"Why… is it this technique?"
Hikaru frowned at the scroll in his hand. His head felt swollen, like something heavy was pressing behind his eyes.
Flying Thunder God wasn't a casual gift.
It was the kind of technique that could smash through the "bloodline ceiling" outright.
Just look at Minato Namikaze.
Born a common shinobi with no kekkei genkai, yet after mastering Flying Thunder God, his battlefield performance eclipsed bloodline elites.
He'd once erased fifty enemy shinobi in an instant—jōnin among them.
That was how terrifying it was.
And it was precisely because Minato existed—combined with Iwagakure needing to watch for Kumogakure's revenge on a second front—that Iwa chose to back down and accept peace.
"But this isn't something you just pick up."
Hikaru sighed.
As a Senju, he'd asked the elder about Flying Thunder God when he was still small.
The answer he received had nearly killed the idea on the spot.
Simple:
The difficulty is absurd.
To learn this technique, you needed more than talent.
You needed monstrous reflexes and extreme body coordination.
Flying Thunder God was instantaneous space–time displacement—appearing at your mark and assassinating before the enemy even understood what happened.
That meant your nervous system and balance had to be perfect.
If your reactions weren't fast enough, you'd land and your brain wouldn't even catch up to your body.
If your coordination wasn't good enough, you wouldn't even keep your footing.
Forget a surprise attack—you'd trip, fall, or even crash directly into someone's blade.
That wasn't ambush.
That was suicide.
Konoha had existed for nearly fifty years and already passed through multiple Hokage eras.
Yet only two people had truly mastered Flying Thunder God:
The long-dead Second Hokage…
And the current Fourth—who, in Hikaru's eyes, was almost being hollowed out politically.
Minato had tried teaching it to others. He even came up with ways to split the technique and simplify it.
In a sense, he succeeded.
But it still didn't help.
Genma, Raidō, and Iwashi could perform the technique in a limited form… but they couldn't use it in real combat.
Even as a pure transport method, it strained them.
"The requirements are just… inhuman."
After seeing Uesugi Gen off, Hikaru returned inside, opened the scroll fully, and began to read.
"…At least the first part, I barely qualify."
"My years of planting basic attributes weren't wasted."
"But the second part…"
Flying Thunder God didn't just punish the body.
It punished your technical foundation even harder.
Because it wasn't a normal ninjutsu at all.
It was a fūinjutsu.
The Flying Thunder God formula was, effectively, a mutated form of sealing arts.
If you didn't understand sealing theory, you couldn't grasp it.
And if your sealing control wasn't sharp, you couldn't place marks quickly or cleanly.
People liked to joke that Flying Thunder God was just "throwing a kunai."
But real usage was far more brutal than that.
When an assassination failed, the user had to leave marks on the enemy's body—silently, instantly—so they could return at any time.
Just like Minato against Obito in the future: he planted the mark without a sound, then used it to land the decisive strike and sever Obito's link to the Nine-Tails.
"In short… it's a nightmare."
Hikaru finished reading quickly, committing every detail to memory.
Once he was sure he had it, he lit the scroll on fire.
He watched it curl into ash, thin smoke rising in lazy spirals, and let out a low breath.
"Looks like I'll have to invest a lot more time into sealing arts."
"And into developing my own formula."
Flying Thunder God was difficult—unreasonably so.
But Hikaru had no intention of giving up.
Because he wasn't like everyone else.
He had a cheat.
For him, the biggest hurdle wasn't "mastery."
It was simply the first successful, complete execution.
His system's trait was simple: once he performed a technique properly one time, he could essentially fully master it afterward.
It was a disgusting advantage.
His Suiton had been like that.
The Doton he hadn't yet successfully used would likely be the same.
That was how he, with only chūnin-level chakra, still possessed jōnin-level combat ability.
This control, plus years of ANBU missions, had shaped him into something sharper than his numbers suggested.
With this trait, Hikaru was confident he could master Flying Thunder God.
He might even become more fluent with it than Tobirama or Minato.
But before any of that—
He needed sealing arts.
He was Senju, and the clan still possessed a stockpile of fūinjutsu scrolls.
But Hikaru didn't believe he had much natural talent for it.
Sealing arts weren't like ninjutsu. They were a different language entirely.
A different system.
A new world.
He'd experimented with it in childhood… and gotten nowhere.
"So for Flying Thunder God… I'll have to force it."
"And Kakashi is under my command now. If it comes to it…"
If it came to it, he'd have to use Kakashi.
Use him to get an introduction.
To visit the Hokage's wife.
Uzumaki Kushina—a core member of the Uzumaki clan, and the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki—was a sealing master by blood and by skill.
Hikaru had no doubt her sealing knowledge was terrifying.
Minato's Flying Thunder God itself probably carried traces of her influence.
If Kushina taught him, Hikaru was certain he could gain the foundation he needed.
He didn't even need much.
Just the basics—enough to seal, and enough to shape and anchor a Flying Thunder God formula.
With his cheat, once he could perform that much, he could refine it into combat-level usage himself.
"Self-research fits you best," Hikaru admitted inwardly.
"But right now… learning directly from the right teacher is better."
"And Kushina's ability is beyond doubt."
He pictured the original story:
Kushina suppressing the Nine-Tails with sealing chains.
Even at death's edge, with only the last scraps of her chakra, still helping Naruto complete the seal.
Just imagining it made Hikaru's blood run hot.
Kakashi's value was enormous.
The help he could provide—directly and indirectly—was beyond imagination.
Hikaru's earlier "warning" to Kakashi had been meant as long-term positioning… with a side of stirring tension between the Fourth and Third.
Whether it worked or not, Hikaru hadn't even cared.
But now, looking at the situation, he realized something:
That move had value.
Whether the effect turned out positive or negative was unclear.
But—
Positive or negative, he could adjust from the shadows.
That was his advantage.
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