Puppet: Ao-Andon

Name: Ao-Andon

Rank: C

Owner: Ikusen Yaiba

Appearance: The puppet has a mouth full of fangs made of metal, much like Ama-no-Zuka. Ao-Andon wears a black kimono covered in blue clouds, which is tied around its body with a blue sash. Its eye sockets are empty, and it has a candle made to glow with a blue flame in each socket with reflectors around the flame to make it exceptionally bright when the candle is lit. To light the candles, there are small flint sparkers behind the candles, activated via chakra strings. Its body is painted entirely blue, and it has twin, curved horns on its forehead that curl to point over his head. It has long, thick horse hair that was dyed blue, and which goes down to the middle of its back. (Like Jiraiya’s hair, but midnight blue). Each of its fingers end in a set of long metal “fingernails” used for scratching and slashing at opponents.

Length: 8 feet tall.

Width: 4 feet at the shoulder, 8 foot armspan.

Material: Wood with metal fangs.

Weight: 80 lbs.

Abilities: Its fingernails can be used to tunnel into the earth, allowing a quick escape route in an emergency. However, this requires two posts to tunnel 8 feet, so the opponent must be kept busy while the tunnel is created.
Its hair hides several senbon within the dirty tangles, which can be used defensively if the puppet is grabbed by the hair or attacked from behind. It can also swing its head so that the senbon fly out at an opponent, or so that they fly out around it in a circle for multiple foes. (limit:15 senbon)

Info: While creating Ama-no-Zuka, Ikusen remembers another oni that was quite popular and horrific from one of the hyaku monogatari parties his parents used to host at their home. He recalled that after the last lantern had been put out, the room had glowed blue for a few moments afterwards, and that the guests had run screaming about the ao-andon. In truth, Ikusen had been standing in front of the lanterns during the stories, hiding it from view until the penultimate candle had been put out, casting the room in a constant blue hue. After finishing Ama-no-Zuka, he quickly begins on his second puppet from the accounts of his parent’s guests about what the blue demon, or ao-andon, had looked like, giving the puppet its name.