Chapter 361: Against Sasori

Against Sasori

Moments after Karin smashed apart Sasori's puppet armor, a figure jumped out of the smashed parts, causing Chiyo's eyes to widen in shock. That figure had spiky red hair and greyish, brown eyes with a facial expression that showed no emotions; this was Sasori's real body. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to have aged a single day since Chiyo last saw him.

However, before she could comment any further on that, Sasori took out a scroll and unfurled it, revealing the kanji for three written on it. Then, with a puff of smoke, a new puppet appeared.

"T-Third Kazegake-sama!?"

Yet again, Chiyo was surprised due to the puppet looking very similar to the Third Kazekage, but before she could comment any further on that, blades shot out from the puppet's right arm as the puppet approached Karin at high speed.

Karin saw the poison gleaming on the blades and immediately jumped backward. However, the Kazekage puppet was faster than her and still managed to reach Karin, who swiftly moved her chains to block the blades.

A loud clang echoed through the cave as the blade-filled arm was blocked by Karin's chains, which immediately started entangling the arm. Sakura appeared next to the puppet and punched towards it in an attempt to destroy it while Karin was stopping it from retreating, but the blades detached themselves from its arm, allowing it to slip away.

Meanwhile, Chiyo took out two scrolls as well, and moments later, two puppets were floating next to her, which both had some resemblance to Sasori. Although Sasori's face was still unmoving, there was clearly some annoyance in his voice when he started speaking.

"The first puppets I created and which I made to resemble my parents, huh? Do you really think you can face me with tools I myself created?"

"We'll see about that. You don't really believe that I left them unchanged and didn't add anything new, did you?"

Sasori scoffed at Chiyo's words, and after a few finger twitches, his puppet's mouth opened up, allowing black iron sand to flow out of it.

"Those two puppets you are using are mere copies made to resemble humans, but this one is the real thing. I made it out of the Third Kazekage's body, and as such, it can use his signature jutsu. His Iron Sand. I call it, Human Puppet."

Chiyo's face became solemn when she saw the iron sand move and immediately spoke to Karin and Sakura.

"Be careful; he can freely move the iron sand and shape it however he wants. Additionally, immediately discard everything you carry with you since he can control those things as well."

Luckily, neither Karin nor Sakura used metallic equipment. Usually, Karin used her seals and chakra chains to fight, while Sakura specialized in taijutsu.

While Chiyo was explaining the Third Kazekage's jutsu, Sasori made his move as hundreds of small sand clumps started hovering around his puppet.

"[Iron Sand Drizzle]"

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A barrage of iron sand projectiles was shot at Karin, Sakura and Chiyo. Like the previous few times, Karin was surrounded by a chakra sphere, but this time, it actually started destabilizing as soon as the first projectiles impacted it, causing a frown to appear on her face as she began to enhance it with more seals.

On the other hand, Chiyo moved one of her puppets in front of her and made it lift its arms towards the incoming storm, causing a chakra shield to raise in front of Chiyo.

Meanwhile, Sakura chose a less elegant option, as she simply smashed her fist into the ground, resulting in a huge stone formation raising in front of her, blocking the sand.

While Karin and Sakura overcame the attack without a scratch, Chiyo's puppet was heavily damaged due to the iron sand seeping into its joints, demonstrating why it was so dangerous.

"Ohh? all of you managed to get out of that without a scratch; how impressive."

Although Sasori's words may sound like praise, considering his face still showed no motions, it could only be seen as mockery.

Then, the iron sand started moving yet again, but it formed into a gigantic cube and an equally gigantic pyramid this time. Although it only showed for a split second, a smirk appeared on Karin's face when she saw the much bigger targets.

Karin immediately jumped back to return the vanguard position back to Sakura, who was slightly surprised by her action but assumed that Karin was plotting something.

The pyramid shot towards Sakura, but she dodged it by jumping backward. However, while she was jumping, the huge cube flew towards the spot she wanted to land on to crush her as soon as she arrived.

Sakura wasn't worried in the slightest as she felt the familiar tug of chakra strings taking control of her body, slightly shifting her trajectory in mid-air, so the cube would barely miss her. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

While jumping backward, Sakura started gathering chakra into her fist, and as soon as she landed next to the cube, she smashed her fist into it, resulting in it crashing against a wall and embedding itself inside it.

Before Sasori could comment on that inhuman display of power, Karin landed on the cube with a smirk on her face. Her four chains entangled the cube to stop it from moving while her hands moved at lightning speed, engraving hundreds of seals into the cube within seconds.

Sasori wanted the iron sand cube to move away from Karin or at least split it up into smaller parts, but the more seals Karin drew, the less control he had over it.

So, he made the pyramid dissolve back into iron sand and shot another barrage of sand projectiles at Karin, who continued drawing seals as if she didn't even notice the attack.

Chiyo appeared in front of Karin, and just like her puppet previously did, she lifted her hand, causing a chakra shield to raise again while showing off that she had turned her right arm into an artificial one.

"I have no clue what you are doing, but this should be worth it, right?"

A smirk appeared on Karin's face as she finished drawing seals and started injecting chakra into her creation.

"Naturally. [Uzumaki Sealing Style: Magnetic Enhancement.]"

The whole cube started glowing, and moments later, Sasori noticed that he had lost control of the iron sand. Additionally, all the iron sand and even the metal weapons in close vicinity to the cube were pulled towards it.

"Well, this will only stay active for a short while, so let's finish off the Kazekage puppet while all his iron sand is trapped."

Sakura and Chiyo looked at the iron cube that now looked like a weird work of art due to all kinds of things sticking to it with fascination before they nodded their head in agreement and refocused their attention on Sasori.

Meanwhile, Sasori inwardly frowned when he saw one of his greatest masterpieces being disabled so easily. Although he could still use the Kazekage puppet, what was the point in doing so when its most significant advantage was gone?

So, he put it back into its storage scroll and removed his coat without any hesitation.

"Very well, it has been a long time since I used myself."

Karin, Sakura, and Chiyo couldn't help but look at Sasori's body in bewilderment. Although Karin and Sakura already found it slightly weird that Chiyo turned one of her arms into a puppet, it seems like Sasori took an even more extreme approach.

"Y-You actually turned yourself into a puppet, Sasori?"

-

Sakura hid herself behind a boulder as a powerful fire stream was sent out of Sasori's hands. Simultaneously, Karin's chakra chains shot towards Sasori, which he dodged by stabbing the metal cable stored inside his stomach area into the ground and using it to push himself away.

While he was dodging, Chiyo's two puppets approached him and slashed at him with the blades that came out of their hands. Sasori blocked these two attacks with the two additional bladed hands he put on his puppet body. While retreating, he pointed the palms of his hands at Chiyo's two puppets, resulting in two thin water beams slicing them in half horizontally.

Sasori's two feet touched the ground, and as soon as they did, the ground in a radius of about 2 meters around him started glowing.

Sasori was shocked by that sudden development and confirmed that he somehow landed inside a complex arrangement of seals with a quick glance. He wanted to leave the glowing circle of seals as soon as possible, but before he could do so, the seals fully activated, disturbing the movement of his chakra for a short moment.

If he were a normal shinobi, something like this would at best leave him slightly disorientated, but he modified himself to be a puppet, and only a small part of him was still human, so, unlike normal humans, his whole body moved through chakra alone.

As such, as soon as the seal activated, his whole body became unresponsive, and not even a second later, a fist smashed into his side, causing his puppet body to disassemble itself.

The assailant, Sakura, frowned when she saw that instead of shattering, Sasori's puppet only split itself into parts while the part she punched only had a few cracks in it. Somehow, she didn't think that that was enough to kill Sasori.

Moments later, the scattered parts started moving, and as if nothing happened to it, Sasori's puppet body reassembled itself.

If his face allowed facial features, then Sasori would have a deep frown on his face. Since Chiyo was here, he didn't expect this to be an easy fight from the start, but he didn't expect that Chiyo would not be the most troublesome enemy.

Karin's seals caught him completely off-guard again and again. He had never fought against someone who used seals during battle.

'Isn't that little girl a little too troublesome? How in the world does she know two sealing techniques that counter me so perfectly? I could still understand the first one since increasing the magnetism of something could be helpful, but why would she bother to learn the second one? That one can pretty much only be used against me and would have almost no effect on everybody else.'

'Is she a shinobi Konoha groomed just to counter me? No, that is impossible since no one knows about my full abilities. No, there is only one possible solution. She created them while we were fighting just to counter me. Kakuzu talked about the Uzumaki clan's affinity for seals, but this is simply ridiculous.'

Sasori finished his contemplation, and the atmosphere in the room immediately changed.

"Very well, this has been going on for longer than I wanted, so let's finish this."

Sasori took out a huge scroll while removing a small cover on his chest. He injected chakra into the scroll, resulting in 100 puppets appearing in mid-air, and moments later, the same amount of chakra strings shot out of his opened chest compartment and connected themselves with the puppets.

"I once took out a country with these, so let's see what you can do. [Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets]"

The trio's faces grew solemn when they saw the horde of puppets hovering around Sasori, and without a moment of hesitation, Chiyo took out a huge scroll as well.

Just like Sasori, she injected her chakra into it, but unlike Sasori, only ten puppets appeared, which were connected with a chakra string to her fingers, one finger per puppet.

"[White Secret Technique: The Chikamatsu Collection of Ten Puppets]"

Meanwhile, Karin lifted up her shirt, revealing a heavily decorated Uzumaki clan symbol that was drawn on her stomach. The five fingers on her right hand started glowing, and after pressing them against her stomach, she twisted her hand counterclockwise, causing the seal on her stomach to spin.

The seal unfurled itself, and moments later, her whole body was covered in seals, while the skin around her eyes turned black, and a dense cloak of blue chakra covered her body.

"[Uzumaki Sealing Style: Seal Armor]"

A shiver went through Karin's body when she felt Yuna's glare on her for not using the full name of the technique.

'Oh no, I forgot the technique's full name, and Yuna-sama noticed it. It seems like I will be punished as soon as we are back in Konoha.'

Karin quickly wiped away the drool that was about to spill out of her mouth and focused her attention on Sasori.

At the same time, Sakura... clenched and unclenched her fists. She didn't have any fancy final moves she could use...

Moments later, a puppet massacre started. Sasori's puppet army might look imposing, but it clearly favored quantity over quality. This, and the fact that Sasori couldn't fine-control them, made them pretty easy picking. But, Sasori was constantly taking out more puppets to keep the number at 100, turning this into a fight of attrition.

On the other hand, Chiyo's ten puppets were all considered masterpieces created by Monzaemon Chikamatsu, the inventor of the Puppet Technique. They were not only powerful individually but were literally made to be used simultaneously and even had multiple techniques that incorporated more than one puppet.

At the same time, Sakura had some difficulties but could still keep going. Unlike Yuna and Itachi's absurd speed, she could easily follow the puppet's movement. Tsunade put heavy emphasis on learning how to dodge during her training, so she was only hit a few times, and those hits only resulted in a few small scratches. Naturally, all of Sasori's weapons were doused in poison, but since Sakura had already analyzed the poison while they were in Suna, she had the antidote with her.

Meanwhile, Karin was going utterly berserk on those poor puppets. None of them had enough firepower to puncture through her chakra cloak, and her four chakra chains tore dozens of puppets apart with every single swing.

The combination of her chakra cloak and her chains made her pretty much unbeatable in a fight against a large horde of weak opponents, which was demonstrated rather spectacularly in this fight. Despite fighting against the last card of an S-Rank shinobi, she was under almost no pressure and was utterly crushing her enemy.

Naturally, Sasori noticed that as well, so while Karin was distracted with smashing his puppets, he shot the metal cable that was rolled up in his stomach compartment at her. Unlike the attacks of the other puppets, it managed to pierce through her chakra cloak and stabbed into her shoulder.

"KARIN!!!"

Naturally, Sakura was shocked by that sudden development. After all, as far as she could tell, Karin was the most relaxed during the current stage of the fight. So, Sakura immediately ran towards Karin to give her medical treatment. But...

"Damnit, Yuna-sama is the only one who is allowed to penetrate me."

... before she could reach her, Karin uttered those words, causing Sakura to slip and smack face-first into the ground

Although Karin had a pained expression on her face, that was quickly replaced by a ferocious smile as she firmly grasped the metal cable piercing through her shoulder.

"Besides that, I finally got my hands on your real body, so checkmate."

Before Sasori could figure out what Karin was talking about, the seals on Karin's body started glowing and rearranging themselves.

Although Sasori had no idea what Karin was doing, he tried to retract his metal cable frantically, but Karin firmly held it in place.

Moments later, the seals on Karin's body stopped moving for a second and then actually started seeping into Sasori's metal cable.

"[Uzumaki Sealing Style: Chakra Corruption]"

Sasori panicked when he saw the seals slowly crawling towards him, but he couldn't prevent it no matter what he did. His metal cable was not detachable and was simply too thick to be cut apart.

Moments later, the seals reached his body, and he immediately understood that this was his loss. His army fell to the ground, literally, like puppets whose strings had been cut, while his body did the same. He did not understand what Karin did precisely, but what he knew was that he could no longer control his chakra.

"Stab the part that has Sasori written on it; I currently can't move!"

Sakura heard Karin's command and swiftly changed directions from Karin to Sasori and, while running, picked up one of the discarded weapons on the ground and pierced it through Sasori's core, the only part of him that was still human.