Chapter 48.1- One Thousand Hands

The seal was nothing special. I almost scoffed on seeing it in full after I cut through Han’s armour with my chakra scalpel jutsu. It did the bare minimum— kept the Gobi in and let him access its chakra. A shocking amount of the rest was only possible because of both Han’s own willpower and focus, and Kokuo’s relative docility. This seal would have done nothing to hold someone like Kurama. He’d have torn through it like paper and. Ripped the poor fool they tried sealing him in for the indignity. Well, that was enough insulting the incompetent work. All I had to do was scribble a small unravelling matrix on top of it. An even-numbered one to counteract the odd numbered five element based seal that held Kokuo. That, combined with Kokuo’s desire to leave meant the second I activated the seal, I had to pop to marker a kilometer away.

Kokuo announced his first arrival in the human world in a generation with a vengeance. One roar that threatened to knock me off my feet, and enough killing intent to make the air itself hard to breathe. I pitied the others in the forest. If I could feel even that much, then they were probably dropping like flies. His eyes shot out and found mine with ease, even with the distance between us. And the tail shot out, so quickly that I would have needed the hiriashin to escape if it had been an attack. The tail tapped m chest, and I felt a rush of chakra flow into my seal. About what felt like half of one of Kurama’s tails worth, so one tail for Kokuo. The tail itself became nearly translucent and he retreated it gingerly and wrapped it around his face.

“Thank you” I heard his voice in my mind and he nodded in my direction before disappearing, bounding off to the side with steam wafting off his being. Well, that would be fun to explain. My eyes went to Han’s body, or what remained of it, and I shook my head. That was the fate that would cone for most of us in this wretched world, one way or another. I searched out with my senses for the markers I’d placed on the Taki squad and nodded before popping over to Shino.

XXXXXX- UZUME

He fought with unbridled aggression, and little else. There was a brutal sophistication to his attacks, yes, but all that did little to hide the fact that all he did was attack without a care in the world for defence. Of course, nothing she had done so far had managed to pierce that bubbling field of red chakra. She longed to pit her sussano’o against it and show this fool the true meaning of power.

She stayed her hand, though. Thinking of it like a riddle to be solved. She needed something to pierce his chakra armour and nothing in her arsenal had been able to do so. That just meant she had to come up with something new, and she had inspiration aplenty.

A/N: That's the beginning of the new chappy!