Those deep blue eyes, which always shimmered with the light of fanatical art, were now bloodshot.
He stared fixedly at the stone throne in the sky, then swept his gaze over the despondent Allied Forces below.
Finally, his gaze landed on Darui, who was trying his best to reorganize the troops in the distance.
Frustration! Rage! And... a twisted excitement after being crushed by an even grander 'art'!
Throughout the entire battle, his art of explosion had been suppressed by those damn Kumogakure Lightning Release units!
The clay creations he took pride in were like waste in that damn Lightning Release barrier, unable to produce even a single spark.
He was like a tiger with its teeth pulled, only able to dodge pathetically high in the sky.
Watching his companions fight, watching the Gedo Mazo show its might, and even watching that Collector toy with the Ten-Tails like a god...
This was simply a humiliation for an artist!
And now, this all-encompassing, shocking silence brought about by the arrival of the supreme powerhouse was the perfect stage he had been waiting for!
Everyone's attention was drawn, and all defenses were loosened due to the psychological shock.
Even that high-and-mighty Collector seemed to be merely looking down indifferently at the struggles of ants... Now was the time!
"Do you see it! You ignorant mortals! And... the 'God' in the sky!"
Deidara stood up abruptly, spreading his arms, a hideous smile on his face that mixed extreme fanaticism with the pleasure of self-destruction.
The mouth in the center of his chest suddenly opened, revealing the writhing black clay core inside that emitted an ominous light!
"This is the ultimate art! An instantaneous sublimation! A beauty that transcends mortals and gods... the ultimate beauty! Hmm!!!"
He gave no one time to react.
The black clay, accumulated for a long time and mixed with all his chakra essence and life force, throbbed and expanded violently in his chest like a heart!
"Hah!!!"
"C0: Self-Destruction!!!"
Accompanied by Deidara's final fanatical roar, a blinding white light that surpassed all previous C-rank explosions erupted violently with him as the center!
It wasn't a roar, but an annihilation of pure light and heat, as if the heavens and earth were first being created!
BOOM!!!!
The light instantly swallowed everything within a radius of several hundred meters!
Sand dunes, rocks, broken Shinobi tools, terrified faces...
All matter melted like snow before this extreme light and heat!
The terrifying shockwave no longer spread in a ring, but formed a destructive white pillar of light that shot straight into the clouds!
Its brightness even briefly eclipsed the desert's scorching sun, becoming the sole ruler of the world!
Time seemed to stand still at this moment.
The next instant, the torrent of destruction swept in all directions like a burst celestial river!
The Allied Shinobi Forces caught by the edge of the white light didn't even have time to scream before turning into ashes.
Those further away were hit as if by an invisible giant hammer, their bodies torn apart under the violent energy, blood mist mixing with sand to form a crimson storm!
The moment Deidara's laughter erupted, Darui felt a fatal crisis!
The instincts of a Kumogakure elite and his deep understanding of Deidara's abilities made the hair all over his body stand on end.
He practically roared at the top of his lungs:
"Storm Release: Laser Circus: Imperial Wall!!!"
In the nick of time, Darui's hands formed seals frantically, pouring out all his chakra without reservation!
Instead of offensive laser beams, he did his best to rapidly compress liquid Lightning Nature chakra in front of him, forming an incredibly thick water-lightning composite shield shimmering with blinding blue-white electricity!
This shield was like a solid crystal barrier, barely wrapping himself and the few quickest-reacting Lightning Release elite members closest to him inside!
"Ugh, ahhh!!!"
The white light of destruction slammed hard against the Storm Release barrier!
Sizzle!!!
A piercing sound, like a hot iron dipped into ice water, erupted!
The Storm Release barrier trembled and deformed violently, blue and white light flickering frantically; the liquid lightning on the surface was instantly evaporated by the extreme heat and then rapidly regenerated.
Darui sprayed blood from his nose and mouth, his bones groaning as if they would shatter under the immense pressure.
His eyes, which always seemed lazy, were now bloodshot and filled with death-defying madness as he desperately supported this final barrier.
The light and shock lasted for what felt like a long century.
"The art of explosion?" Takuno naturally saw this scene, watching that final self-destruction that was always parodied as 'Art is an explosion' in his previous life...
"It's not bad."
Takuno said so; this light was indeed scorching and dazzling.
He didn't lack understanding of Deidara's pursuit.
Because Deidara pursued the art of explosion, while he pursued power.
In fact, he was even more extreme than Deidara!
When the destructive pillar of light finally began to fade and dissipate, only a massive deep crater remained.
The center of the crater was empty; Deidara and his final art had long since been completely annihilated, without even a trace of ash left behind.
At the edge of the crater, Darui knelt on one knee, gasping for breath, blood continuously overflowing from the corners of his mouth and dripping onto the scorching sand with a "sizzling" sound.
The Storm Release barrier in front of him had long since shattered completely, leaving only a few remaining sparks of electricity jumping and disappearing in the air.
The few elite members behind him, although lucky enough to survive, were all heavily injured and unconscious, on the verge of death.
And around them... the originally dense Lightning Release unit formation, along with other Allied Shinobi Forces who couldn't react in time, had been wiped out in a large swath as if by an invisible giant hand!
Only charred remains and rising foul-smelling blue smoke were left everywhere.
Within the fan-shaped area in his field of vision, the original hubbub of voices was now replaced by a hair-raising silence.
A breeze blew by, kicking up a few flakes of gray-white dust; that might have been...
The last traces of some unnamed Shinobi.
Darui struggled to lift his head, his bloodshot eyes staring fixedly at the void in the center of the crater, then slowly swept over the surrounding purgatory-like scene, and finally closed them wearily and heavily.
A drop of liquid, a mixture of blood and sweat, rolled down his dust-stained cheek.
The price... was too heavy.
That madman... with an explosion bought with his life, instantly tore apart the sliver of courage the Allied Forces had finally managed to regather and a corner of their battle line.
The destructive white light triggered by Deidara's self-destruction had not yet completely faded from retinas, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of charred flesh and molten sand.
That instantaneous ultimate light that turned oneself into nothingness briefly tore through the clamor of the battlefield and also pierced deeply into Sasori of the Red Sand's seemingly cold core.
Sasori stood quietly beside the broken Hiruko shell, cracks from the explosive tag blast still remaining at the arm connection of the Third Kazekage puppet.
He silently gazed in the direction of Deidara's self-destruction, at that scorched earth flattened by absolute light and heat.
After a brief silence, a barely audible whisper escaped from beneath his exquisite boyish face:
"Heh, instantaneous sublimation, ultimate annihilation. Hmm, Deidara, I admit it, that indeed... was also a form of art."
There was a rare complexity in his voice that even he himself hadn't noticed.
The purity and destructive splendor of that light undoubtedly shook his inherent perception of 'eternity'.
Deidara's final curtain call, completed with his life, was no less impactful than a meticulously polished eternal puppet.
However...
Sasori slowly raised his hand, his fingertips brushing over the remains of a puppet beside him that had been half-crushed by Sakin chains, the precise bearings at the joints reflecting a faint light in the dust.
"But... only 'eternity' itself is the supreme form of art!"
"Decaying flesh will eventually turn to dust; only precise mechanisms and immortal soul containers can transcend the erosion of time!
My puppets... are the true eternal beauty!"
His gaze swept over the indifferent Collector in the sky, passed over the struggling and wailing Ten-Tails in the distance, and finally locked onto Gaara, who was controlling gold sand while floating on a sand cloud.
The Fifth Generation Kazekage, whose Ichibi he had personally extracted, and who had been brought back to life by the person he least wanted to face through a life-for-life trade.
An indescribable decisiveness, mixed with defiance against fate, began to burn in Sasori's chest.
He controlled the remaining "Performance of a Hundred Puppets" army, whose movements were stiff and sluggish due to Gaara's Magnet Release field, and made a move that stunned all Sunagakure Shinobi.
He abandoned all defensive positioning and gave up on using the terrain to maneuver.
The Third Kazekage puppet was fully activated, and the pitch-black Iron Sand no longer condensed into a rain of giant needles, but instead turned into a destructive torrent, slamming into Gaara's absolute defense sand wall regardless of the cost!
The remaining puppets, whether human or beast-shaped, were like moths to a flame.
They ignored the chakra threads being precisely cut by Sunagakure Shinobi and the Wind Release slicing.
With the most direct and violent posture, they slammed into the Allied Forces' line, their target being Gaara at the core!
"Sunagakure brat! Use your sand to bury my eternity!"
Sasori's voice pierced through the roar of the puppets' movements, carrying a martyr-like madness.
"Let me see just how much weight the life traded for by that old woman carries!"
Gaara's expression was solemn, but there was no fear in his eyes.
The gold sand surged like a boiling ocean, turning into a more solid barrier and more flexible chains.
The battle was tragic and brief.
The puppet army, having lost precise control and tactical maneuvering, disintegrated rapidly under Gaara's powerful Magnet Release field and the encirclement of the Sunagakure troops.
The Third Kazekage puppet's Iron Sand torrent was locked down and decomposed by the gold sand.
Finally, as Sasori manipulated the Father and Mother puppets in a last-ditch effort, Gaara's Sakin tidal wave crashed down like the hammer of fate!
Puff!
The heavy Sakin crushed the puppets' torsos and also struck Sasori's main body heavily.
His meticulously crafted eternal doll body emitted an unbearable cracking sound, and the light of his chakra core dimmed rapidly.
Time seemed to freeze at this moment.
Sasori didn't try to repair it, nor were there any final curses.
The fire in his eyes went out, replaced by a deep exhaustion and relief.
With a slight thought, the Father and Mother puppets, which had been shaken open by the Sakin impact and were also covered in cracks, struggled to draw closer.
They stretched out their broken arms and, like the warmest moments in the depths of his memory, gently embraced the soon-to-vanish Sasori.
The cold puppet joints touched the boy-shaped body; there was no temperature, but it brought a strange consolation.
His vision began to blur, and the sounds of the battlefield receded.
Before his consciousness sank into eternal darkness, Sasori seemed to see a familiar and elderly figure standing behind the Father and Mother puppets, gazing at him kindly yet sadly.
It was the phantom of Lady Chiyo.
An extremely faint, almost invisible curve appeared at the corner of Sasori's mouth.
His final gaze seemed to fall upon Gaara's young yet resolute Kazekage hat.
"Hehe... killed the Third Kazekage... only to... die at the hands of the Fifth Kazekage..."
His faint breath was like a sigh, dissipating in the wind and sand.
"Is this... the puppet master's... my... fate..."
As his words ended, the boy's exquisite head slumped powerlessly; the eternal boyish form finally met its end.
The embrace of the Father and Mother puppets became his final coffin, frozen into a poignant and eternal finale against the backdrop of gold sand and puppet fragments filling the sky.
Gaara looked at this scene with a bit of complexity and finally let out a sigh.
He had the Magnet Release inherited from his father but which he was generally unwilling to use, and the sand obtained from his mother.
Of course, now, his life was also one that Lady Chiyo had traded her own life for.
So much hope was condensed within him; he... would not lose.
He would lead Sunagakure to continue on! Absolutely!
Hoshigaki Kisame was gasping violently in the turbid and intense water curtain, like a stranded giant shark.
The charred wound on his right shoulder, pierced by Kakashi's Lightning Blade, was deep enough to see bone; every breath brought tearing pain and the wild surge of violent Lightning Nature chakra within his body.
The Samehada greatsword in his hand let out a listless wail, the 'mouth' under the bandages opening and closing powerlessly, conveying unprecedented fear and pain.
Its nature of greedily devouring chakra had been suppressed to the limit under the natural lightning that had just pierced the Water Prison and the subsequent series of heavy blows.
"Seventh Gate: Gate of Wonder, Open!!!"
BOOM!!!
A torrent of scorching chakra, far exceeding the previous Sixth Gate: Gate of View and feeling as if a volcano had completely erupted, burst forth from Guy's body without reservation!
It was no longer green steam, but a chakra flame burning as fiercely as a blue-white blaze, violent to the extreme!
The sandy ground beneath his feet couldn't withstand this force and instantly collapsed.
The surrounding air was distorted by the extreme heat and pressure, letting out an unbearable scream!
Hoshigaki Kisame's pupils shrank suddenly!
Even through the high-speed rotating 'Water Prison Shark Dance,' he could clearly feel that terrifying sense of oppression coming at him, enough to incinerate everything!
That was the peak of Taijutsu, pure to the extreme, a proof of burning life potential to its ultimate form!
"Youth! This is youth burning to the limit!!!"
Guy's roar echoed through the clouds, the blue flames painting him as a celestial god descending to the human world.
Facing this ultimate threat, Hoshigaki Kisame's ferocity was completely triggered.
He no longer held back, squeezing the last of his body's potential to forcibly inject more chakra into the 'Water Prison Shark Dance'.
"Water Release: Great Shark Bomb Technique!!!"