Chapter 26.1- One Thousand Hands

Izanagi, my mind wasted no time in supplying an explanation as I stared at the living breathing visage of a man I’d just watched die. That was really jarring, I told myself. To have watched the life fade from his body, certain that it had happened and to have it just unmade from reality. Casting a genjutsu on reality itself as I’d heard the fanbase describe it as in my first life certainly didn’t do justice to how absolutely broken the jutsu was.

“How is Granduncle?” I asked, giving up on standing up and allowing my body to just remain prone against the mud. Some of it lifted itself obediently to cradle my form and give my back some support.

“Can’t activate those eyes of yours anymore?” The man asked sardonically and I didn’t even have the energy to glare at him.

“Won’t” I replied.. “Won’t” because I could activate the byakugan if I really wanted to. Only problem with that was that my head hurt something fierce and was unlikely to get better. Adding a byakugan induced headache to that cocktail of problems was suicidal to a degree that I wasn’t even close to approaching.

“Alright then. If you must know, Hokage-sama has summoned a third water dragon and now all three of them are encircling the Eight tails to keep it from moving. The creature is struggling against the binding but so far seems to be caught. Hokage-sama is not pressing the attack like one would expect him to given his position.

“Why?” I asked.

“His chakra reserves seem to be close to exhaustion” He said in reply.

“Go help him then” I replied.

“Do you really think there’s anything I could do against a tailed beast of all things?” He asked snidely.

“Maybe try putting it under genjutsu. Just go”

“Hokage-sama would be tiffed with me if I just left you lying around injured in the battlefield”

“Are you anbu or not? Your first duty is keeping Konoha safe. That means keeping the Hokage safe. Besides, if you think I’m vulnerable then you’ve got another thing coming” the mud around us moved according to my will to form a hand about the size of my entire upper body. That hand then flipped Kagami the finger.

“Don’t make me regret this” He whispered, and then disappeared in a flicker of air. I closed my eyes to rest them as I felt at my chakra reserves.

A/N; There’s still a wider fight going on.