The blade pierced clean through the female puppet master's body—only, there was no blood.
Even the feeling was wrong. It wasn't flesh and bone, but stone.
"A puppet?" Jinzō muttered.
The answer came immediately.The woman's head snapped a full one-eighty, revealing a carved wooden beast's face.
From her torso, dozens of iron wires erupted, coiling around Jinzō in a flash. Blades sprouted from every joint of the puppet's body, stabbing into him from all directions—
Only for Jinzō's body to burst into smoke with a sharp poof!
A Shadow Clone.
"Clang!"
The sound of steel striking steel rang out. Jinzō's true body was already clashing with another ninja—a man in a turban wielding a kunai.
The poor guy was barely keeping his arm attached.Up against Jinzō's long blade, his taijutsu simply wasn't in the same league.
Sensing he was outmatched, the man kicked off to gain distance, fingers flying into hand seals. His eyes locked onto Jinzō, waiting for the counterattack—
But Jinzō didn't move. He simply stood there, calm, watching.
Then his eyes bled scarlet.Three tomoe spun in slow, merciless circles.
"Sharingan!" the turbaned ninja gasped.His face drained of color.
Uchiha.
His head snapped down, desperately trying to avoid eye contact—Too late.
"Genjutsu: Shackling Stakes."
The world bled red. Giant iron spikes slammed through his body, pinning him like a bug to a board.
"Arghhh!!" he screamed, writhing in agony, though his body barely twitched.
Reality returned just in time for Jinzō's flaming blade to arc across his neck.A clean, merciful finish.
"One down." Jinzō exhaled, watching the corpse split in two. His Sharingan locked onto the puppet still lurching toward him.
In a flicker, he was behind it, his blade leaving burning gouges across its wooden frame. Flames roared out of the cuts, devouring its surface.
But the thing just wouldn't die.
Its back split open, spewing kunai strung with exploding tags.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The entire tree beside him blew into splinters.
Jinzō had already vanished upward, perched high in the branches, eyes darting. His Sharingan tracked the flow of chakra, following the puppet strings—and there.
The source was behind a tree.
He leapt—only to feel wires snagging around his ankles, detonating tags plastered all over the trunk.
"Boom!"
The explosion rocked the forest.
Behind another tree, the real puppet mistress re-latched her chakra threads with a sigh of relief. The trap had gone off. Surely that finished him—
A shadow dropped from above.
Jinzō hung upside down, grinning like a demon."Got you."
The scarlet of his Sharingan filled her vision.Steel flashed.
The fight was over before she even realized it had begun.
Jinzō swung himself upright on a branch, watching the larger battle unfold.Hatake Shoshige blazed through the Sand troops like a storm made of white fire.
"White Fang!" one Suna ninja screamed in terror.
The name spread like wildfire through the ranks."White Fang is here! Run! Run!"
Jinzō propped his chin in his hand, unimpressed.White Fang, huh? Funny. The title had supposedly come from Cloud ninjas, yet here was the legend being born before his eyes.
Soon the Sand ninjas broke and scattered, unwilling to throw their lives away.
Shoshige appeared at Jinzō's side, sword dripping blood. His gaze dropped to the two bodies Jinzō had left cooling in the dirt.
"You're only twelve years old… and you've got this much strength?" His voice carried genuine surprise.
"Correction." Jinzō held up a finger. "Thirteen."
Not that he felt smug. At his age, future monsters like Itachi would already be leaving whole clans in ashes. Compared to them, Jinzō wasn't ahead—he was just barely keeping pace.
Shoshige shook his blade clean.Aburame Mushihime's bugs swarmed back, re-forming her slim figure beside them.
"Sir Shamao," she said evenly, "my insects detected the next Sand stronghold. But it's heavily defended. They'll be on alert after losing two forts already."
"Then we keep going," Shoshige said without hesitation.
Neither Mushihime nor Jinzō liked the sound of that, but arguing was pointless. Shoshige was leading, and that was that.
So the three of them pressed on, slipping deeper into the Land of Rivers. Patrols thinned—clear proof Suna was pulling forces back for defense.
Their pace quickened.
But soon, the air itself began to quake. Troops thundered past them, sand ninja rushing the other way without a hint of stealth.
The forest suddenly swarmed with moving shadows, but none of them stopped.
After the flood of shinobi vanished, Mushihime's insects returned with intel.
"Tsunade-sama has led Konoha's forces into the Land of Rivers," she reported. "Chiyo of Sunagakure herself is leading the defense. The Suna troops are being summoned to the frontlines."
The three exchanged sharp looks.Opportunity.
"Move!" Shoshige ordered.
They advanced at full speed, blowing past scattered Suna squads too preoccupied to notice them. Soon, another sand-castle fortress came into view.
Shoshige charged ahead without hesitation.
But this one didn't explode.Instead, the sky darkened.
Puppets—dozens, then hundreds—blotted out the sun, chakra threads weaving a net across the air.
Figures emerged from the fortress. At their head stood a red-haired man and a flaxen-haired woman.
Shoshige's expression hardened. He recognized them instantly.
"The Sand Puppet Brigade."
The redhead's voice was ice."Hatake Shoshige. You'll be buried here."
The trap had been set.