The puppet that had been moments away from severing Yamanaka Yogi's head remained frozen in place, its detached arm lying several meters away with a black kunai embedded cleanly through the wrist joint.
Sasori's eyes lingered on the weapon for a brief moment before shifting toward the white-haired man standing atop the ruined wall.
The village gradually fell silent once more.
Nearly a hundred puppets slowly repositioned themselves around Sasori, abandoning their pursuit of Yogi and forming a loose defensive circle. The countless chakra threads connecting them shimmered faintly beneath the afternoon sun, each puppet adjusting its stance as though they all shared the same mind.
"…Jiraiya."
For the first time since the battle had begun, Sasori spoke a name instead of an observation.
Unlike Yogi, this was someone he actually recognized.
One of the Three Legendary Sannin.
A shinobi whose reputation had spread throughout every hidden village during the Second Great Ninja War.
Jiraiya landed between Sasori and the fallen Yogi with surprising lightness for a man of his size. His wooden sandals barely disturbed the blood-soaked sand beneath his feet.
His smile never disappeared.
"What a welcoming committee."
Yet beneath that relaxed smile, Shinra could feel cold sweat forming beneath the transformation. Every second he remained in front of Sasori was another second balanced on a knife's edge. If Sasori saw through the transformation, this farce would end before it even began.
His eyes briefly swept across the battlefield.
The ruined village.
The corpses of Sunagakure shinobi.
The countless puppets surrounding the red-haired young man.
Finally…
His gaze settled on Yogi.
The jōnin's breathing had already become shallow.
Blood continued flowing from both his ruined eye and the blade wound piercing his abdomen.
Jiraiya's expression outwardly remained relaxed.
Only his eyes changed.
"…You really did a number on him."
'There is not much time left, he needs to be taken to the hospital quickly or else he would die of blood loss.'
"Hyori…"
Yogi weakly grabbed onto Jiraya's pants and breathed heavily.
"…He's after the Hyūga…"
Unable to move anymore, Yogi collapsed.
Shinra's pupils narrowed almost imperceptibly.
'So Yogi had reached the same conclusion.' This meant that he hadn't misunderstood the situation.
A moment later, two masked ANBU appeared beside the injured Yogi.
One knelt immediately.
"He is critically wounded."
The second inspected the wound from where he stood.
"Jiraya-sama, what are your orders?"
Yogi, despite being half-conscious, immediately felt that something is off.
Jiraiya glanced toward them.
"Take him back to Konoha."
One ANBU hesitated.
"…Jiraiya-sama, can you handle him alone?"
Shinra didn't answer immediately. He simply laughed out loud.
"Haha."
"Worried about me?"
"I think you should be worried about him instead."
As the shorter ANBU moved to pick up Yogi from the ground, Yogi immediately realized what the off feeling he felt towards these ANBU was.
After being lifted onto the shorter Anbu's back, Yogi gazed at the so-called legendary shinobi's back and thought, '…You fools, all three of you should've just ran away…'
This was Yamanaka Yogi's final thought before his consciousness faded due to the blood loss.
Sasori didn't feel the slightest anger at being underestimated. If anything, it simply gave him an opportunity to catch his opponent off guard.
Sasori sent three of his puppets to test the waters and ideally kill the retreating ANBU.
Shinra had anticipated this moment even before he had intervened, this is the most decisive moment in his plan.
As the puppet flew closer to the target, Shinra simply stood still in between the puppets and his teammates.
One of the puppets thrust its arm which had been modified into a blade toward Jiraya's neck.
Shinra didn't move, only when the blade entered striking distance did he raise one hand against the incoming puppet. A swirling sphere of blue chakra condensed into his hand an instant before impact. The puppet's chest caved inwards and exploded into splinters. The shockwave sent the second and third puppet hurling backward before they could reach him.
The retreating ANBU didn't look back and flickered at full speed.
The battlefield fell silent
The two puppets that had been hurled backward floated back up into the air once more.
Sasori looked at the shattered remains of his puppet and looked at Jiraya who hadn't even moved from his place.
"As expected of the Fourth Hokage's teacher, I will make sure to add you to my special collection once your corpse is mine."
Shinra had been careful in using the Rasengan and only used it at the last second, so that he wouldn't be seen by his teammates and to hide any openings that would've open up when he moved and exposed his true level.
The only variable that he was unable to plan against no matter how hard he tried finding a way for was Hyori's Byakugan witnessing the attack due to her 360 degree vision.
'I will deal with it, after I escape from this place. That being said, It's taking longer than I thought.'
Shinra who still needed to buy more time for his plan, locked his eyes on Sasori and said confidently, "I have heard some interesting things about you, Sasori of the Red Sand."
"When you were young your parents had been killed by Hatake Sakumo, leaving you in the care of your grandmother Chiyo. Your innate aptitude for puppetry was discovered and you were hailed as a genius in the village.
However, 7 years ago, just before the start of the Third Great Ninja War you abandoned Sunagakure and chose to become a rogue-nin. After the conclusion of the war you started openly attacking civilians and shinobi of the Land of Wind earning you the name of Sasori of the Red Sand. Am I wrong?"
Sasori's fingers shifted almost imperceptibly. The surrounding puppets slowly closed in from every direction, "You have clearly done your research, but your fate is simply to be killed by my hands. There is no avoiding it."
Shinra didn't answer his question immediately as he felt wave of chakra disappearing from his chakra field.
He then smiled confidently as he prepared to engage with the puppets, "My fate is to be killed by your hands? Are you sure about that?"
Sasori has had enough of the chatter and moved all of his puppets to attack Jiraya, a total of ninety puppets rushed at him from all sides with their blades.
But—
BOOM
The entire village shook with explosions, it wasn't just a single explosion, every building in the village simultaneously exploded at the same time.
Shinra and Sasori who stood at the center of the village square were just far away from the radius of the explosions, but the smoke of the explosion mixed with the dust and sand creating the perfect smokescreen for Shinra.
Hundreds of burning beams, shattered stone and collapsing rooftops rained across the battlefield simultaneously.
Several puppets immediately shifted from offense to defense, intercepting the debris before it could strike Sasori or damage the more valuable puppets within the formation.
For the briefest instant, the flawless puppet formation lost its cohesion for a fraction of a second.
Shinra flickered away. While retreating, he drew another explosive-tagged kunai.
Lightning chakra cloaked the kunai without the need for hand signs, Shinra threw the kunai into the smoke and flickered away from the village whilst forming a single hand sign.
BOOM
After the explosion, Shinra dropped the disguise and ran at full speed across the desert. He didn't even bother checking whether the explosion had accomplished anything. The adrenaline from confronting Sasori still surged through his body. He could hardly believe that every step of his plan had unfolded exactly as intended.
Now all that was left was to meet back up with the Team at the Land of Rivers—
Before he could even celebrate Shinra felt a large shadow looming over him.
He glanced back and his eyes widened, 'He brought it out this quickly?'
Above the village, high in the sky was a large star shaped solid sand, yet this sand was very special and its color was once considered a symbol of the former Third Kazekage.
Shinra kicked the ground with all of his strength to expose the earth beneath the sand and rapidly formed hand signs. Moments later, his entire body began sinking into the earth.
The iron sand began firing randomly into every direction, covering a large area of the desert, including the spot where Shinra had been standing.
Back in the village the smoke had cleared out revealing Sasori standing in his place with not a single scratch on his clothes, the one hundred puppets remained in the vicinity but next to Sasori was the infamous Third Kazekage who had been transformed into a puppet.
"…I have been played, but just because you are underground doesn't mean that you are safe."
Meanwhile, a far away distance from the village.
Hyori and Inumaki who are carrying Yogi to safety turned around and looked at the sky, their faces instantly turned pale.
A massive wave of iron sand rose into the sky forming the shape of a large needle, that same needle flew down towards the ground with incredible intensity creating another loud explosion.
Neither of them knew what had happened.
They only knew that Shinra is fighting someone leagues above them.