"Minato, did you smell something?" Kushina, who was about to cook, suddenly caught a whiff of an extremely tempting aroma.
"I did, a really enticing fried aroma." Minato nodded and said.
"Yeah, such an alluring smell, how was it made?" Kushina sniffed the fragrance in the air, unable to suppress her curiosity.
She also cooked and had made fried dishes like tempura, but she had never encountered such a tempting aroma. Just by smelling it, she could imagine the perfect golden, crispy look of the food.
"I can't take it; I have to go and see." Kushina said and walked out.
She carefully sniffed the aroma in the air and realized it was coming from the house to the right of Minato's home.
"Eh, isn't that Habu's house? Minato, come out quickly." Kushina waved to Minato inside the house.
If she remembered correctly, this was the house of Habu Mokgetsu, the teacher at the Ninja School.
Though she had only known him for a few days, Mokgetsu left quite an impression on Kushina.
Blonde hair and blue eyes similar to Minato, very articulate, and a great teacher.
Minato came out, looked where Kushina was pointing, nodded, and said, "Yes, that's Habu's house."
"Let's go visit our neighbor." Kushina pulled Minato along and knocked on Mokgetsu's door.
Mokgetsu placed the shrimp he had grabbed into a bowl, set down the chopsticks, and went to the door to open it.
As soon as the door opened, Kushina couldn't wait to ask:
"Habu, are you making dinner?"
"Sorry for the intrusion." Minato looked at Mokgetsu, who was still wearing an apron, and said apologetically.
"No worries, I've just finished, was about to eat, and you came at the perfect time." Mokgetsu said with a gentle smile and invited the two inside.
Kushina followed the aroma to the dining table and, upon seeing the tempura fried to a light golden color, her eyes lit up. This was the scent.
However, upon entering Mokgetsu's house, Kushina realized there was also the aroma of fried rice.
"Habu, you're secretly a master chef! I could smell the tempura from next door." Kushina praised.
"Not much of a master chef, just used to cooking since I'm often alone." Mokgetsu said while taking two cups from the cupboard and pouring water for Minato and Kushina.
"You can try them; I just made them." Mokgetsu said, offering them cutlery.
"Is it okay? It looks like you haven't eaten yet." Kushina eyed the tempura.
She really wanted to try them to see what made them smell so good.
"Now let's dig in." Mokgetsu chuckled as he picked up some tempura from the bowl and took a bite.
"Thanks for having us, Habu." Minato thanked him.
"Let's eat." Kushina clasped her hands together ceremonially before picking up some steaming tempura with her chopsticks and putting it in her mouth.
"Mmm!" As she bit into the crispy outer layer, the moist and tender shrimp inside made Kushina's eyes go wide.
Then something amazing happened; Kushina felt as though she was transported to the ocean, surrounded by a mysterious and beautiful blue world, and she was a carefree fish swimming happily in the sea.
"Hm?" Kushina snapped back to reality, almost thinking she had fallen under a Genjutsu.
But upon thinking it over, she realized there was no one present who could use Genjutsu on her.
"Habu, how did you make this tempura? You didn't add some weird-colored mushrooms, right?" Kushina asked suspiciously.
She had heard of ninjas picking mushrooms in the forest during summer and ending up in Konoha Hospital, talking about branches growing on them and asking someone to trim them.
"Uh, no, it's just this and that…" Mokgetsu briefly described his cooking process.
At that moment, Kushina noticed Minato seemed off after taking a bite of fried rice. She glanced at Minato and saw him in a daze, so she patted him.
"Minato, what's up?" Kushina asked.
Minato instinctively replied, "Eating wild vegetables."
"Where are the wild vegetables here?" Kushina looked at the fried rice, which contained only eggs and chopped green onions, with no mushrooms, so she asked curiously.
"After eating the fried rice, I felt I had turned into a wild pheasant living in the mountains…" Minato explained.
Kushina looked at the fried rice, each grain full and golden, seemingly glowing with a golden light.
While focusing on the tempura, Kushina now realized the fried rice seemed to be shining!
"This is the best fried rice I've ever had." Minato said, unable to resist taking two more spoonfuls and stuffing them into his mouth.
"Is it that good? You should try the tempura too." Kushina said, confused.
Then Kushina tried the egg fried rice, and Minato tried the tempura.
Their faces once again showed expressions of shock and happiness.
"Habu, did you develop some kind of Ninjutsu to make food so delicious? This is too good!" Kushina joked.
"If you ever think of opening a restaurant, please let me know." Minato said seriously.
Though not materialistic, Mokgetsu's fried rice and tempura gave him an unprecedented experience.
"If you both like it, feel free to visit anytime. It's quite lonely here." Mokgetsu invited them with a smile.
"If you don't mind the trouble, you can come try Minato's and my cooking too, though it's not as good as yours." Kushina said excitedly, hearing Mokgetsu's invitation.
"Well, I'm looking forward to it." Mokgetsu replied with a smile.
After seeing the two off, Mokgetsu secretly thought that the new skill was indeed powerful, fast-tracking them to mutual meal visits.
Mokgetsu took some books from the upstairs bedroom and brought them down, ready to gradually reveal his interests.
...
With Mokgetsu's encouragement and Asuma as a friend leading by example, Obito was full of energy. By Saturday, he was nearly done with the control training and ready to start cultivating Nature Transformation.
As the weekend arrived, Mokgetsu, as a home tutor, was back to work.
"You liar!" Asuma scolded Mokgetsu angrily.
Last week, to not waste the expensive tutoring fees, he had trained hard until he was exhausted upon returning home.
The harder and more painful the training, the more hate Asuma felt toward Mokgetsu upon learning the truth.
"Oh, what did I lie to you about?" Mokgetsu asked with a smile.
"Your tutoring fee is clearly two thousand Ryo per hour, yet you tricked me into thinking it was twenty-five thousand Ryo!" Asuma was even angrier since Mokgetsu wouldn't admit it.
"But did you lose anything? Did you actually give me twenty-five thousand Ryo?" Mokgetsu continued to question.
"Of course, I…" Asuma was about to argue but realized he didn't lose anything.
"See, you didn't lose anything; you even gained. You thought you spent two hundred thousand Ryo, but actually only spent sixteen thousand Ryo, gaining one hundred eighty-four thousand Ryo. You should thank me." Mokgetsu quickly said.
"Did I gain?" Asuma thought along Mokgetsu's line and realized he did.
"Then there's no issue, so let's get to the training." Mokgetsu said leisurely.
"No, something about this is definitely off." Asuma felt something was amiss.