"Ow!"
Mukai woke with a splitting headache from his merging memories and searing pain in his arm.
Where was he? Why was it raining?
Mukai remembered testing wireless power transmission in his school's high-voltage laboratory.
Had something exploded?
A brilliant white arc of electricity had swept over him, vaporizing the merit-and-divine-wish copper coin hanging around his neck. Then he had lost consciousness.
What were these numbers flickering before his eyes?
Wait, was this the world of Naruto?
He had transmigrated into Mukai, Sasori's little sidekick,
who was always called Komushi because his name sounded like the Japanese word for rice weevil?
Wait, Komushi?
He looked at the red-haired boy carrying him on his back and asked uncertainly:
"Sasori?"
In Mukai's eyes, a cluster of fluctuating numbers appeared over the red-haired Sasori.
There was Sasori's name, along with stats like Ninjutsu 6, Taijutsu 5, and Genjutsu 4.
Why did it look like a video game stat card?
Hearing his voice, Sasori stopped and said:
"Komushi, you're awake?
Don't worry. Once we're back in the village, we can get you treated.
But your wound is strange. It just won't stop bleeding.
To be safe, we should amputate!"
Amputate?
Even though Mukai wasn't a hardcore Naruto fan,
he knew what had happened to Komushi after the amputation.
He remembered the events afterward perfectly.
Sasori had fitted him with a prosthetic arm,
a puppet arm nimble enough to deploy a poisoned blade.
And what happened?
The poisoned blade in that arm had malfunctioned when it deployed, and Komushi had injured himself.
Sasori had watched helplessly as he died despite treatment, and in the end, he had been made into Sasori's first Human Puppet.
As a work of eternal art, he had become one of Sasori's collectibles.
That had marked the beginning of Sasori's descent.
Killing the Third Kazekage, triggering the Third Shinobi World War, defecting-
the beginning of that entire chain of events seemed to have been this inconspicuous character, Komushi.
One conspiracy theory claimed that Sasori had done it deliberately because he was jealous of his best friend Komushi's happy family.
Whatever the reason, he was now the one about to die.
He didn't want that!
It was bad enough that he had just transmigrated into the world of Naruto without appearing in Konoha, the center of the Shinobi World.
He certainly didn't want to become Sasori's Human Puppet for the sake of some so-called eternal art!
Mukai's brain was working as fast as it had during his college entrance exam.
He pointed with his left arm at a ruined village in the distance and said:
"Sasori, I'm a little cold. How about we find a house over there to shelter from the rain,
warm ourselves by a fire, eat something, and try to stop the bleeding in my arm first?"
Sasori looked at his right arm, which was still bleeding in the rain, and nodded expressionlessly.
"All right."
Sasori secured Mukai to his back with Chakra Threads, then leaped several times and found a reasonably intact house in the village.
"Who's there?"
As soon as the two entered the house, they saw three people stand up beside a fire.
The one at the front, a blond boy holding a sharpened wooden stick, was the first to challenge them.
When they saw Sasori carrying Mukai and the Sand Forehead Protector on his forehead, the three seemed even more tense.
Sasori gently lowered Mukai from his back with Chakra Threads.
He flicked both hands, and two scrolls appeared in them.
He was ready to attack.
Just as he was about to release his two puppets, Black Ant and Crow,
Mukai called out from behind him, stopping him:
"Sasori... Sasori, don't do anything rash. The war is already over.
They're just ordinary people who mean us no harm.
I'm begging you."
Sasori paused and didn't release his puppets,
but he didn't let go of the scrolls in his hands either.
His voice was colder than the rain outside:
"They have Chakra. They could be rogue ninja in hiding.
Have you forgotten the people who ambushed you and injured you so badly?"
Mukai was still adjusting to his body and processing his merged memories.
If his soul hadn't been unusually resilient after the merger,
he, a physically fragile college student, would have passed out long ago.
Having some basic first-aid knowledge, he naturally knew he couldn't let his arm keep bleeding like this.
And wasn't it common knowledge that you shouldn't get a wound wet?
He didn't want to lose part of his arm right after transmigrating,
much less die here without knowing why.
The intense killing intent Sasori was giving off now
showed that he was already in a dangerous period-
a period when his outlook on life was unstable and he had begun to disregard even his own life.
Mukai had recognized the three people opposite them as soon as they entered:
Konan with her light-purple hair in a bun, Nagato with his long red hair hanging loose, and Yahiko with his spiky blond hair.
Provoke the future big three of the Akatsuki now?
Nagato and his Rinnegan alone would be trouble enough,
let alone Black Zetsu and White Zetsu, who were also hiding nearby.
The future Akatsuki trio was here. Sasori couldn't beat them!
Mukai gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to ease the tension between the two sides:
"Hello, we don't mean any harm.
We're just Sand ninja passing through.
I was ambushed and badly injured by rogue ninja bandits,
so we came here to get out of the rain and treat my wound.
My companion is only worried about me. He won't hurt you.
Do you have a medical-nin or a doctor?"
Sasori was somewhat displeased to see Mukai speaking to them so politely,
but proud as he was, he didn't object. He turned sideways to examine Mukai's arm.
Mukai's arm had been injured when he blocked an ambushing ninja's Ninja Blade for Sasori.
The ninja had applied some unknown Chakra to the blade,
which had cut into Mukai's arm and burst it open, leaving multiple crisscrossing wounds.
The bloody gashes on his rain-soaked arm were a horrifying sight,
dark red blood gushing from them.
Yahiko and the others seemed to notice Mukai's condition as well. They put away their sticks, and Yahiko said:
"We don't have a medical-nin. A doctor...
May I take a look at your friend's injury?"
Sasori said coldly:
"No need. We can handle it ourselves."
Ah, Sasori and his pride!
Mukai sensed the strange Chakra inside him and tried to channel it through his left hand.
With a crackle, blue-white electricity blossomed at his fingertips.
A moment later, it changed into a sharp little vortex of wind.
Going by how things worked in Naruto, did that mean he had both wind and lightning Chakra natures?
Sasori was a master of poisons, but he only knew how to kill with them, not how to save people.
As Mukai tried to control his Chakra, Sasori was working to wrap his arm in bandages and stop the bleeding.
But the wounds blown open in his arm by the Chakra-coated blade were deep.
They kept bleeding, and the bandages were quickly soaked through.
Mukai felt a little cold. He knew it was a sign of excessive blood loss.
If this continued, he would have to lose his arm whether he wanted to or not.
Fortunately, thanks to the numbers that appeared before his eyes,
he seemed to know what his ability was.
Precision.
Precise control based on numerical values.
He could precisely control Chakra to produce electrical charges and wind.
That seemed to be the cheat he had gained by transmigrating into the world of Naruto.
He struggled to sit up and held out his left hand.
"Sasori, let me try. Give me an ordinary Kunai.
I think I've gained some insight into using Chakra."
For a while now, Sasori had felt that something was different about his best friend.
He seemed to have suddenly become much more mature and confident.
Sasori was only eight himself at this point. He instinctively pulled out an unpoisoned Kunai and handed it to Mukai.
When they saw Mukai take the Kunai, Yahiko and the others grew tense again.
Mukai took a deep breath, sliced open the bandages with the tip of the Kunai, then reversed his grip on it.
He began to control the output frequency in his mind:
*"A circulating ring of wind to insulate my palm, a 45-hertz alternating electric field,
a current of 0.5 amperes, eddy current discharge!"*
Something astonishing happened.
Steam suddenly began rising from the metal ring at the end of the Kunai Mukai held in a reverse grip.
It turned red-hot in an instant!
Without hesitation, Mukai quickly pressed the red-hot metal ring against a blood vessel in his right arm!
Three seconds!
Three seconds for each bleeding wound!
With adrenaline coursing through him, he quickly pressed it down and lifted it five times. The smell of scorched flesh filled the little house.
Mukai had bitten through his lip. Only then did he let go, fall back, and convulse.
It fucking hurt!
Sasori had never imagined that his best friend, who spent his days acting silly, had such a tough side to him.
He had never imagined there was a way to stop bleeding like this, either.
Five scorched marks now marred Mukai's arm, and the bleeding really had stopped!
How had he made the Kunai heat up just now?
Sasori remembered that Mukai only had two conflicting Chakra natures, wind and lightning.