Chapter 108: The Master of Puppets and The Ripper
"Very interesting data."
Orochimaru's long tongue licked the edge of his clipboard, his golden vertical pupils filled with the feverish intensity of an anatomist, as if he had just finished watching a brilliant live experiment.
Kakuzu snorted coldly, ignoring the mad scientist. With a thought, his Stand dissipated. His eyes were written with the words 'increase payment'.
*Ding.*
A crisp metallic trill directly cut off everyone's private thoughts.
Yahiko's gaze swept over the remaining two, a playful, winner-takes-all smile hanging on his lips: "Warm-up is over. Next, who wants to go first?"
Sasori of the Red Sand controlled hiruko's clumsy body, moving step by step to the front. Those eyes hidden in the shadows stared intently at the arrow in Yahiko's hand, revealing the arrogance and obsession unique to an artist.
"Compared to that crude butcher who only knows how to swing a giant blade, this ticket to truth should rightfully go to 'Art' first."
Sasori's voice was raspy and low. hiruko's poison-coated tail stinger suddenly snapped up like an impatient venomous snake, pointing directly at the Golden Arrow: "Let me see if this so-called evolution is worthy of my eternity."
Beside him, Biwa Jūzō's face darkened, and the veins on the back of his hand gripping kubikiribōchō bulged; he almost cursed out loud.
"A wise choice, artist."
Yahiko tossed it casually, the Golden Arrow tracing a golden line in the air.
*Snap.*
hiruko's tail stinger caught the arrow steadily. But Sasori was a ruthless man; he didn't stab his chest like Kakuzu—as a madman who had turned himself into an action figure, he had long since discarded a human heart.
*Kacha!*
The heavy armor on hiruko's chest sprang open layer by layer, revealing a cylindrical mass of flesh within Sasori's main Puppet body. The flesh was engraved with the character for'Scorpion' (scorpion), pulsing slightly and emitting pure Chakra fluctuations.
The regeneration core. It was his final anchor as a 'living being' in this world.
Orochimaru narrowed his eyes: "This virus specifically kills biological cells. Kakuzu is thick-skinned and has five lives, but you only have this one piece of meat on your entire body. Once it collapses, you'll be saying goodbye to this world."
"Shut up, snake charmer."
Sasori didn't even turn his head, his tone full of disdain: "If this so-called divine power cannot even conquer dead matter, then it doesn't deserve to be called eternal."
Before his voice could fade, a golden light flashed!
The Golden Arrow plunged fiercely into that fragile regeneration core!
"Ugh!!"
A muffled groan came from Sasori's main body; one could hear him enduring intense pain.
The moment the arrow pierced it, the purple-black virus did not spread along the flesh, but instead acted like concentrated sulfuric acid poured into precision machinery.
*Sizzle—!!*
The flesh core engraved with'Scorpion' was instantly covered in cracks. More terrifyingly, the virus actually followed the Chakra threads in a reverse invasion! The originally indestructible hiruko shell now looked like a House of Wax nightmare under high heat, beginning to rapidly soften, twist, and melt!
"Holy crap... what the Hell is this?!"
Biwa Jūzō stepped back in shock, a look on his face as if he'd seen a ghost.
hiruko's hideous iron head was melting into a pool of grayish-brown molten iron, and venom mixed with mechanical parts clattered to the floor.
It felt as if the concept of 'decay' had been put on a thousandfold fast-forward, descending directly upon Sasori who pursued eternity.
To everyone else, Sasori looked finished. He was being defined by the virus as an 'inferior product' and was about to turn himself into a pile of unrecyclable industrial waste.
From within that muddy puddle of hiruko, Sasori's voice suddenly emerged through gritted teeth. Though his voice trembled, it carried a madness that sought to crush and swallow the rules.
"My art... is eternal beauty..."
"Even time cannot kill me... a mere virus... thinks it can deny my art?!"
Deep within that flesh core on the verge of disintegration, a mental storm called 'obsession' exploded.
For Sasori, turning himself into a Puppet and discarding human pain, taste, and pleasure was all to defeat time. This was his Dao, the foundation of his Soul.
Sasori let out a hysterical roar in his mental world. He didn't resist the virus; instead, he directly controlled his Chakra threads to invade the virus's interior—he wanted to dominate it!
Just like controlling a Puppet, he would refine this violent virus into his most perfect part!
*Hum—!*
In the real world, the melting hiruko suddenly stopped disintegrating.
The molten iron flowing on the ground and the broken mechanisms actually defied gravity at this moment, slowly floating up.
"This is..." Orochimaru's pupils constricted violently, and the pen in his hand snapped.
The liquids spun wildly in the air, compressing and reorganizing, finally flowing back up along Sasori's Chakra threads.
The originally blue Chakra threads underwent a mutation. They lost their original luster and became extremely thin, incredibly tough, translucent threads emitting a cold glow.
All the debris converged in an instant, weaving into a floating, eerie phantom behind him that looked like a marionette.
The thing had no physical form, only a skeleton made of threads, with eerie red lights flashing at the joints. It looked fragile, but with a slight movement of its fingertips, the surrounding space seemed to twist along with it.
Stand — [Master of Puppets].
"Is this... the feeling of evolution?"
Sasori slowly raised his hand. The glass shards scattered across the floor were suddenly given life under the pull of his fingers. They weren't repaired, but forcibly reorganized into a sharp glass storm that spun wildly around him.
He was no longer just controlling Puppets.
Anything touched by these threads, whether iron, rock, or flesh, would become his string Puppet.
"Good! Splendid!"
Yahiko clapped, the smile in his eyes deepening: "Art indeed requires eternity, but it needs fists to defend it even more, doesn't it?"
In the corner, Biwa Jūzō's hand gripping kubikiribōchō was trembling.
Not from fear, but from excitement.
As one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, he was a natural-born killer. He didn't understand Kakuzu's 'compounding interest' or Sasori's 'action figure aesthetics'. He only understood one truth—in this damned world, the weak don't even get to choose how they die.
Watching his teammates turn into monsters one by one, a strong sense of crisis gnawed at his heart like a venomous snake.
If he didn't catch this train, he would be left behind. In the Akatsuki, falling behind meant death.
"Don't look down on me!"
Jūzō suddenly rushed forward, and without even waiting for Yahiko to hand over the arrow, he snatched it away.
"What virus, what evolution... I'm not well-read, I don't understand those grand theories!"
He ripped open his shirt, revealing a lean, scarred chest, his eyes as fierce as a wild wolf cornered at a cliff's edge.
"As long as it doesn't kill me... I'll cut down everything!"
*Puchi!*
No hesitation, no nonsense. Jūzō held the arrow in a reverse grip and slammed it into his own abdomen!
Simple, crude, and devoid of aesthetic. This was Biwa Jūzō's Ninja Way—life and death are trivial; if you're not convinced, let's fight.
"Arghhh!!"
The moment the virus erupted, Jūzō's veins bulged across his body, his eyes became bloodshot, and he hunched over like a cooked shrimp.
Pain! Too much pain!
It felt like ten thousand rusty saws were pulling back and forth in his stomach, trying to pull his intestines out and tie them in knots.
In his mental world, there were no nightmares, no fancy Heart Demons.
There was only a towering sea of blood and a broken blade.
The virus tried to destroy his sanity, make him fear, make him collapse. But Jūzō's brain structure was simple to a fault—he didn't need to understand the source of this pain; he only needed to do one thing.
And that was—Slash!
If it hurts, slash the pain; if there is fear, slash the fear; if a virus blocks the path, then slash the damn virus too!
"Stop... yapping at me!!"
Jūzō roared. Although kubikiribōchō in his hand didn't move, the tangible killing intent on his body became the best fuel.
*Clang—!!*
A sharp ring of a blade echoed through the meeting room; it was the sound of a Soul being sharpened.
The blood mist behind Jūzō churned violently, and a skeleton-like Stand wearing a tattered cloak and holding an illusory giant blade slowly emerged.
It lacked the life-saving gentleness of [Crazy Diamond] and the elegant precision of [Master of Puppets]. Its entire being radiated only one aura—
I'm going to kill you.
Stand — [The Ripper].
He slowly stood up straight and regripped kubikiribōchō.
In that instant, the originally ordinary blade was suddenly dyed with an eerie dark red light, as if it had just been fished out of a blood pool in Hell.
Jūzō swung casually.
*Swish.*
No wind pressure, no sound.
But the air in front of him actually showed a visible pitch-black crack that wouldn't heal for a long time, even swallowing the light.
"This feeling..."
Jūzō looked at his hands, his grin spreading to his ears to reveal his signature shark-like teeth: "Even the air can be split... now, let's see who can stop my blade!"
Yahiko sat in the main seat, looking at this group of monsters and demons, his amber eyes filled with the pleasure of a creator.
This was the Akatsuki he wanted.
Only through madness does one truly live. This room full of villains was the nightmare squad that would keep those old fossils of the Five Great Nations awake at night.
"Absolutely brilliant."
Yahiko put down his long-empty wine glass, his gaze passing through the monsters immersed in their new power to land in the deepest shadows.
There, Orochimaru was staring intently at the arrow stained with the blood of the three men.
His body was trembling, the feverish intensity in his snake-like pupils had reached its limit, and even his breathing had become rapid. He looked like a traveler who had crawled through the desert for three days and nights and finally saw a bottle of ice-cold cola.
"Now, it's time for the grand finale."
Yahiko slowly raised his hand and pointed at the arrow, offering a demonic smile to the Ninja World's number one scientist.
"Orochimaru, you've watched enough, haven't you? It's your turn."
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