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"I don't know either."
Contrary to Karura's imagination, after hearing this question, Sawara Kiri merely fell silent for a moment before smiling and giving that answer.
Hearing this, Karura couldn't help but be startled, looking at the man in front of her.
Sawara Kiri, however, spoke calmly, as if this question that could determine the world's direction was nothing significant, and slowly said:
"After long division, there must be unity; after long unity, there must be division."
"Even if the entire Ninja World is unified, do the problems within the Ninja World cease to exist?"
"The poor want to eat their fill, Ninja want to earn money, while nobles and wealthy individuals, with insatiable desires, try every means to exploit the value of every person. Even if the entire Ninja World is unified, I don't think I can solve this problem that stems from human nature."
"At most, I can only ensure that while I exist, they won't dare to be too boisterous, and that's all."
A ripple finally appeared on Karura's calm face; it seemed difficult for her to maintain that frosty indifference, and she couldn't stop gnashing her teeth, her eyes even distorting.
"You clearly know!"
"Then why on earth would you—"
Why kill so many people and unify the entire Ninja World?
She had lost so much in the war.
Family, loved ones, teachers, friends, comrades...
When she asked the question, 'What will the future be like?', she wanted to both mock this person who had destroyed everything she possessed and also obtain, before her death, even a tiny, insignificant glimmer of hope, like a dream bubble—she hoped that after their demise, the future Sunagakure would fare well.
However, Sawara Kiri's answer was overly honest, shattering all her fragile imaginings.
"There's no why."
Looking at her gradually distorting expression, Sawara Kiri's answer became even calmer: "Although these problems will still exist after unifying the Ninja World, at least I can allow the people within my sight to live peaceful and tranquil lives."
"As for the structural problems of production relations..."
"That can only be left for greater people to solve."
Karura took a deep breath, her emotions intense: "Leaving problems for future generations? Even someone like you harbors such naive fantasies?"
"Just them."
Sawara Kiri's smile was genuine and heartfelt.
He had personally witnessed the endeavors left behind by some ordinary people who were so noble they seemed to transcend the constraints of human nature.
Although many of their legacies were swallowed and crushed by the tides of history, they still left a direction for those who came after.
Presumably, in the future, countless even greater descendants will likewise pick up the baton of their mission and bear that heavy historical responsibility.
He admitted that he could never compare to those people.
The commotion he had once caused in the beer hall was more like a forced farce, but through some coincidences, he gradually gained sufficient power in this world.
Since that was the case, what harm was there in him following the direction pointed out by his predecessors and pushing others forward?
At least it was much better than a group of Ninja who had no ideals, no sense of mission, whose education didn't exceed correspondence elementary school, and who were driven solely by self-interest.
Sweeping this group of people into the dustbin of history in one fell swoop was his mission in this era.
"More words are useless."
Sawara Kiri raised his hand towards the woman opposite him and casually waved: "You should be ready, right?"
Karura's gaze sharpened, and the Longtail connected to the sand behind her stopped swaying.
"Come on."
Almost at the instant these words fell.
The Rasa puppet, which had always floated in mid-air like an object beside Karura, suddenly raised its hands.
With a roar, black iron sand, like a surging tide, continuously rose from underground, spreading out in all directions with Karura at its center, forming a circle with a diameter exceeding five hundred meters.
Violent winds surged, sweeping up the radioactive dust still floating in the air.
The Ash-black mist, laden with iron sand and radioactive dust, roared fiercely, sweeping across Sawara Kiri's body with the wind, only to be entirely intercepted by the spatial barrier formed by the Limitless, transforming into a thin layer of gray gauze in front of him.
At the same time, the ground beneath their feet also began to tremble and shake rapidly.
The sand dust blown by the hurricane continuously fell away, and a colossal machine, larger than a Tailed Beast, awakened from its slumber, slowly rising like a giant accidentally buried by the desert, standing on the earth and obscuring the sky.
Sawara Kiri looked up at the Fourth Kazekage's trump card.
It was a super-large puppet, over fifty meters tall, with a spherical body supported by two slender mechanical legs, various gear structures exposed, eight large cannon ports on either side of its torso, six mechanical long arms extending from its rear, and three crystalline giant eyes vertically arranged in its central section.
Along the rows of pipes, clear Chakra flow could be seen continuously surging through various parts, and the rotating large gears laboriously drove this massive body, occasionally emitting clear, sharp, and ear-piercing metallic grinding sounds.
Just standing there, it exuded an unparalleled sense of oppression.
However, Sawara Kiri merely scanned it curiously for a few moments, finally looking up at Karura, who stood atop this puppet, and asked:
"You should know that this kind of thing is useless against me, right?"
Karura merely gave him a cold glance, offering no reply.
The next moment.
"Buzz—"
A faint vibration sound rose from within this body.
Invisible ripples quickly interfered with the surrounding spatial ripples, forming a large chaotic field.
Only then did Sawara Kiri understand.
So the purpose of this puppet wasn't combat, but a portable large-scale spatial sealing field?
However, his expression remained unchanged; he merely stood there quietly, as if watching children play.
Karura's eyes narrowed slightly, and her fingertip suddenly lifted.
"Whoosh!"
With a piercing whoosh, the Rasa puppet, which had been floating beside her, suddenly transformed into an incredibly fast arrow, abruptly shooting towards Sawara Kiri.
Iron sand swirled around its body, and electromagnetic currents could vaguely be seen surging.
Immediately following, the iron walls that stood like ramparts around them also surged wildly at the same instant, all pressing towards Sawara Kiri.
"Maglev?"
His tone slightly rose: "No, it's more like an electromagnetic cannon."
The surface of the Rasa puppet's arm had already condensed into a spear-like black spike, and its entire body flew at supersonic speed, with Mach rings even blooming a short distance behind it.
Under the combination of this speed and inertia, this projectile, weighing over two hundred kilograms, suddenly displayed terrifying destructive power unimaginable to ordinary people.
However, Sawara Kiri still watched him with interest.
"Boom!!!"
A dull explosion instantly erupted.
However, Karura, standing atop the giant puppet, suddenly widened her eyes.
Sawara Kiri had merely raised his hand calmly and steadily received that heavy, cannonball-like blow.
He hadn't even retreated a single step.
'Is this the physical strength a Ninja can achieve?!'
Before she could react, Sawara Kiri stepped forward, his long legs, driven by both Chakra and muscle, suddenly tore through the air, wrapped in a thick, white-mist-like resistance, and shot forward with a thunderous kick.
Black iron mist flew like a sea current, attempting to block his path.
Unfortunately, how could fragile steel compare to a body tempered a thousand times over?
"Bang—"
The countless iron sand giant walls blocking his path instantly swelled like bubbles, and their speed of consolidation couldn't keep up with the rapidly expanding surface tension, finally shattering into pieces with a violent explosion.
In a blink of an eye, his figure suddenly vanished from in front of Rasa.
Yet, a deafening roar came from the air.
Sawara Kiri, maintaining a crouched posture, seemed to tread on solid air, approaching Rasa to within ten centimeters, their eyes meeting.
"Too slow."
The next moment, the entire head of this puppet was enveloped by a five-fingered hand.
The heavy body, like a newborn infant, had no power to resist whatsoever, and was suddenly pressed down by his terrifying immense strength, smashing into the ground with a violent roar, splashing up sand and dust like a reverse waterfall.
Karura's expression changed several times in a second, never expecting that after completely losing her spatial abilities, Sawara Kiri could still display such terrifying taijutsu prowess. Her hands twitched as if cramping, wildly waving, constantly directing the iron sand she controlled past the Rasa puppet.
Sawara Kiri pressed the Rasa puppet's head into the ground with one hand, maintaining his crouched posture, tearing through the earth in a charging stance, and directly rushing towards the giant puppet, carving a deep gully on the ground behind him, accompanied by a piercing screech.
Along this short path of several hundred meters, the iron sand continuously surging towards this spot seemed to suddenly extend countless tentacles, rapidly stabbing towards his figure.
However, the iron sand, connected by consciousness, was completely unable to keep up with his speed.
In almost the blink of an eye, his figure had already approached within an arm's reach.
"Here you go!"
With this sound, Sawara Kiri, leaping into mid-air, suddenly swung his arm, the body held in his palm seemingly weightless, and with a whoosh, violently flung it towards Karura.
The Rasa puppet instantly displayed even greater speed than when it charged out, plunging headfirst into Karura's abdomen, carrying her body like a meteor into the soft sand behind her, and then exploding into concentric ripples of shockwaves.
Before she could get up, Sawara Kiri's speed increased yet again. His right hand transformed into a completely black color, and within his hand, a seemingly ordinary Kunai floated, enveloped by electromagnetic currents.
"Lightning Release: Super Electromagnetic Cannon!"
In an instant, the Kunai floating in the center of his palm, at Sawara Kiri's whim, began to spin rapidly, the surrounding electrical currents becoming increasingly violent, vaguely seeming to churn out linear and circular structures in front.
Until the moment its self-rotation speed reached its fastest, the surface of the black Kunai had already turned a scorching red, as if it could melt at any moment.
It shot out abruptly.
"Sizzle—"
The highly ionized air emitted a strong burning smell. The distance between Sawara Kiri and the impact point seemed to be abruptly connected by a crimson line, and layers of stacked Mach rings suddenly expanded, lingering for a long time, exploding into a sky-shattering roar in their ears.
A deafening rumble.
In an instant, dust swirled.
Sawara Kiri stood in the air, quietly gazing at the land.
The giant puppet's spatial seal was still active.
Clearly, the Kazekage was not yet dead.
"Splash..."
Amidst the swirling dust, a black reflection slowly rose from the deep crater.
Sawara Kiri's eyes finally showed a hint of surprise as he watched the figure walking out of the dust, step by step.
Karura's clothes were largely torn, but what was revealed was not a graceful body, but a puppet, most of which had been modified with special materials.
Under the high temperature just now, much of the artificial skin on the puppet's surface had been burned away, revealing some of the underlying mechanical structures and artificial organs exposed to the air.
"A Human Puppet, then?"
"You even modified yourself."
Sawara Kiri looked down at her indifferently, commenting as if looking at an object.
"How could someone like you understand..."
"The price we have to pay to achieve victory!"
Half of her scorched face presented a cold mechanical structure, while the other half, following her intense tone and voice, made highly realistic distorted reactions, appearing somewhat uncoordinated.
She held Rasa's puppet in her arms, struggling to straighten up.
Sawara Kiri, however, said nothing more, merely gazing at her in silence.
As a small figure who was selected by the Hidden Mist Anbu from a young age and struggled to survive in Konoha, how could he not understand?
In fact, the reason he was willing to speak so much to Karura was largely due to a sense of pity.
Whether for Karura, for Sasori, or for anyone else.
However, he also had things he absolutely had to accomplish.
"Any last words?"
Sawara Kiri asked.
Karura's body visibly paused, and half of her lips unconsciously mumbled, as if she wanted to say something, but it ultimately turned into a gritted, resentful sentence:
"I curse you, Sawara Kiri."
And then, she pressed her hand to her heart.
Unfortunately, the anticipated large explosion did not occur.
She looked up, somewhat bewildered, at the giant puppet, as if a little confused.
Sawara Kiri stood atop the giant puppet, calmly stating: "I've seen enough nuclear explosions; there's no need for another one."
Inside the puppet beneath his feet, the detonation structure connected to the central nuclear bomb had, at some unknown point, melted into a dark red liquid.
Karura's gaze froze.
Suddenly, Sawara Kiri's figure vanished.
When he reappeared, he was already behind her.
"Thud."
Her heavy head fell to the ground, and Karura's headless body slowly lay down in the center of the sand dune.
The mechanical hand seemed to move unconsciously, gripping Rasa's puppet tightly, two cold pieces of metal interlocking.
In her final moments of consciousness, Karura's eyes looked up at the dim sky.
Actually, in that last instant, she had wanted to beg Sawara Kiri to spare Pakura and her child.
But in the end, her pride as the Fourth Kazekage prevented her from speaking the words.
'Perhaps you were right, Pakura.'
'Run quickly.'
'And then...'
'I hope that after the war ends, you can live a peaceful life in a time of peace.'
'I'm sorry, Gaara.'
join p atreon.com/KeyofStars for advance chapters | Every 100 powerstones=1 extra chapter | Report issues @discord.com/GVBdncd9Wr | 16 novels being updated, I can't read all comments