Systematic Shinobi - Chapter 31.1 (Patreon)

Daiki had forgotten how much it truly sucked to have chakra exhaustion. Even before he slurped up Isobu into his chest like a big wet tortoise flavoured noodle, he'd been very careful to train himself just to before the point of chakra exhaustion and never fall passed the line.

After all, if he had chakra exhaustion, he would be laid up recovering for ages and thus would lose precious time that could other be spent grinding for gains.

As it was, even with Isobu's chakra running through his veins, allowing him to move, he still felt light headed and his limbs heavier than the weights he wore.

Which were twenty thousand pounds by the way. Which was like ten tons or so.

His limbs literally felt heavier than that.

He practically had to drag himself in an army crawl over to Shisui's corpse.

Toka laughing all the way at him as she hopped up onto the bed he'd left out. She really did find a lot of amusement in bullying him.

That wasn't fair at all by the way.

'I'm not a nerd.' he whined mentally. He was big, tough and muscular, he could lift a grown man with a single pinky finger.

He was manly with a capital M.

As it was, he sealed Shisui's corpse into his Dimension Force Seal, before flopping onto his back and just laying there.

"…Can you help me up onto the bed?" Daiki asked his bully lizard.

"No," Toka snorted, "Think of this as a lesson to think things through more carefully you silly meathead buffoon."

Daiki pouted.

Well whatever, it wasn't like he couldn't really do it if he wanted do. He just couldn't be bothered.

Another unfortunate side effect of chakra exhaustion. Lethargy and lack of motivation.

It was truly the anti-thesis to the grind.

Only heretics to the grind like Kakashi fondly fornicated with chakra exhaustion. And that guy got chakra exhaustion a lot in the other timeline.

He'd recover faster of course if he could stop using his eyes. Sadly for him, unlike chakra exhaustion's personal gigolo Kakashi, just covering his eyes didn't exactly stop them from working.

Still, it wouldn't take him that long to recover. An hour or two at best thanks to not only Isobu, but the chakra being constantly fed into his coils by the Heavenly Star Seal.

He would just have to tough it out until then.

He apologised mentally to the grind.

No wait.

He took that back,

'This is an opportunity to grind resistance to chakra exhaustion.' Daiki realised. Now that he was exposed to it, if this ever somehow happened again, he would be more used to it!

"By the way, you have a visitor," Toka commented, "So I'll leave you to that and have a nap for now I believe, human beds aren't too bad." she said, and then faded out of view entirely.

Though he knew she was still there of course.

And just as she did, there was a knock on his door.

Huh.

She was right.

Damnit, he hadn't sensed anyone approaching at all. Sure, his senses were dulled right now, but still.

'I've got a long ass way to go before I catch up to her sensory abilities.' he grimaced.

Well, whatever. He'd just need to grind that out more later.

"Come in," Daiki called out, "It's open."

He'd get up and open it himself, but he was feeling rather lazy, what with that thirsty thot chakra exhaustion having her slutty claws dug deep into him right now.

The door swung open and Daiki blinked as he found himself looking at a familiar bun haired older girl.

Huh, they had finished the exam already?

Did that mean the Sound Trio had attacked Team Seven already? He wondered if they did better this time around.

"Sup?" Daiki greeted the girl, plastering a debonair smile across his face.

Tenten raised an eyebrow at him, "What are you doing?" she asked dryly.

"Just chillaxing like a baller." Daiki replied, and would have casually shrugged.

…If he currently had the motivation to do so.

Her other eyebrow rose up and joined the first, "Somehow, knowing you, I doubt that, do you even know the definition of chilling out? Or is this just some new way of training you've discovered?" the bun haired girl asked with a snort and crossed her arms.

"….I'm training to resist chakra exhaustion?" he tried.

Tenten stared blankly at him for a second before sighing and kicking the door shut behind her, "You mean you did something stupid and exhausted all your chakra and now can't move?" she sliced right through his bullshit, walking over and crouching next to his head.

"Why do you assume it was something stupid and not intentional?" Daiki dug his feet in.

Metaphorically.

Since you know…chakra exhaustion and all.

"Because we've hung out a decent little bit now, spent a decent amount of time together with that date we were on and all, and I've managed to get a decent grasp on you I think," Tenten smirked at him and poked his cheek, daring him to bat her hand away, he of course could, he just didn't do so…because he liked the feel of her finger, yeah, totally, "The first time we met at that restaurant I thought you were cool, but you're almost as big an idiot as Lee and Gai-sensei."

"Hey, now that's uncalled for!" Daiki protested, "I'm cool!"

"You look cool, there's a big difference," Tenten denied his protests, "You're actually a dork, and a pervy one at that."

….Pervy Dork?

Did someone else hear glass shattering?

No?

So it was just his pride then?

If he had the motivation for it right now, he would have slumped over in depression.

The illusion of his pride had been destroyed, completely shattered, as if some spiky haired delinquent had punched right through it.

His cool image, the badass front he put up to show his greatness…it was all for nothing?

'I've been telling you that for a while now you know.' Isobu huffed.

Yes, but he thought Isobu was just yanking his chain!

"So, what really happened?" Tenten asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

"….I didn't think properly, jumped right in while trying something out and exhausted all of my chakra." Daiki admitted with a sigh.

No point really hiding it at this point. Well, roughly how he ended up in this state. Not that he actually restored the corpse of an Uchiha to perfect health so he could harvest its eyes.

"Must have been quite the technique," Tenten whistled, halting in poking his cheek, "You're an endurance freak after all and have chakra for days."

"Something like that," Daiki snorted, "So guess you finished the exam then?" he changed the subject.

"Yup, not long ago actually, fourth team so far apparently," she grinned at him, flashing him a 'v' sign with two fingers, "Heard you were the first one to finish Mr. Ringer, in record time at that?"

"Less than an hour baby, I'm awesome like that." he grinned.

"You're something alright," the bun haired girl rolled her eyes, "Full of it I'm thinking. Still, that's why I came here since I heard you were already here."

"You miss me that much?" he joked, "Want a second date?"

Tenten snorted, amused, "Actually, Lee got into a bit of a fight with those sound punks and didn't take them seriously, they busted up his ear drums so his balance is all thrown off and he can't hear right," she replied, "I'm not really good enough with the Mystical Palm Jutsu yet to do delicate stuff like that, so was hoping you could heal him up, but looks like that's a no go for now." she gave a helpless shrug.

Hmm.

So that had gone down the same then?

"I'll do it later, once I've recovered, should only take a few hours," he promised, and she gave him an odd look, but didn't comment, "So the sound team huh? I was thinking of bullying them a bit myself the other day for attacking one of us, but they were too weak to be any fun hunting down to be honest."

"They have some niche techniques, that sound arm thing the lead one has was kinda interesting, and one of them even had a wind jutsu that's a lot like yours," Tenten mused, "But yeah, they weren't all that strong to be honest, Lee could have beaten all three of them easily enough if he took his weights off."

"Should have done that before the exams started really." Daiki rolled his eyes. Lee definitely had the strength to be a chunin, but he completely lacked the mentality.

"True, though he has his reasons, silly as they might seem to some," Tenten shrugged again, "Honestly, they were kind of annoying, thought they were hot shit for ganging up on that pink haired girl, Sakura I think? We didn't need to in the end because it seems she's friends with you, because she busted out that jutsu of yours."

Daiki blinked, "She did?"

Huh.

"Yeah, she got caught up by that sound chick grabbing her hair, and the stupid bitch went off on some rant about her long hair despite having even longer hair, wasn't mouthing off for long though," Tenten growled before snorting, "The Sakura chick cut off her hair, then used it as a bit of a smokescreen to get the jump on the bitch, palmed her right in the stomach and used your jutsu on her, woulda probably killed her if her arm didn't snap like a twig in the process."

…Huh.

As expected she couldn't handle the jutsu with her current arm strength. But still, Sakura actually took Kin down? And she did exactly as he said, used it only when she was sure she would get the hit in.

Good on her.

"The guy with a jutsu like yours totally wigged out seeing it though, went on a total rager about her copying him and stuff, it was kind of pathetic actually," Tenten continued, "He tried to blast her with his own, but she fired off your jutsu with her other arm, snapped it as well I think, but managed to block his own with it, then the Uchiha kid woke up, had some weird tattoo's his chakra went all nasty and acted like a total psycho, he ended up killing the guy when he saw what happened to his teammate and then the bandage guy who was the leader."

…Eh?

Then Dosu and Zaku were dead then? Huh, that was new and an unexpected development.

"Still that Uchiha kid was really unstable there for a bit, almost called us out for a fight as well before that Naruto kid woke up," Tenten continued, "Blondie made a big fuss about his teammates shorter hair and the Uchiha snapped out of whatever berserker rage he was in and those weird tattoo's and his nasty chakra disappeared real quick."

Hmm.

Daiki frowned in thought, 'This will change things up a bit come the preliminaries.' he mused.

But then again their existence wasn't actually all that important in the grand scheme of things. Dosu would get killed by Gaara off screen and Kin and Zaku just got used as Edo Tensei sacrifices.

Orochimaru could get any two sacrifices, so they weren't all that important really.

"Can't say I'm not glad how things turned out though," the bun haired girl grinned, "I managed to get my hands on that gauntlet the bandage guy had, he called it the Melody Arm I think, it'll be fun to learn how to use in the future."

Huh, another change. Not exactly a massive one, but still another change. And sound based techniques would be super useful for her in the future.

He needed to time to think this th-

His thoughts were derailed by surprisingly soft hands grasping his head and gently lifting it up and directed the back of his skull…to a pair of full, firm, yet comfortable thighs.

Daiki froze.

"…What are you doing?" he asked blankly, looking directly up at Tenten now from where his head lay on her thighs.

"Well, I figure since it'll be a good while before you can move, I may as well make things more comfortable for you," she smirked down at him, "C'mon, you can't say a perv like you isn't happy getting a lap pillow from me, you weren't exactly shy before in complimenting my…let's be polite and say my looks."

…Was she coming on to him?

"You could just help me over to the bed you know." he pointed out.

"I can if you want." Tenten raised an eyebrow challengingly at him.

"Nope, I'm good here." he instantly backtracked.

"I thought so." she snorted, her smirk turning wry.