"That's a lot of puppets, eh," says Pantsu, taking the pipe out of his mouth so he can look up at them without all the burning plants falling out onto his face. (Or at least Shisui assumes that's why Pantsu takes the pipe out of his mouth.)

"Shisui, go after Sasori himself," orders Iruka, pulling out a kunai. "Everyone else, protect Arashi. I'll cover Shisui."

Shisui draws the sword he is borrowing from Naruto's arsenal of weapons that no one uses but Naruto keeps on him just in case. "Sasori of the Red Sand," he says. "You picked a fight with the wrong shinobi."

"Shisui of the Shunshin," says Sasori. "You have quite a high bounty, but are you worth it?"

"I'll let you be the judge of that," says Shisui, and vanishes in a swirl of leaves. He reappears in the air above the army of puppets. "Fire style, Grand Fireball!" Shisui unleashes a colossal ball of fire on the puppets, burning most of them to ash in a instant. The rest fall to the ground, smouldering.

Sasori's metal tail snakes towards Shisui in an angry line, poison dripping off the pointed tip.

Shisui uses his chakra to spin in the air and slam his sword down on Sasori's tail, cutting off the deadly, poison soaked tip. Then Shisui shunshins over to Sasori and slams his sword down on Sasori's back. Then Shisui leaps back, out of range of attack from what is left of Sasori's tail. Sasori's back cracks and his whole body splits in two, falling to the ground with a crash. Another puppet rises out of the shell Shisui just split in two.

The puppet turns slowly towards Shisui, revealing perfect features framed by red hair. "It is time to step things up a notch," says the perfect puppet. "I can see I am not dealing with the average shinobi warrior. You have risen beyond the level of a mere shinobi, and into the realm of legend. But I will match you, for I am not the average puppet master anymore. I have risen beyond and into the realm of legend. I am-" here the puppet, whom Shisui realizes is actually Sasori, raises his arms as a panel opens on his stomach. A long cord snakes out, and a thousand puppets rise into the air. "-A WORK OF ART!" Sasori finishes triumphantly.

"Art?" says Shisui, pulling a face. "Isn't that puppet body a bit too perfect, though?"

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO PERFECT!" Sasori growls, sending half his horde of puppets at Shisui. The other half speeds towards Arashi and the rest of Team Iruka.

Shisui activates his Mangekyou Sharingan, and then takes a deep breath. He activates a power he has not used before: the susanoo. Only a skeletal ribcage shrouded in green chakra appears, but that is all Shisui needs. As the puppets bear down upon him, Shisui unleashes his susanoo attack. Thousands of chakra needles shoot out of the susanoo and fly through the air into the horde of puppets.

With Sparky sitting on his shoulder, Naruto stares up at the oncoming puppets, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of his stomach. This is no fight against one or two opponents on his level. They could actually die fighting this Sasori guy.

"Naruto!" says Iruka-nii, as he hands a kunai to Grandpa Arashi. "Fight!"

Neji has already activated his byakugan, and even Burifu is ready to fight with her little fists. Naruto pulls out a scroll and starts drawing the design for the Wrath of Jashin seal. But Naruto is too slow, and before he can finish the seal the puppets arrive. Naruto is forced to abandon the seal, let go of Sparky's leash and fight the way that comes most naturally to him: with his fists. Naruto dodges back, away from the puppets' poisoned swords. Then he crosses his fingers, "Multi-shadow Clone Jutsu!" Another hundred Narutos appear, and they all attack the puppets together. Most of them burst in the first few seconds as they are cut down.

Sparky flies away to find a place to hide during the battle. Sparky is not a fighter.

Iruka-nii is throwing pointy and sharp things around. Gramps Pantsu is using his pipe to blow clouds of acid smoke at the puppets closest to himself. Burifu is dodging a puppet's attacks like a mad thing. Neji is using their palm and a lot of evasive maneuvers. Shisui is completely dominating his share of puppets. Naruto suddenly feels outclassed. He does not like that feeling.

Naruto wishes he was fast enough to use seals in combat without relying on distracting the enemy somehow. Karin can do it. But then again, sealing is Karin's main fighting style, but Naruto's is punching stuff.

So Naruto gets ready to punch some stuff.

As the puppets fall to the ground, kicking up dust where they land, Shisui turns on Sasori's perfect puppet body. He shunshins closer, attacking with a chakra-charged blade. The perfect puppet body falls to the ground in a hundred pieces. One of the fallen puppets rises up off the ground. Body parts from other broken puppets fly through the air and attach to the dismembered puppet, completing it.

Shisui is unimpressed. It really annoys him when his enemies try to drag out the fight, especially when it is getting close to lunch time.

Shisui shunshins over to Sasori's new body and cuts it in half. Nearby, another puppet rises out of the mess, and Shisui pounces on it. Sasori abandones that Puppet and finds a new one.

How is he doing it? The sooner Shisui can figure that out the sooner her can wrap this up and get some lunch.

In the meantime, Shisui is just gonna have to play whack-a-mole with Sasori. Here's over here, now he's over here, and he's there: hit him before he moves!

As Shisui shunshins all over the battle field cutting down Sasori every time the puppet master rears his wooden head, he thinks to himself, All I need is some of that silly saxophone chase music to make a parody of this fight. Now where's he gonna crop up next?

Shisui holds his sword at the ready and scans the field of destroyed puppets, waiting for Sasori to re emerge. Since Sasori's chakra is everywhere, Shisui cannot use it to track his opponent. So he scans the mess of puppet-parts with his eyes, taking in every detail with his sharingan. Although he is not paying much attention to the rest of his team, Shisui is aware of what they are all doing.

Naruto has pulled out a bunch of shadow clones and has them in pairs, forming rasengans and slamming the balls of chakra into the puppets. Captain Iruka is locking blades with a puppet, doing his best not to let Sasori's poison touch him. Neji and Pantsu are fighting side by side, and it seems as if the old man is beginning to feel his age.

A puppet sends Burifu flying across the battlefield. A crowd of puppets descends on the little girl, and Shisui starts to move towards her. But then a chakra chain like Karin's erupts from Burifu's back, and whips the puppets. The puppets fly backwards, breaking into a hundred pieces. "Look, Grandpa!" Burifu shouts, waving her hand at Pantsu. "I awakened the kekkei genkai!"

"Good girl," says Pantsu, breathing heavily and holding onto Neji for support. Burifu runs over to help them.

Shisui glances over the battlefield again, but sees no sign of Sasori. He looks over to see how Arashi is doing. Arashi is sitting with his back to a half-fallen wall. He is writing something on a scroll, with a pen in one hand and a kunai in the other. He is completely ignoring the fight. There a couple of broken puppets lying beside Arashi. One has a sword and, just as Shisui notices it, the puppet moves with blinding speed towards Arashi. Shisui shunshins forward, ready to defend Arashi, but a wall of puppets blocks his path.

Arashi sees the puppet coming for him, but he does not try to escape. Instead, he drops the pen he is writing with, slaps his hands down on the scroll and says, "Fuuin: Wrath of Jashin!" Fire explodes out of the scroll, destroying the attacking puppet. Activating the seal proves too much for Arashi's undeveloped chakra coils and he collapses. With his sharingan, Shisui can see that Arashi did not take any damage from using his chakra, but he is dangerously low now. As Arashi falls to the ground, the hand holding the kunai falls on the other puppet lying beside Arashi, stabbing into it with the kunai. There is a small spurt of blood from the part of the puppet Arashi accidently stabbed, and all the puppets fall to the ground, lifeless.

Stunned, Shisui rushes over to Arashi to see what, exactly, the old man stabbed. He skids to a stop beside the puppet and looks down at the bleeding thing that Arashi stabbed. Shisui pulls it out of the puppet's body, kunai and all and examines the squishy, bleeding thing. It is a grey, cylinder shape with purple veins coming out of the sides. The flat ends of the cylinder are white, and one has the kanji for 'scorpion' written on it.

"What's that?" asks Naruto, dispelling all his shadow clones and kneeling down beside his Grandfather. Naruto makes sure Arashi is alright, but seems much more interested in the strange thing that Shisui is holding.

The rest of the team joins Shisui and Naruto. All of them are visibly tired from the fight, Pantsu and Burifu more so than Neji, Iruka and Naruto.

"Can I have a look at that?" asks Iruka, holding out his hand. Shisui gives his captain the cylinder. Iruka turns it over, examining it. "This is amazing. And also terrifying." Iruka holds up the cylinder. "This is Sasori. His entire being is contained inside this cylinder."

"Grandpa killed Sasori?" says Naruto, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"Yes," says Iruka.

Naruto, Shisui, Burifu and Neji are all so shocked they actually fall over backwards.

Pantsu sits down beside Arashi. "Arashi has the right idea," says Pantsu. "This is a good spot to rest." and just like that, Pantsu lies down on the ground, amid the dirt, rubble, weeds and broken puppets, and goes to sleep.

Iruka facepalms.