Puppet Technique


 * Name:
 * Type: C-rank, Offensive, Defensive, Supplementary, Short to mid-range (0-10m)
 * Users: Kankuro, Sasori, Chiyo, Monzaemon Chikamatsu, Mizuki (Anime only), Setsuna, Kisho Yasuo
 * Debut (Anime): Episode 41
 * Debut (Manga): Chapter 70

This jutsu uses strings of chakra from the user's fingers to control puppets like marionettes. This skill is often prepared in coordination with the Body Replacement Technique so the user can quickly switch places with their puppet when necessary. Another useful quality of this skill is the fact that the puppet can take the form of another person, usually its user, allowing the user to trick their enemy into thinking they're fighting a living person.

Any number of chakra strings can be used to control a puppet, but users with more skill using the technique 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.

Apart from being used to control marionettes, the chakra strings can be attached to other objects, allowing the user to control, or at the very least disrupt, other things. In one instance, Kankuro uses chakra strings to trip Naruto Uzumaki when they first meet. In another, Chiyo uses chakra strings to control Sakura Haruno like a puppet. Many of the puppets used (like Kankuro's) were made by Akatsuki's Sasori of the Red Sand, so he knows many of the inner workings such as hidden weapons.

Perhaps the technique's only weakness is its reliance to the user manipulating their puppets through the use of the hands, and as such, could be rendered useless if the arms are bound, broken, cut off or otherwise disabled.