Konoha, which was just peaceful and lively a moment ago, was suddenly plunged into chaos as war descended without warning. The entire central street fell into disarray.
The villagers and ninjas were caught off guard by the surprise attack from their allied Sand Ninjas and the Sound Ninjas, who had somehow infiltrated the village unnoticed.
While fighting back, they quickly dispersed in accordance with Konoha's safety manual, organizing the villagers and guiding them toward the shelters.
Due to a shortage of personnel, the Konoha side found itself in a messy and difficult situation, quickly falling into a disadvantage. This gave the Sand and Sound Ninjas the illusion that Konoha ninjas were nothing special.
The Anbu and various ninja clans mobilized together.
Most of the Anbu headed to the plaza to protect the Third Hokage, while the clans protected their people and villagers, heading toward the shelter beneath the Hokage Rock.
As a result, the Hokage building and the clan compounds were now in their weakest states in terms of both defense and sensory perception.
Boom—
A sound like a balloon popping echoed through a forest on the outskirts.
A massive cloud of white smoke appeared but was quickly blown away by a gust of wind before it could spread.
Three hundred and one puppets clad in black cloaks embroidered with red clouds appeared out of thin air.
Most of the puppets had white bandages wrapped around their faces, leaving only their foreheads and eyes visible. It was impossible to tell which puppets were made purely from materials and which were human puppets—crafted from corpses that retained their abilities from life.
Standing in front of these puppets was also a figure wearing the same black cloak.
If any Akatsuki member were present, they would surely cry out, "Leader!"
That's right—the figure was none other than Tendo Pain.
To be precise, it was Izayoi, using the Transformation Jutsu to turn into Tendo Pain.
Thanks to his gold-level chakra control, Izayoi had incredibly precise control over chakra—not only allowing him to merge two or even three nature transformations through the Ultra Hurricane Combo Sphere, but also to perform an almost flawless Transformation Jutsu.
Unless a sensory ninja had memorized Izayoi's chakra signature and had extremely powerful perception abilities, they would never see through his transformation.
After unsealing all the puppets from a large scroll, Izayoi didn't waste time. He formed a single hand seal, created three shadow clones, each filled with vast chakra, and then his real body disappeared instantly.
Yes, the one in front—disguised as Tendo Pain—was the real Izayoi.
The Izayoi seen earlier at the plaza was just a shadow clone.
That explained why the clone didn't play ninja games with Gaara—it lacked durability.
The three newly created clones immediately began their tasks.
The first clone transformed into Tendo Pain as well and vanished instantly to act independently.
The second clone transformed into an ordinary man wearing sunglasses and sped off toward the Nanga River.
At the same time, Izayoi used the power of the Tenseigan to remotely activate the chakra cores of the 300 puppets.
They sprang to life in an instant, scattering like shadows.
Only one puppet remained still—the 301st, a small puppet with a noticeably different build from the others.
Its face was also wrapped in bandages, but its eyes were strikingly beautiful, like gemstones, with red light flickering within.
This puppet was Ranmaru, transformed into a human puppet.
The third clone's task was to protect Ranmaru and supply chakra to his core.
Right now, Ranmaru's eyes glowed red.
Around the 300 puppets who had scattered, red powder suddenly appeared, and their forms twisted like mirages before vanishing from sight.
Even the Byakugan could no longer see them.
This was the natural enemy of the Byakugan—the Red Eye, capable of using chakra to generate illusions that disrupt enemy perception.
With Ranmaru's Red Eye support, 200 of the puppets silently infiltrated the central street like stealth masters using Transparent Escape Technique.
The battlefield was already littered with casualties—on streets, rooftops, alleys, and hidden corners, some dead, some critically injured and hiding.
Some injured ninjas even used props to camouflage themselves with nearby buildings.
Unfortunately, under the Tenseigan's farsight and x-ray abilities, all were exposed.
Some of the puppets began moving.
Red powder appeared, their bodies became visible again as they picked up the corpses—both Konoha and enemy—and vanished once more.
Ninjas who caught a glimpse of this thought they were hallucinating—or trapped in a genjutsu.
But with enemy attacks pressing in, they had no time to investigate further.
The puppets didn't spare any corpses—whether from Konoha, Sand, or Sound.
As for seriously wounded ninjas, any non-Konoha ones were immediately finished off.
Splat—
Hidden blades from the puppets shot out—piercing necks, stabbing into chests, or severing heads—carefully avoiding the heart.
Because to make a human puppet, one must preserve the heart—it becomes the chakra core.
"Nothing."
"Still nothing."
"Again, nothing…"
The clone next to Ranmaru muttered emotionlessly as he observed all the puppet activity.
Clearly, the scene they were hoping for hadn't happened yet.
But the clone didn't lose hope. Instead, he made a hand gesture and whispered, "Initiate Plan B."
As if receiving his command, the clone hiding in a cave near the Nanga River, who was controlling the puppets, immediately sent in a new batch of puppets to execute.
These were all human puppets—made from corpses and still possessing their former life abilities.
And their strength had surpassed their original levels.
Because the chakra inside them belonged to Izayoi, and the one controlling them was also his clone.
Although they lacked black receivers for Yin-Yang Style and Tenseigan abilities, they could still cast jutsu through Izayoi's control.
The human puppets split into teams—some continued finishing off wounded enemies, while others dropped stealth entirely and joined the battlefield.
Crack!
A lightning-quick puppet appeared behind a Sound Ninja supporting the Sand Ninjas, shot out a lightning-infused blade from its modified arm, and pierced through the enemy from behind—twisting viciously.
"So... fast!"
That Sound Ninja didn't even realize there was a fourth faction on the field. Staring at the blade through his body, those were his last words.
"Who was that?!"
"Anbu? No, they don't dress like that. Who is this guy?!"
"Be careful—he's got incredible speed and stealth!"
As the puppet's presence was exposed, both Konoha and enemy ninjas became wary.
Whoosh—
After one-hit-killing the Sound Ninja, the puppet raised its hand, palm glowing with golden light, and fired a blast at a Sand Ninja.
"Friendly fire! Attack!"
A Konoha ninja's eyes lit up, tricked by the puppet.
He began forming hand seals: "Wind Style…"
Just then, the puppet appeared right in front of him and stabbed straight through his body.
Blood poured from the wound, staining the Shimura clan crest on his clothes.
After taking down the Konoha ninja, the puppet stopped moving.
Shing—
A flash of steel, and a short blade severed the puppet's head.
A Special Jōnin, wielding Konoha Flow Swordsmanship, frowned at the bloodless corpse and muttered, "Why would a Sand Puppet kill its own ally?"
Izayoi's shadow clone didn't care about the loss.
On the contrary, all of Izayoi's clones—and the real Izayoi—grinned with joy.
Because… it dropped!
In Izayoi's perspective, the moment the puppet killed the Shimura clan ninja, a green beam of light flew toward his main body.
A green trait had dropped. Though it only gave a two-digit amount of system points and wasn't even close to a purple one, Izayoi was thrilled.
Why?
Because at his current level, both low- and high-level trait drops were almost impossible.
So rare, in fact, that even elite jōnin like Zabuza and Raiga, or bloodline users like Haku and Ranmaru, hadn't dropped a single trait.
Even from Sasuke or the Hyuga sisters, Izayoi hadn't gotten a drop in ages.
Since graduation, only Rock Lee had provided him with two blue traits.
And now, one of his puppets had dropped a green trait from killing someone.
That meant—even if Izayoi didn't kill them personally, as long as it was his puppet, he could still get traits.
If this wasn't pure luck, then it confirmed Izayoi's suspicion: despite reaching the top-tier, his talent system still had hidden mechanics that boosted drop rates!
After all, even the trait rankings were figured out through his own trial and error.
So of course, there had to be more hidden mechanics waiting to be discovered.
As the saying goes—"Heaven never seals all paths!" If you dare to try, the world will respond!
To confirm whether this was truly a mechanic and not just luck, Izayoi had his clones order the puppets to go on a killing spree.
They killed Sand and Sound ninjas without mercy.
As for Konoha ninjas, they either stunned them, or sacrificed a puppet to render the opponent immobile and pretended to kill them—giving nearby Konoha ninjas a chance to rescue their comrade.
After several more kills, a blue beam of light flew from a vest-wearing Sand ninja toward Izayoi's main body.
Mechanic confirmed—it was real!
Transformed into Tendo Pain, Izayoi couldn't help but smile.
Meanwhile, the clone in the Nanga River cave noticed something: the puppets were still wearing Akatsuki uniforms, and Jiraiya hadn't yet spotted them.
Without hesitation, the clone mobilized the strongest puppets in central street, had them vanish with Red Eye cloaking, and *sent them toward Izayoi's real body—*at the Root base!