Chapter 1

Curse of the Bloody Puppets

Danzo walked carefully around the interior of the mysterious palace. He was pretty careful wherever he went, and his first meeting with all of the Kunoichi seemed to have made him respect them immensely. He searched the entire room from top to bottom until he found a door leading into another room.

Haruka searched from the ramparts of the castle until she saw what looked like a marionette lying motionless on the ground.

"Interesting, I've never seen puppets like these before," she mused.

She decided to take some notes and draw some plans for these old puppets wielding the sharp bladed weapons. After she finished, she moved on to continue her investigation of the palace when she felt a dark presence behind her. She whirled around and saw nothing but the lifeless marionette still unmoving.

"Whatever it is, I have a really bad feeling about this mission were helping Danzo on," Haruka said quietly to herself.

After searching around for a while Danzo soon picked up a strange key that was very rusty at the handle. He pocketed it into his coat then slowly walked away, only to have a dagger thrown at him making him whirl round to see the Marionette coming to life. Several more marionettes soon came to life and Danzo assumed that Haruka had turned on him to follow Homura's orders.

Drawing his sword, Shadow-edge, Danzo lunged at the puppets and began cutting in to them with ferocious rage, scattering them like ragdolls in every direction. He jumped down through the hole in the floor and struck down another rending it as nothing but splinters.

Homura saw the more marionettes coming to life, and she quickly drew her six swords to cut them into tiny fragments. Yomi, Hikage, Mirai, and Haruka sensed the same thing happen and quickly set to work destroying the puppets with quick precision. The five kunoichi of team crimson knew that had to reunite with Danzo quickly and so dispatched the puppets and raced to him as fast as they could go.

Danzo soon entered a strange room where he saw what looked like a seaplane from the early 1920s. He stepped forward and began investigating it with a look of curiosity.

"From the looks of things, it hasn't been repaired in a long time. It doesn't look like it's going to fly, unless we had a repairman on the job," Danzo said to himself as he searched the plane even more thoroughly.

His investigations were soon halted when team Crimson found him in the room with the plane.

"Nice of you to show up," Danzo said coldly.

Homura was confused, but Haruka stepped forward.

"I know you think those puppets were my doing, but they were being controlled by another force," she explained.

"Madara," seethed Danzo.

Yomi was worried. She'd seen Hikage losing control of her emotions once before during their Hebijo days, but this was different. Hikage however slowly stepped towards Danzo taking his hand in her own and gently place it onto her chest.

"Danzo I know that your angry right now, but trust me when I say you don't want to feed it any further," she warned him.

"Right. Haruka see if you can get this rusty old plane to work again," Danzo said to the puppet master.

"What do you mean Darling?" Haruka asked seductively.

"I got a feeling we'll need to make a quick getaway after Madara's defeated," Danzo told them. Then he hurried off with Homura, Yomi, Mirai, and Hikage at his side.

They descended down a lift into an arena where several puppets waited for them.

"Let's waste 'em!" said Danzo, and the five friends drew their weapons and attacked with ferocious determination. The puppets were no match for them as the next wave challenged them. Some even tried to ambush Mirai, but Danzo shot them down with Silver-moon and Black-star before they could strike surprising the gunbrella slinger.

"Nice save Danzo," called Yomi who had managed to blast some into dust with her explosive darts.

Hikage and Homura had managed to dispatch the last of them, and soon began following Danzo to the plane room with Mirai and Yomi at their heels. They saw that more puppets came to life and began to attack Haruka who was working on the plane.

"Get down Haruka!" shouted Danzo and he quickly ripped them to pieces like a rabid animal.

"Thanks for the save Danzo Darling," she said wrapping her arms around him.

"Okay Haruka, let's not get too carried away," Homura said to the puppet master.

Danzo nodded.

"Did you manage to get the plane fixed?" he asked.

"Thanks to the tools I got, yes. And she's fully fueled and ready to go after Madara's been defeated," Haruka replied.

"Okay, ladies, let's keep up the hunt," said Danzo.

Team Crimson nodded in response and set off to continue their search for Madara. Unaware there was something fishy about their friend Tina.