He excitedly sped up and flew forward, shouting loudly, "Brother Sasori, did you come out specially to look for me?"
Faced with Deidara's enthusiastic question, Sasori remained silent as ever.
As if he had not heard a thing, he simply continued manipulating the Third Kazekage puppet to fly onward.
Even so, Deidara did not mind at all and continued to follow closely behind.
In truth, even Sasori himself was not quite sure why Deidara always liked to stick to him like this.
But there was no denying that, deep down, he did not feel much aversion toward this energetic and passionate boy.
That was precisely why, when he noticed that Deidara had not returned for a long time, Sasori hurriedly finished maintaining and assembling his puppets, then rushed out to look for him.
"If something happens to you, I won't be able to explain it to Konan."
Seeing Deidara drawing closer and closer, Sasori finally could not help but give a cold explanation.
He knew very well that if he did not say anything, with Deidara's personality, the kid would probably keep chattering nonstop.
Hearing Sasori finally speak, a brilliant smile instantly bloomed on Deidara's face, and he replied cheerfully,
"Hehe! Brother Sasori, you can rest a hundred percent assured! With my abilities, it's not easy for the enemy to catch me!", As he spoke, he smugly lifted his chin at Sasori.
"But Kumogakure's defenses are extremely tight, and they have special weapons. I got shot down in midair from over a thousand meters up."
"Shot down directly from a thousand meters in the air?"
Sasori's attention was completely drawn by this piece of information.
After all, being attacked and falling from such a height was no ordinary matter.
Although Deidara was usually talkative and never shut up, when it came to intelligence, he never made things up casually.
Sasori frowned slightly and pressed further, "What kind of attack has that kind of range?"
Deidara scratched his head, thought for a moment, then said, "To be honest, I'm not really sure what exactly hit me."
"But judging from the situation at the time, the enemy launched the attack from very far away. At the very least, the range was definitely that long."
After hearing this, Sasori nodded thoughtfully, silently weighing the importance of this information to the Akatsuki as a whole.
After all, if they were unaware that the enemy possessed such powerful long-range strike capabilities,
then in future missions, they might very well get ambushed by Kumogakure.
"Let's head back first. We'll discuss this in detail after Konan and Kakuzu return."
Sasori made a calm decision.
Seeing that he had successfully caught Sasori's attention and seemed to have drawn a bit closer to him, Deidara could not help but show a hint of smugness.
He then hurriedly trotted along behind Sasori.
———
While Deidara was running around causing trouble, Kakuzu and Konan had already completed their respective tasks and returned to the base.
After returning, Konan looked around and did not see Sasori or Deidara.
Feeling a bit puzzled, she asked, "Where did Sasori and Deidara go? Why don't I see the two of them?"
Seeing this, Kisame Hoshigaki tugged at the corner of his mouth and replied with a hint of teasing, "That Deidara guy thought staying here was too boring and ran off by himself to attack Kumogakure's camp."
"As for Sasori, he was worried Deidara might cause some big trouble, so he hurried after him to look for him."
Hearing this, Konan gently nodded, indicating that she understood.
The members of the Akatsuki, although very different in personality, always looked out for one another when carrying out missions and facing crises.
This was not a kindergarten. Everyone had to be responsible for their own actions.
As long as Deidara did not delay the entire team's plan because of his behavior, that was fine.
As for whether Deidara himself might get captured by the enemy, Konan did not think deeply about it at all.
In her view, if Deidara were truly unlucky enough to fall into enemy hands, it could only mean that his own strength was still lacking.
At this time, Konan asked, "Has the intelligence from Konoha been sent over?"
Kakuzu gave a brief reply, "Yeah."
Right after that, he handed the intelligence scroll in his hand to Konan.
The scroll was densely covered with all kinds of obscure cipher codes.
To decipher the information contained within, one had to possess the corresponding codebook.
After all, this intelligence was of vital importance to the organization.
In order to ensure it could safely reach its destination without being intercepted or tampered with, adopting such strict encryption measures was undoubtedly necessary and wise.
After taking the scroll, Konan deftly pulled out a small, delicate codebook from her person.
She then began to focus intently on translating it.
As time passed little by little, more and more shock gradually appeared on Konan's originally calm, water-like face.
This change made Kakuzu, who was standing to the side waiting for news, feel increasingly restless. He finally could not help but ask, "What's the situation over at Iwagakure and Sunagakure exactly?"
Konan first took a deep breath, trying to calm the emotions surging in her heart, before slowly speaking,
"According to our latest intelligence, Rengoku's clone led five thousand Konoha ninja and successfully defeated as many as eight thousand enemy troops from Iwagakure."
"And in this fierce battle, Iwagakure suffered devastating losses, with more than two thousand dead."
"Even their Four-Tails jinchuriki, Roshi, was not spared."
Hearing this, Kakuzu's eyes widened, his face filled with shock and disbelief.
"Who exactly was leading the Konoha forces at Iwagakure? Shouldn't Rengoku be carrying out a mission in the Land of Rivers right now?"
Konan thought to herself that although she knew very well about Rengoku's unique cloning ability, she did not spell it out to Kakuzu, only saying lightly,
"Rengoku left behind a shadow clone."
"This shadow clone used Fire Release to burn two thousand Iwagakure ninja to death."
"What? Just a single shadow clone caused that much damage? Using Fire Release to wipe out a full two thousand people from Iwagakure in one go?", Upon hearing this news, Kakuzu could not help but look utterly stunned, as if he could not believe what he was hearing.
He felt extremely confused by this information.
Because he could understand every word individually, but once they were put together, he could not make sense of it at all.
Faced with Kakuzu's confusion and shock, Konan did not know how to explain it either.
Even she herself felt that the matter was far too outrageous, completely beyond common sense.
However, the reason Rengoku had sent back such detailed intelligence was actually something he had carefully considered.
After all, in the future, he would inevitably need to rely on the strength of other Akatsuki members.
If he were to conceal such important information now, information that would sooner or later be revealed anyway, it would not only be meaningless but might instead breed dissatisfaction and suspicion among people like Kakuzu.
"According to the latest news, after finishing cleaning up the battlefield, that five-thousand-man force will immediately head in our direction."
"Based on their current marching speed, it will take roughly four days for them to arrive here."
"That means, as long as we can successfully hold Kumogakure back for four days, once Rengoku and the others arrive, Kumogakure's end will come."
Kakuzu nodded thoughtfully.
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