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Chapter 76 No Strings On Us
🕑 Added 2025-06-29 13:26:31 +0000 UTCKoji was fuming; his heart was hammering away in his chest with pure rage! How dare that Suna Rag man set his eyes on his Yuki? Threaten her like that?
He wanted nothing more than to rip that fucker apart, and piss all over his remains. Even that was too good for someone like him, the worst of the worst, trash of trash.
He knew he should remain calm, but damn was it hard when he knew Yuki was facing such a creep. That damned fake smile, those lustful cruel eyes. he just wanted to scratch those eyes out, rip off that damned tongue that dared speak Yuki’s name.
But first, he looked at the creep he would be facing.
Kiso En stood perfectly still across the lake, his posture calm, head slightly tilted. The cloak he wore was heavy, frayed with age and covered in winding script. Three scrolls hung from his belt, and a pale wooden puppet crouched beside him like a hound.
Its limbs were jointed like a marionette’s, but the fur draped along its back was unmistakably real—black and grey, coarsely bristled. Wolf hide.
Kuro growled low, ears flat, lips peeled back from his fangs.
Koji’s hands clenched into fists.
The bastard really had the nerve.
“Well, would you look at that,” Kiso En said, voice thin and dry, like wind scraping over stone. “An Inuzuka and his mongrel. How quaint. Still keeping pets alive in your village, are you?”
Koji didn’t answer—just took a step forward, gaze burning.
“I see you’re angry. How fragile. That’s the problem with your kind. You mistake affection for power. But animals don’t feel loyalty. They obey instincts. If you think that mutt beside you would die for you…” Kiso gestured, and the puppet beside him rose. “…then you’re a bigger fool than you look.”
Koji smirked, sharp and wild. “Funny. For someone who talks about instincts, you sure built a doll that smells like roadkill. You stuffed it yourself, freak?”
Kiso En didn’t flinch. He simply raised one hand, and the wolf-shaped puppet blurred forward, a dozen wires trailing behind it like a spider’s silk. The fight had begun.
Koji ducked and rolled, Kuro vaulting beside him in a perfect mirror. The puppet shot past them and twisted in mid-air, spitting a barrage of senbon from a hidden jaw hinge.
“Scatter!” Koji barked.
Kuro spun right as Koji flickered left, both evading the volley with practiced precision. The senbon hissed into the water with a series of sharp plinks.
Koji landed in a crouch and hissed, “Puppets again. Always hiding. Always cheating.”
“You say that,” Kiso called out, summoning a second puppet from the scroll on his hip—a humanoid construct with blades for arms and a head like a fox skull— “but you’re the one too scared to fight alone.”
Koji’s jaw tightened. “Kuro isn’t a tool. He’s my partner.”
Kiso’s eyes narrowed. “Then I’ll carve him first.”
A flick of the fingers—and both puppets charged.
Koji wasted no time; he knew how to fight puppet masters. The key was to get to the puppets, don’t let them control the flow of battle, push them on the defensive.
It was equally important to keep moving and never to lose track of their puppets, always be ready for tricky attacks. Traps were common, but using puppets at a high level was tricky, especially when there was no support.
He stared at the two puppets and knew that this wouldn’t be easy. Both should be tailored to deal with him and Kuro, but he wouldn’t just sit back and take this lying down.
No, he would finish this guy off, then go help Yuki deal with that creep of a Rag.
Two kunai left his hands and flew towards Kiso as he himself jumped into a roll, dodging a long, thin whip from the fox-headed puppet. “Come, Kuro, let's show him how superior a ninken is over his stinking trash!”
Kuro snarled and exploded forward, claws digging into the lake’s surface as he zigzagged through the mist. Koji was already beside him, low and fast, mirroring his movements in a perfect pincer arc toward Kiso.
The whip came again—this time from above. The fox-headed puppet leapt like a bird of prey, its wiry limbs spinning midair as the blade-arms fanned out, slashing down in a flurry.
Koji twisted beneath it and leapt straight at the wolf puppet, flipping over its back and slamming a chakra-charged kick into its side. Wood cracked—but the damned thing didn’t even stumble. It spun with unnatural grace, wires lashing out at his legs.
Kuro intercepted the strike, taking the hit to his flank and dragging the wires off-balance with a vicious twist. Koji used the moment to flick another kunai, this one trailing an explosive tag, aimed at the puppet’s chest.
But it jerked back with eerie speed—Kiso’s fingers twitching like a puppeteer’s dance—and the blast detonated in empty air.
Koji clicked his tongue. “What, too scared to let your toys get scratched?”
Kiso didn’t rise to it. “They’re worth more than either of you.”
“Funny,” Koji growled. “Your whole personality screams ‘overcompensation.’”
The fox puppet landed beside its wolf counterpart with a heavy clunk, twin blades crossing in front of it protectively.
“I’ve never dissected your kind before,” Kiso said, tone maddeningly calm. “Foxes. Panthers. A hawk once. But never a mutt. I’m curious—do your bones crack differently? Will your little friend scream when I strip his fur off his back?”
“You can try,” Koji spat. “You’ll lose your hands before you lay a finger on him.”
He rushed again—fast, unpredictable, coming in low with a swipe of claws. The wolf puppet snapped to intercept, fangs bared in a mirror of Kuro’s movements. But Koji anticipated it, ducked under, and swept its legs out.
Kuro struck at the same time from behind, biting down on the fox puppet’s arm and tearing away a chunk of lacquered wood.
A hiss from Kiso. The first real reaction.
Koji grinned.
“That’s right,” he shouted. “Your junk can bleed too!”
But his celebration was short-lived. The wolf puppet suddenly split at the seams, revealing an internal compartment loaded with senbon launchers.
He didn’t even think, he just threw out a handful of kunai, each with an explosive tag attached. The entire area around them exploded almost instantly. He felt the burning hot air on his skin, causing his hands to receive light burns.
A superheated wave of hot air pushed them all back; the puppets, being the lightest, were the most affected, and Kiso, too, had to dodge backward, giving him less control for a short moment. Enough for Kuro to escape the senbon long enough for the shockwave to blast them away.
Kuro yelped.
Koji landed hard, skidding backward through steam and ash, ears ringing. His vision was a blur of mist and black smoke, and the only sound that broke through was that pained whine—sharp, wounded, and unmistakable.
“Kuro!” he shouted, panic slicing through his gut.
The ninken staggered through the haze, his side scorched where the explosion had caught him mid-leap. His fur was singed. One leg buckled slightly beneath him, but he was upright. Breathing.
Alive.
But hurt.
Koji’s blood boiled. He hadn’t meant to hurt Kuro, but he had been desperate, afraid of whatever poison was surely on those senbon. He had no time; he acted before thinking. Yes, it saved him from the poison, but he was hurt still, and all because of him.
“You piece of shit,” he whispered—barely audible over the crackle of fire licking at the water’s edge. “You made me hurt him…”
Across the smoke, Kiso’s puppets were already resetting—jerking upright, limbs twitching back into position. The wolf puppet’s front half was scorched, one missing, but that was mostly cosmetic.
And Kiso stood behind them, robes singed but otherwise untouched, his face a mask of cold indifference.
“That was a reckless trick,” Kiso said softly. “So eager to protect the beast, you burned him yourself. Curious loyalty.”
Koji’s claws tore grooves into his palms as he clenched his fists. “Don’t. Talk. About. Him.”
“You Inuzuka are all the same. Pack animals. Bleeding hearts. You pretend it’s strength, bond, teamwork, devotion—but all I see is weakness. Attachment. And it gets you killed.”
Koji surged forward again, faster than before. No feints. No fancy setup.
Just fury.
He came in hard, his foot slamming into the water, sending a geyser into the air. His body twisted into a spin-kick aimed at the fox puppet’s side, throwing it away as he continued towards Kiso, wanting to rip his arms off so he couldn’t use those puppets of his.
Kiso, to his credit, handled it all very calmly. He jumped back and, with a flick of a few fingers, his other puppet was in front of him, shooting a storm of senbon at the foolish Inuzuka, who lost his cool.
Mid-air, mid-pounce, Koji had no way of avoiding the sea of poison-dripping senbon that was coming right at him. Even if he did hit the puppet, it would be at the cost of his life.
Kiso knew that and took great pleasure in watching the reaction of the young Inuzuka as death came to him. He only wished he could have killed that damned mutt first, the reaction he would get for that would be even better.
But there was nothing he could do about that.
The arc was clean. Predictable. Just like every emotional Inuzuka, so bound to their animal, they became animals themselves. Koji hadn’t even flinched. Just charged headlong into a barrage of poisoned steel.
What a waste.
A hiss of breath left Kiso’s lips as the senbon hit.
But instead of a body, there was a puff of smoke.
A clone.
“What—?”
He quickly reoriented himself, and what he saw shocked and angered him.
At some point, the real Koji had changed with a clone, and the fox-headed puppet he had kicked away in his charge had become his real target.
Both he and the ninken had teamed up against the puppet, who was defenseless while his attention wasn’t on it.
“Gatsūga!” Koji’s voice roared.
A split-second later, both Koji and Kuro spiraled inward, teeth and claws clad in spinning chakra—twin drills crashing down on the fox puppet from opposite sides.
Kiso’s fingers twitched wildly, trying to retract the puppet—but it wasn’t fast enough.
The crash was deafening. Wood shattered, wires snapped. The fox puppet was torn apart in an explosion of splinters and metal shards. The foxhead, the prize from a large fox creature he had once killed, didn’t survive the attack; it shattered into countless pieces.
The entire puppet was ripped apart, every weapon, every joint, everything was reduced to useless fragments.
Koji landed hard on his feet, skidding backwards beside Kuro, panting heavily. His eyes never left Kiso.
“You really thought I’d just charge into that?” Koji said, grinning with teeth bared. “You’ve got a lot of nerve calling me an animal, but you’re the one that’s predictable.”
Kiso’s jaw tightened. The cold, detached confidence he had worn like armor was cracking.
“Your kind disgusts me,” he muttered, slowly pulling another scroll from his belt. “You and your glorified beasts. All heart. No discipline. No refinement. Filthy creatures.”
Koji’s smile faded.
“And you’re a coward hiding behind puppets,” he said, voice low. “You feel big calling Kuro a mutt, talking about skinning him—but you’re just another freak with a fetish for control. I bet you don’t even remember the names of the animals you butchered.”
“I remember their bones,” Kiso said, eyes narrowing. “And soon, I’ll be wearing your partner’s pelt.”
Koji took a deep breath, not to calm down, but to lock in. He was going to finish this; he would destroy this freak, and then go help out Yuki and the others. He would save the day, and Yuki would forgive him, and they would spend the new week just relaxing.
“Kuro,” he said softly, not taking his eyes off Kiso, “let’s crush this bastard.”
Kuro growled.
They lunged again.
