Chapter 191: The Choice to Turn Back
Massive clouds of smoke and dust slowly spread and settled across the battlefield, the acrid smell of explosives filling the air. After the explosion's aftershocks completely subsided, Shisui's group returned to survey the now-devastated battle center.
Deidara jumped down from his clay bird, looking at the huge scorched crater before him and the scattered, barely recognizable Hiruko fragments around it. He scratched his head somewhat uncertainly and asked.
"Senpai... that guy couldn't have just been blown to death like that, could he? Hmm... someone the leader specifically wanted to find shouldn't be this weak... right?"
His tone carried a hint of guilty nervousness after causing trouble.
Shisui looked at the massive commotion Deidara had created with some helplessness, but still spoke in a calm tone to reassure him. "Calm down, Deidara. The opponent is Sasori of the Red Sand, who somehow killed the Third Kazekage. He shouldn't be that weak."
Moreover, in the instant before the explosion occurred, Shisui's Sharingan had caught the expression on Sasori's puppet face—not despair, but rather increased gravity and... fervor. Shisui's intuition told him this level of attack probably wasn't enough to completely eliminate the existence before them.
Shisui's judgment was confirmed.
When the lingering smoke finally cleared completely, revealing the scene at the crater's center, the sight before them made everyone present widen their eyes. An indescribable sense of wrongness instantly gripped them.
Clearly, the battle puppet Hiruko that Sasori had used for concealment had been completely destroyed in that violent explosion, its fragments scattered across the ground. Sasori's "true body" was once again exposed before everyone.
However, perhaps due to the explosion's impact, the clothing on his upper body had been entirely destroyed, thoroughly revealing the "body" beneath...
That... was not a body humans should have.
Though it maintained human contours and features, the skin presented an unnatural texture resembling some kind of special coating.
Even more bone-chilling, at various joints across his body, precise mechanical structures and pivot points were clearly visible! And in the center of his chest was a bizarre cylindrical recessed structure.
"This guy...!" Deidara drew in a sharp breath, his face written with disbelief. "He... he actually turned himself into a human puppet too?!!"
Even Deidara, who pursued "momentary art" and habitually used explosions, felt an involuntary chill run up his spine at the sight of this inhuman bodily modification.
But simultaneously, Sasori's earlier dogmatic declaration about "without decay, eternal beauty is art" echoed again in his mind. Beyond that visceral revulsion, something else arose uncontrollably in Deidara's heart—was it... admiration?
"Leave the battlefield to me from here." Shisui spoke calmly, stepping forward, his gaze locked like a torch on the Third Kazekage puppet Sasori had just re-summoned. "I have some matters I need to personally ask this guy about."
Sasori's voice carried extreme impatience and cold killing intent. "I'm thoroughly fed up with you people... Also, you think you alone have the confidence to face me? How arrogant. And I have no intention of answering any of your questions."
Just as Sasori raised his hand again, preparing to control the Third Kazekage puppet to launch a new fierce assault—
Shisui's crimson Sharingan suddenly transformed! The original three-tomoe pattern rapidly rotated, twisted, and deformed, ultimately becoming a more complex shuriken-shaped pattern containing ominous power—the Mangekyo Sharingan!
The moment Sasori saw those eyes, his consistently maintained cold emotions finally broke, revealing a shocked expression! As a descendant of Sunagakure's upper echelon, his knowledge had taught him of the power these eyes represented!
"Amaterasu."
Hiss—!
Without any warning, pitch-black flames suddenly ignited on Sasori's priceless Third Kazekage human puppet!
These flames emanated an ominous aura, and moreover... could not be extinguished!
That's right—Shisui had been re-implanted with Mangekyo Sharingan. After experiencing painful struggle and choice, he'd ultimately decided to use those eyes from someone who'd disappointed him immeasurably, yet whom he could never truly hate.
Uchiha Itachi... no, now she should be called Uchiha Yu.
If he couldn't hate the sins she'd committed, then Shisui believed he had no right to use Fugaku and Mikoto's Mangekyo Sharingan either. He'd presented his answer to Menma.
He would use Yu's eyes to complete the path toward peace. In this way, he would perform a kind of vicarious atonement for Yu's sins.
The reason he hadn't used this dangerous ocular jutsu from the start was precisely because of Amaterasu's characteristics—these black flames would never extinguish until they'd burned the target to ash.
And Sasori's various actions, especially killing a village's Kage and turning him into a puppet to be freely manipulated as an insult—even though Shisui wasn't a Sunagakure shinobi, he believed a Kage's remains and dignity shouldn't suffer such further defilement and destruction.
"What?! What are these flames?!" Sasori discovered in horror that no matter how he tried, he couldn't extinguish these black flames that clung like maggots to bone! The Third Kazekage puppet struggled futilely in the flames. He quickly activated a mechanism on one of his back scrolls, attempting to spray precisely controlled water from his palm conduits through chakra conduction to extinguish the fire—utterly futile! Trying to cover it with sand—still ineffective!
Seeing those terrifying black flames about to burn back along the chakra threads toward himself, Sasori decisively severed all chakra threads connected to the Third Kazekage puppet! He could only watch helplessly as his most prized trump card, his strongest collection piece, gradually twisted, deformed, and ultimately became a pile of ash in those silently burning black flames!
Heartache swept over Sasori.
Shisui looked at Sasori, whose expression had darkened and spoke once more.
"Give up resisting. You're absolutely no match for me."
He asked slowly, his gaze seeming to see through the puppet shell to that twisted heart beneath. "Now, I'll only ask you one question—Sasori of the Red Sand, having reached this point today, do you still have room to turn back?"
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