Title: Frozen Heart, Crimson Steel
Author: Zetsubou Writer
Rating: T/PG13
Genre: Adventure
DLP Category: Naruto (?)
Pairing: Naruto/Fem!Haku
Chapters: 13
Words: 144,103
Updated: June 19, 2010
Published: March 12, 2010
Status: Abandoned
Summary: A different sealing, an unexpected tragedy, another stolen scroll, a new team. Changes in his background put Naruto on a different path as he struggles to meet his destiny.

Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5809918/1/Frozen_Heart_Crimson_Steel

Personal Review :

Its good. Before you just turn away reading the Fem!Haku tag, I ask that you atleast give this a try. More than Passable grammar, seeing that very few mistakes stood out while reading the fic. Characterisation is awesome or atleast its exactly how I see most of the characters in canon by removing just some of their traits.

Apart from what you inferred from the summary, I can still say that the plot has promise as well. Without spoiling the fic that is. While its only 3 chapters long at the moment, it is still 30k+ long. That shows atleast some effort and consistancy on the part of the author.

What I liked most about the fic though, is the flow. It is seamless without any hack job flashbacks nor dreamscapes. In fact, I can even compare it to awesome fics like "Tempered in water" and "Team 8".

Negative things include a moderate suspension of disbelief required in the first chapter for the Villagers scene. >_> Also, some might feel that it has a lot less emotional description resulting from the events that take place. I consider it a positive point. A lot less Wangst that way.<_<

All in all, I give it a solid 4/5, with Potential for 5/5 depending on the way its carried out in the future.

~Flame on~


Checked by Minion, July. 28, 2016

 

I actually consider the fem!Haku a plus, though I think comparing it to Tempered in Water is a bit much.

It's pretty good so far. I like how, in the beginning, the author shows Naruto thinking like a ninja while still being a spazzy, 12-year-old kid. Those few paragraphs really stood out; it's extremely uncommon to see it balanced so nicely. That said, the suspension of disbelief came immediately after, so it kinda evened itself out. It's not badly done, actually, but the plot device is so overused that it kills any originality. Luckily, all we see is the aftermath, so there aren't any idiotic mob scenes or the like. After the cliche has passed, it manages to avoid many of the other pitfalls Naruto authors fall to.

The author makes an effort to not go over-the-top, and to try and keep things realistic and logical. It's refreshing, and I'm reminded a little of Geor-sama. It's an easy story to read.

It's nice to see ninjas thinking like ninjas.

I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this one. 4.5/5 from me.


Edit: A minor nitpick that has absolutely no bearing on the story: it drives me crazy when authors put a "Glossary" at the end of their stories with all the foreign words and their meanings. It's like they don't realize that you can read any 3 fics and know what every one of those words mean.

 

Not because of the Fem!Haku, but I certainly will turn away from it on the basis of Naruto being beaten half to death by the fucking villagers.

That = automatic fail, so sorry.

 

Yeah, that actually was a let down. But, seeing as he didn't elaborate on it nor actually write out the scene, I was able to skim past it with a good dose of Suspension of disbelief. I think the author used it as a plot point for the eye-thing, but meh. Haven't come across such auto-fails again...

But, yeah. I can see how that can be off-putting. Reason I removed 1 point from the score. >_>

 

It begins pretty much with a mob attack. The only thing that prevented me from closing the tab, was because it happened off-screen, but still the way author portrays Sandaime is quite cringe-worthy.

Also, lol, at Kurenai as his jounin-sensei. This is going to be quite lulzy when they encounter heavy-hitters and she goes down without putting much of a fight.

Of course, Naruto didn't graduate with his peers, despite being much more dedicated to studying than in canon, and the author goes out of his/her way to make him actually weaker than he was at this point in the manga - seriously, so far he spent two weeks on water walking and still didn't master it. *facepalm*

And the most important event so far was Naruto gaining shitty Kyuubi-related eye power, so there really isn't much to write about the plot.

Fem!Haku? If it means another Wave Mission, then I'm getting out of here

It's not terrible, but still 2/5.

 

I agree with LT. I can't stand fics where Naruto is beaten to death by the villagers. It's one of the most overdone cliche and no one does it correctly. I stopped reading after he lost his eye.

It would have been alright if they roughed him up a bit, without having to severely injure him. It would have been okay if they emotionally abused him, but losing an eye just isn't my cup of tea.

Also, I am a fan of femhaku, and already I don't feel what she would contribute to this story.

 

It's actually a bit depressing how everyone's auto-failing this story. The points you guys are bringing up - the beating, the wtfKyuubi!eye - don't really have anything significant in the story so far. Yeah, the eye is gonna have some sort of hax, but so far all it does is give him 21/21 vision in one eye. The angry mob thing is as minimalist as possible; there's literally no more than a short paragraph. You could easily substitue the angry mob for Naruto being a retard and accidentally sticking a knife in his eye.

Honestly, I think the story has more merit than you're giving it.

That's actually what I like about it. The author doesn't make it easy for Naruto to learn things. He studied harder, but was also in a holding cell for months, and had to work to catch up. And so what if it takes a while to learn water walking? It's supposed to be hard, and the whole point is that Naruto's at a major disadvantage. Would you rather read about how he learns it in a day, then suddenly meets Jiraya and starts beating on the Akatsuki?

 

If you like reading about a nerfed protagonist then you probably would like this story. At the beginning when he was failing behind his peers, I didn't mind, but when despite studying much harder, he failed the stupid genin test - Konoha's version can't be particularly hard when in the manga the entire class passed.

Also, it is established in canon that Naruto learns things extremely fast once he understands the concept - he learned tree-walking in a week, but he mastered water-walking in one day.

I also don't remember that water-walking was established as hard. ^^' It's one of the more basic ninja skills - known by pretty much everyone (even Lee can do it, so..).

 

Nerfed up Naruto? What? No, not really. See, I didn't want to spoil the story by typing the key points, but I'll go ahead and do that anyway. Now, if you want straight up DBZ-esque Super Saiyan fights, then yes, Naruto is nerfed.

But if you're looking for shinobi-style combat, i.e. thinking, planning and going in with a plan, then Naruto is way ahead of canon!Naruto and that without messing up Naruto's base characterisation. The author went out of his way to create 2 believable scenarios for this( the sasuke scene
and the Mizuki scene). This is a BIG plus in my book.

As for the genin exam, did you even read that chapter? Naruto only failed because he didn't want people to find out about the eye, he wants to listen to the Sandaime apparently. This fanatical loyalty of Naruto's towards the third that the author, I think, is trying to develop is also a plus in my book. Also, the genin exams are generally changed by fanfic authors to make it sound more plausible. The scenario shown in this fic was entirely believable. Kenjutsu was also not allowed which slowed Naruto down even more.

In canon, if you remember, there was a pretty good gap between Naruto learning Kage Bunshin, tree-walking and water-walking. I would imagine giving him time to get used to one technique would improve his control. But, meh, its a very minor point that isn't even worth mentioning.

Also, water walking is not a common technique. Not among Genin. Lee, if you remember, also beat Sasuke. The rookie of the year. What I'm trying to say is that Lee had become OP by the time chunin exams came around. Experience counts for a lot. ^_^

It is also mentioned that Naruto with even a wooden sword is on par with Sasuke and Kiba, the best fighters in this fic. Would you now say, giving him a real sword would make him overpowered? -.-'

Another point I'd like to bring up is the scene in which Kurenai corrects his basic Bunshin. That scene leads me to believe the author knows what you're implying and is perhaps going somewhere with it. In other words, a plot point.

My last point being that the author seems to be foreshadowing that Naruto is going to be the one on the front line when against Heavy-hitters in the future, with Kurenai supporting him with major Genjutsu. Personally, I want to see such fights. If written nicely, which I expect this author to do, these scenes can be awesome.

 

^^This. I've read enough Naruto fics to have gotten to the point that seeing everybody wtf!pwning everyone else with super jutsu is just asinine. I'd much rather see ninja being sneaky and smart than huge balls of fire and flying rasengan. Yeah, it's cool, but it alone does not a good story make.

Also, on Lee and water walking: it may just be my bad memory, but didn't we first see Lee walk on water during Shippuuden? Ya know, when he's a jounin? And as far as I remember, water walking was said to be an "advanced chakra control technique", which implies that it's difficult, or at the very least not easy.

 

Hng. I personally enjoyed. Skipped the first chapter though so I only read the last two. Reminded me a lot of Team 8 for some reason though. Guess all Super-sensei!Kurenais are like that.

 

Eh, I guess I'll put my skepticism aside and give it a shot later.

 

Yeah Lee's walking on water during the fight with Kisame during Shippuden.

 

Naruto gets routinely put into the hospital? The author should rewrite and make this a training accident or a villager (or Mizuki) gone wild. Not saying he had to regenerate the eye right away but I can't believe he stays for five whole months when his healing is faster than average. Basic Naruto FAIL.

Sasuke is openly mean and petty? Basic characterization FAIL.

Naruto swordsman... possible fail but thankfully the author hasn't starting fetishizing swords too much yet.

I like that this story doesn't exactly rehash canon and the mechanics are good. But it makes some very obvious and cheap mistakes. 3/5.

 

Hi. I'm the author.

Some quick responses to comments in no particular order:
- Naruto has normal human healing, hence five months in the hospital. I wasn't kidding in the description when I listed a different sealing process.
- Everything that's been seen of Sasuke so far (chapter six) has been from Naruto's point of view. He's not necessarily the fairest judge in this case.
- Naruto was seriously hospitalized once for being beat down in his childhood. Maybe the Naruto being beat down every day and twice on Sundays idea has become so prevalent in fanon that I should have taken greater steps to avoid it?
- Team 8 has been an undeniable influence, though I'm trying to differentiate in some ways.
- Naruto took longer on tree walking than canon because he was doing other stuff concurrently, rather than being dumped in a forest with no other instructions for a week. On reflection I could have made that point clearer, I might go back and revise.
- Naruto will develop as a skilled frontline combatant, rather than a ninjutsu specialist with Kage Bunshin distracting while he pulls together the big nin-guns.
- Naruto is, in fact, weaker than canon as of chapter six. It's because I consider Kage Bunshin to be a MAJOR power-up, which canon-Naruto fails to fully take advantage of tactically most of the time.
- I have a real aversion to stories where Naruto gets handed a stack of superswords right after Kyuubi gives him ten bloodlines. I seriously considered anything other than swords, but there just aren't that many options that keep with a Japanese setting. Pole weapons are impractical for stealth, shorter weapons don't address the range issue. So it was either sword or kusarigama. A chain weapon for a one-eyed kid is... not the best of combinations.
- Sorry about the glossary

Any advice/criticisms are welcome. This is my first time writing fiction on my own initiative, rather than as part of class assignments.

 

I did read this not long after my previous post (totally not posting this now just because the author showed up here >_>). Story is better than I originally thought. Now give me moar Fem!Haku.

- Yeah, the villagers beating the shit out of Naruto eleven days out of the week is so overdone in fanon that a lot of people will assume the worst whenever it comes up in a story. I certainly did, and it wasn't really warranted in this case. I wouldn't have included it to begin with, but then again you needed Naruto to lose an eye for your plot, so it's excusable (just keep in mind that you will still have people who will rush for that big red X as soon as they see it).

- I think you have to be a bit careful about 'underpowering' Naruto at the start of canon. I mean, he was already developmentally behind his peers to a large extent (well, behind Sasuke at least), and KB was a tool he needed to be competitive at that point. However, as long as you have a plan for him to catch up...eh. I know that I for one have a hard time reading stories where the titular hero is weaker than his peers, but you'll deal with that how you deal with it. It's not like it's a hard issue to overcome given how fast a learner Naruto is in canon.

- Be careful about Kurenai, also. There are a lot of people who are going to automatically see her as a Mary Sue-type character based on what was done with her in Team 8 (where she sorta is the preachy Mary Sue super-sensei/author avatar). I'm not really getting this vibe from yours at this point, and she's really a blank slate to begin with. Just something to watch. That said, I really don't think Kurenai would be able to fight Zabuza to a draw. Again, blank slate though, and I don't have much to base that opinion on from canon (her only actual fight in canon was getting her ass handed to her by Itachi...and that's Itachi).

- Moar Fem!Haku.

 

I think myNaruto's slightly behind canonNaruto in "real-world" performance, but not by much. A great deal of the difference in my mind is in the latent potency of the Kage Bunshin, which canonNaruto just doesn't take full advantage of in all situations. So the potential gap is significant, but the actual performance gap isn't at this point. Because myNaruto's weaker though, he learns to fight more intelligently.

He's definitely not weaker than his peers when kenjutsu is thrown in, and I'm planning on parity with canonNaruto somewhere between chapters 12 to 14, but with a very different direction of growth. I actually bumped pre-graduation myNaruto up to be stronger than canonNaruto overall; one of the reasons for kicking him around so thoroughly in that one event was to force him to focus his life. But then canonNaruto gets KB and gets such a massive boost myNaruto's behind again.

I think a draw to a slightly losing balance is reasonable for Kurenai (losing because Kurenai just can't land anything substantial, while getting hit by Zabuza once is game over). Once Kakashi started fighting seriously in canon he took down Zabuza pretty decisively; the forest fight was basically Kakashi screwing up monumentally (or a way for the author to show off Naruto's awesomeness). Neither Kurenai nor Zabuza are Kakashi's match, but beyond that we don't really have anything to judge their respective combat capabilities by.

There will be more Fem!Haku.

 

Alright for me the evil-konoha-villagers has been a major turn off. Mostly because I think that the parents are in the right in having their children avoided the demon-possessed jinchirichi- which are incidentally renowned for madness and violence. I mean really... the assasination attempts on gaara are logical, the shunning of naruto is logical as parents are obligated to put the safety of their children over the happiness of someone elses child. So yah it irks me how people make the jinchiriki interactions into little black-and-white sob stories.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You're saying that the villagers are right to hate Naruto and even make attempts on his life (only one Jinchuuriki had a reputation for madness and violence though), but yet you don't like the villagers hating Naruto and making attempts on his life?

 

No what I'm saying is I hate how people portray the hate. in the manga it never mentions the weird ritualistic attacks on naruto's birthday, they just avoid him. As for other Jinchiriki, I'll admit I haven't really been keeping up with the manga recently so I can't with certainty say that most of them go crazy(but it seems reasonable what with an evil demon talking to them).

Anyways All I'm saying is that I hate the 'fannon' interpretation of naruto's childhood. Did it suck? yep. Was it fair? no. Where their reactions completly justified(with perhaps the exception of Mizuki)? Uh...yeah.