The closer they got to the front lines, the thicker the smell became.
Smoke, blood, and something else Kenji couldn't quite name. The stench of burned flesh mixed with explosives. It coated the back of his throat and made his eyes water. In the distance, the sound of ninjutsu detonations rolled across the landscape like thunder. The ground trembled beneath their feet with each explosion.
"Move faster! Jonin squads, take point and hit the core combat zone directly!"
Orochimaru's voice suddenly rose. He'd clearly sensed the severity of the situation ahead. His speed increased immediately, his form blurring as he shot through the forest. Within seconds, he was little more than a shadow darting between trees.
Kenji pushed more chakra into his legs and accelerated hard. Around him, the other jonin did the same. The chunin and genin forces would catch up later. Right now, the jonin needed to hit the battlefield and stabilize whatever disaster was unfolding.
They burst out of the treeline.
The battlefield stretched out before them like a vision of hell. Craters dotted the landscape, some still smoking from recent jutsu impacts. Bodies lay scattered across the torn earth, some intact, others not. Earth Release barriers that had been raised for defense were nothing but rubble now. Blood stained everything.
At the center of it all, a massive toad the size of a building was locked in combat with enemy forces. Kenji recognized it immediately. It was one of Jiraiya's summons from Mount Myōboku.
He broke left, scanning for targets. A Suna puppet master was advancing on a fallen Konoha ninja, controlling his puppet to deliver what looked like a finishing blow.
Kenji's hands blurred through seals as he ran. "Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears!"
He slammed both palms into the ground.
Crack!
Jagged stone pillars erupted from the earth directly beneath the puppet master's feet. The man jerked backward to avoid being impaled, his puppet's attack faltering as his concentration broke. The injured Konoha ninja crawled away from the danger zone.
Kenji bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood, smeared it across his palm, and slammed his hand down again.
"Summoning Technique!"
White smoke exploded outward. When it cleared, both his puppets stood ready.
"Mind Clone Switch Technique!"
His spiritual energy split and merged with both puppets simultaneously. Their eyes lit up as his consciousness inhabited them. The Swift Release puppet shot forward in a blur, closing the distance to the puppet master in under a second. The Transparent Release puppet hung back, maintaining overwatch.
He moved to the fallen ninja and dropped to one knee beside him. Green chakra gathered in his palm. "How bad are you hit? Can you move?"
The man gritted his teeth and pushed himself up to sitting. "Thanks. That guy hit me with poison during a feint. Fucking embarrassing. A member of the Uchiha clan shouldn't lose to some asshole hiding behind scrap metal."
Kenji noticed the Sharingan for the first time. Single tomoe in each eye, glowing red against the blood and dirt covering the man's face. Based on his ninja west, he was jonin-level, but a single-tomoe Sharingan usually only supported chunin-level combat ability. This guy had probably made jonin through raw skill and jutsu mastery. Among the Uchiha, he was on the less gifted end of the spectrum.
"You've been poisoned. Still have an antidote on you?"
"No. Used mine already on an earlier hit. These poison-using pricks are disgusting."
"Hold still."
Kenji pulled an antidote vial from his pouch. This was one of Tsunade's formulations, specifically designed to counter Suna's most common toxins. Even with her hemophobia keeping her off the front lines, she'd never stopped producing medical supplies. Every Konoha ninja fighting Suna carried at least one of her antidotes. Poison specialists were too dangerous to face unprepared. He injected the solution into the Uchiha's shoulder. The effect was almost immediate. Color started returning to the man's face, and his breathing steadied.
"Alright, stay here and recover. I'll handle the puppet master."
Kenji helped him behind a large boulder that offered decent cover from the surrounding chaos. About thirty meters away, his Swift Release puppet was still engaged with the Suna ninja, neither gaining a clear advantage.
"Watch yourself. That guy's no joke," the Uchiha called after him. "Name's Uchiha Enma, by the way."
"Yamanaka Kenji."
He left it at that and moved toward the fight.
The puppet master had positioned himself defensively, standing between his two puppets in a triangular formation. The puppets covered his flanks and rear, creating overlapping fields of attack that made direct approaches nearly impossible. This guy knew what he was doing. To have injured Enma badly enough to take him out of the fight meant the puppet master's skill was well above average. His personal combat ability looked to be jonin-level, and with two puppets operating under his control, it was effectively three fighters working in perfect coordination.
The Swift Release puppet darted in and out, testing for openings. Its speed was incredible, but the puppet master's reactions were good enough to track the movements and position his puppets defensively. The fight had stalled into a stalemate.
Kenji analyzed the situation as he approached. This was the limitation of Swift Release. Against average jonin, the speed advantage was overwhelming. But against elite opponents with sharp reflexes, raw speed alone wasn't enough. They could react fast enough to defend even when they couldn't counterattack effectively.
That's why he preferred using the Swift Release puppet for ambushes. When striking an unaware target, even powerful ninjas couldn't form defenses quickly enough. The attack would land before their brain finished processing the threat. But in a straight fight like this, where the enemy was alert and defensive, the puppet couldn't capitalize on its speed advantage.
Time to change the approach.
He sent a mental command. The Swift Release puppet suddenly broke off its frontal assault and circled behind the puppet master, going after the rear puppet instead.
"Not happening!"
The puppet master took the bait. He shifted his attention backward, pulling the rear puppet into a defensive posture. A metal shield deployed from its arm, catching the Swift Release puppet's strike.
That's when Kenji made his move. He closed the distance in a burst of speed, appearing directly in front of the puppet master before the man could react. Kunai already drawn, he struck for the throat.
"Shit!"
The puppet master's eyes widened. He yanked out his own kunai barely in time, deflecting Kenji's blade with a parry. Sparks flew as metal scraped against metal.
For a split second, their faces were inches apart. The puppet master looked into Kenji's eyes and saw the slight smile there.
Got you.
The realization hit too late.
Kenji's kunai came in a continuous assault, each strike targeting vital points. The puppet master had no choice but to defend with everything he had. His hands were occupied blocking attacks. He couldn't spare the concentration needed to control his puppets.
Without his guidance, the two puppets froze, their strings going slack.
The Swift Release puppet saw the opening and moved instantly. Chakra wrapped around its blade as it slashed at the first puppet's joints.
Crack!
The arm assembly shattered. Another slash took out the leg joints. The puppet collapsed in pieces.
The second puppet lasted three seconds longer before suffering the same fate.
With both puppets destroyed, the Swift Release puppet spun and accelerated toward the puppet master's exposed back.
The man was still desperately trying to fend off Kenji's attacks. He had no awareness of the threat behind him until it was too late.
The blade went through his back and erupted out his chest in a spray of blood. The puppet master's eyes went wide. His kunai slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers.
Kenji's blade followed a heartbeat later, slicing cleanly across the exposed throat.
The puppet master's head tilted as his neck opened. Blood sprayed across Kenji's face and uniform as the body collapsed forward into the dirt.
Kenji stood over the corpse for a moment, catching his breath. The entire fight had lasted maybe forty seconds from start to finish.
He looked around quickly. The battlefield was still chaos, but nobody was paying attention to his specific area. That meant he had time.
Suna might be the poorest of the Five Great Villages, but their puppet masters were always loaded. Anyone who could afford to maintain combat puppets as their primary fighting style had money. And more importantly, they had resources he needed.
Tools, poisons, storage scrolls containing backup puppets, and most valuable of all, the chakra metal components in the puppets themselves. That stuff was expensive and hard to acquire. He'd be stupid not to collect it.
Of course, there was a reason most ninjas didn't loot puppet masters. These guys were poison specialists and trap experts. Their bodies were usually rigged with nasty surprises for anyone who tried to search them.
He wasn't taking that risk.
He had the Swift Release puppet handle the collection instead. It moved quickly, stripping the tool pouch and storage scrolls from the corpse without triggering any obvious traps. Even the two destroyed puppets got sealed into storage scrolls. The materials could be salvaged and reused later. And most importantly, nobody was going to judge him for being practical.