As soon as her name appeared on the electronic board, Sakura had frozen up.
She stared at her name displayed on the screen like a deer caught in headlights.
"Looks like it's your turn Sakura-chan!" Naruto didn't read her mood very well and thumped her on the shoulder happily, "All you need to do is kick this guys ass and all three of us will have made it through!"
"….Yeah…" she replied dazedly, biting her lip.
Kakashi didn't say a word to her, not that Daiki blamed him, while Sasuke looked at the pink haired girl with a raised eyebrow and didn't say a word either, he was just waiting for her choice.
She should have known it was coming at this point when Hinata and Kankuro got called up, it had left only three possible options for her opponent and prepared something at the very least.
Her head turned almost mechanically and she glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, meeting his own.
She seemed to want to say something to him.
"…What are my chances of beating this guy with that jutsu you gave me?" she asked.
He'd like to tell her she had a chance. Maybe give her some advice that would let her gain an advantange-
"Close to zero," he replied bluntly and truthfully, "If you could get an actual hit on him with it, you could win, the problem is, you're nowhere near fast enough, experienced enough or skilled enough to do so right now."
As much as he'd like to do that, he couldn't, because he didn't have a solution for her right in this very moment that could allow her to defeat Neji.
Sakura's shoulders slumped, "…I see." she grimaced.
Sasuke's eyebrow rose a bit higher, but that was all the reaction he gave. Naruto on the other hand-
"What the hell do you mean Daiki!?" the blonde sputtered, "Sakura-chan can totally take this guy."
"No she can't," Daiki denied, crossing his arms, "Frankly, even if you went down there and helped her, fought him two on one you'd still lose."
"No way!" Naruto growled, "I can take him." he declared, but even as he did, Daiki caught his blue eyes flickering over to Lee who was cheering Neji on as the Hyuga made his way down to the arena and grimacing.
Yeah, Naruto should already be aware right now that he couldn't beat Lee right now and that Lee had declared that Naji was stronger than him.
Hyping himself up because nobody else would.
Well, Daiki understood that part at least, and he'd be a bit of a hypocrite to look down on him for it.
He was the exact same after all.
Daiki sighed, "Neji is the Hyuga's big prodigy these days, as far as taijutsu goes there probably isn't any genin here more skilled than him right now, I think I'd even lose out to him," he informed, looking at Sakura, he'd give her this much at least and see what she made of it, "His Byakugan allows him to see chakra, through solid objects, have three hundred and sixty degree vision meaning he pretty much has no blind spots and see far off into the distance. On top of that his taijutsu style is the gentle fist, one poke of his fingers can close your tenketsu and lock down your chakra and stop you from using it. On top of that, there's a good chance he probably knows the Hyuga's famous defensive jutsu the Rotation, he'll spin in a circle and unleash chakra through his tenketsu and create a rotating dome of chakra to use as a shield, even my jutsu won't be able to break through it."
"Hmm…" Sasuke smirked as he digested the information for Sakura himself while Naruto clicked his tongue.
"…That's bullshit!" Sakura huffed, giving him a dead look, "There's no way I can win this."
"Right now, yeah, you've got little chance," Daiki agreed with her, before reaching forward and placing a hand on her shoulder and giving it a soft reassuring squeeze, "If you had an extra year under your belt like he did, I'd give you much better odds, but sadly life isn't convenient like that. Best advice I can give you? Just do your best, show off your skills and try to earn your promotion, winning isn't the only thing that matters here."
"…Oh right." her pretty emerald green eyes widened in realisation and she nodded, "That's much more doable." she agreed.
"Get in there then and show us what you can do." he grinned lightly.
She returned the look before leaving them behind and making her way down to the arena to face off against Neji.
"Quite the pep talk," Kakashi commented as she left, not even looking up from his book now that she was gone, "And as usual your knowledge is something else."
"It's really not," Daiki snorted, rolling his eyes before glaring at the man, "But just as usual, I'm doing your job for you, why didn't you speak up and give her advice?"
Kakashi shrugged, "Her best option is to surrender here and try again another time, this was just bad luck on her part."
"…Maybe if you did your job properly she would have had a better chance." Sasuke cut in with a huff.
Kakashi rolled his singular visible eye at them, "You do realise being a Jonin-sensei isn't about teaching you all jutsu and the like, right? That's something you can learn on your own time," the elite jonin pointed out, "My job is to get you guys experience on the job, show you how to do your jobs and make sure you don't die on the way, teaching new jutsu isn't required for that, getting taught new jutsu is not a privilege you're entitled to."
"Excuses," Daiki scoffed, "You're just a lazy bastard."
"Well you're not wrong." Kakashi shrugged the accusation off.
Daiki rolled his eyes and looked away from the scarecrow looking jonin and turned his attention to the pink haired girl making her way down to the arena.
She was going to have a hell of an uphill battle, that was for sure. 'But if she can just make some decent moves, and then-' he paused as a thought came to mind.
He extended his chakra outwards in a rippling wave, directing it towards Sakura while he focused chakra to his eyes.
'Sakura.' he said with the chakra transmission jutsu he learned from Fu.