"Iwago, be careful, reinforce your defense!" the Sand Village jōnin shouted.
He immediately noticed how the heaviest weapons from the steel rain—iron balls and hammers—were crashing against the earth wall with the force of a mountain.
Boom, boom!...
A series of brutal impacts echoed, and the Earth Flow Wall, despite its solid defense, began to crack under the continuous blows.
"Dammit!" exclaimed the bald chūnin, Iwago.
The heavy weapons finally broke through the defense, and the three Sand ninja were exposed to the residual power of the Tsurugi no Ranman.
As expected of a battlefield veteran, the puppet master jōnin reacted instantly. He pulled a small sealing scroll from his vest, quickly untied it, and a spare puppet emerged to protect them. The puppet stood between them and the rain of steel, attempting to withstand the critical blow.
But there was only a crack!
The spare puppet shattered on impact, turning into a pile of splinters and fragments. The residual power of Tekudō's attack was still terrifying. However, the brief moment they gained from the puppet's sacrifice was enough. The puppet master jōnin not only avoided being killed but also had time to protect his comrades.
He spread his ten fingers, and chakra threads shot out from their tips. These lines spun and flew in a defensive dance, blocking and deflecting the smaller and medium-sized weapons, while two other threads wrapped around his comrades' waists, pulling them out of the path of the heaviest projectiles.
After the metallic frenzy, the battlefield was littered with an incredible amount of various weapons, emitting a dark and menacing glint in the firelight.
"Huff, huff, huff..." the puppet master jōnin panted, having exhausted a great deal of his strength and chakra to defend and rescue his comrades. Beside him, Iwago was also breathing heavily. Casting a B-rank defensive jutsu twice had pushed his chūnin-level reserves to the limit.
"My puppet! Damn you!" the puppeteer roared, looking at the fragments on the ground with pure fury. Crafting puppets was extremely expensive, and that damned Konoha ninja had just destroyed the spare he had painstakingly saved. He wanted to tear the flesh from their bones!
"Found you!" the other Suna jōnin suddenly exclaimed, pointing his sword horizontally. His earlier charge toward the monkey-masked ninja had been a feint. His real objective was to pinpoint the exact location of their attacker, the supposed master of traps.
"You damned Konoha ninja, go to hell!"
The puppet master jōnin transformed his rage into strength and completed a swift sequence of hand seals.
"Wind Style: Wind Cutter Jutsu!"
In an instant, a series of bluish-white vacuum blades formed and sliced through the air like deadly sickles, felling the battlefield's trees with surgical cleanliness.
Under the perception of his sonar radar, all the enemy's actions were clearly visible. Sasuke was in control of the entire battlefield's rhythm. His expression remained unchanged as the wind blade approached. Suddenly, he pushed Tekudō's head down just as one of the blades whizzed over them, slicing through the trunk of the giant tree they were hiding in. The cut surface was perfectly smooth.
"Whew... that was too close. I almost became a headless ghost," Tekudō whispered, patting his pounding heart.
"Hm? A parasite..." Sasuke murmured to himself.
Originally, he was planning to order a "strategic relocation," but his radar had just detected something new: the unmistakable chakra signature of an Aburame clan member's insects. Maru's mobile patrol team had finally entered his perception range, less than three kilometers away.
'Looks like we have to wait a little longer.'
Sasuke stopped. He formed a hand seal and executed the Transformation Jutsu. His body changed drastically. His chūnin vest morphed into the distinctive vest of an Uchiha clan jōnin, and on his back, the fan-like family crest appeared. In his eyes, the three tomoe of the Sharingan emerged. However, a close look would reveal it was fundamentally different: the tomoe were a bit dull, like a delicate film printed over the iris, a superb but superficial imitation. To compensate, Sasuke focused chakra into the meridians of his eyes, making them glow an intense red, simulating the appearance of a newly activated Sharingan.
'This should be enough to fool them.'
"Sand ninja," Sasuke said, suddenly leaping onto the freshly cut surface of the tree, exposing himself to everyone's sight. His posture was one of extreme arrogance, as if he were the reincarnation of a Konoha Asura. "Care to dance?"
"Oh no! It's an Uchiha jōnin!"
"It's over. We don't stand a chance. Forget the information; we won't even be able to escape!"
"No wonder his skill with weapons was so terrifying... He's not a tool master, he's an Uchiha!"
"And he has a three-tomoe Sharingan... Could this Uchiha be an elite jōnin?"
The Sand ninja felt as if a formidable enemy had seized them by the heart. The pressure was overwhelming. None of them doubted what they saw. The strength of the Uchiha jōnin was legendary. A three-tomoe Sharingan user was almost certainly an elite jōnin, a monster bordering on Kage-level, proficient in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. The little Will of Wind they had left was completely crushed by the simple, arrogant presence of the Uchiha.
"Pfft... hehe, hehe..." Tekudō, hidden again, was covering his mouth and nose, desperately trying not to burst out laughing and ruin his captain's incredible jutsu.
'The captain's jutsu is amazing!' he thought. 'He completely fooled these Suna veterans. Not even an A-rank genjutsu could be this convincing!'