Systematic Shinobi - Chapter 9.1 (Patreon)

Consciousness came back to Daiki slowly, with a rousing pain that made him just want to go back to the darkness and not feel anything anymore.

Every breath he took, no matter how shallow, sent sharp spikes of pain echoing through him.

For a few moments, he just lay where he was, staring up at what appeared to be an oval shaped, glowing green ceiling.

…What?

'Did Kakashi come save me and take care of it all or something?' he wondered briefly, in a daze. Surely, he would have acted after seeing Sasuke take that hit he did?

Ignoring the pain that made him want to curl up into a ball and forgot the world existed, Daiki grit his teeth and forced himself to sit up.

And blinked.

…He was in a completely sealed off, oval shaped room, almost egg-like even.

And he wasn't alone.

There was a girl sitting over beside one of the walls, peering out from a small hole in it. A familiar girl. Petite, with tan skin, darker than his own, athletically built and short exotic mint green hair, her outfit consisted of a short sleeveless white midriff shirt with fishnet armour underneath, long white armlets, and fishnet shorts with a short white apron skirt over it, while a blue clothed headband was tied around the bicep of her left arm, depicting the symbol Takigakure.

She turned just then and looked at him, apparently feeling some form of movement behind her and stared at him blankly, orange eyes blinking owlishly before a wide grin spread across her face, "Hey, you're finally awake!" Fu cheered.

Huh.

That voice. That was the one he heard before he passed out.

Fu saved him?

"Dunno if you should be up and about actually, you took a hell of a beating from that dick Suien," she ploughed on when he didn't respond, "But hey, you were kicking major ass out there, you and your pal wiped out those Rain ninja easily, and even those two annoying ones, you did them in good!"

"…Where..!" Daiki began to ask, before coughing, a splatter of blood leaving his broken nose and pain erupting from his ribs.

"Eesh, wish I knew some healing jutsu right about now," Fu winced, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly, "Well, take it easy, you're safe for now, this is my cocoon jutsu we're inside, as long as we're in here, that guy won't be able to sense us."

Oh…that was good.

And bad.

Because that meant, Kakashi hadn't come in and mopped the main villain up like he was supposed to.

'Was I wrong? Did he actually just leave Naruto and Sasuke unguarded?' Daiki had to resist the urge to swallow heavily, lest his ribs throb in agony again.

It was already taking all he had to keep his thoughts centred.

Actually, now that he thought about it. Didn't Kakashi only learn about the Akatsuki, after the Chunin Exams, from Jiraiya?

And there was no way Kakashi could have predicted something like this happening. Like, who would? He only left them to clean up some trash before heading home, who would expect them to get drawn into an attack on an entire shinobi village?

'Focus.' he told himself, and looked Fu in the eyes, "Cocoon..?" he made a show of looking thoughtful, "Does that make you….the Nanabi Jinchuuriki?" it was blunt, and not skirting the edges at all, but he really didn't have the time to dance around this topic right now.

…He'd not been taking this seriously at all, he'd let the idea of Kakashi as a safety blanket make him complacent, arrogant in his assured survival.

Fu froze, "Ah….you know about that?" the mint haired girl swallowed heavily herself, "..Is that, eh, gonna be a problem?" she looked almost like a deer staring into headlights.

Why would she lock up like that just from as-

Oh right…Jinchuuriki were usually hated by those around them, because people were idiots.

God, what a waste. If people trained Jinchuuriki in the grind properly, they'd all be absolute beasts when it came to combat by time they were in their tweens.

Just look at how fast he was progressing with a bootleg healing factor using the Mystical Palm Jutsu!

"No, nothing like that," Daiki slowly shook his head and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and not a pained grimace, "Honestly, wish I was jinchuuriki right about now, that healing factor you guys have would be amazing for me at the moment. I'm all for Team Bijuu right now."

Fu just stared at him for a moment, before giggling, "It is pretty helpful now and then," she nodded, "Though, not that the Nanabi shares much with me, besides these." suddenly, a pair of insectoid wings emerged from her lower back and flapped rapidly, lifting her up to her feet.

"Useful," he noted, before what she said caught on fully, "Wait, does that mean you can't use a chakra cloak?"

"Not yet, the bug refuses to let me do it, doesn't like fighting," Fu shrugged, "Says I should just run away and not risk getting killed."

"I mean…as far as pragmatic survival goes, its probably right," Daiki sighed. But that was also bad, because, having her able to even use the initial form, not even pulling on the tailed cloaks, would be a massive help, "Erm, how strong are you? How do you measure up to that guy who beat my shit in?"

"Suien?" Fu tilted her head before grinning proudly, and for a moment, hope surged in him, "I don't even come close! I'd be lucky to last fifteen seconds against him one on one if he was serious!"

….Fuck.

But then, what was he expecting? Waterfall wasn't exactly known for their powerful Jinchuuriki, or well, powerful anything. Waterfall was basically treated as a joke, and only really got any recognition because it sat on the border between the Land of Fire and Earth, and worked as a stop gap if those rock fetishists tried to invade Fire Country.

They were more of an overly large outpost than a real ninja village to be honest, their population was less than two thousand.

"Well, ten seconds would still be a big help I guess," Daiki tried to be hopeful, "Actually, do you know what happened to my friends?"

Fu winced, "Ah, yeah about that…" she trailed off before pointing at the hole that she was peering out of before, "You might wanna take a look."

He had a feeling he was not going to like this. Ignoring his body protesting even the slightest movements, Daiki dragged himself over to the edge of the glowing green cocoon room and peered out of the hole.

He found, that they were apparently, very high up in the massive tree he'd saw earlier, hidden amongst the thick greenery of the leaves and had a good vantage point directly downwards.

He saw the problem immediately.

One, Sasuke was beaten quite badly and hanging, tied up from a large red tori gate. While to the side, a huge rectangular barrier of some kind, with large earth stakes on each corner, held tens of dozens, no rather, multiple hundreds of people all tied up and squished together in there.

A flash of pink caught his eyes, and he saw, at the very front of the barrier, was Sakura, tied up alongside Shizuku and the little boy who's name he hadn't caught that was with them, her mother, laying tied up and unconscious next to them.

Fucking hell.

'Seriously Sakura?' Daiki resisted the urge to groan. He hadn't put much thought into leaving her behind, because they'd killed all the shinobi bar the cackling idiot before heading off.

Yet…she'd still somehow managed to get herself captured?

Fuck, just fuck.

At least Naruto and Shibuki seemed to be still free out there. If he remembered right, they should be somewhere within the same vicinity as them, in amongst this tree.

Though, considering the sheer size of it, that wasn't saying much.

His eyes drifted to directly outside the barrier, at the front, where a familiar man sat on a rock, arms crossed, wild spiky black hair with a bandana over it.

The fuck head who beat the shit out of him. His vague memories of the movie, told him, that barrier thing was totally new.

And somehow, he seemed far more powerful than he was in the movie, even without the Hero's Water. There was no way Naruto even with the initial chakra cloak could beat this guy.

He doubted he'd even be able to with the full one-tail cloak actually.

Daiki grimaced, turning away from the hole and slowly bringing his hands up. It was painstaking, both literally and figuratively in the scope of speed he could make one single hand seal.

"Yeah, luckily he hasn't killed your friends," Fu pointed out optimistically as green chakra blossomed out of his hands, "Unluckily, he's holding them hostage to get Shibuki to come out and give him the Hero Water, at which point, he'll drink it, get way stronger and slaughter us all anyway."

Daiki seriously wished he never agreed to come on this missions. 'B-rank mission my ass!' he pressed his hands to his chest, and spread the healing chakra of his jutsu through into his ribs, and directed the rest through his arms.

He didn't have enough in the tank to heal himself fully, especially if he still wanted to be able to fight.

But, as long as he could at least move without being in pain and get some speed back in his arms, he could do….something.

"So, healing jutsu huh? You're pretty good!" Fu praised him, "I had trouble with those two with the whips earlier, but you took them out in less than a minute, so you're strong on top of being able to heal. Konoha ninja are something else!

"I'm just built different," Daiki couldn't resist the urge to brag a little bit to the pretty girl with him, "So, while I'm healing myself a bit, have you got any plans for dealing with that guy?"

"Not really," she gave him a sheepish smile, "I've really not got anything with the fire power to bring him down, I have one that could startle him a bit though and give you an opening."

Alright, he could work with that.

"That'll do," Daiki nodded, "Keep him in place for a couple seconds and I'll hit him with my strongest jutsu."

Jonin or not, he wasn't going to be shaking off a B-rank lightning jutsu without being fucked up.

"Gotcha!" Fu grinned happily, "I'll lay him up, you knock him down….you?" she started strong, before trailing off as she realized, she didn't know his name.

"Daiki." he introduced himself.

"Daiki, great name!" she beamed, "And I'm Fu, pleased to meet-cha!"

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Like all great plans, they one they came up with just a few minutes ago and were preparing to put in place, didn't survive contact with the enemy.

Or rather, it didn't even get to come into contact with the enemy at all.

"Shibuki!" Suien's voice roared loudly, followed by a sharp, feminine squeal of pain, "I'm tired of waiting you little coward, bring out the Hero Water now! For every minute you don't, I'll be killing one of these pieces of trash I've caught, starting with this little bitch!"

Daiki cut off the flow of green chakra he was spreading through himself and looked through the hole to get a look, and his eyes widened.

The feminine squeal…it had been Shizuku.

"Ah, that guy!" Fu's face pressed against his as she leaned over his shoulder and stared through it with him, her petite, soft chest pressing into his back, yet he couldn't enjoy it at all, "He's really rotten to the core! Threatening civilians, kids at that!"

Daiki grimaced, hands clenched into fists.

If only he his arms hadn't been fucked up earlier, they could have acted sooner. Now, if they put their plan in motion, Shizuku would be swept up in his jutsu and die in agony.

…It may have been hypocritical of him, since he planned on taking the eyes of another child, but, he couldn't find it in him to be pragmatic enough to reap the life of that little girl who affectionately called him 'Nii-chan' and who chose him first out of everyone else to seek comfort in when she was scared.

"What should we do?" Fu asked, grimacing.

He barely even noticed the feeling of her warm cheek rubbing against his to be honest. His mind was rushing a mile a minute, no a second.

He had three options here.

1. Let this guy kill Shizuku and others, use the time to heal himself a bit more to make sure he was in as best condition as he could be.

2. Take advantage right now with his hands full and put the plan into motion, with his hands full, he'd be even harder pressed to react at all.

3. Waste their plan and save Shizuku instead of killing him when they had the chance.

'Fuck it, I'm no little bitch!' Daiki growled, forcing himself to his feet. He'd already died once, or twice actually. He wasn't afraid to go for round three with the Shinigami! It was all or nothing.

Even if he went out here and now, he was going to at least make sure he saved Shizuku and make that fucker work for it.

And if he was really lucky, the rage over his death would let Fu or Naruto rage mode into their chakra cloaks and they could tear him apart.

"Open it up, let's do it." he ordered Fu, already beginning to focus his chakra.

Fu stared at him for a moment, before standing up beside him from where she remained kneeling at the hole, and smiling brightly at him, "Yeah, let's do it!" she agreed.

She held her hand in a seal, and a split moment later, the cocoon dissolved from around them, leaving them to free fall from where it was stuck to the bottom of a huge branch.

Fu whipped ahead of him with her buzzing wings, shooting down through the air and running through a series of quick hand seals, then opened her mouth and spewed forth a whirlwind of glittering powder that rained down from above.

A startled shout left Suien's mouth as she powder danced down over his form.

"Fu!!!!" he roared angrily, tightening his grip around Shizuku's neck, making her eyes widen with pain as her windpipe was crushed.

Growling, Daiki kicked off of the tree and exploded downwards in the fastest shunshin he'd ever used.

He summoned his tanto to his hand for accuracy and as he came down he aimed straight for the Jonin's skull to pierce it from above.

He juked to the side and just avoided it, the sleeve on his arm ripping as his blade slashed into it and drew blood and Daiki impacted the ground hard enough to make a crater beneath himself.

The man countered instantly, his foot lashing out with a blindingly fast roundhouse.

Daiki didn't even attempt to dodge, he took it straight on in the chest. He felt his ribs, only barely mended, snap under the blow once again and a roar of agony left him, but he pushed on regardless.

He slapped his hand not holding his tanto onto the mans ankle and unleashed the Force Palm Jutsu.

His arm bones felt like they were turning to powder.

A shockwave erupted and spread through his kicking leg and the man shouted in pain, "Little shit!" he spat, eyes closed over and summarily, let go of Shizuku.

Daiki caught her in the hand he unleashed his jutsu with, wrapping his arm around her and jumping back, while at the same time tossing his tanto towards Sasuke.

The blade pierced through the rope binding him, letting the Uchiha drop to his feet below the Tori Gate he was dangling from before.

"Daiki!" the Uchiha grinned at him and leapt over, as he did, he noticed, Sasuke's nose was broken as well, his face covered in blood and deep bruising.

A second later, Fu landed on the other side of him, opposite Sasuke.

He gave them both a nod, and looked down to Shizuku who was trembling in his grip, "Daiki-nii-chan?" she whimpered.

Doing his best to ignore his painfully protesting body, Daiki gently sat her down and pat her head, "You're safe now," he told her, before quickly pushing her towards the Tori Gate that led to inside the massive tree, "Go hide in there, quickly, this is gonna get dangerous."

Thankfully, she was a smart girl, and did as told, quickly running inside to hide.

Suien thankfully, ignored her, instead the man, eyes bloodshot and glaring bloody daggers at them, was standing a good fifty feet away, rubbing at his ankle, "You know what, I'm going to enjoy crushing your skull between my palms you little brat," he huffed, before grinning as he set his foot back on the ground, "This works out even better though, right Shibuki! How do you think Konoha will like to find out some of their precious little kiddie shinobi got killed here? Or how about I snap the snack of this little failed weapon! You better be quick boy! If you don't I wi-

"Will you shut the fuck up already," Daiki snarled, "Nobody cares about your grandstanding you washed up old piece of shit."

"Yeah, what he said!" Fu flashed the Jonin the middle finger with.

Sasuke merely smirked, crossing his arms and nodding in agreement.

Suien snarled, "Uppity little brats!" he spat.

He twisted his foot behind him and was about to rush them-

When a hail of kunai and shuriken fell through the air above him, aiming for his head.

"Tch!" the man clicked his tongue, jumping back to avoid them, and all eyes were drawn up to the trees.

Where a familiar orange clad blonde stood a hundred feet above on a branch, arms crossed and a smirk on his face, "Heh, looks to me-" the blonde began, hopping off the branch and shooting down towards him, his hands flashing into a cross shaped hand seal, "That you're outnumbered old man!"

There was a series of puffs of smoke around Naruto, and suddenly, where there was one blonde shooting down through the air, now where was over thirty.

"Annoyances every-" Suien tried to complain, but Daiki took advantage of the distraction, arms shooting up, he unleashed every single weapon he had in his Dimension Force Seal, multiple dozens of kunai, shuriken and swords blitzing through the air towards the Jonin faster than bullets.

At his side, both Sasuke and Fu ran through hand seals.

"Fire Style: Dragon Fire Jutsu!"

"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"

Sasuke spat out a massive roaring dragon of flames, while Fu unleashed a powerful gale force wind that could uproot trees from her hands.

"Eh!" the mint haired girl made a sound of shock as her wind slammed into Sasuke's attack, and the roaring dragon of flame utterly ballooned in size to dwarfing proportions.

With Naruto coming from above and all around, his series of weapons and Sasuke and Fu's unintentional combo jutsu…

They really do go all out.

Suien may have been faster and stronger than all of them, but even that only went so far when he was surrounded on basically all sides!

Naruto's clones rushed him lashing out with a series of bone crunching punches and kicks from all sides, while his weapons and the raging flame dragon swept over the enemy Jonin.

They were silent, the only noise being the crackling flame of the inferno that was burning into Suien's position-

And Naruto hopping away from the fire, clutching his smoking bottom, "Hot, hot hot!" the blonde yelped, slapping his own ass to put out small embers that were burning into his backside, "Can't you watch your aim you jackass!" he spat at Sasuke when he finished.

"How about you not get in the way of my jutsu idiot!" Sasuke shot back.

"Heh, you guys are a riot." Fu laughed heartedly, before crossing her arms behind her head, "Man, that was easier than I thought it was going to be."

Daiki frowned…it was.

But, something was off.

He didn't sense the guy escaping the attack at all, actually, in the end, he didn't even try from the brief glimpse he got before the attacks slammed into his position.

But, what was even more off putting-

Where was that familiar death wail of agony that usually happened when somebody burned to death? Or, where was the scent of crispy fried human flesh?

"Wait, something's wr-"

He never got to finish, because abruptly, a massive amount of steam began to emit from the fire and it rapidly dwindled down.

To reveal Suien, but wholly different. He was wrapped from head to toe in a churning armour of pure water.

"I can't believe I have to use my ultimate jutsu against a bunch of weak brats because I wasn't taking you all seriously," the jonin spat angrily, before shaking his head, "No matter, it's simple. Now that you've seen my Water Armour, you just have to die."

He lifted his hand as he finished, and punched out with a simple jab.

From that jab, a gigantic fist of purely compressed water shot through the air towards them, not unlike a huge bijuu chakra claw.

It was absolutely gargantuan and despite its size, shockingly fast. Only Fu had anywhere to run with something this size!

On instinct, Daiki launched himself into the air, forward to meet it and slammed both palms into the jutsu, pumping all of the chakra he had left, that wouldn't kill him into his Force Palm Jutsu.

The concentrated shockwave that blasted from his hands, tore right though it, leaving the jutsu to collapse apart like a pair of splitting waves.

His eyes widened immediately after though, as Suien appeared in the shadow of his jutsu, so fast Daiki didn't even see him move and he couldn't do anything as a water enshrouded hand wrapped around his neck and thrust down.

His back slammed into the ground a split moment later, hard enough to crater it inwards and his spine erupted into agony, then choked as the hand tightened around his windpipe and the man began strangling him to death, with Daiki helpless to do anything else.

"Daiki!" he heard someone shout, he…couldn't tell who, everything was going dark.

His eyes rolled up and he could just make out Sasuke, Naruto and Fu rushing to help him, but the man choking the life out of him, lifting his other and with a snort, and from his fingers, erupted massive pillars of water that slammed into the three of them and subsumed them, carrying them out of sight.

'…Bastard…!' Daiki used all the remaining mental faculties he had to to curse the man in his head.

For a brief moment, his gaze drifted up, and he may have been hallucinating as he neared death, because, for a brief second, he thought he caught sight of Kakashi running through a rapid set of blurring hand seals-

But then he was just gone.

"Enough sensei!" a sudden voice bellowed out in a rage, and he felt the fingers around his throat ease up, allowing him to suck in great big gasps of air and fill his lungs.

"Heh," Suien snorted, completely forgetting about Daiki and letting him go, turning towards the lake, "So you finally crawled out of your hiding spot you little spineless coward?" he spat.

Coughing and hacking, Daiki feebly turned on his side and looked to the lake, and there…it was Shibuki.

But, completely different from before.

He an oddly shaped glass bottle in one hand, filled with a mysterious looking liquid, it was like water, but silvery in colour instead of clear.

And, there was a massive raging aura of chakra blazing around Shibuki's body, so powerful and tangible the very air seemed to roil and twist, a powerful seething aura of chakra that reminded Daiki of a bijuu chakra cloak almost.

And his eyes, so different from the shaky, cowardly things from earlier. A blazing rage stood out in them now as he glared bloody murder at Suien.

"You…you're right of course, but, I can't stand aside anymore...I wonder, is this how my father felt back then? I finally understand…" Shibuki trailed before, before snarling, "I'm your opponent now sensei!"

As soon as he said so, the water he was standing on erupted into a massive geyser.

It wasn't a jutsu, but from the sheer speed and force Shibuki erupted forward, closing the distance between him and his former sensei in the blink of an eye.

Suien only had the barest of moments to bring his arms up to block the sudden punch, yet, even with his armour, the sheer force behind it lifted him up and sent him flying back like a missile.

Yet, even as he flew back so fast Daiki could barely see him, a massive of water tentacles erupted from his water clad body, each compressing into spiked ends and lashing down at Shibuki.

Daiki's eyes widened when he noticed one coming right for him as well! He couldn't move!

He feebly pushed himself up, before collapsing again.

Shibuki clicked his tongue, rapidly he appeared beside Daiki and ran through a few hand seals, the bottle of water dropping from his grap, before opening his mouth and spewing out what was almost a literal tidal wave in scope.

It was so huge it blocked everything out of view for Daiki.

'Holy shit.' he gaped.

The Hero Water was fucking insane!

Suddenly, the tidal wave was swept aside and Suien's lafter echoed, "Using water against me when I have my Water Armour! You never learn you twit!" he mocked, suddenly appearing in front of Shibuki in a blur of speed Daiki couldn't keep up with at all.

Shibuki caught a punch, and retaliated with one of his own, only to have to quickly retreat back as from dozens of water spikes erupted from the missing ninja's body attempting to pierce Shibuki.

Shibuki snarled, forming a single hand seal, and them thrust his hand out, grasping a massive sword of compressed water and rushing at his sensei.

Who did the exact same.

Daiki could only watch helplessly as they engaged in a terrifying fast zipping battle of taijutsu and sword strikes.

And he could barely follow it at all.

But, as it continued on…he noticed.

The roaring chakra shroud around Shibuki, was getting smaller and smaller, and bit by bit, Shibuki became slower and weaker, his sensei beginning to overpower him as the difference in their bases abilities became utterly apparent.

…Shit…shit!

Daiki looked behind him to his companions, only to find all three of them laid out in a trio of craters, unconscious.

They hadn't just been crushed and subsumed by his earlier attack, they'd been drowned into unconscious while at it…probably once they were slammed back into the ground and forced to breath because of the stun that came from the impact.

'He can't last much longer.' Daiki realised. And once Shibuki fell, it was all over, that guy would kill them all and get the Hero Water as he wanted.

Daiki didn't even know why the fucking idiot wanted it. He should know using it would take a chunk of his life force. Even a sip from it, while it would Daiki's power massively, it would only last a minute or two at most, and it would take a good ten years off of his lifespan.

…Though, ten years instead of his life would be a good trade off at this point.

His eyes drifted to the bottle of Hero Water laying innocent beside him and temptation flared.