Chapter 35.5- One Thousand Hands

He deflected the bullets but that was only the first salvo. I twisted my fingers into the Horse seal and took a deep breath. When I breathed out, it was with all the force of a hurricane. The wind uprooted several of the thin trees that called the land of Rivers home. From his position, he saw the effects of the coming wind and dropped to the ground and squatted. I watched as his chakra concentrated itself all along his body and the wind blew against him but failed to even make him budge. One of the uprooted trees slammed into him but it shattered as it made contact with his stationary form but achieved no damage to his form. I clicked my teeth in irritation as our eyes finally met. My Great breakthrough had torn away all the trees between us so that meant that the space between us was just made of flatlands and the occasional tree trunk that only had its upper body broken away without being completely uprooted.

I was finally close enough for his own eyes to see me and he smiled from ear to ear once he identified me. I had no doubts that he knew exactly who I was. Just like I’d been researching all Suna’s threats- there’s no chance a shinobi would join an invading force without researching the threats from the village that they were going to be pissing off.

He bent at the knee and shot off right towards me. Fucking fast, I silently amended my initial assessment as I pushed my arms out to the left and used wind release to push me in the other direction, avoiding the slash by a hair’s breadth. I landed on the floor and rolled to bleed the momentum and avoid the throwing knives that stabbed into the space I’d previously occupied only a second hence. Forming a tiger seal with one hand, I sent a massive great fireball at him. I kept an eye out, waiting for him to dodge so that I could take advantage of his changed position but he just sliced through the fireball with a glowing blade and kept coming right at me.

He moved to slice my head off, and I met his blade with the rasengan I’d built in my hand in a second. The collection of chakra threads fgroind against the blade for what felt like an eternity with neither one managing to make any headway against the other. The older man smiled, his goatee shifting along his face before in a blur of motion, he stabbed a knife into my neck. I grabbed at his foot from beneath the ground as my mud clone fell apart in front of him and dragged him into the ground. At least, I tried to…the blade that sliced along the ground where my hand had been nary a second ago dissuaded that thought thoroughly. The remnants of my mud clone failed to stick to him as they usually did, with his chakra allowing him to just shrug it off and take his stance again.

“Shorirama Senju, Jounin of Konohagakure. It is an honour to meet you. It will be an even bigger honour to kill you” He said.