Takuma vs. Kankuro

The names on the electronic screen froze in place.

Mori Takuma vs. Kankuro.

Takuma flexed his wrists, vaulted over the railing, and landed steadily on the arena floor.

Kankuro walked down from the opposite side.

The two stood ten paces apart in the center of the arena.

Genma Shiranui swung his right hand down sharply.

"Begin!"

The moment the word left his lips, Kankuro moved.

The bandages snapped simultaneously under the control of his chakra. As the white strips unfurled in the air, a puppet leaped from behind Kankuro and landed in the center of the arena.

A hideous, demonic mask was painted onto its pitch-black wooden shell, and metal bearings were embedded in its joints, reflecting the sunlight with a cold glint.

Poison needles shot out from a mechanism in the palm of its left arm, the dense rain of needles forming a fan-shaped coverage area under the manipulation of chakra threads.

Takuma formed hand seals and slammed his palms onto the ground.

Earth Style: Earth Wall.

A two-meter-high wall of earth rose from the ground. The poison needles thudded into the wall, and black venom spread across the surface, emitting a faint corrosive hiss.

Before Takuma's fingers had even left the final seal, his Spider-Sense triggered a warning.

The puppet had already smashed through the earth wall.

A rotating circular saw extended from its left forearm, its teeth spinning at high speed under the drive of chakra, cutting through the air with a piercing metallic shriek.

Takuma dodged to the side.

The saw grazed the tip of his nose, shearing off a few strands of hair.

Before he could regain his footing, two scythes popped out from the puppet's right arm.

A third arm extended from the puppet's back, its five fingers splayed; each finger was a short, poison-tipped blade.

Takuma kicked off the chest of the Crow to gain momentum and leaped backward. The three weapons wove into a net of blades before him, pursuing his retreat step by step.

"You run pretty fast."

Kankuro stood ten paces away, his fingers dancing, a mocking smile on his lips. "But how far can you run?"

The puppet's assault accelerated once more.

Circular saw, scythes, poison blades—the three arms attacked in turns, the rhythm so fast it left no room to breathe.

Kankuro's ten fingers danced in the air, controlling the puppet with more agility than a living person.

Takuma retreated continuously, his feet leaving a trail of uneven prints in the sand.

Another scythe swept toward him.

Takuma tilted his head to dodge, but the blade grazed his collar, tearing a hole in the fabric.

Through the green vision of his Neo Sunglasses, the chakra threads around the puppet were clearly visible. Twenty secondary lines branched off from the ten main lines, and hundreds of tertiary lines branched off from those, each one precisely connected to a mechanism.

Takuma dodged another wave of poison needles, his back hitting the stone wall at the edge of the arena.

There was nowhere left to go.

Kankuro's eyes lit up.

"Got you."

The puppet opened its jaw, and a dense spray of poison needles erupted like rain.

"Water Style: Water Wall."

Takuma formed hand seals, spitting a wall of water from his mouth.

The water swirled into a barrier before him, slowing the needles as they pierced the curtain and deflecting their trajectory.

Takuma burst out from the Water Wall.

Cyan markings emerged on his right arm—the first stage of the Cursed Seal, partially activated.

The markings spread from his shoulder to his wrist, the veins beneath his skin bulging slightly, and his muscles swelled under the infusion of the seal's power.

He swung his kunai.

The thread connected to the puppet's left arm snapped instantly.

Kankuro's smile froze.

With the dual enhancement of his Spider-Sense and Neo Sunglasses, the kunai in Takuma's hand cut with surgical precision, each strike landing on a chakra thread.

Those threads, capable of withstanding hundreds of pounds of tension, were as fragile as spiderwebs before a kunai coated in Natural Energy; they snapped at the slightest touch.

Kankuro adjusted quickly.

He switched his finger-control mode, redistributing the remaining chakra threads to bypass the broken nodes and maintain control of the puppet with the remaining connection points.

More chakra threads extended from his fingers.

The puppet's form began to change.

Hidden compartments popped open on its torso, and more mechanisms unfolded from within.

A fanatical smile appeared on Kankuro's face. "To be able to push me this far, you really have some skill."

He moved all ten fingers at once.

The puppet turned into a black blur, charging at a speed far greater than before.

A row of poison needles popped out from its abdomen, skimming the ground as they shot toward Takuma's legs.

Takuma slammed his palms onto the ground.

Vines burst from the earth, weaving into a green net in front of him.

The poison needles hit the vine net and were deflected; the circular saw cut into the vines but got jammed by the fibers, and the scythes became entangled, locked firmly by the thorns on the vines.

The vines coiled around the puppet, each one precisely locking onto a joint node.

Green fibers squeezed into the gaps of the gears and embedded themselves into the mechanism slots, dismantling the puppet's mobility from the inside out.

Kankuro pulled frantically on the chakra threads, his ten fingers moving faster and faster.

"What the hell is this!"

Veins bulged on his forehead as he danced his hands wildly, trying to use brute force to break free from the vines' restraint.

The vines tightened further.

The puppet emitted a creaking sound of unbearable strain, and cracks appeared all over its wooden shell.

The vines lifted the Crow from the ground, hoisting it high into the air.

Kankuro's fingers froze.

The chakra threads had all snapped; the puppet was completely beyond his control.

Takuma pulled out a kunai and flashed forward, pressing it against Kankuro's neck.

"Give up."

Kankuro glanced at the puppet bundled into a ball by the vines, then at the kunai pressed against his throat.

He gritted his teeth.

"...I give up."

"The winner is—Mori Takuma!"

Takuma retracted the kunai.

The vines withered gradually after losing their supply of chakra, turning into a pile of green powder on the ground.

At the highest point of the spectator stands.

Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly took his pipe from his lips, the smoke blurring his expression.

"Was that... Wood Release just now!"

Although it looked a bit rough and was far inferior to the First Hokage's Wood Release, it was a step in the same direction.

He turned the pipe gently between his fingers.

Mori Kazuki... you really did raise an incredible son.

The Third Hokage put the pipe back into his mouth.

Orochimaru, sitting next to the Third, licked his lips in excitement.

"Interesting..."

His gaze followed Takuma's back as he disappeared into the tunnel of the waiting area, a flicker of greed flashing in his eyes.

"More interesting than Sasuke."

Takuma walked into the tunnel, where the sunlight was blocked by stone walls and the temperature dropped by several degrees.

The Cursed Seal markings on his right arm had not yet fully faded, the cyan lines pulsing faintly beneath his skin with an eerie, burning sensation.

The amount of Natural Energy he had injected exceeded his control; while the growth speed and toughness of the vines had increased significantly, his chakra consumption had also far exceeded his expectations.

Takuma leaned against the stone wall of the tunnel and closed his eyes.

He pressed his right hand against the Cursed Seal on his left shoulder, feeling the abnormal heat of the skin through his clothes.

He could not rely on this thing.

Every time he activated it, the erosion of the Cursed Seal deepened.

"Hey, not bad."

Takuma opened his eyes.

Naruto stood at the entrance of the tunnel, grinning at him.

He still bore the wounds from his fight with Neji, his clothes were torn in several places, and the bruises on his face had not yet faded.

"What was that move? It was so cool! You just went swish-swish-swish and tied that puppet right up!"

Naruto gestured excitedly, his eyes shining. "Will you teach me?"

"...You can't learn it."

"Why not?!"

"Because you can't even master the Clone Technique!"

Naruto's face fell instantly.