“Sasori of the Red Sand!?”
Staring at the red-haired man before them, Mitsui Chuichi and Hyuga Kagami cried out in shock almost simultaneously.
Neither of them was unfamiliar with his identity, especially after having only recently lived through the war.
Sasori of the Red Sand—a genius puppeteer and one of Sunagakure’s strongest shinobi.
He had disappeared around the same time as the Third Kazekage, and was eventually classified as an S-rank missing-nin.
He had appeared on the battlefield numerous times to collect the corpses of shinobi and had several confirmed kills against elite jonin.
His strength was such that even Sunagakure had once given up on pursuing him.
He was the kind of troublesome opponent that none of the Five Great Shinobi Villages wanted to provoke.
With one hand resting on his hip, Sasori chuckled lightly.
“So you recognized me?
Fine by me.
Konoha shinobi, since you happened to run into me, why don’t you help me test out this newly completed work of art?”
With that, Sasori took out a scroll bearing the character “Three.”
Poof!
After a burst of white smoke, a human puppet appeared before Mitsui Chuichi and Hyuga Kagami.
Staring at the black iron sand floating around the human puppet, the stunned Mitsui Chuichi stammered in terror, “Is that Magnet Release?
The Th…
Third Kazekage!?”
Hyuga Kagami was surprised as well, but what surprised him wasn’t the Third Kazekage human puppet.
Rather, it was the fact that he had actually encountered someone as powerful as Sasori in this godforsaken place.
Hyuga Kagami couldn’t accurately judge just how strong Sasori was at the moment, but he was at least above the level of an elite jonin—an enemy Kagami had absolutely no hope of defeating in his current state.
So the instant he saw Sasori, only one thought remained in his mind:
How was he going to stay alive?
Controlling the Third Kazekage human puppet as it slowly floated into the air, Sasori smiled.
“This is my most satisfying creation to date.
Shinobi of Konoha, take a good look and enjoy my art!”
The moment Sasori finished speaking, the iron sand floating around the Third Kazekage puppet transformed into countless fine needles that filled the air before shooting toward Mitsui Chuichi and Hyuga Kagami like a torrential downpour.
Mitsui Chuichi rapidly retreated while simultaneously holding three kunai fitted with explosive tags between the fingers of each hand.
With a flick of his arms, he hurled all six toward the incoming storm of iron needles.
Hyuga Kagami, who was slightly behind him, immediately took advantage of the situation and positioned himself behind Mitsui Chuichi while retreating at full speed.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The six explosive tags detonated, kicking up a thick cloud of smoke across the barren wasteland.
Seeing that the explosive tags had barely managed to stop the iron needles, Mitsui Chuichi shot Hyuga Kagami a cold glance.
Then, without saying a single word, he turned and fled in the direction of the outpost.
Clearly, Mitsui Chuichi had dropped all pretenses and no longer bothered hiding his hostility toward Hyuga Kagami.
Naturally, Hyuga Kagami no longer had any reason to hold back either.
He immediately fled in a different direction.
Watching the two put up only a token resistance before fleeing for their lives, Sasori chuckled and leaped onto the back of the Third Kazekage human puppet.
Using Magnet Release, the Third Kazekage puppet gathered the iron sand filling the air and formed it into two enormous wings.
It then flew off in the direction Mitsui Chuichi had escaped.
Clearly, as the squad captain, Mitsui Chuichi was Sasori’s priority target.
“He can fly!?”
Catching sight of Sasori flying through the air atop the Third Kazekage puppet from the corner of his eye, Hyuga Kagami’s heart sank.
In the shinobi world, the ability to fly was an enormous advantage.
On the battlefield, encountering a shinobi capable of flight often meant being forced into an extremely disadvantageous position.
And given the current situation, there was no way Hyuga Kagami, who was running along the ground, could outrun Sasori flying through the air.
Suppressing the chaotic thoughts racing through his mind, Hyuga Kagami calmly kept track of Sasori’s movements while silently analyzing his predicament.
“I’ve seen the Third Kazekage human puppet.
Sasori definitely won’t let me go!”
The fact that Sasori had turned the Third Kazekage into a human puppet should still be a secret at this point.
So, to avoid unnecessary trouble, Sasori would undoubtedly eliminate anyone who learned that secret.
In other words, the moment Sasori revealed the Third Kazekage human puppet, both Mitsui Chuichi and Hyuga Kagami had already been placed on his list of people who had to die.
“The nearest outpost is almost two and a half hours away.
And even if I manage to reach it, the shinobi stationed there wouldn’t be able to stop an enemy on Sasori’s level.”
“I can’t just keep thinking about running.
I need to find a way to drive Sasori back!”
Just as Hyuga Kagami was silently considering his options, he suddenly noticed Mitsui Chuichi, who had been fleeing at full speed just like him, abruptly collapse face-first onto the ground.
“What happened!?”
After a momentary pause, Hyuga Kagami immediately realized the answer.
“Those iron needles were poisoned!”
The explosive tags Mitsui Chuichi had thrown earlier had indeed blocked most of the iron needles, but one or two had still slipped through the explosions and grazed his arm.
Since the wounds hadn’t struck anything vital, neither Mitsui Chuichi nor Hyuga Kagami had paid much attention to them.
But now that Mitsui Chuichi had suddenly collapsed, Hyuga Kagami immediately understood what had happened.
And according to his memories from his previous life, Sasori was indeed an expert in poisons.
With Mitsui Chuichi no longer around to keep Sasori occupied, continuing to run would accomplish nothing except waste his stamina and leave him looking even more desperate.
So Hyuga Kagami decisively stopped.
After approaching Mitsui Chuichi and finishing off the poisoned, immobilized man with a single strike, Sasori leisurely made his way over to Hyuga Kagami.
With a mocking smile, he asked, “What’s wrong?
Given up on escaping?”
Hyuga Kagami stared steadily at Sasori.
“I’ve always been curious. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Why did you defect?
With your strength and status, even if you wanted to become Kazekage, it wouldn’t have been completely out of reach, would it?”
Surprised by Hyuga Kagami’s composure, Sasori looked him up and down before smiling.
“No need to stall for time.
No one’s coming to save you.”
Hyuga Kagami began walking toward Sasori as he continued speaking as though to himself.
“True enough.
You even dared to plot against the Third Kazekage, the man hailed as the ‘Strongest Kazekage.’ Why would a mere Sunagakure ever be worth your concern?”
Sasori didn’t answer.
Instead, he narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze filled with amusement.
He was genuinely somewhat curious about what Hyuga Kagami, who was slowly approaching him, intended to do.
“Nineteen meters…”
“Seventeen meters…”
“Fourteen meters…”
Although Hyuga Kagami appeared perfectly calm on the surface, inwardly, he was panicking like crazy as he silently calculated the distance between himself and Sasori.
Right now, his only chance of victory was to catch Sasori off guard with Wheel of Will, pull Sasori’s real body toward him, and then use the Gentle Fist to seal his chakra points and subdue him.
But the effective range of Wheel of Will was only around fifteen meters.
So he had to get as close to Sasori as possible.
When Hyuga Kagami had closed the distance to roughly eleven meters, Sasori slowly raised both hands.
The Third Kazekage human puppet, connected to his fingers by chakra threads glowing with a faint blue light, immediately floated into the air.
At the same time, the iron sand surrounding it transformed into numerous iron spears.
Knowing he had already pushed his luck as far as it could go, Hyuga Kagami hesitated no longer.
He immediately thrust out both hands and unleashed Wheel of Will with all his strength!
The instant Hyuga Kagami raised his hands, the battle-hardened Sasori curled his lips into a mocking smile.
While manipulating the Third Kazekage human puppet to shield his front, he simultaneously began retreating.
As far as Sasori was concerned, Hyuga Kagami’s actions could only mean that he was about to unleash some sort of ninjutsu in a desperate attempt to take them both down together.
Sasori had encountered situations like this countless times before.
There was nothing worth worrying about.
As its creator, Sasori knew the defensive capabilities of the Third Kazekage human puppet better than anyone.
Even an A-rank ninjutsu would have great difficulty breaking through the defenses formed by its Magnet Release iron sand.
And so, every shinobi who had tried to drag Sasori down with them had ultimately become nothing more than another addition to his list of victories.
“What…!?”
In the next instant, the mocking grin that had yet to fully spread across Sasori’s face suddenly froze.
Accompanied by a tremendous howl of rushing air, the Third Kazekage human puppet shielding Sasori was abruptly ripped away by an immensely powerful attractive force!
The pull was so tremendous that it instantly snapped the chakra threads connecting the Third Kazekage puppet to Sasori’s hands!
But when Hyuga Kagami saw that the target dragged toward him by Wheel of Will wasn’t Sasori, but the Third Kazekage human puppet instead— he was dumbfounded too!