Puppet Masters

Team Guy removes the seals maintaining the barrier around Akatsuki’s hideout, only for each member to be attacked by a duplicate possessing the same abilities. Inside, Team Kakashi discovers Gaara’s lifeless body. Deidara escapes with him, drawing Naruto and Kakashi away, while Sakura and Chiyo remain to fight Sasori.

Sakura destroys Sasori’s armored puppet, Hiruko, forcing him to reveal his youthful human appearance. Sasori then summons a human puppet made from the body of the Third Kazekage, whom he abducted and killed years earlier. Because human puppets retain the chakra abilities they possessed in life, Sasori can reproduce the Third Kazekage’s feared Iron Sand technique.

Chiyo controls Sakura with chakra threads, allowing her to evade the puppet’s poisoned weapons while striking with enough force to shatter Sasori’s defenses. Sasori fills the chamber with Iron Sand and shapes it into increasingly destructive weapons. Sakura deliberately allows herself to be struck so that she can identify and counter the attack, then uses Chiyo’s puppet arm to seal the Third Kazekage puppet’s movements.

Although Sakura destroys Sasori’s most powerful puppet, Sasori reveals that the puppet body he has been using is not merely armor. He has transformed his own body into a weapon, leaving only a small living core as the remaining human part of himself.