Naruto: Zombie Release

The image in Chiyo's mind lingered, her distant glimpse of that zombie. 

After some contemplation, it began to overlap with the secret human puppet technique schematics she had once secretly shown her grandson.

That night, a five-year-old Sasori had clutched the freshly crafted Mother and Father puppets and asked her, "Grandma, is there a jutsu that can make Mom and Dad really move again?"

If one were to combine the human puppet technique with that level of Dead Soul jutsu... a completely new form of technique could be born. 

A true human puppet would no longer require chakra threads for remote control. Puppeteers could stand at a safer distance, directing corpses to execute missions.

With mechanisms installed on the bodies to enhance combat ability, packed with deadly poisoned ninja tools, and stripped of emotion or fear of death, they'd be unstoppable killing machines.

Puppeteers of that era would become the most flawless combat system, without any weaknesses.

Sunagakure would finally break free of its barren desert prison and take root in the fertile lands of the Land of Fire. 

Perhaps then, they could throw off the shackles of the damned aristocrats in the Land of Wind.

Because of budget constraints, the Land of Wind frequently slashed military funds allocated to Sunagakure. 

It was no secret in the shinobi world, and many radicals in the village were already deeply dissatisfied.

Sunagakure's position was already precarious, cutting the budget further only made competition with the other villages harder.

In the natural course of things, after a few more years, especially following the Third Great Ninja War, the Land of Wind would become even more shameless, outsourcing a large portion of its domestic missions to Konoha.

And why not? Konoha's shinobi got the job done better and for cheaper. The Land of Wind had no reason to refuse.

Eventually, Sunagakure couldn't take it anymore. 

They'd even collaborate with Orochimaru to launch the Konoha Crush Plan, attempting to destroy the Hidden Leaf to prove to their own country's elites that they weren't just dead weight wasting the nation's resources.

 That they had real strength. That Konoha didn't deserve so much funding.

"If I can get my hands on Arata's jutsu, or better yet, the man himself, so he can develop it further…"

Chiyo had fully set her sights on Arata.

If she could apply that fused technique to her son and daughter in law, alongside a forbidden jutsu she'd been secretly developing… then her son and daughter-in-law could live again in another form. 

Sasori would have parents once more. He wouldn't continue down this path of growing cold and withdrawn.

Soon, the name Arata began to circulate among the shinobi of Sunagakure. 

Anyone with some insight had started to realize his value. Many had begun seriously gathering intel on him and devising plans to hunt him down.

With his information advantage gone, Arata's deterrent power dropped drastically.

The fact that he was technically just a genin was ignored by most.

A joke, really, someone who could develop a Dead Soul jutsu and use corpses to temporarily withstand a high class puppet attack wasn't going to be evaluated by genin standards. 

For all anyone knew, he might already be a Chunin.

Several days later.

In the southwestern sector of Sunagakure, inside a three-story building, Sasori stood wordlessly at a window, staring out at the wind and sand. 

After a long pause, he turned and descended the stairs, heading straight into the basement.

There, he was in the middle of assembling the skull of a puppet.

With surgical precision, his chakra scalpel carved away decayed flesh, exposing the neural interfaces used for puppet integration. 

When he inserted the final piece, a cheekbone, into the puppet's face, the hand of the corpse, soaking in preservative fluid, twitched ever so slightly.

"This level of human puppet... is nowhere near enough. The technique is incomplete, and I lack proper materials."

Sasori's pupils narrowed in the bluish liquid. He tore open his experiment logs and scribbled furiously, his mind replaying over and over the imagined scene of his parents' deaths.

Sakumo Hatake's short sword slicing through his father's chest, his mother revealing an opening to shield him...

"If they had been human puppets, that wouldn't have happened. Even repeated attacks from the White Fang wouldn't have resulted in fatal injuries."

There was no emotion in Sasori's voice. His entire world had narrowed to the puppet before him.

If I could obtain that Konoha ninja's soul based jutsu, it might dramatically accelerate human puppet development. One step closer to eternity, Sasori thought silently.

Of all the recent front-line reports, only Arata piqued his interest.

Chiyo hadn't wanted him exposed to the human puppet arts too soon, but it was useless. Sasori's talent in puppetry was already too extraordinary, and the village needed him to make the most of it.

Worried this might warp Sasori's mind?

No need. The shinobi world was full of the broken and deranged. Countless shinobi had lost parents, children, or friends. 

There were too many to count. Instead of worrying about such trifling concerns, it was better to fully exploit the talents of those with potential before they were snatched away by death.

Suddenly, the hidden door slid open. A maid entered, the cold gleam of her glasses reflecting light.

"Lord Sasori, I've brought you some tea."

In an instant, Sasori's chakra threads wrapped around her throat.

"My usual attendant, where is she?" he asked icily.

"Caught that quickly, huh? Impressive."

Yakushi Nono, disguised in the garb of a Sunagakure medical-nin, offered a quiet compliment. A scroll was tucked in her robes, on it, the layout of Sunagakure's defenses. 

Upstairs at the building's entrance, the real maid lay motionless, her slit throat cleverly hidden, her posture made to appear as if she'd merely fallen asleep on the job.

"Your infiltration skills aren't bad," Sasori said coldly, "but your disguise is sloppy. Your heartbeat, your scent, they're all wrong. And my attendant would never come into the basement."

"I see. So you're not just some ordinary child." Nono sighed.

"Apologies for the disguise. Time was short. I'm risking being surrounded by your village's shinobi at any moment. I couldn't spare the effort for perfection."

She looked around, at the rows of puppets, the scattered corpses, the half-finished human puppets standing between her and Sasori.

"It seems my mission to abduct you has failed. I can't defeat you in an instant, and I definitely can't get you out of here quietly. 

But I didn't expect Sunagakure to have taken human puppet research this far. It's already showing real battlefield potential. I'll relay this vital intel back to my village."

Nono was disappointed, but the intelligence she'd gathered was reward enough.

If she delayed any longer, even she wouldn't be able to escape. She couldn't die yet, those war orphans still needed her protection.

"Wait. I haven't given you permission to leave."

Sasori suddenly tightened his chakra threads, but in the next instant, his expression darkened, Nono had used her chakra scalpel to slice through the threads binding her.

"A medical-nin?"

"Yes," Nono replied calmly. 

"So you should know, many of your techniques won't work on me. Let me go quietly, or I'll be forced to take you hostage... and I don't like using violence on children."

Sasori answered with a chill in his voice, "If you're a spy from Konoha, then there's even less reason to let you go. I need to ask you something. 

Do you know that man who uses Dead Soul jutsu? I'm very interested in him. I'm willing to trade intel."