Naruto Shippuden: girl from whirlpools

A test of Strength

Chapter Five: A Test of Strength

Kushina did not speak to him once that week. He had seen her several times down in the training yard, practising furiously with her apparently bottomless well of energy. She'd turned into a steely, determined drone, one who no longer registered his existence beyond the fact that they were matched together in the first round of a tournament that was rapidly approaching.

And not only was Kushina refusing to speak to him, but Ai too also bore a grudge against him for figuring out the spirit of the second test. Saburou wasn't talking to him either, come to think of it, but since that was normal, Minato didn't worry too much about this. He instead clung close to his sensei's side for that week, wheedling him to practise some basic moves that he could already perform blindfolded, or else just leeching his company. It seemed like his sensei was the only one who liked him these days. Even Inoichi and Shikaku were avoiding him, ashamed as they were of backstabbing him, and perhaps a little wary of vengeance. Everyone else was simply too busy preparing for the final test to bother much with him, or perhaps they too were avoiding him almost superstitiously, as if speaking to him might invoke the wrath of the gods of probability, resulting in them being paired against him in the tournament.

"Hold this for me, Minato," Jiraiya-sensei said, handing his student his binoculars as he resettled on the library rooftop. This was his new hobby, he'd said. 'Ornithology'. Apparently that meant bird watching, but his sensei seemed to be ignoring a perfectly valid looking hawk hanging out in a nearby tree in favour of watching a whole other kind of bird.

So while most of Minato's friends were buckling down and training hard for the coming tournament, Minato was assisting his sensei in spying on his own teammate, the village's most beautiful – and violent – kunoichi, Tsunade. Although, he told himself, he was only doing this because if he didn't help his sensei in his endeavours to be the village's biggest sex pest, there was a good chance that this particular woman would kill his sensei.

But now there was also the good chance that she would kill Minato too.

"Maybe we could do something else, sensei," he said warily, keeping an eye on the apartment opposite.

"Like what?"

"Aren't there… other women… less dangerous women?"

"Minato, Minato, Minato," Jiraiya sighed, taking back the binoculars to refocus on his teammate's apartment window. "When twitching, one does not seek out a common blackbird when there is a bird of paradise about."

If Tsunade was a bird of paradise, what kind of hellish version of paradise did this refer to? And if a bird could punch a hole in the earth's crust, one should really evaluate their ornithological hobby and see if there weren't any safer, less fatal alternatives. Like knitting. Jiraiya-sensei really might enjoy knitting if he just got-

"Dear god, get down!"

Sensei's large hand landed on top of his head like a brick, and they both flattened themselves against the rooftop as the elusive, lesser-spotted blonde came to her window and pushed it open. She didn't appear to notice the pair of gargoyles on the library rooftop. Perhaps because she was a little preoccupied by the pale-haired man who came up behind her to playfully wrap his arms around her waist.

It appeared that they'd come across some sort of mating dance.

"Dan," Jiraiya-sensei sighed disgustedly, lowering his binoculars as if he could no longer stomach the sight. "What a fungus. Remind me to ask the Hokage to send that guy on a suicide mission."

"Can we do something else?" Minato asked, because this development might mean his sensei was finally open to other activities.

Jiraiya-sense sighed even more loudly. "I guess," he intoned. "I should be training you anyway. Haven't you got some sort of test next week? Where's Ai and Saburou?"