had been a real fight and you’d coated that shuriken with a lethal poison, I’d already be dead.”
Toriyama looked at Minato as though seeing a monster for the first time.
After a long pause, he finally announced, “Winner—Minato Namikaze!”
“Whoa!
Mirai actually lost to Minato!”
“How is that possible?
Wasn’t Minato basically invisible in class?
He’s from a civilian family too, right?”
“Now that I look at him, Minato’s actually pretty handsome.”
“The two handsome guys are making the Seal of Reconciliation!
That’s so cool!”
“Mirai’s still so cool even when he loses!
And he’s such a good sport too.
He’s nothing like those brats who throw tantrums whenever they lose.”
Several students were practically seeing stars.
Kushina and Naori rushed over as well.
The moment they saw blood on Mirai’s cheek, whatever rivalry they’d been preparing for was forgotten.
“Mirai, are you okay?” Kushina pointed anxiously at his cheek.
“I’m fine, Kushina.”
Mirai rubbed her head with a gentle smile.
The wound was insignificant.
If he hadn’t deliberately suppressed the chakra already stirring inside him, it probably would have healed by now.
After the Divine Tree had pushed his Uzumaki vitality to its limit, passive regeneration without hand seals had become normal for him.
Naori watched how naturally Mirai interacted with Kushina, her expression complicated.
Envy?
Jealousy?
Mixed into those emotions were concern and disbelief.
Mirai had lost.
To Minato Namikaze, someone she’d never even considered a serious opponent.
Did that mean…
she wasn’t even as good as Minato?
Naori spent the rest of practical class in a daze.
Her promised fight with Kushina was forgotten.
Mirai was actually a little disappointed that Kushina never got the painful lesson he’d expected her to receive.
She’d been so worried about him, and he was still thinking like that.
What a scumbag.
…
Time passed, and Mirai’s days settled into a full but comfortable rhythm.
He attended classes during the day and occasionally teased Kushina, enjoying the sight of her turning bright red while stubbornly enduring whatever he was doing.
During practical class, Minato and Naori took turns challenging him.
Once Mirai stopped underestimating them, however, he never lost again.
He rarely relied on the Adamantine Sealing Chains or Uzumaki sealing techniques.
Most of the time, he defeated them using taijutsu alone.
His loss to Minato had taught him an important lesson: even a lion used its full strength when hunting a rabbit.
Ninja were ultimately high-offense, low-defense fighters.
If you were killed, you died.
No matter how strong you became, caution was never a mistake.
As a result, Minato and Naori often suffered badly during their sparring sessions.
Eventually, even when the two teamed up, they still couldn’t defeat him.
And just like that, three years passed.
Early spring of Konoha Year 36 arrived.
The snow had not completely melted yet.
Standing in the corridor and looking out at the white patches in the courtyard, Mirai called toward the rooms behind him.
“Kushina, we’re going to be late.
Why aren’t you up yet?”
“Wait!
Mirai, I can’t find my hair clip!”
“Seriously?
Didn’t you put it on the nightstand when you took it off last night?”
“Oh…
it really is there!
Thanks, Mirai!”
A moment later, Kushina emerged with her long red hair neatly arranged, smiling brightly.
She naturally looped both arms around one of Mirai’s.
“Let’s go, Mirai!”
Three years had made the two nearly inseparable.
They had also shot up in height, both reaching around 1.4 meters.
Kushina, meanwhile, had begun to show the first signs of growing up.
As for why Mirai knew exactly where she’d left her hair clip the night before…
Don’t misunderstand.
Kushina had simply begged him to help dry her hair after her bath.
Her hair was so long now that when fully loose, it nearly reached her hips.
They were only ten years old.
Nothing even remotely like what certain readers might be imagining was going to happen.