The roars of a humongous bear shook the air, while two giant wolves howled in defiance, and Daiki sighed.
Typical, just typical.
And Orochimaru was already on the move as well, his attack on team seven commencing.
Daiki watched idly as thousands of feet away, Naruto was blown away from his teammates by a massively powerful squall of wind, sent spiralling through the air, deeper into the forest and was promptly swallowed by a gargantuan snake that would loom over even the one hundred foot bear facing off against the two giant black maned wolves.
…Why did the snake summons have so many huge ass boss sized members?
Daiki shook his head and put team seven out of mind for now, Orochimaru wasn't going to kill them, and he had a little bit of time anyway.
His eyes drifted to the fight going on between three giant forest beasts. The male of the pair rushed the bear from the front, going for its neck, only for the bear to rear up on his hind legs, towering far above the wolf and slamming a razor clawed paw into its cheek that bodily lifted the huge wolf up off the ground and smashed it through a massive tree that was easily a thousand feet tall.
That bear had some serious power to it.
But, the wolves were cunning. Because the frontal attack distracted the bear, long enough for the female wolf to get behind it and sink her fangs into its lower back, where its spine would be.
She was trying to paralyze the bear.
The bear roared and swung around bodily, yet the wolf had latched her teeth into it so tightly that she was bodily picked up and swung around by the bear as it moved.
Realising it couldn't reach her with its arms, the bear thrashed around wildly, trying to dislodge the female wolf, only for the male wolf to come bounding back out of the forest where it had crashed through the massive tree and leap through the air, razor sharp teeth glinting.
The bear roared in pain as the male wolf gnawed into its side. But-
It seemed the bear wasn't stupid either. It gave up trying to dislodge the wolves right then and there before throwing itself back, the female wolf whined in pain as the bear crushed her under its bulk.
Her teeth came free and the bear stood back up and swiped down with both massive paws, grabbing the male wolf by the head and ripping it free from the bears side, blood spurting in great rivets through the air.
The bear lifted the wolf up by the head, both massive paws clasped around its skull and squeezed.
The wolf howled in agony.
It was sad, but tactics, intelligence and superior numbers, couldn't always bridge the gap to allow one to overcome raw unadulterated power.
He could already see how this would go. The bear would crush the skull of the male wolf, killing it, leaving the female alone to fend the bear off, she would by easy pickings one on one, either killed or forced to flee and leaving the pups defenceless either way.
This place was the law of the jungle, honestly, this entire world thrived on that aspect.
It was just how the world worked. Daiki had long since accepted that, and become part of the cycle. It was a dog eat dog world…
…Yet he found himself leaping through the air powered by a shunshin all the same.
He always was a dog lover.
He shot into the air above the bear, before thrusting both hands up above him and firing off a pair of Force Palm Jutsu' from his hands, jettisoning him down through the air like a bullet.
He threw himself into a forward spin, picking up a massive amount of momentum and came down atop the bear's skull with the most powerful knee strike he could muster.
A massive cracking sound resounded through the air and the bear froze, its paws going limp and dropping the male wolf to the ground, it landing on its feet in a daze.
A moment later, the titanic bear teetered on its feet, before collapsing side ways, eyes rolled up into the back of its skull, its sheer bulk making the ground rumble like a mini earthquake went off.
Standing atop the comatose…or possibly dead bear, Daiki met the eyes of the giant male wolf that stared at him wide eyed, shocked.
Joined a moment later by the female, tenderly limping over to her mate and eyeing him warily.
"You're welcome." Daiki told them dryly, eyes glancing up into the tree line where the star team stared down at him absolutely wide eyed.
They promptly turned tail and fled.
Daiki made a shadow clone.
The clone immediately shot off into the tree line after them.
Daiki eyed the pair of wolves, before sitting down on the bear's head cross legged.
Now that he looked at them, these wolves were kind of cool looking. When their pups grew up, they'd be a pack of six huge wolves of this size. Pulling a Kakashi and training these things to be ninken…that would be a hell of a power move.
Especially since with their immense size, they'd be much more combat able, and Pakkun took on Jonin and shit in the other timeline.
He didn't really need them for himself. But they could be a good gift for somebody and be a big help to him later through them becoming stronger.
Who did he know that needed and wanted a summoning contract? Sasuke wouldn't need them, even if he didn't go to Orochimaru, he'd get his hands on the Hawk contract no doubt somehow and the Uchiha had access to the Cat contract as well. Hanabi already had her Tiger….though he made a mental note to hunt down some more for her, get her a whole pack of em.
Hinata then? Or maybe Tenten? Yeah, Tenten wanted a contract didn't she? Heck, he could probably pass the training of them on to her as well, since she had Gai as her sensei and he'd be able to bug Kakashi into telling her how to train them into ninken.
"Hey," Daiki spoke up, making the wolves tense up at his voice, it was kind of amusing. He held his hand up, and brought out one of the blank summoning contracts he'd made through clone labour, "You know, I saved you guys here and now, but there's a bunch of these bears in this forest, what'll happen to you guys if you come across another one I wonder?"
He almost felt like a skeevy car salesman.
While the original Daiki was making a…deal, his clone was in hot pursuit of the star team.
Well, he said pursuit, but, they were much, much slower than him.
So he sped right past them, getting in front of them and cutting them off.
"Hello again." Daiki greeted them with a smile as they froze atop a branch before the one he was currently on, arms crossed and casually leaning against the middle of the tree.
"…How did-?!" the cute girl of the team, Hokuto if he remembered her name right froze and stared wide eyed at him.
"I'm just that much faster than you guys," his smile turned into a grin, "So you guys are from Hoshigakure huh?"
"We are," the short purple haired boy he remembered Naruto meeting as well confirmed, "…And you are Daiki Yurei, right?" he asked, hesitantly.
"Oh, you know of me?" Daiki's eyebrow raised in interest.
"We…overheard the other genin talking about you earlier during the first exam," he grimaced, "…We were hoping to avoid you actually."
"Smart of you." he praised lightly.
And it was of course. The Mysterious Peacock Method was a pretty amazing technique, but it was useless if they couldn't even get it up in time to block any of his attacks or hit him at all.
It was why the grind was the true be all and end all base to all shinobi abilities. Without the physical ability to react in the first place, all jutsu and abilities were useless.
At the end of the day, his eyes, his seals, his armour and all of his jutsu were mere supplementary support for the roaring power of his epic grind enhanced muscles.
"Speak for yourself!" the third of their team, the only only Daiki didn't recognise snarled, "He might be strong compared to others here, but compared to the power of our star chakra that all the villages covet, he's nothing!" he clasped his hands together in a modified seal, index and pinky fingers extended and touching, forming a triangular shape, purple chakra flaring at his back like a powerful flame and-
The un-named star genin gagged, eyes going wide with pain as suddenly, Daiki's fist was buried in his solar plexus.
He contorted around Daiki's fist, before his wide eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he fell unconscious.
Daiki pulled his fist free and let the boy drop to the ground unconscious, before pinning his body under his foot.
It all happened so fast, neither of the other two had a chance to even see him move before the boy was already falling.
"Seiya!" Hokuto gasped, but instead of rushing Daiki, she smartly leaped backwards her hands falling into the same hand seal, while the purple haired boy leapt to Daiki's other side and did the same, enclosing him in from both sides and forcing him to pick a target and go for them while the other could attack from behind.
Daiki didn't bother attacking either of them though, instead, he activated the Infinite Armour on his shoulder and watched with interest as purple star chakra was drawn from the boy's body under his foot up into the mouth of the Isobu head armour.
"…You're absorbing his chakra?" Hokuto gaped at him.
"Something like that," Daiki grinned at her, glancing her way, "Thing is cute stuff, that nobody really covets your little meteor thing, it's interesting and I could make use of your Mysterious Peacock Method and plan to do so, but, it's not all that great considering the drawbacks."
He tilted his head, just in time to avoid a a roaring flaming purple serpent of chakra aiming for the back of his skull.
He of course didn't actually need to do so and was just showing off. He reached out and grabbed the serpent and pulled on it, hearing a yelp behind him.
The purple haired boy who cunningly took advantage of him turning his attention to his female teammate, was pulled bodily through the air, and Daiki spun around, delivering a knee strike to his stomach.
The boy gagged from the blow, but remained conscious surprisingly, he was sturdier than his teammate, or at least had much more pain tolerance.
The follow up elbow to his skull though, smashed the boy into the ground before the chakra on his back could be formed into a shape to counter, and he smashed into the tree branch unconscious, just like his teammate.
A moment later, glowing ethereal purple ropes of chakra launched at him while he was busy with his real target of the three.
Five of them in total, aiming for his legs, arms and neck. As soon as the chakra was about to make contact with him though, the ropes lost form and broke down into raw chakra and was absorbed by his body armour.
He directed the chakra into the Infinite Armour for safe keeping.
"Get away from them!" Hokuto snarled at him.
Daiki looked over his shoulder to see that her star chakra had formed into a winged cloak around her body and she shot towards him, shooting through the air like a bullet using the chakra wings.
She punched out at him as she approached, the chakra coating her fist flaring out into a purple chakra claw, smaller, but akin to the ones he could use in his jinchuuriki cloak.
Which was promptly devoured by the Infinite Armour.
Hokuto's eyes widened and she flipped around just before she reached him, and lashed out with a flying kick aimed for his face.
The Infinite Armour slurped up the chakra around her foot, but it couldn't do anything about the physical kick, packed with quite a bit of momentum from her chakra enhanced flight path.
Huh, she was pretty smart.
It was just too bad for her that he was rather proud of his physical strength.
He caught her kick on his forearms by placing them over one another in a cross block.
The force of her kick still managed to force him back a step, which was good on her though.
Hokuto's eyes widened as he grabbed her foot-
She quickly made that hand seal she and her teammates used to initiate their jutsu and purple chakra formed into ropes on her back a moment later and lashed out at him.
Only to be devoured by his armour.
Then with his grip on her foot, he pulled and spun around, before slamming her into the the heartwood of the tree.
The bark cracked from the force of the slam and Hokuto cried out in pain, before slumping to the branch base he stood on as he let go of her.
"So you're the strongest on this team, huh?" Daiki mused, he hadn't been expecting that.
But then again, one of them was a no name and the other he remembered having his body give out beneath the star chakra training, while Hokuto herself seemed to be going strong.
Either way, he'd seen enough now to get a good feel for how they manipulated their star chakra. He had a good idea how to go about recreating the Mysterious Peacock Method now, once he got around to actually using the chakra himself.
The first was already at the barest amount of chakra left before chakra exhaustion, so Daiki left him and turned his attention to the dull purple haired boy. He had the highest and purest concentration of the star chakra due to it polluting his very body.
"W-wait," Hokuto gasped from behind him, stopping him in his tracks. He looked over at the girl to see her feebly reaching in to her equipment pouch and pulling out a familiar light coloured scroll, "If…if I give you our heaven scroll, will you leave us alone?"
That was the smart move to play right now. Offering him the target of the exam and giving up her teams chance to pass in return for him leaving them alone.
Sadly for her though-
"I've already got what I need to pass," Daiki shrugged, "I targeted you guys specifically because I wanted to get my hands on some of your star chakra, like I said a minute ago, I can make some decent use out of it. But don't worry, I'm not gonna kill you guys or anything like that, honestly, you should be thanking me."
Hokuto gaped at him, "…Thank you…for attacking us?"
"More or less, but more on the side of me saving your teammates life," Daiki grinned at her and reached down, grabbing the purple haired boy by the collar of his jacket and lifting him up, "After all, that special training you guys do around your little meteorite back in your village? It's killing you guys." he revealed, before reaching over with his other hand and pulling up the boys jacket to reveal his lightly muscled, yet rather thin torso, and the deep, purple glowing flame like markings spread all over his stomach and chest.
"What is that?!" the older girl went wide eyed, before biting her lip, coming to a realisation herself, "…Is that…star chakra? It is, isn't it? I can feel it."
"There's a reason your third Hoshikage banned the star training in your village you know," Daiki helpfully informed, "It makes your chakra much stronger and grow rapidly, but, in the process, most of you going through the training will die, these markings on his body? It's chakra poisoning, specifically, a poison known as radiation, the effects of the star seep out of your chakra network into your body and attack your organs, cells and such. Even on the one in a thousand chance you survive the training your life span will be drastically cut short and you could die at any time."
Hokuto stared at him for a moment, before swallowing heavily, "…If it's like that, then why do you want our chakra for yourself?" she questioned.
She was probably looking for any fallacy in his words, a way to deny his words.
He couldn't exactly blame her, after all, he was basically telling her, that their current village leader was putting them through training that would kill most of them.
"Because I'm amazing," Daiki shrugged, "I've developed a special little seal that will filter out the radiation poisoning from the star chakra, purifying it and making it safe for me alone to use."
"…That…" Hokuto bit her lip, shaking her head, "How do you know all this? Why did you make a seal like that for our star chakra? How long have you been planning this?"
Again Daiki shrugged, "Actually, the seal was made for something else, you guys just popped on to my radar when I saw you were here, nothing more, nothing less," he replied, "As for how I know all this? Information is power and let's just say that I've got some very useful spies that report to me all manner of things like this."
"…This isn't fair at all." Hokuto sighed in defeat, slumping against the branch, a bemused smile splaying across her face.
"Life isn't fair." Daiki shrugged and proceeded to drain the chakra from the boy in his grip. He drained the boy right to the point before chakra exhaustion, and he watched as the glowing purple markings from the chakra spreading out through his body, faded away, before letting the boy go and letting him slump to the tree branch again.
"Clearly," she groaned, "…What am I even supposed to do with this?"
"How should I know?" Daiki raised an eyebrow, "It's not really my place to help you."
Hokuto grimaced at his words, before gritting her teeth and forcing herself up on shaky feet, "That seal you have…would it be possible to trade for it?" she asked.
Daiki paused.
Now there was a thought.
He really only planned on using it for himself, but, it could be very useful to have Hoshigakure indebted to him.
They didn't really have anything of worth beyond the star itself though. And if she brought up what he revealed to her, to the people of her village, especially that stand in Hoshikage fuck, she'd most likely be branded a traitor to her village.
…But, if it went that way, he could work with that as well. A whole minor village able to use the Mysterious Peacock Method freely, would be very nice to have to help later on. But, a single kunoichi amped by the full star itself, who was indebted to him, might be even nicer.
"Hmm, how about I give you the seal, and you can show off how it works back at your village?" Daiki mused, "If you're village is interested, they can get in contact with Konoha and we'll work out a trade deal."
Hokuto blinked, "You'd do that?" she asked, surprised.
Daiki shrugged, "Think of it as a little bit of repayment for me getting rough with you guys and taking your chakra." he replied, rather gracefully if he did say so himself.
"Uhhh…okay," the older girl nodded, before smiling brightly, "So then, how do we do this?"
Daiki resisted the urge to smirk, "It'll have to go on your torso, so you'll have to take your top and any underwear you're wearing there off." he replied.
Hokuto's pretty indigo eyes went wide and her cheeks flaming red, "Oh." she uttered, surprised.
There was a smile on the original Daiki's face as he left the newly formed Black Maned Wolf summoning clan to enjoy their massive bear meal together.
It was surprisingly easy to get them to agree to the summoning contract, and now they would become much stronger and smarter in the future because of it and that wasn't taking into account them possibly getting ninken training in the future.
Now, he found himself playing spectator to Sasuke versus Orochimaru. Naruto had already returned, saved them and got his ass beat and was currently hanging like a rubbish bag pinned to a tree.
He blinked, a rush of memories going through his mind suddenly and he groaned, palming his face as blood rushed south. He could see in his minds eye, Hokuto, the cute older brown haired girl, topless, fair skinned, round perky breasts a bit larger than a handful, capped with rosy little nipples, how they felt in his hands as he 'moved' them to apply the chakra filter seal correctly, and the taste of her lips as he stole a cheeky little kiss from her once he finished applying the seal.
….Fucking clones.
Well, at least he had quite a decent amount of star chakra to start with now, and he could definitely understand what his clone planned and passed on to him.
But, he put that out of mind for now, and focused on the fight going on. It was dwindling to an end now.
He watched as Sasuke bound Orochimaru to a massive tree with shuriken and ninja wire held between his teeth and ran through a few hand seals…
This was it.
In less than a minute, Orochimaru would give Sasuke the Cursed Seal. Such a useful thing that he had no chance of recreating on his own, not without Jugo's DNA.
Honestly, the Cursed Seal itself provided a lot of benefits. Not only did it automatically draw in natural energy, allowing it to be passively collected and would allow someone to basically stay in Sage Mode as long as it was active, it also bestowed upon the user a Sage Transformation like Jugo's.
And if Kabuto was anything to go by, both nature chakra style forms, stacked together.
He kind of wanted it himself. The only problem was dealing with that shard of Orochimaru's that was contained within the seal.
'You wouldn't need to worry about that though,' Isobu piped in, 'To do it like that, the soul shard would have to enter your subconscious, which while for some people would be a very big issue, is a moot point for you when I already live in your subconscious. If you want that seal, then get it, I'll destroy the soul shard.'
Daiki froze.
"Are you sure about that?" Daiki asked, voice serious.
…Because if so, that changed, while not everything, a hell of a lot. Shiromari and the Chameleon clan could not teach him senjutsu. It was one of the first thing's he'd asked.
Shiromari himself was capable of using senjutsu, but that had nothing to do with his chameleon clan, and more to do with his father Manda's side, the Snake clan. He did not so much as learn senjutsu, as he survived it and gained access to it, after all, the way one learned senjutsu with the snakes, was not through training or being taught, it was through being bitten, injected with senjutsu….venom itself for a lack of a better term, surviving and adapting.
Shiromari didn't have the slightest idea of how to go about teaching him how to feel nature energy. So, unless he somehow got the Toad's to teach him, learning senjutsu, was all but impossible for him.
But, the Curse Seal drew in nature energy. There was a slight possibility, he could use it, in the place of the toad fountain oil Naruto used, expose it to his body long enough and train to feel the energy itself.
For all intents and purposes, the Curse Seal Of Heaven, would be a stepping stone for him, to create his very own variation of Sage Mode. Not Toad, not Snake and not whatever the hell bullshit Hashirama Senju lucked into.
'You're the one well versed in seals,' Isobu replied, 'You should already know what happens when a living, conscious being is stuck inside a seal on someone. The subconscious acts as a bridge of consciousness for all attached to that body, and from what I gather, this Orochimaru uses to invade the bodies of others, he attacks and wrestles control of their subconscious and from there, subsumes them.'
Daiki nodded along in agreement. That did check out. Maybe if the seal itself wasn't connected to anything, it would be different, but when it was applied to the chakra of the holder itself? The physical and mental spiritual energy of the holder?
It would have a direct link to the subconscious. And made a lot of sense on why Orochimaru wouldn't mark a jinchuuriki like Naruto. To be perfectly honest, if Daiki was in Orochimaru's place, he would have marked Naruto, killed Sasuke, took his eyes, took over Naruto's body and implanted the sharingan in that new body.
The drain from the sharingan, wouldn't be anything of note at that point at all, not in an Uzumaki Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, born to the previous Uzumaki Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and a massively powerful kage father, having been exposed to the chakra of the kyuubi itself since the very second he was conceived.
Really, the only reason Naruto ever got exhausted at all early on, was probably more due to most of his chakra always being used to reinforce the eight trigrams seal itself and him only ever actually having access to a fraction of his total chakra, like twenty percent at best.
Really, if there was any living person who's body he would take, it would be Naruto's.
And Orochimaru wasn't an absolute retard…most of the time. The only reason he wouldn't go for such an absurdly amazing body, would be if it was impossible.
Because Kurama would splatter his little soul shard, he was a pretty possessive guy like that after all, despite his hatred currently of his situation, Naruto was his host, that went to the point where Kurama would refuse to let Naruto have Fukasaku gather nature chakra for him as well. And he did, even at this point, deep down, have a begrudging respect for Naruto.
Because give the guy some credit, despite all the shit he went through with the village, abrasive as he could be, he was a generally nice, compassionate dude and he didn't let himself get weighed down like some whiny little bitch, it didn't matter how many times his face was forced into the dirt, how many times he was kicked down and mocked, he always got the fuck back up.
Daiki had to respect grit like that at the very least.
Sasuke, in contrast, really wasn't anything all that special, not without taking into account him being a transmigration of Indra. As far as talent and ability went, compared to Madara, Itachi, Shisui, hell even Itachi's cute girlfriend Izumi who'd had her sharingan since birth and was a taijutsu prodigy that would make Gai weep in awe….Sasuke really just didn't compare.
Naruto himself even was much more of a prodigy than Sasuke in Daiki's opinion, if that dude had someone willing to teach him from the get go, the kid would have long since surpassed Kakashi even at this point. Sasuke after all, grew up with a father who while distant, did actually teach him, and Itachi, while busy a lot, did teach Sasuke as well. That, and the fact that teachers in the academy positively mooned after the guy and all ignored Naruto, even Iruka initially for the first few months he taught the class….showed how untalented Sasuke actually was.
Ironically, pure talent wise, Naruto was more like Indra and Sasuke more like Ashura. It was just the situation around the pair that made it seem like it was actually the other way around.
Daiki slapped his cheeks, 'I'm getting off topic.' he scolded himself, before shooting into the tree's in a blur of speed.
He'd wasted a whole two seconds on that thought tangent. He really needed to work on his inner monologue's.
'You do seem to like the sound of your own voice and reinforcing how you see the world to yourself. I'd say it was an identity issue, but let me be honest, you're just a bit of a narcissist.' Isobu added his two cents.
….He was actually quite okay with that.
'Better a narcissist than someone who lacked belief in himself.' Daiki replied, drawing lightly on Isobu's chakra, just enough to change his eyes and not draw on a cloak of chakra.
Despite how little it was in contrast to the full thing, his speed increased noticeably, as if he was using the body flicker to speed up.
There was about two miles of distance between him and his targets when he started moving.
At his full current speed, he crossed that distance in less than ten seconds, even without a straight path to follow.
Orochimaru, gave him plenty of time to arrive. The man had far too much fun 'playing' with his prey.
The sannin himself, so invested in his target, and with Daiki hiding his chakra using his eyes, didn't notice him arriving at all.
"-Sense power in your eyes that surpasses even Itachi's," a silky, siblant yet soft spoken voice echoed powerfully through the forest, "My name, is Orochimaru, if you wish to see me again and gain true power, then survive and pass this exam, Sasuke-kun!"
Daiki's eyes landed on his own target as he spoke, the face he wore, half melted, displaying slitted yellow snake-like eyes and a chalk white pale face.
Orochimaru formed a one handed ram seal, and opened his mouth, his fang-like teeth growing noticeably, before his neck stretched and launched through the air so fast, Daiki wouldn't have even been able to track without the Shinkugan and Isobu's chakra enhancing him.
Good thing, Daiki was already preparing, spreading his chakra out and running through a few hand seals.
The instant his neck reached Sasuke and his teeth were about to make contact, there was a puff of smoke, and in Sasuke's place, was Daiki.
A sharp pain lanced up through his neck, while Orochimaru blinked in confusion for all of a microsecond, before his eyes widened in shock.
The confusion lasted long enough for Daiki to elbow the man in the face, dislodging his teeth from his neck.
"You!" Orochimaru hissed, before his eyes seemingly widened even further, to the point where they looked like they would pop right out of his socket, "Rinnegan!?"
"Daiki!" he heard Sasuke shout as well, and saw his friend staring down at him from his previous position on a branch fifty feet up, sharingan eyes wide in shock.
Daiki would have loved to to smirk and give him some cocky line, but he couldn't.
Because that was when, he felt it. He felt the seal form on his neck and something spread out through his body, into his coils, and felt as his chakra coils were forced to take it in, felt as they were stretched out…wider in a sense to accommodate, growing, strengthening.
'...Oh, I forgot something.' he realised in that moment.
He'd forgotten just how much pain the seal itself caused when it formed.
Daiki hunched, bent over and roared as liquid pain, like lava coursing through his veins assaulted his senses.
'INSTANT REGRET!'
Isobu rolled his singular eye as his jinchuuriki screamed bloody murder in his head, keyword being inside, he was putting up a tough face and just making roaring shouting angry sounds on the outside.
That cool, composed 'badass' look he projected all the time to the other humans, had to be the biggest lie of the century. He was a complete idiot, of the highest order.
But he was an amusing idiot, and…that idiot, despite all his boasting and continuously growing arrogance, was his idiot friend.
It had been a long, long time since he'd had a friend. In fact, had he ever had a pure friend? Even his caretakers tasked to watch over him as a youngling, more treated him with awe and careful respect because of his father. And even his siblings weren't the most…affectionate.
…If Isobu had his way, he'd take the fact he actually deep down liked Daiki calling him 'Isobro' to the grave.
And he couldn't say, that Daiki didn't make life amusing as the very least.
"I suppose I should do my part then, hmm?" the turtle bijuu mused lightly to himself, his eye landing on a small blurry humanoid figure forming bit by bit within Daiki's subconscious.
It hadn't been hard to track it down. After all, its chakra was more than enough to stand out when the other other chakra within here was his own and Daiki's.
"Sorry, but this is a one room apartment, and I like my space." Isobu imparted on the fragment of Orochimaru, before bringing one of his shelled fists up into the air and bringing it down.
He crushed the fragment of Orochimaru, and forced his own chakra into it, breaking it down, he heard a scream of agony come from it, but ignored it, this man wasn't exactly deserving of pity or mercy.
He seared the fragments consciousness and body out of existence, breaking it down into pure chakra, before diverting it into Daiki's own chakra coils.
It was a pittance compared to his own chakra capacity, but it would give a decent boost to Daiki's own capacity as it was currently.
The pain was almost all consuming, and he felt his consciousness begin to grow hazy, his coils felt like they were about to burst.
He was dimly aware of a shout of worry and then a hand on his shoulder-
"You! What the hell did you do to Daiki!?"
That sounded like Sasuke.
"…No…no, that is not the Rinnegan, it is close, but a slight difference, and why can I not sense his chakra!…No, it is not important, ringer indeed though," Orochimaru's siblant voice distracted echoed, before: "Kuku, that is my gift meant for you Sasuke-kun, it seems your young friend tried to come to your rescue thinking it a threat to you, but no matter, I have enough stored still to form another, stand still now won't you?"
"Like hell!" Sasuke snarled, "Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jut-gah!" the Uchiha gagged in pain.
"You are fast and skilled Sasuke-kun, but you are not ready for this stage yet, the same stage your brother stands on." Orochimaru's voice floated through his ears.
Then…the haze on his consciousness suddenly disappeared and his eyes snapped wide open.
The pain was still there, oh god fuck was it still there, but there was also a rushing sensation, almost like pleasure.
It was power.
His chakra coils and capacity erupted in size and scale, and he felt like, he'd almost doubled in overall capacity.
And that was before a new sensation, spread out from his neck and encompassing his entire body, his chakra exploded out of his tenketsu in a spiralling raging cloak of power that turned the very air into a vibrating maelstrom.
There was one off thing about it though. His chakra, it was dark blue in colour usually…but not now. Now, it had changed.
A deep, royal purple with ebony black embers spread throughout it.
Daiki felt…amazing.
He felt strong like this, incredibly strong. The power it gave him, was almost akin to one of the tails of Isobo's full on cloak form.
'So this is the Cursed Seal of Heaven.' Daiki clenched his fist, before whipping his head around, banishing any stray thoughts immediately.
Orochimaru pulled his fangs from Sasuke's neck, allowing the boy to drop to his knees in scream in agony as the seal seared itself into his chakra network, just like Daiki before him.
Damn, he was too busy recovering to stop that.
"Oi, snake man." Daiki grunted.
"…How peculiar," Orochimaru took his attention off of Sasuke and eyed Daiki, "I cannot feel the connection to the seal on your neck, and you are using the power of it already? My, how interesting, how did you do it I wonder? Those eyes of yours perhaps?." his yellow eyes glinted with curiosity.
"Wrong." Daiki snorted, then moved.
He disappeared in a blur of speed, and Orochimaru's eyes widened slightly in shock, the pale man leaning back just in time for Daiki's knee to spear through the air where his face was previously.
Daiki thrust his hand out, a quick Force Palm Jutsu turning shooting him down onto the branch the man was standing on and avoiding the counter kick the man retaliated with.
A sweep was stepped over, but Daiki spun through it, launching himself into a roundhouse that the man couldn't simply dodge with being so close and the sheer speed he was moving at.
Orochimaru blocked the blow with a forearm, but the force of it sent him skidding back.
"…This is not the speed and strength of a genin, no, this isn't even that of a typical Jonin!" the man hissed in surprise.
His surprise and curiosity left him completely open for the clone that burst out of the tree line behind him, bringing one of the sparking kiba blades down through his head, cleaving him down the middle.
His body burst into mud.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu and my, are those the kiba blades? Where did you get your hands on those I wonder, child?" Orochimaru hummed from above.
His clone gave a yank on the handle of the blades, and they separated from his hands into the air, spinning like buzzsaws and generating a massive amount of lightning chakra and spread it to the clone as he ran through handseals.
At the same time, Daiki ran through his own.
He was going big with this one.
As one, they both snapped around to look up at Orochimaru.
"Ice Style: Twin Black Dragon Blizzard!"
"Lightning Style: Electromagnetic Murder!"
Drawing on the chakra armour over his torso, Daiki punched out both fists, and from them, a pair of massive serpentine black dragons with glowing red eyes erupted, shooting through the air at Orochimaru.
A split moment later, his clone thrust his palms out, unleashing a massive wave of crackling electricity, far bigger than he could generate on his own, encasing the pair of ice dragons in the current of electrical charge.
Orochimaru, a testament to his status as a sannin, leaped back blindingly fast and with a shocking distance.
Daiki didn't bother directing the dragons to chase him.
They slammed into the place where he stood previously, before erupting, exploding outwards into a truly massive hurricane of icy black, tearing trees decades old and thousands of feet high up from their roots and sending them flying through the air as if they weighed that of a feather.
The expansion and size of the jutsu was so large, it spread out and subsumed Orochimaru before the man could react himself.
Daiki would have got caught up in it as well….if he didn't cut his losses and run.
Using all his newfound speed, he had moved and retreated, and now found himself a good mile away, watching his jutsu roar toweringly high into the air.
His clone landed beside him a split moment later, Naruto and Sasuke over his shoulders, while he had Sakura under his arm.
"…Daiki…what…how?" Sakura sputtered, green eyes staring at him wide, awed, even a bit horrified.
In the very centre, at the eye of the tornado, Orochimaru lay limp, his body sizzling, smoking and charcoaled, yet at the same time, frosted over.
For all intents and purposes, he was dead. Not even he, a legendary sannin could take such an epically powerful jutsu and come out unscathed.
Yet-
The body of the snake sannin twitched, before its mouth opened and spread wide, and another Orochimaru pulled himself free, soaked to the bone, but otherwise fine.
"…If I wasn't quick there with the replacement, I may very well have taken some rather gruesome injuries." the snake sannin mused to himself, idly eyeing his shedded skin.
Those injuries would not have killed him, and his healing ability was such that he would have recovered from them…
But-
"…What an incredible jutsu." Orochimaru licked his lips, "An ice style dragon variation? Two at that, used in a combination lightning jutsu amplified by the Kiba Blades, kukuku, a ringer indeed Sarutobi-sensei."
His old sensei was up to his old tricks, sending a little monster like that into the Chunin Exams.
And that was without taking into account the most interesting aspect of the boy. Those eyes, they were red initially, some form of doujutsu Kabuto had informed him before, but then…those purple rings surrounding them, they looked just like the Rinnegan.
"Perhaps a precursor?" he mused in thought.
Like the Sharingan came before the Mangekyou Sharingan, possibly?
'If so, it makes sense how he cut the connection, Pein has a jutsu to absorb the very soul of a target through touch, it would make sense for the eyes that evolve into the Rinnegan itself to have access to such a jutsu.' he thought.
How fascinating. Disappointing in a way that his jutsu would be useless for taking such a body because of it, but fascinating nonetheless.
"…Gaara will not be enough for dealing with this one." Orochimaru crossed his arms.
He would need to be dealt with some other way.
Perhaps Kimmimaro-kun would be able to keep the boy busy? It would no doubt cost the leader of his Sound Five his life even if he did manage to win.
But…such was life.
He paused as he felt a familiar chakra rushing his way, a smile blooming across his cheeks.
"Kukukuku," Orochimaru chuckled to himself, "Well, a teacher always has time for his first student, no Anko-chan?"
He had enough time to see how his old apprentice was doing these days he supposed.
And that's us back again with chapter 23.
So quite a few things went down this chapter. Daiki made a wolf summoning contract, stole some star chakra, plotted out to get a star powered minion, possible minions and then stole the Cursed Seal of Heaven for himself thanks to Isobu, in the process gaining Orochimaru's interest and well leading the snake sannin's thoughts in some interesting directions. Actions have consequences Daik-kun kukukukuku.
Still only on chapter 31 on the Pa-atreon right now, writing was slow going this week cuz of looking after my nephew, and worked on the Jordinio Version chapter over the past few days. He left last night, which free'd up today, which I used to work on the next Stacking The Deck chapter, which is up there as well and will be uploaded here in a few days.
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.