"Chiyo—about Ebizō's sacrifice, I'm deeply sorry. If I could freely leave Sunagakure, I would never have let him take that risk himself. But the dead can't be brought back, so don't let hatred cloud your judgment."
After receiving the border base report, the Third Kazekage immediately activated the chakra television—something usually only used for remote talks with the daimyo—and spoke to Chiyo face-to-face to comfort her.
"Kazekage," Chiyo said coldly, "I'm very calm right now. If hatred had truly blinded me, I would've already gone to join forces with Hanzō and launched an attack on the Land of Fire."
The Third Kazekage didn't mind her blunt tone. This sibling pair—along with Chiyo's son and daughter-in-law—formed the dominant faction among Sunagakure's upper ranks.
Chiyo, master of puppets, poison, and medical ninjutsu, had a reputation in Suna even louder than the "legendary medic" title Tsunade would earn later, and she had countless followers.
Like Kirigakure's Elder, although Chiyo was "only" the Kazekage's aide, she stood almost on equal footing with the Kazekage.
If Chiyo had even the slightest rebellious intent, the Third Kazekage would never have held the seat.
Fortunately, their family were loyal supporters of the Kazekage line.
Seeing that Chiyo hadn't lost her head, the Third Kazekage finally relaxed and asked:
"Then why do you want Shukaku's jinchūriki, Bunpuku, stationed at the border base?"
"I intend to break the current situation," Chiyo stated with brutal clarity. "We lost this war's probing phase."
"Ebizō's death has temporarily severed all contact with our sleeper networks. Our external intelligence apparatus is effectively paralyzed."
"Without intelligence support, sending recon and Anbu into enemy territory is too dangerous. It only creates more openings for the enemy."
"If we fall behind during the probing phase, it's the same as exposing our weakness. It only makes us more passive."
"So we only have one choice: shatter this balance and force everyone into the next stage."
"Our hatred with the Rain isn't actually that deep. We entered because of Hanzō's ambush. From start to finish, we've only defended passively against his invasion."
"Now we step back one more pace—I'll shift the frontline to attack Konoha."
"If Hanzō still won't take the hint and insists on striking us, then Bunpuku fights."
Chiyo's eyes flashed with killing intent.
"I'm focusing my full attention on Konoha's line. They will pay a painful price for this scheme."
Chiyo's true goal was revenge, but her logic still made sense to the Third Kazekage.
Unless the Land of Wind withdrew entirely, losing their intelligence network meant they were now effectively blind—and everyone knew it.
If they withdrew now, they'd be a cowardly blind man, and more predators would surely come.
Their already imbalanced economy would only worsen.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
And with Konoha's forces split by the Rain and the Earth, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The Third Kazekage had no intention of letting it slip away.
So he made a decisive call:
"Fine. I'll order Bunpuku to the border base immediately. The Konoha line is yours. Do it without restraint. Even if something happens at the border base, I will personally intervene."
"Understood," Chiyo said.
With the Kazekage's approval, Chiyo moved at once.
She didn't even wait for Bunpuku to arrive at the border base. She handed command authority to the deputy staff and personally led a strike package of high-tier forces to the frontline near the border of the Land of Rivers and the Land of Rain—where her son and daughter-in-law were stationed.
A Kage-class combatant dropping in with a cluster of elite forces instantly spiked that front's power—and disrupted Hatake Sakumo's tempo.
During the four-month probing phase, both Sakumo and the puppet-master couple had already built a basic understanding of each other's troop scale and elite specialists.
They'd also clashed many times in short skirmishes while supporting recon and Anbu, and had learned each other's strengths and weaknesses.
They were each missing only one opening—one chance—to kill.
Chiyo's arrival meant Sakumo's opponent abruptly upgraded from an elite-jōnin-level puppet duo to a Kage-class monster who could wrestle with Hanzō.
And Chiyo hadn't come merely to "hold the line" and boost morale.
She descended as an avenger.
Her goal was to break the current balance—so after a quick scan of the intelligence recon and Anbu had gathered, she personally led her forces in a sudden strike against the White Fang line.
Sakumo had anticipated that Ebizō's death might change the war's trajectory—but he never imagined Chiyo would shift the entire frontline this decisively.
Wasn't she afraid that leaving the border base would give Hanzō an opening to strike the Land of Wind again?
But the one getting hit now was the White Fang line.
Caught without this intelligence, the White Fang line was blindsided.
And Sakumo experienced, for the first time, what it meant to face the might of a Kage-class opponent.
In theory, Sakumo—who excelled in Lightning Release nature transformation and taijutsu—should have been a puppet master's natural counter.
Slip past the puppets, and the puppeteer's movement speed and reaction time should drop, making them easy to kill.
Even Chiyo's son and daughter-in-law—the duo who used coordinated puppets to make it nearly impossible for taijutsu and taijutsu-based fighters to close in—had weaknesses Sakumo believed he could exploit.
But Chiyo was nothing like ordinary puppet masters.
Her taijutsu was terrifyingly strong.
Her speed and reaction could keep up with Sakumo's lightning-fast movement—completely unlike what you'd expect from an older woman, let alone a puppeteer.
And her puppet art had reached the summit.
The Chikamatsu Ten Puppets—crafted by the founder of puppetcraft—were her ultimate weapon. They were famous as "one machine equals a thousand," stronger than a full ninja squad of ten elite fighters.
One of Chiyo's signature achievements was taking an entire city with those ten puppets.
Their materials were extraordinary; without discovering their structural weaknesses, even lightning-coated slashes couldn't shatter them.
And those puppets could use combination techniques akin to composite ninjutsu—threats deadly enough that even Sakumo felt the danger.
He wasn't fighting "one person."
He was fighting a whole cluster of elite—and even ace—combatants who shared one mind, as if they were running off a single brain.
Chiyo had even modified her own hands into puppet hands—improving her control of the Ten Puppets—and installed mechanisms that could convert her chakra into a shield capable of blocking nearly anything.
Sakumo finally found an opening, slipped past the puppet wall, and struck what should've been a killing blow—
—and the shield stopped it effortlessly.
Worse, he nearly got clipped by the poison mechanisms hidden in her puppet hands.
In that instant, Sakumo—an assassin-type fighter, like Hanzō and Gojo Yoru—understood he couldn't win.
He immediately ordered a full dispersal retreat.
Even so, many Konoha shinobi still died: they were nicked by puppet squad weapons and poisoned by Chiyo's toxin.
It wasn't Hanzō's large-area poison fog—
It was poison smeared onto weapons and projectiles, equally "touch-and-die."
Sakumo had no answer to it.
He could only request reinforcements.
Chiyo's rampage also stole the spotlight from Gojo Yoru, becoming the most eye-catching presence on the battlefield.
After many years, the shinobi world was forced—again—to acknowledge the terror of puppet masters.
Weak puppet masters do have countless flaws; when matched into a hard counter, they collapse.
But a truly strong puppet master… is almost flawless.
One person can become an army.
~~~
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