The fire was still roaring; Sasori had not immediately shaken off the Fire Dragon Flame Bullet.
Regardless of how Sasori felt while being "barbecued" inside his shell, Hagoromo's assault did not pause. After severing Hiruko's tail, he used the curtain of fire to escalate his attack.
The intensity of his Chidori Current surged, the jagged arcs of lightning slicing through the flames without resistance. Shielded by this electric aura, Hagoromo plunged into the inferno.
His right hand, wreathed in lightning, lunged forward. Before Sasori could retract the jagged stump of the tail remaining on Hiruko's body, Hagoromo seized it.
He acted as if he had no fear of the poison.
Could Hagoromo ignore toxins? Of course not. Upon closer inspection, though his hand had "captured" the tail, there was no direct physical contact. A powerful layer of high-voltage current acted as an invisible cushion between his palm and the poisoned blade.
The pull from the other end of the tail was immense. In a raw contest of strength against a mechanical puppet, Hagoromo's flesh and blood were no match. He couldn't afford a stalemate.
With a sudden burst of Lightning Style—power surging from waist to shoulder, then shoulder to hand—his explosive force yanked the flame-engulfed Hiruko clean off the ground. Hagoromo threw his weight backward; as his back hit the dirt, the massive puppet was launched into the air above him.
Amidst the flickering fire and crackling sparks, Hagoromo didn't need eyes. He felt the puppet's position through the tension in his arm. Like flowing liquid, the Chidori Current surrounding his body began to migrate entirely toward his right leg.
Then, with an upward thrust, he kicked—not a strike, but a launch—propelling Hiruko into a specific trajectory.
Naturally, Sasori wasn't idle. Despite losing his tail, the mechanical clicking of the puppet intensified. Hiruko's jaw unhinged at an impossible angle, spitting a relentless hail of poisoned needles at Hagoromo.
Hagoromo had only used one Shadow Clone. Sasori was far too experienced to be fooled as to which was the original, so he focused his lethal barrage on the main body. From above, the density of the needles looked like a torrential downpour of black rain.
Logic dictated that Hagoromo, lying on his back with his limbs occupied, was a sitting duck. He should have been turned into a pincushion. Yet, the needles failed to find their mark. They were deflected as if hitting an invisible wall before they could touch him.
Hagoromo knew his limits. If he played strictly by the rules of ninjutsu, he couldn't survive a Kage-level opponent like Sasori. You can't "block" poison needles with a sword at that density.
He chose survival over pride and activated his Magnetic Field Defense. The "Shinobi" Hagoromo was temporarily offline; the "Esper" Hagoromo had taken over!
The direction he had kicked Hiruko was straight toward his Shadow Clone.
The original and the clone moved in perfect synchronization. The clone, which had retreated to lure out the tail, now surged forward the moment the original made the toss. In an instant, the clone ignited every scrap of its remaining chakra. It became a blinding strobe of lightning, far brighter than the original.
It sprinted in a straight, lethal line—Hagoromo's maximum speed. From the front, it looked like he was teleporting; from the side, he was a blurred stack of afterimages. Leaning forward until his chest was nearly parallel to the ground, the clone looked less like a human and more like a predatory aberrant creature.
Beauty wasn't the goal to begin with.
As Hiruko loomed close, the clone's right foot slammed into the earth, shattering the ground. The recoil sent him into a final, hypersonic lunge.
Body like a drawn bow, form like a lightning bolt!
The Chidori Current on his body vanished, focusing entirely into his right hand which glowed with a divine, steady light. The Current had been refined into a Lightning cutter.
Because of the sheer speed, Hagoromo didn't aim for a specific gear or joint; he just sought a hit. Hiruko, suspended in mid-air, was a perfect target.
His arm punched through the puppet's torso without resistance, erupting out the other side. That one extreme strike exhausted nearly all the clone's chakra.
But he wasn't done. He had one final use for this shell.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle...
Dozens of paper bombs, already beginning to burn, were revealed to be plastered all over the clone's body.
"BOOM!"
The clone initiated a point-blank, suicidal detonation. Paper bombs are lethal tools—provided they actually hit. Given the legendary figures they've killed (or failed to kill) throughout history, their track record is mixed. But here, Sasori had no way to dodge.
Hagoromo didn't expect the explosion to kill Sasori; if a few bombs could take out a future Member of the Akatsuki," Sasori wouldn't be worth all the fame he had accumulated throughout his lifetime.
But Hagoromo had kept his promise: he had dragged the man out of his "blanket."
This exchange had happened in the blink of an eye. On the surface, Hagoromo held the advantage, but in truth, without his "esper" abilities, he would already be a corpse.
The dawn was breaking. The smoke from the explosion began to clear. Hagoromo did not press another attack.
As the dust settled, a red-haired figure walked calmly out of the wreckage. Sasori was unharmed. He spoke again, but his voice had changed—no longer the raspy, mechanical croak of Hiruko, but a calm, youthful tone.
"Leaf ninja... not bad. You actually destroyed Hiruko? However..."
"That hair color of yours... it's truly irritating."
Sasori stood before Hagoromo, glancing briefly at the shattered remains of his puppet before locking eyes with the boy.
His annoyance was purely a grudge. Sasori hated white-haired ninjas because years ago, a white-haired man had killed his parents on the battlefield. That was a debt left by Konoha's White Fang, and it seemed Hagoromo was the one destined to pay it.
Hagoromo stared back in silence.
It must be noted: the Sasori standing here looked to be in his twenties. He hadn't yet performed the puppet-modification on his own body. He looks exactly like how a normal man his age is supposed to look.
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