Chapter 28.4 - One Thousand Hands

They were all supposed to arrive for talks on one of the two islands at the same time or roughly the same time. They were also supposed to be limited to a fixed number of representatives. Instead, I watched with my byakugan as 15 Kumo Jounin fell upon the island Danzo and I were scouting. Of course, we remained hidden. I had the largest chakra reserves of the four of us so I was the one who stuck out most even with chakra suppression so I was the one who was chosen to stay with Danzo whose jutsu granted the closest thing to chakra invisibility that we had on our side.

The Kumo shinobi did not bother to search the island much and just moved straight to the clearing we were keeping watch over. I signed as much to Danzo and he replied, telling me to stay still and not give myself away. As if I was so stupid. The 15 kumo shinobi seemed to lounge about the clearing but any shinobi worth his salt could see how they were alert. Their hands never strayed too far from their kunai pouches. One of them kept reaching up to scratch at his back which just happened to be next to the hilt of his blade. Another’s eyes never stayed still, darting from place to place like a chipmunk scurrying in the forest. Regardless of which, they all seemed to form around a single man. Tall, blond hair, and lithe frame. He had about as much chakra as Orochimaru did and my brain was able to recognise him from the bingo book as Kubo Yatsuki. S-ranked. Needless to say, he was definitely the leader of this lot.

They waited for a few minutes before another group of shinobi appeared. The only problem was that they were not Kiri shinobi. No, the clothing they wore and the insignia on their headbands marked them as Iwa shinobi. Even worse, among them they had a girl. She didn’t look any older than 12, but her body shone like a furnace to me. The closest comparison I could come up with was Kushina. Jinchuriki, I realised with a startle.

It didn’t take much guessing to figure out what tailed beast she held. Han was very much alive, well, and active. That meant she was the Yonbi jinchuriki. The one to replace Roshi. She had black hair, unlike his red, and wore it long to her shoulders. Not long for a woman, but definitely long for a kunoichi not from Konoha. Observations both from the anime and this second life taught me that little fact.

Her features were sharp as well. Sharp, an angular unlike the more broad faces that one would expect from the land of earth. If I had walked into her in the street, I would have guessed Land of Fire nobility of some sort. I turned to Danzo on the other end of the clearing and tried to sign at him to point out their presence. The genius had been the one to insist that we split up to cover more ground and make sure we had different angles of things. He had also been sure he could maintain the jutsu around the two of us across the distance with little difficulty. Now, I couldn’t warn him of what was coming. Iwa being here instead of Kiri stank to high heavens and the presence of a Jinchuriki of all things

Her and her escort of six jounin landed next to the Kumo contingent in the clearing.

“So is it ready?" She asked immediately, tone poking at the men across from her. I could already tell they weren’t taking it well.

“Yes they are. They have a nice cloaking jutsu about them but the Leaf scum can’t hide from me” I felt my heart drop into my stomach. I didn’t need any warning to jump away from my previous position and it proved expedient as the entire forest area I’d been hiding behind erupted in blue flames in an instant. Fuck. She’d turned and fired off that fireball jutsu in just as much time as it had taken me to jump out of the area.

A/N: meet Azula