The "Fire Release: Flame Net" tactic Shinji Uchiha had developed to counter puppeteers quickly drew serious attention from Konoha Command after Hatake Sakumo submitted a battle report along with a detailed explanation of the technique's principles.
After testing and a small amount of adaptation training, this highly specialized tactic began to spread among frontline ninja of Chunin rank and above who met the requirements.
The results were immediate.
Sunagakure's puppet units, once a constant headache on the battlefield, encountered an unprecedented counter.
The pervasive network of continuously burning flames greatly diminished the puppeteers' control and the threat they posed.
In several small- and medium-scale clashes, Konoha successfully routed multiple Sunagakure squads built around puppeteers under the cover of the Flame Net.
Countless puppets were captured or destroyed, dealing a heavy blow to Sunagakure's morale and briefly giving Konoha the initiative in several areas.
However, Sunagakure-and especially Chiyo, the leader of its puppeteer faction-was not about to sit back and await defeat.
The reports from the front soon began to change.
Sunagakure's puppet units sharply reduced their direct engagements, turning instead to more covert and vicious tactics.
They began loading their puppets with more numerous and more lethal poison sacs. Whether it was sprayed poison mist, poisoned weapons, or venom automatically released when a puppet was damaged, the poisons became significantly more potent, more complex, and faster-acting.
Meanwhile, units without puppeteers were also equipped with noticeably more poisoned weapons. They even laid hard-to-detect, highly toxic traps at water sources and in narrow passages.
The pressure on Konoha's Medical Corps surged.
Although promptly taking a general-purpose antidote could alleviate some toxins, its effectiveness was greatly reduced against the new poisons painstakingly formulated by Chiyo and her associates, which often combined several different toxins. Casualties began to rise again.
"They're using poison to