A/N: The brand new chapter is here! The first part of the story - Anchor - will finish soon (up to approximately chapter 14), but that doesn't mean the story is finished. In fact, part two will continue right after that, with no delay in update schedule. From my speech, you've probably guessed that I have a plan, a general structure of the story already mapped out. I just like to do things that way, so it makes me seem organized (I'm really not).

Beta'd by the mighty Alice J. Enjoy ^_^

Chapter 10 - Marionette

"They just disappeared without a trace. When we woke up in the morning, they were gone." That's the tenth time we heard the same statement. The villagers had no idea how the people disappeared, even if they increased the patrol after the initial disappearance. It looked like they just evaporated into thin air.

"Whoever was doing it, they must be strong shinobi if they could sneak into the village and kidnap villagers without notice." Yoshida concluded as we regrouped at the edge of the village.

"That's if we are assuming it's a human do are doing this. Although given all the evidence, it's unlikely to be any but human. But the problem is, there were no marks to track; all the marks I've been studying belong to the missing people, and they just seemed to be disappearing outside of the village as if they walked out themselves." Maki, the tracker summarized. The strangest point in this case was the fact that the missing people seemed to have disappeared by themselves, there were signs of them walking out of the village, yet no one saw them and no one knew why.

"It's possible that the perpetrator used some large scale genjutsu to lure the victim out themselves, it could be the genjutsu that altered the villagers memory, making them unable to remember anything. If that's the case, then the enemy must be very powerful." Yoshida added, "is there anyway we could detect the genjutsu?"

"I could give it a try." I raised my hand, drawing the attention to myself. They seemed skeptical since I never told them about my specialty being genjutsu. I ignored them as I activated my sharingan. The three tomoe furiously spinning, and I checked the view in front of me carefully. The chakra system of the villagers seemed fine, there was no disturbance. There was no lingering twisted chakra on the village, everything was normal.

"I detect no genjutsu at work at all. Unless the genjutsu was so powerful that they outrank my sharingan. If that's the case then we should ask for back up, since that means the genjutsu would be close to high A-rank, even S-rank." I said as I turned around, there was a temporary shock before I reverted the sharingan back to normal.

"Sha… Sharingan." Maki exclaimed in a surprised tone. I wasn't sure why they were surprised because I clearly told them my last name was Uchiha. Yoshino was the fastest to recover, he ordered: "Okay, we will keep a lookout in this village for tonight, maybe the perpetrator will strike again, and then we will be able to catch them. Uchiha and Ito will patrol in the village for now. Maki will keep working on tracking, and I will patrol the outside. We will regroup at dusk." All of us nodded, then we dispersed to our positions.

"So we are just gonna stand here and wait?" A bored medic nin asked beside me as we stood by one of the village houses.

"That's not necessarily true, but I couldn't think of anything else we could do at this moment." I answered. After the fifth time surveying the village with sharingan on, there was nothing significant I could find. Sharingan could see details and distinguish chakra, but they are not sensor specific, meaning there were limits as to what they can sense. Sharingan was best used for seeing chakra in the human body system, it enabled us to distinguish genjutsu, and to an extent, copy ninjutsu based on the chakra flow. However, its use is decreased when the chakra leaves the body and lingers in the air. There were faint traces of chakra residue in the air, but they were so faint that no large ninjutsu could caused it. They seemed really old that I couldn't follow it, but it's the main proof that it was shinobi at work here.

"Ehh, I think there is someone following us. I can just feel the eyes staring at us." Takuma said, I immediately turned around, but only after a second, I relaxed again.

"There are children peeking behind the wall." I said to him emotionlessly, and he looked slightly embarrassed. I checked out the children again, there were three to be exact, and all seemed to be around five or six. They were looking at us with a mix of genuine curiosity and a hint of fear.

"Although they do seem to be wanting to approach us for whatever reason. Stay here" I said to Takuma before I quietly body flickered away. When I stopped moving, I was behind the trio of kids.

"Come on, they are here. If you want to say something, hurry up!" one of the children urged the boy in the middle, speaking in a volume that seemed to be whisper for them, but a radio for shinobi.

"Shh, quiet, they will hear you. I don't know, I don't think they will believe me," the boy in the middle said timidly.

"Whatever, just hurry up, or the adult will catch us" The first children spoke again, nudging the boy in the middle harder this time.

"Hey guys, I can't see one of them." The third children whispered, trying to catch the other two's attention.

"What do you mean you can't see, where did she go?" the boy in the middle asked in a panic, and I decided that this was the time to intervene.

"What do you want to tell us?" I asked in the nicest, least creepy voice possible, but they still managed to jump and shriek at my presence.

"When did you… How did you… you were there…" the first boy mumbled an incoherent sentence, clearly surprised and baffled by my appearance.

"Is that… is this ninja power?" The middle boy asked with amazement.

"Yes, it's ninja power. I'm sorry I scared you, but you guys seemed to be wanting to tell me something, so I couldn't stop my curiosity. I'm Maiko, what about you?" I smiled at them. Clearly, my years of child rearing experience with Sasuke had its uses. Speaking of Sasuke, he was six now and he started the Academy this year. I don't have much time seeing him now that I was exiled from the Clan, but mom was kind enough to bring him out and meet me at least once a month, and sometimes, I would catch up with Sasuke when he was off from the Academy.

"I'm Bunta." the first boy said, "Kei." the middle boy said timidly, "Ryuji." the third child called out.

"Well, nice to meet you all, but would you mind telling me what you wanted to say?" I asked, not sure what to expect for the answer,

"The adult won't believe us, but I saw! I saw my mother took my father away!" Kei yelled out in a hurry and I widened my eyes, not following the clearly important revelation.

"Hold on, tell me from the beginning, what do you mean your mother took your father?" I asked and Kei lowered his head.

"It all started a few days ago, when people started to go missing and the adults were panicking. Mom went missing five days ago, she just disappeared and we never saw her again, until two nights ago. I couldn't sleep because I want to go to toilet, so I got out of bed. When I came back, I swear I saw mom in our room. I was surprised so I stopped moving. I want to yell out to mom, but she seemed different, and I was really scared, so I hid by the toilet. I saw mom picking up dad who was asleep and they flew out and disappeared. When I went out of the house, they were all gone. The next morning, my dad was declared missing as well, but no adult had saw any of them at all, even the uncles patrolling the village!" Kei yelled out quickly, he looked terrified. By his eager look, I'd guess that the adults didn't believe him when he told them.

"Thank you Kei. Be careful okay, I believe you and I'm going to tell my teammates about it. For tonight, stay together, and no matter who tries to make you follow them, don't do it and scream for help okay?" I said to the boys and they nodded before running away. I immediately walked to Takuma and said: " You got the signal scroll, I just got some new information, and we need to gather up and discuss it before the night falls." He seemed confused, but nevertheless, he followed the instructions. He pulled out a plain looking scroll and opened it, immediately the scroll went poof. The signal scroll allows the others who has the same scroll to get the location if one of the scrolls was opened, and now we just had to wait for the team to gather.

"This better be important, little girl, those scrolls are expensive." Yoshida said annoyingly as he and Maki showed up. For the time being, I let the insults slide and told them what Kei told me. The reason why adults didn't believe him was because his story seemed so impossible to them. But we were trained shinobi, with chakra and ninjutsu, nothing was impossible.

"Genjutsu on the kidnapped?" Maki suggested.

"Could work, but it doesn't explain how a civilian woman was able to pick up her husband and move away at fast speed." I added.

"Possession? Or even drugs to induce strength, like soldier pills?" Yoshida proposed.

"Or it could be possible that the woman seen was not actually the real one, like a disguise or something. Could explain why victim made no sound, and why I only found traces of the victims leaving the village." Maki said.

"Either way, the perpetrator will have to be close to the village. Maki, can you track now?" Yoshida asked, but Maki shook his head "I need a general direction, right now, the tracks are all over the place, I won't be able to track such a large area." Yoshida looked thoughtful for a second and then he asked me "What about Sharingan, can you see any existing chakra signature?"

I shook my head and said "No, my sharingan doesn't range that far, and it could only see concentrated chakra like human chakra system well. The chakra left in the air is too thin for me to follow." My team seemed deflated a bit, but suddenly I remembered something, "But, I might be able to get a general direction of where he or she might be." I said as I started doing a string of hand seals and my teammates watched carefully.

"Raiton: Flash Butterfly" I said as dozens of flashing and sparking butterflies few out of my hand into different directions. This technique didn't really have any attack power, since it's a sensory technique I begged Shun to teach me. The butterfly act as sensors to surrounding areas, and they could only be popped by physical or chakra attacks. While Shun could use the pure chakra forms that were less 'flashy', I needed to incorporate my lightning nature to make it last long enough. As a result, it's pretty much a useless technique that was anything but covert.

"I should get the direction of any hostile foreign party in the surrounding area. But I pretty much told them we are looking for them." I said to my teammates, and Yoshida nodded, figured anything was better than no direction at all.

Suddenly I felt the clear sensation of one of my butterfly popped, "three o'clock direction, about 500 meters away, Can't pinpoint the exact location or how many enemy." I said concisely. Yoshida nodded and ordered: "Stealth mode everyone. Maki lead with tracking, Uchiha and me will take the left and right flank, Ito stay at the back. Are we clear?" Everyone nodded. Finally Yoshida said: "Alright people, let's get this sucker before nightfall."

Maki's tracking skill really was no joke; once I pointed out the general direction, he was able to isolate the tracks that were most likely and followed it meticulously. Give him a year or two, he would be able to make at least a tokubetsu Jonin in tracking.

We followed him toward the assumed target as he made careful adjustment to the direction we were going. After around 400 meters, even I could see the disturbed plants due to more tracks and movement. I wondered how we could have missed that during our initial search, but the forest surrounding the village was much more difficult to cover when you only have four people.

"Be careful, the tracks are converging, There's definitely more than a few people here. I don't know if these tracks belong to the kidnappers or the kidnapped, but they are very orderly for some reason." Maki said quietly as we grouped closer. Yoshida and I moved inward, protecting Takuma, our only medic, in the middle while Maki slowed down considerably for us to catch up.

"What number are we looking at here?" Yoshida asked, Maki frowned and concentrated, "Twenty, around twenty-five, that's all I could see from the tracks."

"That seems to be consistent with the number of missing person in the village, but there were only 19 missing, so consider there are at least five targets. We might need back up. Ito, send the messenger hawk. The nearest post is a day away, so we should send one there for immediate backup and send another one back to Konoha to report." Yoshida said after some thought.

"Do we try to engage and apprehend the targets?" I asked, and Yoshida shook his head.

"Not until we had more backup. With our current information, we should consider all the targets shinobi, at least B-rank just to be safe. They also seemed to have jutsu or skills that could either control or impersonate people. Right now, we will be on survey duty, and gather more information on the targets." Yoshida said. Despite his little prejudice against my age, it seemed that his years of experience was not of waste. He was making sure that all of us would survive, seeing how the situation was so unclear.

Takuma immediately nodded and tried to pull out the messenger hawks in bag. Yoshida was writing the notes. When he finished the one to the post, Takuma tied it to the hawk and sent it flying. Suddenly, the hawk was gone, grabbed by something moving at high speed. All of us tensed immediately at the presence of an intruder. My sharingan flared up in an attempt to see better, immediately I saw it, or she moving toward me, still holding the dead hawk in one hand. I pulled out my tantō in a swift motion and slashed across the figure. Despite its speed, it's defense was really weak. With a little help from my sharingan i was able to adjust my body so I was out of its blow but managed to slash its body in half. The moment my blade sliced across the flesh, I realized there were something wrong. There was no blood.

"This is… this is one of the missing person." Maki said in shock as he stared at the upper torso. I stared at it in surprise, it's, in fact, a woman's face, and from the fabric of its cloth and, she was from the village. She wasn't moving anymore, of course, no one would be moving if they were sliced in half. But she was so clean and polished that there was no sign of blood, no sign of any insides spilling out.

"Impossible, how the hell… there is no blood, it seems like her blood has been drained. Her flesh is slightly stiff from the rigor mortis, but there is no sign of discolouration of skin from livor mortis. I can't tell when she died because the body was somehow preserved. But it is no doubt a human body, not some displacement or disguise." Takuma quickly went for an analysis of the body after his initial shock.

"I think the real question is, how is she moving if she was dead enough for rigor mortis." Yoshida pointed out with disbelief. My mind was racing through all the possible options, and then it stopped at one, one possibly terrifying explanation.

"Puppets. Human puppets." I whispered, catching all of my teammate's attention. My head swirled around to see the chakra thread, but they were gone, probably cut the moment I cut the woman down. Instead, what I found made me drew a cold breath.

"Guys, we have company. Lots and lots of company." I said, trying to keep calm. All my teammates tensed up and from their expressions, I knew they realize the same thing I saw. We were surrounded by hostile enemies, very likely the same human puppets we just found.

Once the realisation of puppets dawned on me, I immediately pulled out my ninjatō as well. I let my blades be covered by a thin layer of lightning chakra, I heard the little cracking sounds, humming for the taste of blood. After two years of spontaneous ninjutsu lesson with Kakashi-sensei (whenever he had time), I realized that using lightning chakra to enhance your weapon was a lot more than just adding paralyzing effect. My lightning chakra enhanced swords were a lot more faster, sharper than before. Like wind, lightning was known for its speed; it gave the weapon the illusion that it reaches the target faster due to the lightning coating piercing the target when the blade hadn't actually hit yet. Also, the lightning chakra adds for destructive power. Though it might not be able to slice through steel like butter at this point, but it sure could slice most body flesh open like paper.

The puppets made its first move, they just flooded us. I wasn't sure how many there were, but it's definitely over 25. I slashed the first one open and let its' severed body dropped to the ground, then my other blade separated the shiny blue chakra string that seemed to control it. It became obvious after a while that the only formidable thing about these human puppets were their speed and deadly strikes. However its' speed was nothing a trained shinobi couldn't follow, and its' strike was straightforward and open, thus making them easy to dodge and strike. The only thing that was overpowering us were their sheer numbers.

I destroyed another puppet by hacking it to pieces and dodged a strike from the nearby puppets before turning it to immobile body pieces as well. If they weren't trying to kill me, I might have thought about respect for dead bodies. The third puppet did something different, it opened its jaw to an unnatural angle for human, which just made the whole scene looked very disturbing, and immediately I realized that it's going to shoot out senbon or other projectiles. Quickly I resheathed the tantō in a swift motion in my back, not missing any beat before starting to form the one hand seal for a ninjutsu. "Katon: Fire Dragon Breath" A stream of fire was shot out of my breath and it overwhelmed the senbons (probably melted it) and the puppet that shot them. I proceeded to turn my body and sprayed the fire in a semi circle. When the fire stopped, a row of puppets was incinerated to dust.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw that my teammates were doing fine holding themselves against the puppet hordes. Yoshida was smashing puppets apart with taijutsu, and Maki was fighting with a kunai, occasionally using some earth release technique to trap the puppets. The one doing less well was Takuma, he was struggling to keep up with the number of the puppets fighting. But the other two and I tried to keep as many puppets away from him as possible. Takuma was our only medic, no matter how little fighting power he's got, he's the VIP of the team.

"How many of these… things we have to fight?" Yoshida yelled over all the battle sound, I for one was too busy to answer, between hacking puppets into pieces and shooting out ninjutsus.

"I don't know, they just keep flooding us. There's no way they are all the missing people from the village, there are way too much for that. Where is the one controlling them, because normal civilian don't know how to fight like this." Maki screamed. I scanned the surrounding and all I could see was puppets, puppets, puppets and Chakra threads, thin, crisscrossing chakra thread that seemed to point nowhere in particular. If there were only one puppeteer, then he/she would definitely been considered A-rank, and he/she was smart enough to set up pivot point for the thread to curve over and appeared to be coming from a different location than where he actually was.

"What's the order? Continue to engage or retreat." I yelled, hoping my voice was loud enough.

"We retreat, this is definitely a A-rank enemy, we need backup" Smart decision, puppets spoke of Suna-nin, and human puppets spoke of disastrous Suna missing-nin. I had a flashback of what I saw once in the bingo book, human puppets, could control more than a hundred puppets at once, S-rank Suna missing-nin. Sasori of the Red Sand. Now I was just hoping and praying that it wasn't him. I was confident in my skill, but not confident enough that I would rush in to face S-rank missing-nin. Dying again was not a part of my self-preservation ideology.

"Re-group people!" Yoshida yelled and I quickly slashed apart another puppet before it could shoot senbon at me. I sent another fireball as a follow through just to be sure before I made my way back to the group with Takuma the medic-nin as the center.

"Okay, we need to get away, Maki, we need a earth release for defence, and Uchiha, I really hope you have some big flashy ninjutsu that will immobilize them for a moment so we can get away." Yoshida commanded. Big flashy area of effect ninjutsu? Ahh, I did have some. For the past two years, all I've been doing was basically copy ninjutsu from Kakashi (after much convincing) and pick out the ones I liked then focussing on mastering them.

Just as Maki performed the earth wall, I quickly retracted both of my blades into their sheath behind my back, since biig ninjutsu requires both hands for seals. After a string of hand seals, I pushed my hands into the ground, ignoring the pile of human puppet remains on the ground. "Raiton: Electrifying Web!" I yelled, gathering all my chakra and sent in pulsing through the ground. It would be a pretty sight, seeing the ground light up like ley lines, tracks of lightning dispersing from my hand and reaching out to cover an area diameter of 50 meters. The lightning pattern intertwined like spider webs, crackling and sizzling as it connects with each other. Whenever the lighting lines came in contact with a puppet, it sprouted up from the ground and wrapped it in its special icy blue light and then the lightning lines would proceed to move toward its next target. After a few seconds, all the puppets in a fifty meter diameter area dropped like bugs. Their body was charred black and smoking and the chakra thread were forced to disconnect.

"Sick jutsu, now let's move. I don't know how, but there are more coming." Maki said with amazement as he brought the earth wall down, and everyone nodded.

I was a fool to think that an at-least A-rank criminal would let us leave so easily. For a seasoned combatant like I was in my previous life, I developed a sense for bloodlust and killing intent that's very much like a sixth sense. I didn't feel it, when the first chakra strand came flying at us. I reacted at the last possible moment, using my lightning chakra enhanced blade to nullify it. But soon, ten more followed, and my teammates were just in time to turn around to position themselves for the following attack.

That's why it came as a surprise for them when none of the chakra thread hit them. Instead, whoever shot the chakra thread seemed drunk as all the threads missed my team by just an inch.

"What the...:" Yoshida muttered, unsure of what the enemy seemed to aim for. It was the last sentence I heard before something went wrong. I looked at where the chakra thread actually landed, sharingan still activated ever since the beginning. The thread was connected neatly to the fallen puppet parts. In fact it was so neat that each separated parts was connected by exactly one thread. The second thing that alerted me was the fact that I could see the amount of chakra was poured into the puppet parts, those chakra was circulating in a mess in the dead human flesh. Shit, I realized, the dead body parts have no complete chakra system for the chakra to circulate since a) they were dead, and b) the body was cut up. When you let radioactive substance ran wild in a nuclear power plant, you get Chernobyl; when you let chakra energy ran wild in uncontrolled chakra system, you get something similar.

"Everybody get away, it's going to explode!" I yelled as loud as I can and grabbed the person closest to me, which was Takuma, and shot for the sky. We'd been stupid, we didn't know what a Suna puppet user could do with their puppets, and we let the perpetrator land a perfect ambush. I could only hope that Yoshida and Maki heard my warning and did the same. A simple earth wall was not gonna hold, seeing as the body-parts-turned-bombs were resting right by our feet, so our only option was to run. Run for the trees and get away, hoping that the blast was either unconcentrated (unlikely seeing how much chakra was poured in) or in a small range.

The explosion happened immediately right after I grabbed Takuma and took off. The sound was so loud that I thought I'd busted my eardrums, but that wasn't my main concern. It was the searing pain on my back that turned my brain into mush. The image in front of me seemed to flicker, there wasn't a forest anymore, there was the shattered glass from the building. I saw the city lights, the world I was born in yet never really lived. I gasped as I missed the branch and was knocked off balance. I tripped along with Takuma and we crashed into the ground.

I clearly felt the crisp crack of my rib breaking as I hit the dirt. I didn't get out immediately, instead I dragged Takuma closer and quickly did the simple hand seal for an basic Earth release: Earth Wall. I had to keep extra attention so that I wouldn't faint because of the pain. I hugged the ground and let the earth wall shield us until I felt no heat waves anymore. Takuma closed his eyes beside me and waited silently. His body was shaking as the remaining explosion and heat waves unfolded.

When I let the Earth Wall down and forced my body to crawl up, our previous position was now a giant crater. My body was aching, threatening to fall apart, which was not the first time it happened, but definitely not a good sign. Takuma was already up and moving, he seemed fine, a few burns on his body and a few bruises, but as least he didn't wince when he stood up.

"Let me take a look at your injuries." He said before covering his hands in the green medical chakra. Takuma was a strange one, he was nervous about the mission, yet he managed to keep calm whenever his medical ninjutsu was required. He ran his hand over my body before starting the healing on my rib.

"Second degree burn on a portion of your back, two cracked ribs that I'm healing right now, it's lucky that there's no damage to the lung. The other bruises and burns are superficial. Once I heal your ribs you should be able to move just fine, although you will have to bare the pain on your back. Can you see Yoshida-san and Maki-san with your sharingan?" He asked. I activated the sharingan with the just the minimal chakra needed. Most of my chakra was used to soften the impact and protect my body, not to forget the ninjutsu I used earlier. Fortunately Takuma was also replenishing my chakra in the process, I was able to activate sharingan without fear of chakra exhaustion. I searched around the surrounding, paying careful attention to any body shape or chakra signature. Gosh, I hoped that they all escaped from the explosion.

"There! I see them. Their chakra was still circulating, so they should be alive. But they aren't moving, you need to check on them quickly. If they are in a comatose, we would be in big trouble in enemy territory. We need to be moving and retreating quickly." I pointed Takuma to the direction. He was reluctant to leave me half healed, but eventually, he walked toward our two fallen teammates.

I sat up and checked my supply. My twin swords were still strapped onto my back, and even though my weapon bag was burned a bit, the contents seemed to be okay. I didn't have a messenger hawk or a summon, however, I did have something that allowed me to send message. I pulled out a small black scroll, sealed with the Kanji 神原 (Shinbara). Akira-shishou gave it to me a year ago, a scroll for emergency use, some kind of special transportation seal that allowed the message to be transported back to it's owner, and allow the owner to know the location of the scroll used.

"Only use this when it's absolutely emergency. It's an expensive and limited edition." I remembered his words. Well, this counts for emergency, it's better to be scolded by Shishou than be dead. I opened the scroll and bit my finger. I used my blood to write on the scroll "A-rank Puppet User. Full ability unknown. Team suffered heavy injury. Require immediate backup. Maiko". After I finished the message I rolled it back and peeled off the seal. Immediately, the scroll disappeared in a poof. This better not be a joke, Shishou, I really couldn't afford it right now. Now the only problem was the attacker, the mastermind puppeteer. Why didn't he/she show up, right now we were at the most vulnerable stage, two are immobile, one was injured, and the other was not combat specialized.

I pushed the question to the back of my mind, for now, my teammates were most likely with heavy injuries, and I needed to get them moving, send a message to the nearest outpost and retreat as fast as we could, preferably before the enemy shows up with another army of human puppets that could explode even if cut up.

"How are they doing?" I asked quietly as I walked toward Takuma. Maki seemed conscious now, but Yoshida was still lying on the ground as Takuma continued to heal him.

"Maki-san's injury is manageable. He has two fractured ribs as well, and I already stabilized them so they won't puncture the lungs. He also has a broken arm and some second degree burns on his thigh. He's lucky that he can walk. Yoshida-san is a little more complicated. His suffered from liver laceration, and his right leg as well as his right arm is broken. He also suffered from third degree burn on his back. We have to get him to a clinic or he will die." Takuma said as calm he could, but I could see sweat gathering on his face.

"We need to send a message to the outpost, so they can send shinobi to escort us. In our condition, even if we could carry Yoshida-san, we would be slowed, and it'll be worse if the enemy came. I already sent a message to Konoha (hopefully), now we just need to move to a safe location." I said solemnly. Self-preservation was one thing, but there's no way I could abandon my fellow Konoha Shinobi, or could I? No don't even think about it, this is not my previous life, and I don't work for OLYMPUS, sacrifices are not okay.

"Maki-san, do you think you could walk and maybe even carry Yoshida-san with Ito-san? No offense, but right now, I seemed to be the only combat-able shinobi right now, I would need to escort and protect you three if the enemy does come for us." I asked, not sure if he would listen to my command. But to my surprise, he didn't show any disapproval, instead, he just nodded.

"Of course, Uchiha-san. Yoshida-san tried to shield me from the blast when I was caught by surprise, so I will do everything you said, if it means we can save him." Maki said sincerely as he tried to stood up against the pain on his leg. Takuma was already writing the message to the outpost, and as soon as he sent it off with a hawk, he came over and carried Yoshida with Maki. We started to move at a slow pace toward the outpost. Damn it, this mission was definitely messed up to the point of no return, now I couldn't imagine anything else that could… Actually, I remembered the worry I pushed to the back of my mind, the puppeteer, he or she had been inactive for five minutes as we regroup and move away. That might seem like a short time, but it's long enough for a shinobi battle to finish. So tell me, why? Didn't the puppeteer move? If he/she was gathering his remaining puppets (since most were charred and blew up), then five minutes would be the perfect time for him/her to attack…

It's here. The puppeteer was here.

A/N: don't you just love cliffhangers? No okay, sorry...

Anyway, for those who wants to jump straight to canon events, I'm sorry, I really want to fill the blank with interesting stories, so I hope it's tolerable. Also, if you have any confusions with the events, feel free to message me or leave a question. I try to make things clear for the readers, but you know, there's foreshadowing, and then there are also things that I just want to be left to interpretations.

Thank you for reading! Leave a review if you feel like it!