Like a wolf pack closing in on cornered prey, the group pounced. Gai and Lee sprang forward with Shave, forcing Deidara into a close-range brawl. Unprepared and outmatched in taijutsu, Deidara poured all his effort into dodging.
Simultaneously, Karin's adamantine chain snapped through the air and encircled Sasori, trapping the Hiruko puppet. A split second later, the pressure crushed the armor to pieces.
Sasori burst free from the wreckage, the Akatsuki cloak and hood still covering most of his form as he landed lightly on the stone. Sakura and Chiyo closed in at once, Chiyo flanking him with two puppets while Sakura held the center, deliberately giving the elder the lead.
In the brief window the chaos created, Naruto slipped between the clashing groups, seized Gaara's body, and leaped back to safer ground. The strike teams were left to handle the Akatsuki pair while Tenten and Neji held the perimeter, ready to support either side the moment it was needed.
Sasori straightened, then calmly reached up and pushed the hood back. The face beneath was completely unchanged, ageless and smooth, the same face Chiyo had last seen decades ago when he left the village. Her breath caught.
For a single heartbeat she simply stared. Before she could speak, Sasori flicked his wrists and unrolled a scroll from his back. A puppet rose from the smoke that made Chiyo's eyes widen in genuine horror. The blue hair, the striking facial markings, and the overwhelming chakra presence were unmistakable.
"You," Chiyo whispered, her voice shivering before it hardened into a sharp demand.
"That is the Third Kazekage. You were the one behind his disappearance all those years ago."
Sasori offered a cold, detached smirk, his fingers twitching as chakra threads attached to the legendary puppet.
"I simply added him to my collection, Grandmother. He was far more useful to me as a masterpiece than he ever was to the Hidden Sand."
Chiyo's fingers twirled in answer, sending the mother and father puppets sweeping in from the flanks with their wire blades fully extended.Sakura stepped into the center line and planted her feet firmly in front of the elder kunoichi.
As Sasori sent out a wave of iron sand spikes, she punched the open air. The concentrated shockwave detonated the spikes mid-flight and blew the heavy black sand away in a massive spray.
Chiyo seized the opening at once, driving her puppets forward. Sasori was forced to pull the Third Kazekage puppet back to block the wire blades. His eyes narrowed as he realized Sakura was acting as an impenetrable shield.
He answered with a sweeping curtain of iron sand, then a barrage of razor-edged discs, then a sudden thrust of the Kazekage's magnetic spear. Each time Sakura's fist met the attack first; shockwave after shockwave scattering the iron, shattering the discs, and knocking the spear aside before it could reach Chiyo.
The elder never had to break her rhythm. Her mother and father puppets kept pressing, blades flashing, forcing Sasori to defend while the young woman in front of her simply refused to let anything through.A flicker of genuine irritation crossed Sasori's face. No matter what angle he chose, the pink-haired girl was already there, punching the threat out of existence so Chiyo could keep attacking without pause.
"Persistent," he muttered.
Leaping back, Sasori landed atop a high stone pillar out of the reach of Chiyo's blades. He unzipped his Akatsuki cloak and let it slide from his shoulders, exposing the scroll compartments on his back and the glowing core in his chest.
"Well, this isn't going anywhere. Let's increase the numbers, shall we, Grandmother?"
With a flick of his wrists he flung open a massive scroll. A colossal cloud of smoke burst across the upper reaches of the hideout. When it cleared, an army of one hundred puppets hovered in the air, every wooden joint clicking in unison as Sasori connected his chakra threads to all of them at once. The scale of the battlefield shifted in an instant; enough puppets to pin Sakura and still overwhelm Chiyo at the same time.
Chiyo's expression stiffened, the last trace of shock vanishing as she looked up at the hovering army. She reached beneath her robes, pulled out two large scrolls, and tossed them into the air. They unrolled in a wide arc.
"If you are going to use the collection that destroyed a nation, Sasori, then I will answer with the foundation of our art," she said, a thin smirk returning.
A dense cloud of white smoke burst around her. Ten white-robed figures emerged and landed in a perfect defensive circle around Chiyo and Sakura. The legendary Secret Red Move: Performance of a Hundred Puppets was now matched by the Secret White Move: Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu.Sasori smirked down from his pillar, fingers fluttering in a blur as the one hundred puppets began their coordinated descent.-
- With Gai, Lee, and Tenten -
A few yards away, Deidara desperately backflipped to create distance, realizing his taijutsu was entirely outmatched. As Lee and Gai closed the distance with another burst of Shave, Deidara thrust his hand into his clay pouch. He flung a swarm of miniature clay spiders and birds directly into their path, detonating them in a chain of sharp explosions to keep the taijutsu duo at bay.
Using the smoke as a screen, Deidara whistled loudly and leaped onto the large clay bird that had recovered after being slapped away by Karin's adamantine chain earlier. Taking to the air, he flew backward out of the open hideout. Gai and Lee followed immediately, chasing him outside to keep him from dropping more explosives near their comrades. Tenten sprinted right behind them to offer long-range support and anything else they might need.
High above the rocky terrain, Deidara pulled his clay bird into a steep ascent, looking down at his pursuers. Gai and Lee kept their momentum at the cliffside, kicking off the open air with Moonwalk to rocket skyward.Deidara maneuvered his bird into a sharp bank to dodge Gai's opening strike. He thrust his hand into his pouch again, flinging a steady rain of clay bombs at the climbing duo. Each time Gai and Lee closed in, the explosives forced them to dodge backward through the air.
Tenten skidded to a halt on a ledge below. She unrolled a heavy scroll and slammed her palms onto the seal formula, summoning dozens of kunai. Channeling a crackling current of lightning chakra into the weapons, she launched them upward.The electrified blades sliced through the sky, piercing the incoming clay bombs mid-flight. The lightning chakra disrupted the clay, causing the bombs to spark weakly and go inert.
Deidara's smirk vanished as his creations fell uselessly.
With the path cleared by Tenten's cover fire, Gai and Lee used a double-burst of Shave to blur past the falling duds. Materializing directly over the giant bird, Lee landed a crushing axe kick alongside Gai's heavy downward strike. The combined impact smashed into Deidara, knocking him off his mount and sending him plummeting toward the rocks below.
As Deidara plummeted toward the ground, he shoved his hand into his clay pouch. Realizing his physical limitations against the speed of Gai and Lee, he chewed frantically, spitting out dozens of microscopic, near-invisible clay creations into the air current around him.
The tiny constructs drifted down alongside his falling body like a cloud of dust. As soon as they touched the rocky ground below, they immediately burrowed into the dirt and stone, blending seamlessly into the terrain. Deidara hit the earth, rolling backward to absorb the impact before quickly scrambling to his feet. He wiped a streak of blood from his mouth, his smirk returning as he looked up at the sky.
He had just transformed the entire area into an imperceptible minefield. Any step Gai, Lee, or Tenten took on this ground would trigger a localized blast, effectively locking down their superior speed and forcing them into his ideal long-range war of attrition.
"Let's see you three deal with what you can't see."
Deidara smirked as he spoke softly. Gai and Lee landed on the dirt, looking at the smirking man in confusion, wondering why someone who just lost his advantage looked so unbothered.
Gai's eyes scanned the dirt before him. His sharp gaze caught a pattern of tiny, almost minuscule burrows dotting the earth. Though nearly imperceptible to a casual glance, there were at least a few hundred of these small pinpricks freshly perforating the ground around them. His battle instincts flared instantly.
"Lee, don't shift your weight," Gai commanded quietly. "The ground has been rigged."
Lee froze mid-stride, his foot hovering inches above the soil. Deidara's grin widened at their sudden stillness, confident that his trap had completely neutralized their mobility.
Before Deidara could capitalize on his advantage, Gai and Lee shifted their balance seamlessly. Instead of stepping forward, they whipped their legs through the open air, unleashing a pair of massive Tempest Kicks.
The dual vacuum slashes tore across the ground toward Deidara. The sheer force of the long-range shockwaves pre-detonated the microscopic mines in their path, triggering a cascading chain reaction. A roaring wall of fire and stone erupted outward, blasting directly back into Deidara's face.
"Bullshit."
Deidara cursed silently, using a clay clone to escape just before the roaring wall of fire and stone engulfed his position.
The real Deidara materialized further down the slope, coughing through thick smoke as his clone erupted in a secondary explosion. He glared at Gai and Lee, his frustration peaking as the haze cleared over the scorched trench left by the dual Tempest Kicks.
Outmatched on the ground and lacking his aerial advantage, Deidara paused to calculate his next move. Gai and Lee stood firm at the end of the cleared path, their eyes locked on him, while Tenten held the high ground. The battle had reached a tense, temporary stalemate.
- Chapter End -