Wind and Fire Chapter 13

Kanoshi let both arms fall to his sides, presumably dropping his chakra strings.  He closed his eyes and put his hands together to presumably begin his next attack.  

“It’s not a puppet!” shouted Kankuro.  Kankuro sent Sasori towards Kanoshi.  One of the doors on Sasori’s body opened, but before anyone knew it, there was a loud boom that hit right beside Sakura.  Whatever it was, the wall next to her came crumbling down.  Where the wall had been now stood a gigantic statue (or could it have been some sort of puppet).  Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving now so its purpose must have been to do what it just did….push the stone wall down on someone.  

Sakura’s three teammates instinctively ran towards her.  They converged on where she was (she was still visible, even with some rubble on top of her).  

“Jento, keep an eye on Kanoshi.  Make sure he doesn’t attack us while we’re here together,” said Kankuro almost right away.  

Jento’s eyes flew to the direction where Kanoshi was standing….but the space was now empty.  

“He’s gone,” Jento said aloud.

“What?” Kankuro questioned, standing up right away and looking in Kanoshi’s general direction.

“See?” Jento said.

It was true.  Kanoshi was now gone, most likely retreating to whatever space was behind him.  

“He must have made a run for it,” said Kankuro.  “Damn.”

Sakura sat up as soon as the last heavy chunk of wall had been taken off of her.  

“Wait a second, Sakura,” Sai said.

“It’s ok,” she replied.  “I already checked…nothing is broken.  I’ve just got some bruises and scrapes.”

With that Sai backed away and Sakura popped up.  “Let’s go…we can still catch him.”

Sakura, Sai and Kankuro all leapt forward.  Jento also followed, but was a little ways behind the other three.  He continued to run as fast as he could, but the fact was, he was smaller and less powerful than they were and he naturally fell further behind.  

That’s when something caught the corner of his eye.  He pulled up and stood there looking at the empty doorway where he thought he saw something for just a second.

It flashed again.  It was something like a white light.  It looked to be near the doorway.  

Jento took a step back.  Other than a random creature or two, there shouldn’t be anything down here in this stone hallway except…

Jento turned to run after his comrades.  But then something leapt out from the doorway and grabbed him.  The next thing he knew, he was trapped inside of….something.  He didn’t know what it was.  But after only a few seconds to think, he surmised he was now in the Black Ant-like puppet that Sai had described to him less than an hour ago.  

“Gotcha,” Jento heard Kanoshi's voice say.

Jento kicked the inside of the puppet.  He was angry at himself not only for allowing himself to be distracted, but also allowing himself to be left behind by the others.  Yes, they were running full-force, but he could have said something about it, at least to call it to their attention.  He was their teammate after all.  He was just feeling bad for holding them back.  

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Kankuro ran for another minute or two before he noticed the corridor had come to an end.

Sai was the next one to arrive, just a few seconds behind Kankuro.  Sakura was the third.  

Kankuro looked up and saw a small opening in the rock.  

Sakura was on the same page.  “Lift me up,” she said without hesitation.

Kankuro gave her a hand and hoisted her up so she could get her arms over the lip that was there.  She then had just enough leverage to pull herself up.  Her legs disappeared through the hole in the ceiling.  Sai and Kankuro stood there for a seconds wondering what was going on.  

Sakura’s face reappeared, looking down at her two comrades.  

“What did you find?” Kankuro asked.

“I think I found out how Kanoshi has been coming and going without being seen….and something else you have to see to believe,” she mentioned.  

Sai immediately unfurled a scroll and drew something.  With his fingers out in front of him, out popped one of his lions from the scroll.  It just stood there.

“C’mon,” prodded Sai.  

He climbed up on the lion’s back and grabbed hold of one of Sakura’s arms that was waiting to pull him up.  Kankuro followed right behind.

“Ok, now for Jento,” Kankuro said as he reached the top.  

Kankuro looked down at the dim space below.  

“Hey, where’s Jento?” he asked.

He instinctively looked up at Sai and Sakura, who didn’t know any more than he did.  

“Come to think of it, I haven’t noticed him since we were running down the corridor shortly after Kanoshi disappeared,” said Sai.  “I just assumed he was right behind us.”

“I noticed he seemed to be falling behind a little bit,” said Sakura.  “But I never saw him leave us completely.”

“Damn,” Kankuro said.  “I didn’t notice any chakra signatures in any of the rooms we passed.  Because of that, I just assumed Kanoshi ran straight ahead.”

“We need to go back and get him,” said Kankuro.

“Agreed,” said Sai.  “Should we all stick together, or should two of us go back and find him?”

“We need to stay together.  Give me five minutes here.  I need to look around to see if there is any information here that could be of some use t us.  If he does have Jento, and he means to kill him, then 5 minutes isn’t going to make a difference one way or the other.  The best tactic to battle him is to use puppets vs. puppets…it should be me taking the lead in the battle,” said Kankuro.

Kankuro hadn’t noticed it before, but the room in which they were now standing and talking was actually a large hollowed-out cave of some sort.  It was filled on all sides by puppet equipment and tools.  "Wow.  This must be the place where Kanoshi was doing all his puppet work.”

“I bet there is a door to the outside somewhere, too,” said Sai.  “This is how he comes and goes as he pleases.”

“You are probably right,” said Kankuro.

He stared at one particular figure hanging from a hook protruding from the wall.  This particular puppet looked almost human.  In fact, it probably was one of the people that Kanoshi….   Kankuro stopped his thought cold.  He didn’t want to think about how human puppets were created.  Even though he had one in his possession, he could never bring himself to desecrate a body in that manner…simply treating it as a potential weapon.  

Kankuro looked around during the five minutes he had asked for.  It was unfortunate because everything he saw looked pretty standard to him.  The tools weren’t much different than the ones he used…that is, the ones for standard puppets.  He already knew most of the advantages Kanoshi wielded.  Sasori’s notes, the ability to craft puppets out of humans, and even some of the plans for wooden puppets.  The fact that he had a puppet just like Black Ant said a lot for what this puppet master was doing.  

“Sakura, did you notice anything around here that looked any different than Sasori’s work?” Kankuro asked.

“Not really.  I don’t know most of the specifics of puppet jutsu like you do, but compared to what I know of Sasori, it looks pretty much like what I’d expect,” Sakura answered.

“Hmmm,” Kankuro said aloud as he thought.

“What is it?” Sakura asked.  

“Kanoshi has the reputation for being a great puppet master….like  a disciple of Sasori’s, right?” Kankuro asked.

“Yes…and…,” Sakura prodded.

“I honestly am beginning to think he is mediocre at best,” said Kankuro.  “There is nothing here beyond what Sasori developed.  It’s true that Sasori was a true prodigy.  That alone makes Kanoshi a formidable foe, but I have yet to see anything…in person, or in this workshop…that isn’t a direct copy of Sasori's early work.”

“Except we can’t kill him like Sasori,” noted Sakura.  “Sasori was essentially a puppet…all except his heart, the source of his chakra.  That was the one vulnerability he had.”

“I think you are overthinking this,” Sai interjected.  “It’s true that he is very Sasori-like in many ways.  His skills, his puppets…but his body itself…  We’ve got to assume he is still all-human.  Sasori didn’t start turning himself into a puppet until he left the Sand.  Kanoshi may not even know anything about that.  If we can get through his puppets…we can assuredly kill or capture him very easily.  The only Sasori-like component we need to worry about is the puppets and the justu he uses to control them.”  

“I already know all of Sasori’s tricks,” said Kankuro.  “I just need to get past them when he activates them.”

“For puppets he has made like Sasori’s…Black Ant for example….try to notice if the mechanisms are exactly the same.  You’ve got to assume he made most of them just as Sasori made them.  That would be a huge intel advantage to us,” said Sakura.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Kankuro said.  

“We should really get going,” Sai said.  He was getting impatient.  Jento was part of the team and he was having a hard time staying unemotional as the strategizing was taking place.  

“Ok, let’s go.  Back through the opening,” said Kankuro.

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Over the next few minutes, Jento waited silently and motionless inside his cage.  His mind immediately went into overdrive.  The first thing he thought was that he should not say or do anything.  Who knew if there were any internal mechanisms that Kanoshi could activate that would send needles or kunai into his body.  Perhaps by not being combative, Kanoshi would leave him alone.  

"I don't like them in there," Kanoshi said to himself.  By nature of Kanoshi talking to himself, Jento also made some further determinations about Kanoshi...paranoid and most likely mental ill.  After all, why else would he be doing all this in the first place?  

Jento remained silent for the next full minute.  What were his strengths?  He was still a teenager - not very threatening physically.  He didn't have much jutsu to speak of - only what he had been taught inside the academy.  He didn't even know what chakra nature he possessed yet.  It was his intellect that was superior.  He would have to think his way out of this.  

"What a bunch of jerks," Jento said aloud, but lowly - just loud enough for Kanoshi to hear him.  Kanoshi didn't say anything so Jento didn't know what Kanoshi's reaction was, if anything.

"I can't believe they abandoned me.  I hate this," he continued.

"There are a lot of people like that in the world, son," Kanoshi replied.  Jento smiled inside his prison.  He may just be able to pull this off.  

"They didn't care about me.  They pretty much just gave me to you as a gift.  I should have a giant bow on my head," said Jento.  "I guess you'll just end up killing me.  What a waste of a life, dying so young."

"You and I are very much alike young one," Kanoshi said after a brief pause.  "Your life needn't end yet.  Why don't you join me?"

Jento's emotional pleas were hitting their mark.  The feeling of abandonment and rallying against them is all that Kanoshi ever knew.  From the time Suri was left behind by Akashi along with her young son Hitori, it was all that this family could think about...feeling victimized and wanting revenge for the wrongs they thought were done to them.  

"Join you?" Jento repeated.  

"I can tell you are just like me.  You've been abandoned by your colleagues.  You were right when you said that they just left you here to die.  I thought you may have been the weak link to your team and I was right.  But I have not killed you, have I?  I could easily just snuff out your life.  I chose not to because you remind me of myself when I was younger.  You don't have to take that from them.  I will teach you to be powerful like myself and then you can take your revenge in the future," Kanoshi lectured.

Jento feigned thought.  "Do you know the earth rumble jutsu?" he asked.  "That is the one jutsu I want to learn.  I always thought if I could learn that one jutsu that I would be more respected amongst the other shinobi."

The earth rumble jutsu was a minor jutsu that wasn't complicated by any means.  Jento didn't even know if he had the correct nature to pull it off, but it was one more step in the manipulative direction he was taking.  Amongst all the research he had read, he knew that Hitori liked that particular jutsu and used it as a decoy method during many of his genin-level missions.

"Earth rumble?  You have great taste!" Kanoshi exclaimed.  "You are correct that the earth rumble jutsu is a powerful one.  Unfortunately, I have only been able to watch that jutsu being used when my father would perform it for me."

Jento could tell that he was gaining more and more trust with this captor.   It was now time to pull the plug.

"I think I will join you," Jento said from within the Black Ant-like puppet where he was held prisoner.  "I'm sick of being the one being left behind.  You're totally right.  I deserve more than this.  Will you please teach me?"

"Of course, my boy," Kanoshi stated.  

Jento then heard a click.