Slowly, blood dribbled out of Sasori’s lips and travelled down his chin. “It doesn’t matter whether you have a puppet body… a part of your body is still needed to control chakra. That’s your weak point… and… from that skinned body of yours, just the left part of your chest was still intact.
“A puppet body, after all, is just a regular puppet… your real body is that chest part that uses chakra…”
Sasori’s face broke out into a small grin. “Heh…”
Sakura’s gasped, falling to her knees feebly and down to her side. The sword was still very much inside her stomach, and it only served to make her all the more weaker and vulnerable than she already was.
Raising her right hand, Chiyo coated it with her chakra, and with the other, gripped the blade’s handle tightly. From the other side, Chiyo held her hand over Sakura’s wound as she slowly started to pull at the blade.
“It’s pointless,” Sasori started, over the hum of Chiyo’s healing, “I hit a vital spot. Even without poison, she’ll be dead soon enough. There’s too much blood loss. Since you’re a medical ninja too… I aimed for somewhere that can’t be treated easily.”
“Hm… I have already stopped emergency medical treatment. What I am doing now is not medical ninjutsu."
Sasori’s eyes widened.
“I am giving my own life energy… a tensei (life transfer) ninjutsu.”
It was silent as Sasori registered this, until Chiyo finally explained. “In the beginning, it was for you. I alone spent many years working out this jutsu for you.”
Slowly, Sakura’s eyes opened.
“With this jutsu, I can even give my life to a puppet…” Chiyo breathed in deeply. The jutsu’s effect was now wearing down on her heavily, sucking out her life sources, slowly and surely.
“…in exchange for using up the user’s life. But… now, it is already a dream that cannot be realized.”
“Pathetic… when did you start getting senile, grandma?”
Chiyo never replied, instead watching Sakura shakily rise to her knees. The old woman was relieved, to say the least. If Sakura had really died… if Chiyo hadn’t used the tensei… the results wouldn’t even be a welcome thought. Although Sasori would soon die as well, there was no way Chiyo was letting Sakura die in her place.
“Sakura… are you alright?”
“Yes…” Sakura muttered as she squinted to get a better view of the exhausted elder. “It’s you… Chiyo-sama…”
Sasori smirked. “Hm? That’s odd… from that tensei ninjutsu… doesn’t the user die from giving up their life to a dead person?”
Chiyo narrowed her eyes. “Sakura received a fatal wound, but she didn’t die. So I… also came to this level…”
“Well, that’s a pity,” Sasori said mockingly. However, Sakura was there to drive her fist into his no cracked cheek.
“Give it up,” he said, “this body feels no pain. If all you do is hit me, your fist is all that will hurt.” His head spun to face Sakura once again. “Women like to do… useless things, don’t they? Even connected by blood ties as we are, I won’t feel a thing if grandma here dies. My heart… is just like my body. Of all the hundreds and thousands I’ve killed so far, she’s just another one of them. It’s that simple.”
Gritting her teeth in anger, Sakura clenched her fists, resisting the overwhelming urge to punch Sasori again. Of course she wouldn’t do it even if she really didn’t care whether or not it would be useless. Her fist still throbbed from socking the hard surface that was Sasori’s cheek. So instead, she settled for another alternative—one that Naruto liked to use often.
[8] Every Minute Detail: Unaccounted For
Start from the beginning
