Strapped across its back were several gigantic shuriken and massive blades, each one as oversized as a door.
Boom!
The giant puppet lifted one heavy foot and slamd it down onto the ground. The entire crater shook violently with the impact.
Sasori's arrogant voice echoed from within the giant body.
"Old woman, this is the ultimate weapon I created through years of work. A giant human puppet powerful enough to rival a Tailed Beast! The materials used in it are no worse than those in your Chikamatsu Ten. Your puppet jutsu beca obsolete a long ti ago!"
"I always wanted to challenge Monzaemon himself. Looking at it now, I've already surpassed him!"
At that point, both Chiyo and Sakura had begun to feel real despair.
Their bodies were already growing numb from the poison.
At this rate, they would be corpses in a matter of minutes.
And then, at the last possible second, Akira slowly rose to his feet, dusted the dirt off himself, and said in a calm voice, "I thought you were just going to bow out quietly. Didn't expect you to still have a final dish like this hidden away."
Originally, Akira had assud the battle would follow the sa script as before, that Sasori would hold back and die by his own choice.
Instead, the butterfly effect had clearly changed things. Sasori had brought out a final weapon no one had seen before.
And the pressure coming off that thing was no joke.
So he really was holding back the whole ti. If he'd brought this out sooner, Sakura and Chiyo would already be dead.
Akira drew that conclusion imdiately. Sasori had absolutely been pulling his punches earlier, and by a wide margin.
Which ant Akira, the so-called support, could only stop pretending and step in as the main force.
Whoosh!
In an instant, Akira appeared beside Sakura like a ghost and casually shoved a black pill into her hand.
Then he flashed to Chiyo's side and moved to offer her another one.
But Chiyo shook her head and gently pushed his hand away.
"No need. This old woman has lived long enough. I only ask one thing of you, Akira. Promise you'll bring our Kazekage's body back to Sunagakure intact."
Akira paused for a mont, then did not insist. He withdrew the pill and nodded calmly.
"Don't worry. I'll bring him back."
The antidote pill Akira had given Sakura was a top-grade one he had spent an entire night refining. Its effect was overbearing. Once taken, it granted immunity to poison for three full days.
That was exactly why he had looked down on Sakura's antidote earlier. Hers only lasted five minutes.
The two weren't even working on the sa level.
The mont Sakura swallowed the pill, she felt a clear current race through her body. The toxins inside her were purified in the blink of an eye.
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
"This... this pill is incredible. It worked instantly?"
Standing in front of her, Akira answered without looking back, "After taking that, none of Sasori's poisons will affect you for the next three days."
Sakura froze completely.
"Th-three days?!"
She was shocked, and a little ashad too.
She had exhausted herself putting together antidotes that only lasted five minutes, forcing her to fight on a tir, and Akira had just tossed her a single pill that lasted three whole days.
"No wonder you didn't want my antidote before. So you had dicine like this all along."
"Tsunade-hi always says your dical jutsu might already be beyond hers. I'm starting to believe it."
Then she looked up at the giant puppet looming closer and swallowed hard.
"But Akira... what do we do about that? It looks vicious. When he says that thing can suppress a Tailed Beast... is that actually true?"
Akira lifted his head and examined the giant puppet as it kept advancing, his brows drawing together slightly.
"Maybe it is. With Sasori's personality, I doubt he'd bother making that kind of claim if it weren't true."
The mont he said that, Sakura's heart dropped.
"Then we're in serious trouble, aren't we?"
"If it can suppress even a Tailed Beast, then this is way beyond anything we can handle!"
Chiyo said nothing.
She only watched Akira quietly.
She had a feeling, no, more than that, an instinct, that this young man had a way through this.
Or rather, from the beginning, he had never truly looked rattled at all.
Seeing the panic in Sakura's face, Akira smiled.
"It's not like there's no answer. I just need to figure out what special tricks that big lump is hiding first."
"I don't buy for a second that sothing built with this much effort is only ant to trade punches."
Sasori drove the giant puppet forward, each heavy step bringing it closer to the three of them.
Every footfall made the ground lurch like a small earthquake.
Under its crushing weight, solid rock shattered like tofu and crumbled into powder.
Just looking at its mass and strength was enough to make breathing feel harder.
Sakura kept healing her wounds while staring tensely at the giant monstrosity ahead.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The approaching footsteps grew louder and heavier, like a countdown from death itself.
Then, once it ca within a few dozen ters of Akira, the human puppet suddenly opened its mouth and let out a deafening roar.
"ROOOAR—!"
Inside that gaping maw there were no teeth.
Instead, row after row of gleaming blades lined the interior like the jaws of a grinder.
If anyone were swallowed by that mouth, they would be shredded into pulp in an instant.
For the first ti, Sakura felt a pressure so great it made her legs start to weaken beneath her.
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