It came as no surprise to see Koki’o get her summons off. Though his vision became obstructed by the smoke, he could tell she had avoided Zaku due to Shura’s clone running in to save him. That meant she clearly wasn’t in the same spot. The Uchiha looked up into the air just in time to see her burst out the white smoke, flying in arc above him.
As he sent the lightning balls upwards, the girl weaved another set of hand seals before raining down a barrage of poison bullets in unison with her summoned scorpions. The ensuing clash between the lightning and poison created a cloud of toxins. Before Kiro could follow up with another jutsu, he heard the sound of footsteps coming from behind.
“Not this time.”
That comment was a reference to the moment he had been knocked out by that mole from Iwa. He wouldn’t allow fate to repeat itself here. When Kiro turned around to defend himself from his attacker, he was surprised to see the little boy aiming to attack him with the steel part.
It didn’t take much for Kiro to figure out the motive behind Kou’s assault. His actions probably looked like he had tried to harm Zaku.That probably rubbed the child the wrong way. Forgetting about the fight for a moment, the Uchiha tried to reassure Kou by openly revealing to him the secrets of the tag.
“The tag I put on Zaku was a fake. It’s not real. He’s safe and won’t explode. I was just trying to defend myself from the kidnapper. You understand, right?”
He hoped his voice sounded sincere enough for the child to understand him. The added whisper of ‘kidnapper’ should at least give him a basic idea. The child should be afraid, very afraid that there was not only one, but two, technically three professional kidnappers nearby!
In all seriousness, with the growing poison cloud above, it definitely wasn’t a safe environment for Kou and anyone else in the vicinity. Kiro would take the boy and move but the girl standing before him might have other ideas. However, Koki’o did pause her assault for the child, so he wondered where she wanted to go from here.
Letting go of the steel part, the Uchiha looked up to Koki’o before he spoke.
“Apologies for the interruption. I’d rather not have him get caught in the crossfire. So you’re trying to kill us all with that poison or what?”