Deidara might have been a few explosions short of a full deck, practically a born demolition man, but when it came to developing ninjutsu and fighting, he was undeniably talented.
He was stubbornly single-minded, devoting himself entirely to pursuing his art of explosions. He had never cared about training any other chakra nature.
That said, he had made a point of strengthening his resistance against his weaknesses. Just as in Sasuke's original world, after getting bullied by the Sharingan, he had specifically trained his resistance to genjutsu.
The war had already begun, and there was no way he intended to miss it. Even while plummeting through the air, he had already figured out how to escape.
Boom—
The clay giant bird hit the ground first. Since it was made of soft clay, it cushioned the impact when Deidara crashed into it moments later, allowing him to slip directly inside its body.
By the time Tenten and the others caught up and smashed the clay bird apart, Deidara was nowhere to be found.
He wasn't just an explosives expert—he was also an expert in Earth Release. Burrowing underground to escape had always been one of his favorite life-saving tricks.
At least until he completed his Ultimate Art, Deidara still valued his own life.
"Tch. We held back because we wanted to capture him alive," Tenten complained. "Had I known, I would've just killed him."
Naruto shrugged.
"Forget it. If he got away, he got away. Let the people from Iwagakure deal with him."
Kurotsuchi nodded immediately.
"Exactly. Leave it to me. Deidara-niisan really isn't a bad person. I'll convince him to surrender and make sure he never causes trouble for everyone again."
Sakura looked at her as though she were hopeless.
"You're beyond saving. You're still calling him 'niisan'? He sure didn't act like your niisan when he attacked."
Kurotsuchi shot back without hesitation.
"Oh? Then if Sasuke tried to kill you, would you forgive him?"
Sakura stiffened her neck.
"That's completely different! Sasuke's my teammate. He never defected, so why would he try to kill me? And even if he had defected, he still wouldn't attack me. Right, Sasuke?"
"Hmph."
Sasuke couldn't be bothered with the conversation.
"What a pointless discussion. Let's report back and keep moving. Stay a safe distance behind the combat units."
...
On the Five Kage's side, Ōnoki secretly breathed a sigh of relief after learning that someone had successfully escaped.
At the same time, he became even more dissatisfied with Deidara's stupidity.
A perfectly good chance to live had been handed to him, yet the fool insisted on charging straight toward his own death.
The Raikage sneered.
"Old man, you've really gotten rusty over the years. Back when we fought, you weren't nearly that slow."
Ōnoki sighed.
"I'm old now. Can't be helped. The real problem is that the younger generation of Iwagakure just doesn't have enough talent. We still haven't found anyone worthy of succeeding me."
He glanced toward Konoha.
"Unlike Konoha, where talented shinobi are everywhere. You've even got quite a few people who can fly now. Since when did flying become so easy for ninja?"
Makoto answered casually.
"Flying by manipulating the gravitational properties of Earth Release chakra is extremely difficult. Gravity itself is incredibly hard to control."
"But if you use Wind Release instead, it's much simpler. The wind is easier to manipulate, though it's also far more noticeable. Konoha has already developed a complete Wind Release flight technique."
Rasa's eyes lit up.
"Sunagakure specializes in Wind Release. That would suit us perfectly."
Minato smiled.
"If you'd like to learn it, you're welcome anytime. We should all be strengthening cooperation between our villages."
"That's wonderful."
As the Kazekage, Rasa naturally understood what that invitation implied.
Whether through a unified alliance or by sending large numbers of Sunagakure's children to study in Konoha, the two villages would gradually become one. The only question was how long it would take.
But Rasa didn't care.
He was thoroughly sick of scraping gold out of the desert just to survive—and even more sick of dealing with the Wind Daimyō's constant incompetence.
Every time the Land of Wind slashed Sunagakure's budget, he wanted to march into the capital and chop that idiot's head off.
You Daimyō have ruled uninterrupted for generations, protecting one another while living safe, wealthy, carefree lives.
Meanwhile, my people are working themselves to death just to stay alive—and even that's becoming impossible.
The Raikage and the Mizukage exchanged complicated looks, their hearts heavy.
Konoha had already become a monster they could no longer hope to compete with.
Every generation produced an abundance of outstanding talent, leaving the other villages hopelessly behind.
Meanwhile, they were still living at the mercy of fate.
Whether their villages produced geniuses or not depended entirely on whether the Sage of Six Paths happened to smile upon them.
Ōnoki: Mission accomplished. Successfully shifted everyone's attention. Nice.
...
After that brief diversion, the Allied Shinobi Forces continued their steady advance northward.
The marching speed of ninja was something ordinary people could scarcely comprehend.
They encountered no resistance along the way, steadily carrying out the encirclement of the Akatsuki's base.
Before noon, the alliance had pushed deep into the heart of the Land of Rice Fields.
Reports began arriving simultaneously from the communications units attached to every division.
The advance forces had finally made contact with the enemy.
The shinobi they encountered were indeed from Amegakure and Otogakure, but their numbers were small.
The moment they clashed with the Allied Forces, they immediately retreated.
It was obvious they were trying to lure the alliance deeper into enemy territory.
The advance units all had Hyūga clan members using their Byakugan to scout ahead, yet no traps could be found—not in front of them, above them, or beneath them.
The enemy seemed to have only a small force. They would launch a brief harassment attack and then immediately withdraw.
What in the shinobi world could evade the Hyūga's Byakugan?
Kirigakure's Red Eyes could interfere with the Byakugan, but that bloodline had long since gone extinct. Certain specialized sealing techniques could also do it, but they required advance preparation and weren't suitable for a battlefield of this scale.
Only one thing could accomplish that.
White Zetsu.
When one of those creatures used the Mayfly Technique to remain perfectly still underground, it could completely halt all chakra activity—or manipulate its chakra until it blended seamlessly with nature itself. It was incredibly deceptive, making it impossible for the Byakugan to detect.
The Four Kage weren't aware of this and could only speculate about where the enemy was hiding.
Minato, however, knew.
"It's those things called White Zetsu, isn't it?"
"Most likely," Makoto replied before immediately issuing an order to the communications unit.
"Inform all combat divisions. Have those highly proficient in senjutsu perform sensory detection. Search every inch beneath the ground. The moment anything unusual is found, force them out with Earth Release."
It could only be said that Konoha's shinobi had grown overly reliant on the Byakugan.
The other four great villages' shinobi were no different.
After receiving the order, Konoha's sensory ninja embedded within each combat division intensified their underground surveillance.
It didn't take long before they began detecting anomalies, and they immediately relayed the characteristics of those irregularities to every allied unit.
Had there only been a few suspicious spots, they might have been overlooked.
But there were simply too many.
So every combat division unleashed combined Earth Release techniques, reshaping the terrain itself.
Under the effects of the jutsu, vast stretches of ground split apart, rose into the air, and overturned.
At last, the enemies hiding beneath the surface revealed themselves.
Every single one looked identical.
They wore loose cloaks resembling the Akatsuki uniform, except without the signature red clouds.
Most terrifying of all, every enemy was entirely white.
It was impossible to tell whether they were even human.
Their heads were completely wrapped, with only two holes exposing their eyes.
Looking through those openings, one could vaguely make out what seemed to be human eyes staring back.
This...
...was the White Zetsu Cybernetic Army that Nagato had created by combining incompletely matured White Zetsu with human beings.
The Allied Shinobi Forces had never seen anything like it before.
But with both armies already face to face, every division immediately erupted into large-scale combat.
From the very beginning, however, the Allied Forces paid a painful price.
Unlike the hundred thousand White Zetsu from Sasuke's original world—which relied only on crude taijutsu and devouring people, mindlessly charging forward in overwhelming numbers...
Those had been little more than brainless humanoid creatures, individually pitifully weak.
They were said to possess the strength of a chūnin, but their abilities were heavily lopsided.
Nagato's White Zetsu Cybernetic Army was entirely different.
The ones doing the fighting were the humans inside the White Zetsu.
They had brains.
They knew ninjutsu.
They fought intelligently and adapted to the battlefield.
The White Zetsu wrapped around them merely served as a cybernetic body, supplying chakra and rapidly repairing damage, dramatically enhancing the otherwise mediocre combat capabilities of the Rain and Sound shinobi.
Their chakra reserves increased.
Their endurance in battle improved.
When two individually weak components were combined, the result wasn't one plus one equaling two—it was closer to four... or even five.
The instant the two sides collided, the Allied Shinobi Forces were blindsided by an enemy whose abilities they knew nothing about.
Some shinobi carved numerous wounds across an opponent's body with their weapons.
The enemy simply ignored them, charging forward relentlessly without giving them even a moment to catch their breath.
The injuries healed almost instantly.
Hardly any blood was even spilled.
Others drove kunai straight into their enemies' vital organs.
The humans inside the White Zetsu were clearly suffering excruciating pain, yet they didn't panic in the slightest.
The moment the Allied shinobi believed they had secured the kill, the enemy immediately launched a lethal counterattack.
Afterward, the mortally wounded opponent would simply sink back underground.
Once the White Zetsu body had repaired the injury, they would emerge again and throw themselves right back into the fight.
For a time, the Allied Shinobi Forces were completely caught off guard by this suicidal style of combat.
Screams echoed continuously across the battlefield as casualties mounted at an alarming rate.
Shinobi weren't fools.
Once they understood what they were facing, they quickly realized how to deal with it.
Cut off their heads.
No matter how effective the White Zetsu cybernetic body was, it couldn't reattach a human head after it had been severed.
Even if it somehow did, the person would still be dead.
There was no bringing them back to life.
The White Zetsu Cybernetic Army knew that as well.
Their absolute priority was protecting their heads and necks.
They would rather let an enemy stab them straight through the heart than allow anyone near their one true fatal weakness.
You stab my heart, and I only need a little time to heal.
I stab yours... and you die.
In this kind of asymmetrical battle, even though the Allied Forces held an overwhelming numerical advantage, they found themselves fighting with extreme caution.
After all...
The fearless fear the reckless.
And the reckless fear only those who don't care whether they live or die.