The battle was fierce. Even from this distance, the booming explosions and the flicker of flames against the sky were impossible to ignore.
Kakashi stood at the edge of the cliff, his gaze fixed on the distant chaos. When a new bloom of fire lit up the horizon, he gave the signal.
Rin emerged from their hiding spot. "Kakashi?"
"Rin, come over and look. Sensei has launched their attack." He pointed to the distant battle.
Everyone else present quickly followed her out, though they all remembered the order from Minato and Takeshi to stay put.
Rin scrambled up a tree to get a better view before dropping back down. "So, what's our plan? Should we set up traps? I brought a lot of extra poison. It might come in handy."
"Traps are a good idea," Kakashi said, "but conserve your chakra. The Suna ninja are poison specialists, so the senseis might need your medical ninjutsu later. Obito, Guy, get down here and help. We need to set as many as we can before they get back."
His reasoning was simple. Before, they needed to stay hidden. But now, with the Suna's main camp in flames, their attention would be entirely on Minato and Takeshi. No one would be patrolling out here, which meant they were safe for the moment.
That wouldn't last, though. The Suna had plenty of sensor-types, and they'd use every trick they had to track their captured elder. A field of traps could buy their teachers precious time.
"Right!" Obito nodded, seeing the logic.
As for Guy, Ebisu and Genma, they simply deferred to Kakashi's judgment, as genin, they were meant to follow orders.
Thus, the six of them began setting traps.
--**--**
On the battlefield.
On the battlefield, Takeshi and Minato moved as one, a blur of motion that cut through the chaos to appear directly before Chiyo. Her mastery of puppetry was formidable, seven puppets sprang to life, forming a protective barrier around her. The instant Minato and the black cat were upon her, two more puppets shot out to defend her, 'Father' and 'Mother'.
They were masterpieces she was reluctant to use, but in such a perilous moment, she had no choice.
Her nine puppets moved as one, forming a deadly vortex of poisoned wires and hidden blades meant to shred them. This was the true danger of the Suna's shinobi, their poisons were lethally potent.
But the black cat was faster. He surged forward, a phantom weaving between the puppets' attacks. In the next instant, he was on her. A powerful sweep of his tail, a move adapted from the Primary Lotus, sent her flying out from behind her puppets.
But it was a feint. Takeshi's perception instantly identified the airborne figure as a Earth clone fused with a puppet. The real Chiyo had used the moment of impact to switch places, a classic puppeteer's trick that would have fooled most opponents.
He and Minato didn't have time for games.
The black cat became a flicker of movement, untouchable by the puppets. Chiyo had barely stabilized herself after the switch when he was on her again. He closed the distance, and with a sharp slap of his paw, planted a Flying Thunder God seal on her.
Chiyo reacted instantly, flinging a scroll. A massive, spectral lion's head erupted from it, roaring as it lunged for him. 'Fuin-jutsu: Lion Closing Roar.'. A direct hit would seal his chakra completely, rendering him powerless.
Her response was fast, but he was faster. The instant the seal was placed, Takeshi vanished in a flash of light.
The sealing tool missed its mark, but under Chiyo's chakra threads, it spun around to continue its pursuit of him and Minato.
'As expected of Chiyo-sama,' one of the Suna ninja breathed, even as they prepared their own jutsu. Her skill was legendary, nearly rivaling the First Puppeteer.
Now it was their turn to deal with the intruders. Several of them began weaving hand signs, and the Suna sealing squad moved, weaving their chakra into a net of shimmering threads designed to ensnare their targets.
At the same time, Chiyo's puppets closed in, but she had no idea the seal had already been placed on her body. No one in the Suna knew the first thing about the Flying Thunder God, and in a battle between ninja, information was everything.
Then, in the space of a heartbeat... they vanished.
The Suna ninja faltered. "Where did they go?"
The nine puppets clattered lifelessly to the ground. A frantic search revealed the horrifying truth: Chiyo was bound tight, trapped with Minato inside a massive, enclosed dome of ice. From within, Minato was calmly applying a Fuinjutsu.
"Chiyo-sama!"
"Damn it!"
"What do we do?"
They were frozen with indecision. Chiyo was too powerful to be captured like this, yet a reckless attack could get her killed. One of them tried throwing a kunai at the structure, only to find the ice was incredibly durable, the weapon simply bounced off.
To have their elder captured right under their noses was a disgrace. To have the enemy then calmly apply sealing jutsu right in front of them, as if they weren't even there... it was a humiliation beyond words.
Rage burned through Chiyo. If she could move, she would have detonated every explosive tag on her body rather than suffer this. But she was helpless, forced to watch as the seal was completed.
After a few seconds, the seal was finished, and the ice prison dissolved.
"Meow~" Takeshi's voice echoed. "You all really should consider surrendering. Goodbye!"
He waved a paw, and in another flash of light, he, Minato, and their captive were gone.
The Suna ninja left behind erupted into chaos. Chiyo was an elder of the village, a figure of immense prestige. Her capture was a devastating blow, made all the more infuriating by the fact that hundreds of them had been unable to stop just two shinobi.
"Chiyo-sama left a trail!" the lead tracker shouted. "Pursue!"
The tracking squad set out immediately. It wasn't long before they found the location where she had reappeared, the site of one of their lookout posts. The men stationed there were all dead. The Suna ninja quickly pushed on, but just as they picked up the trail again...
*Crackle!*
A piercing shriek of chirping electricity filled the air. A flash of white lightning shot past, striking down from a distance and leaving several ninja smoldering on the ground. The rest scrambled for cover. The attack was impossibly fast, a single strike before the user vanished again.
"Watch for traps!"
As masters of poison and ambushes, the Suna ninja were skilled at detecting them. They soon found traces of traps and carefully picked their way through before continuing the chase. At first, the traps didn't slow them much. But as they pressed on, they encountered more and more of them, some real and some fake, drastically impeding their progress.
Even so, they were slowly gaining on their targets.
Minato had been poisoned, and Rin was forced to extract the toxin while they were on the move. Their other burden was Chiyo herself, though knocked unconscious and carried by Guy, she was still a hindrance.
"Meow~ If they keep this up, I'll send some shadow clones to lead them off," Takeshi said to Minato.
"Alright," Minato replied back, his voice strained. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Takeshi replied. "Just low on chakra."
He had supported the initial assault from a distance and held his breath during the final rush, which had saved him from the poison gas. Minato, however, had been exposed for too long. Takeshi had already burned through most of his reserves, more than he had used even when assassinating Danzo. He quickly swallowed a military ration pill and two pouches of special cat food.
As his energy returned, he couldn't help but be impressed. Kakashi's traps, a mix of real and fake, were perfectly placed to slow their pursuers to a crawl. The kid had anticipated their escape route and prepared for it in advance.
'As expected of Kakashi,' Takeshi thought with a sigh of appreciation. 'When it comes to pure shinobi intellect, he's in a class of his own.'
===============
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