Chapter 35.4- One Thousand Hands

One person I often used as my standard for this was Uchiha Itachi from canon. He had all the makings of a good shinobi, good chakra control, excellent genjutsu prowess, and flawless taijutsu but his weaknesses were easily apparent: terrible stamina, progressing blindness and a disease that wreaked havoc through his body. Regardless of these weaknesses, he had still been one of the most dangerous shinobi of his time. It didn’t matter that he had shitty stamina when he ended every fight in seconds.

That was true for most S-rankers, but Piandao took it to an extreme level. He was a swordsman. That was it. He used elemental flow on his blade and could do it with all five elements but that was the limit when it came to his ninjutsu knowledge. He never used long range jutsu or even genjutsu. Armed with only his blade, he had cut through hundreds of shinobi across a lifetime. What made him dangerous to me was that the gentle fist was shit when it came to combat with bladed opponents as a general rule, and where I would normally bridge that gap with superior skill, I was not stupid enough to think that would avail me against someone that had been killing shinobi for longer than I’d been alive.

That left me with only one advantage- long range ninjutsu. Even that was suspect as he had become famous for prevailing against ninjutsu masters so he definitely knew enough to be able to deal with that when he came. Piandao’s weaknesses were obvious- he had no long range solutions, and would be half the threat he posed if he was robbed of his blade. His strengths on the other hand were simply that it didn’t matter what one tried- he wanted you dead, you died.

When I could finally spot him with my byakugan, I began to cycle my chakra through my body in preparation. The bingo book stated his speed and his blade were his biggest advantages. I would have to rob him of both. The second he was in range of ninjutsu, I took a breath in and breathed out a volley of bullets that tore through the trees between us and continued to his position. In a flash, his blade was in his hand and he blocked each of the bullets that were in danger of hitting him so quickly and efficiently that I struggled to describe what I had seen.