The Fierce Battle Inside of The Land of Rivers (1)

It's said that puppetry was first brought to the land in ancient times by a clan of strange travelers with string-controlled puppets as a type of entertainment. It was Chikamatsu Monzaemon who turned that art into a tool for battle. Supposedly, the Chikamatsu Collection of Ten Puppets, of the Lady Chiyo, was based on a painting of the people who introduced puppetry in the first place with respect to its origins. The white coats they wore actually started a tradition where each puppeteer would choose a signature color for their puppets and techniques.

The style is very demanding as, in addition to practicing puppetry, it requires the construction, maintenance, and improvement of the puppet (or puppets) that each puppeteer's fighting style is based on. Mastery typically forces them to neglect other skills which is why they specialize in long-range combat through their puppets while being weak at close range themselves.

To perform the technique, the puppeteer usually extends threads of chakra from their fingertips and attaches them to the puppet. Chakra threads possess strength and dexterity that physical ones lack; they can be attached to any material, extend as far as the caster's control allows, and can lift objects of different sizes and weights without any strain, even holding puppets aloft while fighting.

The concentrated nature of the chakra as it is condensed into threads makes it visible to the naked eye, just like real wires even if they aren't always easy to catch. But that chakra can be suppressed to the point that the threads are invisible but still effective, a skill that every puppeteer learns to prevent their enemies from learning the location of their true body if they choose to hide while their puppet fights in their stead.

Each thread connects to a different part of the puppet and the movements of their arms, hands, and fingers control its body. The greater the skill of the puppeteer, the less exaggerated their movements need to be because the chakra itself is able to generate a response in the puppet so that it moves as they desire. Puppets are frequently stored inside scrolls to prevent their size and weight from impeding the puppeteer, especially as the number of puppets they have grows.

The greatest strength of a puppet is that it can be built to include additional mechanics such as hidden weaponry, tools, and traps which can be activated with their chakra. They are even made to possess chakra-type weapons such as swords and shields. As technology progressed this has grown to include radios, listening devices, and cameras for espionage; a role that was supplemented by specialized disguises that would give the puppets the same appearance as a living person.

And because puppeteers are weak in close combat, it became a staple of their style to heavily rely on using poison with their puppets to kill their opponent as fast as possible. Any weapon inside the puppet is coated in poison and they store gas canisters that release poisonous gases on command.

Puppets do not always refer to lifeless dolls either. A puppeteer can attach their chakra threads to a human body and use that as a tool, a technique that originated on the battlefield where they would use corpses when their puppets had been destroyed. But it can also be used to control a living enemy or ally for different purposes.

The Second Kazekage, Shamon, for example, was unorthodox in his style of said Puppet Technique. Instead of controlling as many puppets as possible, he focused on controlling only one puppet at a time. But these puppets were large and complex constructs filled with incredibly complicated weapons arrays that made fighting them a nightmare. Shamon was also someone who saw value in puppets and could move, resulting was a technique that was able to animate his puppets with chakra without threads and allow them to move autonomously. They were, however, quite limited in ability and intelligence. Other great puppetry masters besides him and the creator himself were Chiyo, her son, and Sasori, who could even destroy an entire himself with his hundred red puppets.

While Sasori has already surpassed the supposed limit of what a puppeteer could do by controlling a hundred puppets with chakra threads from his fingertips and then revolutionized puppetry itself with the invention of human puppets that surpassed any man-made puppet. The culmination of both these skills is the Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets, a technique that Sasori used to destroy a country single-handedly unlike Chiyo who could just destroy a castle and control ten puppets at a time. It was obvious that he already surpassed her in all puppetry metrics.

Sasori's unique Human Puppets were puppets made from a human corpse. They are built by removing the skin, blood, and internal organs from the body and then preserving what remains from decomposition by transforming them into hollow puppets with a kinjutsu. All that remains is a small nucleus of organic flesh that resides within the core of the puppet.

Using that living flesh, the puppet retains the chakra and abilities that it possessed in life. Just as a human corpse can reveal what techniques it used in life, the human puppet has its techniques ingrained in its altered flesh. With that, Sasori can command the puppet to use their techniques through his chakra threads. But that is naturally more difficult than simply controlling the puppet alone, enough to make it hard to do so when controlling multiple puppets.

Like regular puppets, they can be changed and improved by adding a variety of mechanisms to improve their functions such as hidden weapons, gas chambers, and storage spaces. Their bodies are actually tougher than what is normally used to construct puppets and since they possess chakra, they are far more responsive to chakra threads than regular puppets. Sasori himself was now the pinnacle of human puppets as he was the only subject to having been transformed into one while still alive. The metamorphosis collected all of his blood and organs and compressed them into the nucleus of flesh that would then continually create chakra and act as a vessel for his consciousness, something all other human puppets lack. He was more than a human one, he was a living puppet.

He made countless preparations to make his puppet body the ultimate weapon that could restore itself back to prime condition no matter how many times it is destroyed. As long as his nucleus remained intact, he could even hijack his other puppets and convert them into an image of his own body to ensure that he was never vulnerable. And because he lacked the biological functions and weaknesses of a human body, his stamina was only used up when he actively created chakra which meant that he had a lot more chakra to use in combat than he ever did when he was a living body.

This transformation advanced the ability of his puppetry skills by far as he became able to extend chakra strings directly from his nucleus toward his puppets, removing the need for any movement whatsoever as well as the time lag between commands. Sasori attained what could literally be called an inhuman skill level with the Puppet Technique. He was a puppet who controlled other puppets.

"The only way to defeat Sasori is through close combat. You must get close to him, destroy this odd puppet shell of his first, and then deal with his real, fragile body. As for the other Akatsuki member, you have all heard about his abilities before in the Sunagakure. His clay ninjutsu is probably weak to lighting chakra. Therefore, Kakashi, you, and Sakura should go against him, while the rest of us deal with Sasori. I have mastery of the puppet core, and you two are the strongest taijutsu experts, in Konoha, perfect for dealing with Sasori, in my opinion, just be careful of his poisons once again...",

Chiyo relayed her thoughts and tactics to everyone present at the same time. In the end, she spoke to Guy and Lee. She was certain that they have a good chance of catching both of these dangerous Akatsuki members now with that lineup. Suna was going to wash their shame against both of them.

She was the oldest out of the bunch, by a large margin, and also held the most battle wisdom as well as an extensive understanding of this second, unknown Akatsuki member named Sasori. In her status, she was also one of the two legendary elders of the Sunagakure, so they listened to her first. They all secretly also knew about Sakura's antidote as well which they didn't mention, out loud, in order to later try and trick Sasori in that way. They already had shots of that antidote now on them.

Everyone nodded to her strategy, Guy and Lee pumped themselves up, and Sakura tied her hair, while Kakashi pulled his short blade out. However, at this time, Chiyo went over and whispered something to Naruto, who was still frozen in place because of what happened to Gaara, "Don't worry, I have a jutsu that could revive Gaara, your task is just to take his bodies away from those two. I hope that you can do it, for Gaara...", Chiyo suddenly smiled to Naruto who now looked like he was about to burst with joy, his Nine-Tails whiskers vanishing. He was connected to Gaara in more than one way. Not just because of their friendship, but because of their shared goals and their situations regarding the Tailed Beasts sealed inside of them as well. He nodded in joy and promised her, "Don't worry granny. I will bring back Gaara no matter what happens!", Chiyo also heartily smiled now after seeing his joy for Gaara despite knowing that she would die after using that jutsu.

She would do anything for her village, including giving her old, sinful life, which was responsible for the creation of this monster in front of her. Gaara was their Kazekage, and the strongest force inside of their village, even without his tailed beast, therefore, she was much more worthy to live than her. He was also of their ruling Kazekage clan and he was the only one to currently passed the Magnet Release. Moreover, he was just beginning his shinobi life, while she was truly an old, useless shinobi.

The user of that kinjutsu technique, giving their life force to the target, uses all their chakra as an intermediary. This technique can be used on both the living and dead. Using it on the living can save and restore the target from an otherwise fatal condition but will have to leave the user greatly exhausted. When used on the dead, the user will find certain death in exchange for the soul of the deceased. The only one who could use this technique was its developer, Chiyo. The purpose of the technique was to give life to puppets, increasing their efficiency in battle. Chiyo also wished to give the Mother and Father puppets the souls of Sasori's parents thought it wasn't possible at that time.

"Sakura, try and entrap that person in your new genjutsu and stay back as a support while I finish him...", Kakashi whispered to Sakura who was beside him as he prepared to engage Deidara. Sakura nodded with a serious look. Tsunade gave her a new A-rank genjutsu, due to all the increasing threats that Konoha experienced recently, which he quickly learned thanks to her talent in genjutsu, Yin Release, and chakra control. It was the famous technique of the second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, and one of the strongest genjutsu techniques inside the Konoha. The user places a hallucinatory darkness on a target's eyesight, causing them to see nothing but black. It was like the sensation to be at the bottom of a deep hole. Because the target cannot see, they are very vulnerable to attack. Kakashi wanted to bring this Akatsuki member alive and interrogate him with his Purple Electricity and Sakura's genjutsu. He was also pleased with how their current team developed, Naruto as well.

He was preparing to finally start learning the Sage Mode from Jiraiya on Mount Myoboku, and this mission interrupted that. And with that Naruto could finally use his Rasenshuriken safely, by coating it with senjutsu chakra and throwing it into the distance and even using greater massive Rasengans like Jiraiya. After that point, Naruto would've definitely surpassed them all inside the Konohagakure.

Guy and Lee were confident about this fight. They thought that with this kind of luxurious line-up, these two Akatsuki members were done for. Nowadays, people in Konoha were more worried about Neji, Toneri, and that masked man of the Akatsuki, who were all on the so-called Six Paths level, and these ordinary S-class, Kage-level rebels don't seem so scary to them all anymore. They were just worried that they would somehow attempt to ambush Naruto in the future in some underhanded ways. It was like that inside the other great ninja village as well. At least for the present time, it was.

'This will be very difficult...', Deidara, at this moment, gazed at Kakashi specifically while feeling very pressured. That purple lighting of his previously neutralized his best clay really easily. It seemed to him that he was his worst kind of counter, his worst type of nemesis. His Lighting Release was even more powerful than other ordinary ones for some reason that Deidara didn't get. It was his first time seeing something like that. He suddenly looked at Sasori, at this moment, in a meaningful way.

He really hoped that the man won't hold back now because that person was his grandmother and would soon help him after finishing his duel with her. After all, Sasori was really stronger than him. Not many people knew that he had another kind of very secret power hidden beneath all the other layers of his fascinating powers. Deidara then started kneading his chakra with his special kinjutsu. He planned to create the fastest bird possible and avoid Kakashi's hits until he exhausted his chakra. He was in fact around a late Kage level while Sasori was at a peak Kage level which he hid very well. He could only achieve that level in that self-destructive manner by using his C0 suicide explosion.

That was the highest form of Deidara's explosive clay, his "Ultimate Art". C0 was in an essence a suicide-bomb technique used only as a last resort. To perform it, Deidara reveals a mouth on his chest, which is stitched up. After undoing the stitches, Deidara feeds it a large ball of clay. The mouth on his chest has a direct connection to his heart so a large amount of chakra is built up. It then kneads the chakra directly from the meridians of the heart and keeps doing it without interruption until the moment of the explosion. His explosive chakra then manifests itself in his veins, flowing through his body. These "veins" then condense into a sphere that slowly cracks open and detonates, producing a unique resounding explosion that covers a ten-kilometer blast radius.

Deidara was born with the Explosion Release Kekkei Genkai, native to the Land of Earth. He was known for his talent in clay sculpting and it was with this talent that he took explosive ninjutsu to a higher level. He stole Iwa's kinjutsu and used it to transform his body, growing mouths on his hands and chest which allows him to "knead" chakra into any material he eats. That kinjutsu in itself was created from the Yin Release. However, the clay sculptures Deidara created with it were in fact Yang Release in nature, as they often exhibited real-life kind of characteristics, they were also full of his explosive kekkei genkai. He controls their quantity with his normal earth nature chakra and controls their movement with his ordinary chakra mixed with the air. However, they could also move all on their own due to their Yang Release nature depending on if they were more advanced types or not.

Its weaknesses are that he is limited by the amount of clay he has collected and his clay bombs are weak to lightning chakra. He can create more clay by changing the composition of the earth with ninjutsu but it's a time-consuming process that makes it hard to restock on the fly. It works best and faster with a natural source of clay but he needs to find it first. And because the explosive chakra is kneaded into the clay, instead of just channeled into it like much other elemental ninjutsu, it is as weak to lightning chakra as the earth chakra controlling the clay. So lightning chakra can completely defuse Deidara's, Explosive Clay. Without earth chakra, his clay creations would just be inanimate explosives and without explosive chakra, they would just be animated sculptures. Only by combining that kinjutsu with his kekkei genkai and his own ingenuity was this style made possible.