"Kakashi, are you all right?"
After destroying several puppets with swordsmanship and Fire Release, Shisui came to Kakashi's side, breathing a little heavily.
His Body Flicker Technique could not fool the puppets' eyes, and even genjutsu was useless against this enemy. The hunched old man appeared to be the puppeteer's real body.
But he was not. The real body had been hiding somewhere all along, somewhere Shisui's Sharingan simply could not find.
Unless they found the real body, the puppet attacks would never stop. From what they had seen so far, even the Ten Puppet Performance, the supposed pinnacle of the Puppet Technique, was nowhere near their opponent's limit.
Why was such a terrifying puppeteer with Orochimaru? Had Orochimaru joined Sunagakure?
At that moment, Kakashi's little head was filled with enormous questions.
"Kakashi, poison smoke!"
Shisui had noticed the poisonous smoke beginning to spread from the puppets.
Apart from Wind Release, Sunagakure was best known for its use of poison, which had once inflicted devastating casualties on Konoha.
Meanwhile, Zou Hyuga and Oto, who were tasked with watching Orochimaru, had not engaged him in battle. Both sides remained wary, neither daring to strike first, leaving them at a standoff.
Even during the standoff, Zou Hyuga and Oto did not neglect to set explosive tag traps to guard against an attack from Orochimaru.
Watching the pair lay traps right in front of him, Orochimaru said with interest, "You shouldn't place those explosive tags like that. You should do this, then this..."
Zou Hyuga looked up at Orochimaru and nodded in earnest agreement. Then, following Orochimaru's instructions, he surrounded him with explosive tag traps.
"You should know explosive tags won't work..." Orochimaru said calmly from within the ring of traps.
Burying the final explosive tag in the dirt, Zou Hyuga smiled. "We're