She was using chakra strings.
Not just a few, but literal hundreds of them at once. Daiki could see each and every single one of them spreading out from Tenten's fingertips, branching out like a glowing spider web.
Chakra strings varied. For instance, Kankuro, needed to use a full hand to use just a single puppet, but controlling one puppet, was vastly harder than just controlling the movement of a single weapon.
While Tenten was using a vast amount of chakra strings, not a single one even came close to a fraction of the control of a true puppet user.
She didn't need that kind of ability for controlling weapons though, which was why she was currently able to use so many.
'But when did Tenten get so good with chakra strings?' Daiki wondered, even as Temari sent out a quick burst of wind to blow the weapons away and immediately backpedalled, getting distance as Tenten landed and whipped her hands again, sending the weapons back after her before they even hit the ground.
Was it because of him helping her with her chakra control? That was the only difference with her that came to mind here.
…And beyond that.
'That's some amount of chakra she's using.' he whistled lightly. Out of all the genin gathered here, beyond himself, Naruto and Gaara, Tenten definitely had the most chakra.
Actually, she probably had more chakra than Kurenai if he wasn't wrong.
Temari was a flurry of movement, ducking beneath her fan as a shield, spinning and unleashing burst of wind and on the retreat constantly.
Sweat was already beginning to pool on her forehead and the blondes eyes were beginning to shine with panic.
The constant harrowing of the weapons and their speed, left her little time at all to use a powerful enough jutsu to regain the advantage.
And in fact, if she didn't have such a powerful wind chakra metal weapon to rely on, and had to use hand seals for her jutsu like most, she would have already lost.
It wasn't Temari's skill here that was letting her keep up, it was her weapon.
It just went to show, in a battle between equals, it would be those with the better equipment that had the advantage.
Still, it had become more of a battle of attrition.
Would Temari be able to defend long enough for Tenten to run out of chakra?
That question was answered only partially.
Tenten faltered for just a moment, the sheer amount of chakra she was using visible to him in how quite a few of her chakra strings flickered out, the weapons at the end of them clattering to the ground.
And it was enough for Temari to gain a foothold.
She slammed the butt of her fan into the ground, "Wind Style: Protective Wind Barrier!"
A churning barrier of wind erupted from the ground and formed a spherical barrier around the blonde, bouncing away the weapons Tenten continued on with.
The barrier flickered away almost immediately after.
"This is it!" Tenten declared, drawing her hands up and thrusting them down, sending all the weapons, still hundreds strong towards the blonde.
The blonde who had used the split few moments of being protected by her wind barrier to raise her fan up above her hand.
"Yeah it is!" the blonde agreed, "Wind Style: Great Task Of The Dragon!"
A powerful gale wind sparked into existence up above, and a moment later, a huge, massive even, glowing green tornado of wind erupted and roared down like a churning dragon.
Just before the weapons would have gave Temari the same outfit as a hedgehog, the massive wind jutsu shot down, enveloping the bun haired girl and almost immediately, the chakra strings flickered out and the weapons clattered to the ground uselessly.
He heard Tenten scream in pain only for a moment, before her voice was drowned out by the roaring hurricane.
'That's some jutsu.' Daiki grimaced, definitely an A-rank jutsu if he wasn't wrong.
Though even with her fan enhancing her ability and making wind jutsu cost much less chakra to use.
Temari could only hold it up for a short period of time.
The blonde slumped to her knees, panting deeply, exhaustion etched on her face as she leaned against her fan.
And a split moment later the huge hurricane flickered and died away. And Tenten came into view, her eyes shut and body filled with bleeding lacerations from where the wind jutsu had sliced into her body all over.
She hit the ground a moment later with an audible thump, completely unconscious.
While Temari panted deeply in exhaustion and kept a keen eye on her downed opponent, Tenten didn't even twitch.
She was so still, Daiki might have feared that jutsu had killed her, if not for the fact he could still see her breathing, see straight through her chest to her heart and see it still pumping, if slowly.
'For an A-rank jutsu in scope, the damage it dealt wasn't all that special.' Daiki noted. Even with the wind chakra metal boosting her abilities, it seemed Temari still couldn't use that jutsu fully.
"Tenten is unable to continue, Temari is the winner." Hayate announced after a few moments of Tenten remaining still.
That was his cue.
"Tenten-san!" Lee vaulted over the railing down to the arena before and sprinted rapidly towards his downed teammate.
He was still wearing his weights though.
So before he even made it half way to her, Daiki had already rushed passed him and scooped the older girl up into his arms.
"Daiki-san?" Lee skidded to a halt, blinking at him in surprise.
"I've got her, don't worry." He nodded to the older boy.
"…Okay?" the bowl haired shinobi looked a little lost.
Better him than the medic ninja on staff really. If any complications came about, he could provide way better healing than them.
And he definitely wasn't gonna let Tenten die.
He made a single hand seal even with the girl in his arms, a swirl of leaves forming around his body as he disappeared with a shunshin.
As he did though, he noticed Temari's eyes narrowing at him, or perhaps the girl in his arms?
Instead of heading to the infirmary, where the medic ninja on staff would be around, Daiki instead headed for his provided bedroom.
The furniture had been returned to their previous location in the room now that he wasn't going to be stuck in there any longer, so he lay Tenten down the middle bed.
"Now let's see." Daiki mused, looking the girl over. Her body was filled with lacerations, and a lot of her clothing had been shredded, blood oozing out of the tears.
First of all, it was best to get a proper look.
So Daiki made a single hand seal, a green aura forming over his hands as he used the Mystical Palm Jutsu and began examining the girls body internally.
"Hmm." he hummed.
The Mystical Palm Jutsu was perhaps his most used jutsu beyond the Shadow Clone Jutsu, he was very much experienced with it.
So it didn't take long at all for him to examine the older girls internal body and feel out her injuries.
It wasn't too bad.
Beyond the lacerations on her skin, she had some internal bleeding to go along with it in her stomach and her ribs were broken, her left femur was heavily bruised and her left shoulder was cracked.
Pretty bad, for a normal ninja at least, but nothing he couldn't heal up with his medical jutsu within a few hours.
This was a good chance to experiment with something though.
He focused on the seal upon his neck, drawing on the powerful combined chakra within that grew ever so slightly as time passed on.
As he did, he focused the chakra into his eyes, his scarlet red eyes shining with a red glow that lit up the room, the energy shifted into pure life force and he directed it into the green healing aura of chakra around his hands.
Almost immediately, it shifted into a bright and warm glowing silvery white energy and he spread the energy over the older girls body, expanding it until it looked like she was wrapped within a protective cocoon of energy.
Almost immediately, the gashes and lacerations along her body began to close up before his eyes and with the Mystical Palm Jutsu, he could feel in real time as her internal injuries and injured bones began to mend as well.
In just thirty seconds, he was done. And all of Tenten's injuries were healed as if they were never there to begin with.
…Well, the dried blood and shredded clothing spoke for themselves though.
"Not bad." Daiki grinned, dispelling his jutsu and wiping the sweat that had formed on his forehead from concentration.
Experiment success, though he figured it would go that way anyway. Converting the energy of gelel, star chakra and natural energy into a healing jutsu with his eyes, amplified the healing abilities of the Mystical Palm Jutsu massively. And it only took a small spark of that energy within his seal.
He could probably restore lost limbs with this kind of jutsu, 'Hmm, it's not really the Mystical Palm Jutsu either at this point.' he mused.
Well it was, only amplified. Kind of like the Sage Arts.
Shinkugan Style: Mystical Palm Jutsu.
Maybe?
Or maybe just Mythical Palm Jutsu?
If he was Minato Namikaze, he'd probably name it something like 'The Mystical Mythical Resurrection Life Revitalizing Palm Of The Immortal Starry Scarlet Turtle Heavens Jutsu.'
…Now he was half tempted to go with that absurd name just to see peoples reactions when he called the name of it out.
A groan coming from the bun haired girl on the bed beside him drew him from his thoughts and he looked down to see her eyelids fluttering open as she woke.
"Ugh…" she groaned, before blinking and looking at him, "..Daiki?"
"Have a nice rest, sleeping beauty?" he teased, "Feeling alright?"
For a second she just stared at him, before frowning and giving a disappointed sigh, "…So I lost then?" she asked, shoulders slumping in defeat.
"More or less," Daiki shrugged, "It was pretty close though."
Her frown deepened, "It sure doesn't feel like it, she coulda blown me away with that stupidly huge wind jutsu at the end there at any time," Tenten clenched her fists and pushed herself up into a sitting position, "It was all I could do to press her there at the end a bit."
"And you almost won because of it," Daiki pointed out, "I was impressed with the chakra strings by the way, when did you learn to do that?"
She shrugged, "I've been working on chakra strings for a good year now, though I'm not all that good with them, even tried my hand at using puppets once but I can only control one even with all my fingers," Tenten replied, "After my training with you, my chakra control got way better and I figured using them like this I could make up for a lack of quality with quantity…but well you see where that got me." she sighed.
"There's no shame in losing to Temari you know," he assured her, "She's a year older than you and is the oldest kid of the Kazekage, on top of that she could only use her wind jutsu like she did because her weapon is a pretty high grade wind chakra metal. Plus, wind jutsu is one of the worst match ups for you." hell, she did far better than her other self had at least.
Tenten snorted, "A loss is a loss Daiki, the excuses pretty it up, but I still got my ass kicked," she shrugged, "Though, you seem to know a lot about her, something you'd like to tell me?" she arched a brow at him and gave him a dry gaze.
"She confronted me over making fun of her brothers and village." he admitted.
"Uh-hu," Tenten's arched eyebrow seemed to pierce into him, "And you flirted with her." she accused.
…Smartly on her part.
"Maybe," he shrugged, "Though in my defence, she confronted me before you got to the tower."
The bun haired girl sighed, "I'm really gonna need to muzzle you, maybe get you spayed while I'm at it," Tenten shook her head, "So, how long have I been out? Did I miss the end of the prelims?"
"Nah, it's only been about ten minutes at most," Daiki replied, "I just brought you back here to my room instead of the infirmary to heal you up quick and personally make sure you didn't suffer much."
"Oh," she blinked blankly for a moment, before a small smile formed on her lips, "Thanks I guess, though shouldn't you be keeping an eye on everyone to know what you'll be up against in the third exam."
"Nah," he waved her off, "I already know what everyone taking part in the exam is capable of and there's nobody here that can beat me."
She snorted, "I hope that arrogance bites you in the ass someday."
"It'll break its teeth trying." he smirked.
Tenten shook her head, "So not cute Daiki," she replied, before sighing and leaning back into the pillow, her arm coming up to cover her eyes, "…It's frustrating." she admitted.
Daiki was savvy enough to know she wasn't talking about his cocky arrogance.
…This time.
"Losing?" he asked, getting to the root of the issue.
"Failing to keep up," she replied, "I've always been way below Neji, but even Lee's leaving me in the dust, Gai-sensei has even been teaching him a super special jutsu lately. I train every day, I study my butt off, I collect every type of weapon I can find and learn how to use every single one…but, normal stuff like this can't keep up with a Hyuga genius or the things Gai-sensei is teaching Lee."
Hmm, did she know it was the eight gates or not? Daiki assumed she did, after all, to use the the Lotus, Lee had to open the first gate, and he wasn't shy in using it last he remembered.
"They're not that special," he assured her, "There's a limit to how far the Byakugan and Gentle Fist can go alone and Neji's approaching it rapidly and the gates are full of drawbacks that Lee is incapable of getting around."
The best Lee could do, was train his body and adapt as best he could to handle the strain. He wasn't like Daiki or even Naruto who had innate healing abilities that would massively lessen the strain on them from the Eight Gates.
"You even know about the gates huh?" Tenten mused, biting her lip, "When you come away with stuff like that so casually, it almost makes me believe your boasting about being as strong as you say you are."
"I'm being truthful, it's not my fault if nobody believes me until they get my foot up their asses," Daiki shrugged, "I suppose seeing is believing, so you can watch me kick everybody's asses in the third round."
For a moment, she was silent.
Then she lifted her arm from her eyes and looked up at him, her eyes slightly red and puffy. It looked like she had been on the verge of crying in sheer frustration.
'It's understandable, young as she may be, she has put a not inconsiderable amount of time of her life into training to become strong,' Isobu mused, 'You are anomaly as far as gaining strength as a human goes, you're a freak really with your obsession with grinding, but on top of that, you're a freak who cheats. Someone like her who has no special teacher or the opportunities you have, will find it a struggle to progress after reaching a point.'
A cheating freak, huh? Well, he wasn't wrong, but still, hurtful.
Still, he did have a point. Tenten had quite large chakra reserves and she was very, very skilled at what she did.
But skill only went so far in the face of raw unadulterated power.
"Can…can you help me get stronger?" Tenten asked.
He blinked.
Huh.
"Okay." Daiki agreed with a shrug.
Tenten stared at him, "…Just like that?" she asked, looking quite lost.
"Just like that." he nodded. While he was going to be pursuing a possible relationship with this girl and as such it would be in his best interests to make sure she didn't kick the bucket on missions, there was also something else.
Tenten had trained with more or less, every type of weapon, to the point where she was basically a master of almost every type of weapon, or at least every type of general weapon shape. On top of that, she in the future would have went on to be able to use the tools of the Sage of Six Paths, be better with them even than the Gold and Silver brothers, or Darui.
The skill was there, the potential was there and the drive was there. If he helped power her up, she would be a great help in the future.
Honestly, out of all the Konoha twelve as they were called in the other timeline, besides Naruto and Sasuke, Tenten was probably the easiest of them all for him to help reach S-class tier.
Especially with what he had sitting in his Dimension Force Seal gathering dust.
Well not really since there wasn't any dust in there, but the point remained.
"…I kind of expected to have to plead with you a bit or something, maybe bribe you." Tenten pointed out slowly.
"I mean, you still can it might make me help you even more," he pointed out with a grin, "I'm partial to-"
"Lap dances, I know," she cut him off giving him a dry look, "You're an idiot, you know that?"
"I know you are but what am I?" Daiki retorted, grin widening at his epic retort.
She rolled her eyes and sat up, and then surprised him by promptly standing up, only to sit right down atop him, straddling his thighs, wrapping her arms around his neck, "Still an idiot." Tenten replied, before leaning forward and pressing her lips against his.
It wasn't some epic passionate kiss, and more really just a chaste press of her lips against his for a few seconds before pulling back and pressing her forehead against his gently, staring into his eyes, "Still, thank you." she said gratefully.
"Jumping the gun a bit, aren't you?" he chuckled, wrapping his arms around her waist, "You don't even know if my training help will be all that good." he pointed out.
"That wasn't for the training help, that was just me marking my territory," Tenten snorted, "You've got too many girls hounding after you."
"…Since when?" his forehead wrinkled in thought. At most he'd flirted a bit with Sakura and Ino, but they were still solidly into Sasuke, feelings didn't change that easily. Temari thinking he was hot, didn't mean she had feelings for him either.
Well he did have that little heart to heart with Sakura he supposed and she was receptive to his flirting and seemed to have opened her eyes a bit. But that didn't really change anything at the moment.
And it wasn't like she knew anything about his arrangement with Anko. Which, now that he thought about, probably wouldn't go anywhere since Tenten was all but saying she wanted to date him right now.
He was a lot of things. Many of them bad, such as an asshole, a prick, a serial killer, a thief, a bastard, devilishly handsome…
But he wouldn't cheat on someone.
Unless they were cunts.
'Well, that sucks, guess I won't be riding Anko like a pony, but oh well.' he withheld a sigh of disappointment.
Well not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
"How do you flirt so easily and so much, yet still be such a dunce about this kind of thing?" Tenten arched an eyebrow at him, deadpan look in her eyes.
"I'm a genius, what can I say?" Daiki shrugged and unwound his arms from the older girls waist, holding one arm up, "But since you're big on marking your territory apparently, these will probably fit you best." he focused on the Dimension Force Seal and pulled one of the summoning contracts out of it, the huge scroll appearing atop his palm a moment later.
"What's that?" Tenten looked up, confused.
"A summoning contract I made," he replied, "For a pack of giant black maned wolves, they're big and will get tougher and smarter thanks to the contract, though they need training, so that'll be up to you."
"Umm, what?" Tenten stared at him blankly, "How the heck am I supposed to train giant wolves?"
"Kakashi owes me instructions on training ninken, so I'll give them to you," Daiki replied, "I'll give you or show you everything you need to do to become super strong, the actual training will still be up to you though."
He couldn't hold her hand through it, not when he still had a ton of shit and training of his own to go through.
"Oh," Tenten blinked, "Wait, you're just giving me what amounts to being able to make my own summoning clan, training and all? Like, how'd you even make a summoning contract anyway?"
"Cuz I'm awesome, like I keep saying," he shrugged, "And yeah. A lot of what I'll help you out with will have to wait until after these prelims though and during the month leading up to the third exam."
"What do you mean a month leading up to the third exam? Won't it just be right after the prelims like the others?" she asked.
"Nah, there'll be a month break before it to give everyone a chance to train more and show off to those coming to watch." he replied.
"…That makes sense going by what the Hokage said," Tenten nodded, "But, how do you know that?"
"Cuz I'm the next Hokage." Daiki smirked.
Tenten rolled her eyes, "If you didn't want to tell me, you could have just said it was a secret. Like anyone will believe that." she snorted.
Why was it nobody ever believed him when he told the truth so blatantly?
She unwound her arms from his neck and stood up, accepting the scroll from him, "Still, thanks for this." she smiled down at him, summoning scroll in her arms.
"Don't mention it," he waved her off, "Just call me Sugar Daddy Daiki." he winked at her.
"You have some weird fetishes you know that?" she replied blandly, "First there was that simpering personality you had me put on, then the lap dance obsession and now this?"
It sure was lonely being a genius. nobody understood his greatness but himself.
A few minutes later, Daiki with a whistle on his lips leisurely strolled back through the halls of the tower and back to where the prelims were taking place.
When he entered, it was just in time to hear:
"The next round will be Shino Aburame versus Sasuke Uchiha." Hayate announced.
Huh, neat, he got back in time to see Sasuke fight.
He noticed though as he jumped back up to the balcony above, that the room was a bit less full than it was before.
He couldn't see Kiba, Choji or that stretchy dude from Kabuto's team. He passed by Team Ten on his way over to Team Seven and couldn't even give Ino a wink as he went passed.
…His attention was drawn to Shikamaru.
The shirtless Shikamaru who's bare torso was littered with claw marks, "Have a wild night buddy?" he asked with a grin.
Shikamaru just gave him a bland look, "That would have probably be even more troublesome," he replied, "No, I just fought Kiba, him and his puppy were a massive drag to take down."
Huh, he beat Kiba?
Interesting, Daiki would have pegged Kiba to be the one to win a match up between those two in an area like this.
"Where's Choji?" he asked.
"He fought before Shikamaru," Ino shrugged, drawing his attention to her, "He fought against that Kabuto guys teammate, a total freak by the way who could stretch like he was made of rubber and he choked Choji out. I can't believe Shikamaru is the only one of us to pass this stupid exam."
Well, that answered that.
"You sure took your sweet time coming back kid," he was distracted by Asuma-sensei speaking up before he could respond to Ino, "And after rushing off with Gai's little girl too, something you want to admit?"
There was a grin on the bearded mans face, a teasing one at that. He seemed to be rather amused.
"Yeah actually, fess up!" Ino pointed out at him, "Is there something going on with you and that girl?"
Daiki grinned at her, "That's for me to know," he replied, before leaning forward, "And you to dot dot dot." he flicked her on the nose before turning away, continuing on to Team Seven.
He heard Ino growl behind him and his grin widened.
"Tenten's fine." he assured Lee and Gai as he passed them as well, before they could ask.
"So hip and cool!" he heard Lee say behind him.
And here we are back again, this time with the big three eee eee seven eee...heeh heeh? Moon slide my friends, all the way.
And so the fight between Tenten and Temari comes to an end. Despite Tenten's jump forward thanks to her increased chakra control, she still lost in the end. Temari is just a really bad match up for her and Temari is skilled, strong herself, intelligent and older and more experienced than Tenten. From there we got a little one on one time between Daiki and Tenten, things progressing a bit for them and while they were making googly eyes at each other and exchanging profound discussion about the holy lap dance, some people got clapped off screen so we could speed things up a bit. What you mean I'm a lazy hack? That is slanderous...though not untrue.
Anyway, sorry for the delay on this chapter guys. Time just got away from me over the past two weeks, when I thought only a couple days had passed, it had been over a week. There was a lot of drama involved with my little brother dying. Though he was put to test today and cremated. So, with it more or less behind me now, things should start to pick up again. Also on this matter, I want to thank you guys that reached out to me to offer your support and condolences, it means a lot and all your kind words were well received.
We're currently up to chapter 43 on the Pa-atreon if any of you guys want to read ahead. I'd usually add a joke or something here, probably, well, less a joke, more stupidity that was the hollow frame and shell of a joke, but you get the idea. Though, after the heavier shit up top, probably wouldn't fit.
Anyway, 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.