"You can't leave yet, I haven't said my hello," a voice echoed behind Sakura. Before she could turn, she felt a sharp pain and fell unconscious. Sasuke, barely aware of his surroundings, could only see blurs.
"It seems I'm quite popular," Orochimaru responded, his tongue doing its unsettling dance.
"That really is disgusting. Do I have to touch that thing's head?" Daniel remarked, disguised as a grown-up version of Izuru. He stood there, Team 7 collapsed behind him.
"Oh my, those eyes," Orochimaru commented as Daniel activated his Sharingan. "To think I'd run into an Uchiha in a place like this."
Before Orochimaru could react, Daniel was already standing next to him. "It's a shame our talk has to be cut short," he said. "Bind," Daniel muttered, and Orochimaru suddenly found himself immobilized. Daniel reached for Orochimaru's head, absorbing his knowledge. Sweat broke out on Orochimaru's face; he had never encountered such a person before, and an Uchiha with such skills nonetheless. He tried to muster his strength, but he couldn't do anything.
"Done. My goal is now complete," Daniel said, letting go of Orochimaru and immediately making his escape, taking no chances.
"To think I was reduced to such a state. That person was after me then..." Orochimaru thought as he made his escape.
"Still holding on," Daniel said as he approached, seeing Sasuke still clinging to consciousness. Daniel took Team 7 and placed them in a safer location. "This will keep you guys safe," he said, erecting a small golden barrier over them before vanishing. Seeing this, Sasuke let go of his hold on consciousness, sensing that they were safe now.
As Naruto woke up, he saw Sasuke and Sakura sitting next to him. "Good morning," Naruto said groggily.
"It's night, you moron," Sakura whacked Naruto on the head.
"Woah, I feel refreshed," Naruto remarked after being completely woken up by Sakura's jab.
"It's probably because of this barrier," Sasuke noted, pointing to the barrier that enveloped them. "It seems to have healing properties," he added.
"Cool, who could have made such a thing?" Naruto marveled at the barrier as he approached it. Sasuke's face frowned slightly as he vaguely remembered a person with Sharingan rescuing them. He wasn't sure if it was his brother or not, and it didn't make sense to him why he would help. Filled with curiosity, Naruto tried to poke the barrier, but as he touched it, it popped.
"Naruto! What did you do?" Sakura ranted as she noticed the barrier's disappearance.
"I didn't do anything!" Naruto defended himself, making excuses.
"No, it's fine. It was probably made to heal us anyway, and now that we're all ready, we don't need it anymore," Sasuke said.
"I know, but..." Sakura pestered, then dropped the case.
Somewhere in the dense forest, Daniel stood amidst the fallen Cloud Shinobi, their bodies sprawled on the ground. In his hand, he held a Heavenly Scroll, the prize of his latest encounter. "Guess this is it for this exam," he murmured to himself, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. With a final glance at the defeated shinobi, he turned and began making his way towards the tower, his steps confident and unhurried.
As Daniel made his way through the forest, the atmosphere grew increasingly tense. The sounds of distant battles and the rustling of leaves filled the air. The tower loomed in the distance
The tower was now within sight, its imposing structure a reminder of the trials they had endured.
"Four more days," Daniel noted as he entered the tower. "I'll just hang out in the lab till then," he said, logging the completion of his exam. "Now then..." He stretched his hand and headed to the waiting room for those who had completed the exam. "I'm the first. That makes things easier," he said, creating a shadow clone before teleporting to his Aoi Koten dimension where his lab was located.
Entering the lab, his mind linked with his clones, and all their research results flooded his consciousness. The knowledge he had absorbed from Orochimaru also flowed into his clones' minds. "Hmm. Project Sensu Bean is complete already," he remarked, collecting his thoughts. After their breakthrough, Daniel's clones had perfected infusing chakra into plants, developing plants with special characteristics.
"A hundred percent chakra recovery, a 10 percent boost in strength, stamina, speed, and perception for five minutes, and the ability to recover from minor injuries. That's good," he noted as he skimmed through the benefits of the chakra-enhanced strawberries. "This'll sell quite well, but I think I should decrease the benefits, like the hundred percent chakra recovery thing," he mused. "I could sell that one for an even higher price. The standard is already in reference to the chakra level of a standard Jonin, so people with more chakra will need to buy more," he said with a slight cackle.
He teleported straight into the department for enhancing plants. "You're here," the clones said, giving him a thumbs up. "The knowledge from Orochimaru is really useful. It saves us a lot of trouble."
"Anyway, we can't decide whether to make a senjutsu version or a healing version of the plant," the Daniels said, divided into groups of equal parts—a third wanting to make a senjutsu version, a third on making a healing version, and another third on making both. They requested Daniel to break the tie.
"Why..." he responded, letting out a sigh since the indecisiveness of his clones reflected on himself. "A healing version would sell more. The senjutsu version would only sell to those with exceptional chakra control, so no," he noted. "After the Chunin Exams, I'll open the shop, so you guys can create a team to prepare for that," he said, teleporting to another department in his lab.
"Yo," the clones greeted. "You haven't come here since this place was opened. Anyway, we made three different scripts for fuinjutsu, as you know," they said.
"Cool, but why are y'all doing nothing?" Daniel responded.
"Well, that's because we made three—two more than we should've—and we've already done all the testing. Again, you received our memories, so you know we decreased the space consumption, which was harder than we thought. But with our 5000-character script, it's possible now. And since we don't have any more work, we're just chillin'," they replied.
Daniel couldn't retaliate much, so he just absorbed all the clones in the fuinjutsu research department. "Next is..." he said, teleporting to the chakra nature research department. Again, he absorbed them since they were practically done with their research. "An elemental version of ki attacks. This'll be interesting to use," he said as he went on to the rest of the departments, absorbing those that had served their purpose.
"Haaa," he let out a sigh after he finished everything. "I guess I could pass the time by testing out my new techniques," he said, getting up and heading outside to do some light training for the remaining days before the exam ended.