Systematic Shinobi - Chapter 23.2

"Are you sure about that?" Daiki asked, voice serious.

…Because if so, that changed, while not everything, a hell of a lot. Shiromari and the Chameleon clan could not teach him senjutsu. It was one of the first thing's he'd asked.

Shiromari himself was capable of using senjutsu, but that had nothing to do with his chameleon clan, and more to do with his father Manda's side, the Snake clan. He did not so much as learn senjutsu, as he survived it and gained access to it, after all, the way one learned senjutsu with the snakes, was not through training or being taught, it was through being bitten, injected with senjutsu….venom itself for a lack of a better term, surviving and adapting.

Shiromari didn't have the slightest idea of how to go about teaching him how to feel nature energy. So, unless he somehow got the Toad's to teach him, learning senjutsu, was all but impossible for him.

But, the Curse Seal drew in nature energy. There was a slight possibility, he could use it, in the place of the toad fountain oil Naruto used, expose it to his body long enough and train to feel the energy itself.

For all intents and purposes, the Curse Seal Of Heaven, would be a stepping stone for him, to create his very own variation of Sage Mode. Not Toad, not Snake and not whatever the hell bullshit Hashirama Senju lucked into.

'You're the one well versed in seals,' Isobu replied, 'You should already know what happens when a living, conscious being is stuck inside a seal on someone. The subconscious acts as a bridge of consciousness for all attached to that body, and from what I gather, this Orochimaru uses to invade the bodies of others, he attacks and wrestles control of their subconscious and from there, subsumes them.'

Daiki nodded along in agreement. That did check out. Maybe if the seal itself wasn't connected to anything, it would be different, but when it was applied to the chakra of the holder itself? The physical and mental spiritual energy of the holder?

It would have a direct link to the subconscious. And made a lot of sense on why Orochimaru wouldn't mark a jinchuuriki like Naruto. To be perfectly honest, if Daiki was in Orochimaru's place, he would have marked Naruto, killed Sasuke, took his eyes, took over Naruto's body and implanted the sharingan in that new body.

The drain from the sharingan, wouldn't be anything of note at that point at all, not in an Uzumaki Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, born to the previous Uzumaki Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and a massively powerful kage father, having been exposed to the chakra of the kyuubi itself since the very second he was conceived.

Really, the only reason Naruto ever got exhausted at all early on, was probably more due to most of his chakra always being used to reinforce the eight trigrams seal itself and him only ever actually having access to a fraction of his total chakra, like twenty percent at best.

Really, if there was any living person who's body he would take, it would be Naruto's.

And Orochimaru wasn't an absolute retard…most of the time. The only reason he wouldn't go for such an absurdly amazing body, would be if it was impossible.

Because Kurama would splatter his little soul shard, he was a pretty possessive guy like that after all, despite his hatred currently of his situation, Naruto was his host, that went to the point where Kurama would refuse to let Naruto have Fukasaku gather nature chakra for him as well. And he did, even at this point, deep down, have a begrudging respect for Naruto.

Because give the guy some credit, despite all the shit he went through with the village, abrasive as he could be, he was a generally nice, compassionate dude and he didn't let himself get weighed down like some whiny little bitch, it didn't matter how many times his face was forced into the dirt, how many times he was kicked down and mocked, he always got the fuck back up.

Daiki had to respect grit like that at the very least.

Sasuke, in contrast, really wasn't anything all that special, not without taking into account him being a transmigration of Indra. As far as talent and ability went, compared to Madara, Itachi, Shisui, hell even Itachi's cute girlfriend Izumi who'd had her sharingan since birth and was a taijutsu prodigy that would make Gai weep in awe….Sasuke really just didn't compare.

Naruto himself even was much more of a prodigy than Sasuke in Daiki's opinion, if that dude had someone willing to teach him from the get go, the kid would have long since surpassed Kakashi even at this point. Sasuke after all, grew up with a father who while distant, did actually teach him, and Itachi, while busy a lot, did teach Sasuke as well. That, and the fact that teachers in the academy positively mooned after the guy and all ignored Naruto, even Iruka initially for the first few months he taught the class….showed how untalented Sasuke actually was.

Ironically, pure talent wise, Naruto was more like Indra and Sasuke more like Ashura. It was just the situation around the pair that made it seem like it was actually the other way around.

Daiki slapped his cheeks, 'I'm getting off topic.' he scolded himself, before shooting into the tree's in a blur of speed.

He'd wasted a whole two seconds on that thought tangent. He really needed to work on his inner monologue's.

'You do seem to like the sound of your own voice and reinforcing how you see the world to yourself. I'd say it was an identity issue, but let me be honest, you're just a bit of a narcissist.' Isobu added his two cents.

….He was actually quite okay with that.

'Better a narcissist than someone who lacked belief in himself.' Daiki replied, drawing lightly on Isobu's chakra, just enough to change his eyes and not draw on a cloak of chakra.

Despite how little it was in contrast to the full thing, his speed increased noticeably, as if he was using the body flicker to speed up.

There was about two miles of distance between him and his targets when he started moving.

At his full current speed, he crossed that distance in less than ten seconds, even without a straight path to follow.

Orochimaru, gave him plenty of time to arrive. The man had far too much fun 'playing' with his prey.

The sannin himself, so invested in his target, and with Daiki hiding his chakra using his eyes, didn't notice him arriving at all.

"-Sense power in your eyes that surpasses even Itachi's," a silky, siblant yet soft spoken voice echoed powerfully through the forest, "My name, is Orochimaru, if you wish to see me again and gain true power, then survive and pass this exam, Sasuke-kun!"

Daiki's eyes landed on his own target as he spoke, the face he wore, half melted, displaying slitted yellow snake-like eyes and a chalk white pale face.

Orochimaru formed a one handed ram seal, and opened his mouth, his fang-like teeth growing noticeably, before his neck stretched and launched through the air so fast, Daiki wouldn't have even been able to track without the Shinkugan and Isobu's chakra enhancing him.

Good thing, Daiki was already preparing, spreading his chakra out and running through a few hand seals.

The instant his neck reached Sasuke and his teeth were about to make contact, there was a puff of smoke, and in Sasuke's place, was Daiki.

A sharp pain lanced up through his neck, while Orochimaru blinked in confusion for all of a microsecond, before his eyes widened in shock.

The confusion lasted long enough for Daiki to elbow the man in the face, dislodging his teeth from his neck.

"You!" Orochimaru hissed, before his eyes seemingly widened even further, to the point where they looked like they would pop right out of his socket, "Rinnegan!?"

"Daiki!" he heard Sasuke shout as well, and saw his friend staring down at him from his previous position on a branch fifty feet up, sharingan eyes wide in shock.

Daiki would have loved to to smirk and give him some cocky line, but he couldn't.

Because that was when, he felt it. He felt the seal form on his neck and something spread out through his body, into his coils, and felt as his chakra coils were forced to take it in, felt as they were stretched out…wider in a sense to accommodate, growing, strengthening.

'...Oh, I forgot something.' he realised in that moment.

He'd forgotten just how much pain the seal itself caused when it formed.

Daiki hunched, bent over and roared as liquid pain, like lava coursing through his veins assaulted his senses.

                                                                   _________________

'INSTANT REGRET!'

Isobu rolled his singular eye as his jinchuuriki screamed bloody murder in his head, keyword being inside, he was putting up a tough face and just making roaring shouting angry sounds on the outside.

That cool, composed 'badass' look he projected all the time to the other humans, had to be the biggest lie of the century. He was a complete idiot, of the highest order.

But he was an amusing idiot, and…that idiot, despite all his boasting and continuously growing arrogance, was his idiot friend.

It had been a long, long time since he'd had a friend. In fact, had he ever had a pure friend? Even his caretakers tasked to watch over him as a youngling, more treated him with awe and careful respect because of his father. And even his siblings weren't the most…affectionate.

…If Isobu had his way, he'd take the fact he actually deep down liked Daiki calling him 'Isobro' to the grave.

And he couldn't say, that Daiki didn't make life amusing as the very least.

"I suppose I should do my part then, hmm?" the turtle bijuu mused lightly to himself, his eye landing on a small blurry humanoid figure forming bit by bit within Daiki's subconscious.

It hadn't been hard to track it down. After all, its chakra was more than enough to stand out when the other other chakra within here was his own and Daiki's.

"Sorry, but this is a one room apartment, and I like my space." Isobu imparted on the fragment of Orochimaru, before bringing one of his shelled fists up into the air and bringing it down.

He crushed the fragment of Orochimaru, and forced his own chakra into it, breaking it down, he heard a scream of agony come from it, but ignored it, this man wasn't exactly deserving of pity or mercy.

He seared the fragments consciousness and body out of existence, breaking it down into pure chakra, before diverting it into Daiki's own chakra coils.

It was a pittance compared to his own chakra capacity, but it would give a decent boost to Daiki's own capacity as it was currently.

                                                                          ____________

The pain was almost all consuming, and he felt his consciousness begin to grow hazy, his coils felt like they were about to burst.

He was dimly aware of a shout of worry and then a hand on his shoulder-

"You! What the hell did you do to Daiki!?"

That sounded like Sasuke.

"…No…no, that is not the Rinnegan, it is close, but a slight difference, and why can I not sense his chakra!…No, it is not important, ringer indeed though," Orochimaru's siblant voice distracted echoed, before: "Kuku, that is my gift meant for you Sasuke-kun, it seems your young friend tried to come to your rescue thinking it a threat to you, but no matter, I have enough stored still to form another, stand still now won't you?"

"Like hell!" Sasuke snarled, "Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jut-gah!" the Uchiha gagged in pain.

"You are fast and skilled Sasuke-kun, but you are not ready for this stage yet, the same stage your brother stands on." Orochimaru's voice floated through his ears.

Then…the haze on his consciousness suddenly disappeared and his eyes snapped wide open.

The pain was still there, oh god fuck was it still there, but there was also a rushing sensation, almost like pleasure.

It was power.

His chakra coils and capacity erupted in size and scale, and he felt like, he'd almost doubled in overall capacity.

And that was before a new sensation, spread out from his neck and encompassing his entire body, his chakra exploded out of his tenketsu in a spiralling raging cloak of power that turned the very air into a vibrating maelstrom.

There was one off thing about it though. His chakra, it was dark blue in colour usually…but not now. Now, it had changed.

A deep, royal purple with ebony black embers spread throughout it.

Daiki felt…amazing.

He felt strong like this, incredibly strong. The power it gave him, was almost akin to one of the tails of Isobo's full on cloak form.

'So this is the Cursed Seal of Heaven.' Daiki clenched his fist, before whipping his head around, banishing any stray thoughts immediately.

Orochimaru pulled his fangs from Sasuke's neck, allowing the boy to drop to his knees in scream in agony as the seal seared itself into his chakra network, just like Daiki before him.

Damn, he was too recovering to stop that.

"Oi, snake man." Daiki grunted.

"…How peculiar," Orochimaru took his attention off of Sasuke and eyed Daiki, "I cannot feel the connection to the seal on your neck, and you are using the power of it already? My, how interesting, how did you do it I wonder? Those eyes of yours perhaps?." his yellow eyes glinted with curiosity.

"Wrong." Daiki snorted, then moved.

He disappeared in a blur of speed, and Orochimaru's eyes widened slightly in shock, the pale man leaning back just in time for Daiki's knee to spear through the air where his face was previously.

Daiki thrust his hand out, a quick Force Palm Jutsu turning shooting him down onto the branch the man was standing on and avoiding the counter kick the man retaliated with.

A sweep was stepped over, but Daiki spun through it, launching himself into a roundhouse that the man couldn't simply dodge with being so close and the sheer speed he was moving at.

Orochimaru blocked the blow with a forearm, but the force of it sent him skidding back.

"…This is not the speed and strength of a genin, no, this isn't even that of a typical Jonin!" the man hissed in surprise.

His surprise and curiosity left him completely open for the clone that burst out of the tree line behind him, bringing one of the sparking kiba blades down through his head, cleaving him down the middle.

His body burst into mud.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu and my, are those the kiba blades? Where did you get your hands on those I wonder, child?" Orochimaru hummed from above.

His clone gave a yank on the handle of the blades, and they separated from his hands into the air, spinning like buzzsaws and generating a massive amount of lightning chakra and spread it to the clone as he ran through handseals.
At the same time, Daiki ran through his own.

He was going big with this one.

As one, they both snapped around to look up at Orochimaru.

"Ice Style: Twin Black Dragon Blizzard!"

"Lightning Style: Electromagnetic Murder!"

Drawing on the chakra armour over his torso, Daiki punched out both fists, and from them, a pair of massive serpentine black dragons with glowing red eyes erupted, shooting through the air at Orochimaru.

A split moment later, his clone thrust his palms out, unleashing a massive wave of crackling electricity, far bigger than he could generate on his own, encasing the pair of ice dragons in the current of electrical charge.

Orochimaru, a testament to his status as a sannin, leaped back blindingly fast and with a shocking distance.

Daiki didn't bother directing the dragons to chase him.

They slammed into the place where he stood previously, before erupting, exploding outwards into a truly massive hurricane of icy black, tearing trees decades old and thousands of feet high up from their roots and sending them flying through the air as if they weighed that of a feather.

The expansion and size of the jutsu was so large, it spread out and subsumed Orochimaru before the man could react himself.

Daiki would have got caught up in it as well….if he didn't cut his losses and run.

Using all his newfound speed, he had moved and retreated, and now found himself a good mile away, watching his jutsu roar toweringly high into the air.

His clone landed beside him a split moment later, Naruto and Sasuke over his shoulders, while he had Sakura under his arm.

"…Daiki…what…how?" Sakura sputtered, green eyes staring at him wide, awed, even a bit horrified.

                                                                        ______________

In the very centre, at the eye of the tornado, Orochimaru lay limp, his body sizzling, smoking and charcoaled, yet at the same time, frosted over.

For all intents and purposes, he was dead. Not even he, a legendary sannin could take such an epically powerful jutsu and come out unscathed.

Yet-

The body of the snake sannin twitched, before its mouth opened and spread wide, and another Orochimaru pulled himself free, soaked to the bone, but otherwise fine.

"…If I wasn't quick there with the replacement, I may very well have taken some rather gruesome injuries." the snake sannin mused to himself, idly eyeing his shedded skin.

Those injuries would not have killed him, and his healing ability was such that he would have recovered from them…

But-

"…What an incredible jutsu." Orochimaru licked his lips, "An ice style dragon variation? Two at that, used in a combination lightning jutsu amplified by the Kiba Blades, kukuku, a ringer indeed Sarutobi-sensei."

His old sensei was up to his old tricks, sending a little monster like that into the Chunin Exams.

And that was without taking into account the most interesting aspect of the boy. Those eyes, they were red initially, some form of doujutsu Kabuto had informed him before, but then…those purple rings surrounding them, they looked just like the Rinnegan.

"Perhaps a precursor?" he mused in thought.

Like the Sharingan came before the Mangekyou Sharingan, possibly?

'If so, it makes sense how he cut the connection, Pein has a jutsu to absorb the very soul of a target through touch, it would make sense for the eyes that evolve into the Rinnegan itself to have access to such a jutsu.' he thought.

How fascinating. Disappointing in a way that his jutsu would be useless for taking such a body because of it, but fascinating nonetheless.

"…Gaara will not be enough for dealing with this one." Orochimaru crossed his arms.

He would need to be dealt with some other way.

Perhaps Kimmimaro-kun would be able to keep the boy busy? It would no doubt cost the leader of his Sound Five his life even if he did manage to win.

But…such was life.

He paused as he felt a familiar chakra rushing his way, a smile blooming across his cheeks.

"Kukukuku," Orochimaru chuckled to himself, "Well, a teacher always has time for his first student, no Anko-chan?"

He had enough time to see how his old apprentice was doing these days he supposed.