The main reason for the current situation is that the little boy's performance is slightly superior, pursuing extremes in agility and leading significantly in speed, maintaining a balanced situation of neither winning nor losing.
Creating such puppets at the age of nine, is this the true value of the talent of a puppeteer who can sit and overlook two in the history of the ninja world?
But if it's only at this level, it's not enough.
Hardy controlled the fat puppet, taking heavy steps towards Scorpion, while a row of bullet holes popped up on his shoulder, shooting out poison needles towards Scorpion.
Scorpion waved his left hand, and the Sansho Fish quickly blocked in front, opening its shield.
Hardy didn't mind. Both sides knew very well that poison needles, shurikens, and other means, although common long-range attack methods for puppeteers, were ineffective against non-living puppets unless you have the Sharingan like the Uchiha clan to play with ninja tools, otherwise, these things cannot effectively strike non-living puppets.
He just forced Scorpion to use the Sansho Fish to defend, temporarily unable to concentrate fully on controlling the Black Ant, allowing the little boy to take advantage of his speed to hold him back.
Then...
"Black Ninjutsu: Pneumatic Fist!"
The valve in the left arm of the fat puppet opened, converting the ultra-high-pressure compressed air into mechanical energy, under the enhancement of chakra, a fist was thrown out.
The Black Ant was instantly knocked away, hitting the wall and dropping into small pieces of debris.
That was the Black Ant trying to resist the Pneumatic Fist with its six spike arms, but it was smashed into pieces by a single punch.
Scorpion's heart sank.
Although he had witnessed the terrifying strength of Hardy's puppets before, he still underestimated it.
Using the Black Ant made of new materials, it still couldn't directly contend with it.
Scorpion took the initiative to change his strategy, once again using chakra threads to control the Black Ant against the little boy, while quickly retreating and always blocking the Sansho Fish in the path between himself and the fat puppet.
So far, the only drawback of the fat puppet is its speed.
Although its agility is acceptable, in the case of heavy tonnage, speed is inevitably affected.
Although it is much faster than an ordinary person running at full speed, compared to ninjas who consider speed as a basic skill, it is still slightly inadequate.
"I have observed that every time you use that strange strength ninjutsu with the puppet during missions, there is always a period of time before you use it again. It seems that this technique consumes a lot of chakra. If we continue like this, do you think you will win?"
A faint smile appeared on Scorpion's delicate face as he looked at Hardy.
"You can try. Will my chakra run out first, or will the Black Ant collapse first?"
Hardy's face remained calm, but he was secretly pleased that Scorpion had guessed wrong.
The biggest consumption of the Pneumatic Fist was using chakra threads to operate the air pump, compressing the gas into the cylinder.
Although the consumption of chakra was not small, under reasonable mechanical structure, the consumption of chakra was far less than Scorpion thought.
The main reason for limiting the use of the Pneumatic Fist by the fat puppet was still on the hardware side, where the speed of the air pump compressing air and the air pressure the cylinder could withstand were limited by the materials.
If the Pneumatic Fist is used frequently without considering the consequences,
Using a puppet's durability in exchange for a short burst of power will damage the air pump, rendering it unusable.
Unless facing a very dangerous situation, Hardy wouldn't make such a move.
"Secret Technique: Puppet Splitting Drill."
The fat puppet instantly split into a dozen individuals and swiftly reassembled in front of Hardy.
By reducing Hardy's own weight, the fat puppet's speed rapidly increased, charging towards the scorpion like a tank.
"Boom!"
The powerful pneumatic fist struck the shield on the surface of the mountain pepper fish, creating a moderately deep dent.
The scorpion spread its feet, quickly backing away, and dodged the Thousand Needles shot from the fat puppet's shoulder.
To make matters worse, after being severely damaged by the fat puppet, the threat of the black ants to the young boy had greatly diminished, on the verge of collapse.
The scorpion decisively pulled the black ant back to its side at the cost of cutting off two of its hands.
Mechanical twisting sounds were heard as the black ant voluntarily detached its remaining four limbs, opened its abdomen, and shot out thin tubes.
Hardy vaguely guessed the scorpion's intentions and began to retreat, using chakra threads to quickly pull the boy back to his side.
As expected, a large amount of green poisonous smoke drifted out of the tubes.
Hardy activated the switch on the boy's mechanical arm with the chakra threads, then quickly released the threads, forming hand seals.
Three slender blades quickly popped out and started spinning, creating a gust of wind.
Hardy's ninjutsu was complete.
"Wind Release: Gale Palm!"
Although just a basic C-rank Wind Release ninjutsu with moderate power, a strong gust of wind rose up, blowing back all the poisonous smoke. The intense wind pressure also forced the scorpion to hide behind the mountain pepper fish, avoiding injury.
However, the billowing poisonous smoke was not so easily avoided.
*Cough! Cough! Cough!*
The mountain pepper fish suddenly collapsed on the ground, motionless, while the scorpion lay there coughing loudly, foaming at the mouth.
"Are you okay?" Hardy dispersed the poisonous smoke with another Wind Release jutsu and asked the scorpion.
"Antidote... The antidote is in my ninja tool pouch," the scorpion replied with difficulty, his face turning pale.
Hardy quickly retrieved the antidote from the scorpion's pouch and administered it to him.
A few minutes later, as the antidote took effect, the scorpion's complexion finally returned to normal.
"You really went all out. It was just a sparring match. Did you really need to use such poison?" Hardy took a detox pill and sarcastically commented to the scorpion.
"This is just a nerve toxin made from the juice of the Green Land Poisonous Cactus mixed with a volatilizing agent. Its effect is to paralyze the body and cause muscle spasms," the scorpion wiped the foam from his mouth and explained calmly.
"Do the others have the antidote?" Hardy inquired.
The scorpion sneered and replied, "This poison was personally concocted by me. Although it's not very potent, I added something to the volatilizing agent. It won't be easy for ordinary people to detoxify it."
"You two brats! What kind of poison are you playing with in the base! If you want to experiment with poison, there's a specific place for that. If this weren't the Puppet Brigade, you two would have been charged with threatening the village's safety and thrown into the ANBU's prison!" A thunderous voice came from the training ground, and the muscular Suna ninja, Kōsuke, approached wearing a gas mask.
"Antidote!" Kōsuke demanded, extending his palm toward Hardy and the scorpion.