On a dune in the Yellow Sand Desert.
Anrokuzan kept fleeing with his puppets.
Along the way, he had sent his puppets to scout Rōran, and what they found made him deeply grateful for his earlier, wise decision.
He had guessed right. Rōran had become a wasteland of ruins, with not a single one of its former towers left standing.
Liao Wu was a walking disaster. Wherever he went, conflict and war broke out.
Liao Wu's enemies were no pushovers, and neither was he.
They were all menaces!
"What should I do next?"
Anrokuzan took out a map of the Land of Wind and studied the territories marked on it.
The Five Great Shinobi Nations had forcefully united, forming the greatest behemoth in the Ninja World's history—the Ninja Sect.
But the Ninja Sect's strength was far too scattered. It was merely a loose alliance formed by the Five Great Shinobi Villages signing a nonaggression pact.
Still, even as a loose alliance, their combined strength was not something just anyone could challenge.
At any rate, Anrokuzan and his puppet army could never take the Ninja Sect head-on.
Just as Anrokuzan was pondering his future, several figures emerged from the swirling yellow sand.
One of them, a red-haired youth, spotted Anrokuzan's puppet army and immediately took an interest. "So many puppets!"
He was Sasori, who had escaped from the Leaf Village.
During this time, Sasori had removed his Regeneration Core from the Third Kazekage's human puppet and made a body resembling his former self.
He had done this for his parents, Liya and Zhi. They had requested it.
They wanted to see Sasori as he had originally looked, so he recreated his old body.
It was only a shell, after all. What truly mattered was the Regeneration Core inside.
Anrokuzan detected Sasori