Chapter 21.1- One Thousand Hands

He leaned backwards, allowing the straight blade to pass through the space that his head had once occupied before body flickering straight backwards. His opponent made to chase but had to divert to avoid the series of arrows that speared themselves into the ground between them. The boy took in a deep breath and formed the horse seal before breathing an actual firestorm in the same direction as the sword wielding opponent. The fire travelled through the training ground but failed to have any meaningful effect as it was swallowed by a tsunami wave of water. Boy and clone stared at the wave of water headed towards them and formed the same seal at the same time, manipulating the water to fall to either side of them.

The clone found its existence ended in a short second as it made the mistake of attempting to block the punch that came out of its blindspot. The future Toad Sage cackled as the clone exploded around his fist and his own clone dissolved in mud after taking the brunt of the Bunshin daibakuha no jutsu.

“We’re on the same side, Jiraiya” The boy called out in a whining tone.

“Didn’t you hear the bell, you’re with Orochimaru now,” the white haired teenager said as he jumped down from above right down on his new opponent. The younger shinobi scowled and retreated backwards in a backflip as the ground he had just stood on cratered from the older man’s hammer blow.

Hands planted on the ground, the boy took a deep breath and the area around him shifted as dozens of earth spikes rose around them. He could see the fight between Orochimaru and his cousin developing in the other corner of the training centre. Training with the Sannin for months meant that he had gotten used to their antics and fighting styles in the period. That meant he knew that Jiriaya would take the chance to retreat from this fight and join Tsunade in the fight against Orochimaru. He was much weaker than the three of them and had no chance of taking any of them out in a one-on-one so he had trained his arsenal to be able to elongate a fight for as long as possible and make himself last as long as possible. His teams had never won one of these before, but when he and Tsunade teamed up together, they were virtually impossible to put down.

That was why Jiriaya began to curse as the bell rang again. Shori turned his focus to where the future Third Hokage sat with the bell and found the man smirking at his student’s complaints. He’d purposefully done it so the teams changed just as Jiriaya arrived at the new fight. Shori reached out to his cousin’s chakra network as he saw both of her teammates prepare to attack her from opposite sides at the same time.

Just as both of them jumped at her, Tsunade found herself at the opposite end of the training field. In her place, her cousin stood with his hands clapped together.

A/N; Experimenting a bit with the style here