On the screen, Baki's voice rang out again.
He stood on the rooftop, his gaze shifting from the aerial battlefield above to scan the panicked villagers below and the shinobis standing ready in formation.
"We'll provide full support for Gaara..." He paused, as if weighing his words, then corrected himself: "No—full support for Lord Kazekage!"
---
[Land of Wind, Sunagakure. Somewhere in a Corner]
When Baki's words—"support for Lord Gaara"—reached his ears, young Gaara's body jolted violently. An expression of sheer disbelief flickered in his eyes.
This... was something Baki could say?
In his memories, Baki had always looked at him with wary, distant eyes—like he was a bomb that could go off at any moment.
But the future Baki on the screen was addressing him as "Lord Gaara" and determined to give him full support.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the battle continued.
Deidara circled high above on his white clay bird, his patience wearing thin, bit by bit.
Gaara's perpetually expressionless face was starting to irritate him.
With a flick of his right hand, a small humanoid clay bomb floated into the air.
Poof!
A burst of white smoke dispersed, and the small bomb expanded rapidly, transforming in the blink of an eye into a massive humanoid figure.
The figure spread its arms wide and began descending toward the village below at a deceptively slow—yet in reality, lightning-fast—pace, casting an enormous shadow across the ground.
"It's a doll molded from detonating clay that's got Chakra and clay eaten by my palm mixed together... This speciality of mine... has C3 Chakra, my most powerful Chakra, built up inside. The explosive power is an exquisite work of art that I'm very proud of!"
On the ground, Baki looked up at the giant doll growing closer and closer, his pupils contracting sharply.
His voice, laced with barely suppressed terror, roared out: "This is not good! Get away—NOW!!"
"Too late!" Deidara raised two fingers, forming a hand seal with one hand.
The figure emitted a blinding light in mid-air—like a miniature sun rising above the village, and for a moment, everyone in Sunagakure felt only one thing:
It's dawn!
In an instant, a colossal fireball ignited in the sky, and the explosive blast wave swept outward in all directions.
The fireball's diameter nearly covered the entire central district of the village, with orange-red flames erupting across the night sky.
Despair engulfed the people of Hidden Sand.
Some crouched down, clutching their heads. Some closed their eyes, waiting for death. Some scrambled frantically to escape—but it was all too late. The explosion was too fast, too devastating, and there was nowhere to run.
White light swallowed everyone's vision. And all sound was consumed.
The world seemed to stand still in that moment.
---
[Akatsuki Hideout]
Deidara watched the massive fireball on the screen, his grin stretching from ear to ear, his eyes brimming with pride.
"See that?! This is art! The art of explosion!"
Hidan rolled his eyes. "Pfft. Blowing up a village? I can mow down a crowd with my scythe too."
Deidara glared at him. "Can you carve out a sun with your scythe?"
Hidan opened his mouth, then realized—no, he indeed couldn't.
Kakuzu remained expressionless, counted on his fingers. "That bomb... how much money would it be worth?"
Deidara snorted. "Art is priceless!"
Kakuzu: "So it's worthless then."
Hearing that, Deidara nearly jumped out of his chair in fury.
On the screen, when light returned to everyone's vision, they found everything was still there—as if the explosion had been nothing but a dream.
The houses were still standing. The streets were intact. And the people were still alive; there were no ruins or casualties as imagined.
The quick-thinking Suna shinobis looked up and saw—hovering in mid-air—a colossal desert waterfall. It was a thick wall of sand, formed by countless grains rising from the ground, that had blocked the full force of the C3 bomb's blast!
"Thank goodness—it's Kazekage-sama!" someone cheered.
"Kazekage-sama is incredible! He even blocked that!" another person exclaimed, wiping cold sweat from their brow, their voice trembling.
[Unfortunately, although Gaara had the advantage of fighting on home turf, having the terrain advantage doesn't necessarily translate into an overall battlefield advantage.]
[And even though Gaara had to expend a massive amount of chakra to protect Suna Village, the truth is that blocking that big bomb didn't really matter either way. After all, in Deidara's design, the big bomb was just a feint—meant to distract Gaara, allowing the clay explosives to be mixed into his sand and to detonate them point-blank.]
[The reason Gaara lost so badly was entirely due to a lack of intelligence. C4 bombs are nano-scale—even in broad daylight, without a Sharingan or Byakugan, you can't see them, let alone at night. Unless Gaara completely stopped using sand altogether, which would then be the equivalent of crippling his own abilities.]
[So overall, Gaara at this point was still in his developmental phase—nowhere near the level he would reach during the Fourth Great Ninja War.]
On the screen, Deidara once again raised his signature hand gesture—two fingers together—with a cruel smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.
Deidara: "True art is... an explosion!"
Gaara, who was encased within his Absolute Defense sand sphere, was instantly knocked unconscious by a clay bomb detonating from inside the sand.
At some point, the clay bomb had already been mixed into his sand—silently, with no way to escape.
BOOM!
A muffled blast echoed from within the sphere.
Soon, as the sand gradually scattered, Gaara's body lost its support and plummeted straight from the sky.
His eyes were closed, his face pale.
Seeing this, Deidara smiled slightly and said in a relaxed tone: "Time for retrieval."
He rode his giant white bird and flew toward the direction where Gaara was falling.
But just as he approached, Gaara's eyes suddenly snapped open.
Deidara's pupils contracted slightly, and his body instinctively jerked backward, bracing for an attack.
However, Gaara did not attack him.
Using the last bit of his strength, Gaara raised his hands with great difficulty, manipulating the massive sea of sand that blotted out the sky above, and painstakingly shifted it bit by bit—away from Sunagakure.
Not to fight; just to keep that sand from falling and crushing the villagers below.
Deidara immediately understood what Gaara was doing.
"I see. As expected of a Kazekage. If he just let the sand fall on the village, things would have been easier for me."
The sand drifted slowly toward the desert beyond the village, like a massive river flowing through the night sky. Only when the last grain of sand had been moved away did Gaara finally lose consciousness completely, his body falling from the sky once again.
[Greatness needs no words.]
[He might have been knocked out, but if Gaara had descended toward the village, while moving the sand at the same time, he might not have been captured. As the Suna shinobis would have protected him.]
[Unfortunately, he didn't know that Deidara had run out of clay too.]
The screen froze on the scene of Gaara falling from the sky, being caught by Deidara's clay bird and carried away. The white bird, carrying two people, flew off into the distance, gradually vanishing into the darkness of the night.
---
[Land of Wind, Sunagakure]
The villagers of Suna looked up at the screen, silent for a long while.
"So that's how he was defeated..." someone murmured, their voice laced with complex emotions.
"There really was no helping it... the enemy got inside the village," another person said, shaking their head with a sigh.
"He was still protecting the village at the very end..."
Among the crowd, those who had once feared Gaara, shunned him, and called him a "monster" behind his back—they all lowered their heads at this moment.
---
In Rasa's office, there was utter silence.
Rasa watched the scene of Gaara being taken away on the screen, his hands clenched into fists under the desk, his knuckles turning white. His lips quivered.
Chiyo closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh.
"Gaara... he..." Rasa began, but he realized that he didn't even know how to evaluate this son of his.
Chiyo opened her eyes, looked at Rasa, and said calmly: "He is far stronger than you."
Rasa did not argue.
---
[Land of Earth, Iwagakure, Tsuchikage's Office]
Kurotsuchi watched the screen's scene of Deidara taking Gaara away and jumped with joy.
"Yay! Deidara-nii won! He even captured the Kazekage alive!"
Ōnoki stroked his beard, unable to suppress the smile tugging at his lips.
"Hmm, as expected of my disciple."
*****
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