Sasori looked at the blade piercing through his core in disbelief. Although he didn’t consider himself to be in an advantageous position during the fight, he never expected to be defeated so abruptly.
He averted his gaze from his pierced core and looked at Karin instead. By now, she had pulled his metal cable out of her shoulder while her seal armor returned to how it initially looked. Additionally, the hole in her shoulder was healing rapidly due to the chakra armor still engulfing her. It was far from the speed at which Kurama’s chakra could heal Yuna or Naruto, but it was still faster than conventional medical jutsu.
“What did you do to me? How did you stop me from moving?”
Karin lightly moved her almost healed shoulder with an uncomfortable expression on her face and answered Sasori’s inquiry.
“Basically, I injected my own chakra into your chakra stream to prevent yours from moving. Doing that to an average shinobi is practically impossible unless I am significantly more powerful than them, but it works out just fine against someone whose body is mostly artificial.”
Sasori pondered Karin’s words for a short moment before nodding his head in understanding.
“I see, so my immortal body was my undoing, huh? How ironic.”
“You appear to be rather relaxed considering how your life is about to fade away.”
Sasori looked at Sakura and shrugged his shoulders in indifference after she finished speaking.
“It does not matter. I feel no pain nor regret about my death. I myself have killed thousands of people, and all those deaths were just as meaningless as my own.”
Sakura couldn’t help but get angry at how easily Sasori dismisses a human life.
“Do you not know the worth of a human life!?”
Sasori chuckled in amusement when he heard Sakura’s question.
“Of course I do. Who do you think I am? I can easily tell you how much it costs to have someone take a human life. And, I can tell you how much it costs to turn that human into one of my masterpieces as well.”
Sakura wanted to continue arguing that that was not what she was talking about, but before she could do so, Karin’s hand landed on her shoulder and stopped her.
“There is no point in arguing with him, Sakura. The way he thinks is his own flavor of insanity he adopted to deal with a life filled with death.”
Sasori tilted his head to the side when he heard Karin’s words.
“Insanity? Mhh, I never considered myself to be insane, but I can somewhat see where you are coming from. Too bad, it seems I do have one regret now.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
Sasori’s head moved and looked Karin straight in the eyes with quite a bit of intensity.
“I would have loved to add you to my collection.”
“Well, thanks, I guess, but Yuna-sama is the only one who is allowed to mess up my body.”
Sasori averted his gaze and looked at Yuna instead, who was still treating his poison as a cocktail.
“I see, insanity…”
Meanwhile, Yuna wasn’t simply idling around. While Karin, Sakura, and Chiyo were fighting Sasori, she made an ice clone and sent it deeper into the cave to look for Gaara.
Now that the fight was over, she exchanged places with her clone, who was about to enter the sealing chamber.
“*Sigh* why do you people insist on placing that ugly ass statue into your meeting room.”
Immediately, all eyes in the room landed on Yuna, causing her to chuckle in amusement due to all the different emotions she saw in them. Anger, fear, hatred, apprehension, she noticed all of them.
“Yuna Uzumaki, why do you constantly insist on getting in the way of peace.”
Yuna almost laughed out loud when she heard Pain’s words.
“Peace? It seems like we have very different views regarding what is considered peace. For example, unleashing a crazy terrorist that loves blowing things up on Suna is not something I would consider peaceful.”
“Those are the necessary sacrifice to achieve peace. Only through pain can the world know true peace.”
“Ah, I see, so you are the “for the greater good” kind of person, huh? Oh well, it honestly doesn’t matter. Are you going to stop this ritual by yourself, or do I have to make a move?”
Pain was about to answer Yuna when an additional transparent figure appeared in the room, causing Pain to smile a little.
“Ah, I see, so you let your comrades fight Deidara and Sasori and went ahead by yourself. It seems like your comrades failed. Finally, you shall know what pain i…”
“Look, look, nee-san, I joined Akatsuki, hahaha!”
“””…”””
The room’s atmosphere became so awkward that Yuna could practically taste Pain’s embarrassment. He only saw the blonde hair and the Akatsuki cloak out of the corner of his eyes, so he assumed the new arrival would be Deidara, but that was obviously not the case.
“Uwah, so shameful.”
Naturally, Yuna was nothing but willing to point that out, to crank the shame factor up some more.
[Since when did you know what shame was?]
‘*Mmph* Just because I don’t have it doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize it… On a totally unrelated note, that situation WAS shameful, right?’
[…it was…]
‘Haha, of course, it was. I totally knew that.’
Yuna finished her banter with Kurama and put on a stern expression.
“Naruto, I do not approve of you joining Akatsuki. They treat their workers horribly, and the only benefit they dish out is an unlimited supply of those tacky cloaks.”
A sad pout appeared on Naruto’s face when he heard Yuna’s words.
“Ehh, don’t be like that, nee-san. Doesn’t the cloak look pretty cool?”
“That is beside the point, Naruto. I will not allow my little brother to work in a black company like this.”
“But nee-san, I…”
“ENOUGH!!!”
While Yuna and Naruto were going through her comedy routine, Pain regained his bearing and stopped their conversation with an angry shout.
“I WILL NOT PERMIT YOU TO MOCK ME ANY LONGER!!! AS SOON AS THE TIME IS RIPE, I WILL COME FOR YOU, AND THEN, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE WHAT IT MEANS TO DEFY GOD!!! I WILL SHOW YOU PAIN!!!”
As soon as he finished his rant, Pain cut the connection, and his transparent image disappeared, leaving an awkward silence behind. The other members cut their connection a few moments later, leaving only Yuna, Naruto, and the unconscious Gaara behind.
Yuna’s face contorted in mockery after she digested Pain’s words.
“Pain? What does a little baby like you know about pain? Maybe, I should teach him what true pain is.”
When Naruto saw Yuna’s facial expression, he immediately cut the connection as well. Some things he would rather not know about, after all.
