Chapter 57.3- One Thousand Hands

The nature chakra enhanced clones came immediately in the aftermath of that attack, and it was only Kurama in my head warning me of their intentions that allowed me avoid the first attack from underneath. I felt the ground beginning to shift into mud and I put my own chakra into the fray, trying to force it to maintain its solid state. My elemental manipulation was too sloppy in the tailed beast cloak to consider allowing them change the environment like that. Fighting them off was just a matter of pledging more chakra to the endeavor than either of them could muster. Nature chakra or not, they were still clones with fixed reserves. Reserves made even more precarious by the fact that they would dispel once they ran out of the nature energy I had used to spawn their existence.

I dug into the ground with one of my tails and then brought it up right in front of a clone. Said tail whacked the clone straight across the arms it raised to block its attack. I moved then, pushing against the ground to move faster than I would have been capable of without teleportation. Both my clones grit their teeth and matched my charge.

—

“So what do you have for me?” I asked as I sat easily in the Hokage seat. Training had been productive, with Kurama and I getting more ad more used to working together while my clones helped me double time on getting used to fighting with nature energy. And then there was the work my clone was doing with my newly acquired genin team.

“Frost is entirely under Kumo’s control now. The same can be said of Kusa with Iwa. Suna is attempting another push into Rivers and we expect that they will succeed this time if you continue with this policy of yours” Danzo said, not even trying to hide the fact that he considered my plan a mistake. Of course, his opinion mattered little and it was just a matter of time till he did something that would give me the excuse to kill him. Sadly my position as interim head of the Konoha council didn’t just authorize me to kill clan heads— minor as the Shimura clan was— at will.

“Then everything is proceeding as expected on those fronts. Has Iwa taken the bait with Taki?” I asked.

“They are hesitant about making another approach through the Land of Waterfalls.” He said, and I nodded. That was good. It meant they could be taught. That was what this war would become un the end, a chance for me to teach the ninja world a few lessons.

“And Mizu?”

“We expect their raids along our coastal nieghbours to intensify after the abandonment of our attempts to stop them there” He said. I nodded. Four hidden villages coming straight at us. Insurmountable odds to most.