The next day.
At Namikaze Minato's home.
Shin-chan stood several meters away from the front door.
"It's morning right now." Shin-chan lowered his head and looked at his own feet. "In the morning, people's spirits are fragile, so it isn't suitable to take a sealing technique class at five times the pace."
After saying that, he nodded, feeling that what he said made perfect sense.
He turned around and walked two steps, then stopped again.
"But Big Sister Kushina said that if I don't go today, the consequences will be very serious."
He turned back around and faced the door of Namikaze Minato's home again.
He walked forward a little, then stopped again.
"Shinjiro said there's five times the progress, no snack time." Shin-chan paced back and forth in place. "And a terrifying smile."
He crouched down and looked at an ant on the ground, trying to talk to it.
"Tell me, when the First Hokage faced an enemy he couldn't beat, would he run away?"
The ant crawled past his foot and did not answer.
"I don't think he would." Shin-chan muttered to himself. "Because the First Hokage is a Hokage, and Hokage can't run away."
The ant continued crawling forward.
"But I'm a genin." Shin-chan raised one finger. "Genin can run away."
He stood up, as if he had finally found the perfect reason.
Just as he turned around and prepared to head back...
The door behind him opened.
Shin-chan's body froze. He slowly turned his head.
Kushina was leaning against the doorframe. The expression on her face was exactly the same as the smile in Shinjiro's memories from yesterday.
"Shin-chan."
Shin-chan instinctively stood at attention. "Good morning, Big Sister Kushina."
"I saw you standing at the door for a long time." Kushina smiled without really smiling. "Why didn't you come in?"
"I was thinking about a problem."
"What problem?"
Shin-chan looked up at Kushina. "I was thinking whether today is a good day."
"A good day for what?"
"A suitable day to ask for leave," Shin-chan said seriously. "I observed the morning clouds. One of them was shaped very much like a leave request form."
Kushina lowered one hand from her chest and beckoned to Shin-chan.
"Come in."
Those simple two words made Shin-chan's shoulders slump.
He lowered his head and moved toward the door step by step.
That distance of seven or eight meters somehow felt like he was measuring the entire ninja world.
When he reached the doorway, Shin-chan lifted his head and asked, "Big Sister Kushina."
"Mm?"
"You really won't be mean to me?"
"Does my expression look like I'm being mean to you?"
Shin-chan studied it carefully, then honestly said, "I don't know."
"Then hurry up and come in."
When Shin-chan stepped over the threshold, he glanced back at the sky outside.
When Namikaze Minato saw Shin-chan enter, he nodded slightly at him, with a trace of sympathy on his face.
"Big Brother Minato." Shin-chan changed his shoes. "What are we eating this morning?"
"Now is not the time to ask about breakfast." Kushina stood in the middle of the living room. "Do you still remember what happened yesterday?"
"Yesterday?" Shin-chan blinked. "Did something special happen yesterday?"
"The matter of using a shadow clone to attend class."
"Ah, that." Shin-chan tilted his head, as if recalling something from a very long time ago. "That should have been something Shinjiro did."
Kushina sat down in a chair. "Come here."
Shin-chan walked over, sat across from her, and straightened his back.
"Shinjiro told me many things yesterday." Kushina opened the notebook and turned to the page written yesterday.
"What did he say?" Shin-chan knowingly asked.
"He said that from the very first day, you understood sealing techniques."
Shin-chan blinked. "Shinjiro might have remembered wrong."
"Shadow clones don't remember wrong."
"Shinjiro was being a shadow clone for the first time." Shin-chan held up three fingers. "That one was Shinsuke. No, wait, it was..."
He furrowed his brow. "Which 'suke' was it again?"
"Don't change the subject." Kushina knocked on the table.
Shin-chan closed his mouth.
"Three questions." Kushina held up three fingers. "Answer me."
Shin-chan looked at those three fingers as if he were looking at three sealing techniques about to fall on him.
"First question. From the very first day, did you understand the sealing techniques I taught you?"
Shin-chan opened his mouth.
Kushina stared at him and said, "Tell the truth."
"I understood part of them."
"How much?"
"Most of them."
"Then that means you basically understood them all."
Shin-chan nodded slightly.
"Second question." Kushina raised a second finger. "How many times have you used a shadow clone to attend class?"
"Yesterday was the first time," Shin-chan answered immediately. "It really was the first time."
"Why was it the first time?"
"Because I only thought of that method yesterday."
"You thought of it and used it on your own teacher?"
Shin-chan lowered his head. "Because I was too tired. After finishing class in the morning, I still had class in the afternoon. If I didn't rest, then when I got home at night, I felt like I had no strength left."
When he said this, there was a tiny bit of grievance in his voice.
Kushina looked at him for a while, then slowly lowered her finger.
"Third question. Do you still feel tired now?"
"I'm not tired now." Shin-chan lifted his head. "I slept last night. I slept really well."
"I didn't sleep well last night."
Shin-chan tilted his head and looked at her.
"Because your shadow clone told me that after teaching you for so long, you had been deliberately holding back your learning speed." Kushina sighed. "I was wondering if I hadn't been teaching well, and that made you feel bored."
"No." Shin-chan placed both hands on his knees. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pretended I couldn't learn it."
Kushina did not speak.
"I ate your cake," Shin-chan continued. "And still pretended I couldn't learn it. That was really bad."
He lowered his head. "If you want to scold me, then scold me."
"Raise your head."
Shin-chan raised his head.
Kushina shook her head. "I won't scold you."
Shin-chan looked a little puzzled.
"The fact that you can understand sealing techniques is not a problem in itself," Kushina said. "The problem isn't your ability. It's that you used a shadow clone to attend class."
Shin-chan's eyes started drifting left again.
"Look at me."
His eyes drifted back.
"You know shadow clones transfer fatigue back to the main body." Kushina looked at him. "Having an entire class's worth of memories shoved into you all at once places several times more mental burden on the main body than normal studying."
"But I only yawned..."
Kushina interrupted him. "I'm worried you'll hurt yourself."
Shin-chan was silent for a while before he spoke.
"I know I was wrong."
This time, his tone was different from before.
The earlier "I'm sorry" had meant, "I got caught, so I'm apologizing."
This "I know I was wrong" meant, "I understand what you're saying now."
Kushina heard the difference. Then she stood up and walked to the kitchen doorway.
"The cake you like." She took a plate from the cabinet, came back, and placed it in front of Shin-chan.
It was exactly the same as the cake from before.
Shin-chan looked at the cake and froze for a moment. "I still get cake?"
"Punishment is punishment. Cake is cake." Kushina sat back down. "They're two separate things."
Shin-chan picked up the fork, cut off a small piece of cake, and placed it in his mouth.
~~~
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