"Well look who it is, Mr. knight in shining armour himself," Kakashi looked up from his book as Daiki approached him and his team, "Did your fair maiden give you a reward smooch?"
Yes actually.
A very nice one to be honest.
Chaste as it was.
Not that Daiki was going to mention that when Sakura was standing right there, her head turning away from looking down at Sasuke to him when Kakashi spoke.
"Just because you're a virgin Kakashi, doesn't mean you get to live vicariously through me." Daiki responded idly.
He was really only half paying attention to Kakashi.
The rest of his attention was focused on the arena below. Specifically on the black haired Uchiha that had paused upon his return to the massive room and looked up at him, staring him straight in the eye.
They held eye contact for a few moments, before Sasuke smirked and turned away facing his opponent, Shino.
"Hmm, you can cut the tension with a knife," Kakashi commented with a giggle, "Something you want to share with the class Daiki-kun~?"
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura cried out, aghast.
Daiki took his attention off of Sasuke and turned to look at Kakashi, he was going to give him a whopper of a glare.
But he could only muster a deadpan stare when he saw Sakura's face was bright red and wearing a warped smile, green eyes glinting with interest as she looked between him and her teammate down below.
'…..' Daiki sighed internally.
He forgot she was actually a total closet pervert and was into that kind of thing, or so Naruto's reverse harem jutsu from the other timeline had him believe.
"…I don't get it." Naruto added, eyes narrowed into thin slits and face scrunched up in thought, making him look a bit like a fox.
"There's nothing to get." Daiki assured him with a wave of his hand, "Kakashi is just a sad sack who's been dateless for so long that he's seeing things."
"Now that's just hurtful," Kakashi shrugged, eye smiling all the way, "But I'll have you know I see plenty of women."
"Name one." Daiki snorted.
"Your mother." Kakashi's grin was so broad it was visible through his mask.
"Kakashi-sensei, you can't say that!" Sakura gaped at the man, head whipping around to stare at the man in shock.
"I just did, tee-hee." the man giggled, unashamedly.
"My mother's dead you know, has been for over a decade," Daiki shook his head, the implication not even fazing him, "That says a lot about you, that your go to is banging a corpse."
"I'm a man of cultured tastes," Kakashi shrugged his words off again, "Unlike a child like yourself."
"More like a man of small ability," Daiki emphasised the word 'ability' and gave a roll of his eyes, if he wanted to play it like this, he could do it too, "The only way for you to get to a girls heart is with that Chidori of yours."
Kakashi twitched, though it was so quick and so small, Daiki doubted Sakura or Naruto picked up on it, "You're one ruthless kid, you know that?" he shook his head.
"You started it." Daiki rolled his shoulders and smirk.
"I suppose I did," Kakashi nodded, "Fair enough."
And that was that.
"I…don't have any idea what's going on." Naruto was looking even more lost.
Sakura nodded right alongside him, "I don't get it either," the pink haired girl admitted and gave them both an odd glance, "Why were you insulting each other like that? And bringing up someone's dead mother is just mean Kakashi-sensei, especially like that."
"Mmm," Naruto nodded, "Daiki's a cocky dick but you don't just say that to somebody Kakashi-sensei!"
"It's nothing personal, kind of," Kakashi chuckled, "I'm just doing my civic duty to deflate the ego of one of our up and coming valued shinobi before it gets him killed."
"I just have fun taking the piss out of this guy," Daiki crossed his arms and nodded his head in agreement with the man, "Besides, we'd be pretty shitty shinobi if insulting a dead loved one was enough to make us lose our cool."
"True, true," Kakashi nodded, "For a hormonal cocky little brat you have a remarkable control of your temper, most in the same situation as you family wise, would have flown off the handle at something like that."
Yes well, he was long since accustomed to 'yo mama' jokes and insults, anyone who spent any time on the internet needed some thick skin unless they only frequented hug box safe spaces.
Naruto grimaced noticeably and opened his mouth to respond, but the whiskered blonde was cut off by Hayate.
"Shino Aburame vs Sasuke Uchiha, begin!" the proctor called out.
As soon as the fight began, both fighters moved in the exact same direction. Sasuke exploded forward, chakra pushing from his feet to give him an accelerated boost and rushed towards Shino in a blur of speed.
Hmm, Sasuke had learned that little trick as well? 'Well, not like he can copy my jutsu, so it's no wonder he doesn't know the body flicker yet.' Daiki mused.
Sasuke could copy his taijutsu techniques, but he couldn't copy his Ninjutsu. The way the Sharingan worked, was that it imitated those in the vision of it perfectly and ingrained that in the users memory with perfect recollection, akin to photographic memory.
The problem in this case was that, thanks to the Shinkugan, he could wholly mask his chakra from even the Sharingan and as such, Sasuke was unable to copy any of the jutsu he used when they sparred.
As Sasuke rushed him, Shino fled in the same direction, backpedalling backwards rapidly to get distance, though noticeably much slower than Sasuke.
The sunglasses wearing Aburame lifted his hands up, jacket sleeves spread wide open and a pair of hazy black clouds erupted from his sleeves, each swelling to larger than an adult man and shooting through the air towards Sasuke.
Though these clouds were not made of vapour or smoke. But rather, tiny buzzing chakra absorbing insects.
Instead of retreating or even pausing to make sense of what was heading his way, Sasuke pushed off up into the air, rocketing up far above Shino and ran through a blurring set of hand seals, before cupping a hand around his mouth and exhaling.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
Sasuke spat out a massive fireball, easily larger than three men put together and Daiki had to withhold a whistle. It was easily the biggest fireball he'd seen Sasuke fire off.
'His chakra capacity has increased noticeably after being exposed to the Cursed Seal, just like yours did initially.' Isobu commented.
Hmm, true, that did make sense.
Not only was the fireball big, but it was fast as well. Shino had no choice but to cut off his backpedalling and rushing to the side, fleeing the attack that slammed into his previous position and exploded against the tiled floor into a wave of flames that washed outwards in all directions.
Shino had to jump a split moment later to dodge that secondary effect. Leaving him in mid-air.
If only for a moment.
A moment Sasuke took advantage of.
The Uchiha had already landed and shot towards him, flicking his wrist and sending a bevvy of shuriken spiralling through the air towards the bug user, the Uchiha didn't even seem winded from his fireball jutsu.
'By my estimates, his chakra capacity is currently around what yours was when we first met.' Isobu added.
…That wasn't bad at all. If he remembered right, when they first met, his chakra capacity was approaching fifty thousand and was in the Jonin tier.
Shino drew a kunai in the blink of an eye and parried the shuriken coming his way, diverting them from slicing into his body.
But it kept his attention busy for a split few milliseconds, which were precious when it came to ninja on ninja combat, even academy brats barely out of their toddler years could outpace a sports car back from the other world after all.
And Sasuke was far faster than one of them. Faster now even than he originally would have been.
And Shino didn't seem to have changed at all.
In parrying the shuriken, Shino lost sight of Sasuke, though Daiki did not. The Uchiha circled around in a blur, getting around the bug user as he turned, right in time for Sasuke to spring forward launching a high kick that caught the bug user under the chin.
'Hoh?' Daiki's eyebrow rose in interest as Shino rocketed up into the fair from the force of the blow, laying prone and airborne up above.
And Sasuke used that chance to push up off of the leg he'd sprung off of to kick Shino and shoot up into the air after him.
"That's-!" he heard Lee shout in shock.
Yep, Shadow Of The Dancing Leaf. Though, imperfect by the looks of it.
It did get him into Shino's blind spot though.
And Sasuke took supreme advantage of that, hooking a leg around Shino's waist from behind and spinning them both around before lashing out with an elbow that caught Shino in the throat as he tried to retaliate with the kunai in his hand.
The bug user choked and Sasuke took his chance to launch into a barrage of revolving kicks all over Shino's body on the way down, before finishing with a hand stand atop the other boys head and driving a double mule kick straight into his torso, smashing him into the ground.
Shino didn't stand a chance.
Sasuke sprung off of their former classmate's head and landed lightly on his feet, dusting off his hands and looking away from the prone boy.
Instead of paying attention to Shino whom he'd just defeated, the boy looked at up Daiki and smirked at him.
He could practically feel the smug confidence radiating off the boy and he understood exactly what he was saying even without words.
'You're next.'
Nobody said a thing for a few moments, until a good five or so seconds passed without any motion from Shino.
After all, the chance was there that the boy had switched out with a bug clone. Though of course he hadn't. That was why Sasuke wasn't paying attention to the boy, he would have noticed thanks to his Sharingan if he had.
They weren't shadow clones after all.
"Winner, Sasuke Uchiha!" Hayate declared then.
"Yeah, way to go Sasuke-kun!" Sakura whooped, cheering him on.
"Damn, that bastard looked way cooler out there than me, keh!" Naruto crossed his arms and complained.
Though there was a smile on his face even as he complained.
With his win announced, Sasuke smugly walked his way over to the stairs and up to the railing above instead of just jumping up at a leisurely pace while the medics came in to take Shino away.
As that happened, Hayate looked to the huge electronic screen at the end of the room just as it lit up again and landed on two familiar names.
Kankuro vs Hinata Hyuga.
…Huh.
Well that was an interesting change as well.
"Looks like the quiet girl is up, Hibaba right?" Sasuke noted as he approached, smirk still plastered over his face.
"Hinata." Daiki absently corrected him, his eyes were on the midnight blue haired girl, so very different from the one who would originally fight in this place against her cousin.
Kankuro had a huge smirk of his own on his face as he swaggered down, supremely confident.
Hinata though, walked at a measured pace, face blank and head held high. If it was the her from before, she'd be shrinking away from all the eyes on her.
"That's what I said," Sasuke shrugged and stood beside him, leaning on the railing, "Looks like she's up against that loser from the sand as well, he wasn't that impressive when we ran into him, let's see if this girl has actually become worth anything, I'll be disappointed if she loses pathetically after training with you."
"You will?" Daiki raised an eyebrow, he didn't think Sasuke had all that of an interest in her.
"In you," Sasuke's smirk grew, "If she can't even beat this clown, your teaching abilities are obviously subpar and you'll never make it as a jonin sensei in the future."
"Who said anything about me wanting to be a sensei?" Daiki raised an eyebrow, actually confused.
"Weren't you bragging about your little apprentice to me before, Hitati or something?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow right back at him.
"Hanabi." Daiki corrected him on reflex.
"Same difference." Sasuke shrugged.
Daiki gave him a deadpan stare, before making a single hand seal while Sasuke leaned against the metal railing, arms spread out confidently, he must have thought he looked cool like that.
And would no doubt have been the epitome of casual uncaring badassery, if not for the doodles that popped up on his face, moustache, glasses, inky dick, jizz and all.
Naruto erupted into laughter.
"The heck are you laughing about?" Sasuke looked to Naruto, his second eyebrow joining the second.
Naruto only laughed harder.
Kakashi tittered.
"Um..Sasuke-kun, what happened to your face?" Sakura tentatively brought up.
Sasuke blinked, "…My face?" he asked, lost.
In response, the pink haired girl swallowed, before reaching into her equipment pouch and bringing out a small hand mirror.
And held it up for Sasuke to see his face in.
Sasuke stared blankly at his doodled reflection.
And stared.
He kept that up for a good five seconds before his onyx black eyes swirled, burning into a crimson red with two rapidly rotating tomoe in each eye.
His head mechanically turned Daiki and he gave him a bloody red glare.
"…You!" he accused.
"That's a good look for you," Daiki smirked at him, "Dickhead."
Sasuke's eyebrows twitched and a vein throbbed on his forehead, "I'll kill you for this." he vowed.
"Then you woke up with your face in your cereal bowl." Daiki taunted.
"I swear I'm going to avenge myself on you for this." Sasuke promised, fists clenching together over the railing, tight enough he could hear the metal groaning.
"I'm not into dudes, sorry buddy." Daiki shot back.
Forget his cute little apprentices name would he?
"You will suffer the wrath of an Uchiha for this!"
"I hear they make a cream for that now."
"WRATH NOT RASH YOU PRICK!"
That day, everyone gathered got to the see rare sight of Sasuke Uchiha completely losing his cool.
"To be fair Susuki, it's not nice to forget peoples names like that." Kakashi happily piped in.
And then promptly had to duck as Sasuke launched a punch at his face, tittering all the way.
All the while Naruto just laughed and laughed. The whiskered blonde laughed until tears came to his eyes, and he collapsed on his backside holding his stomach from the sheer hilarity he felt.
The commotion they were making drew quite a few disgruntled or angry looks. Specifically from the sand team….even more specifically, Temari was giving him the evil eye once again.
Not that he was all that bothered with it. Or anyone giving him any angry looks for that matter.
Still, Hayate gave them a pointed look, their shenanigans were causing enough of a ruckus that it was holding up the next match.
So Daiki being the ever generous lad he was, sealed away the doodles once more.
It didn't stop Sasuke from glaring at him though.
"Hate you," he said, leaning over the railing, facing down at the arena below, but his attention was on him, eyes glaring through his peripherals, "Hate you so much."
"You know, they say there's a fine line between love and hate," Kakashi hummed and Daiki resisted the urge to snort as Sasuke wrinkled his nose in disgust, "Still, fun as this is, what brings you to our little corner of the railing?"
"We're standing right in the middle of it," Daiki deadpanned only for Kakashi to shrug, "I'm here for my payment, remember?"
"Oh, is that so?" Kakshi mused, before reaching into his pouch and pulling out a rolled up scroll and tossing it Daiki's way, "There you go."
"Wait, what payment, what's in the scroll?" Naruto asked as Daiki caught it.
"Training methods for training dogs." The tan genin shrugged, slipping it into his own pouch.
That just seemed to confuse Naruto and he wasn't alone, "Why?" Sakura asked, eyebrows raised and giving him an odd look, "I don't think how much of a dog you are factors into this kind of thing."
Sasuke snorted a smirk spreading across his face at Sakura's little dig at him.
"Woof woof." Daiki replied.
Sakura gave him a dry look.
His attention was taken by the two who had made their way downstairs while their little commotion was going on.
Specifically, his eyes were on the midnight blue haired girl, so different from her previous self who stood opposite Kankuro.
"Oh great," Kankuro huffed, "Not only do I need to fight a brat, but a little girl at that." he commented, arms crossed casually.
Hinata didn't respond at all to his words, instead she ignored him entirely and looked over her shoulder, her pale white eyes locking with Daiki's own.
Kankuro audibly growled at being ignored, as if slighted.
That was a good move on her part, both Kankuro and Temari were all up on their high horse over Konoha right now and looked down on them as if they were lesser just because they weren't struggling financially like the sand village.
Though he bet Hinata wasn't at all thinking of that.
She smiled lightly his way and he smiled back, before giving her a wink and a nod.
She had this.
Her smile twitched up a bit more, before she turned back to face her puppet using opponent.
The white eyed girl slid one foot back, both arms coming up, one slightly above the other fingers pointed outwards, the beginning stance of the Gentle Fist.
"Tch." Kankuro clicked his tongue.
Hayate looked between both of them, making sure they were both ready before lifting his hand and bringing it down, "Begin!" he declared.
As soon as declared the beginning of the match, Hinata's chakra pulsed, "Byakugan!" she voiced and he saw the tell-tale veins pulsing around her eyes before she promptly pushed off, rushing towards Kankuro who stayed standing still.
A smirk played across Kankuro's face as she rapidly approached him. Only, instead of attacking him straight out, Hinata jumped, flipping over his body and landing behind him before launching a rapid two fingered strike towards the bandaged object on his back.
'Heh, that little hiding trick is useless against the Byakugan.' Daiki smirked.
There was a grunt of pain as she made contact, before a puff of smoke overcame the bandaged object and suddenly in its place was Kankuro.
Only, not quite, Hinata's fingers smashed right through with shattering sound and Kankuro's visage fell away to show the bland pale dull eyed expression of a puppet beneath.
Behind the puppet, the bandaged object unveiled and Kankuro jumped out gaining distance, one hand clutching at his shoulder where Hinata's two fingers had impacted initially.
"…How did you know I was there?" the older boy grimaced and demanded.
"It was a very convincing disguise," Hinata commented as she spun on her foot and lashed out with a roundhouse kick that caught the puppet, Crow in the neck and decapitated it as well sending both head and body bouncing away, "But my Byakugan can see through solid objects." she added and rushed forward towards him.
"Is that right?" Kankuro ground his teeth and began backpedalling rapidly trying to gain distance.
The fingers of his free hand twitched, chakra strings in full view for Daiki thanks to his eyes and he saw the puppet Crow that had hit the ground, split apart into several different pitches, before blades erupted from the split ends of its parts and shot towards Hinata from behind.
He was intending to skewer her from behind while she rushed him.
Not that it would work.
Hinata tilted her head, letting one of the bladed parts shoot by her head then lashed out with a quick chop of two fingers, chakra coating the digits.
She severed the chakra string controlling it easily.
"What the hell!?" Kankuro gaped, eyes wide with shock.
Despite his shock, he wasn't idle though and let go of his shoulder and with both hands now controlled the puppet parts, each spreading out and shooting at Hinata from all angles like bullets.
She was forced to stop her pursuit of the older boy and spin out of the way of one, ducking under another, jumping the next. It almost looked like she was dancing as she wove between each of the bladed puppet parts without ever taking her gaze off of Kankuro.
"How the hell are you doing this!?" the boy grunted out in frustration.
Chakra ignited around Hinata's fingers as she got her timing down and she moved in a spiralling spinning blur, lashing out with both arms and slicing through the chakra strings of a puppet part each time she dodged.
Upon the last one, she swept her foot around to bring her back around to face Kankuro and pushed off, rushing towards him, "To quote a boy I know," Hinata replied, "Fuck you, that's how."
Kankuro wasn't a physical specialist, so despite Hinata not being the fastest out there of the Konoha genin, she was still faster than him and now with his ace in the hole taken care of, she had no reason from hesitating in rushing him.
"Bitch!" Kankuro spat.
Literally.
Just as she was upon him, he spat out a few senbon, each point dipped in a liquid substance at point blank range.
Too bad for him though.
Hinata ducked, skidding underneath them, feet grinding against the ground with chakra, "You are within my range." the girl declared.
He could see them clearly with his Shinkugan.
As could Hinata with her Byakugan.
"Two palms," Hinata declared softly as one palm smacked into his solar plexus, while the other caught him in the chin, before she spun again and smacked his shoulders with two strikes and continued on, "Four Palms, Eight Palms, Sixteen Palms, Eight Trigrams Thirty Two Palms!" Hinata's hands were a blur of motion as she struck Kankuro all over his body.
The last palm strike smashing into the core of his stomach and bodily lifting him up and sending him flying back a few feet to smash into the wall, where he promptly slumped to the ground unconscious.
'Hoh?' Daiki's eyebrows rose in interest.
That was new.
She could already use the thirty two palms? From what he remembered, Hinata didn't actually learn that before until the time skip.
She hadn't even shown that off while training with him. A recent thing, or was it something she wanted to surprise others with.
It wasn't quite the Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms or the Eight Trigrams One Hundred And Twenty Eight Palms that Neji could use already around this time, but it was progress nonetheless. Pretty good progress at that. The difference between the her of now and the her of the other timeline, was like that of night and day.
Unlike Sasuke, Hinata didn't take her eyes off of Kankuro, just in case he managed to get up, she stayed in her stance, ready to keep on attacking in case he made any move.
"Hinata Hyuga is the winner!" Hayate declared after a few seconds of the puppet user remaining limp on the ground.
Only then, after being declared the winner did Hinata relax, sliding out of her stance and letting out a noticeable sigh of relief.
"…When did Hinata get so strong?" Sakura commented.
"You can thank this idiot for that," Sasuke snorted, jabbing a thumb at Daiki, "She's been training with this doof almost as much as me."
Sakura blinked before looking at Daiki and her gaze turned dry, "…That makes sense, Hinata is cute…especially with that longer hair, and I remember someone going on about how he liked longer hair as well." the pink haired kunoichi commented.
Her gaze flickered down to her hands where the seals he placed on her for his jutsu was.
"Well, the results speak for themselves." he shrugged, before looking to his side, specifically where Team Gai was.
Lee was clapping happily, as was Gai.
His attention though was drawn to the other male member of their team.
Neji had his hands gripped around the railing so hard Daiki wouldn't be surprised if the metal was warped and he was visibly gritting his teeth angrily.
Dude needed to take a chill pill man.
'…That could be a problem though, Neji is pretty strong and a great ally to have, but with this, Naruto isn't exactly gonna get the motivation to kick his ass and remove that huge stick from it.' he mused.
…So would he have to take care of that then? But, Naruto's message had a much bigger impact because of how much of a failure Naruto himself was considered.
Despite never actually being one, just poorly trained and ignorant.
Well, it would be something he needed to look into at least.
His eyes drifted from Neji to Hinata who was making her way back up after being declared the winner.
Her eyes were on him as well.
He flashed her a thumbs up and and a nod. He could of course talk to her in her head thanks to his eyes and the jutsu he learned from Fu, but he was leaving it for now.
Better to congratulate her in private.
She smiled brightly at him, cheeks darkening a bit as she made her way back to her team.
Heh, guess not all of that shyness of hers had been dealt with. It was cute though when it wasn't her main trait.
He looked away as she reached her team and was congratulated by Kurenai and Shino, Kiba still being in the infirmary.
And he was just in time to see the huge electronic board light up once again and rapidly cycle through names before landing on two of the four left ready to fight.
Sakura Haruno Vs Neji Hyuga.
Huh.
'Well, she's fucked.' Daiki mused.
Then again, better Neji than Gaara. But, she would have been better off getting Lee. Lee while vastly stronger, would at least not hurt her too badly and would go easy on her, giving her the chance at least to display her skills.
…Wait.
Lee.
Lee and Gaara were the only two who hadn't fought yet. 'I guess some things are written in the stars.' he mused.
That could either be really good or really bad. 'If things go the way they did in the other timeline, then I should get ready to step in.'
Sure, Lee had a whole character growth thing with his broken limbs and risking his life in his operation and Gai showed how amazing of a sensei he was, for Lee at least, willing to die with him if it failed.
'But just in case things do go wrong, I'd rather have Gai around.' he thought.
If it came to it, he'd heal Lee's legs himself using life force, but, he'd really rather not waste any after emptying his reserves as he did before.
Yo, been a while huh, sorry, been kinda busy and gave my focus to some other things. Plus, I've been playing the Runescape Fresh Worlds, been a while since I actually played a game and got invested, so I've been having some fun in it.
Not a whole lot actually happened this chapter. As always, the Chunin Exams just drags on, but thankfully, it will end soon, well it's already ended in the chapters I've wrote ahead, but it will soon end in here, by chapter 40 if I remember right. Anyway, we got some banter and character interaction, Sasuke versus Shino and the big baby, Hinata versus Kankuro where she showed off how much she has improved through Daiki's influence. And of course, there's the next round reveal, Sakura versus Neji and that Lee vs Gaara is coming up hot right after.
Believe it or not, but that actually was what happened when I used a random number generator to decide the fights.
We're currently up to chapter 43 on the Pa-atreon if any of you guys want to read ahead, only a couple updates since the last time I uploaded here, which by the way was wrong, I'd hit three instead of 2, it was chapter 42 and we're actually now on chapter 43. I'd be further ahead, but I focused a bit on some other things the past couple weeks, like a few Jordinio Version updates since it had been a while.
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.