Urashiki raised the Fishing Rod high. Scarlet energy shuddered violently at its hook, resonating with the girl inside the Life-Support Pod.
"So, Sasori of the Red Sands, what is real and what is illusion? You call yourself a 'Digital Life' that has transcended flesh and defined eternity through data. Why don't you experience the answer for yourself?"
Before he finished speaking, Urashiki jerked the Fishing Rod downward!
Inside the Life-Support Pod, the sleeping Uchiha girl's eyes snapped open again! Her uncanny Mangekyō Sharingan spun faster than ever, scarlet light almost spilling from her eyes.
Two trails of bloody tears slid down her pale cheeks and dripped into the light-blue nutrient fluid, leaving stains that spread through it.
At that same moment, a clear scarlet mark appeared in the center of the chest of the red-haired puppet shell Sasori of the Red Sands was controlling—the one facing Urashiki. It looked like burning thorns coiled around a pupil!
"Alert! Alert!" A piercing electronic alarm erupted through Sasori's cloud-based core and every connected terminal. "Unknown protocol intrusion detected! Priority level: critical!"
"Underlying core code is being accessed, overwritten, and altered without authorization! Firewall failure! Logic locks bypassed! Warning: core cognition module compromised! 'Self' definition parameters shifting beyond control!..."
As the alarms blared, the puppet Sasori controlled went rigid. The red glow in its eyes flickered wildly.
Then, like a chain reaction, every weapons system, defensive installation, and support robot under Sasori's direct or indirect control throughout the Research Base lost control at once. Even the lights and energy conduits failed!
Lights flickered, static flashed across instrument screens, and mechanical arms sagged. The once formidable, coldly efficient base became a scrapyard filled with the noise of malfunctioning machines.
"Got it!" Urashiki looked at the disabled puppet and the base in chaos, then nodded with