Chapter 34.3- One Thousand Hands

“You take the younger one. Oldie is mine” I told my teammates before taking off in a body flicker. I moulded the air around me into my chakra cloak in a matter of seconds as I appeared right in front of the old man, intent on delivering a gentle fist strike to end the fight before it even began, but against all odds- he was faster. He moved his head backwards, allowing my grasping fingers that had been aimed at crushing his windpipe with a tap to hit nothing but air. The cane whistled as it came at me too quickly for me to dodge. I focused for a second and pushed out my chakra to form a barrier to push against the cane. The cane cut through the barrier and slammed into my knee.

I resisted the urge to cry out in pain and lashed out with my fingers again. One more, he was too quick and blocked my fingers with the wooden cane. I flooded the thing with chakra, hoping to shatter it but it seemed to greedily swallow everything I had to give. He slammed the cane into my midsection this time, still moving too quickly for me to follow and then kicked me, sending me flying over the pond and into the other corner of the cave.

I watched as Shiba and Uraume moved to pincer the girl and weaved two seals to breath out a swarm of wind bullets. They flew through the air before suddenly slowing down to my vision as the old man just dodged them at a languid pace. What? What was that? I wondered for a second. Tapping my vambrace to unseal two shuriken, I sent them flying- uncaring about my terrible aim as a single handseal turned two into two hundred. Still, the shuriken flew a bit before slowing down as they approached him and he used his cane to knock the ones that had any chance of hitting him aside. I took a breath at that. What was going on here?

Some kind of field that slowed everything that gets close to it down? That was the only explanation that made sense. It also explained why I had been unable to keep up with him when it came to taijutsu. If I was getting slowed down then he had all the time in the world to make his own moves. It was a fucked situation, I realised with a sigh. Looking at the other fight, I could see that both Uraume and Shiba were slowly beginning to become overwhelmed. The woman could make the water in the pool take any shape she wanted it to as she used it to attack them in the form of a managerie of animal constructs. Uraume had already been forced to use a kaiten to avoid being swallowed by a shark, and Shiba would run out of clones to substitute with sooner or later.

I had to end this fight quickly if I wanted any chance of helping them. I removed my wind armour and replaced it with fire. This one took slightly more effort to use and would make me struggle to breath if I kept it on for too long, but that mattered little for now. Forming another seal, another one of me appeared next to me.

“Pincer two?” My clone asked, and I nodded with a wry smile. We both took off, with me taking point. Now that I paid attention to it, I felt like I could feel the second I crossed into the range, but that might as well have just been placebo. Nothing about my body or mind had changed. I got closer to him, and I noted that he just waited for my approach with an indulgent smile.

A/N: Wait for more?