The Crossroads

*the sound of groans can faintly be heard. it gets louder and louder until the very things that make the sounds reach the area. one by one, every single being that was infected by the plague appears at the crossroads..they gather, almost ritualistically and stand, no longer groaning. but silent. they stand motionless. oblivious of anything happening around them. as if they are waiting for something...they stand 200 together*



ooc: btw, jus ta let everyone kno, this is my way of stoping the plague. or at least putting it on hold...for now.. so there will be no one else getting infected. but those that are already infected will be standing outside at the crossroads. simply standing, harmless^^

*starts to walk the crossroads again after getting rawmen*

Fuyuki walks along the crossroads as he approaches Takigakure. Home sweet, home. He was just visiting for the day and to get some supplies that he needed.

Animal Path walked along the crossroads. Animal Path was going to be checking out Takigakure. Noticing that she was nearing the village, she decided to move along near the crossroads but to stay undetected. She makes it nearer to the village and sees someone coming along the road. Staying hidden, they waited to see who it was. It was shown to be a male ninja. Wanting to test him as she did not know the actual visual identity of the seven tailed. Animal path stepped out from her hiding place to make it very obvious she was there to see how the ninja would react.

Fuyuki froze in his steps when he saw a strange ninja step out onto the path. He recognized the cloak. "Akatsuki..." He tenses his eyes narrowing as he glared at the ninja. "So you finally have found me." He said as his hand reaches for the scroll behind him and opens it, bringing out the three puppets that are stored in the scroll. He assumed that they knew his identity and had finally caught up with him. He attaches chakra strings to the puppets, preparing to battle.

Animal Path speaks. 7-tailed identity confirmed. She does some hand seals and then plants her hand on the ground. A puff of smoke comes up from the ground as she summons the other 5 paths and Deva Path brings Ryu along too. Deva Path is the first to speak. Well hello 7 tails. It's time you come with us.

Ryu is surprised to find himself suddenly in a different area, but hides his surprise when he sees who he's facing. The seven tailed... His iron sand begins to leak out of his pouch and begins to circle around him in wisps. He laughs when he sees the puppets. You definitely are unfortunate to have encountered us, those puppets will soon be useless for you.

Fuyuki's eyes narrowed when he saw how many more came. It is you who is unfortunate...I don't think you know all about me... He knew that he would need more than his old puppet slicer, and going easy would not be the thing to do. The scroll was back out in a flash the other puppet disappearing as 10 different puppets came out instead. Chakra strings were attatched, one finger for each puppet. Meet my favorite 10 puppets... and your doom...

Name: Puppet technique
Rank: C
The Puppet Technique is a unique ninjutsu fighting style; this jutsu uses strings of chakra to control puppets like marionettes. Any number of chakra strings can be used to control a puppet, but users with more skill can use fewer strings per puppet. Both Chiyo and Sasori demonstrated the ability to control entire puppets perfectly using just one string. While most puppeteers would normally be able to control ten puppets at most (one per finger), Sasori's self-modification allowed him to control up to one hundred puppets at a time.

Name: White Secret Technique: Ten Puppet Collection of Chikamatsu
Rank: S
Type: Ninjutsu, supplementary
Range: all
Description: These puppets are very powerful, as Chiyo claimed that she had destroyed a castle with them, and that afterwards she had sworn to never use them again. With this puppet collection it is literally possible to use "one puppet with each finger," each of them boasting a great amount of power. However, in order to use all of their secret mechanisms demands extremely high class expertise and skill. The Chikamatsu Collection has terrifying prowess in taijutsu, ninjutsu, projectile weapons, and so on. Furthermore, as they can change their numbers by combining, the number of abilities they can show becomes even greater. They were capable of countering Sasori's Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets, due in great part to their ability to work together.


20000-1000-6000=13000CP
18000HP

... Animal path completes hand seals as Asura path leaps forward a bit while shedding its Akatsuki cloak to reveal it only wearing pants and ninja shoes, showing its true mechanical type body with multiple arms and bladed tail. Animal path summons a giant multi headed dog. The dog leaps at the red haired puppet weilding the swords. Asura path positions itself behind Deva path. Deva path raises her arm pulling one of the other puppets toward it, directly lined up to impale on Asura's saw blade tail. The other paths held back but human path was readying to fight taijutsu style with another puppet.

Summoning, Rank: C
Bansho Ten'in, Rank: C (will not be able to use again for 1 post, same with Shinra Tensei)

26000-1000-1000=24000
24000hp

Fuyuki's fingers moved accordingly. The first puppet stayed near him for defensive purposes while he moved the seventh puppet back to avoid the giant dog that had been summoned. He forms a hand seal as does puppets 4, 6, and 8. The three puppets go into a triangle formation and a large vacuum is formed, sucking the gigantic summon in. The tenth puppet begins to get pulled to Deva path and so it shoots a wire at Ashura path latching on to its arm and yanks to pull it off while also shooting another wire to wrap around Ryu to either stop the pull or pull Ryu with it to impale on the tail.

Name: Three Buddhist Treasures Vacuum Destruction
Rank: B
Type: Fuinjutsu, offensive
Range: short-mid
Hand seal: Tiger
Description: This technique is a performance by puppets #4, #6, #8 from the Chikamatsu Collection. The three puppets get into a triangular formation and by opening the mechanisms marked with "Buddha," "Dharma," and "Sangha," respectively, they invoke this technique. A terrifying tornado breaks out and sucks the targets into the center of the formation. Everything that is sucked into the center is completely crushed with tremendous force and shot out from the back.

13000-2000=11000CP
18000HP

Ryu watches the start of the battle looking for a great opening. He completes hand seals as some iron sand collects several yards in front of him. He points his hands in the direction of Fuyuki and the puppet guarding him. The sand blasts in that direction sending sand spraying all over that area, covering Fuyuki and any puppets in the area of the few yards around him. Being concentrated on his jutsu, he didn't notice the wire shot at him until it was pulling him back with one of Fuyuki's other puppets towards Ashura path's tail. He quickly forms hand seals, and his body suddenly turns into iron sand, having replaced himself with his iron sand.

Name: Iron sand blast
Type: C-rank, short-mid range, kekkei genkai
Hand seals: Rabbit → Boar → Rat → Horse, palm(s) out pointing in direction wanted
Ryu releases a blast of sand at the opponent. Usually used to knock an opponent back.

Name: Body Replacement Technique
Type: E-rank, Supplementary
Hand Seals: Ram → Boar → Ox → Dog → Snake
This jutsu lets the user quickly switch places with another nearby object, such as a plant (normally a section of a log), an animal, or even another person within reach, leaving the opponent open to a counter-attack. Exploding tags can be attached to the replacement for an added surprise. Fundamentally, all ninja know this technique

20000-1000=19000cp
18000hp

Fuyuki jumps back so that he isn't blown back by the blast of sand but sand does sprinkle on he and the puppet. No other puppets are touched. He swears under his breath when he sees that Ryu escaped the wires. He tries his best to pull his puppet in some way to avoid it getting mangled by the tail. The gravitation pull completely sucks in the tenth puppet and slices into it. Still having control of the puppet and since it isn't completely mangled, he manipulates it to shoot a cord to wrap around both Deva path and Ashura path while saving to puppet from getting completely destroyed with pulling it back.

With the two paths wrapped in wire, Fuyuki sends the seventh puppet behind the two, slicing with its two swords to slash them in two. The ninth puppet grabs the fifth puppet and swings the fifth towards Human path. The fifth puppet's face lifts to reveal a spinning orb with chakra blades to slice Human path.

When the vacuum is formed, the giant summon is sucked into it, completely crushing the summon. Animal path summons another creature, this time a giant crustacean (looks sorta like a lobster). Preta path sneaks around to the back of this pyramid formation and begins to suck the energy from the tornado along with sucking the chakra up from the strings formed by Fuyuki, thus disconnecting the three puppets from his control while completely neutralizing the tornado. The crustacean crushes two of the puppets of the formation with its pincers and then stabs through the third puppet with it's sharp tail.

Meanwhile, Asura path tries to finish slicing the tenth puppet in two but fails when Fuyuki wraps both Asura and Deva path in wire and pulls the puppet back from getting destroyed anymore. Through the sight of the other paths, Deva and Asura ducked down to avoid getting sliced. With another wire attatched to Asura's arm, one arm is yanked away but reveals a cluster of segmented missiles. These shoot off into three groups, a third aimed at the puppet with two swords, another third at the tenth puppet, and the last third aimed at the ninth puppet that is currently swinging the fifth puppet at Human path. Human path dodges to the side, only getting a small scratch along its back. It looks unphased by the scratch and drops back to kick the fifth puppet in the gut area of it. Ashura uses the blades in one of its three remaining arms to cut the wires while cutting the wires off of Deva path and quickly leaping away so that the blast of the missiles will not hurt either of the paths.

summoning, rank: C

24000-1000-500=22500cp
24000hp

With the sand that fell onto the puppet guarding Fuyuki, Ryu manipulated the sand to get into the joints and then went in for the attack. He knew that the defending puppet wouldn't work now that his sand was in it. He noticed that Fuyuki seemed more concentrated on Tukiko's attacks. Though she is able to get heavier attacks in, he had a plan to show his usefulness by getting an attack straight on the puppeteer. He used body flicker to appear a bit behind Fuyuki and then with the rest of the sand that was still in his pouch, he manipulates it to begin to cover Fuyuki to restrict his movements.

Name: Body flicker technique
Type: D-rank, supplementary
Hand seals: Ram
Description: This jutsu is a high-speed movement technique, allowing a ninja to move short to long distances at an almost untraceable speed. To an observer, it appears as if the user has teleported. A puff of smoke is occasionally used to disguise the user's movements. It is accomplished by using chakra to temporarily vitalise the body and move at extreme speeds. The amount of chakra required depends on the overall distance and elevation between the user and their intended destination. Shisui Uchiha was feared as "Shisui of the Body Flicker" (瞬身のシスイ, Shunshin no Shisui), likely referring to this technique.

Name: Iron Sand Binding Coffin
Type: D-rank, short-mid range, kekkei genkai
With his ability to control sand, Gaara encases his opponents in a large amount of the special chakra-infused sand kept inside his gourd, immobilizing them. It can be used to suffocate an opponent or in preparation for a deadlier technique, the Sand Waterfall Funeral. This appears to be Gaara's signature technique. Ryu simply uses his iron sand in the same way.

19000-500-500=18000cp
18000hp

Fuyuki was quickly loosing his cool. He had destroyed whole villages with these puppets. Why was he loosing now against just 7 people? His anger flared even more as he saw three of his beloved puppets completely destroyed by a large crustacean. And two others blown to pieces by another path. He manipulated the ninth puppet to let go of the fifth puppet so that he could pull it back to avoid it being destroyed. But he couldn't do much to stop the kick. A good thing that puppets can't get destroyed well without a chakra enhanced kick. But the scratch should have done some damage to that path. What was up with these people?

He shook it out of his head just in time to notice that he felt something gripping his leg. He looked down to see iron sand starting to surround him. He leaped away sending his first puppet to attack Ryu who had gotten behind him, only to find iron sand now blocking the joints, making his puppet useless. So Fuyuki uses the third puppet. The puppet's mouth opens, shooting an orb at Ryu which turns into a lions head to pin him against a tree, sealing his chakra.

With Ryu now out of the way, Fuyuki uses the second puppet to shoot bombs at the different paths. His growing fury of having lost 6 of the 10 puppets. 4 chakra tails begin to form as he gains more chakra, beginning to tap into the seven tails. The ninth puppet grabs the fifth once again, sending it at human path to slice threw it before it can get in a better position to avoid the attack.

Name: Sealing Technique: Lion Closing Roar
Rank: A
Type: Fuinjutsu, supplementary
Range: short
Description: This sealing technique completely blocks the target's chakra with a sealing formula (封印式, fūin-shiki) drawn on the ground or a wall. This is done by closing all the tenketsu of the person caught in the middle. Signifying this is the stylised kanji for "close," or "shut" (閉, hei) drawn in the middle of the sealing formula.
To successfully seal the target, one has to get them exactly inside the sealing formula. This requires great accuracy and is very difficult. Various methods can be used to make this easier. For instance, one can prepare a puppet or a ninja tool like the Lion-Headed Kannon with this sealing formula.

Name: Lion-Headed Kannon
Rank: none
Description: The Lion-Headed Kannon is used by Chiyo as a means for using the Sealing Technique: Lion Closing Roar. It is kept inside one of the puppets from the Puppet Collection of Chikamatsu. It starts out as a small ball that can be held in one's hand, but when thrown grows out into a man-sized lion's head with numerous large fangs and its mouth wide open. If aimed correctly, the tool will pin the target against a wall with its mouth, making them unable to move.

11000-3000+2000+2000+2000+2000=16000CP
18000HP

Ryu didn't let Fuyuki come away completely free. With the iron sand wrapped around his leg, he squished Fuyuki's leg, shattering the bone completely. The rest of the sand came up to try to deflect the lion headed kannon, but it didn't work, too late to do a replacement jutsu, he gets pinned to the tree, his chakra being sealed. With his chakra sealed, there was no way to escape this thing as he couldn't even move. With no magnetic manipulation, the sand that had been around him, fell to the ground like a small stream. Damnit! Ryu felt that he was so stupid but felt lucky that Tukiko could be distracting Fuyuki or else he'd be dead now.

Name: Sand Waterfall Funeral
Type: C-rank, short-mid range, kekkei genkai
After wrapping an opponent with sand, Gaara will cause the sand to implode and crush whatever is within. When used to kill a person, the death is so quick that there isn't even time to feel pain. The pressure also produces a sizable fountain of blood. Gaara can control the pressure used in the attack, which allows him to either break bones or completely liquefy an opponent. Ryu uses his iron sand in the same way.

18000-1000-17000=0cp (due to sealing)
18000hp

Naraka path that had been watching from a distance shook its head as he saw Ryu get trapped by the sealing, but at least he had made things easier for when the final puppets are destroyed. The giant crustacean uses Water release: violent bubble wave to neutralize the bombs released from the second puppet. Human path meanwhile is sliced in half horizontally due to the awkward position from kicking the puppet. ...

Asura path shoots several blades and left forearms at the second puppet while also yanking off another arm to shoot some more missiles at it also (3 missiles). The giant crustacean charges at puppets 5 and 9, slicing at them with its claws and tail. Preta path meanwhile forms a barrier around its body once more and begins to run between the puppets and Fuyuki to absorb the chakra so the chakra strings would fall apart, the chakra being absorbed, cutting off Fuyuki's control of puppets 5, 9, and 2, leaving only the sealing puppet.

Violent Bubble Wave rank: C (giant crustacean)

Chakra Absorbtion rank: A

22500-3000=19500cp
24000hp

Fuyuki feels the pain of his leg being crushed by Ryu's sand. Damn Akatsuki... The chakra had then formed around him. Despite knocking out one opponent the battle was getting more intense. Another 2 chakra tails sprouted, just one short of forming into the seven tailed beast completely. His reaction was quickening, but despite this, the chakra was absorbed by the other person.

You Akatasuki are really starting... TO PISS ME OFF! Fuyuki cut his connection to the last puppet. It didn't matter now, he had lost the main puppets. Now it was just him. I haven't released it in forever... he thought. But it was time. He knew that he could release the 7 tailed and still have full control. He released the seal to allow the beast to come out, he transformed into the full 7 tailed beast. Now in beast form his jutsu expanded with the wind formed by the Nanabi's wings. He grabs the giant crustacean and chucks it far away.

He then beats his wings several times creating forceful wind gusts while manipulating the gusts to slice down on the other Paths below.

Wind Release: Powerful Wind Wave
Rank: B
The user shoots out a blade of wind from their mouth. In the anime, instead of a blade, it takes the form of a wind gust.[1] An unnamed Konoha shinobi performed this technique against Pain's Deva Path, though it was deflected by Shinra Tensei.

16000+2000+2000+4000-2000=22000 CP
18000-1000=17000HP

The giant crustacean is chucked away, destroying a large chunk of the forest. It gets partially damaged but can still move quite well. It sends another burst with Water release: violent bubble wave to cancel out some of the wind jutsu. The rest shoots toward the other Paths. Preta Path makes a bigger barier to protect all and absorb the attack. Time to use that...

An orb forms in Deva path's hand and it chucks the orb up in the sky. Instantly everything underneath begins to be attracted by its huge gravity force, including the Nanabi. The paths keep their distance so that they will not be sucked into the growing mass.

Meanwhile, the real Tukiko appears along the cross roads, several miles away from the battle. She is well out of site but sits in a crossed leg way to concentrate best of finishing the battle.

19500-3000-6000-1000=9500cp
24000hp

The Nanabi started to get sucked towards this orb, the gravitation instantly attracting it to it. He grabs onto pieces of rock to keep from the surface of the now growing orb, but still got sucked to the surface, pieces of dirt began raining down on him because the gravitation was still attracting dirt and anything else from the earth's surface. it started to cover him, this gravitation was too strong. He tried fighting against it trying to keep from getting buried. Random chunks of stuff was beating down.

22000CP
17000-6000= 11000HP (due to boulders, the jutsu and other things)

The real Tukiko smiled, victory was soon within grasp. She added a surge of more chakra through Deva path, increasing the gravitational attraction. The rock came quickly, covering the nanabi, almost crushing it with great force.

9500-3000=6500cp
24000-5000=19000hp

Fuyuki had never felt such a crushing force. The extremity of the gravitation plus everything else that was piling on top of him, he was being squished even in the Nanabi form. He felt himself blacking out. No... can't be possible... He thought, trying to use even any wind jutsu, but it wouldn't work. Darkness swam over his conscious.

The real Tukiko coughed blood as she stood up. The strain of the jutsu had been immense but it was okay now. He was unconscious. The orb disintegrated and the earth and other stuff suck up by the orb came crashing back to the earth. Asura path grabbed the now unconscious Fuyuki from the falling debris so he wouldn't get buried. For all that work, I sure wouldn't want to kill him... Asura kept carrying him over its shoulder as she walked over to the tree to where Ryu was still pinned under the sealing. Asura punched the lion headed kannon, breaking it and the seal. Come on, Ryu, we need to go before either anyone shows up, or our prize wakes up again. I prefer when they're unconscious, they're easier to handle...

They begin traveling back to Amegakure, with Fuyuki in hand.

Kakuzu walks through the crossroads as though following the organ music. All of a sudden, the music starts to get faster. Kakuzu picks his pace up and dashes through the crossroads with a worried look in his eyes.

Chouko continues following the music. It picks up pace and so does Chouko. I don't want it stopping again, she thought to herself. Need to go faster, she thought. She does hand seals as she runs, bites her finger, and then plants her on the ground doing a sort of hand spring and then leaping up in the air, landing on the back of the large butterfly she just summoned. "Follow the music, quickly!" The butterfly flies in the direction the music is coming from.