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Deidara pushed himself up from the ground and rolled his shoulder, the look he shot at Hiruzen Sarutobi brimming with fury.
"Lord Hokage, there's no need to single me out like this, is there?" Deidara tried to mask the rage in his heart with a smile, but the very next moment, he caught the razor-sharp glare in Hiruzen's eyes.
That gaze was like a set of surgical scalpels, their honed blades capable of slicing him into ribbons at any moment. The pressure descended upon him so abruptly that Deidara was completely caught off guard.
"Everything that's happened here—you're the one responsible, aren't you?" Hiruzen asked.
"Isn't it obvious just by looking?" Deidara forced another smile. "Besides, there's nothing else up in the sky, right?"
"Very well. I'll ask you one more question. The Uchiha clan's rebellion—you and your organization played a major role in it, didn't you?" Hiruzen's voice was ice-cold.
The fact that Deidara had been indiscriminately dropping bombs from above had, of course, stoked a blazing fury within Hiruzen. But what he wanted to know even more was who had impersonated him and given the order for the Leaf shinobi to surround and slaughter the Uchiha clan, and who had murdered Fugaku.
"Now that question..." Deidara tilted his head. "Take a guess—do you think I know the answer?"
The current state of chaos in the Hidden Leaf Village was a source of immense amusement for him, but he had no intention of becoming the primary target of the Hokage's—or the entire village's—wrath.
"What about Fugaku? Was it the Akatsuki that killed him?" Hiruzen pressed further.
"No comment." Deidara rubbed his hands together, the mouths on his palms busily chewing clay all the while. Facing Hiruzen Sarutobi, he had to prepare for the absolute worst.
"Then you can die." The words were barely out of Hiruzen's mouth before he closed the distance in a flash, appearing right in front of Deidara.
Hiruzen was a master of all chakra natures, but anyone who assumed that meant his taijutsu was merely average was destined to pay a devastating price. And Deidara, clearly, was no fool.
Hiruzen was quite possibly the single strongest shinobi alive. If Deidara tried to face him head-on with his current level of ability, his odds of victory were absolutely zero. He had to rely on cunning. Deidara hastily dodged, trying desperately to create some distance between himself and Hiruzen. But his body had barely shifted backward when a massive fireball erupted from Hiruzen's mouth and slammed directly into him.
A searing pain spread rapidly across his chest and through his entire body. Hiruzen's offensive was like a relentless tide, wave after crashing wave, leaving Deidara with no option but to parry and retreat. As for counterattacking—under the crushing pressure Hiruzen exerted, Deidara simply had no opportunity to strike back. It wasn't that he didn't want to; he simply couldn't.
This is way too strong... Even stronger than that old fossil Onoki...
After dodging several more consecutive strikes, Deidara was finally caught. Hiruzen seized him by the throat. In an instant, Deidara dissolved into a puff of smoke.
A shadow clone? Hiruzen faltered for a split second and immediately scanned his surroundings. He found Deidara standing four or five meters away, fully on guard.
"Who killed Fugaku? Who incited the Uchiha clan to rebel? If you don't speak, in the next moment, you will die. You won't get many more chances," Hiruzen said, his voice deadly cold.
"Third Hokage, you are the strongest of all shinobi. And I am merely a rogue ninja from the Hidden Stone Village. With my current strength, I'm utterly unqualified to challenge you. But doesn't it strike you as odd? Someone like me—why would I dare to stand before you at all?" Deidara countered.
Because I was shot down, that's why!! Deidara grumbled internally.
Hiruzen, meanwhile, instantly heightened his vigilance. Deidara was showing no sign of fear. On the contrary, there was even a glimmer of anticipation in his eyes. At the same time, the black cloak draped around Deidara's body began to billow outward, expanding in all directions.
"To take the Hokage down with me in mutual destruction... that, too, would be an honor. Now then, allow me to show you my ultimate art! Ha!" Deidara completed a hand seal, and in that moment, a colossal explosive force erupted outward from within him. The resulting cloud of smoke and debris swallowed Hiruzen whole.
The thunderous roar of the explosion reverberated through the air. The smoke surged forward like a raging flood, instantly engulfing the nearby streets and the houses lining both sides. Some of the less sturdy structures swayed back and forth twice under the shockwave before collapsing entirely.
"Serves you right!"
Having escaped over ten meters away, Deidara turned back toward the smoke and pulled a mocking face.
A direct confrontation with Hiruzen offered him absolutely no chance of victory. And while he was deeply fond of explosions, he was not fond of dying. According to the plan, he was never supposed to end up in a one-on-one fight with the Hokage in the first place. But things hadn't gone his way. Hiruzen had used Wind Release to knock him straight out of the sky, giving him the "opportunity" to face Hiruzen head-on.
But wasn't that just making things impossibly difficult for him? He didn't have that kind of ability. In particular, Hiruzen's sudden, relentless assault had left him not even a moment to catch his breath. Under those conditions, he absolutely had to find a way to put distance between himself and Hiruzen—first to make some quick adjustments, and then figure out his next move.
The "Self-Destructing Clone" was precisely that kind of escape technique. After being closed in on by Hiruzen, Deidara had spouted phrases like "Let me show you my ultimate art," with the true intent of seizing Hiruzen's attention. Then, while Hiruzen was distracted by those words, Deidara swapped himself with a pre-prepared exploding clone and used the Earth Release: Subterranean Voyage to slip away.
His brain was perfectly functional, thank you very much, so he didn't believe for a second that such a simple attack could actually kill Hiruzen. He just needed a moment to reset. After all, the chain of attacks Hiruzen had just unleashed had placed him under immense pressure, to the point where he hadn't even been able to breathe.
Now, having made his adjustments, the thing he needed to do was, of course, run. Fighting Hiruzen head-on? He probably wouldn't even get the chance to self-destruct for real.
Without a moment's hesitation, Deidara fled while rapidly chewing clay. In no time, he sculpted a new bird, leaped onto it, and took off. The reason he had been struck by the Wind Release earlier was that his giant bird had been too large and not fast enough, making it an easy target for Hiruzen. So this time, Deidara had wised up and created a swift, two-winged bird instead.
The two-winged bird flapped its wings and was just about to lift off the ground when, all of a sudden, several fireballs shot out from within the smoke cloud. Deidara panicked at the sight and frantically urged the bird to take flight. The bird had just barely left the ground and narrowly dodged the incoming fireballs.
Before Deidara could even feel relief, Hiruzen was already behind him.
"Get down!"
A ferocious tiger formed from lightning-natured chakra leaped high into the air and pounced onto Deidara. In an instant, Deidara's body went numb and paralyzed. He lost all control of the two-winged bird and plummeted from the sky, crashing into the ground once more.
Deidara forced himself upright, one hand clutching his shoulder. The lightning attack had left half of his body completely numb.
"The Third Hokage... Is he some kind of monster? He won't even give me a chance to run," Deidara thought, his heart gripped with terror.
"You're out of chances," Hiruzen said, his cold eyes fixed on Deidara.