Just as I had predicted, Minato excelled in the fuinjutsu lessons. According to Mito-sensei, his instictive grasp of the subject was rare even amongst the Uzumaki's. It hard not being jealous, but somehow I managed. I knew what I was getting into when I invited him. I helped that be was humble and actually helped me understand some concepts that the Uzumaki somehow weren't able to explain due to their weirdly wired brains.

Kushina, however, was less than gracious on being beaten, on what was essentially her clan art, by some non-Uzumaki. Apparently, she was only okay with me (if that was her being okay), because, according to her 'I sucked'.

This caused Minato to underperforming intentionally, leading to him getting a lecture by Mito-sensei on treating the sealing arts with the respect they deserved. He never tried underperforming again.

"Couldn't you have picked someone better?" Kushina whined. "He's such a sissy. There's Inoichi if you're interested in girly blonde boys. He's even friends with your brother." She offered eagerly.

"No, thank you." I answered, repeating my kata while standing on the water in a pond in the Senju compound.

Kushina looked on jealously. "How is your chakra control that good? I can't even get the leaf to stick to my forehead. Even genius blondy isn't as good as you."

I didn't stop the smirk forming in my lips on hearing that. Minato might be the top of class rankings and better at fuinjutsu, but there was no way that we could surpass me in chakra control.

"It's just practice." I told Kushina, half truthfully. "Mito-sensei said she'll start teaching me the strength of hundred seals if I mastered this." I had already completed the chakra augmentation technique to increase strength. It wasn't to Tsunade's level but I got me many wins in taijutsu sparring untill sensei barred it classifying it as a ninjutsu technique, since it involved controlled use of chakra. I was back to losing since I couldn't use the sub-par instinctive chakra augmentation like other kids.

"What would the hundred what's it seal do? I would still kick your ass at taijutsu, like I do at sealing." Kushina teased, rubbing salt into the wound.

"You'll have to be satisfied with that, since you're never going to beating Minato." I teased back.

Kushina scoffed. "What does that matter? Your boyfriend isn't coming between our rivalry."

"He's not my boyfriend." I replied automatically.

"Sure." She replied. "Are you done with that? I want to spar, all out."

"The last time we did that, Mito-sensei made us clean the compound. And, no I'm not done. I've to do this for an hour."

"Boring!" She left in a huff.

I continued doing my kata and after a while almost entered a trance, feeling my own chakra and the chakra around moving, all the while balancing on the water. After the last kata, my opened my eyes, only for my concentration to be broken by a flash of bright blonde hair. I only barely managed to avoid falling into the pond.

"Wow, that was amazing." One Namikaze Minato praised, after almost ruining the entire excercise. I resisted to scold him after seeing his earnest and awed expression.

"What are you doing here, Minato?" I asked, walking off the pond.

"Oh, Mito-sensei sent me get you." Of course she did, probably as some kind of test. "When did you learn to do that?"

"Doing what? Water walking?"

"No, though that was impressive too. I meant making the chakra in the air glow like that." Minato said, stopping in my tracks.

"Doing what?"

"Oh, I guess you weren't aware you were doing that. It was pretty cool through." He said. "Listen, I've got to run to the orphanage before lights out. Tell me tomorrow if you figure it out, won't you?"

I nodded distractedly. 'The chakra in the air', did he mean nature chakra? Was I manipulating nature chakra?

"Mishika-chan, Did you complete the excercise?" Mito-sensei asked as I entered the main house.

"Yes, sensei." I answered, tabling the topic of nature chakra for the time being. 

"Since, you aren't drenched to the bone, I suppose you are now ready to learn the strength of a hundred seals."

I nodded eagerly.

"Well, there is nothing much to it. You just have to send a small tendril of chakra to the empty gate on your forehead. It shouldn't be more than the chakra required to make chakra string. The gate would store chakra and you would be able to release it during emergencies."

I waited for sensei to continue.

"That's all." She said when I kept on looking eagerly.

I felt my jaw drop. "What? What do you mean by 'that's it'?"

Mito-sensei sighed. "It's not a complicated technique once you have the required chakra control, Mishika-chan. The struggle is to reach the chakra control required. You have already done that."

"Oh." I said dumbly. "But what about 'the hundred seals'?"

"The technique was named such so as to discourage people from trying it on their own. Can you imagine if someone with Kushina's chakra control tried to send continuous chakra tendrils to their head?"

A gruesome image of an exploded head entered my mind. I flinched.

"Yes. I see that you can guess. Now can I trust you to not share this technique carelessly?" Sensei asked.

"Yes, sensei. You can trust me." I replied.

Mito-sensei smiled. "I know I can."