Chapter 62.1- One Thousand Hands

XXXX- KITSUCHI

He weaved seals faster than he ever had in his life, moving like his life depended on it. It did. He slammed his palms on the ground, executing a perfect earth moving code to move the piece of eaarth he stood upon above the surface and neatly avoid the fireballs that shot through the air. He weaved seals again, enclosing his fist in a stone fist and catching the young man that had been foolish enough to jump straight at him in the stomach. He pushed forward, sending the man back to the ground and thus forcing his body between Kitsuchi and the shuriken that one of the Konoha jounin had sent his way.

He felt his senses scream at him, and it was all he could do to dodge backwards from the woman that appeared out of his own shadow, wielding a short blade. Her hair was tied up in a topknot, and she wore a Konoha jounin flak jacket, beyond those two facts, the only thing that was noteworthy about her was her eyes. Coal black eyes that regarded him with boredom. As if he was a puzzle that she had solved a thousand times already.

He dodged backward again and lifted his stone covered arm to block the next slash of her blade. The short sword bit into the stone but struggled to find purchase. He then took the chance to punch right at her head only to find his body frozen in place from the neck down.

“Shadow possession jutsu complete” She said with a smirk across her face. A smirk that reminded him of that girl. That jinchuriki. The one that had robbed him of the chance to participate in much of the war by shoving a tail into his stomach. Perhaps it was that resemblance that made him act earlier than he should have.

“Katsu” He said, triggering the explosives beneath their feet. She ws already moving before the first syllable had even left his mouth. But she managed to keep her jutsu active for long enough that he barely had half the time she did to escape the explosions. He jumped backwards with all of his strength, falling from his platform a mere second before it exploded to pieces from the paper tags he’d hidden within it. The explosion blew him backwards even as several rocks pelted his body. Still, he managed to flip his form in mid air to land with bent knees. He looked around the battlefield and scowled as his attention was drawn to the Uchiha. Kaen, Tsubasa, and Takeshi were all struggling to pin her down as she ran circles around them.

One second she was overwhelming Kaen with fast paced taijutsu that even his explosion release could not contest with, the next she was using wind release to cool down Tsubasa’s lava and force him on the back foot, and then in a flash she would be cutting through Takeshi’s earth release with her lightning charge gunbai, forcing the immovable mountain to dance to her tune.