Sasori stared impassively at the four identical girls standing at the heart of the swirling sea of blue flames that had once been a lush forest. Even though it was supposed to be a mere C-rank technique, the pink-haired girl's Great Fireball Jutsu could wreak devastation rivalling that of an A- or even S-rank Jutsu. But that wasn't all— one glance at the bluish tinge of the flames told him they burned with a heat beyond ordinary measure.
And somehow, she had also managed to detoxify his poison…
"I've heard the others talking about you. A pneumatic, pink-haired kunoichi skilled in both Fire Style Ninjutsu and Genjutsu," Sasori said thoughtfully. "Tell me your name, and I'll bestow it upon your corpse puppet."
In his mind, it was a great privilege for Sakura to become his latest work of art!
"A bit hasty, don't you think?" Sakura replied uneasily. "You shouldn't count your chickens before they're hatched."
Sasori took a step forwards, shedding his robes to reveal his segmented, puppet body. Two great, hand-like blades unfolded from his back, while a harpoon, tethered to a thick coil of metal cable, snaked out from the hollow in his torso. There was little point in sending more puppets against this girl— they'd only be reduced to splinters or burnt to charcoal.
No, he would have to see this matter through to the end himself!
Sakura's eyes immediately snapped to the cylindrical container embedded in her opponent's chest, where his heart ought to be. It was marked with 'Sasori,' the kanji for the word scorpion— an apt label, considering it contained his entire being…
"The real you is inside that container, am I right?" asked Sakura, tapping the plush flesh of her left breast. "How do you generate that much chakra with so little of your original body left?"
As a medical student, she was more than a little curious to learn how the whole living inside a fleshlight situation worked. How had he even survived his transformation? How did he eat? How did he eliminate waste? So many questions!
"Interested in immortality?" replied Sasori. "If you'll let me remake you into a puppet, I'll gladly show you how."
"I think I'll pass," said Sakura, grimacing. "I'll figure it out for myself by opening that tuna can of yours."
The time for words had passed. She wasn't Naruto, so she'd only be wasting her breath if she tried to convince Sasori to return to the light side of the Force.
"Here I come!" shouted Sasori.
Sakura drew her sword, and her three Shadow Clones took up defensive stances, while Sasori snapped his hands backwards, allowing nozzles to emerge from his palms.
"Wind Style: Vacuum Blade!"
Sakura breathed in deeply and exhaled flowing green chakra onto her sword. If Sasori attempted to use more puppets against her, then she'd just slice through their strings! Only chakra could cut chakra, after all…
Sasori darted to one side, unleashing the harpoon from his torso. Sakura bolted the other way, but the harpoon moved as though it possessed a will of its own. Infused with Sasori's chakra, it pursued her, whistling past her shoulders and anchoring itself deep in the ground just behind her. With a shrill metallic whine, the cable began to reel itself in, dragging Sasori through the air, who was trailing liquid fire from the nozzles in his hands!
"Scatter!" shouted Sakura, adopting the Breast Guarding Stance.
The first Shadow Clone was not so fortunate. Having spent nearly all her chakra on a Great Fireball Jutsu, her reflexes had dulled to the levels of an ordinary human. She failed to slip clear of the great blades mounted on the mechanical arms unfurling from Sasori's back and vanished in a puff of smoke.
Since she was a bit farther away, the second Shadow Clone did not even have to evade the blades, allowing her to narrowly escape Sasori's flamethrower attack despite her exhaustion.
The third and final Shadow Clone was still in excellent shape, having only used the Purification Slash to expel poison from the main body's veins. Even though she only had a quarter of the original's chakra, that still amounted to twice Kakashi's maximum, which was just barely enough to power one elemental Rasengan!
"Come over here, number two!" she called out, while Sasori clashed blades with the real Sakura, her expensive sword having given away her true identity as the original. "Let's go out with a bang!"
"Got it!"
The two Shadow Clones came together and put their hands together, and a ball of purple chakra started growing rapidly in their palms. Without access to the main body's Breast Seal, they could only rely on Naruto's method!
"Lightning Style: Rasenshuriken!"
A dozen metres away, Sakura noticed her Manyuu blade in her hands, along with the senbon and kunai strapped to her thighs, beginning to tremble and rattle violently. At that very moment, as he unleashed a flurry of swipes at his opponent, Sasori felt an irresistible force tugging at every fibre of his being. Meanwhile, tens of kilometres away, the portable radios of Team Kakashi suddenly began pulsing with high-pitched buzzing noises, filling their ears with an eerie, dissonant chorus.
"What… is this…?" grunted Sasori, plunging his blades into the ground to resist the inexorable pull. "What… is… that… Jutsu!?"
Sakura immediately realised what her two Shadow Clones were up to and sealed her sword back in its scroll. A moving electric charge creates a magnetic field, and that's exactly what a Lightning Style: Rasenshuriken was.
That ball of lightning chakra rotating insanely fast in her Shadow Clones' palms was perfectly imitating a magnetar, a neutron star whose electromagnetic field is trillions of times stronger than Planet Earth's— so strong it can rip apart the molecules of things that wouldn't normally be affected by magnets (like human flesh)!
With great difficulty, Sasori slowly raised his arms towards the pink-haired doppelgangers, channelling his chakra through his groaning inner mechanisms to force them into place. Since he had transformed himself into a puppet, he had naturally integrated metal into his body to reinforce key parts of his anatomy.
As a result, his body was being shaken apart by the doughnut-shaped magnetic field the two Shadow Clones had produced!
If only… he could just… get rid… of those two Shadow Clones!
And then, Sasori spontaneously burst into flames.
Inevitably, by being exposed to a powerful, rotating magnetic field, an electric current was induced in the metal cable coiled within his torso— both electrocuting him and setting his insides aflame. This ignited his supply of napalm, further still fanning the fierce blaze that had engulfed him.
Finally, as the Rasenshuriken reached its full, deadly potential, Sasori's body was torn apart at the seams, drawn fragment by screaming fragment into the swirling purple vortex of chakra. His scattered pieces impaled Sakura's Shadow Clones, dispelling them instantly. And with no one left to contain the Jutsu, it fell to the ground and exploded in a thunderous roar.
"Sakura Style Lightning Chakra Mode!"
Ignoring the stinging bites all over her skin, Sakura cloaked herself in a shimmering blue mantle of lightning chakra and fled with all the speed she could muster, while behind her a tempest worthy of the great, swirling storms found only on the giant gaseous planets of the solar system nipped at her heels.
The storm steadily grew in fury, discharging reverse lightning bolts into the clouds above, which had formed from the vapour rising off the forest she had previously incinerated…