"The enemy breached the frontline squad, and Amegakure means to wipe out the personnel our village deployed along the border of the Land of Rain."
After a brief exchange with Yubi, Sasori finally came straight to the point.
Clearly, he had already run into other Rain shinobi who had advanced into the canyon, and from them he had learned what was really happening.
"The conflict between Amegakure and Konoha practically ended after that great battle," Yubi said, falling into thought. "Hanzo knows very well that this war will end with Konoha on top. So after easing the pressure from the Land of Fire, he turned around and aimed his blade at us instead?"
The great battle he meant was the clash between Hanzo of the Salamander and Konoha's three future legends.
Orochimaru. Jiraiya. Tsunade.
From that day on, they became the Legendary Sannin.
"Konoha will win?"
Sasori's voice turned abruptly cold.
"The Land of Rain stepping back doesn't mean our village is ready to make peace."
Yubi instantly realized what he had touched.
He had analyzed the war without thinking, and forgotten that Sasori's parents had died at the hands of Konoha's White Fang.
Hatred like that was not something a few words could smooth over.
Still, facts were facts.
Judging from the current situation alone, Sunagakure, already badly weakened, stood even less chance than before in a direct struggle against Konoha.
But even knowing how things would eventually unfold, Yubi kept that thought to himself.
"Hanzo realized he couldn't gain anything by clashing with Konoha head-on," Yubi said after a moment. "So he shifted his sights to the Land of Wind. Our territory is large, but our resources are poor. Most of it is desert and wasteland. On top of that, the village is short-handed, and unlike Konoha, we don't have a group like the Sannin ready to hold the battlefield together."
He spoke calmly, his thoughts lining up one after another.
"This war is dragging every village into multiple fronts. No matter how tight a village's border defenses are, once something really happens, their manpower, support, and follow-up deployment all become strained. Hanzo's judgment is sharp. Besides Konoha, we still have to watch Kirigakure and Iwagakure. In his eyes, we're the easiest target to bully right now."
Sasori glanced at him, surprised.
Until now, he had thought of Yubi as little more than an unusually capable medical ninja for their age.
He had not expected the boy to also possess such a clear sense for how battlefields connected to the larger flow of war.
Yubi, meanwhile, already knew the broader direction of things.
Sunagakure would eventually be forced into compromise with Konoha.
It was inevitable.
If the war continued at this pace, the first of the Five Great Villages to collapse would not be Konoha. It would be Sunagakure.
The Third Kazekage was no fool. He could see the writing on the wall.
But for Sasori, any compromise the village made with Konoha would be intolerable.
His parents had died because of the village's decisions. Before he could avenge them, the village would choose negotiation instead of blood.
That would only deepen the darkness already growing inside him.
Right now, Sasori was withdrawn. Quiet. Sharp. Distant.
But he was still within the bounds of what most people would call normal.
The real turning point had not come yet.
Once the White Fang died, the object of Sasori's hatred would be taken from him. The resentment he had stored up for years, the grief, the helplessness, the fury with nowhere to go—it would all spill somewhere else.
And the village, along with the Third Kazekage, would end up bearing it.
That was when the line between Sasori and Sunagakure would finally snap for good.
The peace talks between Sunagakure and Konoha were not merely diplomacy.
They were a fuse.
A ticking bomb hidden in the future.
In fact, Sasori himself likely did not realize that long before he became a jonin, Yubi had already noticed him many times.
Back then, Sasori still smiled.
In Yubi's memory, he had once been a shy, delicate little boy who would even blush in front of adults.
As a transmigrator, Yubi paid close attention to the people in Sunagakure, especially those whose names would matter later.
Three years ago, after Sasori's parents died, that boy disappeared.
In his place came this quiet, cold figure who rarely left home, rarely appeared in the village, and almost never showed his true feelings.
At the Ninja Academy, Sasori had technically been in the same class as Yubi.
But Sasori hardly ever attended.
Most of his real training came from Granny Chiyo. Even graduating and becoming a genin had felt more like a formality than an achievement.
As a result, he was not close to any of his peers.
Maybe he did not even understand them.
Yubi was one of the few exceptions.
"The Second Shinobi World War has already damaged the village's foundation," Yubi thought. "And even when the Third Shinobi World War arrives, Sunagakure still won't have recovered. Its combat strength will remain stretched to the breaking point. That's what will force Rasa to rely on his Gold Dust to support the village's economy. It's also what leads to terrible decisions later... like turning his own son into a jinchuriki."
That thought lingered for a moment before his eyes shifted back to Sasori.
"Sasori still has expectations for the village now," he thought. "But some things are destined to disappoint him."
And it would not stop with Sasori.
Pakura, another talent Sunagakure would one day produce, would also be sacrificed by the village in the name of political compromise.
This was not the first time Sunagakure had used its own people as bargaining chips.
Nor would it be the last.
Yubi understood that now more than ever.
"If I'm part of Sunagakure now, then I have to find a way to change things before they get even worse," he thought. "Otherwise, everything will follow the same track as before."
The idea had been in his mind for a long time.
In the end, every problem seemed to come back to one thing.
Weakness.
The village was too weak.
That was why it bled. Why it compromised. Why it devoured its own future in the name of survival.
Yubi looked at the unconscious genin lying beside them.
His injuries were bad. Very bad.
"He needs to be sent back to the village," Yubi said quietly.
Sasori gave the boy a single glance and spoke with cruel calm.
"Even without being a medical ninja, I can tell you what will happen to him. In this environment, forget whether he can survive the trip back. Even if he makes it, the hospital is overflowing. No one there will have time to spare for a genin like him."
His tone was flat. Not mocking. Just mercilessly practical.
"You've worked in the hospital," he added. "You should understand that better than anyone."
Yubi said nothing for a while.
Because Sasori was right.
This was the battlefield.
Mercy did not change arithmetic.
"That's exactly why the village has to become stronger," Yubi finally said. "And why the shinobi it raises must become stronger too. Otherwise this kind of thing will keep happening."
Sasori looked at him, but did not answer.
The silence between them stretched out.
Around them, the wind sighed through the stone and sand.
In the distance, Endo had already gone to notify the nearby squads, leaving only Yubi and Sasori here.
The canyon felt colder than before.
Maybe because now they knew what was really coming.
"There are probably more Amegakure squads than just the ones we've seen," Yubi said at last. "Hanzo is likely using these infiltrators to map out our rear-line routes, the locations of our strongholds, and the state of our defenses. This isn't just harassment. It's preparation."
He lifted his eyes toward the dark beyond the canyon.
"A bigger battle is coming soon."
Sasori seemed to absorb that without surprise.
He had already captured one enemy alive and wrung a few secrets out of him, but beyond that, he had not thought much further ahead.
For him, the matter was simple.
Kill the enemy.
Protect the village.
Yubi, however, was already thinking beyond the immediate bloodshed.
About the village's condition. About the will of the men at the top. About what came after battles ended.
That was the part that troubled him most.
Because he knew Sunagakure would not hold the line forever.
Sooner or later, it would bend.
And once it did, some people would never forgive it.
Sasori would be one of them.
Yubi stared at him for a moment longer.
This was still a boy standing at the edge.
Still a genius. Still salvageable, maybe. Still connected to the village by threads that had not fully snapped.
But those threads were fraying.
And if nobody changed the future, then one day they would break beyond repair.
Yubi lowered his gaze.
Everything always seemed to come back to the same answer.
If they wanted to change the village, they had to change what gave the village the right to choose.
Power.
Only power could stop a future like that from repeating itself.