Main World.
Year 27 of Konoha, winter.
Mechanical Star, Mechanical City.
Tianshu Headquarters, top-floor hall.
The snow outside the window was fake. Mechanical Star had no snow, only a gray-blue sky and ceaseless industrial emissions. But Sasori liked projecting images of snow onto the windows. Cold, white, clean. Like his laboratory, like his Growth Chambers, like his mechanical heart.
Toyotomi Yinglang stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, his moon-white Kariginu gleaming coldly in the "snowlight." With his hands clasped behind his back, he gazed at the false snowfield.
Behind him, Sasori sat in a wheelchair. It was not that he could not walk; he was modifying himself. His body had been severely damaged in the battle against Yandō and needed major repairs. His left arm had been replaced, a shock absorber fitted to his right leg, and an alloy brace implanted in his spine. He was now the most sophisticated machine on Mechanical Star, and the Empire's sharpest blade.
"The age of great development." Toyotomi Yinglang's voice was calm. "Did you name it?"
"That's what the people on Mechanical Star call it," Sasori replied just as calmly. "Not me." He paused. "But I think it fits. The earth veins are loosening, mineral veins are surging up, hidden realms are emerging, and geniuses are being born in batches. This isn't development. It's a blowout."
Toyotomi Yinglang turned to look at him.
"I read the Star Realm Army proposal."
Sasori raised his head. Streams of data flowed slowly through his mechanical eyes.
"The Empire needs a regular army. Not elites like the battle groups, not a security force like the navy, not cannon fodder like the auxiliary army. A true, organized regular army capable of fighting independently."
Toyotomi Yinglang walked over and looked down at him.
"You want to become the Star Realm