Chapter 13

The day of the party fell upon us and as ordered Toyoda had made the arrangements. He had gathered the disguises and any other items we would need for the event. Turns out this party was not for lower-class citizens and would be filled with only those who could afford to be there.

I devised the plan and came up with our aliases each of us committing them to memory. Espionage was often part of a ninjas mission and was taught to all of us even in the academy. Soon the hour was upon us and we made our way to Kinjo Masakazu's estate.

Tsuji broke off and as ordered and made his way for the servent quarters ready to take his role in the mission. We soon joined a large queue that was moving at a steady pace. Everyone was dressed to impress and it seemed no expense had been spared.

"Invitations please sir." One of the guards asked looking at Toyoda. He reached into his blazer pocket and handed both of the invitations to the guard. He looked at the fine piece of paper and then eyed up both Toyoda and Sano, "Is this your child?" He asked looking at me. I had used a transformation jutsu to make myself look five years old.

"Yes this is our child, we couldn't get a sitter and decided to bring him along," Toyoda said with a small chuckle. "Normally he would need his own invitation, but since he is so young we shall make an exception, you arnt the only one tonight." The guard said with a smile as he handed the invitations back to Toyoda. "Please enjoy the party, Sir, Madam."

And with that, we entered through the main gate into the large courtyard where we followed the crowd into a huge hall. It was very fancy and had decorations laid out coordinated perfectly. Buffet tables were laid out as well as seating for all the guests, waiters and waitresses were at beck and call carrying trays of expensive champagne and fancy nibbles for people to snack on. There was even a band playing music and the volume was just right so that you could still have a conversation. I had never seen anything like it except for in the movies, but I guess in every world the rich still live the high life.

It seemed Tsuji had wasted no time and approached us carrying a tray of drinks. "nice of you to join the party." I said teasing him. He didn't look impressed but bit his tongue. "Any sign of the target?" Toyoda said changing the subject.

"Guards posted at all entrance and exit points," Sano said as she took a glass off of the tray Tsuji was holding. "No sign of the target, for now, blend in," I said. The others simply nodded and Tsuji walked off assuming his position as a waiter.

Toyoda and Sano engaged in conversation with some of the other guests so as not to look out of place. Turns out it was pretty easy when you were talking money.

The hall was now packed but even with so many people here, there was still ample room to move around. I decided to take the opportunity to have a wander around after all no one paid any attention to me being a kid. One thing was for sure and that was that Kinjo Masakazu was currently not in attendance.

Hiding my presence I slipped past one of the guards and proceeded up the stairs. He did have a lot of security as I quickly had to jump and stick to the roof as two more who were patrolling the second floor past by me. Dropping to the floor like a shadow I sped from door to door trying to find any indication of Kinjo Masakazu's whereabouts.

The sound of footsteps suddenly grabbed my attention, "Was it the guards?" I thought to myself, but it couldn't be they had just past. I quickly opened one of the doors and shut it just before whoever it was came around the corner.

"Man this gig is boring." A male voice said followed by a yawn. "You're too lax Zayasu, don't drop your guard." A female voice said. "I know I know, I just hope something interesting happens soon." The man said again. "Whatever let's go and regroup with the others, lord Kinjo wants all of us by his side tonight." The woman said as they passed the room I was hidden in and proceeded down the corridor.

I waited a good few minutes before exiting the room, "If I was a betting man then those two must be part of his personal guard." I said to myself. Deciding that was enough snooping around I resolved it was time to join the others back downstairs at the party.

Little did I know that a pair of red eyes had lit up behind me and before I knew it I had been wrapped up in what looked like a large wooden centipede. Its grip was like being stuck in a vice and I couldn't move, "What.. the hell!?" I said as it started to squeeze me harder. "What do we have here?" A voice said from the shadows.

"Who are you, I'm just a kid you know!" I shouted trying to play that card. "Tut tut tut." the stranger said from the shadows. "We both know you are no child." He said as he stepped into view. He was a shinobi from the hidden sand evident from his headband around his head. He had shaggy purple hair and wore a black overcoat over a red full-body robe. His hands were covered in bandages and his fingers were moving strangely. That's when it clicked, "So this guy is a puppet user?" I thought to myself.

"Why are you sneaking around, you do know this floor is off-limits?" He said with a sinister voice. "But of course you do." He said giving me no time to answer his question. "I think I will kill you and forgo with the questions." Sudden with the flick of his fingers the puppet started to squeeze as tight as it could.

Thankfully I had already grown an underlayer of bone that was too strong for the puppet to breakthrough. Still, I couldn't break free and this left me in a bit of a bind. "Why won't you die?" The man said confused as to why his puppet had failed to crush me.

"Well in that case." He said as he flicked his fingers again. The centipede puppets head wrapped around to face me head-on and suddenly a poison spike protruded from its mouth. "If I cant crush you then I guess this is the next best thing." The man said sounding almost disappointed. "I didn't have a choice and I couldn't afford to play around now. Releasing the disguise jutsu I quickly fired a jutsu I had come up just in case this situation happened to occur.

Breathing on the joints of the puppet I exhaled a freezing breath of air which instantly froze the puppet in place just before it tried to stab me. "What! What have you do to my baby?!" The man shouted clearly outraged. This was a technique I had come up with for emergencies just like this one. It required no hand signs and was simply chakra manipulation, by focusing my chakra in my throat I could combine it with my Kekkie Genkai and create frost breath as I called it.

I quickly used my frost breath to freeze the puppet around my body which allowed me to shatter it and break free of its grip. Now I had to decide if I should fight this guy or flee. "Noo! My poor baby! What have you done?!" He shouted in a fit of rage as he clawed his face with his fingers.

I was pretty taken back but I didn't let it take me off guard. And it was a good job too as suddenly I was taken by the side as a massive fist collided with me sending me crashing through the wall and out into the massive courtyard.

"What's the matter Kure, this kid giving you trouble?" The puppet user looked at the one who had smashed me through the wall like a ragdoll and spat on the floor. " I don't need your help Zayasu." He shouted as he pulled a scroll out from his cloak.

"Yeah, yeah, let's see if the kid is still breathing." The other man said as the two of them jumped out of the hole in the wall and joined me in the courtyard.

I had only noticed him at the last second and hardly had time to put up a defensive reinforcement of bones in my arms. The force of his punch was so great he had broken both of my arms and sent me crashing through the wall. His strength was no joke. Even though I hadn't enough time to fully reinforce my bones they were still harder than a normal person's as I had gotten used to always keeping my body ready in battle. Luckily for me, broken bones were nothing to worry about as I could grow them back in a heartbeat.

"Well look at that Kure, the kids still breathing, and after taking a hit at 50% power too. He's good." Kure the puppet user unravelled his scroll and summoned two more centipede puppets this time, connecting his chakra strings they came to life and looked ready for battle. "I want to make this one suffer for what he did to my baby,"

The other larger man who was called Zayasu scratched the back of his head and laughed. He was a large guy and had brown skin and white spiky hair. He wore a white training gi top with mesh armour underneath, complete with a red sash, black combat pants and standard shinobi boots with white shin guards. What stood out most was his headband which was on his red sash around his waist and the massive armoured battle gauntlets on each arm. This guy was from the hidden grass and he sure packed a punch.

"This is the first exciting thing to happen since we took this job, I'm not letting you hog all the action, we can share him." Kure turned to look at him, "What do you propose?"

Zayasu held three fingers up. "We take it in turns three minutes each against him one at a time, whoever kills him first is the winner." Kure took a moment to think about it and then nodded. "Fine but he won't last two!" He shouted as he launched both puppets towards me prepared for the kill.

Meanwhile back at the party,

Toyoda and the others had noticed my absence and were starting to get worried. "Where could he be?" Sano said sounding a little worried. Toyoda looked at her and smiled. "Don't worry he can handle himself, however, I am concerned as he has been gone for a while."

Suddenly the band stopped playing and an announcer spoke up on the microphone gathering everyone's attention. "It is now with great pleasure that I welcome your host for

this evening. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to lord Kinjo Masakazu!"

The entire room burst into applauds as two large doors opened and the man himself walked out dressed in very expensive robes, he was surrounded by his guards and he walked to the edge of a platform.

The room fell silent as everyone waited for him to speak. "Thank you, everybody, for attending this gathering this evening. It is with utmost pleasure that I welcome all of you wonderful people, please enjoy yourselves, eat, drink and of course enjoy the festivities!" With that, he raised his hand and the band resumed playing and everyone gave another round of applauds.

Kinjo started making his way down the steps and joined the party quickly becoming swarmed with people who wished to greet him. "What should we do?" Sano asked. Toyoda looked at her, "For now we do nothing. We either wait for captain Yuki or wait for an opportunity to present its self."

Tsuji walked over to the pair, "Where the hell is Yuki?" He said under his breath. "We arnt sure. "Sano said as she took a glass from his tray playing her part. "I'm going to go and look for him, you two stay here, I won't be long." Toyoda and Sano nodded and proceeded to mingle at the party.

Kure's puppet centipedes didn't waste any time as they came in for the attack. Each of them was filled to the brim with weapons and gadgets just waiting to be used, each of them already had poison blades sticking out all over their body. It was a massive pain in the arse as it meant I was forced to dodge them, the blade itself wouldn't be able to penetrate me but the poison once through the small layer of skin would enter my bloodstream. Thankfully I was extremely agile and was able to avoid pretty much all of his attacks while I came up with a plan.

Jumping back I quickly formed the hand signs and counter attacked. "Water style, raging waves jutsu!" I shouted as I fired a large stream of water out hitting both of the puppets pushing them back and soaking them in water. It didn't last long and they quickly broke through back on the offensive. "That level of water style won't be enough to stop my babies!" Kure shouted. I gave a small grin under my mask as he said it.

My goal wasn't to do damage to the puppets with the water style but to simply get them wet. Now that they were wet the next step was to freeze them and go on the counter-attack, well, as long as that other guy stayed out of it. All I had to do was make contact with the puppet and I could freeze the thing in an instant.

The first centipede started crawling in a rapid circle around me and fired a massive onslaught of poison kunai at me, I jumped high into the air to avoid the attack but was quickly met by the second that tried to wrap me up like before. Now was my chance as I flipped midair and slapped my hand on the back of the puppets wooden body freezing it sold in seconds. The chakra strings even froze and snapped letting the puppet plummet to the ground shattering into pieces as it made contact.

"NOOO!" Kure shouted once again enraged that I had destroyed one of his puppets. "I-I won't let you get away with this!" He screamed. But suddenly Zayasu grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. "Sorry little man but your three minutes are up. It's my turn now."

Kure turned and started scratching his face and his puppet returned to him wrapping around his shoulders like it was a pet. The larger man stepped forwards as he cracked his knuckles. "Sorry about him, but he gets like this. Don't worry though. You won't have to put up with it for much longer."

Suddenly he launched forwards at incredible speed and smashed his fist into my chest sending me flying through the air crashing into a large pillar of stone. Zayasu let out a breath and stood tall taking a second before he spoke.

"Well, kid it was fun while it lasted." He said as he turned on his heel and started walking away slowly. "What! No fair Zayasu I wanted to be the one to kill him!" Kure shouted.

To their surprise, I suddenly appeared above Zayasu and he was barely able to avoid a fatal blow that would have pierced his heart through his shoulder. The large man slid across the ground from the force he had just created to move back to avoid my kill shot. "This kid's good." He muttered under his breath.

I didn't give him any time to think as I pressed on the offensive, from what I could gather so far this guy had some kind of super-strength and now that I didn't have to worry about being poisoned I could fight up close. Turns out he wasn't just strong, he was fast too. He was able to dodge and avoid all of my attacks and even counter-attack.

"Not bad kid but not good enough!" He shouted as his arm suddenly expanded in size and smashed me in my chest sending me flying for the third time. Even though I had managed to put up my defence and create a wall of reinforced bone around my chest the power of his attack had still fractured my ribs and it hurt like hell. I had to be careful how many blows like that I took.

I slowly stood back up as my bones healed and the pain faded. Much to Zayasu's astonishment. "Damn kid I just hit you at 90% power and you're still standing. I can't remember the last time this happened."

I spat out blood from my mouth onto the ground and smiled. "Is that all you got?" If I wanted to make it out of this then I was going to have to get serious.

"ha, you got spirit kid I'll give you that. But looks like my three minutes are up." The big guy said as he walked back and let Kure step forward. "I'm going to make you pay this time, this time you won't survive!" He shouted as he tossed a large scroll into the air.

The scroll unravelled and a large white smoke cloud burst to life clearing to revel more than twenty-foot sized wasps puppets. "This is my ultimate puppet technique. Wasp nest puppet jutsu!" He shouted as chakra strings connected to all of the wasps bringing them to life as they all buzzed around poison covered stingers and all.

"You have got to be kidding me," I said taking a ready stance. "Kill him my sweets!" Kure shouted as all of the puppets suddenly swarmed me attacking from all over. I flipped and dodged as fast as I could but there were simply too many of them. Quickly using the body flicker ability I zoomed to an open space and slammed my hands on the ground. "Ice dome jutsu!" I shouted as a large ice dome suddenly surrounded me keeping me safe from the swarm of wasp puppets for the moment.

"You think you are safe there!" Kure shouted as his puppets attacked with their stingers but to no avail. The ice was way too strong for them to pierce and it gave me time to catch my breath and think.

"I guess there is only one way for me to defeat this guy without risking any damage, the only problem is that it costs a huge amount of chakra to use and I don't know If I will be able to take the big guy with my remaining stamina." Even though my chakra reserves were impressive I was still a kid and my body had yet to mature meaning my chakra levels were far from fully matured. For now, I would have to come up with another was of beating this guy unless I had no other choice.

"Besides looks like time is up." Not a second later my ice dome shattered as the big guy smashed his fist into it breaking it with the force of his punch. "It's my turn again kid!" He shouted as he charged at me almost to fast for me to follow.

It was as if he could increase his speed and power at will, "Alright then if I cant dodge then how about this!" I suddenly allowed bones to protrude from all over my body and his fist smashed into the side of my skull, he was too committed to his attack to stop at the last second and one of my bones had stuck him in the gut landing a fatal blow. However, the force of his strike was enough to shatter even my reinforced skull and give me a serious concussion. If I had not done a decent amount of damage he would have been able to follow his attack through and most likely have ended me then and there.

Very slowly I stood back up and tried not to seem too shaken, even though my brain was still bouncing around my skull. Zayasu spat ot a large amount of blood and was surprised.

"You managed to stand after that shot to the head?" I didn't say anything, not because I didn't want to but because I couldn't. But my brain was still trying to recover and my tongue wasn't working at the moment. "looks like your attack pierced my liver I don't have long left now... So I'm going to put everything into this last attack kid, you better get ready."

Suddenly he took a crouched position and every muscle on his body expanded in size almost as if they were going to burst. "Muscle enhancement jutsu 80%!" He shouted even with blood running from his mouth and wound.

"This wasn't looking good, I had a feeling even with my bones durability if he landed a direct hit I was dead. I couldn't block this attack that was for sure and there was only one way I could avoid it.

"Crystal ice mirrors!" I shouted as I made the hand signs. Ice mirrors suddenly appeared all around the courtyard and I still pushed to create more. His attack was almost ready and if I wanted to survive I had to wait until his wound killed him.

Quickly I slipped into one of my ice mirrors to both of the enemies surprise. "Muscle enhancement jutsu 100%!" He shouted as his body became even bigger, it was freakishly huge now and he looked like he was about to pop.

"Stop Zayasu! If you do this you will die!" Kure protested but Zayasu didn't care. "This kid deserves to face me at my full power to the death. And I plan on taking him with me at the very least." He said as he crouched ready to spring to action, The ground under his foot broke as he suddenly disappeared from view. Suddenly one of my ice mirrors was smashed into pieces and Zayasu became visible for a second. "I will smash all of your mirrors

until I find the real you!" He shouted as he vanished once again.

His speed was incredible and his power more so, He was smashing mirror after mirror chasing my reflection in all of them. But it was no use, every time he smashed one of them I created two more, his speed was incredible but it would seem his stamina was extremely limited in this form and it wasn't long before his movements became visible.

This guy was definitely not used to a long-winded fight and with the added damage I was able to inflict upon him this battle would be over soon.

I dashed out of one of the mirrors and fired my bone fingertips projectiles at him before slipping back into another mirror, the projectiles were not enough to pierce the massive layers of muscle surrounding Zayasu's body and he quickly smashed the mirror I had entered into but to no avail. Now even the puppet guy Kure had joined the battle and his swarm of wasps were attacking my ice mirrors trying to help his comrade before he succumbed to his wounds. This was my chance to take both of them down at once.

I had to time this right and If I got it wrong it could easily backfire on me, but I no longer had the chakra to try anything else. Slipping out of one of the mirrors I lured Zayasu to attack me. While I was keeping both of them distracted I had created a mirror behind Kure which he had failed to notice for the time being.

This was it, It was now or never. Zayasu attacked head-on raising his fist to strike my ice mirror, quickly I made a hand seal with one hand and instead of shattering the ice mirror Zayasu was absorbed right into it. Kure was shocked but not as shocked as when Zayasu's fist smashed into his back. The force of the blow ripped Kure's body into pieces of flesh and guts splatting all over the courtyard.

Zayasu looked on in horror as he realised what had just happened. He stopped and suddenly his muscle mass began to shrink as he fell to his knees coughing up a huge amount of blood. "What... How...?" He said as he looked up at me stepping outside of a mirror I had created not 2 meters from him. "It's over," I said as I pulled a bone blade from my shoulder and placed the tip on his trapezius. Zayasu lowered his head in defeat.

"Any last words?" I said as I gripped my blade with both hands ready to sink it deep into his body. "Just one..." He said as he looked into my eyes. "Bang." He said quietly as the centipede puppet suddenly wrapped around me, its body flipping around to revel hundreds of explosive tags igniting. The light that they gave off blinded my vision and suddenly the bright light enveloped the entire courtyard.