Chapter 13.5- One Thousand Hands

Hiding like a mole? How plebeian. I slammed my hand on the ground, using my chakra to feel out the surrounding area and sun out his location. For some reason, he was sensitive to that, and wasted no time in surfacing.

He was already weaving seals as he did so and spat out a massive flame bullet at me. Io formed the horse sweat, transforming my chakra into water release chakra in seconds and forcing that water release chakra to condense into a wide wall of water in front of me. The fire hit the water, erupting into steam that spread through the battlefield. I flipped from the Horse seal to the snake seal and took control of the mist, forcing it to thicken until it went from a mild haze to a fog to thick for any without doujutsu to see through.

“What the fuck, pretty boy?” I heard Uzume’s voice call out, but I could also see that she was taking advantage of her opponent’s loss of visibility to pen him into a tight situation. As for my own opponent, he was weaving seals continuously until he blew out his own Great breakthrough. A lesser version of my technique, but still more than enough to blow a hole through the mist. A hole that I plugged in virtually no time. I could see him getting irritated as he used the jutsu over and over again, only for the mist to reform itself before he could do anything about it.

Finally, he tsked before beginning a longer series of hand seals. I watched the whole thing with rapturous attention as he called up more chakra than he’d ever had with his other techniques. This time, he didn’t blow the air from his mouth. He spread his hands around him, and a massive tornado formed around him. It built slowly, small amounts of wind moving around him in a circle until the amounts increased, and they picked up speed. The wind forced the mist from my control and tore through it in its entirety. It didn’t stop there, and continued to pick up more and more speed before it left its creator and began to advance towards me.

It scoured the dirty grounds that had the ruins of the town as it moved forward. I weaved two seals and spat a fireball that was quickly swallowed into the tornado, turning it into a firestorm. Why would I do that? I could tell that Iwabe over there didn’t have any control of the jutsu after he formed it. The best he’d been able to do was give it a direction to move in. Beyond that, the tornado was basically a natural formation. A natural formation that anyone could use for their interests. I body flickered away as the tornado passed through the space I’d once occupied and advanced towards the fight between Uzume, Toshiro, and their Jounin.

In the presence of the barely contained firestorm, I felt the heat in the area rise upwards. Iwabe looked awestruck at the sight of his jutsu raging out of control. Was that arousal I saw in his eyes? I wondered as I picked up my bow. It had been a while since I held the weapon with the intention to use it, but it fit perfectly. So perfectly, and now with the byakugan, I could see everything I needed to.

I drew the bow, taking a deep breath, and loosed it. He twitched his head out of the way of the kill shot. Of course he did, he was a jounin. But it was enough to draw him from his trance. He turned in my direction, and I smiled before sinking into the forest, daring him to follow. I’d beat him in Taijutsu if I closed the distance. In terms of ninjutsu, he had proven himself to be little threat. I could kill him whenever I wanted, so why not use him to test a few things.