Chapter. 37.4- One Thousand Hands

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I watched Uraume leave with the prisoner with a small smile. I’d won the rock, paper, scissors, for deciding who had to return the prisoner to the hideout. I’d used a quick chakra suppression seal along with a weight distribution matrix to make her easier to transport even as I mentally ruled out a few options for the seal matrix that would serve as the center of my prisoner transport seal. I looked away and turned back to the camp with my byakugan and focused on the command centre. Things were still proceeding as expected over there and so I took my position and unsealed another one of my Grandfather’s journal.

This one? On the wood release and how he’d figured out the kekkei genkai. Contrary to what most might hav thought, Hashirama wasn’t always the wood release guy. When he was younger, he’d been all about basic elemental ninjutsu and just thought he liked trees and trees liked him back. It wasn’t until one day he was outnumbered and had been cut off in a forest by some Uchiha shinobi that he asked the trees to move, and they did. That was how he told it, at least. My mud, was different. I’d always seen it as just earth release.

A flash of my hands formed a shadow clone right in front of me. It was eerie looking at an exact copy of myself. The same armour, the same long hair tied in a pony tail, the same pale skin, and the same sharp white eyes framed with bulging veins that carried more chakra than blood.

 “You know what to do” I said, keeping my attention on him.

He began to weave the seals, taking care to use the jutsu as slowly as possible. He started with the snake seal and I watched how his chakra switched to earth release and began to flow towards his limbs. However, it was only the slow progress he was making that allowed me see something else. Water release chakra joined the earth release nature chakra entirely of its own volition as my clone worked through the seals and slammed his palm on the floor. The ground around us turned into mud that we both carefully moulded chakra to remain suspended atop. I could see the chakra of the mud pit and how it seemed like it wanted nothing more than to grab onto a target and hold on.

Even in my clone’s water walking technique, I could see the unique gray chakra at his feet making the mud keep him atop it. It wasn’t even water walking. He was literally making the mud solid right beneath his feet. How the hell had I missed this for so long? I wondered as I pushed my own chakra into the mud and saw how it changed into the gray hue as it travelled across my body.

Fuck. I have a kekkei genkai. Fuck, my kekkei genkai is mud release. Both revelations seemed to come in sync as I pondered the situation. What could one even do with mud release? I asked myself.