Chapter. 53.5- One Thousand Hands

“Who are you?”

“Your worst nightmare” she could hear the laughter in his voice, and that was her confirmation that it was truly him as he pushed against the older man’s weapon somehow managing to briefly overpower him before slamming a kick into his midsection and sending him flying backwards. The kicked body dissolved into water and the water reformed into Hanzo the Salamander standing a few metres away. She felt herself nearly fall to her knees with relief. Help. Finally. Shori could hold off Hanzo for long enough for them to go and get more reinforcements. He was easily at her level, she thought so it was possible.

With her attention on her cousin she did not notice the person that had appeared at the same time as Shorirama. Uncle Renoir as at her side before she even noticed his presence.

“Uncle--“ She started.

“Quiet Tsu-chan. Just bite” He said, forcing his wrist into her face. She was so tired that she slumped forward, her mouth closing around his wrist. She bit down, and felt chakra flow into her defying her control. She wanted to take control of it, use it, shape it, but it rejected every attempt she made, instead following a will of its own. She would have panicked if it were anything other than the man that had made multiple journeys to visit the village when she was a child and carried her on his own back for many a time.

The chakra went into her body, soothing her bruises, her sprained and torn muscles, the minor cuts and abrasions she had sustained, and most importantly, the poison she had been forced to spend the vast amount of her reserves mitigating.

“How?” She asked, as she stood back up, feeling almost completely refreshed. In contrast, uncle Renjiro looked like he had aged a decade.

“Healing you Senjus is always more draining than should be” He grunted in lieu of a proper answer, and she took the silent request not to mention it to heart.

“Can you—“ She said, wordlessly gesturing to her teammates where they had fallen over. Orochimaru had tried to turn in her defence when Hanzo arrived, but the turn had been too sudden for his tired form and both he and Jiraiya had gone sprawling across the ground.

“No. Only you” He said in that tone of his that brokered no argument.

“Fine then” She said. It didn’t matter, either way. They were both still alive, and she knew those bodies just as well as she knew hers. If there was breath in them, then she could heal anything. She brought her thumb to her mouth to draw blood before she began to weave seals. She pledged a good half of her reserves to summon Katsuyu in an echo of her full glory, large enough to shade most of their immediate surroundings— if there had been any sun to shade them from, at least.