A Thousand Hands

Summary: The rise and fall of the man who moved nations; Senju Hashirama.

Disclaimer: Naruto Series is not mine

Arc One: The Mountain Top

Chapter 2

"On my travels stricken-

my dreams over the dry land

go on roving."

- Basho

Tobirama's shifty eyes traced the lining of her body underneath his linens; she had skin like silk and brown hair that sprawled across his body like a spider's web. For a moment he felt the tiniest tinge of regret, for he knew their forbidden love was not meant to last. As if aware of his assessment, Nara Peko awoke suddenly and, in great haste, got dressed.

"In such a hurry?" he asked, smirking.

It was just dawn, and she told him what he already knew: as the head of her clan, the Nara, it would be a disaster for her to be caught being affectionate with a man not her husband, especially a powerful beneficiary such as himself. Peko had come to the small village under the mountain with the official goal of setting up the year's small trading routes; they were changed annually to avoid banditry. The Nara Clan was very good with medicine, and the Senju brothers were good with keeping them protected.

"Oh, Pekopeko," he teased. "When will you finally surrender to me?"

"Don't call me that!" she hissed. "And you know it can never be."

Tobirama was not a man to accept defeat, but he dropped the issue. After all, she would return to him as she always did. He decided it was best not to push her moods, for she had information that he needed. Being the head of a formal clan, though not powerful by any sense of the word, Peko was privilege to news pertaining to other clans. He needed no such news, but he made it a point to stay current on the country's affairs.

"Anything interesting for me?"

"Oh … just something small," she teased. "The Uchiha and Fuuma rivalry has ended. The Uchiha won a decisive victory in their last battle; the Fuuma have been scattered to the winds!"

Tobirama could not hide his astonishment. The Fuuma and Uchiha rivalry was legendary. The Uchiha were infamous for their Fire Element techniques, while the Fuuma were the continent's masters of Wind Element techniques. It was whispered that the two warring clans had created the plains in the south with their fighting; the flames fueled by the winds were said to have incinerated the once lush southern forests.

"The Uchiha clan is under new leadership," Peko said. "Two brothers have taken control of the clan. Word has it that their power and authority are unrivalled, and one of them delivered the Fuuma's defeat single handed."

"I fear for all of us," Tobirama said, "if you decide to move north."

"The Uchiha love their plains; it allows for head to head combat. They won't move here. And even if they do …" she kissed him passionately, "not even an entire clan can topple the Senju brothers."

Peko left silently, and ignored his continued interrogations. She always refused to tell him when he would see her again. Tobirama, briefly, realized that he was asking much of her. But he cared little; his passion was strong and he expected that it be satisfied.

Tobirama did not leave his home until the sun was high in the sky. The village was alive now; too alive to notice him slip away. He left a Water Clone to patrol the town before he vanished into the dense foliage. He moved with no sense of hurry. Eventually he broke the foliage and came to a lake so small that all of its ends were visible from his position.

Tobirama plunged into the water without a moment of hesitation. He moved through the water with a mastered ease, like a fish returning to its natural habitat. Eventually, Tobirama found his way to a tunnel in the lake floor. He slipped through it and eventually ended up on semi dry land. He was in a cave that had ceiling spikes and water dripping steadily from that ceiling; the sound of water filled his ears.

Also, the sound of muffled screams.

Tobirama found his subjects: two men were strapped to the walls, one dead, and the other screaming through a gag. Tobirama felt no guilt; these two men were less than trash. They were bandit ninjas who had slipped into his village a few days ago, after Hashirama's departure. They had raped a woman and killed her son. Their execution would have been swift, yet brutal, had Hashirama been home. But he was not, and Tobirama had found a much better use for them.

"You will serve a great purpose," Tobirama assured the screaming wretch.

The premise behind Tobirama's experiment was simple. He had witnessed much death in his life, and in that time he had concluded with certainty that avoiding death was impossible. But, he had been given no evidence to support that the human soul simply vanished after the body withered. It had to be somewhere … and he was sure he could call it back.

A quick set of seals: tiger, snake, dog, dragon … he clapped his hands.

"Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation!"

Fire Temple …

"Reincarnation?" Hashirama asked.

He stood alongside Mottomo; they were in a dark and dusty room full of antiques from an older age. The room was lined with ancient samurai swords and armors, and marked periodically by staffs. What he had found most interesting over the last few days was the scrolls. They all contained various stories … all of them with the general recurring theme of endless violence. None like the story of the brothers. But now, his eyes lay squarely on a rusting bronze statue of fat, jolly man.

"Yes," Mottomo said, "reincarnation. The Buddah was very popular when samurai ruled. The idea was simply that one could only find happiness by abandoning material greed, and releasing the illusion of control. If one did not do those things, they would be reincarnated and given the chance to try again. The idea greatly pleased disgraced samurai."

Hashirama resisted a sneer at the thought.

"Reincarnation …" he repeated distastefully.

"While it was popular among samurai," Mottomo continued, "believers were slaughtered en mass during the rise of Ninjutsu warfare. After all, with the hellish lives that are lived in this plane of existence, the idea of returning here after finally having been set free appalled many. Can you imagine the fear, and the hatred, and the-"

"Can you imagine the rage?!" Hashirama asked him.

Tobirama's Cave …

The hellish ritual lasted only a moment.

The living bandit screamed one last, wretched scream before his soul was handed over in sacrifice to the gods of death. Instantaneously, the already dead bandit's head snapped up. The whites of his eyes had given away to a pitch black, and his pupils were a solid and cold gray. The reincarnated man looked around at his new surroundings, and finally, at his reviver.

Tobirama could not help but smile.

"Can you hear m-"

The resurrected opened his mouth wide and screamed. It was a sound that shook Tobirama down to his bones. Three voices mixed into one; the voice of the Death God had accompanied the two merged souls to make a sound that was nothing sort of terrifying. The man, now the creature in Tobirama's mind, lurched forward and broke free of his shackles with relative ease … still screaming his hell scream.

"I am your summoner!" Tobirama shouted.

The creature paid him no mind as it leaped into action to smite him. With a single movement, Tobirama lobbed the bandit's head right off his shoulders. Within moments, the head had reattached itself. Tobirama cursed the pitfalls of his own jutsu.

"Water Style: Water Binding Snake!"

The dripping water of the cavern formed into a large snake. The beast roared and sent the sound of rushing water echoing throughout the cavern. The water snake smoothly wrapped its body around the screaming resurrected warrior. Tobirama touched the revived man gently on the head.

"Release!"

The body turned to dust and scattered across the cavern. Overwhelmed, Tobirama collapsed to his back. His breathing was rapid, but eventually it came to match the rhythm of the dripping water. The jutsu was incomplete, which did not bother him particularly so ... but that scream; it made him shiver. His thoughts went on roving, until eventually, when he felt as if they would suffocate him, he returned to dry land.

Fire Temple …

The monks rushed to their various positions of defense. The attack had come without warning; shuriken had rained down on the monastery like death from the heavens and killed two people. Now the monks adopted a fiery attitude. They climbed their scared walls and their essence of protection could be seen by the blindest eyes. Fire jutsu rained down on the incoming enemy, but two of them slipped into the court yard, where Hashirama met them.

"I'll tell you once," Hashirama said. "Leave here with your lives."

They were much smaller than him, and dressed completely in purple cloth that allowed them to meld surprisingly easily with the evening hue. Their only revealed skin was on their right shoulders, which were marked by a tattoo that identified them as part of a clan. This was more than just a group of roaming bandits, Hashirama realized.

They moved on him in unison with their kunai ready. Hashirama snatched one of them out of the air and slammed him with ferocity into the ground. He pivoted on a single foot and kicked the one coming behind him squarely in the jaw. The message was not as powerful as he had hoped, for they continued their assault with a renewed sense of energy. With little remorse he killed them both; he snapped one's neck and stabbed the other with his own kunai.

"Hashirama!" Nezumi called from the wall. "There are to too many coming!"

Hashirama joined Nezumi atop the wall; too many was correct. The field just beneath the monastery walls was littered with purple wearing bodies, and the bodies of monks who had went down to meet them. In the distance there was a mass of purple moving their way; Hashirama imagined that there were at least seventy of them. That was nearly twice the number of monks he had at his disposal.

Hashirama leaped down and waited for the mass to grow closer.

"Earth Style: Earth Flow Pillar!"

The ground beneath Hashirama lurched into the air. Within seconds he stood atop a twenty foot stone pillar. That seemed to draw the attention of the man leading the group of ninjas. He was the only one of them that was unmasked; a tall, bald fellow with a scar across his face and scowl to match it.

"I am Idate, leader of the Morino clan," the leader pronounced. "Are you the head of this temple?"

"No," Hashirama said. "But, I have been charged with protecting this temple with my life. I'll give you one chance to turn back peacefully."

They attacked at the very moment by blotting his vision with a wave of shuriken and kunai. Hashirama skillfully hid on the opposite end of the pillar and replied in kind.

"Earth Style: Earth Flow Shards!"

Hashirama stomped the back of the pillar. The rock formation split into hundreds of shards of hardened earth and zipped through the enemy ranks like a scythe might cleave through souls. They wasted not a minute surrounding him on all sides, but then his Kusanagi blade was in his hands, and he began mowing them down like grass and scattering their souls to the winds.

Hashirama ducked beneath a blow, and used a small Earth spear to intercept an enemy in mid air. The impaled man screamed in agony as the spear disemboweled him. It was then that Hashirama noticed that many had slipped past him, heading right for the walls of the monastery. Some monks had gone down to meet them and were suffering terribly.

"Earth Style: Earth Flow Swamp!"

The ground underneath those near the temple suddenly melted away, giving away go a small pond of mud, entrapping the enemy ninja for a moment's notice. That was enough for the monks to begin to incinerate them.

"Focus here!" Idate demanded as suddenly rushed into the fray.

They clashed swords, and Hashirama's fingers shook with an electrical impulse. Idate's sword was no mere sword; the blade glowed a brilliant gold and seemed to be formed of pure electricity. They struggled for a moment, before separating.

"The Sword of the Thunder God," Idate said, "Raijin! Its power is without equal!"

They clashed again, and again. The Kusanagi shrugged off the blows of the lightning sword, but Hashirama's hands began to feel numb from the electrical shocks. The enemy's numbers had dwindled, but if he could not kill this man soon and move on to kill the rest, the temple would be over run.

"Earth Style: Earth Flow Spears!"

The spears chased hungrily after Idate, who barely managed to save himself with his Raijin's cutting capacity. But before he knew it, Hashirama had descended upon him. With a single, fluid, stroke Hashirama removed Idate's hand at the wrist. Blood erupted like a fountain from the wound as the sword and still gripping hand were sent sailing into the air. Hashirama kicked Idate in one of the knees, making him collapse before raising his sword for the final blow.

A round of arrows suddenly erupted towards him. Hashirama leaped back, avoiding all but one that nicked him in the cheek. Several of enemy ninjas surrounded him as the blood dripped down his cheek. They smartly kept their distance from him. Idate, missing a hand and with one of his knees dislocated, was raised to his feet by his grunts.

"You can't beat me," Hashirama told them. "Flee now, and preserve your lives for another day."

"Fool!" Idate shouted. "We've already beaten you!"

The mass rushed him again, and Hashirama moved to cut them all down down. Immediately, the Senju's vision blurred. The dozens of enemy ninja all melded into a single shape, and his attempts at attack failed horribly as he missed every time. Within moments of his lost vision, he felt prickles like lightning stabbing into his skin and his limbs go numb with the effort of movement.

"The Morino clan," he heard, "are the masters of poison."

Hashirama's gap in skill kept him alive. The enemy seemed to move from place to place instantaneously. Soon, the Kusanagi was knocked from his grip, and he fought off their advances with his bare fists. Dozens of kunai were embedded into his arms and legs; they injected more of the venom into his body until he could do nothing but fall to his knees.

"Earth Style: M-mud r-river!"

Hashirama's chakra felt distant to him, but he managed to call upon it. The ground underneath him turned to mud and carried him with velocity back to the temple. He crashed into the outer walls and sat facing the open field and the encroaching enemy. Within seconds, one of them had reached him and raised their kunai to end his life.

"K-Kusanagi: Long Sword of the S-sky!"

The Kusanagi, from its place among the sea of dead, rose into the air while glowing with an ethereal blue aura. It zipped past the advancing enemy and impaled the man bearing over Hashirama clean through the heart. With the last of his energy, Hashirama made a few hand seals.

"Earth Style: Earth F-Flow Dome!"

Two half domes of solid earth on either side of the temple rose and connected in the sky. The earthen interior knew no light save for the candles that the monks soon lit. Mottomo and Nezumi found Hashirama still by the wall. He was unconscious and seemed to be slipping away from their plane of existence. They could hear the sound of enemy ninja trying to break through from outside the wall. Their slaughter seemed to be imminent.

They lifted Hashirama from the ground and retrieved his sword. Laboriously, they dislodged the various projectile weapons that had sunk into his skin. They wrapped the wounds.

"These wounds aren't that deep," a medical monk said. "Not deep enough to knock such a powerful man unconscious. He's been stricken with some poison?"

"Yes," Mottomo agreed, "it must be. He was handling all of them just fine by himself … such power. But no single power can defeat an entire group."

"More than a group," Musei, scarred from the battle, said. "An entire clan. We've captured one of them. Would you like to initiate the interrogation, sir?"

Musei led Nezumi and Mottomo to the captured Morino ninja. He was heavily burned, yet conscious, and eyed them spitefully. He moved to attack them, but a spear kept at his throat kept him down on his knees.

"What do you want with this temple?" Mottomo asked.

"What was stolen!" the man hissed. "But nothing will spare you now. Our leader will break through this wall. All of you will be slaughtered for the disgrace brought up upon the Morino clan!"

"We've stolen nothing from you!" Musei proclaimed.

"Play stupid all you want," the assassin said, "but once Idate has broken down those walls, he'll pry the truth from your cold carcasses." He then proceeded to spit at their feet. The monk guarding him thrust the spear through his neck and let his body fall limp to the ground.

"Prepare fortifications," Mottomo said. "We haven't much time. This barrier is Earth based, and the sword of their leader is Lightning based … eventually, it will break through. We are outnumbered, and surely outmatched without Hashirama to back us up." By this time, the remaining monks had gathered. "My sons, this is a test of our faith. So … will we stay and fight, or will we escape?"

"Sir …" Nezumi said, "I suggest that we leave, or else we'll die here."

"Coward!" Musei said. "Death is but sweet bliss from the hell of life! The Younger Brother conquered hell fire, all for the sake of that which was precious to him. I'll gladly die before this temple falls!"

It then became a battle of ideologies.

"We are the last disciples of the Younger Brother," Nezumi said. "This temple is but a housing place. If we all die, then the beliefs of the Younger Brother die with us. Only trash would risk the principles of our founder just to enjoy some kind of honorable death. We are not samurai! It is our duty to preserve, not to die foolishly!"

"I'll be trash then!" Musei said. "For only someone worse than trash would be willing to carry on the ideologies of the Younger Brother, while having rejected them as truths. The Will of Fire demands that we stand and fight for that which is precious to us, even if we are burned in the process. Brothers, who among you will stand with me?!"

There was a healthy split. Mottomo watched his disciples verbally abuse each other. Those with Nezumi called the others fools, while Musei's followers relished in calling those with Nezumi cowards and nonbelievers. Undoubtedly, Mottomo thought, there were merits to both sides.

"When the wall crumbles," Mottomo said, gaining their attention, "those who wish to flee, may flee. Those who wish to fight, will fight."

"And you, master?" Nezumi asked.

"I will fight," Mottomo said, smiling.

Nezumi narrowed his eyes in anger, looking away. Not a single person would follow him now. None of them could live with the shame of leaving their beloved master to die as they fled into the foliage. For a moment, he thought he would not able to either. But, suddenly he felt a scroll shift underneath his robes. It was the object of battle; a scroll of the Morino clan which contained details of concocting their most powerful poison. Nezumi almost frothed at the mouth at the thought of the immense riches he would get from selling the scroll to the Morino clan's enemies.

Nezumi swallowed hungrily at the thought; he would be set for a life of comfort, woman and alcohol.

With that in mind, Nezumi feigned resignation to their suicidal last stand. He traced his escape route in his mind, and then joined the rest of the monks as they prepared. They placed their dead in an area to await burning; burning them now would only suffocate them with the smell of death. They put the dead Morino clan members in front of the temple, stacking them as to psychologically affect their enemy. They hid explosives inside the bodies that would trigger once heated.

They assumed it was night time; the sounds of men clashing against their earthen defense was somewhat muffled. Now, all they heard was someone hacking away at a single spot with the Raijin sword.

Hashirama, for the most part, understood where he was and what was happening. Whatever poison had afflicted him was devastating. It was attacking his chakra system, and thus with every passing moment more of his chakra was tainted, and he felt more pain envelop his body. His attempts at expelling it were futile. His struggles only weakened his body and allowed the poison to spread quicker through his system.

Eventually, his chakra became but a speck in the distance; he was sure now that he was going to die.

Unable to move, Hashirama allowed his mind to roam.

First he thought of himself, and all the things that dying meant for him. His dreams would dry up like raisins on dry, hot land. He would never again get to feel the universe, only to be a part of it. He would never again see a beautiful woman, or feel the cool caress of the winds, or the warm touch of the sun at a dawn.

Second, he thought of his brother at home. Already, Tobirama had been so heavily affected by death. Hashirama could only imagine how the consecutive deaths of his father, lover and then mother had left him … would the death of his brother be the tipping point into insanity? Could Tobirama, who dreamed of stabilized countries and a deathless nation, continue to follow his dream without a friend to back him, and assure him.

Third, he thought of the children beneath the mountain now. Like little monkeys they swung through the trees and the grass without a care. He had hoped that under his guidance, they would become legends in their own right. Now, with no one to watch over them, he wondered if they would even survive the years to come. Would they ever be given the chance to grow old and die protecting that which they loved?

Fourthly, and finally … Hashirama saw a vision of a future god among men. The poison seemed to leap him into a far away time. He saw young man of a silky complexion and hair so golden it looked to be kissed every morning by the sun. The young figure pierced into Hashirama with eyes that reflected the raging ocean and peaceful skies. That golden god whispered beautiful images in Hashirama's ear; he promised Hashirama of a time when the people beneath the mountain ate every day, and never feared that monstrous men would slaughter them.

It all came with one condition; that he survive this defeat.

Hashirama roved the vastness of his imagination for an answer; he knew he had to find an answer because if he could not, then the young god who promised the people heaven would never come to be. When he could find no answer within him, he searched without. And there Hashirama felt a well of energy that surrounded him in all directions.

Where once he might have just tickled it, this time he reached out and seized it with all of his might. The energy responded immediately. It lurched into his body like an injection. The energy rushed through the gates of his chakra and grabbed a hold of him just as he had done to it. An ocean of green energy mingled naturally with his blue chakra and something new was born. It was like pure light … the very essence of life brewed in his belly and boiled over. The poison inside him was obliterated, and his wounds hissed closed.

The new life energy escaped his body and mingled into the ground around him. Immediately, the earth was uprooted as a hundred years worth of environmental evolution was cycled through in but a few seconds. Tree trunks and leaves erupted from the ground, creating a dense jungle that enveloped the temple. At its highest, one of the trees reached the top of the earth dome and easily punctured through it.

Hashirama opened his eyes as he felt the dawn sun rays kiss his skin. There he saw the golden sun, the blue sky and a bright future to come.

Chapter Edited