#and of course I'm writing a fic where tenten learns it but that's irrelevant

[erumai-maadu]

When I watched the show and found out only Minato and Tobirama know Hiraishin, I was really confused and wondered why. So here’s my take on it.

Canon says Tobirama created a whole bunch of super powerful jutsu, including the Hiraishin, but I call bullshit on that (on him making the Hiraishin, I mean). This is what happened (headcanon, obviously):

Way back when, before the Senju v Uchiha conflict, a seal master created the Hiraishin, but it was created for transporting goods and/or people instantaneously to safety in times of war. It had far too long a seal formula, and took lots of chakra to use because the jutsu was used for transporting other items alongside the user, increasing chakra cost exponentially. It was incredibly inefficient, and wasn’t widely known as a result. No one had ever thought of using it to transport one person, as the formula was too long and it wasn’t worth all the code to move one person.

Then rolled around the Senju v Uchiha war and Tobirama, making an assload of jutsu to counter Madara and Izuna’s abilities. While looking around for some new jutsu to add to his arsenal, he found a scroll detailing the Hiraishin no jutsu and its use. Tobirama, reading the scroll and realizing the potential combat applications, took the huge amount of fuin-code and condensed it to just this:

(his seal mark) and started off by using it as just another sealing jutsu, marking targets with his hands and teleporting to them to take them out. 

He eventually realized he could put the formula on kunai and throw them, increasing the range and versatility of the jutsu while also giving him an effective escape route if he ever needed to quickly dodge attacks. Realizing that someone could use this for doing a lot of terrible things, he refused to teach it to anyone, and hid away the scroll.

So then Tobirama died, more canon stuff happened, and one day, a young Minato (probably teenaged? The timeline’s so fucked up that I have no idea how old he was) found the scroll with Tobirama’s notes on Hiraishin. Based on his own experience with sealing to reduce Tobirama’s formula down to this:

which is literally just four kanji, but whatever. Anyway, he took Tobirama’s notes on how to use the jutsu, and then used his natural speed to take that to 11 and just spam the jutsu, making him receive the name “Konoha’s Yellow Flash”.

Minato taught the jutsu to the Hokage Guard Platoon, which consists of Genma Shiranui, Raido Namiashi, and Iwashi Tatami, but they could only use it if all three of them worked together. (For headcanons on that, just go to the “back on my hiraishin bullshit” tag on my blog. Tumblr won’t let me link, as expected.) 

To know the Hiraishin, you have to be good at sealing, and Minato never took on any sealing students, unfortunately. Before he could teach Hiraishin to anyone else, he died, and the knowledge was lost with him.

Naruto learned it during the war, but he used it maybe twice at most, and then never again so I don’t know if he really counts.