Sasori of the Red Sands lay on all fours, his massive body pressed to the ground. A sharp steel tail emerged from the demon-faced opening in his back.
With his mask burned away, the cracks running from the corners of his mouth down to his chin were clearly visible.
"Sasori of the Red Sands isn't alive?!"
The field commander stared, dumbfounded, at Sasori of the Red Sands's revealed true form. At last, he understood what had felt so wrong earlier.
Sasori of the Red Sands's body had been grotesquely misshapen to begin with, and he could take a sniper round to the head. It turned out he wasn't human at all, but a giant puppet.
"Hiruko, Needle Eight Waves!"
With a crack, Sasori of the Red Sands's jaw split open, firing hundreds upon thousands of poisoned needles from his mouth at the monk Chiriku in the rubble.
"Whoosh-"
The poisoned needles moved like lightning. Before anyone from the Metropolitan Police Department could even make out what they were, the rubble was studded with them, like a forest of needles.
Their faces paled in horror. Had Master Chiriku been killed?
Just then, a halo of golden light quietly rose through the dust above the rubble, and a golden Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara Statue, seven or eight meters tall, appeared in midair.
"Amitabha!"
Master Chiriku chanted the Buddha's name. Though the steel tail had slashed his clothes, he himself was completely unharmed.
"Thousand-Hand Kill!"
Master Chiriku roared. The dozens of golden arms behind the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara Statue unfurled one after another like a golden lotus, raining blows down on Sasori of the Red Sands.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Golden palms of light struck the ground with overwhelming force, smashing and flattening even the houses behind him like cardboard boxes.
When the dust cleared, a crater