"Why are Konoha shinobi looking for us?"
"Who sent you?"
Sasori drove his puppets at Hyuga Satoru in a relentless assault, trying to shake him with words at the same time.
Though he asked, he didn't really expect an answer. Now that he knew Satoru was a Hyuga from Konoha, his attention was no longer fixed solely on his opponent. He began splitting some of his focus outward, probing the surroundings through his puppets.
As a former Sand shinobi, Sasori knew Konoha's style all too well. In his experience, Konoha ninja rarely acted alone—especially not a Hyuga. The young man attacking them likely wasn't operating solo. There were probably teammates hidden nearby, waiting for a single opening to strike and end it in one blow.
Sasori had already experienced Satoru's strength firsthand. If this monster had comrades near his level lurking around, Sasori wouldn't keep fighting—he'd immediately look for a chance to slip away and retreat as fast as possible.
After all, they were deep in the Land of Fire and not far from Konoha itself. If they were surrounded by Konoha shinobi, even he and Kakuzu might not be able to escape.
On the battlefield, Satoru moved lightly over the tips of the puppets' blades. With the Sixth Gate open, his fists were unstoppable—no puppet could withstand even a single punch. Every strike shattered one outright, rendering it completely useless.
His movement speed was blistering. Even Sasori's sharpened vision could barely keep track of him, and the puppets he controlled couldn't keep pace at all. One after another, his puppet forces were smashed apart under Satoru's fists, while not a single poisoned blade could land on him.
Speed, power, and the Byakugan's unobstructed sight—under the Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets, Satoru advanced like a dragon weaving through a forest of steel, utterly unpressured.
Even when Kakuzu's Earth Grudge Fear creatures periodically provided support from the rear, their large-scale ninjutsu still failed to catch Satoru. Worse, the wide-area blasts sometimes struck the puppets instead, causing significant collateral damage to Sasori's army.
Surrounded as he was, Satoru showed no rush at all.
The burden the Sixth Gate placed on the body was heavy, but for him it was just another tool. As long as he still had chakra, his combat ability wouldn't flag.
As for chakra reserves? Even put together, Kakuzu and Sasori couldn't match his.
If the two in front of him only had the techniques they'd revealed so far, the outcome was already clear—victory would belong to Hyuga Satoru.
While they were besieging him, Kakuzu and Sasori had unknowingly drifted into the Flying Thunder God zone Satoru had set up earlier.
After opening the Sixth Gate, Satoru had deliberately stopped using Flying Thunder God offensively, instead relying on pure physical speed to weave through the puppet ranks.
With their full attention locked on tracking Satoru's high-speed movements, Kakuzu and Sasori had seemingly forgotten how he first appeared beside them to launch his assassination attempt. They had quietly filed it under "extremely fast body flicker."
And Satoru avoided using Flying Thunder God repeatedly precisely so they wouldn't deduce his secret. Overusing it wouldn't guarantee victory—but it would definitely help them adapt to his teleports.
When Minato fought the A-B combo back in the day, his Flying Thunder God was contained partly because his opponents had seen it before. Satoru understood how vital secrecy was, so he was careful to keep the technique hidden.
Limiting his Flying Thunder God usage and burying his marked kunai served the same purpose.
Once Kakuzu and Sasori fully adapted to his Sixth Gate rhythm—that would be the moment for Flying Thunder God to reappear.
A sudden change in tempo and style was something even veterans like them would struggle to react to in time.
As the number of puppets dwindled, Sasori's control grew more refined. Watching through the Third Kazekage puppet for so long, he gradually picked up some of Satoru's movement habits. Raising both hands to the sky, he let iron sand rise and condense into countless spikes in the air above the battlefield.
In one of the short lulls while Satoru was smashing puppets, Sasori launched his attack.
"Shhh—shhh—shhh—"
A sharp tearing sound sliced through the air over Satoru's head. Sasori knew how fast Satoru could move, so he deliberately widened the coverage of his attack.
Ordinary human puppets had limited range—but the Third Kazekage puppet could blanket a broad area in iron.
Hearing the sound, Satoru resisted the urge to simply use Flying Thunder God and leave the danger zone entirely.
Ever since mastering the technique, he'd developed a kind of reflex: whenever he sensed danger, his first thought was to teleport. It was a subtle form of path dependence—and not a good habit. He was now forcing himself to correct it in real combat.
Chakra surged from every tenketsu. Spinning, Satoru unleashed Rotation, the revolving chakra shield locking him inside a sphere of roaring force.
The falling iron needles bounced off the barrier one after another. Even the puppets nearby were smashed and flung away by the shockwaves.
Satoru's Rotation was flawless defensively—but the technique still had an inevitable flaw.
A spinning body couldn't just halt on a dime. The momentary stiffness at the end of the Rotation was the opening Kakuzu and Sasori had been waiting for.
The drifting iron sand rapidly wrapped inward, condensing around Satoru as if to seal him in a metal cocoon, while Kakuzu's hands suddenly burst from the ground beneath Satoru's feet, reaching for his ankles.
Just from seeing Rotation once, Kakuzu had already pinpointed its fatal weakness: the ground beneath the user's feet. While Satoru focused on deflecting the needles, Kakuzu intended to attack from below, bypassing the "invincible defense" at its center.
Iron sand closed in from all sides.
Hands clawed up from the soil to seize his legs.
If Satoru had been an ordinary Konoha jonin, this joint attack might have worked.
Unfortunately for them, his abilities far exceeded their expectations.
"In front of these eyes, ambush is meaningless."
Without even looking down, Satoru thrust both palms toward the ground and struck the air.
Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams strike.
The blast of chakra ripped through the soil beneath him, slamming into the arms Kakuzu had extended down there. The black threads running through them snapped with a wet crack, blood spraying from the torn ends. The hands that had been reaching for Satoru's ankles dropped limply into a spreading pool of red.
Kakuzu winced as the severed threads spasmed. As fresh black cords sprouted to reconnect his palms, Satoru vanished from within the closing ring of iron sand.
"—!"
"What was that?!"
When he'd been fighting in his Six Gates state, Kakuzu and Sasori had already struggled to follow Satoru's movements. Even cloaked in green chakra, his trail had at least been visible.
This time, at the instant of disappearance, there hadn't even been that.
Satoru had simply… disappeared.
"Where—?!"
Kakuzu didn't even have time to fully mend his hands. He spun in place, scanning the battlefield in a panic. He didn't dare remain in the same spot for long; staying still meant turning himself into the easiest target, so he moved, searching desperately for any trace of Satoru.
But Satoru wasn't looking at him.
"What are you looking for?"
Sasori, wholly focused on manipulating iron sand, hadn't expected Satoru to vanish. Just as he was about to search for him with his puppets, a sudden bolt of agony stabbed through his chest—accompanied by a cold whisper brushing the edge of his consciousness.
Satoru's right hand formed a sword-hand, lightning chakra coating his fingers. In that instant, he pierced straight through Sasori's heart.
The dozens of remaining puppets froze the moment Sasori's core was destroyed.
Even though his body was a puppet, blood spilled from his mouth. His face went slack. He tried, with great effort, to turn his head—to see if it was really Satoru who had attacked him.
"H… how is this… possible…?"
"How did you… do that…?"
With his heart impaled, Sasori's life drained away rapidly. In his final moments, those were the only questions his mind could still form.
Satoru did not answer.
Not even for a man at death's door.
He yanked his blood-streaked hand free, his expression calm, ignoring Sasori as the puppeteer crumpled and toppled forward. Satoru's gaze had already shifted back to Kakuzu in the distance.
Targeting Sasori first had been the result of careful calculation.
First, Sasori's weakness was singular and obvious. Compared to Kakuzu, whose vital points were split among multiple hearts, striking Sasori offered greater returns.
Second, Satoru was very curious about that third scroll Sasori hadn't used yet.
As an enemy, Satoru had no intention of ever seeing whatever was inside firsthand.
His goal was precisely to keep Sasori from opening it.
With Sasori gone, all threats from Magnet Release and the various lethal toxins would disappear. That would make the rest of the fight much simpler.
Kakuzu's Earth Grudge Fear was bizarre and troublesome, but compared to Sasori's bag of tricks, it was almost straightforward.
The ninjutsu those masked monsters used were powerful, but in Satoru's eyes, they were "honest" techniques—clean trajectories, clear forms, and obvious weaknesses.
Magnet Release and poison, on the other hand, were the kind of dangers he refused to treat lightly. Against someone like Sasori, one careless scratch could mean death.
As Sasori's life ebbed away, his human puppets went limp, and the puppets hovering in the air fell one after another, crashing down like a rain of broken dolls.
Satoru stood behind Sasori's fallen body, calmly watching as Kakuzu hurriedly recalled his Earth Grudge Fear creatures. His gaze was as deep as still water.
"Sasori… that guy…"
Seeing the puppet storm collapse and Sasori's body lying still, Kakuzu immediately understood. His partner had been killed by Satoru.
Noticing the blood on Satoru's hand, his expression grew uglier by the second. Without another word, he began to pull back.
This opponent's strength was frightening. On top of that, as a Konoha shinobi, he might not be alone. Without Sasori, facing an unknown number of enemies like this would be suicide.
Kakuzu hadn't survived since the Warring States era on Earth Grudge Fear alone. His talent for reading situations was just as sharp. He bore no pride that would force him into a hopeless battle. When defeat seemed likely, he never hesitated to retreat.
Worse, even after trading blows this long, he still hadn't found any way to truly hurt Satoru.
All of his attacks and tricks had been read in advance by those eyes. From the start of the fight, Satoru hadn't shown the slightest sign of exhaustion, nor a single visible injury.
Kakuzu had seen enough to know there was a gap between them.
He doubted he could find a sudden reversal.
He reached into his sleeve, pulled out several smoke bombs, and slammed them into the ground without hesitation.
"Bang! Bang!!"
Thick purple-pink smoke exploded outward, instantly shrouding him and several of the Earth Grudge Fear creatures. The haze concealed sight and suppressed presence—necessary preparations for a clean retreat.
Only…
"Even someone like Kakuzu falls into habits, huh…"
Satoru murmured, drawing a few kunai. He casually flicked them into the smoke.
Kakuzu's vision was completely blocked, but his hearing was still razor sharp. He clearly heard something slicing through the air behind him.
He focused on the sound—but just as he did, the tearing noises abruptly shifted, turning into a series of crisp metallic clashes.
For a moment, Kakuzu assumed the kunai had collided midair and deflected off harmlessly. Distracted by tracking them by sound, he misjudged their course.
It wasn't until he flicked a glance sideways that he realized something was wrong.
His three escorting Earth Grudge Fear creatures were frozen in place.
Each of their masks bore a scorched, lightning-carved gash.
Satoru's kunai hadn't "missed" at all. After colliding, they had corrected their trajectories, curving cleanly into Kakuzu's monsters and severing them in one move.
Witnessing that, Kakuzu abandoned any thought of saving his "hearts." He ducked his head and fled, disappearing into the forest without looking back.
Satoru moved to give chase—
—but in that instant, white spores swelled from Sasori's corpse, rising rapidly and knitting together into several pale, humanoid shapes.
In just a few breaths, they had formed complete figures and leapt straight toward Hyuga Satoru.
"…Huh?!"
Satoru's eyes narrowed.
A new variable had entered the field.
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