Chapter 21.4- One Thousand Hands

XXXXXX- Shorirama Senju

“So what did we all learn?” Hiruzen asked after I let the water evaporate into the air and the others used earth release to get the training ground back into some semblance of a good position.

“That Training Ground 7 definitely can’t take more of this” Tsunade said from her position sitting on one of the boulders at the centre of the ground. I nodded in agreement with her words. She was right. We had torn down a good portion of the foliage that made up the space, and even earth release was not enough to hide the damage we’d caused to the rest of it. I’d drained about half of the adjacent pond, using it to power water release techniques almost nonstop.

“I notice as well. I will speak to Tobirama-sensei and see about getting young Shorirama here clearance so we can move this to more resilient grounds” He said, tossing a smile my way. A conspirational one.

“Wait what?” I asked, confused as to what he meant by different training grounds.

“Where do you think the Hokage goes to work on his own techniques. Sensei knows a few techniques that would tear this training ground to shreds just as a collateral consequence of their use. Your Grandfather knew quite a bit more that could change the landscape of whole cities. I don’t quite compare to them, but I am told that a few of my techniques can have far reaching effects. It would be ridiculous to expect none of us to be able to train such techniques, so Sensei created a secret training ground exclusively for the Hokage and those he permits. Of course, my team has such clearance and after what I’ve seen today, you’re going to need it to” He said, and I bowed my head in thanks even while running his words over in my mind and seeing how they made sense. I’d never seen Tobirama doing any training but the few times I’d felt his chakra, it felt sharp as ever. No sign of atrophy or wear from old age. He had to be training somewhere.

And techniques like what those two could pull off in the anime didn’t get trained out in public. I could just imagine the entire village freaking out at the sight of a wood golem big enough to hang with tailed beasts, or a giant statue of Buddha with a gazillion hands or whatever.

“Speaking of seeing things today, what the hell was that poison and please tell me you haven’t been experimenting with poisons like that back in Grandma Mito’s place?” Tsunade smoothly cut into the conversation before Hiruzen could start grilling us on what we’d each done wrong in the fight.

“Oh, it’s not a poison” I said with a smile building on my face. I actually felt kind of proud about it.

“Then what is it?”

“A virus, kind of. It’s not really fully organic but as close as you can get with fuinjutsu” I said, never even noticing how all three of the others froze in space to turn to me with wide eyes.