Minato moved first.
The branch cracked beneath his foot as he shot forward in a straight burst of speed.
His body stayed low, one hand leading, the other close to his side, eyes fixed on Kisuke's centerline.
Kisuke reacted instantly by slipping half a step to the side.
Minato's opening palm strike cut past Kisuke's shoulder by an inch.
Kisuke twisted at the waist, felt the air move against his cheek, then answered with a short right hook aimed for Minato's ribs.
Minato caught the motion early.
His forearm dropped to intercept.
Their limbs collided with a sharp crack.
Kisuke's fist bounced off Minato's guard, and Minato immediately spun the block into a backfist toward Kisuke's temple.
Kisuke ducked under it.
Minato's eyes sharpened.
'He read that?'
Kisuke planted a hand on the branch and kicked upward with both legs.
Minato sprang back just in time, the soles of Kisuke's feet whipping through the space where his chin had been.
The branch dipped violently under Kisuke's weight.
He used the bend.
The moment the wood sprang upward again, he launched with it.
Like the tree itself had thrown him.
He shot at Minato with a shoulder first, driving him backward across three branches in a rapid burst of crashing leaves and snapping twigs.
Minato landed on a thicker limb, skidding half a step.
Kisuke was already there.
A jab.
A low kick.
A palm thrust.
Minato blocked the jab, lifted his leg to check the kick, then rolled his shoulder aside to let the palm thrust skim past his shirt.
He countered with textbook precision.
His elbow cut downward toward Kisuke's collarbone.
Kisuke shifted left before the strike fully formed.
Then turned with it and drove his own elbow toward Minato's jaw.
Minato leaned back just enough to avoid the hit.
Their faces passed close for half a second.
Then they separated in opposite directions.
Kushina stared from the neighboring branch.
"They're serious."
Shikaku kept his eyes on the exchange.
"Yeah."
The leaves between the boys hadn't even settled before Minato was in again.
This time he came from above.
A quick leap.
A shadow dropping through the canopy.
His heel came down toward Kisuke's shoulder like an axe.
Kisuke looked up, read the drop through the pressure and motion in Minato's chakra, and rolled sideways along the branch.
Minato's heel smashed into bark.
Wood exploded.
The branch split down the middle.
Before gravity could claim either of them, Minato kicked off the broken limb and came forward with a spinning midair strike.
Kisuke met him halfway.
Their shins collided.
Both recoiled.
Both landed on separate branches two levels lower.
Minato absorbed the landing perfectly.
Kisuke landed in a crouch, one hand against bark, then darted sideways just as Minato reached him again.
Minato's hands were beautiful to watch.
Every strike connected to the next.
Palm to feint.
Feint to knee.
Knee to elbow.
Every angle efficient.
Kisuke's style was rougher.
More instinctive.
He weaved through Minato's combinations by fractions, like his body moved before the attacks had fully been thrown.
Minato stepped in with a left palm toward the chest.
Kisuke slapped it off line.
Minato's right fist followed instantly toward the face.
Kisuke dipped under it.
Minato's knee rose.
Kisuke had already twisted aside.
The knee skimmed his shirt.
Kisuke answered with a sweeping kick to the standing leg.
Minato hopped over it and drove a downward hammerfist.
Kisuke crossed both forearms overhead.
Impact.
A hard crack of bone and muscle.
The branch under Kisuke's feet groaned.
He grinned despite himself.
'He's crazy good.'
Minato saw it.
The grin.
The excitement.
Kisuke was actually enjoying himself.
Minato pushed off Kisuke's guard and flipped backward onto a higher branch.
Kisuke chased immediately.
He sprinted up the trunk at an angle, kicked off sideways, grabbed a branch with one hand, swung beneath it, and came flying out with a horizontal kick.
Minato raised both arms to guard.
The kick slammed into him and sent him sliding across bark.
Minato's sandals carved grooves into the branch before he stopped.
Kisuke landed lightly.
Then blinked.
Minato had vanished.
Kisuke felt the burst in chakra to his right and turned just as Minato's palm came in.
He caught the wrist.
Barely.
Minato's other fist drove toward Kisuke's stomach.
Kisuke twisted his hips to take the blow on the side instead of center mass.
Pain flashed through him.
He exhaled sharply but used the force to spin.
Still holding Minato's wrist, he yanked hard and tried to sling him off the branch.
Minato released the tension immediately, rolled with the pull, planted one hand on the bark, and came around with a heel kick.
Kisuke let go and ducked.
The heel tore through a curtain of leaves behind him.
Kisuke stepped into Minato's space before he could reset and threw a body shot.
Minato blocked.
Kisuke threw another.
Blocked again.
Then a third that turned into a grab.
He caught Minato's sleeve and shoulder and drove forward.
The two boys crashed through foliage together and dropped onto a lower, wider limb.
Kisuke tried to pin Minato there.
Minato slipped out through perfect positioning, turned the clinch, and both of them ended up locked chest to chest for a moment, feet sliding on bark, each trying to break the other's center.
Kisuke shoved.
Minato pivoted.
Kisuke felt it through Kagura Mind's Eye before Minato completed the motion and shifted his weight.
Minato's throw missed.
Instead Kisuke reversed it halfway, and suddenly both boys were falling off the branch.
Kushina's eyes widened.
"Minato!"
They dropped through the canopy in a storm of leaves.
Mid-fall, Minato kicked off a trunk.
Kisuke did the same from the opposite side.
They ricocheted off neighboring trees like pinballs, changing angles in midair.
Minato struck first.
A flying knee.
Kisuke caught the line of attack before it landed and twisted.
The knee clipped his side instead of crushing his ribs.
He grabbed Minato's leg with both hands.
Minato's eyes widened.
Kisuke swung him.
Minato hit a trunk feet first, rebounded, and turned that rebound into an attack of his own, driving a downward punch.
Kisuke crossed his arms.
The punch smashed him onto a broad branch below.
It cracked under him.
He bounced once, rolled, and sprang back to his feet.
Minato landed opposite him.
Both breathing harder now.
Both smiling just a little.
Shikaku watched from above, expression unreadable.
'They are equal.'
Minato had better fundamentals.
Kisuke had absurd instincts.
And that sensory ability of his made him hell to surprise.
Kushina gripped the branch beneath her.
Her strange feeling only kept getting stronger.
Every time Kisuke moved.
Every time his chakra flared.
Every time she saw that stupid red hair.
Something in her chest insisted.
'There's something there.'
Below them, the fight resumed.
Minato stepped left.
Kisuke mirrored.
Minato feinted high with his shoulders and came low with a sweep.
Kisuke jumped.
Minato was waiting.
His palm drove toward Kisuke's sternum midair.
Kisuke grabbed the wrist with one hand, planted his other palm against Minato's shoulder, and shoved himself over Minato instead.
He flipped above him, landed behind him, and spun into a kick.
Minato ducked.
The kick shaved off leaves.
Minato planted both hands on the branch and mule-kicked backward.
Kisuke saw it coming and raised an arm, but the impact still threw him off the limb.
He caught a hanging vine on the way down.
Swung.
Used the arc to launch himself back upward from beneath the branch.
Minato looked down just in time to see Kisuke come up from below with a rising punch.
It caught Minato in the guard and lifted him off his feet.
Minato flipped backward through the air, landed on a trunk, and immediately ran across it sideways.
Kisuke chased along another trunk parallel to him.
Two boys racing horizontally through the forest.
One blond.
One red-haired.
Both cutting across bark impossible for ordinary eyes to follow.
They reached the gap between trunks at the same time and leapt.
They collided midair.
Forearm to forearm.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Fist to block.
Knee to elbow.
A blur of short-range violence suspended for a heartbeat above open space.
Then both landed on opposite sides of a massive branch.
Minato sprinted down its length.
Kisuke sprinted up from the other end.
Neither slowed.
They met in the center.
Palm.
Block.
Punch.
Slip.
Knee.
Check.
Elbow.
Duck.
Kick.
Catch.
Kisuke trapped Minato's ankle.
Minato twisted out before the hold settled.
Minato's hand shot toward Kisuke's collar.
Kisuke smacked it away.
Minato's other hand cut in.
Kisuke parried.
Minato turned the parry into a shoulder check.
Kisuke absorbed it and answered with a headbutt.
Minato barely leaned away.
Even so, their foreheads clipped.
Both recoiled.
Both attacked again instantly.
This time the branch beneath them finally gave up.
It split with a booming crack.
Wood tore.
Both boys dropped with it.
Kisuke landed on the falling trunk itself and ran along it as it tilted downward.
Minato did the same from the opposite end.
They were literally fighting on a collapsing branch now.
Kisuke laughed.
"You're good!"
Minato smiled despite the situation.
"So are you!"
They met again on the descending wood, exchanging strikes while their battleground crashed through smaller limbs beneath them.
Kisuke threw a wide hook.
Minato slipped inside it and drove a palm toward the chest.
Kisuke read it and turned his torso, letting it glance off.
He grabbed Minato's sleeve, yanked him forward, and both of them jumped off the falling branch at the same time.
The broken limb crashed into the forest floor below with a thunderous boom.
Minato and Kisuke landed on opposite trunks one final time.
Both crouched.
Minato's academy form was still clean despite everything.
Kisuke's stance was looser, grin wider, eyes sharper.
Kushina's patience snapped.
"ENOUGH!"
She dropped between them like a meteor.
One foot on one branch.
One foot on another.
Arms spread.
Red hair whipping wildly around her.
Both boys stopped.
She glared at Minato first.
Then at Kisuke.
Then at Kisuke again for longer.
"No more fighting."
Kisuke straightened a little.
"He started it."
Minato blinked.
"I did not."
"You kept walking at me."
"You kept refusing to explain yourself."
"That's because you made up weird stuff in your head!"
Minato frowned.
"I did not make up weird stuff."
Kisuke pointed at him.
"You definitely did. You had that face."
Kushina narrowed her eyes.
"What face?"
Kisuke put on an overly serious expression and deepened his voice.
"Hmm. This child is definitely guarding a forbidden burial ground. Or maybe a hidden cache of stolen explosive tags. Or maybe some secret rogue ninja hideout where a missing-nin is building a giant murder machine in the woods."
Minato went still.
Shikaku, from above, stared.
Kushina slowly turned toward Minato.
"…Did you actually think something like that?"
Minato looked away.
"…Maybe not the murder machine part."
Kisuke threw both hands up.
"Ridiculous!"
Kushina snorted before remembering she was mad and forcing her face back into a glare.
Then she looked at Kisuke again.
The strange feeling in her chest had become impossible to ignore now that the fighting had stopped.
Up close, with his chakra clear—
It was there.
That connection.
That familiarity.
She couldn't explain it.
But she needed to ask.
"…You, do you know anything about the Uzumaki clan?"
Kisuke blinked.
Then pointed at himself.
"I'm an Uzumaki I guess."
Silence followed.
Kushina froze.
Minato's eyes widened.
Above them, even Shikaku's calm expression cracked.
Kushina stepped forward so fast Kisuke instinctively leaned back.
"You're what?"
"An Uzumaki."
He rubbed the back of his head.
"Uzumaki Kisuke."
For a second, Kushina just stared.
Then her whole face lit up.
Actually lit up.
Like someone had placed the sun directly behind her eyes.
"There's another one?!"
Kisuke grinned despite himself.
"What do you mean another one. Are you one?"
Kushina grabbed him by the shoulders before he could react.
"You're really an Uzumaki?!"
"Yes?"
"Since when?!"
Kisuke stared at her.
"…Since birth?"
Kushina's face went red.
Then redder.
Then she jabbed a finger at him.
"Don't get smart with me!"
Kisuke grinned wider.
"You know. When excited you look even more like a tomato."
That did it.
Kushina's smile vanished.
"I AM STILL MAD ABOUT THAT!"
"I can tell."
"I really will hit you."
"You probably will."
Minato stepped forward again, calmer now.
"So… if you really are Uzumaki Kisuke, then what exactly are you hiding ahead?"
Kisuke looked at him.
Then deadpanned,
"My adoptive grandfather."
Minato blinked.
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Kisuke folded his arms.
"He's sick. He's old and he's in bed. Very terrifying, I know."
Minato coughed lightly into his fist.
In hindsight—
Yes.
Maybe his suspicion had gotten a little out of hand.
Kisuke kept going.
"You were acting like I had a cursed vault of doom back there."
Shikaku finally dropped down onto a nearby branch.
"To be fair, you were standing in the middle of the path like you were guarding state secrets."
Kisuke pointed at him.
"Because strangers were coming toward my house."
That was fair I guess.
Kisuke turned and hopped back toward the direction of the hut.
"I'm going back."
Kushina immediately moved after him.
Kisuke glanced over his shoulder.
"Don't follow me."
"I want to meet your grandfather."
He kept walking along the branches.
"Why?"
"Because he's your grandfather."
"Adoptive grandfather."
"Still the same thing."
He looked at Minato and Shikaku too.
"You three really are annoying."
Kushina folded her arms.
"And you're really rude."
"True."
She blinked.
"…You admit it?"
"Sometimes."
Kisuke faced forward again and gave a lazy wave over his shoulder.
"Do as you wish."
Then he leapt to the next branch.
Kushina followed without hesitation.
Minato smiled faintly and jumped after them.
Shikaku sighed at the sky.
'This day keeps becoming more troublesome.'
Then he followed too.
---
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