Chapter 6 – Night of the Puppets' Dance
Midnight. Moonlight poured down like silver rain.
Wrapped tightly in a pitch–black cloak, Sasori moved silently through the chill of the night, the cold wind offering a fleeting relief to the burning pain radiating from his wounds.
Killing the Third Kazekage had not come without cost. The gash beneath his ribs was the worst—every breath pulled at it with a sharp, stabbing ache. His chakra reserves had been driven to the brink, barely enough to sustain him through another high–intensity battle.
His original plan had been flawless: eliminate the Kazekage, then, without a trace, abduct Moze—an ideal "tool"—and craft him into a material–processing type human puppet of his own design.
Puppet components carved, fitted, and fine–tuned by Moze's hands always possessed a precision and agility far beyond the ordinary. The improvement wasn't just a numerical boost—it was a qualitative leap, an uncanny "vitality" breathed into the construct itself.
But now, standing outside the building, Sasori sensed something was off.
Discovered…
He halted, eyes narrowing beneath his hood, body merging into the shadows. It wasn't the sound of movement inside, nor a flicker of light that had given him away. It was something far more direct—he could feel it. The faint, steady chakra signature belonging to Moze, which had been flowing calmly within the building moments ago, had suddenly stilled. Then, like a startled hedgehog, it bristled—spiking with sharp, defensive intent.
Inside, Moze also sensed the moment Sasori froze outside. The corner of his mouth twitched.
Tch. Trouble. He noticed that I noticed him.
He was still too green. With his chakra reserves having expanded tenfold almost overnight, mastering the ability to mask and release them seamlessly in such a short time was still beyond him. The instant he'd sensed Sasori step into his detection range, his momentary surprise and wariness had rippled through his chakra—and Sasori had felt it.
Well, if that was the case… there was no point in hiding anymore.
A cold smile tugged at Moze's lips.
"Dance… my servants."
The divine power of the Rat Talisman—the concept of motion bestowed upon the lifeless—flowed out in countless fine, golden threads, merging perfectly into the torrential flood of his chakra.
Those threads sank precisely into the puppet cores he had painstakingly prepared and positioned in the room.
A faint click–clack rose from all around, as if some ancient mechanism was awakening from slumber.
In the shadows outside, Sasori's frown deepened. The pain in his ribs flared again, a reminder of the brutal fight just past. The Kazekage's strength had been unquestionable; even in victory, Sasori had paid a steep price. His chakra was almost spent. His condition… was abysmal.
Retreat?
The thought surfaced before he could suppress it.
And then—
The chakra inside, which had merely bristled in vigilance before, suddenly erupted.
It was no longer a careful, probing current, but a beast unleashed—wild, unrestrained, and saturated with raw, primal life force. It filled Sasori's senses with overbearing intensity.
The sheer quantity alone far surpassed what he had estimated for a mere "tool."
BOOM!
Before the thought could settle, the wall in front of him exploded outward!
The detonation tore through the silence of the night, sending splinters of wood, shards of brick, and choking clouds of dust hurtling into the darkness like the molten debris of an erupting volcano.
Through the roiling smoke, several shapes burst forth at blinding speed, slicing the air with razor–sharp force as they lunged directly for the shadows where Sasori stood!
Too fast!
His body moved on instinct, feet sliding back as the tatters of his chakra gathered to defend.
But then his eyes—usually as still and unreadable as a frozen lake—caught sight of what was charging him… and for the first time, they widened in pure shock.
"What… is that?"
The words rasped from his throat, dry and unsteady, carrying a tremor he hadn't realized was there.
At the forefront was a half–man–tall wooden knight, clutching a lance that gleamed with a metallic cold light. Its wooden joints clacked as it moved, yet the motion was so fluid it made the skin crawl.
And in its hollow sockets… burned a killing intent as cold as ice—locked squarely on him.
Hot on its heels came a strangely shaped metal owl, its wing edges glinting with razor-sharp light as it dove at him with a speed utterly at odds with its bulky frame.
Farther back marched a tottering tin soldier, its steps oddly precise, rapier poised for a thrust.
And behind that—a porcelain ballerina in a frilly tutu, spinning gracefully on her toes… while the hem of her skirt flicked open to reveal several poisoned needles, snapping out with a faint metallic ping.
These—these were unmistakably the same gaudy trinkets that brat Moze displayed in his shop to lure in customers!
Sasori even remembered how, when he'd first seen them, his mind had been filled with nothing but disdain for such childish baubles.
The designs were crude, the materials fragile; apart from the fact that they were aesthetically pleasing, they were utterly worthless.
They weren't even fit to be used as the most basic puppet training stock.
Yet now—these worthless "toys" were moving.
No…
Not just moving.
Sasori's head snapped up, eyes locking on the charging wooden knight.
For a man whose gaze could dissect the inner workings of any puppet, those eyes had never wavered in certainty—until now.
For the first time, they narrowed in a mix of pure shock and something more dangerous: a flare of anger, the kind that comes when one's professional authority is openly challenged.
"What… what is this?!" His voice rasped out again, hoarse and strained, disbelief laced through every word. There was even something absurd about the question.
"Puppets—no… these things… are alive?!"
As the man who stood at the very pinnacle of puppetcraft, Sasori understood better than anyone the essence of a puppet.
Even the most exquisite, painstakingly crafted human puppets he had ever made still required chakra threads—mediums to carry his will, to move each limb, to direct each fine motion.
A puppet was dead matter.
An extension of the puppeteer's body.
An embodiment of his will.
Its every movement ultimately came from the precise control of the one manipulating it.
But what he was seeing now struck at the foundation of everything he had believed for decades—shaking it, trying to topple it altogether.
Yes, he could see chakra threads connecting those toys, leading back toward the building—toward Moze.
But—
With the unerring instinct and perception of a master puppeteer, Sasori knew this wasn't mere manipulation.
The threads weren't transmitting orders like "raise your arm" or "slash now."
No—this was something else.
This was raw, unreasonable. A declaration that ignored the mechanics of puppetcraft entirely—a law of nature rewritten.
The chakra wasn't just giving commands.
It was granting these lifeless objects the most fundamental trait of life itself—movement.
And along with it… a single, primal directive—
Attack.