Chapter 96: Escape

Clang~

After one attack was blocked, Seimei swung his sword again. The Suna-nin in front of him blocked a second time, and Seimei continued to attack, with the Suna-nin continuing to block.

For a time, the sound of metal clashing filled the air. Seimei's attacks were like a violent storm, swift and fierce.

The Suna-nin he was attacking was like a lone boat in the vast ocean, struggling in the storm, in danger of capsizing at any moment.

Seeing his teammate in peril, another Suna Chunin immediately rushed to help.

However, even facing two opponents, Seimei remained calm.

With his masterful Konoha-Style Kenjutsu, he regained the upper hand in just a moment.

And as the two opponents gradually became familiar with his attack rhythm, Seimei suddenly changed his tactics.

The hypnotic power of the Sharingan was fully activated, and his style shifted from Konoha-Style Kenjutsu to the more compatible Uchiha-Style Kenjutsu.

Immediately, one of them fell under the genjutsu, and Seimei's short sword flashed, leaving a deep wound on the person's left arm, exposing the bone.

It wasn't that Seimei didn't want to aim for their vital points, but his attack was blocked by the other person, resulting in only injuring their arm.

Nevertheless, this injury was still severe.

Suffering such a heavy blow, the Suna-nin cried out in pain and snapped out of the hypnosis. He then quickly retreated.

But while he wanted to retreat, Seimei wouldn't allow it. With a sword strike, he forced back the Suna-nin blocking his way and lunged forward, instantly reaching the retreating Suna-nin.

His short sword swung consecutively, leaving several wounds of varying depths on the opponent's body in the blink of an eye.

Seeing this, the other Suna-nin quickly stepped forward to help.

Sensing the kunai thrust from the Suna-nin behind him, Seimei flashed aside, dodging the attack.

Then, with a few backward leaps, he slightly increased the distance and raised his hands. Before the two Suna-nin could react, he completed the hand seals at an extremely fast speed.

Subsequently, he opened his mouth and exhaled a large burst of flames. These flames divided and condensed, forming hundreds of fireballs that simultaneously smashed towards the two Suna Chunin.

It was the ninjutsu - Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique.

The two Suna Chunin were caught off guard. Although they tried their best to dodge, several fireballs still hit their bodies.

The fireballs exploded, instantly inflicting heavy injuries on both of them.

Seeing this, Seimei was about to move in for the finishing blow.

But just then, a scream suddenly came from not far away.

Seimei looked towards the sound and saw Teramitsu, who had gone to intercept the Suna puppeteer, being caught by the giant pincers extending from the giant spider puppet's mouth. His body was severed, his upper and lower halves separated, blood and internal organs spilled all over the ground, and he was wailing in agony.

Even though Seimei was used to seeing life and death, he was still shocked by this scene.

Fortunately, Teramitsu didn't suffer for long. Within moments, he completely lost his life.

At the same time, the situation on Kamijo Yoichi's side wasn't looking good either.

His opponent was the humanoid puppet.

Although, for the sake of greater realism, it had sacrificed many mechanisms and structures, the puppet's inherent characteristics of fearlessness towards death and threats still gave Kamijo Yoichi a hard time.

Seimei silently assessed the combat strength of both sides. There were two people left on their side. He himself still maintained his full combat power, while Kamijo Yoichi probably had about seventy to eighty percent.

Although there were three people on the Suna side, two of them had already been severely injured by him, and Kamijo Yoichi should be able to handle them.

'Perhaps, it's time to start the plan.'

With this thought, Seimei used the Body Flicker Technique and arrived in front of Kamijo Yoichi, blocking an attack from the humanoid puppet for him.

Then, without looking back, he said, "Leave this to me. You go deal with those two."

Hearing this, Kamijo Yoichi glanced at the two Suna Chunin struggling to get up and, unusually, said, "Captain, be careful."

"Mm."

Seimei responded and then charged towards the humanoid puppet.

But before he could get close, the humanoid puppet suddenly opened its mouth, and hundreds of steel needles shot out from within.

These needles, fired by mechanisms, lacked variation but their speed was beyond what any human could achieve.

Fortunately, Seimei possessed the Sharingan and could clearly see the trajectories of these needles.

Therefore, dodging them wasn't too difficult.

Chiya, not giving up, once again controlled the humanoid puppet to fire several waves of needles, but Seimei dodged them all.

Not only that, but Seimei also took the opportunity to close in on it. His short sword thrust forward, seemingly intending to engage in close combat with the humanoid puppet.

Seeing this, Chiya, hiding in the shadows, immediately laughed, "Close combat with a puppet, hehe... truly..."

However, before he could finish his sentence, Seimei's sword tip pierced through the humanoid puppet's protective layer and precisely inserted itself into the gap at its left shoulder joint.

Click, clack~

Accompanied by the sound of gears grinding, the humanoid puppet's left shoulder suddenly fell to the ground.

At this moment, he couldn't laugh anymore.

On the contrary, a smile appeared on Seimei's face.

When he was planning to seize the Puppet Secret Technique, he had been thinking about how to deal with puppeteers.

Conventionally, to deal with a puppeteer, one needed to avoid direct confrontation with their puppets as much as possible and then find a way to locate the puppeteer themselves, ultimately achieving a decapitation strike.

But Seimei felt this method was too passive.

Although puppets weren't afraid of death or threats, they weren't invincible either. They also had weaknesses, such as the joints between their various components.

Ordinary people might find it difficult to target these areas during intense battles, but Seimei was different.

Not only did he possess the Two Tomoe Sharingan with its amazing observation skills, but he had also trained two advanced swordsmanship styles to near perfection, allowing him to achieve precise strikes.

In this way, dealing with these ordinary puppet mechanisms wasn't too difficult.

And as long as he kept dismantling these puppets, no matter how well the puppeteer behind the scenes hid, they would eventually reveal themselves.

This was his strategy - turning passivity into initiative. As long as he kept attacking the puppets, he would eventually find the puppeteer hiding in the shadows.

At that time, without the puppets, the opponent would be at his mercy.

If the opponent didn't want to end up in such a situation, they only had two choices: either kill him before he dismantled the puppets or flee immediately.

Chiya initially chose the former, but when Seimei dodged the joint attack of the two puppets and consecutively dismantled one arm and one leg of the humanoid puppet and three legs of the spider puppet, he wisely chose the latter - escape!

But would Seimei let him escape?

The answer was obviously no.

The opponent's combat experience was average, and coupled with their behavior before revealing themselves, Seimei felt that their actual age shouldn't be too old, and they were likely a sheltered individual.

Considering the humanoid puppet's appearance of being around fifteen or sixteen years old, Seimei had reason to suspect that it was crafted in their own image.

In that case, as long as he captured them, with some interrogation, he could most likely obtain the Puppet Secret Technique.

How could Seimei miss such an opportunity?

Seeing the spider puppet and the humanoid puppet suddenly retreat, Seimei didn't hesitate at all and immediately gave chase.

In the blink of an eye, one person and two puppets disappeared from everyone's sight.

(End of Chapter)