Hiruko shattered. A black figure vaulted to a tree on the opposite side. Swathed head to toe in black cloth, he turned his back to the two of them…
"I came all this way just to see my grandson. Can't we at least talk?" Chiyo-baasama called to the Sasori whose back faced her.
Up in the sky, Deidara had already dived. Was the enemy really Shigeo?
Even if it was, he would still win.
With that thought, the mouth in his palm spat clay. He hurled it down.
Several large spiders scuttled at high speed, rushing straight for Chiyo-baasama. Chiyo flicked senbon, pinning into the spiders. But the white spiders burst apart, splitting into countless smaller spiders—along with several tiny, exquisitely made birds that had been hidden inside the giant spider's body.
The same trick as before—turn one into a hundred.
A swarm of tiny spiders and birds chased after Chiyo-baasama. She slipped aside, senbon stabbing out. Each hit on a small spider triggered a blast.
This was supposed to be a fight among Sasori, Chiyo-baasama, and Shigeo. With Deidara jumping in, the battlefield devolved into a chaotic four-way knot.
Around Shigeo, innumerable clay birds appeared, hemming him in. Deidara's arrogant laugh drifted down from above. "Today, I'll let you savor the taste of explosions!"
Booms hammered the air.
Deidara laughed hard. He'd seen with his own eyes the little birds settling stealthily onto Shigeo's floating body. The force of those birds' explosions could shred a jōnin into scraps.
When the clay was spent, curtains of smoke billowed over the field.
Across in the trees, Chiyo-baasama, breathing hard, looked at Shigeo who had just saved her. "Thank you. That one's trouble."
She had come to deal with a traitor. Now it was clear the matter was not simple.
On the trunk opposite, the Sasori wrapped in black cloth finally turned around—flame-red hair, a beautiful face, keen eyes. It was the same look he'd had when he ran away from home seventeen years ago.
Chiyo-baasama stared at her grandson in disbelief. A quiet grief also weighed in her chest, because she knew exactly what it meant that Sasori had not aged.
He'd described the steps of making a human puppet moments ago. He had turned himself into one. Otherwise he could not look exactly the same after seventeen years.
In the sky, Deidara spotted Shigeo dodging clear and frowned. How had he escaped just now? Then he heard a voice behind him: "Ever heard of Jōki Bōi (Steaming Danger Tyranny)?"
He spun in fear. A gigantic "doll" stood right behind him. Suddenly it threw out its arms and hugged Deidara tight. Its body swelled… then shrank.
A thunderous explosion detonated. Boiling water and oil erupted. The blast not only pulverized Deidara and the clay bird in midair, it also gouged the ground into a massive crater for kilometers around.
Sasori sprang clear of the explosion. His fingers twitched. A scroll popped into his hand, and the Sandaime Kazekage puppet emerged in a swirl.
Shigeo shielded Chiyo-baasama with Mokuton: Mokutei-heki (Wood Ingot Wall) to survive Jōki Bōi's blast. When they reappeared, the Third Kazekage puppet was already attacking.
"I don't care about catching up," Sasori said coldly. "I care about him. Are you or aren't you Shigeo?" He drove the Third Kazekage straight at Shigeo.
He still kept his transformed shell, not revealing his true body.
He could not drop the disguise. His identity was different now, and the matter touched the top villain group, Akatsuki. He also planned to extract Deidara. Discretion was best.
The Third Kazekage puppet surged forward as if it could levitate. Its two massive arms spread wide. Several sharp blades slotted between its forearms and swept in to scissor the two down.
At the same time, Deidara had looped behind Chiyo-baasama and Shigeo, pelting them with small clay bombs to seal their retreat.
Blades raked in from the front. Spider-bombs pressed from the rear. There was nowhere to run.
Chiyo-baasama wanted to answer with puppets, but kugutsu-jutsu favored range. The enemy had fielded the Third Kazekage, claiming the advantage at distance.
If they held the advantage, then she held the disadvantage. The Kazekage puppet was already too close for her to deploy.
She had no chance to send out her own weapons.
A metallic crash split the air.
Shigeo caught the blow with two oversized kunai, arresting the scissoring blades. Sparks sprayed as metal ground on metal. A bluish sheen glimmered on the knife-edges—that was poison.
"Futago Hebi!" Deidara suddenly shouted from above. Two serpents fell from the sky, coiling toward Chiyo and Shigeo.
Experience from the first ambush had taught him. The one blasted by Jōki Bōi had only been a clay bunshin, not his real body.
As for whether the man flying overhead now was the original? No one could be sure.
Deidara's bunshin were corporeal clones, with genuine chakra flowing through them, no different in that sense from Shigeo's Mokuton Bunshin (Wood Clone) or Naruto's Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique).
The two great snakes wrapped the pair. Explosions boomed again.
Working with Sasori let Deidara both rescue "Scorpion" on a hair trigger and coordinate their offense.
A normal jōnin would likely have died from poison or blasts in the opening exchange. But their opponent was Shigeo.
After a Kūkan Ido (Space Transfer), Chiyo-baasama hid outside the crater's rim, and Shigeo vanished from sight.
Now he had to break them one by one. He couldn't keep fighting with a single body. He needed to pin Deidara down. With that decision, several Mokuton Bunshin (Wood Clones) sprang from behind him and slipped into the forest.
He nodded to Chiyo-baasama. She understood. The two advanced.
Inside the crater, Sasori stood below with a handsome, impassive face, eyes scanning the surroundings. Above him hovered the Third Kazekage puppet, vigilance at full.
High overhead, the mouths in Deidara's palm and hand kept chewing clay. He, too, watched the perimeter. He was sure that man hadn't died so easily to Futago Hebi. He could still feel the killing intent.
Suddenly, at five points, five figures appeared. Four were the same young man. The fifth was Chiyo-baasama.
Sasori smiled at the sight, lips curling.
The Third Kazekage puppet lunged again—this time not at Shigeo, but at Chiyo-baasama.
(End of Chapter)
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