Chapter 102: Flame and Deceit
Ragnar stared at the headless body of Chiyo lying in the dirt. By all logic, a decapitated enemy was a dead enemy.
But his system, the silent arbiter of his progress, had remained quiet. No EXP notification. No chest reward. Nothing.
That could mean only one thing: the target was not confirmed killed.
A fraction of a second before his Observation Haki screamed a direct warning, he sensed the trap. The scattered parts of the puppets he had destroyed littered the ground around his feet. As his Haki flared, he saw them twitch—not with life, but with the directed intent of chakra.
He could have used Shave to evade. His reflexes were fast enough. But evading meant yielding the initiative, and this enemy was too clever, too experienced. Sometimes, the best way to break a trap was to spring it and break it from the inside.
He chose to stand his ground.
SHLICK-CLACK-CLANG!
The puppet parts moved with horrifying, mechanical synchronicity. They didn't fly; they slithered across the ground like metallic serpents, drawn to him by invisible threads. First, segmented pieces clamped around his ankles and calves, locking together with sharp clicks. Then, larger torso sections and arm assemblies swarmed up his body, interlocking and overlapping. In less than two breaths, Ragnar was completely encased in a constricting shell of broken puppetry. It was a macabre, second skin of sharp edges, jointed limbs, and exposed mechanisms.
He was now the core of a human-shaped puppet cage. From within, he could feel the cold press of a dozen blade tips, poison needle ports, and crushing pistons poised against his flesh. One wrong move, and the machinery would turn his body into mincemeat.
"Ragnar!" Tsunade's shout was raw with alarm.
"Heh heh heh…"
A dry, sinister chuckle came from the other side of the small clearing. From behind a larger pile of debris—the remains of the shield puppet—Chiyo stood up, brushing dust from her robes. She was unharmed, not a scratch on her.
"You old hag!" Tsunade spat, her fists clenching so tight her knuckles popped.
"Move, and he dies instantly," Chiyo said, her voice cold and triumphant. "Did you think killing my Sand-nin came without a price? This is my 'Puppet Coffin' technique. A specialty of Sunagakure, designed for high-value enemies. The moment it activates, eighteen different internal mechanisms will turn its occupant into pulp. A fitting end for your Rakshasa."
"An interesting technique," Ragnar's voice came, muffled but perfectly calm from within the shell of metal.
"A substitution? But the Sharingan…" Uchiha Mikoto whispered, her eyes wide. Her tomoe had been spinning, watching the whole fight. She hadn't seen any hand seals, any flicker of a clone. "How?"
"Young Uchiha," Chiyo said with a condescending smirk. "Have you heard of the 'Puppet Clone Technique'? A puppet double, crafted with such detail it mimics life itself—body heat, chakra signature, even the sound of a heartbeat. It's more 'real' than a Shadow Clone. Even your famed Sharingan, an insight eye, cannot see through such a perfect replica. It lacks the Byakugan's true penetration."
She gestured with one hand. The headless 'corpse' on the ground shimmered and collapsed in on itself, resolving into a meticulously crafted puppet replica, now inert. "The moment I summoned the Ten Guards, I replaced myself. You've been fighting a doll from the start."
"You conniving, underhanded—!" Tsunade took a threatening step forward.
"One more step, Princess," Chiyo interrupted, her finger twitching. A corresponding whirr came from the coffin encasing Ragnar as blades pressed infinitesimally closer. "And your companion's blood will paint this valley."
The myriad weapons within the Puppet Coffin rotated, orienting themselves with deadly precision. A forest of steel points now aimed inward from every conceivable angle.
"Is this your ultimate method?" Ragnar's voice was still disturbingly even. "Disappointing."
"What did you say?" Chiyo's smirk faltered. "ANBU Rakshasa, do you still believe you can escape?"
"Something like that."
There was a pause. Chiyo, with decades of battle-honed instinct, suddenly felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. The killing intent she sensed wasn't coming from Tsunade. It was coming from inside the coffin. It was cold, vast, and utterly assured.
He's not trapped. He's waiting.
The realization was a lightning strike. She didn't hesitate. Survival dictated immediate, overwhelming action.
"Then die in ignorance!" she snarled, and her chakra flared.
She activated the Puppet Coffin.
CRUNCH-SHINK-THUD!
Inside the metal shell, a horrifying symphony of mechanisms triggered. Blades stabbed. Needles ejected. Crushers contracted. It was a concentrated execution designed to turn bone and organ into paste.
"NO!" Tsunade's roar was one of pure rage and despair. She moved, Shave carrying her forward in a blur of motion fueled by fury. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
Chiyo easily sidestepped the wild, grief-stricken charge. She didn't engage. Her eyes were fixed on the Puppet Coffin. "Save your strength, girl. Your teammate is already dead. Mourn lat—"
Her gloating words died in her throat.
A voice, cold and clear as mountain ice, cut through the metallic grinding sounds.
"You talk too much."
It came from the coffin.
Then, light—a brilliant, searing gold—began to bleed from the seams and joints of the constricting metal shell.
ZZZZZRAAAAAP!
The sound was that of superheated metal meeting its melting point. The Puppet Coffin didn't explode; it liquefied. From the inside out, a torrent of golden-white flame erupted, not as an explosion, but as an expanding corona of pure heat. The steel blades, the poison reservoirs, the crushing pistons—all of it glowed cherry-red, then white-hot, then simply ran like wax before vaporizing into acrid smoke.
Standing at the center of this dissolving inferno was Ragnar.
His body was wreathed in dancing, clinging flames that radiated an intense, dry heat. Protruding from his torso, his arms, his legs, were the melted stumps of blades and mechanisms that had tried to pierce him. The sight was surreal, grotesque. Dozens of weapons were embedded in him, yet they were melting out of him, his flesh seeming to flow like magma around the intrusions before reforming, unharmed.
It wasn't regeneration. It was as if the weapons had passed through fire itself.
Chiyo's mind, a library of jutsu and bloodline limits, short-circuited. Fire Release users cloak themselves in flame from a distance. They don't… become it. They would burn alive!
"Fire Fist."
Ragnar's voice held no strain. His right arm, from the shoulder down, dissolved completely into a roaring pillar of concentrated golden flame. He didn't throw a fireball. He swung his now-incandescent arm.
The air itself screamed as it was torn apart and superheated. A colossal fist, sculpted from living flame the size of a small house, detached from his arm and shot across the clearing. It wasn't a ninjutsu with a hand seal; it was an extension of his will, pure and terrifying in its simplicity. The power radiating from it dwarfed any standard A-rank Fire Release technique Chiyo had ever faced.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" The word was torn from her.
There was no time for complex strategy. Her fingers flew. The four remaining intact puppets of the Chikamatsu Collection lunged forward, not to attack, but to interlock. Their mechanical arms extended, weaving together, and blue chakra poured from Chiyo through her threads, forming a shimmering, hexagonal "Puppet Technique: Aurora Shield" in the path of the oncoming cataclysm.
BOOOOOOM!
The collision was not an explosion, but an act of consumption. The Fire Fist met the chakra shield and splashed, a tsunami of flame washing over the blue energy barrier. Intense light flooded the valley. The heat was so fierce that the grass ten meters behind Chiyo burst into flame.
The puppets holding the shield shuddered violently. Their lacquered finishes blackened and curled away. The fabrics of their clothes ignited into brief, bright ashes. The underlying puppet bodies, crafted from rare, heat-resistant woods and metals, began to glow a dull, then bright red. The chakra threads connecting them to Chiyo smoked and sizzled.
One puppet's arm joint melted, dripping to the ground. Its leg buckled. Then another spasmed as its internal mechanisms fused together. With a series of pitiful clangs, the four masterwork puppets, overcome by the relentless, unnatural heat, sagged and collapsed into piles of smoldering, semi-molten scrap. The Aurora Shield flickered and died.
But it had done its job. The Fire Fist dissipated, its energy spent against the desperate defense.
Chiyo stared at the wreckage of her priceless puppets, then at the figure wreathed in harmless golden fire. Her mind raced, trying to categorize the uncategorizable. No hand seals. The body transforms into the element. Physical attacks pass through… It mimics a Kekkei Genkai, but there is no record! Has Konoha bred some new monstrosity?
Ragnar extinguished the flames on his body with a thought. The last droplets of molten metal fell from his skin, which was unmarred. He began to walk toward her, each step measured, inevitable. His aura—a palpable weight of will, power, and cold intent—began to radiate outward, pressing down on the clearing.
Chiyo instinctively met it with her own, the fierce pride and killing intent of a veteran who had shaped the history of her village. The space between them grew heavy, the air thick.
But slowly, inexorably, Chiyo felt herself being pushed back. Not physically, but spiritually. The young ANBU's presence wasn't just strong; it was absolute, like a mountain settling onto the earth. A bead of cold sweat traced a path down her temple. Her breath came slightly harder. If this continued, she would be paralyzed before a single blow was exchanged.
A single, primal command echoed in her seasoned warrior's soul, overriding pride, overriding duty.
Run. Run now!
(End of Chapter)
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