138 The Chunin Exams 64 (Preliminary End)

Quite simply, Daiki had to leave the room before he did something stupid and intervened on Lee's behalf himself.

That was not his place.

Even as thunderous booms echoed from the arena out into hallway and reverberated through the very tower itself, Daiki refused to even look. With his jaw clenched, he ignored everything utterly.

'Fucking idiot, winning one fight isn't worth your life, do others peoples worrying for you mean fucking nothing?' Daiki raged internally, fists clenched.

It took all he had not to just start punching craters in the walls in sheer frustration.

He wanted to go back in there and kick Lee's ass, and then Gaara's while he was at it.

Maybe challenge Gai as well and try and beat his ass for being so damn stupidly sentimental and not taking his job seriously.

The thunderous impacts didn't last long.

Less than a minute.

And gave Daiki enough peace and quiet for a minute or so, to take a damn chill pill and calm himself.

Which would have worked, if the doors at his side didn't blast open and a pair of medic nin carrying a familiar unconscious leotard wearing boy out in a rush, Gai hurrying along behind them.

"Hang on Lee!" the man shouted.

He paused as he caught sight of Daiki though, while the medic nin continued on, carrying Lee away.

"Daiki-kun…" Gai gave a visible grimace.

"Was it worth it?" Daiki couldn't help but taunt the man.

He didn't answer and looked away.

Daiki found himself sneering on instinct. He turned his nose up at the man and walked away, heading back into the arena.

'I used to think he was the best sensei before.' he thought. Now, not so much. At least personally now, he knew not what to do.

Between Gai and Kakashi, Daiki figured he had a full on example of 'what not to do' as a sensei and perhaps even a parental figure.

There was a stunned silence that greeted Daiki when he made his way back into the large room the prelims were taking place in.

The bottom floor, which before the final fight had taken little damage was riddled with craters, spider web cracks and piles of debris.

Many a paled, shock filled face met his gaze when his eyes swept over the room. Specifically the likes of Ino and Shikamaru who were amongst the weakest gathered within the room couldn't hide the disturbed looks they had at all, such was their shock at the fight they just witnessed.

Daiki's eyes roved over to the other side of the room. Specifically, upon the two remaining sand siblings within the wide spaced room.

Despite the damage done to her clothing and such that had came from her fight with Tenten, there was a wide, smug smirk on Temari's face, her arms crossed. While at her side, stood Gaara, his clothing torn and frayed, yet not a single bruise upon him an impassive look upon his face.

Teal eyes met Daiki's own, sensing his gaze upon him and Gaara stared back at Daiki, examining him.

Daiki couldn't hold back the scoff that erupted from his throat, frustration bubbling inside him, 'All that big talk about your dreams and using a forbidden jutsu that you couldn't even handle and for what? To ruffle his clothes a bit?' he thought derisively of Lee's efforts.

Lee's courage was vastly overshadowed by his own stupidity. If he was deserving of anything at all, it was not a chunin vest, but rather, a Darwin Award.

The fool had his whole life ahead of him to accomplish his dream and he threw it all away for a completely meaningless fight.

Of course, the silence didn't last for long.

"This is bullshit!" Naruto complained.

Loudly.

Daiki rolled his eyes as he looked away from Gaara to the blonde, to see him with his arms crossed, blue eyes narrowed into a glare and a snarl on his lips.

"They're supposed to be medic ninja right, how can they not help him?" the blonde kicked the railing, the pole his foot connected with bending, "Bushy Brows was so desperate, he kept saying how much he wanted to fight Sasuke and that Neji guy."

"Cuz they're not miracle workers dumbass." Daiki scoffed loudly, drawing eyes to him.

He honestly didn't care right now.

Naruto had made himself a convenient target to unleash a bit of his frustration on.

"You're back?" Naruto noted in surprise, before shaking his head and growling, "And what's that supposed to mean? I've seen those guys heal broken bones pretty easily before, they should be able to heal what that Sand jerk did to him."

"Moron," Daiki crossed his arms, "It isn't what raccoon boy did to him that's the problem, it's what he did to himself. The gates are called a forbidden jutsu for a reason, because of the toll it takes on the body to use them. Lee was just too weak, end of story."

"The hell'd you say?" Naruto snarled indignantly, uncrossing his arms and tensing his shoulders in Daiki's direction, "Did you see how Bushy Brows fought? There ain't nothing weak about that guy! Besides, what would you know, you stormed off before the fight was even finished just cuz' Bushy Brows wouldn't listen to you."

"And look where he ended up," Daiki shot back, "If he listened to me, he wouldn't be a cripple for life. And for what? To soothe his ego and claim he can fight against the strong? If the moron bided his time until he could handle the gates better, that would never be a problem, but he traded everything for a single meaningless fight against an utter weakling."

"W-weakling?" Naruto gaped at him, and he was not the only one. Daiki didn't bother looking to see who else was shocked by it, but the way Sasuke's eyes widened briefly and how Kakashi furrowed his brows was telling enough.

"You heard me," Daiki rolled his eyes, "Gaara ain't shit, none of you are. I could beat every single genin in this room with one arm tied behind my back. The fact Lee would waste his life to try and one up another weakling just shows how pathetic he is. And the best of it is, he crippled himself with his own jutsu, Gaara literally could have just huddled up inside his sand and let Lee kill himself and show how inept he really is."

'Laying it on a little thick aren't you?' Isobu mused.

Yet, his bijuu partner did not claim he was wrong.

Because he wasn't. It was pathetic. There was nothing noble or heroic or even worth admiring about what Lee did. It was just a pathetic waste of potential.

This had been building up for a while to be honest, since the prelims began. From everyone's stupidity about how the chunin exams worked and what being a ninja meant, to the sheer stupidity of nonsense dreams pushing these morons to even stupider heights.

You want to be Hokage? Then learn what being a Hokage actually fucking meant.

You want to become a strong ninja with only taijutsu? That was fine, but don't throw everything away for one single fight that meant nothing. Like, what the fuck would beating a single genin, Jinchuuriki or not mean in the grand scheme of things in the prelims with a limited viewing capacity.

It proved nothing,

'It's not even as if I can heal him either.' Daiki grit his teeth in frustration. He'd got a good look at the boy as he wheeled past on the stretcher. Not only were his muscles torn all across his body, not only were his arm and leg bones completely shattered. But he had fucking shards of bone lodged into his spine.

There was a difference between healing someone and surgery. And he'd need fucking miracle surgery to get this bone fragments out. At best, Daiki would be able to keep the moron alive during such an operation, but even then, considering how long such a surgery would take, with how delicate it would be, it would take up quite a lot of life force to do so.

Daiki had neither the skill, nor the life force available to help Lee.

There was multiple spikes of killing intent directed at him for his words. And not just from the sand siblings and their sensei.

Though, none even came close to the roiling wroth directed at him by redhead on the other side of the room.

Blood was pumping in Daiki's ears and his lips pulled back into a snarl as he turned around and glared murder at the redhead trying to smother him with his intent to murder him.

"You better reign yourself in right fucking now you damn fucking clown," he snarled, his own killing intent rising to the surface, "I'm not in the mood to play with you right now, so sit down, shut your ass up or I'm gonna come over there and pulp your skull between my palms."

It would be so easy too. That sand armour wouldn't do shit to block his Force Palm Jutsu. He'd just use his Heavenly Star Seal and draw on the first stage of Isobu's chakra, blitz straight through his hand, clap both hands over the idiots ears and unleash a pair of Force Palm Jutsu and pulp his brain from both ends.

'Calm down Daiki, Your frustration and temper are getting the better of you. They aren't worth getting worked up over and ruining your plans.' Isobu cautioned gently.

Daiki took a deep shuddering breath at his companions words. He was right, but it was oh so hard with how childish and naive these people, his friends even, were.

'Which is why it annoys you so much, because their lives aren't something easily replaceable.' Isobo replied lightly.

….Ah.

"Enough." The Sandaime's voice was calm and level, yet somehow seemed to echo with a thunderous ruling force.

The killing intent spread throughout the room sputtered and died instantly in the face of the authority inherent through his voice.

Naruto scowled at Daiki one last time, but didn't speak up.

Even he knew better than to really go against the Hokage's command.

The arguments were put to an end, and before long, all of them were directed down to stand in a line in front of the Hokage.

And by all of them, he meant all nine of them that had passed the preliminaries. Daiki himself, alongside Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Hinata, Neji, Temari, Gaara and stretchy guy, Kabuto's teammate.

Daiki honestly couldn't remember his name.

Nor did he care.

He was a traitor anyway.

Daiki eyed him speculatively out of the corner of his eye, 'I should take care of him in advance.' he mused. It would make the third round of the exam move smoother and he could rip some information out of the mans head.

Like the location of some of Orochimaru's bases.

And perhaps how his jutsu was used. Daiki for the life of him couldn't remember how his jutsu worked, 'Does it make his body rubber or something?' he wondered.

If it did, then it might be worth stealing for himself. If not, it could at least be useful for if he ever got tied up or something.

Sarutobi went on the explain how now that the prelims were finished, the next part of the exam, the third and final round would be another series of one versus one fights that would take place a month from now.

As expected, quite a few didn't understand why, Naruto as expected among them. And the old man had to once again go over the fact that the chunin exams was in fact just a glorified dick measuring contest and they had to give some time for people of power from around the elemental countries to make their way to Konoha to watch.

'Honestly, it's constantly in one ear and out the other with these people.' Daiki rolled his eyes. Even Shikamaru for all his vaunted intelligence was just the same in that regard.

Once again, the Nara clan heir was a prime example of why intelligence did not mean wisdom, nor did it mean common sense either for that matter.

Finally though, things came to a close and everything was dismissed. As Daiki was about to leave and head home to plot his next move though, the Hokage caught his eye and gave a single slight jerk of his chin for him to follow, before disappearing out of sight with a body flicker.

Daiki sighed, but did as bid.

He left the room behind with a body flicker of his own before anybody could talk to him or in Naruto's case, continue their argument from before.

He followed the Sandaime straight to the top of tower.

It was a simple small sitting room with two couches and a table in between them.

When he arrived mere seconds after leaving the arena behind, it was to find the Sandaime already waiting for him, sitting placidly on one couch.

"Ah, Daiki-kun," Sarutobi smiled at warmly and gestured at the opposite couch, "Have a seat."

"Sure," Daiki shrugged, doing as said and collapsing into the couch. He didn't even bother sitting on it, he just lay straight across it and propped his head up on one arm, "So what's up?" he asked.

Though he already had a feeling he knew what would be getting brought up here.

"We can get to that in a bit," Hiruzen's warm smile didn't even twitch at his utter disregard of propriety, in fact his eyes twinkled with amusement, "How are you feeling? That was quite the outburst you had."

He didn't need to specify. It was obvious he was talking about how pissed off and frustrated Daiki was about Rock Lee.

"Lee pissed me off with his utter stupidity," Daiki shrugged, "Gai should have had the common sense to stop him and not encourage him. Now unless Tsunade comes back, he'll be crippled for life."

And call it him being petty. But right now, Daiki didn't feel up to trying to fix the idiot.

"Hmm, you seem so sure of that." Hiruzen mused.

Daiki shrugged again, "I saw his injuries with my eyes," he replied, "Even beyond what Gaara did to him, it's what the gates did to him that's the real problem. He's got shards of bone stuck in his spine, our medic ninja are pretty good, but like I said, they're not miracle workers and they're not Tsunade either."

"Hmm, I see," Hiruzen's brows furrowed, "That is a disappointing thing to learn. And there is no way Tsunade will help the boy, not only will she not come back, but beyond even that she…" he trailed off.

"She's afraid of blood so even if she did come back her skills as a medic are utterly useless." Daiki finished for him.

Unless Naruto went and Talk no Jutsu'd her bodacious blonde ass into coming back and getting over her fear of blood, Lee was fucked without Daiki himself going out of his way.

Hiruzen's eyebrows rose at his words, but nodded, "Quite." he agreed.