Sasori of the Red Sands
In a famous description of Coronea, Xenophon recalls that the very earth had turned red--- a phrase that was probably no exaggeration... Plutarch recalled the same picture after the death of some 25,000 Macedonians pikemen at Pydna. The entire plane there, he said, was filled with corpses… Again, this seems likely. If each of the fallen men lost 1/3 of his 6 quarts of blood, either in the final moments of death or after the corpse lay in the dust, there could have been more than 10,000 gallons to soak the field.
- A Dan Carlin Hardcore History podcast. Likely one of the King of Kings? But I’m not 100% sure
To most shinobi who were unaffiliated with Sunagakure, Sasori of the Red Sands was just another name in the history books or bingo books. But in a culture that is as ruthless as in Sunagakure where children are /expected/ to undergo a certain numbing emotional training in order to be battle-ready--- an epithet is /earned/.
Historians debate on how many bodies and how much blood, in liters, is actually needed to soak the desert sands and turn them red. The corpse carriers (the headcanon for that sort of profession comes from an old RP friend) have an estimated body count-- but many still think this is an exaggeration.
It is not.
Way back when, I wrote a little fanfic that does tackle a few of Sasori’s more grisly jobs before he defected from Suna if that would be of interest. Said fanfic is called Blood and Gold (with a hint of RasaSaso; tw war and some gore).
