Chapter 53.4- One Thousand Hands

We weaved seals in unison, forcing the seal to activate— and through that seal, forcing space and time to bend to our will. The kunai, marked with my flying raijin marks glowed a bright gold before disappearing at multiple times the speed of light, moving so quickly that we could not even begin to bother to trace it. It landed right where Tsunade’s coordinates had been a second ago as she was moving at great speeds herself. I reached out to Renoir, simultaneously marking him with my flying raijin and teleporting the both of us to the battlefield.

XXXXX- TSUNADE

Help is on the way, she told herself. Sure, they were all the way in the land of rain but she believed in her family. Grandma Mito would find a way to do something, she thought. She’d gained a second wind of strength after the distress seal managed to click in place and begin working again. She felt the comforting weight between her shoulder blades, the seal pulsing as it transmitted her need for help back home.

Not just her need, she thought. Jiraiya had completely lost consciousness, slumped against Orochimaru’s back, and the best she could do now was a consistent diagnosis on the both of them. The fact that they still lived brought no small amount of peace to her, even if with every second that passed, they got closer to changing that.

“I have to hold him off” She said the thought she’d been considering for a while now.

“You wouldn’t last a second in your present state, Tsunade. Now shut up and keep running” Orochimaru snarled back in her direction.

“I’m a taijutsu specialist, Maru. Let me go hold him off so at least one of us can make it back with Jiraiya and tell Sensei about this monster”

“In that case, you should carry Jiraiya so I can go hold him off. We both know I’m more suited for fighting a losing battle than you are.”

“Oh you sound so cute” neither of them flinched at the voice in their ears. One trick that Hanzo had used for a while now, throwing his voice with wind release to make himself seem closer than he was.

Except there was a disturbance in the air behind her. She chanced a glance backward, and nearly fell to the floor at seeing the man right behind her. She jumped forward, increasing her speed even further to make sure that she kept a good distance between them. It was no use though, he was just too quick. Orochimaru couldn’t do anything to intervene. She felt him raise his kusarigama to strike.

Then there was a flash of golden light and there was something somewhere behind them. She never dared to look at it— she’d closed her eyes expecting the blow that would bring an end to her life, but all she felt was a shift in the air as something happened behind her.

She turned and came face to back with her cousin. Shori. He was still frozen in the motion of catching Hanzo’s weapon midswing with a kunai.