Chapter 143: Sasori's Collapse
Sato stood majestically in front of Sasori; his transformed body filled the spacious cave.
Sasori felt the pressure from Sato the Fifth Raikage, so he released his strongest puppet. The Third Kazekage's human puppet.
Sato certainly knew what this puppet was, but he pretended not to know. It would be much more useful if Sasori admitted this himself, infront his grandmother Chiyo.
Sato only needs to push the conversation in the right direction.
"Sasori, your puppet looks a lot like the Third Kazekage- Wait, did you make a puppet using the Kazekage's body?"
"This must be a human puppet then. Made using the forbidden technique of sand village."
Sato patted his forehead with his paws, his smile exaggerated.
"I can't believe it."
"You used your own village's forbidden technique on your own Kazekage. Hahahahaha."
"What a great grandson you have, elder Chiyo."
Sato laughed loudly; the sound of a giant cat's laughter was booming.
Which was why Sato's words stung Sasori and Chiyo's hearts even more.
"You have no right to judge me, Raikage."
"Yes, I attacked the third Kazekage and created a human puppet from his body."
"But he deserved it."
Sasori gripped his fist. Even though he was a puppet himself, there were some things he firmly believed in.
His revenge against Kazekage was one of those things.
"My parents died when I was a child. I was so young that I couldn't even remember them properly."
"And it all happened because the third Kazekage sent them on a death mission."
"They were sent to fight Hatake Sakumo; everyone knew this was a death mission, but he still sent them."
Sasori looked down; his eyes were on his grandmother Chiyo. At this point in time, Sasori had stopped attacking them.
Chiyo lowered her hands and pursed her lips; she was vulnerable before her grandson Sasori.
"Sasori, your parents wanted to go. They did it for the village."
"I know you lost them, but killing our Kazekage was not the solution."
"If you wanted to hate someone, hate Hatake Sakumo and Konoha."
Chiyo wiped the tears from her eyes, but Sasori wasn't buying it.
"You are only blaming Konoha, because you don't have the courage to fight the village."
"I have read the mission files; my parents were forced to go and fight."
"Face reality, Grandma Chiyo."
Sasori gripped his fist tightly, then silently relaxed. He was quickly back to his emotionless self.
His puppet body wasn't very good at emotions to being with.
"In the end, it doesn't matter anymore. I have already done what I wanted to do."
Sasori's rising emotions were suppressed by him. But Sato found this a good place to cut in.
"It doesn't matter? Easy for you to say Akatsuki scum."
"Hidden sand used the Kazekage's disappearance as an excuse to start the third Shinobi war."
"Thousands of kids like you were orphaned, because of your actions."
"If you wanted revenge, you could have done so openly. I would have called you brave for that."
Sato sneered. He spat venomous words at the puppet master.
"Instead of owning up to your revenge, you chickened out and ran away."
"You hid and watched the world fight. You became a rat when tragedies like yours happened everywhere."
"You said you hated what happened to you? But you did the same thing to others, a thousand times over."
Sato laughed while shaking his head.
"You deserved what you got, Akatsuki scum."
Sato's mocking words hurt Sasori deeply. Sasori's puppet body was still emotionless, but his only organic part, his heart, had veins throbbing on it.
It was a sign of suppressed anger.
"Raikage, I will kill you and make a puppet out of you."
Sasori spat with a bone chilling tone. Sato kept his smiling face, but his focus was on someone else.
He was looking at the old woman, Chiyo.
'It worked; hidden sand's elder Chiyo is mentally shaken!'
'Her grandson admitting his guilt publicly, and me focusing on his crimes broke her solid mentality. This was what I wanted.'
Sato smiled gently.
Sato was playing word games with Sasori for so long, not to make Sasori angry or talk about justice, but to break Chiyo's heart.
How else was Sato supposed to get the reincarnation jutsu from Chiyo?
To take something from someone so shrewd, Sato needed to have power over her, and now he had that power.
"You have outlived your usefulness Sasori."
Sato gently whispered, then rushed towards Sasori. Sasori was prepared to attack from the start; so he wasn't caught off guard by Sato's sudden attack, and struck back.
Iron sand flowed out of third kagekage human puppet; this iron sand was once the kekkei genkai of the third kagekage.
It was the fabled magnet release kekkei genkai. Which made the third Kazekage, the strongest kagekage in history.
"Magnet release: Iron sand funeral."
Sasori controlled the kagekage puppet and created a tsunami of iron sand.
It was like a world ending wave of black iron dust.
Yet Sato didn't care; he ran forward with his giant body. The iron sand hit him wave after wave; it cut into his flesh and blood.
But he was so huge, it didn't matter.
"I can heal Sasori; I am a tailed beast. If this was the real Kazekage, I would have some trouble, but a puppet?"
"This is nothing to me."
Sato roared and pushed the ground with his back legs; with a quick leap, he was on top of Sasori.
"How did you get to me?! Did you use body flicker jutsu?"
Sasori's eyes widened; he thought Sato's large body would be hard to use. He wanted to use Sato's size against him, but no.
Somehow Sato used ninjutsu in his tailed beast form. This was unheard of.
Nobody can use Ninjutsu in full-tailed beast transformation!
"How did you use ninjutsu?!"
Sasori was out of words. He looked up and saw the massive beast now above him, and this beast about to bite into his body.
BITE
Sato didn't give Sasori time to think. He bit down on Sasori's puppet body, and chomped hard.
Crack
Sasori heard the shattering of his puppet body, and his eyes blurred. He realized he had made a fatal mistake.
He shouldn't have assumed Raikage's intelligence, based on other jinchuriki. His judgment was momentarily shaken by his anger.
Maybe Raikage was saying all those things before, to make him angry on purpose.
"I knew it."
"Human emotions are a weakness. I should have become a complete puppet long ago."
Sasori muttered. Before his oncoming death, he chuckled.
Sasori observed the battlefield. It was filled with puppets he had made. He silently felt his own cold puppet body, and lastly, he looked at only two puppets he had made during his childhood.
These two puppets were called mother-and-father puppets. These puppets were built using his parent's image.
"Grandma Chiyo, take care of them."
Sasori whispered lightly. He left his parent's puppets under her care, and then felt the force from Sato's jaws increase.
Sasori's mechanical body couldn't resist any longer. The jaws crushed his body throughly.
"..."
In a dark cave, Sasori passed away silently. His only organic body part, which was his heart, had stopped beating completely.
Sato felt the dead puppet master. He quietly kept Sasori's remains on the ground, besides the mother-and-father puppet.
Even if Sasori deserved to die, there was no need to disrespect the dead. Chiyo wept silently. Sasuke was silent too. Sakura was screaming for help somewhere.
Everyone either mourned the death or gave respect to the dead. Sato did the same for a few seconds more, then broke the silence.
"Elder Chiyo, collect the bodies and whatever else you have to collect."
"After you are done, we need to talk."