The First Chakra Smith

by FamedBoat

You hear the occasional rare legend of mythical blades that can wield untold powers, how they and their wielders brought entire civilizations to their knees, or reduced mountains to rubble. Even rarer however, are the stories of how those weapons were forged. But Uzumaki Naruto's never been one to let something silly like a lost and impossibly obscure art stop him. AU/Strong Naruto

2. Chapter 1: Smith in the Forrest

Naruto would be in awe if he wasn't literally in the fight of his life. Seeing a real legendary blade up close is all but a dream come true. Now if only it wasn't currently being wielded by one of the most dangerous sociopathic ninja Konohagakure had ever produced, in a very efficient attempt to bisect him.

As he was thinking this he heard another one of the snakes creepy laughs echo throughout the forest. "Kukukuku, has the little swordsman had enough?" And before Naruto could think of a witty retort another of the giant trees located in the forest of death fell down around him, missing his supposedly hidden location by only a meter or two. Cut cleanly through the base by the legendary blade.

Kusanagi, Naruto thought to himself. The Grass Cutter, named so for its mythically sharp edge. At the moment Naruto was trying to recall everything he knew of the weapon from his years of research into the subject of legendary weapons and how they were crafted. The name of the smith is unknown, at least to himself, but the origins of the blade itself can be extrapolated with enough knowledge. He was nearly certain that it had been crafted in an attempt to recreate the original chakra forged weapon, the Fuchūina Ejji, or at least it was meant to invoke the image and mystique of the supposedly god-like weapon. So its most likely that the blade will be honed to an edge unparalleled with traditional–

Before he could even finish his thought, The slice of the mythical weapon could be heard followed by a telltale rumbling below his feet signaling that the tree he was clinging to had most likely also been cut cleanly from the base. Damn, he thought to himself, it's almost effortless to make such a clean cut with the blade, he doubted the Sannin even needed to use any much strength let alone any chakra to cut this deep. This is starting to get even worse, first, he loses one of his best chakra conductive blades against some sand psycho, and now one of the most dangerous ninjas on the continent is all but clearing the entire forest in an attempt to… do what?

All of a sudden Naruto realized he had absolutely no idea what this bastard was after. The scrolls? Unlikely, at this point even if the Sannin killed me and the rest of my team it wouldn't be hard to discover the snake had been here and then a village wide manhunt would commence, and he was good but he couldn't hide inside of Konoha for long while being hunted like that. So what then?

Obviously, the Sannin has some interest or goal with me, batting aside both the last Uchiha's team with two valuable clan heirs, and my own with two other clan heirs, although not on the same level as a Hyuuga and Uchiha, they should still attract more attention from this power hungry fool than one orphaned bladesmith.

"I need to figure this out soon or eventually the crazy bastard will catch up to me." If Naruto was certain of one thing, it's that getting caught in the path of someone with a blade of that caliber is not something he wanted to do again. At least not until he wasn't so outmatched in every category, because Naruto highly doubted he would get lucky against the White Snake like he did against Zabuza. An A-rank missing nin is a powerful and dangerous enemy, but the distance between A and S-rank is a vast one.

Could it be the Kyuubi? That is certainly an option, and quite a powerful one for someone like Orochimaru to go after. Although, if that is the end goal then why toy with Naruto? Because that is absolutely what the Sannin is doing, a ninja of that caliber would not have let me get away like this for so long unless they were doing it on purpose. Well, unless they were insane, which is definitely a possibility with one such as this. But if the Kyuubi is the objective then there was no way Naruto would be getting away, as this is a lot of effort and planning to go through to let such a powerful prize escape. So even if that is the true goal, Naruto needed to hope it was something else and plan for that. Because if not, he was well and truly fucked.

My blade smithing research perhaps? Or, if the Snake Sannin was as extremely well informed as their counterpart Jiraiya was known for being, could the Snake's goal be his research into Chakra Smithing? Occam's Razor means that the simplest and most likely answer was most often the correct one, and what could be more valuable to a power hungry rogue ninja than two doujutsu?

Granted, Naruto's collective research into Chakra Smithing was really only barely scratching the surface of what is truly possible with it. But the art is so incredibly rare that almost no one, even those with vast and detailed spy networks, could get their hands on much to do with it. And even that information was always heavily encrypted at best or at worst so vague that it rarely gave any actual insight into the practice itself.

That has to be it, the Sannin was either after the most powerful Bijuu, in which case Naruto stood no chance of escape without either Hokage-sama or an entire Anbu platoon appearing. Or they were after Naruto's research into the lost art of chakra forging, in which case Naruto just might be less screwed. Because even if the legendary ninja killed him and somehow bypassed the seal Naruto had hidden on his body, which would be next to impossible especially if he died. Far more information could be gained from him if he was taken alive, which meant the Snake would have to be holding back. Now, how could this information be used to turn this unwanted and not so little game of 'hide and swipe down every tree in sight' into his advantage?

As Naruto's mind worked in an intense chakra enhanced overdrive, the Snake Sannin kept up the chase. Still unseen other than the devastation left in her wake. Naruto glanced around from the new hiding spot he chose, a crack or hole in the underside of a branch in another enormous tree, and he could see what could only be taken as a sign of the expert craftsmanship and awe inspiring power of the weapon being used to hunt him down.

A clearing of giant felled trees had been created, at least a hundred or so meters across at the widest and what looked to be two or three times that long in length, with the occasional cluster of 2 or 3 untouched trees standing in the clearing as a show of the Sannin's apparent magnanimity. Naruto's hiding place was perched precariously on the edge of the clearing, this section of it probably only 40 or so meters across.

"If I could just figure out where the psychopath is, I could at least try and make a break for it" he whispered to himself, unable to control himself properly while in awe of the destruction brought on by one of the Sannin, in search of himself.

"You know… talking out loud, even a whisper, isn't very smart when one is trying to hide themselves from such a superior enemy." The voice broke out over the silence right above him.

"Shit!" Naruto gasped out in surprise. Throwing himself down from his hiding place and toward the ground below as the branch he was hiding inside shattered into dust and splinters from some unknown attack by the Snake.

Naruto twisted his body in midair, trying to not only correct himself but also to try and get a look at his dangerous opponent. All he saw was a sandaled foot flying at him followed by the loose billowing off-white robes before the aforementioned foot made contact with his chest and drove him faster towards the ground. With no way to properly correct himself without drawing himself closer to the very, very sharp object his opponent was wielding, Naruto simply braced for impact and hoped his attacker wouldn't use their momentum to drive the legendary blade into something vital.

Naruto landed hard, on his back, with a dense thud and a foot lodged in his stomach. The weight of his attacker had him pinned to the ground. Although, in his attempts to struggle he realized he was also pinned to the ground by something on his right arm, or maybe his forearm? His vision was still a little blurry and a small amount of dust was just beginning to settle when he saw what exactly was pinning him to the ground.

It was one of his own blades, an unnamed one as he never really got around to naming most of his creations, a Katana 24 inches in length made from some impressively expensive steel given to him on his most recent birthday by Masa-Jiji. He lost it alongside another during his fight with the Sannin. Who's snake summons had shattered his tanto when he was first ambushed, although it was a blade he brought specifically to be expendable, he still didn't like losing it.

"Now now Naruto-Kun, let's not struggle too much. Unless you seem interested in losing your hand." The sweet almost melancholy voice heavily contrasted against the acts of seeming brutality committed against him. "I just want to talk. Maybe compare notes, one sword wielder to another?"

Naruto finally looked up and into the eyes of his attacker, only now able to tear his eyes away from his own blade stabbed through his arm and deep into the ground beneath him. And that's when he was truly struck by the beauty of his attacker.

Her eyes, yellow like those of a snake, and yet still so full and human. The sharp lines and angles of her high cheekbones, complimented perfectly by the softness hidden in her complexion and smooth perfect skin. A little stunned by this odd revelation he panicked and spat something out, "You know, that's a really good way to dull a keen edge". Fuck, I get an up close look at her for one second and I'm so startled I just reverted back into being a nerd for anything with a keen edge.

Naruto would swear it was a trick of the wind, and anyone he ever told this story to would as well, but he thought he might have heard the slightest laugh from the legendary warrior. "Well, you certainly live up to your reputation as a little blacksmith. Tell me, what would you have me do instead? Use the deadly edge of my other blade to pin you down?" She asked in a joking and yet still incredibly menacing tone while gesturing with the Kusanagi still gripped in her dominant hand.

Naruto certainly wouldn't like that, he currently had no way of being sure but if any of the stories are to be believed the Kusanagi was impossibly poisonous alongside being legendarily sharp. "Actually, if you could remove it that would be nice." A short yet perceptible shake of her head was all the answer he would get from that, but he figured he may as well give it a shot.

It was right about now when the pain started to set in, not only from the sword lodged in his forearm and the rather high fall he took into the unforgiving ground, but also from his battle with the Snake. She had spent what felt like 2 hours batting him around the forest in a sword fight that Naruto could only describe as both terrifying and disappointing. Although he knew it couldn't have been more than 30 minutes at most. He used almost every trick he had ever come up with and all he would get in response was the same egomaniacal grin and being slapped with the side of her blade, which would still send him flying some distance.

"Oh little Naruto-kun, if you are half the genius I believe you to be then we both know exactly why I can't do that. Leaving both hands free to someone like you is far too much of a gamble, even for one such as myself." Now that was certainly confusing to Naruto. Not her explanation, as it actually made some sense, as he was not only a prodigious sword user but also knew quite enough about chakra smithing to cause some very intense damage to a person's insides if he was desperate enough.

Heating up metal with your chakra is rather intense, and can be replicated to some rather devastating effects on the human body if given the chance, although any damage he did to her he would most likely end up doing to his own hand, but they both knew he could probably heal from that if given enough time.

No, her reasoning was completely sound, and also let him know that she knew at least his approximate skill level in chakra smithing, even if it is most likely a little outdated. What was confusing to the young man was the weird sense of pride he felt in his chest from having a legendary ninja such as her tell him that he was a genius and too dangerous to leave both hands open, even in this condition.

No one had ever called him a genius before, not the Hokage who he barely spoke to anymore, and not even grumpy old Masamune-Jiji who was one of the few people alive to actually have any clue on the true extent of his knowledge in chakra smithing.

True he had occasionally been called something close to prodigious with a sword, although never to his face, but that didn't mean he didn't occasionally hear the whispers or–

He was brought out of his very conflicting daze of emotions and speculations by a small application of pressure from the Snake Sannin via her foot still lodged in his gut. "Although I must say," she began while eyeing his katana, "the craftsmanship you've displayed in this instrument is truly incredible. You can see the forge lines and high density from the folding process you must have used, but its tensile strength is quite high. How long did you spend tempering it just to achieve such a high combination of both?" She asked this question with only the slightest tilt of her head, her eyes still studying the blade.

Naruto was, to put it mildly, a little off-put by all of this. Had this madwoman seriously broken into Konoha, disguised herself as a grass ninja, and leveled this enormous swathe of forest just to ask him about his smithing process? Admittedly it was a very high quality blade, in part due to the precious mix of steel used to craft it, but mostly due to Naruto's own process and techniques developed over his years of intense research. But it certainly wasn't worth what would no doubt be a few million or so Ryo increase in her already high bounty, was it?

He figured he may as well give her an answer, currently unwilling to risk what she might do to his better hand if he were to piss her off. "Um- well. Actually, due to not wanting to waste the inherent density of the metal I used a multi-step annealing process while forging and shaping it before quenching it. And I only tempered the metal for a few hours relative to the process, so I ended up losing 30 or 40% less of the hardness along the blade's edge." While a little complicated, it was the truth, it's a technique he learned the basics of from some very old Uzumaki texts he was anonymously led to while he was still in the academy, and has been perfecting ever since. But he certainly didn't expect to be having this conversation at the end of this fight, he expected something more, well bloody. Impaled arm notwithstanding.

"Interesting, while not completely unheard of, that is quite the multi-tiered process, and you have obviously been practicing and perfecting the steps to have such a specific percentage on it." Her response showed that her interest in the topic was somewhat genuine, at least as far as he could tell. It's not like he has years of experience in extrapolating the motives and complexities of S-Rank nuke-nin. "But please enlighten me, this process sounds an awful lot like techniques based in the Uzumaki style of smithing, am I correct in my assumption?"

Shit, she picks up on things quickly. Could it be that she's after me because I might be an Uzumaki? I don't really have any of their trademark traits, and I've always just assumed that it was a name given to me by the Hokage or someone at the orphanage at random, or possibly to try and throw people off the Jinchuuriki scent, but–

She must have seen my momentary lapse in control, even through what must be obvious pain because she interrupted my train of thought. "I only ask because few others have been able to replicate such an impressive feat, even when they often have enough of the knowledge sitting in front of them. And I know for certain that Konoha doesn't have that much knowledge on the Uzumaki smithing style."

"Are you saying that I've replicated the Uzumaki smithing techniques? Because they certainly must be-" I started to say but she cut me off once more.

"No. I'm actually implying that you've improved upon the Uzumaki style of bladesmithing. To be able to layer such naturally pure and dense steel this much and still properly use the annealing process to shape such a thick weapon without the loss of ductility and to then temper it so perfectly that you've reduced the brittle aspect of the shaped steel, and to do all this and create such a perfectly flexible yet razor-sharp blade." Naruto was in awe of her words, and how she has such a complex understanding of the craft with such a short explanation and so little time with his blade.

"You've all but left the Uzumaki in the dust when it comes to forging nonconductive weapons. Although you've had a few decades to do so." She said, both referencing the demise of the great clan as well as to leave an exception for some of the more secretive and powerful Uzumaki forging techniques that have been lost to war and time. "And to do so at such a young age… kukukuku. How delicious."

Now Naruto certainly didn't like the sound of that, but he didn't really have much of an option in escaping the situation. Maybe if he could just get a momentary distraction or lapse from her seemingly razor sharp focus… Maybe an idea was starting to form. "How do you know so much about the Uzumaki smithing techniques?"

"Well, how do you think you know so much about the process? Hmm…" She said, leaving the question open. Obviously wanting him to think a little deeper upon her statement. But what could she possibly mean by that?

She obviously knew the information Naruto had access to, she had been a Konoha ninja not too long ago and would have definitely had access to far more secretive and high level documents than he currently did. And Naruto knew with an almost certainty that Konoha didn't have anything more in-depth on the style than what he had seen, because if they did then why didn't any other smith in the village do what he did?

Is it possible that she had been the one to point him in the right direction all those years ago? But that would make no sense. "Did you… were you the one who sent me the information to find those scrolls?" He asked the question, because at this point how could he really make the situation worse?

"How very perceptive kukuku. Tell me, was that an educated guess, or had you made the connection previously?" Her face was now studying mine before her eyes lit up a bit. Seemingly finding the answers she was searching for from the look on Naruto's face before she continued. "Kukukuku I see, well then tell me one more thing. Exactly how strong do you believe this blade to be?"

Before Naruto could even register the implication of her second question her sword arm moved over his body in a strong swing, and the Kusanagi struck his own blade about halfway down the length and cut through clean. The handle and guard flew away out of his sight, but the other half still remained in his arm. Her eyes momentarily followed the short arc of it as it landed somewhere Naruto couldn't see.

Quickly, ignoring his shattered Katana, he took this opportunity for what it was, likely the most distracted she would ever be, and he made a grab for her leg. If he could just get his hands on her, he could hopefully do enough damage to push her off of himself and pull his sword out of his arm. After that, he just hoped she would keep toying with him or someone would show up to dig him out of this massive hole.

But in the fraction of a second it took him to grab her ankle she was more than quick enough to react. In the blink of an eye, she was able to both slightly twist the broken half of his sword still jammed into his arm and put the tip of her own blade against his neck. Effectively stopping him.

"Ah ah ah Naruto-Kun. I assure you I am more than quick enough to plunge this blade into your throat, and I certainly will assure you that the Kusanagi is as or more poisonous than any stories you may have read about it." With the now agonizing feeling in his arm serving to disrupt his chakra control and the edge of the deadliest weapon Naruto has ever witnessed against his neck, he froze. And slowly he released his hold on her ankle. "Now that is certainly better, you should know by now that I much rather enjoy being on top of the situation, so if I were you I certainly wouldn't do anything to change that." With his new fate reaffirmed, Naruto finally fully settled back down, upon doing so she stopped toying with the blade in his forearm.

"Anyways my little Naruto-Kun, I really must be going. Certainly can't let sensei get the drop on me. I'm sure we will be seeing more of each other." And with that ominous goodbye, the Snake Sannin and her legendary weapon turned into mud, and her presence vanished. Her ominous smile being one of the last features to leave the mud clone she replaced herself with.

"Fuck" Naruto said aloud before his head fell back on the dirt and he allowed himself to succumb to the darkness he had been fighting off for a while now.

—-

Naruto awoke on a lumpy mattress in a dark room, the only light he could see was peeking in from under the door across the room from him. Taking stock of his situation he quickly noted a few things.

First was that his wounds had been treated and were more or less healed, although his body still aches like hell. Second was his lack of personal weapons that normally didn't get very far from him, although he could still feel a few of his weapons still sealed in a select few places on his person. Third was the secondary bed next to his, this one empty but obviously slept in. And finally was the sound of muffled whispers that had been gently picking up, most likely two individuals getting closer to the door across from him. Then, the door opened to reveal the backlit form of both of his teammates.

"Kami, you truly are the most troublesome man in the entire village. You know they say it will take generations for that section of the forest to recover?" Naruto stopped his left hand, which had already traveled down to the seal on his outer thigh that contained a rather deadly instrument for close quarters combat. This motion had not gone unnoticed by the perceptive Nara who responded to ease his mind "You don't need to bring out anything sharp and or pointy Naruto, we are in the tower in the forest of death. Thankfully by the time your fight had ended we had at least woken back up and were able to carry you here."

"Is team 7 ok?" Naruto asked, which seemed to surprise Shikamaru a bit. But Naruto had seen the damage Orochimaru did to Sasuke and Hinata.

At that question, another voice piped up from over Shikamaru's left shoulder. "I am surprised that is your first question. Why? Because logically one would assume one would ask about their own teammates first." And there's Shino with the patented Aburame 'logic', although if Naruto didn't know any better he would swear the bug user looked a little hurt.

"I had already witnessed the extent of your injuries, Shino, and Shikamaru is just easy to take out of a fight. But the damage she did to team 7 was admittedly worrying." At this he at least got a dry chuckle from Shikamaru, and the equivalent of a small laugh from the Aburame heir, which is a pretty big deal from that family.

"Of course, Shikamaru is easy to remove from a fight. As he is logically the laziest of any of us." This jab did not go unnoticed by the pineapple haired ninja and began the lighthearted bickering that Naruto had come to enjoy from these two over the last few weeks. This continued for a few moments before Shikamaru's gaze turned on him, Naruto's attempts to distract them not going unseen.

"Naruto, all jokes aside, that fight you were in was pretty serious. It's a legitimate miracle that you weren't hurt worse or killed. How did you even stay up that long? I mean I know you can take some pretty serious hits, but to do so against a Sannin?"

"That's the same question I've been asking myself. I mean she was obviously toying with me for most of the fight. But still I was throwing every Jutsu and technique I had at her and still got batted around like a doll. But the weirdest part is when she finally had me pinned to the ground with my own sword she just asked me questions." At this both of his genin teammates took pause.

"What do you mean by questions? Was she after village information?" Shikamaru's mind already working in overdrive to try and ascertain the Snake's goals.

"No, nothing like that. She sort of just asked me about my sword, you know how I made it and things like that."

"You mean the sword she took from you and then utilized to stab you with?"

"Yes Shino, the sword she took from me and stabbed me with." The dry retort was plain to hear in the injured ninja's voice.

"Why would a legendary ninja be interested in your sword? It's not that special is it?" At this question from Shikamaru Naruto just shook his head.

"Not really any more special than any other normal sword I've made. I mean the materials were certainly nicer than what I can normally get my hands on, but it isn't like a Sannin couldn't get their hands on that anyway. Not that she would need to anyway. She has the Kusanagi." At this, both boys in the room looked confusedly towards Naruto.

"I am sorry Naruto, but as both Shikamaru and myself are not giant nerds for weapons like yourself, you will need to fill us in on what that means." Di-… did Shino just make fun of him?

"I am not a giant sword nerd," he ignored Shikamaru's retort about how he totally is a sword nerd and kept on talking. "But the Kusanagi is a legendary weapon with an edge that is said to be able to split a blade of grass resting on the wind. She also confirmed something which had been rather hazy about its nature to myself up until now, that it is also incredibly poisonous."

"How could you possibly know about the sharpness of the blade but not that it is poisonous?" Naruto was unable to tell if this was Shikamaru making fun of him or not, but he decided he would take the question at face value.

"Well for one, solid information about such a weapon is already pretty hard to come by. As well as a lot of it being untrustworthy at best, or downright incorrect at worst. Due to the nature of historical writings and also the nature of the sword itself, because it is such a powerful weapon more than a few people would have created fakes at some point, or simply named a normal weapon after it, just to invoke the power and fear of the weapon."

"Neeeeerd!" Was all he heard after that, surprisingly from Shino this time. The little fucker is actually making fun of him right now.

"I am NOT a nerd."

"Are too."

"Am not"

"Are too."

Before this childish argument could devolve into a yelling match a more mature voice broke in. "Now boys, before we get too deep into the discussion on how much of a 'nerd' Naruto-Kun certainly is. I believe we all need to have an important discussion." Naruto was already out of bed before the voice even finished speaking, knowing it from sound alone. Standing at attention, or what could be called attention for a ninja at least.

"Hokage-Sama." Naruto spoke firmly, "What brings you here, sir?" The aged Kage's face almost slipped upon hearing this. Just where had his little Naruto-Kun gone, who used to beg him to teach him cool jutsu and to let him wear 'those cool robes and hat'.

All the fire shadow saw before him was a thirteen-year-old child who had been made to grow up far too fast, had gone through too many hardships, and because of that he had become the epitome of the word soldier, even if most people would only give him that 'compliment' begrudgingly. But he was still a Kage and masked all of it masterfully.

"Firstly Naruto I am here to see you, although I had not planned on seeing this much of you." With the dry quip, Naruto suddenly realized his state of dress. Not quite nude, but certainly much closer to it than one should be in front of your boss, let alone the military leader of a ninja village. He quickly grabbed the sheet off the bed and covered his lower half while the third Hokage continued to speak. "But the true purpose of my visit is to debrief the three of you on yesterday's events." Not even Shikamaru snickered at the man's choice of words, although he seemed to need to restrain himself from doing so.

They spent the better part of an hour informing the Hokage of the events in the forest of death. Beginning with when they had been attacked by some rather large snake summons, obviously meant to corral their team in towards team 7, and when the two teams nearly collided is when Orochimaru showed up.

She then proceeded to very quickly and efficiently dismantle Naruto's team. Putting both Shino and Shikamaru out of commission along with team 7's third member, who Naruto was reminded, is named Sakura. Leaving just Hinata, Sasuke, and Naruto. Hinata was quickly taken out of the fight, batted aside into a tree hard enough to at best crack a few ribs, and then Orochimaru spent another minute or two 'playing' with himself and Sasuke before stating her boredom and using the last Uchiha like a human sword against Naruto before she eventually put him to sleep as well, although in possibly the most violent way of any of the other genin so far.

It was at this point that the Kusanagi joined the fight, in Naruto's own words she regurgitated it handle first, which seemed to surprise the aged Hokage for a second before she used it like an ax to cut down anything and everything that got in between her and Naruto. At one point Naruto could recount in detail using a Fuuton Great Breakthrough in addition to a rather large fireball to try and create any distance between himself and the insane Sannin, but she just cut through it.

After a while he just resorted to running and hiding, using a rather large and expensive ball of explosive tags to create a few seconds of distance between himself and Orochimaru, although he now suspects that she knew his location the entire time and had simply been amusing herself or studying him, he wasn't sure.

Finally, Naruto recounted his final hiding place and how Orochimaru was able to both slam him into the ground and use his own sword, that she had taken from him earlier in the fight when she was using Sasuke as a sword and she refused to use his own Katana against the unwilling weapon, impaling his forearm and pinning him to the forest floor.

With that, he also discussed the interesting and seemingly weird questions she had asked Naruto. Leaving out the part where she admitted to pointing him in the direction of very important research. He also gave an account of his own reasonings on her motives, although he assumed the man before him was more than capable of coming to similar or even better conclusions than his own, as he was the longest reigning kage in history and was the Snake's former sensei.

After all of this had been finished, the kage let them know that they would have an additional hour or two before the next stage of the exams would take place. As too many teams had finished, a preliminary match was set to take place to thin out the numbers.

A few moments of silence passed after their leader's departure before Shino opened his mouth. "So did anyone else catch him calling Naruto a nerd?" At this Shikamaru began to share a look and a chuckle with the bug user.

Naruto allowed himself a short laugh before falling back onto his bed with a wry smile on his face. Kami damned bug ninja, he thought to himself. But he also noticed how he had relaxed significantly with the joke, and he let out a small sigh. "Fuck you too bug boy."

If Naruto wasn't still exhausted and somewhat injured, he may have even been able to throw a few pointy things at him, even if only half-heartedly. But it seemed both of his teammates knew of his state, and were dead set on using this rarely seen upper hand over their enigmatic teammate.

At Naruto's retort they all had a short laugh, together. They continued to talk, and poke fun at him, for the better part of an hour before they all decided that they should get ready for the preliminary matches.

—-

Naruto and the rest of team 7, including Kakashi, who has been worrying over Naruto since he saw him, or at least as much worrying as Kakashi has ever done for anyone, have been sitting on the walkways of the large hall being used as an arena for the preliminary round of the Chunin exams.

At this point, Naruto was actually pretty sure Shikamaru had somehow found a way to ignore Kakashi in order to take a nap while waiting for his fight, which Kakashi seemed to be stuck between annoyed and impressed by, while Shino had already won his match against some ninja from the Hidden Mist who really didn't stand out all that much.

Naruto had mostly been zoning out the matches, trying to ascertain his best odds at winning a variety of matches against a variety of opponents. With his preferred weapon destroyed by the traitorous White Snake and his second best weapon lost to that sand psychopath, who was sporadically trying to burn a hole in Naruto's head with his gaze, Naruto was running rather low on efficient weapon options. Or at least, he was running low on weapon options that he was willing to break out before the real fights in the actual final exam.

Of course, he still had a backup katana, although one of significantly less quality than his broken one and an odachi both stored in the same sealing matrix on his right arm. But he never really favored the length of the odachi for the power it gave you, Naruto felt as though he often lost power in his swing and leverage, mostly due to how short he was in comparison to the long odachi.

And while the katana was always a safe option, Naruto wouldn't be able to rely on a weapon like that for all of his fights, and wouldn't be able to for certain ones, like the aforementioned sand psychopath who could seemingly control waves of sand at will. And for many potential matchups, his swords may end up taking him too long to win, not that it was normally an issue, but with the state of his body, he wasn't exactly in top fighting condition.

But Naruto was certainly able to hold a lot of smaller weapons on him, with a pretty standard short sleeved black ninja top that he picked up before the exams covered by a dark flak jacket similar to those worn by chunin, although with almost no actual padding or guards in it but it still had plenty of pockets that naruto enjoyed using. Along with his mostly black loose fitting pants also lined with extra pockets and an off-white trim. It was safe to say he could hold a lot of sharp pointy things on his person.

Speaking of sharp and or pointy things, Naruto also had a pretty significant amount of throwing knives and other smaller bladed weapons for throwing, hidden all over his person both sealed and unsealed. All of varying shapes, sizes, and weights, known only to him so as to throw opponents off when he used them. If his math was correct, which it always was when it came to pointy things, he had around 45 throwing weapons on his person altogether, not including some copies of certain smaller and cheaper ones.

Some of these were also specially designed in one way or another to counteract against things like wind techniques. That number also doesn't include his shuriken and kunai. Of which he had two standard braces of each in his pouch.

And of course, Naruto always had a few more weapons hidden up his sleeves, and if the situation called for it he had the seal on his left outer thigh. Not that he necessarily wanted to pull that one out this early in the competition, but in comparison with the other secretive weapons he currently had on him it would certainly give away a lot less information about his techniques and abilities.

Although, due to its sheer size he isn't quite adept at using it long term, but the cutting power and force he could put behind it certainly made it a solid contender for being a good choice, depending on his potential opponent.

"Would Naruto Uzumaki and Dosu Kinuta please step down to the arena floor please." Naruto was pulled out of his deeper thinking by this.

He started to turn and walk down to the floor, but not before Kakashi gave him an eye smile and a nod before a quick "Don't embarrass me." Shikamaru managed to snort something out that Naruto was unsure if it was words of encouragement or a bad dream. Shino, ever the image of cool stoicism, simply looked at Naruto, who in turn just looked right back at him into those damn reflective sunglasses. If only Shino was as quick to encourage as he was to mock him.

Naruto took his time walking down, using it to study his opponent, who he had previously seen utilize the gauntlet on his right arm to attack a fellow Konoha shinobi in the first stage of the exam, some bland medic nin Naruto had run a few missions with before he was placed with his new more permanent team, Naruto or something like that. An overall uninteresting interaction with an overall uninteresting ninja. But what had been interesting was how even though Naruto or whatever dodged the attack, Dosu's blow still managed to hit him. So Naruto would have to work that mechanism out, or he could just cut it off at the elbow, he wasn't a Konoha ninja so it mattered very little to him.

With his gameplan at least loosely worked out, and the very long walk he took to get down here Naruto was now face to face with a very annoyed looking sound ninja and an exasperated Konoha Jonin. "Are you ready to start already?" the overqualified referee let out.

"I'm sure it won't take me half as long as that to turn you into a smear on the wall. So let's get this over with leaf trash." Dosu bit out in a very obvious attempt to antagonize him and look scary, a pretty weak attempt at both if Naruto had ever seen one, and he's seen quite a few. But he decided that he might as well play along.

"Question. If I were to cut your arm off above that gauntlet, do you think I could keep it?" He asked in a genuine question, and also a little to antagonize the sound ninja. Although he was genuinely curious about the design, as he'd never seen anything quite like it before and he wanted to know if it was based on some unknown internal mechanism, or the more likely option that it was some sort of special chamber that allowed for or aided in some form of chakra manipulation.

But the sound ninja only looked confused at the question until shifting his face back into an expression of anger, before the Jonin referee finally cut them off to begin the match.

Naruto was very quick in lashing out with four of his smaller and quicker throwing knives, fast enough that most couldn't actually catch the throw itself and could only follow the projectiles. Using it to allow himself to create some space and hopefully figure out what the device on his arm did.

The first two of which caught Dosu off guard while still in a partial stance, raising his arm up to aim at Naruto, and was able to cut through his shirt in one spot and get a grazing hit on his left arm. But the second half of the barrage was blasted back and away by what Naruto could only assume was the gauntlet on his arm, as he hadn't made any hand seals.

Dosu followed this up with a few more condensed blasts from the gauntlet, which Naruto dodged all of. Rolling out of the way of the first, before taking off running to give himself some time to think.

Could it be he uses chakra to channel air through them for wind-based attacks without the need for hand seals? Naruto decided to test this by throwing two knives that he had made specially to handle lower intensity wind attacks, while they were more aerodynamic than some other throwing weapons the real trick to it was the density. He sacrificed a significant portion of their flexibility so that he could forge them to be very heavy. This made the edges on them easier to damage and chip but that was a relatively easy fix, especially since they were basically only meant to cut into softer human flesh and not for blocking other blades.

The two heavy knives flew quite true, one for Dosu's head and the other aimed directly at the gauntlet in an attempt to damage it. But Dosu simply released another blast from them, this one a bit stronger than the rapid-fire shots he had previously used, but nothing special. And with that, both knives had slowed considerably and stopped to hit the ground before the arrogant sound ninja, who looked a little surprised that the weapons weren't flying back at Naruto.

"Leaf nin and their little tricks, you think throwing some extra heavy weapons are going to break through something as powerful as my technique?" He asked, arm lowered but still following Naruto as he dashed in a circle around him.

"No, but I think I've figured it out by now. So I would get ready if I were you." At this Dosu looked a little surprised, but just grit his teeth and readied his arm up again. Bringing it level with Naruto's head. But by this point Naruto had already figured out the kid's technique, and while he wasn't ready to box him in as a purely one trick pony quite yet, he was pretty certain he had a very good way of dealing with him without needing to put himself at risk of any further injury.

Sadly the safer way of dealing with him involved taking out that weapon. While he normally wouldn't mind getting in close and personal with this type of enemy, his body is still quite badly bruised and banged up. So taking any unnecessary damage was out of the question.

He dodged around the arena for a few seconds, staying still only long enough to give Dosu a target to fire at before he would dash off outside the effect of the blasts. While doing so he stuck himself to the arena wall for a second, stopping in one spot long enough to be able to summon the blade he had been keeping in the seal on his left thigh and dropping to the ground in front of himself before bringing the giant cleaver up between himself and the sound wielding ninja.

"You know, the effects of sonic blasts may be a bit different than that of wind techniques in the supposed 'solidness' of the blast itself. But they certainly don't seem to have any of the cutting power or momentum." Naruto said as he hefted the Kubikiribōchō back up and onto his shoulder, keeping his grip ready to swing it around in any way he may need.

Testing his sound based attack theory by taking the brunt of it against Zabuza's stolen sword may have been a little risky, but it allowed him not only directly confirm his working theory, but also get a very good judge on the power of the technique.

Upon his revealing of the legendary sword some gasps and murmurs could be heard from around the arena, the loudest of which were predictably from the team of Mist ninja on the opposing side of the floor. Looking exactly as angry as Naruto had expected them to be, although one of them almost looked quite familiar, but that also could have been a trick of the light. Their Jonin sensei was the one who looked the angriest though, hands gripped onto the railing in front of him hard enough to dent it inwards a bit around his hands.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could also see quite a few confused stares or looks from where the Konoha teams were located. A few genin looked at their sensei with obvious questions on their face, even his own teammates looked a little surprised. Or at least Shikamaru did, Shino was as impossible to read as ever, and he assumed the Hokage had already keyed Kakashi in on his possession of the weapon because he didn't look the least bit surprised. Or just as likely was simply too 'cool' to react, the bastard.

Naruto flashed them a quick grin while keeping his attention focused on Dosu, before he suddenly charged the wholly unprepared genin with the giant butcher's blade held lower at his right side. Unprepared in that he had no idea the significance of the weapon before him, he had raised his gauntlet in what he assumed to be a good enough method of stopping such an attack. But he would be sorely mistaken.

His first few shots were a little off center, most likely due to the surprise of the attack itself and the speed at which Naruto was moving towards him, especially with such a large weapon. So Naruto was easily able to move out of the way of them, ducking and weaving fluidly. But the sound ninja eventually centered himself and let out another shot, this one on target and quite strong. Naruto simply put the blade more or less as vertically as he could in front of himself and took the hit in stride, barely slowing down.

Naruto finished his attack by swinging the blade around his body and back down low at his right side before bringing it up in a very powerful diagonal slash across Dosu's horribly unprepared body. Allowing the momentum of himself and the large weapon to carry him through the powerful strike aimed at his arm and behind his opponent, finishing off with the blade held in a high stance.

Dosu's arm, true to Naruto's word, had been cut off cleanly at the elbow and was now sitting on the floor. His body dropped. First in disbelief, he fell hard onto his knees, and second from the pain and shock falling on his face. Naruto simply allowed the blade that once belonged to the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist to vanish in a poof of smoke, back into the seal located on the outside of his left thigh.

Medics arrived quickly to take the passed out combatant, and much to Naruto's argument and dismay, his arm, to the medical wing.

Figured I should say something about this, and what my thoughts and plans for it are.

I can really give out too much information, as I don't have an exact plan for this, although I certainly have a vague roadmap. But I can let you know that it will sorta diverge a lot from the actual plot. And it will most likely be quite long. I've just about finished everything up to and including most of the chunin exams, and the exam finals alone are at around 13k, and that's not even really done yet. So I just hope this is fun.