As a ninja, one must know themselves and their enemies in order to emerge victorious in every battle. In the face of an unknown ninja, you must first understand the other side's abilities, in order to formulate the corresponding tactics based on their options.
In the battle of ninjas, mastering the information of the opponent means mastering the victory.
Asahi's tactics to deal with these Sunagakure's puppeteers were the ones he had only seen in manga. Whether it was Kankuro, Sasori of the Red Sand or Chiyo, they were all experts who excelled at manipulating puppets.
Most puppeteers were not good at close combat, rather they used chakra threads to remotely control the puppet to fight for them from a distance.
The extent of a puppeteer's strength could be judged by watching the number of puppets and the quality of puppet that they manipulate since that holds a great impact on the said puppeteer's battle strength. A puppet's whole body is a bunch of mechanism that could allow it to release the hidden weapon stored in it through various positions, making it difficult to detect them.
And because a puppet operates through the manipulation of the puppeteer, it could make many difficult actions that the human body is not able to, so a puppet's close combat ability is also excellent. A smart puppeteer could completely suppress a ninja of the same rank by manipulating puppet and relying on the hidden weapons.
Although the enemy team this time was only composed of one jonin with four chunin, Asahi had no experience fighting puppeteers, and even if he joined the battle now, it would have no effect except to add more chaos to the already complicated situation.
Looking closely at the puppeteer's attack pattern, he quickly discovered a weakness in puppeteer.
Puppeteers often needed a high degree of concentration when manipulating puppets to attack. So when they are manipulating puppets, the main body rarely moves, and some simple actions are also completed by manipulating their puppets.
Recalling the battle between Sakura, Chiyo, and Sasori of the Red Sand. Sasori was hit by Sakura several times, all while entangled in battle with Chiyo, and focusing most of his attention on manipulating his puppets, thus lowering the vigilance towards those around them.
In addition, Sakura's [Chakra Enhanced Strength] also broke Sasori's puppets several times.
Using the battle in the original as a reference, Asahi felt that if he uses [Chakra Enhanced Strength] with all his strength, he could almost crush a puppet.
For Asahi's current chakra reserves, he could only use [Chakra Enhanced Strength] once, then he should only focus on one target, and that was, Saki.
After everything was calculated, he quietly approached the battlefield, preparing a sneak attack to reduce the number of enemies, helping Chizuru and Ito gain an advantage.
Yamazaki's corpse could be found on the other side while being covered by chakra fluctuations. The sensory ability of these sand ninjas should rely on their puppets or chakra threads. If he wanted to approach the battlefield silently, he must avoid these things that would allow his opponents to sense him before he could get a good position.
Covering his whole body's aura, Asahi approached the battlefield, taking out five shuriken from his tool pouch, and threw them at the five sand ninjas respectively.
*Puff*
*Puff*
*Puff*
Three sounds accompanied by three screams, and three careless puppeteer were stabbed by the shuriken and their offensive by controlling the puppets were suddenly blocked.
Asahi sprang out of the forest, and moved towards a puppeteer near him.
After landing, chakra erupted under Asahi's foot instantly, and he leaped forward with a very quick speed. The sharp edge of the kunai in his hand was like a stream of light under the reflection of the sun.
Sunagakure's puppeteer troops were elites. Although, the shuriken attack before disrupted their offensive, at the same time it exposed his position.
The puppeteer avoided Asahi's attack with a single step, while giving him an elbow strike in his spare arm.
He made a quick step with his feet to let go of the blow, and at the same time, he quickly moved his hands. The kunai was swung again, and created a bone-deep wound on the puppeteer's body.
Chizuru and Ito also took the opportunity to kill a puppeteer each at the same time, reducing the number of Sunagakure troops by two. Now with Asahi here, it was three versus three, and Konoha had now grabbed the absolute advantage in this battle.
Unfortunately, his sneak attack didn't killed the puppeteer. Otherwise, if it was three versus two, they could easily bury the remaining of this group of puppeteers.
But by this time, their opponents had fully reacted, Asahi had no other option so he jumped towards Chizuru and Ito's side, and looked at their opponents warily.
"Asahi, good job!" Ito praised.
"A puppeteer's weakness is that they must focus on manipulating their puppets. If they are suddenly attacked, their offensive-momentum can be easily interrupted." Asahi said.
For an ordinary ninja, although a puppeteer's offensive is terrifying, its shortcomings were equally obvious.
"Asahi, you step back, Saki of the Sand can manipulate four Puppets, which is too much for you to handle." Ito whispered.
Although the death of several puppeteer reduced the number of people on the other side, Saki could now take charge of the fallen puppets of the dead puppeteers and manipulate them himself, making his strength become even stronger now.
"Understood!" He slightly nodded, then took out two bottles of antidote from this medical kit and gave them to Chizuru and Ito, whispering, "These two bottles of antidote that you are holding, is the latest product of my sensei, it can deal with most of the poison that Sunagakure uses."
"Very good!" Chizuru and Ito took the antidote and both stepped forward at the same time, blocking Asahi behind them.
Asahi disappeared in a flash, hiding in the woods again.
In fact, he did think that while Chizuru was in a predicament, he could use poison to kill him, and then take the opportunity to steal his Sharingan.
But thinking carefully, right now was definitely not the best moment to steal an eye.
Those enemy puppeteers glare were like a tiger watching its prey. If Chizuru were to die, he would not only not be able to grab the Sharingan, but he might even be killed by these sand ninjas.
And even if he stole the Sharingan now, he couldn't explain or be honest about the transplant. Moreover with his current knowledge, it's impossible to study the Sharingan.
So after much thought, he gave up the tempting idea of stealing this guy's eye.
Anyway, the Uchiha clan would definitely be exterminated in the future. As long he could survive till that moment, he would have the opportunity to get a Sharingan for himself without much issue.
"You pieces of shit!" Saki was now completely enraged, four of his subordinates had died in a row. His famous puppeteer team was now on the verge of extinction and in his current situation, whether he himself could escape, was still unknown.
After all, the two ninjas on Konoha's side were both jonin, and one of them was even an Uchiha with a three-tomoe Sharingan.
Sharingan's sight could not only see through the puppet's attack patterns, but also see through jutsu like the [Body Substitution Jutsu] that he normally used with his puppet, making many of his puppeteer tactics unable to bring any effect in this battle.
"The situation is not good for us, Captain Saki, what should we do?" A puppeteer asked in a low voice.
"We'll let them go this time and retreat." said Saki while holding his anger back, and then keep a vigilant look at Chizuru and Ito, while leading his two remaining subordinates to slowly retreat.
Chizuru and Ito looked at each other and nodded at the same time deciding to not do anything.
They have been fighting from the morning till now. Both Chizuru and Ito's chakra were nearly exhausted, and so if they continued to fight, both sides would suffer.
*****
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