Pre-Chapter A/N: So here we are back on our regular upload schedule. Sunday and Tuesday/Wednesday. I've put systems in place to ensure we don't fall behind again so yay. I look forward to stress-testing them as the madnesses of life stack up (We're over a week in now and life is really hitting. We're still on schedule though, so things look good!). To celebrate the scale of our achievement, we've got a cheeky little discount for the whole month (code: MAY01) on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga). Next five chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXXX- MINATO NAMIKAZE
"Well, I just have to say that this is not at all unexpected," he said, gazing through the pair of binoculars that he had brought along with him for this mission. Uzume-san just looked over at him before scoffing. She snatched it out of his grip and looked through it as well. She would see the same thing that he did. The same thing Mikoto had. The same thing she herself had just a few minutes ago. The Wind Temple was locked like a fortress.
Its large steel gates were closed off to the world. On the walls stood Monks who walked across in an obvious patrol formation. It looked more like a castle preparing for invasion than a temple. But was that not what it was?
"We proceed regardless," Uzume-san said, the expected thing.
"I must remind you that there are three of us. We have no idea just how many Monks are in there. Sneaking into one is much different from attacking it. Even if we could succeed—which is far from guaranteed since we have little idea just what the quality and quantity of our opposition will be like—there is no way we could do it quickly enough to avoid Suna falling on our heads. The present Kazekage is a monk, after all. He will have incentive to protect the temple," he said.
"Sounds like a challenge. Haven't had one in forever," she said, walking ahead heedlessly.
"You're not listening to me. This would be a declaration of war even if we succeeded. There is no way to achieve this cleanly. Kumo was different. We stole something from the temple, yes, but we did not do anything that Kumo could not ignore for practical reasons. If we kill the Kazekage—and he will come for sure—Suna will have no choice but to declare war. We can not afford a war against Suna now. Sensei's plan does not have the flexibility to account for a sudden declaration from one of the other Great villages. If we lose, that is even worse. Sensei will declare war if you die. He will smite Suna into the ground, plan or no plan. And deviating from the plan hurts Konoha's interest in the long run," he said, but she still did not stop.
"I'll beat the Monk bloody and not kill him then."
"You're doing this to get Sensei a gift, no? Would a massive needless headache caused by your actions be anything close to the gift he needs? Please don't do this," he said. She turned to look at him, and her eyes were burning red.
"Begging me? Did Shorirama not teach you better than that?" she asked, mockingly.
"I can't beat you," he confessed. It stung, but Minato was a practical man. He knew his strength. Sensei could still run circles around Minato and both his teammates at the same time, and this was a woman who was the closest thing to his equal.
"A shame that you won't even try then," she said, but she did not keep moving.
"Are we going to turn around then?" Mikoto asked, breaking her previous silence.
"No. Pretty boy is going to come up with a way to get what we need without starting a war," she said, and Minato facepalmed. He should have seen this coming. She probably hadn't even intended on a head-on attack. She just wanted him desperate enough that he wouldn't have any choice but to say yes to her request. Because he knew for sure that no amount of Ryo would get him to put his head into this hornet's nest. There was also the chance that she was doing this so she could place the blame on Minato's neck when it went pear-shaped. Have Sensei's anger focused on someone else instead of her.
"And if I find that there is no way for us to achieve the goal without starting one?" he tried, knowing full well what this woman's answer would be. She was nothing if not predictable, after all.
"Then we do things my way and say we tried our best to prevent something unfortunate from taking place. I will not be leaving this miserable desert without something to show for it. I have sand everywhere," she groused. Minato himself could sympathise with the sentiment. The Land of Wind was arid, and hot, and sandy, and did he mention hot? Even cycling his chakra did little to keep him cool. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead around his headband and in his pits, and just about everywhere. The sun was unforgiving, beating down on them with such force that it could be mistaken for a defence mechanism all on its own. And they would have to march an army through this desert one day? He dreaded the thought.
"You will not be leaving this desert at all," a voice said before Uzume's hands snatched out. She plucked two darts out from the air. One had been about to bury itself in her neck. The other, she held tauntingly in front of Minato's left eye.
Now that he was alert, he was able to track the next set of darts as they flew in from the east, bending the wind around them as they shot in his direction. He did not have the time to weave seals. He barely even had the time to mould his chakra.
The wind around him intensified its flow, aiming to divert both darts only for them to pierce through his wind shield, beginning to approach him. He felt a pull at his stomach and followed along with it as Mikoto executed a replacement jutsu with him. Her kunai flashed out, deflecting both. The blade burned a brilliant red from the fire release chakra coursing through the chakra metal. His eyes flashed around the desert dunes even as he stretched out his chakra to trace their assailants. Nothing. His senses could not find a single thing to latch on.
For the umpteenth time, he missed having Kushina around. Her Mind's Eye of the Kagura would find them no matter how well they hid themselves from detection. He twisted his head out of the way of another dart even as the ground around him began to shake. He twisted, backflipping out of the way of a wooden creature. His eyes locked in on the inhuman silhouette, finally glad to be able to see an opponent to fight. He was his Sensei's student, after all, and for good or ill, was more useful when there was an opponent in front of him for him to deal with.
The sand that the puppet had kicked up with its arrival parted in the face of a gust of wind that Minato spat out with a flex of his chakra. The puppet's true form was then revealed to his gaze and he gulped. He had to give it to whoever had come up with this. They were very good at making their puppets look intimidating. It had a vaguely humanoid form clearly intent on taking advantage of that natural discomfort that humans got from seeing something that looked human but so clearly wasn't. Its midsection was elongated too much to be a human's—to make space for the four arms it had sticking out from either side.
It had four feet as well. But only two thighs. The thighs parted to a pair of feet on either side, granting it some better balance for sure. The feet themselves were three-pronged claws that dug into the sand. The elongated midsection parted, revealing a kunai launcher.
Minato formed a single seal, calling the wind to his aid once more. With a hand seal aiding his manipulation of the element, the wind shield forced the barrage of kunai to flow around him, tossed in every which direction. He spied a glint of tar-coloured liquid on the blade of one as it landed sideways on the ground not too far from him. Poison. The darts had been a sign of that, but this was confirmation. He did not dare take his eyes off the puppet.
Sensei's stories of the woman who had gone by the name Chiyo had given him a healthy respect for puppet users. He said she had never truly been much of a threat, but someone who could survive multiple encounters with Shorirama Senju was an enemy to be respected. She was dead. But Suna would have built on whatever she left behind. It was what he would have done in their place.
His instincts proved right as when the barrage stopped and he began twisting his fingers into an offensive technique, he was forced to abandon it as the puppet pushed against the ground and shot forwards at him.
He danced backwards, avoiding grasping hands. In their palms, he spied a glint of metal. Sneaky. One step, two, and from the ground rose a clone of his with a rasengan whirling in his grip. Checkmate, he thought. Only for the head the jutsu was aimed at to slide along the creature's neck, moving to the side. The clone exploded as it was dispelled, but the puppet stepped out of the ensuing smoke and dust, unscathed.
"I expected better from the Butcher's students. Show me your worth," the puppet spoke. The crackling indicated a speaker of some sort. Perhaps implanted in its neck to give the impression of speech. It was impressive that whoever the puppeteer was—they had managed to manipulate the face to move in accordance with the words being spoken. Minato's eyes flashed to the side, trying to spy how the others were faring.
The second his attention turned away from the puppet, it exploded in motion once more. This time, its fists shot out of its body, propelled by some sort of force that produced flames at the butt-end of each fist. The fists began to spin as they moved, turning from bludgeons into missiles in one go. Minato noted their positions, trajectories, and speed, while also noticing that the puppet itself had replenished its lost fists somehow. There couldn't be chakra strings connected to the fists. Each one would need a string of its own and then there was the puppet itself.
Uzume-san and Mikoto were clearly being kept busy with something. No puppeteer could create more than ten strings. So that meant the fists had to have a pre-determined flight path. Probably something that had been calculated and changed right before the fists were fired considering the angles they were taking in their approach. But since the paths were predetermined, avoiding them was basically fait accompli.
Minato ducked underneath the first—the one that had followed the most direct route—while twisting his way out of the path of the other two. Four more missed him in a matter of seconds even as he weaved seals. By the time the last two reached, he spread his fingers, creating a net of cutting winds that chopped the hands to pieces as they passed through. Just as he had expected, the fists had continued their paths once he had avoided them. He tracked them with his gaze until he was certain of his theory before he leaned ever so slightly out of the way of the puppet's set of fists as it came for him again.
He juked around the attack, trying to move towards the puppet's back only for said back to erupt with a set of spikes that came close to skewering him. He rolled backwards. Holding back like this, there was little he could do against such an adaptable opponent. If he went all-out, however, there was the risk of having all of Suna fall upon their heads. Right now it was only a single, if annoying, puppeteer they had to deal with. A whole village would be more troublesome. The puppet's midsection opened again and Minato heard a metallic whirling as it did so. That was strange.
He got the answer as to what had caused the sound almost immediately as the inside of the puppet's chest had shifted in contents. Now, instead of a slightly advanced kunai launcher, it was a barrel that smoked from whatever it held inside.
He sensed the buildup of chakra before it fired, and was already moving. He twisted downwards, weaving seals as he did so. The sand around him was kicked up with a flex of wind natured chakra, blinding the puppeteer's view of the battlefield and executing a meisaigakure no jutsu to camouflage himself in that dust even as he moved out of the way. Despite not being able to see clearly, the puppet still fired into the dust, hitting Minato's previous location with a massive beam that Minato could not quite believe was made of pure chakra. It shot through the dust, parting it in its wake.
That was... something else. Something that should not have been possible. To use chakra in that manner, the user either had to have as much as a tailed beast, or they had found a way to concentrate raw chakra in a way that no other person in all of history had been able to manage. Minato did not know which was more unlikely. Of course there were freaks of nature out there like Sensei and Kushina who, even without their respective tailed beasts, had enough chakra to be mistaken for tailed beasts in their own right. But they were Uzumaki and Senju. They had freakish genetics on their side. This nameless puppeteer was unlikely to share similar traits.
So the latter? He was still calculating the odds when the next beam cut through the dust cloud. This time it was markedly closer to Minato's position. It had missed, but it had been much too close to him to be a completely random shot in the dark. His opponent was somehow able to narrow down the places Minato could be and that was not good. He sighed before making up his mind. Looking over now that he had a second of respite, he saw Mikoto jumping around hers even as Uzume-san stayed still and barked orders at her. She was fighting a different sort of puppet. This one was modeled after some sort of scorpion—its body sheathed in an armour made of interlocking metal panels that seemed near impervious to attack. Its tail was a massive implement of chakra steel. The poison that was on its tip glinted in the sunlight.
Minato dove to the side, trusting his instincts. This time, the beam of chakra missed him just by a hair. If he had been even a second slower, he would have been done for. And by moving, he had lost his stealth advantage.
"Got you," the puppet snapped out, and the ground around him erupted. From within it came a set of fists. He counted even as he tried to evade them. Six. The amount that had survived the previous barrage. He had been had. He ducked underneath the first one, but it twisted around, coming for him a second later just as he did so. He was in check now. There was only one way out of this for him—other than dying, of course. He sighed as he ramped up his chakra output.
Sand shot out from beneath his feet in all directions, stirred by the wind tossed up from his wind armour. He took it straight to its highest level. All six spinning missiles threatened to overwhelm him from his time spent still. They were all stopped dead, grinding against his armour but making no purchase. He could keep them at bay for as long as he wanted like this. They were nothing.
"I apologise if I am indelicate," he said to the puppet—the man behind it really.
He shot forwards, moving so quickly that by the time the ground was disturbed by his passing, he was long gone.
He reached the puppet so quickly that it had only barely begun to react by the time he was close enough to touch it. The wind armour—unlike the lightning armour—did not enhance the senses of the user by much. Sensei could use it to great effect thanks to the Byakugan, and even with that advantage had spurned the technique in favour of other options. The chance of being caught off guard just did not appeal to him.
Minato did not have his Sensei's eyes. He did not even have his teammate's eyes or his other teammate's senses to rely on. What he had was his brain. His brain that moved quicker than anyone else's. He could afford for his senses to lag behind his body because his brain never would. So he was able to easily duck underneath the blade that shot from the puppet's throat. His hand came forth, the rasengan screeching into being right before his hands made contact with the puppet.
But then the puppet did something that should also have been impossible. It shot apart, Minato's rasengan hitting part of the midsection but nothing more as the rest of the puppet's body flew into the air. There were over a dozen. The fists, the legs, half of the midsection, even the head—they all floated off, moving in a pattern that could be nothing but well planned.
That confirmed it then. Over ten chakra strings. Another impossibility. They were stacking up at this point. There was a chance it was more than one puppeteer, but a single one creating more than ten strings was more plausible than two being able to control the same puppet at the same time. For something like that to happen, there would have to be a mind-meld deeper than anything any Yamanaka had ever done.
The fists shot out at him but they stopped against his armour—held in place as they tried to pierce it. He slammed his hands together and began to breathe in. The air around him began to warp from the force of his suction. The puppeteer tried to fly the parts of the puppet away, but Minato would not be denied. He increased the chakra he used. They had no choice. The puppet parts began to be forcibly drawn towards him, smashed into each other as the vacuum narrowed further and further as it approached him. By the time the parts reached him, they had been smashed to pieces: unrecognisable. He dropped the jutsu, not keen on swallowing that mess.
"Incoming." He heard the voice at his side before he sensed the woman who had crossed the distance and stepped into his guard.
"Puppet man called for help. We need to leave now," she said, to his shock.
"You? You want us to leave now?"
"We could stay and fight the Kazekage if you want. I don't really mind," she said with an amused shrug.
"Yeah, yeah. You're right. Let's get out of here," he said. She turned towards Mikoto.
"Sorry to interrupt your fun, Mikoto," she said, the purple spectral armour Sensei called the Sussano'o forming partially around her. Just a ribcage and two bare arms. The first arm shot out with deceptive speed and snatched the scorpion puppet before tossing it into the air. The other arm formed a crossbow. Minato was near blinded by the bolt of lightning that hit the puppet, destroying it.
"Let's get out of here," she said.
A/N: And so we meet a certain someone for the first time. A good first encounter, innit? Worry not, his arsenal is much better and his bag much deeper than what is shown here. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early. Discount available with the code MAY01– have fun.