But it couldn't be him. Could it?
Alexander had sealed him away. Yet there he stood without a transformation in place.
Arthur didn't give them time to process the impossible as he slammed his palm against the sand.
'Summoning jutsu…'
Three figures clad in white hoods erupted from the smoke and scooped the paralyzed Gaara up before running away.
"Get back here!" Naruto shouted, chasing after them.
"Wait, Naruto!" Kakashi yelled, trying to grab the boy's shoulder.
But it was too late; Naruto was already sprinting after the assailants. William cursed under his breath and sprinted after him.
Jasper took the moment to pull Sasori into the sky. He then banked hard, intending to fly the absolute opposite direction.
Until he heard Alice's mental command again: 'Go after them.'
'Are you insane, babe?'
'Just do it already!'
Jasper snickered as Sasori watched him abruptly change their flight pattern to follow the kidnappers.
"What are you doing?" Sasori asked, jaw clicking.
"We're not leaving without that host," Jasper lied. "Orders are orders."
Sasori couldn't tell whether his new partner was being loyal, incredibly stupid, or both. Frankly, Sasori didn't care; he was too shocked by the man in the white coat. If that really was Arthur Bennett, what was a warlord of his caliber doing acting as a decoy in the open desert?
Better yet: did not the reports say that he was sealed away? So how was he here?
From below, Arthur watched his pawns carry the Kazekage into the distance. Things were moving exactly as he planned.
Suddenly, he felt the space around his shoulder warp. The air was twisting like a suffocating vacuum.
"Kamui!" Kakashi said, headband already pushed up.
But the moment the pressure pulled at his coat, Arthur's body collapsed into a pile of sand.
'Substitution jutsu...'
Before Kakashi could track the displacement, Arthur dashed in from his blind side and grabbed the man by the neck, lifting him off the ground with one hand.
"Am I so dangerous for you to be using that jutsu?" Arthur asked, tightening his grip around Kakashi's windpipe.
The allied forces reacted instantly.
"Fire style: dragon flame jutsu!"
"Wind style: wind scythe jutsu!"
"Wood style: wood dragon jutsu!"
Flames, gale-force winds, and timber spiraled toward him in a combined assault.
Ka-crash!
Arthur had avoided it by letting go of Kakashi and leaping backward. Kakashi himself was safe since their attack was directly aimed at Arthur's form.
After landing gracefully, he watched Jada, Temari, and Margaret regroup around the coughing Kakashi.
From the flank, William had just arrived.
'A clone?' Arthur thought, narrowing his eyes at it. The chakra density was definitely the same, but the real William was still trying to run after Naruto and Gaara. 'He should have summoned more…'
"No way that's him!" the William clone declared, swiping the air.
"We're in some serious trouble if that is the case," Chiyo added.
She had never met Arthur before, but she had read the bingo books and heard of those infamous stories. Such a man was the most notorious villain of their era.
Jada, Kakashi, and Alice pushed their sensory abilities to the limit by scanning his network. But they hit a wall; the white coat he wore was woven with a material masking him completely.
Arthur's face, though, and his posture. No one would dare pretend to be him.
Arthur casually brushed a few stray sand particles from his sleeve.
"You've all grown," he noted, looking over the squad. "I remain… disappointed."
"Arthur!" Jada screamed with trembling fists. "You don't have to do this!"
"Don't make me laugh," he replied, devoid of any warmth. "You chose your path. I chose mine."
That response. The absolute coldness behind it. There was no mistaking its nature. This was him. This was the only man who could stand against them at every turn.
Alice stared hard as she pushed her telekinetic perception past the coat's physical barrier. Then she saw something in his anatomy that she hadn't before.
"Something's wrong with his body," she revealed to the others.
"What are you sensing?" Temari asked.
"His chakra signature, and even his body… It's not what I remember. In fact, it's like I'm looking at a completely different person. Only…"
"Only what?!" William urged.
"His spiritual energy matches Arthur's exactly."
"The heck does that even mean?" Kankuro asked, extending his hands to summon his puppets from their scrolls.
"It means," Kakashi said, standing up and rubbing his bruised neck, "that whoever's operating in that body, it's Arthur Bennett."
The pieces clicked into place: Arthur was using a husk and had likely projected his mind into a modified clone body to continue roaming the world. That was the only logical way for him not to be sealed right now.
"It doesn't matter who he is or how he's here!" William declared. "We're stopping him once and for all!"
Temari snapped her fan open and took flight. "I'll leave him to you guys then," she said, riding a localized gale. "I'm going after Gaara!"
'Smart decision,' Arthur thought.
Anyone trying to chase his group on foot now would simply get left behind in the dunes.
He watched her leave, choosing not to try and swat her out of the sky. No, he had more important matters to deal with in front of him. Because one of those matters was a member in their squad scowling at him differently.
Sakura Haruno.
She didn't look at him with the guarded caution of a trained kunoichi. Her eyes were wide and burning with unfiltered hatred. She was even clenching her fists so tight that her knuckles were white, almost as if she were ready to pounce on him like a feral animal.
No one looked at him with that kind of venom unless they had a personal vendetta.
'So she's learned what I've done to her parents,' he knew.
Jada saw it, too, so she began reasoning for Sakura to calm down.
Yet Arthur felt no remorse; he only saw a liability in their formation.
As such, he sprinted forward, moving faster than the eye could track. His target was Sakura as he extended his hands to latch at her neck.
Boom!
His arm hit an invisible wall that stopped him cold.
'Don't let him touch you!' Alice relayed into the minds of the entire squad.
She was painfully aware of his Flying raijin technique.
Just then, the squad moved as Chiyo, Kankuro, Jada, Kakashi, Margaret, William's clone, and Sakura fanned out by running in a wide circle to surround him. Alice leapt far back on a high dune to keep a good eye on the battlefield.
If Arthur weren't careful, coming here in a weaker husk body without a disguise could prove fatal. Who knew if even Minato or other heavy hitters would show up unexpectedly?
But he was prepared.
The moment the squad charged in together to close the net, he clasped his hands.
'Ninja art: four crimson ray formation…'
Then he leaped straight up to avoid their sweeping strikes as four glowing red pillars erupted from the sand at the corners of the battlefield, connecting to form a box.
The moment his boots touched the sand, he bolted forward, aiming for the single opening outside the barrier.
Suddenly, his speed drastically decreased, as if he were running on quicksand. It was Alice using her telekinesis to try and bind his limbs. At the same time, two attacks approached him from William's clone and Kakashi.
"Rasengan!"
"Lightning Blade!"
"You're too weak," Arthur said, flaring his chakra.
The telekinetic hold was shattered, causing Alice on the ridge to stagger from the feedback.
Crash!
Arthur had quickly slipped between the two converging attacks, letting Kakashi and William land their jutsu into the sand.
"I won't let you get away!" Chiyo screamed.
She and Kankuro manipulated their chakra threads by sending two blade-covered puppets directly into his running route to block the gap.
Arthur didn't slow down. Instead, he stepped on the blade of the first puppet, vaulted over the second, and outmaneuvered the trap entirely.
"He's just as crafty as you guys said," Kankuro voiced aloud.
Before they knew it, Arthur had cleared the perimeter and shut the crimson walls behind him to keep them locked inside.
Roar!
In the midst of his run, Arthur looked back, only to see Jada's Susanoo had materialized with her Totsuka Blade.
Swoosh-crash!
One swipe, and a large gap of the Four Crimson Ray Formation was sliced open before the entire thing fractured like glass.
"Still pathetic," Arthur remarked, not breaking stride.
A shadow suddenly loomed over him. It was Margaret already in her Crow Sage Mode.
"All of you stay back!" she cried out. She then folded her arms and swooped down like a predator. "He's mine!"
Arthur quickly hopped and twisted his body to see her bared teeth.
Swoosh!
Margaret's strike tore through his chest, hitting nothing but grey smoke.
"Man, that's annoying!" she grunted, twirling to regain her balance.
Arthur reformed his physical body a few yards away.
Just like he had known, her natural energy reserves were immense. Trying to turn his back and run from a flying opponent in Sage Mode would prove inevitable. That's on top of facing Susanoo and Kamui.