Chapter 38.3- One Thousand Hands

One thing the whales did better than any summons I had ever heard of was chakra control. I was standing atop Jinpei’s head, but I stabbed my chakra down, and he allowed it to flow around him and through him like he wasn’t even there and dug into the ground itself. Even atop him, I could feel the earth like I was standing on it. With that connection, I worked my jutsu. “Mud Release: Sad Man’s Parade” I proclaimed to the world, marking the beginning of my legend. My chakra turned the surrounding earth and grass, already being loosened by the water flowing from the skin into mud that rose up in clones of me. I had shamelessly stolen the idea from another anime when I realised just how many clones I could make when I put my mind to it. Some combination of UzuSenju genes and a natural affinity for mud release meant that I could do a passable impression of Naruto from the beginning of the series.

The clones erupted in their dozens and jumped at the approaching Suna shinobi while more and more water poured out into the field we stood on. With these many clones, I had to stretch things a bit so they weren’t even close to the 70% strength that I could get from the clones when I only made one or two of them. But in this situation, quantity had a quality of its own. They crashed into the Suna shinobi, and it was barely even a contest. I couldn’t replicate the Raijin no Ken but it didn’t matter when each clone weilded the gentle fist to its maximum potential.

If I were a different man, perhaps I would have felt some inklings of regret or mourning or even at the very least said a prayer for the souls being reaped by my clones, but I was me. I would do the shinigami’s work for him and I would miss no sleep for it. One clone dodged around a puppet while another clone rushed into the puppeteer. In two touches, the young man was down for the count. Another Suna shinobi tore that clone to pieces with a wave of her fan and then found herself the subject of three more clones. To some small amount of shock, she managed to dodge all their attempts to reach her and dispatched all three of them with a massive gust of cutting winds. So that was the woman that Shika said would be dangerous. The fact that she was a Chunin and not a Jounin was fascinating but I didn’t care much. I simply instructed my clones to give her a wide berth while they did their job.

I smirked as I watched one clone engage a heavily muscled man in taijutsu for a few seconds before the man suddenly froze and fell to the floor- an arrow made of hardened mud sticking out from his eye socket. Another clone ran circles around a group of three who were standing back to back, disorienting them with his rapid movements before a clone jumped out from the ground in their middle and felled them with quick movements of his fingers.