The Land of Wind. Sunagakure.
The Third Kazekage led the weary remnants of his forces back into the village gates. The war in the Land of Rain had finally ended. After overseeing the arrangents for the land lease agreent—a solution so elegant it still felt foreign on his tongue—he made his way through the dusty streets alone.
His destination was a modest dwelling tucked into a quiet corner of the village.
It was unremarkable. An oval-shaped structure of hardened sand and clay, painted in the rust-red and amber hues that defined the Wind Country's architectural soul. No banners. No monunts. Just a ho, indistinguishable from a dozen others around it.
Nearly a year had passed since he had left for the front lines. When he had departed, this house had been draped in white funeral silk, the banners of mourning fluttering in the desert wind. Now, the silk was gone. But the grief, he knew, remained.
The Third Kazekage carried a heavy burden of guilt. A white-haired elder sending a black-haired youth to the grave—it was the cruelest tragedy the world could offer. Chiyo's son, Akisa, had fallen in battle. Not long after, his wife had succumbed to despair, her spirit crumbling under the weight of loss. A perfect family, shattered by the relentless gears of war.
As the Kazekage stepped into the courtyard, a small figure burst through the front door.
The child was three, perhaps four years old. His hair was a striking crimson, the sa shade as his father's. His eyes were bright and clear, his skin unnaturally pale, and his features were delicate—almost doll-like in their symtry. He was beautiful. Eerily so.
This is Akisa's son... Sasori.
The Kazekage rembered the boy as an infant who could barely crawl. Now he ran. The transformation was staggering. A bittersweet warmth flooded the Kazekage's chest. He would train this child. He would mold him into an exceptional shinobi. It was the least he could do for his fallen friend.
"Sasori," the Kazekage knelt, softening his voice into sothing he hoped was grandfatherly. "Do you rember ?"
Little Sasori stared.
His face, though cherubic, was utterly blank. No smile. No recognition. And beneath that porcelain exterior, swimming in the depths of those innocent eyes, was sothing dark. A profound, hidden lancholy that no child his age should ever possess.
"Lord Kazekage."
Chiyo erged from the doorway. The woman who had once terrorized battlefields, who had made even the legendary Hanzō the Salamander pause with her poisons, was a shadow of her forr self. Her back was stooped. Her hair had gone fully white. The loss of her son and daughter-in-law had carved decades into her face. She looked as though she had aged twenty years in a single one.
"Grandmother Chiyo," the Third Kazekage dipped his head in a small bow.
He was the Kazekage. By rank, he was her superior. But Chiyo was his elder, his ntor in many ways, and she had paid the ultimate price for this war. The respect he offered was genuine.
"Co in," Chiyo said, her voice flat. She took Sasori's hand and led the way back into the courtyard.
They spoke of the Land of Rain. Of the negotiations. Of the future.
Chiyo listened with the detachnt of a woman who had exhausted her capacity to care. She nodded at the Kazekage's proposals without enthusiasm. Her ambition, once a roaring fla, had been reduced to embers. Now, only one thing mattered: watching over Sasori as he grew. Nothing else.
But when the Kazekage explained the land-lease system, a flicker of life returned to Chiyo's tired eyes.
"This thod..." she murmured, "...was it truly that Rakshasa who devised it?"
Her impression of Ragnar was carved in blood. He was a demon on the battlefield. A butcher. An evil star whose hands dripped with the lives of countless Suna shinobi. And yet, this sa monster had crafted a solution that prioritized peace over conquest?
The irony was almost too bitter to swallow.
With soone like that in the world, what future is there for the other nations?
Chiyo did not voice the full thought, but her silence spoke volus. If fate ran its course, the seat of the Hokage would one day belong to Rakshasa. And on that day, the balance of power would tilt irrevocably.
The Third Kazekage, reluctant as he was to praise an enemy, exhaled heavily. "It is true. Rakshasa is young, but his vision and courage are beyond ordinary comprehension. In this respect, even I, the Kazekage, fall short. He is a terrifying individual."
"Still," Chiyo said, "using this thod to end the war in the Land of Rain... it is a great rit."
The war was over. The sons of Suna would no longer march to foreign soil to die aningless deaths.
Enough had been sacrificed. Enough blood had been spilled.
"Rakshasa..."
The small voice cut through the conversation like a blade.
Little Sasori had stopped playing with his puppet. He looked up at the two adults, his innocent eyes wide and searching.
"Was he the one who killed my parents?"
Chiyo's chest tightened. The air grew heavy.
The Third Kazekage's face crumbled into an expression of deep loneliness and self-reproach. He t the child's gaze and nodded.
"Yes."
"...Oh."
Sasori's response was nothing. A single syllable. He lowered his head and silently resud playing with his puppet, his tiny fingers tracing its wooden joints.
This child... Chiyo's eyes grew wet with a grief she refused to shed.
Neither adult saw what lurked beneath the surface.
In the hidden depths of Sasori's downcast eyes, a venomous resentnt blood. It coiled around his heart like a serpent, squeezing tight.
Rakshasa.
That na. That man. It was because of him that his parents were gone. It was because of him that his grandmother's smile had died. The na etched itself into Sasori's mind with the permanence of a funeral carving.
From this day forward, his sole purpose was clear: to kill that man.
But his hatred was not reserved for Rakshasa alone.
The Third Kazekage... if not for this man's orders, his parents would never have gone to the battlefield. They would never have crossed paths with the Demon. They would still be alive.
Sasori's resentnt toward the Kazekage burned just as fiercely. Perhaps more.
And even Chiyo... a small, shaful part of him hated her too. For not protecting them. For not stopping them. For surviving when they did not.
But Chiyo was the only family he had left. Before her, he would continue to play the role of the innocent, ignorant child. He would tinker with these harmless puppets—wooden toys with no claws, no poison, no killing power. He would wait. He would learn. And when the ti was right...
"Sasori," the Third Kazekage's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Co with . Let take you as my personal disciple. I will teach you to beco the finest shinobi in Sunagakure."
The words were soaked in guilt. The Kazekage genuinely loved this child. He wanted to raise him as his own.
Chiyo looked down at her grandson. "It is Sasori's choice," she said quietly. She would not force him.
Sasori raised his head. His voice was flat, emotionless.
"I will go."
Three words. Then he lowered his head again and returned to his puppet.
Why...
Chiyo sighed inwardly, a sound that never reached her lips. She understood her grandson far better than he knew. A mother knows her child's heart. A grandmother knows her grandson's soul.
The hatred brought by war was a poison without antidote. It had already swallowed Sasori whole. She could see it. But she could not purge it. The boy's heart had calcified into sothing dark and unyielding.
The Third Kazekage, in his guilt and hope, had no idea what kind of consequence his kindness would reap.
On that day, Sunagakure lost an innocent child.
And the world gained the Red Sand Scorpion.
The Land of Rain — En Route
After departing Madara's subterranean lair, Ragnar walked a steady path through a dense, rain-soaked forest. The trees here were ancient, their canopies thick enough to blot out the weeping sky. Water dripped from every leaf, every branch, a constant, rhythmic percussion.
He stopped.
POOF!
A plu of white smoke erupted in the center of the path ahead. When it cleared, a colossal form blocked the way.
It was a creature of contradictions—a body like a dolphin fused with a hippopotamus, covered in chiseled, armor-like plates. Five massive tails swayed behind it, each one crackling with latent power. Its eyes, glowing like twin lanterns, fixed directly on Ragnar.
The Five-Tails. Kokuō.
It stood in his path, silent and imnse, its breath misting in the cold forest air.
End of Chapter
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