Naruto: Jack of All Blades - [Rewrite]

Chapter 5:Gearing for the Exams

"Speech"

"Thoughts"

'Conversation thoughts'

"Biju, summon, and/or Naruto's pissed off/Kyubi voice."

"Above's thoughts"

'Above's conversation thoughts'

[Message]

Jutsu Name

KONOHA: TWO WEEKS SINCE LAST CHAPTER

The past two weeks had been interesting for everyone in Konoha as word spread of Naruto being back. While quite a few were upset at his return, they didn't dare do anything after the first few days. Why? Well some idiots tried to intimidate Naruto and force him to be their punching bag again, only for him to use them as training dummies before leaving them broken in the middle of the street for someone else to deal with.

The Anbu got them to the hospital, though they took their sweet time doing it, but they weren't able to save some of the limbs of those idiots due to the damage done.

Complaining did no good as Minato literally threw the people who complained out his office window not caring where they landed or who cleaned them up when they did land. He did ask Naruto not to make too much of a mess if the idiots tried something again since broken bodies and blood and other bodily items on the ground didn't paint a good picture for any visitors to the village.

Naruto hadn't gotten his meeting with Tsunade yet as she was busy with the idiots he sent to the hospital and her natural work while he had his own work of getting his clan home built, training with his new team and clan members, and doing missions with his team. Both their schedules were full and thus there was no time to sit and have an in-depth talk.

Speaking of his team, despite Zabuza being the "sensei" Naruto was teaching him just as much as he was helping Naruto. Reason being was that Zabuza hadn't had a real sword fight in years, so training with Naruto, Tousen, and Geralt was getting him back into shape as well as helping him expand his skill with his sword. Naruto even further helped by making his sword adjustable via seals on it. Now he could keep it as a zanbato or reduce the size to a tanto or anything in between as he desired or wanted.

Naruto did this mainly because of two reasons: 1) a zanbato was as much a slave to its size as the opponent was and thus you could only swing it in the 4 cardinal and the 4 ordinal directions with no room to improvise and maneuver the blade. 2) a zanbato was NOT ideal for cramped spaces or close quarts combat as you needed reach and brute force to fully use it, whereas if it's shorter you can have speed and precision.

To ensure Zabuza kept his muscle mass, he added a seal that could keep the weight the same even if it was shorter, but Zabuza could control the weight. It would make for devastating attacks if he kept the blade light for speed and then just as he's about to connect with a target, he increased the weight to maximum giving plenty of extra power from gravity and the weight to his hits. Naruto also worked with him on hand to hand combat so he was prepared should he lose his blade in the middle of a fight, he also recommended keeping the blade heavy as often as he could because he'd be able to move much faster if he did lighten the blade or lost it for whatever reason.

He also got Haku in on sword training when he presented her with one of the swords his clan kept hidden: Hyōrinmaru. It was a blade of high quality and it seemed to resonate with Haku, so he gave it to her as he was supposed to since the blade always chose the wielder. He wasn't going to risk backlash by denying the sword the person it chose to wield it, thus he and the others began training her to use it effectively. Namely focusing speed and agility since she was never going to out muscle someone like Zabuza, but she could outmaneuver and dodge to get openings to strike. Some could argue Tsunade's strength technique would be helpful for Haku, but Naruto knew it wasn't as versatile as Tsunade had people believe as it wasn't natural strength and it only enhanced your strength to a certain degree.