8 The Castle 3

As much as Daiki would love to get around to learning the new jutsu he'd just come across right away.

He couldn't exactly do that while so far outside the village. Well, it was fine either way, since it wouldn't be long before he returned to the village and got around to it.

Before then though, he had one more objective to get around to.

Done with his mission, and with the initial excitement of what he found dwindling away, Daiki made his way towards Kubisaki Pass, the former capital of the Land of Neck and where the once daimyo and former head shinobi of the land resided in a castle of his own back in the day.

From what he remembered from his geography classes in the academy, the shinobi forces of the Land of Neck was wiped out just before the second world shinobi war, by Tanigakure, the village hidden in the valley.

Tanigakure, was a once shinobi village of the Land of Rivers, and they by order of their daimyo, had invaded the Land of Necks to expand their territory. Being right in between both the Land of Wind and Land of Fire, had them feeling threatened constantly.

Tanigakure were wiped out themselves during the second war, by Konoha in fact in response to their attack on the Land of Necks, because they were allied with his his village.

"There it is." Daiki spotted his destination less than a half an hour after leaving the bandit camp behind. It was a pretty small country after all.

Jutting out high over the trees, about two hundred and fifty feet high, was a large dark coloured castle.

His target. The Chameleon summon, Shiromari.

'If I remember right, the summoning scroll should be located at the very top, within the tower.' Daiki mused, eyeing the jutting tower of the castle rising high into the air.

Destroying the scroll would send Shiromari back to the summon realm, but that would be such a waste.

He had to admit though, Shiromari was incredible at blending in. He couldn't feel anything off at all just looking at the castle form the summon had taken on.

Well, if one thing was expected of a chameleon summon, it would be blending in he supposed.

There were two ways this could go. Either way, he was probably going to get attacked by Shiromari, which wasn't of the good, he was nowhere near strong enough to fight a boss summon, and it definitely was the boss summon, no other summon would have the clan summoning scroll on hand.

The first option, was after he got his hands on the scroll, he could reason with Shiromari and calm the summon down.

'Mentioning my home village slaughtered his previous masters enemies might get me a bit of goodwill.' he mused.

The second option, was that he was unable to calm the summon down and would have to book it back to Konoha and rely on his fellow shinobi to protect him and ward the boss summon off.

That or it giving up after he fled.

Either way, he was going to sign his name on that contract tonight.

'Hmm.' Daiki's eyes narrowed as he eyed the castle in thought.

The quickest and safest method, would be to break in to the tower from the outside and get out with the scroll quickly and not risk being caught in Shiromari's stomach.

But, he'd come across as a common thief if he did that, and wouldn't exactly endear himself to the chameleon summon by smashing a hole in it.

So the best option, would probably be to just enter from the front and make his way up the tower.

Well, at the very least, Shiromari didn't immediately jump to trying to kill Naruto, Hinata and Kiba when they entered it. So he had that going for him at least.

Jumping out of the tree, Daiki walked towards the castle, up the stairs and grasped the handle of the door, before pulling it open and entering it.

A whistle left him as he stepped in, "Pretty swank design." he had to admit that.

Large, gleaming purple tilted floor, extravagant paintings, vases and such lining the walls as decorations.

Considering this was based on the previous summoners original castle, Daiki had to give the man props. Even from just the hallway alone, he admitted the man had some nice taste.

Keeping his senses alert, Daiki did as he planned and made his way over to the interior staircase and made his way up. He ignored the middle floors the stairs branched out to, and continued on to the very top.

And not long later he arrived at his destination. It was a small room located at the very top of the tower, dimly lit, with a small shrine in the middle, and atop a small pedestal, sat a very large dark green scroll.

The chameleon summoning scroll.

"It really is a summoning scroll." Daiki made a show of being surprised, and walked over towards it.

He already had a plan and convenient excuse for how he knew about it to put into action. Thank you bandit group! Thank you dead former kumo shinobi.

…What was his name again?

Eh, not important.

On the binder of the scroll, he could see the design of a dark inked chameleon with its tail curled and its long tongue stretched out.

Daiki unfurled the scroll, and in multiple different columns, he saw dozens of names, written in blood. The last one being Kubisaki Koza.

"Kubisaki Koza, I've read about this guy," Daiki hummed, making a show of it. But at least here, he wasn't lying, "I don't know how much it'll mean to you now that you're gone already, but we of Konoha got your revenge for you, we wiped out Tanigakure in retribution for you." clapping his hands together, Daiki bowed his head and said a short prayer for the mans memory.

It was the least he could do for the man that left something so valuable behind for him.

Really, Daiki was incredibly grateful to him. If he ever met the guy in the pure world, he'd be sure to buy the guy a drink.

With the prayer done with, Daiki wasted no time, he bit his thumb, cutting it and making it bleed, and then wrote his name on the scroll.

He rolled up the summoning contract scroll and carried it under his arm and waited for a moment.

He almost expected the walls to turn into the fleshy insides of a chameleon's stomach and try and digest him.

But nope.

Nothing.

Well, thank fuck for that. Today sure was a lucky, lucky day, it seemed Shiromari had no interest in devouring him like all the other poor souls that ended up trapped inside him.

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Daiki made his way back down the stairs, right down to the very bottom and made a bee-line for the front doors.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief that he didn't even know he was holding within himself when he got outside and made his way down the outer stairs.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned around to stare up at the castle, pursing his lips in thought.

He was free to go with the scroll it seemed. But, if he didn't do anything about this right now, he wouldn't be able to summon the actual boss itself.

Well, he had a rough plan for this at least, so he could try it out, no sense in not since it seemed like Shiromari was okay with him.

"You're not a castle at all, are you?" he spoke aloud, "I know this castle was destroyed a good fifty years ago, and there's a ton of rumours going on about you. Heck, I heard a guy talking about you early on, claiming he knew you were a summon and that was why he wasn't taking over the empty castle out here."

There was no response. Just the drifting of the wind in his ears and not a shift at all in the castle.

But, he felt the hairs on his arms tingle, as if he was being watched by someone he couldn't see.

So Daiki pushed on.

"And going by the summoning scroll I just found, it kind of adds up, doesn't it?" the genin 'mused', "You're one of the chameleon clan summons, right?"

For a moment, nothing happened.

And for that moment, he thought maybe, it was a lost cause.

But then-

An audible sigh resonated through the air, entering his ears. It was loud, and rumbling, as expected of a creature that size.

"…And what of it?" a deep, masculine voice emanated from the castle, "I allowed you to take the scroll, you should just count your lucky stars you spoke up when you did before you signed your name on the scroll, or I would have devoured you like so many others."