Naruto allowed himself to flop to the ground, so exhausted that the scorched earth and grass around him were barely a pinprick on his senses. The training field around him, which was really just a clearing in one of the forests within the walls of Konoha, was pockmarked with large craters, fallen trees, scorched bits of earth, and what appeared to be a rather large swamp that definitely had not been there beforehand.
"Ya know kid, I really hadn't expected you to fare so well," the Toad Sage said to him from the other side of the clearing. The only sign that he had been a part of the battle was a few clean cuts through his red jacket and some blood on his clothes, although it certainly wasn't his own bodily fluids staining his clothes.
"I wouldn't call you kicking my ass from one end of the forest to the other 'faring well'. I don't even think I made you break a sweat." The young Uzumaki retorted, doing his best to send a deadly glare toward the legendary shinobi.
The recipient of said glare simply brushed it off, not letting it affect him in any way, shape, or form. "That trap with the dozen or so throwing knives and the razor wire had me on my toes. And besides, what can you expect going up against an S-ranked legendary ninja like myself? I can't think of any genin I've ever met that could come within five feet of me, let alone cutting my clothes like this." He said, gesturing towards the four or five holes Naruto had put in his pants and jacket.
Naruto would normally be more seriously annoyed at such a response, but the few weeks he had been with the super pervert had conditioned him to his antics and manner of speaking. The fact that his words had more than just a kernel of truth within them helped a bit as well. It is true that Naruto doubted many genin could hope to ever put Jiraiya on the back foot like he had, especially not when the man was purposefully trying to keep them from doing so.
Not to mention the fact that Naruto knew this method of training was helping him advance in leaps and bounds. He had certainly gotten much stronger and faster since he started training with the toad summoner, even without enhancing his body with chakra. And even though he may not have the perfect chakra control of someone like his legendary teammate Tsunade, he was a ninjutsu specialist and certainly had plenty of new exercises for training and improving chakra control.
His kenjutsu and weapon use had also improved dramatically, as Jiraiya may not be much for using a sword himself, his fighting style and sheer superiority in comparison to Naruto certainly caused the blonde to improve by proxy, let alone giving him more experience fighting someone so far out of his league.
"How did you activate those throwing knives anyway?" The Sannin's question brought the jinchuriki out of his thoughts. "They were certainly connected with the wires and seals, but I saw no way for you to physically activate them from so far away."
This surprised Naruto, if only a little, that the man hadn't worked out how the trap worked earlier. Although, he guessed that he also didn't have a lot of experience or knowledge about any of his new weapons made with his recent advancements in chakra smithing.
To answer his questions Naruto just extended his hand out above his body, not having enough energy to really bother with lifting his head, and channeled a bit of chakra. Jiraiya looked confused at the motion before Naruto's Jinshaku appeared in his hand, appearing to have teleported from its previous position of being stuck in a tree on the far side of the clearing.
"So… you have a summoning seal on the blade? How would that-"
"Nope, no seals like that are on it." The blonde cut him off before he could make any further assumptions. "I've learned somewhat recently that I can summon the blade to me, basically at will." The toad sage's eyes widened a little in surprise, that was certainly very surprising. Being able to 'teleport', for a lack of a better word, something like to yourself can be very useful.
"But without some form of sealing matrix, it should be impossible to do anything like that? Did you possibly develop some advancement of the kawarimi?" He questions his young charge, this would certainly be something to celebrate. A technique like this could be indispensable to a ninja.
"Not exactly," he responded. "I noticed it about a week ago when I was trying to perform a kawarimi with the blade after you knocked it out of my hand and charged me with that blue chakra sphere. I figured that since it was basically imbued with my chakra it would be easier to grab on to, but I actually found that I was unable to pull myself towards it." He explained.
Jiraiya nodded, remembering it rather well because he didn't often hit Naruto with the Rasengan when he did use it, as even a low-powered version hit like a train and Naruto wasn't one to tank such a hit without good reason. But that still didn't explain how he ended up being able to summon the blade like that.
"It was a bit like trying to replace yourself with another person, but not quite the same, probably due to it acting like another person but with my own chakra imbued and tempered within it. So I started experimenting with and eventually figured out that I could actually 'pull' the chakra towards myself." At this, he had actually sat up and was studying his creation.
Minute movements of the blade allowed him to see the sun reflecting off of it, it was certainly different than anything he had forged previously to this weapon. And it was even somewhat different than the other weapons he had created using chakra forging since. He had been unable to replicate 'pulling' all of his other new weapons except one, and that one was another anomaly in and of itself.
He turned the blade over one more time, still examining it and thinking. He noticed that even the light bounced off of it differently, almost as if it was bending it around itself.
He eventually spoke up again, "At first it was a bit more like dispelling a clone rather than performing a substitution, but eventually I figured out that I could more directly 'grab' onto the chakra I had used to forge it and call it back to me" he finished speaking and looked back up to his impromptu sensei for the month.
"So you had the trap hooked onto the blade somewhere in the forest, and when you summoned it back to yourself that released the mechanism to launch all those knives at me?" The Sannin filled in the gaps quickly. He had certainly seen Naruto summon his magnetic blade to himself before, but he had always more or less figured that he did it the same way he did with all of his other weapons. Using seals that he had meticulously etched or drawn onto his body.
But this new method of drawing his sword to himself was certainly something to behold, something that would probably send chakra researchers into a tizzy if or when anyone else found out. It wasn't quite on the level of defying the known understanding of chakra, but it was certainly close.
"Well…" The older man started up, cracking his back in an arching motion. "I suppose this means it's time to start up on exactly how you are going to 'run through the competition' in the exams." The grin he had on threatening to split his face, matched only by the grin of his younger blonde haired charge.
Hiruzen was attending to the relatively small amount of paperwork left on his desk. Mostly new or updated troop positioning reports, important mission dossiers, and a lot of security information that Shikaku Nara and the Information Division had come up with in regards to the chunin exams in only a few days. When a shadow in his office moved, which wouldn't be an abnormal thing in an office with no less than five active anbu currently hidden within the shadows. Except that this is a shadow that normally should not move, and certainly wouldn't in this manner.
The man proclaimed as the God of Shinobi simply brought his pipe to his lips and took a deeper drag than usual, exhaling with a very gentle infusion of wind chakra allowing him to communicate to those watching that they should clear the room. He allowed for another few beats to pass, noticing the final, almost imperceptible change of the last shadow in his office before he swiveled his chair around to face the windows overlooking the village, his village.
"My Hiruzen, if I didn't know any better I would say you were getting soft." The voice spoke up, a darkened figure having exited their hiding place in his office. Hiruzen simply kept his gaze fixed over the village, not ignoring the voice, but certainly attempting to display something to this 'intruder'.
"I trust you have returned ahead of schedule for a good reason?" He questioned simply.
"Oh certainly, you know I never do anything without good reason Hokage-Sama." The voice returned, equally even. "And you and I both know that I always have the best interests of the village at heart."
At this reminder of the mistakes and sacrifices he had to make, the old man only allowed himself a small moment of pain, shooting through his heart and up into his face. The grimace would have been noticeable if he wasn't facing away from the room's sole occupant.
Even without being able to see the aged Hokage, the voice somehow knew of the pain that he must have been feeling. "You always have been a bit too sentimental for a man called the God of Shinobi." It sounded almost like a jab at him, but he knew better.
If it was anything it was the voice's attempt at comforting him or at least absolving him of his mistakes. "We both realized this was a necessary sacrifice Hiruzen, even if you loathed to admit it. But there were forces, both home and abroad, that were simply too much to not make this move."
Still appearing deep in thought the Hokage spoke up, "True, it may have allowed you significantly fewer restrictions in which to operate. But what we had to do to sell the story certainly wasn't easy. Not to those involved, or the village itself. Not mentioning how it made us appear weaker in the eyes of the other villages."
"Ahhh yes Sensei, the costs might have appeared to outweigh the benefits at first, but I assure you with the information I have been able to gather, and the positioning I was able to gain while outside of your purview, the fruits of our labor are certainly coming to bare." The gentle feminine voice of the 'intruder' finally made itself known.
"Not to mention the newest crop you have planted, that little Uzumaki certainly looks promising." She continued, allowing her elder to plot the trajectory of her statement on his own.
"That is certainly true, if anything is to give me hope for the future of this village it would be Naruto-Kun." At this he allowed himself a small smile before continuing "The progress he had already made in his weapon smithing by the time you got to meet him was certainly more than impressive. But with his most recent breakthrough, I believe he might have just outpaced anything his parents had ever hoped of."
While not literally making a sound, Hiruzen could still all but hear his student's head quirk slightly at this revelation. 'Had he made another breakthrough? His smithing techniques had already outpaced possibly any other non-chakra smith on the continent, living or dead. His furthering of the Uzumaki smithing techniques basically assured that. But to move past that… could he have possibly broken past the known limitations of Chakra Smithing itself?' The shadowy figure's thoughts raced through her mind at top speed, so fast that she nearly forgot where she was, and her purpose here.
"As much as I would love to discuss this immediately. I have other things that are more urgent sensei." Breaking herself out of her thoughts, "He is making a move, and it has the possibility of causing untold damage to the village."
Hiruzen understood now, why his wayward student had returned earlier than expected, even if only slightly. "And is this move of his your reasoning for 'introducing' yourself into the chunin exams."
'His body may have atrophied,' she thought to herself, 'but his mind is still sharper than any legendary blade Naruto has researched'. "As much as I would love to say it was just to get closer to the boy, and see you again, we both know it is. He believes that he can rely on both myself and Suna to aid him in his little power play."
The Hokage's visage hardened upon hearing this. His face became that of stone, as if he himself had been carved from their village's famous monument. "Then let us demonstrate to our 'allies' why Konoha has yet to lose a war."