"You want to fight? Sure, sure!"
Naruto eagerly accepted Deidara's sudden challenge.
His strength had risen far too quickly lately.
Not long ago, he had only just graduated from the Ninja Academy, become a genin, and scraped his way through the Chūnin Exams.
Then what happened? He reconciled with Kurama and became a perfect jinchūriki!
He developed his bizarre physical shortcut and mastered perfect Sage Mode.
His combat power had suddenly skyrocketed by countless tiers!
Yet, he had barely fought anyone on that newly ascended level, meaning he had almost no practical experience in high-end, god-tier battles.
He was a little like Kaguya in ancient times.
Kaguya had never truly fought at the highest level either.
Nearly every battle she experienced was a completely one-sided massacre. After all, chakra had not even spread throughout the human population back then.
The only fight that looked remotely high-level was the apocalyptic battle where the Sage of Six Paths and his brother finally sealed her.
The problem was that complex ninjutsu had only been invented much later by the Sage's son, Indra.
That ancient battle might have looked grand and lasted a long time, but in reality, it was just two people relying on overwhelming brute-force raw power, blasting everything in sight, and fighting with the tactical sophistication of spoiled, brawling princes.
That severe lack of real combat experience was exactly why Kaguya ultimately lost after being revived during the Fourth Shinobi World War.
Naruto and Deidara moved to a desolate, rocky plateau outside Iwagakure and prepared to fight.
"Who knows whether that brat Deidara kept training properly after leaving the village..." Ōnoki sighed from the sidelines, then immediately dismissed the thought.
"What am I even worrying about? No matter how strong Deidara has become, can he really defeat a perfect Nine-Tails jinchūriki? And Naruto isn't merely a perfect jinchūriki. He also possesses senjutsu!"
Ōnoki had very little anxiety about the outcome.
He didn't believe Deidara had even the slightest mathematical chance of defeating Naruto.
Naruto's technique might be sloppy, but his raw physical attributes were so absurdly high that they served as a bulldozer over practically every weakness.
Based on Ōnoki's vast combat experience, the only viable way to defeat Naruto was to strike while he was completely unprepared, move with blinding speed, and assassinate him before he could react.
Unfortunately, Deidara could not use that approach.
First, this was a friendly spar, not a bloody fight to the death.
Second, both of them were here to test new techniques, not merely to secure a quick victory.
Third, with Deidara's flamboyant personality, it would be nearly impossible for him to quietly end a battle in an instant.
So, in Ōnoki's eyes, Deidara was destined to lose no matter what.
At best, they might stop midway through and declare some kind of draw.
However, Ōnoki had overlooked one crucial variable.
For an "artist," inspiration was everything.
Without inspiration, an artist might remain stuck at the exact same level for their entire life. But the moment inspiration struck, their achievements could soar overnight!
That had happened with Sasori. And now, it had happened to Deidara too!
"Sorry, Uzumaki Naruto, but I'm one step ahead of you, hm!"
Deidara moved first.
Naruto's gaze sharpened as strange, dark markings suddenly flared across Deidara's face.
"That's... Sage Mode?!" Naruto was genuinely shocked.
When had Deidara learned it?
Still, he didn't dwell on the question for long.
The whole purpose of this diplomatic journey was to spread Sage Mode throughout the shinobi world. If Deidara had already learned it, that was a good thing.
What truly puzzled Naruto was how Deidara had prepared Sage Mode in advance.
How had he entered the post nut clarity immediately at the very start of the battle?
(you dirty minded people already knew how!)
Naruto quickly examined Deidara's clothing.
He wore the Akatsuki's loose black cloak, with one empty sleeve fluttering in the wind.
So that was it.
One of Deidara's hands had remained hidden inside his cloak this entire time!
And since Deidara literally had functional mouths on his palms, he didn't even need to use his hands to perform the degenerate "physical shortcut" the way Naruto did.
"That's pretty impressive."
Naruto raised his hands and formed a familiar cross-seal, opening with his usual Multiple Shadow Clone Technique.
Faced with Deidara's Sage Mode, Naruto intended to activate his own in response.
However—
The exact moment Naruto spawned a massive number of shadow clones and prepared for mass masturbate, a victorious, manic smile twisted across Deidara's face.
He pressed one hand flat against the rocky ground, formed a single hand seal with the other, and shouted:
"Katsu!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A devastating chain of invisible explosions violently wiped out every single one of Naruto's shadow clones in an instant.
Even Naruto's real body was caught in the localized blast.
Fortunately, his reflexes kicked in just in time, and he wrapped himself in a blazing golden Kurama chakra cloak, tanking the sheer force of the detonation.
"What the hell was that?!"
Once Naruto entered Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, his sensory abilities became just as sharp as they were in Sage Mode.
Before activating it, Naruto had naturally assumed Deidara secretly planted a large minefield of microscopic explosives and ambushed him.
But now that he could scan the battlefield properly, he discovered there were absolutely no traces of explosive clay in the air.
Had all the bombs already detonated? No.
Because while Naruto was still processing that tactical impossibility, several more massive explosions suddenly ruptured the empty air around him.
It didn't take long for him to realize the horrifying truth.
Deidara had forcefully detonated the ambient natural energy Naruto had just gathered in preparation for Sage Mode before he could even absorb it!
"Well, Uzumaki Naruto? Stand in awe of my art, hm!" Deidara looked immensely pleased with himself.
After suffering through the humiliating, obscene shortcut to learn Sage Mode, the explosive artist had discovered something highly unusual while sensing the flow of natural energy.
When natural energy was aggressively gathered for Sage Mode, its sudden density temporarily pulled certain atmospheric gases along with it.
Once those gases reached a critical concentration, the dense, unclaimed natural energy swirling around them became highly flammable and violently explosive.
At that exact tipping point, Deidara could ignite it using a tiny spark of his own chakra, either through direct contact or a remote trigger.
Deidara had actually almost abandoned this theory earlier.
When Kurotsuchi demonstrated her unique, earth-based "Sage Mode" to Ōnoki, Deidara had secretly watched from the shadows.
He noticed that when she activated her power, only pure natural energy gathered around her.
It did not aggressively drag any atmospheric gases along with it.
Fortunately, this live experiment on Naruto proved that the explosive theory still worked flawlessly against the shortcut method.
The strict chemical conditions for detonation were: A high concentration of natural energy, combustible gases, and a catalyst spark of Deidara's chakra.
All three were absolutely essential.
If Naruto entered Sage Mode quickly enough and safely absorbed the natural energy into his body—transforming it into stable senjutsu chakra—the ambient explosion would fail.
Of course, Naruto was not Namikaze Minato.
He could not analyze every one of those chemical and tactical conditions after only a brief exchange.
Aside from realizing that Deidara could somehow magically detonate the air itself, Naruto had absolutely no idea what was happening.
...
Watching from the sidelines, Kakashi noticed Naruto was frozen and began preparing himself to intervene.
Deidara launched another barrage, throwing out a massive, swooping wave of white explosive clay birds.
Naruto, however, remained rooted to the spot in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, glowing like a giant golden light bulb and completely refusing to move.
Kakashi—whose name literally meant "scarecrow"—couldn't help but think: Which one of us is supposed to be the actual scarecrow here?
Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan spun.
He opened with Kamui, tearing a localized spatial hole straight through the incoming wave of explosive clay, then charged directly in front of Naruto with Purple Electricity violently crackling in his hand.
"That's enough! Stop the fight!"
Kakashi swept the Purple Electricity outward like a whip, spreading the flexible, high-voltage lightning across the entire remaining mass of explosive clay.
Lightning Release was the ultimate elemental counter to Earth Release.
In the past, Kakashi's Purple Electricity would have been an even more devastating counter to Deidara than Sasuke's Chidori Current.
Its highly flexible shape could freely arc through every single piece of airborne explosive clay, short-circuiting them and turning them all into useless, inert duds.
But things were entirely different now.
"Perfect! Lightning Release is exactly what I was waiting for, hm!"
Rather than panicking when Kakashi unleashed the Purple Electricity, Deidara's grin widened into something truly deranged.
He grew even more excited!