One Thousand Hands (OC- Senju SI)

Pre-Chapter A/N: Please do check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on up on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)- it's completely free to access. 

What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go with the seventh chapter of 2025. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) and read the next three chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read. 

He moved, and from his fingers flew a scroll that sailed in the air as it unfurled itself for a few seconds. Shika looked at the script in the scroll, and it was only her memories of that very first class with Shori that allowed her guess what the scroll was about to do. "Close your eyes" She called out to her teammates while clenching her eyes closed. The flashing went off, and she could see the bright light even through her eyelids, and would probably be blinking spots out of her vision when she opened said lids. That wasn't the main problem though, the problem was the bang part of the flash-bang, She couldn't hear a single thing besides a sharp ringing in her ears. She reached one of her fingers up, and it came away with blood on it. 

Fuck. A busted eardrum at the very least. Hearing was the second most valuable sense to a shinobi when in a fight, and this man had just robber her of hers in one move. Looking at both Choni and Inoken told her that they were in similar states. She set her lips into a frown almost by reflex and drew her blade from the scabbard on her back. The man hadn't stopped moving after tossing the scroll. Instead of lunging at them, he'd dug through an inner pocket for another scroll while moving to a different position. He stood against the flames from her earlier fire jutsu in such a way that his shadow was shrunk as much as possible. 

"You've destroyed a few of my favourites, but those were trinkets compared to this one. Meet my masterpiece, Hiruko." He said, and then unsealed the puppet by his side. It had a human-ish face on its head, and could have been mistaken for a man crouched or with a hunchback if it had been wearing a cloak to cover its obviously inhuman bits. The human -ish face became less so as the mouth opened up to reveal a nozzle. 

"Get down" she was sure she yelled at her teammates, but she couldn't hear herself so it was more of a hope than anything else. She ducked and rolled, moving out of the way of fire. Choni slammed her foot into the ground and lifted a wall of earth that took the brunt of the flamethrower with no problems. She noted that Inoken had taken cover behind Choni's earth wall as well. She pulled on their telepathic bond and gave them the details of her plan. This man was good, a skilled Jounin certainly, but he wasn't listed as one of Suna's S-rank threats. That meant that he was beatable. 

The three of them could do it. They just had to do as Benzaiten-sensei taught them and think outside the box. They also had to surprise them. Their clans were famous. They weren't the first Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi team in the world. It was formulaic, but only because it worked. Choni crashed into her own wall, tearing it to pieces like an Akimichi on a mission, and the man barely had the time to dodge out of the way of the wrecking ball that she could become at will. She spun, tearing through two tents with no resistance before grinding to a halt with phenomenal control and then coming right back around aimed at the man's puppet. Said puppet crouched down and then lashed out with its gleaming steel tail, holding it in front of it and waiting for Choni's approach. 

As if, she heard Inoken scoff in her mind once it became clear that the man intended for the puppet to stop Choni's charge. She was inclined to agree and had almost voiced it when Choni hit the tail and came to a halt. She ground against the blockage, of course, trying to continue her rampage, but the puppet had her dead stopped. Shika felt her shadow grab ahold of something for a second as she used Choni's much larger shadow to lengthen hers and get into the man's guard, only for the thing she'd caught to turn out to be another puppet. She could tell because it had no yin chakra for her shadow to interface with. The man's head, facing away from them, turned a full 180 degrees to look at them, and then its mouth opened. 

She had to bend backwards at her waist to avoid the barrage of senbon that came from the nozzle that had shut out of the mouth. The barrage ended when the puppet was forced to deal with Inoken's attack. She watched as the hand that it lifted to block the blade ended up clashing with nothing but air. Genjutsu. With so many in their class using genjutsu as their preferred means of fighting, some would forget that Inoken was one of the most skilled Yamanaka when it came to the art. 

The puppet was in no position to block her teammate's blade from stabbing into its heart, but that did nothing to stop it. That fact shocked Inoken for long enough that it was able to land a solid backhand against his head, sending him flying. She turned to where Choni struggled against the Hiruko puppet and found that her other teammate had already flagged and had fallen to the floor unconscious. 

This situation was fucked, she lamented to herself while flaring her chakra as hard as she could. Fucking come here, you smug bastard, she called out to Shori in her mind. 

XXXX- IZUKU UCHIHA 

This was a terrible idea, he thought, as he and his cousin ran across the grasslands of the Land of Rivers to catch up to their quarry and head off his approach. 

"This is a terrible idea," he told her again. It was a breach of usual protocol to speak outlaid during a situation like this, but if they were being observed, they'd know. The third member of their group scoffed at his words and Izuku was barely able to prevent himself from facepalming. 

"There's a delicate mission taking place, and _he_ can toss a wrench in that. It's our duty to head him off" Uzume said, and if the words had come from anyone else, then he might have believed that was the reason for this, but he knew his cousin better than anyone. He didn't have any siblings and Uzume's brothers were all much older than her, so they had grown up more like siblings than anything else in truth. 

"You just want to fight Piandao." He said, and she did not deny it. 

"That doesn't matter. We have a duty." 

"Our duty was to send a message to Shika and Shori and wait for them to tell us what to do next" 

"You can do that if you need daddy and mommy to hold your hand, Uchiha. But me, I've got a man to fight" Inukuro said, and Izuku could barely resist the urge to attack him. Assuming it was just Uzume or even Inukuro by themselves, then this would have been a more stable situation. He could appeal to Uzume's common sense in Kuro's absence, or he could just genjutsu Kuro until he came out of his testosterone induced recklessness. Together, they'd egg each other on and run circles around him if he tried to go at them one at a time. He spotted some movement from the side and barely managed to dodge away from a throwing knife that almost turned his skull into its new holster. 

His kunai came up a second letter and the sound of ringing echoed through the field as he blocked Piandao The Weasel's famous blade. They met eyes and just as he tried to slip his chakra into the man's system and put him under a genjutsu, he felt the boot dig into his ribs as he was sent flying. He allowed the momentum to send him rolling until he came to a natural stop. 

When he did, it was to witness Piandao cutting a massive fireball in half before jumping out of the way of Shiro's spinning form and then bringing up his blade to block Inukuro's own gatsuga. He thought this was stupid. This was reckless and almost definitely insubordinate, but that didn't matter now. The fight had begun either way. 

He formed a horse seal and stretched his chakra towards its target, but his genjutsu just slid off like water against a wall, and the man's eyes snapped to him. Uzume used the chance to attempt another jutsu, and the man — without even looking — bent his knees and jumped above the flame dragon bullet before flipping and stabbing his blade into the jutsu, nullifying it. 

He landed on the floor and found himself immediately facing the wrath of an aggressive Inuzuka. Inukuro's body moved in a whisper of motion as he sent multiple furious swipes aimed at carving through his opponent, while Piandao weathered the storm with a patience that Izuku had to admit was impressive. He calmly gave ground while making sure that he never found himself vulnerable to being touched Kuro's claws. Under the influence as he was, Kuro's already impressive claws were like knives in the way they protruded from his fingers. 

Uzume's own fingers flashed forth, dipping into her pouch and returning with a shuriken held between each set of fingers. A total of eight in all. She tossed them with full force, and they flew around both Kuro and Piandao, moving in a wide arc. Only his sharingan allowed him to so easily see the extremely thin pieces of ninja wire connecting her fingers to each shuriken. The wire flashed with chakra, and she pulled back on it, allowing the shuriken to come sailing back in Uzume's direction again, heading towards Piandao's unprotected back. It was a masterful trap, Izuku thought with a whistle. 

He couldn't disengage from Kuro without sustaining an injury, and he couldn't wait to do it safely thanks to the shuriken already heading for his back. They had him, Izuku thought for a second. Piandao didn't even react to the approaching shuriken. Was he going to take them straight up as opposed to an injury from Kuro? That wasn't a bad plan at all, Izuku thought and then tried to layer another set of genjutsu on the man, but they just slipped away again. 

The shuriken approached without hindrance, and then at what had to be the last possible second, Piandao acted. He stepped into Kuro's guard, shocking their friend who had overextended himself in his frustration at not being able to tag his foe. The Weasel over so quickly, Izuku was certain that Kuro had no idea what happened to him. With his sharingan though, Izuku could see it all in slow motion. Piandao dropped his sword, stabbing straight through Kuro's right foot and making him scream out. Then, he dropped straight to the floor. The shuriken missed him and sank straight into Kuro's body. 

Piandao rose from the ground immediately after, dodging around a furious reflexive swipe and then cutting straight through Kuro's arm in one swing. Izuku would never forget the scream that Kuro let out as his right arm dropped to the floor. Izuku body flickered over, seeing Uzume do the same from her end, but they were too slow. It was almost like a dance, the way Piandao twirled his blade again and ran it across Kuro's neck. So sharp it was that Kuro's head took a second to fall from his body. 

Izuku arrived in time to catch the body, only to drop it in shock when the head came off and Kuro's blood spurted all over him. Uzume, on the other hand, had gone straight for Piandao. 

He leaned into her attack, not allowing her to bring her kunai to bear and slamming the hilt of his blade into her stomach, making her double over from the pain, and then he kicked her backwards, sending her flying. Izuku put down Kuro's body as gently as he could before body flickering towards Uzume and grabbing a hold of her before she slammed into the Oak tree behind them. She shrugged off his grip once she came to, and put a glowing hand on her stomach, healing what he could tell were a couple of broken ribs. 

"No close combat" he whispered to her, and Uzume nodded, not being her usual confrontational self. She was probably just as shaken as he was. Inukuro was dead. Their classmate. Their friend. He was dead, and the man who had done it stood there like he hadn't just shattered a family with a swing of that blade of his. Inukuro was a good man. A good friend. How would they even tell Uraume about this? Or Shiba? Oh, gods. Shiba! Izuku wanted to scream at this man, but he took his rage and swallowed it with a breath. 

They would give Shiba the head of the man who had taken so much from him, and they would do it as a team. He tapped Uzume's shoulder, silently begging her to follow his lead, and this nod came slower, but it came all the same. Good. He took another breath in, superheating the air inside his body, before ejecting it in a series of small fireballs designed to distract rather than disable. Piandao moved his blade, slicing each one in half, but was forced to jump backwards as massive spikes rose from the ground he had been standing on. Izuku weaved a set of seals this time and spat out multiple lances of superheated air that combusted as they crossed the distance between them and their quarry. 

Piandao's blade remained in place to block the jutsu, but Uzume ran along the edges of their battlefield, seeking a different attack angle before she brought her hands together in two seals and sent a massive bolt of lightning natured chakra aimed at the side of the man's head. Unable to deal with both attacks at the same time, the man made his choice, and it was one Izuku hadn't seen coming. Backwards or upwards, he expected and planned for, only for the man to run forwards, head on into Izuku's flames with his sword outstretched. He emerged from the smoke singed, but intact and managed to dodge the volley of shuriken that Izuku had sent right to the point he was going to come out from. He jumped backwards as The Weasel dashed at him only for the man to be forced to turn to slice through a lance of pressurized water courtesy Uzume. The water still soaked his body, and Izuku took the chance given to him. 

He didn't need seals for this jutsu. He body flickered into close range, and dodged a slice that came ever so close to removing his head from his shoulders before he brought his fingers and jutsu to bear. 

The bolt of electricity leapt from his outstretched fingers to his opponent's body, and it was only the sharingan that allowed him to see what happened in real time. The electricity hit him, and instead of shocking him like it would to every other fucking human, he used his chakra to carry the electricity through his body and harmlessly down into the ground. So shocked by what had happened, Izuku never even saw the knee that slammed into his midsection. Even if he did feel it, just as surely as he felt the heel that snapped his head to the side and knocked him unconscious. 

XXXX- THE NARA PRINCESS 

She actually hadn't expected screaming his name in her mind to work, but it did. There was the sound of a missile flying through the air, and he slowed as he was about to crash into the ground before he landed right before her. Shika reached out with her senses and cold just barely resist the urge to wince. Shori was low on chakra. She hadn't felt that before, but she knew what his chakra normally felt like- a near boundless ocean- and what it felt like right now, more like a pond. It was still more chakra than most Jounin had, but she knew that he used up massive amounts for his jutsu. 

His chakra was also steadily dropping, so that meant that he was running out of chakra, and doing it quickly. 

"So what's the name?" Shori had this ability to just sound so casual even when the situation was grave, that she felt herself calm down almost against her will. He had this handled. Her cousin had never failed her before. 

"I'll carve it atop your grave" The red haired puppet replied, face developing an actual scowl. Shori turned away from the puppet and towards a random spot on the ground. Nothing happened for a few seconds and then that part of the ground erupted open, turning into mud. The man rose from the mud, covered from head to toe in a cocoon of mud. His puppets were stationary, unable to even move without the direction of their master. 

"If you know what's good for you, you won't touch a single hair on my head" The man said. 

Shori tilted his head in response. "You hurt my friends. I don't think there's any world where you survive that". 

"You have no idea who my mother-" before his words could be complete, Shori lifted a hand out and squeezed it, the man went silent. His head popped off his body. 

"So that works," Shori said, staring at his hand with a chuckle. 

"I'll call that one Mud bath," He said with another chuckle 

A/N: Can someone say consequences of war? Yes, I teased Inukuro's death since the very beginning. I'm doing a lot of artistic interpretation here, but there has to be something poetic about Sasori inhabiting a puppet that was originally designed by his father has his prime disguise. At least, that's how I see it. If it doesn't work for you, then I'm pulling rank as author. Please, please, and please, check out the first chapter of my original novel up on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)- completely free to access so have fun. As always, the following two chapters are up on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga). If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not necessarily the daily updates available with a regular Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy!