The colossal construct Sasori assembled took the terrifying form of a mechanical Nine-Tails.
Sasori sat perfectly still in the armored cockpit located deep within the chassis.
However, there were no levers, buttons, screens, or operating systems of any kind.
This was the pinnacle advantage of his unique puppetry!
Sasori could control the behemoth exactly like he controlled his other puppets—with pure thought and internal chakra resonance.
This revolutionary leap made him leagues better than Kankuro, the supposed master of tactical retreats.
Even in his infinite Tsukuyomi dreams, Kankuro only dared to imagine a giant "Gundam" that still required vulnerable glowing chakra threads to kite enemies from a distance.
Kankuro was doomed to pick up Sasori's discarded scraps!
Controlling a puppet from within the main body was an older concept Sasori had originally attempted with Hiruko.
But if Makoto hadn't shattered his stagnant worldview, Sasori would never have evolved the concept into a true mechanized dreadnought.
BOOM!
The tailless mechanical beast clashed massive steel fists with Naruto's golden Tailed Beast avatar.
The desert ground convulsed, and a shockwave blew away the dunes, exposing the bedrock below.
"Nani?!" Kurama was genuinely shocked.
The giant fox didn't expect a mere shell of scrap metal to match its raw physical strength in a brawl.
'Since when did squishy puppet masters hit this hard?'
But Kurama was mistaken.
The profession of puppetry was never inherently strong, the individual genius of Sasori was.
Before Makoto's intervention, even Sasori's greatest human puppet, the Third Kazekage, suffered from a fatal flaw: abysmal defense.
Human puppets retained the classic shinobi characteristic of high attack and low durability.
Standard wooden puppets would be smashed to splinters in minutes against a Tailed Beast.
Even Hiruko's heavy armor was relatively fragile.
But this mechanical Nine-Tails was fundamentally different.
Heavy plating, kinetic shock absorption, extreme heat resistance, and absolute zero cold resistance were all flawlessly integrated into the chassis.
And worst of all... it possessed a chakra absorption engine.
Right after clashing fists, golden Nine-Tails chakra violently erupted from the dreadnought's empty rear section, forming nine glowing artificial tails.
This was a custom function Sasori engineered using stolen remnants of the Divine Tree.
The dead wood had lost its original vitality and natural absorption, but it served as a flawless conductive carrier.
It was the exact same principle Orochimaru had theorized for his abandoned "Mecha-Naruto" project—combining a chakra engine with a manufactured Eight Trigrams Seal to create a literal mechanical Jinchūriki.
Frankly, if the Five Great Nations ever learned this technology existed, they would start a world war over it.
It turned Jinchūriki from unpredictable, highly emotional weapons of mass destruction into literal controllable machines.
No more searching for compatible orphan hosts.
No more worrying about the host's fragile mental state or rebellious teenage phases.
[So that is how it is. No wonder he called it 'Steel Horn,'] Kurama's deep voice rang out in Naruto's mindscape.
"What's going on, Kurama?! Why did your chakra suddenly sprout from its metal ass after I hit it?" Naruto asked in total confusion.
[Back in the Hidden Cloud, there were two annoying brothers named Kinkaku and Ginkaku. After I swallowed them whole, they survived by eating my stomach, gaining a portion of my chakra. This guy named his puppet 'Steel Horn' after them. It seems this dreadnought has the ability to forcefully absorb chakra upon physical contact. But... it feels a bit different. The clash was too fast, I couldn't get a clear read on the mechanics.]
"Different from what?"
[The suction! Try hitting it again, kid. But remember to break contact the exact second you land the blow! Do not let him siphon too much!]
"Got it!" Naruto commanded his glowing avatar to throw another devastating right hook.
The mechanical Nine-Tails raised a reinforced arm to block it, and Naruto immediately leaped backward, opening up a safe distance in the sand.
"How was it?!"
[So it is like that... Naruto, you need to restrict your chakra output immediately. It's best to...]
True to being the smartest Tailed Beast in existence, Kurama diagnosed the problem after a single test.
Rather than simply absorbing chakra to store it, the mechanical beast was actively converting chakra attacks into its own fuel source.
That was why the contact felt so strange.
It didn't feel like a vacuum pulling chakra out, it felt like a circuit completing itself, forcefully driving Naruto's energy directly into the machine's battery.
Kurama's analysis was spot on!
Zzzt—!
The mechanical Nine-Tails swiped a massive steel claw through the air, unleashing a blinding bolt of pure electricity.
This wasn't standard Lightning Release ninjutsu.
It was literal, artificial electricity generated by an engine converting raw chakra into voltage.
It lacked the mystical properties of natural senjutsu, but crucially, it couldn't be absorbed by standard anti-chakra defenses like the Rinnegan.
Sasori's hypothetical enemy when engineering this dreadnought was never the ordinary shinobi of this world.
He was building weapons to fight the Ōtsutsuki Clan.
Therefore, Sasori discarded standard chakra storage and upgraded it to direct conversion.
He kept the absorption plating because the Ōtsutsuki relied heavily on absorbing ninjutsu, hitting them with raw physical voltage bypassed their primary defense completely!
"I get it!"
[YOU DON'T GET SHIT!]
Seeing Naruto lower his avatar's center of gravity to charge right back in, Kurama absolutely lost his temper.
"Kurama, you're swearing!" Naruto complained, feeling genuinely wronged.
[I AM SWEARING AT YOU! GET BACK HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING CHARGING IN LIKE THAT?!]
"Since he can absorb chakra, I'll just pump him full of it until his battery bursts! Won't that work?!" Naruto yelled, voicing his classic meathead strategy.
[...]
One could say this strategy perfectly fit Naruto's unga-bunga combat style.
Historically, he used this exact brute-force method to overload chakra armor and detonate the Zero-Tails.
[Have you used that hollow head of yours to think about what happens if you CAN'T burst it?!] Kurama began to seriously worry that if the legendary Ten-Tails ever appeared, this idiot would try to jump into its stomach and feed it until it popped!
"No way! Kurama, do you really have that little faith in your own chakra?!"
[THIS ISN'T ABOUT CONFIDENCE, YOU DAMN MORON!]
Kurama felt an approaching migraine.
Communicating with this boy was going to take years off his immortal lifespan!
In fact, Kurama's instincts were entirely correct.
Because the dreadnought's core was forged from Divine Tree remnants and capped with Orochimaru's Eight Trigrams Seal, its storage capacity was effectively equal to a real Jinchūriki.
It wouldn't overload, it would just use Naruto's chakra to beat him to death.
The only flaw was that the machine couldn't casually shrink down to human size like a real host.
It was either deployed as a towering colossus or dismantled in a garage.
[Naruto, step aside. Let me take control of the body.] Kurama sighed, deciding it was vastly better for the seasoned veteran to step in before the kid killed them both.
"NO!" Naruto shook his head in fierce refusal.
The last time he trusted the giant fox with control, it piloted his body to forcibly kiss Sasuke, pinned his rival to the dirt, and attempted to completely defile him in front of everyone!
His reputation was in absolute shambles!
What if Kurama took over this time, ignored the giant robot entirely, and sprinted straight to the Sand Village to rape the seventy-year-old Granny Chiyo?!
No!
Absolutely no way!
[YOU BRAT, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?! FINE! THEN SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO MY COMMANDS!]
Kurama completely blew his top.
Because of their telepathic link, the fox heard every single horrifying thought crossing Naruto's mind.
Did this kid think he was some kind of degenerate pervert?! Taking control back then was solely to protect their collective purity!
---------
Read 40 chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator