The cold of winter still lingered in Konoha, but the Uchiha backwoods had turned into a battlefield of sweat, flying steel, and exhausted sighs.
Uchiha Tsukiko stood in the clearing with a smug grin on her face, while little Itachi, whose hair had once been perfectly neat, now looked like he had just survived a war against an angry flock of crows.
His smooth black hair had been ruthlessly ruffled, his sleeves were dusty, and even the calm little genius expression he always wore had begun to crack under the pressure of continuous practice.
Tsukiko stretched lazily and wrapped the fingers of one hand with a strip of cloth. Her joints were a little sore from spending the morning demonstrating impossible shuriken tricks and correcting Itachi's basic stance for what felt like the hundredth time.
"Alright, that's enough for today," she said with a yawn, flicking his forehead lightly. "Big sister's stamina is precious. The rest, you can figure out on your own."
Itachi blinked once, still holding three kunai in one hand.
Tsukiko raised a finger with mock seriousness.
"And remember this carefully. If you ever buy me expired dango, I'm charging double compensation."
Before he could reply, she waved grandly, spun around, and walked away at a pace so fast it was obvious she had no intention of staying another second.
Itachi remained where he was, silent and thoughtful, staring after her retreating figure.
His expression was calm as always, but inside, his mind was in complete chaos.
That technique.
That strange, impossible shift in the flight path of the shuriken.
That explanation about chakra, vision, and the air becoming a stepping stone.
It all sounded mysterious, profound, and suspiciously vague.
And yet, because it came from Tsukiko with such confidence, it somehow also sounded real.
That was the terrifying thing about her.
She could fool someone while making it sound like a secret inherited truth of the clan.
By the time Tsukiko returned to her small attic room, she no longer cared about genius children, training, or clan politics.
The moment she slid the door shut, she threw herself face-first onto the bedding that still smelled faintly of sun-warmed cotton. Then she wrapped herself into the blanket with both arms and legs until she resembled an oversized cocoon.
Only after that did she let out the silly, shameless laugh she had been holding back all day.
"Hehehe…"
She rolled once across the bed and pressed a hand against her cheek.
The warmth had long faded, but in her mind, it was still there.
That soft kiss from Kushina that morning.
That fragrance.
That warmth.
That impossible sweetness.
"So fragrant…" she muttered dreamily, rubbing her cheek against the pillow. "Too fragrant. Sister Kushina really is lethal."
Her thoughts quickly lost all dignity.
The system reward had been nice. Very useful, even.
But compared to the mission reward itself, the real treasure had clearly been the kiss.
Tsukiko buried half her face in the blanket and inhaled deeply, as if some tiny trace of Kushina's scent might still be clinging to her skin.
Then she forced herself to calm down.
"No, focus," she muttered. "Today's real battle is this afternoon."
Her eyes narrowed with determination.
She had already completed the easy mission, planted doubt in Kakashi, and improved her standing with Kushina. Now came the hardest part so far.
Minato Namikaze.
The Yellow Flash.
Fourth Hokage.
Inventor and master of the Flying Thunder God.
A man so fast that enemies died before realizing he had moved.
If Tsukiko wanted to change fate in the future, she needed that technique.
She needed speed.
She needed mobility.
She needed something that could rival catastrophe itself.
And most of all, she needed Minato to teach her willingly.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
"I need to look weak," she decided. "Not too weak. Just enough to make Kushina worried and Minato guilty."
Then her mouth slowly curled upward.
"And if I do it right, Sister Kushina will become my strongest ally."
With that deeply impure plan in mind, Tsukiko shut her eyes and drifted into sleep.
---
By afternoon, she was back at the Hokage residence.
This time, however, she had prepared very carefully.
Her hair had been deliberately mussed up. She had rubbed her eyes until they were slightly red. Her expression was adjusted into something between grievance, exhaustion, and pitiful bravery.
Anyone who looked at her would think she had just barely escaped a dangerous encounter while still trying to act strong.
In short, she looked like trouble.
Perfect.
Kushina opened the door.
"Tsukiko, you're here! Come in, Minato was just talking ab—"
She stopped midsentence.
Her eyes widened.
Then her expression changed instantly.
"Tsukiko? What happened?"
Before Tsukiko could answer, Kushina had already pulled her inside and cupped her face in both hands, staring at her with alarm.
"Who bullied you?" Kushina demanded. "Was it someone from the Military Police? Did your father scold you? Did somebody hurt you?"
The concern in her voice was so genuine that for one dangerous second, Tsukiko almost felt guilty.
Almost.
She lowered her gaze and sniffled softly.
"N-no… it's nothing serious…"
Kushina's expression only darkened.
"Nothing serious?" she repeated. "You look like a child who just escaped from a battlefield."
Tsukiko let her voice become smaller, softer.
"During patrol today… I ran into some suspicious people. They moved so fast, and I almost got caught off guard…"
She paused just long enough for Kushina's imagination to run wild.
Then she added in the most innocent tone possible,
"If only I could move with a whoosh like Minato-nii-san, I wouldn't have to worry so much. Then I could help you with errands too and always come back safely."
It was a shameless line.
A terrible line.
A line crafted to strike Kushina's heart directly.
And it worked.
Kushina's eyes instantly sharpened with fury.
"Minato!" she roared.
The force of her voice could probably have shattered roof tiles.
Three seconds later, a yellow blur flashed into the hallway.
Minato appeared so suddenly that a gust of wind followed him in.
He was still in his Hokage robe, still holding a pen, and still clearly in the middle of work.
"Kushina?" he said immediately, eyes alert. "What happened? Is there an enemy attack?"
"Enemy attack my foot!" Kushina snapped.
She pulled Tsukiko behind her as if shielding a wounded chick and glared at Minato with enough force to make lesser men surrender instantly.
"Did you know Tsukiko almost ran into danger during patrol today? She's still a child! She helps me, she works hard, and she's walking around the village without the means to protect herself properly!"
Minato's eyes shifted to Tsukiko.
Tsukiko, who a moment ago had looked pitiful, immediately lowered her head and clung lightly to Kushina's sleeve.
Minato's mouth twitched.
He knew perfectly well this child was not as harmless as she looked.
But right now, under Kushina's blazing stare, facts had become useless.
Kushina pointed at him dramatically.
"As Hokage, do you not have anything to say?"
Minato opened his mouth.
"I—"
"You don't get to argue!"
She slammed a hand onto the table nearby.
The impact made Minato visibly flinch.
"I'm asking you one simple question," Kushina declared. "Can you teach Tsukiko the Flying Thunder God?"
Minato froze.
There was a brief silence.
Then he looked at his wife, then at Tsukiko, then back at his wife.
"Kushina," he said carefully, "the Flying Thunder God isn't something you just—"
"Wrong answer," Kushina cut in.
"If you don't teach her, you can sleep in the corner tonight."
Minato closed his eyes for a second.
He looked like a man who had just realized that no matter what strategy he used, he had already lost.
Finally, he sighed.
Then he looked at Tsukiko.
"Are you really prepared?" he asked seriously.
The moment the question came, Tsukiko knew the door had opened.
She let the weak act vanish just enough to reveal determination.
"I'm prepared," she said at once.
Minato crouched down in front of her, and his expression turned much more serious.
"The Flying Thunder God is not an ordinary ninjutsu. It is an S-rank space-time technique. It requires precise chakra control, strong perception, and great discipline. Even with talent, learning it is dangerous. If you fail badly enough, you can injure yourself through spatial displacement."
He paused.
"Even knowing that, do you still want to learn?"
Tsukiko lifted her chin and answered without hesitation.
"I do."
Then, with a face full of righteous sincerity that was almost insulting, she added:
"So I can buy fresh limited-edition sweets for Sister Kushina faster."
"And if she sees a cockroach, I can appear instantly and remove it."
For a long second, Minato simply stared at her.
Kushina, however, looked moved to the point of tears.
"Tsukiko!" she cried, pulling the girl into a crushing hug. "You're too good!"
Then she looked at her husband as though challenging him to oppose them now.
Minato raised both hands in surrender.
"Alright," he said. "I'll teach her."
The S-rank mission had officially begun.
Tsukiko's heart leaped.
Minato reached into his pouch and pulled out a specially made kunai.
Its handle was engraved with the basic framework of a formula.
He handed it to her.
"This is where it starts," he said. "Before you can teleport, you must learn to imprint your chakra into a stable spatial formula. That is the foundation of the technique."
The moment Tsukiko touched the kunai, the familiar mechanical voice of the system exploded inside her head.
[Ding! Host has initiated Flying Thunder God training.]
[S-rank Mission: Golden Legacy, Phase One activated.]
[Mission Objective: Within one week, sense and successfully teleport to a marked kunai ten meters away.]
[Failure Penalty: Confiscation of all private savings. Additional penalty: mandatory one-hour performance of the "I'm a Fool" dance in front of Uzumaki Kushina.]
Tsukiko nearly dropped the kunai.
Her expression twisted for the briefest instant.
Minato noticed immediately.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
Tsukiko forced a dry laugh.
"Nothing! Just… excited!"
Inside, however, she was horrified.
The money loss was one thing.
But dancing in front of Kushina for an entire hour?
That was not punishment.
That was social death.
---
The next several days turned the backyard of the Hokage residence into a place of pain, chaos, and repeated embarrassment.
Minato quickly discovered that teaching Tsukiko was unlike teaching any normal student.
"Not like that," he said for what felt like the twentieth time. "Your chakra needs to flow smoothly into the formula. Don't force it all at once."
Tsukiko nodded.
Then tried again.
And promptly vanished halfway before reappearing sideways in a bush.
A rustle sounded.
A moment later, her voice came from inside the leaves.
"I'm fine!"
Minato rubbed his forehead.
"Tsukiko… the goal is ten meters of controlled displacement. Not launching yourself like a human cannonball."
The next day was not much better.
At one point she almost embedded half her body into a tree.
At another point she misjudged direction and appeared upside down over a water barrel.
Minato had to grab her by the ankle before she drowned in six inches of freezing water.
"Again," he said patiently.
Tsukiko squinted at him suspiciously.
"Are you being extra strict because Kushina threatened you?"
Minato gave her a tired look.
"No. I'm being strict because space-time ninjutsu is dangerous."
Then he added with painful honesty,
"Though I admit your training style is making me age faster."
What frustrated him most was that Tsukiko clearly had talent.
Her chakra reserves were impressive for a child. Her sensory ability was sharp. Her instincts were strangely good.
But her method of learning was wild.
Sometimes her chakra control would almost stabilize, and then suddenly a bizarre distortion would appear around her, as if something outside the normal laws of ninjutsu had interfered with the space around her.
It felt wrong.
Not hostile.
Just… strange.
Tsukiko herself understood the problem.
Too many times she had tried to cheat by combining her own strange power with Minato's teaching, hoping to force space to yield.
The result was always messy.
So by the fifth day, with the system's threat looming over her head, she gave up on shortcuts.
If she wanted this technique, she would have to learn it properly.
That evening, the setting sun turned Konoha gold.
The yard behind the house glowed under the warm orange light.
Tsukiko stood at one end of the yard, mud on her clothes, twigs in her hair, and determination in her eyes.
Ten meters away, a marked kunai was embedded in the trunk of a large tree.
Minato stood nearby, watching in silence.
Kushina had just stepped out of the house carrying a tea tray, curious to see how training was going.
Tsukiko took a slow breath.
Then another.
She blocked out the breeze, the smell of tea, the rustling leaves, even Kushina's presence.
She focused only on the kunai.
Only on the mark.
Only on the faint chakra coordinate waiting in space like a thread too fine to see but too real to ignore.
Her heartbeat slowed.
For the first time in days, she stopped thinking about the system, stopped thinking about shortcuts, and stopped thinking about failure.
She simply reached.
Then—
She felt it.
A single invisible point.
A thread.
A connection.
"There," she whispered.
Her chakra surged.
A soft crack sounded in the air.
And Uchiha Tsukiko vanished.
Minato's eyes widened.
Kushina stopped mid-step.
A heartbeat later, Tsukiko reappeared beside the tree.
Her landing was messy. She stumbled, lost balance, and rolled straight into the grass.
But none of that mattered.
She had done it.
She had crossed ten meters through space.
For a second, there was only stunned silence.
Then Tsukiko shot upright with grass in her hair and mud on her cheek, throwing both arms into the air.
"I did it!"
Her voice rang through the yard.
"I really did it!"
She ran straight toward Kushina like a small missile and crashed into her before the tea tray had even been fully set aside.
"Nee-san! Did you see that? I can teleport now! From now on I'm your exclusive lightning-fast delivery girl!"
Kushina laughed so brightly that the whole yard seemed warmer.
She lifted Tsukiko into her arms and spun once, twice, the tea tray forgotten entirely.
"Amazing!" Kushina said. "I knew our Tsukiko was a genius!"
Then, without missing a beat, she added, "It seems Minato is still a little useful after all."
Standing nearby, Minato watched the two of them with a helpless smile.
He had just witnessed a miracle.
A child had grasped the prototype of the Flying Thunder God in only five days.
And yet somehow he was still the one being insulted.
He exhaled and looked toward the setting sun.
"Well," he murmured, "this isn't such a bad outcome."
Inside Tsukiko's mind, the system chimed again.
[Ding! S-rank Mission: Golden Legacy, Phase One completed.]
[Reward acquired: Slight increase in space-time ninjutsu talent.]
[Detected increased bond with core characters. Hidden storyline conditions progressing.]
Tsukiko lay against Kushina's shoulder, feeling the warmth of her embrace, hearing the system's words echo in her head.
A triumphant smile slowly curved across her lips.
She had learned the first step of the Flying Thunder God.
She had secured Minato's guidance.
And she was still in Kushina's arms.
For now, that was more than enough.
But in the quiet corner of her heart, one thought remained sharp and clear.
The future was still coming.
The night that would change everything had not yet arrived.
And when it did—
She would be ready.
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