"I'm not targeting you specifically."
Seiran's next words fell like a stone into still water. "Everyone here is trash."
The puppeteers surrounding him went rigid. Elder Chiyo's jaw clenched so hard her teeth might have cracked. A dozen eyes burned with fury—they wanted to tear him apart where he stood.
"Young man," Chiyo said through gritted teeth, her voice controlled but dangerous, "I advise against such arrogance."
She forced herself to breathe. A strategy, perhaps. Provoke us emotionally, make us careless, slip in a kunai while we're distracted.
Seiran's Electromagnetic Manipulation had left a scar on her memory. The shinobi around her lay broken. She couldn't let him succeed.
"If you're not angry, are you even a shinobi?" Seiran shrugged casually. "So you're the top genin from the Leaf Village? Heard you took down Kakashi Hatake for that honor."
"In a manner of speaking, yes." Chiyo's smile was sharp as a blade. "And I should thank you for the reminder. I have a blood feud with Kakashi's father—the White Fang killed my son and daughter-in-law with his own hands."
"Don't try that," Seiran said flatly.
Behind him, two puppets that had been creeping closer suddenly convulsed. Their joints twisted at wrong angles, wood and metal groaning in protest.
"While you distract me from the front, puppets close from behind? Elder Chiyo, for someone at Kage-level with decades of experience, that's pathetically obvious."
Chiyo's pupils dilated.
She'd survived since the Second Shinobi War by being careful. Methodical. She wanted to gauge whether his Byakugan was truly active before committing—minimize losses, maximize efficiency.
But this…
His Electromagnetic Manipulation could affect puppets directly.
The realization hit like ice water.
Puppets are metal. Joints, reinforcements, the frame itself. All metal.
Around them, the Konoha shinobi exchanged shocked glances. Even their voices trembled with something between fear and awe.
Rin Uchiha watched calmly. She'd spent enough time with Seiran to know the truth—his Electromagnetic Manipulation didn't just control metal weapons. It controlled anything metallic. Kunai, shuriken, the delicate mechanisms inside a puppet's body.
The two humanoid puppets convulsed one final time before collapsing into twisted masses of scrap metal.
Seiran turned his gaze toward Chiyo. His voice was quiet, almost conversational. "Don't tell me who else is coming. Don't tell me how many. As long as they're puppeteers, I'm killing them."
Chiyo felt something crack inside her chest.
Three parts shock. Three parts disbelief. Four parts despair.
She'd been catastrophically wrong.
Seiran could control not just thrown weapons—he could manipulate the metal inside every puppet she'd ever created. The joints that allowed movement. The reinforcements that gave them strength. Everything.
During construction, metal was unavoidable. Necessary, even.
Which meant puppeteers—her entire generation's pride—were nothing but targets.
Fear bloomed in her stomach, cold and suffocating. After decades of battle, after surviving wars and enemies beyond counting, she'd never felt so completely outmatched.
Nearly half of Sunagakure's military strength came from puppeteers. In this boy's eyes, they were livestock waiting for slaughter.
And if other shinobi lost their kunai and shuriken, their combat effectiveness would crater.
This child cannot be allowed to live.
The fear crystallized into killing intent—pure, absolute, desperate.
She drew a breath, centered herself, and barked an order that echoed across the battlefield. "All puppeteers—fall back! Retrieve your puppets! Don't give him an opening!"
The puppeteers reacted immediately, their fingers flying through complex motions, trying to pull their puppets to safety.
Too late.
"You've had your turn to talk a big game," Seiran said coldly. "Now you want to run?"
The puppets around him jerked violently—then turned on their masters like rabid animals. Weapons that had been controlled by their puppeteers for years now swung at them with savage intent.
The battlefield descended into chaos.
Ninja swords and metal limbs cut through the air with sickening speed. Puppets that had been extensions of their masters' will became instruments of their destruction.
The sound was horrible—metal screeching, wood splintering, the wet sound of blades meeting flesh.
The Konoha shinobi watching flinched away from the carnage. Even veterans of multiple wars found themselves unsettled. Puppets slaughtering their own creators—there was something fundamentally wrong about it.
Chiyo watched her life's work become instruments of death, and her fury burned white-hot. Every puppet represented years of refinement, massive investment, countless hours of labor. Now they were scrap metal painting the ground red.
Her hands trembled. She wanted to skin him alive.
But Seiran was still conscious, still watching, and she realized with growing horror that the puppeteers were trying to regain control. Their fingers twitched frantically at the chakra strings—and for just a moment, some puppets would hesitate, slow, almost freeze mid-swing.
Almost. But not enough.
They died anyway. More slowly. More painfully.
Chiyo reached into her robes and withdrew a scroll. She threw it high into the air, her voice ringing out across the battlefield.
"The masterpiece of Monzaemon Chikamatsu himself—can you control this too?"
The white scroll unfurled like a blooming flower. Ten characters glowed with ethereal blue light, twisting and writhing as they transformed.
Ten puppets materialized in flowing white robes. Their movements were synchronized, perfect, beautiful in a way that spoke of legendary craftsmanship.
White Secret Technique: Chikamatsu's Ten Puppets.
The legendary ten—passed down from the puppet master founder himself.
Seiran's eyes narrowed slightly as he scanned them. His electromagnetic senses reached out, searching for metal.
Nothing.
"Non-metallic construction," he said, more to himself than to her. "A counter, specifically designed for me."
Chiyo smiled through her rage. "Decades of refinement, boy. These puppets have no metal in their bodies. Your Electromagnetic Manipulation is useless against them."
"Interesting," Seiran said quietly.
The ten puppets moved in perfect unison, their motions smooth and lethal. They charged him silently, their weapons raised and ready.
Seiran didn't move.
Just as the lead puppet's blade was inches from his throat, his hand rose.
The ten puppets froze mid-attack, their forms flickering like candle flames in wind.
"What—?" Chiyo's eyes went wide.
Seiran smiled coldly. "You think I only control metal?"
The chakra threads connecting each puppet to Chiyo's hands suddenly became visible—gossamer-thin strands of pure energy, shimmering in the air.
"Chakra is energy," Seiran said softly. "And energy is what I manipulate."
The legendary ten puppets began to jerk and spasm, completely out of Chiyo's control. They turned on each other with mechanical fury, their own weapons becoming instruments of mutual destruction.
The puppet master founder's masterpiece tore itself apart.
When the last puppet collapsed into pieces, its chakra thread went limp and silent.
Chiyo stood motionless, staring at the wreckage of her life's work.
"I admit defeat," she said quietly, her voice hollow.
Seiran watched her for a long moment. "Leave," he finally said. "Tell Sunagakure that this is what happens when you stand against the Leaf Village."
Elder Chiyo bowed deeply, a gesture of warrior to warrior, and turned to walk away. Her back remained straight despite everything, but there was no strength in it—only the empty pride of the utterly vanquished.
Seiran watched her disappear into the distance.
The battle was over. But he knew it was only the beginning.