Neji's mind races as he tries to think up a strategy that will help him defeat Sasori. If only he could get Sasori to flashback and reveal his weakness. Actually, that's a good idea, all Neji needs is an opening. "Hey Sasori," he calls to the puppet master. "How are you going to fight without your puppets and poison?"
"I will use the white zetsus as puppets," says Sasori gravely.
"That's a good idea," says Neji. "You must've been a teenager when you destroyed the Hidden Whirlpool, right? How did you do it?" Please take the bait, please take the bait…
"Ah," says Sasori, looking up at the sky. "It was quite a day…"
"Hang on," says Neji, holding up a hand. "Before you begin, there is a jutsu you must know. Naruto showed it to me, and his little cousin invented it. It is called The Flashback No Jutsu. Here are the hand signs: Monkey, Ram, Llama, Butterfly, Half-Ram. Hold the memory in your mind as you weave the hand signs and then release the jutsu on the Half-Ram seal."
"Llama and Butterfly?" says Sasori, sceptically. "Was this jutsu invented by a five year old?"
"Yes, it was."
"Ah, that makes sense." Sasori casts the jutsu. As he does, the Temple of Jashiin is replaced by a white field. Then the field moves beneath Neji's feet, until he and everyone at the Temple of Jashin are standing on a grassy hill overlooking a village.
It is dark. There is no moon, and thick clouds cover the sky. Neji looks around and sees a teenaged Sasori sneaking through the grass. Like a three-dimensional television screen, Neji's surroundings change as the young Sasori moves towards the village.
"I went to the Hidden Whirlpool to test a new jutsu," explains the reanimated Sasori. "The Dance of One Hundred Puppets. I even invented a new poisoned gas to go with it. Every blade was poisoned and every puppet was rigged to let out the gas at the slightest provocation."
The young Sasori pulls out a wooden mask and fastens it over his face. Then he unrolls a scroll, revealing a storage seal. Young Sasori activates the seal and a hundred ugly puppets shoot out of it in quick succession. Each puppet is disguised as a shinobi from one of the Five Great Nations. Some of them even appear to be corpses of dead shinobi. Hundreds of chakra strings connect the puppets to young Sasori. Young Sasori stands and walks towards the village, his puppets floating along behind him.
"Who goes there?" asks the red haired guard standing by the village gates.
"Sasori of the Red Sand," says young Sasori. A moment later, one of the puppets opens its mouth and lets loose a cloud of thick gas.
"Wha-" the guard begins to speak, but inhales the gas. He coughs and turns a disgusting shade of green. As the guard doubles over, clawing at his throat, young Sasori throws a kunai into his forehead. The guard screams and falls backwards, dead.
"The poison is stronger than I expected," comments young Sasori, walking past the dead guard and into the village. "Now, I wonder: how long does it take for the Hidden Whirlpool to respond to an attack?"
The answer is instantly. One moment, young Sasori is alone. The next moment, the air around him is filled with people, most of them in pyjamas, some kind of robe or underwear. All of them look angry and all of them are armed. They attack young Sasori, who sends in his horde of puppets.
In a matter of minutes, poisoned gas, broken puppets and dead bodies litter the streets. Young Sasori directs his puppets to attack, destroy and kill, spreading the poison everywhere. He stands in the centre of the chaos, waiting for someone to attack him directly.
He is not disappointed. Soon, the Queen herself appears before Sasori. She has her husband and a scared-looking girl with her.
"GET OUT OF MY VILLAGE!" screams the Queen, pulling out a big sword and swinging it at Sasori.
Sasori leaps out of the way and calls down a few puppets to attack the queen. She destroys one, causing poisoned darts to shoot out of the broken wood and impale her. Young Sasori grins. Those darts were useful after all.
The Queen's Husband screams in rage and leaps forwards, attacking Sasori with a short sword in each hand. Sasori dodges out of the way, once again calling on his puppets. The Queen's Husband dodges the puppets and brings his swords down on one of Sasori's arms. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Sasori drives a kunai into the man's back, killing him. Sasori's arm falls to the ground along with his second kill.
Young Sasori turns to the girl. She stares up at him with teary, frightened eyes.
"Please don't tell me you murdered that girl," says Neji, his eyes widening in premature horror.
"No, I did not," says reanimated Sasori. He raises a hand and points to a comotian happening nearby. "I sensed someone cutting through my puppets and quickly hid. As you can see, I was in no condition to fight a fresh opponent."
A woman and a man carrying a toddler run around a street corner nearby. The toddler is bleeding from a poisoned gash across his face. The man and woman run towards the Queen's daughter.
Young Sasori directs a puppet down to kill the crying princess before the two Whirlpool ninjas can reach her. The Whirlpool man, still holding his toddler, flying-kicks the puppet to the ground, grabs the Princess by the hand and runs on without breaking his stride.
"Talk about a badass," says Neji, astonished and impressed.
"I wish I could have fought him," says reanimated Sasori. "But it was not to be."
Neji and everyone else at the Temple of Jashin watches as Young Sasori follows the fleeing man, woman, toddler and princess. The woman smashes apart puppet after puppet, stopping the spread of poison with well-placed seals as she does so. As they run, the man and woman yell at the Whirlpool people they pass to flee and escape the cloud of deadly poisoned gas spreading through the burning village.
Young Sasori follows the only people smart enough to flee the jutsu until they reach the edge of the village. The gas has spread to the mountains so the woman pushes the rest of the group down the hill and tumbles after them.
"By this time," says reanimated Sasori. "I was starting to feel lightheaded from the blood loss and pain. I figured I'd killed everyone else, unless someone other than those four were smart enough to escape."
"You're only just now feeling the effects of losing an arm?" says the reanimated lady. "What are you made of, wood?"
"I was when I died," says reanimated Sasori, crossing his arms thoughtfully. "But not at this point in time. I replaced that missing arm with a puppet arm later. But back to the flashback."
The Whirlpool princess stops herself from tumbling down the hill and gets up. Then she runs towards the village screaming, "I'LL KILL YOU, SAND NINJA!" Young Sasori watches her run up the hill a short way. About halfway up the hill, the girl collapses. Her skin is blotchy from the poison she inhaled while she was still inside the purple cloud. Shaking, the princess raises her arm to her mouth and bites down hard. Instantly, an aura of bright chakra envelops her as she heals herself.
"The royal Uzumaki kekkei genkai…" says Young Sasori, his eyes widening in amazement. Then he runs down the hill and grabs the Princess.
"HEY!" she yelps, as Young Sasori pulls her arm out of her mouth. "You! I'm going to kill you!"
Young Sasori bites the princess's arm. Almost instantly, the bleeding from the stump of his arm stops.
The princess pulls out a kunai and tries to stab Sasori. Sasori grabs her with his chakra strings and stops her. Then he takes his mouth away from her arm and heads down the hill towards the other Whirlpool survivors. The princess floats along behind him on chakra strings.
Then the princess gasps in surprise and smiles hopefully. "You are going to die," she says, grinning. "The Sanin are coming."
Young Sasori turns and flees into the forest. The world moves beneath Neji's feet as the jutsu drags him and everyone else along behind Young Sasori as he runs. Young Sasori stops a safe distance away and looks back. Neji turns to look too and sees the three Legendary Sanin, battle worn and looking as though they are on their way home from a mission. The trio stops when they find the other three who escaped the Hidden Whirlpool. Young Sasori turns and runs on.
Reanimated Sasori ends the jutsu. "After that," he says. "I sold the Whirlpool Princess to the Hidden Grass. I hoped that she would kill all of them, but she did not. Somehow, they managed to keep her there. As far as I know, she only left recently and went to the Hidden Leaf. I don't know what happened. I did knock her out after a while, so perhaps she blocked out the memory in order to cope."
"I'll ask her next time I see her," says Iruka sensei.
"Who are you?" asks Sasori, turning to Iruka sensei. "You were also with that historian, weren't you?"
"I'm that little toddler that survived the Whirlpool," says Iruka sensei. "I suppose you did not expect your justu to be that effective?"
"Ha, no," scoffs Sasori. "In fact, it was too effective. I dialed it back after that. The poison only releases on my command now, and I use a strain of poison that takes longer to take effect. It is not very much fun to fight an enemy that is no match for you. I prefer to keep the playing field even unless I am in a hurry. I do hate to keep people waiting."