Chapter 103: The Bitter Taste of Retreat
A puppet master's strength is inextricably linked to their puppets. For Chiyo, the White Secret Technique: Chikamatsu Collection of Ten Puppets represented the pinnacle of her art in the current ninja world. Each was a masterpiece, crafted from rare, resilient materials. The hardest among them were reinforced with Sunagakure's prized sand-iron, alloyed into their frames to grant near-indestructible defense.
Individually, each of these ten puppets possessed combat power rivaling a seasoned jonin. Combined and controlled by a master's ten fingers, they were a self-contained army. The saying "Ten Guards to Stop a Thousand" was not mere hyperbole.
Now, they were scrap. Some lay in cleanly severed pieces, cut by the impossible sharpness of Yama. Others were unrecognizable slag, melted and deformed by the unnatural, searing heat of the Burn-Burn Fruit. All were useless.
And the one who had destroyed them stood untouched. His body could become fire itself, rendering the intricate physical traps, blades, and crushing forces of a puppet master utterly meaningless. Against such a foe, puppeteers and pure taijutsu specialists were fighting an uphill battle from the start. In many ways, Ragnar was their natural nemesis.
"Rakshasa," Chiyo called out, her voice strained but seeking clarity amidst her shock. "Are you Konoha's ANBU Captain? But Hatake Sakumo does not possess abilities like yours."
She was re-evaluating everything. Initially, she had assumed this masked ANBU was merely a high-tier bodyguard for the politically valuable Tsunade. Now, she saw the folly of that assumption. No village, no matter how precious a Sannin's niece might be, would assign a force-of-nature combatant like this to a simple protection detail. A shinobi of this caliber existed to tip the scales of entire wars.
"No," Ragnar answered, his voice flat. He wasn't elaborating. He looked down at the scattered puppet parts around his feet, some of which still twitched with residual chakra, trying to reassemble.
With a contemptuous stomp, he brought his Armament Haki-hardened heel down. CRUNCH. A puppet head shattered. A sweep of his leg, sheathed in sudden flame, melted a cluster of skittering limbs into a puddle. He moved through the wreckage like a farmer crushing locusts, methodically and without passion, ensuring nothing could be salvaged.
To Chiyo, watching from a distance, each destroyed piece felt like a blow to her own soul. A puppet master's creations were an extension of their life's work, their pride, their very identity. Seeing her magnum opus reduced to irreparable junk was a visceral, heartbreaking loss. The anger curdled into something colder—a deep-seated horror, and the burning, pragmatic urge to survive.
Her eyes swept the valley. Her Sand-nin squadron of over a dozen was gone. The last few survivors had succumbed to the Uchiha girl's Sharingan genjutsu, lying unconscious or dead in the dirt. The irony was a bitter pill. Not long ago, she had privately scorned the Iwa-nin reports of a squad being wiped out by a single Konoha operative as the excuses of failures.
Now, she understood. The heavenly path of shinobi was one of reincarnation. What you mocked would inevitably come for you. She wanted to scream, but no sound came. There were no tears left, only the cold calculation of escape.
Run.
The decision was instant. She was a veteran, not a fanatic. To die here, with her puppets destroyed and her intelligence useless, served no one. She turned, her body coiling, and launched herself backward with chakra-enhanced speed that belied her age, a blur heading for the rocky outcrops at the valley's edge.
She was fast. Ragnar was faster.
Shave: Strange Power.
The ground where he stood cratered violently from the reactive force. There was no blur, no trail. He simply ceased to be in one place and appeared in another, the displacement of air sounding like a thunderclap. He materialized not in front of her, but above her escape path, descending like a meteor.
Chiyo's eyes, wide with disbelief, caught a glimpse of a black fist filling her vision, wreathed in the distorting haze of Armament Haki. The power behind it screamed through the air.
Instinct took over. She crossed her arms in a guard, chakra hardening her bones and muscles to their limit.
SMASH!
The impact wasn't clean. It was a brutal, shattering compression. Under the force of the Haki-enhanced blow, Chiyo's defensive posture meant nothing. Her forearms didn't just break; they disintegrated from the wrists to the elbows in a spray of… wood splinters and torn puppet components.
No blood. No flesh.
The "Chiyo" he had punched shattered into a cascade of mechanical parts and painted ceramic, clattering to the ground.
"Another puppet substitute?" Ragnar landed lightly, frowning. His Observation Haki had been focused on the fleeing chakra signature. He hadn't sensed a switch. "No. She didn't get away. She was never here."
His mind worked with lethal speed. The real Chiyo had likely substituted herself the moment she decided to flee, maybe even before his first punch. The puppet double had been programmed with a simple escape routine.
His gaze dropped to the ground beneath the shattered double. Underground.
Without hesitation, he raised his foot, chakra and the potent, reactive force of the Strength of a Hundred coiling in his leg muscles.
STRANGE POWER: EARTHQUAKE STEP!
He stomped down.
BOOOOOM!
The ground didn't just shake; it warped. An invisible shockwave, more sound and concussive force than chakra, radiated from the point of impact in a perfect circle. The earth for twenty meters acted like the surface of a drum struck by a giant. It rippled, compacted, then rebounded in a violent shudder.
Deeper down, in a narrow, pre-dug tunnel reinforced by a simple earth-release puppet with digging arms, Chiyo was hurling herself forward. She heard the muffled THUD from above a heartbeat before the shockwave hit.
It was like being inside a bell when the clapper struck. The pressure in the tunnel spiked violently, squeezing in from all sides. The earth, compressed by Ragnar's impossible force, pressed down. Chiyo's chakra shield, a thin layer around her body, flared bright blue as it resisted the crushing force.
GACK!
A lance of pain shot through her ribs. The air was driven from her lungs, and a hot mouthful of blood sprayed against the inside of her earthen tomb. The shield held, barely, but the concussive transfer of energy was immense. She felt something crack—a rib, maybe two.
Terror, pure and unadulterated, flooded her system. He could sense her. Even underground, moving fast, he could find her. He wasn't just powerful; he was a predator with preternatural senses.
Faster! Go FASTER! she screamed in her mind, pouring every ounce of chakra into the digging puppet. It whirred and screeched, claws tearing through soil and rock as she fled, coughing up more blood with each jolting movement. The image of the red Rakshasa mask was burned into her mind, a symbol of a force she could not comprehend or combat. He wasn't a shinobi; he was a calamity.
On the surface, Ragnar tilted his head, listening with his Observation Haki. He launched two more concentrated shockwaves into the earth at different angles, each making the ground jump. But the fleeing chakra signature was moving erratically now, diving deeper and zigzagging. It was getting faint, then fading beyond the edge of his 1,500-meter sensory dome.
He let his foot relax. A faint, disappointed sigh escaped him. "She got away. Resilient."
Tsunade and Mikoto approached, staring at the spot where he'd stomped the earth into a shallow, compacted bowl.
"Chiyo… the veteran advisor of Sunagakure… actually ran?" Uchiha Mikoto's voice was hushed with awe. She had just witnessed a legend be broken and sent fleeing.
"She's just an old woman with tricks," Ragnar said dismissively, as if commenting on the weather. He felt a pang of genuine irritation. He'd underestimated her contingency plans.
"Hah…" Tsunade let out a long, slow breath, her expression a mixture of relief and stunned amazement. "I truly never expected to see the day when Chiyo of the Sand would be beaten into a panicked retreat. A complete rout."
She looked at Ragnar, her little brother in all but blood. His abilities seemed almost tailor-made to counter specialists like puppeteers.
Ragnar sheathed Yama with a soft click. "My mistake," he mused aloud, his tone analytical, critical of himself. "I should have used my full speed from the very beginning and taken her head in the first exchange. She was unprepared, not knowing my limits. She would have died. A wasted opportunity."
Tsunade, who had been about to shower him with praise—he had just single-handedly routed a Kage advisor, after all—felt the words die in her throat. Her eye twitched. She had the sudden, violent urge to crack open his skull and examine the wiring inside.
Chiyo. The Kazekage's right hand. A quasi-Kage level powerhouse who has shaped the history of the Shinobi World. And you're 'disappointed' you didn't kill her? As if she's some training post?
What she didn't understand was that in Ragnar's pragmatic, system-driven worldview, a powerful enemy who escaped was a ticking clock, a future problem, and—most frustratingly—a large bundle of EXP that had slipped through his fingers. To him, they were experience packs. Dangerous ones, but resources nonetheless.
A soft ping echoed in his mind, unnoticed by the others. A Silver Treasure Chest materialized in his system inventory. Simultaneously, a flood of EXP notifications scrolled past his consciousness—over 8,000 points from the slain Sand-nin. A significant chunk, about 3,000, was tagged from the "Chiyo" encounter. A consolation prize for driving her off, but not the jackpot of a confirmed kill.
He felt a twinge of regret. If he'd finished her, the reward would likely have doubled or more.
"Chiyo, the Sand's veteran consultant, actually escaped?" Mikoto repeated, still trying to process it.
"She ran. That's what survivors do," Ragnar said, his thoughts already moving on. He glanced at the sky, gauging the time. "The path back should be clearer now."
"It should be," Tsunade agreed, forcing her mind back to the mission. The antidote. Jiraiya. "Much safer."
"Mm," Ragnar nodded, but his gaze was distant, already analyzing the engagement, filing away the lessons on puppet-user subterfuge. The regret for the lost kill lingered, a quiet ember in his chest.
(End of Chapter)
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