Kakashi raised his hand and deflected the attacking steel cones of sand iron, then dodged a blade that came from his blind spot behind him. His feet planted on the walls of the Roran ruins, a few beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
He desperately wanted to gasp for air, but he couldn't.
Just a moment ago, Sasori had manipulated the Third Kazekage puppet and sprayed a large amount of poisonous mist.
Because it was an open environment, the poisonous mist quickly dispersed with the wind.
But Kakashi was no novice.
Masters of poison usually prepared two methods. Some of the mist was colored and obviously poisonous, while another part was colorless and odorless, slightly denser than air, and would "settle" below after being released.
As long as one ran and fought quickly, breathing heavily, this part of the mist settled on the ground would be inhaled, causing poisoning without one realizing it.
Kakashi's Sharingan was slowly rotating, and he glanced back towards the main battlefield.
The earthquake not long ago was truly terrifying; deep, bottomless cracks had appeared on the ground beneath their feet.
"Linto... should be alright?"
The thought flashed by, and Sasori chuckled:
"You have time to worry about others?"
A whistling sound reached Kakashi's ears.
He saw the Third Kazekage's arms extending outwards continuously, one becoming two, two becoming three, and in the blink of an eye, becoming infinite, like the First Hokage's True Several Thousand Hands.
This was not the end. The Third Kazekage's most famous technique was Magnet Release: Sand Iron Manipulation. The dense sand iron in the sky transformed into slender steel needles, falling towards Kakashi from all directions, blocking all his escape routes.
"I remember you're called the 'Copy Ninja.' Show me, can you copy this technique?"
Sasori's voice was full of mockery.
If Obito hadn't been overly arrogant, and if Kakashi and Sasori didn't have some history, for a ninja of such mediocre talent, Sasori wouldn't even have the desire to fight.
Who would be called the "Copy Ninja"?
It was someone with no individuality.
Copying others' Ninjutsu seemed like genius.
But true genius was creation.
Even when copying, it was after copying, combining, and adjusting, creating combined Ninjutsu.
Kakashi wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Puppet techniques and bloodline limits were abilities he truly couldn't copy. The best way to deal with a puppet master was to engage in close combat and eliminate the user.
Kakashi had succeeded once before using the Water Clone Technique, tearing Sasori's Akatsuki robe.
However, he hadn't expected that beneath Sasori's robe was actually a puppet. He missed the opportunity to kill him, and it turned into a fight where everyone displayed their unique skills.
Sustained combat was Kakashi's weakness.
The Water Clone from before and the activated Sharingan had already consumed a lot of his Chakra.
If not for Grandma Chiyo's distraction, coupled with the sudden earthquake.
Kakashi would have already lost.
However, there were no "ifs" on the battlefield. He hadn't lost yet, hadn't died. This was the current situation.
Kakashi remained calm. The desert wind, scorched by the earth fire, became increasingly hot. Sweat soaked through his clothes, sticking to his body uncomfortably.
"I really want to take a cold shower and drink a glass of iced soda."
A subconscious thought flashed by. Kakashi continued to calculate his remaining stamina and Chakra, analyzing the enemy's abilities in detail, searching for a fleeting opportunity for a counter-kill.
Sasori leaped lightly, dodging the earth fire that rose from beneath his feet, and also dodged Grandma Chiyo, who was attacking with her puppet.
He stood on a high platform, looking down at Kakashi and saying:
"Someone like you, a mediocre talent, should end here..."
Sasori's ten fingers danced as if on a piano, manipulating the Third Kazekage to rise into the air and form hand seals.
"Both your life and the connection between us should end."
"Magnet Style: Sand Iron World Separation!"
The summoned sand iron formed countless straight, sharp "lines" like withered trees.
The countless lines crisscrossed, covering the entire battlefield, almost instantly sealing off all of Kakashi's movement paths.
Innumerable sand iron lines pierced his body, but they avoided Kakashi's vital points, because—
A steel blade sprang out from the Third Kazekage's arm mechanism and flew towards him, about to chop off Kakashi's head.
Sasori's parents died by the White Fang of Konoha's blade. He had always claimed not to care.
However, whether out of familial affection or the dignity of his parents' death, Sasori wanted to use a "blade" to cut off the head of the enemy's son, considering it karmic retribution.
"Screeeech—"
The blade touched Kakashi's instantaneous moment, and a sharp thunderous sound like thousands of birds chirping echoed.
Kakashi didn't retreat but advanced. He grabbed the sand iron barrier with his hand, and countless currents erupted from his body. The lightning of Chidori instantly transferred along the sand iron to the Third Kazekage, who was within arm's reach.
Sasori's chakra threads snapped under the electric current's tear.
"What?!"
Sasori didn't expect that Kakashi, despite being so heavily injured, could still unleash such a powerful Ninjutsu.
Whether Kakashi was strong or not was debatable, but this endurance...
Indeed worthy of being a ninja.
Kakashi followed up by swinging his Raikiri in his hand, cutting the Third Kazekage puppet into pieces.
The sand iron barrier collapsed, and countless black sand iron fell, obscuring Sasori's vision. Kakashi's figure flickered within it.
Chink!
Kakashi burst out from the ground behind Sasori.
Sasori's expression changed drastically. He looked at the "Kakashi" running in the falling sand iron ahead. His hand no longer held the Raikiri, but just an ordinary kunai.
Sasori understood:
"Kakashi shattered the Third Kazekage, and in the instant the sand iron barrier collapsed and obscured his vision, he used a clone technique, with his true body retreating underground."
Kakashi's Raikiri suddenly thrust towards the special heart inscribed with the word "Sasori."
His Sharingan saw clearly that all the lines used by Sasori to control the puppet flowed into this heart.
As long as this core heart was shattered, Sasori, the Red Sand, could be defeated.
Bang!
Facing the thrusting Raikiri, the heart embedded in his chest ejected like a bullet with a burst of airflow, precisely dodging the Raikiri's thrust.
"Not yet!"
Kakashi's clone, which had crossed through the iron sand, threw the kunai in his hand towards the heart that had lost its puppet protection.
A detonation tag was attached to the back of the kunai.
Instant death upon impact!
Kakashi stared intently at the spinning kunai.
"I must admit, even if you are a mediocre talent, you are an outstanding one among mediocre talents."
Kakashi suddenly turned his head back, astonished to see Sasori, who had lost his heart, raise his hands, and flames gushed from his palms.
One flame destroyed the clone, and the ejected heart, guided by chakra threads, returned to Sasori's chest.
Another flame, like a fiery venomous snake, rushed towards Kakashi.
He wanted to dodge, or unleash Ninjutsu, but...
Kakashi's body erupted with injuries, large and small.
In order to break through the Third Kazekage's sand iron barrier, he had already pushed his body to its limit.
Just as he was about to be burned to death by the flames, chakra threads fell upon Kakashi, dragging him backward.
Grandma Chiyo!
She couldn't bear to watch Sasori kill Kakashi. This wasn't for Kakashi, but for Sasori.
Old Man blind died. If Kakashi also died, Linto, in his anger, might kill her grandson.
This was the wisdom of the elderly.
"Old woman, get out of the way!"
But Sasori didn't care.
The Third Kazekage puppet, lying on the ground, raised a hand and manipulated a sand iron blade to cut Chiyo's chakra threads. Kakashi fell again.
This time, no one could save him.
Sasori said softly, "Rest in peace, son of the White Fang!"
Kakashi heard this title and closed his eyes.
Indeed, son of the White Fang.
Not Hatake Kakashi.
Kakashi knew there was a significant gap between himself and his father. Nicely put, he was the Copy Ninja; cruelly put, he had no signature technique worthy of mention.
Even his Raikiri, after more than ten years, was still the same move.
Besides his Chakra increasing, growing taller, and gaining a bit more combat experience, he was no different from his past self.
His dear friends and family died in the summer.
His soul did too.
The raging flames approached. Kakashi, with his eyes closed, seemed to return to that summer.
He saw his father hanging from the beam, he saw Obito crushed under a giant rock, he saw Rin with her chest pierced, and he saw his teacher and his wife who died in the Nine-Tails attack.
"This summer... has lasted far too long."
The encroaching flames suddenly disappeared.
Sasori stared blankly at the disappearing flames and Kakashi, whose left eye was closed, not understanding what had happened. He opened his mouth:
"You—"
Kakashi got up from the ground.
"In my past, there was an unforgettable, unsurpassable summer."
Because it was unforgettable and unsurpassable, Kakashi had become complacent and lived day by day since then. His body was working and living, but his soul was in the past.
"But..."
Kakashi looked towards the main battlefield.
In Kolin City, he witnessed tragedy, and he also witnessed the birth of new hope and history.
In Konoha Village, Tsunade was rewriting past mistakes, letting more people stand in the sun.
Everyone around him was moving forward, all striving to reduce the "summer ghosts."
"You're right. My talent is far inferior to my father's. I don't have his talent, but I shouldn't have his cowardice."
"I can't stay in the past forever."
"The summer that trapped me should be over. Next is—"
Kakashi drew a kunai from his waist, and his left eye slowly opened.
Sasori saw it clearly: the Sharingan tomoe curved inwards, deformed, and finally formed a...
Mangekyo Sharingan.
"Autumn has arrived."
...
Main battlefield.
Obito was fleeing for his life.
He glanced back. That glance almost scared his soul out of his body.
Linto was right behind him, his face almost touching Obito's.
Obito shivered in fear and shouted:
"Get lost!"
Before he finished speaking, Obito died again.
He revived in a corner dozens of meters away.
Obito's Sharingan, used to cast Izanagi, permanently closed.
Two minutes and twenty-four seconds.
Obito's condition was worse than expected, but fortunately, he had recovered some of his intangibility time by dying.
He ran towards Hiruko.
"Obito, I was attacked by flames," Deidara suddenly said.
"Flame attack?"
Obito glanced at the earth fire. He hadn't activated "Absorption," so how could flames have entered Kamui's dimension?
"Could your explosives have spontaneously combusted?"
Deidara was silent for a few seconds, his voice trembling slightly, and retorted with a hint of anger:
"Are you questioning my art?"
Oh no!
Deidara was clearly showing signs of breaking free from the genjutsu.
Obito's head ached.
Linto chasing him from behind was already enough to make Obito frustrated. He hadn't expected Deidara to become unreliable at such a critical moment.
However, he had finally arrived.
Obito saw Hiruko about a hundred meters away.
At the same time, Hiruko also saw Obito, and more importantly, saw Linto, who was full of killing intent, following behind Obito.
The expressions of the two Akatsuki teammates changed instantly.
Obito showed a smile.
Hiruko was greatly alarmed.
He could tell what Obito was trying to do, clearly failing to show off and trying to divert trouble and escape in the chaos.
"Wasn't this my plan!"
Hiruko turned to run, but unexpectedly, Rasa, who had been listless before, became energetic upon seeing Linto arrive.
The golden sand danced wildly, blocking Hiruko's escape route.
"Ha—"
Obito laughed heartily and once again used intangibility, caught up with Hiruko, and like a ghost, "merged" into Hiruko's body, saying:
"Block for me, and I'll reward you handsomely afterward."
Hiruko could no longer stand it and cursed loudly:
"I'll thank your grandmother's leg!"
At this moment, Obito and Hiruko were like a model overlap bug in a game.
A shadow loomed, and Hiruko raised his hand:
"Linto, wait—"
Wait?
Linto didn't want to wait for a second.
Regardless of whether it was Obito or Hiruko.
Since they came, they weren't leaving.
Linto took a step forward, and golden flames intertwined with the earth fire around his arm, forming wisps of chaotic firelight.
He clenched his fist and punched down.
"Steel Style: Steelization!"
Hiruko could only use Ninjutsu at the last moment, metalizing his entire body to resist the power of this punch.
Bang—
The fist landed heavily on Hiruko's chest like a falling meteorite.
The roar of the impact, like the ringing of bells at dawn and dusk, reverberated through the sky, shattering patches of rosy clouds.
Enduring this punch head-on, Hiruko didn't utter a sound.
Obito was shocked.
He hadn't expected the newly recruited member, who looked thin and gentle, to be such a resolute warrior!
The next second, Hiruko was sent flying backward, so fast that he left a sonic boom cloud in the air.
Obito, in his intangible state, was half a beat late. He was still in the air and only looked back to realize that it wasn't a tough guy at all?
Hiruko's eyes rolled back; he was clearly knocked unconscious with a single punch!
He fell to the ground, smashing into a deep pit, lying in the pit, as if asleep, motionless.
"Useless fellow!"
Obito cursed inwardly. He had no intention of saving his teammate. While his body was overlapped with Hiruko's, Obito once again covered himself in explosive clay.
He maintained his intangible state, carrying the explosive clay, and charged towards Gaara.
Linto saw through Obito's plan.
Since he couldn't capture Gaara alive, he might as well kill him. At worst, they'd wait for the One-Tails to revive.
This was why Linto was unwilling to abandon the intangible Obito and kill Hiruko and Sasori first.
Obito's intangible & explosive tactics were impossible for others to cope with.
However, with Linto here, Obito wouldn't be allowed to kill people.
Time stopped. Linto pulled Gaara, Rasa, and Amber behind him, away from the explosion's range.
Then he deactivated time stop and flicked his wrist, his entire forearm exploding.
Flesh and blood transformed into birds, constantly passing through Obito to check his intangible state.
This method, even after seeing it countless times, still filled Obito with extreme dread, his eyes bulging, and his teeth grinding.
The intangible time recovered by dying would soon run out—in plain terms, Obito hadn't had a chance to rest before.
He truly had no other trump cards.
"Let me out."
Deidara's voice appeared in his ear.
His voice was weak, no longer dull, clearly free from the genjutsu's control.
But in his tone, there was no anger towards Obito, but rather...
immense joy.
Deidara, in Kamui's dimension, was grinning. His chest was open, his entire skin was semi-transparent and blackened, and a mouth on his chest was voraciously eating clay.
"Let me out!"
Deidara said again.
His fanaticism and his admiration for Linto's previous large-scale explosion allowed Deidara to break free from the genjutsu's shackles to some extent.
Deidara now was like someone drunk and dreaming, hazy and half-awake, thinking Obito was trash, and Hiruko too.
Among everyone present, only he and Linto were kindred spirits, artists.
Linto's art, Deidara had seen.
The brilliant, magnificent explosions and earthquakes spanning hundreds of miles were perhaps heights he would never reach in his lifetime.
So...
As a "junior," Deidara wanted to show Linto his ultimate creation.
C0: Self-Destruction Bomb.
"Lunatic!"
Obito looked at Linto, then at Deidara in Kamui's dimension.
"All lunatics!"
"Including me!"
Obito gritted his teeth and shouted, deactivating his intangibility in front of Linto.
He pulled the nearly transparent Deidara out of Kamui's dimension.
At the same time, the birds collided with Obito.
The seemingly gentle and cute little birds suddenly turned into demons, drilling into his body and madly tearing at Obito's flesh.
Obito ignored it, threw Deidara away, and quickly prepared to retreat into Kamui's dimension.
He yelled at Linto, who had already approached within five steps:
"Save him! Your teammate is about to be blown up!"
"I'm just an insignificant nobody, stop chasing me! I beg you!"
Obito's desperate battle cry echoed across the battlefield.
Linto only glanced at Deidara in the sky and felt an extreme threat.
Without hesitation, he threw a golden spinning iron ball at Obito, then turned and grabbed Gaara, Rasa, and Amber, tossing them into the phantom room.
Boom—
A huge "SpongeBob SquarePants" covering nearly ten kilometers appeared.
It completely crushed the already ravaged Roran ruins into dust.
This was Deidara's strongest artwork.
Linto withstood the explosion head-on with his physical body. His flesh and blood constantly annihilated and regenerated in the explosion.
This was the most terrifying attack method Linto had suffered since arriving in the Hokage world.
If he hadn't detonated the dragon vein and possessed Limitless regenerative ability, Linto might have truly died in this explosion.
He turned his head to look in the direction of Kakashi and the others.
They were also within the explosion's range. Could Kakashi and Grandma Chiyo survive?
In another battlefield, hundreds of puppets formed a defensive ring, resisting the impact of the explosion.
Fortunately, they were not in the core area, so they only had to resist the impact from one direction.
Sasori protected Grandma Chiyo within the puppet defense net, while Kakashi was isolated outside the defense net.
Kakashi had no other option but to exert all his strength and activate Kamui to absorb all the blast impact from the front.
At the same time, inside Kamui's dimension, Obito sat on the ground, gasping for air.
"Finally, I survived."
He looked up, a smile of relief on his face.
The next second, the white light of the explosion descended from the sky.