On the Cloud Village battlefield to the northeast, not far from the Kumogakure encampment, there was a dark and deep cave.
Inside the cave, a damp, chilly air lingered, and faintly, the sound of wind howling past outside could be heard.
At this moment, Deidara was sitting on a rock, bored out of his mind, both hands constantly kneading the clay in his hands as he muttered to himself, "Just sitting around like this and waiting is way too boring."
Nearby, Sasori was focused on maintaining his beloved puppets, completely ignoring Deidara's complaints.
But scenes like this were nothing new. Sasori was already used to it, so he did not respond to Deidara at all.
However, Deidara was not the type to quiet down easily. Suddenly, an idea struck him. He slapped his own head hard and shouted excitedly, "Brother Sasori, how about we take the initiative and go attack Kumogakure's camp? That'd definitely be fun!"
As he spoke, his eyes sparkled with eagerness, as if he were already seeing the intense battle unfold.
Because they had lost their ring communication, gathering information had become somewhat difficult.
And their mission this time was to find a way to slow down Kumogakure's advance.
But with the three battlefields being so far apart from one another, Konan was unable to get timely updates on the Iwagakure battlefield and the Land of Rivers battlefield.
Therefore, they had to firmly seize the initiative themselves.
At this moment, Konan was outside the cave, carefully setting up explosive tag traps to strengthen their defenses.
Kakuzu had gone to the nearby black market to obtain the enemy's latest intelligence.
Aside from Deidara and Sasori, the only one left inside the cave was Kisame Hoshigaki.
It was just that Deidara had never really liked Kisame.
In his eyes, Kisame Hoshigaki was nothing more than a big, rough brute with not a shred of artistic sense.
After hearing Deidara's words, Sasori's hands, which had been meticulously maintaining his puppet, suddenly paused.
He slowly raised his head and looked at Deidara with a cold gaze, "Kumogakure has eight thousand people. Are you really not afraid of dying at all?"
But Deidara looked completely unconcerned and replied casually, "So what if there are a lot of them. You know, not many of them can even fly."
"Just look at the Mizukage of Kirigakure. He blew up their village, and they couldn't do a thing about it."
Hearing this, Sasori merely let out a cold laugh and then said nothing more.
Deidara naturally understood the meaning behind that laugh.
Clearly, Sasori did not agree with his view.
But Deidara had always been childish by nature. The more others opposed him, the stronger his desire to prove himself became.
So he shouted loudly, "If none of you dare to go, then fine, I'll go by myself!"
Before his words had even faded, he had already quickly molded a clay bird.
Without hesitation, he mounted it and immediately sped out of the cave.
Kisame Hoshigaki watched with his own eyes as Deidara rushed out alone. He could not help but grin, then turned to Sasori and said, "Sasori, that kid Deidara actually went to attack Kumogakure all by himself."
After a pause, he continued teasing, "Come to think of it, Deidara seems to respect you quite a bit."
"So what, aren't you even a little worried that this time he'll get taken out by those Kumogakure guys?"
Faced with Kisame's question, Sasori remained fully focused on maintaining the puppet in his hands.
As if he had not heard anything at all, he showed no intention of responding.
But if one looked closely, it would be noticeable that the speed of Sasori's hand movements had clearly increased a bit.
Seeing this, Kisame did not say anything else. He simply leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes to rest.
———
After Killer B had been poisoned last time, the people of Kumogakure chose to retreat completely without hesitation.
From their actions, it was clear that they intended to wait until Killer B had fully recovered before making any further moves.
This operation by Kumogakure could be described as cautious at every step, steady and methodical. Not only were their supplies plentiful, even the personnel responsible for reconnaissance were fully in place.
After all, they had not come this time merely to probe the enemy, but carried the important mission of serving as the vanguard force invading the Land of Fire.
On such a dark, windy night, Deidara sat alone atop his clay bird, quietly flying thousands of meters up in the sky.
His mouth continuously chewed on clay, as if he were carefully adjusting some kind of ratio.
"Whenever I need to use a large amount of clay, the speed always feels a bit slow, hmm!"
Deidara was planning to make an enormous clay bomb, and for that, he had already been chewing clay for quite some time.
At this moment, while continuing to chew, he fell into thought, secretly wondering whether he should add extra mouths to his hands.
After all, during the genjutsu cast by Rengoku before, he had personally seen what it looked like when his hands were modified to grow mouths.
However, after thinking it over for a bit, he gently shook his head and muttered to himself, "If my hands had extra mouths, it probably wouldn't be very convenient to use Dust Release."
For Deidara, Dust Release was still an extremely powerful and practical ninjutsu.
It was just that right now the consumption was too great, so he did not use it often.
He secretly resolved to further refine and improve it.
But for now, a trace of excitement could not help but appear on Deidara's face as his gaze locked tightly onto the clay doll that had already taken shape in his hands.
"C3 No. 18!"
Deidara had completed this clay bomb several years earlier than originally planned.
Tonight was the perfect opportunity for him to try using this technique for the first time.
He took a deep breath. His hands quickly formed seals, and the chakra within his body surged endlessly into the clay bomb like a tidal wave.
In the blink of an eye, the seemingly ordinary lump of clay began to expand and deform at a visible speed, eventually turning into the humanoid-shaped C3 No. 18.
Deidara stared intently at the C3 No. 18 before him, then he directly threw it downward.
C3 No. 18 plummeted toward the ground below.
Under the influence of gravity, its falling speed grew faster and faster.
Kumogakure's defenses were extremely tight.
Given that the Akatsuki had dispatched three members capable of flight this time, Kumogakure did not dare to let its guard down.
They had already sent out dozens of elite ninja riding well-trained giant eagles, constantly patrolling back and forth in the sky to guard against any surprise.
At that moment, the C3 No. 18, carrying violent chakra fluctuations, suddenly broke through layers of clouds and smashed straight toward Kumogakure's camp.
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