Knowing it was going to happen didn't make it any less painful. A month and a week after our conversation, The Sandaime and Danzo came to the Senju compound to extract the Kyuubi from Mito-sensei and seal it into Kushina. Both of them were resigned to their fate, one to death and the other to a life as a human sacrifice.

I wasn't allowed to know about this, much less be allowed to stay for the process, so I was only able to console Kushina the next day when the news of Mito-sensei's death reached the Nara clan.

Tsunade and Nawaki were silent in their grief as compared to Kushina's painful sobs. Neither of them had really connected much with Kushina, so I was her only support in this unfortunate time, even without being able to talk about her new status as jinchuriki.

Was she really this alone in canon when her gaurdian and sensei died passing on her burden to her? Or when Uzushiogakure was completely wiped out by enemy nations?

Right, I had to do something about that.

"The Uzumaki will be coming to take Mito-sensei's ashes back to Uzushio next month, to scatter them in the ocean. " I told my father at the dinner table.

"Yes. She wanted to be sent away with her cultural rites." He replied, wondering where I was going with this.

"Will it be possible for me attend?" I asked.

Father sighed and gave me a look. "You already know the answer to that, Mishika. I would have let you go if the situation was different. But war is brewing and it wouldn't be safe for you so close to the borders of Kumo and Kiri."

"But Uzushio is like a fortress, right? I should be safe there." I argued.

"You'll have to travel quite a distance to get there and that distance definitely wouldn't be safe, not when you are an academy student."

"But I'll be travelling with the Uzu shinobi, and.."

"No, Mishika. You won't be travelling to Uzushio in the middle of your academy year. My decision is final."

And that was the end of discussion. I didn't try to argue further. Father had become less and less patient after each passing year due to his increased work load and the fragile situation of the elemental nations. To me, his worsening mood served as a sign of time running out. And I was nowhere near strong enough to change things.

I was a Nara, though. I didn't have to be strong enough, just smart.

The next day I asked Minato to meet me at one of the shrines at the Senju Compound.

"We need to make a teleportation seal." I announced.

He blinked at me.

"Not that it doesn't sound interesting, but why?" Minato ventured.

"Because I want to attend Mito-sensei's funeral and Otou-san doesn't want me travelling to Uzushio."

"Teleportation seals are supposed to quite difficult, Mishika-san." Minato said, but the thoughtful look on his face suggested that he was considering it.

This was something I had been thinking about for a long time. I didn't know much about the destruction of Uzushio, except that it occurred at the start of the Second Shinobi War and that it was destroyed by the combined of full frontal attack by two great villages- Kumo and Kiri.

The Uzu shinobi would have used their barrier seals to hold off the enemy as long as possible. But they would have been essentially cut off from escape from all sides. Kiri's fleet would have blockaded the island before committing to such a large scale attack.

Thus, without gaining overwhelming power to defeat armies of shinobi, which was impossible to do in the given timeline, my only option to prevent the destruction of Uzushio was to help the people there to escape.

A teleportation seal would be a perfect tool for them to escape to Konoha.

And Minato, along with Kushina, was a genius at seals. If canon was able to reinvent and use Hiraishin in combat in his teens, this Minato would definitely be able to make a non combat teleportation seal.

The reason I didn't include Kushina in this question was because her way of sealing and basically her understanding of the world was very different. It was very abstract as compared Minato's straightforward worldview and my physics oriented mindset. If she tried to make a teleportation seal, she might accidentally send to to a different dimension or create a blackhole. Maybe the abstract thinking was genetic. It would certainly explain how Uzumaki were so good at bending the laws of reality with their seals and why they never tried to make space time seals.

Minato's way of sealing was very similar to what Mito-sensei showed of Niidaime-sama's work- Logical, crisp and simple. Well, for them anyway, it still flew over my head but I was able to understand it better than the Uzumaki sealing techniques.

It didn't take much to convince Minato. I didn't even have to point out how grateful Kushina would be if she could visit Uzushio without weeks of travel time.

Keeping it secret from Kushina was also less of an issue than it could have been. I knew that if she figured out that we were making a seal without her, we wouldn't be able to escape from pranks king enough to do any actual work. Thankfully, Kushina's free time had become quite limited after becoming a jinchuriki. She had to spend an hour every day with Biwako-sama, the Sandaime's wife, supposedly for meditation sessions, which confused Minato a lot. I couldn't exactly tell him that it was to help with controlling a nine tailed chakra monster inside her.

It took us nearly a month, admittedly with me contributing very little to the actual seal work, mostly calculations (which were numerous), but we had the first prototype. The task had become much easier after we were able to convince Tsunade to let us study the seal structure Niidaime-sama Hiraishin. Of course, we couldn't understand everything in that seal, every seal master has their own nuances, but it made creating the new seal much simpler.

The only thing left to do was to test it.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu." A second later, an exact solid copy of Nara Mishika was standing next to me.

Minato gingerly poked it, only to get his head smacked for his troubles. He stared at the clone in undisguised awe.

"A solid clone! Is that a Nara hiijutsu?"
He asked.

I could see why he would think that. Most of our hiijutsu started with the world 'Kage'.

"Not exactly." I answered. "It's still a kinjutsu though. It could become fatal of one didn't have massive chakra stores or perfect control. So, please don't try it before you have atleast one of those."

Minato nodded seriously. "So, how's the clone going to help us?"

"We can't exactly use an untested seal ourselves, can we? The Kage Bunshin have a memory return function. Even if it pops immediately, we would at least know that the seal isn't safe."

"That makes sense. Are you ready then?" He asked.

"Yes." My clone and replied in tandem, which was a bit creepy.

The Shadow Clone stepped forward to activate the seal, a massive circular structure of diameter of two feet which we had placed in a barren clearing in the Nara forest, for which I had recieved permission from my father. The other part of the seal was painted in the Senju Compound, in the clearing where Mito-sensei got us to test out seals. Safe to say, any explosive noises from that place wouldn't cause much alarm.

As the seal activated and glowed bright golden, I instinctively took a few steps backwards, dragging Minato with me, who apparently wanted to get closer to the activated glowing untested seal.

While my attention was otherwise occupied on our safety, the shadow clone had disappeared from the clearing.

"Did it work? Did it work?" Minato chirped with excitement, jumping up and down.

I was about to answer him that I didn't know yet, when my head was bombarded with pain and memories which didn't make sense. The Shadow clone had spent a maximum of ten sevo away from my presence. While I had recieved at least an hour long memory of her strolling through some dark silent tunnel and emerging at the other seal at the Senju compound, where it promptly dispelled because of chakra exhaustion.

I relayed my observation to Minato, whose expression fell from disappointment.

"It sort of works, though." I said, trying to remain optimistic. "The clone reached the other end without dying. That wa the goal. We'll figure out the kinks in subsequent testing."

"You're right." He perked up again. "We'll have to work fast though, the Uzushio party is supposed to leave next week. If we want our teleportation seal to leave with them, we'll have to make the perfect seal and get it tasted by Hokage-sama and Uzu Shinobi before they leave."

"I guess we aren't sleeping this week then. Troublesome." I grumbled.

We lasted two days before we were busted. I guess our sleep deprived selves weren't up to our usual level of subterfuge.

"You and your friend are making a two point teleportation seal." My father deadpanned. "Because you want to go to Uzushio for Mito-sama's funeral and forbade you to go the usual way. And you tested the seal in the Nara forest."

"Hey! You gave permission for that." I protested.

"When you asked me for some place to test seals I had assumed they would be storage seals and explosion seals, not untested space time fuinjutsu."

"Well, that's your fault then."

Otou-san sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You have to stop working on it."

"What!" I exclaimed, outraged. "But we are so close. We have almost corrected the relative time mismatch problem. We just have to fix the chakra consumption problem and it'll be the perfect seal."

Father raised an eyebrow at that. "You have actually tested it on a live subject?" His tone suggested that he already knew my answer and didn't like it one bit.

"Not exactly live, you know. We used a Shadow clone. With its memory return feature, we could gather data just as efficiently."

"And how did you learn to perform the Shadow clone Jutsu?"

"Mito-sensei taught me." I answered. It's not she'll come back from the dead to tell on me.

"Did she?"

"Mm hmm." Yeah, he didn't buy it.

"Troublesome. Get your notes, and your friend. Meet me at the Hokage office in an hour. This needs to be notified."

Minato and I hadn't planned on showing our incomplete work to the Sandaime, but it wasn't like we could refuse. We ended up skipping academy for the day (not like it mattered much for us, we were leagues ahead of others), and explained the theory and end results of our experiments with the seal. I could see that the seal intrigued him and judging from the look he shared with my father, it was going to used a lot more in war efforts than just the escape of Uzu citizens.

"Both of you have clearly worked hard on this seal. The Niidaime would definitely have been of you for the your modifications in the Hiraishin." The Hokage praised us, still looking at our calculations. "But unfortunately you lack the experience to fine tune it for practical purposes. I think it would be best that this project to passed to Jiraiya." He said, looking at my father.

"I agree. Jiraiya is familiar with the Niidaime's style which this seal is derived from. He would be the best choice." Otou-san added his two cents.

"But we need it to attend Mito-sensei's funeral at Uzushio." I chimed in, deciding to take advantage to being eight year old and earning a cuff on the back of my head for my rudeness, courtesy of my father.

The Hokage didn't seem to mind. "Hmm, it's not a bad idea. Uzushio has been closest alley. It wouldn't hurt to have a way to travel there instantaneously, though only after adding security features." He added, eyeing me sternly. "It wouldn't do to give enemy shinobi free access to our village, would it?"

I nodded, sheepish under his disapproval. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

It wasn't like I had forgotten about adding security features, I just put it on the back burner until we had a working seal.

"Regardless, according to Uzushio's traditions, the ashes are scattered into the ocean a year after death. That would give my student enough time to fine tune this seal and me too get it approved by the Uzukage. I don't see a reason that you two and Kushina couldn't attend the ceremony then." He continued, his eyes returning to the previous warm undertone.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama. Mito-sensei meant a lot to all of us." Minato said bowing his head.

"Of course. Your hard work shows your regard for her." The Sandaime replied. "I understand both of have nearly completed the third year at academy. Is that correct.

Minato and I nodded.

"I am declaring the existence of this seals and this conversation classified. You understand what that means?"

I gulped. "Yes, Hokage-sama." We murmured.

"Good. You are dismissed. I would be expecting your best at the graduation exams next year."