Puppeteer

Finals II

The intake of breath from the audience was loud enough to be heard from the ground in which Sakura stood. Green eyes narrowed in annoyance at her opponent at the prospect of being put in such an awkward situation.

Orochimaru sat up at the sight of the Isobu, he'd seen one of her earlier prototypes, and he knew what she was doing. He should have expected her to pull something like this. Turning to the Hokage sat next to him, he couldn't help the smirk. So Sarutobi didn't know about this either. Interesting.

Kankuro frowned to himself at the sight of the puppet. He could still vaguely remember those people attacking his brother. They'd taken his jinchuriki chakra, but left him. Did she have a one-tails puppet too?

Behind her, the smoke cleared up to reveal the 3-tails, or at least, a puppet version of it. "Meet one of my most recent collection, the 3-tails. I do hope you don't lose too quickly, I could use a practice test."

The smile she gave Dosu made a shiver run down his spine, he wasn't warned about this. Well, maybe he'd been told something similar, but he didn't realise to what extent it was. There was no way he'd be able to shatter this! Even if he did, there would be enough splinters to injure him too, and by the sound of 'collection', she had 8 more lined up!

Shaking away the negative thoughts, he braced himself for an attack. He would just have to stay out her range, destroy the chakra strings whenever they formed. It was only a wooden version, not the real thing!

Dropping his body lower to the ground, he began to widen his stance, raising his arm as he did so. He could start off with keeping her back, splinters would hurt him, but it would injure her too, and her puppet would be destroyed, that would be a risk she wouldn't take, right?

There was silence for a moment, the audience watching quietly to see what the next move would be.

The wait wasn't long either. Snapping into action, Sakura began to send chakra down the strings attached to the puppet. Its three great tails lifting as it began to pick itself up to its full height. 

Normally, a puppeteer may raise it clear of the ground, but that would waste too much chakra, especially with such a huge puppet. Shifting the puppet forwards, she sent it hurtling at her opponent.

Dosu leapt backwards just as a massive wooden tail slammed down on the ground where he stood previously. A large plume of dust being sent flying into the air, the ground that remained indented from the impact.

The creaking of the puppet was almost unnerving. Almost. Moving his arm once more, he raised it to fire at the beast, but what he didn't anticipate was near his downfall.

The Isobu: Special move, coral palm. Covers an opponent in coral, starting from the point of impact.

Dosu could only watch in horror as his right hand began to turn into coral, quickly activating his sound waves, he pushed the coral off as quickly as he could. His skin raw from the forceful removal, but he did what he had to.

Firing the next wave at the puppet, he frowned as it was only pushed back slightly. It must be weighted somehow. The only problem was a puppet's balance wasn't affected by sound waves. He'd have to take on Sakura to do that.

Scowling, he instead chose to leap clear of her range, pushing himself to the back of the arena.

Sakura clicked her tongue in annoyance at the fleeing boy. The Isobu was only any good close up, his techniques were short-range and the chakra bomb would most likely kill her, and destroy the puppet. Shaking her head, she resealed the puppet in its tattoo, the specs of her other puppets running through her mind. She needed one good for long-distance.

A wicked smile made its way onto her face, fire would work like a charm, especially with all these trees around her. Of course, she'd have to be careful with the puppet -it was wood too- but that didn't matter right now. What broke could be fixed.

Biting her thumb once more, she reached for her number 2 tattoo. The puppet materialising behind her -a large cat in shape- collapsing in a heap. Connecting a couple of strings, she pumped chakra into the puppet.

Blue flames erupted from the cat's unhinged jaw as it targetted the now very frightened Dosu. The sound genin racing as far from the destructive flames as he could. The only safe place was near Sakura, but that was not entirely safe either.

Turning to look at the nervous proctor, he was quick to race towards the man. The easiest way out of this was by just giving up. It was the only way he was coming out of this alive. 

She'd just burn through her puppets, and the rest of the bunch he didn't want to meet. He'd met the one-tails actual jinchuriki, he didn't want to have to face the sand again.

"I give!" he shouted repetitively at the proctor as he neared him, his voice hoarse from lack of use. But that didn't matter right now, all that mattered was he survived this fight.

"Dosu of the Sound surrenders the match. Sakura of the Leaf wins the fight and will progress to the next round."