On the far side of the battlefield, Namikaze Minato stood balanced on a tree branch so thin it should've snapped under his weight—but it didn't even sway. His sharp gaze locked onto the emaciated enemy he'd just kicked away.
The man was already kneeling, flying through hand seals at high speed. No forehead protector—Minato couldn't even tell which village this guy belonged to.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter!"
Invisible blades of wind shrieked through the air, slicing the tree Minato stood on clean in half. The trunk toppled, crashing into another with a booming crack.
But Minato was already gone.
The enemy didn't let up. "Wind Release: Ripping Gale!"
More wind screamed forth, chopping every tree in its path like paper. A forest collapsed in a chain reaction, branches splintering in all directions. But Minato darted across the falling trunks with fluid precision, his movements always one step ahead of the storm. Not a scratch on him.
"Kid! Is running all you know?!" the man bellowed. He'd laid traps, feigned weaknesses, even baited openings—but the blond brat never fell for anything. Every time he tried to close distance, Minato just slipped further away, forcing him to stay put and waste chakra spamming ninjutsu.
Snarling, the man flung a handful of shuriken skyward, then clapped his hands. "Wind Release: Gale Palm!"
The gust turned the shuriken into a machine-gun hailstorm. "Doo-doo-doo!" The sound of steel shredded through trunks.
Minato flicked several shuriken backhanded. The enemy countered with another Gale Palm, swatting them away in a burst of wind.
Still, Minato didn't falter. He paused on a branch, calm despite the chaos.
"…At my current level, I can't beat you head-on," he admitted softly.
The enemy ignored him, spitting out another barrage of slicing wind. Minato blurred through them untouched.
"Damn brat!!" the man roared, charging with a kunai drawn.
Instead of retreating, Minato hung upside-down from a branch, hands flashing through seals. His voice was steady.
"Then I'll build my own strength. This is my first original jutsu—let's see if it works."
Air swirled fiercely around him, forming a spiraling sheath.
The man's kunai clashed against Minato's in a burst of sparks. A blink later, Minato vanished. The enemy whipped a kick backward—but Minato was already behind him, body gliding as if carried on the wind itself. Kunai rang out in a blur of clashes.
The man stumbled to the ground, eyes darting desperately. His blade slashed at empty air, each strike met with a metallic clang from nowhere.
"What the hell are you?!" he shouted, panicked.
Minato's form flickered, his body wrapped in a faint current of air. He explained almost casually:
"It's the wind."
The enemy squinted—and noticed it. A thin layer of airflow hugged Minato's body, letting him ride the force of any attack stronger than it. Kunai, fists, wind jutsu—all slid past him, letting him slip just out of reach.
"The Four-Style Dance of the Wind," Minato murmured. "A fusion of my chakra control and nature transformation. Great for dodging… not so great for attacking."
He ghosted around the man like a wraith, kunai darting from impossible angles. The enemy's swings cut nothing but air. Every strike wasted chakra.
Minato's only offense? A crude "finger-gun" chakra shot, barely stronger than a thrown kunai. But he was proud—he'd forged this jutsu at just ten years old, piecing it together from Jiraiya's rambling lessons and raw instinct.
Still… the strain was brutal.
With a final clang, Minato retreated to a branch, chest heaving. The air barrier around his body unraveled. For most kids his age, the chakra cost would've been crippling. Only his years of "boring" chakra training let him last this long.
The enemy sneered. "Out of steam already? Fine—Wind Cutter!"
A fresh storm of blades ripped toward him. Minato stood his ground, shoulders slumped as if he had nothing left.
And then—
"Spirit Shot!"
A narrow beam of blue light drilled through the man's skull before he could blink, bursting out the other side and carving through trees like paper. He dropped, dead before hitting the ground.
The wind blades vanished instantly.
"You're late," Minato said, exhaling in relief.
Uchiha Jinzō appeared on the next branch over, dusting his hands. "And you really gave me a surprise."
He'd honestly expected Minato to just play it safe. Instead, the kid had whipped out a homemade wind-style jutsu. Rough, sure, but the potential was obvious. With refinement, Minato could make something far stronger.
Of course, Jinzō wasn't about to say that.
Minato gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Still not on your level, though." He was top of the class at the Academy, but compared to Jinzō's genius… it felt like a gap he couldn't close.
Jinzō grinned arrogantly, hands on hips. "Catching up to me? You're at least a hundred years too early."
(He didn't mention, of course, that half his genius came from his "golden finger"—his cheat-like memory of the future. But hey, if it's in his head, that counts as talent, right?)
Minato rolled his eyes and changed the subject. "What about Kushina? She's been gone too long."
"She's fine," Jinzō snorted. "That girl thinks she's hiding her power, but she's about as subtle as a kunai in the ribs."
The ground shook.
A deafening boom split the air, a gale ripping through the forest and forcing both boys to clutch at the trunk for balance. When the dust cleared, they exchanged wide-eyed looks.
Kushina's fight wasn't a duel—it was a chase.
"Don't you dare run from me!" she roared, three glowing chakra chains slingshotting her from tree to tree like a red-haired Spider-Man.
Her target, a terrified enemy, rocketed through the forest on bursts of flame from his feet. His eyes bulged at the sight behind him.
"Perfect jinchūriki?! What the hell is going on in Konoha?!"
Kushina's body shimmered with golden chakra markings, an ethereal glow that made her look almost divine. A massive fox claw erupted from her aura, swiping down. The enemy barely dodged, the ground exploding into dust where the claw struck.
No chunin could face that. Running was his only option.
Kushina didn't care. Her fury boiled over, and in her palms a black-and-red sphere condensed, growing darker with every heartbeat.
"Die already!!"
She hurled the fully formed Tailed Beast Bomb. The blast carved a crater into the earth, shockwaves flattening the forest.
As the light faded, Kushina collapsed to one knee, pale and gasping—but grinning wildly.
"…I'm that strong? Hahahaha!" Her laughter echoed, until it faltered at the sight of green-vested figures stepping from the smoke. At their head: an old man in a bamboo hat, pipe clenched between his teeth.
Kushina froze. "…Oh crap. The Third Hokage."