Pupet Master in Konoha

"It's exactly what Chiyo-sensei said..."

"The moment the enemy captures the prey is the best time to launch a stealthy attack..."

After some time, a young man wearing a black ninja uniform and purple facial tattoos slowly approached the head of Hideki, muttering something.

"It's a pity that a puppeteer with a wild past like you doesn't know this, that's why you lost your life so easily."

He then pulled out a bounty notice from his arms, crouched down, and showed it in front of Hideki's head.

"Kimura Hideki, you said you learned a little about puppets. If you avoid the ninjas of Sunagakure in the future, the village won't go to war to bother you."

"But you actually want to teach puppetry in school, regardless of life or death. How can the village continue to tolerate your existence?"

"Tsk, tsk, a reward of thirty million taels. This is the kind of treatment only elite jounin can receive. Seems like the village really hates you."

"It doesn't matter, in the end, it will be easier for me, Nakamura-sama."

"Let me do the math, a head is worth thirty million taels..."

"And although I don't know the specific function of the black cat transforming puppet, it should sell for a lot of money just by looking at its appearance..."

"By the way, there's also the last thing this guy found..."

Nakamura carefully examined the head of Hideki, which still bore a smile.

For Hideki Kimura to appear so excited before his death, that piece of wood must be something valuable.

However, Nakamura didn't immediately approach Hideki's body. Instead, he controlled his puppet, which resembled a mantis, and began swinging its scythe-like forelimbs, dismembering Hideki's body beyond recognition...

For a moment, blood splattered across the forest, and the rich smell of blood spread gradually.

The reason Nakamura did this wasn't to vent his anger or indulge in some hobby.

In fact, as a puppeteer, he knew that many of his colleagues liked to install special mechanisms in their bodies. Once they die, their bodies become deadly traps. Even in death, they can drag their enemies down to hell with them.

Of course, only ninjas from Sunagakure, who have lived through years of sandstorms and fought to survive in a harsh environment, could develop such a hard style.

A guy like Hideki Kimura, with delicate skin and tender flesh, who only relied on a little intelligence to learn puppetry, probably didn't have this awareness.

However, Nakamura still kept Chiyo-sensei's teachings in mind and didn't relax his vigilance.

That's why he controlled the puppet to cut the opponent's body into pieces, to either destroy it or activate any potential traps.

However, aside from the internal organs of the corpse spilling across the ground and attracting many crows watching anxiously in the branches, Nakamura didn't notice anything unusual in the body.

It seems that, as expected, Hideki hadn't set a deadly trap in his body.

Nakamura then approached the dismembered body and began to pinch its nose, searching for the piece of wood and other useful items.

Soon, he found the wooden block, as it was still tightly gripped in Hideki's right hand.

"Let me see what makes this so valuable."

Nakamura crouched down, a mocking look on his face, and easily opened Hideki's palm to take the wooden block.

However, in the next moment, his expression suddenly changed.

Because after injecting chakra into the wooden block as usual, he found that the chakra was completely absorbed without any effort.

This also meant that the chakra conduction performance of this piece of wood was exceptionally high.

Even Nakamura, born in Sunagakure, rarely saw materials comparable to this, and certainly didn't own any.

Why is this rare material here? Why did this guy, Hideki Kimura, find this place? Wait, I remember this seems to have entered the domain of the Valley of the End...

Could it be...?

In the blink of an eye, countless questions arose in Nakamura's mind, and he seemed to be getting closer to the truth.

He even regretted his decision to kill Hideki directly. He wished Hideki could come back to life and answer all his questions...

However, the next moment, when Nakamura was about to stand up and leave, something grabbed his left foot, and he couldn't move!

Unprepared, Nakamura looked down unconsciously and nearly scared his soul out.

Because what was holding his calf at this moment was the right hand of the corpse, stained red with blood!

What the hell?!

He was thinking, "Why are you taking this so seriously?" when suddenly another steel needle shot out from Hideki's right wrist and pierced his trapped little foot.

Oops, it's a poison needle!

The sharp pain in his calf and the sensation of some kind of liquid being injected caused Nakamura to instantly wake up and immediately take the textbook response.

Swish!

When the cold light flashed, bright red blood spurted again.

But this time, what Nakamura controlled to cut was his own calf that had been stabbed!

The half of the leg still bleeding remained in place, but Nakamura and the puppet quickly withdrew, keeping as far from Hideki's body as possible.

During the retreat, Nakamura also took several antidotes from his ninja pouch and shoved them into his mouth to prevent the toxins from entering his bloodstream.

He then looked back at Hideki's body under the cover of the puppet, his eyes filled with anger, regret, and disbelief.

Where's the leisure and jokes now?

"Dammit, this is infuriating!"

"I didn't expect that this puppeteer Yeluzi could create deadly traps and hide them from me..."

However, before Nakamura could vent his emotions, another change occurred.

And the scene was even stranger than before. Nakamura's countless words were stuck in his throat, and he could only stare with a blank expression...

On the blood-stained grass, the pieces of Hideki's body, which had been cut into fragments, began to gather in the middle and gradually reassemble into his original appearance.

Along with this process, the corpse was gradually lifted vertically, as if manipulated by invisible threads, under the influence of some mysterious power.

Then, the head that originally rolled to the side suddenly flew upwards and landed squarely on the neck of the corpse.

In the end, Hideki held his head with both hands and twisted it from side to side. After making sure it wasn't crooked, he began to stagger toward Nakamura.

Nakamura was going crazy.

The scene before him truly defied his worldview and sent his sanity spiraling downward.

He had just passed through Konoha, received the bounty list from the village, and found the opportunity to have Kimura Hideki leave the village, so he showed up here.

But can someone tell him how the guy mentioned in the bounty notice, who was lucky enough to learn puppetry, ended up like this?

Even now, Nakamura wasn't entirely sure if the person in front of him was really Hideki Kimura!

Could it be that he had been under an illusion this whole time?

Nakamura quickly cast a jutsu to dispel the illusion, dismissing this possibility.

Is this the so-called human puppet?

The strange appearance of Hideki in front of him made Nakamura think of the forbidden technique mentioned in the village's legends.

Could it be that Kimura Hideki had turned into a puppet, so even if he was cut into so many pieces, as long as the core wasn't destroyed, he could be restored to his original form?

However, this idea was quickly rejected by Nakamura.

But this time, he didn't have a good reason, he just instinctively didn't want to believe that the puppeteer Ye Luzi, whom he despised, could have mastered the legendary human puppet technique.

Eliminating all possibilities, only one truth remained.

That means this is not Hideki Kimura at all!

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