The clay spider detonated with a thunderous crack beneath the earth.
Click.
Boom!
Deidara's grin widened.
"This should do some damage, right? Damn Uchiha clan…"
A voice slipped into his ear like a blade in the dark.
"Who told you it would work?"
It was Uchiha Sasuke's voice—icy, mocking, and carried on a current of killing intent. Though unseen, it felt as though a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan eyes were locked on him from the shadows.
Deidara's skin prickled, his gut twisting.
"Those cursed eyes…"
And then, without pause, the battle resumed.
From afar, Jugo, Suigetsu, and Karin watched, eyes wide with shock.
"What an incredible fight," Jugo muttered. "Sasuke's found a real opponent. That guy's no weakling."
Suigetsu snorted, unimpressed.
"Relax. Sasuke will kill him. That's how this ends."
To him, Sasuke's victory was inevitable.
Karin, on the other hand, looked at the two of them with barely concealed disgust. Why am I stuck with these idiots? she thought bitterly. It'd be better to just follow Sasuke-kun himself.
Every moment spent near Suigetsu and Jugo grated on her nerves. All she wanted was for Sasuke to end the fight and finish things.
The clash dragged on for nearly an hour. Both combatants were fraying at the edges—chakra depleted, bodies pushed to their limits.
Deidara vaulted onto his clay bird once more, hovering high above.
"One final move will settle this!" he shouted.
He crammed a massive amount of clay into his mouth, molding it with his chakra until it birthed a colossal figure—a clay giant, towering more than thirty meters high.
The giant lumbered forward, chakra surging dangerously.
"You're finished, Uchiha Sasuke!"
Through his three-tomoe Sharingan, Sasuke saw it clearly—the unstable chakra roiling inside the construct, ready to explode. He had already confirmed it earlier: lightning release suppressed Deidara's explosives. That knowledge tilted the battle heavily in his favor.
Then, without warning, the clay giant floated rapidly backward.
Sasuke's brows furrowed. His Sharingan tracked every detail. He retreated swiftly, cautious, ready for the trick.
And then his body seemed to dissolve.
Deidara's eyes widened, then curved into wild laughter.
"Ha! Hahaha! Finally—finally killed the damned Uchiha brat!"
The rush of victory surged through him like fire. I won! I defeated a Uchiha!
But the moment froze when he felt it—the lingering pulse of Sharingan chakra.
Sasuke materialized behind him, Chidori blazing in his hand.
Lightning pierced through Deidara's chest, straight into his heart.
Crackling thunder shredded his body from within.
Deidara's head turned stiffly, disbelief etched on his face.
"H-how… did you slip past my art?"
"That invisible blast of yours must have a range limit," Sasuke replied coldly. "In the end, I only needed to trick you with genjutsu."
The Sharingan glinted with merciless clarity.
Deidara's voice faltered. His body crumbled—revealed once more as nothing but clay.
"Tch." Sasuke sneered. "What a tiresome trick. Your art's worthless against lightning. And yet you still struggle?"
But that struggle was exactly what saved Deidara. He burst free from behind the clay bird and slammed his fist into Sasuke, catching him off guard. Sasuke staggered, then retaliated with a blow of his own.
Both of them plummeted from the sky, crashing toward the earth.
"You think you've already won, Uchiha Sasuke?" Deidara hissed. "Don't underestimate me."
His body swelled grotesquely.
Sasuke's eyes widened. "Oh no…"
There was no time. He unfurled the second stage of his Curse Mark, wings of dark flesh wrapping around him like a cocoon.
And then—
BOOM!
The explosion tore through the skies, devouring everything within its radius. The shockwave made the forest quake violently below.
Karin, her heightened senses straining, gasped.
"Sasuke's chakra—! It's fragile… too fragile!"
Suigetsu's expression hardened.
"No way… Sasuke, what the hell are you doing?"
Karin prepared to rush toward the battlefield, but Jugo caught her wrist and shook his head firmly.
"Trust Sasuke."
Both shinobi staggered from the wreckage, each battered and near collapse.
Sasuke leaned against a tree, his Sharingan fading.
"Damn it… I didn't expect he'd push me this far." His breath rattled. "Even my curse mark and Sharingan—spent."
Deidara, kneeling some distance away, wasn't faring better. He could barely hold himself upright.
"Damn it… I was saving this for Itachi. But looks like I'll have to use it now."
Whether it was Itachi, Naruto, or Sasuke, Deidara was being driven into a corner. He had no choice left.
Sasuke forced himself forward, step by step, until he loomed over him.
"Tell me where Itachi is."
Deidara smirked weakly.
"You want Itachi's location? Defeat me first, Uchiha brat."
He tore open his shirt, revealing the grotesque mouth embedded in his chest. Shoving all the remaining clay inside, he began to feed it directly into his own heart.
Sasuke's eyes widened as he forced his Sharingan open once more. He saw the truth—Deidara's life energy condensing at the core of his chest.
"He's… going to kill himself."
Light began to blaze from Deidara's body, his form becoming translucent, unstable.
And then—
BOOOOM!
The earth convulsed. The explosion towered into the sky, consuming everything for miles.
A suicidal masterpiece.
Even miles away, Sakura and Naruto felt the tremors beneath their feet.
Sakura lifted her gaze, eyes wide with horror at the colossal blast in the distance.
"That can't be real… To see it from here—just how powerful was that explosion?!"
"We're at least a thousand miles away…" she whispered. "If someone was at the center of that—they'd be dead."
Naruto's eyes narrowed. He recognized it instantly. Deidara's final explosion. Which means… he must've been fighting Sasuke.
But as for whether Sasuke survived? Naruto doubted such an easy death. "His life's too stubborn to end like that."
Sakura turned to him, hesitation in her voice.
"Naruto, should we go? If Sasuke was there—"
"If we don't know the situation, charging in is suicide." His tone was firm, decisive. "If you want to go, I won't stop you. But I'm heading back to Konoha."
Sakura bit her lip. She wanted to argue, but he was right—the danger was beyond measure. She nodded reluctantly.
"Then… should we keep searching for Sasuke?"
"No. We return."
For reasons she couldn't name, Sakura accepted his judgment without protest. She was beginning to unconsciously center her choices around Naruto.
By the next morning, they returned to Konoha. Naruto reported everything to Tsunade, who immediately dispatched an ANBU team to investigate the aftermath of the explosion.
Back at home, Naruto shut his door and sat cross-legged in silence. Nature energy welled around him as he slipped into Sage Mode.
He had one goal: to draw out the crow Itachi had implanted within him—the one carrying Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan. If he couldn't, then that eye was nothing more than wasted potential.
Days passed as he cycled sage chakra through his body again and again.
But Itachi's tricks weren't simple. To summon the crow required a condition: the presence of Mangekyō Sharingan. Without it, the crow would never appear.
Unless…
Naruto summoned a glass vial with a poof. Suspended in saline was Shisui's right Mangekyō Sharingan—stolen from Danzo. The eye was lifeless, gray-white, but it still carried a resonance.
Naruto closed his hand around it, Sage Mode amplifying his senses. Slowly, he felt it—a faint, subtle aura inside his body, akin to the dead eye he held.
"There you are…"
He pushed harder, flooding chakra into the resonance.
And then the nausea hit. His throat convulsed—
Gaaaah!
A crow burst from his mouth, feathers slick with saliva. Naruto doubled over, spitting violently, before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Hah… good thing I had Danzo's stolen Mangekyō." He smirked, voice hoarse. "Otherwise, no way I'd ever drag this thing out."
He seized the crow, yanking the implanted left Mangekyō Sharingan from its eye socket. Pairing it with the lifeless right eye, he sealed them both into the vial of saline.
The crow shrieked.
Naruto's hand tightened. Chakra swirled, forming a Rasengan, and the bird was obliterated into nothing but fragments.
With the eye removed, it had no purpose left.
Far away, beside a quiet lake, Itachi sat with Kisame.
Suddenly, Itachi's eyes snapped open, shock flickering across his usually unreadable face.
"What is it?" Kisame asked. "Did Deidara actually take out your brother?"
"No. Something else."
Itachi's gaze turned toward Konoha, eyes shadowed with disbelief.
The crow. His safeguard. The one he'd placed inside Naruto… destroyed.
That should have been impossible. The crow could only emerge if Naruto confronted Mangekyō Sharingan directly. But what Itachi felt wasn't activation—it was force. The crow had been dragged out and then snuffed out.
Which left only one conclusion.
"Uzumaki Naruto…" Itachi whispered. "You hide far deeper than I imagined."
Kisame chuckled.
"You mean the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki brat? That yellow-haired fool? What's so impressive—did he just learn to control the Nine-Tails or something?"
Itachi shook his head faintly. "It's not that simple."
He coughed suddenly, a wet, violent sound, blood staining his lips.
"Mr. Itachi!" Kisame's grin faltered. "We should find you a place to rest. Your body—"
But Itachi only looked back toward Konoha, eyes narrowed, questions swirling.
Uzumaki Naruto… what are you planning? What is your true purpose?
For the first time in years, Uchiha Itachi felt uncertainty coil deep within his chest.
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