Chapter 334: Fear Makes One Cower, While Trauma Incites Rage
Fortunately, although the explosion had happened without warning, Deidara was clearly somewhat used to these accidents by now. His quick response spared Amamiya Kenichi the deeply embarrassing outcome of getting injured before the real battle had even begun.
That made Kenichi give Deidara a second look.
What exactly had this poor guy gone through while he was away?
"It's a good thing the blast wasn't that strong. Deidara once blew up my experimental base outright," Sasori said with a faint smile, sounding strangely emotional.
Kenichi could not help glancing at him from the corner of his eye. He was genuinely curious now about what Sasori and Deidara had experienced together. Why were they both so practiced at handling this kind of disaster?
He could not help patting Sasori on the shoulder.
Sasori must really have had a hard time while he was gone.
Living around Deidara meant constantly being ready for your lab to get blown sky high at any moment. That was also one of the reasons Kenichi had never arranged for Deidara to stay in his own laboratory in the first place.
"As long as you're still alive." Kenichi sighed.
No wonder explosives labs always had such absurdly strict safety standards and were usually built far away from populated areas. Otherwise, one sudden explosion would be enough to cause a full blown catastrophe.
Sasori looked at his friend blankly. He always felt that Kenichi's words carried some hidden meaning, yet he could never quite figure out what it was. Still, there was one thing he could clearly sense.
A subtle trace of pity.
"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey!"
Hikari wiped off her hair and spat the sand out of her mouth. Now she finally understood why Brother Amamiya had warned her to be careful whenever she was around Deidara.
Of course, she had never expected that merely touching that strange little cart would cause such a violent explosion right in front of her.
It was truly...
Interesting.
"Alright. Next, I'll explain the operation." Kenichi clapped his hands lightly. "Deidara, Sasori, the two of you will be responsible for creating a diversion and drawing the Hidden Sand Village's attention. I'll infiltrate the village and retrieve what I need. Once I send the signal, both of you withdraw immediately."
He gave them only the bare essentials.
Strictly speaking, this mission was little more than a small scale operation. If he had not been worried that Sasori or Deidara might get too invested in the fighting and forget to retreat, he would not even have bothered saying this much. There was not much to explain.
If this were a game, it would have been the tutorial stage.
"No problem. How far do you want us to take it?" Sasori asked, crossing his arms. He carried no visible weapons, but all his puppets were sealed inside specialized scrolls, waiting for his command.
"Make it look serious, but don't go all out. You only need to cause enough chaos to pull the important people away," Kenichi said after a moment of thought.
This battle only needed to distract people like Rasa.
As for the rest, Kenichi intended to deal with them himself. He had studied genjutsu under Orochimaru for a long time now. Simply confusing and misleading his enemies was not difficult for him anymore, especially with the Sharingan.
"What about me, Brother Amamiya?" Hikari stood up immediately. She had not heard her name mentioned.
Kenichi looked at her and felt a headache coming on.
Hikari's identity was too special, and her abilities were even more unusual.
"You..." Kenichi hesitated for a moment. "You'll move on the perimeter with Sasori and Deidara."
"Yay!" Hikari jumped up happily.
Sasori cast Kenichi a somewhat concerned look. He said nothing, but Kenichi understood what he meant.
Kenichi could only shrug and return a reassuring look.
He had considered making Hikari hide, and he had also considered taking her with him. But after thinking it through, neither option really seemed ideal.
That was why he had finally made up his mind. Letting Hikari move with Sasori and Deidara was the safest choice.
At least this way, he would worry less.
Besides, Hikari could not avoid battle forever.
A ninja was a ninja. A ninja born into this era had to be prepared to fight. That, in itself, was the tragedy of this world.
Peace had been absent from it for far too long.
"Hikari, I don't know how much combat experience you've had before, but remember this. Be careful. Don't get carried away. And stay close to Sasori and Deidara," Kenichi said seriously as he looked at her.
This girl was important to him. Very important.
She was a key, and not just any key.
Besides, on a personal level, Kenichi really did find Hikari endearing. Naturally, he did not want anything to happen to her.
"Mhm! Brother Amamiya, I'll be careful!" Hikari nodded earnestly.
Yet beneath that seriousness, there was also a clear spark of excitement in her eyes. After all, ever since she had been freed from the seal, this would be the first time she could truly fight.
She lowered her eyes and looked at the strange object in her hands.
It was not finished yet. At a glance, it was hard to tell what it even was.
In the past, she had fought for her family, for her parents, for the glory of the Uchiha Clan as her parents had always described it. And in the end, what had that clan given her in return?
Pain. Betrayal. Imprisonment.
Now, for the first time, she wanted to fight for a single person.
Kenichi knew nothing of the complicated thoughts running through Hikari's mind.
After giving his instructions, he turned and left in a hurry.
The forbidden scroll of the Hidden Sand Village was best obtained as quickly as possible. The longer he delayed, the more troublesome things would become, and Kenichi hated trouble.
"Alright, Deidara. Hikari. Let's move," Sasori said decisively, taking command without hesitation.
No one there understood the Hidden Sand Village better than he did, and no one knew better where to strike if they wanted to force the village to take the threat seriously, perhaps even seriously enough to dispatch Rasa himself.
The Hidden Sand Village, the place where he had once lived, now stood as his enemy.
"Make sure the relief work is handled properly. And keep patrols going all through the night. Stay alert for attacks from the sky." Meanwhile, deep inside the Hidden Sand Village, Rasa was giving orders with a grim expression.
It was already late into the night, yet the entire village remained brightly lit.
No one could sleep.
The villagers gathered together, helping those who had lost their homes and their families in Heavenly Demon's attack. Even shinobi, who normally carried themselves with great pride, were openly shedding tears for the suffering of the civilians.
Even Rasa himself, the highest authority in the entire village, had been buried under a mountain of work.
And more importantly, he had to remain on guard.
The villagers were now like frightened birds. The slightest unusual sound was enough to trigger fear and panic throughout the settlement.
"Yes, Kazekage-sama. We've arranged enough patrol shinobi. What happened during the day will not happen again," one of the Hidden Sand jonin said quietly.
Although the Kazekage's building had been far from the worst of the attack, it had still been affected.
Broken debris still littered the structure.
The shinobi had wanted to clear it away, but Rasa had refused. He said the damage needed to remain, as a reminder of the humiliation the Hidden Sand Village had suffered that day.
"Mm. It seems funding for the barrier squad must be increased. An attack like this..." Rasa pinched the bridge of his nose.
He had previously assumed that, with the rise of hot air balloons and airships, there was no longer much need to keep heavily investing in defensive barrier research.
Today's attack had answered that mistake with a slap to the face.
The barrier squad had to receive more funding. As much as possible.
If the defensive barrier had been strong enough today, the village would not have suffered casualties and destruction on this scale. And for the already impoverished Hidden Sand Village, that was a disaster it could barely afford.
Worse, according to Granny Chiyo, Heavenly Demon had almost certainly been hired.
And anyone willing to hire a notorious mercenary like Heavenly Demon to strike the Hidden Sand Village so directly could only be another hidden village.
"It won't be Konoha. If it were Konoha, they wouldn't need to do something like this," Chiyo had said with absolute certainty.
That answer had made Rasa curious enough to ask why she was so sure.
"Because I've fought all of them," Chiyo had replied. "I know their habits."
Rasa had no answer to that.
Chiyo had lived through one war after another. Her understanding of the ninja world was built on hard experience, not guesswork. Even after Rasa became Kazekage, there were still many matters in which he had to rely on the judgment of Chiyo and her brother.
Even the choice of the vessel for Shukaku had originally been suggested by Chiyo, and Rasa had accepted it without objection.
For the sake of the village, he could sacrifice anything.
Even himself.
Let alone his son.
"Iwagakure... or the Hidden Mist Village?" Rasa's expression darkened.
Heavenly Demon's attack had already caused severe damage to the village, but in Rasa's view, the real threat was the one hiding behind him.
Onoki was highly suspicious. The old Tsuchikage was the type to manipulate others from behind the scenes and take risks when it served his interests.
The Hidden Mist Village was also suspect. Their island position had once given them natural security and strategic freedom, but the appearance of airships and hot air balloons had weakened that advantage considerably. Stirring conflict between the other major villages for their own benefit would not have been out of character.
Then, just as Rasa was thinking, a deafening boom exploded through the night.
Rasa's eyes snapped toward the source.
A violent blaze had erupted in the darkness somewhere in the distance.
Rasa's pupils contracted.
Heavenly Demon?!
No. Only a single explosion this time.
And that location was...
"Damn it!" Rasa shot forward instantly.
That area held one of the Hidden Sand Village's secret storage facilities, a place where a significant portion of the village's wealth was kept. Only part of the upper leadership even knew of its existence, and the site of the attack was very close to it.
If other parts of the village were hit, Rasa would still be furious.
But that place absolutely could not be touched.
If something happened there, the consequences would be disastrous. The Hidden Sand Village was already poor enough. If that storage point was destroyed, the village would effectively be pushed into outright bankruptcy.
The other leaders who understood the significance of that location also moved without hesitation.
Without those funds, nearly every part of the village's future development would grind to a halt. Even compensation for the recent losses would become impossible.
Before Rasa could reach it, he saw a massive black shape rising in the distance.
Its body was enormous, easily as tall as a five story building.
The next moment, an even more violent explosion tore through the night, shaking the emergency barrier the Hidden Sand Village had erected in haste. At the same time, the blaze illuminated the figure clearly.
It was a giant...
Rasa could not even say what it was.
He had never seen such a bizarre thing before.
At first glance, it looked almost like some massive iron man.
"Entering combat mode."
A deep mechanical voice rang out from within it.
Then, to Rasa's horror, the giant raised its enormous fist and smashed it directly toward the village's defensive barrier.
"You dare!" Rasa roared furiously.
His shout was loud enough that Kenichi, far out on the perimeter, heard it clearly.
Kenichi looked at the gigantic puppet in the distance and licked his lips.
"This really is awesome," he muttered. "Men should still play with giant robots in the end. But this isn't the time to admire it..."
He tugged down the brim of his hat, leapt from the rooftop where he had been crouching, and headed for the Kazekage's building ahead.
What he needed to do now was simple.
Enter the building.
Locate the forbidden scroll.
Take what he needed.
Kenichi moved fast because he needed to leave himself a little extra time in case something unexpected happened, such as the forbidden scroll not actually being stored there.
According to Sasori's earlier intelligence, it should have been inside the Kazekage's building. But that had been under the previous Kazekage. There was no guarantee the current one had not moved it elsewhere.
Still, this was the best opportunity he was going to get.
"Damn Heavenly Demon! Damn those attackers!"
The blast had turned the people of the Hidden Sand Village into a mass of fear and panic.
But fear did not always make people retreat.
When mixed with trauma, it often drove them into a berserk rage instead.
That was exactly what was happening now.
Kenichi moved silently through the shadows while all around him, furious shinobi and enraged civilians rushed toward the site of the attack.
Even civilians who had little or no combat ability had picked up whatever weapons they could find. Their eyes were bloodshot as they charged toward the disturbance.
"Sigh. This really is troublesome. I need to finish this fast." Kenichi sighed quietly.
Iwagakure really did enjoy causing problems.
Though of course, while he was the blade carrying out the work, he was still only a blade someone else had hired.
Now he needed to move even faster.
If he took too long, Sasori and the others might end up getting pinned down.
.....
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