"Hai," said Naruto, settling down. He'd hold off on the questions about the Uzumaki clan for now.
Sakura was quiet for a few minutes but noticed Naruto making a kunai and then dismissing it. The shape wasn't perfect though - little blobs and imperfections. "This anything to do with that statue Rin said she saw?"
Rin looked on curiously herself, but didn't think she saw anything as typical as a kunai on that thing.
"These are kinda like those 'boom gun rounds'," said Naruto at a very low volume, frowning as he tried to make a kunai but it came out warped.
"What's a 'boom gun' and is it round?" whispered back Sakura, who was fascinated by Naruto doing that. Not that Sasuke couldn't do something like that after all.
"The boom gun is a railgun that hooks directly into the Glitter Boy power armor," said Naruto.
"Uhm. What?" asked Sakura.
"A railgun is a device that throws a piece of metal at very high speeds," said Naruto, his voice dropping a bit as he tried to figure out how to say the stuff he Knew about from seeing the thing.
"Like your new jutsu for throwing a kunai," pointed out Sasuke.
"Yeah, I guess, but I'm doing it with chakra and that does it with magnets," said Naruto, brightening a bit. "That's what I'll call it though. Railgun no jutsu. Mine isn't that fast yet."
"How fast are these 'railguns' then?" whispered back Sakura.
"Five times the speed of sound," said Naruto absently.
"Gak!" said Sakura, a bit louder than she would have preferred. She thought about trying to block or dodge something moving that fast and didn't like the odds.
"Hmmm," hmmmed Sasuke.
Naruto tried again, forming something a little more kunai-like this time. "Dang it's a lot harder altering the material than just adding velocity."
"Don't spend too much time or chakra working on that when we're on a mission away from home," advised Kakashi, though he was sympathetic. When you were on the trail of mastering a new jutsu or variant - it was difficult to just let it go.
"One more try for now," said Naruto, holding one hand up and pointing towards a patch of shadow on the shore. "Railgun No Jutsu!"
poom!
"Quiet Naruto. Stop hyper-accelerating kunai. We're ninja. Stealthy and quiet, remember?" Kakashi reminded his genin. Also deliberately not remembering his own Chidori technique.
"Right, Kakashi-sensei," whispered back Naruto.
Haku swallowed nervously as the tree he'd used for concealment finished cracking and slowly fell over.
Of course, by this time he was a fair distance away but he'd not expected whatever that was.
In fact, he didn't know what that was. Not at all. Whatever it was had closed the distance between the little boat and his position so fast it couldn't have been tracked.
Zabuza-sama had to be told of this.
"So the Uzumaki clan is..." Naruto stopped and stared off to the side of the road. Then went to one knee, clutching his head again.
"Again?" asked Sakura. "What is it, an old buried sword?"
"Kubikiribocho," said Naruto in a pained whisper. "The 'Decapitating Carving Knife' - one of the Seven Swords of the 'Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.' Non-sentient, but slowly developing an awareness of itself over the centuries of use. Once used by Mangetsu Hozuki. It has the special ability to absorb the iron in blood, multiplying it as it does so, in order to regenerate itself."
"Oh?" asked Sasuke.
"Interesting," said Kakashi. "You can replicate it?"
"I don't think so," said Naruto, struggling to get back up. "I mean, a kunai, fine. I mostly got that. This is a bit much."
"I meant later," said Kakashi easily.
"Huh, oh yeah. I think so," said Naruto, nodding a thanks to Rin as she held softly glowing fingers near his head.
"Uhm, how much range does he have?" asked Tazuna nervously.
"Duck!" said Kakashi.
CLANG!
"How about that..." said Naruto before nearly collapsing again.
"What the hell?!" asked an unfamiliar voice as someone had just blocked his sword with a copy of the same sword. "What the hell was that?"
The extra Kubikiribocho dissolved into little sparkles.
"That wasn't a genjutsu," said the massive missing-nin as he stood near his sword. Fog began billowing up thicker. "That couldn't be..."
"Oh?" asked Kakashi.
"One of the Uzumaki Weaponmasters?" asked the missing-nin. "They were reported as all dead."
"You're familiar with them then?" asked Kakashi. "Zabuza Momochi, I presume?"
The missing-nin chuckled. "Familiar? All Seven Swordsmen and anyone with a special enhanced weapon knows about them and avoids them or kills them whenever possible. Once one sees your weapon, they can duplicate it using their freaky jutsu. They can't duplicate your skill, but they'll know what you can do with it. I take it from the near-dead appearance that he's recently unlocked that talent."
"Perhaps," said Kakashi.
"It's greatly tempting to leave the kid alive," admitted Zabuza. "In a decade or so he might even make an interesting opponent. Certainly having him wave around a copy of my sword in odd places would take some of the pursuers off my trail."
"I can see how that would work," admitted Kakashi.
"So, you're shepherding a chunin, two genin, and the Weaponmaster." Zabuza shook his head. "If they have the infamous Copycat Kakashi as a sensei, should I assume the others also have something special about them?"
"That would be a perfectly understandable conclusion to come to," admitted Kakashi.
"Well, I'll just have to end their legends here then. A pity, but such things are-"
The moment Zabuza edged his toes under his sword to flip it up, Kakashi was in motion.
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(Posted Sat, 09 Mar 2013 17:14)
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