22 Waterfall 1

As soon as Hinata was out of sight, Daiki stood up and stretched his arms out, "Well, that was interesting." he hummed to himself.

There was a puff of smoke at his side, and all of a sudden Kakashi Hatake was by his side, making him jump, startled, "The heck are you doing!?" Daiki calmed his racing heart and growled in annoyance.

…He really needed to find a way to up his sensory abilities.

"You're about as smooth as sandpaper huh?" Kakashi replied with instead, snorting, "Don't you think you played it up a bit too much for the girl?"

'This pervert was watching us.' Daiki resisted the urge to cringe, "Maybe," he forced himself to shrug, "But, hammering it in like that will help her in the long run, will make sure it's reinforced."

Plus, it wasn't often one could be so blatant about checking out a good looking girl. 'Still, to think she thought she was unattractive.' he shook his head at the sheer absurdity of it, Hiashi had really killed any pride in that girl huh?

Well, hopefully that helped her out and she wasn't bad company on top of being nice to look at and useful for getting those gains in taijutsu.

Still, time to address the elephant in the room, "…So why are you here?" he asked Kakashi, confused, "I've not made any more bets with Sasuke, but I won't say no to two more jutsu."

Since he'd met Sasuke and gotten the Fireball Jutsu from him, the Uchiha had turned up to his training ground twice to spar, and he'd won both. He'd even more or less caught up to Sasuke in physical speed as well, still, each spar was close as hell and the Force Palm Jutsu was what kept him ahead of Sasuke.

"Mmm, I'll think about it," Kakashi shrugged, which probably meant no, but whatever, "As for why I came to speak to you and heard your adorable little flirting and confidence boosting conversation with the cute little Hyuga Heiress, my team has a mission, the Hokage asked me to let you tag along."

"…What?" Daiki asked, confused, "Why?"

Kakashi shrugged again, "Apparently you caught the Hokage's eyes and he feels like it's a waste for you not to get a shot at the chunin exams," the man explained boredly, "This mission is a B-rank, in name only mind you, just a simple VIP escort mission, it will only take a day and will look good on your record."

Oh…

That made sense, he had stood out a little to the Hokage with his last mission and seemed to have shown a decent bit of potential with him getting the Chameleon contract.

He should get around to summoning soon now that he thought about it. He'd been waiting until his chakra capacity was quite a bit larger to get fully into it, he should have enough now to summon lower level chameleon's without too much issue.

"Alright, when?" he asked.

"We'll be meeting at the North gates in two hours from now," Kakashi replied, "Best get ready quickly.

Daiki nodded in understanding. That gave him a decent while to rest and recover the chakra he'd used up this morning during training. "I'll meet you guys there, then." he replied, and made to leave.

"Before you leave, there's something I want to ask you, or at least point out," Kakashi's voice stopped him, "You seem to know a lot about Naruto, despite rarely interacting with him."

Daiki paused.

How annoying, he wouldn't have said what he had to Hinata, if he knew Kakashi was watching.

Thankfully, this, he'd long since prepared an excuse for.

"I'm not an idiot you know," Daiki responded, looking over his shoulder and smirking at Kakashi, "I'll lay it out simply for you to connect the dots. My parents were killed by the Kyuubi, Naruto was born on October Tenth, the very same night.

There's an absurd hatred directed at him by the older generation of this village and to sum it up, As you've probably noticed, I'm pretty decent at Fuinjutsu." he tossed a wave over his shoulder at Kakashi, flashing his tattoo'd palm at the man, before continuing on.

"…I see…" Kakashi mused, nodding.

There was no need for some long drawn out excuse, keeping it vague was the best way to go about it, hinting at knowing about Naruto's Jinchuuriki status, and his dead parents, were good enough reason for him to have kept an eye on Naruto and learned about him.

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Unlike your standard, scrub genin, Daiki did not need to bother with a backpack to carry his equipment and supplies for the mission.

'Though, maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea.' he mused as he approached the North Gates of the village.

Not a backpack with supplies, but rather, perhaps some kind of weighted back, or torso weights? He could really up the grind even further with that!

He put it out of mind as he reached the gate, finding Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke already waiting.

Sasuke greeted him with a nod, while Sakura waved at him, "Hey Daiki, going out on a mission?" the pink haired girl asked.

"Yep," he nodded, "With you guys actually, apparently I'm supposed to tag along."

"Eh?" Naruto sounded off loudly, "But why? We don't need your help, we're the best!"

"Do you have to complain about everything?" Sakura groaned, "After the way Wave went, I'm totally fine with the extra help, right Sasuke-kun?" she immediately looked towards the boy for his approval.

Sasuke shrugged, "I don't really care either way," he replied, before smirking at Daiki, crossing his arms coolly and leaning against the gate frame, "Just don't slow me down."

"Right back at you," Daiki snorted, "The record is three to zero in my favour, remember?"

"That was a long time ago." Sasuke shrugged.

"It was a week ago." Daiki pointed out dryly.

"Semantics," the Uchiha rolled his eyes, "I've grown much stronger since then, learned a new powerful jutsu and a few techniques, things won't end the same way next time we spar."

"Aww, look at you cute little Genin getting along like barking dogs," Kakashi's voice cut in before he could respond, "It brings a tear to this old mans eye."

"You're late!" Naruto growled at him.

Kakashi ignored him and gestured to his side, where a tall, willowy man with long brown hair stood, dressed in blue, a headband depicting the symbol of the Hidden Waterfall Village tied around his forehead.

"So, this is our client," he explained, "His name is Shibuki, he's the leader of the Waterfall Village, our job is to escort him back home more or less, don't you feel important?"

The man, Shibuki introduced himself, while Naruto and Sakura together griped at Kakashi for making them wait so long.

…From what he idly made out, they were actually supposed to meet an hour ago.

Still, all that was mostly drowned out as Daiki stared at the Waterfall shinobi, '…Don't tell me…' he thought.

He remembered this guy, from a mini-side movie.

Something told Daiki, this wasn't going to be as simple a mission as Kakashi claimed it would be.