"I spy with my little eye…" a Kiri-nin said while staring out at the watery expanse. "Something… blue."
"Is it the fucking ocean?" his annoyed companion nearly growled from beside him. The last thing he wanted to do was continue enduring this inane drivel from his partner while the ocean ahead rippled violently and masses of biju chakra spilled in every direction.
"Holy hell, you're really good at this," the first Kiri-nin remarked with an infuriatingly innocuous chuckle.
"Please, Sage, end me now," the second ninja grumbled.
"If you insist."
Neither man had any time to react to the new voice before a chakra rod was driven through the heart of the first man from behind. The second man instinctively swung his kunai to stab the new, orange-masked arrival, but the kunai and his hand sailed right through him as if he wasn't even there. Before he could even be shocked about it, the masked man's hand clamped tightly onto his throat and raised him off the ground. He frantically tried to pry himself away from his attacker's iron grip, but it was useless; darkness slowly enveloped him as the life was choked out of him, and the last this he saw before he succumbed to the void was a single Sharingan glowing with disdain.
When the man's movements finally ceased, Obito crushed the poor ninja's throat for good measure before tossing him away like trash. These two marked the final Kiri-nin of the sealing teams stationed at this island in preparation for the Sanbi's inevitable reappearance. He had slaughtered every last one of them, including the poor sap that had been chosen to become the next vessel. All in a day's work.
Now, all Obito had to do was sit back and wait. The fluctuations of biju chakra were quickly reaching a head, and it was only a matter of time before the Sanbi finally showed itself. He simply needed to place it under his control and then warp it into the Kamui dimension for storage.
A mirthless chuckle rumbled from beneath the mask. He still couldn't believe that Zetsu managed to talk him into such a ludicrous endeavor like warping whole biju away. He hated that it was the best workaround they had until they finally procured the Rinnegan.
"Obito," the familiar, gravelly voice of his plant-man subordinate addressed from behind him.
Speak of the fucking devil, and its arboreal ass will appear.
"Zetsu," Obito said evenly, but the annoyance in his tone was clear. "Why are you here?"
"We have a suggestion," Black Zetsu responded.
"We only have one clone of Hashirama producing us," White Zetsu continued, earning Obito's full attention. "We'll need to make it more potent if our plans for Sasuke will bear any fruit in a reasonable amount of time."
"Why is that?" Obito questioned.
"As it stands, the current clone is still reliable, but it is beginning to show its age," Black Zetsu explained. "To get the sufficient quality of Senju chakra we'll need, a boost to its production will be necessary."
Obito silently considered the point for a moment before humming. "What do you suggest, then?"
"Orochimaru used to experiment with Hashirama's DNA in order to replicate his Wood Release. To our knowledge, there was only one success from that project, and he still walks among Konoha."
"He could be just the battery we'd need to kick production into a higher gear!" White Zetsu enthusiastically added.
Obito silently mulled over the rationale. He couldn't place anything particularly wrong with the idea. If it would hasten the awakening of the Rinnegan in Sasuke, then it was worth considering. Additionally, more disposable Zetsu clones would only work in their favor.
"I'll look into it once I'm finished here," Obito said with a nod.
"Excellent," Black Zetsu grinned. "We'll leave you to it."
Without another word, Zetsu disappeared into the ground, leaving Obito alone. However, he wasn't alone for long, as the ground began to rumble in tandem with the waves becoming even more tumultuous. Slowly, a gargantuan, spiky shell emerged from the depths of the ocean. Bright red muscle tissue lay beneath and sandwiched between the imposing, grey armor covering its body. Massive spikes cascaded across its forehead and its enlarged lower jaw, almost appearing as a second, wide maw of jagged teeth on its own.
The Sanbi had resurrected in all its glory.
Steam billowed out of its clenched mouth in a monstrous sigh belying the biju's exhaustion. Reconstituting was tiresome work, but Isobu, for the first time in decades, felt at ease. He was free. He was free from the confinement of a human's chakra network where he was reduced to being a mere slave, a weapon, and a glorified chakra battery. He was shackled no more. He would finally know peace-
A rock striking him in his one open eye yanked him out of his revelry. Both eyes snapped open, and he jerked his massive head to the island beside him.
"The hell…" Isobu trailed off before he noticed the hauntingly familiar presence gazing at him from the shore. His piercing, yellow irises narrowed at the figure, zeroing in on the orange mask with a singular eyehole… and then he was overcome with rage.
"YOU!"
"Hello again, Sanbi," Obito chuckled as chakra began to coalesce in the giant turtle's mouth.
In an instant, Obito was in front of the biju and ensnared it under his spell with a mere glance. The beginnings of the bijudama had petered out, and Isobu's golden eyes became two spinning Sharingan.
"Goodbye again, Sanbi," Obito remarked before tensing and warping Isobu away into the Kamui dimension. The titanic creature distorted and swirled for several seconds, but he was finally able to send the Sanbi away with a heave.
"Goddamn," Obito exhaled. That was even harder than warping the mountain back and forth, and he had to do this eight more fucking times? And then nine more to get them all out??
"I'm going to beat Zetsu's ass after this is all said and done," Obito grumbled.
Gaara wouldn't outwardly admit it, but he was bored. Shukaku had been strangely silent recently, Temari was busy with her work as the Kazekage, and Pakura-sensei told Granny Chiyo to "get off her pruny ass and take on an apprentice," so Kankuro was also pretty busy recently. He supposed he could search out Baki to commune with, but his former sensei was usually either on a mission or at home smoking pot. No one was entirely sure where he ever got it from; it wasn't like it grew in the desert.
That led him to his current place on the roof of the roof of his room in the Kazekage's Mansion. Sitting under the cloudless sky in the calm of night was always a favored activity of Gaara, even during his far more homicidal years. Even when Shukaku was at his loudest, he could still be somewhat drowned out by the stillness of the darkness. It was a momentary reprieve from his unending insanity, one that he cherished every time he could.
Then, he spotted a strange sight: a bird was flying in circles over the village, but it wasn't one indigenous to the region. This one was pure white, and it appeared to be hovering over the village as if it was waiting or looking for something in particular rather than simply passing through. He kept one eye locked onto it while his other one was closed and his fingers were channeling chakra through his optic nerve, connecting his vision to that of the Eye of Sand hovering far above him and spying on the bird. He had been training it for the last few years, so not only could he see through the third eye, but through careful manipulation of the sand that composed it, he could also hear through it, as well.
"…when will you learn, Sasori?" a blonde man in a black cloak with a purple moon emblazoned on the chest groan. "Art is fleeting. It captures the beauty of a single moment in time, the instantaneous burst of vibrance that encapsulates what our existence is truly capable of at its best. True art is an explosion!"
"Enough with your inane nonsense, Deidara," Sasori (a name that put Gaara mildly on edge) gruffly retorted. "Art is eternal. It doesn't see fit to be a mere flash in the pan; it is everlasting, ever-present to behold and appreciate long after its birth and long after its creator's demise. It cannot simply be a single moment, for its beauty lies in the legacy it manifests."
Gaara knew exactly what their arrival meant. Pakura's warning of Tsuki no Me's impending strike on the world's jinchuriki was not taken lightly in the slightest, which was likely how she was able to convince Chiyo to care enough about the future generations to train Kankuro. These two missing-nin were here to capture him; that much was obvious. However, their conversation intrigued him, loathe as he was to admit it given the circumstances of their presence.
To any outside observer, it would have been difficult to parse the curiosity from the impassivity in Gaara's dull gaze as he watched the clay bird's slow, careful descent towards the roof of his wing of the Kazekage Mansion. The two missing-nin's heated debate while riding atop the bird seemed to have occupied enough of their attention to momentarily pause whatever attack they had planned. His curiosity getting the better of him, Gaara willed sand to collect into a platform beneath him that slowly carried him into the air and toward the hovering bird. His steady approach went either unnoticed or disregarded by the duo, so he allowed their argument to continue while he could feel his sister triggering the silent alarm and alerting the village's shinobi.
It was at this point that Deidara had gotten fed up enough with his partner to turn to the patiently watching Gaara standing on his sand platform. "Tell me, Ichibi Jinchuriki, what is your opinion on art? Are you an artist like us?"
"Art?" Gaara inquired, the sudden question taking him by surprise. He wasn't expecting to be brought into their quarrel, and the thought actually gave him pause. He gave it a few moments' thought before he returned his attention to the duo hovering before him.
"I suppose I play the piano," he answered in his standard monotone.
Sasori, having been aware of this from information his spies had fed him, gave no outward reaction to the news (it wasn't like his shell could emote in the first place). Deidara, on the other hand, was not at all prepared for that response.
"…Seriously?" Deidara asked, and Gaara nodded. "How about physical art rather than musical? What is true art to you?"
Gaara took another moment to really consider the question. "Well, I do dabble in sand and sandstone sculptures. I suppose that is the extent of my physical art prowess."
"Oh, so you're a pleb who thinks true art is everlasting, hm," Deidara dismissed, annoyed that the jinchuriki was leaning toward's Sasori's flawed philosophy.
However, Gaara shook his head. "I would not say so. The beauty of art is that it is an expression of the creator's wants, desires, losses, uncertainties, et cetera. It is intrinsically up to the creator to determine its worth. On the same token, the observer is entitled to their own opinions of what they see and experience, so the significance of any particular piece is naturally up to interpretation, as well. It is sort of paradoxical in that way. The bright, fleeting spontaneity of life is no more or less beautiful than the everlasting permanence of mind, body, and spirit."
Neither of the two mercenaries could formulate a response to that. A lengthy silence carried between the three as Sasori and Deidara processed Gaara's analysis. Gaara simply stared back at them without a word, and the silence drew on, serenaded only by the gentle nighttime breeze of the desert.
Finally, Deidara was the one to speak up. "…Sasori, my man, hear me out."
"…What is it?" he asked, sending Deidara an uncertain glance.
"We should take him back to base," Deidara began, drawing a slow nod from Sasori to prompt him to continue. "Not as a sacrifice, though, but as a member."
Sasori leveled him with a glare so deadpan that it somehow even transcended the lifeless, glassy eyes of a puppet. "He cannot join Tsuki no Me, Deidara. He is a jinchuriki. He is our target."
"We don't even have the stupid Super Sharingan to seal the fuckin' biju anyway, hm!" Deidara groused with a huff. "There's literally no harm to keeping a true art connoisseur around for as long as we need him."
Sasori shook his head. "I'll let you plead your case to Madara, then. I want nothing to do with this-"
Just then, Sasori and Deidara jumped out of the way of a massive gust of wind. It wasn't aimed at Gaara, so a casual sand wall was all that was needed to keep him safe. Once the gust died down, descending from the sky was a large war fan carrying the Godaime Kazekage. Judging from the annoyed glare in her teal eyes bearing down on them, she was less than pleased with the scene.
"Sasori of the Red Sand," Temari drawled in a mixture of interest and agitation as she stepped onto the building without closing her fan. "What's the most wanted criminal in our village's history doing on my brother's roof?"
"We were having a rousing conversation about what qualifies as true art," Sasori answered matter-of-factly. "Your brother is an artist, so his opinion was valued."
"Naturally," she nodded. "He's become quite the showman over the years. His piano recitals almost singlehandedly reinvigorated the village's will to live."
"So I've heard," Sasori drawled.
"Not that I don't love spontaneous visits, but is that the extent of your conversation with my brother?" Temari asked with a quirked eyebrow, never removing her gaze from the completely unconcerned duo for even a millisecond.
"Yes, our business is concluding here. So, if you don't mind, we will be departing with the jinchuriki."
"I do mind."
"Well, that's unfortunate. We're departing with the jinchuriki irrespective of your opinion on the matter."
Temari's eyes narrowed, and the grip on her fan tightened. "I have a better idea: I kill you and present the head of the man who killed the Sandaime to the public for a massive celebration."
Sasori was silent for a moment, then a thoughtful hum reverberated from his shell. "Yes, I suppose that is an option. It's not a particularly feasible option for you, but you could make the attempt. I wouldn't mind adding another Kazekage to my collection."
"Gaara," Temari murmured, and he nodded before a wave of sand shot at Deidara in an attempt to catch him, but he leisurely evaded the attack on his bird.
"I'll handle the jinchuriki, my man!" Deidara called out to Sasori before flying away to engage Gaara.
"Just don't take too long," Sasori grumbled, setting his sights onto Temari for what he was sure would be a very brief fight. "I hate being kept-"
Within an instant, Temari had closed the distance between them and swung her fan at him like a club, colliding with the metal tail he used to block the attack with a thunderous clang.
"…waiting," Sasori growled, mildly perturbed by the display from his opponent and the challenging smirk he was receiving.
His information about her and the use of a war fan suggested that she'd attack him from range with wind jutsu, which was what he expected her to do, especially if she already knew who he was and what he was capable of with just a glancing blow. Instead, she rushed him with surprising speed and initiated a close encounter to throw him off his game. That sort of misdirection was a decent strategy to begin a fight, even if the speed was nothing he couldn't handle. It only meant that the newly appointed Kage wasn't the inexperienced whelp he had pegged her to be… for now, anyway.
He forced her away with his tail and shot a barrage of poisoned senbon out of his mouth at her, but she simply redirected them with wind chakra. She returned fire with several powerful swings of her fan, launching sharp wind currents that overlapped into a razor-sharp net. Sasori's tail curled around him in defense, blocking the wind blades from doing any serious harm to the Hiruko shell beyond a myriad of slashes along the cloak.
Sasori shot his left arm out and fired another barrage of senbon at her, this time including a storm of poisoned shrapnel amidst the onslaught. Temari tried redirecting them, as well, but it was quickly becoming overwhelming, so after briefly using her fan as a shield, she fired a Great Wind Wall to keep the onslaught at bay.
Meanwhile, with the night sky illuminated by explosions and sand, Kankuro snuck from rooftop to rooftop just out of range of the battle to get to a decent vantage point behind Sasori. He looped several chakra strings through the rings of just as many kunai, then he threw at Sasori while he was distracted.
Sasori spotted the barrage of kunai that were sailing towards him in his periphery just in time to bat them away with his tail. He idly noted the annoyance just a few rooftops away, but he opted to deal with him after killing his former home's leader for the second time in his life. He had a reputation to maintain, after all. Strangely, though, he was having a bit of trouble maneuvering his tail for some reason, but he didn't have much time to think about that before Temari struck once again.
"Giant Cast Net Jutsu!" Temari bellowed, swinging her fan back and forth at a ridiculous speed and creating a monstrously serrated net of wind blades.
Sasori tried blocking with his tail again, but now it simply wouldn't budge, and only when the limbs of Hiruko seemed to be rooted in place alongside it did it finally click what had happened. He turned an irate glare back at the pest a few rooftops away that was holding him in place with chakra strings, then he abandoned ship right as the jutsu slammed into Hiruko and tore it to pieces.
Temari and Kankuro remotely shared a victorious smirk. They had forced him out of his protective shell, which would in theory make a puppet master easier to deal with.
Unfortunately for them, Sasori of the Red Sand wasn't the greatest puppet master on the planet for nothing, and forcing him out of his shell wasn't the win they thought it would have been.
Sasori leveled Temari with a glare that was both bored and smoldering. "Congratulations, Godaime Kazekage, you've given me reason to take you seriously."
In a flash, he unveiled a sealing scroll and released his favorite puppet, one that struck Temari, Kankuro, and any other Suna-nin watching the battle from the sidelines silent.
"That's…" Temari whispered.
"Godaime, meet Sandaime," Sasori darkly chuckled, wielding the puppet body of the Sandaime Kazekage proudly. "In a few minutes, you'll even be able to commune with his spirit in person."
Without another word, the Sandaime puppet rocketed toward her, brandishing several blades from its arm. Temari only had a split second to bring up her fan to block the charge, but the impact launched her off of the roof, nonetheless. Kankuro unsealed his own puppets and attacked Sasori from behind, but the Sandaime's other arm extended and then split open to reveal several storage seals that sprouted an army of even more arms. Kankuro's puppets were promptly shredded and disposed of, then Kankuro himself was the target of the sickening serpent of wooden arms, just barely dodging being impaled but not nearly fast enough to avoid the cloud of poison smoke that was sprayed in his face.
It was only his instincts beaten into him after years of puppetry and employing similar tactics that made him hold his breath to keep from inhaling the gas. Chiyo made very certain to thoroughly bash that one into his skull in perpetuity. Fortunately, as he leaped out of the cloud, two small, bladed fans coated in several layers of wind chakra sliced through the monstrosity of arms, drawing Sasori's attention back to the re-emerging Temari. She, riding her primary battle fan like a hoverboard with two other fans in hand propelling her, flew right toward them and spat a shower of wind needles at Sasori before flying away. The Sandaime puppet and Sasori gave chase, and only then did Kankuro notice that she was leading him away from the village square and toward the walls.
Meanwhile, ignoring the explosions peppering the sky and trusting that her youngest brother had it covered, Temari kept up the chase, dodging and weaving around the vicious onslaught of Sasori while sending wind blades back at him in return. Eventually, she flew over the village's walls and turned around to face the incoming puppet, its blades practically dripping with poison and ready to cut her to pieces. A few hand seals and one call of "Turbulence Dance Jutsu!" later, she whipped her hands out and sent an innumerable amount of air currents toward the ground to kick up the sand, then swirling it around to create a small sandstorm that obscured her location from Sasori.
Sasori briefly withdrew the Sandaime puppet as he landed on the sand just outside of the walls of the village. He didn't want to assume that she was merely creating a smokescreen to escape; the chances were likelier that she was using the momentary reprieve to prepare a devastating jutsu. Whether it was curiosity, arrogance, or just some twisted enjoyment he was deriving from the battle, he wanted to see just what the fledging Kage had in store for him. He'd be lying if he said the encounter hadn't proven to be entertaining at the very least.
Within the sandstorm, Temari bit her thumb and smeared blood along her fan. Silently cutting the chakra flow to the sandstorm to bring it to an end, she poured as much chakra as she could muster into perhaps the hardest swing she had ever done.
"Summoning Jutsu: Blade Dance!" she shouted, and a large puff of smoke appeared amidst the resulting whirlwind that revealed her personal weasel summon, Kamatari, carrying a massive sickle that was larger than even himself. The weasel-enhanced whirlwind kicked up even more sand that entered the buzzsaw of wind blades on a direct course for Sasori and the Sandaime puppet.
Completely undeterred, Sasori met the charge head-on with the Sandaime, clashing blades with Kamatari while attempting to fend off the sandy, bladed whirlwind with its eldritch abomination of arms. Unfortunately for Sasori, both Kamatari and the jutsu sliced right through and shredded their targets, leaving nothing but an armless Sandaime hovering above an ocean of broken, discarded wood.
"Huh…" Sasori muttered, then he nodded. "I suppose you deserve some credit. You're marginally more competent than I had initially expected."
Temari didn't have the energy to feel insulted at that comment, nor was it really the time to be. Kamatari landing beside her with his comically large sickle ready for action made her feel somewhat better, though.
"Still, you have no hope of surviving this battle," Sasori dully asserted. As he said that, the Sandaime's mouth opened, and black, iron sand began pouring out of it. "The Sandaime's Iron Sand was why he was praised for being the most powerful Kazekage, and it's now at my beck and call."
Well, fuck. That wasn't a particularly welcoming sight in Temari's opinion. The Sandaime's Iron Sand was far more powerful than her father's Gold Dust, and that Gold Dust was the only thing able to subdue Gaara when Shukaku rampaged. Combined with the fact that she had used up quite a bit of chakra already in this battle, particularly on that last jutsu, she was looking at her situation being three whole magnitudes of fucked.
On top of that, she could guess that the sand had to have been poisoned; it would only make sense for it to be when just about everything else he had thrown at her was also poisoned. Still, she wasn't going to despair over it, nor would she back down even an inch. No asshole was going to harm her brother on her watch, no matter how powerful or dangerous they were. If she had to die to keep him safe, so fucking be it.
The look that Kamatari was sending her told her that he could more or less parse what she was thinking, and he would stick by her side through whatever happened. She reached down and gratefully scratched behind her partner's ear for what could potentially have been the last time before facing forward with a hard glare.
"Let's do this."
"Iron Sand: Scattered Showers!" Sasori called, sending lances of iron raining down upon them.
The duo leaped out of the way and dodged the deadly rain as best as they could. Kamatari batted away the particles with his sickle, all the while spinning and creating mini tornadoes to send back at Sasori. Temari did her best to avoid the onslaught, but iron sand lances were heavier and a lot more troublesome to redirect than regular senbon, she was nicked a few times along the way. She wouldn't be slowed down, however, as she weaved her way through the deadly rain toward her partner. Once reaching him, she jumped onto Kamatari's sickle, and he gave her a massive boost high above the battlefield. Then, the weasel scuttled across the sand to draw more Sasori's attention while Temari did her thing.
In the air, Temari steadied her breathing and readied herself for her most powerful (and most unstable) trump card. This jutsu would undoubtedly rob her of all of her remaining energy, but if it landed, it would certainly end the fight… as well as a decent chunk of the village's wall.
Acceptable losses.
Filling the air around her with her chakra, she willed the wind to coalesce around her before reinforcing her arms. She began with a few hard, deliberate swings of her fan before steadily increasing the pace. Pretty soon, she was fanning like a bat out of hell, creating a collection of violent cyclones that emanated a menacing, green glow.
"Wind Style: Sea Dragon!"
The name was kind of stupid in hindsight, but she wasn't really in the state of mind to care too much about it given that she was already starting to feel the effects of Sasori's poison. If she lived past the night, she'd thank Pakura for helping her develop this ace in the hole.
The malachite windstorm hurtled toward the ground, converging onto a single area to unleash the most magnificent quantity of hell onto Sasori and any poor bastard that happened to be in a 25-yard radius crashed down onto Sasori and the Sandaime puppet. From within the walls of the village, the gathered Suna-nin saw their Kazekage hovering within a glowing storm like a divine transmigrant of Fujin. Any lingering doubts that any may have had about her due to her age were promptly dispelled in that moment. Even Deidara's attention was drawn to the sight, and he was transfixed by the scene just long enough to lose his arm to Gaara's sand as punishment for his momentary distractedness.
Kamatari dispelled himself and returned to the summon realm to keep out of the crossfire. He had assisted her alongside Pakura in developing that jutsu, and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of the aftermath. Sasori, on the other hand, simply gazed at the immense jutsu. His respect for the Godaime was slowly climbing even further. Still, he wasn't stupid; a dome of iron sand quickly rose around him right as the titanic jutsu slammed into the ground, drilling a gargantuan hole and sending masses of sand every which way.
If it wasn't for the white dragon coiling around Gaara's sand shield and detonating above the village, the entire area would have been silent after the violent turbulence of Temari's jutsu finally came to an end. She slowly glided back to the ground atop her fan, and it took everything with her to regain upright in her exhaustion, but what she was seeing inspired some hope within her. All that remained at ground zero was a crater 50 yards wide just beside the village. Luckily, only a small portion of the wall was shaved away in the grand scheme. That could be fixed later.
Unfortunately, any hope that she might have dealt a fatal blow to Sasori was dashed when a large, black orb rose from the bottom of the crater. Her heart sank to the pits of her colon as the ball of iron sand slowly dispersed to reveal Sasori and the armless Sandaime puppet no worse for wear.
"You gotta be fucking kidding me…" Temari moaned.
Sasori's smile was radiating a smugness unseen since the day Madara managed to pee in front of Hashirama. "That jutsu was more along the lines of Deidara's perspective on art, but I will give credit where credit is due. It was quite formidable."
Temari nearly fell to her knees in a mixture of apoplexy and despair.
"How did you develop that jutsu?" Sasori continued, completely ignoring her turmoil. "I'd like to know how to use it for when I'm controlling your puppet body."
"Eat a dick, puppet boy," Temari groaned.
Sasori shrugged. "Not the last words I would have chosen, but you could have certainly done worse."
The iron sand formed into a large, triangular spike overhead, and Temari just did not have the chakra or energy to move out of the way of her impending death.
"Take solace in the fact that you made the time spent dealing with you not be a total waste," Sasori remarked, his smirk still in place as the spike shot toward Temari to finish her off.
Her body was screaming at her to move, but she just couldn't. The poison was attacking in earnest now that she was so low on chakra, so moving at all was pretty much out of the question. The most she could do was defiantly stare her imminent demise in the face with her chin held high.
That was until she was yoinked out of the path of the spike and watched the construct plow through the spot she had occupied mere milliseconds prior, meanwhile Sasori swiftly avoided a bright stream of fire that superheated the sand he had been standing on into glass. She didn't even need to turn her head to see who had fired that jutsu (she couldn't even if she wanted to), nor did she need to see who caught her because they spoke up the second she was in their grasp.
"You're alright, sis," the voice of her brother filled her ears. "You're gonna be okay."
"Kankuro?" she weakly asked, and he nodded. He must have pulled her away with chakra strings. "Oh, sweet."
On the battlefield, Sasori carefully took stock of the newly formed patch of glass. He only knew of one person who could do that so casually, and his suspicions were confirmed when she jumped down from atop the village's walls.
"Sasori, I haven't seen you in forever," Pakura of the Scorch Release said with such faux enthusiasm that Sasori almost believed that there was a sliver of genuineness in her tone. "You look like you haven't aged a day. What's your secret?"
Sasori's eyes narrowed. "Maybe it's Maybelline, maybe it's not. I don't think it particularly matters right now."
"Fair enough," Pakura shrugged. She knew she made Sasori nervous; she always had.
"I'm surprised you never once stepped in if you were here the entire time," Sasori ventured.
Pakura merely shrugged again. "Bad for village morale if their Kazekage needed to be saved, but it can't be helped now. She put up a good enough fight to be excused from this battle."
"How touching," Sasori sneered. "Even after being betrayed and left for dead, you still care about this wretched village and protect it from the shadows like a good little soldier. Ever the loyal dog, it seems."
"As opposed to some self-important weirdo whose obsession with dolls led him to playing with corpses?" she sniped back, earning a dark glower from Sasori. "Was it all to fill the void that mommy and daddy left?"
"Don't ever speak of them!" Sasori spat, his glower becoming a murderous snarl.
"Touched a nerve, huh?" she smirked. "It's always the kids with Main Character Syndrome whose buttons are the easiest to push."
"I'll push you into a grave once and for all," Sasori growled, iron sand collecting around him in various shapes once again. "I've been salivating to make a puppet out of you for decades."
The only response he got was a flaming orb lobbed right at his face, to which he dodged and fired the iron sand spears at her. She weaved around them without even breaking a sweat, and Sasori internally cursed. He wasn't dealing with Temari's manageable speed any longer. He had to pull out all the stops for this one.
Breaking up a few of the constructs into scores of giant nails while a few others created massive pillars, Sasori launched them all at Pakura intent on removing any possible place for her to run. Even so, she flickered around the battlefield and out of danger of every incoming projectile, at least until she landed in the path of one of the pillars as it was crashing into the ground. Sasori's victorious smirk was only briefly present, however, as it became clear that it merely crushed an afterimage of Pakura. In no time at all, she was behind him with a kunai wreathed in wind chakra ready to decapitate him.
He begrudgingly brought his arm up to block the attack, shooting blades out of it to hinder the kunai's advance and tearing the sleeve of his cloak in the process.
"Iron Sand: World Order!" he grit out in the second he was able to create, and the iron constructs came together to form a gigantic sphere of branching spikes that erupted in every direction. Sasori's smirk became absolutely devilish when Pakura was impaled by a myriad of spikes before she even had the opportunity to disengage.
"I win," he gloated in her face with the most mocking grin he could muster, reveling in the shock and pain shooting across her face.
However, his grin faltered a bit when she grinned back at him with a snicker.
"Do you?" she playfully retorted before she began to glow, and then she exploded point-blank in his face before he even knew what was happening.
Meanwhile, the real Pakura emerged from underground and launched herself at the unguarded Sandaime puppet with her fist burning as brightly as a ghostly lantern. "Fire Style: Jet Burn!"
A single flaming fist boosted by a violent burst of fire slammed into the Sandaime, blowing it to smithereens and scattering all across the sand. The head of the Sandaime rolled across the sand and stopped at the feet of the quickly recovering Sasori, and if his mood wasn't already sour enough after falling for an obvious trap, the second bane of his existence behind Orochimaru (and only slightly ahead of Deidara) had just callously annihilated his favorite work of art.
"That…" he lowly growled, "that was my favorite puppet, you vile bitch!"
"Boo fucking hoo," she scoffed. "You won't be alive long enough to mourn over it."
Sasori grit his teeth, then he began undoing his cloak. "Fine, then. I didn't think it would come to this, but it appears it's time."
He dropped his cloak entirely, exposing his fully wooden, mechanical puppet body. The blades in his arm retracted, but a set of bladed fans extended from his back to act as propellors. "I haven't used this since joining Tsuki no Me, but you'll be the perfect inaugural death at the hands of my magnum opus!"
"…I can't really say I'm shocked," Pakura uttered in a mixture of derision and disgust. "You actually turned yourself into a puppet? What's next, a pickle?"
"Make as many jokes as you like, you'll only take your humor with you to the afterlife!" Sasori declared before raising his palms, and a nozzle protruded from each one, blasting red-hot streams of fire at her.
Pakura responded in kind with a Fire Dragon Bullet, meeting his stream of fire with an equally powerful stream of her own. The two fire jutsu collided in a heated power struggle where the two would remain deadlocked. Suddenly, Sasori flicked his pinkie and connected a chakra thread with the head of the Sandaime puppet. Pakura expected something of the sort, though, and a wind-enhanced kunai whipped out of her sleeve and slammed between the eyes of the puppet head. Then, she flew through a few one-handed seals, and the stream of fire she was exhaling brightened into a white-hot inferno at the hands of her Scorch Style: Hellfire.
The kekkei genkai-boosted blaze quickly overpowered and consumed Sasori's fire, forcing him to disengage to avoid being burned to a crisp. The poison-coated wire coiled within his torso shot out and struck at Pakura, but she deftly evaded it and brought out two kunai to defend from the vicious strikes. She continually deflected the poisoned strikes, maintaining her place on the defensive while secretly guiding Sasori's wire to a specific area. Once there, another clone of Pakura emerged from the sand and grabbed a tight hold of the wire, keeping it in place while she prepared another devastating jutsu.
"Scorch Style: Steaming Murder," she intoned, before leaping into the air with a large, dense ball of fiery death in hand and throwing it at Sasori. She wasn't done, however, as she flew through another sequence and spat a small, orange glob that hid itself in the shadow of the larger jutsu.
Sasori strafed out of the way of the initial jutsu with ease and watched it slam into the sand in a fiery explosion. What he wasn't expecting was the orange glob to impact his torso in the confusion, igniting him and his inner mechanisms in a mosaic of white, yellow, and orange fire all around.
"Scorch Style: Molotov, success," Pakura smirked, but that smirk fell when a scroll on Sasori's back dispelled, and he erupted in a tsunami of water from within to douse the flames before they could damage him too heavily.
"You are truly becoming a blight on existence in totality," the scorched, dripping wet Sasori growled at Pakura, but before he could say anything else, he jumped and allowed a sneak attack from two other puppets that were connected at the palms with wires to sail underneath him.
"I was wondering when you'd finally show yourself, Granny Chiyo!" Sasori addressed with an unhinged gleam in his wide-eyed gaze.
"Sasori…" a sad voice entered the battlefield as out from the shadows near the village's wall stepped a forlorn Chiyo. "You're so far gone as to fully transform yourself…"
Sasori sneered at her. "You wouldn't get it. I have transcended humanity, Granny. It was inevitable."
"It's despicable," she shook her head. "It's an abomination and a gross perversion of puppetry…"
She sighed before pulling up her sleeve to reveal her prosthetic arm. "Then again, I suppose I'm in no position to cast stones. Perhaps what you've done is simply the extreme conclusion of prosthetics."
Sasori chuckled. "You already know why I became my greatest work of art, but you're not here to debate philosophy with me, Granny."
"No, I'm not," she resolutely shook her head before unsealing ten puppets garbed in white robes and masks. "I'm here to put an end to the monster you've become, my grandson."
"Chikamatsu's Ten Puppets," Sasori observed with a hint of wonder. "I expected nothing less from you, Granny."
He procured a scroll of his own and unsealed a massive collection of puppets, one hundred in total. He connected to each of them with a spat of chakra threads connected directly to his core.
"Secret Red Jutsu: Performance of a Hundred Puppets," Sasori announced. "To think I'd be pushed this far. Well, it matters not. You may have taken down a fortress with those puppets, Granny, but I can eliminate a nation with these! Today will be the end of both of you!"
Chiyo readied her puppets on one side of him while Pakura twirled a kunai on her finger on the other side. Both sprang into action when the puppet army attacked, half of them attacking Chiyo while the other half went for Pakura. The battle between three legends of Suna entered its bombastic final stretch with Chiyo combating the assault with her squad of ten and Pakura meeting the charge head-on, taking the fight directly to the puppet army with merely a kunai and spite.
Despite being outnumbered, Pakura mowed through the attackers like an overgrown lawn, bobbing and weaving through the assault as fluidly as a dancer while hacking the puppets to pieces with liberal use of wind blades. At one point, she even stole a sword from one of the puppets and continued hacking through the onslaught with said sword imbued with wind chakra. She was carving a path straight toward Sasori, and he would have none of it. He shot a powerful jet of water at her to halt her advance, but she simply sliced right through it and jumped, using a nearby puppet as a steppingstone before throwing her sword right at his core like a dart.
Within the split-second he used to dodge the sword, she was already forming a larger, even more dense Steaming Murder Jutsu in her hand. It was twice the size of a beach ball and undoubtedly had enough power to mummify (and perhaps even incinerate) not only his puppet body, but also the living core within him. He didn't have any time to defend, and his eyes locked onto the nearest puppet that she used as a lunch pad just before Pakura spiked the fiery ball of death right at him.
The ensuing explosion was magnificent. A blazing dome of positively unbearable heat engulfed the immediate area. It wasn't as big as the dome her Supernova Jutsu would spawn, but it was more than sufficient to render Sasori's puppet body completely useless, and the sudden collapse of each of his remaining puppets was proof of that. Even Chiyo halted at the sudden development, but she didn't relax for a moment, instead closely watching Pakura approach the downed body of her grandson for any sneak attacks.
Pakura bent down and collected the discarded sword before taking a long look at the charred, blackened puppet that used to be Sasori. It was just long enough for another puppet to creep up behind her with a sword poised to strike Pakura down where she kneeled. Missing from the original body was Sasori's chakra core, as it was firmly rooted in the puppet that she has used as a launch pad and that was about to kill her while she had her back turned.
He didn't see her but smile, though, and once she flipped her sword around and stabbed backward into the chest of the puppet, it was too late to do anything. Pakura stabbed right through Sasori's core, then she streamed wind chakra through the blade to further eviscerate the fleshy core.
"Gotcha," Pakura declared, her smile growing even more victorious.
Sasori coughed, and a trail of blood (somehow) dribbled down his chin. "You… you let that last puppet live on purpose… so that I'd switch…"
A soft laugh escaped her while Sasori pieced together his demise. "…You led me into a trap. You knew exactly what I'd do…"
"Twenty years later, and you're still so predictable, Sasori," Pakura remarked as Chiyo approached them.
Sasori smiled; it was an honest, genuine smile. "I truly despise you with every fiber of my being, Pakura. I wish for nothing less in this world than your slow, agonizing demise."
His smile grew a touch more, and he gazed at both Pakura and his grandmother. "I'm glad you were the one to kill me, Pakura. It was nice to see you again, too, Granny Chiyo."
Chiyo sighed again, her expression melancholic as she reached out and placed her palm on Sasori's head. "I wanted to be able to see your face one more time. I hate that it had to come to this."
"Eh, it was only a matter of time," Sasori shrugged. "I wouldn't have allowed you to die without us meeting again at least once. This simply got it out of the way."
He could feel his chakra core quickly dying, and his already glassy eyes grew even more dull. "At midday in ten days, I was supposed to meet a spy I have in Orochimaru's ranks at Tenchi Bridge near Kusa. I planned on getting concrete information on his whereabouts so that I could finally kill him. However, for some odd reason, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it..."
With those last words, he fell backward to the sand in a lifeless heap. All that remained of Sasori of the Red Sand was a collection of destroyed puppets, a facsimile of himself burned beyond recognition, and an inert chakra core stuffed within a lifeless doll. The two kunoichi remained silent as Pakura retrieved the sword from the puppet, prying the chakra core out with it just in case. She offered it to Chiyo since it was her grandson, but she shook her head and motioned for Pakura to do the honors. Pakura nodded, and a single fire jutsu was all it took to incinerate the core, leaving nothing but ashes remaining of the best puppeteer to ever come out of Sunagakure.
Suddenly, the ground across the entire village shook, and a titanic wave of sand crept over the walls of the village and blanketed the sky, almost as if it was protecting it from an incoming danger.
Then, a thunderous explosion rocked the area, shaking the very foundation of the village. Pakura and Chiyo struggled to maintain their bearings, but they didn't miss the white bird zooming across the sky and away from the village.
"Go," Chiyo instructed. "I'll clean up here."
Pakura nodded and flickered away. She bounded from building to building until she spotted Gaara descending back to the roof of the Kazekage Mansion within a protective sand dome.
"Gaara!" she called out as she reached his side ahead of several other Suna-nin. "What the hell happened?"
"The man I was fighting was a rogue-nin from Iwa," Gaara explained, though he was noticeably winded. "He could create clay sculptures and then detonate them at will. Shortly before he fled, he witnessed his partner's death… it unsettled him. He used that last explosion as a diversion in order to escape."
Pakura sighed in a mix of relief and frustration. Before she could direct anyone, though, a frantic Kankuro arrived with a pale Temari in his arms.
"Lady Kazekage!" came the alarmed shouts of several present Suna-nin.
"What happened?" Pakura demanded.
"It was Sasori," Kankuro began. "He managed to poison her. I doubt I have anything strong enough to fight whatever he uses."
Pakura sighed. "Fucking hell. We might have three days max to figure something out."
That revelation made the already frantic Kankuro and worried Suna-nin even more forlorn.
"I'm not sure if any of our medic-nin are equipped to treat something like this," Baki somberly admitted.
"Maybe not…" Pakura muttered, a thoughtful glint in her eye. "But I know someone who is."
Before anyone else could utter a word, a wave of Pakura's chakra pulsed throughout the entire village, cowing everyone in the vicinity and forcefully yanking the undivided attention of anyone that wasn't. She collected Temari from Kankuro and sent him a quick look of reassurance before turning to the assembled ninja.
"Baki, send a messenger hawk to Konoha telling them to expect my arrival. Hopefully it'll get there before I do. Gaara, you're acting Kazekage until we return. Anybody fucks with you or the village, mulch 'em."
Baki saluted and flickered away, while Gaara nodded with a small, mildly concerning smile.
"Everyone else, secure the village's perimeter!" Pakura continued. "Send squads to every corner of the nation in pursuit of anyone else that might be plotting something. Show Tsuki no Me that you don't get to fuck with Sunagakure without paying the fucking piper for it!"
A chorus of salutes and affirmatives filled the area followed by scores of shinobi springing into action to follow their orders. Pakura of the Scorch Release, hero of Sunagakure, accomplished veteran of the Third Shinobi World War, and former owner of the largest bounty of any Suna-nin, Rasa included, was back in business. Regardless of what happened, they all knew that everything would be fine.
That only left Gaara and Kankuro with her, and Pakura could see the worry still pouring off of Kankuro. She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and tried to reassure him and Gaara as much as she could.
"Don't worry, either of you," she began. "If anyone can cure her, it's Tsunade, and she owes me a favor from a few years back. She'll fix your sister right up."
"I'm coming with you, then," Kankuro started before he was silenced by a glare from Pakura.
"No. You, Gaara, Baki, and Chiyo need to stick around in case any further attacks happen. The village needs to be protected as much as possible right now. Just trust that I will bring her back safe and sound, okay."
Kankuro didn't want to, but he knew that he didn't really have a choice, so he begrudgingly nodded his assent.
"Good," Pakura nodded in return. "I might be back in a week, or maybe less. Hold down the fort until then, kid."
With that, she flickered away, heading towards and out through the gates of the village at full speed. Soon enough, she was sprinting across the desert in the direction of Konoha with Temari wrapped tightly in her arms.
"When did I become the fucking main character of this story…" she groaned.
The night sky was clear and full of stars so far away from the lights of any distant villages. It was a calm, quiet night, which was a blessing for a profession where one could die at any moment, even while asleep.
Especially while asleep.
It was these brief, uncertain moments of serenity that shinobi learned to cherish, as they could end on a dime. With that in mind, it paid to remain vigilant at all times, which kind of implied that the serenity was never actually there to begin with. Such was the paradox of enjoying moments of peace in a profession that ostensibly afforded none to speak of. These thoughts were what ailed the man sitting in a tree in the sparse woods near the border of Tsuchi no Kuni. An Akatsuki cloak sat over red, full-body armor adorning his massive frame. This was Han, jinchuriki of the Gobi, Kokuo, and he was feeling uneasy.
Why? Well, beyond the fact that always feeling uneasy was simply the best way to remain alive, he did not enjoy the uncertainty that recent events had inspired. He had been keeping a close eye on the border of Tsuchi no Kuni at Pain's request to be on the lookout for Iwa incursion, and there certainly had been Iwa incursion. That didn't surprise him; Ohnoki had always hated changes to the status quo, and the recent growth of Ame was the embodiment of that. That just wouldn't stand if he had anything to say about it.
What did surprise Han, however, was how quickly he backed off after prodding the border. That wasn't his M.O. If Ohnoki was actually taking the initiative on something rather than waiting to see what the other villages would do, then he would poke the bear to see how it reacted before deciding how to proceed one way or the other. The response he got to poking around their border with Ame (swift and brutal elimination of hostile trespassers with extreme prejudice) would ordinarily invoke a heavier hand from the old fart. However, he had seemingly backed off from the border after a time. That did not inspire any warmth in Han or Pain, which was why Han continued his surveillance. Something was potentially brewing, and it behooved them to figure it out before it spilled over.
"Han."
Han perked up at the sudden call of his tenant. 'Hm?'
"I sense a considerable chakra signature approaching."
'Anyone I should worry about?'
"It is a familiar one, but one from before your new life began."
Han's eyes narrowed. That could only mean that someone from his time as an Iwa-nin was approaching, someone he knew well enough for Kokuo to pick out their chakra signature. It wasn't Roshi, either, because she would have mentioned sensing the Yonbi's chakra.
'Thank you, Kokuo.'
"Anytime, friend."
Han continued sitting, but he was tense and ready to move at a moment's notice. He heard the footsteps of the approaching man before he spotted him, and as expected, it was someone in typical Iwa-nin garb. When he got a better look at him, though, Han immediately recognized the tan, round head sitting atop the tall, burly frame that nearly rivaled his own. The chinstrap beard and triangular goatee combo couldn't be mistaken for anyone else, but the bulbous nose was the icing on the cake.
"Kitsuchi," Han acknowledged as he stepped into the moonlight.
"Han," Kitsuchi responded coolly, giving nothing away as to the reason for this meeting.
"Why are you here?" Han bit the bullet and asked after an initial silence.
"Information suggested that you might be in the area, and I had to be sure," Kitsuchi somewhat evasively responded.
"Again, why?" Han pressed.
Another silence fell between the two. Kitsuchi's unreadable gaze met Han's unflinching, light brown eyes in a tense stare down. In truth, Han didn't particularly want to fight someone that he once considered a good friend, but Kitsuchi was the son of the Tsuchikage and often loyal to a fault, so if a fight was inevitable, he'd harden his heart and wipe his former friend off the map.
Eventually, Kitsuchi gave in first and spoke. "My father is… becoming agitated."
Han quirked an eyebrow at that. "What else is new?"
"He wants the biju back within the village," Kitsuchi continued. "He has already sent a summons to Roshi to recall him. He'll be coming for you again."
"I'm aware of that much," Han replied. He actually wasn't, at least not completely. He knew that Ohnoki would have liked to get the Gobi back under his control; his attempt on his and Pakura's lives after their emissary mission was proof of that. However, he wasn't aware that Ohnoki recalled Roshi, or was at least attempting to (who knew where the hell the old monkey was gallivanting).
Still, that was useful information. Ohnoki expressly wanted the biju back in the village, not necessarily the jinchuriki with them. At the very least, it meant he likely planned on creating new vessels in the event that he couldn't get himself or Roshi specifically back into the fold. If Ohnoki desired the power of the biju and was making active attempts to regain them, it meant that he was gearing up for something. This calm that they've been experiencing was likely just Ohnoki prepping in earnest for whatever that "something" was.
Pain would need to know about this. Iwagakure was potentially on the path to becoming incredibly volatile.
"Thank you for the heads up," Han said, still eyeing Kitsuchi for any subtle movements. "If that's everything…"
The dismissal went unspoken, but it was heard loud and clear. Han didn't quite trust Kitsuchi, and it admittedly hurt the Iwa-nin, but he understood on some level. Still, he couldn't just allow this to continue the way it was.
"It's not too late to come back, Han," Kitsuchi tried, causing Han's eyes to narrow. "I don't want to see any harm come to you. You're my friend, Han… at least you were at one point."
A huff reverberated from under the mask covering the lower half of his face. "I didn't appreciate being treated as a disposable tool for the village's use until they could get nothing else out of me. Sue me."
"We're shinobi, Han. We're all tools to be used until we have nothing left to provide, then we're discarded. That's the name of the game."
"No, Kitsuchi. You are a shinobi, a tool ultimately by choice. I am a jinchuriki. I never had any choice to speak of."
"My father is the Tsuchikage, Han," Kitsuchi replied in mild irritation. "I never had a choice either. Being a shinobi was simply in my blood."
Han scoffed, then he dropped down from the branch he was sitting on to face Kitsuchi. "You could've retired at any point. Hell, you still can. Sure, the son of the Tsuchikage retiring from the shinobi life while still in his physical prime might be looked at as shameful by some, but you ultimately still have that choice. That was never a luxury I was afforded. Had I ever expressed no longer wanting to serve, I would have had the Gobi ripped out of me and stuffed into someone else, killing me and dooming some other unfortunate soul to the same imprisonment that I endured."
Han saw that Kitsuchi was about to speak up, but he raised his hand to silence him, already knowing what he would try to counter with. "Roshi was only given leeway because he was Ohnoki's teammate; they were like brothers. I, on the other hand, was born to be a weapon, and I would've died as nothing more than a weapon for those above me. The difference between you and I is agency, Kitsuchi. My greatest crime to Iwagakure was simply taking mine back."
The silence that followed that declaration was even more tense. It was clear where Han stood on the matter, and there wasn't much that Kitsuchi could do about it.
"You know how this is going to end, Han," Kitsuchi eventually spoke.
"And are you going to be the one to take me in, Kitsuchi?" Han questioned, raising an eyebrow that was both inquisitive and challenging.
The subtle threat was also heard, and Kitsuchi grit his teeth. Fighting Han wasn't a battle he was likely to win on both of their best days, and he knew that well, but he also knew that Han didn't explicitly want to fight, either.
"…You killed a lot of good men," he settled on saying, referring to the incident where a considerable amount of chunin and jonin were sent to slaughter against Han and Pakura.
"It was them or me, and as is the theme of this discussion, I chose me. I will not apologize for that."
"I can see that. Stay safe, Han, and watch your back."
Kitsuchi turned around and departed from the area. Han sighed, as that meant that there was no army lying in wait to try apprehending him. He didn't really feel like washing blood out of his cloak again.
"It seems that tumultuous times are on the horizon, Han."
'Indeed, they are.'
"Lady Mizukage!" Ao shouted, bursting into the room right as Mei stashed away the copy of Icha Icha Violence she had been so engrossed with in lieu of the stack of paperwork on her desk.
"What is it, Ao?" she quickly responded, mildly alarmed at his lack of composure.
"The sealing teams you sent were slaughtered!" Ao grimly informed.
Mei's gaze hardened. "They were attacked?"
"It appears that way," Ao replied. "No one was missing, including the vessel you had chosen, so it wasn't likely that anyone had gone rogue."
"And the Sanbi?"
"That's the strangest part…" Ao began, grim uncertainty written all over him. "I couldn't detect a morsel of its chakra. None of the waves of biju chakra that had been shooting in every direction were present, the waters were calm, and there was no sign of any coral anywhere or explosions of chakra to suggest a struggle. It's like the beast had just… vanished."
Mei's stomach was not sitting well at that revelation. For an entire biju to simply vanish off the map was beyond troubling. She had an idea as to who may have been responsible, but this only made the potential situation exponentially more dire. Something needed to be done and done quickly.
"Prepare a message to Ame," Mei ordered. "Naruto warned me about Tsuki no Me, but it appears that they were already a step ahead of all of us. Regardless, stealing an entire biju is an act of war, one that they will not win."
"So, Tsuki no Me's finally moving…" Jiraiya muttered with a hard expression after hearing Pakura's recount of the events two nights prior in Suna.
"Yeah," Pakura sighed. "They're on the move. They didn't nab Gaara, but who knows what they're doing in the other villages."
"And Naruto?" Jiraiya asked.
Pakura shrugged, but Jiraiya noticed a flash of anxiety in her expression. "Haven't seen him in a few years. It's worrying me a little bit. He was supposed to be back by now."
"Where has he been?"
"On a training trip to get his apprentices up to snuff before Tsuki no Me started moving on the jinchuriki."
Jiraiya nodded, carefully considering the information. "You think they got to him?"
Pakura shakily sighed. "I don't know… I doubt it, but still…"
"Yeah, I get it," Jiraiya nodded again with a mournful sigh of his own. "Can't help but worry, sometimes, no matter how powerful they end up becoming."
"Don't I know it," she snorted, having sufficiently collected herself from the momentary slip and stood up from her seat. "I'm gonna check on Temari. Waking up in a strange looking hospital room after nearly dying to a missing-nin will probably freak her out."
Jiraiya nodded, leaning back in his chair to process the information he had been given.
"By the way," Pakura called out from the door, earning his attention once again. "Sasori did mention having a meeting with a spy in Orochimaru's ranks at Tenchi Bridge about a week from now. Figured that's something you might've wanted to know about."
Without another word, she exited the office, leaving the Godaime Hokage even more to stew over. Not only was Tsuki no Me was on the move, but they also now had a solid lead on Orochimaru's whereabouts.
"Tenchi Bridge, huh?" Jiraiya mused, then he signaled for one of his ANBU to appear kneeling before his desk. "Bring me Kakashi Hatake and Sakura Haruno."
I've had Tha Carter V on repeat for the past week or so. Couldn't even tell you what spurred it. Mona Lisa is the unofficial soundtrack of this chapter.
I took the Sea Dragon jutsu from Boruto. It was a throwaway move in a filler episode, but I thought it was cool, so she develops it earlier here.
Thanks for reading.