Deidara wore a smug expression as he gazed down at the ground below, now engulfed by massive flames and clouds of dust.
He had no intention of trading blows with Kisame Hoshigaki — brute-forcing it against that monster would be utterly unaesthetic!
Striking from afar with relentless explosions, endlessly bombing his opponent — that was his rhythm of battle, his art!
So the Deidara who had first appeared on the ground was nothing more than a clay clone, and he had packed quite a lot of explosive clay into it as well.
"The explosion just now was powerful enough, but it probably wasn't enough to kill Kisame Hoshigaki."
Sitting cross-legged atop his great white bird, Deidara watched the ground below and murmured to himself.
"In that case, let's make something big first!"
Large amounts of white clay were chewed by the mouths on Deidara's hands and spat out, rapidly shaped and assembled under his swift kneading.
A massive white dragon over ten meters long materialized in midair.
C2 — Garuda!
The white dragon beat its wings, hovering in the sky as well, and opened its jaws to continuously spit out explosive clay bombs in an unrelenting barrage.
Deidara sat calmly atop the great white bird, carefully observing the traces below.
Amid the continuous bombardment from the giant white dragon, within the smoke and dust obscuring visibility, Deidara caught sight of a dark shadow darting swiftly through the haze, moving ceaselessly across the ground.
"I see you! You finally couldn't take it anymore!"
Deidara's eyes widened, a grin of excitement spreading across his face. If he hadn't regularly trained his eyesight, he probably wouldn't have been able to make out that blurry figure in the smoke.
"Roar!"
The great white dragon let out a low bellow. Under Deidara's control, it swiftly flew toward the shadow below, the clay bombs spewing from its jaws growing even denser.
Water Style — Exploding Water Colliding Wave!
An immense volume of water appeared from nowhere like an ocean wave, instantly filling the entire battlefield — so vast that it even engulfed the white dragon flying in the sky.
The enormous flow of water released by Kisame Hoshigaki didn't disperse like a normal jutsu would. Instead, it formed a colossal elliptical water prison!
Seeing his white dragon trapped inside the water prison, Deidara quickly formed a hand seal and let out a low shout.
But to Deidara's surprise, the white dragon inside the giant water prison didn't explode as he had expected. His face showed a look of puzzlement.
Unfortunately, Kisame Hoshigaki wasn't about to give Deidara time to figure things out.
Shark Rain!
From the surface of the giant water prison, four shark-sized water bullets suddenly burst forth, rocketing toward Deidara in the sky.
Seeing this, Deidara smirked coldly. He casually waved his hand, creating several clay bombs in an instant, and hurled them at the four incoming water sharks!
Boom boom boom!
Accompanied by the massive explosions from the clay bombs, the four water sharks were blasted into countless tiny droplets that scattered in every direction!
Just as Deidara thought it was over, the water splashing outward in all directions somehow transformed midair into a swarm of tiny shark-shaped water bullets, raining down like a downpour straight at Deidara above.
This sudden development!
It caught Deidara off guard, and he hastily commanded his white bird to climb higher into the sky.
But reacting at the last moment was a beat too slow — all of the tiny shark water bullets struck the great white bird.
With a helpless expression, Deidara leapt down from the white bird.
Boom!
The great white bird exploded in a massive detonation!
As he fell, Deidara produced more white clay from his hands, clearly intending to create another white bird.
But Kisame Hoshigaki had worked hard to knock Deidara out of the sky — he wasn't about to give him another chance!
Splash!!
"Deidara! This is where you fall — for good!"
Kisame Hoshigaki, who had been unseen until now, burst out from the giant elliptical water sphere in a truly bizarre form.
Samehada Fusion Mode!
Kisame Hoshigaki had merged the Giant Sword — Samehada into his own body, transforming into a half-human, half-fish creature. It was ugly as sin, but his power had increased several fold!
"What the hell is that?! Kisame Hoshigaki, you've been holding something like that back?!"
Deidara's eyes bulged as he stared at Kisame's current form in utter astonishment.
"As a ninja, if you don't have a few tricks up your sleeve, you'd have died on the battlefield long ago."
Kisame sneered, grabbing Deidara by the ankle as he fell and hurling him violently into the giant elliptical water sphere below.
"Inside this giant water prison, it's my home turf now, Deidara!"
With that, Kisame's body reversed course from the air and dove back into the water sphere.
"Gulp… gulp!"
After being slammed into the water prison, Deidara swallowed two huge mouthfuls of water, the sensation of suffocation making his eyes roll back.
But worse than the suffocation was the chill of death creeping through his entire body!
Deidara knew very well — if the sky was his domain, then the inside of this giant water sphere was Kisame Hoshigaki's domain.
One careless mistake and he'd be dead!
And he could already feel Kisame Hoshigaki rapidly closing in on him.
Fighting through the suffocation, Deidara quickly pulled out a handful of white clay from inside his shirt and stuffed it into his mouth, then swiftly spat out a figure that was an exact copy of himself.
C4 — Garuda!!
In that brief moment, the figure — similar to a clay clone — began to grow at a visible speed!
In the blink of an eye, it had already swelled to three or four meters in size, and continued to expand rapidly.
Kisame Hoshigaki, who had been speeding toward Deidara through the water prison, paused when he saw the rapidly inflating figure.
Noticing that the figure showed no sign of stopping and continued to expand at an extreme rate, a sense of extreme danger surged into Kisame's mind, his eyelids twitching uncontrollably.
Without any hesitation, Kisame turned and swam rapidly in the opposite direction, putting distance between himself and the ever-expanding figure!
If not for the water pressure suppressing it from all sides, the figure's expansion would have been even faster!
Kisame reached the edge of the water prison and burst out, continuing to retreat rapidly.
By now, the figure — nearly identical in appearance to Deidara — had grown into a giant. Its massive body expanded so quickly that the water prison jutsu could no longer contain it and shattered with a tremendous crash!
Huge volumes of water surged outward in all directions like a tsunami!
Standing atop the giant figure's head, Deidara looked at Kisame Hoshigaki, who was rapidly fleeing the area, and let out a proud, triumphant laugh.
"Don't think you're the only one with tricks up your sleeve."
With a triumphant expression, Deidara stood atop a new flying bird that carried him back into the sky, while simultaneously controlling the giant figure to move in Kisame's direction.
As it moved, the giant figure's body continued to inflate, its originally normal proportions swelling into a rotund, bloated form.
The ever-expanding giant figure eventually could no longer hold its shape and split apart with a thunderous crack!
Kisame Hoshigaki, who had been continuously retreating, saw the giant figure split open — but there was no explosion. His face showed a look of confusion.
Had Deidara's jutsu failed?
A strange expression crossed Kisame's eyes. He was about to open his mouth and taunt Deidara when a surge of extreme danger flooded into his mind.
He saw the flying birds in the sky above disintegrating piece by piece, as if struck by some indescribable force — vanishing without a trace, without a single drop of blood.
"What kind of jutsu is this?!"
An expression of disbelief crossed Kisame's face. His body, which had momentarily paused, started moving again as he began to retreat.
Without a Sharingan, Kisame naturally couldn't see what someone like Sasuke could — the sky filled with countless nearly invisible microscopic clay spider bombs.
And precisely because of that!
Kisame could feel all the more how terrifying this jutsu was — enough to make every hair on his body stand on end.
Pfft! Pfft!
A small burst of blood suddenly erupted from Kisame's arm.
Then, as if triggering some kind of chain reaction, bursts of blood flowers erupted across Kisame's entire body one after another.
And not only that — Kisame could feel that even the inside of his body seemed to be under attack, waves of searing pain surging from every part of his being!
[
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