Published at 18th of September 2024 12:39 pm

Chapter 126 Shadows of the Sand: 4 Cracks in the Shell

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

The extraction of the Six-Tails took place in the eerie silence of the Akatsuki hideout. Pain stood at the center, his hands raised in concentration as the demonic statue began to siphon the beast’s chakra from Utakata’s limp body. The other members of the Akatsuki watched impassively, accustomed to the process.

For Sasori, the extraction was just another step in a chain of events, another mission in the grand design that the Akatsuki were following. He had long since stopped caring about the politics of the world or the outcome of the organization's goals. His only interest was in perfecting his art—making something that would last forever.

But as the glow of the ritual flickered across the cave, casting shadows that danced like phantoms, Sasori’s mind wandered back to his own doubts. The fleeting thought of impermanence, of mortality, still lingered at the edges of his consciousness.

He had long believed that turning his body into a puppet was the ultimate step toward immortality. No more pain, no more weakness, no more death. But why, then, did he feel this hollow, gnawing emptiness inside?

Across the cave, Deidara shifted restlessly, clearly bored with the process. The extraction of tailed beasts always took time, and Deidara was never one for patience.

“Boring as usual, un,” Deidara muttered under his breath, his gaze flicking toward Sasori. “Hey, old man, what do you think? This is just a means to an end, right?”

Sasori’s mechanical voice was cold as ever. “It’s necessary.”

Deidara chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Necessary, sure. But there’s no art in it, is there? Just a bunch of chakra being pulled out of some poor fool. Where’s the beauty, un?”

Sasori didn’t answer. Deidara’s obsession with explosions—his fleeting vision of art—was something Sasori had always found shallow. But now, as he stood there watching the Six-Tails being drained from Utakata’s body, he found himself wondering if Deidara wasn’t entirely wrong. What was art, if not an expression of life? And what was life, if not fleeting?

The ritual dragged on, and Sasori withdrew into his own thoughts once more. His mind flickered back to Sunagakure, to the faces of the people he had once known. His grandmother, Chiyo, had always warned him about losing his humanity. But what good was humanity when it led only to suffering and death?

Yet, despite everything, there was still a part of him that remembered what it had felt like to be alive. Before he had become a puppet, before he had embraced the cold, unfeeling nature of his own creation, there had been a time when Sasori had been just a boy, a boy who had wanted nothing more than to bring his parents back.

He thought about the first time he had turned his parents into puppets. He had believed, back then, that it would bring them back to him—that he could control them, keep them by his side forever. But all it had done was create lifeless shells, hollow and empty, just like the way he felt now.

_______________________________________________________________

The extraction finally ended with a low, ominous hum. The Six-Tails was gone, sealed into the demonic statue, and Utakata’s lifeless body collapsed to the floor, spent and drained of all its power.

Pain turned to the rest of the group, his Rinnegan eyes scanning each member. “Another step closer to our goal. The time is approaching when the world will be remade.”

The other Akatsuki members nodded in agreement, though their minds were filled with their own personal agendas. Sasori, however, said nothing. The words washed over him, meaningless in the grand scheme of his own existence.

As the meeting adjourned and the members began to disperse, Sasori lingered in the shadows. His fingers twitched slightly, an involuntary motion as he thought of the puppets he had created over the years. Each one had been a masterpiece, a perfect representation of the human form, yet each one had been hollow, devoid of the essence that made them truly alive.

_______________________________________________________________

Later, Sasori retreated to his personal chambers. The walls were lined with his puppets, each one a work of art in its own right. But tonight, they felt more like a mockery than a triumph. The faces of his creations, frozen in time, seemed to stare back at him with lifeless eyes, reminding him of the emptiness that had plagued him for so long.

He sat down at his workbench, his hands automatically reaching for a puppet he had been working on for months. It was a new design—more intricate than anything he had ever created before. But as his fingers traced the delicate lines of the wooden frame, a wave of frustration washed over him.

What was the point? No matter how perfect the puppet, no matter how flawless the craftsmanship, it was still just a shell. It would never truly be alive.

Sasori’s grip tightened, and without warning, he slammed the puppet down on the workbench, splintering the wood beneath it. His breath came in short, mechanical gasps, the gears and joints of his puppet body clicking and whirring in response to his agitation.

For the first time in years, Sasori felt something close to rage. Rage at the futility of it all. Rage at the idea that, no matter how hard he tried, he could never create something that truly lived.

In the silence of his workshop, Sasori’s eyes fell on a small, dusty scroll that had been tucked away in a corner for years. He hadn’t touched it in ages, hadn’t even thought about it. But now, for some reason, it called to him.

The scroll contained the blueprints for his most personal creation—his own parents. The puppets he had crafted out of their corpses so many years ago, in a desperate attempt to bring them back to life.

Slowly, almost reverently, Sasori reached for the scroll and unrolled it. The designs were just as he remembered them, each line and detail painstakingly crafted to replicate his parents as they had been in life.

He had believed, back then, that turning them into puppets would make them eternal. But all it had done was strip them of their humanity, just as he had stripped himself of his own.

For the first time in years, Sasori allowed himself to feel something—regret. Regret for what he had done, for what he had become.

But even as the emotion washed over him, Sasori knew that it was too late. He had chosen this path long ago, and there was no turning back now. The only thing left was to continue forward, to perfect his art in whatever way he could.

Because that was the only thing he had left.

_______________________________________________________________

The next morning, Sasori rejoined the Akatsuki, his face as expressionless as ever. Deidara greeted him with his usual cocky grin, but Sasori barely registered the interaction.

“We’ve got our next target, un,” Deidara said, pulling out a map. “Another jinchūriki. Should be a good fight!”

Sasori glanced at the map, but his mind was elsewhere. His thoughts were still on the scroll, on the puppets of his parents that he had hidden away so long ago. Perhaps it was time to revisit them, to see if there was something he had missed—some way to truly bring them back.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, Sasori pushed it aside. There was no point in dwelling on the past. The only thing that mattered was the mission ahead.

With a silent nod, Sasori followed Deidara out of the hideout, his mind once again consumed by the pursuit of his art. But deep down, in the part of him that still remembered what it was like to be human, the cracks in his perfect shell were beginning to show.

Share