In Chiyo's mind, the memory of the undead puppet she had glimpsed from afar began to overlay, piece by piece, with a secret blueprint—one she had once shown only to her grandson.
That night, young Sasori, merely five years old, had clutched his first self-made puppets, Mother and Father, and looked up at her with tear-dimmed eyes.
"Grandma… is there any jutsu that could make them really move again?"
If human puppetry could somehow merge with that level of corpse-based ninjutsu—a perfected version of the Impure Soul Technique—then a new hybrid jutsu could be born. One that didn't require chakra threads. One where the puppeteer could remain safely behind the lines, commanding corpses outfitted with traps and toxins.
Emotionless. Fearless. Unkillable. Machines of war.
And those puppeteers? They would be the perfect combat class, without weaknesses. Suna could finally break free of the Wind Country's arid shackles, carving out its place in the lush, fertile lands of Fire Country. Maybe even escape the grip of the Wind Daimyō altogether.
The Daimyō of Wind, chronically underfunding Suna's military, was no secret in the shinobi world. And the more radicals in the village had long grown furious.
They were already fighting at a disadvantage. How could they compete if the funding kept shrinking?
If things kept on that trajectory, after the Third Great War, the situation would become intolerable. The Wind Daimyō would begin outsourcing entire mission clusters to Konoha, not because he loved them, but because Leaf shinobi were cheaper and more effective.
In the end, this financial insult is what pushed Suna to ally with Orochimaru during the Konoha Crush—not just to destroy Konoha, but to prove to the Wind nobles that Sunagakure wasn't a dead weight. That they still had teeth. That the "invincible" Leaf wasn't so untouchable.
"If we could capture that Tsukasa Kaede," Chiyo murmured to herself, "we could force him to develop this hybrid jutsu…"
If she could fuse that necromantic art into Mother and Father, and combine it with her other forbidden projects… maybe her son and daughter-in-law would walk again. Maybe Sasori wouldn't be so cold, so alone.
Tsukasa Kaede's name began spreading like wildfire among Suna's elite. Those with even a shred of insight were analyzing his profile, compiling what battle intel they had, drafting preliminary capture protocols.
With his mystery unraveling, Tsukasa's deterrence dropped significantly.
No one cared that he was a genin. To them, the rank was irrelevant. Someone who could develop such an advanced Impure Soul Technique—capable of stalling even a Chikamatsu Ten Puppet for moments—wasn't to be judged by conventional standards. For all they knew, he was already a chūnin.
A few days later.
In a three-story building on the southwestern edge of Sunagakure, Sasori stood expressionless, watching the wind tear across the dunes outside. He said nothing, then turned and descended into the basement.
He was splicing a puppet's skull.
A chakra scalpel carved away necrotic flesh, revealing synaptic nodes meant for chakra interface. As he inserted the final zygomatic bone, the puppet—submerged in preservative fluid—twitched.
"Still not enough... Not refined enough. Not enough test materials."
Sasori's pupils contracted beneath the liquid's blue glow. He tore open his experiment log, violently editing hypotheses. In his mind, the memory looped again and again: Hatake Sakumo's short blade carving through his father's ribs, his mother faltering in her defense…
"If they'd been human puppets, this wouldn't have happened. Even Sakumo couldn't have landed a killing blow."
His voice was utterly devoid of emotion. His entire world had reduced to this—the pursuit of eternal puppetry.
If he could somehow acquire that Konoha medic's jutsu, the development of true human puppets would leap forward. Immortality would inch closer.
Only Tsukasa Kaede had stirred Sasori's interest in recent war reports.
Chiyo didn't want him exposed to the secrets of human puppet development too early—but it was pointless. Sasori's genius in puppetry was too great, and the village needed results.
Worried he'll turn out twisted? In the ninja world, twisted prodigies were the norm. Parents slaughtered. Children orphaned. Comrades lost. There were too many to count.
What mattered was how much value you could extract before they died.
Suddenly, the secret chamber door slid open.
A young woman stepped in, tea tray in hand. The gleam of her glasses caught the low light.
"Lord Sasori, I've brought your tea."
In a flash, chakra threads whipped from his fingers and coiled around her throat.
"Where is my regular attendant?"
"Caught me already? How impressive."
The woman's face shifted slightly. Yakushi Nonō, wearing the uniform of a Suna medical-nin, sighed. A summoning scroll with a schematic of Suna's defenses lay hidden in her cloak.
The real servant's body was posed artfully near the entrance upstairs, throat slit but cleverly disguised—slumped as though she'd just dozed off from laziness.
"Your infiltration technique was decent," Sasori said icily. "But the details were sloppy. The heartbeat was off. The scent too. And my assistant would never enter the basement."
"Fair. I didn't expect you to be quite this perceptive," Nonō admitted. "I was pressed for time. Suna-nin could descend on me any second."
She looked around—countless puppets, a few preserved cadavers, and a row of half-finished human puppet prototypes blocking Sasori's path.
"Looks like the mission to extract you has failed. I can't take you down instantly, and there's no way to escape quietly. Still, I didn't expect Suna's human puppet program to reach this level. You've made real combat progress. That's vital intel. I'll make sure it gets back to Konoha."
She sounded disappointed, but not broken. It was enough to report back. She still had war orphans to protect. She couldn't afford to die here.
"Wait. I didn't give you permission to leave."
Sasori's chakra threads snapped tighter—only to recoil when Nonō severed them with a chakra scalpel.
"You're a medical-nin?"
"Exactly. So you should know your threads are useless against me. Let me walk away, or I'll take you hostage instead. I hate using violence on children."
Sasori's expression didn't change.
"If you're a spy from the Leaf… then all the more reason to stay. I have a question for you."
He stepped forward.
"What do you know about the one who uses the Impure Soul Technique? I'm interested. We can trade intel."