"…998, 999,1000."
Haruto dropped the metal stick with 3 large cylinder-like discs at the end of it and brought his right arm up, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
He stared down at his hands and clenched them, before releasing. He nodded in satisfaction.
"Looks like I'm getting used to the weights. Better get heavier weights next time I guess or just increase the gravity seals."
In the last 7 years, Haruto has grown beyond anyone has expected, both in body and spirit.
He was now standing at an incredible 5'4, taller than the average height for 13 year old of 5'1, and his hair was still a short spiky red, but was slicked back, his dark blue eyes remained the same, and his dragon-like pupil got a bit larger and more oval like, instead of diamond like. His body was like that of a 15 year old, which he concluded was thanks to his Uzumaki blood, instead of a 13 year old, with a developing 6 pack and lean, but large muscles.
His choice of clothing was a bit odd for a shinobi, but it wasn't weird as a certain man who yells of youth that we all know and would still work when traveling at night, to have a better chance of hiding against enemies.
He wears a long, open-black coat, with a crimson red sash around his waist to hold it all together, in which you can see 3 sword's sheaths, color white, red, and black. Surprisingly, he didn't wear any kind of protection underneath, leaving his whole chest and stomach exposed, causing many girls his age, even some older women, to go crazy, which he gets irritated by.
As for his training, the time it takes Haruto to master a jutsu would make a prodigy the caliber of his sister, Naruko, and Itachi jealous and the kind of workouts he does would probably make even the "Green Beast" of Konoha cringe, considering how he has gravity seals placed on his body and on his weights that are equally outrageous with the lightest of his weights being 100 pounds!
For Ninjutsu, he was able to master Shape Manipulation within the first 2 years of training to such a high degree that, when he tried to recreate his father's Rasengan on pure notes alone, he was able to recreate it and master it within 6 days, totally crushing his father's time it took him to complete the Rasengan.
When he showed the Rasengan to his parents, he was incredibly amused when his father crouched to the ground with a raining cloud over his head as he drew circles on the floor while Kushina laughed at Minato and congratulated Haruto for his achievements.
Honestly, both parents never expected that to happen, but knew that Haruto was something special.
Anyways, Haruto, after finally mastering Shape Manipulation, decided to work on his Nature Manipulation next.
Grabbing some chakra paper from his father's desk, with his permission of course, Haruto charged some chakra into it and was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
The chakra paper ripped into shreds, dividing into 2 piles, with one pile having each piece of paper crumpling up into a tiny ball that was smaller than a pebble and the other pile burning to ashes.
This revealed that his main affinities were Wind, Lightning, and Fire, and the strongest to weakest being in the same order.
He was glad with the affinities he had because it worked perfectly for his style of fighting, with all them being so destructive.
Haruto decided to work with his strongest affinity first, thinking that it would be the quickest to learn.
Despite it being his affinity, it actually took him 4 years to master his control over wind and he is half way done with Lightning in the last year, with Fire not even being worked on.
He was disappointed a little in himself at not mastering all 3 affinities, but was pleased nonetheless with at least completing one element and being halfway done with another.
This helped him master several Ninjutsu, with the most being of course, fire and lightning. His second most abundant of jutsus were Earth and Water.
Sadly and shockingly, the number of wind jutsus he learned was the least compared to the rest of the elemental jutsus he learned.
That didn't bring him down in the least, though, because he actually created some of his own wind jutsus, with his strongest one being B-Rank.
Overall, his level of Ninjutsu was around High-Chunin to Low-Jonin.
For his Genjutsu, Haruto would probably say that it was his weakest skill, considering how dense his chakra was and how he didn't show that much of an interest in it, but he did train enough that he could break out of an A-rank Genjutsu easily and could perform C to B-Rank Genjutsu, but that's as high as he could probably get for now.
His skills in Taijutsu were very impressive, considering he created his own personal fighting style from learning the basic Academy stances and reading scrolls on Taijutsu styles, such as Strong Fist. His fighting style, if one was to describe it, was a combination of street brawling and kicks that was so unpredictable that even an Uchiha would have some trouble reading his next attack. Although, the level of his Taijutsu is only High-Genin to Low-Chunin.
If one were to ask Haruto what was his best accomplishment while training, he would easily answer Fuinjutsu and Kenjutsu, especially Kenjutsu.
When he began his training in Fuinjutsu, his Uzumaki blood proved true and by the end of the 7 years, he was easily a level 7 borderline 8 out of 10 Seal Master, faster than his father and godfather could ever hope to achieve at his age. With this level, he could easily read complex seals and create seals in under 25 seconds. His Fuinjutsu level was High-Jonin to Low-Kage.
His last skill that he trained and his personal favorite, Kenjutsu, which would make the Seven Swordsman of the Mist feel impressed. The sword style that he spent 7 years creating was called the Three Swords Style or as he likes to call it, Santoryu. Along with creating this sword style, he branched out his sword style and created Nitoryu, Two Swords Style, and Itoryu, One Sword Style.
When he first showcased his Santoryu to his family through a spar with Yugao, one of Konoha's top swordsmen, or swordswoman in this case, they were all stunned at how easily Haruto was able to keep up with Yugao and even cut her armor.
They were all in awe at his abilities, especially Haruki and Haruna who begged him to teach them, but the most terrifying thing about it all was that he was still improving it and wasn't even experienced as Yugao.
That made Minato, Kushina, and Yugao shiver at the thought.
Haruto's Santoryu was easily Mid-Kage to High-Kage level, but without his experience, it was only around Mid-Jonin.
When he thought about Kenjutsu, he glanced down to his swords at his left hip, specifically the ones with the red sheath and the black sheath, and smiled as he remembered how he got them.
He recalled when he was around 8, how every time he tried using some regular swords to create his Santoryu, they would break after a couple of attacks, so he decided to go out into town and see if he could buy some new swords.
As he was walking through the village, with some girls his age and women talking about how cute he looked walking around with Wado Ichimonji strapped to his hip, much to his slight annoyance, Haruto felt a dark aura calling to him, confusing him greatly.
Despite the feeling, Haruto decided to follow to see where it would lead him and he was surprised to see himself standing in front of a weapons store called "The Bleeding Tiger."
Ignoring the weird title and the stares from the people who saw him enter, Haruto continued to follow the dark aura and he reached a barrel full of swords that was only 24,000 yen.
When he picked up the sword, Haruto stared at it for a couple of seconds and realized that the sword was exuding a dark aura because it was cursed so when he saw the owner of the store rush to him with a panicked look, he wasn't even startled when he tried to stop him from buying the sword, which he found out was called Sandai Kitetsu.
Ignoring all the owner's warnings, Haruto decided to test his luck and unsheathed it and threw it in the air. He then stuck out his right arm and closed his eyes waiting. The sword passed his arm harmlessly and Haruto picked up the sword.
Turning to the owner, who fell on his ass in shock, Haruto asked to buy the sword, but he was pleasantly surprised when the owner let him have the sword for free and gave him an extra sword called Yubashiri , even after Haruto tried to persuade him to let him pay.
After that day, Haruto was never seen without his three swords.
"Haruto-niisama! Breakfast is ready! If you don't come down, Genki will eat all your food!"
Haruto's smile grew as he heard the voice of his new adopted sister.
After they watched the fireworks, Haruto told Mitsuki, Saya, Genki, Daichi, and Tatsumi that they could sleep at their house and when they tried to decline, his mother, father, and siblings were very persistent in letting them stay so they reluctantly accepted.
They then went to the house, where they had a huge party in celebration for their birthdays and received gifts from several clans and their godparents, Jiraiya and Tsunade, which was a toad summing for Haruki, Slugs summoning for Haruna, and scrolls in Fuinjutsu and Iryojutsu for Haruto.
The next day after that, Minato explained to Kushina about what he talked with Haruto and she, predictably, thought it was a great idea.
When they were all having breakfast, Minato and Kushina told them all how they were going to adopt them into the family, causing them to be stunned, which was later broken when Haruki and Haruna started cheering and Naruko patted their heads. They immediately started to cry tears of joy and they easily came up to the conclusion that Haruto was behind it all so they jumped him, hugging him so hard that he actually turned blue.
Minato made it official by signing some papers, officially making them all children of the Hokage.
Kushina wanted the whole village to know so after they signed the papers, Minato got the whole village to gather around and introduce each of their new children.
They were nervous at first, thinking that the people would reject them, but their worries vanished when the whole village cheered instead.
Although there were some who thought Minato's choice of adopting some orphans was a bad idea, specifically the council (Danzo, Homura, and Koharu), but Minato shut them up when he showed why he was the Hokage and also described how he was an orphan himself.
Haruto shook his head and replied back.
"Ok, Mitsuki! I'm coming!"
Haruto grabbed a white cloth from nearby and started to wipe off the sweat he accumulated while working out as he gazed at his rooms.
Thanks to some seals he created, he was able to increase the size of his room 10x its original size and now half of his room was seen with a bunch of weights he uses for training.
Getting the last bit of sweat off his body, Haruto put his coat back on and tightened his red sash around his waist, securing the swords in place at his hip, and exited his room, heading for the kitchen.