Chapter 15.2- One Thousand Hands

I leaned put of the way of a sword that threatened to cleave my head from my neck and failed to dodge out of the way of the kick that followed, tossing me backwards, and making me slam into the ground with a huff. I snarled as I got to my feet again and body flickered at my opponent. Her eyes did not move to even show that she acknowledged my approach, but just as awards, that damn sword was there threatened to cleave my fingers in two. She leveraged her position to swing the sword properly and I had to backpedal to avoid feeling the deadly bite of the cleaver-like weapon.

The blade of legendary renown moved around before it returned again to attempt to cut me in twain. I cast my vision around, shifting focus with ase. I could see that Shikahime and Uzume were having a similarly difficult time with this one’s partner, the weilder of the thunderswords of all things. Toshiro was down. I could see that the pool of blood around his grounded form was slowly building. Could not be good. His chakra signature was also getting noticeably weaker over time. The girls had to finish with their guy, and quickly but there was almost no chance of that happening in time to prevent Toshiro from getting much worse.

I was forced to realise that much of this was my fault. I just had to go ahead and channel my inner Ninja Jesus at the worst possible time. Another slash from the Kubikiribōchō and I was forced even further backwards. I formed a single seal and covered the distance between my opponent and I in. Fire but she just stabbed her blade into the ground and formed a seal of her own. The Suijinheki jutsu took all the fire I’d called forth with my great fireball with ease before dissolving into steam that began to spread.

I did not risk her enhancing the steam with her hidden mist technique and blew it all away with a great breakthrough. Placing a hand around her blade’s hilt, she took the force of the winds head on without budging. Her long black hair was scattered in the wind, but it still did a good enough job of framing her face. Almond-shaped sea green coloured eyes narrowed at me. I buried the smile that tickled at the back of my mind. Toshiro was dying and it was my fault.

I slammed my palms on the ground, activating the swamp of the underworld jutsu while she was so planted to the ground. Suddenly submerged up to her shoulders, she tried to struggle her way out of the sludge. I spat out a contemptuous air bullet that drilled through the obvious clone before leaning out of the way of her attempt to catch a byakugan user by surprise. I’d seen the substitution the moment she made it, and I made sure to angle my turn perfectly so I could twirl around and execute my next jutsu immediately, “Gentle Fist: Air Palm”. Kubikiribōchō saved her again as she raised it to take the brunt of the attack and only went sliding backwards a few feet.

“You’re better than I thought” She said.

“Yeah, I could say the same about you, but I’d be lying. You’re quite a bit worse, in fact.”

“Still sore about the whole double cross thing?”

“Still? It literally just happened.”

“Well, you’ll get over it sooner or later. We’re shinobi. It was your fault for trusting us in the first place”

Her next words were swallowed by the sound of rushing water as I slammed my foot into the ground with earth-shattering force as I activated my trap. As the water rushed upwards, my mind went back to the actions that had led us here in the first place.

XXXX

“Welcome to the Land of Waves, Everyone” I said as we finally got off the boat that separated the Land of Fire from the Island Nation.

“Oh shut up” Uzume grouched, managing to keep her feet, but looking ridiculously qwuesy for a shinobi.

“Can’t believe that you of all people would get seasick” Toshiro commented, only to have to lean out of the way of a kunai that was aimed at his head.

Shikahime was already sitting in the sand, staring above her with a vacant expression on her face that told me that she also hadn’t enjoyed the trip much.

“Seasickness is a perfectly normal reaction for a person who has never been on a boat before” I said, tagging into their conversation but making my tone teasing on purpose.

“Of course, the two of us have never been on a boat before either, but not everyone can be so adaptable.” The kunai she tossed now had much better aim but it was still lacking in power. I snatched it by the hilt with ease and enjoyed the glare she tossed my away.

“Look alive people. Let’s get done with this so we can get home. The air here is sickening” Shika said as she pushed herself off her arse and on to her feet.

“Sickening? I haven’t felt a breeze this strong in forever” Toshiro countered.

“Yes, well it’s ruining the clouds. Making them move about too quickly. What’s the point in cloud watching if everything moves before you can decide what you’re seeing?” She replied with a tone that sounded as vexed as her bearings- not at all. Even when expressing irritation, Shika could be remarkably non-expressive. Her black eyes gave nothing away, and the only sign that she was any way out of sorts was the fact that her hair tie’s knot was an inch too far to the left as she fiddled with it consistently. Before today, I’d only ever seen it in the perfect middle.

“Remind me of the mission, again?” I asked, trying to get her into the flow of things and away from her nerves.

“Some idiot has been abducting kids in this town for months. Last week, the Mayor’s son was taken, and then they finally saw fit to come to us with the mission” Uzume said as she got to her feet, making it clear what she thought about the fact that the town had taken so long to come to us with the mission. I could not say I disagreed with the sentiment. After all, it was highly possible that the Mayor would have been content to allow the kidnappings to continue if his own son had not been added to the list.

“Well, let’s try not to express that sentiment to the Mayor, shall we? The Land of Waves gives Konoha a lot of business when it comes to protecting their merchants on land, but they use Kiri for their ships. We need to be at our best if we want to maintain that present state of affairs and not let Kiri muscle in on our business” Shika said.

“I never took you for a Ryo counter” Uzume shot back.

“I’m not. But we are shinobi, and I don’t want to be the one to explain to the Hokage why we lost Konoha a consistent client.”

“Yeah, that’s why we have Shorirama here” Toshiro cut in.

“Granduncle Tobirama might be family but he’d skin even me if I lost us business. We’re the richest village, but not so rich that we can just afford to go around pissing off our clients” I said to avert any dangerous thinking. Thinking that could lead to disastrous outcomes, not just for the village’s purse, but my own health. We’d lost a lot of business from the other nations after that whole mess in the Genin Exhibitions and that was my fault so I could not be responsible for losing even more.

“Fine fine. I’ll keep my tongue when we get there. But don’t expect me to play nice with the bastard” Uzume relented.

We approached the village at a sedate pace, choosing not to travel as shinobi to avoid tipping off the person carrying out the abduction. It was also why Uzume was pulling against her shirt with an irritated look on her face.

“Can you stop that?”

“It’s itchy.”

“What do you mean it’s itchy, that’s made of the finest cotton in Konoha”

“Yeah, the finest itchy cotton maybe”

“You should have brought your own change of clothes if you’d known you’d be so prissy about mine.”

“If I’d known that we’d need to put on civilian clothes then I’d have brought some in the first place”

“Did you read the mission brief?” Shika cut into our conversation, making me smile as I knew what was coming.

“Of course I did. There was nothing there about this”

“Yes there was. On the second page”

“What second page?”

“The second page of the- Oh Shori, you didn’t”

“Didn’t what?” I asked, pasting an innocent smile on my face.

“Tell me you didn’t remove the second page of Uzume’s brief on purpose”

“No” I said, smiling widely.

“Did you remove it accidentally, then?” Toshiro got in on the ‘let’s question Shori to oblivion game’.

“I meant ‘no’, as in I wouldn’t be telling her that. I don’t lie, remember?”

“Ahhhhh” I barely dodged over the flying missile that was a very pissed off Uchiha.

A/N; Choosing to write this like this