Akira had guessed Chiyo would have a trump card.
He just hadn't expected her to shove all her chips in at once.
This was the legendary ultimate weapon said to be capable of taking down an entire fortress by the power of one person alone.
Sakura didn't fully understand what she was seeing, but the fact that even Akira had gone serious told her more than enough.
"Akira... are those puppets really that strong?"
Akira answered with unusual patience. "Those puppets are the work of Monzaemon, the founder of puppet jutsu. In the hands of someone at Chiyo-hime's level, they could theoretically slaughter an entire city by themselves."
Sakura froze. "Wipe out... a whole city?!"
She might have become Tsunade's student and learned monstrous strength, but the very idea of a city being destroyed by one person still felt overwhelmingly brutal, far beyond anything she was used to imagining.
It wasn't just cruelty.
It was proof of terrifying power.
Akira gave a faint smile. "That's why they're forbidden. The shinobi world hasn't seen them in years. I didn't expect Chiyo-hime to bring out her entire inheritance just to deal with her own grandson."
"Looks like she truly came here ready to kill."
Then he added, his gaze shifting to Sasori's side, "That said, look at him. Those hundred-plus puppets aren't just decoration either. Their individual quality may not match the Chikamatsu Ten, but in terms of sheer number and the difficulty of controlling them all, Sasori has already surpassed Chiyo-hime."
He paused.
"This is Sunagakure's family business."
Then he looked toward Chiyo.
"Chiyo-hime, do you want us to interfere?"
This time Chiyo didn't even turn around. As she manipulated the ten puppets, her voice remained even and flat.
"No. That child is the result of my failure to guide him properly. This is the moment for me to repay my debt to the village."
"Sasori, even if it costs this old woman her life today, I will clean up my own bloodline!"
Sakura fell silent.
After Akira's explanation, she finally understood the weight of what Chiyo was carrying.
For a hidden village, what Sasori had done was betrayal beyond forgiveness.
Akira suddenly turned toward Sakura and said, "Go help Chiyo-hime. It'll be a good way to test what these past few years of training have really given you. I won't step in, so be careful. You really could die down there."
The next moment, his figure blurred, and he instantly moved to the rim of the giant crater, where he found himself a comfortable place to sit.
The crater stretched hundreds of meters wide, and Akira's chosen seat was over three hundred meters from the center, but with the Rinnegan's monstrous eyesight, that distance might as well have been front-row seating.
Sakura froze on the spot.
She stared blankly at the hundred-plus grotesque puppets floating before her.
From where he sat on the edge, Akira called down loudly, "Chiyo-hime, I'm leaving Sakura to you. Whether she lives or dies is her problem, not mine!"
Sakura nearly coughed up blood on the spot from sheer outrage.
To be "abandoned" by Akira at a moment like this made the grievance in her chest surge straight to the sky.
But Chiyo understood what Akira was really doing and gave a small laugh.
"Sakura, don't be afraid. In that case, we'll fight side by side. Just be extremely careful of his puppet weapons. Even the smallest scratch will poison you immediately."
Sakura might have been scared, but things had already reached this point. She had no choice but to grit her teeth and go in.
Sasori shot a cold glance toward the far-off Akira, who was now openly sitting there to watch, and a slight frown appeared.
"What exactly do you take me for? A sparring partner for some rookie to test herself on?"
"If you're all this arrogant, then get ready to collect the girl's corpse."
Akira saw right through his thinking and curled his lips faintly.
"That's exactly right. If you really have what it takes to kill Sakura, then I'll admit you're impressive."
At that point, Akira had fully turned into an outside commentator, and there was more than a hint of enjoying the show in the way he said it.
Very quickly, Chiyo and Sakura settled on a rough plan, and the two tides of puppets crashed into each other.
Akira even had enough leisure to pull out a scroll from his clothes and start reading.
Below him, the battle roared loud enough to shake the sky. Puppets clashed, hidden weapons fired, jutsus exploded, and none of it seemed to disturb Akira's enjoyment of his book in the slightest.
The thunder of combat had effectively become his background music.
The fierce battle dragged on for over an hour.
During that time, Sakura came close to disaster again and again. She was actually nicked by poisoned blades three separate times.
Eventually, Akira lowered the scroll in his hand and looked down at the increasingly ragged state of the three fighters below.
By now, Chiyo was already running on fumes. Her chakra was nearly exhausted.
Sasori, meanwhile, had suffered a direct strike to the core inside his main body, yet still behaved as though nothing was wrong.
Expressionless, Sasori pulled out the final scroll from behind his back.
At that point, Sakura had already run out of antidotes, and Chiyo herself was badly wounded, with the poison already spreading through her body.
As Sasori's fingers flashed through a string of seals, he gave a low command.
"Come forth. Red Secret Jutsu: Human Puppet, Fang."
A massive puppet over ten meters tall slammed down onto the battlefield, landing squarely in front of them.
At that moment, both Sakura and Chiyo were spent. Their chakra was nearly gone, both were poisoned, and both had reached the edge of collapse.
The core of Sasori's body leaped out from the wreckage of his damaged shell and flew directly into the giant puppet.
The hatch in the puppet's chest slid open automatically. Once Sasori's core was accepted inside, the huge mechanical eyes flared to life with a cold blue glow.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
The giant human puppet flexed its joints, and the metallic grinding sound it made was enough to set teeth on edge.