By the faint moonlight overhead, Ayane got a clear look at the figure.
It wore a gray cloak that dragged across the ground and possessed a pair of buffalo horns jutting from its head.
Its skin was as dark and rigid as iron plating, and its face was crisscrossed with mottled, mechanical seams.
To sum it up simply: it didn’t look human at all…
“It’s a mechanical puppet from Sunagakure!” Woodpecker instantly recognized the enemy’s origin.
He threw his kunai at it without missing a beat, cursing inwardly, ‘Damn it!
A Sand shinobi, and from the Puppet Brigade at that!
What the hell is he doing all the way out here?!’ Whirrr~ Whir-whir~ Naturally, no one was going to answer his internal questions.
The puppet simply unhinged its jaw—not to speak, but to completely detach its head!
The mechanical skull flew right off its neck, catching the incoming kunai mid-air with its wooden teeth.
Immediately after, the puppet raised both its arms.
Its palms split open, unleashing a dense barrage of tiny, venomous needles at the two of them!
Swish, swish, swish!
“Get back!” Woodpecker yelled out a warning to his ‘rookie’ partner as he leaped away to dodge.
Catching her from the corner of his eye, he noticed his new colleague’s reaction was terrifyingly fast.
The very moment the puppet moved, the young girl executed a rapid backflip to create distance.
At the same time, her hands became a blur, flying through hand seals while she was still suspended in the air.
The sequence was incredibly fluid, performed flawlessly in a single breath!
She was still airborne, her feet having yet to touch the ground, but the jutsu was already prepared.
Hanging upside down in mid-air, she puffed out her cheeks…
“Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!” Whoosh!
A fierce, violent gale swept forward, blasting the incoming hail of poisoned needles harmlessly into the mud!
Beautiful!
Woodpecker cheered internally.
But this was clearly not the time to stop and praise the rookie.
Instinctively seizing the perfect opening she had created, he dashed past the puppet, heading straight for its rear.
When fighting a Puppet Master, only an idiot would waste their energy fighting the lifeless chunk of wood on the stage.
The correct tactic was to trace the chakra threads connecting the puppet to the ninja and locate the master’s true position!
To capture the gang, you must first catch the leader!
Luckily, in the split second the puppet’s head had detached, Woodpecker had caught a glimpse of those impossibly faint chakra threads!
There was no time to explain.
He could only hope that Ayane understood his intentions and would keep the puppet occupied.
“Where do you think you’re going?” The puppet’s hands opened once more.
This time, instead of hidden projectiles, twin chakra blades popped out of its palms, gleaming with a cold, deadly light.
Woodpecker remained silent.
He wasn’t a stationary artillery-type ninja who specialized in Ninjutsu, which was why his first instinct had been to fall back against the needle barrage.
But this kind of close-quarters, brutal melee?
This was right in his comfort zone.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
Accompanied by the ear-piercing screech of clashing metal, the man and the puppet exchanged dozens of blows in rapid succession, showering the dark forest with sparks!
“I said, you aren’t going anywhere.” The puppet’s body twisted awkwardly beneath its gray cloak.
Suddenly, a heavy, articulated steel tail lashed out from beneath the fabric!
The bladed tip gleamed with an ominous, sickly hue—it was clearly soaked in potent poison!
“Die!” Seizing a rare opening, the puppet thrust its steel tail forward like a spear.
But the fatal strike hit nothing but air.
Poof!
A cloud of white smoke erupted, and a heavy wooden log clattered to the ground in his place.
Woodpecker had used the Substitution Jutsu to slip out of the kill zone, his silhouette immediately darting away and vanishing into the darkness of the ruined village.
“Hey there, little Anbu.
It seems your partner has decided to tuck his tail and run.
He abandoned you.” The puppet stood frozen in place, not bothering to give chase.
Instead, its stiff, mechanical voice echoed out again.
The scene was honestly a bit horrifying.
After all, the puppet’s head was still completely detached from its body, floating in the air like a grotesque balloon tethered only by a thin steel wire.
But this kind of psychological warfare was far too basic.
In her past life, Ayane had watched countless highlight clips of the Naruto anime, and the battle where Granny Chiyo and Sakura teamed up against Sasori of the Red Sand was burned into her memory.
After all, it was one of Sakura Haruno’s very few highlight moments in the entire series…
She understood Woodpecker’s strategy instantly.
“Hah.
I’d say you’re the one who should be running.” She didn’t mind engaging in a bit of trash talk, replying dryly, “I know perfectly well that eighty percent of a Puppet Master’s combat power lies entirely within their puppet.” “My, my~ I’m being underestimated.” Even though the puppet’s tone hadn’t fluctuated at all, Ayane could acutely feel the killing intent radiating from the master turning ice-cold.
“It seems I’ll just have to kill you first, you annoying brat, before going back to protect my real body.” The puppet kept yapping.
But at the same time, the internal gears whirred loudly as the steel wire began retracting, attempting to reattach its floating head to its body.
Seeing this, the girl didn’t hesitate for a second.
She drew her chakra blade, lowered her center of gravity, and launched herself like a bolt of lightning straight at the floating mechanical head!
Click-clack, click-clack~ The sound of internal mechanisms shifting echoed again.
Poison Smoke Bombs!
The puppet unhinged its jaw, spewing a thick, billowing cloud of purple mist directly into Ayane’s path.
Ayane’s momentum stalled.
It was common knowledge that there were two unparalleled poison masters in the shinobi world.
The first was the leader of her own village, Hanzo of the Salamander.
The second was the elder of Sunagakure, the Puppet Master Chiyo!
And in a way, the old kunoichi’s mastery over toxins was even more practical than Hanzo’s.
Hanzo’s poison could only be utilized by himself.
The biological venom of his salamander had such horrific side effects that even Hanzo had to wear a respirator mask to avoid killing his own men.
Chiyo’s poison, on the other hand, was purely weaponized.
It didn’t harm the user and could be mass-produced and distributed to other members of the Puppet Brigade…
That was exactly why, a decade or two from now, long after Hanzo’s bones had rotted to dust, Chiyo would still be alive and kicking, casually fishing in a desert oasis with her brother Ebizo!
‘However…’ ‘If you think a pathetic smokescreen is enough to deal with me, you’re way too arrogant!’ Ayane sneered internally.
She reached into her ninja pouch and smoothly drew three kunai, each wrapped with an explosive tag.
The purple poisonous gas was thick and dense, heavily obscuring her line of sight.
But Ayane simply narrowed her eyes.
Her Green-tier Trait, [Precise Shurikenjutsu], activated!
In that split second, as if guided by divine intuition, she locked onto the exact coordinates of the rapidly moving puppet head hidden within the noxious cloud.
‘Strike!’ The roar in her mind perfectly synchronized with the snap of her wrists.
Swish!
Swish!
Swish!
The three rigged kunai tore through the air in an inverted triangular formation, plunging deep into the toxic smoke.
A fraction of a second later…
BOOM!
A massive fireball erupted violently, blowing the purple smog entirely away!
‘How is that possible…’ Hidden in the shadows behind a crumbling wall some distance away…
A red-haired Puppet Master shuddered violently.
Disbelief washed over his face as he hastily severed his chakra threads.
Just a millisecond before his visual link to the puppet had been destroyed…
He had been about to open his mouth and mock the Anbu brat’s naive struggle.
Did she really think blindly throwing explosive tags into a smokescreen would work?
Was this a joke?
Did she think this was some game of ninja-pretend back at the Academy?
But reality slapped him in the face so quickly he couldn’t even process it…
Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that, despite his puppet moving at high speed, the enemy not only perfectly pinpointed its location through the thick smoke, but those three explosive tags had accurately landed precisely on its eyes and mouth—its most critical weak points!
It was so perfectly accurate, it felt like…
she was using an aimbot or seeing through walls!
‘Could it be some kind of specialized sensory jutsu or secret technique?
Don’t tell me that brat managed to steal a pair of Byakugan from Konoha’s Hyuga Clan…’ His mind raced, instinctively thinking of the legendary dōjutsu renowned for its penetrating vision.
“Found you~” A freezing voice suddenly whispered from right behind him.
The Puppet Master’s entire body went rigid.
The Anbu wearing the Woodpecker mask pressed a kunai firmly against the center of his back, stating coldly, “Drop your weapons!
Or else…
die!” “Don’t kill me…” Without a second of hesitation, the Puppet Master immediately threw his hands high in the air, assuming the classic surrender pose Ayane was all too familiar with.
But Woodpecker didn’t relax his guard in the slightest.
He sneered, “Sever the chakra threads in your hands.
Don’t think I don’t know the little tricks you Puppet Masters play.” “…” The Puppet Master fell silent for a moment before muttering, “You seem to know an awful lot about Puppet Masters, don’t you?” Woodpecker didn’t answer.
He simply pushed the kunai deeper, burying half the blade into the man’s flesh.
“Alright, alright, I yield.” The Puppet Master let out a heavy sigh, his tense muscles relaxing completely.
“Please pull your kunai back.
I really don’t want to die in this miserable, sunless hellhole.” “Then you’d better answer my questions honestly…” Woodpecker spoke as he reached forward, preparing to unbuckle the ninja pouch strapped to the man’s waist.
Suddenly!
A blinding, radiant flash of light erupted directly from the Puppet Master’s body!
Woodpecker’s pupils dilated violently.
‘Oh no!’