"Ahahaha!"
"Won! I've won! My art wo-!" On the screen, Deidara stood atop his clay bird, arms spread wide, cheering loudly as his blonde hair fluttered in the wind.
In his eyes, Sasuke had already been disintegrated at the cellular level by C4 Karura—completely erased from existence. His art had finally triumphed over those detestable Sharingan eyes.
But then, the Sharingan's Genjutsu was dispelled, and Deidara immediately sensed something was wrong, but it was already too late.
Zzzzzap!
Sasuke, in his Cursed Seal state, raised his Chidori and had already appeared behind him. Deidara tried to dodge, but after just releasing C4 Karura, his chakra was almost completely depleted. He couldn't react in time, and Sasuke's hand pierced straight through his chest.
In an instant, blood splattered.
Warm blood gushed from the wound, spattering across the white clay bird, a shocking sight to behold.
"It seems you've exhausted your chakra… Your reaction was sluggish." Amid Deidara's look of disbelief, Sasuke calmly explained how he had evaded the Jutsu.
"I've already avoided your vital spots. Now tell me where Itachi is," Sasuke asked patiently.
"That's why I said, 'I really have to thank Itachi for this!'" Deidara's tone was unreadable—neither pleased nor angry.
Suddenly, a hand burst out from within the clay bird and grabbed Sasuke's left ankle.
Sasuke looked down and saw—it was Deidara. The Deidara he had just pierced through was merely a white clay puppet.
"A clay… clone?" Sasuke realized.
"I anticipated your Genjutsu. You're just like Itachi! I never fall for the same trick twice!"
'Yes, ever since that day I fought Itachi... I've been training this left eye specifically to counter the Sharingan—as if I'd neglect training to counter Genjutsu!'
Deidara laughed wildly, "This time, it's over for real! Eat my C4!"
He spat out another massive "Deidara" effigy from his mouth, enveloping Sasuke within it. Held in place by the clay clone's bindings, Sasuke was temporarily immobilized.
"It seems you're the one lacking chakra!"
"You don't even have the strength left to dodge! Huh?!"
After saying that, Deidara leaped off the clay bird. But just as he spoke, the familiar crackle of electricity rang out again. Sasuke, wielding Chidori, broke through C4 Karura and, using the flesh wings of his Cursed Seal form, flew rapidly toward Deidara.
Eventually, the two crashed into a forest, startling a flock of birds.
Deidara landed first. In his mind, with the final detonation of C4, Sasuke had already been destroyed at the cellular level.
"I won… I'm the winner!"
"My art has triumphed!" Deidara picked himself up from the ground, exhilarated.
But then—the Sharingan's Genjutsu was dispelled once again.
Bam!
Before he could even turn around, Sasuke, now back in his normal form, threw a punch straight into Deidara's face, sending him flying more than ten meters across the ground.
[It is worth noting—whoever said Sasuke had no chakra left here was mistaken. He couldn't stand up because of the Chidori he had used on himself, not because he was out of chakra.]
[And Deidara only said that Sasuke's chakra was lacking—he never said Sasuke had none left.]
[As for why did Deidara say that Sasuke looked down on him? Because he believed Sasuke had chosen to deactivate his Sharingan, rather than being forced to due to chakra exhaustion.]
[And that was indeed the case. If Sasuke's chakra had truly been depleted, how could he have summoned Manda? What would he have used to suppress Orochimaru within him? And why wouldn't Orochimaru have emerged?]
[What's interesting here is that when Sasuke used his Sharingan to look at Deidara, Deidara was angry, and when Sasuke turned off his Sharingan, Deidara still got angry. What was Sasuke supposed to do—fight him with his eyes closed?]
[Though Sasuke had no idea where Deidara's anger was coming from. He had inexplicably gone along with this fight, held back several times to ask for information, and after all that questioning, he still didn't get a straight answer. That was honestly quite unfair to him.]
---
[Konoha, Year 60. Tazuna's House]
Kakashi's heart jolted. Orochimaru… what did it mean that Sasuke was suppressing Orochimaru? Hadn't they just said that Sasuke had already killed Orochimaru?
Could it be that because Orochimaru coveted Sasuke's body, he had left some kind of backup inside him, forcing Sasuke to remain on guard against him?
That made sense.
The screen had said that Orochimaru lived for a very long time—so Sasuke's so-called "killing" of Orochimaru clearly wasn't a true death.
That man really knew how to survive.
Fortunately, at this point, Sasuke had temporarily abandoned the idea of going to find Orochimaru—otherwise, that would have been quite troublesome.
---
[Akatsuki Hideout]
Hidan watched Deidara getting punched across the ground on the screen and clicked his tongue. "Tsk tsk tsk, Deidara, looks like there's quite a gap between you and Itachi's little brother. You ended up like this even though he was holding back the whole time."
Deidara shot up from his chair, face flushed red with fury: "What do you know?! That brat is just as cunning as Itachi! He wouldn't even fight me head-on! My art was just a little short of victory!"
Meanwhile, on the screen, Sasuke calmly continued answering Deidara's questions about how his Jutsus had been countered.
After finishing, he lifted his foot and slowly walked toward Deidara.
"Where is Itachi?"
Hearing Sasuke's question, Deidara mustered all his remaining strength and flung out two white serpents from his hands, which bit down on Sasuke's ankles. But Sasuke's entire body crackled with electricity, and the two serpents were instantly electrocuted to the ground.
However, the sharp pain also forced Sasuke to one knee, gasping for breath.
Seeing this, Deidara began rambling endlessly. But Sasuke gave no reaction whatsoever—not even a change in expression.
And it was precisely that attitude that completely broke Deidara's composure.
"That's exactly what pisses me off about you!" He roared in fury.
"Both of you brothers—don't pretend to be so cool!"
"It's that look—that arrogant, all-knowing look that infuriates me! As if it denies my art—those eyes are absolutely unforgivable!"
"Those eyes which show absolutely no respect for my art... Those eyes that ignore my art... are unforgivable!"
But Sasuke still showed no expression and even deactivated his Sharingan. "I couldn't care less about such a thing. Just tell me where Itachi is."
Hearing those words and seeing Sasuke's reaction, Deidara's eyes turned bloodshot. He tore open his own clothes with one hand.
"You're not even using the Sharingan anymore? You really look down on me that much?!"
Deidara pulled out the black threads on his chest, revealing a large mouth that immediately formed on his left chest. He fed explosive clay into that mouth, and countless thin black lines suddenly appeared all over his body.
'Tobi—sorry about this!'
As Deidara's entire body condensed into a black sphere, a single ray of light tore through one corner of the sphere. Then, countless more rays burst from within, shredding the black sphere to pieces. The surrounding space itself seemed to tear apart, and everything was swallowed by blinding white light.
"Art… is an explosion!!"
A massive, star-shaped explosion appeared on the Sky Screen, eventually covering the entire screen!
The shockwave of the explosion spread in all directions, destroying everything within a ten-kilometer radius.
---
[Konoha, Year 60. Tazuna's House]
Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura all gulped simultaneously.
A self-destruction covering a ten-kilometer radius—how did Sasuke survive that?
Kakashi's mind raced. 'Flying Thunder God? Intangibility?'
Aside from those two, he couldn't think of any other technique that could evade something like that.
Even Sasuke himself couldn't help but scratch his head, feeling a chill run down his spine.
How the hell did he survive that?
[Speaking of this, we have to lament how unlucky Manda really was. Originally summoned as Orochimaru's personal summon, Manda was incredibly powerful—even Orochimaru didn't dare to clash with it head-on and had to provide sacrifices whenever he called it into battle.]
[But Sasuke didn't indulge it. To avoid Deidara's self-destruction, Sasuke chose to hide inside Manda's body. Poor Manda never expected that after a lifetime of glory, it would end up as Sasuke's shield. Such a pity—so much strength, only to be used as a meat shield in the end.]
---
[Konoha, Year 60. Somewhere in an Underground Lab]
Orochimaru looked at the scene of Manda being blasted nearly to death on the screen, his lips twitching.
That guy Manda—though foul-tempered—had worked with him for years and was genuinely powerful. To think it would end up gone like this in the future…
Orochimaru took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Oh well—at least he'd learned a trick. Using Manda as a meat shield didn't sound half bad.
---
[Ryūchi Cave]
Manda watched the scene of its own gruesome death on the screen and immediately erupted into furious curses.
Uchiha Sasuke, was it? I'll remember you. Don't even think about signing a summoning contract with me in the future!
Seems like Orochimaru was the more reliable one after all—at least he offered sacrifices in exchange for combat.
Unlike that bastard Uchiha Sasuke!
It was just a snake—why did it have to go through all that?
*****
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