Kawaki Aoba lifted his eyelids slightly and gave that teammate an indifferent glance. There was not the slightest ripple in his eyes, as though he were looking at a child throwing a tantrum. "Slander? I'm only stating the facts.
"You only saw what he did for Sunagakure. You only saw his reputation as a genius. But have you ever wondered why he devoted himself so desperately to studying puppet techniques? Why he turned his own body into a puppet?"
Those words were like a needle, instantly piercing Yuhi Shinku's lingering hope.
She froze for a moment. Her lips moved as if she wanted to refute him, but she realized she could not say a single word.
That was right. She had known Sasori for so many years, yet she had only ever known that he was a puppet genius. She had never truly understood his heart, never asked why he was so obsessed with puppet techniques, why his gaze toward puppets was more focused than it was toward anyone else—and even carried a trace of... loneliness.
"What exactly do you know?"
Yuhi Shinku's voice softened somewhat. Her guard remained up, but there was now a touch of urgency in her tone. She took a step forward, staring intently at Kawaki Aoba. "Sasori... what exactly did he go through? Did he really defect from the village because he was disappointed in it?"
Kawaki Aoba gave a soft snort. His hands remained tucked in his pockets as he looked off into the distance, as if recalling something. There was a faint, almost imperceptible melancholy in his voice. "Disappointed? Perhaps.
"But more than that, he was desperate.
"Sunagakure never truly accepted him. It never treated him as a living, breathing person. It only saw him as a powerful weapon—a tool that could charge