"So we're going to switch off guarding the bridge with two genin and a jounin," Kakashi offered as he sat with Asuma at the table in Tazuna's kitchen. Team Ten and Sakura were still asleep in their room and Kiba and Sasuke had apparently pulled an all nighter since they'd never returned to the house.

"I honestly think we should have you stay here the whole time and rest up," Asuma rebutted. "I trust Naruto and Shikamaru to handle anything that may come up, so we can team them with Sakura and Ino while Kiba and the Uchiha finish training. To be honest, I've got a bad feeling about this and I'd really rather have you at full strength when they attack."

Kakashi was silent for a minute as he stifled his initial reaction to protest and considered Asuma's proposal. While the bearded jounin had a great deal of experience and skill, it didn't match up with the abilities that had made the masked shinobi a legend in his own time. "You're right," he sighed reluctantly. "You're still fresh and the genin should be fine to cover things until I can get fully back on my feet. We should have at least two weeks before Zabuza is recovered enough to make trouble based on the lingering damage those disabling points must have caused."

"Good, that should give your genin time to get the tree climbing exercise down," Asuma chuckled. "I wasn't planning on working my team up to water walking so soon, but that may be a very valuable skill to teach them. Do you want me to include Sakura in our lessons?"

"And Kiba and Sasuke when they're ready," Kakashi nodded. "I'm willing to bet they'll have the tree climbing down pretty soon if they're told that they're falling behind everyone else."

****

"I think that I'm starting to master this one," Naruto commented as he looked at the burning crater he'd created with a shakkahou, a fire based destructive kidou. "I didn't have to make any of the seals or use the paternoster to get this much of an effect."

I admit that you're doing better with it, Tenken commented, but I would be happier if you could contain the fire into a tighter ball. Your recent attempts have all been quite large. Remember, reiatsu is not like chakra in that more is always better. You have to learn how to refine the reiatsu that you have, much like distilling various alcoholic drinks to obtain a purer form of alcohol.

"Right, so it's back to the refinement exercises again," Naruto sighed. "How long will I have to keep doing these exercises. They're not very hard, so why will they help me focus?"

Again, you are comparing reiatsu and chakra, Tenken admonished the blonde. The lessons of chakra no longer apply once you've mastered them as your chakra levels are mostly determined at birth. The exercises force you to flex the energy to get the maximum amount of your power to be available. Reiatsu is a constantly growing energy. The older you grow, the more knowledge and experiences that you accumulate, the larger your reiatsu reserve will be. The Commander-general of Soul Society has been in command for more than a thousand years and his reiatsu is virtually unrivaled.

"So basically, the older I get, the more reiatsu develops," Naruto summed up, rolling his eyes a little at his zanpaktou's long winded explanation. That still doesn't explain why I have to keep going through all these refinement exercises."

Don't be a fool, Tenken admonished sternly. As your reiatsu increase, you lose the edge refinement gives you and need to do it over again. You will be doing refinement exercises for a very long time, my other half, so you'd better get used to doing them without complaint.

"Ugh," Naruto groaned as he thought about having to work through these exercises for the rest of his life. "And here I thought that learning kidou would be more interesting than the physical training and control exercises. How was I supposed to know that it was all part of the same thing?"

Hmm, I seem to remember quite a bit of excitement the first time you tried to use byakurai, Tenken commented innocently.

"Excitement," the blonde exclaimed loudly, a hand dropping to rub his rear. "That damned kidou set my ass on fire! And it's supposed to create lightning, not fire!"

That's what happens when your control isn't good enough for the kidou you're trying to use, Tenken said wisely, with only a hint of laughter in his voice. That's why I've run you through the wringer.

"Wringer," Naruto asked in confusion. "I didn't really think the training was that hard, just very focused."

That's because you didn't know about the flow inverter I set on your reiatsu, the zanpaktou returned smugly. It's been forcing you to handle more of your reiatsu at any time than you normally would have used, much like wearing weights while doing physical training.

"You've been doing what," Naruto exclaimed in shock. He pulled the blade from its sheath and stared at it angrily. "I thought my control just sucked and it was you fucking with it all along?"

You needed the boost for your training to actually make you competitive with the ninja of your village, Tenken explained irritably. Reiatsu growth is normally very slow and I've had to force your progress or leave you unable to defend yourself in this world.

"I guess that makes as much sense as anything in my life does," Naruto sighed as he slung the zanpaktou back into its sheath, his face scrunching up in a frown. "But I still don't like the fact that you didn't tell me though."

Like it or not, get back to your practice, Tenken said sternly. I want you to compress the shakkahou to the size of a soccer ball before we break for the night.

Naruto groaned as he lifted his arm and focused his reiatsu once more with a call of "Shakkahou!"

****

Sakura had always been at the top of the class where grades were concerned, at least for the girls. She knew that Sasuke had aced his tests all through the academy and there were rumors that Shikamaru could have taken the top grades from the Uchiha heir if he hadn't been too lazy to bother. This satisfied her ego that she was the smartest of the kunoichi graduates, but she now felt keenly the lack of emphasis on physical skills that her training had engendered.

Despite stories of Tsunade of the Sannin's ferocious strength and terrifying taijutsu, the Konoha ninja academy prepared girls primarily for work as covert operations or genjutsu specialists. There was an occasional weapons master in training like the girl that had graduated the year before, Tenten if Sakura remembered right, but the curriculum had not prepared her for the life and death situation against Zabuza. Nor had it prepared her for the jealousy she felt as she watched her old friend and rival Ino run up and down a tree to prove that she could already do it better than anyone in Team Seven.

"See, Forehead girl," Ino called down from her position high up the tree. "We mastered this weeks ago, but I guess your sensei felt that you were dragging Sasuke-kun down enough that you needed remedial lessons first." Sakura could feel her teeth grinding as she glared up at the blonde, peripherally aware that Sasuke and Kiba looked none too happy about been shown up by people they'd looked down on in the Academy.

"All right, that's enough," Asuma called out as he walked into the clearing that the genin had been doing their training in. "It was Kakashi's decision to wait to train them on this exercise, Ino, and I don't remember you fairing quite so well after such a short time either. Now get down here, so we can work out the schedule for the next few days."

Ino pouted as she hopped down from the tree using a series of nearby branches, but made no further comment. Sakura held back the comment she would have liked to make to the other girl and joined the other genin by the bearded jounin.

"Shikamaru, where's Naruto at," Asuma asked.

"Eh, you know him," the lazy boy drawled as he cleaned out an ear with his pinky and stifled a yawn. "He's off somewhere training in those destructive jutsus he uses. You know, the ones he won't let us watch him work on."

Sakura felt oddly curious as to how the class clown of their year would know any destructive jutsu, especially since he didn't come from a notable family. From the frown on Sasuke's face, she could tell he was thinking something along similar lines. Now that the pink haired girl thought about it, Naruto and the Uchiha survivor had never really gotten along before. Distracted by her thoughts, Sakura gave a startled jump when Shikamaru put his fingers to his mouth and let out a shrill, piercing whistle.

"Shikamaru," Asuma said as a pained expression crossed his face, "I know that you and Naruto worked that out as a signal, but do you have to do it so loudly?"

The lethargic genin shrugged and replied, "If I don't make it loud enough, he might not hear it. Besides knowing him, Naruto's probably on the other side of the island.."

"You called," Naruto asked from behind Sakura, causing her to let out a squeak of surprise and jump a little at his sudden appearance. She hadn't even noticed his approach.

"I need to go over our schedule for the next few days," Asuma said, chuckling slightly at Sakura's reaction. "Sasuke, Kiba, you two are going to keep working here until you've gotten the tree climbing exercise down. Sakura, you'll be working with my team on learning the next control exercise and be rotating for guard duty at the bridge with either Naruto or Shikamaru."

"Why does the dobe get to advance," Sasuke demanded as he scowled at the jounin. "I'm much more skilled than that idiot could ever be…"

"Naruto mastered the tree climbing exercise in a day," Asuma said bluntly. "Shikamaru mastered it in three and both of them have proven themselves to be reliable in my estimation. You have yet to prove that you're anything to me, except for being a loud mouth who cannot take orders. Not a good combination for a ninja."

"Asuma-sensei, aren't you being a little hard on Sasuke-kun," Ino demanded. "He was the top of our graduating class after all…"

"Individual ability is not nearly so important in a genin, Ino, as the ability to work with others and take orders," Asuma replied calmly. "He may have excellent abilities, but his poor attitude and disregard for others could easily lead to the death of his teammates and the failure of the mission. Now, you two get back to your trees. The rest of you follow me and we'll get started on your new exercise. Tazuna said that he was going to start back at the bridge tomorrow, so whoever does best on the new exercise will be his guards for the day."

****

Naruto sighed as he looked out across the partially built bridge. While the structure was an impressive feat of engineering, especially for a country as poor as Nami no Kuni, guarding the architect and foreman in charge of its construction had proved a rather tedious endeavor. Three days ago, he'd been shown the water waling exercise and had picked it up as natural as breathing. Compared to the reiatsu control exercises Tenken had him practicing, that had been nothing and he'd wound up on bridge detail with Ino the next day. Today, at least, he was here with Sakura which made for a nice change of pace from the bossy complaining that Ino would go into when she got bored.

"So, Naruto," Sakura asked hesitantly, "You picked up on that exercise pretty quickly. It kind of surprised me, since you never had good chakra control at the Academy."

"My control is something I work a great deal on," Naruto replied absently. "It's easier for people like you, who have smaller amounts of energy to channel."

"What do you mean by that," Sakura asked coldly, irritation warring with curiosity in her voice.

"Look," Naruto sighed, turning to face the pink-haired kunoichi, "control exercise are like taking a stream and forcing it through a series of cataracts until a small amount is capable of creating a great deal of force." Sakura nodded that she had grasped the analogy and her irritation started to fade. "You, Ino, Shikamaru…like most ninja, you have a fairly small stream or river to contend with and as it grows over time you can maintain that control. For me, it's like taking a huge waterfall and trying to channel a thin stream of water from it. While it is possible, it takes considerably more work."

"So why do you have such a large body of water," Sakura asked.

"Don't know," Naruto shrugged, "but that's why I always did so poorly in class. Especially with the bunshin. The amount of chakra in a bunshin is too small for me to channel right now and when you overload a jutsu like that, it tends to come out looking pretty pathetic."

"How would it affect a combat jutsu," Sakura inquired, her curiosity piqued.

"Depends," Naruto replied, turning away to scan the area around the bridge again. "Most combat jutsu are fairly chakra intensive, so increasing the amount of energy increases the size of the effect. Put enough oomph into it, though, and it can blow up in your face."

"Shikamaru said something about your learning some destructive jutsu," Sakura asked carefully, knowing that most ninja were fairly secretive about their techniques.

"Yeah, I've got a few that I've been working on," Naruto admitted, "They're not terribly hard, but it's a lot of work getting them as precise as I would like them to be. Despite some of the stories we heard at the academy, ninja should really avoid big flashy explosions and attacks that destroy an area. We're better served with justu that can be used like a scalpel to strike at a vulnerability. Besides, big flashy jutsu are wasteful and will exhaust you pretty quick. Isn't that what happened with your sensei? From what I heard, he and the nuke-nin were tossing around some big area effect jutsu and he's only know starting to recover from chakra exhaustion."

"That's true," Sakura mused. "Kakashi-sensei used quite a few jutsu and uncovered his Sharingan eye, during that fight. When he collapsed, he'd said he used too much chakra."

"Part of that's the eye's fault," Naruto explained. "I don't think they covered this in the Academy, but we trained with a group of genin from last year's class and there was a Hyuuga on their team. Stuck up bastard, but I noticed he didn't always have the byakugan on all of the time like you'd thing someone with a dojutsu would. So I asked Tenten, who I've been training with on the side about it. She told me that dojutsu have a pretty high energy demand and it can kill them if they're dumb enough to try and use it all of the time. I would imagine that it's worse for Kakashi, since the eye was obviously a transplant and his body doesn't have the built in failsafes that an Uchiha would."

"How do you know it was a transplant," Sakura asked.

"His name is Hatake, not Uchiha," Naruto replied, giving her a look that questioned the kunoichi's intelligence. "The Hatake's have their own family jutsu and no relation to the Uchiha at all. Many other villages covet the dojutsu Konoha have and would love to have an eye to implant in order to gain an advantage."

"Oh," Sakura said in a small voice. "I think Tazuna-san is calling it a day."

Naruto looked over to where several of the workers were putting tools up and nodded. "I think you're right," he said. "That's a good thing, since I was starting to get hungry."

"You've always been a bottomless stomach," Sakura teased.

"And what, exactly, would you know about that," Naruto asked coldly, giving the pink-haired girl a cold glare that she didn't understand. He shook his head, as if clearing it before continuing, "Never mind, let's just get the old coot back to his home."

Sakura stared after the blonde, wondering what had set him off after they'd been having such a pleasant and informative conversation. It had been a wonderful change from the way he'd used to fawn over her all of the time…Sakura paused as she realized that for the past few months, the blond had been avoiding her It should have relieved her, but somehow all she could feel was an inexplicable sense of loss.

****

"So what exactly is it that you want me to learn that required me releasing your shikai," Naruto asked the large blade he now held in both of his hands.

All Zanpaktou have attacks unique to them, Tenken replied. It's a combination of the nature of the blade and the wielder, which means that yours will be different than Komamura's was. Your shikai is definitely different, although I believe your bankai will be similar once you finally unlock it.

"That's great and all, but what does it mean," Naruto asked in frustration.

Focus your reiatsu into the blade and let it build, Tenken instructed. Naruto set his feet and held the blade out in front of him and began to let his spiritual energy flow into the blade. It was an odd sensation to the blonde as he felt the reiatsu twist out of shape from pure energy and overflow into a wind that swirled around the zanpaktou. Now swing and release the energy from the edge.

Naruto gritted his teeth and swung the blade, crying out, "Ha!" as the world seemed to explode around him.

AN:

Wow, it's been a long time since I managed get anything together enough to post. Sorry about the lengths of the delay, but I hope you'll continue to enjoy the story. Next up, I'm going to try and get the next chapter of Kamikaze not Naruto to cooperate.