Chapter 49.5- One Thousand Hands

The body the Raikage crashed through dissolved in a storm of cutting winds that did nothing to penetrate the armour even with their elemental advantage. Sensei came in from behind, slashing his saber through the air and unleashing an arc of white cutting power that flew towards the Raikage. The man stared at the attack for a second before going almost horizontal to dodge the attack and then landing on his feet again to come face to face with another Karyu endan. She ignored the twinge she felt at seeing Omoikane’s uncle use one of their clan’s signature techniques. A signature technique that her classmate and dare she say it, friend would never get to learn.

The Raikage dove through this attack as well, but the Hokage had planned for it. Behind the fire came a series of wind bullets that the muscular kage was forced to cross his arms into a shield to block. The slammed against his lightning cloak and achieved nothing but making it flicker even more erratically. Suddenly, Sensei was there after chaining two body flickers with a substitution and unleashed another arc of cutting power from the Raikage’s blindspot.

Once again, the burly tank of a man stood there and took an attack that would have killed anyone else to the face with no effect. The Hokage weaved handseals faster than she had ever seen anyone other than Sensei and Shori manage before the ground began to shake and heave beneath the Raikage. The man looked down, visible disdain on his face before looking up at Sarutobi Hiruzen. In a flash, he was off, but it was too late. The earth flipped on itself with him in the middle, slamming him into a crushed paste like hands coming together to clap a mosquito to death. Or at least, that would have been the case if the Raikage even qualified as human. He charged through the crushed earth, unstoppable force brought face to face with a very moveable object. The Hokage’s spear retracted to a more manageable length as he brought it to bear.

Spear and man clashed, neither managing to overpower the other in the first second before they disengaged and crashed into one another again. For a second she wondered how he was able to so easily keep track of the Raikage who she struggled to see even with her fully matured sharingan, but a closer look at the fight made it clear what was happening. The Hokage was reacting to the Raikage’s movements even before he made them. That was interesting. Very interesting, she thought to herself. Some kind of precognition?

She watched as he pushed the spear against the Raikage’s chest as the man lunged in an all out attack on the Hokage’s position, clearly unused to being held in taijutsu for so long. That exchange was what made her certain of her theory. The Hokage was a quick man, and a very crafty one, but those things were not being used to fight the Raikage directly. They were instead being used to hide the fact that his staff was responding to the Raikage and predicting his moves even more reliably than the Sharingan could.

A/N: Guess what Monkey Sage mode does? In this story (and kind of in canon), every form of sage mode will come with other collateral advantages. Snake Sages can animate and manipulate inanimate objects, Toad sages have Frog Kumite, and as for Whale Sage, I guess we’ll see.