Naruto: Reborn as Yagura Karatachi

Once Ōnoki removed the collar shackling his neck, Deidara finally showed what it meant to soar freely like a bird beneath the vast sky.

One small outpost in Konoha wasn't nearly enough.

He had plenty of explosive clay to go around.

Riding the wind into the Land of Fire, Deidara launched bombing raids the moment he spotted clusters of Konoha shinobi. Every time he discovered a gathering point, he unleashed a rain of explosions.

And he did so with unrelenting joy.

"Ha!"

"Art is an explosion—hm!"

Occasionally, Konoha had high-powered weapons capable of striking his clay bird mid-flight.

Thanks to intel from allied forces, they had started setting up anti-air countermeasures in advance.

One such bolt from a ballista pierced straight through Deidara's ride.

"Then I suppose I'll just gift this to you."

He molded a clay eagle, grabbed its talons, and flew even higher—ascending another level in altitude.

The damaged clay bird plummeted like a meteor into the Konoha camp.

Boom!

Deidara turned his head to admire the brilliant flames behind him, along with the delightful rumble that followed.

"Just as I thought—only that fleeting moment of beautiful destruction truly counts as art. Hm."

...

Iwagakure deployed an elite demolition squad to the Konoha border.

Deidara, as Ōnoki's student and part of the vanguard, was the first to breach and destroy a Konoha border outpost.

Konoha's northwestern front was now on high alert.

...

Hokage's Office

"I told you this would happen, Hiruzen."

Shimura Danzō chose the perfect time to show up and darken Sarutobi Hiruzen's day, standing across from him and critiquing his failed judgment.

"The threat from Kirigakure has been serious for a while now. We can't afford to keep turning a blind eye."

If only Hiruzen had listened to him years ago.

Back then, if Hiruzen had cooperated, they could've worked with Hanzō of the Salamander to crush the Akatsuki hiding in Amegakure.

If that had happened, Amegakure certainly wouldn't be siding with Kirigakure now.

But now Danzō was just playing the role of a hindsight genius.

It wasn't like Hiruzen didn't know Yagura was a dangerous figure who needed extra scrutiny.

The problem was—Konoha had been battered by war and the Nine-Tails attack. Externally, they were constantly harassed by the Fourth Raikage of Kumogakure. Exhausted and stretched thin, Hiruzen didn't have the luxury to go picking a fight with Yagura.

Both Kumogakure and Kirigakure were poisons, and if he had to choose one to deal with, it had to be the festering boil that was Kumogakure.

But now, Kirigakure had become an even deadlier, more insidious poison. And its breakout forced Konoha and Kumogakure—despite their years of bad blood—to temporarily unite.

Ōnoki's sudden move, though, caught both Hiruzen and the Fourth Raikage completely off guard.

Ōnoki had always been a crafty old fox. There was no way he'd just sit back and watch Kirigakure swallow up Sunagakure—yet he had.

It was a misstep on Hiruzen's part—he'd only planned for the first layer of the situation, not realizing Ōnoki was playing five layers deep.

"That's enough, Danzō. What good does rehashing it all do now?"

Hiruzen's frustration was palpable.

He had no more strength left to spare. And where was Danzō's Root when they were needed?

Besides, Jiraiya had already privately warned him.

If Root hadn't worked so diligently with Akatsuki behind the scenes, things would be different. With Jiraiya's connection, the trio—Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan—would've remained his grand-disciples.

And with that tie intact, there'd be no telling which side those three would have chosen.

...

"The situation is dire, Hokage..."

Nara Shikaku finally spoke, cutting off the internal squabbling between the village elders and redirecting their attention to the actual crisis.

They needed to focus. Petty blame games weren't going to help.

Looking at the map, the alliances were clear: Konoha and Kumogakure vs. Kirigakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure, and Amegakure.

With the big players in full-scale battle, the smaller Hidden Villages were scrambling to stay neutral. None dared step in, fearing they'd become cannon fodder.

Only Amegakure had dared to explicitly side with Kirigakure.

"Normally, Amegakure's strength would be negligible," Mitokado Homura continued where Shikaku had left off.

"But for Hanzō to fall to those three brats... Jiraiya's students are far more formidable than we assumed."

Shikaku didn't mind having his point hijacked—he agreed with the assessment. "Mm."

"Even if we set Amegakure aside, it's still two against three."

Better to isolate the rain village from the conversation. That way, they wouldn't slide into blaming Jiraiya for training his students, or claiming this whole disaster was in part his fault.

Hiruzen knew them too well. That kind of narrative spiral was very likely.

Refocusing on Iwagakure, Hiruzen tightened his grip. Ōnoki had chosen to act as the unpredictable swing player in this five-village war.

"Unfortunately, the Tsuchikage has formally declined our diplomatic overtures."

Utterly grim-faced, Koharu Utatane could barely hide her indignation. Ōnoki's brazen stance made her feel like she'd been personally slapped.

"Iwa's demolition teams are causing severe damage to our borders. Hokage, we must take action."

While Ōnoki was all talk in diplomacy, he was careful in execution—leaving room for plausible deniability in relations with Konoha.

Besides letting Deidara chase his artistic dreams, the rest of Iwa's demolitions unit merely followed him around like babysitters. No other major moves had been made.

Their opponent was just a blonde teenager. By all rights, Konoha shouldn't be this helpless.

...

At that moment, however, Konoha's elite forces were positioned in Sunagakure.

...

Sunagakure Front

Konoha forces, joined by long-distance reinforcements from Kumogakure, numbered over ten thousand.

But given the rushed mobilization and the distance traveled, their forces were still smaller than the Kirigakure–Sunagakure alliance, which had the home field advantage.

They were the attackers here. Attacking with inferior numbers against a fortified alliance meant their chances of success were nearly zero.

Hiruzen had hoped to stall, wait for internal fractures within Sunagakure, then strike when the moment was right.

But the Fourth Raikage had already charged in.

Konoha couldn't just stand by and let Kumogakure die alone—they had no choice but to join the fight.

Yes, there were cracks between Kirigakure and Sunagakure—but Konoha and Kumogakure had even deeper rifts. Deeper than those between their enemies.

Since the end of the Third Hokage's era, and the rise of the Fourth, Kirigakure and Sunagakure had only fought this one war. But Konoha and Kumogakure had been locked in power struggles since the days of the First Hokage.

Now they were fighting side by side, but each on their own terms.

Kumogakure's high-ranking jonin—Darui and Yugito Nii—faced off against the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist alongside Konoha's own heavy hitters like Hana Inuzuka and Shibi Aburame.

The elites carved out their own battlefield.

Meanwhile, the ordinary shinobi clashed in chaotic, bloody skirmishes.

...

"This never ends."

Sasori stood at the highest ridge, looking down on the waves of Konoha and Kumo shinobi swarming up like ants, fighting and dying against the Kirigakure–Sunagakure defensive lines.

"A swarm of insects."

Still, even insects had their worth—as additions to his collection.

He reached for the third scroll on his back.

With the wind catching it, he unfurled the sealing scroll, revealing—

A crimson-robed human puppet burst onto the battlefield!

The sudden, horrifying appearance caused even the ongoing battle in Sasori's area to come to a standstill.

From its abdomen, an iron chain extended outward. The tail-end of the chain, tipped with a spike, pierced through the sand and embedded itself in the ground, the chain stretching further and further.

Three hundred crimson puppets soared into the air, blotting out the light from above.

Standing atop the iron chains high in the sky, Sasori appeared like the sovereign ruler of this blood-red dominion.

"Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets."

A scarlet hue filled the heavens as the sound of gears and mechanical parts echoed—clanking and whirring—signaling the beginning of their advance.

Sasori spoke calmly: "Attack."

Sasori no longer needed to rely on chakra threads to direct basic commands like "attack," "retreat," or "pursue." These human puppets responded autonomously to his orders.

Following his command, the crimson puppets surged downward, launching an all-out assault on the enemy ranks!

At this moment, the tenuous balance maintained by the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, the elite of Kumogakure, and Konoha's forces was shattered.

Sasori's arrival broke the equilibrium—shattering the stalemate entirely!

There were a lot of crimson puppets, yes, but every single one had been meticulously crafted by Sasori. Each puppet's mechanisms were unique, rivaling the complexity and lethality of Crow, Black Ant, or Salamander.

Equipped with basic autonomous intelligence, these puppets could execute Sasori's most rudimentary commands and unleash their deadly techniques with brutal efficiency.

It was like watching a real-time RTS game, where Sasori acted as the player issuing commands with a right-click, and each puppet was a unit responding instantly.

A Konoha ninja, half his face hidden behind a mask that never fell off, ducked under the slash of a puppet's longsword. But immediately, several bamboo tubes launched from the puppet's back.

They exploded mid-air—showering thousands of senbon from every direction.

In the cramped chaos of the battlefield, even puppets fighting elsewhere inadvertently struck their allies with stray projectiles.

There was no room to dodge!

"Earth Style: Earth-Style Wall!"

Twin earth walls engraved with dog heads rose up from the ground, blocking a portion of the senbon.

Kakashi Hatake sidestepped the rest with ease, his sharp eyes lingering briefly on the violet sheen coating the needles—poison.

Years of combat experience and honed instincts screamed at him in warning.

Even the slightest scratch would be fatal!

He quickly boxed in the puppet he was fighting, cutting off its escape route.

His hand cloaked in crackling lightning, Kakashi struck. With nowhere to retreat, the puppet's head was cleaved clean off by the blade.

"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"

But it was only a puppet, not a living being. Severing its head meant destroying some of its mechanisms at best. It didn't "die" in the traditional sense.

Not willing to risk leaving it functional, Kakashi followed up with a fireball that engulfed the puppet and slammed into the earthen wall.

SSSSHHH—!

A loud hiss followed as intense steam exploded outward.

Water-style techniques burst from every joint in the puppet's body, countering Kakashi's fire.

Sasori had always been a recluse. His puppet designs were one of a kind in the ninja world—anyone who had seen them in action rarely lived to tell the tale.

And in all his years battling Sunagakure puppet masters, Kakashi had never seen a puppet use ninjutsu.

Still, Kakashi had dealt with enemies who exceeded his intel plenty of times. He adapted quickly.

He switched from Fire Style to Lightning Style for the final blow.

This puppet only seemed capable of using Water Style.

Once it was destroyed, Kakashi nimbly leapt over the crumbled Earth Wall and scanned the surrounding battlefield.

His expression darkened.

He was Kakashi Hatake—a genius who'd fought in the last war under Minato Namikaze's command, a former member of the ANBU.

Not someone easily shaken.

He had dealt with his opponent, sure. But that didn't mean the rest of the Konoha ninja could do the same.

The crimson puppets were only about Chūnin-level in raw strength due to their limited AI, but the real threat was their poison—instant death upon contact.

Three hundred puppets. Over two hundred mini battlefields scattered across Konoha and Kumogakure's lines.

Kakashi's gaze swept across the chaos—he could already see nearly a hundred allied shinobi either wounded or visibly affected by the toxins.

They were dead men walking.

Whether it was the poison taking full effect, or an enemy ninja from Sunagakure or Kirigakure sneaking in for a finishing blow—it didn't matter. They wouldn't last.

Kakashi couldn't afford to sit back and observe. It didn't take long for the crimson puppets to lock onto him as their next target.

With auto-targeting engaged, he immediately fled the area.

Fighting these puppets head-on in such a tangled battlefield was far too dangerous. Their weaponized projectiles didn't differentiate between friend or foe.

Drawing six of them away, he lured them into a more open area.

Then, launching off the ground with perfect form, Kakashi turned mid-air and struck!

A clean horizontal slash—Raikiri! Lightning arced outward in a deadly curve, roaring through the air.

All six puppets were destroyed in an instant.

Taking a short breather in the relatively clear zone, Kakashi rejoined the battle.

But he was only one man.

No matter how powerful, even Kakashi Hatake couldn't match Sasori in sheer impact.

Under the unrelenting assault of the crimson puppets, the Konoha-Kumogakure coalition began to falter.

And yet, for all the casualties, with each puppet destroyed, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

Sasori chuckled.

Their numbers dwindled—but now that he had fewer units, his micro-control became sharper, more precise.

The cruel irony: fewer enemies only made the remaining ones deadlier.

Even Kakashi now found himself bogged down by a single puppet. It took Earth Style and Lightning Blade working in tandem just to destroy it.

"This isn't sustainable!"

He quickly formed hand seals.

Shouting to his comrades, Kakashi looked up at Sasori, suspended in mid-air.

"We have to stop Sasori! Cover me!"

Puppets were dangerous—but they were still just puppets.

The true weakness of any puppet master... was the master themselves.

Faced with death, the Kumogakure shinobi were spurred by a renewed will to live.

Having just witnessed Kakashi's strength, none of them objected this time.

"Got it!"

Normally, no puppet master would ever place themselves on the front lines.

But Sasori was no ordinary puppet master.

As several allied squads charged toward him, Sasori calmly observed.

Over a hundred crimson puppets rose into the air, regrouping at Sasori's side while blocking the oncoming assault.

The propellers on his waist roared to life—and Sasori dove toward Kakashi like a crimson meteor!

He moved with terrifying speed. Along the way, his propeller blades carved through the chests and backs of several unfortunate ninja.

Kakashi barely dodged in time. Before he could counterattack, he heard the sharp whistle of steel slicing through the air behind him.

Sasori had pulled back the iron chain that had been anchored to the ground. It tore through everything in its path on the second pass—impaling the very ninja who had once been at the front, but were now at the rear.

Konoha and Kumogakure shinobi collapsed like wheat before the scythe—caught off guard and unprepared.

But the Kakashi who was struck... burst into smoke.

A shadow clone.

The real Kakashi had already repositioned to a safer spot—not too far, not too close—far enough to avoid the brunt of Sasori's onslaught.

He carefully watched Sasori's every move, analyzing the puppet master's techniques and planning his next strike.

Sasori and the crimson puppets didn't pursue him further.

And Kakashi should consider himself lucky.

Because right now... it was Sasori on the battlefield—not the human puppet.

(T/N: Want to remind: Sasori and Orochimaru had collaborated on some technical projects, and they created a human puppet identical to Sasori himself.)

Human puppet wouldn't have hesitated to send Kakashi to join his father in the afterlife.

----------------

Pls Drop some Power Stones

Fanfic is finished on Patreon (265 chapters in total.) 

Patreon(.)com/Jixo (for only $4.50, read this entire fanfic)