The Next Shinobi, Chapter 11: Puppet Master

"She's still asleep?"

"I think she's coming to,"

I struggled to open my eyes, the genjutsu still flowing heavily through my system. "Where'd they go?" I choked out.

"Who?" Kakashi-Sensei asked, kneeling in front of me.

I shook my head in an effort to clear my cloudy thoughts. "They were here, they said it'd be over soon."

"You fell asleep," Reina explained calmly. "It was probably a dream."

"No," I disagreed firmly. "It was a genjutsu,"

Kakashi-Sensei's expression instantly hardened. "Hikari, who was here?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I didn't see them. I was sitting here and it got really quiet, then someone touched my neck and told me to rest and that everything would be over soon."

"And it will be," a woman said from behind the three of them.

Kakashi-Sensei, Kai, and Reina immediately turned and got into the routine defense formation only to be met by two very familiar girls. My eyes nearly popped out of my skull as I stared at them, the shock obvious on my face; it was Chizuko and Mari. "How the hell are they still alive?" Kai gasped.

"We saw Hikari kill them," Reina added, her voice shaking.

"It's got to be a reanimation jutsu," Kakashi concluded. "Stay on your toes."

"Enough talk," Chizuko smirked as she got into her fighting stance. "Let's play."

Before another word could be uttered, Chizuko darted for Reina only to be intercepted by Kakashi-Sensei. Mari headed straight for Kai again, wielding her sword with such accuracy and grace it was impossible not to be impressed. The genjutsu still had me under its spell, but I could finally turn my head to look for the puppet master pulling the strings behind Chizuko and Mari. I scanned the trees for any sign of a foreign entity but all I got were branches and leaves. Suddenly, something shiny caught my eye as it flew through the air. "Reina, watch out!" I yelled a second too late.

Reina winced and fell to her knees, clutching her thigh that now had a shiny needle sticking out of it. "Damn it,"

"Are you okay?" I asked. My limbs were finally regaining feeling again and allowed me to crawl closer to her to get a better look at the wound.

"Fine," she replied as she yanked the needle from her leg. Her eyes widened as she gazed down at the needle's black tip. "It's a poison needle,"

I could feel the color drain from my face. "What do we do?"

"We need to squeeze the poison back out," she said through gritted teeth as she began to squeeze the blood out of the small wound. The blood that oozed from the wound had a strange black hue instead of its normal deep red color; I supposed it was the poison. Just as her blood began to turn red again, another needle shot clear through Reina's shoulder and pinned her to the tree she leaned against.

They're going after the wounded one first, I realized as I surveyed our surroundings for the needles' origin. I need to find them and fast. "Can you use your medical ninjutsu to neutralize the poison?"

She shook her head. "I can't neutralize it but I can try to draw it back to the surface."

"Alright," I nodded. I sat up and wrapped my fingers around the thin piece of metal. "Ready?"

Reina sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and returned the nod. In one swift motion, I pulled the needle from her shoulder along with a small amount of the thick black liquid. She immediately clapped her palm over the wound, the familiar green aura of medical ninjutsu shrouding her hand. "You going to be okay?" I asked as I staggered to my feet. My legs still felt heavy and disconnected from my body, but I forced them to cooperate with me.

"I think so," she flinched in pain as a thin black stream trickled down her arm. "There's only a small amount that's too far along my bloodstream to draw back out. The bad news is that we don't know the effects of the poison."

"I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," I replied just as another needle fired toward Reina from the canopy of the forest. Summoning all my strength, I slid in front of her and deflected the needle with my kunai. "Think you can take care of yourself for now?"

"Yeah, just go," Reina pushed as she got back to her feet. She seemed wobbly and dizzy, I suspected it was an effect of the poison.

I complied and launched into the treetops in the direction of the needles' origin, a flash of white hair catching my attention once I hit the very top. I smirked as I landed on the branch. "Playing hide and seek, are we?"

"So, you found me," a white-haired man grinned as he turned to face me. The headband he wore around his waist bore the symbol of the Sound ninja; we were in for quite a fight. "You're pretty observant, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm not much of a talker," I retorted, summoning every ounce of chakra I could. "Let's dance."

He smirked and crossed his triceps, bending his fingers with his palms facing me. "Fine, let's see how you like my friend!"

I jumped out of the way as a wooden puppet flew toward me, its jaw snapping repeatedly and making a clicking noise when it attacked. This puppet master reminded me of the Sand shinobi Kakashi-Sensei spoke about when he told us his old war stories from when he trained our parents. According to those stories, puppet masters were a powerful breed of shinobi; this guy wasn't going to go down easy. I threw a hard punch at the puppet's face, hitting it with such force that it split open the skin on my knuckles. Its head snapped back in place and its jaw dropped, firing kunai knives from a hole in its mouth at an alarming rate. I blocked as many of the knives as I could but a few still penetrated my defense. I touched down on a nearby branch and flinched at the sting of the cuts that now graced my body; these kunai were sharper than normal kunai that we carried. I pulled one of the knives from the branch and stared down at the blade as it sparkled like some sort of crystal or diamond.

"You should really pay attention, little girl!" the puppet master called as he moved his fingers in different formations. In accordance with his finger positions, the puppet fired toward me again.

I rolled just in time to dodge the puppet as it crashed into the branch, sending the rest of it tumbling to the forest floor. I drove my foot as hard as I could into the puppet's wooden sternum only to have it trapped by the crystal under layer of its frame. The master cackled devilishly. "My puppet's wooden shell is only a protective shield for the true crystal structure which gives it its shape and power."

"Shut up, already!" I hissed angrily, annoyance festering in the pit of my stomach. I yanked my foot from the crystal and threw another kick into the puppet's face. The wood cracked and revealed more sparkling crystal as its head once again snapped in place. I quickly tumbled backward and kicked off of the trunk in an attempt to dodge the impending kunai barrage. The clicking of its jaw echoed behind me as I whirled around and dug my kunai into its shoulder, deterring it enough to distract the master for a few seconds and giving me a chance to hide and regroup.

"There's no use in hiding," he snickered ominously. "I'll still find you."

I staggered my breathing to make it as inaudible as possible and stayed as close to the trunk I hid behind as I could as I racked my brain for a plan. Water style, water clone jutsu.