Skills Test
Naruto stood in his disguise at training ground sixty one and was looking around. He was early by fifteen minutes to have a look around. The training ground had been guarded by two chunin, which meant it was special. Only the ANBU and Hokage training grounds were guarded. Naruto hadn't cared about the guarded training grounds before. The only one he had been interested in besides the open ones that were farthest away from the village had been training ground forty-four, better known as the Forest of Death. After each chunin exam he had sneaked in there to see if he could find things that would help with his training like weapons that were still usable, scrolls and money. He reasoned the dead didn't need them anymore.
In the beginning he had felt slightly sick at doing it, but with the animosity he was shown by the villagers he needed some source of weapons and those would only rust if they were left there for too long. So he had started when he was nine to go into the Forest of Death when the second part of the chunin exams was over. He had found out that it took at least three days before the cleaning crews went through the forest to get the remaining corpses. He guessed they had too much to do with organizational things. So he normally spammed the forest with his clones to find those that had died or other left over weapons. Mostly they were perfectly workable still, some needed sharpening, but that was no problem. In five hours he normally was finished and had collected all the usable things. The only problem in the beginning had been the transport. He couldn't use sealing scrolls in the beginning. That had been the starting point in finding a way to easier transport weapons in the future.
He had found in one of the books at the academy that there were sealing scrolls but he knew he couldn't get one for him because the shop keepers would never sell him one. So he needed to learn how to make one himself. It took him three months to find the necessary books about sealing and then training that specific seal but he did it. One and a half years later, when the chunin exams were in Konoha again, he had the equipment and skill to seal weapons on site. His most prized find was a chakra conductive tanto. Those weapons that could channel chakra were really expensive and rare.
At ten the Hokage came in company of a medic nin and nodded at Naruto.
"Good morning, Dark Phoenix. Good to see you are on time. I have organized for one of my elite jonin to test your skills. He should be here in ten minutes. This is Arata, he will be on standby to heal you and your opponent if necessary." The Hokage explained.
"Good morning, Hokage Sama." Naruto answered with a bow, keeping up his disguise. "That will be great. Who will be testing me?" He asked.
"My son Asuma Sarutobi." The Hokage answered.
Naruto nodded. He knew Asuma from some of his visits to the Hokage. While the bearded jonin had been out of the village for some time to protect the Fire Daimyo as one of the twelve ninja guardians, he had returned some years ago and become a normal jonin for the village.
He waited with the Hokage and nine minutes later Asuma arrived.
"Good morning, Dad. Why did you call me here?" Asuma greeted.
"Good morning, Asuma. Thank you for coming. You are here to assess the skill level of Dark Phoenix here. I have an overall idea what he can do, but there is nothing better than a fight to see what he can do in a real situation. From our estimation he should be around high chunin to low jonin level." The Hokage informed his son.
"Dark Phoenix, never heard of him." He said, observing the boy. "He doesn't seem too old." He said.
"No, he isn't. He has trained in secret to not gain unwanted attention of different fractions in the village." The Hokage said meaningfully.
Asuma assumed he was talking about ROOT and the council that liked to manipulate young talented ninjas to their liking.
"Okay, what kind of test do you want to have? An all out fight or going by disciplines?" Asuma asked.
"I think we should go by disciplines. Is that okay with you, Dark Phoenix?" The Hokage asked.
"Of course, Hokage Sama." Naruto answered. "With which part should we start?"
"I think I would like to see how you work with weapons first. Asuma himself is a skilled weapon user, so that would be a good starting point."
Naruto nodded and unsealed both his tanto and his bo staff. The tanto went on his shoulder and the staff stayed in his hand. Asuma took out his knuckle knives. They watched each other, assessing the stance of their opponent. Then Naruto sprang into action and raced at Asuma. The Hokage was surprised by the speed Naruto showed. That was definitely jonin level speed. The only jonins to be faster would probably be Gai and Kakashi. Asuma was ready and blocked the strikes of the bo staff with his knives and fought back. Both weapons clashed time and again. Naruto tried to swipe Asuma's legs with his staff, but he jumped over it without problem. Both opponents evaded and blocked each others attacks for five more minutes before jumping apart.
"You're definitely good kid, but let's take this up a notch." Asuma said and channelled wind chakra into his blades.
Naruto, knowing that his staff wouldn't hold against wind enhanced blades, quickly put his staff away and drew his tanto. He channelled his own wind chakra into it.
"So you are a wind element too. Interesting. Let's see how far you have come." Asuma said and attacked.
Tanto and knuckle blades crashed and the more experienced jonin managed to get a cut on Naruto's arm. Naruto returned the favour by spinning around his axis, disconnecting their weapons and nicking Asuma's pants.
"Not a bad counter to my attack." Asuma commented.
This kid was really good. Judging by his height and stature the boy was about twelve to fourteen. To be that good with two different weapons and being able to manipulate wind chakra was really something.
Naruto returned with a new attack but was forced back by the stronger Asuma over the next minutes. Finally Asuma managed to disarm Naruto and crossed his blades close over his throat.
"My win." Asuma said and stepped back.
Naruto nodded. He hadn't expected to be able to defeat an elite jonin in one of his strongest disciplines, but he had held out better than he thought he would.
"That was an impressive start. Next would be taijutsu." The Hokage said.
Asuma nodded and put his knives back in his hip pouch. He took his stance and saw that the boy was in a stance he didn't know and hadn't seen around the village before. He couldn't know that Naruto was in the opening stance of the Namikaze style, the cheetah style. The style was based on speed and fast attacks to vital points. It wasn't made for long exchanges like the animal it was named after. After Naruto had read all the anatomy scrolls in the secret room, he could utilize the style really well. And with his bastardised version of gentle fist and chakra scalpels mixed into the style it was deadly if Naruto wanted it to be.
This time Asuma attacked first, but Naruto dodged his kick and went around him in a split second and tried to attack the spine. Asuma though was too experienced and jumped to the side. Naruto followed him and looked for openings in Asuma's guard. His smaller stature now was an advantage for him as he could use openings easier as a bigger opponent. He brought in some painful hits to Asuma's biceps and upper thigh. Asuma was too good to let him hit vital spots after feeling what a hit did to his muscles.
Naruto didn't let Asuma rest and used his superior speed to disable more points, which got more difficult as Asuma tried to stay out of his reach. Finally Naruto managed to cut a whole muscle in Asuma's left leg, which made him fall to his knees. Naruto came up and pointed his glowing hand to Asuma's spine.
"My win." He said and then stepped back.
The Hokage was impressed. That was an impressive show of taijutsu skill. And that speed reminded him a lot of Minato. But Naruto seemed even better than his father at the same age. And how did he manage to get Asuma's muscles hurt? That looked like gentle fist, but Naruto couldn't know it. The Hyuga kept those secrets within their clan.
"Very good, Dark Phoenix. The next thing would be genjutsu." The Hokage said.
"Wouldn't it have been better to let Kurenai test him there? I am not much of a genjutsu user." Asuma said.
Arata had appeared at Asuma's side and began healing his injuries. When he walked to Naruto he shook his head.
"I'm okay." He said and the medic went to the side.
"I don't think we would need a genjutsu specialist. I don't want news about Dark Phoenix getting out too soon. Arata here is one of my personal medics and won't tell a thing. I only need to know how good he is at casting them and at dispelling a few lower level ones. I know you can do a B-rank genjutsu."
Asuma nodded. That B-rank genjutsu was his highest level genjutsu. It only worked if he got his opponent by surprise. But if his father only wanted to test if Dark Phoenix could break it, it would do. Naruto got ready.
"Okay, we will start with you starting to cast a genjutsu at Asuma, Dark Phoenix." The Hokage said.
Naruto nodded and went through handseals at a fast pace.
"Illusion art: Pervert's paradise." He said.
The Hokage waited for Asuma to get out of the genjutsu, but instead he saw that Asuma had started to drool and only looked strangely happy. Then he sported a huge nosebleed and fell back, knocked out.
"What kind of jutsu was that?" The Hokage asked Naruto, whom he swore was grinning brightly under his mask.
"The genjutsu shows him the woman he likes offering him to do whatever sexual fetish he has. It works on nearly everybody." Naruto said innocently.
"How the hell did you come up with that jutsu?" The Hokage asked baffled.
"Well, the same way I came up with that ninjutsu." Naruto said, stressing 'that ninjutsu'.
The Hokage knowing which one he meant had to suppress a nosebleed himself.
"It was meant to be a distraction in case I was running away from others. And it isn't limited to men. It works with the general preferences of the one I catch in it." Naruto explained.
"I am impressed. Can you please wake up Asuma again, so we can continue?" The Hokage asked Arata.
The medic nodded and pushed his chakra into Asuma's system to break him out of the genjutsu. Asuma opened his eyes and saw his father, Arata and Dark Phoenix looking at him amused.
"Damn, that jutsu is really dangerous. You simply don't want to get out of it." Asuma commented groaning.
Now he was glad that Kurenai wasn't here. She would never forgive him. Thankfully nobody knew what his illusion had been. That would be a definite death sentence for him.
"Okay, let's get this over with. Let's see if you are as good as escaping from a genjutsu." Asuma said and went through his handseals. "Illusion art: Prison of silence." Asuma said.
Naruto just stood there and wondered what the jutsu was supposed to do.
"Erm, when should the jutsu start to work, Asuma?" He asked.
"It should already do it, can you hear me?" Asuma asked.
"Yes, no problem. So I guess it should have messed up my hearing?" Naruto guessed.
"Yes, it should. That's strange. It should have worked. I cast it correctly, I'm sure." Asuma wondered.
"Try another one, Asuma." The Hokage said.
"Illusion art: Hell viewing technique." Asuma announced, but Naruto still stood there wondering why nothing happened.
"Nothing?" The Hokage asked.
"No. I know what the hell viewing technique should do as I also know that jutsu, but I don't feel anything. Strange, I didn't even feel any foreign chakra reaching me." Naruto said.
"You can feel foreign chakra?" Arata asked interested.
"Yes, I'm a sensor type." Naruto said.
"That could be a reason. Let me test something." Arata said and activated his mystical palm jutsu.
"I will come closer with my hands to that cut you got in the weapons fight with Asuma. If I am right, something should stop me." Arata said.
Naruto nodded and held out his arm. It was already healed by the Kyubi, but he wouldn't inform Arata of that fact. In case he wondered he could make up a minor bloodline for healing. Arata pushed his hands over the cut in Naruto's shirt and was stopped an invisible layer of chakra.
"I thought so. Young sensors sometimes place a thin layer of chakra over all of their skin to have it easier to use their sensor skills. It' a subconscious thing. That layer of chakra prevents foreign chakra like for genjutsus to enter the body. Therefore they are immune against lower level genjutsus. I guess a genjutsu specialist would still manage to get through, but nobody else." Arata explained.
"I never heard of something like that." The Hokage said.
"It's not very common. Perhaps one in hundred sensor types does it. Mostly if they teach themselves some of their skills. If they have an experienced sensor to teach them it normally doesn't happen. Tsunade Sama found this anomaly during the second shinobi world war because one on her team had that immunity to genjutsu and she wanted to know if it was possible to teach it to others." Arata said.
"Okay, this is good to know. Well, I guess we will have to postpone the genjutsu test as it is not possible for us right now to test if Dark Phoenix can break genjutsu. Perhaps when it becomes more pressing I will let Kurenai test him. Just to satisfy my curiosity. What is your strongest genjutsu?" He asked Naruto.
"Illusion Art: Infinite Darkness." Naruto answered.
"Isn't that a jutsu of the Nidaime Hokage?" Arata asked.
"It is. We will have to talk about how you learned that jutsu, Dark Phoenix. For now, I think it is time to examine your ninjutsu. I would like to have a presentation of five of your strongest jutsu to see what you can do and then you will fight against Asuma." The Hokage ordered.
"Can I have an oath that nobody talks about those ninjutsu? I trust you that you chose trustworthy people to watch this test, but two of my jutsus will tell them exactly just who I am." Naruto said.
The Hokage was surprised at that request. Could Naruto know his father's most prized techniques?
"Okay. Arata, Asuma, if I am right about which jutsus Dark Phoenix intends to show us, that oath will be necessary. I make it an S-rank secret to keep quiet about them until I give you permission to talk about them."
"Understood." Both said.
Naruto nodded and took out a tri-pronged kunai from his pouch on his back. He threw it at the training post and vanished in a flash of yellow, reappearing at the kunai and showing a blue spiralling orb into the training post.
"Rasengan." He said and showed the ball through the wood as if it was butter.
"The Yondaime's jutsus." Arata said shocked. "Flying Thundergod and Rasengan."
Asuma gave a very good impression of a goldfish. He never had even suspected that the Yondaime could have had a son. That seemed to be the only plausible explanation for this boy to know those jutsus.
Naruto flashed back to his original position and went through a series of handseals.
"Water release: Water dragon bullet." He said and manipulated water from the river into a water dragon that hit the training post which already had a hole from the rasengan.
The post was blown away from the powerful jutsu. Naruto waited until the water had settled down and went through his next series of handseals.
"Wind release: Twisters' fury." He shouted and made three tornados that blew towards the river and sucked up the water making them even more dangerous.
Then Naruto made his last handseal.
"Shadow clone jutsu." He said and created fifty shadow clones.
"Shit." Was Asuma's only comment.
The Hokage was very impressed. He wouldn't have thought that Naruto had that kind of strong ninjutsus in his repertoire. He would be a force to be reckoned with in the future. This only made it more imperative to keep the boy in the village. He needed to choose a good jonin sensei with whom the boy could bond. It was only one real option there. While Naruto would only stay a genin for six months with skills like his, those months needed to be used to start positive bonds to the village. He couldn't take care of that through his team-mates, he would be paired with Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto had said himself he had intended to do that to make sure the team passed, and Sakura Haruno. He hoped it would be okay, but perhaps he should ask Naruto about his opinion about Sakura first. He didn't want to anger him even more than he already was.
The following fight with Asuma showed that Naruto had a wide range of ninjutsu he could use. Especially his use of replacement and body flicker was fantastic. Asuma didn't manage to get a hit in as Naruto changed places so fast. Together with his speed he could honestly say Naruto was high jonin level in ninjutsu. He knew how to do the jutsus and when to use them in a fight.
Finally he gave both the signal to stop.
"Damn it. To have to work like that against a kid his age, I really should start training more." Asuma commented.
He had been spammed with clones and tricked by transformations. Mixed with the constantly moving Naruto and his higher level elemental jutsus, it was damn hard to get the kid. If he would use his other skills Asuma didn't doubt he would be able to go up with jonin in a few months of real missions. He had noticed that while the kid was good, he made mistakes that someone who had been on a hundred missions or so wouldn't make. This meant this kid was a rookie. His opinion rose even more after that revelation.
"Let him do a few C-rank and B-rank missions and he will be ready to become jonin. There were a few rookie mistakes that you only get corrected through experience. You should for example not wait to see if your jutsu really hit an opponent and neglect your surroundings. Your sensor ability helped you out there, but you should have been more on guard in those situations." Asuma told Naruto who nodded.
"I will remember it next time, Asuma." He replied.
"Okay, the next part is Arata's specialty. I would like a bit more about your knowledge in poisons." The Hokage said.
Naruto nodded and went over to Arata. Meanwhile Asuma talked to his father.
"He is really good. How did you train him and where? I wouldn't have thought you could hide the Yondaime's son for twelve years." Asuma asked.
"Well, even I don't know how he trained. I didn't know he was this strong before he told me some days ago when he brought back the forbidden scroll that Mizuki had stolen." The Hokage answered.
"You want to tell me that kid learned all that on his own? Where would he get the jutsus?" Asuma asked. "And why didn't you teach him? I would have thought he would have got special training regarding his father's enemies."
"I wanted to, but the political situation after the Kyubi attack was extremely shaky. We had to fear that Iwa or Kumo would use our weakness to kill him if they knew who he was. So I hid him away. I couldn't have the villagers talk about him even existing. If he had got special training, people would have asked why. And I didn't want to let Danzo or one of the other idiots know about him. The civilians would have pestered me with the CRA nonsense, even if he doesn't have a bloodline limit, made marriage proposals for their daughters to get more power and similar things would have happened through the ninja clans that would have fought to raise him to increase their power." The Hokage explained.
"That makes sense. But it is fishy that he could get this strong on his own with nobody noticing." Asuma admitted.
"Indeed. I will have a long talk with him how he managed it, but I guess he will keep a lot secret. There are certain reasons he informed me about his skills a few days ago, but they are classified. Now let's see what Arata says about his knowledge about poisons. And then I will ask him to show us some of his seals. He said he was a seal master, so I am curious what he can do."
Asuma just nodded.
"Okay, I think that will do for now, Dark Phoenix. You have a very good foundation in your knowledge. If you continue your studies there, you should reach proficiency in a year or so." Arata said.
"So what is your verdict?" The Hokage asked.
"He has good knowledge about poisonous plants and animals from which he gets his ingredients for the poisons he uses. His techniques to mix those poisons are good. But his knowledge is limited to paralysing and lethal poisons. If he wants to go further in the area he needs to branch out. I estimate he is a solid high chunin level in his skills here. For his age that is still impressive. I don't know many ninjas that are allrounders like he is. He should be able to take B-rank missions without too much problem in an experienced team as support." Arata said.
The Hokage nodded. There was no way he would let Naruto take A-rank missions in the near future, even if he was skilled. But his team would need to be trained properly so they could send them on C-ranks after a short time.
"Okay, then if I didn't miss anything only fuinjutsu is left." The Hokage said.
Naruto nodded enthusiastically. He loved fuinjutsu. He took out some seals he had brought with him to show the Hokage.
"Okay, these are some of the seals I prepared to show you, Hokage Sama. I think they are some of the most useful in the field. This is a modified explosive seal. It first sends a chakra wave out that imitates killing intent, then the explosion goes off. The intention is to briefly paralyse an opponent with the KI to keep them within the range of the seal. The next one is a combination of a storage seal and an explosive seal. The weapons stored in the storage part are shot out by the explosive part and can surprise an opponent who doesn't expect to have to dodge weapons. The seal can be prepared in two ways. First, you trigger it with your own chakra from a certain distance or second you involve a perimeter seal that reacts to foreign chakra. It has a range about twenty metres. " He then took out another type of seal.
"This is a modified chakra storage seal. You can store chakra of a certain type, like water or fire chakra in here and release it when you need it. You would only have to meld the chakra into a jutsu after that."
"Do you mean, with those seals ninja could use jutsus of an element they normally can't use?" Asuma asked.
"Yes. Of course they would need to know the handseals for the jutsu and meld the chakra, but the elemental manipulation would be taken care of." Naruto said.
"Fantastic. That would make fights much easier. You would be able to prevent being caught at a total disadvantage. With my element wind and knowledge in fire jutsus I would have problems with water types. If I had some earth seals I could take care of that problem." Asuma mused. "But how do you load them? Don't you need the elemental chakra first to charge them?"
"That was a problem in the beginning until I came up with chakra converter seals. I am a primary wind type with a secondary water affinity. So I would be hard pressed against earth techniques if I didn't recognize the jutsu first, which still takes some time for me. I wanted to have a way to use lightning jutsus. So I worked on a seal that would change my wind chakra to lightning chakra. Took me some time to develop it, but after three months I had it. And I found out that by using the seals regularly I developed a lightning affinity as my third affinity. I think it is comparable with the sharingan training a user to use jutsus of all kinds as it can copy them." Naruto reported proudly.
"Are you going to sell some of your seals?" Asuma asked.
"Perhaps, I'm not sure yet." Naruto said.
He had thought about making money through selling his seals, but who would buy them if they knew he made them? And he didn't know how it would work through a proxy. Perhaps the Hokage could help him there.
"Okay, I see you really know your seals. To see how good you are overall we would have to wait for Jiraiya to return from his travels. He's out of the village most of the time maintaining his spy network." The Hokage said.
Naruto nodded. He knew that Jiraiya of the sannin had been his dad's jonin sensei and was a seal master, the only one the village had at the moment besides himself and he needed to be evaluated to be acknowledged first.
"I think we are done here. Dark Phoenix, I want to see you in my office in two hours. Arata, thanks for your help, you're dismissed. Asuma, please come to my office in four hours, we will then finalize the new genin teams with the other jonin senseis."
"Okay." Asuma said and Arata bowed.
TO BE CONTINUED...