Chapter 58.2- One Thousand Hands

The shuriken that had been tossed in the air to symbolize the fight beginning landed on the forest ground with a solid chunk and then we were off. With everyone else, I fought passively, weathering attacks and waiting to ee what they could do. With Uzume, doing that would be so suicide as it would let her get into the groove of things so I started on the front foot. With an explosion of steam, I covered the distance between us faster than I ever could have and unleashed a punch straight at her solar plexus. She did not brace. She did not act like the attack was coming. She did not even react, other than changing where her kunai aimed to account for my change in position.

My attack landed first. I punched her with all the force of steam release in my fists and it did nothing. Nullified by her mangekyou. Just as expected, I thought as I moved my head at the last second to allow her kunai pass me by without a scratch. First exchange: draw. She brought the hand back, and aimed again, while I diverted said hand to the side before elbowing her in the stomach. Once again, no reaction. Her other hand rose, brimming with lightning release chakra, and flashed, blinding my byakugan and forcing my own eyes closed.

I felt her feet aim for mine, and with a twist of my chakra, I sunk into newly formed mud. She broke her hand out of my grip by forcing me to dodge out of the way of the hand filled with lightning please before backflipping backwards, an easy 200 metres in one go. Sage mode sensing was no joke, I thought with a smile. If she thought she’d have an easier time fighting me while blinded then she had another thing coming. I felt her fingers form a seal even as her chakra contorted itself in a familiar manner. A fireball that must have been the size of a house roared into being a second later.

A second was how long it got to enjoy being top dog as I breathed in for that long before fire bloomed in my throat and I breathed out a fireball of my own. From what I could tell, I had used close to thrice the amount of chakra she had in her own jutsu, and it showed in the size of mine. Both fire release techniques clashed before exploding while my much diminished fireball continued in her direction. She jumped to the side, breathing out dozens of smaller fireballs and sending them in my direction. Once again without bothering with seals, I reached for my chakra and it answered as I spat out a wall of water large enough to swallow all her fire balls, sending some mist about the place.

Twisting my chakra again, the rest of the water turned into mist that enveloped our position. I reached a hand up to begin healing my eyes when I felt my senses scream at me to move to the side.