follow up to a puppet sup(P/IO Niko)

"You could just do both! I mean look at me. I'm an amazing puppet master, Ninjutsu specialist, tailor, wood worker, and I sing and dance! All you have to do is obsess over something endlessly for a couple days and then accidentally master it, and then you can move on to the next thing. By the time you realize what had happened you're crazy good at everything you've put your mind to and you can do most of them on autopilot cuz muscle memory just kicks in. " It was such an easy concept for Saya. THe difference between herself and a normal person was night and day. She was so fiercely passionate about everything she put her mind to that mastery wasn't a far off goal that would take thousands of hours. It was a tuesday.

"That said this schematic is pretty solid. Though I'd probably make these parts a bit thinner and bulk up this portion. I think that'll make the disconection better and fortify the joints so that they aren't quite so weak to attacks. Other then that and the main problem that the one mechanism the puppet has is its disconnection I don't see any problems. It's helpful to note though that being able to use this piece as a secondary puppet becomes problematic if the enemy targets the puppets head. Can't use what isn't there, so thats a pretty glaring weakness..." She was definitely in analytical mode. As was to be expected for Saya when she got down to the nitty gritty of what makes something tick she'd forgone any suggestion of decorum, and given her best analysis of the weaknesses and strengths of the puppet with absolutely no regard for the work that had gone into the concept.

"Aya. Remember when giving critique you have to give good and bad or it'll sound like something is all bad stuff. The design is beautiful Niko and as long as you focus movement on keeping the head intact, The surprise of a head rushing at the enemy after you destroy the body of the puppet could definitely save your life. f" The duality between the sisters was a perfect situation. While Saya picked the minutia of the creation apart Ai helped to reinforce positivity and guide the suggestions to be less dificult to swallow.

"Well. If you want to spar at some point, My weapon cannon is how they say locked and loaded. Literally. I keep it loaded at all times. " To emphasize he'd flip the door to his chest open. Inside was exactly what Niko would suspect, having created a puppet that was the same, with one small surprise. The large cylindrical weapon cannon had one added feature. The origional wooden artistry doll that had been used to voice pinochio before she'd figured out how to actually craft puppets sat atop the metal spool of the cannon, his little wood and metal legs strattling the circular metal like he was riding a bull. He'd been set there the day that Saya had officially crafted the pinochio puppet, and he served as a reminder of how far they'd come.

(TWC 2919)

Niko blinked, the girls energy seemed to far outdo his own. He himself had enough time split between crafting puppets using them and training to be able to do much else besides sleeping. Maybe the girl was some kind of prodigy that's seen once in a century, Niko honestly had no idea. Briefly looking over the design that the girl still held he notice how much more creative the oni was from his simple doll he had created on the road. While his doll was effective at sneak attacks in a real fight it would not hold out as well as his oni.

"you make some nice points, the plan is to maneuver the puppet in such a way to avoid headshots but in my opinion with out knowledge of the mechanism they would likely target the larger chest. Technically with the threads i have i can control 5 of these, so even if my opponent targeted the head of one what is to say he will do so with the other 5. Though that does bring up the problem of transportation. I had heard you could use something called summoning to bring forth items. I will have to look into such a technique on my own time." Taking the time to grab a notebook from his pack and jot down the list of improvements the young puppet master had spoken of.

"i have yet to load the cannon, they make kunai stupid expensive these days." Niko then thought about his time at the weapon store. The prices were simply horrid.

"simply ask and ill spar, no promises on the quality of said spar." taking note that the original Pinocchio puppet was speaking he continued with "though this little guy might be a little to decayed." smirking at his own joke he waited for the girls response.
(TWC 2022)

"That sounds like exactly the strategy to make use of the puppets unique ability. I would almost suggest that the Oni puppet is best use as a kind of suicide drone. You can rush your opponent, make them use a defensive technique to destroy the puppet's body and bypass that technique with the much smaller head. That allows the element of surprise to be a great tool. " Ai considered this fighting style. It was quite opposite anything that Saya would do. In truth while the Oni puppet was an interesting creation, it would not do for her at all. Theres no way that she would be fine with the idea of a puppets whose purpose was specifically get destroyed. She saw each of her creations as long lasting art. To lose one would bring a sense of great devastation.

"Wait. You can only use five of those? But they look the same rank as Pinochio. I could use....." She paused for a moment, her mind shifting between numbers as she calculated exactly what her capacity for control really was.

"I believe if I didn't save threads for moving allies I could use twenty five of these puppets at one time. Huh. Maybe I should make more smaller puppets. That sounds like it would be a headache to deal with. " Of course she knew exactly why she wouldn't do that. The most powerful technique she'd created using wood style chakra was specially designed for dealing with situations like that, and mokuton wasn't even the ideal elemental affinity for mass combat. There were too many jutsu out and about that could destroy everything in a radius.

"OH! You're talking about the mark seal and summoning jutsu. " She formed the required handseals quickly, drawing yin chakra and pressed her palm against the ground. As she stood up there was a large puff of smoke, and a sealed weapons drum that would fit into the pinochio puppet appeared, dropping into her hands. She offered the drum to Niko like it was no big deal. It was, but only in the sense that the thing was a bit heavy. The hefty metal contraption that held sixteen senbon filled both of her arms. Still she held out the contraption half wrapped up to her elbows for stability, allowing him to take it.

"Honestly I had some extra. I went on some missions last week that got me some extra ryo I wasn't using so i just bought out the shop down the street. "

"It wasn't a shop, it was a stall. It would have cost a significant ammount more to buy out an entire shop tria. " Pinochio, ever the pessimist chose this opportunity to butt into the convorsation.

When he suggested he'd be down to spar at any time A fire was lit in saya's eyes. She hadn't had a good fight since Travin, and as much as she liked the idea of not being hurt, The chance to test her metal against another ninja was hard to pass up.

"Do... Do you wanna try it out right now?"

(TWC 3432)

"Yeah the plan is for me to rush at them using the puppet, hopefully there incapacitated but if that's not so and they destroy the puppet i swing the head back around after they leave there attention and then they should be out of the fight." Niko had to agree with that use of the puppet, preferably with his current income he would not want to use such a puppet specifically for suicide but the strategy would definitely be effective. The mechanism itself relies heavily on surprise, he knew that any ninja that left themselves open to surprise was all in all a dead ninja.

"what, you can use 25 of these, how" Niko leaped in surprise, 25 puppets would mean she either has 50 strings or reduce the number of required strings to below a half a string. only the former seemed possible. Niko quickly recovering from his shock said "with that many puppets any ambush against a low level ninja would work. Especially if you can operate them all with such efficiency."

Seeing the jutsu he had just talked about used he made sure to dedicate a portion of his brain to remember the technique. This would be incredibly useful for combat. Taking the drum of senbon after muttering a quick "thanks" he then inserts it into his Pinocchio puppet.

"An entire shop did seem highly unlikely, though I wish I had the money to purchase even a quarter of a store." Tearing up at the eye, what shinobi did not enjoy the prospect of money. Well definitely not Niko. Niko would be hard pressed to scrape a few ryo extra at the end of the week, and that is on a good week.

"Sure but it has been quite some time since I have last sparred so ill probably be extremely rusty." Looking for a nod of confirmation, he would walk 5 meters back before turning back to face the young puppet master.
(TWC 2348)

"That actually makes good sense, though the cost of maintaining puppets would be pretty high. You really might want to look into actually outfitting them with some weaponry or giving them sharpened parts of their anatomy to ensure they can fight effectively without solely the element of surprise. " Ai continued the convorsation, taking note that she'd hit the nail on the head. That was good. While the analysis was left to the other two, with Ai taking the bulk of the emotional and empathetic tasks, she was at her core one of the main three of team puppet. That meant that when it came to combat she had a fair bit of skill.

"Uh... I mean. The same way everyone does? Yanno you just like..." She allowed her threads to become visible and immediately it became clear what she did. from her outstretched pointer finger five threads crawled across the floor to wrap themselves around the Ai puppet. Her middle finger had two threads connected to pinochio, and five more were attached to her own body in case something happens.
"I suppose it would be pretty good against low level ninja, but it would be a real pain against anyone with are of effect jutsu. Suiton doton or katon especially would make things quite unfortunate for me. Theres probably raiton and fuuton technique also that could level an entire hands worth in one swoop. Not a huge fan of that if I'm being honest. Plus I need at least one hand so that I can perform ninjutsu. My puppetry is strong but my blood flows with the power of my clan's specialized ninjutsu. I'd be significantly weaker if I had to stop moving my puppets for a while to be able to use a jutsu." She shrugged. It was as simple of an explanation as she could find, which was impressive considering it'd taken her quite a few sentences to get to the end of it. Occums razor was not exactly her friend.

"Yea it wasn't a shop but it was alot. I have like four of those packed up for just in case, but honestly pinochio doesn't really do that much in combat. He's my first puppet So he's not really as sharp as the others and I had to make him with regular wood because I didn't have the power of my clan yet so he's not as tough either. His main purpose is just teaching me jutsus. "

She nodded as he agreed to their spar. She'd take a step back, putting twelve meters between them. Drawing her arms back she'd pull the three puppets into position. Coach would open up, providing her a platform at the edge of the square she'd set up. On top of the five by five stage the three would stand with pinochio on the right, Ai on the left and Saya in the back center. Two meters separated each of the combatants on team puppet. Finally she would give him a nod to signal that she was ready for the fight.

(TWC 3941)

Thread with nomo

Niko nodded at her note of tactics. While the element of surprise was nice he would not always have such a boon so it was good for him to be able to keep up in a fight outside of surprise attacks. The girl was quite skilled at strategy but that skill was an essential tool in a puppeteers arsenal. He himself knew just a little in regards to the skill he had planned on investing time studying the supreme art of warfare, but had simply not gotten around to it yet.

Watching the threads become visible he was shocked to say the least. He knew threads could go invisible by using chakra suppression but he thought that the max threads one could have per finger was 1. Intrigued he would have asked for an explanation where he not preparing to spar. Taking note of her next bit of advice he did have to agree with it, any ninja worth there pay would have some large attack, he himself had seen such attacks in action and knew his puppets at his level could not counter such a skill. Though he himself lacked such a skill, in the future he planned on adding such a technique into his arsenal it could be quite useful. Also taking the time to note the brief background for the Pinocchio puppet. Niko then acknowledges the confirmation of a spar and launches into action 

Noticing the Pinocchio puppet laying 5 meters away he disregards it for the moment. Then with a speed of 61 niko went through the required seals to activate Hiding with Camoflage. Assuming Niko does the action he then Sprints with a speed of 61 towards the puppet if he arrives there he puts his fingers directly onto the back of the puppet and activates him.
(TWC 2854)

The trio braced as Niko began moving. Then they realized that he wasn't coming at them. Instead he headed towards his own Pinocchio puppet. That could be a small problem, but not one that needed addressing at current. She knew the positives and negatives to that puppet. She would need to keep out of range for the puppet to fire on her close enough that she couldn't react.

She considered becoming the agressor. It would be easy to push one of her two active puppets forward and press the combat advantage. It could be assumed that with direct connection he now had control of his own pinochio puppet, but that wasn't really her style. She ran through the list of jutsu she had, considering each one after the other. Then she finally settled on the perfect jutsu for the task ahead of her. Hare. Boar. Unity. Hare. Dragon. Her free hand flashed the five seals at a speed of seventy five, only a little faster then the boy moved himself. Her power came from her puppetry speed and ability to control her movements for a time with her threads, so it was no surprise that she only actually edged him by a little. From her free palm a brown almost liquid seemed to pour. As it solidified outside of her body four logs could be seen forming. They twisted and contorted around one another, shaping themselves into what must be the tool of NIko's demise. Four legs set down against the ground. A wide slender torso. A long neck. With the jutsu finshed her creation came to life, feet landing firmly on the center of the coach puppet's stage mode. She'd made....

A chair.


With a shrug she took a step forward and sat down on the seat she'd crafted from mokuton. It was her first time actually trying this jutsu and she felt more than pleased at the results. The craftsmanship of the piece of furniture was immaculate, with an intricate spiraled design for the back and a well finished seat perfectly sized for the small ninja. Yes. This jutsu was more than acceptable.

(TWC 4296)

Thread with nomo

This girl just could not stop getting surprised by this girl. Did she just create a chair out of mokuton and legitimately sit down in it. Niko was offended to say the least. Maybe she was so confident that she could beat me with her puppets alone. Or maybe it was a trap either way Niko was considering asking but knowing that would give away his position he held himself back.

The chair could be some form of enhancer, it could store chakra or perhaps increase the effectiveness of her chakra strings. Either way he personally did not want to be near such an unknown. So he instead would target the girls weapons. The coach puppet and the ai puppet where of a higher quality then the obvious weak link that being the Pinocchio puppet. As he was invisible he took the time to position his fingers and the threads attached so they could not be seen.

Sprinting with his hands hidden behind Pinocchio at a speed of 61 towards Saya's Pinocchio, he launched a flurry of punch's with a strength of 20 and a speed of 21, towards the small puppets torso from the left side, while directing the Pinocchio puppet to protect his back, assuming the hits land and incapacitate the puppet he directs his own puppet to launch an arc of senbon towards the stationary puppeteer.

(TWC 3084)

Downside: Niko found a way to supliment his lack of practice in fighting either with puppetry or just in hand to hand with a jutsu that made him invisible. Up side: The puppet was not made invisible. While she couldn't tell exactly where he was, it could be easily assumed that he was still in contact with the puppet. He'd mentioned recently that he had no clue about chakra supressions effects on chakra threads, he knew that she had the ability to teach him this, and he'd not asked yet, so the best bet she had was that he was on one of the sides of the pinochio puppet holding it close so that she couldn't find him based on where the strings ran. That... That created a bit of a problem though. While Ai was prepared to do battle her opponent had targeted pinochio. That made sense. The problem came in that she didn't want to actually use his weapon launcher. With her strength of chakra the weapons would tear through the puppet, and due to their wide range the puppet master as well and try as she might, she hadn't quite found a way to heal people with chakra yet. That left the interesting question of how exactly to deal with this.

She could have Ai close in beside the smaller puppet. Oh. no, yea. Despite the split second calculations running in her mind she found that for once the simplest solution was the easiest. Saya lowered the puppets speed to twenty two, matching her opponents perfectly and as he crossed the five meter mark, her own two puppets switched places. Now standing about two meters apart the Ai and pinochio puppet would watch to see if he shifted to continue focusing on the pinochio puppet now out of reach, or if he'd engage the Ai puppet who stood before him.

As the puppets fought,saya formed five seals with her free hand, preparing to test her newest jutsu farther then she had before. Tiger. Horse. Tiger. Snake. Boar. Her free arm seemed to split, fingers branching out into eight tree trunks that were one foot thick with sharpened ends. She allowed her creation jutsu to do its work and from the branches several more logs formed, stretching out and shaping themselves into a true beast of destruction this time. Short legs, a long torso, clawed feet, the creation sprung into life at a speed of eight, and finally at the end of her Great forrest jutsu stood...

A cofee table.

She closed one eye, trying to focus on the puppet that was coming towards her own team and predict where she thought her opponent would be. The table stretched about three feet long and two feet wide. That gave her something to work with, but she'd need to be very precise in order to set up a combination attack that would ensure her own victory.



(TWC 4784)

Niko had to say her response to his attack was well thought out. Easily deducing his target and waiting for right moment she had simply maneuvered her higher level puppet to intercept him while the lower level one retreated several meters away. He had assumed that the more proficient, woman would simply try to attack him. But she instead used a clever combination of puppetry and strategy to simply out maneuver him. The idea held more merit and the girl would probably save her stamina doing such a strategy. And its likelihood of success was higher as she probably could assume the skill level of her adversary.

Then keeping a close eye on the girl he saw what she did next. She created a table using mokuton. Was her plan to create a house in the middle of a fight??? This could be some kind of elaborate jutsu set up. Maybe having mokuton structures surrounding her gave her strength some form of application. Either way he needed to interrupt the girl. It might allow him to get the one up on the approaching puppet. Seeing his Pinocchio puppet only 5 meters away from the young puppeteer he knew exactly what he would do. He would use the Pinocchio mechanism he would disrupt the girls movements.

Sighing Niko decided to simply test the combat techniques of the ai puppet instead. Launching his left fist the puppets right arm, hoping to incapacitate it. Using his right hand he continued the mechanism of Pinocchio launching senbon at a speed of 34 towards the girl, Hoping to interrupt what ever jutsu she was preparing. If the mechanism is activated he would retreat the Pinocchio puppet to within one meter of himself with a speed of 60 hoping to get some assistance with the ai puppet.

Niko knew he needed to do something quick. His camoflage technique would soon come to an end and the cooldown was far to long for him to keep manageable.
(TWC 2896)