Destroying the Enemy

Shwish!

The gold sand seemed to burst forth from a vat of mixed dyes, transforming into a multicolored state. And the variegated liquid dripping onto the earth let out a sizzling hiss—clearly, this gold sand had entered an "enchanted" state.

Clang!

Juzō Biwa's eyes flashed with urgency. He swung the Kubikiribōchō fiercely, knocking back Sasori's puppet, then leaped backward to evade the gold sand's encirclement. But the earthen wall's area was limited, the ground was coated with toxic liquid, and he couldn't leave this barrier. So his backward jump was quite restricted. In the gap between puppet gestures, Sasori even formed hand seals.

"Wind Release: Pressure Damage!"

Boom!

As if a high-explosive bomb had been hurled into the air, the space in front of Sasori violently detonated, spewing out a compressed, high-density wind mass that surged forward with a roaring gale. As it neared Juzō Biwa, this churning storm mass exploded again, forming a spherical blade of gale-force wind. The thick earthen wall caught within was instantly shredded and torn apart, while the water beneath the wall churned violently like a hurricane had passed, stirring up hazy ripples. After the wind subsided, a large chunk of the long, wide wall had vanished, as if bitten off by some giant beast.

Souya focused his gaze and saw that Juzō Biwa hadn't perished. He was wedged awkwardly into a hollow in the earthen wall, even the Kubikiribōchō broken off at a section. From the blue chakra shimmering on the blade's surface, he had clearly relied on chakra coating to enhance the sword's power, hacking out a path to survival.

Souya, having mobilized his chakra, slapped the earthen wall. The wall opposite Juzō Biwa suddenly came alive, as if infused with life. It condensed into a mass of bright yellow sand. In his haste, Souya had no time to refine it into gold sand, so he made do. A large swath of sand lifted off, brushed against the "poison liquid" on the ground to complete the "enchantment," and then, now colored, swarmed toward Juzō Biwa.

Juzō Biwa struggled to push himself up. He gripped the Kubikiribōchō tightly with both hands, and the blue chakra flowing across its surface suddenly accelerated. Clearly, the word "surrender" had no place in his dictionary.

Clang!

Just as he thought to leap onto the high wall, Juzō Biwa was met head-on by a slash from Sasori's puppet. Seizing the moment, Souya's colored sand coiled directly around his feet.

"Ah!"

Juzō Biwa let out a sharp scream. Smoke rose from his feet. Souya, pressing his advantage, didn't let up—he directly commanded the colored sand to engulf Juzō Biwa entirely, then suddenly compressed it. A muffled groan faintly emerged, then faded into silence.

After a moment, Souya waved his hand, dispersing the hourglass-shaped colored sand.

Clatter...

The sound of something hard hitting the ground rang out. What remained were only sturdy bones and, inside them, the undissolved, paste-like organs—red, green, white all mixed together, thick and sticky like half-melted ice cream.

"Finally done. Hey, Sasori, that guy up there should be dead, right?" Souya wiped the fine sweat from his forehead.

"Mm," Sasori nodded.

"But why did you turn his corpse into this..."

"How else can we ensure the enemy is eliminated? Who told you to brew such vicious poison?" Souya curled his lip.

"Back when we were mixing the poison, you kept saying it was too merciful, the toxicity too simple, too easy to counter—that we should aim for a poison that leaves them crippled or dead." Sasori swayed his body, speaking with a calm expression.

"Heh heh... wasn't that for our own safety?" Souya laughed it off. Seeing Sasori's relaxed demeanor, he probed cautiously.

"Sasori... how much chakra do you have left?"

"Mm... still over half," Sasori tilted his head, saying casually.

"..." Souya was speechless. He and Sasori were about the same age. Souya had insisted on physical training since childhood, and as he grew older, the amount of training only increased. Sasori, on the other hand, spent his time tinkering with crafts—not only skipping exercise but also refining chakra far less each day than Souya. Yet Sasori's chakra reserves had always been larger than Souya's, and the gap kept widening.

Souya glanced at Sasori's vivid red hair. He increasingly suspected—could this guy be from the Uzumaki Clan, the ones with "Chakra for days"? Red hair, strong vitality, massive chakra, expertise in Sealing Techniques...

Sasori's traits seemed to match quite well... When Souya had studied Sealing Techniques before, he'd discussed them with Sasori, and the guy's talent was beyond ordinary. At least now, Sasori's skill in making and using Sealing Scrolls wasn't far behind Souya's. Unfortunately, Sasori himself didn't know his clan origins, so it remained just a guess.

Souya looked at the long earthen wall, like a low mountain, with a huge gap on the right side, as if blasted by a storm cannon. The terrain had completely changed. Toxic water flowed beneath the wall, and trees had been corroded into withered branches, bobbing unsteadily on the surface. Sasori, who had unleashed who knows how many powerful jutsu earlier, hadn't even consumed much chakra...

This stirred up raw jealousy in Souya once again...

In this ninja world that valued bloodlines, relying solely on one's own talent had too many limits...

The country Souya was from was the Land of Wind, at the bottom of the Five Great Nations' power rankings. Aside from Magnet Release, there weren't any impressive strong techniques to speak of.

Unlike Konoha, which had a Second Hokage whose repertoire was nothing but Forbidden Jutsu aside from "Sea Style," that was one reason Konoha produced genius after genius—after all, even a genius wasn't omniscient. Only by finding ninjutsu that suited them could they bring their talents to full bloom!

Take the Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God Technique, for example—Souya was quite covetous of it...

But the difficulty of obtaining that jutsu... was no different from razing Konoha to the ground.

Souya wiped the fine sweat from his forehead. An unusual sensation began to surface in the area of his abdomen, pulling him back from his wandering thoughts to reality.

This was the side effect of the Military Rations Pill starting to kick in. But with only one pill, this side effect was still bearable.

"Can you use this thing for making puppets?" Souya and Sasori stood side by side, watching Samehada, which kept bouncing around with a blub-blub sound. Samehada also wanted to escape this place, but the multicolored liquid beneath it made it extremely uncomfortable—it didn't want to soak in that again.

"Let's give it a try." Sasori wore a contemplative expression.

After all, he had personally witnessed the awe-inspiring form of Suikazan Fuguki and Samehada in their fusion earlier. If it hadn't been for Suikazan Fuguki's own shallow cultivation, which left a flaw in their combined state, Sasori wouldn't have dealt with him so easily.

But if he were to reforge Suikazan Fuguki's corpse and Samehada into a single puppet, could that solve the problem?

Sasori's eyes suddenly lit up. It was this kind of challenging puppet-making craft that could ignite his desire as an artist.

After all, neither Souya nor Sasori possessed high-purity Water-nature Chakra, so neither was compatible with Samehada. They still had to find a way to maximize its utility.