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Endless desert raced past beneath him; scorching wind whipped at his ears, yet it could not dislodge the weight of urgency from Sayo's heart. Piloting the "Mirage"—refined once more under Elder Chiyo's guidance—he tore toward the depths of the western badlands at breakneck speed.
The current "Mirage" differed slightly from the hovering prototype in his workshop. Temporary armor plating now sheathed its hull; key rune nodes had been reinforced; the overall lines were sleeker to cut wind resistance at high speed. Like a silent grey swallow, it skimmed the dunes, hugging their curves, leaving only a faint wake that the sand erased in moments.
Following Chiyo's brief and scattered reports along the way, Sayo focused on the site where the "Ghost-Cry Gang" had been wiped out. When he reached the out-of-the-way canyon camp, even forewarned, the sight turned his stomach.
The camp lay in deathly stillness—no smoke, no signs of large-scale Ninjutsu devastation—yet the reek of death was suffocating. Dozens lay twisted on the ground, faces black or stiffened by poison; others had been torn or sliced with surgical precision, wounds bloodless because every drop had already clotted.
Fighting nausea, Sayo landed the "Mirage" at the camp's edge. Instead of stepping inside, he released several upgraded "Spider" reconnaissance puppets to scan every detail.
Toxin analysis: Blended neurotoxin and coagulant, extremely fast-acting.
Attack-pattern analysis: Precise, efficient, mostly one-strike kills; attacker count minimal, possibly a single individual.
Chakra residue: Faint, but chillingly familiar.
Puppet fragments: Special alloy, non-standard, and high-tensile.
Each report fed back through the puppets confirmed Sayo's suspicion: the cold, efficient, unmistakably personal style could only belong to Sasori. On the camp's perimeter, the recon puppets detected a faint indentation almost erased by wind—neither human nor any known beast, but like the tip of an arthropod limb—pointing northwest.
A lead! Sayo recalled the puppets, lifted the "Mirage" and sped after it, staying low to avoid alerting his quarry, sensors at maximum, combing the ground below.
The chase lasted a day and a night. Sasori was a master of concealment; the trail vanished and reappeared, sometimes deliberately false. Yet again and again, Sayo relocated the faintest clue, relying on the "Mirage's" speed and reach and on his own sharpening senses and patience.
At dusk the second day, amid even bleaker terrain of wind-scoured pillars, the sensors caught a wisp of that same frigid chakra, originating inside a vast, hollow rock ahead.
Sayo's pulse quickened. He set the "Mirage" down behind a distant dune and sealed it into a scroll; from here he must go on foot—any chakra-driven device might be sensed instantly. Like a desert lizard, he slipped through rock shadows, using his affinity with sand, drawing closer. The farther he went, the clearer that icy chakra became, laced with the faint reek of preservative and machine oil.
At last, he reached a fissure in the rock and peered inside. The cavern was spacious, artificially leveled. Piles of mechanical parts and scrolls lay in corners. In the center, a figure sat with his back to the entrance at a crude workbench.
A black coat, a shock of red hair. One arm was not flesh but a gleaming prosthetic puppet limb. With it, he carved something on the bench, producing a faint rasp. Even from behind, Sayo knew him at a glance: Sasori of the Red Sand.
Sayo held his breath, heart racing. After more than half a year, he had found the genius puppeteer who had been mentor and elder brother—and had since chosen a diametrically opposed path. He hesitated: call out, or watch a moment longer?
At that instant, Sasori froze. Without turning, his cold, slightly hoarse voice rang through the dead cave: "Little mouse that's followed me all this way... watched enough? Planning to stay hidden?"
A jolt ran through Sayo. He'd thought himself perfectly concealed; Sasori had known all along. Pointless to hide any longer. Sayo drew a breath and stepped from the crevice.
"Senior Sasori." His words echoed faintly in the cavern.
The figure at the bench turned slowly. When the face came fully into view, prepared though he was, Sayo felt ice crawl up his spine. The once cool yet youthful visage was now an eternal, doll-like beauty, untouched by time and devoid of warmth. Violet eyes regarded him with no flicker of reunion, only the detached appraisal of a predator—and a trace of curiosity.
"Oh?" Sasori's gaze lingered, a faint, unreadable curve at his lips. "So it's you... brat from Sunagakure."
Thus, after more than half a year, their reunion began—amid the stench of oil and death inside that desolate rock.
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