The next morning, Daiki was posing in front of the mirror in the hotel room he purchased for the night.
"What do you think?" the boy asked.
'I think you look like a bandit that is trying to look like a big shot.' Isobu deadpanned.
"You mean like a handsome rogue?" Daiki grinned, curling his bicep at the mirror and eyeing himself.
His clothing had went through a little bit of a change this morning. He hadn't exactly been too tired last night, what with him being a new jinchuuriki and all and having more energy than he ever remembered having before.
So he'd played about with some of his loot through the night to pass the time. And in the process, found a very interesting feature in one of the items he'd 'liberated' and given a new home like the ever generous and caring saintly lad he was.
Well, his clothes hadn't changed that much. He was still wearing his black combat sandals and his black pants, and he was still wearing his tank top. The only real change, was the single armoured blue harness over his right shoulder, while atop it, sat the face of a roaring…spiky faced turtle.
'Why did you have to make it look like my face?' Isobu grimaced.
"Gotta represent." he shrugged.
See, during the night, when going over the plans those morons had for their 'Ultimate Weapon' he found something very interesting. There was actually a lot of seal work involved in the creation of the Infinite Armour as they called it, the basis of their plan.
See, Daiki originally thought it just siphoned chakra, that yeah, while useful, wasn't something you know, worth wearing something so lame looking.
Only, when he looked further into workings of the armour, he found it wasn't quite so simple. Yes, it was designed to absorb chakra. But that wasn't all. No, on top of that, it also had the function to direct that chakra to someone else, or, convert that chakra into pure life force and give it to someone.
When he figured that out, Daiki kind of understood why their plan was to go after the Ichibi. They needed a vast amount of life force to revive their master, Seimi.
'The only thing I can't figure out, is how filling up his corpse with life energy and basically bringing his body to life again, yoinked his soul back from the afterlife.' Daiki mused.
If it was just a matter of their possibly not being an afterlife, he'd maybe understand, but no, there very clearly was one, called the Pure Land even.
Well, either way, until he figured out how the seals worked on it to recreate the work on his own, Daiki could put the Infinite Armour to good use.
For example, recovering his lost life force from using the Hero's Water nearly a month ago by having Isobu fill it up with his chakra and then converting it to life force and slurping it up.
'I should remind you, I am not a chakra dispenser for all the crazy ideas you come up with.' Isobu pointed out dryly.
"You didn't say no though." Daiki reminded him with a chuckle.
Isobu did not reply.
Well, the Infinite Armour wasn't the only thing he'd found had some niftry extra features he didn't know.
For example, the pair of shining silver blades idly rotating mid-air beside him. Apparently the Kiba blades, could be remotely controlled by the wielder.
Combined with inscribing the link seal to his Dimension Force Seal, so he could return them to it wherever they were, well, he could think of so many fun ways to play about with them.
Daiki really wanted to find out who in the hell made the Kiba blades, because they were fucking overpowered. Samehada just got bumped down to second place on the totem poll.
He eyed the blades, massive grin spread across his face for a few moments, before with a thought, returning the airborne blades to his seal.
As much as he would just love to play about with them right now, he had shit to do.
To Tanzaku Gai to drop off a head, collect some sweet sweet dosh and then back to Konoha to face the music.
"Fucking Madara." Daiki grumbled hours later as he left the public urinal, house to the Tanzaku Gai bounty station behind.
Scowling, Daiki kicked a rock and watched it soar off into the distance, "That guy's made an enemy for life." he vowed.
No seriously, fuck that guy. Him and Obito actually, he knew the real one had a hand in the initial situation and Obito just continued it on because he was a salty fuck.
'Yes, vow to angrily end them, but no, not for the fact their schemes have killed tens of thousands and put the very world at risk, but because they lowered the economy of the Mist Village and in turn…lowered the bounty for the man you killed.' Isobu sounded very exasperated.
Daiki paused, "…Well when you say it like, you make me sound unreasonable." he replied.
'You're very unreasonable actually, you have too much tunnel vision.' Isobu replied simply.
Well excuse him for being disappointed that the head of one of the Seven Ninja Swordsman of the Bloody Mist, was only worth five million ryo.
'You looted five million from that mansion in the Village of Artisans just last night, after looting weaponry that in total must be worth over a hundred million.' Isobu deadpanned.
….It was the principal of the matter?
Isobu sighed and did not comment any further.
Daiki supposed he won then.
It wasn't like he was…what was the word, ungrateful? Truly disappointed? Whatever, it wasn't like he was actually down about getting five million ryo on top of getting what he actually wanted from Raiga.
But freaking Asuma Sarutobi was worth thirty five million. Daiki thought he'd get at least twenty for Raiga.
…And he could have gotten himself a sweet new pad with loads of dosh left over for sure.
'Guess I just need to grind up my wallet as well.' he mused, shrugging and getting a move on.
While he was here in Tanzaku Gai, he may as well go to one of the Leaf outposts and send a messenger hawk back to the village, top it off with a message for the Hokage's eyes only, very urgent, and fill it up with some vague stuff about tails, turtles and such, prepare him in advance and make sure the man knew he was thinking of the village first.
Even though he wasn't.
He continued on, making his way into the village and traversing through it to the other side where the outpost was.
On the way, right in the middle of the entertainment district, a large street known for being 'vice' central, with many a casino and bar, a flash of white in Daiki's peripheral caught his eye.
If it wasn't for his new eyes, he wouldn't have even noticed with how brief it was. But with the Shinkugan, he could see much clearer and in much more detail even in the corner of his eye than he did from his previous full eyes.
It was a long mane of white hair.
"Hello ladies~!"
Daiki turned and stared, watching as a tall, broad shouldered man in green and red, with a large and long mane of white hair boldly swaggered his way into a brothel.
'Impassion'.
That was the name he read off of the sign atop the two-story, motel-look alike of a building.
Well, at least they knew what they were about.
To think he'd run into Jiraiya of the Sannin of all people here, on his way back to the village. Granted, from what he remembered, the Sandaime recalled him to return during the chunin exams, so the guy had to have been in the general area.
'I can use this.' Daiki's lips quirked up into a brief calculating smirk.
He knew of course, when he returned to the village and let things slip, he would be questioned quite a bit and examined, he just wasn't scared of his secrets being pulled from his mind, because anyone that entered his mind was going to meet his big, giant three tailed turtle buddy.
But, what if he went to Jiraiya, had him examine his seal, confirmed the okay and then sent the message back to the Hokage?
Well, then he'd have a rock solid alibi now wouldn't he? And if he spun it right, like being hesitant to return to the village as he was right now…
Well, wouldn't that just paint him in a shining patriotic light?
Honestly, Daiki found himself having to resist the urge to rub his palms together and let out a rather Orochimaru-like, 'Kukukuku.'
He didn't of course, because he just didn't fit that look and it would make him look cartoonishly evil.
He was debonairly evil after all.
'Please don't apply words to yourself that you clearly don't understand the meaning of.' Isobu sighed.
Some people just couldn't appreciate his style it seemed.
Plan branching out in his mind, Daiki followed the man into the building. As soon as he entered, the clinging of bottles and drinking glasses, boasting men and cooing women entered his ears.
It didn't take him long at all to find his target.
Jiraiya was already sitting at a booth, sake on the table, his arms around a pair of particularly voluptuous and scantily clad ladies, both blonde, one long pig-tails, the other in a high ponytail.
He clearly had a type.
Ignoring the going ons around him, lest he fall to temptation and take a few of these whores to pound town when the grind awaited, Daiki made his way over to the booth.
"Jiraiya-sama, hello." Daiki greeted him politely.
The white haired man looked up from where he was staring into the valley of a lovely pair of tits and raised an eyebrow at him, "Oh, is this a friend of yours Jiraiya-kun?" busty pigtails cooed, rubbing the mans chest.
"He's quite the cutie, and look at those muscles." Ponytail agreed, eyeing his arms.
Daiki resisted the urge to flex, the gains from the grind were designed to do so after all.
"Something like that," Jiraiya narrowed his eyes for a brief second at Daiki, before grinning at him, "Bit young to be in here are you not kid?"
"Not really," Daiki shrugged, "Actually, I'd probably be following your lead right about now if I didn't need to talk to you about something important."
"Kinda busy here," Jiraiya answered with a shrug and side eyeing both the women beside him, then jerking his head and urging Daiki to leave, "The Gallant and Handsome Jiraiya will gladly give you an autograph later, like say, tomorrow if you're still here."
Well, it wasn't like Daiki didn't understand the situation here, he'd be pissed too if he was about to plough the ever loving shit out of two hot ass women like this and some punk ass cock blocker interrupted him.
"Alright, I suppose I can wait," Daiki shrugged back, "I just thought you'd be interested in this really huge turtle I found the other day."
"…A turtle..?" Jiraiya looked at him as if he were crazy, completely confused.
"Yeah, a super huge turtle," he nodded, "Bigger than any living creature I've ever seen before, heck, I bet there could only be eight others at most in existence." he added, lifting up three fingers.
Jiraiya's eyes widened, "…I see, a huge turtle huh? Consider me interested." he unwound his arms from around the ladies of the night and stood up.
"Jiraiya-kun?" Pigtails gave him a confused look.
"Haha! Sorry ladies, but it seems this young little tadpole needs the guidance of the gallant Jiraiya!" the white haired man laughed boisterously, "But don't mind it, I'll make sure to come see you two again later, make sure to keep yourselves free for me!"
Bidding the ladies goodbye, the legendary toad sannin hopped over the booth table in a smooth motion drawing 'ooh's and 'aah's from the ladies, and placed an arm around Daiki's shoulder and then the world blurred around them as they were suddenly moving.
Moments later, they appeared on the roof of a building on the opposite side of the street from the whore house.
"I hope this isn't a joke kid," Jiraiya clicked his tongue, letting go of Daiki, "You said you found the Sanbi?"
Man, this guy was absurdly fast. If he wasn't wrong, he was actually faster than Daiki was even in his three tailed cloak form.
It showed him how far he still had to go.
"I did," Daiki confirmed, "I came across the Sanbi yesterday on my way through the Land of Rivers, during a mission to the Village of Artisans."
Jiraiya grimaced, "That…could be bad," the tall white haired man crossed his arms, "Tensions are already high with the Sand, and the Land of Rivers is right in between the Lands of Wind and Fire, if they catch wind of it being there and move to capture for it…"
"Well, it's not exactly there anymore." Daiki cut his thoughts off.
"What?" Jiraiya stopped cold and blinked, "What do you mean it's not there anyway? Bijuu aren't exactly subtle, hell actually, if you came across it, why are you still standing here? You're a genin right? I don't get the feel of a Jonin off of you at least, why aren't you dead?"
"…Yeah, about that," Daiki pulled down the collar of his shirt and channelled chakra, allowing his Four Symbols Seal to appear on his torso, Jiraiya's eyes widened in shock, "See, I kind of came across a bunch of guys having subdued it and wanting to use it to attack the Leaf Village, so I kind of jumped in and sealed it inside myself when they were tired out."
"You….you….you what?" Jiraiya gaped at him, fish mouthed and eyes wide.
Jiraiya, for a moment, thought he was having some form of crazy fever dream, that or he was just drunk out of his gourd and hallucinating.
"Let me get this straight," he rubbed at the bridge of his nose and looked at the muscular kid, wearing a weird turtle face thing on his shoulder as if it was stylish or something, "During your mission to deliver ore to the Village of Artisans, you found their little noble wannabe ninja planning to revive their dead leader and strike out at the village, that right?"
"Right." the kid nodded, those ominous crimson eyes of his holding his gaze. Eyes that apparently didn't belong to him until yesterday at that…
"So you decided to follow them and spy on them, even when they left the village itself, only to find them meeting up with Raiga Kurosaki, formerly of the Seven Ninja Swordsman?" he asked next.
"Yup." the kid nodded, crosing his absurdly muscular arms for his age.
What kind of crazy training regiment was this kid going through anyway? He was built like a brick shit house. Give him a few years and he may end up making the Raikage look puny.
"With Raiga in tow alongside a partner of his, they travelled to the south of the Land of Rivers, to a massive lake, where the Sanbi was, and drew it out, then using that armour on your shoulder, they drained most of its chakra and then hypnotised it with those eyes you have now to keep it docile…?"
"Pretty much," the kid nodded, pulling his arms out of their crossed position to point at his eyes, "I think they have the ability to cast genjutsu through the eyes like the Sharingan, but I don't really know any proper genjutsu so can't tell yet."
More Genjutsu eyes, lovely stuff that. He'd totally need to look into the possibility of a clan with eyes like that, they could be a real problem in the future if they became enemies.
"Right, more or less with you so far," Jiraiya replied, and he was, and he could understand it. There were plenty of people that wanted to get their hands on the Bijuu, he knew of a specific group in particular after all that was after them, "What I don't get, is what possessed you to pull some maniac plan out of your ass and literally steal the Sanbi out from under them, like seriously kid, what the hell is wrong with you?"
What kind of crazy bastard would willingly seal a bijuu inside themselves? Jinchuuriki were pretty much universally treated like trash. He winced at that as soon as he thought it.
…He really needed to check up on Naruto more often.
The kid gave a flippant shrug, "They wanted to supe up their weapons, revive some guy that fought the Nidaime Hokage and direct a Bijuu at the village," he pointed out as if the answer was obvious, "By sealing the Sanbi inside myself, I made sure that would never happen, even if I died in the process, the Sanbi would take time to reform and invalidate their plans completely."
Jiraiya sighed as he digested the kids words. He wasn't wrong…
That was the problem though.
For a kid this age to be so willing to throw his life away for the village, it made his guts roil. He was a genin for crying out loud, situations like what he apparently got caught up in, were missions for the likes of himself, or at least Kakashi or something.
Not a fresh little rookie, no matter how big his muscles or his skill with seals. Because that definitely couldn't be denied. It was rough around the edges, that but that was a pretty damn solid Four Symbol Seal the kid had put on himself.
"Things worked out pretty well in the end, despite what I thought though," the kid continue on pulling him from his thoughts, "The Sanbi was grateful enough to work with me straight away to put them down, and with them exhausted and with the Sanbi's power amping me up, I killed them all, took their shit and decided to take these eyes while I was at it, I'm pretty good with the Mystical Palm Jutsu so I figured, best not to let them go to waste, y'know?"
No, not 'y'know'! Jiraiya wanted to scream at the boy. Who the hell trivialized ripping out their own eyes and replacing them with another's, talking about it as if it were only worth a passing mention, like the weather or something.
This kid gave him some serious Orochimaru vibes.
…But at least he could admit they were more of the positive kind. Orochimaru would have never confronted a superior force, exhausted or not and steal their prey right out from under them knowing he'd most likely die in the process just to protect the village.
"This is so absurd." Jiraiya shook his head in disbelief, sitting his ass down on the ledge of the roof they were on.
It was such an utterly crazy, off the walls stupid situation of a story, that there was no way the kid could be making it up.
Like seriously, making chakra weapons to subdue a bijuu, teaming up with a member of the seven ninja swordsman and a guy with an unknown doujutsu he'd never even heard of before….to revive a guy who had been dead for well over fifty years now, hell, the guy was dead before Jiraiya was even born for crying out loud and he was an old fogy himself now!
God, the series of events was literally so stupidly retarded that nobody would tell a story like that with a straight face unless it was true.
…And to make things even more ludicrous, the Sanbi apparently had taken a liking to the kid.
He really needed another drink right about now to digest this shit.
"Team 8 reporting, mission complete Hokage-sama."
Hiruzen wished Kurenai wouldn't be so formal with him all the time. She was a dutiful young lass no doubt, but sometime in the future, there was a good chance of her becoming his daughter in law if the amount of rendezvous she and Asuma had together over the past year since he returned from the Guardian Ninja was anything to go by.
Then again, his days would be much more enjoyable if people in general were a lot less formal around him, sadly, that only applied to boisterous rascals like Naruto-kun.
"Splendid work." he praised the rookie Genin lightly, idly reading over the report Kurenai handed to him of their delivery mission, favouring the three young ninja with a warm smile.
Young Shino inclined his head in acceptance of the praise, while Kiba-kun grinned widely, thumping his nose proudly.
His eyes landed on the Hyuga Heiress and rested on her for a moment. My, how quickly youths could change indeed.
Only a few weeks ago would the timid girl have ducked her head down after meeting his eyes shyly, but now she held his gaze and smiled back politely.
'Daiki-kun's work.' he mused, according to Kakashi at least. Apparently, the young Genin who's ethic had caught his eye recently, had came across her watching over Naruto.
The young girls infatuation with the boy was well known to him, she was always watching the boy and he saw her frequently not far away when he was checking on the boy himself.
The boy had wrought quite the change in the Hyuga girl, it was almost like looking at another girl entirely. While not a tall girl by any stretch, she always seemed so much more tiny with the way she shrunk in on herself and hid away in baggy clothing. Now, her spine was straight, there was some pride to the girl now, he idly wondered what Daiki said to her to bring about a change quite like this.
And that wasn't even going into her physical changes. She'd swapped out her general attire for a new outfit, switching from blue pants to black and replacing her baggy white jacket with a lavender and white zipper.
And in just a few weeks, her hair had grown massively, reaching all the way down to her midback. Not a natural hair growth of course, most likely a salon run by a former shinobi or kunoichi with medic nin training, he knew that the Mystical Palm Jutsu could be used to massively increase the speed at which hair grew at, a few sessions in a salon like that would account for her hair growth.
Just then, there was a puff of smoke beside his arm on the table he was sitting beside, a small green toad appearing from within it, a scroll strapped to his back.
"Eh, a frog!?" young Kiba cried in shock.
"A toad actually," Hiruzen corrected gently, reaching over to pluck the scroll from the toads back, at which point it promptly disappeared, "One of my students summons to be exact."
"A message from Jiraiya-sama?" Kurenai noted.
"Indeed." Hiruzen nodded, unfurling the scroll. He wondered why Jiraiya was sending him a message now, it was only the other day they corresponded on the matter of him coming back to the village.
Naruto had used the Kyuubi's chakra for the first time during Team 7's mission to wave, and his student was a much more able user of Fuinjutsu than him, so he wanted him to check the Eight Trigram Seal and make sure there was no damage to it.
One could never be too careful with the Kyuubi after all.
Quickly, he began glancing over the scroll reading the contents. And his mouth open, eyes widening ever so slightly, only to gradually, bit by bit, get progressively wider.
The Sanbi, a newly discovered doujutsu, a plot against the village, a member of the seven ninja swordsmen of the Mist village, chakra weapons that could rival the weapons of the seven legendary weapons of the Mist.
And in the middle of it all, young Daiki, leaping in to action to protect the village from such a possible threat, in the process, becoming a Jinchuuriki, no, by all accounts a Perfect Jinchuuriki, gaining possession of a new doujutsu and claiming the legendary Kiba Blades for his own, on top of killing not only a known A-rank shinobi, but multiple other powerful shinobi as well, at least all of Chunin rank.
For a moment, Hiruzen felt the urge to laugh, it was quite the tall tale after all.
Except, he never found anything remotely hinting at 'haha, got you good!'
He circulated his chakra through his system quickly, just to make sure there wasn't some form of genjutsu woven into the scroll that caught him without him noticing it upon unrolling it.
But no, it was real.
'To think the Sanbi was so close by with none the wiser.' his thoughts raced. That was a disaster waiting to happen.
And to think, the Village of Artisan nobles had teamed up with a missing ninja to capture it!
'All to revive Seimi.' he grimaced. He himself was a but a young lad when his sensei killed the man, but he well remembered the arrogance and contemptuous ease in which the man ripped the lives of those weaker than him and tormented those he ruled above. He was a tyrant with delusions of grandeur far above his station, and when he set his sights upon the Leaf Village, he and his followers were put down like dogs by the Nidame Hokage.
In of themselves, Raiga Kurosaki and the 'Four Celestials' as they were called by Seimi, were no match for the Leaf, even with this Doujutsu user with them.
Having a Bijuu unleashed within their midst though, which they apparently planned to do after using the Bijuu for all it was worth, was a different matter entirely.
Oh, he was sure they'd be able to suppress the Sanbi, there was no doubt, but even with Kakashi and Danzo backing him up, Hiruzen knew it would not be an easy or quick fight, especially if they weren't expecting it. The loss of life in the village would be massive, the only reason the casualties during the time the Kyuubi got loose from Kushina weren't much larger, was because he got lucky, that was all and was able to push it out of the village.
That same tactic would not work with the Sanbi, not with its massively armoured shell. Far from the strongest of the Bijuu, the Sanbi was nonetheless, the most durable of them all.
It was a scenario he did definitely did not want taking place in the village. And thankfully, apparently according to the efforts of Young Daiki, they wouldn't need to.
…It was a lot to process so suddenly.
"Hokage-sama?" Kurenai's voice broke him from his thoughts.
Hiruzen coughed, "Sorry, you're dismissed, I was caught up thinking," he smiled at the Jonin and her team, "You know how old minds like mine tend to wander." he joked.
She smiled back at him briefly, before bowing her head and escorting her team out.
Hiruzen wasted no time in excusing himself from the mission desk and making his way back to his office.
He ruminated on the last part of the message Jiraiya had sent him.
'The way he's set up the seal is incredibly risky, the Sanbi could leave at any point it wants. Honestly, it should have left right after helping him out, it can't be that grateful, right? Honestly, I've never spoke to any of the Bijuu, the most I know is from Kushina talking about the Kyuubi. But…the kid was happy to explain why, and what a doozy it is. The Sanbi itself feels safer inside the kid. The kid apparently is willing to work with it and that makes a big difference for it, especially with what the Sanbi itself apparently claims, enough to the point where it's willing to lend the kid its full power if he asks for it. The Former Mizukage, he was being controlled, by a man with a Sharingan, claiming to be Madara Uchiha. Bullshit of course, the man is long dead, but, we've got an AWOL Uchiha out there who isn't Itachi Uchiha, cuz' apparently he actually attacked the former Mizukage as well at some point, and this mystery Uchiha has the ability to control a Kage with his eyes alone.'
Hiruzen grimaced.
Madara Uchiha. Someone claiming to be him, with the visual prowess to control a kage, was not someone to be taken lightly. Not at all the real Madara's style, he'd only met the man a few times as a lad himself, but he was aware of what type of person he was, anyone who met the man was.
His wife, dearly departed Biwako had met him as a child herself, and even just the man smiling at her had terrified her to the bone.
'Perhaps a direct descendent?' he thought to himself. Madara spent much time outside the village before he went rogue and had his climactic battle to the end with Hashirama-sama.
The man's disgust for his own clan later was well established as well, so it was unlikely he had any descendants within the village before the Uchiha Massacre.
'How troubling.' Hiruzen entered his office, collapsing on his chair and rubbing his forehead.
Tensions with the Sand were rising every single day and Onoki was always watching and waiting, sitting on that fence of his and prepared to strike if the opportunity presented itself.
And he could never tell what way Kumo would go, but he knew already that they were well prepared should a new war break out.
…Still, it seemed a silver lining had come from the machinations of this mysterious Uchiha.
'Daiki-kun has the full might of a Bijuu behind him.' Hiruzen mused. That...that was splendid news, especially confirmed by Jiraiya. The situation would still bare watching closely, but…
Hiruzen's eyes drifted to the bottom of the scroll where Jiraiya described the rough plan to capture the Sanbi and keep it docile.
…Daiki had both the equipment and the doujutsu now that were used, so if the Sanbi did act up, he should be capable of subduing it on his own quite possibly, especially considering the fact he had apparently gotten good enough already to replicate the seal he'd seen used on the Nanabi Jinchuuriki.
Such stupendous talent for the art. The old man eyes drifted to one of the fou pictures hanging on the wall of his office, one depicting a handsome, blonde haired man, "Perhaps he'll rival you in a few years?" he mused
Daiki had really went beyond the call of duty. And according to Jiraiya, the boy had been prepared to lose his life in the process just to attempt to stop their plans for the Leaf Village. Thankfully, the boy was intelligent and picked his timing well, when his opponents were at their very weakest, putting good use to that ruthless ability he had during combat that Kakashi reported of during his mission towards the Waterfall Village.
His Will of Fire burned brightly indeed.
'Ah Genma-kun, if only you had looked just a bit deeper.' Hiruzen shook his head. Alas, Genma had wanted a full team of his own, not an apprentice, so no matter how young Daiki impressed him with his talent during his test, it was his teammates that became the weights too heavy for his talent alone to carry.
He idly remembered the academy report on the boy. Iruka had personally written his file, noting how the boy was above average in all aspects of being a shinobi, but spread himself too thin, he had been lacking direction as a shinobi and that if he had focused more on one or two aspects of being a shinobi over them all, he would have most likely been a contender for the strongest in his graduating class, and even then, if kept up the rate of growth he was at anyone in all disciplines, he would most likely be a Jonin in all aspects by his early twenties, which in of itself was very impressive.
'Or he could work just that much harder.' Hiruzen mused. After he had a nasty run in with Iwa shinobi on his first C-rank mission and only narrowly avoided losing his life, the boy had thrown himself into his training in a way that would stupefy even Gai.
Draining his chakra to the barest hints left before chakra exhaustion, physically training until his body was numb and his muscles crying for rest. Every single day, only to then increase that training when he got his hands on the Mystical Palm Jutsu and used it to increase the rate at which his physical conditioning progressed.
Looking at the boy objectively, he was by far the most stand out of his generation, even beyond the likes of Sasuke Uchiha and Neji Hyuga. He was strong for his age, dutiful to his training, beyond dutiful, pragmatic, no hesitation in dealing with enemy combatants permanently, had the intelligence to do well in most situations, had no fear to face stronger opponents, was bold, decisive, cunning and cared for his comrades.
Hiruzen had been impressed by his training ethic when he looked in on the boy, Kakashi, putting aside the mans amusement in teasing the boy, had nothing but good things to say about him, and even Jiraiya seemed to be praising the boy as well.
He would definitely go far in the future, that was for sure, 'Perhaps he'll take over for me one day?' Hiruzen mused with a small chuckle.
Give it a few years, the boy may just approach Kakashi's level, perhaps even beyond. And with the full power of a Bijuu behind him…
Well, the boy would not lack for the strength needed for the role. And he had the fire to put his own life on the line to protect the village. All that was truly needed, was to see how well he led others and he could gain that experience as a chunin for sure.
…Yes, that might not be a bad idea. 'I'm not getting any younger after all.' Hiruzen snorted.
It was about time a new candidate for the Godaime stepped up to the plate, the only two on the table right now were Kakashi and Jiraiya after all, and Jiraiya would never accept the role.
And here we are with chapter 14.
We met with a sannin as many guessed we would, but, not the one most of you thought of I'm sure. The dice gods are tricksy bastards like that. Anyway, I've finished up to chapter 23 on the Pa-atreon, would have already started on and probably finished chapter 24...but I took a nasty fall while working out yesterday morning, hurt my back, but more specifically, my tailbone, and I literally couldn't sit down properly till this morning, had to lay face down or on my side all day. Thankfully, I can sit down now without it hurting...to much.
Anyway, again, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.