Systematic Shinobi - Chapter 14.2 (Patreon)

"Team 8 reporting, mission complete Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen wished Kurenai wouldn't be so formal with him all the time. She was a dutiful young lass no doubt, but sometime in the future, there was a good chance of her becoming his daughter in law if the amount of rendezvous she and Asuma had together over the past year since he returned from the Guardian Ninja was anything to go by.

Then again, his days would be much more enjoyable if people in general were a lot less formal around him, sadly, that only applied to boisterous rascals like Naruto-kun.

"Splendid work." he praised the rookie Genin lightly, idly reading over the report Kurenai handed to him of their delivery mission, favouring the three young ninja with a warm smile.

Young Shino inclined his head in acceptance of the praise, while Kiba-kun grinned widely, thumping his nose proudly.

His eyes landed on the Hyuga Heiress and rested on her for a moment. My, how quickly youths could change indeed.

Only a few weeks ago would the timid girl have ducked her head down after meeting his eyes shyly, but now she held his gaze and smiled back politely.

'Daiki-kun's work.' he mused, according to Kakashi at least. Apparently, the young Genin who's ethic had caught his eye recently, had came across her watching over Naruto.

The young girls infatuation with the boy was well known to him, she was always watching the boy and he saw her frequently not far away when he was checking on the boy himself.

The boy had wrought quite the change in the Hyuga girl, it was almost like looking at another girl entirely. While not a tall girl by any stretch, she always seemed so much more tiny with the way she shrunk in on herself and hid away in baggy clothing. Now, her spine was straight, there was some pride to the girl now, he idly wondered what Daiki said to her to bring about a change quite like this.

And that wasn't even going into her physical changes. She'd swapped out her general attire for a new outfit, switching from blue pants to black and replacing her baggy white jacket with a lavender and white zipper.

And in just a few weeks, her hair had grown massively, reaching all the way down to her midback. Not a natural hair growth of course, most likely a salon run by a former shinobi or kunoichi with medic nin training, he knew that the Mystical Palm Jutsu could be used to massively increase the speed at which hair grew at, a few sessions in a salon like that would account for her hair growth.

Just then, there was a puff of smoke beside his arm on the table he was sitting beside, a small green toad appearing from within it, a scroll strapped to his back.

"Eh, a frog!?" young Kiba cried in shock.

"A toad actually," Hiruzen corrected gently, reaching over to pluck the scroll from the toads back, at which point it promptly disappeared, "One of my students summons to be exact."

"A message from Jiraiya-sama?" Kurenai noted.

"Indeed." Hiruzen nodded, unfurling the scroll. He wondered why Jiraiya was sending him a message now, it was only the other day they corresponded on the matter of him coming back to the village.

Naruto had used the Kyuubi's chakra for the first time during Team 7's mission to wave, and his student was a much more able user of Fuinjutsu than him, so he wanted him to check the Eight Trigram Seal and make sure there was no damage to it.

One could never be too careful with the Kyuubi after all.

Quickly, he began glancing over the scroll reading the contents. And his mouth open, eyes widening ever so slightly, only to gradually, bit by bit, get progressively wider.

The Sanbi, a newly discovered doujutsu, a plot against the village, a member of the seven ninja swordsmen of the Mist village, chakra weapons that could rival the weapons of the seven legendary weapons of the Mist.

And in the middle of it all, young Daiki, leaping in to action to protect the village from such a possible threat, in the process, becoming a Jinchuuriki, no, by all accounts a Perfect Jinchuuriki, gaining possession of a new doujutsu and claiming the legendary Kiba Blades for his own, on top of killing not only a known A-rank shinobi, but multiple other powerful shinobi as well, at least all of Chunin rank.

For a moment, Hiruzen felt the urge to laugh, it was quite the tall tale after all.

Except, he never found anything remotely hinting at 'haha, got you good!'

He circulated his chakra through his system quickly, just to make sure there wasn't some form of genjutsu woven into the scroll that caught him without him noticing it upon unrolling it.

But no, it was real.

'To think the Sanbi was so close by with none the wiser.' his thoughts raced. That was a disaster waiting to happen.

And to think, the Village of Artisan nobles had teamed up with a missing ninja to capture it!

'All to revive Seimi.' he grimaced. He himself was a but a young lad when his sensei killed the man, but he well remembered the arrogance and contemptuous ease in which the man ripped the lives of those weaker than him and tormented those he ruled above. He was a tyrant with delusions of grandeur far above his station, and when he set his sights upon the Leaf Village, he and his followers were put down like dogs by the Nidame Hokage.

In of themselves, Raiga Kurosaki and the 'Four Celestials' as they were called by Seimi, were no match for the Leaf, even with this Doujutsu user with them.

Having a Bijuu unleashed within their midst though, which they apparently planned to do after using the Bijuu for all it was worth, was a different matter entirely.

Oh, he was sure they'd be able to suppress the Sanbi, there was no doubt, but even with Kakashi and Danzo backing him up, Hiruzen knew it would not be an easy or quick fight, especially if they weren't expecting it. The loss of life in the village would be massive, the only reason the casualties during the time the Kyuubi got loose from Kushina weren't much larger, was because he got lucky, that was all and was able to push it out of the village.

That same tactic would not work with the Sanbi, not with its massively armoured shell. Far from the strongest of the Bijuu, the Sanbi was nonetheless, the most durable of them all.

It was a scenario he did definitely did not want taking place in the village. And thankfully, apparently according to the efforts of Young Daiki, they wouldn't need to.

…It was a lot to process so suddenly.

"Hokage-sama?" Kurenai's voice broke him from his thoughts.

Hiruzen coughed, "Sorry, you're dismissed, I was caught up thinking," he smiled at the Jonin and her team, "You know how old minds like mine tend to wander." he joked.

She smiled back at him briefly, before bowing her head and escorting her team out.

Hiruzen wasted no time in excusing himself from the mission desk and making his way back to his office.

He ruminated on the last part of the message Jiraiya had sent him.

'The way he's set up the seal is incredibly risky, the Sanbi could leave at any point it wants. Honestly, it should have left right after helping him out, it can't be that grateful, right? Honestly, I've never spoke to any of the Bijuu, the most I know is from Kushina talking about the Kyuubi. But…the kid was happy to explain why, and what a doozy it is. The Sanbi itself feels safer inside the kid. The kid apparently is willing to work with it and that makes a big difference for it, especially with what the Sanbi itself apparently claims, enough to the point where it's willing to lend the kid its full power if he asks for it. The Former Mizukage, he was being controlled, by a man with a Sharingan, claiming to be Madara Uchiha. Bullshit of course, the man is long dead, but, we've got an AWOL Uchiha out there who isn't Itachi Uchiha, cuz' apparently he actually attacked the former Mizukage as well at some point, and this mystery Uchiha has the ability to control a Kage with his eyes alone.'

Hiruzen grimaced.

Madara Uchiha. Someone claiming to be him, with the visual prowess to control a kage, was not someone to be taken lightly. Not at all the real Madara's style, he'd only met the man a few times as a lad himself, but he was aware of what type of person he was, anyone who met the man was.

His wife, dearly departed Biwako had met him as a child herself, and even just the man smiling at her had terrified her to the bone.

'Perhaps a direct descendent?' he thought to himself. Madara spent much time outside the village before he went rogue and had his climactic battle to the end with Hashirama-sama.

The man's disgust for his own clan later was well established as well, so it was unlikely he had any descendants within the village before the Uchiha Massacre.

'How troubling.' Hiruzen entered his office, collapsing on his chair and rubbing his forehead.

Tensions with the Sand were rising every single day and Onoki was always watching and waiting, sitting on that fence of his and prepared to strike if the opportunity presented itself.

And he could never tell what way Kumo would go, but he knew already that they were well prepared should a new war break out.

…Still, it seemed a silver lining had come from the machinations of this mysterious Uchiha.

'Daiki-kun has the full might of a Bijuu behind him.' Hiruzen mused. That...that was splendid news, especially confirmed by Jiraiya. The situation would still bare watching closely, but…

Hiruzen's eyes drifted to the bottom of the scroll where Jiraiya described the rough plan to capture the Sanbi and keep it docile.

…Daiki had both the equipment and the doujutsu now that were used, so if the Sanbi did act up, he should be capable of subduing it on his own quite possibly, especially considering the fact he had apparently gotten good enough already to replicate the seal he'd seen used on the Nanabi Jinchuuriki.

Such stupendous talent for the art. The old man eyes drifted to one of the fou pictures hanging on the wall of his office, one depicting a handsome, blonde haired man, "Perhaps he'll rival you in a few years?" he mused

Daiki had really went beyond the call of duty. And according to Jiraiya, the boy had been prepared to lose his life in the process just to attempt to stop their plans for the Leaf Village. Thankfully, the boy was intelligent and picked his timing well, when his opponents were at their very weakest, putting good use to that ruthless ability he had during combat that Kakashi reported of during his mission towards the Waterfall Village.

His Will of Fire burned brightly indeed.

'Ah Genma-kun, if only you had looked just a bit deeper.' Hiruzen shook his head. Alas, Genma had wanted a full team of his own, not an apprentice, so no matter how young Daiki impressed him with his talent during his test, it was his teammates that became the weights too heavy for his talent alone to carry.

He idly remembered the academy report on the boy. Iruka had personally written his file, noting how the boy was above average in all aspects of being a shinobi, but spread himself too thin, he had been lacking direction as a shinobi and that if he had focused more on one or two aspects of being a shinobi over them all, he would have most likely been a contender for the strongest in his graduating class, and even then, if kept up the rate of growth he was at anyone in all disciplines, he would most likely be a Jonin in all aspects by his early twenties, which in of itself was very impressive.

'Or he could work just that much harder.' Hiruzen mused. After he had a nasty run in with Iwa shinobi on his first C-rank mission and only narrowly avoided losing his life, the boy had thrown himself into his training in a way that would stupefy even Gai.

Draining his chakra to the barest hints left before chakra exhaustion, physically training until his body was numb and his muscles crying for rest. Every single day, only to then increase that training when he got his hands on the Mystical Palm Jutsu and used it to increase the rate at which his physical conditioning progressed.

Looking at the boy objectively, he was by far the most stand out of his generation, even beyond the likes of Sasuke Uchiha and Neji Hyuga. He was strong for his age, dutiful to his training, beyond dutiful, pragmatic, no hesitation in dealing with enemy combatants permanently, had the intelligence to do well in most situations, had no fear to face stronger opponents, was bold, decisive, cunning and cared for his comrades.

Hiruzen had been impressed by his training ethic when he looked in on the boy, Kakashi, putting aside the mans amusement in teasing the boy, had nothing but good things to say about him, and even Jiraiya seemed to be praising the boy as well.

He would definitely go far in the future, that was for sure, 'Perhaps he'll take over for me one day?' Hiruzen mused with a small chuckle.

Give it a few years, the boy may just approach Kakashi's level, perhaps even beyond. And with the full power of a Bijuu behind him…

Well, the boy would not lack for the strength needed for the role. And he had the fire to put his own life on the line to protect the village. All that was truly needed, was to see how well he led others and he could gain that experience as a chunin for sure.

…Yes, that might not be a bad idea. 'I'm not getting any younger after all.' Hiruzen snorted.

It was about time a new candidate for the Godaime stepped up to the plate, the only two on the table right now were Kakashi and Jiraiya after all, and Jiraiya would never accept the role.