Nightfall.
Inside the tent, damp clothes hung everywhere, the air thick with a musty, moldy stench.
"This damn weather," Uchiha Fugaku muttered, poking at his still-wet combat uniform for tomorrow.
"If you don't dry it out, your joints could stiffen up during training. That'll throw off your movements." Nishikawa Tetsu was already calculating humidity. "I'd suggest fire for drying, but poor ventilation in the tent means we'd risk carbon monoxide poisoning."
"No need to overthink it."
Fugaku suddenly yanked the clothes off the line and piled them in front of him.
"Watch closely. This is the Uchiha clan's precision chakra control."
He took a deep breath. No hand seals—just pressed his palm against the damp cloth.
A faint red chakra flickered to life. It was Fire Release, but focused entirely on heat, not flame.
Zzzzzz...
White steam began to rise. The clothes dried and warmed visibly by the second.
"That's amazing!" Minato's eyes sparkled. He instantly shoved his clothes into the pile. "Senpai! Mine too, please! My underwear's been soaking all day!"
"Get lost!" Fugaku barked. "I'm the heir to the Uchiha clan, not your laundry machine!"
Still, faced with Minato's expectant eyes… and Tetsu quietly offering up his socks…
Fugaku growled, grabbed their clothes, and began drying them too. "This is a one-time thing. Don't get used to it!"
…
Next day.
Over the past few days of joint training, Nishikawa Tetsu had gathered a wealth of data on Namikaze Minato.
The future Fourth Hokage was still young and unpolished—but that terrifying talent was already starting to show.
"Minato."
Tetsu spoke up during their break. "I've got something I want to talk to you about."
"Hmm?" Minato glanced over while wiping sweat. "What is it?"
"Your combat style."
Tetsu pulled out his ever-present notebook and flipped to a page filled with Minato's stats.
"Your physiology is unique. Your neural transmission speed is roughly 1.5x the average. That means your reflexes are off the charts."
"On top of that, your muscles are built for explosive power, but you lack endurance. Which means you're not suited for prolonged trench battles or ninjutsu exchanges like Fugaku-senpai."
Fugaku raised an eyebrow nearby. He didn't interrupt—but he was clearly listening.
Minato scratched his head, a wry smile forming. "Yeah… I've always struggled in long fights. Lately I've been practicing ways to ration stamina."
"No, that's the wrong direction."
Tetsu shook his head firmly. "In this world, trying to be good at everything just makes you average. Since all your talent points are in speed, then you need to go all-in."
"All-in?"
"Exactly. Ditch the wide-range ninjutsu. Even stop training in broad taijutsu techniques. Focus entirely on developing the Body Flicker Technique."
Tetsu pointed at Minato's legs. "Dump all your chakra into maximizing that one burst of speed. Pursue extreme velocity."
"But… what if I move too fast for my own eyes to follow?"
Minato asked the critical question—not everyone had the Sharingan, after all. "At those speeds, my vision blurs. I might crash into something."
"That brings us to the second concept: dynamic visual compensation training."
Tetsu was more than ready.
He pulled out a handful of small stones, each painted in high-contrast black-and-white stripes.
"Fugaku-senpai!" Tetsu called out. "Would you mind activating your Sharingan and helping with an experiment?"
Fugaku snorted, strolling over. "If this turns into me being a target again, you'd better pray your theory holds up."
"These are flicker stones."
Tetsu explained, holding one up. "I'm going to throw them in unpredictable trajectories. Minato, you'll need to dash full-speed and catch them before they hit the ground."
"During high-speed movement, the stripes create intense visual afterimages. The goal isn't to 'see' them directly, but to use peripheral vision and chakra sensing to track them."
"If you can overcome the motion blur, you'll be able to perceive the world at extreme speeds. And as for Fugaku-senpai—"
Tetsu turned to him with a sly grin. "Your job is to try and shoot the stones out of Minato's hands with shuriken. We're testing if his speed can outpace the Sharingan's dynamic tracking."
"Shoot them down?" Fugaku scoffed. The three tomoe of the Sharingan bloomed in his eyes.
"Begin!"
Tetsu's shout sent several stones flying into the air.
Whoosh!
Minato blurred forward in a golden streak.
Cling! Cling!
At almost the same instant, Fugaku's shuriken shot out like bullets.
At first, Minato struggled.
His speed caused everything to double-image. He nearly sliced his hand on a shuriken—he even slammed into a tree once.
"Too slow. Too obvious," Fugaku criticized coldly.
But with Tetsu's coaching—teaching him to ignore the direct target and use peripheral vision to establish spatial coordinates—Minato's improvement was nothing short of monstrous.
Over the next half-month…
In the misty forests of the Land of Rain, a game of tag between golden flashes and crimson eyes played out daily.
Tetsu rolled through mud and pain, applying the "limit-break" method to slowly grow his chakra reserves.
Life was monotonous. Painful. But all three had sharper eyes with every passing day.
Until one dusk—
Whoosh!
Tetsu threw a stone.
A golden flash streaked across the clearing.
Minato reappeared ten meters away, the stone securely in his grasp. At his starting point, a faint shimmering afterimage remained in the air.
Thunk!
Fugaku's shuriken pierced the afterimage—only to strike empty air.
"What…"
Fugaku stared at the fading clone. His three tomoe spun wildly.
In that split second, his eyes had seen Minato—but by the time his muscles reacted, Minato was already gone.
This is a Genin?
"We did it."
Tetsu, scribbling down data at the edge of the clearing, was caked in mud but grinning ear to ear. "Neural delay compressed to 0.08 seconds."
The Yellow Flash had officially arrived. At this rate, he'd learn Flying Thunder God even earlier than in the original timeline.
Minato stared at his hand. That feeling—mastery of speed, where the world slowed down—was intoxicating.
He turned and flashed Tetsu a dazzling smile. "Thanks, Tetsu! This training method is incredible!"
"Hmph."
Fugaku sheathed his shuriken. He didn't like being outplayed—but the respect in his eyes was deeper than ever.
He had to admit—these two civilians, one with a monster's brain and one with a monster's body—might actually belong alongside the Uchiha.
And then—
Poof!
A burst of white smoke exploded in the center of the clearing.
A massive toad carrying a giant scroll landed with a thud.
"Apologies for the intrusion." The toad exhaled a smoke ring, its voice deep and gravelly. "Jiraiya urgently summons Team Five."
The three of them exchanged glances. In an instant, the light atmosphere vanished.
They all knew what this meant.
The peaceful, repetitive days of training were over.The real war was about to begin.
Fugaku adjusted his gear and leapt into the rain. His voice echoed behind him—
"Let's go."