After several days of research, Sasori realized he might have underestimated the challenge before him.
The flying machine—an airplane—was far more complex than it appeared. He could grasp most of its principles, yet even the smallest miscalculation could spell complete failure.
A single millimeter's error could prove fatal. Without fully understanding its structure, replication was impossible—let alone modifying it for use as a puppet.
"This thing is truly exquisite…"
Though many of his puppets were crafted with steel components, the foundation of traditional puppet-making was wood.
Even the strongest designs often relied on special timber, reinforced with iron or chakra metal, to remain light and responsive. A single puppet could easily require materials worth hundreds of thousands of ryō.
Becoming a puppet master was never cheap.
Beyond wealth, the art demanded knowledge.
Sealing techniques, engineering, chakra control—top-level puppet masters had to be versed in all of them. Chiyo's creations were the perfect example: her puppets incorporated intricate fūinjutsu, allowing her to command ten at once in battle. With her skill, she had once stood on equal footing with a Five Kage.
Her Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu were living legends—crafted by Monzaemon, the forefather of Sunagakure's puppet corps. Each puppet was engraved with sealing runes, their combat potential so overwhelming they earned the name "One Puppet, One Thousand Warriors."
With only those ten, Chiyo could rival Sasori's own performance of a hundred.
And yet, compared to the airplane Sasori had glimpsed, even these masterpieces felt archaic.
Eventually, Sasori ceased trying to imitate it directly. If those people had been capable of creating such a marvel, then surely there were more wonders waiting. The fusion of mechanical technology with puppetry could push his craft into entirely new realms. Perhaps it might even surpass the progenitor himself.
The machine's flaw, however, was clear—it required manual control, not chakra threads.
That sparked the question that obsessed him: Was there a way to create a puppet that did not need chakra threads—or even human control at all?
For days, Sasori wandered the desert, hoping to encounter the strange flying craft again. But its operators seemed to have vanished.
He wasn't discouraged.
If he couldn't study the people, then he would master the technology itself. He bought every book on mechanical engineering he could find. The texts were basic, but to him they were stepping stones. With his talent, he quickly absorbed the principles, refining his understanding of how the airplane functioned.
He concluded that its flight relied on a volatile fuel, perhaps a form of flammable liquid sometimes found beneath the desert sands. It wasn't identical, but the principle was the same—energy. Chakra, too, could serve as a substitute, though it came at the cost of immense consumption. For shinobi with shallow reserves, it would be unsustainable.
Over time, his research bore fruit. Sasori constructed a flying puppet of his own. Though it still relied on chakra threads and could only hover at low altitudes, it marked real progress.
Drawing inspiration from the airplane, he shaped it like a humanoid bird with outstretched wings. Inside, he embedded a chakra engine as its main propulsion, while the wings provided agility and gliding capability once chakra was depleted.
Sasori's genius was undeniable. Sometimes, all he lacked was inspiration.
Among shinobi, he already stood as the pinnacle of puppet mastery. And despite his reputation, he was still young—no older than his mid-thirties at the time of his death in the original story, remembered as Sasori of the Red Sand, the Akatsuki's "Scorpion."
He had already turned his own body into a human puppet, reducing his existence to a single life core. As long as that core remained, he could transfer into another shell. But the story never revealed the true limits of this transformation. Was he immortal, or merely clinging to existence as something less than human? After all, in the end, a puppet was still a puppet.
Like Orochimaru, Sasori was a genius with boundless curiosity, though his obsession lay with puppets instead of forbidden jutsu.
Now he stood before his newest creation, frowning. Though elegant, it lacked something vital. It was form without essence. What he sought was a puppet free from chakra threads—remote-controlled, or animated through a completely new principle.
Until then, it was unfinished.
That was why he remained unsatisfied. His own body—hidden within the shell of Hiruko—was proof of what puppetry could achieve. Within the Akatsuki, most even believed Hiruko to be his real body. In truth, very few had ever laid eyes on Sasori's true form.
And he preferred it that way.
Who could have imagined that Sasori's body, concealed within Hiruko, was not his true form either?
From within the puppet shell, Sasori emerged, revealing a delicate and almost youthful appearance.
Even the Akatsuki would never have guessed that the young man standing before them was the feared Sasori of the Red Sand. A small, glowing core detached from his chest, suspended by chakra threads, before being guided into the body of a new puppet.
Sasori named this creation Kureha.
The moment the life core entered, Kureha seemed to awaken. Its eyes glimmered with an eerie semblance of life, agile and sharp. Testing it for the first time, Sasori launched the puppet into the sky. The sudden upward thrust nearly sent him spiraling out of control—his first attempt at true flight.
Spreading his razor-sharp wings, Sasori steadied himself. The wings extended and retracted with precision, but real flight did not depend on them alone. The puppet's power came from a chakra engine, modeled after the airplane engine Sasori had studied so carefully.
To maximize its killing power, he laced the wings with his signature poisons.
A true Puppet Master was not only an artisan but also a poisoner of unmatched skill. In fact, Sunagakure's toxins had once devastated Konoha during the Third Great Ninja War. If not for Tsunade's medical expertise and her immunity to poison, Konoha's casualties would have been far greater.
Sasori urged Kureha into motion, quickly adjusting to its balance and controls. In a single motion, he dove from the sky. The puppet's mouth opened wide, unleashing a torrent of steel needles that glittered faintly with poison.
The wings flared open—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
In an instant, the sharpened edges tore through a swath of trees, toppling them with ease. Dust billowed into the air as the forest around him collapsed in ruin.
Hovering in the air, Sasori gazed upon the devastation with cold satisfaction. Yet his mind was already at work, dissecting every detail—carefully weighing the strengths and weaknesses of this new creation.
...
TN:
Kureha (紅羽) means Crimson Feather in Japanese.
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