Chapter 13.2- One Thousand Hands

“Left” His sensei prompted, and he spun out of the way of the attack that came from his right.

He tried to retaliate with a thrust of his own but it as slapped out of the way with ease. He swatted away a poke aimed at his forehead and returned the favour with one for his opponent’s midsection.

“Right” His sensei said, attacking from the left this time. He stepped backwards as his sensei stepped into his guard. He gave the ground to keep his stance steady and swatted the fingers aimed at his kidney away. His own thrust was dodged with a lean of his opponent’s head. This was the second month of their lessons now, and he had come to agree with his Uncle.

Hyuga Jinpachi was clearly one of the most skilled practitioners of the gentle fist his clan had. Just a month under him and the difference had been night and day. Now, he was even better. He’d at least managed to make the Jounin begin moving at his full speed. He was yet to land a hit and still left each training session racked with chakra welts, but it was still progress.

Their dance continued. He bent underneath an attack aimed for his head and realised his mistake the second he made it. Jinpachi did not hesitate to punish. He never did. It was what made him so well suited for teaching Shorirama. His knee went up and slammed right into the Senju heir’s nose, sending him shooting backwards.

He barely managed to keep his feet under him and still took two hits before he was back in the fight. His head was still ringing, but the feeling of his tenketsu along his left lung and clavicle blocked brought a clarity to his head. Enough of a clarity to allow him fight back.

Just as he always did, he unblocked the tenketsu with a burst of chakra- a skill no other Hyuga could claim- and burst into a short range body flicker. With the way the jutsu screamed its existence to those who could perceive it, he was practically telegraphing his next moves to his Sensei. He came out of the shunshin and slapped aside the hand that aimed for his forehead before stabbing at his Sensei’s chest with a lance of chakra. The attack never hit, the man leaned backwards in time. But that was not the only attack he had. He stepped into the man’s guard, this time forcing him to be the one to step back, and aimed a series of attacks along the man’s body. Each was either slapped aside or leaned out of the way of in time.

He dodged out of the way of the retaliatory kick that tried to separate them but he did not allow it happen. He pressed even further. The man would a mistake eventually. No one could deal with this much pressure. In the end, it took two minutes of continuous attacking for Shorirama to manage to graze the man’s arm with a gentle fist attack. That graze had hit a tenketsu that made it slower for him to raise that same hand to block the attack that came for his chest.

He was forced to body flicker backwards to escape the situation. The bell rung. Shorirama fell on his arse laughing. He’d won. He’d actually won.

XXXXXX- TOSHIRO TAKEHADA- SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE SECOND GREAT SHINOBI WORLD WAR

Today was the day Shori was scheduled to return to active duty with their team. A year and six months without him had not passed easily. He regretted the thought but part of him was unsure that this was a good idea. Shori had been gone for a year, unconscious. In that time, both he and Uzume had been running missions with a powerful Jounin at their side, and training under said Jounin. He knew that the Hyuga and Senju clans would put all the resources at their disposal towards helping Shori get better, but he was unsure that would be enough.

A year was a lot of time. Could he truly have managed to bridge the gap that would have inevitably built between them in three months? It was unlikely. Shori was a genius, but some things were just impossible. Besides, it was not like he and Uzume had remained still in that time period. They’d kept going on missions, and training. His genjutsu arsenal had gotten so large that he knew three techniques he could apply for any situation.

His ninjutsu had not lagged behind by much either. His chakra capacity had grown with training as Sensei promised and now he could do jutsu like the Great Fireball up to four times a day. Nothing compared to Uzume’s nine, but he didn’t have centuries of breeding behind him or even a fire affinity so high he could burn water. He blinked as his teammate appeared in front of them.

He seemed to just appear. There was no puff of smoke from body flicker. Toshiro checked his chakra network, and just like he’d thought, it remained undisturbed. How had he done that?

“Fancy” was all Uzume said upon looking at him, and he had to say he agreed.

Shori had changed his outfit again. This time, he wore a plain shirt and some combat pants. He didn’t have the same giant scroll he’d worn for the chunin exams, but there were ends of smaller scrolls peaking out of the pockets of his combat pants. On his hands, he had a pair of fingerless gloves that had metal plats at their back. The main change, Toshiro noticed, came with his face. He’d grown his hair even further. He wore it in a ponytail that fell down towards his waist now. And over his eyes, he wore a pair of sunglasses. Strange.

Uzume whistled as she stepped closer to peer at the glasses, and he did the same, noting that the lines etched into the glasses weren’t just decorative like he’d thought. They were seals.

“Are we going to keep staring at me or are we going to get this show on the road” He asked, pulling down the glasses with one finger to pin them with a stare.

A/N; Here ya goooooo