Chapter 83: Corpse Puppet Manipulation Technique
The afternoon sun projected down from the gaps between the sprawling branches of the dense forest.
Clamorous, dazzling, and intense.
Just like the restless hearts of people.
The mottled light and shadows imprinted on this small clearing in the woods, cutting the chaotic and messy space, which had just experienced a short and fierce battle, into irregular blocks of color.
On the clearing, the body parts of the ninja wearing Sound forehead protectors were scattered everywhere, like dolls broken by a naughty child, a piece here, a piece there.
Looking from a distance, in the middle of the battlefield, the most eye-catching thing was a small patch of earth, cracked like a spiderweb. The girl's sudden stop had stomped a shallow pit into the solid ground, and the cracks extended from the small, deeply sunken footprint in the middle, spreading over a range of ten meters. It was a testament to the violent and tyrannical force that had come with that stomp, a force that had made even the earth, which bears all things, crack under the unbearable load!
The bodies of the last three Sound ninja, who had been charging towards the center of the battlefield, were frozen in front of the cracked earth.
The ice spikes that pierced through their bodies became their final support, holding them in their last charging posture. Dark red blood shot out from their wounds, splattering behind them, creating a fan-shaped patch of bloody mud. Their lifeless bodies stood in silence, as if exuding a heroic aura.
The heroism of still charging forward bravely in the face of a strong enemy.
Heroic, yet meaningless.
The aura of Ice Style still lingered in this clearing, bringing a chilling cold to the restless, hot air.
Or perhaps, this chill actually came from these tragic and silent remains?
Broken ninja tools, messy ice shards, and dark red human fragments were scattered among the grass. Fresh blood gathered into pools, overflowed, and then converged into trickling streams, their surface calm, their luster dim. The blood-stained ninja tools, the randomly twisted bodies, and the wide, lifeless, dull eyes on the faces of the Sound ninja seemed to be silently narrating something.
Was it a bitter complaint about the cruelty of fate?
Or the happiness of being liberated?
The thoughts of the deceased could no longer be known.
The fate of a ninja was just that. To be thrown into the battlefield like cannon fodder by their superiors, to have their lives devoured by this meat grinder, to die in battle, and then to have their corpses exposed in the wilderness.
To die silently and alone in an unmanned wilderness, with no one to collect their corpses or dig their graves.
The golden sunlight shone down on this cruel battlefield. The dark red streams flowing on the ground were a gloomy color, making one's heart feel heavy.
On a tall tree at the edge of the battlefield, a figure stood quietly in the shadows with her back to the battlefield.
It was the victor of this battle, or rather, this one-sided slaughter, Haruno Sakura.
Having just completed a bloody slaughter, her clothes were still spotless, her pink hair swaying slightly in the wind.
She turned her head silently. Her emerald eyes looked indifferently at the cruel killing field she had created with her own hands.
Her breathing slowly calmed, and her stamina was rapidly recovering. The boiling killing intent gradually subsided with the end of the battle. The cold light in her eyes retracted, and she became as indifferent and calm as an iceberg.
After the battle ended, chaotic thoughts flooded her mind.
Although it was a little regrettable, the girl was very clearly aware that she was no longer the peaceful and kind little citizen from Earth who had never even killed a chicken before she transmigrated.
To use such a savage fighting style to kill the enemy in order to save stamina, to be able to calmly complete all of this—she was already a qualified ninja, numb to killing.
If you're not strong enough to change the world, then you can only let the world change you. The rules of this world were just that: if you don't want to be killed, you can only learn to kill cruelly.
She hadn't had such a clear understanding when she read the manga before. Only after transmigrating to the real ninja world did she discover its cruelty. Although war had never ceased on Earth, as a citizen of a certain great power, she could still enjoy peaceful days. But here, even living in the strongest nation, Konoha, she could only choose between being an ordinary person sitting at home who might be killed by a sudden attack from the sky at any time, or being a ninja who became the one to spread that slaughter.
To kill or be killed, what a fucked-up world.
What was even sadder was that she had to accept such a bizarre worldview to live like a decent person.
The world is what's wrong, but it is oneself that must be corrected.
This realization was a bitter one.
Then came the anger, buried deep in her heart, gradually accumulating.
Anger at the wars that created countless tragedies, anger at this deformed world!
She wanted to change it, but she also knew in her heart that her current self was still powerless to change all of this, until the end, to change all of this, and bring a peaceful and happy life to this world, and more importantly, to herself.
And before that, she still had to accumulate strength, still had to find comrades who were dissatisfied with this world, still had to... kill more people.
She took one last look at this clearing and reined in her scattered thoughts.
The girl pushed off with her feet, leaped towards the direction of the more distant battlefield, and disappeared into the depths of the forest.
On the other side.
The battle between Hinata and Kabuto had completely fallen under Kabuto's control!
Kabuto's ninjutsu was an improved version that originated from Sasori's "Puppet Manipulation Technique" and was mixed with Orochimaru's biological modification techniques.
A powerful ninjutsu named "Corpse Puppet Manipulation Technique"!
A so-called "puppet" was nothing more than a mechanical creation that imitated a human.
The combat power of a puppet master depended to a large extent on the combat power of the puppet. The more precise the mechanisms on the puppet, the more exquisite, agile, and powerful the puppet would be.
Every puppet master tirelessly pursued more precise and more powerful puppets. Every powerful puppet master was an extremely skilled puppet maker!
So, what is the most precise and most powerful puppet?
No matter how precise a mechanical creation is, it cannot be more precise than a human body of flesh and blood.
No matter how powerful a puppet is, it cannot be more powerful than a Kage-level powerhouse.
Therefore, a top-tier puppet master like Sasori would even challenge the Kage of a village, just to kill him and use his corpse to create the most powerful puppet.
However, to turn a corpse into a puppet was still too wasteful for Kabuto.
Having successively studied under three powerhouses—Yakushi Nonō, Orochimaru, and Sasori—Kabuto had an extraordinary talent in ninjutsu. The Puppet Manipulation Technique, biological modification techniques, medical ninjutsu, paired with his profound attainments in human anatomy, allowed him to successfully combine the three into one and develop a powerful ninjutsu that belonged to Kabuto Yakushi.
"Dead Soul Technique," which temporarily made the heart of a recently deceased person beat again, giving the corpse the ability to move and be manipulated to attack the enemy. This was the ninjutsu Kabuto had used when he faced Kakashi and Sakura in Sasuke's hospital room, and it was merely the tip of the iceberg of Kabuto's ninjutsu system.
"Corpse Puppet Manipulation Technique," which modified corpses and sealed them in scrolls, to be summoned and manipulated when encountering an enemy. It could be used for offense, defense, and deception. This was Kabuto's core ninjutsu. It sounded very ordinary, but the true essence was that the strength of the modified corpses would not be greatly reduced. On the contrary, due to Kabuto's exquisite skills, it was greatly preserved, and in some aspects, they were even stronger than when they were alive!
What was even more terrifying was that the brains of the carefully modified and preserved corpses in the scrolls had not completely atrophied. They could understand simple commands given by Kabuto, could attack the enemy by instinct, and could even use specific ninjutsu! This drastically reduced the difficulty of manipulation, so Kabuto could instantly summon a large number of corpses and overwhelm the enemy with their numbers and not-so-low quality!
The combat power of the specially modified corpse puppets was not weak. Especially the corpses of taijutsu-type ninja, not only were most of their combat instincts preserved, but what was more terrifying was that they felt no pain or fatigue. They fought without any scruples, not even fearing death.
They could fight continuously until their bodies broke down; they could unleash one hundred percent of their body's power without caring about the damage caused to their bodies; they could unhesitatingly trade injury for injury, and even life for injury!
In battle, such corpses were sometimes even more threatening than a living person.
And this ninjutsu was also the source of Kabuto's claim that his combat power was not weaker than Kakashi's.
As a spy, he could not do too many things that would attract attention. Therefore, what he lacked was nothing more than collection and accumulation.
The collection of corpses, especially high-quality ones.
If he could obtain an intact corpse of a Kage-level powerhouse, perhaps even the currently elite Jonin-level Kakashi would be no match for him!
Even so, with the stock he had on hand now, if he were to fight a battle with Kakashi, he could at least retreat with his whole body intact.
After all, when others fought with their lives, they were risking their own lives. A single mistake could lead to a lifelong disability. When Kabuto fought with his life, he was risking the lives of his corpses. What he was risking was nothing more than the corpses he had collected. Even if he used them all up, he could collect them again in the future and make a comeback.
At least until the enemy had a crushing power advantage over his manipulated corpses, Kabuto's Corpse Puppet Manipulation Technique, even if it couldn't be called "unbeatable among peers," was still extremely difficult to deal with.
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