Chapter 23: The Tool called White Snow

Disclaimer: Naruto is the work of Kishimoto

The first overall day of training was in one word exhausting.

For someone who was still 'recovering', Kakashi was a mean person when training especially seriously. Naruto and Sasuke were all bruised over with using as much of their Chakra in getting down Chakra Compression to a good enough level that it made a noticeable difference compared to Chakra Enhancement in that area.

Though most of the bruising came with them learning how to fight using it to begin with.

Sasuke showed his talent in learning faster than Naruto as he kept up with the latter's learning speed even when Naruto was using a hundred Shadow Clones practising the technique.

Though rough, Naruto managed to get down using enough Chakra to compress in a second while Sasuke only took half a second to do the same.

But the difference again was that Naruto pumped out more Chakra even unconsciously and consciously trying to control it and in turn made it so that Naruto was already able to triple his normal power using Chakra Compression compared to Sasuke's double in power.

This along with Naruto's resistance seal holding him back 1.75x compared to Sasuke's 1.5x resistance seal made it clear that Naruto was more 'powerful' but Sasuke was 'faster' in their attacks not that either minded.

Naruto could deal with his lack of speed using Chakra Compression with Shadow Clones but Sasuke needed to be faster when using it since he didn't have the benefit of splitting himself into a thousand at will.

And their training with Chakra Compression only last half the day. The second half of the day was spent with Chakra Compression which to Naruto was a painful experience with him gaining the memories and pains of his Shadow Clones.

To Sasuke this came with a lot of stress even with his Chakra Control which finally evened out to High Genin like his Chakra Reserves.

Working with that little Chakra was hard for him though not as bad as Naruto. Naruto on the other hand had to literally work backwards in decreasing the amount of Chakra he would cycle around his body.

Those Chakra Points would strain when he used Chakra Cycling but it gave his Shadow Clones a good boost before they overcharged it and popped along with a headache.

"Man Kakashi-sensei can be vicious when he wants to…" Naruto muttered. Right now was near the end of the first day of training and Naruto wanted to relax and recover for the next day of battle.

He was so tired that he didn't realised that he fell asleep while trying to relax and recover for the next day of battle.

"Shinobi-san. Shinobi-san! You'll catch a cold if you sleep here" a calm soothing voice called out to him.

It wasn't the harpy voice of Sakura but something softer like the voice of Tazuna's daughter; Tsunami. Yes-it was a kind voice to Naruto which was uncommon. The only female he could remember was Ayame-nee and maybe one or two old ladies.

Oh and that Uchiha woman…Mikoto something. For some reason she helped him out once or twice before that incident that caused Sasuke to be the same as him in more ways than he liked.

Opening his eyes he saw a woman in a Kimono type clothing or something similar to that. It was white but had a red outline at the front and at the collar and had spirals dotted around the white. Even the obi-jime cord was white but was loosely tied for comfort.

She also wore a black choker strip around her neck as well.

"Huh?" Naruto unlike the inexperienced person he used to be was on full alert now but didn't do anything. This person might be a normal civilian…her Chakra didn't seem hostile at all so he gave her that.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked though still tired and yawned out unconsciously.

The girl giggled and said, "My name is Haku and I'm here to collect some medical herbs for a friend that became ill recently."

"Oh" Naruto couldn't refute that since he didn't know much of medicine at all.

He would need to look into that later after he finished up his studies to move onto the Intermediate stage of Fuinjutsu.

There were 10 ranks in Fuinjutsu and Beginners were rank 1-2, Intermediate were rank 3-4, Advance were rank 5-6 and Masters ranged from 7-10. It was said that even the Yondaime Hokage was only a rank 8 Fuinjutsu Master.

Back to the girl named Haku Naruto found himself really having nothing else to do but train and even with Shadow Clones it was nice at least to talk to someone new.

"My name is Naruto" he replied, "You know I can help you out if you want. As long as you tell me what they do!" Naruto grinned at the end. This was a chance for new knowledge after all and he might as well start some minor medical knowledge at least enough to make sure he didn't poison himself.

Haku looked uncertain for a moment but then smiled and said, "Sure Naruto. If I recall there are some medical herbs that do well for recovering fatigue and regain strength. They go by many names and I'm not sure what they're called where you're from but around here they are simply called 'Healing Herbs'. I'll show you what one looks like."

With that, Naruto followed the strange but kind girl to an area with lots of small plants growing around the place.

He could tell that some were edible with his survival training…and real life experience at times.

Squinting down, Naruto muttered out, "This stuff this medicine? Huh" he started to pick them and place them into the basket that Haku brought with her.

"Thanks for helping out" Haku said doing the same as Naruto though in a gentler and much more skilled way.

"You sure working early lady" Naruto replied asking innocently though inside he wanted to know if he needed to suspect this person.

"You too" Haku nodded, "What are you doing here at this time of morning?"

"Ehhh?" Naruto whined a bit but still said, "Training. Must have dosed off due to exhaustion or something."

Haku looked surprise as Naruto continued.

"It's good to learn something new! Especially something about healing since…" Naruto took a slightly darker look, "I may need to patch my friends up if they ever get hurt."

"I see" Haku paused for a second and then asked suddenly, "That headband…are you a ninja?" looking at the forehead protector around his neck.

Naruto nodded but unlike before did not exclaim it out. It was better NOT to make sure that everyone in the area knew you were one. There were places where ninjas were not…approved to go into without certain people liking them there.

He stared into Haku wanting to see any kind of reaction he needed to be worried about.

"Why are you training?" Haki asked with a slight blush.

And with a grin Naruto replied, "Because I want to become stronger!" That was true, there were so many failures already even if no one except him knew. He needed to be stronger no matter what!

"Hmm…" Haku's eyes judged him, "But you already look plenty strong."

"No no!" Naruto retorted, "I want to be even stronger!"

"…." Haku stared at Naruto for a moment again and asked, "Why…is that?"

"So I can become the best ninja in my village! I'm going to make everyone acknowledge my strength and that I will protect them no matter what when I take the hat of Hokage! And right now I also need to prove somrthing to someone."

Naruto offhandedly remembered Inari's second rant of how pitiful his life was. It was indeed bad but far from the worse he heard.

"Is that for someone else? Or for yourself?" Haku asked confusing Naruto. He could only let out a, "Ha?" in response causing Haku to giggle greatly at this interesting child.

"W-What's so funny?" Naruto shouted with a blush. This was the first time a girl giggled like that due to him. They were either scorning his every action or comparing him to the Teme so this was strange for him.

"Do you have someone who's important to you?" Haku asked with a light smile.

Naruto remembered back into his memories. Iruka-, Hokage-jiji, Ayame and Teuchi were the first true bonds he ever had. They were his family. Team 7 save Sakura were important to him as well even if all they did were train and talk a bit.

"Yes" Naruto said with resolve, "And I will protect them no matter what."

"When…a person has something important to protect, that's when they truly become strong" Haku said casually but Naruto knew and felt the importance of these words. Yes…this was exactly like the 'Will of Fire' that Iruka and Hokage-jiji talked about.

"…."

With a smile, a true smile (That would make a certain Heiress faint) Naruto replied, "Yeah. I understand that very well" causing Haku to smile in the same way as him.

A moment later Haku packed of the rest of the medicine herbs in her basket and turned and walked away but not before saying, "You will become strong. Let's meet again somewhere."

"Sure Masked Hunter-Nin" Naruto cheerfully answered and snickered when he mind-fucked her a bit, "Those herbs are for Zabuza right? Kakashi-sensei is aching for a rematch with him you know. Just…don't target the civilians."

Naruto felt the area around them tense under something that was neither killing intent nor Chakra. This was the feeling of a fight that may come at any moment…and something that Naruto experienced too much back in Konoha for him to be bothered to flinch. No…there was something else he couldn't put his finger on…

"Understood Shinobi-san" Haku answered formally even though he had given her his name before walking away, "Oh…and I'm a boy."

Naruto actually was startled enough to blurt out a, "Huh?" throwing him off his game completely.

Guy? GUY?! There was no way that person was a guy! The voice, figure and even motions were perfect for a girl! Or was it due to that Haku as a guy was so good at being a girl or was Haku really a girl?

Damn he wished he had a nose like Kiba to tell the difference.

And as Sasuke approached giving a strange look at Haku, both Genin did not notice that long above the trees were covered in frost, as the temperature there dropped so much.

The next day, Naruto and the team with a fully recovered Kakashi set off with Tazuna to the bridge that was nearly finished now.

Even if Zabuza didn't appear, Gato was certain to send someone else to off the rest of the people working there. By a week since the team got to Wave; half the workers either left or were killed off in their homes.

Needless to say; morale was pretty low and Naruto considered it partly his fault.

Sure he had training but he also could've helped out with the situation in Wave more. You know; going beyond the mission requirement would give Konoha a firm hold onto who Wave goes to for their mission.

The next closest place was Mizu and frankly that place was still in civil war so there was no contest there.

But on the other hand it was likely they were going to be slaughtered or something would go wrong. It would be nice to know these kinds of things so Naruto had some Shadow Clones hidden in Tazuna's home as guards for Tsunami and Inari.

The latter grew on him and frankly he was going to enjoy mind-fucking him in several ways in later loops.

'Though Shadow Clones would be useless against real Ninjas even Genin if there's no enough room to dodge or time to block' Naruto mused though he doubt Gato would send anyone but grunts for the hostage situations and Zabuza wouldn't dare do such a thing due to his pride even if they were supposed to be ninjas.

Assassin, a bodyguard, a villain, a soldier or a weapon of war.

Might as well add in gardener, cook, babysitter, manual labour for all those D-ranks as well though most of them were to help you in infiltration or some sort of training.

"So we're going to face Zabuza and his masked goon as well?" Naruto asked.

"SHUT UP BAKA! LIKE THE LIKES OF YOU CAN KNOW THAT!" Sakura screamed. Naruto flinched along with everyone else in a mile radius due to the sound though he noticed that Sakura had dark spots under her eyes.

"Mare mare, please be quiet since we DO want an element of surprise" Kakashi chided though giving off a bit of killing intent to reinforce that since he had sensitive ears…and Sakura may as well damaged everyone's potential there.

"Sakura…shut up or I will make you" Sasuke added. If it was even possible, Sasuke despised Sakura even more than his usual fan-girls. At least after a while with Kakashi forcing training and Naruto's pranks when they slack off; they would get the message.

Seeing that Sakura was about to speak again and it was either going to insult him or be loud or both; Naruto said, "Sakura if you stay quiet, the Teme here will go on a date with you when we get back to Konoha."

Two heads shot to him with one with hope and the other in disbelief though Naruto added in a whisper since he was next to him and Sakura on the other side with Kakashi and Tazuna as buffers, "Don't worry; you're safe since I need a good team-mate for now. I didn't say how long or whether one of my Shadow Clones in a Transformation would take your place…and disappear when she doesn't notice which won't take much."

"…."

Sasuke nodded though still frowned to this but pushed back his worry when Naruto perked up and said, "Oh that reminds me, what kind of strategy are we using? I mean there's Zabuza and his masked goon but what about Gato?"

"What about him? He isn't a danger since he's not a ninjas" Sasuke asked with scorn. It seemed his tendency to underestimate those 'below' him was still an issue.

'I need to work on that later so he isn't that much of a Teme' Naruto thought, 'I already worked on making him at least polite in front of other Ninjas and those at a relatively high position.'

Yes it was a work in process but the three minus Sakura who is still day-dreaming of the possibility of getting close to Sasuke and raping him. Yeah…Sakura took the role of fan-girl to a new limit called stalker.

After spending an hour while escorting Tazuna to the bridge, it was Naruto who was using Chakra Enhancement on his sense of smell who immediately knew something was wrong. There was a distinct smell of blood in the area to the bridge.

"Sensei…there's blood at the bridge" Naruto warned.

Kakashi tensed and seeing this; Sasuke did to and after a moment to register the thought so did Tazuna. The reason why Kakashi didn't sense this first was that he needed to save every scrap of Chakra to face against Zabuza and he knew Naruto had the reserves to do so in his place at least.

And with that warning, the Team was quite tense as they confirmed what Naruto smelled.

"My God…" Tazuna let out a gasp of shock, "Everyone is…?"

In front of them was the scene of the slaughter of the workers that wished to build a bridge of hope to their land that was drowned in despair. And with blood still soaking his blade stood one of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist, an A-rank missing-nin Zabuza along with his comrade the fake hunter-nin.

"Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura! Protect Tazuna no matter what! If you can, leave Shadow Clones if you get into the fight as well" Kakashi barked out.

Zabuza let out a chuckle at the scene and the comment at the end, "My my, it's as if you didn't know we were here to begin with. However do you really think you can take both of us at the same time? This time your brats will be slaughtered before you as well."

Letting out a burst of killing intent which made the situation all that worse, Zabuza summoned out 20 Water Clones easily since they were surrounded by water and there's fog all around them as well. Lots of water for him to work with unfortunately.

Naruto frowned seeing this since even if they trained and got stronger, it would still be difficult to take them all down.

"Teme…release the resistance seal if you want to live through this…it's no time to hold back now" he warned before disabling the seal boosting his power and speed up by 75%. Every bit would help them right now.

And with a grunt Sasuke did so but then Kakashi took a glance at his team and said, "Sasuke, do it" causing the Uchiha to smirk as he charged in.

He was quite quick and frankly Naruto's resistance seal-less state was only a bit higher than Sasuke's resistance seal state.

The Teme without the seal bringing his speed down was evidently faster even compared to him as he used a single Kunai to easily take down those 20 Water Clones in an instant.

Splash~

Water tumbled down as a good deal of the people there was in shock. Kakashi seemed perfectly aware of Sasuke's improvements but Naruto wasn't.

'Wow…even I can't do that. Guess the Teme is a LOT better when he learns something new' Naruto thought seeing the Water Clones all turning into water as they were 'killed'. Naruto wasn't able to replicate what Sasuke just did.

That set of moves Sasuke did required a lot of speed, good vision and even more so great reaction time to get it down right. Speed and even vision could be enhanced with chakra but not reaction time.

Naruto simply lacked the speed to process and react to everything around him at that speed currently but Sasuke did.

It wasn't like he was jealous of Sasuke's natural talent, Naruto still had a stupidly large amount of Chakra in him that none he knew of could match.

Seeing Sasuke killing those Water Clones quite quickly the masked boy turned over and muttered out worryingly, "Zabuza-sama…"

However Zabuza smirked at the sight and said, "Not bad brat. It looks like you have some talent; managing to kill my water clones with a single week worth of training. However you are still vastly outmatched. Haku."

"Understood Zabuza-sama" Haku replied walking forward as everyone else watched on. Naruto was really regretting not making some Shadow Clones before this battle, he did so with Tazuna's home so why did he forget now?!

If he did then the Jonins would notice something was wrong…though that reminds Naruto that he needs to learn how to better suppress his Chakra.

Naruto glanced at Kakashi who noticed the expression and muttered, "Don't worry. Sasuke can take care of this fine."

Naruto nodded watching as Sasuke and Haku; the boy (?) (Naruto still believes Haku is a girl. In his mind someone as pretty as Haku MUST be a girl) he talked to the previous day fighting each other.

Both sides were dashing across the bridge and using their Taijutsu skills to battle it out at speeds that any civilian would fail to see….and also Sakura.

Squinting his eyes, Naruto noticed something. Haku's Taijutsu was actually pretty bad…worse than Sasuke's at least and around his level?

Haku was being pushed back bit by bit as Sasuke pressed on in their Taijutsu duel while he used Sebons to force Sasuke to momentarily retreat or dodge in such a way that Haku has more time to correct his stance.

For someone trained by one of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist; Haku was surprisingly weak in close combat. Though…

"I got you!" Sasuke declared with his Kunai pointing at Haku forcing the latter to block with three Sebons in between his knuckles.

Anyone skilled enough could tell that the two were in a stalemate but Sasuke was a distinct advantage with his attack pressuring Haku while the latter could not attack in turn due to that. Sasuke would react too quickly and end Haku if she even tries to retreat.

However apparently no one told that to Haku.

"Really?" she asked tilting her head, "Right now you are lacking one hand to attack like myself. You cannot use any Jutsus in your current state while I can!"

Haku started to flick through hand-seals with one hand rapidly. All three males in Team 7 widened their eyes rapidly seeing this. One handed hand-seals were rare because you needed to be extremely familiar with the Jutsu and also have even more precise Chakra Control to use a Jutsu with one had.

"Teme! Get out of there!" Naruto shouted while about to move in to attack.

Kakashi was glaring at Zabuza who was doing the same with a smug look since if Kakashi moved, Zabuza did and vis versa which meant that only Naruto get into the fight.

Starting to run, Naruto could not even make half the distance as Haku called out, "Water Style: Thousand Flying Needles of Death!" while slamming her foot down on the wet ground.

In the next moment Naruto's instincts flared out and forced his body to jump back just as Sasuke's eyes widened.

The moment after that, water through water chakra manipulation stayed still in the air and formed into countless sharp needles around the pair.

And the third moment in a row, both Haku and Sasuke leaped away from the target area with surprising ease leaving the place they were standing being filled up completely with water needles before they turned back into plain water.

'Hm?'

And then Naruto realised that a certain masked person was now charging at him since he unwittingly stepped into the battle to step with Sebons in both hands and moving those weapons dangerously close to his neck.

Dodging for the first strike, Naruto panicked. It wasn't him who was supposed to fight Haku right now but the Teme! Where the hell is he anyway?

Looking over, Naruto found Sasuke with a couple of Senbons in his leg and in the process of pulling them out. Great, Haku disabled him and now he was going to fight at least until Sasuke can get himself back together.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! The Teme is the one you want to fight Haku!" Naruto shouted out in a hurry but his plea of not fighting the girl was unheard. Several more Sebons were flung at him and Naruto really wanted to get out of this fight.

It was simply not cool to steal Sasuke's fight.

Especially when said enemy was someone he knew (Even briefly) and was really good at putting thin pointy objects near his vitals and eyes.

Yeah he was getting the hell out of the fight when he dodge this last strike thatwasgettingreallyreallycloseSHIT!

BANG!

The shockwave of Naruto dodging using Chakra Enhancement and Chakra Compression to the best of his ability was loud enough not to mention that the ground was now cracked in several places spreading across several. Naruto could've sworn he heard Tazuna wail of despair at that moment.

However the biggest surprise was due to Naruto highly highly overcharging both techniques beyond what is normally possible for some people; he was inevitably flung off the side the bridge and into the water.

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIT!"

And in another 2 seconds of flying in the air, Naruto landed and skipped across the water before he managed to turn his body around and slide back into a stop facing the bridge with a look of shock on his face.

And before he realised the potential of his body being able to take that much force with his leg already strangely healing the numerous cracks across the bone and the muscle tissues coming back from being ripped apart; the first thing Naruto thought of was:

"DAMN! IT'S GOING TO TAKE FOREVER TO GET BACK NOW!"

Back on the bridge there were mixed responses especially to Kakashi and Zabuza who were both considered strong even in the Shinobi World where throwing a massive fireball or moving across countries in days or hours depending on the size. Frankly Shinobi weren't normal and what Naruto did with one kick to dodge a blow was NOT normal.

One does not simply get flung off like that with a single kick. ESPECIALLY when said person was that small!

The rest of Team 7 plus the masked Haku were standing there stunned at the scene while Tazuna was muttering something about not drinking anything funny since the blonde brat disappeared.

"Well…that was interesting" Kakashi started, "I DID tell him NOT to overpower those techniques…but I'm more worried if my student is alive and in one piece after that."

"What the hell did you teach that brat?" Zabuza asked to which Kakashi replied nonchalantly while panicking internally, "Mare mare, this and that."

Sasuke and Sakura both sweatdropped hearing that and the former finally managed to get back his feeling in his leg that was disabled.

Who would've known that the masked kid could throw and aim that well to hit him as they were both retreating from that attack.

Sigh…if only he had the Sharingan to copy the move.

"Zabuza-sama, I am of your command" Haku replied stiffly seeing Naruto flying that far away…

Zabuza grunted and then flashed through a couple of hand-seals beyond what normal people could tell and then said, "Haku deal with the duck-butt brat before going for the blonde brat. Water Style: Hidden in the Mist Jutsu!" before mist rapidly expanded from his body.

Seeing this Kakashi barked out, "Sakura! Protect Tazuna no matter what" before mist consumed his body as he charged at Zabuza and disappearing from Sakura's sight. Sasuke on the other hand was back in battle with Haku and as a result all three groups were split from each other in sight alone.

Due to this Sakura started to panic.

What you don't know, what you can't see will frighten you. She knew that her Sasuke-kun and her Sensei was fine but at the same time there was this fear of what if they failed and the next one to fight and die was her.

No Sasuke to fight for her.

No Kakashi to protect her.

Not even Naruto-baka to use for bait.

Holding a Kunai and shaking every time a large noise from both battles was heard. All she wanted was to be with her Sasuke-kun. This was supposed to be easy! This was supposed to be a simple C-rank with no risk! Her Ninja life was supposed to bring her in glory!

Meanwhile back at Tazuna's home…

The few Shadow Clones that Naruto left there managed to take out the mercenaries out fine. It was a good thing he left them there after all..

Naruto by the time he got close enough to the bridge noticed that there was a lot of mist around.

This meant that both Kakashi and Zabuza were fighting now and also Sasuke and Haku were probably fighting as well.

'Damn things better not go bad. I just saved Tsunami and Inari from those bandit-mercenaries' Naruto thought bitterly. There was a certain irony in that a civilian businessman would do so instead of a trained Shinobi.

However the next thing he knew was a heaven piercing scream from a memory from the Shadow Clones with Tsunami.

The next thing he knew he was back at Tazuna's home not knowing what the fuck happened.

Checkpoint 4: Loop 1 End (Total Loops 59)

A/N:

Muhahaha I am evil in screwing up Naruto's plans.

And who exactly is this person who managed to kill one of Tazuna's family?

Plot plot plot ploooooooot!

Anyway, did anyone expect that to be the results of Naruto using Chakra Enhancement which basically boosted your strength and speed and amplified that result with Chakra Compression.

I had half a mind to make Naruto's leg explode from Chakra Overload.

But I didn't since such a death was basically just gore at this point.

These are probably the three most important techniques that Naruto could learn to help him in general but at the same time they'll also be the most difficult to learn and use in battle.

Simply put, Naruto has too much Chakra.

Too much Chakra and these techniques do not mix.

As in too much and limbs and parts will explode.

However this is actually how I envisioned Naruto getting enough Chakra Control to the point where he could attempt and be able to use the Rasangan later on eventually.

But then again, while Rasangan IS Chakra Control, it's also not completely about Chakra Control. Its about Chakra Density and Chakra Control at the same time. The less Density is have naturally, the more Chakra Control you need to use Rasangan.

That's probably why Naruto learnt it so fast and easily.

His Chakra Density must have been high enough that he Canon Chakra Control which was probably at Genin levels at best adding in Water-Walking allowed him to use a bastardised version with a Shadow Clone.

Even if he could only use it for a short few seconds.