Chapter 78 Puppeteering

Sasori was ecstatic, not that you could tell looking at his face with it's usual apathetic blank look. He finally achieved his dream. He was a puppet, not a core controlling a puppet, but an actual puppet. It took some getting sed to bt it was worth it. For all intents and purposes, he was immortal and indestructible. Bu adding to the seal array he created self regenerating wood, ensuring he would be kept pristine no matter what. His arms could detach and he could still control them. This led to one very important discovery. When the limb was attached to another puppet, it became another body for him to control.

Idly he wondered if this was how Pain saw the world. But he pushed those thoughts aside. He trained hard as his mind adapted to controlling multiple bodies simultaneously. His main body Scorpion was his true self, while the others were merely extensions. The first puppet to become another extension of himself was his puppet armor Hiruko. It was a simple process but one difficult to wrap your mind around. Hiruko was a success, but it took time for Sasori to get used to the idea of using multiple bodies. Next after that Sasori was willing to risk doing the process to his favorite puppet, The Third Kazekage. While it was a human puppet Sasori believed he could make it work. It was difficult, but it was done. Though sensory overload would prevent him from doing the process more, Sasori was happy with his progress. As was Naruto. For him Sasori became a curiosity, a new being with great potential. With time he hoped to create multiple puppets and have Sasori control them all, needless to say Sasori was quite happy with this plan. It was much easier to do the process to normal puppets, but human puppets could be sed with difficulty. Sasori however did not wish to do the process to all his puppets, after all as a puppeteer his fingers itched to use them the old fashioned way. And since he still had all his abilities in his new body as he did before he was reluctant to forget his roots, so to speak. Either way Sasori had achieved his dream, and it exceeded his expectations. So when he asked Naruto what he could do in return he was surprized by the request.

"Well, other than continue to help me fight Cthulhu, your puppet techniques could prove invaluable, could you use a student to train as a master of puppets", asked Naruto.

"You wish to master puppetry", asked Sasori.

Naruto shook his head.

"No, not me. Don't get me wrong, I would love to do it, but I already can summon an army at will and replace them just as easy, and I do not have the chakra control necessary to use puppets, it would take to much time and even with clones it would not be a viable option of combat for me, chances are with my usual tactics I would have to completely replace puppets after every battle. No I was wondering if you could train Sakura", asked Naruto.

"Why her", asked Sasori.

"She has near perfect Chakra control, even when using her second stage curse seal, she has shown an interest in both genjutsu and medical jutsu. Medical jutsu is a skill that can help with maintaining and controlling puppets due to similar chakra control needed. As a medic nin she would also have a great knowledge of poisons and such, wich is very useful for a puppeteer, and finally like me she has a thirst for knowledge, one I think would benefit from you training her. What say you", asked Naruto.

Sasori thought for a moment. The reasons were sound, and with three bodies he now had more time on his hands.

"Very well, I shall do what I can", said Sasori.

Naruto smiled.

"Good, I'll tell her the news later, I'm sure she will be grateful", said Naruto.

Sasori nodded before he walked out. He had much to prepare for.

Kin looked at the base. It looked abandoned but looks could be deceiving. She flicked her hands signaling for the clones to surround the sides. She scanned the area for any sound, nothing. She activated her jump jets flying fifty feet into the air before landing on top on a hill, the base was built into this hill and positioned in such a way it would be hidden from sight. She put her hand to the radio.

Open it up, trek carefully and watch for traps, we go in quick and clean", said Kin.

She did not receive a reply, she did not need to, the clones simply did as she asked. They pried open the door with tentacled hands before storming inside. She waited for a moment.

"All clear", said a clone over the radio.

She signaled for the rest of the clones to enter before jumping down and walking in herself. She looked at the walls, it was abandoned recently, probably so Orochimaru could relocate. She watched as all the clones began sealing away any equipment they could get there hands on, striping the place clean. Several were going through notes and talking to each other. Kin decided to see what the notes told.

"What do they say", asked Kin.

"It's information on Orochimarus work with someone named Jugo and Kimimaro. All of it is information on their genetic codes, blood work, and other such information based on their physiology. If this information is correct both had bloodlines, very interesting bloodlines. Jugo in particular seems to be the basis for his work in seals. However Kimimaro has the Dead Bone Pulse bloodline, and he appears to be sick. This could prove useful, looking at this I can probably heal this Kimimaro character, hard to say, these papers are quite old. Who knows how sick he is by now. But I think we still have Dr. Nobutoshi's books on the Dead Bone Pulse, which could prove useful in this endeavor", said a clone.

"Thats not the best part. With this we could fine tune our own seals similar to Orochimaru, maybe even increase the survival odds and beneficial mutations. Whats more it gives us names, and blood to collect for Naruto", said another clone.

Kin nodded.

"Aright, then get to it", said Kin.

The clones wasted no time as they hastily sealed away all the notes to read in more detail later. After a while the base was bare and no equipment remained, even standard ninja equipment was collected.

"Thats everything, we should send a few clones to get this stuff back to base then get to the next of Orochimaru's bases", said a clone.

"Alright you do that, before we leave I want another rundown of this base, make sure nothing was missed", said Kin.

The clones saluted and went off to check one last time. Kin smiled, it was good to be the boss for once.

Sakura looked at Naruto in confusion he had just asked if she wanted to learn puppet jutsu from Sasori, in truth the human puppets creeped her out but as Naruto explained why he chose her to do so she found the prospect interesting, but she still was NOT going to use human puppets, to her it was just wrong.

"So, what is your answer", asked Naruto.

Sakura thought for a moment before she nodded. In response Naruto smiled. He looked behind Sakura.

"You can come in Sasori", said Naruto.

Sakura turned and to her surprize it was not the red head who walked in, but the Third Kazekage she recognized from when the Hounds attacked . Naruto had explained what happened to Sasori, but it was still a bit of a shock to see him walk around.

"I will first show you the basics of Seals, Poisons, and puppet building, once I am satisfied with your progress we will begin actual puppeteering and some medic jutsu", Said Sasori sounding slightly disinterested.

Sakura nodded as she got up she turned to Naruto who gave her a quick nod before she waved and left with Sasori. Naruto slumped in his chair as he finished. He had once more felt colder than he should have, passing it off as the weather of the Whirlpool Village he got up from his seat before he walked from his office to stand at a platform to look over the village. So far the Shoggoth once again proved themselves as magnificent builders. Though their preference of using Elder Thing architecture was slightly disconcerting. It gave the village a sinister feel to it, but it was fine. The buildings were useful in this weather, after all it rained much in the village and all Elder Thing buildings were very resistant to water, their ancient cities were built beneath the sea after all, it was to be expected.

The clones were quite busy as well, installing equipment into various buildings. Some hung on the side of slick wet rocks by turning their fingers into knives and burying them into the stone. Naruto idly thought he should check the limits of his shape shifting powers later, after all it was quite a useful ability he felt he never used to it's fullest. He filed those thoughts away and opted to watch as the Shoggoths rebuilt the village of his ancestors into a massive base of operations. He had to hand it to Herbert, the idea of a Think Tank city was a great way to increase progress in the plan to halt a rampaging Great Old One.

Then him mind traveled to the possible future he would not have. Once Cthulhu had been dealt with, the Shadowed man would claim Naruto's form as his own. Naruto had seen the man standing near the village many times, just standing still as a statue and watching. Always watching, and always waiting. WHatever he was Naruto had no illusions no matter what that he would be able to slow the Shadowed man down or stop his plans. These nine years would be the last of his life, migh as well enjoy them. Do something reckless every now and again, truth be told he was going stir crazy being stuck in a giant skull. Though it came out rarely only for routine maintenance and checkups before being stowed in the massive hangar the Shoggoths built. It still felt like his real home. He pushed those thoughts from his mind as he thought of exactly what he could do that would stave off boredom and still be productive in some way. Then it hit him. Naruto took to the skies flying using his knowledge of Menma's styles he created a Spiraling ring in his palm. It was a curious Jutsu to see. Then he Created another in his free hand. He watched as the Ebon rings of chakra dance around his palms leaving behind colors of sound that made it a sight to see. He smiled. Sometimes it was the simple things like beholding the beauty of what a Jutsu could do that could bring out peace of mind. He dismissed the jutsu before he decided to find Deidara, he had been asking questions on Naruto's Y'Golonac Scream, he might as well indulge the mad bomber, if only for the sake of property that was useful in his endeavors. Deidara had a strange way of staving off his own boredom.

Then a loud explosion from outside the village could be heard.

"Speak of the devil", said Naruto as he flew to the resulting cloud.

Wilbur Whateley was not much of a team player, especially in concerns to humans. And the idea that he was to capture this Three Tails was irrelevant to him, it would not help him bring forth his father and awaken the Great Old Ones of this world. But he did not complain, after all this new partner of his Hiruko proved to at least be interesting. His mastery over the elements was noteworthy as well as the slightly unusual beasts he could call forth, though they paled in comparison to the beasts that Wilbur had seen. Still as time went on he grew to find amusement in his new partner, if anything the powers of these ninja were quite useful. It was to bad he could not use their powers himself, but it did not matter, for with his mild manipulations of time and space few could match him. He simply stared forward as his partner lead the way to where this three tails was. Though Wilbur was confused why they were merely to observe and not capture the beast he said nothing, it did not matter to him. In the end this world would end as the Necronomicon foretold. It was his self imposed destiny to do so. So he followed Hiruko and said nothing.

Sakura found that while Sasori was rather off-putting considering his nature, his teaching methods were right up Sakura's alley. Her first lesson had been seals, simple ones but not how to parrot seals by copying them, oh no Sasori gave her book after book on the creation of seals, while she would never be quite as good as Naruto who thanks to his constant use of clones studies seals more than any other human alive was capable of, not to mention the three dimensional seals, she was starting to understand it.

It was a surprize not only to her, but Sasori as well when Naruto told them the secret of seals. They replaced the laws of physics in some minor way with the laws from another universe or in the case of storage seals, created an entirely new universe. It was surprizing to know that something as simple as a decision would create another universe, one where the opposite choice was made. The Multiverse was ever expanding past infinity. And that made it one of the greatest tools a ninja could have. After all with an infinite number of universes, at least one would have laws of physics that would allow you to do whatever it is you wanted to do, all that needed to be done was to find it, which was easy. Once the seal was made it did all the work. Reaching into the void and connecting to other universes.

Sakura was engrossed in the books, they showed her a side of ninja arts she never though of much past the odd explosive note or storage seals, but the possibilities were near endless. Naruto even allowed her to look over some pages in the Necronomicon with a few clones watching of course to learn their version of seals, the rituals which were as complex as anything Sakura ever seen. Only now did she truly see the brilliance of Naruto to not only understand this information, but use it as well. She finished reading another book before grabbing another. This was going to be a good day for her.

Naruto looked at Deidara who was creating clay constructs and blowing them up. Each time i would bring a smile to his face. When he sensed Naruto come near he turned to him.

"What do you want", asked Deidara.

Naruto put his hands behind his back as he walked up to Deidara looking at the smouldering crater left in the ground.

"I believe that you wished to know something on the moth in my palm from when the hounds came", said Naruto.

Deidara sat on a nearby stone as he looked at Naruto. He then showed him the mouths on his hands.

"I think you can see why it caught me by surprize", said Deidara.

Naruto nodded as he looked at the mouths on Deidara's hands, with their tongue wiggling around.

yeah I can see it, I have two moves that both use the mouth. Y'Golonac Scream, and Y'Golonac bite. You seen what the scream does, the bite leaves a wound that will never ever heal, Though there are ways around it as Orochimaru found out", said Naruto.

Deidara nodded as he thought that tid-bit of information over. There was only one question in his mind.

"Who is Y'Golonac, un", asked Deidara.

Naruto chuckled. Before answering.

"Y'Golonac takes the form of a bloated man with no head and mouths on his palms. He is the God of perversions, unfortunately he represents every perversion, even the ones of the criminally insane. To the point other cults to Great Old Ones find him disgusting. And keep in mind, there have been cults who have done unspeakable things with Shoggoths to have children with just a fraction of their powers", said Naruto.

"Ok, So if he's the god of perversions and stuff then why does he have mouths on...OH GOD THATS DISGUSTING", screamed Deidara as he realized exactly what they could be used for.

The image was so vivid and horrible he almost found his own hands repulsive for a moment.

"If you are thinking what I think you are, I can promise you it is tame compared to what Y'Golonac really does. See why most cults tend to shy away from him", asked Naruto.

"You know I was going to ask if you could teach me that move. Now though, I think I'm fine with explosions, un", said Deidara.

Naruto nodded.

"I can understand that, truth be told, I don't like using the moves that much. But they are just so useful sometimes I don't really have a choice", said Naruto.

Deidara shrugged.

"Well I still don't think I want to learn it, anyway I need to get back to work. After all great art never sleeps", said Deidara.

Naruto nodded as he flew away. He was beginning to like having Deidara and Sasori around, they were such interesting Characters.