Chapter 57.2- One Thousand Hands

“Okay, so what did you learn from that?” I asked, sitting in front of what was to become my team of genin. I felt a strange attachment to them. These people that I had known as characters in another life, and who I have only known about one in this one. Kushina’s eyes were dim, disappointed. Even Mikoto was downtrodden. Namikaze on the other hand seemed to be watching me like a puzzle he was trying to solve.

“We should have gotten your hands locked up first to prevent you from using that nasty taijutsu early on” I scoffed instead and leant backwatds against the tree.

“Look at this tree I lean against. It’s massive. Not the biggest one I’ve ever seen. Not by a ling shot, but it’s still ig enough to drive one our lesson home” I said as my fingers stretched out to grab a hold of a mosquito between them.

“No matter what this does, it will never harm the tree. That is the gap between their existences. As far as strength is con cerned, there is a similar gap between you and I. Your first lesson was teamwork. Your second was learning when you are outmatched and how to dap qru othird lesson? Well, that’s the ancient and time honored art of running away.

— THE ORIGINAL

I gasped as my clone punched me through the wall of the makeshift battleground we had formed within the special area reserved for hokage. I pushed out of the wall, ad dodged around the fist as it buried itself into the awallwhere I had been. My tail lashed out, slamming into the clone and sending it flying backwards. It managed to block in time, nature energy coursing through its frail form and enhancing it beyond all expectations. Another clone came in from behind, executing a picture perfect lariat that I ducked underneath it.

Looking at the ground, it was the first time I looked at it trulysince the spar had begun and it was then that I noticed that their third was not truly out of the right. He emerged from the ground atop an army of spikes. ‘Kurama’, I mentally called and my number of tails went from one to three in an instant. The spikes crashed into me then, a good option of them broke against the strength of my cloak while one of them managed to dig into it and draw blood even as the spikes tried to push me from the ground.

I would not be having it for long though, as my tails lashed out breaking the top of a few of the spikes before they began spinning and then destroyed all the spikes around me in one fell swoop.

I looked up and came face to face with a massive fireball instead of the stones that had surrounded me earlier. I took. Breath and then roared, forcing the fireball to explode a few inches from me instead of hitting me before doing so. Still, it exploded with so much concussive force that I had to stab my tails into the ground to avoid being thrown off.