"You… you freak—don't even think about turning Kiyohara into a puppet!"
Hearing Sasori declare he wanted to make Kiyohara into a puppet, Kurenai felt her knees go a little weak—but she still stepped forward.
Facing Sasori head-on, she raised her kunai bravely.
"You dare call someone like me—an artist who has devoted himself to art—a freak?"
For the first time, Sasori's voice coming from inside Hiruko carried real emotion—open, undisguised mockery.
"You ordinary mortals, shackled to flesh, could never understand the beauty of eternal art. But that's fine… once I obtain your companion Kiyohara, he'll become part of my art."
"As for you—you're not even worth it."
Sasori flicked Kurenai a glance and immediately lost interest. His eyes were all on Kiyohara.
Everything in his chest boiled down to one desire: to possess Kiyohara.
All his life, whenever Sasori wanted something, Chiyo had indulged him.
Even after leaving Sunagakure, if Sasori set his sights on something, he would get it—by any means necessary.
He had never disappointed himself.
"I like your body, Kiyohara," Sasori said bluntly.
A chill ran down Kiyohara's spine.
That sentence just… sounded wrong.
"There's no 'Konoha-style bonds' here," Kiyohara shot back. "You're barking up the wrong tree."
Sasori clearly didn't get the joke—but he also had no intention of wasting time.
Hiruko's jaw snapped open to an impossible angle.
"Hiruko: Eight Waves of Needles!"
Hundreds of poison-coated senbon erupted from the puppet's mouth, so fast they tore sharp whistles through the air.
The spread was enormous—every one of the four of them was inside the kill zone.
"Scatter!" Kiyohara barked.
Kurenai jumped right. Yakushi Nono yanked the child with her and dove aside.
Kabuto—pitifully—got dragged along like a doll.
His eyes were still hollow, as if he hadn't processed anything yet.
Kiyohara stayed put, raising his right hand.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Wall."
His gourd trembled—black sand-iron surged up into a solid wall.
Every poison needle that came at Kiyohara struck the wall with crisp clang-clang-clang and ricocheted away.
"Not bad defense," Sasori remarked, but he didn't stop.
Hiruko's back suddenly opened with more than a dozen small holes, and another volley of needles sprayed out—this time aimed at Nono and Kurenai!
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
Kiyohara inhaled hard, then exhaled in a violent blast.
A roaring gale swept forward in a wide fan, scattering the needles off-course. They thudded into nearby trees instead.
A tomoe surfaced in Kiyohara's eye—then his gaze went crimson.
In that Sharingan vision, chakra flow lines sharpened into clarity.
And he saw the anomaly.
Inside Hiruko, the chakra flow was grotesquely unnatural—nothing like a human meridian network. It was mechanical: tangled pathways with multiple "nodes" connecting like circuitry.
Most chakra pooled in the puppet's core. Only a small portion resembled normal human chakra circulation.
Kiyohara understood instantly.
Sasori had already modified his body.
That "normal" section was probably the part he hadn't fully converted yet.
Those puppet components functioned like prosthetics—high-intensity replacement and reinforcement.
Later, Sasori would reduce himself to nothing but a "core of flesh," barely enough meat left to fry on a plate.
According to Sasori's own philosophy, puppet parts didn't feel pain.
It was like the undead summoned by Edo Tensei—no heat, no cold, no touch.
To endure the agony of "flesh is suffering, ascend to machinery"… Kiyohara suspected only Sasori could do it.
Even the Second Kazekage, Shamon—who pioneered puppetry—hadn't modified himself to this extent.
In a cyberpunk world, Sasori would be a globally famous genius.
"His back is a weak point," Kiyohara warned the others.
Most puppets were built from ordinary materials—wood, iron, copper.
Hiruko's tail was iron, but the rest was largely wood. The back plating wasn't fully copper-converted yet. That full conversion came later in the timeline.
But "wood" didn't mean "fragile."
It was special treated wood, and under Sasori's work it had terrifying durability.
Only someone like Sakura—with monstrous strength—could truly brute-force it.
"Got it!" Kurenai nodded.
As soon as she finished—
"Genjutsu: Tree-Binding Death!"
Even if it didn't fully work on a puppet, Kurenai's genjutsu-induced visual interference was enough to delay Sasori's judgment for a split second.
Now!
Lightning exploded under Kiyohara's feet.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Feet!"
Lightning chakra stimulated his leg cells into heightened activity. Magnet Release generated powerful repulsion underfoot.
Stacked together, his speed shattered into something the naked eye couldn't track.
A single afterimage remained—Kiyohara himself had already appeared at Hiruko's side.
He didn't attack the hardened frontal armor. He drove a punch precisely into the back.
Earth Release: Earth Spear!
His right hand hardened instantly, skin darkening—then he layered Steel Release over it.
That doubled the chakra drain, but the result hit harder and pierced deeper.
Thud!
A dull shock rang out.
Hiruko's back plating dented—small, but real.
"What?!" Sasori's startled voice burst from inside.
He hadn't expected Kiyohara to identify the weakness so precisely, then relay it to his teammates.
When had he ever exposed that flaw?
Was there a leak? Or had Kiyohara's Sharingan seen through something?
Damn it.
Sasori hadn't fought many Sharingan users—his experience was thin.
Kiyohara's sudden close-quarters assault nearly caught him flat-footed.
Every puppeteer shared the same weakness: the body inside the puppet was far weaker than the puppet shell.
Even a genin like Aburame Shino understood that.
It was common knowledge.
That was exactly why Sasori was obsessed with becoming a puppet himself—only then would he truly erase the weakness.
But Kiyohara gave him no breathing room.
Once the first hit landed, the follow-ups came like a storm.
Magnetic field force amplified the punch invisibly. Earth hardening added penetration. Steel hardening prevented recoil damage.
Kiyohara's fists rained into Hiruko's back at the same point—each blow heavier, faster than the last.
Ora ora ora!
Bam bam bam bam bam!
The impact thunder echoed through the forest.
Hiruko tried to counterattack—Sasori's tail shot out from the puppet's rear, stabbing straight for Kiyohara's throat.
Kiyohara simply shifted half a step, grabbed the tail with his left hand, and yanked.
Crack!
A tail segment tore free.
"How is that possible?!" Sasori finally felt true danger.
This guy was like a humanoid beast.
Was he trained under Princess Tsunade?!
He tried to pull Hiruko back, but Kiyohara stuck like a shadow.
"Weak," Kiyohara muttered.
To him, Sasori had gone down the wrong path.
In a world where bloodlines were the answer, this man had chosen to abandon flesh.
"Kiyohara's speed… it's way faster than the intel!" Sasori's face darkened inside his shell.
The hell are those intel guys doing? I need to refresh my network!
"That's because the intel you saw is outdated," Kiyohara said calmly, drawing his right fist back again.
He could read Sasori's thoughts from his expression.
He'd simply misjudged the data—otherwise he wouldn't look this shaken.
Information always lagged.
Or a person learned a new technique, developed something, and their strength jumped.
With Kiyohara, even intel from one second ago couldn't fully describe him.
Every time he inherited a new "future," he changed again.
This time, Kiyohara layered the rotating magnetic field onto his fist.
The steel-hardened surface became an ideal conductor for electromagnetism.
A powerful acceleration field formed.
It worked on the same principle as his Magnet Release electromagnetic bullets—except now he wasn't accelerating a sand-iron projectile…
He was accelerating his own fist.
His fist, in that instant, was a metal cannon round.
"Magnet Release: Electromagnetic Punch."
Kiyohara spoke softly and threw the strike.
It was a new application he'd developed as his Steel Release grew more refined.
Later… maybe he could turn his whole body into a shell—launch himself like a rocket and smash people with it.
The air in front of his fist tore, forming a white conical shockwave—
And the moment his fist met Hiruko's back—
BOOOOM!
A deafening blast.
Not just the sound of impact, but the sonic boom from his fist breaking the sound barrier.
Spiderweb cracks burst outward from the fist mark.
Then Hiruko shattered.
More precisely: it wasn't "shattered" so much as plowed open.
Kiyohara's punch punched through the armor, carving a half-meter-wide hole straight through Hiruko's back.
The edges of the hole were partially melted, smoking white—heat from extreme friction at speed.
As Hiruko flew, the hole exposed its interior.
And there, in the center of the mechanisms, Sasori was curled inside—light from the outside pouring into the puppet's darkness.
He lifted his head and stared at Kiyohara, disbelief written across his face.
"You…"
For the first time, Sasori's true body showed a genuine expression of shock.
His face had been modified, but Sasori's craftsmanship was so flawless that he still looked almost human.
That was the terror of his Human Puppet Technique.
As Hiruko hit the ground, Sasori was forced to jump out.
A red-haired shinobi appeared before them all—features so delicate they were almost androgynous.
He wore brown shinobi armor, white bandages around his hands, and black trousers.
His armor was slightly dented—Kiyohara's earlier shockwave had rattled the inside.
But Sasori's amber eyes were locked on Kiyohara, and instead of fear, they burned with near-fanatical excitement.
Good. Good.
Now this was worthy of becoming a human puppet.
Hiruko could be repaired—or replaced.
Kiyohara's value dwarfed Hiruko's.
"So… that's Sasori's real body?" Kurenai covered her mouth, stunned.
She'd thought the hunched "old man" puppet was Sasori himself. Instead, a person had crawled out.
"Sasori…" Nono's brows tightened.
Her intelligence was old—years out of date—but she still knew the name.
Knowing foreign leaders' children was mandatory for spies.
Bloodlines mattered in this world; lineage meant inheriting certain talent.
Chiyo's grandson was said to be a red-haired child.
But Sasori's appearance didn't match the age.
Too young.
By old intel, Sasori should be seventeen or eighteen by now—not a fifteen-ish "pretty boy" face.
"Surprising," Sasori said, rolling his neck. With a flick of his hand, he retrieved Hiruko and sealed it into a scroll.
"To find my position that precisely, and break Hiruko's defense… Kiyohara, I'm liking you more and more. You'll be one of my finest works."
His voice was completely different from before—young, matching that face perfectly, yet the words crawled under the skin.
"I will get you."
Sasori smiled—innocent and cruel.
"Magnet Release, Sharingan… add my modifications, and you'll become an artwork surpassing even the Third Kazekage."
"The Third Kazekage?" Nono immediately caught the keyword.
"The Kazekage Sunagakure has searched for all these years… don't tell me…"
The Third Kazekage's disappearance was something she'd heard from wounded shinobi.
Sasori's smile widened.
He pulled out another scroll and slowly unrolled it.
"Since none of you will live past today, I'll let you see it… the pinnacle of my artistic career so far."
White smoke poured from the sealing script.
As it cleared, a humanoid puppet stood before Sasori.
It wore the robes of a Kazekage, a Kazekage hat, and carried that cold, imposing presence.
Its skin was the dull shade of preservative treatment, but anyone could recognize it—
The missing Third Kazekage of Sunagakure.
"So Suna searched for years… and their Kazekage wasn't missing at all. He was killed by a traitor from his own village—then turned into a puppet…"
Kurenai's stomach turned.
In Konoha, nobody would dare lay a hand on the Third Hokage.
Nono lowered her voice to Kiyohara. "Be careful. He was the strongest Kazekage in Suna's history—a Magnet Release user. Even as a puppet, his ability should still be preserved."
Sasori gently stroked the puppet's shoulder, like he was caressing a lover.
"There's a saying: raising puppets is like raising lovers…"
"Beautiful, isn't it? I took Sunagakure's strongest and made him into eternal art. And now…"
His gaze burned into Kiyohara.
"I'm going to take you and make a second masterpiece."
The Third Kazekage puppet's eyes flashed with eerie red light.
Black sand-iron poured from its sleeves, collar, even its mouth—like living sludge spreading into the air.
"Now then—let me show you what real strength looks like."
Sasori's fingers twitched. Chakra threads connected to the Third Kazekage puppet.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Drizzle!"
With a cold laugh, the puppet spread its arms.
The sand-iron in the air condensed into countless sharp conical spikes—each no bigger than a fingernail, but numbering in the hundreds, thousands.
Then the magnetic force erupted—
A death-rain of sand-iron screamed toward Kiyohara's group, impossible to dodge completely.
"Spread out! Find cover!" Kiyohara shouted, hands already flying through seals.
As Kurenai and Nono moved, Kiyohara used the same technique again.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Wall."
The gourd at his waist shuddered. More sand-iron surged out, forming a curved black barricade.
The sand-iron spikes slammed into it with a dense rattle—like hail hammering sheet metal.
But Sasori wasn't done.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Giant Needles!"
The puppet clasped its hands. The sand-iron rapidly merged into three massive black needles—each as thick as an adult's thigh and over five meters long.
Accelerated by magnetic force, they crashed into the wall like siege rams.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three detonating impacts.
The wall shook violently. Cracks spread across its surface.
Kiyohara frowned.
Sasori himself didn't truly understand Magnet Release—but this puppet still retained some of its "living instinct."
"Not bad—blocking that much," Sasori praised, the tone a sick cat-toying-with-mouse amusement.
"But how long can you hold? The Third Kazekage was the strongest Magnet Release user. Your Magnet Release is still too immature. But it doesn't matter… I can fuse you together…"
Kiyohara didn't answer.
Sasori was right about the Third Kazekage's strength.
But that strength wasn't Sasori's.
Sasori had stolen the man—without inheriting the skill.
Kiyohara had already noticed:
Every time the Third Kazekage puppet used Magnet Release, it wasn't Sasori's chakra threads "directly controlling" the sand-iron.
The command passed into the puppet's core first—then the puppet's internal meridian-like system controlled the iron sand.
Meaning Sasori was only ordering the puppet to use Magnet Release.
The real manipulation was being executed by the puppet itself.
Which also meant—
A puppet's "instinct" was dead.
The remnants of its former genius were dead.
Kiyohara's lips curved slightly.
"Then what happens… if I seize control of the iron sand?"
Kiyohara began accelerating Magnet Release: Magnetic Field Rotation.
An invisible magnetic field began to spin.
Yes—right in front of Sasori, he was going to steal Sasori's iron sand.
That iron sand wasn't just something the Third Kazekage puppet could use.
Kiyohara could use it too.
"Magnet Release…!"
Kiyohara's chakra surged like a tide. It seeped into the iron sand like dye, colliding fiercely with the puppet's control chakra.
At first, Sasori maintained control.
But soon he felt it—something was wrong.
The iron sand responded slower.
Some of it even stopped obeying, hovering uncertainly in the air.
"How is that possible?!" For the first time, Sasori looked truly shaken.
He had hollowed out the Third Kazekage puppet specifically to store iron sand—so he wouldn't be helpless in places without metal.
If he fought at sea, for example, he wouldn't be stuck staring blankly.
But now he was watching his iron sand begin to take on Kiyohara's "shape," his "will."
And he could only watch it happen.
"You can interfere with a fully-formed Magnet Release?!" Sasori blurted.
"Because I understand Magnet Release far better than you do," Kiyohara said evenly.
To an outsider, it was spectacle.
To an insider, it was structure.
Kiyohara didn't understand puppets—but Magnet Release? That was his field.
The iron sand began to tremble.
One portion still followed Sasori's command.
Another portion turned toward Kiyohara.
The two forces wrestled in midair—the iron sand jerking left, then right, like an invisible tug-of-war.
~~~
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