Chapter 53 – Final Face-off
The orange flash burst forward again, but this time it ignored the crimson-robed Puppets and streaked straight for Sasori's real body.
"Trying to behead me? How naïve!"
Sasori sneered.
The instant the Kunai was about to pierce the red-haired youth, the boy's body went rigid, then split apart like a torn rag-doll.
Empty.
Dozens of meters away, another red-robed Puppet lifted its head, revealing Sasori's mocking face.
"I told you—I'm immortal. As long as my core remains, any of these Puppets can become my body."
His voice echoed across the desert, arrogance absolute over life and death. "Among these hundreds of Puppets, I am everywhere. How many times can that Kunai of yours kill me?"
Core transference.
This was the ultimate trump card Sasori had gained after remaking himself into a human Puppet.
The fleshy pillar marked "Scorpion" could, through Chakra threads, jump instantly into any Puppet.
In this sea of Puppets, he was an undead ghost.
"So that's your ace?"
Yahiko stood on the shoulder of a Puppet whose head had been sheared in half, twirling his Kunai. "Hide-and-seek? Amusing—but my patience is gone."
A strange, heart-shaking ripple spread outward with him at its center.
Behind him, the savage Stand named King Crimson slowly emerged; its enraged face seemed to mock time's impotence.
"Epitaph."
The world changed in Yahiko's eyes.
Color drained away, leaving only gray lines and after-images of the future.
He saw it.
Five seconds ahead, Sasori's core would transfer into a hatchet-wielding Puppet thirty meters to the left and strike from behind.
"Found you."
A cruel smile curved Yahiko's lips.
"King Crimson."
At that instant, the world's logic was forcibly rewritten.
Hundreds of diving Puppets froze mid-air in ferocious poses like figures in a still-life painting.
Time was erased.
In that excised gap of Karma, only Yahiko could Move.
He strolled through the frozen horde, a visitor in a museum, ignoring the poisoned blades inches away.
He walked thirty meters to the left.
There stood an unremarkable red-robed Puppet.
In the normal timeline, Sasori's core would arrive here one second later.
But within the deleted time, there were no defenses, no traps—only destined fate.
Yahiko reached out.
The red-and-white Stand's arm overlapped his motion.
No flashy Moves were needed.
He simply slid his hand into the hidden compartment in the Puppet's chest—the slot meant for the core.
Then he waited.
The instant time resumed,
all actions reconnected at their broken seams.
Sasori's vision flickered; the moment his awareness transferred through the Chakra thread into the new shell, an agony he had never felt flooded his Soul.
"Gah—!!"
The sky-full of Puppets lost control at once.
Clatter!
Like Puppets with their strings cut, they rained down, smashing into the sand and raising clouds of dust.
Sasori realized in horror that his viewpoint had dropped—
no, he was being lifted.
The red-haired man now stood before him.
In Yahiko's hand, the still-pulsing fleshy pillar marked "Scorpion" was gripped tight.
The Chakra vessels attached to it trembled helplessly.
"H-how… is this possible…?"
Though only a core of flesh remained, Sasori could still speak, terror squeezed from his Soul. "What did you do? When did you get here?"
There had been no motion, no after-image.
It was as if a god had snipped that span of space-time and jumped straight to the ending.
"I told you—process is superfluous."
Yahiko raised the core to eye level, appraising it like a cheap trinket.
With a slight squeeze, the Genius Puppeteer famed across the Ninja World would become a smear of gore.
The terror of having his life entirely in another's grip snapped Sasori's reason back from madness.
"Now let's discuss your employment benefits."
Yahiko's voice was soft, yet to Sasori it weighed heavier than a Shinigami's verdict.
"Do you choose to join that pile of Trash, or do you take your core and come to Amegakure to pursue greater art?"
As he spoke, Yahiko's fingers tightened slightly.
"Stop!"
Sasori shrieked.
Before absolute death, pride was a joke.
"I… surrender."
The instant the words left him, Yahiko opened his hand.
The core streaked back as a red flash into the boy Puppet's frame.
Clack-clack.
Sasori steadied himself on one knee, clutching his chest and gasping; the aftertaste of survival left him shaking.
But he launched no further attack.
As a Puppeteer, calculation was his forte—
of Chakra, of mechanisms, of odds.
And in that instant, the odds he calculated were exactly zero.
"Good. A wise choice."
Yahiko dusted off his hands and turned toward Konan.
"Pack up. We're heading back. Nagato's waiting for Materials."
"Wait!"
Still kneeling, Sasori lifted his head, surveying the wreckage of Puppets—especially the scraps of the Third Kazekage—and winced.
"You destroyed my entire collection! And the repair Materials for hundreds of Puppets… you promised reimbursement!"
Yahiko paused, glancing at the tech-nerd who'd been fighting to the death a minute ago and was now doing the accounts.
Even rogue Ninja feel the sting of research budgets.
"Konan, give it to him."
Expressionless, Konan drew a checkbook printed by Maeda: "Royal Bank of Amegakure."
Scribble-scribble.
She tore off a slip and flicked it to Sasori.
"Fill in the number. As long as Amegakure hasn't collapsed, that paper's good."
Sasori caught the fluttering sheet, stared at the elegant watermark, and blinked.
That easy?
This organization… might actually have something going for it.
"In exchange,"
Yahiko pointed at the ruins, "hand over the junk you don't need. I want corpses with tough physiques—bodies that can survive heavy modification."
Sasori pocketed the check.
Money on the table meant everything was negotiable.
Chakra threads snaked from his fingers into the debris, dragging out a long object wrapped in a Sealed scroll.
"I'd been saving this one as a spare body."
He undid the Seal.
A tall corpse rolled out, its frame studded with mechanical ports; clearly a Puppeteer who had died of Qi Deviation.
"Found him in the Land of Wind—should meet your specs."
Sasori glanced at the body, a flicker of reluctance in his eyes, but the huge "sponsorship fee" quickly washed it away.
"No Kekkei Genkai, but his bones are ten times harder than normal—can handle the recoil of heavy mechanisms."
Yahiko looked down at the corpse and nodded, satisfied.
It was practically tailor-made for the Asura Path.
"Excellent."
"Welcome to Akatsuki, 'S Jade'."
In the light of the setting sun, the giant paper crane spread its wings once more.
On its back, alongside god and angel, sat a red-haired youth busy calculating Material costs, and a corpse soon to incarnate as an "Asura."
The six paths of pain—assembly complete.
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