Systematic Shinobi - Chapter 37.1 (Patreon)

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.

Shunkugan 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.