Minato projects the image of enemies in front of the group.
"Hmm… these two are…:"
He glances at the Konoha headband on the enemy's forehead.
"They seem to be Konoha shinobi but something seems to be wrong with their movement. Their bodies are quite stiff."
Minato frowns.
"Let me check them!"
Whoosh…
Minato teleports from his position and reappears at the entrance of the headquarter.
He walks towards the two Konoha shinobis. One of them is from the Aburame clan, while the other is from the Hyuga clan.
"What's the matter, you two?" Minato enquires.
Sasori, who is controlling the duo from a distance, monitors their movement through a remote technique. He shares his vision with the duo and notices Minato.
"That's Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage. He isn't an ideal target for an ambush. If I blow these two up, he can always escape from the explosion with his teleportation jutsu. I have to look for someone else."
Sasori controls them and two replies to Minato.
"Lord Fourth, we both are a member of the Infiltration and Reconnaissance Party. We have urgent intel to relay."
Hmm…
Minato senses something amiss with their movement but leads them into the headquarter, nonetheless.
"Follow me!"
He leads them inside a room in the Allied Shinobi Forces headquarters.
"Wait for me here, I will inform other Kages."
"Yes, Lord Fourth!"
Minato reenters the room with the other Kages and informs them of their arrival.
"These two are a part of the team that sent intel about enemies to us. But I sense something odd with their movements. I can't exactly pinpoint it, but I have this odd feeling in my heart." Minato shakes his head.
Hmm…
The rest of the Kages frown at Minato's speculation.
"These two have made a significant contribution to the Allied Shinobi forces, so by right we should reward them. But if their actions are controlled by enemies, then we can only get rid of them." Onoki remarks as he glances at Muta and Tokuma's figure.
"That's true, but I don't want to lose two capable shinobi because of my suspicion." Minato is also stuck in a dilemma.
"Lord Fourth, can I take a closer look at them?" Rasa, who was maintaining his silence the whole time, speaks.
"Sure, but what if alert the enemies?"
"I have a solution for that!" Tsunade interrupts them.
A few minutes later,
The gate of the meeting room cracks open, and a figure walks inside. Muta and Tokuma glance at the door. Both of their movement freezes as a pair of red eyes appear in their vision.
A few seconds later, Rasa and Minato walk inside the room. Itachi nods at them and exits the room.
Itachi's Tsukiyomi is a very powerful genjutsu that can affect the perception of the victim. If Muta and Tokuma are mind-controlled, then their controller must have a method to observe their movements and share senses with them, similar to how a summon shares its sense with its contractor.
Rasa walks towards the duo alongside Minato as he speaks.
"When it comes to mind control, I can only think of a certain shinobi."
"Sasori of the Red Sand!" Minato murmurs.
"Yes! Sasori was a prodigy puppeteer of the Sand. He was of the same generation as me. But sometime during his youth, Sasori's obsession with puppets deluded his mind. He went from controlling puppets to controlling humans.
After the end of the Third Shinobi War, Sasori mind controlled multiple members of the elder council and plotted an assassination of the Third Hokage. He successfully assassinated the Third Hokage with the aid of mind-controlled elders and later refined the Third Hokage into a puppet." Rasa shakes his head as he sympathizes with his predecessor.
"Later, we captured the mind-controlled elders and studied Sasori's mind-control technique in detail."
Rasa walks beside the two recon team members and inspects their heads and neck.
"Found it!"
Minato walks beside Rasa and glances at the two extremely small red dots hidden on their head hidden between their hairs.
"These two are definitely mind-controlled. Sasori's mind control technique includes the injection of multiple hair-size chakra strings with Fuinjutsu seals inside the victim's mind to override their will. This effectively turns his victim into living puppets. These chakra strings are so small that even Byakugan can't sense their presence.
Sasori can use his Puppet Sense sharing technique on these controlled individuals to share his sense with them. Sigh…"
Rasa sighs and shakes his head.
"These two are already dead since Sasori has already destroyed their bodies. I suspect he rigged their bodies with traps and explosives. A similar situation occurred with the bodies of the elders."
As if on cue, the bodies of the two shinobis glow with resplendent light.
Fwoosh…
Minato grabs the two of them and teleports them away into the sea.
A few seconds later,
BOOM…
A terrifying explosion occurs in the distance as a cloud of smoke and water vapors rise in the air.
Fwoosh…
Minato reappears in the room and heaves a sigh of relief. The scale of the explosion was quite powerful.
"If those two exploded here, then despite the various barriers and restrictions, I suspect half of the headquarter would be blown to smithereens.
----------------
Somewhere in the sea, on top of a giant bird,
"What's the matter, Sasori my man? Why did you blow up my C0 bombs?"
Deidara planted his modified C0 bombs inside Muta and Tokuma. He got the inspiration for it during the moments of his death. He blew himself using his ultimate C0 bomb. So, an idea came to his mind that he could do the same with others. So, with Sasori's help, he created two living C0 human beings that can be remotely detonated from a distance.
"They found my traps!" Sasori nonchalantly replies to them and turns to Kabuto.
"I will leave for the battlefield." He ignores Deidara's whining and jumps from the top of the flying clay bird.
Click… clack…
A flying puppet attaches itself to him and Sasori flies towards the battlefield.
"Hmm… I didn't expect him to possess such a puppet." Kabuto stares at Sasori in amusement.
Kuku…
Kabuto turns towards Deidara and smiles.
"Damn! Sasori, my man, don't leave me alone with this creepy bastard."
"…"
"You are already dead! What worse could happen to you?" Kabuto glares at him.
"Fine! I will follow your lead." Deidara gives up and pilots the giant clay bird according to Kabuto's instructions.
--------------
The eyes of the rest of the Kage's narrow as they stare at two gigantic pillars of light in the distance.
"That's Deidara's C0." Onoki recognizes the forbidden ninjutsu of his village.
"So, Akatsuki revived him too." Onoki narrows his eyes.
A few moments later, Minato, Rasa, and Itachi return to the central room.
"Looks like your suspicion was correct." Tsunade nods at Minato.
"It's a shame to lose two capable shinobis." She silently mourns Muta and Tokuma's death.
"Hokage, this isn't the time for mourning. We can spare our tears for after-war funerals. Currently, we have to pay back the Akatsuki for what they did to our shinobis." A clenches his fists.
"He is right! It's not the time to get sentimental. We can only commemorate their death by crushing Akatsuki in the war." Onoki agrees with A.
Tsunade grits her teeth and turns towards Itachi.
"It was thanks to Itachi; we were able to diffuse them without alerting the enemies."
It was her idea to use Itachi's powerful genjutsu to disrupt Sasori's senses with his Tsukiyomi. Since Sasori shares his senses with the two living puppets, then Itachi's genjutsu will also affect him through their shared senses. So, she took a gamble with her life.
And she was proven correct when Itachi's' genjutsu disrupted Sasori's senses for an instance.
'I always win the gamble when the stakes are my life.' Tsunade mumbles to herself.
Frantic shouts echo in their ears as multiple shinobis gather outside the allied shinobi force headquarters.
"Looks like the distribution of headbands is complete. It's about time we make an appearance."
The Kages glance at each other and nod. They exit the headquarter and walk up to a podium located high on a pedestal.
The Kages silently glance at the shinobis from various nations.
Shouts of chaos, anger, distrust, vengeance, and even bloodlust fill the air as multiple shinobis from different shinobis nations are at loggerheads against each other.
"I won't forgive you for killing my friend." A shinobi from Konoha clashes against a Suna shinobi.
"You Kiri bastard! You killed my brother on a mission seven years ago." A Kumogakure shinobi points his blade toward a Kiri shinobi.
"I don't trust these backstabbing bastards from Iwagakure." Another group of shinobis from the Land of Waterfall engage against Iwa shinobis.
The Kages stare at the chaotic scene in silence.
"It's hard for past enemies with death grudges to work together against a common foe." Tsunade shakes her head.
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A/N:- My new Naruto fan-fic, 'The Rogue Demon of the Shinobi World' is out.
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