Naruto placed the green blossom on the Hokage's desk.
A small leafy green flower that had a distinct smell to it.
"This baby boosts chakra regeneration." Naruto said.
Hiruzen and Inoichi looked at the weed. Their expressions communicated a shared and politely contained skepticism.
"How?"
"My working theory is that it accelerates the body's natural stamina recovery process." Naruto said, sliding into his best approximation of a salesman's confidence. "Normally a shinobi needs rest, food, and meditation to bring their reserves back up. This speeds that entire process up by roughly ninety percent."
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The best chakra recovery medicine the Akimichi clan produces improves recovery by approximately ten percent, and it took three generations of refinement to reach that number."
"Try it then." Naruto said. "Look, I want to help my friends survive the Chunin Exams. If they take this weed and make a clone in that boosted recovery state. Even one clone would double their effective training speed."
"There is also the possibility of a placebo effect." Inoichi said. "You are an Uzumaki and a jinchuriki, Naruto. Your chakra recovery is extraordinary by any baseline measurement. What feels like a significant boost to you may simply be imagining it from a normal plant."
"Just try it." Naruto said, keeping his voice polite because he wasn't going to be rude to Ino's father.
"Let's hear the boy out." Hiruzen said, picking up the blossom and examining it once before putting it in his mouth. The old had a hard time with how bitter it was.
The effect came fast.
It started as a warmth in his face. Then his chakra began to accelerate. The sweat came so fast that a green-tinged haze began rising off his skin from the heat of his body and chakra flow.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu."
Three more Hiruzens appeared in the office.
The original felt his reserves climb back toward full at a rate that his body had not managed since his prime. He looked at his hands for a moment.
"This is remarkable." He said quietly. Then, with slightly more urgency, "Tell me you have more."
"I have more. But what do you think of the plan?" Naruto asked.
"I think it could work."
"Could?"
"We still don't know the full effects of this plant on the body. It is a stimulant, and stimulants need to be understood before we distribute them to children." Hiruzen looked at Inoichi. "I need you to find a medical-nin who can take on the task of properly examining and testing these. They have to keep it a secret. This weed could potentially change how konoha approaches training our shinobi."
"As you wish, Hokage-sama."
"These should help get them started." Naruto said, setting a bag of freshly collected blossoms on the desk.
Inoichi tilted his head at at the weeds.
"Naruto. Has this plant ever flowered on you?"
"Sorry?"
Inoichi picked up one of the blossoms and turned it over carefully. "This plant is in its vegetative state. It is putting all of its energy into leaf and stem production. " He set it down. "Every flowering plant has a reproductive cycle. When this plant flowers, it will redirect its energy away from the leaves and toward the bloom itself. The concentration of active compounds in the leaves could change significantly depending on whether you harvest it before or after that transition. A plant harvested in full flower might be weaker. Or stronger. Or simply different in ways we can't predict without testing." He paused. "My point is that what you have here may not be the full picture of what this plant can do."
Naruto stared at the weed. "I have never seen it flower in Lordran."
"That may be a function of the environment rather than the plant." Inoichi said. "Here it might behave differently."
"Something to look into."
"Regardless." Inoichi said, and began to bow to the boy.
"Inoichi-san." Naruto said stopping him. "What are you doing?"
"Showing gratitude." Inoichi said simply. He stayed in the bow for a moment before straightening. "I can't tell you how much anxiety I have carried at the idea of Ino walking into this years' Chunin Exams. She is not ready. None of them are ready. But ready or not, they will go." He looked at the bag on the desk. "If this weed can help my daughter get stronger and survive. I am willing to give you anything you ask in return."
"That's alright." Naruto said. "I want everyone to live and be happy, dattebayo."
He didn't mention the Grass Crest Shield. The shield produced a similar recovery effect through ancient magic. But there was the problem of there being one shield and mant genin. He refused to think about how that particular conversation would go.
He didn't mention the Estus flasks either. He had given away most of his found flasks to Reah and her bodyguards. What remained was a single set that he had no intention of sharing. Even if he found more, a finite flask of golden light was a fundamentally different kind of resource than a plant that could be harvested repeatedly by anyone with hands.
The weed was the right answer. Widely available, easily distributed, no magic with unpredictable side effects, and no impossible decisions about who deserved the one shield more than everyone else.
So the weed it was.
"Naruto." Hiruzen said breaking the boy out his thoughts.
Naruto looked up to find the three shadow clones working through the pile of paperwork on the desk with impressive efficiency while the original sat back and relaxed.
"Do you have any more of that weed? I need more clones to help me with the bane of my existence... paperwork."
"Why don't you just do the paperwork normally?"
"I am an old man." Hiruzen said. "Making shadow clones whenever I please is not ideal for my body."
"So, you are going to use the weed specifically to make clones to do your paperwork."
"I will pay you for the weed."
"Deal."
"Well then, let us… try the weed."
Hiruzen walked towards his hokage portrait. He opened the hidden vault behind it. The old man pulled out a small wooden box.
"Are there vaults beneath every hokage portrait?"
The old man shushed the redhead and flipped the box open. Naruto first spotted a tiny, orange, battered book.
"..."
"Don't say a word," the old man said. "Focus on the other thing."
That was a neatly arranged row of smoking pipes. Some were simple wood with polished stems, others curved elegantly with ivory tips, and one gleamed with silver filigree spirals. Hiruzen's wrinkled fingers stroked them gently, as if remembering each by touch.
"You collect smoking pipes?"
"Not really, I just keep these pipes. With my age, they became a collection. Did you know... I met my wife because of these?"
"Pipes?"
"Yes," Hiruzen nodded, smiling faintly as his eyes drifted to one pipe as though replaying the memory. "Back when I was much younger, I used to whittle my own pipes from spare wood between missions. It was... calming, I suppose. A way to keep my hands busy and my mind still. One evening, I was sitting outside the hospital, carving the stem of a new pipe when a young medic-nin stopped and scolded me."
"Scolded you for carving?"
"For the shavings," Hiruzen laughed softly. "I left wood curls all over the steps without realizing it. She planted her hands on her hips and told me I was littering the entrance of a hospital, of all places. Then she picked up one of my finished pipes, inspected it for all of two seconds, and told me it was shoddy work."
"Let me guess... that was Granny Biwako?"
Hiruzen smile softened, a wistful glow in his eyes. "She didn't mean it cruelly. But I was stubborn, so I challenged her. I said I would carve a pipe so fine, even she would have to admit its worth. She laughed in my face and told me to try."
"And did you?"
Hiruzen nodded slowly. "I did. It took weeks, but I carved one from sakura wood. Smooth as silk, etched with petals along the bowl. When I gave it to her, she accepted it... and then promptly told me she would only smoke with me if I stopped leaving shavings on hospital steps."
"That's cute."
"Yes." Hiruzen's voice grew soft, his thumb brushing the edge of Biwako's pipe. "From then on, every evening when we both had time, we would sit together. I would carve. She would talk. That is how it began."
Naruto and Oscar listened carefully.
"This was her favorite. Shd carried into every mission, every meeting. She said it reminded her that even a stern medic could find time to laugh."
Naruto swallowed hard. He wanted to share his own. The boy dug into his pouch and pulled out his own smoking pipe.
"That is beautifully made, Naruto."
"Well, of course it is. I designed it myself with some help from my favourite tsundere blacksmith."
The Hokage chuckled, shaking his head. "You Uzumaki... always so proud of the things you make with your own hands." His hand hovered over the small collection in front of him before he carefully picked up one pipe.
"Old man. What... what happened to Granny?"
"Biwako Sarutobi. She was one of the first generation of shinobi in Konoha. A medical ninja with a heart of gold, and a will as fierce as any shinobi. She delivered half the children in this village at some point. She was there that night, helping Kushina as her midwife."
"And... she...?"
"Yes. She died that night."
Naruto swallowed hard. "How... how did the Nine-Tails get out, old man?"
"When Kushina became pregnant, special precautions had to be taken. The seal that held the Nine-Tails weakened during childbirth. We kept her pregnancy a secret. The delivery was arranged in a hidden cave. Minato oversaw the seal. I arranged for a barrier to protect the site, with ANBU stationed outside. Biwako was one of the midwives." He closed his eyes briefly. "And then everything went wrong."
"So... I'm the reason it escaped. The reason she—"
"No."
The word cracked through the room like thunder. Hiruzen reached out and clamped his hand on Naruto's shoulder with alot of strength, forcing the boy to meet his eyes.
"Listen well, Naruto. Never let the circumstances of your birth weigh upon your soul. A child is never to blame for the sins of fate. You were not the cause of that tragedy. You were the hope born from it. Remember this: you are not the sum of your beginnings. You are the choice of what you become."
Naruto's lips trembled, then stretched into a small smile. "...Thanks, old man."
Hiruzen exhaled softly, his weathered fingers finally loosening their grip on the pipe. He held it out to Naruto again. "Why don't you try this one, my boy? A pipe isn't meant to gather dust. It's meant to be used."
Naruto hesitated for only a heartbeat before placing a pinch of green blossom inside. He struck a small flame with practiced ease and drew in a slow breath.
"Wow… this pipe hits way better than mine. The pull is smoother, the airflow's perfect. No cracks, no drag. This is the good stuff, old man."
"Then keep it."
"Huh? But isn't this… important to you?"
"Of course it is." Hiruzen admitted. "It belonged to someone I loved. But I would rather it be used than forgotten in a drawer." He reached out and ruffled Naruto's red hair once. "Think of it as a gift between master and student."
Naruto nodded before stopping. He turned around slowly.
"Can you repeat that?"
"I want to train you as my successor." Hiruzen said bluntly.
"You're coming in a little strong, old man." Naruto said in shock. "What? Why? Since when?"
Hiruzen reached for his pipe and took a long pull before answering.
"Troubling times are ahead of us." He said. "Orochimaru and Danzo are moving towards an unknown goal that involves Konoha.. Every major village is converging toward Konoha. And there is the prophecy of a dragon that will destroy this village."
"When you put it like that. Konoha seemed stuck in a rock and a hard place."
"Yes. And I don' know what Konoha looks like in a year from now. And I am scared that I will not have the strength to protect my home from the strom that is approaching."
"Is that why?"
"Yes. What I can do is pass on my will to someone who will."
Naruto blew out a long breath that he had been holding without realizing it.
"Why me? You know I don't care about being Hokage anymore."
"The Hokage's seat is too much to ask of someone your age. I know that." Hiruzen said. Though he wished that Naruto would regain that dream. "But Jiraiya told me what you promisrd that you will protect Konoha against the dragon."
"Yeah." Naruto said. "Of course I will. That's my duty as a knight."
"Is that so?"
"Oscar sensei told me that A knight's purpose is to serve. To stand between those who cannot protect themselves and the things that would destroy them. Not for glory. Not for reward. Because it is right."
Hiruzen looked at him for a long moment.
"I was in my twenties when Lord Tobirama appointed me as his successor. For decades, I wonder what lord second saw in me. But now I think I know what he saw."
Naruto glanced down at Oscar, who had been sitting quietly on his arm through the whole conversation. He chirped out an answer.
Do what you think is right.
Naruto looked back at the old man.
"If you are serious about this." He said. "Then I would be honoured to learn from you."
"The honour is mine." Hiruzen said, as he stood up. "Come on then."
"Where are we going?"
"Your first lesson begins with showing me where you currently stand."
Naruto's eyes lit up. He his his fist into his open palm.
"So we are going to fight?"
[ Location: Mount Huaguo ]
A massive island sat in the eastern sea, far enough from the mainland that most maps marked the space with water and nothing else. Just as Mt. Myoboku belonged to the toads and Ryuchi Cave belonged to the snakes, Mount Huaguo belonged to the Monkey Clan.
The mountain itself was a colossal open caldera. The valley system spread out from its base ran between talls peaks with fog sitting along the ridgelines regardless of season. Large portions of the mountainside ran red and orange. The autumnal foliage dense enough that from a distance the peaks looked lit from within. At the basin of the foothills sat a clear blue lake bigger than Konoha.
Small monkeys moved everywhere. The adults went about their daily life of jobs to do around the island. At the very center of the lake was a massive multi-tiered palace. The home of the monkey
Ninja Art: Reverse Summoning Jutsu!
White smoke rolled across the upper courtyard and dissolved.
Leading the group was the monkey king. White fur ran along his sleeves and the hem of his pants. His long hair was loose and unkempt down his back, but the sideburns and goatee were strangely immaculate. Enma wore a black suit with the mesh underneath and a sleeveless kimono over it with its tiger stripe markings cinched by a red sash.
His gaze moved from Hiruzen to Naruto and stayed there for a half second longer than it moved anywhere else.
"What exactly are you doing, Saru?"
"I need somewhere private to spar with my student." Hiruzen said.
"Right." Enma's eyes went to the courtyard around them. "And I get to clean up the mess."
"Don't worry, we'll fight out of the mountain."
Enma clicked his tongue. He turned with the group following through a bridge of a thousand steps. After the first hundred steps, the monkey king jerked his chin sideways and Hiruzen moved up to walk beside him.
"What did you bring to my home?"
"Is something wrong with Naruto?"
"I don't know why." Enma said, which for monkey king was a significant admission. "But I feel danger coming off that kid."
Hiruzen was quiet for a moment.
In the forty years they had known each other he had never heard the monkey king say anything like that. Enma was an S-rank threat who commanded respect and fear across the entire shinobi world. He had stood beside Hiruzen against Hanzo of the Salamander without once suggesting that the situation made him cautious. His pride was immense. And he was cautious of a thirteen year old boy?
"He's Minato's son." Hiruzen said. "And my student. Both of those things count for something."
"Whatever you say." Enma said. "Just make sure you don't raise another Orochimaru." He drove his elbow into Hiruzen's side hard enough to be felt through the chainmail.
"Naruto is a good kid." Hiruzen said, with the patience of someone making an argument he believed in. "I hope you can trust him."
Enma looked at his summoner for a long moment. The willingness to believe in people. He had never understood it why the man bothered even though it cost Hiruzen more than once.
"Hey. Brat."
"Yes, Mr. Monkey." Naruto said with no fear on him.
The corner of Enma's mouth moved. "You want to become a summoner of the monkey clan?"
Oscar launched himself from Naruto's shoulder straight into the space between them. No way was the lizard going to lose his partner to a bunch of monkeys.
"Oh." Enma looked down at him. "Scary."
He nudged the lizard with the side of his foot. Oscar went for the foot. Enma pulled it back causing thr lizard to bite air.
"You want to go, little guy."
Naruto's hand closed around Oscar mid-launch. The lizard suspended in the air for one indignant moment before being brought back down to chest height.
"No."
Oscar went reluctantly still.
Naruto looked up at the monkey king. "Thanks for the offer. But I already have a partner."
"Fair enough." Enma said, and turned to continue walking.
"You call the boy dangerous and then offer to make him a summoner in the same breath." Hiruzen asked.
"It was a test." Enma said, without slowing down. "A kid who isn't easily tempted by power is a different problem than a kid who is." He glanced back at Oscar, who was watching him from Naruto's shoulder. "Whatever he is, don't let him fall toward the dark side. Keep him honest. Keep him close."
Hiruzen nodded.
Enma faced forward again. He was still not certain whether the danger he felt coming from the boy was the kind that destroyed things or the kind that existed to stand in front of destruction.
Enma smiled to himself. He hadn't been genuinely curious about a fight in a long time.
This was going to be interesting.
The group arrived at the beach. Enma positioned himself at the edge of the treeline as the referee.
Hiruzen removed his Hokage cloak.
Beneath it was a black jumpsuit with mesh segments running along the lower portions of his limbs. A light grey armour plating over the chest and shoulders. With a green gauntlet that covered most of his right arm. An armoured hood sat over his head with a bandanna-style forehead protector tied off with two long straps.
"Nice." Naruto said. His clothes shimmered and the Elite Knight Armour assembled itself piece by piece. The Zweihander materialising last into his two-handed grip. He dropped into the Fool's Guard.
Enma looked the armour over once and said, without looking at Hiruzen, "This is going to be a tougher fight than you think, Saru."
Hiruzen was already reaching down to pick up a stick from the beach.
"Kakashi praised your kenjutsu as one of your strongest skills." He turned the stick once in his hand. "Show me why the Copy Ninja rates you so highly, Naruto."
Naruto didn't take the bait. Hiruzen was going to hold back and meet him at his level. That was obvious. What the old man wasn"t expecting was everything Naruto had brought back from Lordran. He was going to beat him with the foreign stuff.
Then Hiruzen channeled chakra into the stick.
It moved through the wood and then past the wood, condensing along the length of it, hardening and sharpening at the edge until what the old man was holding was a blade of pure chakra.
Samurai Art: Flowing Chakra Blade.
"I want that."
Naruto said while channeling earth chakra down through his boots, hardening a block of sand and drove his front foot forward in a sharp kick. That sent it rocketing toward the old man like a compressed cannon shot.
Hiruzen brought the chakra blade down and cut the block cleanly in half.
Naruto pushed into it, using his weight, and felt the old man's resistance give slightly before Hiruzen freed his off hand and ran a single seal.
"Earth Style: Rising Platform."
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
The sand beneath Naruto's feet exploded upward. A pillar of compacted earth launched him straight into the air.
"Leaf Style: Crescent Fang Jutsu."
The slash left the blade in a perfect crescent shaped chakra. A jutsu that relied entirely on shape manipulation of raw chakra.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu."
Two clones burst into existence on either side of him mid-air, each pushing away in a different direction as the crescent passed between them. Hiruzen sent two more in quick succession without pausing. Each one forcing Naruto to produce more clones to absorb or redirect.
Oscar crawled from Naruto's shoulder to his chest, and fired a magic bolt downward that met the crescent slash head on and cancelled it in a burst of light.
In the same instant Naruto produced a clone directly beneath himself as a platform. He drove forward into a steep descending line with the Zweihander raised over his head.
Hiruzen set his feet and raised the hilt of the chakra blade high, tip angled down, forming a tight triangular guard. He didn't try to stop the Zweihander. He let it come, angling his blade to catch the flat and shed the force downward. The massive sword sliding along the chakra edge and past him, and as Naruto's momentum carried him through Hiruzen stepped cleanly into the open blind spot and drove a kick into his ribs.
The impact was solid.
The body exploded into white smoke.
Shadow clone.
Hiruzen had one foot still extended from the kick when it happened. The real Naruto had substituted with a clone at the exact moment Oscar fired the magic bolt by using the flash and the bulk of the descending blade as cover.
He felt the crossguard hook behind his ankle.
Half-sword grip as the Zweihander compressed into a levering tool. At the same instant Oscar fired a second magic bolt directly into his chest at point blank range.
Hiruzen went backward.
As he fell Narutonflipped the blade back into a full two-handed grip, and drove it through the old man's skull.
The body dissolved into brownish goo.
Earth Style: Mud clone.
Naruto ran the last ten seconds back through his head trying to find the moment and couldn't locate it.
When did he use substitution?
Water Style: Mist Jutsu.
Water pulled off the ocean's surface broke into dense white mist that swallowed the beach in every direction.
"Congratulations." Hiruzen's voice came from the mist without direction, wrapping the entire area equally, giving nothing away. "Your kenjutsu is genuinely comparable to the skills of a samurai."
"All I'm hearing is that you lost the sword exchange." Naruto said.
"Looks like my first lesson to you is going to be one of humility."
A pair of hands burst from the sand directly beneath his feet.
Earth Style: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique.
Naruto jumped before the hands could close around his ankles, and brought a Rasengan down into the sand in the same motion. A column of sand and smoke rose off the beach and the mist churned around it. When it thinned, all that remained in the crater was a pile of mud.
Another mud clone.
The Knight's Crest pulsed.
Naruto's perception snapped upward and locked.
Was this the real Hiruzen or just another mud clone? The knight didn't know or care.
Ninja Art: Lion's Mane Jutsu.
Red hair exploded outward in a dense spread of hardened spikes that impaled Hiruzen mid-air.
"Looks like your sensory jutsu can only target one person." The clone muttered, already dissolving into mud and then hardening. The stone statue dropped as deadweight due to gravity as Naruto's head snapped backward, his hair still connected to hardened mud.
The original came in fast.
The old man's foot connected with the flat of the Zweihander and sent it spinning out of Naruto's grip, into the air above them. In the same rotation the old man turned on his heel and drove forward with everything he had.
Ninja Art: Iron Mountain Lean.
This was a devastating close-quarters taijutsu. A sudden forward charge that threw the entire body into the opponent at once, shoulder leading into elbow into the full side of the torso. The goal was to break a guard through sheer mass and momentum. The taijutsu send whatever was behind it flying.
The moment Hiruzen hit, chakra sparked off Naruto's armour in visible arcs. He countered in a concentrated burst the instant before contact, the armour hardening under the chakra reinforcement, and the expelled force meeting Hiruzen's momentum at the impact point. Neither of them moved.
The sound that came off it was like a massive gong note that rolled across the beach.
Hiruzen was grinning. He was nowhere near his full output. Not close. But the fact that this boy could stand at this level, and push back with that level of battle instinct. All of this screamed of so much potential.
Schwing.
Oscar's crystal sword cut off Naruto's hair allowing him to throw a sucker punch forward.
The old man slipped the sucker punch with a rotation that turned the dodge into the beginning of the next attack. His arm sweeping wide in a hooking parry that redirected Naruto's momentum sideways.
Naruto answered in Astoran Boxing. He threw a cross that Hiruzen ducked under with a full body bob. The old man came back up on the inside with a palm strike to the chin that Naruto moved away from.
Hiruzen pursued.
The monkey style didn't move in straight lines. It curved and spiraled. The old man came in from a strange angle, his lead hand patting Naruto's guard outward in a light circular motion that felt like nothing. Suddenly Naruto's arm was already off the centerline and Hiruzen was already filling the space it had left. He drove an elbow into the chest plate, bounced off the armour with a sound like a mallet hitting a bell. The old man used the rebound to rotate into a foot sweep.
Naruto hopped the sweep and threw a body hook that caught Hiruzen's forearm.
The old man flowed around it. One hand redirected the hook past him. The other snaked underneath, and before Naruto had fully processed the grip Hiruzen had turned his own forward momentum against him. He threw the boy over his shoulder.
Boom.
Naruto hit the sand flat on his back and left a crater.
The dust hadn't settled when Hiruzen heard a new sound behind him.
He turned.
Oscar stood at the edge of the crater in his ravenous state. The Zweihander held in his mouth by the crossguard. He must've had gone to retrieve it while Naruto and I exchanged taijutsu.
Naruto sat up from the crater and formed a hand sign.
Hiruzen was already reading it.
There was a reason they called him The Professor. He had mastered every shinobi skillset and combat form that Konoha had ever produced. He could watch three hand signs and know the fourth before it formed. He could identify a jutsu before the user's hands had finished a single handsign.
He read Naruto's signs and made a single one of his own.
"Earth Style: Mud River Jutsu."
The beach liquified beneath Oscar's feet. The sand dissolved into a churning brown current that swept the crystal lizard sideways and carried him downstrean.
"Wind Style: Wind Bullet Jutsu."
A dozen compressed spheres of wind chakra, cutting across the space between them at angles that would have been difficult for most shinobi to track simultaneously.
"Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet."
The mud river reared upward. A dragon head formed from the current, and opened its mouth. Mud balls launched from it in a rapid volley that met the wind bullets in the air between them.
Naruto clicked his tongue and shifted into a different sequence of seals.
Fire style: Great Fireball Jutsu.
A black-speckled fireball, with a yellow chromatic edge flew out.
Hiruzen countered with wind.
"Wind Style: Wind Dragon Jutsu."
The twisting vortex came out at an angle that missex the fireball's path. However, the fireball's heat fed the vortex. The vortex wrapped around the heat and accelerated it. The two techniques became one thing. A wind-fire dragon came from the side.
"This is bullshit, dattebayo."
"Language."
Boom.
Oscar rolled forward across the sand like a cannonball.
Water Style: Starch Syrup Capturing Field
Hiruzen expelled a wide stream of high-viscosity water from his mouth, at where Oscar was going to be. The adhesive liquid hit the sand in a spreading pool. Oscar's momentum was cut dead as the sticky mass closed around him like a second skin.
The lizard assessed the situation for exactly one second. In the next moment, a wall of crystal erupted from the ground in a wide arc around the area.
Hiruzen understood the wall was not a counterattack. It was a cage for him.
He turned back toward the smoke where Naruto had been.
There was a red glow in it. A single point of light sitting somewhere at the level of an outstretched hand.
The old man felt a force with no texture.
Because elemental chakra always had texture. Fire was obvious. Lightning left a static charge on the skin. Even earth release carried a faint mineral cold when it moved through the body. This had none of that. It was simply a force pulling him towards Naruto.
The red eye sat open in the boy's palm, and the pull was consistent with his focus on it. Hiruzen deduced that the mechanism was external to Naruto's own chakra system entirely.
Considering how it needed to be open to operated. Maybe he should forcefully close it. One problem with that, Hiruzen couldn't raise his hands. Every muscle he tried to engage met the same distributed resistance from every angle simultaneously. The pull of telekinesis was so evenly applied that there was no axis left to push from.
That closed down alot of options except his mouth.
Hiruzen turned raw chakra into earth nature as he expelled it out to create a wall directly in his path. The moment hiruzen's body hit, the connection broke instantly.
Across the beach, Naruto jerked his hand back.
The red eye had never failed him before. He looked at the wall and understood. It had given his body something to resist against. An anchor that forcefully stopped his magic from finishing. Despite the frustration, this was the point of the spar. Naruto learned just as much as Hiruzen about himself anf his abilities. These lessons were going to help Naruto improve.
Fire Style: Smoking Illusion of Buddha's Palm.
A strange smoke rolled out from Hiruzen's mouth. It spread across the entire beach in a low blanket.
Then the world changed for Naruto.
He found himself standing at the edge of the universe. Vast pillars rose around him in every direction.
The pillars were fingers.
He was standing in an open palm of Buddha.
This is a genjutsu. Naruto thought as he didn't bother breaking it. He just had a crazy idea.
The genjutsu passed through Oscar as Hiruzen couldn't exactly influence the chakra inside the lizard for some reason.
The lizard responded by throwing the zweihander toward Hiruzen in a single clean motion.
The old man caught it without thinking. It was extraordinary. The craftsmanship was unlike anything produced in the Elemental Nations. It was in the same territory as his Adamantine Staff.
He deflected Oscar's first lunge without breaking his study of the blade. The second came lower and he sidestepped third he redirected with the flat of the Zweihander and Oscar spun away and reset without pause.
Even know the genjutsu on Naruto hadn't broken.
Hiruzen allowed himself one moment of relaxation before the sand beside him detonated.
Not an explosion.
Rather a force drove the packed sand towards him. Hiruzen didn't recognize any earth chakra.
Did Oscar do this? But how? This looks like Naruto's strange telekinesis but I feel him trapped in my genjutsu. Hiruzen was more confused when a crowd of Narutos came rushed him. They held spears with burning tips coated in some kind of Resin.
Hiruzen used the Zweihander as crowd control for a second before the Zweihander left.
"You're still haven't broken the genjutsu on you." He said, seeing Naruto's dull eyes despite how he was moving.
Shadow Shuriken Clone Jutsu.
One Zweihander became hundreds from the small sliver of chakra left on it.
The copies passed through the spear formation like a current through water. Clone bodies burst into smoke in clusters.
Wind Style: Blade of Wind.
Invisible slashes cut through what remained of the copies in a clean diagonal sweep. The real Zweihander fell from the dispersing mass and Naruto caught it by the grip without looking.
"So what do you think, Jiji?" Naruto said, the genjutsu still running behind his eyes while the Knight's Crest showed him the real world. "I'm not someone you should underestimate."
"I was aware of your capabilities through Kakashi's report." Hiruzen said. "Experiencing them directly is something else." He paused. "You still have a great deal to learn about how to improve what you already have."
"Then keep teaching me." Naruto said, and threw a handful of scrolls onto the sand.
Telekinesis pulled rocks from the beach towards himself. Hiruzen was conveniently happened to be standing in their path.
At the same moment, Storage seals detonated across the beach in sequence.
What came out of them were Clone squads. Each one wearing real armour pulled from Lordran's endless supply of the dead.
Hiruzen assessed the field in one sweep.
Each squad had a similar formation.
A Heavy suited clone in the front with tower shields. Archers positioned behind the squad. Strikers moving along the flanks, wind chakra already running along their blades. A clone holding what looked like piece of cloth. And through the shadow, some clones were laying traps of tripwires, seal tags and patches of chakra-treated ground that would turn solid footing into quicksand the moment weight landed on it wrong.
Hiruzen took the first arrow on a redirected wind jutsu, broke left toward the shield wall, and sent a fireball. The archers adjusted their angles and he was already gone. Body flicker to come around the back of the formation toward the strikers. A blade of wind came from the left. He sensed it and ducked under, drove earth chakra into the sand beneath the nearest striker's feet, and watched him drop knee-deep before the earth released him. The healers pulled their formation back and he turned toward them and found the tripwires.
He stopped just short of the first one.
Found the second one two feet to his left.
Found the third one directly behind him.
When did they set these?
He went up instead, launching vertically, and the archers tracked him. He was already throwing a water jutsu downward that turned the sand beneath some of them into mud before they could release. He landed behind the shield wall, drove his shoulder into the back of the nearest tank clone, and felt the armour absorb the impact like hitting a door.
For a moment, standing in the middle of it with attacks coming from four directions and a healing rotation running behind the front line and tripwires mapping every retreat path, Hiruzen felt something he hadn't felt since the Third Shinobi War.
He felt like he was fighting a malestrom.
Fighting Naruto was like fighting a whirlpool from the inside. The longer you pushed against it the more surface you gave it to work with. Every new angle you opened became another current pulling in its own direction. Fight the shields and the archers adjusted. Fight the archers and the strikers flanked. Fight the strikers and you were standing in a trap field with healers keeping the casualties walking. Every response generated a new problem because the boy had built a system.
The deeper you went the stronger the pull became.
"Did you know that the Second Hokage created the Shadow Clone Jutsu?" Hiruzen said, chakra control doing its best work so his weakened reserves could maintain its maximum output. "Just as your father surpassed the Second when it came to the Flying Thunder God, I surpassed my master when it came to this technique."
"Wow wow wow." Naruto said, genuine admiration in his voice. "Wait. What about me? Have I surpassed your usage?"
"You rival it." Hiruzen said. "But let me show you how I surpassed my master."
He raised one hand and ran two fingers slowly through his hair.
Wind chakra coated the length. The hair cut itself where his fingers passed, as the wind scattered them across the beach. Naruto's hawkeyes watched it drift and then widen.
One strand landed beside the nearest tank clone's boot.
Hiruzen made a hand sign.
The strand grew. In the time it took to blink it had gone from a single hair to a full human shape, performing the primary lotus that caught the tank clone on the chin.
Ninja Art: Hair Clone Jutsu.
Dozens of hair clones formed across the entire beach simultaneously, dropping into Naruto's squads while performing an attack. The formations broke apart trying to respond to an attack that hadn't existed a second ago. Armour and weapons accumulated in piles across the sand as clone after clone burst into smoke under the assault.
In an instant, Naruto was surrounded.
"So that's how it feels from the recieving end of clones."
He looked at Oscar.
"Oscar, if you will please."
The crystal lizard breathed out a white mist in a wave. The moment the first hair clone stepped into it crystal formations came and then exploded as the mist interacted with the clones' chakra. A chain of small explosions rolling across the beach in sequence that sent the surviving clones jumping upward to clear the fog.
Naruto's Blade of Wind met them at the apex of their jumps.
The beach went quiet again.
Hiruzen was not in the air. The old man was in the ground.
Earth Style: Hiding Like a Mole Jutsu.
Using the technique Hiruzen change earth into fine sand, allowing him to dig through it like a mole. A special trait of jutsu was that Hiruzen could pinpoint where he was by sensing the magnetic forces. He can also sense what is happening on the surface.
Hiruzen strangely sensed that Oscar was running away from the beach.
What exactly are you gonna do next, Naruto?
In the sky, the drake slaying bow came out of the inventory. An arrow nocked, drawn, and released in one motion. The arrow broke the sound barrier on its way down as Naruto cast the jutsu he got from Sasuke. One that was Jiraya's gift for the chunin exams.
Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu.
One arrow became hundreds.
Each copy carrying the same velocity as the source. The bright sky above darkened under them as the bombardment fell.
The beach ceased to exist.
The first volley hit the sand. The impacts overlapped before the sound of any single one could separate from the rest. The detonations combining into a continuous rolling concussion that moved through the ground in waves. Sand erupted in columns that connected into a wall of displaced earth stretching the full width of the impact zone. The trees at the treeline lost their upper canopy in a single breath. The shockwaves stripping branches and sending them spinning outward over the water. The shoreline churned as the impacts was close enough to the waterline that the sea itself recoiled. A wave pushing outward from the beach in a ring that kept expanding long after the arrows had landed.
When the columns fell back down the beach was unrecognizable.
Craters overlapping craters. The sand turned into glass in places where enough impacts had concentrated heat. The water rolling back in to fill the lowest points.
Enma watched the dust settle over what was left of the beach, now something closer to a geological event.
He turned and walked back toward the palace without a word.
He needed to calm down the monkey clan so they don't start preparing for war. The elders were going to be unbearable about this.
The monkey king was already tired of the conversation he hadn't had yet.
On the "beach", in the middle of the crater field likewas a Buddhist statue.
Earth Style: Zen Mode.
This was one of the strongest defensive techniques in the world. A shell harder than diamond. An A-rank lightning technique would barely make a dent on it.
Naruto landed and formed a dozen clones around the statue in a tight ring.
"Rasengan."
All twelve hit simultaneously.
The Rasengans hit the statue forming a dent. The force transferred into the shell and out.
The statue burst from within.
Empty.
"Where are you hiding, old man?"
As if answering his question, hiruzen's two shadow clone came out of the ground in a formation.
"Sealing Jutsu: Triangle Seal."
The white pyramidal barrier snapped around Naruto before he could dodge. Suddenly a white light built at the base, pressure accumulating upward through the structure, and then it released all of it in a single vertical burst that launched Naruto straight into the sky.
The real Hiruzen was about to hit airborne Naruto but Oscar intervened.
The laser caught the old man's trajectory at an angle that forced him to abandon the jump entirely. He landed, and came at the lizard instead.
Oscar rushed him without hesitation.
In the air, Naruto's eyes opened. He was briefly knocked out by the white blast. The knight's crest locked onto the old man.
He needed to hit him hard and fast.
Naruto reached into his inventory and took out the talisman.
The cracking came first. The specific sound of lightning being born from faith. A sustained electric fracture that built in pitch as the spear formed above his palm. Yellow-white. The light of it casting shadows straight down onto the beach below.
Poof. Poof. Poof.
Six clones appeared in the air around him in a loose arc. Each one creating their own spear. The combined light of seven lightning miracles turning the sky above the beach into something that belonged in a different world entirely.
"Radiance of the firstborn, lance of sundering light, pierce through scale, sorcery and flame." Naruto pulled in a breath. "Naruto Uzumaki Combo: Halo of Thunder and Lightning Clone Barrage!"
Seven lightning spears left seven hands at the same instant.
Even though the spears moved at the speed of lightning, Hiruzen casted a jutsu.
Wind Style: Divine Wind.
A gust formed several small tornadoes. Each one finding the others and combining, the merged funnel rising off the beach in a defensive column.
Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu.
The funnel ate it.
This caused the color of the tornade to shift from grey-white to orange-red to a deep churning gold. The heat coming off it hit Naruto's face from a hundred feet away. The fire devil pulled the incoming lightning spears into its rotation the way a drain pulled water.
Lightning entered the fire tornado.
The bolts hit the outer rotation and the wind shredded them into branching threads that spread through every layer of the funnel at once. The fire and the lightning found each other inside the rotation.
The result was not an explosion.
It was worse than an explosion.
The tornado became a column of continuous discharge, lightning branching outward from the funnel in every direction in jagged arcing forks while the fire at its core burned hotter than it had any right to burn. The whole structure spun, cracked and illuminated the island below it in a strobing white-gold light that made everything look like it was being seen between blinks.
The shockwave came after.
Naruto hit the beach and stayed down for a moment.
The chant had done had exhausted his soul.
I shouldn't have used the chant. Naruto thought as he pushed his visor up to breath. Suddenly four kunai hit the sand around him before he could think of standing up. The sealing tags on each one flared simultaneously.
Sealing Art: Monkey Yang Suppression.
An ethereal hand came down from nowhere and pinned him where he stood. The pressure distributed across his entire body, his arms locked at his sides and his feet sealed to the ground.
Naruto was aware that giving up was an option that existed. But a knight doesn't give up so easily.
Oscar was already forming a crystal clone, the copy launching toward the nearest sealing tag with a crystal shuriken raised. Hiruzen stepped in front of it. A kunai redirected the shuriken wide. Oscar sent a wave of crystal shards toward the second tag. An earth wall. Every time Oscar went for the tags, Hiruzen blocked it.
Seeing his partner fighting, Naruto decided his incomplete whistle technique.
The result was the same as last time. His throat tore from the inside as the boy vomited out blood.
"Naruto." Hiruzen turned at the sound, alarm crossing his face. "What are you doing? Stop trying to push air through your vocal cords. A whistle isn't made there. You force air through a constricted opening between your lips. That's where the whistle comes from."
Naruto made a series of strange noises that communicated processing, understanding and then the specific excitement of someone who had just realized what they had been doing wrong.
He pushed air through his mouth like how you'd do the fireball.
Naruto changed the air as it moved through the gap into wind chakra. Using sound as a medium, a thin invisible blade of wind cut through nearest sealing tag.
The ethereal hand flickered.
Naruto hit the ground on both feet and raised both arms above his head. His vocal cords were gone. So the cheer came out, more of an enthusiastic exhalation with pride behind it.
Oscar looked at him.
Naruto pointed at the tag on the ground, then at his mouth, then gave a thumbs up.
Oscar chirped in acknowledgment before seeing two rings appearing on Naruto's fingers.
The Red Tearstone Ring.
The Blue Tearstone Ring.
A red and blue aura formed around Naruto's body. Before a second skin of purple formed in response to low HP.
So that red is what Guren mistook for the Kyuubi's chakra? Hiruzen thought and watched Naruto exchange the Zweihander for the Black Knight Halberd. That weapon made Hiruzen's skin crawl.
Oscar lowered himself.
Naruto backflipped onto his back without looking, bringing the halberd across his body in a loose ready grip.
Hiruzen exhaled and decided to see where this went.
The duo rushed forward.
Hiruzen sensed the chakra spike before he saw the movement. The specific compressed bloom of a Shadow Clone forming, but the direction was... above.
He threw himself sideways.
A clone of Naruto and Oscar hit the ground where he had been standing with enough force to crack the compacted rock.
The trick was the hair clone principle inverted. Hiruzen had dropped his hair clones from the air, attacking from angles the enemy defenses couldn't naturally cover. Naruto had watched it and understood the underlying logic immediately. By applying it to Shadow Clones through one-handed seals mid-charge, pushing the clone's formation point to a position near the target so that the arrival came from the one direction a shinobi's attention naturally abandoned when tracking an incoming threat.
Straightforward. Elegant. Extremely dangerous against anyone who hadn't seen it before.
The real Naruto and Oscar came in from the left flank. Hiruzen tracked them and felt the chakra spike again. A different direction this time, low and to his right, and the clone hit the ground on his right side simultaneously with Oscar's approach. The halberd swinging in a wide lateral arc at hip height that covered the full right side of the zone. He stepped into the swing, body flickering through the inside of the arc, coming up at Oscar's front shoulder where the reach couldn't follow.
Oscar reared.
The halberd came down in a rearing slam, driving toward the ground, and Hiruzen stepped right to clear the shockwave. He got one hit against Oscar's shoulder while the lizard was still ascending.
Behind him and above.
He ducked without turning. The clone's counterclockwise swing passed over his head close enough that the wind from it moved his hair. He flickered left, creating distance, watching the duo reset.
He was starting to map the sequence.
Each attack was positioned to close a specific option. The clone on the right forced him left. The left approach forced him right into the clone. The rearing slam herded him forward into whatever was already forming ahead of him. The pattern was not random. Every move was a wall being built around him one panel at a time.
Naruto urged Oscar into a full charge.
In the span of twelve exchanges Naruto had formed eight clones from eight different formation points. Above. Below at an angle. Behind at ground level. Dropping from the left mid-charge. Rising from the right during a rearing move. Forming directly ahead during the retreat window. Each one placed at the specific angle that the previous attack's dodge made available, the clone appearing in the exact space that Hiruzen's response to the main attack had just moved him toward.
Against a lesser shinobi, the sequence would have ended inside the first exchange.
The old Kage knew the duo were at their strongest here, so he dodged without attacking. He wanted to see how Naruto would react when he didn't bother even using ninjutsu.
"Plan B." He called out.
The clones on all flanks stopped their approach simultaneously and cast Hidden Body Spell. They turned invisible and the beach suddenly feeling emptier than it was.
"I genuinely feel sorry for whoever draws you in the Chunin Exams." Hiruzen said shaking his head. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a handful of kunai. Even if the enemy was invisible, Hiruzen had honed his senses to be able to fight even if he was completely blinded.
He threw the kunais.
Cling. Clang. Cling.
The blades bounced off each other in mid-air, and the shadow clones they hit burst into smoke one after another as the impacts found them. Hiruzen used other cues like the air being displacement, soul of steps being taken or even the built up of chakra.
But Hiruzen knew that he had missed the original.
He went still while listening and found nothing for a full minute.
Hiruzen looked around in all direction becuase he caught it.
A interaction of light that was wrong. A bend at the edge of his vision, a strange distortion of something that should not have been in the air interrupting the way the sky looked behind it.
When did Naruto learn to fly? Hiruzen wondered. He wouldn't be surprised, but still.
The Hidden Body Spell ran out as the old man watched with his jaw dropping at how Naruto was flying. His red hair stretched outward in long ropes that ran to the cliffside in both directions. The strands anchored to the rock face and holding his entire body suspended above the beach. His legs were locked around Oscar's massive form, the crystal lizard's ravenous state hanging beneath him, held up by Naruto's core and legs alone.
This was a comical yet serious sight.
Hiruzen tried not to laugh but focused on the fact that Naruto was channeling chakra into Oscar with his hands.
The buildup was so significant that Hiruzen's instincts told him to stop it.
His assessment told him that jumping toward them would allow him to get him. With no way to know what it was, Hiruzen decided to not take the chance
He had one technique he hadn't used in this spar and had not planned to use. A technique he didn't use in normal combat because the vulnerability it created was absolute.
He reached for it anyway.
"Ninja Art: Ghost Transformation Jutsu."
The technique that allowed the user's soul to leave the body entirely, becoming an apparition capable of possession, capable of suppressing the target's own spirit and collapsing it from within. The physical body it left behind was helpless. That was the bargain the technique required and the reason he kept it as a last resort.
The apparition of the Third Hokage tore free of his body and moved toward Naruto.
"Wait... there are soul jutsu?"
Naruto's brain finally connected the dots.
"...Oh."
"...OH."
"...I'M AN IDIOT!"
"I didn't weave hand signs. I didn't control the flow. I just shoved raw chakra into soul sorcery and hoped for the best!" He slapped a hand over his face. "I basically looked at two different systems and said, 'Fight.'"
He groaned loud enough to annoy Oscar.
"Dammit."
A one handed Shadow Clone jumped toward the ghost, and Hiruzen watched it come without concern. Ghost Transformation Jutsu wasn't something that could be physically interacted with. That was the fundamental nature of the technique.
Slice.
The clone stabbed Hiruzen's ghost form.
It was not pain the way physical pain was pain. What happened when the blade connected was that the soul becaming briefly, completely aware of its own shape. The boundary between self and not-self sharpened into something razor thin and unknown. The violation of a border that was supposed to be inviolable. It spread from the point of contact outward through his spirit the way dye spread through water, changing the color of everything it reached.
"...how?"
"I have fought ghosts in Lordran." The clone said takibg out the soul daggrr. "I have weapons that cut the soul."
Hiruzen's spirit was dragged back to his body like a hooked fish being pulled upstream. The reconnection was not gentle. He hit the ground and coughed up blood. The physical body registering the spiritual damage in the only language it had available.
This is what I get.
Hiruzen had known better than to underestimate the boy. He had done like any average shinobi. By assuming the limits of their own toolkit were the limits of the encounter. Ghost Transformation Jutsu had no counter ever discovered in the Elemental Nations. He had simply assumed that was still true.
He raised his head.
Naruto and Oscar had a clear shot. Naruto's chakra and Oscar's breath attack combined into a single beam. The two energies braided around each other, and it came down from the sky with the weight of everything that had been charged into it.
"Goddamnit, Hiruzen. You're embarrassing yourself."
Enma's voice came from the cliff above as the monkey king jumped.
"Ninja Art of Transformation: Adamantine Staff."
The monkey king became a staff in mid-air. Glossy black with a metallic finish, gold caps on both ends. Hiruzen caught it on instinct and he took one step forward. He extended it toward the incoming beam.
Enma lengthened.
The tip of the staff met the beam and the impact came up through the metal and into Hiruzen's hands. The force of it continuous and building. Enma roared from pain as he still pushed back.
The beam deflected against the adamantine surface and spread. The beam began searing lines into the cliff face and the water. Hiruzen set his feet deeper into the sand and leaned into it. He felt his age in his chakra reserves in a way he did not often let himself feel.
Still the old man pulled every last scrap of chakra he had and pushed on.
The staff won the exchange.
As it smashed through Oscar's ravenous crystal skull and hit Naruto in the same continuous motion. The duo went flew into the ocean was a giant detonation of force.
Hiruzen lowered the staff.
Enma reformed beside him in silence, looking at the water, then at Hiruzen who was using the Mystical Palm Jutsu to heal himself.
"You really let yourself go." He said. "If some kid can reduce you to that state."
"I was caught off guard once." Hiruzen said. He heard the excuse in it as he said it.
"Once is all it takes," Enma said. He looked at the water again. "You picked a student that is like you. He fights melee with a partner while dipping his toes into most shinobi arts. It's like looking at your tiny mirror self."
"I can see it," Hiruzen nodded. "Even without me, it would take the boy a few years at most to surpass my prime on his own. That's how much potential he has."
He said it with a smile.
On the beach, two shapes washed up with the next wave. Naruto on his back with Oscar unconscious on his chest.
"I lost."
"There is no shame in it." Hiruzen said, walking over. "You learn as much from losing as you do from winning. Sometimes more."
Naruto was quiet for a moment. He reached into his inventory and uncorked an Estus flask. The golden light moving through him and Oscar both.
"How did I do?"
"Naruto." Hiruzen said, and paused in the way he paused when he was choosing the exact weight of the next words. "You are jonin level. But you are not jonin level."
Naruto sat up slowly.
"What does that mean?"
Hiruzen turned and walked back toward the palace with Enma.
"You need to find the answer yourself."
Naruto closed his eyes and laid there.
"I am jonin level but I am not jonin level."
It did not make more sense the first time.
"I am jonin level but I am not jonin level."
Still nothing.
Oscar opened one eye, looked at him, and closed it again.
"I am jonin level but I am not jonin level."
The ocean rolled in and covered his boots and pulled back out.
It still didn"t make sense the third time he said it. Naruto just concluded that Hiruzen was just suffering from dementia.