Liu had noticed nothing. Caught completely off guard, he was shoved aside by Chizuru, and the next thing he heard was her scream of pain. He hurriedly turned back, only to see something he could scarcely believe: a white-haired man stood beside Chizuru, his short blade buried in her flank.
"Chizuru—you, you're Hatake Sakumo!" Liu addressed the white-haired man in a trembling voice, tinged with worry and hatred.
The white-haired man was indeed Hatake Sakumo. His sudden strike had pierced Chizuru's flank, and Lightning Release surged into her. She screamed and collapsed. Before Liu could even check her condition, Hatake Sakumo charged at him, raising his hand to unleash streaks of Lightning Flash as fine as needles.
Liu instinctively placed his puppet in front of him, but the needle-thin Lightning Flash entered its joints and exploded like bombs. The intense Lightning Flash instantly shattered several of the puppet's joints and disabled some of its mechanisms.
Hatake Sakumo had long since developed his own approach to fighting puppeteers. He knew the weaknesses and limitations of puppets inside out. That was precisely why a Lightning Release ninja could move so freely among Sunagakure ninja accustomed to using Wind Release Ninjutsu.
Hatake Sakumo had defeated Liu back during the Joint Chunin Exams. Even after nearly twenty years, the gap between them remained. During the campaign in the Land of Grass, Liu had hardly ever beaten him either. The one time he had nearly killed Hatake Sakumo had been thanks to a coordinated assault and gaseous Poison.
Liu no longer had time to worry about his wife. He could barely protect himself. He should have kept his distance when fighting Hatake Sakumo, yet his opponent had already closed in this far. For a puppeteer whose fighting style relied primarily on puppets, this was an