Just as Lock pieced together when he must have been poisoned, a brutal pain tore through his body.
His organs twisted; his blood churned like molten lead. He staggered, coughing up a thick spray of crimson.
"—Kuh!"
Another surge hit before he could breathe. He spat more blood, darker this time, and his vision blurred at the edges.
No… I can't pass out now.
He bit into his lower lip until he tasted iron. The sharp sting kept him barely conscious. He knew it instinctively — if his eyes closed now, they might never open again.
Scorpion's voice drifted toward him, calm and cold.
"You're impressive. Most shinobi would've dropped long ago. That toxin could kill a bull in minutes."
The boy spoke with quiet pride. His mastery of poison rivaled his control of puppets — both arts inherited from his clan, both taken far beyond what his parents had ever achieved. In the entire Hidden Sand, perhaps only his grandmother, Chiyo, could still compare.
"Originally," Scorpion said, tilting his head, "I only meant to capture the Kazekage. But finding you here? It's perfection itself. Two masterpieces — immortalized in my art."
His voice trembled slightly with excitement. "You'll become part of something eternal."
Lock glared up, his breathing ragged but defiant.
He could feel his heartbeat slowing, his chakra unraveling — but he refused to die kneeling.
"I don't think so."
His voice cut through the desert air like steel. Then, from deep within his core, his chakra detonated.
A roaring surge of energy erupted around him, snapping the puppet strings that bound him and shattering the wooden bodies holding him down.
The shockwave threw dust into the sky.
Scorpion's eyes widened behind his mask. He broke free? Even under lethal poison, the man's chakra burst had the force of an explosion.
But Lock didn't give him a moment to react. The instant his arms were free, he formed the seal of distortion — and vanished.
Space folded in on itself. The world went silent.
Scorpion immediately surrounded himself with puppets, layers of iron, and chakra threads spinning into a defensive cocoon. The sand trembled as invisible strikes hammered his defenses again and again. Splinters flew. Metal screeched. Three of his puppets were destroyed outright — but Scorpion himself remained untouched.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the pressure vanished.
Lock reappeared several meters away, gasping, his chakra flickering wildly. His cloak was in tatters; his body trembled from the aftershock.
He hadn't expected to kill Scorpion — not in this condition. The purpose of that strike was never victory.
He needed time.
The technique he'd used — a high-tier spatial shift — temporarily displaced his body from real space. During that brief window, he'd forced his chakra system to stabilize, halting the spread of poison just long enough to act.
Now, as the shift ended, he bent space once more, vanishing in a streak of blue light.
"—Tch!"
Scorpion smashed a puppet in fury. "He escaped!"
He sent his remaining puppets sweeping through the sand, sensors probing for the faintest trace. But the desert only whispered back with wind.
One kilometer away, Lock re-materialized behind a ridge — then immediately fell to his knees. Blood splattered the ground, dark as ink.
This poison…It's eating through everything.
His breath came shallow, uneven. Even his vision shimmered, doubling the horizon. He pressed a trembling hand to the wound on his abdomen, channeling what little chakra he could to suppress the toxin.
But through the haze, he sensed pursuit. The faint, cold thread of Scorpion's chakra is still probing the desert for him.
Lock clenched his jaw. He had one option left — his emergency summoning array, a sealing technique he'd inscribed on a storage talisman for instant retreat. Activating it here on the ground would expose him. But if he could reach higher ground—
He looked up. His summon — a chakra-forged hawk, faintly glowing — hovered above, awaiting command.
He reached toward it, body trembling, and forced his chakra to flare once more. The hawk descended, and Lock climbed onto its back with the last of his strength.
The moment he touched the seal on its feathers, a pale blue sigil expanded beneath him — the markings of a space-time teleportation jutsu.
Scorpion sensed it too late.
"—You can run," he muttered, eyes narrowing, "but poison runs with you."
Lock's body shimmered, then vanished in a burst of light.
The desert fell silent again. Scorpion stood amid broken puppets, the corners of his mouth curling in irritation.
He hated leaving work unfinished.
"Even if you survived," he said quietly, "what then? Today I defeated you. Next time, I'll do it again. The only question… is whether you'll live long enough to prove me wrong."
He turned, cloak billowing, and walked into the desert wind.
Far away, in the Hidden Leaf Village, the sun had already climbed high.
Yuzu had just finished her morning chores and was preparing to leave for her shop — a cozy snack bar her son had helped expand not long ago. The place had grown, staff hired, business steady. These days, she only goes to supervise and chat with customers.
She smiled faintly, adjusting her shawl as she opened the door —
Then a heavy thud echoed from the courtyard. Something — someone — had fallen.
Startled, she turned. A figure lay sprawled across the ground, masked, covered in blood.
"Who—?"
Her words froze when the man stirred weakly and whispered, "M… Mom…"
Yuzu's eyes widened. The bowl she held crashed to the floor as she ran to him, heart pounding.
"Lock—!"
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