"Bastard! You—you stole the Star Stone? Hand it over—"
Though injured, the Hoshikage was not seriously wounded. He was still a jonin-level shinobi.
"Hm? Are you talking to me? Sorry, but when a meteorite falls from the sky, it belongs to whoever finds it..."
"You bastard—" Faced with such a shameless thief, Akahoshi, the main villain from Hoshigakure's movie-canon story, began to lose his composure. He could stand to lose his village, but losing the meteorite was a death sentence.
He prepared to risk it all, unleashing a massive amount of chakra.
"Secret Technique: Mysterious Peacock Method—"
Chakra fanned out from his body like a peacock's tail as he prepared to kill Uchiha Nagi and reclaim the meteorite. But just then, something unexpected happened.
Swish, swish, swish—
An attack tore through the air, moving at supersonic speeds, and struck Akahoshi directly in the back. He whirled around, throwing up his all-in-one Peacock Method defense in front of him, but it was useless.
"Argh—"
With a final, wretched scream, the great villain Akahoshi was reduced to a pile of pulp.
Uchiha Nagi looked up to see a massive block of iron sand—weighing who knew how many tons—that had not only shattered the Peacock Method with its sheer weight but had also crushed Akahoshi into paste.
Looking into the distance, he saw two figures slowly emerge from the shadows. One was a puppet, and the other, a redhead, was also a puppet.
It was Sasori and his Third Kazekage puppet.
"What a surprise. A thief. You stole the meteorite from Hoshigakure, didn't you? Hand it over, and I might consider letting you die painlessly," Sasori said, his face an emotionless mask.
Uchiha Nagi couldn't help but laugh. "If I'm going to die either way, why would I hand it over? Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?"
"If you don't, I will make your death far more painful..." Sasori was displeased. Very displeased.
He had been in high spirits, having just single-handedly wiped out a nation—Hoshigakure barely counted as a small country, but still. Annihilating an entire hidden village was an experience he planned to boast about for years to come. But then, this opportunist had appeared out of nowhere.
He'd fought a life-or-death battle at the front, only for someone to steal his spoils from the back. Though he had modified his body into a puppet and felt no physical sensations, his emotions remained. A feeling of extreme annoyance washed over him, and he abandoned all thought of preserving Akahoshi's corpse, instead using the Third Kazekage to smash him into a meat pie.
As a Kage-level master who had managed to assassinate a Kazekage, Sasori's intuition was exceptionally sharp. The moment he saw Uchiha Nagi, he knew this person was likely very strong.
"Iron Sand..." Uchiha Nagi glanced at the mass still floating in mid-air.
"That must be the Third Kazekage. What a tragic fate," Nagi said with a smile. "To die, only to have his corpse turned into one of your puppets. No wonder he was so furious when his soul was toyed with by Orochimaru and his body was toyed with by you. Anyone would snap."
Sasori's face remained impassive, but his mind was reeling. The battle between the Edo Tensei Third Kazekage and his puppet version was a secret known only to him, Deidara, and Orochimaru.
"Who are you? How do you know about me and Orochimaru?"
"Actually, I have some puppets of my own..."
Uchiha Nagi grinned, tossing out a scroll containing the puppets he'd collected after defeating Mukade in Roran.
He then unsealed them.
Poof!
After a burst of smoke, a dozen or so puppets appeared on the ground. Nagi wasn't a puppet specialist; with the aid of his Mangekyo, controlling ten puppets was already a decent feat. He couldn't command hundreds at once like Sasori.
"I didn't expect you to be a puppet master as well. Heh..."
Sasori's interest was piqued. Was this man trying to show off his puppet skills in front of a master? How foolish.
The Third Kazekage puppet retracted, standing silently behind Sasori. But Sasori simply tossed out the scroll from his back, and the Performance of a Hundred Puppets he had just used appeared once more before Uchiha Nagi.
"A duel of puppet masters. If you can earn my acknowledgment, I will spare your life," Sasori said, a flicker of interest in his voice.
In the future, when he and Deidara attacked Sunagakure, it was because Kankuro's puppet skills had earned his respect that he had spared his life. Otherwise, Kankuro never would have survived long enough for Sakura to treat him.
"You've got it wrong," Nagi chuckled. "I just wanted to try out this puppet technique I learned not too long ago..."
"Hmph. Then you'd better pray you can leave this place alive. If I'm in a good mood, I'll turn you into a puppet and grant you eternity..." Sasori sneered. With a wave of his hand, the Hundred Puppets surged forward.
Nagi waved his hand in turn, and the puppet techniques he had learned from Mukade activated. His ten puppets first opened the cannons in their bodies and fired a volley of chakra blasts at Sasori's forces, instantly destroying more than a dozen of them.
Immediately after, the two swarms of puppets clashed in a chaotic melee.
It was obvious that while Sasori's puppets were numerous, their quality was lacking. Before joining the Akatsuki, he had been a lone wolf, and unlike Kakuzu, he wasn't skilled at making money. Most of his human puppets were made from civilians, their quality questionable at best.
Mukade's puppets, on the other hand, had been mass-produced in factories using the wealth of the Land of Roran. One was handmade, the other was mass-produced. If they were to be ranked, all of Mukade's puppets were at least ninja-level.
Sasori's puppets, all handcrafted by him, were numerous but of poor quality. They didn't even have chakra cannons, still relying on the old-fashioned method of concealed launchers for kunai, shuriken, and poison needles.
"Heh, your control seems to be lacking. A mere ten puppets won't be enough to protect you," Sasori mocked. Among his puppets were quite a few higher-quality ones made from chunin and jonin.
While those puppets tangled with Nagi's, the rest were free to attack him directly. On the battlefield, Uchiha Nagi controlled his puppets while dodging left and right, evading Sasori's relentless assault.
"Who said I only have ten puppets? Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu—" Nagi used the technique, and ten clones of him appeared.
He then summoned another hundred puppets from his scrolls...
This time, it was Sasori's turn to be dumbfounded. It was a massive puppet-on-puppet battle, but the key difference was that his opponent's puppets were a generation ahead. They were equipped with chakra cannons, having already entered the age of artillery, while his own puppets were still stuck in the age of cold weapons like kunai and shuriken.
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
The tables had turned. Sasori's puppets were systematically cleared out and smashed to pieces by the puppets under Nagi's control. Although the Performance of a Hundred Puppets was Sasori's weakest ultimate move, collecting and creating so many puppets was no easy task. Sasori was a craftsman; he didn't have a factory for mass production like Mukade.
Sasori's heart was bleeding...
"Hmph. Those are nothing but toys. Allow me to show you my greatest masterpiece."
Sasori finally couldn't stand it anymore. He recalled all his remaining puppets from the Hundred Puppets technique and sent out the figure standing behind him: the Strongest Kazekage.
"Finally bringing out the big guns? Let me see the power of the man hailed as the strongest Kazekage in Suna's history." Uchiha Nagi's gaze fell upon the Kazekage puppet.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Spear Assault—"
The Third Kazekage attacked, and a sky-blotting wave of iron sand instantly formed into a torrent of spears. Mukade's puppets were nowhere near as durable as Sasori's Hiruko, nor did they have chakra shields. After this one massive attack from the Third Kazekage, all one hundred puppets were shattered into fragments, their parts littering the ground.
Fodder would always be fodder. Against a Kage-level powerhouse, these miscellaneous puppets were useless, liable to be wiped out in a single move.
"Well, the iron spears are impressive, but I've always preferred swords. A Myriad Sword Convergence is so much more stylish..." Uchiha Nagi muttered to himself as he looked at the Third Kazekage.
The plum blossom pattern in his eyes had long since begun to spin...
[To see through and analyze the laws governing all things.]
So what if he was dead? So what if he was a puppet? Nagi could still analyze and see through the very laws of the jutsu itself, a power just as heaven-defying as Obito's Kamui.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand World Method—"
The iron sand from the previous attack began to shift its form, coalescing into a colossal, pointed pyramid of iron.
Uchiha Nagi: "...?!?"
Why did he use a cube against Sakura, but a pointed one against him? How was he supposed to look cool by shattering it with a single punch now?
The seemingly cumbersome mass of iron sand was impossible to dodge. Under the Third Kazekage's control, it moved with incredible speed, as if it were as light as a feather.
Faced with this enormous, fast-moving block of iron, Uchiha Nagi directly used one of Hashirama Senju's signature defenses.
"Double Rashomon—"
Two demonic gates rose rapidly from the earth, blocking the massive attack. The first Rashomon gate shattered into pieces on impact. The second gate cracked as the iron pyramid pierced through it, finally losing its momentum and getting stuck.
"The Third Kazekage truly lives up to his name," Uchiha Nagi said with a grin.
"Sasori, I wonder if you ever experienced his ultimate techniques before you killed him..."
Sasori: "What?!"
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Spear Assault—"
To Sasori's utter shock, Nagi seized control of all the iron sand that had just struck the Rashomon gates. It morphed into the very same ultimate attack the Third Kazekage had used just a moment ago.
The only difference was that Uchiha Nagi had transformed the iron sand into longswords instead of spears.
Like a true Myriad Sword Convergence, the iron sand that had just broken through two Rashomon gates was repurposed by Nagi, transforming into a dense storm of blades that shot toward Sasori.
Though Sasori was once again struck speechless with shock—the last time being when the Edo Tensei Third Kazekage had fought his puppet version—his reaction time was still incredibly fast. He immediately commanded the Third Kazekage puppet to unleash a defensive ninjutsu.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Wall—"
A shield wall constructed from iron sand blocked the volley of longswords. As the iron swords struck the iron wall, a resounding clang echoed, sending sparks flying.
But Uchiha Nagi wasn't foolish enough to attack only from the front. He unleashed a full 360-degree barrage, forcing Sasori to transform the iron sand into a large sphere, enveloping himself and the Third Kazekage puppet in an absolute defense.
When the dust settled, the ground was littered with the remnants of broken swords and shattered shields. All of it was iron sand, ready to be reformed into something else the moment the Magnet Release was activated.
Sasori and the Third Kazekage puppet slowly emerged from the iron sphere. Sasori's voice was grave.
"White hair, a mask covering half his face, and a Sharingan... and he likes to copy his opponent's ninjutsu to defeat them. You're the Copy Ninja, Kakashi Hatake?"
"......"