"Hnnng…"
An invisible force field exploded outward!
The two clay birds in the sky jerked to a dead stop.
It was like some unseen giant hand had clamped down and crushed them in its grip!
"What…!"
Deidara blurted it out in shock.
The clay bird under his feet shook violently. No matter how he pumped chakra into it, it could not move forward even an inch!
The next second…
Crack.
A faint splitting sound came from the bird's belly.
Deidara's pupils shrank hard.
That was…
Crack crack crack…
Fractures spread across the clay bird like a spiderweb, racing out of control!
That massive clay bird he had painstakingly crafted, sturdy enough to carry enemies through the air, was actually coming apart!
"No…!"
Deidara roared and tried to patch it with chakra, but it was already too late!
Rattle rattle rattle…
Both clay birds shattered at the same time, and scattered in every direction.
Like snowflakes, they drifted down in a fluttering storm!
Four figures fell from the sky…
And dropped straight down!
"Damn it…"
Kakuzu growled, twisting his body in midair, trying to adjust his posture.
Sasori's Hiruko tail whipped out violently, trying to latch onto something.
Hidan swung his scythe, cursing nonstop.
Deidara fumbled frantically, trying to mold more clay… but every struggle…
In front of that invisible force field…
Looked completely useless.
They were not falling on their own.
They were being pressed down.
Like an unseen hand reaching from above the sky itself and slamming them down by force.
Boom…
Boom…
Boom…
Boom…
Four bodies hit the plaza's hard stone with back to back impacts.
Four craters of different depths burst open.
Dust blasted upward.
Smoke and grit rolled across the square.
At the edge of the plaza, countless pairs of eyes stared blankly at the scene.
Someone's mouth hung open and never closed.
Someone rubbed their eyes, as if they could not believe the hallucination in front of them.
Someone muttered, voice trembling:
"Kazekage-sama… just said… no flying…"
"And then… they… fell?"
No one answered.
Because no one could believe what they were seeing.
No flying.
Not a jutsu, not a kekkei genkai.
It was not even any known system of power…
It was just one sentence.
And then everyone who was airborne, every ninja in the air, all dropped out of the sky.
The dust slowly thinned.
Inside the four craters, four figures pushed themselves up and stood.
Deidara was covered head to toe in grime, his face full of disbelief.
Kakuzu's expression was dark enough to curdle blood every muscle in his body tight as drawn wire.
Hidan spat sand from his mouth again and again, his grip on the scythe tightening.
Sasori stayed silent.
But the light in his eyes had turned sharper, more dangerous.
They slowly raised their heads.
And looked at the man standing in the middle of the ruins.
Teizawa was still standing there.
One hand still slightly lifted, his posture unchanged from before.
His gaze swept over the four of them, calm and unhurried.
That faint, almost-there curve still hung at the corner of his mouth.
"Now…"
he said. His voice was not loud, yet it carried clearly into every ear.
"We can talk at eye level."
The plaza fell into dead silence.
Then…
"Long live Kazekage-sama…"
A cheer like a tidal wave detonated across the square!
…
Snap snap…
Deidara crawled out of the crater, dusting himself off, already kneading the scattered wreckage of those birds back into clay birds.
He formed seals, chakra surging.
A lump of white clay rapidly took shape in his palm…
Then the bird appeared, but…
Nothing happened.
The bird flapped its wings, yet it did not budge at all.
"What the hell?"
Deidara's eyes went wide. He tried again.
Still nothing.
Again.
Still nothing.
"My art… my bird… why won't it fly?!"
For the first time, panic crept into his voice.
For Deidara, losing flight was like losing half of himself.
Most of his fighting style was built on one premise: bombing from the sky.
Now that premise was gone.
Kakuzu rose from his crater more slowly, green eyes sweeping the surroundings with wary calm.
Across the plaza, Sand shinobi were gathering fast.
The crowd that had been panicking a moment ago was now forming an orderly encirclement, shockingly disciplined.
Replacing chaos was layer after layer of ninja…
Genin, chūnin, jōnin, kunai in hand, squads locked in formation.
Their eyes were pinned on the four of them.
At a glance, there had to be over a thousand.
"Looks like we've got trouble."
Kakuzu spoke, his voice hoarse and steady.
He called it "trouble," but there was not much fear in it.
And why would there be?
He had lived more than ninety years. He had seen too many scenes like this.
A thousand-man ring was nothing.
He had been trapped in a canyon once by two thousand ninja.
In the end, he had still carved out a path with sheer monstrous vitality and made it out alive.
Numbers were never what he feared.
But…
His eyes swept across the Sand shinobi again.
They were not a mob rushing in blindly.
They were organized, disciplined, commanded like an army.
More importantly…
That man in the ruins was still standing there.
Those eyes made Kakuzu think of some memories he did not enjoy.
The Third Raikage.
That brute who could fight ten thousand alone.
How did he die in the end?
He was worn down. Slowly, relentlessly.
Ten thousand Iwa shinobi, rotating in waves, stacking bodies, attacking again and again.
Grinding away his stamina and chakra, bit by bit.
Until he finally died in the northwest.
Even the Raikage ended like that.
The four of them, no matter how strong, were they stronger than the Third Raikage?
"Split up."
Sasori's voice cut in, low and calm, decisive in a way that left no room for argument.
"Find an opening. We continue the mission later."
His gaze swept the familiar buildings, the familiar streets, the familiar terrain…
Once, they had lived here for ten years.
He knew every inch of it like the lines on his own hands.
"Suna has a lot of internal problems," he added, the words carrying a complexity only he could fully hear.
"Peel off the first layer and the cracks show everywhere."
"Then we go pick a fight with that guy again, keep him pinned."
The other three did not speak.
But they did not object either.
Because they all knew Sasori was right.
No matter how big Suna was, it was not bigger than this land.
As long as they broke out of this ring…
Slip into civilian homes, dive into the sewers, vanish into abandoned structures.
With the four of their concealment skills, getting out would not be hard.
Once the heat died down they regroup.
They had done it countless times.
Deidara clenched his teeth, furious and unwilling.
His art had not even truly begun.
And that bastard Kazekage shut it down with a single sentence.
How was he supposed to swallow that?
But reason told him this was not the time to smash head on.
"Fine, fine."
He waved impatiently.
"We'll retreat for now. Once I find a way to crack that freak no-fly rule, I'll come back and blow him to pieces!"
Hidan licked his lips baring jagged white teeth in a grin.
"Tch. All those sacrifices, and we're just leaving? What a waste…"
Kakuzu shot him a cold look.
"If you want to die, stay."
…
Hidan clicked his tongue and shut up.
In an instant, the four of them exchanged a glance.
No more words were needed.
The next second…
Four figures burst out at once!
Deidara shot southeast, toward the civilian district.
Dense buildings, tangled alleys.
Perfect for hiding.
Kakuzu sprinted straight west, toward the shopping street.
Crowds and chaos, a good place to muddy the water.
Hidan howled with laughter and charged east.
His scythe whirled, like he was about to start a slaughter…
But his feet never slowed.
The madness was clearly a cover for running.
And Sasori…
Went straight south.
It was the direction he knew best.
The old site of Suna's puppeteer clans.
His childhood memories were there, his former workshop.
And countless tunnels and hidden rooms only he knew.
As long as he got there…
His figure flickered between ruins.
Like a ghost, he vanished in the blink of an eye.
"They're running!"
Kankuro finally snapped out of it and shouted:
"Stop them!"
Sand shinobi moved instantly, splitting into pursuit teams.
But the four were simply too fast.
In a blink, they were out of the plaza, swallowed by the maze of streets.
You could only say they were not fools. They were S-rank missing-nin.
Without equal-tier combat power to match them…
Even with several thousand shinobi, it was hard to keep them.
Teizawa stayed where he was, watching the four disappearing backs.
The smile at his mouth did not change at all.
In the original plot, Deidara could practically solo Suna because of his air superiority.
But now…
Teizawa had instantly wiped out the magnetic field over all of Suna's airspace.
It was basically a gravity Domain laid over the village sky.
So when he said "no flying," it was not bluffing.
And without flight, Deidara was nothing to worry about.
Everything was going according to plan.
Split up and run?
Teizawa watched the four of them disappear, thinking quietly.
Good.
That is exactly what I want.
He tilted his head slightly looking at the nine behind him.
"Proceed as planned!"
(End of Chapter)
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