When the Eight Gates opened to the Sixth Gate, Hyuga Satoru's physical abilities surged past their natural limits, fueled by the violent chakra torrent raging through his body.
Against top-tier opponents like Kakuzu and Sasori, the Hyuga's signature Gentle Fist alone did very little.
Kakuzu, having mastered Earth Grudge Fear, had long since had his muscles and meridians transformed into special black, thread-like tubes. Those cords effectively replaced his original circulatory system and bore the burden of chakra flow. Ordinary Gentle Fist strikes did almost nothing to him.
Sasori's modifications were even more extreme. His true body was hidden within the shell of Hiruko, but even that "true body" had been remade into a living weapon—torso and limbs all converted into human puppets. Aside from retaining a single heart, Sasori's body no longer resembled that of a human being at all.
The Hyuga's Gentle Fist was similarly ineffective against a ninja like him.
This was the awkward side of the Hyuga's taijutsu inheritance: against ordinary shinobi, Gentle Fist combined with the Byakugan's insight formed a perfect killing style that could utterly crush an opponent. But against certain powerful, abnormal enemies, Gentle Fist alone could fall short.
Kakuzu and Sasori both fell squarely into that exception.
Fortunately, Satoru didn't rely solely on Gentle Fist and Flying Thunder God.
From the moment he'd been reborn into this world, he had understood what kind of monsters he might eventually face. If he wanted to live comfortably as a shinobi, he needed as many high-level techniques as possible to handle different threats.
Kakuzu and Sasori were strange and strong—but their weaknesses were just as obvious.
Their taijutsu had never broken through the "elite jonin" ceiling. Taken individually, neither their raw strength nor their speed were truly exceptional.
Kakuzu's hand-to-hand skills at best could match someone like Hatake Kakashi fifty-fifty. And though Sasori's "body" was fully mechanized, that very mechanization imposed a hard cap.
A puppet body's speed and strength could never exceed the limits of its materials. Push past that, and the frame simply collapsed.
In that sense, Sasori was similar to the Hyuga style: a high floor, but also a fixed ceiling.
Satoru, however, was different. Under the Sixth Gate's boost, both his strength and speed leapt far beyond normal limits.
The instant he opened the Sixth Gate, he stepped onto an entirely different tier compared to Kakuzu and Sasori.
"Shuu—!"
A sharp tearing sound ripped through the air—not from a thrown kunai, but from Satoru's body itself, violently shearing the air around him.
Within a distance of less than a hundred meters, Satoru's movement now felt faster than Flying Thunder God to the enemy's senses.
In a flash of green chakra, he ripped free of the three Earth Grudge Fear creatures' encirclement. The jutsu forming in their mouths hadn't even finished when their target vanished.
"What the hell is this guy…?"
Kakuzu's mind went blank for a moment.
By the time he snapped back to awareness, Satoru—who had disappeared from their ring—had already reappeared a short distance behind Sasori.
Satoru flickered forward. His Byakugan locked directly onto Sasori's real heart hidden inside Hiruko. He clenched his right fist and drove out a brutal punch.
Gentle Fist couldn't shut down the puppet's tenketsu, but that didn't mean the Byakugan was useless against this kind of opponent.
Satoru had Sasori's dossier in his head already. Even without prior intelligence, though, the Byakugan's penetrating sight could see through Hiruko's shell and trace the chakra threads leading out from his core. With a bit of thought, anyone could infer that the cylindrical mass at their center—the heart—was his true weak point.
Satoru had no confidence he could kill Kakuzu with one blow.
But Sasori…? He was certain he could.
His fist slammed into Hiruko's back.
Sasori, whose senses were razor sharp, felt Satoru appear behind him. Hiruko's iron tail lashed out, trading injury for injury in the same instant.
In that heartbeat, Sasori chose what he believed to be the optimal answer.
He didn't try to flee—he had seen Satoru's speed and knew he couldn't outpace it. Cautious as he was, he still believed he had countermeasures.
No matter how powerful the secret art, flesh was still flesh.
And his puppet body was superior.
If he could pierce Satoru's body with that heavily poisoned iron tail at the same moment he took a hit, it would be a mutual kill at worst—in his mind, a winning trade.
That was the cost of incomplete intel: Sasori still had no idea Satoru had already seen through to his true body.
"Rotation!"
Just as the iron tail was about to strike, a nearly transparent sphere of chakra erupted around Satoru.
He spun midair, chakra blasting from every tenketsu. In an instant it formed a whirling barrier that smashed the incoming tail aside.
"Boom!!!"
The next moment, Satoru adjusted his posture and dropped down, his fist drilling straight into Hiruko's spine. The terrifying force pierced the puppet shell and crashed toward the heart hidden within.
"—!"
The abrupt shift wiped the composure from Sasori's face.
Satoru's target was obvious.
Not a puppet. Him.
Sasori wasn't sentimental. In that instant, he abandoned Hiruko without hesitation—along with his carefully modified "Sasori-style" human puppet.
The cylindrical heart popped free from his body and shot outward. Chakra threads snapped taut, reconnecting almost immediately as they latched onto the two scrolls on his back. Dragged by those cords, the scrolls were pulled away from Satoru at the same time.
"Boom!!!"
In his Sixth Gate state, Satoru's punch carried monstrous power. One strike shattered both Hiruko and the human puppet. The shockwave ripped the ground apart, sending dirt and splinters hurtling through the air.
A storm of dust swallowed the battlefield, blotting out vision.
Shards of stone and puppet fragments ripped through the sky like shrapnel. Just as the exposed heart was about to be struck by debris, a mass of iron sand surged together, forming a protective shield.
At that same moment, the Third Kazekage puppet appeared at the heart's side. The heart dove into its core, and a beat later the puppet's once-empty eyes flickered, showing panic and surprise.
Sasori's heart had been seamlessly transplanted into the Third Kazekage puppet, letting it retain its bloodline limit while gaining Sasori's own will and cunning.
"Slap!"
The twin scrolls flew into the puppet's hands. Sasori glanced to the side and snapped one of them open.
Countless red silhouettes shot out from the unfurled scroll. Within moments, the forest canopy was filled with puppet figures.
Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets!
As the dust slowly settled, Satoru rose from the bottom of a newly gouged crater. Around him lay the shattered remains of Hiruko and the human puppet, reduced almost to scrap.
He stepped up out of the pit and swept his gaze across the surroundings. Seeing the sea of puppets hemming him in on all sides, his expression finally grew a shade heavier.
The Sasori-possessed Third Kazekage puppet stood at the edge of the puppet wall, watching Satoru's every move with intense wariness.
This opponent was far stronger than he had anticipated—even Sasori was on full alert.
Even after unleashing Performance of a Hundred Puppets and hiding behind a tide of puppets, he still didn't feel secure.
"…So that's the second scroll…"
"Seems I underestimated him."
"After all, he's on par with a Kage-level powerhouse. He might not match my speed, but his battlefield instincts and reflexes are first-rate."
"In other words… a quick kill is off the table."
Satoru's eye twitched slightly as he took in the dense puppet formation. Even he could feel the weight of the pressure bearing down.
He had underestimated Kakuzu and Sasori. Even after opening the Sixth Gate, he hadn't managed to finish Sasori in a single wave.
Thinking about it, it wasn't surprising.
These two might not be at the very peak of the shinobi world, but they were undeniably monsters among elites. Even a young Killer B could still react under the pressure of Flying Thunder God; for peak-form Sasori and Kakuzu to survive assassination attempts in Satoru's Sixth Gate state was perfectly reasonable.
Given their abilities and jutsu, surviving one killing strike wasn't beyond them.
So far, the clash had lasted only a few minutes. In that short span, Kakuzu had already lost one heart, while Sasori had lost two top-tier puppets and been forced to play his trump cards.
That alone was proof of Satoru's ferocity.
But it still wasn't enough for him.
He didn't just want them to reveal their full hands.
He wanted them buried here.
"I don't know who you are," Sasori said coldly, "and I no longer care to find out."
"Your corpse will be compensation for my losses."
His gaze grew darker. At his will, the puppets surrounding Satoru all unfolded their weapons.
These puppets had once been strong shinobi—people Sasori had killed over the years. In death, their bodies had been refined into part of his arsenal.
After losing both Hiruko and his own puppet body, Sasori was seething with fury—but Satoru's strength only made him hungrier.
If he could turn someone like this into a puppet, the result would more than make up for everything he had lost.
Another predator shared his thoughts.
Kakuzu—now short one heart—stood beside Sasori, his three remaining Earth Grudge Fear entities hidden within the puppet army.
"Don't think you can hog him for yourself," Kakuzu growled.
"His heart is mine. Don't you dare steal it."
Kakuzu and Sasori stood shoulder to shoulder, hungrily eyeing Satoru.
This enemy's heart was lightning-natured—a relatively rare attribute among basic elemental types.
Although the heart Kakuzu had just lost had been water-natured, he didn't mind swapping. Judging from the power of the Lightning Release kunai earlier, this heart would be worth the trade.
"If you want the heart, you'd better earn it," Sasori replied. "And don't damage the body too much, or I won't forgive you."
With that warning, he sent his army forward.
In an instant, the vanguard of puppets surged toward Satoru.
Nearly ten puppets struck first. Some held long blades, others short swords or kunai. Their weapons varied, but every blade gleamed with a faint purple sheen.
No need to guess—each one was coated in deadly poison.
Satoru raised a hand and blasted one puppet apart with an Air Palm. As he stepped forward, his Byakugan picked up two more puppets approaching from behind—where a normal person's blind spot would be.
Without so much as a glance, he flicked two lightning kunai backward while he advanced. The blades punched through both puppets' heads and snapped the chakra threads controlling them.
At the same time, Satoru pressed toward Kakuzu and Sasori, weaving through the puppet horde. Sometimes he side-stepped, sometimes he struck—each movement either shattering a puppet or slipping through a gap as he continued to move forward.
Watching this, both Sasori and Kakuzu felt their hearts tighten.
From Satoru's movements, they finally began to suspect something.
"That guy… he can see attacks coming from his blind spot?!" Kakuzu snarled.
"Those eyes…"
"Could it be… the Hyuga's Byakugan?!"
Satoru's eyes were abnormal, but when he activated the Byakugan, the bulging veins at his temples still appeared. Combined with his performance in battle, Kakuzu's guess came naturally.
"Byakugan?"
"No wonder…"
Hearing Kakuzu's mutter, Sasori's gaze sharpened in sudden understanding.
No wonder this opponent could lock onto his vital heart so easily.
Now that he knew, his killing intent only grew.
A Hyuga of Konoha.
He hadn't yet added a Hyuga shinobi to his collection.
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