The logic was sound. Arriving late to the battlefield could put one's comrades in mortal danger in less than a minute...
Take the Battle of Kannabi Bridge for example. Back then, if Minato hadn't been late, if he had blown up the bridge a little faster and arrived in time to support Kakashi and Obito, he could have saved Rin Nohara from being forcibly abducted by Taiseki using [Secret Technique: Camouflage Concealment Jutsu].
If he had severed the dark hand of Black Zetsu, who was pulling the strings from behind the scenes alongside Madara Uchiha, perhaps... Obito wouldn't have gone down a dark path.
Unfortunately, there were no 'ifs' in this world. To save his mother, even if Black Zetsu didn't target Obito, he would have set his sights on another Uchiha, such as... Shisui or his own younger brother, Itachi.
His thoughts fluttering, Roy looked past Minato Namikaze, his gaze sweeping over Obito and Rin standing behind him.
They were in the greenness of their youth. Seeing him look their way, their expressions varied. The latter was curious... while the former's body visibly tensed. He discreetly took a step closer to Rin, fiercely protective. It looked like vigilance, but it was more of a declaration to Roy—
'She's mine, don't even think about it!'
Fortunately, Roy's gaze shifted as quickly as it came. He then cast a glance at Kakashi. This genius ninja, hailed for breaking the academy's fastest graduation record, had his face half-covered and was observing him with a hint of inquiry. His memories drifted back to last night, still unable to forget the importance his father had placed on the boy before him.
"Alright." A mistake was a mistake, and punishment was deserved.
Roy was concise, neither dodging nor evading. With his hands in his pockets, he waited quietly for Minato's next words.
The young man's blond hair swayed. The future "Yellow Flash," who would soon make a massive name for himself on the battlefield, smiled, his eyes crinkling.
"Simple," Minato held up a single finger. "Weight-bearing run... Kakashi, Obito, Rin, the three of you along with Jin, will each carry a log and run ten laps around the forest. You have two hours. Go!"
Kakashi and Rin were stunned, instinctively looking at Obito... One person was late, yet the whole team took the blame. Knowing Obito's temper, he would definitely question their teacher in a fit of pique...
'Why?'
But,
Obito was exceptionally bizarre today.
Aside from the faint vigilance sparked by Roy's casual glance at Rin, the usually loud-mouthed boy was surprisingly quiet. Instead of arguing, he remained silent... and took the initiative to hoist a log onto his shoulder.
Kakashi and Rin exchanged a glance, both seeing a trace of astonishment in each other's eyes!
Obito didn't care about any of that. He didn't even complain about Roy. With the log on his shoulder, he was the first to charge into the depths of the forest, shouting as he went, "Let's go, what are you waiting for?"
Kakashi and Rin each grabbed a log and followed right on his heels.
Lastly... it was Roy.
Thud... thud... As Obito, Kakashi, and Rin gradually distanced themselves...
The boy didn't say a word. He reached out a hand toward a log planted in an empty corner and made a grasping motion... [Magnetic Field · Attract]... A Nen ability born from the legendary magician Meritonio... [Bipolarity of Dyed Iron] made its debut in Konoha.
Suddenly, a powerful suction force brushed past Minato's shoulder.
Minato's eyes narrowed as he watched the log uproot itself and fly through the air toward the boy. He thought to himself, 'Signless Ninjutsu?'
Amidst his extreme astonishment, he confirmed that he hadn't seen Roy weave any hand seals. His emotions surged, and he remained silent... watching the log land on Roy's shoulder. The boy lightly steadied it and strode away. Minato snapped back to his senses a moment later, kicked up a log of his own, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and vanished in a flash to follow them.
When the students make a mistake, the teacher must also bear the punishment... This was a principle his teacher, Jiraiya, had once taught him, claiming it was passed down from the Third Hokage... However,
Hiruzen Sarutobi himself admitted that he had never taught Jiraiya anything about [Signless Ninjutsu]. Or rather,
As the renowned [Professor of Ninjutsu] across the great villages, he himself had mastered very few [Signless Ninjutsu]. Otherwise, he wouldn't have failed to use them during his duel with his rogue disciple, Orochimaru...
In the Hokage building, within the office that symbolized Konoha's supreme authority,
The old man peered through his crystal ball. He watched Roy carrying the log, catching up from behind, slowly overtaking Rin, then passing Obito, and finally brushing past Kakashi's shoulder to take the lead, leaving a trail of afterimages in his wake. Clack. He picked up the dry pipe resting on his desk, took another puff, and pulled open a drawer with one hand, taking out the scroll branded with Roy's alias, "Jin Uchiha."
He unrolled it, took his brush to the very end, and added another line... [Displayed "Signless Ninjutsu", self-created unknown, origin of learning unknown, known... possesses an attraction function...]
Hiruzen's eyes flickered. He paused his brush, pondering for a moment, before adding another sentence at the end... [Can all Ninjutsu bypass the [Hand Seals] phase... Unknown...]
The old man finally set the brush down, watching Roy sprint ahead as if taking a leisurely stroll. Because he stood higher and saw further, far more than Minato who had immersed himself in [Ninjutsu] for over a decade, he understood much more clearly... just how incredibly rare [Signless Ninjutsu] was!
It should be known that [Hand Seals] were passed down from Indra. It was originally a [Seal Technique] he specifically designed to help the people of [Ninshu] cast ninjutsu.
In essence, it was a process of guiding chakra to flow along fixed paths within the body through specific hand gesture combinations. It could stimulate the heart meridians to trigger an outburst of Yang-natured chakra, releasing [Fire Style]... or guide chakra to gather in the kidneys, producing liquid properties to release [Water Style]... or force chakra to vibrate at high frequencies at the ends of the meridians to release [Lightning Style]. All of these... were indispensable processes!
However, rules were rigid, but people were adaptable. The process was fixed, but geniuses often took unconventional paths.
There were always those who could break out of the framework of [Two-Handed Seals] and achieve [One-Handed Seals]. For example, the Uchiha clan could forcefully memorize seal formulas through the Sharingan and replicate chakra pathways with a single hand... Or Kisame, who relied on his massive chakra reserves to violently break through sealing restrictions... Or Haku, who utilized the inherent seal-simplifying traits of his Ice Style Kekkei Genkai.
In short, behind every [Signless Ninjutsu], it invariably reflected the terrifying heights the caster's innate talent had reached!
And now, right under his nose, another one had appeared.
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the young boy in the crystal ball. Compared to their last meeting at the ninja academy, he seemed to have grown a bit taller in just a few days, and even more mysterious, making him harder to read... For a moment, Hiruzen seriously doubted whether this was truly a child Fugaku could have trained.
At the very least, Fugaku himself couldn't do the things this child, Jin, was displaying... aside from the Great Fireball Technique.
Thud... thud... The sound of footsteps echoed with the wind deep within the vast southern forest. The four great forests in the east, south, west, and north were covered by a [Sensory Barrier] overhead, guarding Konoha without room for error. Roy ran in the front, Kakashi and Obito chased madly behind, and finally, there was the struggling Rin Nohara. The young girl's brown hair fluttered in the wind, her dark brown eyes as beautiful as gems, yet unable to hide her exhaustion.
Her original role in Team Minato was never meant to be a "combatant"; she was more of a support, which was evident from her proficiency in [Medical Ninjutsu].
"Hah... hah..." The girl's chest heaved as she began to hunch over, panting heavily. For some reason, the log on her shoulder felt heavier and heavier, making her legs feel like lead. She couldn't run faster even if she wanted to.
Minato trailed behind them and was the first to catch up to her.
The man didn't speak, nor did he encourage his student. Instead, he cast his gaze toward the three running ahead, anticipating whether they would do something... The first to look back was Obito.
Obito Uchiha seemed to have no intention of competing with Roy at all. He only kept his eyes on Kakashi. Upon noticing Rin's condition, the boy didn't even think twice before abandoning his race with Kakashi. He slowed his pace, waiting for Rin to get closer, and tried to help support her log. Who would have thought...
Swish! A "thread" brushed past Obito's shoulder, winding and piercing through the air at a speed faster than his own. In an instant, it arrived by Rin's side. Right in front of Minato, amidst the girl's startled cry... it wrapped around her waist and pulled her forward, launching her ahead.
Obito froze. Watching Rin fly past him, the boy's mouth fell open. His heart felt like a porcelain vase that had been knocked over... shattering visibly with a crack!
"Rin!"
"Jin!"
"You... get back here!"
He went crazy... Obito didn't know where he found the strength, but he sprinted wildly, lowering his head and chasing after Rin, who was being pulled forward and had already flown past Kakashi in the blink of an eye.
Only Minato was left at the back of the group. He stared thoughtfully at the "Nen thread" wrapped around Rin's waist by Roy. Clearly, this was yet another [Signless Ninjutsu] he didn't know about!
'Strange... where did this kid learn all these things?'
'Could Fugaku have taught him?'
Minato recalled Fugaku Uchiha's unsmiling face. Based on his understanding of the man, he was rigid, serious, and cautious, but he certainly didn't seem to possess the capacity for [Innovation]. He simply tossed the thought away, flashed forward, quickened his pace, and gave chase.
A streak of yellow light could be seen with the naked eye, passing Obito, passing Kakashi, passing Rin, until it caught up to Roy's side.
In the Hokage building, after witnessing the scene where Roy reached out and attracted a log to his shoulder, Hiruzen now watched the boy suddenly flick a transparent [Chakra Thread] from his fingertips to wrap around Rin's waist and carry her along for a stretch.
The old man's heavily wrinkled face, hidden behind a cloud of smoke, twitched with a rare surge of emotion.
'Not good. The previous speculation might actually become reality...' Hiruzen picked up his brush and looked at the sentence he had just written... [Can all Ninjutsu bypass the [Hand Seals] phase...]
He drew a heavy circle around the word "Unknown." An old heart that hadn't rippled through years of tumultuous wars felt a trace of doubt for the first time... This doubt led to an unimaginable realm, forcing Hiruzen to stare intently at the crystal ball before him, not daring to miss even a single frame.
Thud, thud... One lap passed quickly.
Deep in the southern forest, Roy carried the log, running through the dense woods with [Sun Breathing] active non-stop, year-round, day and night, just as he did on Kukuroo Mountain. Even while carrying Rin Nohara, he remained calm and composed, not shedding a single drop of sweat.
"What is the name of this ninjutsu?"
Whoosh! A gust of wind blew, yellow hair swayed, and Minato arrived right on his heels. The man turned his head to look at the boy, his eyes gleaming as he asked with a smile.
For a moment, Roy felt like he was back in the morning when Itachi had asked him... He answered honestly, "I haven't named it yet."
'Hasn't named it?' Minato's eyes flashed. 'Sure enough, this child created it himself!'
A child not even eight years old had created a signless ninjutsu? If Kushina heard about this, she would definitely think it was a joke... And to think she had actually believed Mikoto's words and asked him to take special care of Jin... Minato felt a bit speechless.
He asked curiously, "If you haven't named it, how did you develop it?"
A jutsu reflects its name, just as a person does... The name represents the developer's train of thought, or rather... their imagination!
Take the [Rasengan] he was currently developing, for instance. It was also a [Signless Ninjutsu]. The jutsu was exactly as its name implied: rubbing a sphere by hand and injecting spiral power into it to enhance its might... A situation like Roy described, where the ninjutsu was developed before even giving it a name... Throughout the Yellow Flash's entire life, this was a first!
Roy understood Minato's feelings. Compared to [Chakra], which originated from the God Tree and adhered to the logic of [Yin] and [Yang], [Nen] was clearly unconstrained by such rules. What logic, what reasoning, what this and that—it was all bullshit. It had one, and only one, rule:
The power of 'I think, therefore it works'!
As long as I 'want' it, I can develop whatever kind of [Nen] ability I desire!
This was evident from the fact that Alluka was crowned as a [Wish-Granting Machine]!
Roy shrugged. "I don't know either."
The boy looked at Minato innocently and explained, "I got thirsty in the middle of the night the other day, but I didn't want to get out of bed. So, I tried to see if I could condense chakra into a rope to help me fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. And as a result... it just came out on its own..."
Roy raised his right hand. The [Nen Thread] at his fingertips twitched, pulling Rin Nohara along at a rapid pace. For a moment, both Minato and Hiruzen Sarutobi, who was peeping through the [Telescope Technique], fell completely silent.
What could they say? What should they say? Minato had spent three years developing just the [Rasengan]. The gap between people... seemed to be truly larger than the gap between humans and dogs!
"Cough, cough..." In the Hokage building.
Sitting behind his desk, Hiruzen began to cough violently. It was hard to tell if he was choking from smoking too much or from Roy's absurd yet somehow plausible words.
The old man quickly raised his hand to rub his chest, smoothing out the breath caught in his throat. Only then did he recover, staring blankly at the boy in the crystal ball. For a long time, he held his brush, not knowing what to write on the scroll.
"So, is this what a genius is?" Hiruzen murmured softly.
'Yes, this is a genius. An unreasonable genius!' Minato sighed in his heart.
The Yellow Flash took a deep look at the boy. Seeing his footsteps alternate between fast and slow with a distinct rhythm, he raised an eyebrow. Not knowing what possessed him, he blurted out, "Can you go any faster?"
Roy turned his head and asked in return, "What kind of fast?"
"Like this?"
[Swamp Space], emerge!