Sunagakure front, western sector.
"Sasori-sama!"
"Amegakure has gone insane! They've opened the dam, and it looks like they're using Water Release to guide the flow as well. They've flooded the entire front..." A Sunagakure puppeteer jōnin rushed over and reported frantically, "Kazekage-sama has ordered you to abandon your position immediately and return to face the enemy!"
"Rasa-sama also sent word ordering Pakura-sama to move along the southeastern route and eliminate any Ame shinobi who have infiltrated the area!"
The Suna puppeteer held an intelligence scroll in his hand.
Sasori yawned and casually waved him off. "Don't rush..."
But Pakura sprang to her feet beside him. "How can we not rush? The Ame shinobi are already attacking! They've gone so far as to flood their own territory—this has to be an all-out offensive!"
According to Pakura's straightforward values, Rasa and the Kazekage might have made poor decisions, but they were still Sunagakure's own shinobi. When the enemy attacked, she naturally had to lend them a hand.
Sasori gave Pakura a speechless look.
As far as this woman with decent strength but very little brains was concerned, the reason Sasori had asked Chiyo to assign her to his faction was that once he became Kazekage, he would need a reliable workhorse to do the actual work...
Pakura was obviously a suitable candidate.
"The southwestern route..."
Sasori considered it, a cold glint flashing through his eyes. "Something feels wrong there. Rasa said there were infiltrating Konoha shinobi to eliminate? How many troops did he tell Pakura to take?"
The puppeteer jōnin replied, "The intelligence scroll says Pakura-sama should go alone. This isn't Amegakure's main line of attack. They should just be a flanking force trying to circle around us."
Sasori chuckled.
It sounded reasonable enough, but something still felt off...
"I'll be enough on my own!"
Pakura frowned deeply.
"The battle reports from Kumogakure and Iwagakure have already arrived. Konoha's strength far exceeded the Kazekage's estimates, and now even Amegakure has begun counterattacking..."
"I said from the beginning that we shouldn't confront Konoha like this. We were already allies and had a foundation for cooperation. Why did we have to go out of our way to provoke Konoha?!"
"Wait a moment. I'll ask someone for you." Sasori shrugged and pressed his arm.
His body was now half-puppet, and at his elbow was a White Zetsu communication module Uchiha Madara had made for him. It was similar to Konoha's Earth Grudge Communicator, except it took the biotechnology route.
The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path combined with White Zetsu was simply far too versatile.
"Hello, Hi-kun? It's Sasori..."
Sasori began talking as though no one else were there.
"Would it be convenient for you to check Amegakure's attack routes for me? Something has happened on our front..."
"There's a puppeteer next to me whom I've placed under the control of my Memory-Concealing Manipulative Sand Technique, and Pakura is here too."
Pakura froze.
What was he doing?
Hi-kun's voice sounded inside Sasori's mind.
{Hatake Sakumo and Hanzō are advancing rapidly from the southwest. They're probably heading straight for the Third Kazekage...}
{Troops have also been sent toward your position, but they're only there to hold the line.}
{Nagato went with the central force to spearhead the breakthrough. Be careful. This Konoha... Ame shinobi—forget it, this Uzumaki shinobi can fight much better than you'd expect. Don't engage him.}
{Hanzō and Hatake Sakumo have also been enhanced to varying degrees. I suggest you hold your current position and make plenty of noise. Once they've started fighting, head over there and make a token appearance...}
Sasori nodded. "Everything going well on your end lately?"
{Everything's fine. Uncle and Auntie are very happy working here. An interesting kid also arrived recently. You two can meet when you have time. Maybe you'll even have opportunities to work together later.}
Hi-kun said with a laugh.
At that very moment, the newly modified Obito was drenched in sweat as he did one-armed push-ups, beginning his rehabilitation.
Kinkaku watched him sternly...
"Another new companion? I'm looking forward to meeting him..."
Smiling, Sasori ended the call through the White Zetsu module.
Pakura stared blankly at Sasori.
The man in front of her had suddenly become incredibly mysterious...
"Who were you talking to?" Pakura asked instinctively.
"Don't ask about things you shouldn't. These waters run deep—deep enough to drown you even faster than Amegakure's flood..."
Sasori said meaningfully, "I checked. Hanzō and Hatake Sakumo are on the exact route Rasa assigned you. If you went alone without taking a single shinobi with you, with your personality, you'd definitely engage them. Then all you'd have to do is wait to die."
"My guess is that Rasa sensed their movements with his sand-manipulation technique and decided to use those two to kill you. After all, the way you usually talk is pretty damn irritating..."
Pakura's face darkened.
"How is that possible? Rasa and I may have our differences, but he wouldn't sell me out! We're both Sunagakure shinobi, after all..."
"It's a miracle you've survived this long..." Sasori shook his head and quipped, "What moral bottom line do you expect from someone willing to sacrifice his own youngest son just to curry favor with the Kazekage? Rank-and-file shinobi follow rules. At the top, betraying each other for personal gain is the norm."
"If you don't believe me, go get yourself killed. Someone that stupid wouldn't be much use for work anyway."
Pakura was left completely dumbfounded by his words.
"I'll believe you for now..."
"But who exactly were you talking to? Did you betray Sunagakure and establish contact with an outside organization? Sasori, you're Elder Chiyo's grandson. You can't do something like that!"
Pakura earnestly tried to reason with him.
Sasori looked at Pakura as though he were observing some rare animal and couldn't help laughing.
What a traditionally minded, wonderfully innocent brain...
"No harm in telling you."
"I was contacting Second Kazekage-sama, Shamon. Don't tell anyone about this. You need to understand that the Third Kazekage's aggressive strategies run completely counter to Shamon-sama's conservative approach to building up Sunagakure."
Sasori casually made up an excuse.
They were both Second Kage. If it worked for the Second Hokage, it could probably work for the Second Kazekage too!
Besides, Sasori was already planning to discuss it with Senju Tobirama. They were all high-level shinobi who did research, so wouldn't it be great to find an opportunity to bring Shamon back with Impure World Reincarnation?
They could study puppet techniques together. No matter how you looked at it, he'd have far more in common with Shamon than with those two musclebound barbarians from Kumogakure...
With advice from Hi-kun and several other Kage, Sasori was now proudly rallying under the banner of Second Kazekage Shamon. His argument was that the development of puppeteers and sand-manipulation techniques had been intended to create an impregnable defensive formation for positional warfare in the desert.
Taking the initiative to attack was a betrayal of Shamon's plans for Sunagakure!
"Shamon-sama? How could Shamon-sama still be alive? Didn't he die of illness?" Pakura felt as though she had absorbed far too much information today, and her brain was starting to overload.
First Rasa's betrayal, then Sasori's mysterious intelligence network, and now even a former Kazekage had appeared...
Meanwhile...
Outside the front under Sasori's command, Konan, as though sending a signal, led the Ame shinobi alongside Yahiko in unleashing a massive explosive-tag barrage against Sunagakure's puppet defensive positions...
The explosions were deafening, but the actual damage was minimal.
They were basically bombarding an empty area with everything they had.
Sasori quickly sent out puppets to gather intelligence and smiled knowingly.
"See, Pakura..."
"Konoha really is Konoha! We can understand each other perfectly even from opposite sides of the front. They don't want to fight us either, so we're giving each other a respectable excuse."
"Pass down the order to every puppeteer on the front. Match their firepower and make just as much noise! But remember, the goal isn't to inflict casualties. Just use your firepower to force them back!"
Most of Sunagakure's puppeteers had gathered around Sasori. They acknowledged this grandson of Chiyo and Ebizō, a puppetry genius who had inherited the true teachings of Second Kazekage Shamon...
At that moment, explosive tags and puppet mechanisms erupted together in an overwhelmingly fierce exchange of fire!
Plowing through the empty front again and again...
Rasa and the Third Kazekage soon received the intelligence.
They secretly thought that although Sasori hadn't come to reinforce them, he was finally doing his part and had tied down the enemy's elites!
'With the fighting that intense over there, Pakura is probably helping Sasori engage the enemy too...'
'Looks like even a blind cat can stumble across a dead mouse!'
Rasa narrowed his eyes.
What a pity...
"Kazekage-sama, should we retreat first?"
"Hanzō opened the dam, and most of the front is flooded now. Without stable sand to maintain the connection, the Third Eye has lost its surveillance capability..."
Rasa said gravely.
But before the Kazekage could finish speaking, a blade of light crackling with lightning tore through the central command tent!
Hatake Swordsmanship: Storm Release: Single-Blade Slash!
The Third Kazekage manipulated his Iron Sand and barely managed to block the incomparably sharp blade of light.
But the Black Iron Sand Shield he had always prided himself on as an absolute defense was effortlessly carved open by the slash, leaving a massive gash!
The Third Kazekage's expression darkened.
Rasa frowned deeply and rapidly erupted with chakra.
He raised both hands high. The gold dust buried beneath his feet converged into an enormous fist that moved as though it were an extension of his own limbs, smashing toward Sakumo outside the tent!
But the feedback from the gold dust made Rasa's heart tremble!
It was far too heavy!
After being soaked by an abnormally massive volume of water, both the speed and precision with which he could manipulate the gold dust had dropped by more than an entire level...
'It looks like we'll have to abandon the Iron Sand and gold dust we stockpiled as reserves for now...'
The same thought crossed both Rasa's and the Third Kazekage's minds.
Their Magnet Release required enough of a suitable medium to serve as material for manipulation. They could produce it themselves with chakra, but having stockpiles ready was obviously preferable.
The despicable enemy had deliberately targeted that weakness!
Taking advantage of the environment created by opening the dam, Hanzō drew in the surrounding water and unleashed:
Water Release: Starch Syrup Capturing Field: Tobirama Modified!
A vast quantity of viscous water rapidly spread across the battlefield.
"Who do you expect to hit with an attack like that?"
Along with the taunt, a kusarigama shot from the smoke and dust at an uncanny angle, its sickle hooking toward Rasa's neck in an instant!
Rasa instinctively produced gold dust to block it, but Hanzō emerged from the water behind him like a ghost!
In his hand was a high-speed rotating wheel of purple water!
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