"Huh, so you are our reinforcements from Iwa?" Big G offhandedly asked as Sasori and Deidara stopped next to them, accidentally painting a clearer picture of the reason for this ambush to Ren.
For Kumo, he was most likely the main target. It was personal for them. But Iwa, they definitely did not care enough about him in particular. In which case, this was about the Suna-Konoha alliance. Killing him and Temari would not outright destroy it, but it would weaken it.
"You don't look like rock-munching blockheads." F remarked, almost managing to hide his wariness behind his forced nonchalance.
"Tsk." Sasori grouchily replied, "We were hired for a job." And with that, he refused to volunteer more information.
"Just don't stand in the way of our art, un!" Deidara rudely said, causing F to scoff back.
"Tsk. Creepy-ass motherfuckers." He muttered, loudly enough for them to hear.
And while they were talking, Baki took the opportunity to have his own hushed chat with Ren.
"You need to take Temari and run away. Kankuro and I will stay behind, but we can only buy you a minute at best." He hurriedly whispered while warily watching their attackers.
"I don't-" Ren reluctantly started while keeping most of his attention on their enemies, too.
"No! Listen to me!" Baki was not having it."The long-term truce between our villages hinges on you and Temari living long enough to have children. You two need to survive to be able to fuck!"
Ren owlishly blinked. He didn't think he would ever hear him cuss. Stress was definitely getting to the man. He glanced at Baki and noticed Kankuro gave him a pained nod with a mix of deep fear and grim resolve hiding behind the gesture, while Temari was just pale white, gritting her teeth in helplessness. But it was obvious she was very against the proposed plan and was barely restraining herself from vehemently protesting.
Ren pursed his lips. "I still don't-"
"Stop being unreasonable!" Baki hissed. "If we all die here with nobody the wiser to what happened to us, Iwa and Kumo will be able to manipulate the narrative however they wish. If they doctor the battlefield to point out that Konoha assassinated us..."
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Ren's irritation boiled over. "Shut up!" He shouted loudly enough to get even their opponents' attention, breaking the momentary unspoken non-truce they were having.
But that was alright. Deidara was using it to try and sneak some of his explosives closer to Ren's group. Sasori was subtly preparing his puppets for a pincer move in what was left of the charred treeline behind Ren. And even Killer Bee was watching Ren like a hawk, trying to find a crack in his seal defenses.
Just because everybody was talking, it didn't mean the fight was paused, after all.
Ren, with a snap of his wrist, instantly unsealed and threw a smoke bomb underneath himself, engulfing everything around him in thick smoke as he went intangible at the same moment.
A split second later, Temari, Kankuro, and Baki were unable to protest as they were sucked into a spatial vortex, depositing them in one of the safehouses Ren prepared in case he ever needed to go rogue. This one was in the Land of Tea.
In the same moment, Ren could feel several attacks phase through him. His opponents were too experienced to be deterred by a simple smokescreen. But nevertheless, it served its purpose.
Fortunately for him, he didn't have Obito, Itachi, Nagato, or anybody who was cheating their way into a better perception. Ren still didn't want to show his hand with his intangibility, but for Sasori and Deidara, who didn't have magical pink eyes? The smokescreen was enough to hide his use of it.
A second later, the smoke was blown away by a wind jutsu, courtesy of Big G. Sasori's puppets rushed out of the treeline behind Ren. Deidara's clay spiders stopped trying to be sneaky and jumped from the grass.
And Killer Bee's eyes widened as he noticed Ren's smirk. Having a bad premonition, thick tentacles spouted from his back...
Ren fought Ino enough times to know how to use and redirect his opponent's wind technique for his purpose. Big G had nothing on his blonde wonder. With a few quick hand seals, Ren cast his own wind jutsu. The fierce winds from both techniques met, and as their flows grazed against each other at precisely the correct angle, they merged into a swirling gale that swept the surroundings.
Ren had thrown a small scroll into the air as the gale started. It burst into smoke, and suddenly, thousands upon thousands of small paper tags were in the air, only to be carried by the strong winds all over the place nigh instantaneously.
The paper tags started glowing, and Killer Bee barely managed to engulf both F and Big G in his thick tentacles while he sank his body inside of them as the tags went off.
The world went fiery orange as an uncountable number of massive, booming explosions rocked the ground once more, almost as if desperately trying to reach the intensity of the previous bijuudama.
Ren, not bothering with defenses, watched his work while intangible while using his detection seal, and sighed. All of his opponents seemed to have survived his attack. Naturally, it couldn't be that simple, right?
This might have worked on Danzo's ROOT all these years back, but these people were just a tiny bit above their pay grade.
Still, this gave Ren a very precious moment to think. He could just slip away here. But... an idea flashed through his mind, and suddenly, he was reluctant not to dish out some immediate, mischievous retaliation for this attempt on his life.
Making up his mind, Ren nodded to himself.
The explosions reached their peak before they began to quickly peter out. Ren was greeted by the sight of smoke, dust, two big, curled tentacles, and one charred and battered dome made of wood, revealing to him how his enemies survived the attack.
The dome suddenly burst open just as the tentacles started unrolling...
"Whoa! That was a blast! What an art! Here, let me return the favor!" Deidara exclaimed with the excitement of a kid on a sugar rush, and a clay bird the size of a human head whooshed through the air toward Ren before Deidara was even done speaking.
It was a diversion. One to make him dodge. He noticed Sasori subtly preparing to follow up. But that suited him just fine. He glanced at the two Kumo Elite Jonin who stumbled out of the hold of Killer Bee's tentacles, disoriented.
Ren smiled.
Deidara's bird reached him, and the explosion engulfed Ren just as Killer Bee popped out of his tentacles, standing between F and Big G.
He suddenly stiffened.
His head snapped to the left side, where Big G was supposed to be standing, only to see Ren there, grinning at him.
"Yo, ya fool, ya-." Ren said with a cheery wave, and Killer Bee didn't need to see the charred chunks of his comrade's body falling to the ground as Deidara's explosion ceased to realize what had happened.
Killer Bee snapped into action, but Sasori was quicker, and the man in front of him was suddenly skewered by several swords as multiple wooden puppets surrounded him.
Except...
"-tool." Ren's voice came from behind Killer Bee, where F was supposed to be standing, and Bee realized the skewered man in front of him was no longer Ren but F.
"Mother-fucker." F chokingly gasped with wide eyes as he let out his last breath, and his eyes lost their shine while his body slumped, dead.
Ren would never have been able to catch two Elite Jonin with forced substitution if not for their disorientation, and Killer Bee instantly realized that.
Hot fury surged in him, enough for the red bijuu cloak to bubble into existence around him as he growled and slowly turned toward Ren, who had the audacity to chuckle.
Six tails sprouted behind Killer Bee at once, but Ren didn't seem bothered.
"I am outta here. Wheee!" Ren cheerily returned the horned hand gesture to Bee, wanting to piss him off even more as he popped in a small cloud of smoke, showing that he was just a shadow clone and the real Ren was long gone.
Even for somebody as easy-going as Killer Bee, that was too much, and his fury shot through the roof. His growl intensified as the seventh tail materialized behind him, and his eyes landed on Sasori, whose swords impaled F, and Deidara, whose explosions made Big G into charred chunks of meat.
"Ah." Sasori let out as he realized the situation they found themselves in.