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Morning had come slowly, and Hiruzen was grateful. After last night's chaos, a slow morning was more than welcome. His task was simple and enjoyable. Going through the genin registration forms and finalizing the candidates for the jonin to choose from.
A small smile crept onto his face as he reviewed the names, each one representing a future leaf of the village.
He could have let his team handle it.
They were more than capable of combing through those forms. God knew how much he relied on them to keep up with all the paperwork in Konoha. It was not that he could not do it himself, but it ate away at his time. Something he wished he had more of. Then, as he reached the final registration form, his smile was replaced by a frown.
There was no form for Naruto.
Of course. How could I forget? Naruto had not properly graduated.
At his finger tap, an Anbu operative appeared in front of his desk.
"Bring me Naruto Uzumaki," the old man ordered, watching her bow before disappearing in a whirl of leaves and reappearing ten minutes later with something he was not prepared to see.
Naruto Uzumaki wore armor.
Hiruzen had seen armor of every kind that the shinobi world produced. Yet he had never seen anything like what Naruto Uzumaki was wearing.
The helmet was a bascinet, or something that resembled one closely enough to classify it as such. A rounded skullcap with a pointed apex designed to deflect rather than absorb. A visor with narrow ventilation slits that spoke to a maker who understood that breathability in combat was not a luxury but a necessity. The cloth wrap at the neck was worn and dark, a detail that suggested the armor had seen considerable use.
He moved down.
The torso was a composite construction. At the foundation, barely visible at the edges, was a padded undergarment. Over that, chainmail hauberk by the look of it, covering the torso and extending downward in a skirt that protected the upper thighs. Over the mail, a surcoat in blue fabric, its embroidered edging faded but still legible as an indication of status.
Whoever had made this armor wanted the wearer identified.
The plate reinforcement over the torso was not a solid breastplate. That was interesting. Instead of a single cuirass, which would have been the simpler solution, there were layered steel plates over mail. Spaulders at the shoulders strapped to a leather harness that crossed the chest and back. Additional lames at the upper torso.
The arms had couters at the elbows. Vambraces along the forearms, steel bracers strapped with leather at multiple points. The gauntlets were a mismatch. The right was a worn leather glove while the left was a steel gauntlet. The legs followed the same philosophy. Plate reinforcement over mail. Poleyns at the knees. Greaves along the shins. A broad leather belt with a bunch of utility pouches and a broken sword.
Hiruzen sat back.
This style of armor did not belong to any tradition he had ever encountered. Not in the shinobi nations, not in the Land of Iron, not in any historical record he had studied or any intelligence report he had received in his decades of governance. And considering how perfectly fitted the armor was to the boy's frame, Hiruzen felt with quiet certainty that it had been made for the boy.
That observation opened upon a lot more questions than answers.
"Where did you get that armor, Naruto?"
The look on Naruto's face made Hiruzen's heart skip a beat. The look of someone who had lost someone recently and was still in the part of grief where the loss kept arriving in new ways.
"My master gave it to me, Hokage-sama."
Hokage-sama.
Hiruzen absorbed that formal address. The deliberate distance built into two words that a few days had been old man delivered with the particular irreverence of a boy who felt comfortable enough to be rude. The change said considerably more than the words themselves.
Yesterday there had been impossible jutsu and killer intent. Today there was a mysterious master.
The Third noted Naruto's body language.
The grief was recent.
How recently, he could not say with certainty, but the rawness of it suggested days rather than months.
Hiruzen looked at the armor again.
He did not know what to make of any of it.
It was as if Naruto had been living an entire different life. A life with a dead master and skills that had no framework in anything Hiruzen understood. And the boy had simply arrived back in Konoha carrying all of it in his body and saying almost nothing about any of it.
Inoichi's words echoed in his head.
Do we truly know who Naruto is, Hokage-sama? Not what he can do. Not what he has become. Who he actually is. Do we know what he does when no one is watching? Where he goes? How he spends the hours that are not accounted for?
I am beginning to think the answer is no.
Hiruzen looked at Naruto across the desk. Even if I want answers, I cannot reach for them directly. Not now. Not with this boy in this state. Every question I push for is a door I risk closing permanently.
Hiruzen tapped his finger against the desk three times. From the corner of the room, the ANBU acknowledged the signal and withdrew further into the shadows.
The silence that followed might have become awkward. It was not because the chair had begun to creak under the armor's weight.
"That armor is heavy," Hiruzen observed.
"Yeah." Naruto shifted slightly, which produced additional commentary from the chair. "I actively have to channel chakra into my muscles to move freely in it."
"That is one approach. Though I would recommend supplementing that with dedicated physical training while wearing it."
"Why? If I can just use chakra..."
"Because the armor's resistance does the work your chakra is currently compensating for." Hiruzen folded his hands. "Train in it long enough without chakra reinforcement and your baseline strength increases to accommodate the weight. Your cardiovascular endurance develops under load, which means in combat your body performs at a higher ceiling before it needs to draw on chakra reserves at all. Your joints and connective tissue adapt to the demand. Your posture corrects itself because the armor punishes poor posture immediately and without mercy." He paused. "Chakra reinforcement is a tool. The body underneath it is the foundation. A stronger foundation means the tool goes further."
Naruto stared at him for a moment.
"Ah. That's... actually a great idea. Ol—" He caught it. "Hokage-sama."
Hiruzen said nothing about the near miss.
But he felt something loosen slightly in his chest. The specific relief of a door that had been closed and bolted showing the faintest hairline crack of light underneath it. He had not earned back what he had lost with this boy. He was not naive enough to believe one conversation accomplished that. But the crack was there.
He would have to earn it.
Meanwhile Naruto was thinking about the bonfire. Specifically about the bonfire's healing properties.
If I train in this armor. And push my muscles past failure. Then I go to Lordran. Rest at the bonfire.
He thought about how much faster a body could develop if the recovery phase was measured in minutes rather than days. He thought about what that compounded over weeks, over months.
Sensei, he thought, I think I just figured out a genuine way to train my body.
Suddenly the door flew open.