Chapter 28.5- One thousand Hands

I sped up, activating my wind armor just as I landed on the ground and zipped right in the midst of the Iwa shinobi. They were already moving, this collection of skilled jounin. They all jumped out of the way of my grasping fingers, making sure to keep their distance. I turned to them and tilted my head as I noticed that not a single one was coming forward to meet me in taijutsu. I took my stance to invite an approach. Still nothing. In another blink of an eye, I was spinning. The revolving heaven, an absolute defence with little in the way of equals took the fire ball and scattered it around me, setting a few pieces of grass alight and casting the clearing in an ominous blue glow. Her flames still remained blue. I remembered Roshi being able to use some green flames, but blue was definitely new.

It was new, and this girl was skilled. Each jutsu was executed without seals and so quickly did her chakra flow to carry out her will that I could not even see the process with my byakugan. I stopped spinning and smiled at the encirclement that had formed. Both Iwa and Kumo shinobi. All their attention was placed on me so that meant Danzo had somehow managed to escape detection. I did not risk the thought that he had let me get detected as part of some twisted plan. No, he wasn’t a traitor yet. He wouldn’t do that.

Still, I had what seemed to be 23 jounin and one jinchuriki around me. One of the jounin was Kubo Yatsuki so that meant two potential S-ranked threats on the same field I occupied. A fucked situation for almost anyone but Hiruzen had been right to send me on this mission. I had come a long way from that boy who struggled to content with the weakest Raikage. I reached for my gloves and took the both of them off under the wary gaze of those around me. They were still yet to attack. I wondered why. Bringing my thumb up to my lips, I took a bite of my skin, drawing blood. Almost like that had been a cue, they began running at me almost as one. Too slow. My fingers flipped through seals so quickly that I was certain they were a blur to all but a few. These seals were well known to me. I used the jutsu almost daily at this point.

As I reached the last seal, I brought up my offering of chakra to join my offering of blood. More chakra than I had ever used for any jutsu before. This was easily the most draining one in my arsenal. My reserves were near full and had grown by more than half since my Granduncle’s death. Still this took nearly two-thirds of those massive reserves. “Ninpo: Kuchiyose no Jutsu” I intoned and slammed my hand on the ground as two of the Kumo jounin were about to fall upon me with blades drawn. A massive plume of smoke obscured the entire battlefield and I rapidly rose up from the ground, now on the back of a massive whale. My water clone formed from the water Jinpei had brought with him and dove at the shinobi that had been just about to reach me.

Their vision was obstructed, but I had the byakugan. My clone took a hold of one’s kunai to keep him still and tore through his body with a rasengan while the other tried to jump away. The clone formed a single seal and body flickered through the pieces of flesh that remained of the first and slammed into the second. Both of them seemed to react at the same time as their blades ate into each other’s necks. Except where my clone leaked water, the Kumo jounin bled red. They both fell to the ground, gone.

The smoke cleared in no time after that and I noticed that the Kumo and Iwa teams had retreated further in the face of the giant whale that had taken to the battlefield.

“I thought you said you weren’t doing battle for a while” Jinpei seemed to growl. I chuckled and reached down to rub his bumpy skin.

“Plans changed. I need your help dealing with these guys” I replied.

“Hmmmm. You’ll have to explain yourself to Boss after this. But its good an opportunity as any for me to show you how we whales fight” I said, and even as he already glowed like a sun to my eyes, the glow grew even brighter as he seemed to take a breath. Then right from his blowhole erupted a massive geyser of water that shot into the air and seemed to reach the clouds themselves before dispersing and beggining to fall to the ground around us.

“Your first lesson is that whales only fight in the water” He said.