Chapter 37.2- One Thousand Hands

Before the smoke from their unsealing had even cleared fully, the one to the right fired several needles like bullets from a gatling gun, forcing me to spin into a kaiten to prevent any of the needles from finding purchase in my oh so delicate skin. In the end, the rate of fire was massive, but only able to be maintained by the puppet for a few seconds before it clicked closed, and I came out of spin to the sight of Uraume landing a hit right against one Chunin’s chest. She didn’t send her chakra deep enough to kill, but that guy would not be standing up for a while.

I returned to the puppets, seeing that Uraume had this in hand. The puppet that had sent the senbon flying at me was a scorpion-like puppet. It had two massive pincers and a hard shell around its form that looked to have steel plates in certain areas. The second puppet? Well, I didn’t know what to describe that one as. It was just a cylinder with a head and two arms. The words, ‘head’ and ‘arms’ were extremely generous for what I was describing but they were the best equivalents I could find to pass the message.

With my eyes, I could clearly see the chakra threads that connected each puppet to her fingers. I could probably shunshin there with my wind armour and sever her connection to the puppets with my gentle fist before taking her down, but I wanted to see them in action. Puppets. From an actual puppeteer. Unlike most fans of the series, Chiyo and Sasori were some of my favourite characters in the show. The way they fought was just so cool and I could not bring myself to miss the opportunity. Besides, she was preparing a neat little surprise with the third puppet she’d hidden in the ground and it would be mean to not let her show it off.

The scorpion made it to me first, moving to smash me into the ground with one of its pincers while the other one stretched out to grab at me when I predictably jumped backwards. Of course, knowing what I was going to do was no use when one couldn’t react in time to stop me. I dove in right as both pincers were occupied and tapped the top of the scorpion’s head with my gentle fist, sending a lance of chakra deep into the puppet that I saw disrupt her control over the scorpion. It fell to the floor for a second and I saw her eyes open wide in surprise before she panicked and triggered her trap too early. Well, panicked was a strong word. She was a jounin, and jounin did not panic. It was, perhaps, more suitable to say that the shifting circumstances forced her to release her trump card in a manner that was suboptimal.

The rattlesnake puppet sprung out from the ground beneath me and encircled me in its hard shell, squeezing so tightly that it was virtually impossible to gain any leverage to escape. I admired the puppet, especially the brown scale-like pattern that had been carved into it as it’s head came around with the intention of biting off my hea