"You sure this is okay?" Naruto asked, shooting an uncertain look at the ferret-masked ANBU standing near the door.
"The Hokage has sanctioned this," the ANBU confirmed, and Naruto glanced at the smith. The rather heavy-set man was standing near the corner to supervise, his arms crossed over his chest and expression promising murder. Naruto was hoping that was if he handled things wrong or damaged something, rather than just in general, but it was difficult to tell.
"You damage any of my tools," the man grunted, "and you're out of here, Hokage-sama or not." Naruto nodded rapidly, feeling oddly relieved. He wasn't sure what exactly to do, but he had a general impression. He hadn't told Sandaime-jiji that he was counting on those impressions and fleeting feelings on guiding him, and he grimaced at the idea of getting found out for lying. It wasn't really lying, though, was it? He just...wasn't telling everything.
No pressure, a part of him said, seeming almost maliciously amused. Sweat prickled at Naruto's hairline, and it had nothing to do with the heat of the forge. He might had bitten off more than he could chew. Giving the smith a tentative smile, he slowly moved over to the dozens of small ingots arrayed on a nearby sidebench.
They all looked the same. Should he just take any of them? He hadn't thought of what to pick making the sword out of. Wasn't steel just...steel? But some of it looked slightly more shiny than the others, so they couldn't all be the same. "Aha…" Naruto said, rubbing at the back of his hair.
"I thought you said this brat knew what he was doing?" the smith said, sounding even more hostile than before.
"Hey!" Naruto yelled, turning around and pointing a finger. "I know what I'm doing," he blustered. "Don't rush me! Do people rush you?"
"Yes," the smith ground out, and the boy laughed sheepishly.
"Oh…" Naruto turned back around and grimaced. He needed some kind of way to tell what to pick. He reached out tentatively and ran his fingertips over one of the ingots, lifting it up. "Woah, it's heavy," he whispered, then put it down suddenly when some part of him said it felt too heavy. It was hard to distinguish what was his feelings and what was the soul. He slowly ran his fingers across the various ingots, lifting a few to feel the weight. Then, about halfway across, he found one that felt perfect.
"This one," he said aloud, lifting it up and showing it to the smith.
"Huh," the man grunted, unfolding his arms. "Maybe you do have a clue."
Naruto grinned, and went looking for the tongs.
~Knight of the Sun~
Sarutobi watched in amusement as Team Gai slunk out the door to his office, a mild personality clash having condemned them to a week of training without missions. Of course he could never make light of failing a mission, even one as inconsequential as refreshing some supply caches on Konoha's outskirts, but he had privately been expecting something of the sort for the last three months. For it to come from the kunoichi rather than Hiashi's nephew, however, had been unexpected.
"Most genin would enjoy not having any missions for a week," he commented aloud, lighting his pipe with a snap of his fingers. "What industrious successors we have. Don't you agree, Jiraiya?"
"It might have more to do with their teacher," the sannin replied, melting out from the wall as he cancelled the concealment jutsu. There was a momentary spike of alarm from the ANBU in the office as they realised there had been an intruder, and a genjutsu in the corner momentary wobbled, but then there was nothing to betray the presence of the ever-watchful agents of the Hokage.
"Has Naruto finished so quickly?" the Hokage asked, sitting back in his chair. The question hung in the air between them.
"Ah, he's hammering right now," Jiraiya defended. "Nothing interesting is happening. I thought I'd do something useful."
"If that were the case you would be up to your usual habits, not in my office," Sarutobi replied calmly. "What is it?"
Jiraiya abandoned all pretense at being relaxed, his expression becoming serious. "Have you been watching at all?" he asked, eyes flitting to the drawer.
"I have not, " the Hokage remarked. "Konoha demands my attention, and I left it in your capable hands."
"I think you should," the sannin replied seriously.
"And you said nothing interesting was happening," the Sandaime mused, opening the draw with one hand and removing the transparent sphere. The handsigns to activate it blurred the Hokage's hands, and dull flashes of orange light quickly resolved into the sight of Naruto bringing the hammer down on a roughly rectangular blank of metal, sparks occasionally flying as the boy struck at the blank.
"Now look at the sparks," Jiraiya said, and Sarutobi focused on where the hammer met metal. There were the sparks, flying from the point of impact. Nothing seemed overtly unusual, but he continued to gaze intently as the scene. Then he saw it. While most of the sparks seemed normal, every now and then a few seemed to almost curl up in midair, seeming more like a brief tongue of flame than they had any warrant to.
"Interesting," the Professor remarked, eyes narrowing. "Some form of katon jutsu?"
"He isn't moulding chakra," Jiraiya said flatly. "Not a drop."
"Not even to strengthen his arms?" Sarutobi asked, somewhat rhetorically. He didn't expect an academy student to know how, but Naruto had been full of surprises. "Naruto is nothing if not enthusiastic, but he must be getting tired."
Jiraiya shrugged expansively. "If he is, it isn't stopping him." There was a pause as Sarutobi continued to watch the boy work at the forge. "So," Jiraiya eventually continued. "What should we do?"
"Hm?" the Sandaime turned his head slightly, almost absent-mindedly. "Oh," he said speculatively, the ball darkening with a wave of his palm. "I for one will be quite interested to see what kind of weapon Naruto will produce." The Hokage replaced the ball back in its drawer.
"You aren't worried?" Jiraiya asked, looking a little dubious.
"Of course I am," Sarutobi replied. "But I would rather learn more about Naruto's new abilities here and now than when he becomes a genin." He gave the sannin a pointed look. "You have a mission to get back to."
"You can call it a mission when you pay me, sensei," Jiraiya said, rolling his eyes, but nonetheless moved towards the window. "I'll let you know if anything else happens." Then he was gone.
Sarutobi turned back to his paperwork, and made a hand signal to the ANBU that he would again be accepting visitors.
But he did worry.
~Knight of the Sun~
Somewhere in the fifth hour, the smith had decided that he would help if only to see what Naruto was making, which the boy was quietly grateful for. His right arm ached and burned with exertion, but it was like some other force had taken control of his muscles and was making him to continue despite the tiredness and twinges from his healed arm. The smith flipped the blank with the tongs in between hammer strikes, the duo unconsciously synchronising their tasks to hammer out imperfections in the metal.
Naruto's back hit the wall the second the blank was back in the forge to soften the metal again, his eyes closed and breathing deep.
"This is probably the last one," the smith said, watching the forge intently, making sure the flames were hot enough. "Better start thinking of how to quench it. Oil or water?"
Naruto wanted to laugh. He didn't know. "Water," he said automatically, earning himself a skeptical glance. "Definitely water," he repeated, almost defensively.
"Alright," the smith shrugged. "It's your weapon." He shifted forward and grabbed the long flange of metal that made up the hilt of the blank. "Ready?"
"Ready," Naruto said, lifting himself up and evening his breathing. He could feel that he was close. He could feel it. He lifted the hammer as the metal came out of the forge glowing a deep orange, and the second it was in place he brought it down.
Fire flared where the head of the hammer met metal, wisps of it curling up into the air like smoke. It felt like it was being drawn out of him like string on spindle, slowly pulling it out and away. The hammer rose and fell again, and almost dizzying wave of weakness washed over him. He lifted up the hammer, ignoring how the smith was leaning away from his wavering arm, and brought it down again. One. Last. Time.
Fire rippled down the metal like a living thing, the steel deforming as a carpet of orange-red flame danced over the surface. It lengthened and flattened, the end thickening from the flange of metal it had been into a solid crossguard and hilt, while the rest stretched away from it.
"Water!" Naruto yelped, and he swiped the solidifying sword into the trough of water with the hammer, the heat almost blistering his fingers. There was a great explosion of steam and a mighty hiss, then there was silence.
"What kind of jutsu was that?" the smith shouted suddenly.
Naruto looked down into the trough where the cooling sword rested beneath the water, fully formed. "I don't know," he whispered, fingers tingling. He reached down through the warm water to close his fingers around the hilt, lifting the wet sword free. It felt light as a feather, much lighter than the blank he'd been working on for so long was. It felt slightly warm too, in a way that reminded him of the medallion that Roland had given him.
"Cinder," Naruto named it, and it felt right. "It's name is Cinder."
He grinned suddenly. Let's see Sasuke-teme deal with this.
~Knight of the Sun~
"It's different when they bleed," Naruto remarked aloud, his eyes an unusually clouded blue. It was the cast of the shadow from his furrowed brow, Sasuke decided from his peripheral vision. He wasn't going to give the blond the satisfaction of having his full attention, even if the other boy knew. Even if they both knew. The odd rivalry they'd formed was devoid of the hostility and urgency of everything else he did, and Sasuke had begun to appreciate the void of feeling that his relationship with Naruto was.
The other boy would fight when he wanted, and something had drawn all the antagonism and pride out from it. Naruto fought because he'd been asked to, and it was about competition, not fighting. Measuring themselves against each other, because nobody else would do. But there were times when Sasuke feared that he couldn't tell the difference between Naruto sparring and Naruto moving for a killing blow. It wasn't quite like That Man, since he could still read the clarity of Naruto's gaze and rush of adrenaline in the bearing of his body. Itachi had been utterly perfect.
"I knew what it meant to spar with a blade," Sasuke said, trying to ignore the sting of his shoulder. If Naruto had carried through, the strike could have lopped off his arm. Instead it had merely left a deep gash and a sharp stinging pain. But Sasuke was used to pain. It was peeling the edge of his blue shirt away from the edges of the wound that hurt more, the slightly sticky blood making the fabric cling. "Don't you dare hold back," he added, giving Naruto a sharp look.
The blond made a contemplative noise, still seemingly lost in his own thoughts, running a cloth along the steel of the straight-edged sword. It had, Sasuke allowed, been foolish to challenge Naruto to the spar when he hadn't even seen him practice with the new weapon. He'd expected some deviation to what he'd seen from the katana practice, but nothing so abrupt. Naruto used it like it was a totally different weapon, one he knew how to use, and he'd been unprepared for the arcing strikes.
"Uzumaki," Sasuke repeated, eyes narrowed.
"I won't," the other boy promised, and Sasuke felt a small part of him uncurl at the familiar sight of determination written across the blonde's face. For a moment he'd been afraid he had lost the only person capable of challenging him.
"Good," he replied, winding a bandage around his upper arm and using his teeth to hold it tight while he tied a quick knot. "Let's go again."