The smoke cleared.
The three hundred "Industrial Revolution" puppets had not lowered their combat stances. They stood in perfect formation atop mountains of corpses and seas of blood, their barrels still faintly red, their dark-blue cores glowing like ghost flames in the empty, dim canyon.
Sasori sat atop a giant puppet arm, lowering his head as he fiddled with a new component in his hands, as though the lives and deaths of the Sunagakure shinobi beneath his feet had nothing to do with him.
"Sasori..."
Kankuro forced the name through clenched teeth. He stared fixedly at the red-haired figure, crushing a broken puppet limb in his hand until it creaked. To the people of Sunagakure, that name represented shame and hatred. Murdering the Third Kazekage, defecting, plunging the village into prolonged turmoil—any one of those crimes was enough to have him executed ten thousand times at Sunagakure's judgment post.
But now, this criminal had saved them.
"Don't look at me like that." Sasori did not even raise his head. His screwdriver flew over the component in his hands. "If I hadn't wanted to test the durability of this batch of new cooling valves under extreme conditions, I couldn't be bothered with you lot..."
Sasori paused, taking rather a long time to choose his next words.
"Useless countrymen."
"You..." Temari was about to step forward when Gaara stopped her.
The young Kazekage's face was pale, sand flowing weakly around his feet. He looked at Sasori with equally complicated eyes. "Were you fighting for Konoha?"
"Konoha?" Sasori finally stopped what he was doing and let out a mocking snort. He lifted his head, his amber eyes full of derision. "That blond brat gave me an unlimited budget, the best materials, and a laboratory where no one tells me what to do. I'm