Capítulo 56: 56 - Monsters of Our Making
The sudden turn of events startled everyone at the frontline hospital.
Some injured ninjas, despite their minor wounds, struggled to get up and fight, their bandages staining red with reopened wounds.
Yet none of this fazed Pakura. Her eyes were fixed solely on Kabuto. After months of pursuit, she had finally tracked down the little boy today. There was no way she was letting him go.
To be fair, young Kabuto had been caught in an undeserved calamity. He backed away, knocking over a tray of medical instruments that clattered loudly against the floor. Why? Why is she hunting me?
He had just started Root training less than a year ago and hadn't even been sent on a mission yet. The boy's glasses fogged up from his panicked breathing.
Terrified, Kabuto was nearly paralyzed. As Pakura pinned him to the ground, flashes of his short life flickered before his eyes.
"Tell me everything about Sasori's plans!"
"What plan? I don't know anything! Please!"
Then, suddenly, a patient two beds away abruptly sat up, moving with startling agility. With a quick flick of her wrist, several needles shot from a mechanism hidden in her sleeve, aiming straight for Pakura's face.
Pakura immediately released her grip and dodged, the needles missing her by millimeters and embedding themselves in the wall behind her.
The sudden attack let Kabuto escape her clutches, scrambling away on hands and knees. Who's this crazy woman?
It was only then that the people around realized this seemingly frail patient was completely unharmed. Her disguise had been flawless.
"What the— She's not injured at all! A spy?" an injured ninja exclaimed, while a medical ninja added in disbelief, "How did she fool our examinations?"
Meanwhile, standing outside the temporary hospital, Orochimaru's expression darkened.
It wasn't concern for the hospital's safety that bothered him; rather, he was irked by how intruders repeatedly bypassed his perception, right near his frontline command post. It made him feel like a laughingstock as a commander.
Upon closer inspection, he recognized the disguised individual.
Pakura and now this woman... Kabuto, huh? What do they want from you?
Being a master of disguise himself, Orochimaru instantly saw through her identity. It was none other than Nonō. He hadn't expected her to flee from Iwa to this place.
Her infiltration had been so effective because she hadn't relied on ninjutsu but purely on makeup and disguise.
The ninja guarding the hospital were vigilant against techniques like transformation or shadow clones, sensitive to anything bearing chakra traces, but pure craftsmanship often slipped under their radar.
Nonō's ninja skills weren't exceptional, but her mastery of disguise and infiltration was unparalleled.
This time, Orochimaru's subordinates truly had no excuses for their failure. A young chunin approached him nervously, "Orochimaru-sama, should we pursue?"
"No... Let's see how this plays out."
Nonō rescued Kabuto and, without hesitation, shattered another window to escape.
Initially, Kabuto struggled frantically in the arms of this unfamiliar woman, his small fists beating against her shoulders. Who is this? Another enemy?
"Let me go!"
"Kabuto, it's me."
With just one sentence, Kabuto instantly fell silent. In that moment, all his grievances and persistence seemed to find meaning.
He clung tightly to Nonō, burying his face in her chest, as though too embarrassed to let her see his tears. Yet, he couldn't suppress his sobs.
Over the past months, he had endured intense psychological pressure from Root training while pretending to be strong for the sake of the orphanage, striving to keep the institution Nonō left behind afloat.
All the burdens had fallen onto his shoulders after her departure. But in truth, Kabuto was just a seven-year-old child, trying desperately to be the adult everyone needed him to be.
As they fled, Nonō gently patted his back, comforting him. Her heart ached at the trembling of his small body.
"It's okay. I'm back. I've come to take you home, Kabuto." She pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his head as she leaped through the trees.
---
Back at the hospital, Pakura had failed to intercept Nonō in time.
Now, she was face-to-face with an enemy she had to approach with utmost caution—Orochimaru.
Gripping her kunai tightly, she summoned all the fireballs to form a protective barrier in front, treating the Snake Sannin as a dire threat.
"Orochimaru, I have no intention of fighting Konoha today. Let me pass, and I'll leave immediately."
"What secret does that child hold? I believe I heard you mention Sasori?"
The name Sasori had come up in intelligence reports at the start of the war. But despite the long conflict, Orochimaru had yet to encounter this individual.
Hearing the name again piqued his curiosity. His nature was such that when faced with something intriguing, considerations like life, morality, or responsibility could be set aside.
Someone like Minato would've done anything to detain Pakua at that moment, but Orochimaru remained indifferent to the injured Konoha ninjas scattered around.
Pakura replied sternly, "That child knows a secret that could end this war!"
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "You'd better be telling the truth. Otherwise..."
The next moment, he actually stepped aside. Pakura's instincts screamed at her to be cautious.
She moved forward, intending to bypass him and give chase. But instinct screamed a warning, stopping her in her tracks. She leaped back, boots scraping against the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!" The ground cracked beneath Orochimaru's feet as he slammed his palm down.
He summoned a massive purple snake, Manda. The snake lifted Orochimaru, who then directed it to pursue Nonō in the distance.
Pakura's expression darkened. She realized that Orochimaru's earlier retreat wasn't to give her passage but simply to make space for his summoned beast.
As an elite jonin, she felt utterly disregarded.
Am I not even worth your attention, Orochimaru? Pakura gritted her teeth in frustration.
Before other Konoha ninjas could surround her, she used the Body Flicker to retreat as well, pursuing Nonō and Orochimaru from a distance.
---
Nonō summoned a large bird to carry them away, wasting no time.
Having cried and calmed down, Kabuto finally spoke, "Mo—where are we going?"
His hesitation while addressing her didn't escape Nonō's notice. Even after everything, he still feels unsure. My poor boy.
She gently stroked his head and said, "You can call me Mom."
In that moment, Kabuto, who would later be known as a master manipulator of life and death, cried again. The wind dried them as quickly as they fell, but the warmth in his chest remained.
He had finally realized a lifelong dream.
"We're going to the Land of Rain. There, we might have a chance at survival."
---
Deep in the western mountains and forests of the Land of Fire, Sasori had just finished crafting his new puppet. He set out, gazing toward the Land of Rain.
"Maybe I could go there?" he muttered to himself, somewhat uncertain. His fingers traced the puppet's wooden surface, feeling every imperfection that only he could detect.
At this time, Sasori had not yet fully turned himself into a puppet. His brain still occasionally overflowed with turbulent thoughts and emotions, troubling him deeply.
Again, I'm reminded of the past... pointless memories. It seems I need to accelerate the process of fully converting myself into a puppet.
Sasori was undoubtedly a genius but also a madman with a strong tendency toward self-destruction.
More than a year ago, an incident changed everything.
That day, the two puppets he had crafted in his parents' likeness were destroyed, unleashing years of suppressed emotions that nearly overwhelmed him. Mother... Father... even as puppets, I couldn't preserve you.
As he struggled with this loss, fate twisted the knife. Outside his window, he overheard two ninjas discussing the Third Kazekage.
"The Third is truly the strongest Kazekage we've ever had," one said. "His Iron Sand is unmatched."
"Strong, yes," the other replied with a sneer. "But what good is strength unused? He chose peace with Konoha during the last war. All that power, and he bowed his head like a common merchant."
Those casual remarks, spoken without much thought, pushed Sasori, already teetering on the brink of mental collapse, into madness. Peace? PEACE? When my parents died in their war?
Perhaps those two ninjas never realized that their idle gossip would indirectly cause the death of the strongest Kazekage in their village's history—a fleeting highlight of their lives, if they had known.
That night, driven entirely by self-destructive impulse, Sasori attacked the Kazekage. Fate seemed to both favor and abandon him—his talent didn't fail him at the critical moment. The so-called strongest Kazekage in history fell to his ambush.
Following the Kazekage's death, Sasori found himself hating his own talent for the first time in his life. As Nietzsche wrote: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."
Indeed, in his quest to destroy another, Sasori had only succeeded in destroying more of himself.
Following this, Sasori fled the village, wandering aimlessly along the borders. His defection had been a moment of emotional collapse, projecting the blame for his parents' deaths onto the Kazekage who had lost the war.
Yet deep in his heart, he still felt an attachment to the village. In the original story, when capturing Shukaku, he would choose to stay outside the village gates, letting Deidara handle the task of capturing Gaara alone.
Later, during his battle with Chiyo and Sakura, his frequent hesitation showed his feelings for Suna.
That moment of impulse had left him homeless, and Sasori experienced moments of regret, though he blamed it on the emotional responses of his brain.
After the Third Shinobi World War erupted, he roamed near the battlefields. Despite knowing the danger, he found himself drawn to the chaos. He even deliberately used his proudest creation—the puppet made from the Third Kazekage's corpse—to kill Konoha ninjas.
Yet his talent never let him down. He was too strong. So strong that no Konoha ninja who had seen him lived to report his existence. Each kill only deepened the void within him.
Even a year later, Konoha's frontlines remained oblivious to his presence.
On this day, after setting out, he soon encountered a team of Konoha ninjas patrolling the battlefield.
"Movement ahead! Formation B!" the patrol leader called out.
A younger squad member's eyes widened. "But that's..."
Without hesitation, Sasori unleashed the puppet of the Third Kazekage.
The ninja tried to scatter, but the black particles followed them relentlessly, piercing through trees and flesh alike.
"The Third Kazekage? Impossible..." a dying ninja gasped, blood trickling from his mouth.
"Witness true art, you pathetic leaves," Sasori whispered. The massacre was over in mere moments, leaving only silence and crimson-stained earth.
Afterward, however, he felt no joy. Instead, he kicked the puppet harshly.
"You let yourself be forced to your knees to beg for peace against such weaklings in life? You're failure! And you call yourself the strongest Kazekage in history?"
"Useless! Why weren't you the one who died in the war?"
After venting his anger, Sasori clutched his face and laughed maniacally. When he was utterly exhausted, a deep emptiness filled him once more.
"I really need to speed up this full puppetization process. These useless emotions are getting more frequent lately..."
"The human brain is such a burden." His fingers traced the wooden parts of his body, already imagining the day when no flesh would remain. Soon... soon I'll be free of all this weakness.
Sasori believed that completing his transformation into a puppet would rid him of these useless feelings, allowing him to regain emotional stability. Each step through the forest brought him closer to his self-imposed destiny, leaves crunching beneath feet that were already half-wooden.
Quickening his pace toward the Land of Rain, he continued to mock the puppet by his side, even though it had long lost its consciousness.
"A small country like the Land of Rain dares to declare war on Konoha, yet you, the so-called strongest Kazekage, could only submit, wagging your tail and begging for peace."
At this time, Sasori was far less emotionally stable than his portrayal in the original series. He knew he was sick, but the only cure he could imagine was abandoning his current brain and body.
These remaining organs... they're holding me back. Only by abandoning this flesh can I find peace.
Perhaps this is why he later fit in so well among the lunatics and psychopaths of Akatsuki, becoming one of the madmen.
And just as in the original story, he actively decided to seek out Akatsuki at an important moment in its formation. However, due to the butterfly effect caused by Shin, Sasori had set out even earlier than expected.
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