Kaguya's Legacy

Kakuzu hadn't been able to dream about how much wealth he could loot before a disturbance drew his attention.

So far, our little trip to the Moon had been so smooth it might as well have been a walk in our own backyard.

But that wasn't to say the Moon wasn't protected.

Countless traps covered both sides of the portal.

The reason they had been ineffective until that final one, a short while back, was simply because both Kakuzu and I weren't your run-of-the-mill shinobi.

I had my Byakugan, which allowed me to see every trap from miles away, and Kakuzu had decades of experience, which also allowed him to easily ignore every attempt at stopping him.

Even without me having to alert him to any danger, because there had been none.

Well, none until now.

This deep into their domain, they had far older means of protecting themselves and alerting them to anyone making their way from planetside.

The hateful art of Fūinjutsu.

That wasn't something easily tricked, not without far too much effort, so yes, whoever was still alive knew we were here.

And clearly, they hadn't expected visitors.

Far too few true means of defense remained near the entrance; clearly, those had all been deployed and used in the civil war and had yet to be replaced.

So, the response that awaited us was puppets.

Hardly a surprise. The Ōtsutsuki clan on the Moon had few other tools these days, and their skill at using puppets was indeed brilliant.

"Those are... puppets?" Kakuzu asked as he finally saw what caused the disturbance.

"Indeed," I answered as I looked at them, admiring their design.

They didn't appear impressive. I had no doubt that once upon a time, the Ōtsutsuki clan had mastercrafted puppets, which were pieces of art as much as weapons.

But after their war? All that remained were the most brutal ones, pure weapons without anything extra added to them.

Large, white puppets, at least seven feet tall, humanoid in shape, but without any features on their faces or bodies.

They were simple, but not weak.

In fact, they were remarkably strong, despite their simplistic design.

They lacked all the little tricks that the puppets of Suna were so famous for; instead, they traded trickery for pure strength.

Even Sasori, the best of the best among all puppet-using shinobi, would be beyond impressed by these.

Which was hardly a surprise. The Ōtsutsuki clan up here had been playing around with puppets for far longer than Suna had been a thing, and Suna didn't get started until the Second Kazekage, Shamon.

So yes, puppets they might be, but impressive ones, at least underneath their basic exterior.

"Where are the puppet users? For this many puppets, there must be a few. Only Sasori can use this many," he asked as he looked around, trying to find the users.

Kakuzu knew how to deal with this kind of opponent. Only someone like Sasori, who operated from within a puppet, and was one himself, operated differently.

All others hid somewhere nearby and controlled their puppets using chakra strings, something even Sasori couldn't avoid.

What set him apart from others was that you couldn't ignore his puppet and target the user, since he was always inside his own Hiruko puppet, forcing you to confront it head-on.

Kakuzu didn't believe this was the case here at all, because these puppets weren't shaped to hide a person inside.

So he naturally assumed it was the classic type.

But he was wrong.

His assumption was the logical one, but when it came to the Ōtsutsuki clan, it was best to throw logic out the window.

"Can't find the chakra strings?" I asked Kakuzu, as I saw how he kept looking around.

"I have to admit, they are skilled at hiding them, no worse than even Sasori... no, even better than that," he begrudgingly admitted.

"I would be surprised if you could," I said, my gaze fixed on the puppets. They had started to move, their slow, deliberate movements a stark contrast to the silent, still ruin around them.

"Why is that?" he asked, his hand already moving toward the pouch on his leg, preparing for a fight. "Does it need your precious Byakugan to see them?"

I shook my head. "Even the all-seeing eye can't see what isn't there," I cryptically answered him.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" he asked, clearly getting a little annoyed with my games.

"You are looking for chakra strings, but these puppets don't have any," I explained as I watched the puppets.

"Then how are they moving?" he shot back, clearly not believing me.

"A secret technique, one that requires the Byakugan. Even the Hyūga can't do it, only the Ōtsutsuki clan itself can. They can control these puppets from far away. There are no people within the range of my sight, just the two of us," I explained, not giving away too much.

"A technique that allows one to control puppets from great distances? Without strings? That's... interesting," Kakuzu said, a hint of excitement in his tone. He might be a greedy bastard, but he was also a shinobi, and he appreciated a good jutsu when he saw one.

"It can do far more than that, but indeed, it is a very impressive technique, and one that works perfectly well with puppets, something they have been using for far longer than Suna. These things aren't like Sasori's, no tricks. Instead, they are each as strong as at least a Jōnin. More importantly, they don't have a user to protect," I said, as I watched one of the puppets lift a large slab of stone, a slab that would require at least five grown men to even lift.

"Then how do we stop them?" he asked, a grim look on his face. Fighting a small army of super-strong puppets was not something he was looking forward to, especially since there was no easy target to take out to end the fight.

"We break them," I said, my tone simple and direct. "They may be strong, but they are not indestructible. They are still just puppets, made of wood and metal. They can be destroyed."

"So it's a fight, then," he said, a small, almost imperceptible smile on his face. He might not like the odds, but he was a warrior at heart, and the prospect of a good fight, even a losing one, was always exciting.

"I suppose so," I said, a slight smirk on my face. "That said, I imagine Sasori would want them, no doubt willing to pay handsomely for each puppet delivered to him."

I whispered sweet, devilish poison.

My words caused Kakuzu to pause as he considered them. "How much do you think he would pay?" he asked, already running through some mental math.

"Enough that he would run to Pain for money, and beg desperately enough for Pain to pay up," I answered. "Each one would be a treasure for someone like him. A puppet that doesn't require strings? And so different in design than anything he has seen before?" I let my words hang in the air, a tantalizing promise of wealth beyond his wildest dreams.

That was enough.

Kakuzu's greed once again overrode his caution. The puppets weren't enemies any longer; they now looked like walking piles of Ryō, big fat stacks of cash.

Kakuzu was someone who wouldn't find it beneath him to steal a single coin from a passing child, much less drain someone like Sasori dry.

But Pain?

Well, given that Kakuzu was the one earning most of Pain's money, Kakuzu was fully aware of just how wealthy the leader was.

Which was precisely why he was so eager to find more ways to get money out of him.

"I'll try not to damage them too much then," he said as he cracked his knuckles, a greedy glint in his eyes.

"Good, you handle them, and I will go on ahead, dealing with the user. That way, you only have to keep them busy until then, not destroy them," I said as I turned and ran toward the castle.

"Hey, wait a moment!" he shouted after me, but it was too late. I was already gone, a blur of motion moving through the ruins.

He cursed under his breath, but he knew there was no point in arguing. I had given him a choice, and he had made his decision. Now he had to live with it.

He turned back to the puppets, a determined look on his face. Destroying them wasn't particularly difficult for someone of his caliber. But surviving under their onslaught, all alone?

That was far more difficult.

And since these puppets now represented his money, he would hate to harm them, which forced him to hold back the entire time fighting, something that would only further increase the difficulty.

As I left Kakuzu to his new hobby, puppet collecting, I made my way to the castle.

Not that the puppets didn't try to stop me, but I was far beyond a mere Jōnin, and since I wasn't about to hold anything back here, the puppets couldn't even get close to me.

Jumping from half-collapsed building to half-collapsed building, I effortlessly dodged attack after attack, my body moving with a fluid grace that seemed to defy gravity.

My long hair was both a cloak and a shield behind me.

Used to defend, to block, and to attack.

Pure white hair stretched out like arms, morphing into blades as I danced my way through the puppet hordes. My attacks were swift, precise, and lethal, each one designed to disable, not destroy.

A flick of my wrist, and a bone spike shot out, piercing a puppet's knee joint, causing it to collapse to the ground. Another flick, and another spike found its mark, this time in a puppet's shoulder, rendering its arm useless.

I was a whirlwind of destruction, a ghost in the ruins, moving so fast that the puppets couldn't keep up. They were strong, but I was faster, and I had the advantage of knowing their every move before they even made it.

Still, as much as it might have looked like an effortless dance, the truth was that it wasn't as easy as I made it seem.

Few people in the world could face these; fewer still could do it like this. But my bones weren't simply sharp and hard, my hair not just strong and unyielding.

Both had effects that blocked chakra, not quite as effectively as Nagato's black rods, but good enough that a single bone spike had a strong effect on the puppets.

Normally, cutting off their heads wouldn't work, and ripping them apart wouldn't stop their severed limbs from trying to attack.

But my attacks were far more permanent.

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