Naruto : Domination: Chapter 15

I managed to contain a snort. As if anyone could wish to face the Sandaime.

Even with the Anbu ninjas without a doubt hidden around, the total of five shinobi, and three very big dogs, the Hokage's office managed to not look overcrowded.

...

It was a circular room, with a tall library behind the desk where the Hokage was currently sitting, on the left of which stood an impressive pile of paperwork, and by the angry puffing of his pipe, I deduced that it was still to be completed. 

The door we came through had tall windows on both sides, and the left one allowed the Hokage to see the mountain with the faces of the others that had shared the job. On the walls sat pictures of the ones that had held the weight of the hat.

There was even a pot of freshly picked flowers, and if I knew something about bouquet composition, I would even have known its meaning. 

Then I looked at the Man with the Hat. In the brief second that I had spent taking in the environment he had all the time necessary to look us over. He slightly narrowed his eye when his gaze went over Shin. "Are you drunk, boy?" He asked. Shin spluttered.

The question was so unexpected, and the reaction of my teammate so genuine, that I had to cough into my hand to mask a laugh. Hana's answer, however, was the best. Forgetting her fatigue, she whirled on him with a thunderous expression.

Sniffing suspiciously in his direction, before looking sternly not at him, but at the Haimaru brothers, her mind busy coming up with a reason for which they had neglected to mention that fact to her. 

Since she probably had been able to pick up something, it was a sure thing that the ninkens had been able to do the same.

"Wait, you are drunk?" I asked, it was hilarious, but I too didn't notice anything that resembled a drunken behavior. Unless...

"How come you didn' tell me?" Hana asked in the meantime at her dogs, who chorused whining of various kind, and beta dared even attempt a friendly lick on her hand. He had always been a suck-up for authority. 

"No shit he promised you food in exchange!" she screamed at them.

I grimaced. "Hana, do not curse in front of the Hokage."

She whirled on me and just pointed her forefinger. "You shut up! You're the one who taught me to curse anyway!"

I wisely shut up raising my hands in defeat: "Hey that was for training, and don't bark up to my tree! He's the drunk one!"

She was annoyed by my 'bark' remark, but she turned on Shin, who was rightfully furious at me for having thrown him to the wolves. Eh, ninkens and an angry bitch, close enough. I remarked into the safe borders of my head.

"Hey I'm not drunk!" Shin objected, before deflating a bit "Just a tiny tiny bit tipsy. Maybe."

"But how? We've been running for a week straight." I pointed out, honestly curious, while I made my way over, my hand glowing green and checking his bloodstream. 

"A bit tipsy?" 

I asked sardonically, before moving to his liver. He was perfectly sane, even if it baffled me how sensei hadn't picked it up.

"I've been training." He murmured, looking with a defeated demeanor at the ground.

Suddenly, in my head a thought clicked: Didn't Rock Lee got drunk and kicked ass once?

Before Hana could begin her tongue lashing anew I cut her off: "Only for taijutsu? Or does it boost your Katon too?"

He grinned at me, making clear that his positive answer was to my second question. But I was hardly going to let him go unscathed. 

"Yes, I understand that since you're feeling guilty you're treating the whole team to BBQ, and not the cheap one." I nodded sagely. 

He was about to protest when he noticed the increasing frown on Hana's face and stopped. He sighed and nodded his assent.

"I still don't like having an alcoholic as a teammate." She protested.

"I'm not an alcoholic, I just happen to like to drink." Shin frowned at her, managing to look both offended by her remark and proud of his brilliant use of sake.

"That's the definition of alcoholism." I sighed, pinching my nose and feeling my headache returning with a vengeance.

A deep belly laugh reminded us that we weren't alone. Uh, that explains also why Guy sensei isn't singing praises around our youthful bantering. Was my first thought.

Shit we're in front of the Hokage! Was the second.

"You've done a good job with them, Guy-kun." The old shinobi said.

"Yosh! It's been the most youthful team effort Sandaime-sama!" My sensei... obviously... answered.

"Yeah, sensei, out of three dogs and three humans only one human became an alcoholic." I quipped in.

Hana slapped a hand on my mouth. I frowned, it wasn't like they weren't used to my sarcasm, not only the years together as a team forced us to get to know each other. 

Risking your life with someone did make you closer to that person. And during the last three months, we had been forced to stay only with each other.

Then I remembered that we had fooled around enough for our first private encounter with one of the most powerful men to have ever lived. I grimaced a bit.

And at the raised eyebrow of the man, and the absolutely out of character scolding look Guy sensei threw at me, I knew it was uncalled for. When Hana let me, I slightly bowed.

"I humbly apologize."

The Hokage let a second pass in silence, before rising from his chair and making his way towards me. His 'presence' in the room thickened. It wasn't killing intent, nor the foreboding feeling of a shinobi with a larger than normal chakra capacity turning his attention on you. 

It felt almost like being underwater, but more like when your ears get corked due to a shift in the pressure. "I don't think you have a humble bone in your whole body, Daiki-kun." He commented. Looking at my teammates, I saw them trembling slightly, but neither of us could move.

"Why, from what I know, instead of letting other children use eatslug as a nickname you went as far as claiming it as your surname." 

He recounted, and his presence receded, even in that 'heated' moments, I noticed the surprised look that blossomed on my teammates' faces. I would need to explain that.

Was that the thing I do to sense people around me? How the hell does he know about me? Did he have me followed? I asked myself, my old paranoid tendencies rising again.

"May I see your hands, Daiki-kun?" He asked.

I wordlessly brought my hands forward. Because when the motherfucking Hokage makes a polite request, it's a politely phrased absolute order.

He hummed, taking my calloused hands in his marred by countless years of war. He turned them up and down, lightly trailing his finger over where I had cut myself practicing the change in chakra nature.

"It's been some time since I've seen hands that resemble mine." He mused. "Suiton...Katon, and even Fūton?"

I wordlessly nodded. It was mindblowing that he could read so much in so little. "You don't use handseals often do you?" he asked then, releasing my hands.

"Not often and not all the necessary ones, no." I quietly answered.

The Hokage sat back into his chair and lit up his pipe with a flare of chakra fire natured. Obviously, no hand signs.

"You have been recalled for a reason." He said. And his tone meant business.

We straightened up and assumed a stand by position, arms crossed behind our backs, feet at shoulder width and staring into the void in front of us.

"In a month the chunin exams will be held in Iwa. You will go, accompanied by Kakashi Hatake, who will be an impartial judge of your performance, and upon which judgment I'll base your possible promotion. 

Nevertheless, the final part of your exam will be, like it always is a tournament of some sort. Your B ranked mission will be winning said tournament." He blew a perfect circle of smoke, that changed its shape and turned into the kanji for 'fire'. 

"Questions?"

That is a crazy strange chakra thingy. Only shape manipulation? No, he somehow laced the smoke with his chakra! I quickly analyzed it.

"Does it have anything to do with the closing down of the Uchiha' District?" Shin asked. So he noticed it too? Good. I was honestly surprised he had picked it up.

The sharp gaze of the Sandaime closed on him, evaluating what to tell us. He sighed, nodding to himself. "Observant too." He mumbled.

"Two weeks ago, Itachi and Shishui Uchiha betrayed Konoha, killing off their clan in the process, they are currently two S ranked missing-nin, on their way out they... collided, with two genin teams ready for promotion, and they'll be incapacitated for another six months." He grimly explained.

I blinked. Shishui? What the fuck? That was a big change in the storyline of the Narutoverse.

"Survivors?" Shino asked, his analytical mind coming through what was left of his alcohol induced daze.

"One." Sarutobi replied arching an eyebrow. I was so grateful that Shin was the one making questions.

"The other villages will learn about it soon if they hadn't already." I jumped into the fray, dragging the attention of the powerful shinobi on myself. "So the chunin exams are a show of strength."

The Sandaime gaze bored into me for an instant, before turning to Guy once more. "You've done a really good job with them."

While our sensei was preening youthfully under the praise, Hana cleared her throat. "Why call us back a whole month before the exams? We could have keep up the mission and went straight to Iwa from the border."

"Because I wanted you to know what was at stake, our reputation, and every message can be intercepted. And because in the village, with a month of preparation, I wanted you to learn something flashy, suited to properly impress our future customers."

I stifled groan, I didn't do 'flashy'. Like hell I was going to use the Rasengan, and while I could use with some measure of safety the first five gates if only for a brief period, they left me battered. That was another reason why I didn't like the chunin exams. 

This whole 'advertisement' part was just stupid. Yeah, I got it, shinobi in this world were more like foot soldiers highly reliant on stealth, so it wasn't unreasonable that there were situations that required large scale destruction. 

Still, I disliked it. Why throwing a giant fireball when overheating the brain of the target did the same job with a fraction of the effort. Besides, it was... less clean.

I shuddered. How far have I come? To consider how much more elegant is killing someone with the least amount of force necessary...

But I recognized an opportunity when I saw one. "I've been working on my original elemental jutsu. The theory is sound, and it's... uncharacteristically flashy, for me. 

I've hit a snag with the testing, however, since until I properly learn it the middle results will be highly unstable and could either kill me, rupture my chakra coils, completely dry me of chakra, make my blood vessels explode, or simply go boom killing everything in three meters radius. 

Is there some kind of... I don't know, seal maybe? That can help? Or a way to drastically increase my chakra reserves different from the long road of constant exercise? Or at least a way to infuse my Suiton Bushins with roughly half of my chakra? It's very demanding and I cant make my clones strong enough to perform it." 

And as an afterthought, I remembered exactly who I was trying to play, and added a hasty "Hokage-sama."

"We can do better, I can go with you over your handseals, and lend you my expertise, Daiki-kun." He counter-offered.

I grimaced. "You can't." I blurted out, a bit resigned.

Before anyone, and most of all Sarutobi himself could take offense at my words, I shook my hands in a pleading, panicked expression.

"It's just that it doesn't have any hand signs! Not that you can't learn it, Hokage-sama, even if it is my first original work and I'd have liked to keep it for myself, but it's a super honor that you would offer to help. 

I mean it's you, and you probably have forgotten more about being a shinobi than what I'll ever learn in my life, and now I'm rambling and I'll shut up. I'm sorry Hokage-sama." 

I bowed at the waist, I was honestly nervous, not that much for my saying to the motherfucking Hokage that he couldn't do something, but more about the subtle way through which I prodded him to let me learn the Kage Bunshin.

"I presume it's a suiton jutsu?" The Sandaime asked. At my nod, he spoke again: "Tomorrow at zero five hundred, training ground eleven."

I bowed. This time the order wasn't disguised as a question.

======================

If you want to read ahead of the public release on p atreon.

p atreon Link :

 https://www.p atreon.com/sybife

 |● sybife