Naruto : Domination: Chapter 90

When his attention was on her, Karin could feel an undercurrent of both bright golden hope and steely expectations that she was meant to meet.

So, when she felt the trio of hunter nin attacked him, she had immediately known that her sensei would defend her, and after his showing off during the bolting away from the Iwa outpost... well, she had some hard data to confirm his supposed skill.

...

Karin's eyes went even more unfocused as she lived again the events that led to her newly found freedom: not long after the prisoners started moving against the incoming Iwa nin.

Which were immediately made aware of the suddenly freely moving chakra systems in their midst. Then Daiki had... changed for lack of a better term.

The defining qualities of his chakra fìwere still there, undeniable at the close distance he kept from her, but the intensity behind those had turned out to be simply terrifying.

There was still a strange sort of protectiveness geared towards Karin, but the contradictory carefree determination that had brought Daiki to free her had turned into titanic swathes of power rolling off his form: the same feel of the still vastness that Karin had perceived connected to her saviour was poured into him as the chakra-link unravelled.

From that moment, everyone in the base had been made aware of the S-class in the heart of the outpost, and Karin had strangely felt somewhat relieved that such a power was in the hands of Daiki.

She didn't know him that well yet, but she felt enough to know that there wasn't even a hint of bloodlust in him, nor enjoying of his clear superiority over others.

The seals that kept the earth from being manipulated had simply ruptured when Daiki landed his hands on the walls around them, his chakra flooding the system of caves without any hope of being countered: the earth had shifted, the attempts of Iwa shinobi to attack the recently freed prisoners felt like pebbles thrown against a wall, no, like rocks thrown into a calm lake.

The forceful manipulation of the earth in the hands of Daiki was disrupted minimally in some areas, but the influxes of Iwa nin' chakra were rapidly subdued by the sheer momentum behind her recently self-named sensei's will.

"You're spacing out, Karin." his voice jolted her back to the present, making her blush faintly.

She focused once more on his presence: a royal blue awareness of everything in the surroundings, with quick-changing streaks of stone-grey determination and desolate-brown sadness which were quickly subdued under golden-tinted hope and a lighter blue... affection/protectiveness geared towards her. "How did you use that much chakra?"

Daiki sighed tiredly at her question, raising his right hand with chakra coming to his fingertips, changing from its natural blue state to the green-tinted medical one.

"With control, both of your body and your chakra, comes a form of power that will never betray you." and when she looked at him expectantly, he chuckled softly.

"If I were to explain it now, I have no doubt that you would try it, and given your current capabilities, you would be met with either failure or death."

Karin sighed in relief as the green-tinted chakra of her sensei - it was still strange to refer to him as such - washed over her tired muscles: "We need to push you a lot until the end of your puberty, in a few years you'll notice your reserves turning out to be truly impressive, turning your control to be pinpoint will require another year once we're there."

"So... I'll be S-rank strong?" Karin asked what she'd been thinking about since the 'padawan' thing had sunk in.

Daiki ruffled her sweaty hair ignoring the gross-ness of the action: "If I have it my way, you'll be stronger than that."

"Oh," the Uzumaki felt the surprise wash over her as she was reminded once more of the quiet honesty that seemed to surround her sensei's intentions: "But... what are we doing here? I mean, why aren't we moving around some more then? The hunter-nin keep running tighter circles around us."

"You are trying to train while figuring out where you are and what you want for your future." Daiki patted her head twice before turning towards a tree: "I am overseeing your training and waiting."

"Waiting? Waiting for what?" as she finished asking those questions, a burst of cawing laughter revealed a raven waiting for Daiki to free a message from its leg.

"For this." the Sage quipped, reading the small scroll while the raven studied him with a keen intelligence through its beady black eyes: "In the capital of the Land of Fire we will find a shop for your glasses." he simply said to his padawan before turning towards the bird.

"We'll be there." he stated, and with a peal of cawing laughter, the raven disappeared with a puff of smoke.

Karin felt her jaw go slack with surprise at the event, realizing that there was much that she had yet to learn, both in practical skills and about her mysterious yet stalwart sensei.

...

( 13th May, year 14 AK )

Shikamaru sighed as he followed Kakashi's instructions and dropped down from the thick branches where he had set up his sleeping position: "What's up, Hatake-san?"

The shinobi with hair that defied gravity had in fact stilled unexpectantly, his head whipping towards the direction from which the breeze was blowing. Without uttering a single word, his hands moved blindingly fast through seals, only to be slammed into the ground, summoning into the Elemental Plane a dog.

"Bisuke, what do you smell from south-west? Two people, active chakra."

The summoned animal woofed lowly as a greeting, immediately turning his attention where his master had directed it, using his far more refined sense of smell to immediately pick up on the faint familiarity that had brought Kakashi up short.

After a few slow sniffs of the cooling air, he woofed as an answer, turning his head towards Kakashi, who immediately nodded, smothering the small campfire that he had set up in order to cook the fishes that were meant to be their dinner, uncaring of the small gust of smoke that left the dying embers.

"Follow." the ex-ANBU captain ordered to his charge for the duration of the mission: "There are only so many Uzumaki around, and last we heard of, Kusa had a female of their line, we cannot allow her to roam unguarded, and Konoha would benefit if she was to seek refuge behind her walls."

"Didn't Kusa fall a few months ago?" Shikamaru asked as he took once more to the branches, which allowed him to follow his superior much more easily thanks to his sensibility to the shadows that stubbornly clung to the underside of the trees' limbs.

"Yes, but some captured allies were freed from an Iwa prisoner camp, where Daiki has been seen the last time." Kakashi quickly rattled off, his thoughts already whirling around the possible implications of the nuke-nin's presence within the Land of Fire' borders, not least the fact that if he were to draw a straight line between the Iwa Camp and the general position of the Uzumaki, it would point in the general direction of Konoha.

Shikamaru's exceptional brain immediately picked up on what Copy-nin wasn't saying: "We're engaging?" he simply asked, feeling strangely conflicted at the idea, even as he imagined that actually fighting his old sensei would come with its own brand of difficulties, he recognized that it was a pretty heavy deviation to take from their intended destination.

Wait, Hatake didn't say that it's Daiki the one with the Uzumaki, did he?

"We're only investigating, I don't think Daiki is so casually walking into the Land of Fire, I would have recognized his scent in any case, but an Uzumaki should not be let roam around freely, or we risk Konoha's enemies gain such a bloodline." Kakashi quipped as they followed the lead of Bisuke.

The Nara frowned at the succinct explanation, finding it extremely unlikely that such an unimportant thing would spur the jonin into slowing down the completion of their mission.

What did it matter if Konoha's enemies gained the apparently unguarded Uzumaki? In the worst-case scenario, the clan would take generations in order to be rebuilt, and the first Uzumaki that Konoha would see rallied against her wouldn't come to be before at least 12 years, necessary both for the breeding and the training.

Shikamaru still thought that their current mission, namely investigating whatever Daiki may or may not have left behind in the centre of his economical enterprise, represented a somewhat urgent mission, at least because of the potential implications upon the sage's loyalty to Konohagakure no Sato.

Still, discussing his direct superior's decision was less than wise, especially since the Nara didn't wish to hint at his own troubled opinions about his wayward sensei.

...

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