On the battlefield, Hidezawa and Shisui were locked in a relentless clash with Sasori.
The red-haired puppet master fought with the terrifying grace of a predator at play. With the Third Kazekage's puppet at his command, he seemed unshakable. Offense and defense flowed seamlessly together—iron sand in high-density sheets and spears, manipulated with frightening precision by Sasori's flawless chakra threads.
Ordinary shinobi would have been swallowed alive.
Yet Hidezawa and Shisui weren't ordinary.
Even so, both of them noticed something unnerving. Sasori wasn't fighting seriously—he was toying with them.
'It seems… we're being looked down on?'
Hidezawa arched an eyebrow. But this wasn't all bad. He and Shisui were both holding back as well.
He hadn't tapped into his Curse Mark or Yin Style. Shisui hadn't activated his Mangekyō. It was a testing phase—probing, not killing.
But Hidezawa had no intention of dragging things out. From the moment he laid eyes on Sasori, a little plan had sprouted in his mind.
Originally, he had wanted to "make Shisui suffer a bit". But now? He had found a better target.
'Time to push harder. Can't let him just slip away.'
Hidezawa's chakra flared, his skin shifting as the Curse Mark spread across him. The transformation was swift—his body brimming with heightened power.
Unlike natural sage chakra, the Curse Mark recovered its reserves on its own, though the durability was still flawed. Even so, at LV3, it was the boost Hidezawa always chose when faced with a monster.
"Earth Style ∙ Rock Lodging Destruction!"
He slammed his hands into the sand. The desert floor groaned—then collapsed inward with a deafening rumble.
"Hm?" Sasori's face hardened. The ground beneath him buckled before he could move, and a vast pit yawned open, dragging him down.
'Now!'
Hidezawa's hand darted to his pouch. He drew out Pakura's confiscated signal flare, cracked it alight, and launched it into the sky.
*Fwoosh!*
The flare burst with blinding brilliance overhead.
Below, Sasori looked up, his expression turning pitch black.
"You—" His voice was a hiss. "Brat, are you looking for death?"
"Hidezawa, you—!" Shisui sprinted over, his face tight. He understood the meaning behind Hidezawa's act but still frowned. "Isn't this too risky?"
"Senpai," Hidezawa said with a disarming smile, "do you remember what I told you earlier?"
Shisui blinked, thrown off. He hesitated, and Hidezawa clapped him on the shoulder.
"Leave it to me. Don't worry."
As he spoke, Sasori rose from the pit, lifted by the Third Kazekage's puppet. His eyes burned with irritation, but Hidezawa only grinned wider.
"It seems I misunderstood." Hidezawa said innocently. "Since you're skilled enough to create puppets that retain a Kekkei Genkai even after death… such mastery is surely on par with Chiyo of Sunagakure. I thought you'd be happy to meet your countrymen again."
Sasori's expression darkened to pure murder. He could see it clearly—this brat was provoking him on purpose. With Sunagakure shinobi already on their way, the last thing he wanted was entanglement here.
"Do you think you can trap me with just the two of you?" Sasori's voice turned frigid. "Better worry about how you'll handle the Sand shinobi when they arrive."
"Senpai," Hidezawa said calmly, ignoring him, "we need to step it up. Don't let him leave. Make a big scene."
"…Mm."
Shisui nodded. He didn't like the plan, but he had no choice now. Hidezawa had launched the flare—there was no going back.
When Sunagakure's forces arrived, retreating would be near impossible. Their only chance was to chain Sasori to this battlefield, to let him clash against his own village's might.
As that decision settled in, Shisui's Sharingan began to spin faster, evolving into its deadly form. At the same time, the dark power of Yin-style chakra stirred deep within Hidezawa, curling like smoke around his core.
…
Meanwhile, across the Land of Wind, squads of Sunagakure shinobi were already converging.
The village was on high alert, battered by Iwagakure's pressure from outside and Kirigakure's infiltrations from within. And now, their pride—Pakura, the hero who had dealt Kirigakure a brutal wound—had vanished.
Unacceptable.
Days had passed without answers, and the frustration had festered into near-madness. When the signal flare lit the night sky, their response was instant.
"Move! Quickly!"
Teams sprinted across the dunes, leaping from ridge to ridge. But the closer they came to the flare's origin, the more abnormal the desert became.
The air quaked with an ear-piercing roar. The sand shifted underfoot as if alive. Dunes trembled constantly, a low growl echoing from the depths of the earth.
"What's happening ahead…?"
Unease tightened their throats.
When at last they crested a ridge and saw the battlefield, they froze.
"What… what is that?"
The sky was filled with puppets.
Countless black silhouettes swarmed through the storm, blotting out the stars. Among them was a figure shrouded by roiling black iron sand—the unmistakable aura of the Third Kazekage's Magnet-style twisting through the night.
The iron sand lashed the ground in great spikes, constructing walls, tearing the desert apart.
Below, chaos reigned. A massive green figure fought amid the storm, smashing through puppets by the dozens. Beside it, a stone dragon nearly fifty meters long tore across the battlefield, its roars shaking the sand like thunder.
The Sunagakure reinforcements stood in stunned silence. Their hair stood on end.
"Quick, send a distress signal!" one shouted at last, voice hoarse with urgency. "Report to the village immediately—we may have found traces of the Third Kazekage! Report this now!"
"Yes!"
Hands flew to scrolls and pouches. In moments, hawks burst into the sky, flares streaked upward, and the air filled with their sharp cries.
The desert night lit up brilliantly as signal after signal arced high.
*****
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