The next morning they woke up bright and early, with news from Pakkun about Gaara, so their little group Chiyo-sama geared up to location Pakkun pointed towards was about 80 kilometers away, so they had to leave just as the sun began to settled into a diamond foundation, with Kakashi in the lead and Guy in the back, their students and Chiyo flanking them.
"Karin, tell us if Gaara happens to pass through your range." said Kakashi.
"I will." she answered.
"What are you talking about?" asked Naruto.
"Me and Tsunade-sama figured out a year ago that I'm a sensor. With my ability, Mind's Eye of the Kagura, I am able to sense people up to 6km away. But since Gaara is currently out of my range, I am unable to find him." said Karin.
"Hopefully you can give us the exact location as we get closer." said Sasuke.
"That's pretty amazing, Kari-chan." said Naruto.
"Thank you."
They continued on through the sands of Kaze no Kuni until reaching the Land of Rivers, where the Akatsuki hideout was they neared it, Karin was able to give the exact location, but warned them that Gaara's chakra was extremely continued on, until meeting their first obstacle, Kisame. It forced them to split up, as Neji, Lee and Guy remained to fight him. Next was Itachi who forced Sasuke and Tenten to stay behind. And just like that, their group was left to 4. Naruto, Karin, Kakashi and Chiyo remained on the path to find on, they found the hideout, but it was blocked by a giant boulder.
"Damn it, how are we supposed to get past it?" asked Naruto.
"Don't worry, Naruto, I got this." said Karin, as green chains with pointed tips sprouted from her back. The Uzumaki began rotating them in a manner that resembled a drill, before using them to pierce the rock and shatter the boulder.
Stepping inside they gasped at what they found. Two Akatsuki member remained in the cave and at their feet was Gaara.
"We're too late." said Chiyo.
"So this is the retrieval team, un? Which one of you is the Jinchūriki?" said Deidara.
Naruto clenched his fists as claws and fangs appeared and his eyes turned red, the Kyūbi chakra slowly leaked out. "Y-you...You bastards! I'll kill you all!"
"The first one to start screeching...It's him, isn't it?" said Sasori.
"Looks like it..." said the blonde akatsuki member.
Naruto ignored them and began calling out to Gaara. "Hey, Gaara! What do you think you're doing?! Sleeping at a time like this? Wake up! Get up and fight! Gaara! GAARA!"
"Naruto...He's not...His chakra is-" began Karin.
"Ah, a sensor...So you already pieced it together, un...That's right, this guy has been long dead." Deidara slapped Gaara's cheek in a show of disrespect.
Naruto roared. "Give him back...GIVE HIM BACK YOU BASTARDS!" He charged ahead, intent on annihilating the Akatsuki members, but had to stop as Kakashi jumped in front of him.
"Naruto you have to calm down. Attacking now would only lead to your death.
The Akatsuki members shared a look before Deidara chuckled. "It seems this one is intent on bringing the corpse back to his village, un. How about we give them a show?"
"Take the container of the Ichibi out of here, I'll deal with them." said Sasori.
Deidara hummed as he fed clay to one of his hand mouths. From it, sprouted a clay bird that grew in size, it picked Gaara up in it's beak as the blonde climbed it. "Make sure to follow me, if you want your friend back Jinchūriki!"
"YOU BASTARD!" yelled Naruto as he ran after Deidara.
"Kakashi-sensei, go after him. Me and Chiyo-sama will deal with Sasori." said Karin. Kakashi nodded and left to chase his wayward student.
...
Karin told Chiyo she was sensing Sasori from inside the puppet body in front of them. In response Chiyo explained to her how Sasori used the bodies of others to turn them into puppets. The one he was wearing as a shield, Hiruko, used to be a shinobi from another village. Sasori taunted them with the fact that he plans to add the Uzumaki in front of him to his puppet collection, saying the Adamantine Chains would be a nice addition.
Chiyo explained that in order to defeat Sasori they had to extract him from the puppet, so Karin decided to use her chains in order to destroy Karin was an amazing medic, her chakra control was only a smidge above average, meaning she never achieved Tsunade's monstrous she could mimic it, using her chains, so she planned to wrap them around Sasori andsqueezeuntil he popped like a balloon.
They both ran at him and began dodging thousands of poisonous senbon that Sasori threw at them through the mouth of the puppet. Then he set off a grenade filled with poisonous gas that also released even more senbon. Chiyo and Karin were unbothered as they kept on advancing. What Sasori didn't know was that their reckless advancing was just a distraction for Chiyo to latch chakra strings onto Hiruko and halt his movements. Once the puppet was stopped, chains sprung from Karin's back and wrapped around Hiruko, squeezing the puppet until it exploded from the pressure.
Sasori ditched the puppet at the last second and fled to a corner of the threw senbons at them in a last ditch effort to keep the distance, but Karin was able to dodge them with the help of Chiyo who used the chakra strings she attached to the redhead to pull her , things changed for the worse, as Sasori revealed the third Kazekage puppet.
"What's up granny? Are you telling me a one foot in the grave hag like you is going to avenge Sandaime-sama?" asked Sasori.
"I may be old, but I haven't lost my wits. Why else would I drag my old bones here?" said Chiyo.
"Let's make this quick, I still have a Jinchūriki to catch."
"As if I'm letting you lay a finger on my family." said Karin.
Sasori grinned as he made the Kazekage puppet attack. Poisonous blades sprung from it's right arm, but Karin was saved from them by Chiyo using Hiruko's leftover tail as a shield. It shattered into pieces under the might of the the left arm opened up, revealing seals. From there sprung hundreds of hands that attacked Karin and unfortunately Chiyo was to slow to pull her away from them.A dust cloud formed as they hit the ground, but when it cleared it revealed Karin standing on her feet, her adamantine chains forming a shield above that saved her from getting crushed by some of the hands. You could see the puppet limbs trembling as they struggled to push her down.
Chiyo pulled her back and Karin let her chains drop, making the hands she was shielding herself from crash to the puppet limbs released a cloud of poison that surrounded her, Chiyo tried to pull her back but Sasori had tied her up with strings, and Karin remained suspended in the cloud of poison as her body was used as the rope from tug of had to save herself so she pulled out one of her tessens in order to fire a wind jutsu and at the same time used her chains to cut the rope.
"Fūton: Bōfū!" yelled Karin as a whirlwind surrounded her and blew the gas away. With this, Chiyo was finally able to pull her away to safety.
"Karin! Did you breathe in any of it?" asked Chiyo.
"No, no, I'm fine, Chiyo-sama."Karin glared at Sasori as she put herself in a fighting Akatsuki member had his puppet fire a couple of Kunai at them that they were able to shield themselves from when Chiyo finally pulled out her own revealed that these were the first puppets Sasori ever made: a replica of his parents.
Karin stayed back as Chiyo attacked, the two puppets linked hands a ninja wire appeared between their palms. The sand elder used them to cut the hundreds of hands from the Kazekage the myriad of hands was nothing but chipped wood, a fight began between puppets as all three pulled out weapons. The third Kazekage vs Sasori's mother and father. Puppet vs puppet, grandson vs grandma.
At the end of the fight, both puppets were left weaponless as they grinded the metal into dust. In response, Sasori showed his trump Kazekage puppet was able to control Iron Sand, the jutsu of it's namesake.
Sasori wasted no time in attacking them using the iron sand. Chiyo was able to save Karin by making the mother puppet carry her to safety but the old puppeteer was forced to use the father puppet as a shield, literally, as it created a chakrabarrier around , this was a bad move, as the iron sand slithered around it and got inside the joints of the puppet, making it followed it up with iron sand spikes, as he boasted that Chiyo could only save one, herself or Karin.
However, Chiyo had one last trick up her sleeve. One of her arms was a prosthetic, a puppet limb. With it, she was able to form the chakra barrier around herself without leaving Karin unprotected.
"Though only one part...turning yourself into a puppet...As a fellow puppet master, I have to say...we are a lot more alike than I thought Granny." said Sasori."What are you gonna do now? Oh great puppet master of the Sand...Your arms is done for, you have no puppets, the iron sand got them in the end...It's over."
"It's not over!" said Karin as she stepped in front of Chiyo. "She still has one she can use...me."
"Karin...child."
"It's ok, Chiyo-sama, his iron sand can't get stop my movements, all you have to do is watch my blind spots, like before."
"Karin...without my arm, I'm afraid I won't be able to support you like before." as she said that, Chiyo let the useless limb fall to the ground.
"That's fine. Mind's Eye of the Kagura is able to sense jutsus as well, and his puppet has chakra, I will use it to overcompensate for that, you just get me away from the ones I'm not fast enough to deal with on my own."
Chiyo nodded as she attached the chakra strings. "The third Kazekage is able to control metal with his magnetism, so any metal weapons will not work on him."
Karin smirked. "That's fine, adamantine is not magnetic, so my chains can still pierce him." Said chains sprung from her back and whipped the ground in invitation.
In response, Sasori had the iron sand create shapes, a parallelepiped and a prism, that he used to attack her, either as way to crush her or as a drill noted that her grandson didn't have the third's finesse or ingenuity when it came tocontrolling the iron sand. This made her job easier, as she helped Karin dodge them when Uzumaki for her part, used her chains to batter them away from her, getting the constructs to hit the ceiling or the walls. In the end it resulted in the ceiling caving down on them.
As the dust from the collapse cleared, Chiyo and Karin gasped as they saw what Sasori really planned. It had been a distraction, for him to form a forest of spikes above them. He brought it down on them with a vicious and rocks flew in all directions from the impact and Chiyo lost sight sight of Karin as a boulder fell on her, crushing her the grandma and grandson began looking around for her only to find a bloody hand with Karin's glove on it,buried under rocks.
"No! Karin!" exclaimed Chiyo.
Sasori huffed. "See Granny, I tol-"
A green drill appeared under the Kazekage puppet and shattered it to pieces. Alarmed Sasori jumped away as Karin emerged from underground. She tricked him, using the leftover arm of one of the puppets and a glove she had put on it,before performing the Hiding Like a Mole Technique and going underground. Using her own sensor ability she pinpointed the puppet from underground in order to destroy it while everyone was Sasori wasn't so pissed, he'd be impressed.
Firing a few more wind jutsus at Sasori using her tessens, Karin put a greater distance between them in order to safely return to Chiyo's side."Here, Chiyo-sama, bite my arm, it will be father than regular healing, especially on a crush injury."
Chiyo nodded and bit her arm, skin shifted as bone mended itself, allowing the old woman to get up in a fighting was heard in the clearing and the women turned around to look at Sasori.
"I have to admit, I'm impressed. I haven't been forced to deal with a problem this way since joining the Akatsuki." as he spoke, he began unbuttoning his cloak. "I wonder how long it's been." When it fell, he showed them the truth. His real body.
"No way..." said Karin.
"It's just as I thought...He turned himself into a puppet...Haven't you, dearest grandson?"
Sasori ignored them and continued his musings. "Oh yes indeed, its been way too long since I used myself."Karin took a fighting stance as she watched him closely but neither she nor Chiyo dared make the first move."Something wrong? I thought you planned on taking me down?...Too scared to move? That's fine, if you don't plan on attacking first...THEN I WILL!" And then he raised his arms in front of him and spit out two blasts of fire.
Chiyo and Karin hid behind behind boulders as Sasori continued mercilessly pelting them with dug her chains underground and tried to surprise Sasori again but he saw through it and jumped away. This however stopped his attack for a few seconds, allowing her and Chiyo to change positions behind different boulders. Not that it did them any good, as Sasori's fire returned upon , eventually one of the scrolls allowing him to shoot out fire ran out, but he was smart and he switched to cold water colliding with the heated rock created steam that hid his next attack from Karin's view.
Karin gasped as she felt a piercing pain cut through her leg. Looking down she saw that Sasori managed to graze her with his poisoned wire. This would have been a fatal mistake but luckily she had one of the antidotes on her. Quickly jumping away, she stabbed it in her leg.
Meanwhile, thinking he won against the redhead, Sasori began focusing all his attacks on Chiyo. He jumped at her with his poisonous blades raised to annihilate her, only to have his attacks back he saw two green chains had wrapped themselves around his ankles and were dragging him towards their owner. Adamantine was indestructible so his only chance of escaping was to take Karin out.
He lashed his wire at her but she merely caught it with her bare hands and used it to bring him even closer. In a matter of seconds, Sasori's puppet body was at the mercy of Karin's remaining chains as they ripped it apart.
Karin sighed as Sasori was destroyed, she turned around to smile at Chiyo. "We did it!" However, the old woman wasn't as easily fooled. She pulled on the chakra strings latched onto Karin to bring her to safety just as Sasori reformed himself.
"No my dear...I'm afraid the fight has only just begun."said Chiyo as she reattached her prosthetic after cleaning it of iron sand. She pulled out a scroll and 10 puppets came out. "I forbade even myself from using this jutsu...I never imagined I would use it again...but against you, I must. Let's finish this, White Secret Technique: The Chikamatsu Collection of Ten Puppets."
Sasori huffed. "It's said that the ability of a puppet master is measured by the number of puppets they can use...I expect no less from you granny Chiyo.I've heard tales of their glory, created by Monzaemon Chikamatsu, the creator of puppetry himself, it is said they can topple of castle by themselves." Sasori latched a chakra string on another scroll and pulled it out. "Truly an exquisite collection...However, I use these to destroy an entire nation." Out of the scroll, almost 300 puppets came out.
"Karin my dear...The poison is about to-"
"Don't worry Chiyo-sama, I had already taken the antidote, if I can reach Sasori in under 3 minutes, maybe I can finally finish him off." she reached into her pouch and pulled out a vile. "Here."
Chiyo took the antidote and nodded. "Very well then...I shall clear a path for you. You should also know, that core is what you should be aiming for, it's what keeps him alive."
And so the fight began, Sasori's hundreds of puppets versus Chiyo's 10 Karin. A truly unfair fight...for Sasori. It became very clear, very quickly who had the better puppets, as Chiyo's very own, cut through Sasori's like of them alone managed to take down 20 of them using Three Jewels Suction Crushing, a technique where 3 create a tornado that sucks the targets in and crushes herself was no slouch, as she used her chains to either skewer or batter away the puppets while advancing.
Chiyo however decided to take inspiration from Karin's earlier feats, and hide two puppets underground beneath Sasori. As Karin's chains got in range of Sasori,he readied a few puppets to defend himself only for Chiyo's hidden puppets, the mother father puppets to be exact, to jump from beneath and clear the way for Karin to finally pierce Sasori's core andkillhim.
All of Sasori's remaining puppets fell to the ground as the core was pierced. Chiyo took a sigh of relief as Karin walked to the pierced core and stomped on it once for good measure. Turning around she looked the old puppet master in the eye as she said:
"It's over."
(A\N: On the first day of Christmas, the author gave to me: this fucking chapter. Seriously though, I am so sorry this chapter took so long, it just did not want to write itself. I would come, write maybe half an hour and then lose inspiration. I haven't had this much trouble writing a fight scene since the vs Orochimaru fight in the Forest of Death, circa 2020.
But it is done and I hope I won't have to see Sasori ever again. I hated writing this chapter so much, I decided I will not write him again in the war arc. This is the last time you will see Sasori in this fic.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading this mess of a chapter. Again sorry for the delay and if the chapter seems rushed, it's because I was getting sick of it by the end. Thanks for reading, Crazycousins202 out! )