This puppeteer is a bit... well...

Chapter 11 Night Raid

"Old woman, that's enough!"

Sasori looked at the old man outside the prison and laughed dismissively. "Things have come to this, what else do you want to lecture me about?"

Upon hearing this, Chiyo fell silent.

After leaving Long Er's house, she went straight to the prison.

The original intention was to convey Ryuji's message and reassure him to cooperate.

Upon seeing his grandson locked in a prison cell, he couldn't help but start educating him.

Her son and daughter-in-law died in the Second Shinobi World War, and her grandson, who had finally become successful, did this.

This caused Chiyo a lot of pain.

She desperately wanted to know what had driven her grandson to do such a thing.

but.

Before he could finish his sentence, Scorpion retorted with sarcastic remarks.

"...You'll be alright."

After a moment of silence, Chiyo spoke.

"ha?"

Scorpion was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but ask, "I committed the grave crime of assassinating the Kazekage, and you managed to protect me... what exactly did you sacrifice?"

There's nothing there.

"Old woman, do you still want to lie to me like you did when I was a child?"

Hearing that sneer, Chiyo's cloudy eyes were clouded with sadness.

Scorpion was only four years old when his son and daughter-in-law died.

Chiyo was worried that Sasori's young mind would be traumatized, so she kept lying to him, saying that his parents had just gone out on a long mission.

They also taught him puppetry to distract him.

But the truth will always come out eventually.

Scorpion eventually learned that his parents were dead.

From that time on, the once lively and cheerful Scorpion's eyes gradually turned cold.

Chiyo noticed these subtle changes in Sasori, but assumed it was just the news of his parents' death that made him depressed.

Although I felt a little heavy-hearted, I didn't pay much attention to it.

After all, they're ninjas, so it's not a bad thing if they're a little distant in their feelings.

But no one expected that Scorpion would eventually come to this.

Scorpion may have been saddened by the death of his parents, but he was more disappointed in the village because his only relative was still lying to him.

Chiyo sensed from Sasori's tone that he had come to this point.

(If we had realized this back then and offered the right comfort and guidance, this probably wouldn't have happened!)

Chiyo took a deep breath and stared intently at Sasori, at the grandson who seemed indifferent to everything, yet whose eyes kept glancing at her.

A smile crept across the wrinkled old face. "My dear grandson, I really didn't contribute anything. It was all the idea of ​​that brat, Xuanqi."

"Ryuji?"

"Yes, that's him."

Next, Chiyo recounted everything that Ryuji had told her.

Scorpion sat inside, listening quietly.

Chiyo finished speaking in a short while.

Sasori was silent for a moment, then asked, "Did he really say that the Third Kazekage is still alive?"

"Yes, what they mean by the body dying but the soul remaining."

At this point, Chiyo also expressed her doubts, "I'm a puppeteer too, so I naturally know that this situation is impossible, but a human puppet..."

"Even human puppets can't do that," Scorpion sneered. "The body dies, but the soul lives on... I don't have the ability to kill the body and preserve the soul unharmed."

"That brat was definitely lying. But why tell such an obvious lie?"

Ryuji's words contain many flaws; if you think about them carefully, you can find the inconsistencies.

However, the high-ranking members of the roundtable were so eager to seize power and profit that they were blinded by their desire for immortality that they were unable to calmly consider the loopholes in Long Er's words.

"It's not that easy to expose."

Ok?

Chiyo looked up at Sasori, who was dismissing the matter, and asked, puzzled, "Why?"

You'll find out then.

Scorpion looked up at the window of the opposite cell, where thick clouds drifted by, obscuring the last ray of moonlight.

Kill the body, preserve the soul... If this could be achieved, then one could truly change bodies at will and attain eternity.

……

4:00 AM.

It was before dawn, the time when people are most sleepy.

Sunagakure is nestled in a deep desert canyon, surrounded by weathered and cracked cliffs, impassable even to ninjas. Only in the sheltered direction, there is a road leading out of the village.

At the end of the road, on the canyon.

The two mountain peaks stand facing each other, forming a natural pass or fortress resembling a narrow slit in the sky.

By stationing a hundred men on the two mountain peaks and using the traps and equipment set in advance, they can withstand an army of thousands.

"Ah...so sleepy!"

At the edge of the mountain, a Sand Village ninja on guard duty yawned.

A colleague comforted him, saying, "It's almost time for your shift to change, hang in there!"

"You're just too honest," the Sand Village ninja waved dismissively. "The Land of Wind is all desert; there's no profit to be made there. Who would bother with us?"

The ninja agreed with his companion's words, but still had some concerns. "...That's true, but most of the village's manpower has gone out to investigate the Kazekage's whereabouts, and even the border defense forces have been largely mobilized. Right now is..."

"Alright, alright, you're being too cautious."

"It's best to be cautious. The high-level meeting has ended the mission, and the ninjas who went out will be back soon. When there are more people to relieve them, our workload will be much easier."

"Okay, okay, I was just teasing you. Your personality is too..."

"puff!"

In the darkness, something flew in and pierced his throat, causing blood to flow freely.

He covered his throat, trying to say something, but could only make a "ho ho" sound, and finally collapsed unwillingly.

Another companion stared wide-eyed at the seemingly endless desert in disbelief.

In the darkness, the silhouettes of many figures moving forward could be faintly seen.

"Enemy attack!"

A heart-wrenching roar echoed across the sky above Sunagakure, followed by a series of explosions and booms.

The peaceful night was broken.

……

"Finally done."

After storing the mechanical bird back into the scroll, Ryuji stretched and yawned, his bones cracking and popping, feeling incredibly refreshed.

Suddenly, the roof began to tremble slightly, and dust began to fall.

The communicator hanging on the wall also rang, and a red voice came through, "Master, something bad has happened! There's an intruder!"

"Intruder?"

"Many of them are ninjas from other villages. The village guards are fighting the enemy."

"I see."

After hanging up the call, Long Er clenched his fists, his eyes flashing with an uncontrollable rage.

"Were those high-ranking officials raised on shit?"

This crisis could have been avoided. If the high-level meeting had issued the order to terminate the mission immediately, the ninjas who went out could have returned that very night.

As a result, the first thing those high-ranking officials thought about was vying for power and profit, and they didn't put the safety of the village as their top priority at all.

"Those guys have to be taken care of, otherwise Sunagakure won't be able to develop. But now's not the time to assign blame, let's go and defeat the enemy first." Ryuji glanced at the Third Kazekage, who was still unconscious on the control panel, and turned to leave the studio.

(End of this chapter)