A few days later, it was finally time for something other than waking up and going to fight others. It was going to be a leisurely day, where we were being let into the Uzumaki's library. Of course, it was not the super-secret or important branch of it... I mean, it may have a section where they store some extreme jutsus or knowledge, but we weren't told where to find them. Which wasn't that surprising. Still, I didn't hurry, taking my time, because finally, Kushina had some time off before her new training would commence, so I let the two go ahead, while I stayed back, giving them some time to be alone.
When I arrived at the place, there was no grand gate to welcome me, and to my surprise, there were no towering, carved statues with spirals or anything. I only realized I was at the right place when I saw a plaque that said it was the 'Scroll House,' aka the library. Smiling to myself, I stepped into the greyish stone building, shivering a little because the air was cool and dry inside. Sniffing once or twice, I noticed that the air was faintly scented as well... Kind of sweet, but not like incense or sage or anything like those, it was... Hm. Subtle. I couldn't tell whether it was coming from somewhere or was the natural scent of the scrolls and books stored here.
"Of course it's a spiral," I muttered to myself as I kept walking, heading deeper inside, looking upwards.
The interior opened into a vast cylindrical space, the walls carved into layered balconies that continued upward in a helix-like pattern. The shelves were built directly into the stone walls, of course, and each level was packed to the brim with scrolls, leather-bound tomes... Huh. I could even notice some clay tablets, and odd hybrid formats I couldn't even name. With so few windows, most of the light came from sealed lamps embedded into the wall at regular intervals, glowing in an orange hue without casting harsh shadows that would make it hard to read.
"This looks more like a vault than a library..." I whispered to myself, trying to see where the two of them might be, but apparently, they weren't on the first floor.
Looking for them, I strolled along the first floor's mostly unoccupied tables. Once or twice, I exchanged a friendly nod with Uzumakis, sitting around, reading, or looking for something. There was not much to talk about, and it was eerily silent in here, more than in a cemetery. Which also told me that Kushina is either not here or the two had gone on a little date... Which would be fun to witness.
Anyway, I began climbing after deciding I had walked enough and it was time to check the other floors. The staircases themselves were narrow and curved, with no chance for people to pass by each other. As for the rest of the library, each floor had its own speciality, which was described on a stone tablet right where one could get off the spiral staircases. Apparently, the second floor was dedicated to sealing theory, along with historical accounts of seals, recording Uzumaki joint operations, and finally, their diplomatic exchanges. Interesting... Looking around a little, it didn't take me long to pass a section labeled with the old Senju crest, making my eye stop on it, right next to another marked with Uzumaki script so dense it made my head ache by just trying to read the title.
"Huh."
Gifts, I guess. Pulling some of the Senju-marked scrolls, opening them, they were mostly personal recounts, from people of the clan, and even if they had recorded their names at the end, none of them stood out or rang any bells for me. Hmmm... Well, important stuff or anything made by Hashirama has to be somewhere else, not where some idiot like me can waltz in and take a look at it.
Not wanting to get bogged down with things that won't help with much, I put it back and aimed at the stairs once again, heading up another level.
"Ah." I flinched because I noticed a set of blonde, spiky hair the moment I stepped off the stairs. But... Why is he alone?
Walking over, Minato was sitting at a wide stone table near the inner curve of the spiral, with multiple scrolls spread out before him, along with a set of ink pots, brushes, and loose sheets of paper covering every available surface. Even if it was chaotic, it was allowing him to rapidly take notes after notes, scribbling like some possessed scribe. Oh boy, someone had fallen into a trance, huh? Even his sleeves were rolled up, his posture hunched in a way that made him look like some kind of old man, locked away in a tower to ponder his orb for a century.
He didn't notice me, not even when I got near to his desk. I leaned against it and just watched, curious how deep he was in his own thoughts. Pretty deep, apparently... His eyes flicked back and forth across the scroll in his hands, his lips moving as he read it, sometimes mumbling something in tongues, as far as I was concerned. Then, every few seconds, he'd pause, jot something down, then cross it out and write again. Let's see... Leaning closer, even casting a shadow over him meant nothing, as he just kept mumbling and writing. His notes weren't neat at all; they were dense, writing wherever there was space, arrows pointing back and forth between them and between symbols half-drawn and rewritten about two to three times at least. What the actual heck?
"You're going to spill ink on that scroll if you keep moving your hands with the speed you do," I said in the end, loud enough to make him notice that he wasn't alone anymore.
"Not that loud, Kushina!" Minato startled so hard he nearly knocked over an ink pot, nearly turning my prophecy into reality while looking around... Eh? Wait! Who did you call me? Apparently, he also noticed what he said and that it wasn't her who stood next to him, but me. "Renji!" He grabbed the table instinctively, then froze, blinking, turning his head around. "How long have you been there? And... where is Kushina?"
"You fucked it up, didn't you?" I moaned, pinching the ridge of my nose.
"What?" He blinked his eyes again.
"Hopeless idiot... I let you have your sweet time with Kushina, and you get so immersed in something that you don't even capitalize on the opportunity! What?! Should I hold your hand to score or what?!"
"Not that loud!" He whispered, waving his hands, trying to silence me, "Sssh!"
"I am not cleaning up this mess..." I muttered, rolling my eyes and sitting down next to him.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't hear you."
"You don't even realize it, do you?" I asked, giving up, because you can't help someone as dense as he was. The problem is, he is dense when it comes to Kushina... I wish he would be just as sharp with her as he is with learning a new jutsu. Speaking of those, my eyes were now drawn to the scroll he'd been holding. "Wait..." I asked, making him lift it and read the author's name on its back, "There was a scroll from Tobirama here? What the... How?"
"Kushina found it." He said proudly, once again, looking around, "I just don't know where she disappeared to.
"Probably got fed up with you ignoring her." I moaned and then prodded him before he could feel ashamed. When I did so, his mind got drawn back to the scroll, and he turned it slightly so I could read it better.
It wasn't instructions or a full, completed jutsu either, as apparently it was a theory. Oh. This wasn't even directly from his pen; instead, this was a recount of an Uzumaki who was exchanging ideas with Tobirama, developing some theoretical jutsus that also incorporated seals. It was probably about exchanging ideas and going back and forth, which also helped Tobirama further refine his techniques with input from someone who worked solely with seals and formations.
"Wait... are they talking about..." I furrowed my brows as I kept reading, feeling a bit lost as it was a hard read.
"Yeah, they are talking about their observations and theories on space-time interactions." He nodded, as excited as a puppy would be when a treat had been promised to him, "The scroll also contains personal notes on attempts at large-scale instantaneous displacement, including failures and potential limitations of the technique, or what it can bring along. The Uzumaki who recorded this has his hypotheses written down, many of them, of course, later crossed out, and rewritten again with inputs from Tobirama himself."
"Are you learning the Second Hokage's Flying Thunder God technique from their back and forth?" I asked, blurting it out all without thinking, feeling amazed.
"I don't know if I would say it's learning, but..." He nodded, blushing a little, and showing me his notes, "I can see the basic theory behind it. According to these documents, by this time, Tobirama had long mastered the technique and was looking to further improve it. These are from a time when he was already a Hokage, Renji!"
"Your brain is on a different level..." I murmured, suddenly understanding why Kushina was gone... Who would want to sit here and look stupid with him?
"You should study it, too," Minato continued, tapping the scroll gently. "The principles and the logic behind it are invaluable. It has the mistakes he made with the improvements that help greatly to narrow things down and allow me to learn about the technique itself!"
"You are fucking weird, my man," I said honestly, looking into his eyes, "You are reverse-engineering a Hokage's own invention, by someone else's recounts? Are you even a human?"
"Exactly!" His eyes shone, then his mind finally registered what I had said, "Hey! I am a human! Also, I don't know how it will be or if I can indeed replicate the jutsu itself, but the way the Uzumaki's seals work in this document, with their markings and their marking structure... It is pretty easy! Best thing is, their markings, if I can make it work, would never disappear once placed."
"You sure?" I asked, gulping, because this was exactly what I also knew about the technique that made Minato famous in the future.
Suddenly, he stood up, pacing around the table, hands moving as he spoke, trying to explain the idea that was now stuck in his head.
"Tobirama realized that space isn't moved through in a linear fashion; instead, it's an addressed system. There is always a sender and a receiver," he said, not even looking at me. "Every location has a kind of… signature, so a coordinate that can be fixed will either act as a sender or a receiver. If you anchor it properly... That is what the Uzumaki seals help determine, as they aren't just containers for the jutsu. After being placed, they're reference points, becoming the active receivers!"
"If I could understand half of it, that would be great," I said, feeling a chill crawl up my spine. "Holy hell, you already know how to rebuild it...!"
"Kind of... Almost... Not really." Minato stopped pacing and looked at me, blushing before saying something that he finally felt conscious about, "I think I can do better. I can finish what the Second Hokage was trying to do and elevate his technique to..."
Of course you do... You are the Yellow Flash after all... That's what I wanted to say, but I just smiled, shaking my head, chuckling.
"When you do, teach me. This..." I waved my hand around the table, "It's too much for me. I will work with the finished product, but don't make me give any input on how to develop it."
"It's really not that hard!" He gestured me over to the notes he had taken, spread across the table. "Tobirama's version required constant recalibration," he explained as if it was so evident, "He used multiple hand seals to initiate the transfer, with a heavy chakra cost. It was powerful but inefficient, so, of course, he solved the problem once by beginning to use his own seals, attaching them to objects... But those seals were, for sure, not permanent and could be easily removed or destroyed. It greatly hampered the technique's speed and range, not to mention its viability."
"How?" I asked, but I do remember that in the show, Tobirama mentioned that Minato was even better at it than he was. Apparently, this was the reason.
"A receiver that is not stable, fixed, or can be damaged causes the transmission to leak, fail, or break away while in the middle of transitioning. Not every instant is the same instant."
"Oh boy..." I muttered, shrugging, but he just continued. "Sure..."
"By decoupling the activation from the displacement, I can not only speed up the transfer, but increase the range... Almost making it unlimited and carrying anything or everything that I want with me. If the mark I place down carries the spatial data, the user shouldn't have to recreate the calculation every time; I just need to lock onto it, and bam! Appear!"
"Minato," I said carefully, "You realize that if you pull this off, you'll be rewriting one of the most closely guarded techniques in Konoha's history..."
"I know," he said softly, but the excitement in his eyes was already burning at its maximum.
"Good!" I grinned, slapping his back, "And?" I asked, "How far along are you, for real?"
"Well..." Minato glanced back at the scroll, then at his notes. "I think I've already fixed one of Tobirama's bottlenecks," he admitted, "I just need to test it."
"Heh!" I closed my eyes, scoffing, of course you have. Bastard. "Well," I said after a moment, opening one of my eyes, looking at him, "I am willing to help you test out. But first..."
"Hm?" He looked at me, licking his lips.
"We are going to find Kushina... and you are going to grovel before her feet for ignoring her..."