章 2696: 86
Naruto looked over the sizable group of shinobi and samurai, plus Ruri. Orochimaru had been a bit confused at her inclusion, but hadn't objected. There was one notably missing village in the group, that being Uzushio.
"Good morning," Naruto greeted, the sound system amplifying his voice for him. "Uzushiogakure's teams will be arriving throughout the morning today, and this afternoon we have two exhibition matches. I can see that some of you are now more confused than before, because calling you here when everything is starting later makes no sense." Nearly a third of the group actually nodded their agreement there. "Today only, I've decided to allow you to take advantage of a service that all Uzushio shinobi and academy students go through. And by 'you' I mean everyone present, regardless of rank, should you wish to go through things. You may have heard of our medical chakra bloodline seals, or our chakra bloodline island, but we have a basic seal set that ensures that an individual can use all the basic elemental natures as well."
That got their attention, and he made them wait for a minute before continuing. "I've just finished updating the maps in the area with the various locations that the seals are set up in. Your hotel keys will get you through the doors, and if you want the medical chakra bloodline as well then you can visit the hospital and ask to prove that you've got at least minimal skill there."
He vanished from the spot, and less than fifteen seconds later the only two left in the group were Orochimaru and Ruri. They left at a more sedate pace.
Guren had corralled the Oto teams and directed them all to a single seal location, subtly coordinating with a few others corralling their own villages to head to different locations. She made a mental note of the genin from any village that noticed the coordination, mildly annoyed that only one from Oto had obviously done so. They found likely-clones of Naruto at the location and fifteen seals. Originally she'd thought that this was going to be so that they could go through fifteen individuals at once.
This wasn't inaccurate, but she'd not realized that the seals were in three groups of five because you had to hit one seal for each base element.
By the time Orochimaru showed up with Ruri they were still down to the second to last group, with plenty of room in the last group for the two.
"I don't think you mentioned how your hospital visit went," Orochimaru commented while observing things. She looked slightly annoyed that the seals were obviously obfuscated.
"Apparently it's less the bloodline and more my own mental state," Guren admitted. "They recommended 'positive experiences' while wearing a chakra suppressing collar and handed me a list of recommended ones in one of the shops on the island."
"Ah. I can see how that would impact things. Did they comment on anything else regarding your ability?"
"They provided me with a small book on how it works. Apparently I've got a very strong connection between my earth, yin, and yang chakra."
"Which helps explain why your crystals are weak to lightning."
"Yes, but I've also got a particularly weak connection to wind, helping explain why I can pull water out of the air but not crystalize the air itself."
"Something that may no longer be a problem after you undergo the boosting procedure here."
"They also provided me with a collection of additional warnings, and I'm not sure how they figured out a few of them. While I knew that someone coating themselves in chakra could block crystallizing them, I didn't know that someone having sufficient chakra in general would resist being crystallized without needing to coat themselves. Then there's the potential for crystallizing seals to create massive problems as the crystals themselves allow chakra to travel through unusual paths or due to how they interact with internal expanded spaces of storage-type seals."
"So they almost certainly duplicated your ability and may start teaching it."
"Seems like it."
It wasn't long before they were up, and like all the previous groups a quick test was done on them to see if there was anything to be concerned about before moving forward. This was supposed to be safe for chakra-based bloodlines, but they were being cautious. Nothing was found in them, and they went through the cycle of being subjected to each of the five seals. They tingled to varying degrees, and the group was checked again when the process was completed.
"You're welcome to join me on my trip to the hospital," Orochimaru said when they were done.
"...you just got a check-up?" Guren replied, not sure why a hospital visit was now needed.
"Ruri has gotten the enhanced medical chakra bloodline, but I have not, and I'm reasonably confident that I will be able to pass any exam they're requiring if genin have a chance of passing it."
Oh, right, that had been mentioned. And if it was basic enough for genin to possibly pass then she'd likely not have a problem with it either...
Kurotsuchi grinned as she manipulated wind chakra, something she'd struggled with before. "Now I get to see how wind chakra works in recipes, and can make a couple of things Deidara recommended last night."
"And you're probably the only one that'll be making those," her grandfather commented.
"Oh no, none of the others with the chakra kneading ability are here but that doesn't mean those that are here can't be tapped for that. I figure a few of the genin that are already iffy on combat would jump at the chance to go non-combat and still help the village."
She noted, but intentionally didn't react to, his look of approval. "Ah. Planning ahead."
"And as I understand it, this is just as inheritable as the medical chakra thing. Wish I was good enough to qualify for it too, honestly, but I just slap a bandage on myself instead of using chakra to heal cuts."
"Hmmm. I suppose that's something else to consider once the exams have started and Naruto has time for our chat."
"Seems weird that he'll have time for that chat once the exams start."
"Once they start they're out of his direct hands by treaty and I highly doubt he has a paperwork backlog."
That sounded a lot more sensible than she'd been expecting it to be, which probably meant that it was an old treaty that nobody wanted to screw with. More recent ones were far more likely to have a pile of intentionally carved-out exceptions. But it also meant that she should really dig out copies of all the treaties, because knowing that kind of thing was important if she was going to take over from her grandfather.
Kankuro stepped out into the arena, deploying his puppets as he did so.
"Kankuro of Suna," Naruto's voice came over the speakers, to mild applause from the audience. "Under normal circumstances I'm sure he'd feel at least mildly hindered by his inability to use poison against his opponent in a friendly spar, but today I think he'll appreciate the mutual limitation."
...that did not bode well.
"His opponent today is fairly well-known, but had to admit that his skills didn't quite cut it in Uzushio. He's working on that problem though, and is determined to improve his craft further."
The figure coming out of the opening at the other side of the arena was covered, but had a collection of puppets active. More than Kankuro himself did, which was already concerning given that this was supposed to be a chunin. Then again, it was likely that none of Suna's puppeteer corps would qualify for Uzushio's jounin requirements...
"Sasori of the Red Sands, formerly of Suna and now an Uzushiogakure chunin."
Kankuro gaped as the other shinobi removed his hood. Sasori was only a fucking chunin? And when the hell had he joined Uzushio?
"Unfortunately," Naruto continued. "I suspect that Kankuro is at an additional disadvantage due to all of his current puppets having been built by Sasori, but wanting to see if Suna has been innovating or just taking advantage of his previous work is part of why he asked to arrange for this match. To demonstrate why that isn't seen as a problem for Uzushio, I'd like to present a few of my own puppet creations."
The previously-revealed puppets of the one-tail and two-tails were brought out by Naruto, followed by the largest puppet Kankuro had ever seen. Towering over the arena itself, it was very obviously designed to mimic the nine-tails...and from this angle might be sized similarly. It then opened up its mouth and a ball of chakra formed, glowing brightly and feeling stupidly powerful before being launched into the sky. A barrier over the island rippled as the ball passed through it, and then the ball of energy exploded a good distance away.
It was strangely comforting to note that Sasori seemed to be in a state of shock and awe over this as well though.
"When did you figure out how to make a tailed beast ball from a puppet?" Hinata asked, sounding like she didn't really want to know.
"Miho and Ren were both quite insistent that I figure something out," Naruto replied. "Even if it's significantly underpowered. I can do quite a bit better directly due to being able to do it properly, but the destruction is a bit much."
"...you can make a tailed beast ball?"
"Yep."
"And you haven't taught me?"
"Do you regularly find yourself wishing you could blow up mountains?"
She had to admit that was a good point. "No."
"Then you probably don't need to know the spell."
That had her blinking. "Spell?"
"Yeah. Anyone with a collection node can probably figure it out though, because it's kind of stored in there with a half dozen other tricks that are even less useful to us. It also draws directly on the collection node though, so clones can't cast it as effectively."
"What kinds of other tricks?"
"I think they're all designed around setting up the reincarnation thing that was falling apart, and probably connecting to it. Most obviously take far more energy than even a full-strength tailed beast ball when I start to prepare to cast them and the ones that are reasonable in their energy usage reach out and don't find anything to connect to."
"Oh."
"If you want to play with the tailed beast ball then at least request an area in one of the other dimensions to practice in."
Hinata flinched as she realized how dangerous that would be to do anywhere on the planet normally, especially when she wasn't sure how much control she'd have at first. It was easy enough to decide, at least for now, to concentrate more on Sasori having turned the 'match' into a 'lesson' for Kankuro. There was praise in there for things Kankuro had figured out or trained up to do, as well as for a few of the modifications made to a couple of the puppets, but also a lot of comments that could be summed up as saying that until you made puppets from scratch you weren't a proper puppet master.
Having the man tear apart one of Kankuro's puppets, critique both the maintenance and modifications, improve it, and put it back together while never losing control over his own puppets had been a really good demonstration of skill though. Then he'd commented that he hoped to reach the point of being able to run puppets 'without needing to focus on them at all' like others in Uzushio could.
Not exactly a good showing for Suna, admittedly, but it looked like the Suna shinobi in the audience weren't considering it to be unfair either.
"Congratulations on not turning into a gibbering mess," Temari said as Kankuro rejoined them.
"At being pitted against Sasori?" Kankuro asked.
"...at seeing the largest puppet anyone has ever likely produced, let alone controlled, firing off something that used to be the realm of the tailed beasts themselves."
"I've classified Naruto, and through association his apparent sister and his girlfriends, as being on an entirely different level. As such, the impossible puppets don't actually surprise me beyond initial shock value. Sasori obviously also wasn't expecting it, though I imagine he's going to be aiming to build bigger than ever after seeing that display, and Uzushio being led by someone who can make and operate puppets of that size helps explain why Sasori joined them in the first place."
"That's...probably a good way to look at things," Gaara admitted.
"I was surprised when Sasori complimented me on how hard it was to spot my thinner chakra threads though, especially since we found out it isn't how Uzushio's 'paperwork puppeteer' trick works."
"He seemed...at least somewhat impressed with your modifications, while much more dismissive of the modifications made by others before you received the puppets."
Kankuro nodded. "Yeah. I really should've removed some of those, but I haven't come up with good replacements yet. Don't know if you heard him quizzing me on if I had any ideas for creating puppets of my own designs."
"That was not really audible from up here."
Temari nodded. "But you have an entire book of plans, so he was probably happy enough with that?"
Kankuro cringed a little. "Not really, because I've not started on any of them in favor of using his stuff. He thinks that using someone else's puppets is fine for a normal puppeteer, but not a proper master like I want to be. Even Naruto would apparently be fine to use someone else's puppets as it's a side thing for him, but not for someone like me that specializes in them."
That was honestly not a horrible argument, though it seemed a bit unfair. Being an expert in using puppets shouldn't mean you had to build them from scratch...though she supposed that you might not be a puppet master without your own. Thinking about it though, she frowned. "Isn't ninety percent of your problem with building from scratch difficulty in finding good raw materials?"
"Yes, and I mentioned that. He apologized for destroying the good sources of wood and indirectly hindering me, then promised either a list of decent areas to get wood from or an initial supply from Uzushio."
"...at least he's being a good sport about it?"
"He also grumbled about not having any source for the rubber Naruto integrates into his puppets, rebuilt or otherwise. The only other current source is probably Kumo, but he said something about hoping he could pick up lava release from bloodline island 'soon'."
"There's been lots of discussion about requesting access to that," Gaara pointed out. "But it seems like direct treaties with Uzushio, for those without treaties with Konoha, are going to be the only way to get access."
Temari groaned. "And dropping Konoha treaties is going to be a minimum of twenty years and a new Kazekage before Uzushio will consider signing one as a matter of international politics."
"Unfortunately. But it seems that there is hope that having a treaty with Konoha could gain limited access through them. Shisui was...undecided though, and deeper discussions are waiting until after the exams start properly."
Naruto stepped into the arena with a recreation of a supervibrato sword, designed to channel water chakra instead of lightning. Otherwise it looked identical to the ones produced in Kumo, and he'd produced versions for each main element as part of his forging training with the toads. He'd failed to make most combined-elements work as nicely as the base ones there, magnet release being the sole exception to general failure otherwise. Well, explosion release probably counted as having 'worked', but a sword prone to exploding while you held it was a bit useless and took far too much effort to make. Even throwing it was a bit of a waste of effort.
Hinata was playing announcer for the moment, and had started by explaining that this was a test of sword skills. Then she'd given Mifune a much more complete introduction for an audience that likely didn't know who the man was, with her introduction of Naruto being much shorter. The two of them bowed to each other and then took stances, Mifune obviously having a proper stance for using his sword while Naruto's was designed to scream that he had no proper clue what he was doing.
Today his stance was also intended to give off the impression that he was used to a much heavier sword, such as Kubikiribocho, and not the comparatively small supervibrato-style sword. For the most part he'd also be treating it as a single-edged blade instead of the double-edged one it actually was, as well as ignoring that it was just as good for stabbing as slicing. Some of that was due to having studied a little of the Land of Iron's samurai and how they fought, on the assumption that 'fighting like using a single-edged blade' would be subconsciously treated as 'using a single-edged blade' out of habit on Mifune's end.
Mifune was using his personal sword Kurosawa, and Naruto had considered demonstrating a complete lack of appreciation for blades through cutting it in two. He'd decided against that as something he'd over-used, and this was a friendly match without a regenerating legendary sword in the mix. Better to 'play nice' there, though if the sword wasn't up to the rigors of combat against a shinobi then it wouldn't be treated 'gently'.
Thanks to his studying, Naruto wasn't surprised when Mifune struck with a fast 'draw and strike in one move' attack, supposedly able to move fast enough that a shinobi would have no hope of managing to complete hand seals and that, if successful, could end with the blade back in the scabbard before the shinobi realized they were now missing fingers. If this was the same attack then the speed of the strike was well below what Naruto had expected. This meant that it was trivial to get his own sword into a blocking position with time to spare, and the man looked pleasantly surprised...followed by speeding up. The cycle of strike, block, and Mifune obviously speeding up a little more before coming at Naruto again occurred a dozen times before the man seemed to reach his own limits, but even then Naruto was still comfortably below his own imposed limit for this 'bit'.
Granted, the entirely-'reactionary' defense was far more impressive when you could make it look like you were flailing and just barely making it to the right places to defend, but having that 'reaction time' buffer might be good if the man was still holding back or had other special moves that would require more effort to block. There was also seemingly no attempt to keep him on the defensive though, so Naruto was able to make a couple of basic attacks that Mifune had no trouble dealing with.
After allowing Naruto to attack, Mifune went back on the offensive, but this time using an obvious repeated pattern. A pattern with glaring holes in the man's defense at three points. Very obviously traps to anyone familiar with fighting with swords, and Naruto took a moment to figure out what the likely responses to falling for said traps would be. He made a point of 'obviously noticing' them during one cycle, and ignoring Mifune's slight grin at that, while also determining the best way to approach them. Timing was going to be critical, but things were being blatantly repeated enough to make it easy to predict what would happen.
When the second of the glaring holes came up again, Naruto deflected one strike differently and then 'fought' to get his sword into a different position while Mifune's was still in the way. Mifune was obviously not expecting that particular deflection, his own sword pushing Naruto's the wrong way to reach the hole in his defense...and straight at his own leg. The man realized this with enough time to disengage and leap back out of the way, eyes narrowing for a moment, before darting back in and trying to capitalize on Naruto's sword being out of position. Mifune was also moving even faster than before, consciously or subconsciously pushing chakra into his muscles, leaving Naruto with a little less time to get his sword into position to block the strikes in the new attack pattern.
It took a minute before Mifune seemed to recall his own strategy, shifting his pattern a little to create a different set of obvious holes in his defense, and it took a couple of appearances for Naruto to decide how to deal with them. These ones weren't positioned well in the pattern for an 'attempt to take advantage leads into a different unexpected attack' move, meaning he would need to more directly go after one of them this time.
Picking one that would have his sword passing by Mifune's neck had the man deflecting it to push the edge away from him before attempting to take advantage of the hole created in Naruto's defense. Except that Mifune realized his mistake almost immediately as the movement needed to dodge had the backside of Naruto's sword swinging towards Mifune's neck. The mistake of subconsciously treating the double-edged sword as single-edged had occurred, and the backside of the sword would strike his neck before his own sword could even attempt to cause harm to Naruto.
The attack was aborted as Mifune dropped into a sideways roll, coming up onto his feet out of immediate striking range a moment later. Naruto 'recovered' as well and resumed his deceptive 'ready' stance as Mifune narrowed his eyes, obviously calculating.
When more chakra was pushed into the man's muscles it was almost certainly intentional, and for the first time in the match chakra coated Kurosawa as well.
Karui was gaping in astonishment at the blond in the arena. She'd gone into this knowing he was better than his stances would appear to make him, and he'd made it look like he had no clue how to wield a supervibrato sword at all. Except that she knew he was adept at wielding lighter blades, as he had used multiple in his match in Kumo, which was the first solid clue she had that his lack of skill was an act.
Now she was able to watch as he schooled the General of the Land of Iron in not underestimating an opponent just because they looked unskilled. Knowing what to look for made it blatantly obvious that the 'unskilled stances' were the far side of going through learning things properly so that Naruto could then come out the other side doing everything wrong except the parts that actually mattered.
Even as Mifune started obviously using chakra, moving faster but still not fast enough to overwhelm Naruto, it was obvious that it wasn't going to be enough to force the tanuki-tailed blond to visibly take things seriously. It was almost guaranteed that he was only 'noticing' the trap openings once he had a basic plan for dealing with them too. The first one that he'd 'flubbed' and created his own opening instead had been impressively accidental looking and spending the entire match ignoring the second edge on his blade only to have it come into play just as accidentally-looking with the second 'trap'...
At this point it was also obvious that Mifune had figured something out as well though. How much of it was harder to tell, but she assumed that the man was aiming to force Naruto to drop the idiot savant swordsman act. The problem was that the only way you could probably pull that off was to be more skilled, and it was now obvious that Naruto was insanely skilled.
"He's a master of the shadow clone, right?" Karui finally said.
"Yes," A replied.
"A solid clone that you can get the memories of, and he can make thousands of them."
"Yep."
"How many of them do you think he has training in every single skill he might possibly need to use daily?"
"More than I'm comfortable thinking about, and he's far from the only one in Uzushio capable of training like that. That's before considering his 'shrine maiden' sister in Konoha, supposedly the actual original jinchuriki of the nine-tails, who almost certainly also trains heavily with clones even if she's dedicated herself to the shrine instead of normal shinobi work. Both of them have likely been able to double their number of active clones every year at a minimum if they've kept their training up, and it'll be two or three years before their chakra fully settles."
"So everyone else is screwed, incapable of catching up?"
"...B has seen massive improvements in his reserves, to the point of needing to do significant control training, and rumor has it that every other former-jinchuriki probably has the same problem. We don't have the tailed beasts anymore, but anyone who retained the loyalty of at least one former-jinchuriki that didn't have Uzushio's special forces remove the tailed beast from them has a trump card. A slightly different kind of trump card, admittedly..."
"Up until they get too old and die, at which point Uzushio's focus on massively overpowering their forces is going to leave them unambiguously on top."
"Unfortunately, though it isn't like they aren't already there. Nobody wants to find out if they can remove the remains of a tailed beast from a former-jinchuriki either."
...that was an incredibly good point, as if Uzushio needed to provide any more reasons to not provoke them.
Dealing with Mifune's occasional projections of chakra from his sword had been annoying for Naruto, as they were significantly harder to see coming. He'd stuck with the byakugan instead of activating the sharingan or rinnegan because he could just make out the pulses of triggering chakra with enough time to react, but only just and he nearly regretted it before he figured out the patterns. Actually blocking the chakra was another matter entirely, though they'd both found out at the same time that attempting the trick while the two swords were in contact didn't work as Naruto's sword had enough chakra conductivity to disrupt things.
Unfortunately, that disruption only prevented launching of the chakra projections. Once they were in motion the sword only disrupted smaller portions of the effect, able to cut them to pieces that would continue on. Natural chakra resistance helped there, but deliberate shielding was also a must for keeping clothing from being shredded. Going into this running Knight Armor would probably have been a good idea too, but it was a bit late for that and the couple of minor nicks and cuts he'd gotten from near-misses on the chakra projections were probably making for a better show anyway.
Eventually Mifune backed off, though still with his sword at the ready. "You are not fighting me like a shinobi."
"I'd argue that I am," Naruto retorted. "A shinobi should be ready to use any tactics that advance their mission. If my task was to keep you distracted and pinned down while the rest of my team accomplished an objective then I think I'd be doing quite well."
The man blinked at that. "You're treating this as a delaying action?"
"Essentially. You did ask to evaluate my sword skills, so I've mostly limited myself to use of a sword. It isn't even one of my preferred swords for the rare situations where I find a sword is useful for anything other than intimidation."
"I see. So what if your goal was to incapacitate me, perhaps so a member of your team could impersonate me?"
"Well, I'd be a lot more sneaky, but if that wasn't a direct option and I wanted to keep your people from rushing to our location? Hmmm. Maybe assume that the plan changed once we were already engaged in combat due to a member of my team finding new information...perhaps that we need your sword for the doors it can open?" He shrugged. "Whatever the case, if you want me to go that route then why not."
Pushing wind and lightning through his body took a moment, as long as it took to tap the ground behind him with his tail to leave an unobtrusive seal on the ground, and a moment later Naruto was on top of Mifune. Still keeping his 'sword skill level' at the same point, but just moving a lot faster doing it. The man showed he deserved the title of General though, and that he had still been holding back quite a bit, and kept up with the initial attacks...up until he was blocking for a sword strike and took Naruto's tail to the gut. It wasn't a hard hit, but that wasn't the intent.
A moment later Naruto vanished back to where he'd been standing, Mifune reacting almost immediately and changing the direction he was moving in. Sadly for him, the targeting seal was on his stomach, so Naruto had no problem vanishing again and appearing behind the man, sword ready to slide under his chin from behind.
"That is how I might go from a delaying action to finishing a fight," Naruto said. "Though for knocking you out I'd probably have to go with non-sword options."
"I see, and concede," Mifune said. Naruto removed the sword and vanished back to his other marked point.
Mifune thought back to the exhibition match while cleaning up after dinner, specifically the well-hidden skill that young Naruto had demonstrated. It spoke of someone who practiced heavily with their weapons, far beyond what any sane individual might normally do. Rumor had it that the young man trained months to years for every day that passed due to special tricks he had access to, and that was evident in the match today.
The Land of Iron had long prided itself on not needing the tricks and training that shinobi used, but the reality was that samurai and shinobi operated on entirely different rules of engagement. This was something that did not come through well in training on the samurai side of things, where honor in combat was emphasized. Shinobi had their own honor, of course, but even weapon users were far more willing to use 'dirty tricks' than the current generation of samurai that had focused on honor to distance themselves from the 'dishonorable shinobi'.
It had created a gulf that was going to require effort to overcome properly, but Mifune was certain that they could overcome it. The match he'd had against young Naruto was going to be a good starting point for discussions with his own people. Skill with your chosen weapon was not enough against shinobi of even close skill levels, and never had been, and hopefully his sudden defeat would show that well enough.
...but attempting to do any kind of 'exchange', student or otherwise, with Uzushio was probably pushing it. Going with Konoha and the Land of Fire felt a little more sane, due to sharing a border with them and them being at least a little less likely to drive his people into a gibbering puddle.
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