After Toka bid him goodbye to get started on the job he'd given her and her clan, Daiki decided, it was time for the daily grind.
His destination of course, was the ever epic training ground sixty-nine. His home, away from home.
'Maybe I should put a sign down claiming ownership of the place?' he wondered.
Could he even do that?
…Well, he could if he became Hokage he supposed. Training ground sixty-nine, personal training ground of the Hokage. Heh.
Daiki sighed, strolling leisurely along the pathway between the training grounds. The Sandaime hadn't brought the topic up at all, not even hinted at it to his clones that saw the man practically every morning.
All the man did was greet him, make small talk, ask how his training was going. It felt like the man was trying to give him space to think things through and not pressure him.
But that in of itself was pressuring Daiki and he was doing his best not to think about it.
That was what old man third claimed, but he was wrong, Daiki knew that, which was the problem. If there really wasn't a rush, he'd have accepted, because the offer was on the table plain as day, personal instruction from the Sandaime Hokage himself and probably access to the Forbidden Scroll. He could learn all he wanted and then pass the pie to Naruto a few years down the road, or even Kakashi or something and let them become Hokage instead of him, step down for them.
But, that couldn't happen. Because, the Sandaime had a death timer counting down right now and Daiki had no idea if he would be able to stop it. And if he did actually manage to stop it, he would probably have to pull out every damn trick in the book to do so.
And if he failed, not only would his status as a jinchuuriki get revealed to pretty much everyone, he might actually be forced to take up the hat instead of Tsunade as the Sandaime's chosen successor.
Jiraiya wouldn't accept. Kakashi wouldn't accept. No way in hell would Danzo be allowed, and thus it would come down to either him or Tsunade.
He could be fucking Hokage in less than three months from now.
That was terrifying to think about.
It was why he decided to push up his timetable and have the chameleon clan search out that ferret so he could get his hands on a piece of the Stone of Gelel.
And while they were at it, stealing Doto's armour as well. He had to get his hands on what he could-
Because the thing was, he was actually very tempted to accept. Personal instruction from the legendary 'Professor' himself. The amount of jutsu he could get out of the man almost made him salivate.
And beyond that, again, the Forbidden Scroll. The Edo Tensei. It could be a viable backup plan. If he failed and died…with the Infinite Armour, his eyes and enough chakra converted into life force, he could probably revive himself.
Hell, Edo Tensei re-animations had pretty much infinite chakra. He could abuse the shit out of that with his eyes and his Infinite Armour.
A failsafe in case he failed to get strong enough to deal with the Akatsuki.
Plus beyond that, there were tons of powerful jutsu within that scroll, hell, if he wasn't wrong, the Hiraishin was in there as well.
"Daiki!" someone calling out his name broke him from his deep thoughts.
Looking over his shoulder, Daiki saw that it was a familiar bun haired girl, "Oh, hey Tenten." He waved to her.
Seemed she and her team had returned from their little month long training trip.
"I was just coming to look for you!" she grinned, jogging over to him, "How lucky. I was hoping we could train together a little bit."
"Fine with me, good to see you back," Daiki replied, "So, how'd the training trip go?"
Tenten froze and then grimaced, "…It went…" she trailed off, apparently having trouble finding a word to describe it.
"That bad huh?" he snorted.
"Like you wouldn't believe," she sighed, shoulders slumping, "We spent most of it doing physical training and sparring, well, me and Neji at least, Lee spent the entire month trying to get surface walking down."
"How'd he do?" Daiki asked, raising an eyebrow, he was actually quite curious.
"So so," she shrugged, "He managed to get it down enough to be usable in a fight, but that's about it."
"Well, at least there's that, he's getting there I suppose," Daiki shrugged, "How about you? Get the Mystical Palm down?"
She sighed again, "Not quite, I mean, I've managed to heal a few cuts with it, but it's nowhere close to perfect," she answered, "Gai-sensei didn't give me as much time to work on it as I would have liked, he wanted us to be in top physical condition for the chunin exams over just a single jutsu."
Well, Daiki could see where the man was coming from. As useful as the Mystical Palm Jutsu was and god was it useful, it was a utility and support type jutsu, raw physical ability would be better for the chunin exams.
Tenten clapped her hands together and bowed her head to him, "So, please help me out on perfecting the jutsu." the bun haired girl pleaded.
"Sure," Daiki shrugged, his usual eye candy was busy today, he wouldn't say no to another, especially one not heavily in love with someone else, "But we're getting this done today, I've got my own training to do after all."
Her head whipped up and she grinned brightly at him, "Aye aye Daiki-sensei!" she chirped happily, "Thanks a bunch!" she surprised him by wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly.
"Yeah, yeah." he smirked, rolling his eyes, though definitely not complaining about having a cute and curvy girl pressed up against him.
It helped him focus for now.
Again, it was the little things in life. Or, well, not quite so little in Tenten's case.