Team Kenshin

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Kashizudoto, under his alias as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, was conducting a routine patrol operation with his squad in the thick of night. There had been some unusual activity or other spotted in certain areas of the nearby forest, and Kashizudoto and his squad were to check out the surrounding area and report back to the village. There was more than likely nothing there, but in this time of tension between the Great Nations, it was essential to leave no stone unturned. Kashizudoto's squad was composed of three B-rank ANBU agents who were mostly unremarkable, at least for ANBU agents, in terms of their skills and chakra composition. Kashizudoto, however, was a sage, and it would be clear to anyone with chakra detection capacity that, as a result of his reserve of nature chakra, he had astounding chakra levels that few shinobi could match (and most. if not all, of these shinobi were sages themselves).

The squad departed from the village gates at around midnight and took to the trees from there. Kashizudoto was not going at full speed, if only so that the rest of his squad could keep up with him or perhaps because he was bored on this routine patrol and did not want to push himself for the sake of it. Given that this was a routine patrol, the ANBU agents did not fully have their guard up and did not have any sensory active, so a competent shinobi would probably have been able to follow them from afar in the darkness without being noticed, as long as they could keep up with the speed of the squad and could stay out of the reach of Kashizudoto's natural ability as a sage to sense the life around him, which only extended a few meters outwards.

As they were patrolling, someone approached them from the thick of night and made his presence very obvious. The squad couldn't be sure that he was a friendly presence, so they stopped, turned around, and pulled out their katanas as he caught up with them and were on guard just in case he pulled a fast one.

"Wait a minute, there," Kashizudoto asked as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, his mask altering his voice to that of an older man, "Who are you, and what do you need?" It was by no means normal for someone to disturb the ANBU while they were out and about doing their business, and although it was somewhat suspicious, he figured that a true enemy would have a better way of ambushing them. Regardless, it was important for him and the ANBU to stay vigilant at all times.

Even with such a dark sky, Kashizudoto could see fairly well in the moonlight given that he had very sharp eyes and could make out that the figure seemed to be that of a young kid. More than likely this was some young shinobi who was arrogant enough to think that he could stop and chit chat with the ANBU Black Ops, but, as he had nothing more interesting to do, perhaps Kashizudoto would entertain him as the ANBU Captain Kenshin.

Kashizudoto, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, scratched his head - or, more accurately, his mask - with his free hand, holding his katana in the other. This kid seemed to be quite clumsy, a fan of the phrase "Oh boy!", and, on top of it, wanted to challenge an ANBU agent? Kashizudoto's gut reaction was that this kid wouldn't last a day in the ANBU, but, five years ago, he wouldn't have been surprised if village elders had said the same thing about him when he was romping around on missions in the Lands of Earth and Lightning burning up all the stuff around him and making his position known to enemies even when he really didn't have to. Perhaps time, maturity, and support was all this wannabe ANBU kid needed, and if he wanted a fight, Kashizudoto would give it to him.

However, this kid was still a suspected enemy as per standard ANBU protocol, and Kashizudoto had no intention of treating him otherwise. He motioned to his ANBU agents to retreat far back. This kid was his.

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A giant burst of flames erupted from his body, bursting into the night sky in the shape of a monkey avatar. Kashizudoto allowed the pressure from his chakra to fill the air, creating an almost suffocating, hostile presence that caused even one of his ANBU agents to shake from afar. This was all simply for show, to see whether kid would crack under the pressure or push forward regardless. Kashizudoto was looking forward to a fight, but if the kid was to retreat, he would understand.

"Alright," he told the kid, his voice still disguised as his earlier display of chakra faded away into the night sky, "We'll have your fight right here, right now. But if you want to beat me, you'll have to come at me with the intent to kill." This was something one of his teachers had told him earlier, and it sounded cool, so Kashizudoto simply parroted it now that he had the chance. He continued, "I will treat you as any other suspect of the ANBU and will go after you with full force with the intent to capture." Of course, he had no intention of going at this kid full force, at least not until he had truly gauged his abilities.

"If you would like to turn back, now is your chance," he said, "Otherwise, it's your move." Kashizudoto had a variety of abilities, but he would hold back on all of them for now just to see what this kid was capable of.

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The "Oh Boy!" boy took the opportunity to make his first move, taking his umbrella and riding it as if it were a broomstick. He proceeded to whip some sort of pinwheel at the ANBU Captain Kenshin; as far as Kashizudoto could tell, there were no enhancements or gimmicks involved with this throw, as if the boy were simply testing his reflexes with a basic attack. As the ANBU Captain Kenshin, he deflected it away with his katana and sighed; did the boy really think so little of him as to toy with him using a pinwheel and an umbrella?

It appeared to be more of a distraction than anything else, as the boy pulled out a scroll and unsealed what appeared to be some sort of skull-shaped chassis, and this was almost reassuring to Kashizudoto, who thought for a moment that the boy was just playing games with him. It was hard to see, especially in the thick of the night, and appeared to almost camouflage with the surroundings. If not for his trained eye, Kashizudoto would not have been able to see it, and he doubted even the ANBU agents standing in the trees far behind him would be able to see it, sans the one who had a Byakugan.

The boy seemed to be seating himself inside the chassis, and Kashizudoto had no doubt that if he had taken the effort to unseal it, it was more than just a shield; rather, he suspected that it was some sort of puppet. Kashizudoto had not had to deal with many puppeteers in the past, as puppetry was not common among the ninja of Konohagakure, although Kashizudoto had heard many legends about the puppeteers of the former Sand village. It was a shame what happened to Sunagakure, and, that too, allegedly at the hands of Mitsuo Sarutobi, the former head of his own clan. He and Mitsuo had met briefly in Kumogakure by random chance during the Kumo-Kiri war, and while Kashizudoto did not know much of the circumstances surrounding Sunagakure's demise, it was surprising nonetheless to find that Mitsuo had gone to such an extreme. Mitsuo was listed in the Bingo Book as an A-rank criminal responsible for defection from the Leaf and the destruction of Sunagakure; "A-rank my ass," was Kashizudoto's first thought when he saw it initially, for he knew that A-rank was not a term used to describe men who had bested the armies of an entire hidden village.

It would appear, though, that this boy was one of the few puppeteers that could be found outside of the former Sunagakure, and he was getting ready for the offensive. Kashizudoto, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, figured that he should probably do more than just sit around and wait for the boy to attack him; after all, he and his ANBU needed to wrap up for the night and report back to the administration. If Squad Kenshin took too long, the administration would certainly question them, and saying that he kept them waiting because he wanted to duel some kid didn't sound like a great excuse.

He pointed his left arm at the boy's puppet; underneath the sleeve of his arm was a kunai launcher known as the Dansuburedo with the Sealing Kunai loaded within, attached to the mechanism by a chain that could be launched and retracted at will. It was a devastating and versatile weapon given how it could be launched and pulled back on a whim, swung around, and even used as a propulsion mechanism. He pulled the trigger on the Dansuburedo with his pinky finger, launching the Sealing Kunai at 285 m/s towards the puppet. He could have chosen to pull off a more powerful attack, but, for the time being, he did not think it necessary to be so forceful.

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The giant skull puppet had clearly taken a beating from the Dansuburedo, but the ANBU Captain Kenshin's opponent took advantage of the situation to launch a counterattack. His skull puppet started rolling forward towards him. Kashizudoto, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, attempted to retract the kunai back into its launcher, but it was stuck and wouldn't budge, as the puppet appeared to be using its horns to hold the chain of the Dansuburedo down as it charged forth, preventing him from manipulating it. Were Kashizudoto, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, to enter Sage Mode, the fight would be over in mere seconds, as he could infuse the kunai on the other end of the chain with nature chakra and command it to chase his opponent from afar. That would be no fun, he decided, so he simply watched as the puppet came charging forward.

The puppet jumped up in the air, and so did the boy with his umbrella. Clearly, there was some attack that was about to be unleashed in the next second, and he didn't want to be standing in the way of that. While he could have simply dodged the attack, blocked it, or sent an even more devastating attack at the boy or his puppet, Kashizudoto wanted to see what kind of attack he had prepared and if it was any good, so he instead decided to go with a different plan.

Kashizudoto, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, formed the hand seals Dog -> Boar -> Ram in such a quick manner that the boy would not be able to determine the specific sequence of seals being performed and then proceeded to create a clone of himself in the exact location and position as he was standing. He proceeded to blend back in with the nature around him, turning invisible and silent along with his kunai and chain, leaving the clone as a substitute in his place as he escaped to the ground below, imperceptible to sight and sound.

If the boy was especially perceptive, he would notice that the kunai and chain had seemingly vanished into thin air after Kenshin weaved his seals; however, the clone of Kenshin was in the same exact position as Kenshin himself, meaning that he would not be able to tell that the real Kenshin had escaped and that a clone had taken his place. Kashizudoto determined that he, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, would reveal himself once more to sight and sound after the boy's attack had finished in order to make the battle a little more fair, but, for now, he watched as the puppet proceeded to cage the clone atop the branch and as the boy fired an orb from his umbrella into the cage, creating a great explosion atop the branch that dissipated the clone. In the meantime, he retracted his kunai and chain back into the Dansuburedo launcher, as the puppet was no longer trapping it with its horns, and prepared a substitution with a log that he hid behind the same tree whose branch he was previously standing atop. Kashizudoto determined that it would be unfair if he, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, were to use advanced techniques like Sage Mode on this kid, so he figured that sticking to academy techniques would be appropriate for now until he got a more accurate reading of his power level. It was fair to say that this boy he was facing was a resourceful tactician, given the maneuver he had just performed, but Kashizudoto, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, had yet to see if he was powerful enough as a shinobi to even survive an ANBU mission.

When the attack had finished, Kashizudoto, as the ANBU Captain Kenshin, revealed himself to sight and sound once more, waving his katana in the air and yelling, "Over here!"

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Kashizudoto Jutsu: