Chapter 248: The Belated Arrival
Land of Wind. High in the scorching blue sky, a colossal white clay bird was gliding steadily, its movements graceful against the fierce desert winds.
"Hey, Uncle Sasori, are we almost there?"
A slightly bored, flippant voice came from the bird's back.
Deidara, with his signature long, bright golden hair and his left eye shielded by his scope, was sprawled lazily on the clay bird's back, propping his chin with one hand.
"This damn desert is so boring, hm. There isn't even a single landscape that could be called art. No explosive masterpieces, nothing."
"Shut up, Deidara. Focus on scouting."
A muffled, dry voice came from behind Deidara.
The speaker was a bulky, unsettling, scorpion-like puppet.
Hiruko.
Sasori of the Red Sand's formidable battle fortress. The hard, heavy shell he used to conceal his true, puppet form.
"Tch, a guy who doesn't understand art." Deidara pouted, the disdain evident in his tone.
"I see it, hm."
Deidara's boredom vanished. His gaze was fixed on the distant horizon, piercing the shimmering heat haze.
The massive, familiar outline of a village, built in the hollow of a giant rock wall, had appeared in his line of sight.
That was their target: Sunagakure (Hidden Sand Village).
The giant clay bird began to descend, arcing in a wide, slow glide towards the village.
However.
As they got closer, the expression on Deidara's face, which had initially been relaxed and scornful, gradually turned to confusion. And finally, as the full scope of the disaster became clear, it was replaced by pure, wide-eyed shock!
"What... what is this, hm?"
Deidara suddenly sat bolt upright on the bird's back, leaning forward, utterly unable to believe what he was seeing.
The Sunagakure below could no longer be called a village. It was an apocalyptic wasteland.
Rubble, dust, scorched earth, and the still-smoking wreckage of buildings silently spoke of a disaster of unimaginable brutality. The very rock walls were split by a colossal, impossible fissure.
"Are... are you kidding me, Sasori?"
Deidara's voice trembled slightly, not with fear, but with a sudden, overwhelming artistic epiphany.
"This... is this also art?!"
In Deidara's eyes, there was first shock, and then a morbid, terrifying fanaticism ignited!
Deidara trembled with pure, artistic excitement. He had never imagined that besides his own explosive clay masterpieces, someone else in this miserable world could create such a breathtaking "work" of destruction! The scale! The finality!
"Who? WHO did this, hm?!"
Deidara excitedly turned his head, wanting to share this strange, professional joy with his partner.
But he found that Hiruko, the scorpion puppet behind him, had fallen completely silent at some point. Its massive shell was completely still.
"Hey, Uncle Sasori?" Deidara called out tentatively, a hint of concern in his voice.
No response came from within the puppet's shell.
"Your homeland was just blown up, and you don't have any reaction at all? Are you even in there?"
There was a hint of mean-spirited schadenfreude in Deidara's tone.
Hiruko remained motionless and silent.
Only its heavy, segmented, scorpion-like steel tail, usually rigidly held, was unconsciously, slowly, gently swaying back and forth, like a pendulum.
The giant clay bird slowly circled, finally landing on the cracked, heat-blasted stone that was once the main entrance plaza of Sunagakure.
Deidara jumped off the bird's back and eagerly rushed into the ruins, his enthusiasm that of an artist at a gallery, seemingly admiring a perfect work of destruction.
"Amazing! Truly amazing, hm!"
"The sheer power of this attack! The scale of this destruction... look at the vaporization! It's simply a miracle of force!"
He squatted down, picking up a handful of scorched, glassy sand, and sniffed it at the tip of his nose, analyzing the chemical composition of the ruins.
Meanwhile, Sasori's consciousness, deep beneath Hiruko's hard shell, churned with chaotic, unwanted emotions.
He stared blankly at the sight of his homeland, the place of his childhood, the source of his pain and his ultimate rejection, now reduced to scorched earth and splinters of wood.
"Boring emotions," Sasori muttered to himself, his voice dry and devoid of warmth, even through the speaker within the puppet.
"This village has long had nothing to do with me. I personally betrayed it. I abandoned it. I chose art over it."
"What does its destruction have to do with Sasori of the Red Sand?"
He should have felt satisfaction. He should have been happy. He should have been utterly, clinically indifferent.
But why... why was there this tight, sickening clench in his core?
"Anger?"
"No," Sasori instantly, harshly denied the word. "That is not correct. Anger is an emotion of the weak, the living."
He, Sasori of the Red Sand, had long transcended the realm of humans, transforming himself into an eternal, perfect work of art.
Works of art have no emotions.
This was just a... a deep, profound displeasure.
Yes. Very displeased.
This feeling. Very annoyed. Extremely annoyed.
"Sunagakure," Sasori concluded, his internal thoughts cold and absolute. "Sunagakure can only be destroyed by me."
"No one else has that right. No one else deserves the honor."
Hiruko's puppet arm, hidden beneath its shell, clenched its five articulated, wooden fingers abruptly, making a soft, audible "click-click" sound.
A wave of cold, potent killing intent emanated suddenly and fiercely from within Hiruko's shell.
"Oh? Uncle Sasori, you finally have a reaction, hm?"
Deidara felt the sudden spike of killing intent and turned around with interest, his artistic excitement replaced by professional intrigue.
"It seems you're not completely indifferent after all. Good, this is a sign of passion, Sasori."
Sasori ignored Deidara's light teasing.
He controlled Hiruko. The massive puppet took a slow, deliberate step, and walked further into the smoking ruins.
Soon, he stopped in front of a patch of sand that had been literally burned into a black, glassy state by intense heat.
Some golden powder still remained fused within the black glass.
"Magnet Release: Gold Dust."
Sasori's voice was a flat statement of fact. "It's Rasa's Ninjutsu. He was here. He fought."
Sasori extended Hiruko's sharp, multi-jointed puppet arm and unearthed a piece of damaged clothing—then a corpse—from beneath a pile of collapsed rocks.
It was a Sunagakure Anbu, recognizable only by the tattered remnants of his uniform.
Its chest had been pierced by some sharp, focused weapon. The wound was smooth, clinical, a fatal blow delivered with precision.
"Very fast," Sasori concluded, dropping the corpse with a dry thud. His analysis was immediate. "The cause of death was blunt force trauma combined with a high-speed penetration. No lingering poison. It was decisive."
Deidara came over, the excited expression on his face having subsided considerably. He knelt to inspect the deep craters in the central plaza.
"The source of this destruction… that split in the rock wall… it's definitely not ordinary Ninjutsu, hm."
The two Akatsuki partners stood in silence for a moment, the only sounds the wind and the crackling embers.
"Do you know who did it, Uncle Sasori?" Deidara asked, the question now serious.
Sasori controlled Hiruko, turning the massive puppet slowly to survey the damage, focusing on the colossal fissure that had bisected the entire village.
"To be able to achieve something to this extent... the sheer scale... the combination of Wood Release and that devastating final blow..."
Sasori's voice paused, cold and calculating.
"Konoha... Uchiha..."
"Besides the newly appointed Fifth Hokage, Uchiha Akira, I cannot conceive of a second person in the Five Great Nations who possesses this level of unfathomable power."
"Uchiha Akira?"
Deidara scoffed. "I heard he was strong, but I didn't expect... this strong, hm."
"Hmph, just as well."
Deidara's lips curled into an arrogant, excited smile.
"Let me see whose art is superior! His art of overwhelming destruction, or my ultimate, fleeting, explosive art! Hm!"
Deidara was already impatient, his fingers twitching, eager to have an explosive feast with this unprecedented, challenging opponent he had never met!
"What about the Ichibi Jinchūriki, hm?"
Deidara looked around the smoking ruins. "Is he dead? Is the Tailed Beast loose?"
Sasori controlled Hiruko, using its height to jump onto a relatively intact broken wall. He gazed across the entire devastated landscape.
"Almost no complete corpses can be found in the entire village. The efficiency was too high."
"The survivors must have been taken away."
"The Jinchūriki, if he survived the final attack, must also be among them. Sealed, and under heavy guard."
Deidara's brows furrowed. His excitement dimmed slightly.
"Taken away? Back to Konoha? Then we came all this way for nothing, hm!"
"Once the Jinchūriki is taken back to Konoha, it will be too difficult to make a move. We can't invade a heavily guarded Hidden Village for a prisoner."
Konoha, after all, was the head of the Five Great Ninja Villages. No matter how arrogant the Akatsuki Organization was, a direct assault on the strongest village was not their mandate.
"No."
Sasori slowly turned his puppet body around and looked back towards the distant border, towards the path leading to the Land of Fire.
"They won't get far."
Deidara was stunned. "What do you mean, Uncle Sasori? Hm."
"Captives," Sasori uttered, the single word a chilling strategic analysis.
"From the nature of the destruction and the traces at the scene, Konoha captured a large number of Sunagakure ninja and civilians. They didn't exterminate everyone."
"With so much baggage—wounded, demoralized prisoners, civilians—their marching speed will be severely, painfully slow. Slower than a single squad."
Deidara's eyes instantly lit up with renewed, focused predatory excitement!
"I understand! Hm!"
"They are now a huge, slow-moving, vulnerable target!"
"Exactly."
"That's right!" Deidara clapped his hands excitedly, his plan forming. "As long as we catch up, we'll have our chance! A perfect ambush!"
Sasori said nothing more, the silence a chilling agreement.
Controlling Hiruko, he turned and walked towards the giant clay bird, which patiently waited.
His goal was purer, less artistic, than Deidara's. Capture the Ichibi Jinchūriki, Gaara, and complete the Akatsuki's mission.
Then... and only then...
Personally twist off the head of that arrogant upstart named Uchiha Akira. And use his genius puppet Ninjutsu to turn the opponent into his most perfect, eternal collection. The ultimate piece of art.
Sasori jumped onto the bird's back.
Deidara formed the final hand signs, grinning fiercely.
"Hmph!"
The giant clay white bird let out a screech, flapped its colossal wings, and soared swiftly into the air, flying towards the Land of Fire, in cold, deadly pursuit. The hunt was on.
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