Chapter 194: Chapter: 192

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If we hit 150 PW I post a extra chapter.

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The atmosphere in the central alley of Sunagakure was suffocating, heavy with the scent of fresh blood and the overwhelming pressure of the chakra present. Yaoki's lifeless body lay on the hot earth, with the legendary explosive sword Shibuki abandoned a few inches from his motionless fingers.

A few meters away, the Akatsuki squad observed the defenders with chilling composure. Their black fabric cloaks, decorated with red clouds, billowed rhythmically in the warm desert currents.

Kisame Hoshigaki stepped forward, adjusting his grip on the bandage-wrapped hilt of Samehada. His narrow yellow eyes scanned each of the newcomers, pausing on the figure of Pain before a broad, jagged grin—resembling that of a hungry shark—spread across his face.

"Well, what a gathering of monsters we have here," Kisame broke the silence, his harsh voice echoing against the clay walls. "Orochimaru, Kakuzu... and even individuals whose existence didn't even figure in the Great Nations' bingo books. I wonder what kind of deal or price Iwagakure offered you for shinobi of your caliber to act as simple mercenaries in this invasion. Though, truth be told... I care little about your motivation. The flesh of rogue ninja usually feeds my sword quite well."

None of the Akatsuki members responded to the provocation with anger. Kakuzu simply adjusted the stitching on his gloves, while Hidan let out a low, maniacal laugh, spinning his three-bladed scythe over his shoulder.

Pain took a step toward the center of the group. His eyes, bearing the legendary Rinnegan, showed not the slightest trace of emotion as they locked onto the remaining six Espadas of the Sand.

"We have not come to negotiate, nor to serve the ambitions of Iwagakure," Pain declared in a neutral voice, devoid of any human tone. "Our mission transcends the conflicts of the villages. Proceed as planned. Clear the perimeter."

Without waiting for a response, Pain's figure began to rise slowly into the air. Defying gravity without the slightest visible effort, he ascended over the rooftops of the village, heading directly toward the upper structure of the Great Colosseum, where Daigo and the other Kage were located.

Upon reaching the height of the rooftops, Pain brought his hands together in a single seal.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" (Summoning Technique)

POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF!

Five dense clouds of white smoke erupted in the air around him. When the smoke cleared, the other five figures making up the Six Paths of Pain appeared floating or perched upon the stadium's ledges. All of them shared orange hair, chakra receiver piercings, and the unyielding glow of the Rinnegan in their gazes.

Down in the street, the six Espadas of the Sand wasted no time watching the enemy leader's ascent. With years of life-or-death battle experience, the Sand warriors instinctively selected their opponents to fragment the combat front.

Kisame's first target was the gigantic figure walking beside Banatel.

Arangi stood out above the rest due to his imposing height of two meters. He wore his Akatsuki cloak completely open like a cape billowing in the wind, clearly revealing an unbuttoned white linen shirt that exposed complex, ancient markings woven into his skin. At his waist was a rust-stained red sash holding the hilt of a heavy pirate boarding cutlass. The palms of his hands showed dark roughness, and as he bared a grimace, he revealed a set of fangs sharp as daggers.

"You... look like you hide more than you show," Kisame exclaimed, making Samehada spin in a full circle above his head before resting it on the ground. "It seems you'll be an interesting appetizer."

Arangi didn't utter a single word. He simply brought his right hand to the hilt of his heavy cutlass and drew it with a metallic hiss, releasing a physical pressure so dense that it cracked the flagstones beneath his boots.

"I'll show you how strong I am!" Kisame roared, charging directly at Arangi in a frontal assault.

Simultaneously, Malenia Chinoike took three steps forward, holding Hiramekarei horizontally. Her gaze locked onto Kakuzu, recognizing the former Takigakure shinobi.

However, before Malenia could close the distance, Hidan leaped from a side ledge, interposing himself in her path with a circular sweep of his red scythe.

"Hey, hey! Don't rush ahead of me, red-eyed girl!" Hidan shouted, laughing maniacally. "Lord Jashin demands fresh sacrifices today, and you look like you have delicious blood!"

"Don't let him provoke you, Malenia!"

A shadow fell from above. Baki landed right beside Malenia, holding the long needle Nuibari in his right hand while the veins of his Byakugan bulged fiercely around his temples.

"That guy looks normal, but I feel something strange coming from him," Baki warned coldly, scanning Hidan's circulatory system. "I think to be safe, we should handle the two of them together."

"Understood," Malenia replied, channeling her chakra into the twin blades of Hiramekarei, which began expanding into the shape of a single massive sword.

At the other end of the alley, Kaito adjusted his grip on the severing sword Kabutowari. His eyes were fixed on Banatel, the man who had just run through Yaoki's heart without showing the slightest strain. Even though he knew this old man would be a tough opponent, it didn't matter—he would defeat him and avenge Yaoki.

"You will pay for what you did to Yaoki," Kaito declared in a low, grave voice.

Banatel didn't bother cleaning the blade of his katana. With a calm motion, he flexed his knees and released a mass of heavy, dark, suffocating chakra that made the air around him tremble with a visible distortion.

"Try it, if you can hold up that piece of iron," Banatel replied coldly.

Without wasting another millisecond, Kaito lunged forward, raising the massive axe and hammer of Kabutowari to deliver a strike capable of splitting a mountain in two. Banatel vanished from his sight in a flash of pure speed, unleashing the collision between the brute force of the Sand and the executioner's blade.

Finally, Orochimaru stepped forward, his yellow snake pupils fixed on the two remaining squad members: Genta, who wielded the twin lightning swords Kiba, and Yura, holding the imposing blade of Kubikiribōchō.

Orochimaru let out a hissing laugh, extending his pale tongue to lick his lips.

"Kukuku... Two legendary swords for a single man," Orochimaru said, bringing his palms together. "Let's see if Sunagakure can entertain my snakes for more than five minutes."

"Shut your mouth, pale trash!" Genta snarled.

The Kiba swords crackled with a massive burst of blue electricity, while Yura raised Kubikiribōchō to execute a horizontal slash. The two warriors hurled themselves at the Sannin and former rogue Kage, initiating a multilateral carnage that completely destroyed the western district of the village.

While the battles of the Sand Blades erupted in the interior of Sunagakure, the main front of the invasion was unfolding at the breached outer perimeter.

The fifty-meter gap blown open by the Five-Tails' Bijūdama through the Crystal Dome and the Reinforced Stone Wall was a gaping wound in the village's defense. Through that opening, Iwagakure's vanguard—comprising over two thousand ninja specialized in heavy assault and Earth Release—advanced at a steady pace, confident that the element of surprise would allow them to take the city before formal resistance could assemble.

However, as they crossed the line of pulverized crystal debris, Iwa's red tide ground to a sudden halt.

Waiting for them on the wide expanse of the east entrance was the main army of Sunagakure. Hundreds of Sand shinobi, organized into ready formations of kunai and shuriken throwers, blocked the way toward the urban center.

At the front line, leading the interception unit, stood Sasori.

The legendary Sand puppeteer wore his tactical robe over his body. Beside him, Karinna kept her red eyes fixed on the mass of enemies, adjusting the straps of her sealing containers while her Eye of Kagura allowed her to map the exact location of every single one of the two thousand invaders.

The captain of Iwagakure's vanguard stepped forward, cracking his knuckles.

"Don't stop!" the Iwa officer barked at the top of his lungs. "They're only a couple hundred! By crushing their vanguard, we take the entire village! Advance!"

The thousands of Iwa ninja roared in unison, channeling Earth Release chakra into their boots to trigger a small rock slide that surged toward the Sand's lines.

Karinna turned her head toward Sasori and gave him a sharp, decisive nod. "They are all within range. Their formation density is perfect, just as we predicted."

Sasori returned her look with unshakeable calm. In this moment, he was not the Sasori known to those close to him—he was the greatest puppeteer in the world.

"Excellent," Sasori murmured.

With a fluid motion, Sasori reached toward the large pouch of his attire and unhooked a large storage scroll, marked with the kanji for "Hundred" (Hyaku).

Without hesitation, he tossed the scroll into the desert sky.

The scroll unrolled in midair, spinning in an endless spiral while the red ink seals glowed with a violent light.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A colossal cloud of white smoke exploded overhead, completely veiling the sky above the Crystal Dome breach. The sun was eclipsed for a second beneath the mass of dense smoke.

An instant later, a gust of wind cleared the curtain of smoke.

The Iwagakure army froze in their tracks. Their war cries died instantly in the throats of the invaders, replaced by a murmur of shock.

One hundred figures floated in the sky, suspended in a swarm formation.

They were one hundred human puppets, each wearing red robes. Though their faces showed no emotion, everyone could sense they felt terrifyingly real, being made of genuine skin. From their joints and gaping mouths protruded blades, mechanical saws, poison tubes, and needle launchers.

But what was most terrifying was not their appearance, but the presence of chakra emanating from each of them: they were the modified bodies of elite ninja Sasori had hunted during the war and skirmishes over these years of peace, keeping their chakra pathways intact.

From Sasori's fingertips, a hundred threads of transparent blue chakra shot into the sky.

Following the past battle in which Sasori had lost his original biological arm, the puppeteer had designed and constructed a brand-new prosthesis for his body. This new mechanical arm—fabricated from silicon alloys, high-density crystal cores, and reinforced chakra conduits—allowed him to process and transmit chakra impulses at a frequency infinitely superior to the ordinary limit of any human master puppeteer.

Where a supreme puppeteer could barely control ten puppets using all ten fingers, Sasori's new arm allowed him to govern all one hundred puppets simultaneously with the precision of a single thought.

"Akafuku: Hyakuki no Gyōryū..." (Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Demons) Sasori pronounced in a cold voice.

The hundred chakra threads vibrated in the air with a sound like the strings of a giant harp.

"Crush the enemy," Sasori ordered.

The hundred puppets opened their eyes at the same time. A deafening mechanical click echoed in the air as their joints unfolded.

Like a plague of wooden and steel locusts, the Hundred Demons squad dived from the sky directly onto Iwagakure's vanguard, while those equipped with kunai and shuriken launchers opened fire.

"Deploy the earth barrier! Deploy the Doryūshō!" the terrified Iwa captain shouted, attempting to bring his hands together in a seal.

It was too late.

Three human puppets equipped with spinning torso saws fell upon the first line of shields. The saws, imbued with Wind Release chakra, sliced through the rock armor of the Iwa ninja like damp cardboard. Blood spurted in vertical arcs as the puppets executed gyroscopic spins, decapitating and dismembering the invaders with superhuman speed.

On the left flank, a four-armed puppet opened its chest cavity, releasing a blast of fire from its mouth—a built-in jutsu. The scorching flames swept through over thirty Iwa ninja, incinerating their uniforms and turning the breach into a hell of fire.

"Aim for the puppeteer! Kill the guy with the mechanical arm!" roared a squad of Iwa marksmen, hurling a barrage of stones toward Sasori.

Karinna didn't budge from her position. With a swift gesture of her right hand, she deployed several Adamantine Sealing Chains that emerged from her back. The golden chains intercepted the enemy projectiles in midair, pulverizing them before they could get within ten meters of Sasori.

"Nobody touches my husband while I'm here," Karinna declared with a smirk, her eyes gleaming with the power of her Uzumaki lineage.

Sasori didn't even blink at the failed attack. His fingers moved in the air in an invisible, complex dance. The prosthesis on his left arm emitted a faint electromagnetic hum each time he adjusted the tension of the chakra threads.

Under his absolute command, the puppets didn't fight as individual units; they moved as a single massive, coordinated organism. When a group of invaders attempted to flank one of his puppets, three more descended from their blind spots, impaling them with needles laced with the paralyzing and corrosive toxin Sasori himself had developed.

The poison acted within seconds: the Iwa ninja fell to the ground convulsing, their skin turning purple as their lungs collapsed from tissue necrosis.

"This isn't a fight..." an Iwa soldier muttered, backing away in terror as he watched his comrades fall by the dozens. "It's a slaughterhouse! That guy is a demon!"

In less than ten minutes since the scroll had opened, the advance of Iwagakure's vanguard had been completely dismantled. Over four hundred enemy corpses lay scattered across the village's eastern entrance, while Sasori's puppets hovered above the carnage, ready to devour the next wave.

Sasori lightly closed the fingers of his mechanical arm, causing the hundred puppets to retract in the air, forming a protective dome over Sunagakure's defensive army.

"Quantity will never overcome the perfect puppet," Sasori declared, staring intent into the desert dunes, where the main mass of the invading Iwagakure army still hesitated to advance before the horror of the scene.

"Let the next wave come. My collection still has room for more pieces."