Chapter 24.3- One Thousand Hands

After chuckling to myself at the pun, I took stock off my situation with a grim smile. Only three chakra points. The Raikage was a beast of a man. The moment he barrelled into me, he was already working to separate us. It took all I had to manage to tag him thrice in that time frame. Sixty-four of the right chakra points could end a fight. To be fair, just 16 of them could a fight, but those 16 tended too also be the hardest to close because every shinobi, even children knew to guard them with their lives. They coincided with some of the most vital areas in the body, so even non-gentle fist strikes could end a fight there. I wasn’t betting on getting at any of them with the Raikage. Wasn’t betting on getting sixty-four clean hits either.

As much as it pained me to admit it, I wasn’t the main event of this plan. No, the finishing blow would be Kagami’s. My job would be getting him in a position where he could deliver the coup de grace, and hopefully not die in the process. An arrow flew through the space between the two of us, and the Raikage was already moving. I flexed my chakra to shatter the genjutsu and then leaned backwards at almost 180 degrees to avoid a flying dive from the man cloaked in lighting. I scoffed at the thought of trying to ensnare me in genjutsu. It seemed that the mishap against Izuku in the chunin exams had given this man a wrongful estimation of where my skills in the illusory arts lay. Good. That would be useful.

I body flickered at him, even as he used the famed lighting straight to jump right at me. We met in the middle, his raised leg was blocked by the first two fingers of my left hand, and my right hand moved in a flash. Two tenketsu fell under my ministrations, but that victory did not matter for long when he moved his leg and smashed it into my head in a blur too fast for me to react to.

Onky Kagami’s constant rain of wind release empowered arrows prevented the Raikage from taking the most direct route at my prone form, and the seconds he managed to give me spelled the difference between life and death for me. I spun around and jumped right over the low charge he attempted to crash into my body that had barely been held upright by the boulder I’d been leaning on. He stopped right before crashing and turned right in time to smash a powerful left hook into my airborne form. The substitution happened just in time and my body dissolved in water. Water that stuck to the raikage. I body flickered towards him and ducked under a punch from his right hand before I formed a single seal and breathed out a torrent of mist aimed at his left arm. The water droplets that had managed to stick to it froze instantly but were then easily shattered by his lightning armour.

Still, the distraction allowed me to land four more strikes with the gentle fist to his unprotected shoulders. I waited for the leg I knew would come up and allowed it to chase me backwards.