Just moments earlier, Konoha had been bustling and peaceful. Then, war descended out of nowhere, throwing the entire central district into chaos.
Civilians and ninja alike were completely blindsided by the sudden attacks from their "ally," the Sand shinobi, and the mysterious Sound shinobi that had somehow infiltrated the village.
They tried to counter while quickly splitting up to guide the townspeople to the shelter, following Konoha's safety protocols.
Because manpower was stretched so thin, Konoha's forces were badly on the defensive, and soon found themselves at a major disadvantage. The Sand and Sound ninja got the impression that "Konoha shinobi aren't so tough after all."
The Anbu and members of the major ninja clans all mobilized. Most of the Anbu headed for the arena to guard the Third Hokage; as for the clan members, they gathered up their kin and fellow villagers to evacuate to the refuge beneath the Hokage Rock.
Consequently, the Hokage's Office and clan districts ended up with the weakest defenses and poorest sensor coverage.
…
Boom—
A noise like a balloon popping echoed through a wooded area outside the village. A huge cloud of white smoke swelled up, only to be blown away by a gust of wind a moment later.
From within that smoke appeared 301 puppets in black cloaks embroidered with red clouds. Most of them had white bandages wrapped around their faces, exposing only their foreheads and eyes. It was impossible to tell which ones were purely mechanical puppets, and which had been crafted from corpses and retained some of their original abilities.
Standing before these puppets was another figure wearing the same red-clouded black cloak. Had any member of the Akatsuki seen him, they would have cried out, "Leader!" Indeed, he looked exactly like the Deva Path of Pain.
In truth, it was Izayoi, disguised via the Transformation Jutsu to look like Tendo Pain.
With his gold-grade Chakra Control, Izayoi not only fused two or three elemental natures into new forms via his "Super Typhoon Serial Spheres" technique; he could also cast nearly flawless Transformation.
Unless a sensor ninja was strong enough to identify the unique fluctuations of his chakra, or had previously memorized his exact chakra signature, they wouldn't see through his disguise.
Now that Izayoi had taken all the puppets from within those large scrolls, he wasted no time. Forming a one-handed seal, he produced three shadow clones, each stocked with a substantial amount of chakra. Then, his real self vanished.
Yes—this Pain you see is the real Izayoi; the one in the arena was just a shadow clone. That was why the one at the arena hadn't gone through a "ninja game" slugfest with Gaara. His clone simply wasn't sturdy enough to handle drawn-out combat.
As soon as the three shadow clones appeared, they split up their tasks. The first one used the Transformation Jutsu to also become Tendo Pain, then flickered away to work on its own. The second clone similarly transformed—this time into an unremarkable man wearing sunglasses—and hurried straight toward the Naka River.
Meanwhile, Izayoi activated his Tenseigan from afar, infusing each puppet's "chakra core" and bringing them all "to life." Instantly, the 300 puppets scattered as high-speed afterimages.
Only the shortest puppet—#301—remained in place. This small puppet's face was also wrapped in bandages, but its eyes were far more striking than the others, glittering gemlike with a faint red glow. This one was Ranmaru, turned into a human puppet.
It fell to the third shadow clone to protect Ranmaru, supplying his chakra core with energy. At that moment, Ranmaru's eyes flared up a brilliant red.
The 300 scattered puppets were abruptly surrounded by a haze of red powder. Their figures wavered like a mirage before fading from sight—even the Byakugan would fail to locate them.
This was Ranmaru's Red Eye, a jutsu that produced illusions to block visual perception, the perfect nemesis to the Hyuga's sight.
Under cover of that technique, 200 of the puppets slipped into Konoha's central district, silently observing the three-way battle raging there.
Already, a fair number of ninja had been killed—some lying lifeless in the streets, alleys, or rooftops, while others were badly wounded, trying to hide out.
A few resourceful sorts even camouflaged themselves with props among the buildings. But they had no way to escape the Tenseigan far-seeing, X-ray vision.
Then part of the puppets went to work. Red motes of light appeared, revealing the puppets' outlines as they picked up dead shinobi bodies before vanishing once again. Any ninja who caught glimpses of this simply thought they were hallucinating or under a genjutsu. They didn't have time to investigate further, besieged by enemies on all sides.
Be they the corpses of Leaf, Sand, or Sound shinobi, the puppets left none behind. As for those grievously wounded, the puppets would do a "follow-up kill" unless they belonged to Konoha.
Splurt—
A blade popped out of a puppet's mechanical arm, stabbing into a helpless ninja—either piercing the throat, burrowing into his chest, or slicing off his head. The only thing they avoided was destroying the heart, since making a human puppet required an intact heart to convert into a chakra core.
"No."
"No."
"Still nothing…"
From his vantage beside Ranmaru, Izayoi's shadow clone observed everything the puppets did. The clone spoke in a flat tone, clearly referring to something that wasn't happening. But it wasn't discouraged; raising one hand to form a sign, it murmured, "Activate Plan B."
At once, the second shadow clone at the Naka River—responsible for controlling the 300 puppets—rotated out the group doing the kills. Replacing them with human puppets, i.e. puppets crafted from corpses that retained their owners' original skills.
Thanks to Izayoi's chakra fueling them, these human puppets now far surpassed what they could do in life. Although they couldn't use Tenseigan abilities (no Yin-Yang black rods, etc.), Izayoi could channel his own ninjutsu through them.
So the second clone had these human puppets split up: some to finish off grievously wounded ninja; others to reveal themselves and actively join the fight.
In one flash of lightning, a human puppet materialized behind a Sound ninja who'd been supporting the Sand, extending a blade from its modified forearm. Lightning Release crackled along the blade as it stabbed through the enemy's back, twisting savagely.
"Such speed!"
The Sound ninja, caught totally off-guard, could only stare at the blade piercing his body before he died.
"Who's that?"
"Anbu? No, they don't wear that outfit—who is he?!"
"Watch out, he's got crazy speed and can hide himself somehow."
Both Konoha and Sand ninja alike raised their guard. The puppet, having just offed one Sound ninja, lifted its palm again, revealing a hollow tube that suddenly fired a bolt of golden energy at a nearby Sand ninja.
"He's on our side—attack!"
Seeing that, a Konoha shinobi brightened, incorrectly assuming the puppet was an ally. As he started weaving seals for a Wind Release, the puppet flashed forward again, driving a blade into his body this time.
Blood poured out, staining his clan crest. He was from the Shimura clan, known for their wind jutsu. And just like that, the puppet had claimed another victim.
The puppet abruptly froze in place, neither advancing nor retreating.
Shing—
A glint of steel sliced off its head. A Tokubetsu Jōnin using Konoha-style kenjutsu stood there, blade raised. Instead of bleeding, the puppet's severed stump revealed only mechanical parts and fragments of flesh. The Tokubetsu Jōnin scowled.
"A Sand puppet? So why did it attack one of our own?"
However, Izayoi's clones felt no remorse over losing a puppet. In fact, Izayoi's real self—and his other shadow clones—were all quietly thrilled. Because it had finally dropped something.
From Izayoi and his clones' perspective, after the human puppet killed that Shimura clan ninja, a green beam of light floated up from the ninja's corpse and shot toward Izayoi's real location. A green-rank trait.
That might only decompose into a random two-digit number of points, negligible compared to a purple trait, but Izayoi was delighted. At his current strength, it was almost impossible to get low- or mid-rank traits to drop.
Zabuza, Raiga, Haku, Ranmaru—none had given him even a single low-rank trait. The same with Sasuke or the Hyūga sisters—no new drops in ages. In fact, since graduation, only Rock Lee had dropped two blue-rank traits. So seeing a mere green trait was cause for celebration.
The puppet had killed that ninja, and Izayoi received a trait. Unless it was pure freak luck (the tiny probability chance), it meant Izayoi's theory was correct: even if your personal strength soared too high, the Trait System might still have hidden ways to increase drop rates!
After all, even the trait-tier system itself was something he'd discovered only by trial and error. There had to be other undiscovered mechanics. "Every dungeon has a hidden chest": if you're bold enough to act, you'll find it sooner or later.
To confirm it wasn't just a random fluke, the shadow clones instructed the puppets in the streets to shift to indiscriminate attacks on all ninja.
They slaughtered Sand and Sound on sight, while with Konoha shinobi they sometimes tried simply knocking them out—or sacrificed one of the puppets to create an opening, letting the other puppet act like it was going for a fatal blow so that nearby Leaf shinobi would be forced to intervene.
They cut down a few more Sand and Sound ninja, and sure enough, a blue beam popped out from one Sand jōnin and flew off toward Izayoi's main body. Confirmed: the mechanism existed.
Dressed as Tendo Pain, Izayoi's lips curved upward.
Meanwhile, the shadow clone at the Naka River realized that sooner or later, Jiraiya might notice these new puppets.
Worse, people were beginning to see they wore Akatsuki cloaks. Quickly, the clone withdrew its most powerful human puppets—exiting the battle under Ranmaru's illusion—and directed them to regroup with Izayoi's main body.
Their next target? The Root organization!
~~~
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