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Three days later.

"How about this one?" Chiyo manipulated the puppet in her hands as she asked Akio.

Akio furrowed his brows and hesitated for a moment. "It's... acceptable."

The puppet before him was still rather large and bulky.

"Try transforming it? Ka ka ka ka ka?"

Chiyo let out a breath of relief. This was already the third puppet she had made in as many days. Wasting three days like this... no wonder the mission was rated S-class.

With a flick of her fingers, the massive humanoid puppet instantly collapsed. Then, with her chakra threads weaving quickly through the air, it reassembled into something resembling a large carriage.

Akio's lips twitched. Carriage? Sure, whatever. He wasn't picky. After all, no one in this world knew what a semi-truck looked like anyway. Still, this method of reassembly...

"My grandson plays with toys like this—do I really need to learn puppet techniques from the Sand Village just for that?"

The question made Chiyo freeze. She glanced at the large puppet again, suddenly feeling like this was no simple matter. Transforming a puppet like this might not just require puppet techniques—but techniques far beyond the average puppeteer's skill level.

"Restructuring a puppet into different forms can only be done by a skilled puppeteer," Chiyo explained.

Akio shook his head. "I'm not looking for reassembly—I want transformation. Like, if the joints folded in a certain way, it could become a carriage."

Ka!

With a deadpan expression, Akio had just bent the puppet's arm a little—and it snapped right off.

"Ten million ryo, and this is the material quality?" he said, expression dark.

Chiyo blinked. "Lord Hamura, you're... quite strong. These are made from scrap materials for prototyping. Once finalized, we'll use quality ones."

Akio nodded. "Still not good enough. As is, this thing's worth two million at most."

Truthfully, Akio was already pretty satisfied. It was just a toy, after all. He didn't need anything too refined—and he didn't know puppet techniques anyway. With his control over gravity, he could manipulate the thing just fine.

But now he was mostly making things difficult for Chiyo on purpose. Why? Because after coming all this way, it felt like a waste not to meet Sasori of the Red Sand. He figured Sasori hadn't turned himself into a puppet yet.

Sure enough, Chiyo was starting to struggle. She just couldn't wrap her head around that kind of transformation design.

After a while, she sighed heavily, regretting that she hadn't assigned this task to Sasori earlier.

She then led Akio into the adjacent room, the puppet with a broken arm still trailing behind her, pulled along by chakra threads.

"Sasori! Sasori! Are you there?" Chiyo called out, frowning as she entered.

"Lord Hamura, don't touch anything!" she warned suddenly, glancing back in alarm.

Akio was already examining some of the scattered puppets around the room. A couple of them looked oddly familiar—he was pretty sure Kankuro used these in the future.

Hearing her call, Akio smiled and turned. "Elder Chiyo, these puppets are crafted quite well. They're much more refined than the ones in your room."

"Lord Hamura, please don't touch them again," Chiyo repeated firmly. "Some of these may be laced with poison. Only Sasori has the antidotes."

Akio nodded. Though his unique constitution made him immune to most toxins, letting that show would give him away.

Just then, Sasori entered the room from outside. He gave Akio a quick, displeased glance before turning to Chiyo.

"Grandmother, what is it?"

It was Akio's first time meeting Sasori. Aside from his striking red hair, the boy still had a youthful, even innocent face.

"So this is the genius puppeteer of the Sand?" Akio asked, taking the initiative.

Sasori ignored him completely, cold and expressionless. Chiyo chuckled and responded in his place.

"That's right. He's not even fifteen yet, but already the village's most talented puppet designer."

"Then can he make the kind of thing I want? You know, ka ka ka ka ka, something that can transform?"

Akio made exaggerated gestures again.

Sasori's eye twitched as he looked at Chiyo, clearly baffled.

Chiyo sighed. "Lord Hamura, no need to demonstrate again. I'll explain it to him."

She then used the broken-arm puppet to demonstrate the mechanics of the transformation. Sasori's expression shifted three times—from disinterest, to focused, to intrigued.

As expected of a genius—just from Chiyo's one explanation, Sasori understood exactly what Akio wanted. In fact, he came up with even more improvements.

Sand Village puppets with dual forms weren't unheard of, but they required extremely skilled puppeteers to operate. What Akio envisioned didn't need high-level control; even average puppeteers could use it. It might even become widespread.

"S-Class mission. Understood, Grandmother," Sasori nodded, officially accepting the commission.

"I leave it to you then, Sasori," Chiyo said as she turned and left.

These days, every time she saw Sasori's emotionless face, she felt even more pressure to complete her jutsu for granting puppets life. This commission had already delayed her by three days—she had to get back to work.

Akio watched Chiyo leave without even saying goodbye, leaving him alone with Sasori. His face twitched.

Now alone with this art-obsessed madman, he wondered—if Sasori suddenly snapped and tried to turn him into a puppet... would he resist? Or resist? Or... resist?

Thankfully, Sasori was probably still early in his "human puppet" phase. Akio didn't look like any kind of special material, so Sasori showed no interest.

Instead, he was completely absorbed in the concept Akio had described and immediately started experimenting—without saying a word to his client.

"Artists really are eccentric," Akio muttered with a bitter smile. He had been so eager to meet Sasori, but now that they'd met, he had no idea what to say—and Sasori ignored him anyway.

Helpless, he found a corner to sit and watch Sasori's dazzling technique.

Unlike Chiyo, Sasori started with the carriage form first, then worked backward—deconstructing it into modular pieces that could form a humanoid shape.

In just half a day, Sasori had already completed a prototype.

Akio stared, dumbfounded, as the puppet switched from a carriage to a humanoid and back again. Aside from its ugly appearance, it was almost exactly what he had envisioned.

"This isn't just genius. His puppet design is at least two levels above Chiyo's…"

"Mission complete," Sasori's voice suddenly snapped him out of it.

Akio shook his head. "No good. It's a toy for my grandson. You made it so hideous, it'll traumatize him."

Sasori frowned. "A child's toy?"

He looked at the massive puppet, over two meters tall. What kind of child could play with this?

"This one's for me. I'll have you make a smaller one for my grandson later—around half a meter tall should do."

"You… play with this?" Sasori recalled Akio's earlier "ka ka" dance and was no longer surprised.

"Tell me what you want it to look like," he said.

Akio sighed. Another one asking about appearance. His ability to describe things visually was just...

"Wait a second. Can't I just carve a model of what I want it to look like?" Akio suddenly realized. His brain had short-circuited again…

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