Chapter 25: Heavy Metal

"The Third Kazekage?" I asked Lady Chiyo, confused.

"More than ten years ago, he disappeared." She looked harshly at the far too young Sasori. "Sasori, it was you."

"HMPH! A wretched old bitch like you with one foot in the grave shouldn't trouble yourself with anything. You should have just stayed retired and waited to die in peace."

"Retired, yes, one foot in the grave, maybe. But I can still get around on my own two legs. And there are too many things left undone." Lady Chiyo shook her head disapprovingly. "My grandson, degrading himself, becoming a criminal, that's one thing. But betraying the village? Participating in the deaths of three Kazekage?"

"Wait, three?" I asked, never taking my eyes off our enemy.

I was still effectively topless, the black fishnet shirt doing nothing to hide my pink pasties or the curve of my breasts, but none of us bothered pointing it out. It wasn't relevant. The cool cave air nipped at my exposed stomach, tickling the skin between my crop top and my pink mini-skirt.

"Even if it was Orochimaru who actually killed Gaara's father, the Fourth, Sasori was complicit from the start. And now Gaara, the Fifth, and Lord Third, ten years ago... Three in a fucking row, Sasori?"

"I wasn't directly involved with the Fourth; that was one of my agents. But yeah, Orochimaru and the Akatsuki go way back, and we've collaborated in the past."

I felt a wave of nausea. I remembered when Orochimaru attacked us in the Forest of Death. The terror I felt at the memory of his horrific face gave way to intense anger at him for taking Sasuke away, and that then switched to rage at Sasori and the Akatsuki for working with him.

"You... worked with him..."

In the split moment that my anger made me drop my guard, Sasori launched the Kazekage puppet at me.

Whoosh!

"Fuck!" I called out and tried to jump back out of the way.

Even with my enhanced reaction time from the First Gate, I couldn't get out of the way fast enough. My heels clicked on the stone floor as I scrambled back, my breasts bouncing violently with the sudden movement.

'I should have opened the first three at the start!'

I thought to myself as I brought up my arms to block the many blades that extended from the puppet's left arm. I braced for the pain, my muscles tensing under the fishnet mesh.

CLANK!!!

Just before the blades impacted my arms, Hiruko's tail blocked them, but its segments were ripped apart in the process.

Crunch... Snap!

Lady Chiyo must have used the strings still attached to it to save me, but the tail was useless now.

"Pretty good, Granny Chiyo, but try blocking this!" Sasori pulled his strings on the puppet's other arm, which split in two, revealing summoning seals.

Poof!

Dozens of long, mechanical tendrils with bamboo-like segments and hands on their ends shot out of the puppet's right arm at me.

Clack-Clack-Clack!

Thanks to the First Gate increasing my reaction time and lowering my body's inhibitions, I could quickly dodge each of the tendrils. I moved like a dancer, twisting my hips and arching my back to let the wooden arms graze past my skin. I even dislocated my shoulder to slip past one grasping hand, the pop of the joint sending a jolt of sharp pleasure-pain through me.

But the sheer volume was too much. The wooden arms boxed me in, pinning me to the ground like a field of bamboo shoots had grown around me, tight to my body.

I quickly wormed my body out of the tendrils, my sweat making my skin slick enough to slide free, and jumped away. But I heard a "PSHHH" sound as one of the tendrils unleashed a cloud of gas at me while I was airborne.

"Sakura! Hold your breath!"

I did so as soon as I saw the gas, my chest heaving against the fishnet, but as I was in the air, I couldn't completely dodge the kunai-tipped ropes shot at me by two bamboo tendrils.

Thwip!

I twisted in the air, flashing my black thong, but the ropes managed to wrap around my body—one around my legs, binding my thighs together, and the other over my large chest and arms.

They tightened around me violently. The rope dug into my cleavage, pushing my breasts together and pressing the fishnet deep into my skin. It held me suspended in the air; the one around my chest almost made me gasp for air as the poison gas engulfed me, which was quite an ingenious combo attack.

"You should have deflected them instead of dodging, you little bimbo." Commented Sasori.

I desperately held my breath, feeling the veins in my neck bulge. I needed more power. I needed to break free. I quickly tried to open the Second and Third Gates.

"Sakura! Hang in there!"

I heard Chiyo shout and listened to her feet running towards me, but I couldn't see past the purple haze of the gas.

I managed to slip a kunai out of my belt with one of my bound hands, the metal cold against my palm.

Gate of Healing... Open!

Gate of Life... Open!

Then, I felt the Third Gate open.

BOOM!!!

A wave of green chakra blasted off my body, dispelling the gas instantly. I slashed the rope around my chest, freeing my heaving tits, and then the one around my legs.

The explosive release of chakra was too much for my fragile transformed clothes.

Poof!

It popped the summoned pink mini-skirt, the black thong, and the high-heeled sandals I wore. My fishnet shirt disintegrated into smoke. It left me completely naked apart from the headband around my hair and the pouch belt around my waist.

My skin turned a deep, flushed red, and my eyes fully dilated, the whites almost vanishing. The rush was incredible. I felt raw, exposed, and incredibly powerful.

I pulled another kunai from my belt with my other hand, my bare feet gripping the rock floor.

"I will get you! No matter what you pull! No matter what you've got! I'll drag you to the edge of death and make you scream all about Orochimaru! I swear on my fucking life!"

I screamed, my voice raw with rage and adrenaline, as I deflected or dodged dozens of kunai shot at me by the tendrils.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

My naked body was a blur of red skin and pink hair. I spun and twisted, my breasts and ass moving freely, untethered by clothes. While I kept Sasori's attention, Lady Chiyo summoned two puppets of her own and jumped behind me, each standing before me and blocking the rest of the kunai barrage.

Thud-Thud-Thud!

These puppets seemed to surprise Sasori.

"Oh, those are..."

"That's right. The very first puppets you created. The mother and father."

I toned down the chakra running through my network while I had the chance as Lady Chiyo and Sasori talked, panting heavily, my chest rising and falling, but I never let my guard down or closed the Third Gate. The heat radiating from my skin was intense.

"What do you expect to do with them now? I made them. I know their workings inside out."

Lady Chiyo's puppets high-fived each other, and wires connected their fingers to each other. She then launched them forward, and they wrapped the wires around the many bamboo tendrils, cutting them apart as they charged at the Third Kazekage's puppet.

Slice!

The Kazekage puppet disconnected its right arm and flew back. The mother and father produced swords and circular blades from their sleeves and pursued.

Clash! Zing!

There was a series of fast exchanges between the puppets, and Sasori and Lady Chiyo flung their arms and chakra strings around rapidly to manipulate their respective puppets. By the end, all of Lady Chiyo's puppets' weapons were broken, and both sides jumped back behind their wielders.

"This is becoming a nuisance. Better speed things along." Sasori said, making a single hand sign, and the Third's mechanical mouth fell open.

Then, what appeared to be black gas spewed forth from its mouth.

Gurgle... Hiss...

"As I figured, that puppet can use the Third Kazekage's own jutsu." Spoke Lady Chiyo in a sombre tone.

"Haven't seen it for a while, have you? If you recall, this is what got him his reputation as the most powerful in the Sand."

"Things are going to get messy."

"Mind telling me what the fuck that even is?" I asked Lady Chiyo as I bumped my chakra back up, feeling the familiar burn in my muscles.

"It's the Sand's most feared weapon. Satetsu, the Iron Sand."

She explained it was an original jutsu of the Third Kazekage. It was adapted from one used by a former host of Shukaku. It could mould magnetic sand into any shape, perfect for any situation. She said the Third Kazekage was the only one who could use it, as he had a unique constitution that allowed him to convert his chakra into magnetic forces.

"But that's just a puppet? How could it hold chakra?" I asked, wiping sweat from my brow.

"It's a human puppet built from a real corpse. Like a battery, it kept what chakra the body possessed in life."

Lady Chiyo explained. I wondered how that was done. The Leaf is supposed to be the leader of medical jutsu, but I had yet to learn how that could be accomplished apart from the Second Hokage's Reanimation Jutsu.

"Sasori is the only one who can create human puppets. Whoever he made into a puppet, he has access to that person's jutsu. Ultimately, that's what makes him an S-ranked ninja."

Lady Chiyo finished her explanation as the black sand swirled around Sasori and the Third Kazekage's puppet, which I then realised was his actual body.

"Oh, there's more to it than that. Remember, of all my collection, this one is my favourite."

"Sakura, you get away from here. I'll take care of this."

"What! No!" I exclaimed, planting my bare feet firmly.

"I did not expect this. You're no match for him now. Not with this card in play."

I was offended that Lady Chiyo thought I was dead weight.

"Too late."

Sasori taunted as he sent a hail of iron sand clumps at us.

Thwack! Thwack!

Thanks to the Third Gate, I could jump out of the way. I sprang into the air, legs spread, feeling the wind rush past my naked crotch.

Lady Chiyo had one of her puppets deploy some sort of chakra shield to block the clumps aimed at her.

"So you did fiddle with them a bit. The last time I played with them, they had no shields—quite the upgrade. But you should have known that was an attack, and you should have dodged it, not blocked it. I guess your old body isn't as spry as the busty exhibitionist."

From where I dodged to, I could barely see black spots making their way up the arms of the puppet that shielded Lady Chiyo.

"The Iron Sand has seeped into that doll. So long as I have the magnetic power of the Third Kazekage, that thing can't last."

A few moments later, the father puppet began to shake. The black sand formed several large spears surrounding Lady Chiyo and me.

Creak... Snap!

As they fired, I was able to dodge them; I remembered watching Lee dodge Gaara's sand during the Chunin exams and tried to emulate his moves. I twisted and flipped, my naked body glistening with sweat as I narrowly avoided impalement. The adrenaline was making my nipples hard as rocks.

Lady Chiyo deployed a chakra shield from the mother to block her front, but Sasori must have expected it this time and sent some black sand to her flank. She quickly spun around and deployed another shield on her own right arm, which turned out to be a prosthetic.

Clang!

"Just an arm, but you still removed and replaced part of your own body. We puppet masters are all of the same kind, heh."

The black sand was already making Lady Chiyo's prosthetic shake uncontrollably.

"I see. So that's what you did to your body."

Lady Chiyo detached her prosthetic arm, and I saw the mother puppet creaking and shaking.

"Once the iron sand gets in, the puppet is done for. Well, now you're out of puppets. What next? Even a great puppet master is nothing without a puppet. Heh, heh!"

The black sand spewing from the Third's puppet started to form two large shapes in the air. One was a cuboid, and the other an inverted pyramid. They loomed over us, massive and heavy.

"This is quite the jam we are in. Indeed, what next?"

Sasori launched the pyramid at us like a spear.

WHOOSH!

We both jumped out of the way, but it shattered the ground beneath us.

CRASH!

I looked up and saw the cuboid coming down to crush me, so I backflipped out of the way, my bare ass grazing the floor. It hit the ground, shattering more of the cave floor, then sped forward along the rubble at me.

I didn't run. I stood my ground, naked and defiant. I wound up a right cross, channelling every ounce of chakra I had into my fist.

"CHA!"

I punched it as hard as I could.

BOOOM!

I felt the knuckles in my right hand, radius and ulna break instantly.

Crack!

It hurt like hell, a white-hot lance of pain shooting up my arm, even with the gates open, but it was worth it. The pain only sharpened my focus. Though Sasori managed to dodge out of the way, the black cuboid shot back at the Third's puppet and crushed it completely.

Then, all at once, all the iron sand in the air fell to the ground.

Without the iron sand to disrupt them, Lady Chiyo had the mother and father launch at Sasori as he was in mid-air. They produced long-bladed swords and pierced his body from both sides.

Shing! Stab!

That gave me a chance to jump towards him. Though my right arm was shattered, hanging limply at my side, I borrowed a move from Guy-sensei. I launched myself into the air, legs extended.

"Dynamic Entry!"

I hit Sasori in the chest with a double dropkick.

CRUNCH!!!

Lady Chiyo was right; his body was fully prosthetic. I burst through him, my bare feet smashing through wood and metal mechanisms.

Snap! Crackle!

Being a medical ninja, I knew that there was one part of him he couldn't replace with machinery: his brain. I was ready to go back for his head when I felt something slimy squish between my bare toes as I hit the rock wall of the cave.

It looked and felt like blood and tissue oozing over my skin.

"Gross..." I said out loud, wiggling my toes in the gore. "Maybe I should wear real shoes after all."