Judging from the current battle situation, Lightning Release could no longer simply be called Deidara's weakness. It should be called his "death point." One bomb maniac was being completely countered by another bomb maniac.
There was a truth in legends: the one who best knew how to hurt you, and how to hurt you the deepest… would always be someone in the same line of work.
Hagoromo had lived ten years longer than Deidara and had spent ten more years messing around. Although he was not a professional bomb-user, his experience with explosions was also abnormally rich.
However, if one were to ask who understood Deidara's weakness best, the answer would not be any of the strong or weak enemies who had fought him, but Deidara himself.
Since he knew perfectly well that Lightning Release was his weakness, he naturally must have considered countermeasures for when he encountered powerful Lightning Release shinobi.
In practice, to discover Deidara's weakness, one first had to notice that what he used was Earth Release ninjutsu. That alone required a certain degree of observation. But Hagoromo was bullying him a little here. Because of Uchiha Itachi, he had known this intelligence in advance and did not need to observe anything at all.
Still, elemental counters were not absolute. At the very least, Deidara had one technique that was an exception. Although this technique was still an Earth Release explosive technique, it was not restrained by Lightning Release… or, to be more precise, he used a certain method to avoid Lightning Release's restraint.
After the giant doll "Garuda" deflated, its threat was erased into nothingness by Hagoromo's Lightning Release. At this moment, Deidara's true body, which had originally been hiding behind that enormous thing, was revealed again.
However, after he reappeared, his appearance had become somewhat strange… In that short period of time, it was as if someone had done something indescribable to him.
The two mouths in Deidara's palms began coughing lightly, as if they had choked on something… Having mouths growing on one's hands was not completely unacceptable, but the fact that they could make sounds was a little too stimulating to the nerves.
That was why shinobi were creatures distinct from "humans." Anything was possible with them.
Then Deidara's hands began twitching and vomiting. Even worse, what they vomited was some kind of milky-white liquid.
"Uh… To be honest, this is the first time I've felt that ninjutsu could be used in such a sleazy way. This really is a first in my life."
Seeing this scene, Hagoromo's understanding of "techniques" was refreshed once again. The lower limit of ninjutsu was far lower than he had previously imagined.
"Hah. Next, I hope your Lightning Release ninjutsu can still keep working."
Deidara let his arms hang at both sides of his body as he spoke in a rather self-satisfied tone.
Although the clay's shape had changed and become like that, Deidara was still using Explosive Clay. It was just loose, runny, and very unpleasantly colored Explosive Clay.
The semi-liquid clay that had been spat onto the ground gradually swelled into two strange humanoid objects. Their height was almost equal to a human's. First, they staggered forward a few steps. Then, with extreme speed, they rushed toward Hagoromo.
Behind each of these two things was a clay thread connected to Deidara. Hagoromo could easily judge that the other party was using these two threads to control the clay creations' movements.
Because they could be controlled in real time, their "movement" was far more flexible and rapid than ordinary clay bombs. This technique, somewhat similar to puppet techniques, was called Explosive Clay: Spirit Manipulation Technique. It was Deidara's anti-Lightning Release technique.
Hagoromo only regarded the two things lunging at him as clay bombs, as always. Thus, the Chidori Blade in his hand slashed diagonally from right to left. After tracing a large arc, it effortlessly divided them from two into four.
However, this time was different.
Hagoromo's attack did not make Deidara's clay creations lose their ability to move. On the contrary, it split the controlled targets into four.
Hagoromo raised his eyelids. Interesting. This was somewhat similar to indefinite "division," and Lightning Release had actually failed to produce its expected effect against Earth Release.
Lightning Release's corrosion could cause Deidara's Explosive Clay to fail. Then, as long as that corrosion was avoided, the dud-bomb situation could also be avoided. Thus, the Spirit Manipulation Technique existed.
When the clay creations controlled by the Spirit Manipulation Technique encountered Lightning Release, they would be split in two by Lightning Release's "cutting" before they were corroded. Because this contact lasted only an instant, it roughly avoided prolonged contact with Lightning Release, so they would not suffer negative effects, and the bombs would not become duds.
The four clay creations dragged their long "tails" and charged toward Hagoromo again.
With Hagoromo's attack speed, attacking four targets was not much different from attacking two. Thus, after a flurry of sword strikes and consecutive cuts, he was already surrounded by more than a dozen mini soccer teams' worth of white, legged chunks.
When the clay monsters charged over again, they were already packed densely together.
It had to be said that the Spirit Manipulation Technique should be a highly practical technique. No matter how strong an ordinary shinobi was, their ability to evade was always limited. As long as these clays could keep splitting, sooner or later, some fish would slip through the net.
Since the beginning of the battle, Hagoromo was finally forced to move his feet for the first time.
However, he ultimately could not be placed in the category of "ordinary shinobi."
Hagoromo felt that Deidara's technique was interesting, but that was all.
"You don't seriously think this kind of technique can work on me, do you?"
The clay bombs had already pounced right before his eyes, but Hagoromo's expression remained calm. He truly could not get nervous. No matter how much clay there was, could there be more than the Iwagakure shinobi who had invaded the Land of Lightning back then?
However, the calmer Hagoromo was, the angrier Deidara naturally became. This negative correlation had already been established since the fight began.
"Katsu!"
Although the bombs had not yet stuck directly to Hagoromo, they had already entered the Explosive Clay's optimal blast range. Thus, Deidara shouted, "Katsu!"
As the sounds of explosions rang out in dense succession, layers of firelight began lighting up around Hagoromo's entire body.
But… "so near, yet worlds apart." In truth, even if the bombs were stuck onto Hagoromo's body and detonated, they might not necessarily produce any killing effect, let alone when there was still a little attack distance now.
To guarantee the explosion's effect, it would be best to stuff the bombs into Hagoromo's stomach. So… Deidara's attack could still be regarded as ineffective.
Because Hagoromo's technique had already been completed one step earlier.
What swallowed the firelight from the Explosive Clay's explosions was the wave of water surrounding Hagoromo's body. In an instant, a ring-shaped water curtain wrapped up all the Explosive Clay.
The explosion sounds then became extremely muffled. Their effect could only blast out sprays of water within the Water Formation Wall.
And that was not all. Only half of Deidara's bombs detonated. As for the remaining half, after being buried inside the water curtain, they still could not avoid the fate of becoming duds.
Because immediately afterward, the water curtain was already covered with Hagoromo's Chidori Current.
Water Release followed by Lightning Release. This meant the Explosive Clay was not buried in water, but buried in lightning. No matter how much "lightning-proofing" the Spirit Manipulation Technique had undergone, if it could still explode under these circumstances, that would be a ghost story.
The Spirit Manipulation Technique did not produce any effect. This result was not particularly unexpected, and Deidara did not feel too surprised. The White Yaksha was the White Yaksha, after all.
He gave a light snort. By this point in the fight, Deidara could already understand the gap in strength between himself and Hagoromo. Under these circumstances, if he still wanted to win… as expected, he could only use his final method.
The purpose of "C4 Garuda" had been to buy preparation time for the Spirit Manipulation Technique, and the Spirit Manipulation Technique was no different. It was meant to buy preparation time for another technique… a technique called "C0."
In a certain sense, what kind of technique a shinobi used could reflect and embody the caster's own personality. Deidara was actually a very good example. When he kept saying, "Art is an explosion," those were definitely his true feelings.
People who played with explosions were prone to going to extremes. Although Hagoromo had displayed powerful battlefield control, if one really had to say who had pushed Deidara to the extreme, it was actually Deidara himself.
With Deidara's personality, to put it nicely, he was committed to his "art," meaning explosions. He firmly believed that there was nothing in the world that could not be solved by one bomb. And if there was, then use two.
Therefore, he could not accept that something he had always persisted in appeared worthless and completely ineffective in front of someone else. So even for the sake of the creed he had always upheld, he would use his final method.
This was not hard to understand. For example, simply because Itachi had defeated him once and shaken his "view of art," even though he and Itachi were now in the same organization, Deidara had never once given up on killing Itachi.
One could even say that C4 Garuda had been developed as a ninjutsu to kill Itachi. But this killing move created to deal with Itachi had been completely ineffective against Hagoromo, a Lightning Release expert.
Hagoromo had never thought, "So this is all your trump card amounts to," but Deidara felt certain that he had.
So Deidara wanted to vindicate his art. At this moment, his killing intent toward Hagoromo had even surpassed his killing intent toward Uchiha Itachi.
Hagoromo's indifferent attitude was, without a doubt, the greatest contempt for his art.
Deidara followed an extremely simple principle: he needed his opponent to marvel at his art. If the other party refused to marvel no matter what, then he would die for them to see.
The C0 that Deidara was preparing to use next, simply put, was self-destruction.
From beginning to end, he had no intention of fighting to the death for the Akatsuki. A person who called himself an artist would only throw away his life for his own bizarre convictions.
So when conventional combat became ineffective, Deidara activated his self-destruction procedure without the slightest hesitation. At this moment, in Hagoromo's eyes, Deidara had already begun turning transparent.
"Self-destruction?"
Hagoromo guessed it instantly. But… what had he done? Why had the other party chosen such an extreme method?
While Hagoromo had been blocking the Spirit Manipulation Technique, Deidara had already undone the seal over his heart on the left side of his chest. There was another mouth there. Then he stuffed all of his remaining Explosive Clay into that mouth, and afterward, those Explosive Clays mixed directly into his chakra through the meridian system around his heart.
After that, it became what Hagoromo was now seeing. Deidara's meridians began turning black, while his body became transparent and then disappeared.
Within the blackened meridians was all of Deidara's chakra. That chakra would then be drawn back to his heart and condense into a black sphere.
This was the final bomb, C0, created using Deidara himself as the material.
At this moment, he was still "alive," so he still had something to say. However, the target of his words was no longer Hagoromo.
"Sasori of the Red Sand!"
His "last words" were for his teammate.
"At the very end, I still have one more thing to tell you!"
"Art is eternal? No, absolutely not. Only explosions are art! Next, I will show you my greatest masterpiece. The only thing that can win is my ultimate art!"
"Sorry. If you can survive my C0, then that will prove your art has corresponding value as well. But that's impossible. This technique has an explosion radius of a full ten kilometers. It cannot be defended against, and it cannot be dodged… So tremble, hahaha!"
His voice caused the battle on Mirai's side to temporarily stop.
In reality, if Hagoromo had said something like "your technique really is shocking" at any point during their previous exchange, this self-destruction probably would not have happened… Deidara was absolutely a "boy." All he needed was a single word of praise.
The problem was, up until now, Hagoromo had not felt that Deidara's techniques had anything especially worthy of praise.
Therefore, the more things were like this, the more Deidara needed to bring trembling to his opponent, make his opponent cry out in amazement, make his opponent feel despair, and incidentally… drag down his teammate whose values clashed with his own.
At this moment, Sasori had already been stripped out of Hiruko. He was currently fighting with the Third Kazekage puppet.
Seeing this scene, he replied to Deidara, "Deidara, what I said was right. As expected, you really are the type to die young…"
This was the judgment Sasori had made about Deidara when the two first met. Facts proved that his eye was quite accurate. Deidara was exactly the kind of shinobi born under the early-death constellation.
When Sasori said this, there was no obvious emotion in his tone… because at this moment, no one yet knew exactly what scale Deidara's self-destruction would reach. If he said ten kilometers, did that make it ten kilometers?
He seemed confident he could survive.
"Mirai, Haku, Kimimaro. Manji formation. Prepare to use that technique to block this."
The effect of the other party's self-destruction could not be judged. Hagoromo had several ways to respond to this situation, but out of "respect" for the act of self-destruction, he decided to take it head-on.
Haku and Kimimaro exchanged a glance. In truth, neither of them wanted to use "that technique" Hagoromo was talking about. It seemed Hagoromo's goal was to use high-powered ninjutsu to resist and reduce the force of the other party's self-destruction.
In any case, they still had to listen to Hagoromo.
The four of them moved rapidly, surrounding Deidara at the center in a manji formation while maintaining a considerable distance from him… Leaving aside Hagoromo and Mirai for the moment, compared with Deidara's self-destruction, Haku and Kimimaro were more worried about getting caught up in their own side's technique.
"Katsu!"
As Deidara gave the signal to detonate himself, Hagoromo and the others also activated their combination ninjutsu.
After all… the weather at this moment was excellent.
Hagoromo moved backward, while the other three moved upward. Then they formed hand seals at the same time. Immediately afterward, incomparably dazzling beams of light dropped from the sky, and torrents of lightning struck directly toward Deidara at the center from four different directions.
The violently exploding thunder, the strongest Lightning Release, carried a scorching aura of destruction as it converged toward the center, burning and carbonizing the vegetation and even the soil along its path.
This was Team Six's combination technique: Ninja Art: Lightning Release: Four Symbols.
That naming… aside from Hagoromo, no one else would have come up with it. But…
The Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise were the true Four Symbols. As for what they were using now?
Although its power was enormous, the accurate name should only be Four Kirin, or Lightning Release: Kirin x4.
Only, in the past, when Hagoromo did certain things, he often played things too big. This time, however, it seemed he had not played big enough.
As a rumbling sound like a volcanic eruption rang out, it soon drowned out the thunder. Although Kirin's light was extremely intense, it was instantly swallowed.
The self-destruction had begun.
The blast wave expanded rapidly from the center outward, instantly swallowing everything around it.
At this moment, Hagoromo recalled the feeling from when he had blown up Rōran… Deidara was still fairly trustworthy. If he said the explosion radius was ten kilometers, then it was basically ten kilometers.
As for the height of the explosion…
Seen from afar, a high-brightness Patrick Star more than thirty kilometers tall suddenly appeared in the Land of Rice Fields. The ellipsoid explosion trace, with two sharp horns, broke through the clouds. After persisting for several seconds, it immediately vanished.
After the explosion sound faded, there seemed to be endless silence.
This was a true nuke. Perhaps only a bomb maniac singing with his life could perform such a trick.
Several minutes later, after the blast wave had completely dispersed, a deep crater appeared on the ground. The vegetation inside the crater and across a large area outside it had been instantly swept clean.
From a bird's-eye view, an enormous ring-shaped basin with clear layered textures had appeared in the Land of Rice Fields…
Then, if one drew closer, one could see two small spherical black curtains slowly opening inside this basin, revealing Hagoromo and Mirai, both looking somewhat dusty and disheveled.
At this moment, Hagoromo had already entered Sage Mode, because unlike Mirai, who still had so much chakra at her disposal in her normal state, Hagoromo could only withstand the Mutually Multiplying Reverse Four Symbols Seal while in Sage Mode.
Fortunately, if one Four Symbols could not hold, he still had a second Four Symbols.
"Cough."
Hagoromo coughed lightly. After searching for a moment, he found Mirai's location, then quickly came to her side.
"Mirai, are you all right?"
Mirai shook her head. She was still a little dazed at this moment.
"I'm fine. Haku and Kimimaro…"
"They're fine. They reverse summoned away one step earlier," Hagoromo said. Just now had truly been a hair's breadth from disaster.
"But… the power of that self-destruction really was beyond imagination."
Four Kirin strikes had not produced any obvious blocking effect. Deidara's self-destruction had already surpassed conventional limits.
Although it was a technique that could only be used once in a lifetime, Deidara's C0 was comparable to, or even surpassed, Super Shinra Tensei.
Fortunately, Hagoromo had set up a barrier seal long ago. Otherwise, he would have been hit.
Taking it head-on really was not a good choice.
Hagoromo helped Mirai up, then looked around. After roughly estimating its power, he fell silent for a moment before continuing:
"Deidara…"
At this moment, Hagoromo could be considered to have experienced the terror of a chūnibyō boy. In a certain sense, the "amazement" Deidara had pursued had already achieved the best possible effect. Was this self-destruction's effect worthy of recognition?
Of course it was worthy of recognition.
Oh, Hagoromo had not finished the second half of his sentence:
"…I'll write you the character 'respect.'"
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