Fateful Showdown: Sasori vs. Chiyo and Sakura

The roar of the barrier shattering and the rush of air flooding in seemed to play a cruel finale for the lifeless body in the center of the cave and the figures standing around it. The air congealed. Grief and fury erupted from Naruto, who knelt on the ground, as if they had taken physical form. Tailed Beast chakra spilled out of control, and his roar echoed through the cavern.

Deidara swiftly sealed Gaara's corpse into a scroll. His movements were clean and decisive as he looked at Neji beside him. "Mission complete. There's no need to waste time with this pack of stray dogs. Sake, let's go!" He sprang onto the waiting giant clay bird.

Neji's gaze swept across the scene: Naruto, consumed by grief and on the verge of rampaging; Kakashi and Yamato, exhausted but instantly entering combat stance; and—Sasori of the Red Sands, who had resolutely turned around, leaving his back to his departing companions as he faced Chiyo and Sakura alone. Zetsu had already merged into the ground and vanished without a trace.

Sure enough, the stage had been prepared for the three of them alone. Neji understood. As a transmigrator who knew the "plot," he understood the weight of fate behind this grandmother-and-grandson confrontation. From the moment Sasori chose to remain, the world of the original story had begun exerting its force. His own choices had thrown the original world into disorder, but there were still certain pivotal events he could not change. Without the slightest hesitation, he tapped off with his toes and drifted onto Deidara's clay bird like a falling leaf. The smooth, natural movement displayed his exquisite control of chakra. His purpose in joining Akatsuki was the Ten-Tails. In that regard, his current goal aligned with Nagato's and Tobi's. He had even less reason to interfere with this battle destined to be brutal and filled with redemption.

"Give... Gaara... back!!!" Naruto's furious roar surged with violent chakra, forming a dark crimson beastly shadow as he charged desperately at the giant bird about to take flight.

"Naruto!" Kakashi already had Lightning Blade in hand as he and Yamato gave chase at once. Chakra fluctuations from the pursuit erupted near the cave entrance.

Inside the cave, all the noise seemed to be cut off by an invisible barrier. Dust slowly settled in the dim shafts of light streaming through the breach, illuminating the silent standoff between the three sides.

Chiyo stepped forward and half-sheltered Sakura behind her. Her aged fingers trembled slightly, yet ten chakra threads shot forth with unwavering resolve. The two puppets, "Father" and "Mother," laden with memories and pain, silently slid to her sides. Their mechanisms clicked softly as they readied themselves. Looking at the familiar Hiruko, her voice was dry as grinding sand. "Sasori... my grandson... is this the end of the path you chose?"

Sasori's puppet body, Hiruko, slowly turned toward them. His muffled voice carried no emotion whatsoever. "Boring bonds. Boring conversation. Chiyo, and... Tsunade's disciple. Since you followed me here, use your lives to add the final two—and the most 'meaningful'—pieces to my collection." He deliberately emphasized "meaningful" as his cold gaze swept over Sakura.

Sakura felt the indifference and killing intent in that gaze. Her heart pounded wildly, but Naruto's back as he charged out, Gaara's cold face, and the teachings of Shizune and Tsunade flashed through her mind. She bit down hard on her lower lip until she tasted blood, forcing herself to calm down. Her fists clenched as green medical chakra and the power of Strength surged beneath her gloves. "Chiyo," she said in a low but resolute voice, "please let me fight beside you! I will never... let his path continue!"

Chiyo looked deeply into Sakura's eyes and saw a determination and courage beyond the young girl's years. She nodded, her ten fingers tightening sharply. "Watch out for his poison and mechanisms. Let's go!"

The battle erupted in an instant!

Hiruko's steel tail stinger suddenly extended like the lethal strike of a venomous scorpion, piercing through the air at astonishing speed straight for Sakura's throat! It was so fast that it nearly exceeded the limit of what the naked eye could follow!

"Sakura! Three steps left, duck!" Chiyo shouted as she controlled the "Father" puppet to swing its blade and block the tail stinger. Sparks flew everywhere. The "Mother" puppet fired countless poisoned needles from the flank, forming a curtain of needles that blanketed Hiruko.

Sakura obeyed Chiyo's command without hesitation. The tail stinger skimmed past her hair, and the gust it created stung her cheeks. She used the momentum to charge forward, driving her right fist, condensed with Strength, viciously toward Hiruko's side joint—likely a weak point!

Boom! Strength blasted a deep crater into the stone floor, but Hiruko twisted with unbelievable flexibility and avoided most of the force. Only its edge was grazed, producing a teeth-grating screech of metal. At the same time, Hiruko's mouth opened, firing countless poisoned senbon like a torrential downpour!

Water Release: Water Wall! While controlling her puppets, Chiyo split her focus and used an exquisite Water Release technique. A spinning wall of water rose before Sakura, blocking most of the senbon. A few still slipped through, but Sakura barely managed to knock them aside with her gloves, relying on the exceptional dynamic vision and reflexes she had honed under Tsunade.

"Worthy of the 'Living Legend'... but a puppeteer's battle has never been about puppets alone!" Sasori's muffled voice rang out. Hiruko suddenly expanded as mechanisms unfolded, revealing more complex structures within. Several bladed mechanical arms shot out, joining the unpredictable tail stinger as the assault abruptly intensified. Like a storm of slaughter, it engulfed the two women and their two puppets!

Sakura combined Strength with a medical ninja's precision, either dodging or meeting the attacks head-on. Her fists crashed against metal with thunderous force. Chiyo's ten fingers danced like phantoms, and under her control, "Father" and "Mother" displayed astonishing coordination and tactics, sometimes striking together, sometimes covering one another as they defused Sasori's fierce attacks again and again. The cave echoed with metal clashes, the explosions of ninjutsu, and poisoned needles thudding into stone walls. Smoke and dust filled the air as rubble scattered everywhere. From the very beginning, the battle had entered a fever pitch!

"Is that all? Then the warm-up is over." Sasori's voice lost its last trace of warmth.

Hiruko suddenly stopped attacking and leaped backward. Under Chiyo and Sakura's grave gazes, Hiruko's back split open. A red-haired, delicate-featured but expressionless teenage figure slowly "shed" the puppet shell. Sasori of the Red Sands' true body had finally appeared! Even more chilling, space beside him twisted, and a puppet clad in a blue robe and wearing a Kazekage hat was summoned, hovering at his side. Heavy chakra fluctuations radiated from the puppet, especially from its palms, where black, metallic-glinting iron sand began to gather.

"That is... the Third Kazekage!" Chiyo cried out, her eyes filled with unimaginable pain and rage. Though she had already received intelligence that Sasori possessed the Third Kazekage puppet, seeing it with her own eyes was entirely different from merely hearing of it. "You actually... even turned the strongest Kazekage of all time into..."

"The strongest? Just another failed work." Sasori spoke indifferently, his fingers twitching slightly. "But he is more than enough to clean up the two of you. Iron Sand Drizzle!"

The Third Kazekage puppet thrust both hands forward. Countless iron sand needles became a cloud of death, descending on Chiyo and Sakura with terrifying density! It was fast, wide-ranging, and left them nowhere to evade!

"Sakura! Get behind me!" Chiyo roared. "Light Shield Seal!" The chest of the "Father" puppet suddenly opened, and a diamond-shaped chakra light shield instantly unfolded before them. Dense iron sand needles struck the shield, producing an unending barrage of piercing impacts. The shield fluctuated violently, as if it might shatter at any moment.

Sakura saw Chiyo's face turn pale in an instant and her fingers tremble faintly. She knew the defense would not hold for long. Her eyes swept rapidly around, searching for an opening. Now! She noticed that when Sasori controlled the Third Kazekage, his true body seemed to focus for a brief instant.

"Chiyo! Cover me!" Sakura shouted, pouring all her chakra into her legs and bursting forth with astonishing speed. Instead of retreating, she sprinted sideways in a flanking maneuver! Using the jagged rocks in the cave as cover, she dodged scattered iron sand attacks and headed straight for Sasori's true body!

"Foolish." Sasori did not even turn his head. The Third Kazekage puppet raised its other hand. "Iron Sand Giant Needle!" A massive iron sand spear formed in an instant and shot toward Sakura's inevitable path at air-rending speed!

"Haah!" Sakura neither dodged nor retreated. She met the giant needle with a ferocious punch from her right fist, gathering all her Strength into it! This was not mere brute force. Just before her fist touched the giant needle, her left hand swiftly formed a simple seal, and a dense film of chakra covered her glove—this was a technique she had learned from Tsunade, using chakra transformation to enhance instantaneous defense and impact!

BOOM—!!!

The giant needle was punched off course and buried deeply into the nearby rock wall. Sakura's arm went numb from the massive recoil, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, but her charge did not slow. She had already closed in on Sasori's true body!

For the first time, a faint fluctuation passed through Sasori's eyes. He seemed not to have expected Sakura to withstand the Iron Sand Giant Needle and close in so quickly. His true body leaped lightly backward as several chakra threads extended from his back, connecting to several other grotesque puppets that suddenly rose from the shadows on the ground and blocked Sakura's path.

However, this was exactly the opportunity Sakura had been waiting for! She had never intended to attack Sasori's true body directly.

"Now, Chiyo!" Sakura yelled, smashing both fists into the ground. "Strength: Earth-Flow Rift Collapse!"

The ground split open with enormous cracks centered on where her fists struck. The violent tremors and collapsing rock not only disrupted Sasori's control over his puppets, but more importantly—they shattered part of the ground and exposed the hard bedrock beneath!

Chiyo instantly understood Sakura's intention. She abandoned defense and controlled the "Father" and "Mother" puppets to desperately entangle Sasori's newly summoned puppets and draw part of the Third Kazekage's attention. Meanwhile, her own ten fingers flicked repeatedly, shooting most of her chakra threads toward the area Sakura had just smashed open with Strength, exposing the hard rock surface!

White Secret Technique: Modified Light Shield Seal!

Under Chiyo's exquisite chakra control, the hard rock seemed to gain life. It was swiftly stripped away, shaped, and combined with the "Father" puppet's mechanisms, instantly forming a composite wall of rock and iron before Sakura and Chiyo. It was far thicker and sturdier than before, tightly connected to the earth itself! This defense, combining the nature transformation of Earth Release, puppet mechanisms, and use of terrain, forcibly withstood the first impact of the Third Kazekage's incoming Iron Sand World Method!

"What?!" For the first time, obvious shock appeared on Sasori's face. He had not expected this young girl and elderly woman to coordinate so well that they could even exploit the environment to create a temporary defense against the iron sand barrier.

Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, and the gap before the iron sand barrier could fully close after being blocked by the shield wall, Sakura wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes sharpened like blades as she charged out again! This time, her target was not Sasori, but—the Third Kazekage puppet!

"Your weakness is that a puppeteer must divide his focus to control his puppets!" Sakura pushed her speed to the limit, dodging automatically attacking iron sand fragments as she closed in on the Third Kazekage puppet. "And the key to destroying a puppet lies in its joints and core!"

Her fists, wrapped in chakra condensed to its utmost limit, ignored any poison or possible counterattacks as they struck the Third Kazekage puppet's elbow joint, shoulder joint, and the chest area that seemed to house its core with the precision and violence of a surgeon's scalpel!

Bang! Crack! Boom!

Just as Sasori tried to strengthen his control and retrieve the puppet, Sakura combined her Strength with a medical ninja's profound understanding of human anatomy—puppets imitating human bodies—and landed a fatal blow. One arm of the Third Kazekage puppet twisted out of shape, its chest armor caved in, sparks burst from its joints, and its movements immediately became sluggish and stiff!

"Good job, Sakura!" Chiyo's spirits soared. Seizing the chance, she controlled the "Mother" puppet to fire chains bearing sealing tags, which wrapped around the damaged Third Kazekage in an attempt to restrain it temporarily.

Sasori's expression darkened completely. He glanced at the damaged Third Kazekage, then at Chiyo and Sakura, who had coordinated so seamlessly that they had destroyed one of his powerful trump cards. The final trace of emotion belonging to a "human" seemed to vanish from his eyes, leaving only pure obsession with "eternal art."

"Very well... you truly are qualified to witness my real 'art.'" Sasori slowly rose into the air. The huge scroll behind him, bearing the character for "Sasori," unfurled with a rustle. Countless chakra threads extended from his body into the empty air like blooming flowers of death.

Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets!

More than a hundred puppets of varying forms, armed to the teeth, surged out of the scroll like an awakened mechanical swarm. They densely filled the space above the cave! Every puppet was connected to Sasori's chakra threads, their cold gazes—if they had any—locking onto the two women below. This force could destroy a small country in an instant!

Sakura and Chiyo looked at the puppet army covering the cave ceiling. Their expressions were grave to the extreme, yet there was no retreat in their eyes. Back to back, they prepared to face this final and most desperate assault.

Meanwhile, far away atop the clay bird, Neji flew rapidly away from the battlefield with Deidara. Through the ever-growing distance, he looked back toward the cave. Though distance and obstacles prevented him from seeing the details clearly, the enormous puppet chakra surging skyward with cold killing intent, along with another current of unyielding chakra carrying tragic resolve, were as clear as beacons in the darkness.

"It has begun... Performance of a Hundred Puppets." Neji's gaze beneath his mask was deep. The brutal confrontation from the "original story," which had ultimately ended in redemption through life itself, naturally surfaced in his mind. Sakura's Strength and growth, Chiyo's life-for-life forbidden technique, Sasori's final choice to perish in the embrace of the "Father" and "Mother" puppets...

As an observer who knew the outcome of this battle, he felt little emotional turbulence. There was only calm analysis. Sasori's defeat and death were inevitable. It was not merely because of Sakura and Chiyo's struggle, but because of the emptiness in his heart, long corroded by "eternity." His own path, however, was completely different from this puppeteer's elegy. He sought a way to undo the Caged Bird and strength that would transcend the shackles of the Hyuga Clan. Every step required the utmost caution. For him, Akatsuki was temporarily a platform for gaining resources, testing his strength, and secretly observing the differences between this "plot world" and the "original story."

"Hey, Sake, what are you staring at? Still thinking about Brother Sasori over there?" Deidara's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Relax, relax. Brother Sasori's 'eternal art' is incredibly powerful. Taking care of those two women will be easy, yeah! We need to hurry and take the One-Tail Jinchuriki back, and then..." He weighed the clay bird in his hand and looked down at the dark crimson chakra figure pursuing them relentlessly through the desert, drawing ever closer, as well as the two rapidly approaching streaks of lightning and Wood Release-green behind it. An excited, cruel smile appeared on his face. "...we should have some fun with this Nine-Tails brat first! Don't hold me back, yeah!"

Neji withdrew his gaze and looked below. Naruto was already completely wrapped in chakra at the Two-Tails, perhaps even Three-Tails state. He was incredibly fast, chasing them with a mad obsession to destroy everything. Kakashi and Yamato followed closely behind, clearly intending to prevent Naruto from fully rampaging and reclaim Gaara's corpse.

A new battlefield of pursuit was about to unfold over the boundless sea of sand. And he, "Sake" —Neji Hyuga—would no longer be merely an observer. How could he fulfill his "duty" as an Akatsuki member amid this chaos without causing irreparable conflict with Konoha, especially Kakashi and the others pursuing them—perhaps even Might Guy's team, which might soon arrive—while continuing to conceal and hone his own strength? It would require precise calculation and cool-headed responses.

He lightly flexed his fingers, feeling the all-nature chakra within him—wind-nature chakra conversion had reached 95%—the Kekkei Genkai, Petrifying Touch, developed under Orochimaru's guidance, Wood Release acquired through Hashirama Cells, and Sage Arts. Beneath his mask, the corner of his mouth curved into an almost imperceptible smile belonging to a schemer.

"I will not hold you back, Senior Deidara." Neji's voice remained calm and even. "But our opponents are the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Sharingan Kakashi, and that Wood Release user who possesses the power once held only by the God of Shinobi... I suggest you do not put 'art' above the mission."

"Got it, got it! You're so annoying! Watch this!" Deidara laughed loudly, controlling the giant bird into a sharp climb as a new clay bomb formed in his hand. "Art is an explosion! Katsu!"

Below, Naruto's beastlike roar resounded through the desert. A massive dark crimson chakra claw tore through the air and viciously swiped at the giant bird overhead.