Chapter 96.2- One Thousand Hands

But smart was far from enough to deal with me. I met Minato first. His kick whizzed past m head. I took his lunch to my guard, stepping back and giving him space to spin back into a kick with impressive flexibility. I yielded more space. Mikoto joined in seamlessly, sharingan allowing her to compensate for Minato’s wide and flashy movements perfectly. Where he left openings, she plugged them instantly. This was the team I had created to kill Jounin, and would one day become my answer to Kage.

Minato was pure precision. Every kick or punch was perfectly aimed to cause the perfect amount of damage, and his impeccable balance allowed him to keep them coming in a constant storm of movements. Mikoto was a perfect accompanying shadow. The sharingan allowed her to be many things at the same time, and what the team needed of her was for her to become the perfect partner for Minato, plugging up the holes that experience had yet to fill and giving just that extra bit of lethality to his storm.

But it was incomplete without their third prong. I smiled as I sensed it. Minato precision, Mikoto partnership, and Kushina? Kushina was pure overwhelming power. She stormed through the foliage, the beginnings of Gyuki’s chakra surrounding her form. Minato stepped back, grabbing hold of Mikoto and body flickering backwards as Kushina crashed right into me.

I braced myself as I felt the caustic chakra of the tailed beast eat at my skin. I picked her up by the midsection and tossed her overhead, sending her flying into the distance. I didn’t even need to turn around to see her land on all fours, grow more tails out of her back and shoot back at me with even more power in her movements.

Of course, no matter how much power she could tap into at this stage, she was going to need even more of it to stand against a fully realized Sage and hope to win. She blitzed forward, and at the last moment. She stopped, right in front of me, hands digging into the ground before she swing the rest of her body upwards, tails stabbing right at me. I smirked as I caught all four of them, two in each hand.

“Still in there, Kushi-chan”

She growled and her legs followed, coming for my head. Instead of retreating, I attacked faster. I lifted my foot and stamped her in the back, sending her flying backwards and releasing her tails as I did so.

“So you’re definitely in there. Can you try something for me? Stay still” I said, projecting my voice. This was more about testing her control for now. If she could show control, the spar could continue. If she couldn’t, I’d end it before she could bring out Gyuki in full force over a training match. While I doubted he was the sort to engage in unscrupulous destruction, I had little desire to repeat the Third Raikage’s feat in the middle of my own village.

Kushina froze in her attempt to rush me again. She stopped moving, not moving a single muscle. Good.

“How does it feel?” I asked.

“Hard” She said, voice echoing with something deeper. Something more.

“Why so?”

“We want to fight” She said. I noted the pronoun use but said nothing about it. It was normal for her to feel like she and Gyuki were one with this level of mastery over the tailed beast chakra. She was probably feeling sensations she’d never felt before and taking them as signs that she had merged with the tailed beast. I’d disabuse her of that notion with time, but it was acceptable for now.

“You want to, do you? Come on then” I said, and in a flash, she was on me. I backflipped away as her tails stabbed into the ground where I’d been standing.

“All three of you” I shouted out, signalling for Mikoto and Minato to join in on the fun. If Kushina had control then she would avoid hurting them, and if things changed, well, let’s just say that speed wasn’t an attribute I was lacking in.