I wish I owned Naruto, if not for the money then simply to backtrack and end this last arc before that Kaguya woman ever made her appearance.
It had been several days since the failed invasion of Konoha, and Naruto was absently throwing shuriken at a tree in training ground 7. He had just left the funeral of Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage and his grandfather figure still in his dress clothes. He didn't know what to do now, aside from practicing and helping rebuild. The old man had been one of his primary reasons for wanting to become Hokage.
If anything the Sandaime's death had been a wake-up call to Naruto, this having been the first time he had actually lost someone close to him. He decided to not think about it and continue throwing shuriken.
Recently, while trying to tap into whatever power he had used against Gaara, he found himself connecting to things for lack of a better term. He could feel everything around him, almost as if the inanimate objects he used had a soul. When he tried to go deeper into this connection he felt, the object (such as the shuriken) bursted with a bright green mist and felt almost like it was a part of him. The shuriken he had been throwing had pierced cleanly through the tree even though he had thrown them with minimal effort.
Each time the had a glowing green mist emanate from them as they flew. This puzzled him because he was sure he wasn't channeling chakra into the blades. He would have to have channeled wind chakra into the blades to replicate that effect, which he didn't even know how to do. He just connected to it and it happened on it's own.
So he began experimenting with it. He tried to channel it like chakra to make it do similar things, but it felt different. Every time he walked up trees with it it felt like the tree was gripping the bottom of his sandals, every time he walked on water it felt like the water had become solid underneath him.
This was getting stranger by the minute.
Then he had an idea. What if he used it on something he was already familiar with? Something he connected to on a personal level. He took his forehead protector out of his pocket and held it in his hand as he tried to will it to do something.
At first nothing happened, but then it began to glow and pulse with life. The cloth lengthened around his arm and soon the metal plate seemed to split off and replicate into multiple plates of metal that seemed to crawl up his arm and enclose it in what appeared to be shiny steel armor. The metal crept up his fingers and sharpened into slight claws. He flipped his hand over in curiosity, and saw the Konoha symbol in his palm glowing a light green.
Needless to say, he didn't expect that to happen at all, but now he was excited at all the possibilities this presented. What else could he do with this new ability?
After examining the armor for a while he began to get the feeling that he was being watched, and looked around to see Kakashi in the tree behind him giving a stern glare towards Naruto.
"Hey Kakashi-sensei! What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?" Naruto asked confused. Kakashi only pointed to his arm which was still encased in the armor and said, "Hiding your abilities from your comrades shows that you don't trust them. Now, why would you keep something like that a secret? You're still looked at as being the dead last, why would you want to keep it that way?"
Naruto frowned, "First of all, i think if we're talking about hiding things, you hiding that Sharingan from Sasuke makes what you're saying pretty hypocritical. Second, i didn't even know about this power till a couple days ago, so i haven't really explored it myself yet."
"I find that hard to believe, i don't even know how that's possible, what you did, but it would have to take a hell of a lot of control over your chakra to do something like that. Control i didn't know you had until just now. I-"
"It wasn't chakra" said Naruto.
"What do you mean it wasn't chakra? Of course it was. Chakra is the only type of energy that humans can use." said Kakashi confusedly."I thought that too, but i know for a fact it wasn't chakra. It felt like I was using the energy of the object itself to make it do stuff. But that's not possible is it?" asked Naruto.
'Using the energy of the things around him, could he be using Senjutsu subconciously? We need to bring this to Jiraiya-sama' thought Kakashi.
"Naruto come with me, we need to see someone." said Kakashi.
"Who?" asked Naruto, Kakashi eye-smiled and said, "You'll see. Now, can you turn that thing off? No need to show it to the public just yet."
Naruto looked at the armor on his limb and, again for lack of a better term, disconnected from it. The cloth and metal glowed bright green before shrinking back into his hand, once again taking the form of a forehead protector, which he slipped back into his pocket.
"Alright, lets go"