Chappter 81.2- One Thousand Hands

He cauterized his would staring right into my eyes as he did so. As the smell of burning flesh spread across our very man-made battleground. I tried not to give in to despair, but that was proving far from easy. I’d burst too fast, used my trump card before it was ready. I should have forced him down to one finger before redirecting the attack. Now he knew what I was planning, I doubted he was going to whip it out again.

I caught a glint of purple as Uzume’s sussano began to form. First was the rib cage, and then the hands as the entire upper body formed in a matter of seconds, showing that the training we’d been putting in was working.

Uzume struck from behind, her spectral armour hitting him with so much force that he flew in my direction. I slammed my last two rasengans down on him, forcing him deeper and deeper into the ground. This time, I did not allow him to just get up. I shoved my hands into the ground, using Kurama’s chakra to fuel the jutsu. The ground as deep as I could feel it, which was at least a few miles underground turned to mud. Mud that dragged him down. I commanded it to force at his nose and mouth, trying to suffocate him. But the armour allowed no ingress. He only moved a few metres before he began to fight against the force.

And even with what had to be a few tons of mud pressing down on him and no leverage, he managed to push his way out of it. Uzume was waiting for him though, three purple arrows slamming into his body, one following the other. If I had fewer survival instincts, I would have made a comment about her sussano taking a bow as its primary weapon. But I wasn’t a fool. Unluckily, she didn’t get any divine tools attached to her sussano like Itachi did.

“Plan C” I said, loudly enough that she could hear it. Plan A had been hell stab. A conditional success, ruined by me pulling the trigger on it too early and it was unlikely for an opportunity to arise again. Plan B had been using an arrow hewn from chakra inert stone that should have not been stopped by his armour. That had been a bust as well. Plan C? Well, Plan C was to use what my clan was known for. We just had to weaken him to the point where we would be able to seal him. This one was, apart from Plan D, the one I was least sure about. He was a human being, not a tailed beast. My prisoner seal only worked on unconscious people for a reason.

As long as he had a will of his own opposing the sealing, it should be impossible. But Reiji, Souta, and Ayame had cooked something up. Something that meant that if Uzume and I, the ones triggering the seal had more willpower than the one being sealed, then we had a chance of succeeding. It was all theoretical, but we just had to hope and pray— as much as that infuriated me.

Uzume acknowledged the change of plans with a nod.