"You're the Copy Ninja, Kakashi Hatake?"
Uchiha Nagi: "......"
He wondered if Sasori would believe him if he said it was all just a coincidence.
Sasori knew that Itachi was the rogue ninja who had wiped out the Uchiha clan, but he wasn't a bounty hunter like Kakuzu, so he wasn't aware that another Uchiha had escaped. He had, however, heard of the renowned Copy Ninja, Kakashi Hatake.
There was another misunderstanding at play: Sasori didn't know that Kakashi only possessed one Sharingan.
So, when he cross-referenced the information in his head, the only person who fit the description was Kakashi, the Copy Ninja whose fame had been on the rise in recent years.
I swear, Kakashi, I really didn't mean to make you the scapegoat...
"Well, well, you found me out. So, what do you plan to do now? Surrender to me? As I recall, the bounty on the Third Kazekage is quite high in Sunagakure. And if I were to capture his killer, I imagine they'd offer even more..."
"Hmph. You'll be lucky to leave here alive," Sasori sneered. If the truth about him killing the Third Kazekage ever got out, it was easy to imagine being hunted across the entire ninja world by Suna-nin.
But he wasn't afraid. His boss, the leader of the Land of Rain, was Pain of the Rinnegan. To this day, not a single member of the Akatsuki had been able to force Pain to use his full power, and none of them were confident they could defeat those eyes.
He had personally witnessed the last challenger, Orochimaru, get taken down in a single move by Pain. If it weren't for Orochimaru's snake-like ability to shed his skin and regenerate...
So what if the news got out? Sunagakure didn't have a single ninja who could truly fight. Anyone who went to the Land of Rain would die. The Land of Rain kept a low profile, but it was home to S-rank rogue ninja from all over the world. Any one of them could be considered Kage-level.
If they were all deployed at once, they could easily wipe out any of the Five Great Shinobi Villages...
But the events that followed were not so pleasant for him. Every time the Third Kazekage puppet launched an attack with its iron sand, Uchiha Nagi would block it with a jutsu. And once blocked, the iron sand would fall under the control of his Magnet Release, which he would then use to reshape it and send it flying back.
In essence, Sasori's Third Kazekage puppet was fighting Uchiha Nagi for control over the iron sand. But he had no choice but to fight for it, because the offensive power of Magnet Release, when used to manipulate the iron sand into ninjutsu, was immense.
Unlike what Uchiha Nagi had imagined from watching movies about Magneto in his past life, Magnet Release wasn't about controlling metal at will.
In essence, Magnet Release used ninjutsu and chakra to control and shape a massive quantity of iron sand before launching it. Without ninjutsu to control it, the iron sand's power was minimal; it would be difficult to instantly form it into various weapons, walls, or blocks.
Without that control, it would just be a pile of sand, easily dispersed by an enemy's attack or washed away by a Water Style jutsu.
From Uchiha Nagi's perspective, this meant their mastery of the electromagnetic force was not yet at a microscopic level—they hadn't reached Magneto's level.
The four fundamental forces of nature were clearly not so easy to master. Even Pain was a prime example; his control over gravity was at its most rudimentary level.
The Third Kazekage was the same. Through years of research and development studying Shukaku, he had gained a preliminary grasp of the electromagnetic force, combining it with ninjutsu and chakra to create his own unique techniques. But his application was still at its most basic stage.
If he could have developed it further, even truly mastering a fraction of electromagnetism, it would have been a power far beyond Onoki's Particle Style.
Reversing the planet's electromagnetic field—forget destroying a continent, wiping out a single hidden village would be laughably easy.
The four fundamental forces of the universe were nothing to scoff at. They were far superior to something like Dust Release; putting them in the same category was a joke.
Unfortunately, although Uchiha Nagi had now copied the Third Kazekage's Magnet Release, he couldn't just spontaneously gain a nuanced, microscopic control over electromagnetism. For now, he was just like his opponent, using it crudely, leveraging chakra through ninjutsu to barely control the iron sand and form it into clumps to hurl at each other...
Sasori was losing his patience. The two of them were hurting each other with Magnet Release, yet they couldn't truly harm each other. As soon as the iron sand entered the other's magnetic field, it would be seized. They were just pointlessly draining each other's chakra.
"Hmph. Try this on for size! Let's see if you can copy this~"
Sasori used another technique, similar to Orochimaru's Striking Shadow Snakes. He activated a switch on the Third Kazekage's arm, and from within, arm after arm extended, a dense swarm of them rushing toward Uchiha Nagi.
Seeing the multiple extending arms, so similar to Orochimaru's technique, Nagi narrowed his eyes and drew his Nichirin Blade...
There was a slight difference, however. Orochimaru's were real snake hands, which would bleed when cut. Sasori's were puppet arms, stored together with sealing jutsu. Cutting them would only result in a pile of spare parts.
"Water Breathing, Sixth Form: Twisting Whirlpool—"
Uchiha Nagi's swordsmanship was improving by the day, growing stronger and stronger. It was on a completely different level from when he had first started learning.
His Nichirin Blade danced, using Twisting Whirlpool to sever every puppet arm that came near him. Puppet parts shattered and littered the ground.
[A perfect chance—]
A sharp glint flashed in Sasori's eyes. Seizing the moment when his opponent was fully focused on his swordsmanship and couldn't be distracted by using Magnet Release, he quickly commanded the Third Kazekage puppet to unleash its attack.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Spear Assault—"
A colossal block of iron, over ten meters high and weighing nearly a hundred tons, came crashing down on Uchiha Nagi's head, aiming to squash him into a pulp with a single blow.
Faced with the menacing iron block, Uchiha Nagi just scoffed.
He had too many trump cards at this point, which had led to him being a jack of all trades but a master of none. He was using this battle to build muscle memory, to fuse all his skills together until they became an extension of his own will. That was the true path to power.
"Monstrous Strength Fist—"
The menacing block of iron was sent flying back just as quickly as it had descended, nearly crushing Sasori in the process.
"You... Is that?! Tsunade's Monstrous Strength Fist?"
Sasori's eyes nearly popped out of his head. This confirmed it. This guy had to be Kakashi. He even knew Tsunade's Monstrous Strength Fist; she must have taught him.
"Shuriken Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu—"
Nagi didn't answer. Villains were the ones who loved to monologue; a true hero lets their fists do the talking.
He formed a hand seal, unleashing the enhanced version of Minato Namikaze's Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu. A volley of a thousand kunai rained down on Sasori.
The surrounding houses and walls were shredded as if sprayed by machine-gun fire, leaving nothing but ruins in their wake.
Sasori quickly commanded the Third Kazekage puppet to create a Magnet Release barrier, a large iron sphere that sealed him in completely. But this was exactly what Uchiha Nagi had intended.
"Amaterasu—"
Black flames struck the iron sand, instantly melting it into molten iron. Trapped inside, Sasori knew he was in trouble. He quickly broke the barrier and leaped out from the back.
Without its iron sand, the Third Kazekage's Magnet Release was half-useless. It was clear Sasori hadn't prepared a spare supply for his puppet.
Sensing he was in a bad spot, Sasori immediately had the Third Kazekage puppet fly him up into the sky. In the air, he would be in an unbeatable position.
However, the next second—swoosh.
A figure appeared behind Sasori. It was Uchiha Nagi. Just like Minato Namikaze, he had mixed a few Flying Thunder God kunai into his Multiple Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu. With the control afforded by his Mangekyo, he had deliberately thrown one onto the path directly behind Sasori.
"Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux—"
Before the Eleventh Form, Dead Calm, this was the strongest form of Water Breathing. Like a coiling dragon, the blade twisted, striking the Third Kazekage puppet and Sasori in a continuous series of attacks.
At close range, Sasori, a long-range specialist, stood no chance against such fast and exquisite swordsmanship. Before he could even attempt to use any of his jutsu, Uchiha Nagi had already diced him into pieces.
"It's over. Oh, no, not yet..."
Uchiha Nagi looked down with a half-smile at a piece of flesh lying amongst the pile of broken parts. It was the Regeneration Core—Sasori's true body.
A kunai shot swiftly toward the core on the ground. This time, Sasori couldn't play dead even if he wanted to. Tentacles around the core quickly contracted, dodging the kunai. However, in the next instant, a second kunai pinned it firmly to the ground.
Blood slowly began to seep from Sasori's regeneration core...
"Your greatest mistake was modifying yourself into a puppet. The potential of the human body far exceeds your imagination..."
Uchiha Nagi shook his head and walked regretfully toward Sasori.
Without any hacks, the limits of the human body, when fully unlocked, could be powerful enough to kick off a grand finale...
It was a pity. He hadn't gotten the chance to find out what was hidden in Sasori's last scroll. The combat power of Sasori's puppet body was far inferior to that of the Third Kazekage.
Now that he, along with the Third Kazekage puppet, had been sliced into pieces, those three scrolls had naturally been destroyed as well...
Sasori quietly watched the white-haired young man. He'd heard his parents had died at the hands of this man's father. Now, he was about to die at the hands of the son...
Uchiha Nagi raised his Nichirin Blade. He had no grand ambitions or a halo for gathering followers. Since they had fought, he would just kill him.
He swung the Nichirin Blade down. But just as the blade was about to finish Sasori, a white figure suddenly appeared, swiftly rescuing Sasori's core and diving into the earth.
Clang—
The Nichirin Blade missed. Sasori had been saved by White Zetsu.
"Damn it! White Zetsu—" Uchiha Nagi grit his teeth.
Just as he was about to unleash his Monstrous Strength Fist to shatter the ground and force out the Zetsu who hadn't gotten far, he felt something strange happening to his body.
Several grinning white heads emerged directly from his own body. It was White Zetsu's Spore Technique.
In that brief delay, White Zetsu had already escaped far away.
"Damn it! I hate these disgusting little things more than anything! Don't let me catch you next time, or I'll lock you up and slice you into pieces—"
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