"That's why I need to thank Itachi properly," Deidara said with a cold laugh.
In the blink of an eye, he actually crawled out from inside the Clay Bird. It turned out that Uchiha Sasuke's attack just now had only struck a clay clone.
"I've already experienced your Genjutsu. Just like Itachi's, I won't fall for it. That's right. Ever since the day I fought Itachi, I've been training this left eye to deal with the Sharingan. Of course, I've never neglected my training to break Genjutsu either. This time, it really ends here. Try the power of C4."
Deidara burst into loud laughter.
"What kind of grudge is this?"
Jiraiya sighed.
Deidara's resentment was so strong that Jiraiya could practically feel it through the screen. It was absurd.
Wasn't it just that he had been shaken by Genjutsu once when he was recruited into the team?
Did he really need to remember it for so many years, even repeatedly training how to deal with Uchiha Itachi? And now, all of that was being used on Uchiha Sasuke.
What was this, the younger brother paying the older brother's debt?
"It was only one Genjutsu. Was that really necessary? I never humiliated him either."
Uchiha Itachi pressed a hand to his forehead, unable to hide his helplessness. He had always felt Deidara was neurotic and stubborn, someone he could not quite understand, always rambling about art together with Sasori.
One said art was explosion. The other said art was eternity.
He just had not expected Deidara's hatred for him to reach this degree.
Did loving someone need a reason? No. Did hating someone need a reason? Apparently not either.
Deidara spat out a C4 Karura on the spot, wrapping Uchiha Sasuke inside it.
Clearly, Deidara had long since prepared a countermeasure.
"You're the one whose Chakra is exhausted. You don't even have the strength to break free anymore?"
Deidara spoke smugly. After saying that, he directly launched himself away, putting distance between himself and the explosion range.
"Deidara really holds grudges way too hard."
Tsunade could not help roasting him. She finally understood why Deidara had remembered it until now after only being shaken by Genjutsu when he was recruited. He really was petty.
Just now, Uchiha Sasuke had said his Chakra was exhausted, so Deidara had to throw that exact line back at him. He was vindictive to the extreme.
It showed just how proud he was. As Iwagakure's top genius, being toyed with by Uchiha Itachi had clearly left an enormous psychological shadow on him.
They were about the same age, yet from beginning to end, he had been completely crushed by Uchiha Itachi.
For the prideful Deidara, that must have been a tremendous blow.
"That thing is just like before. It's filled with C4 bombs invisible to the naked eye!"
After Deidara said that, he took out a lump of clay from the pouch at his waist and endured the intense pain as he shaped it into a tiny clay bird. At this point, however, his Chakra really had been completely exhausted.
Yet at that moment, Uchiha Sasuke actually broke straight through the Karura and rushed out from inside.
He even used Cursed Seal Level 2 to gain the ability to fly. The wing that had been blown off had not recovered. Instead, it was replaced by several large snakes, forming a strange kind of balance.
For a moment, he charged straight over with Raikiri raised.
"At this distance, even if you extend Raikiri, you can't hurt me," Deidara said with great confidence. "It's over. Explode!"
After saying this, he fell hard from the sky to the ground and saw snake skin drifting down from above, turned into ash.
"I won. I won!"
"My art won!" Deidara barely managed to stand, then burst into wild laughter.
But just as he thought he had already claimed victory, he abruptly realized once again that he had been caught in Genjutsu.
Uchiha Sasuke, who should have already turned to ash, had appeared behind him again.
From beginning to end, Sasuke had used Genjutsu to beat Deidara down.
At this point, both sides had been forced to the end of their ropes. Deidara was exhausted, but how was Uchiha Sasuke any different?
"This… what the hell is going on? This isn't Genjutsu. In that case, this guy… how did you deal with the C4 bombs…" At that moment, Deidara suddenly remembered something and sat up. "You… did you already notice?"
"Of course. I noticed long ago. Let me tell you, when fighting the Sharingan, forming hand signs in secret is the most basic mistake. No matter how fast you form them, these eyes can see through them. Up until now, every hand sign you've used for your jutsu has been an Earth Release sign. And my Chidori is Lightning Release. That's how it is, right?" Uchiha Sasuke said, panting.
"So you really did figure it out. Then that Raikiri just now was…"
Deidara seemed to understand all at once.
"Earth Release is countered by Lightning Release. If your bombs are struck by Lightning Release, they can't detonate. That's your weakness, isn't it?"
Uchiha Sasuke spoke proudly.
Only then did Deidara remember that Uchiha Sasuke had not aimed Raikiri at anyone else. He had aimed it at himself. By spreading Lightning Release throughout his body, he prevented the nano-bombs from detonating.
"Thanks to you, my body is already covered in wounds. To be precise, this jutsu should be called Chidori," Uchiha Sasuke said.
"You saw through the weakness of my art in such a short time? When did you figure it out?"
Deidara roared, his voice filled with disbelief.
"After I stepped on the Landmine. But I'd been analyzing it from the beginning. After your first attack was struck by my Chidori Senbon, some of the bombs you created exploded, and some didn't. So I made a hypothesis.
"The ones that exploded at that time were only the bombs you threw again in order to avoid my counterattack. But before that, all the bombs pierced by my Chidori Senbon failed to explode. However, because some of them fell near your companion, it was also possible that you deliberately chose not to detonate them."
Honest Uchiha Sasuke slowly explained his reasoning process.
"In other words, you didn't know whether the bombs failed to explode because of Chidori's influence or because I controlled them, right? So you used the Landmines to confirm it."
Deidara also understood some of Uchiha Sasuke's strange actions from earlier.
Because Landmines were triggered automatically. Since they were automatic, they had nothing to do with Deidara's control. Therefore, Sasuke could use Chidori Current to confirm whether he could prevent Earth Release bombs from exploding.
That one Kusanagi Sword had been enough to test out many things. The Kusanagi Sword, carrying Chidori's lightning Chakra, had stabbed into a Landmine, yet the Landmine had not detonated. That alone had been enough for Uchiha Sasuke to make his judgment.
With one simple move, he had tested out the most crucial information.
And the Landmines Deidara thought were well hidden had nowhere to hide before the Sharingan. His Landmines contained Chakra, so although they were buried underground, they could still be sensed by the Sharingan.
The Sharingan truly could not see through objects and directly locate them the way the Byakugan could, but sensing them through Chakra was close enough.
"The Sharingan really is a convenient Kekkei Genkai. That brat threw out the Kusanagi Sword not to confirm where there were no Landmines, nor to detonate the Landmines, but to confirm his own judgment?" Tsunade could not help clicking her tongue in wonder. In an extremely short period of time, he had first analyzed Deidara's hand signs to determine that his Clay Bombs belonged to Earth Release Ninjutsu, then used various methods to verify his guess.
He had fully exploited elemental advantage between Ninjutsu to the extreme.
That kind of battle talent would have placed him among the very top even in the old Konoha, when experts had been everywhere.
Adding Uchiha Itachi, who also possessed extremely outstanding battle talent, this family's battle talent was terrifyingly high.
So even though Kaede Kitahara had roasted him for having average intelligence, even Kaede Kitahara acknowledged his battle talent.
This kind of battle talent could not be trained afterward. Either you had it, or you did not.
It relied entirely on what you were born with.
Although the Sannin's battle talent was not weak either, and gathering intelligence while fighting was routine for them, the Sannin themselves had always been the outstanding ones among their peers. They were among the strongest of their generation.
Even Tsunade had to admit that Uchiha Sasuke's battle instinct was truly terrifying.
No wonder that although his intelligence was not particularly high, he could still go so far in the future.
Uchiha Itachi looked at Uchiha Sasuke's actions in the diary, and a somewhat satisfied smile appeared on his face. At this stage, Uchiha Sasuke had not yet awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan. In terms of strength, he was inferior to his Mangekyo Sasuke period.
That was even more true compared with the later Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, not to mention the period when one of his eyes became the Tomoe Rinnegan.
But during this stage, he was willing to use his brain, and his battle was extremely brilliant. That was what satisfied Uchiha Itachi the most.
Later, in Uchiha Sasuke's battle against Shimura Danzo, he had already awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan. Logically speaking, he should have performed even better. But the reality was that Uchiha Sasuke had practically been abusing his ocular power.
He had turned into a reckless brute to a considerable degree.
At this moment, Uchiha Itachi remembered Kaede Kitahara's evaluation of Uchiha Sasuke. Sunny Sasuke. The sky cleared, the rain stopped, and Uchiha Sasuke thought he was capable again.
It seemed that every time Sasuke gained new power, he became extremely arrogant, and then he would be taught a lesson.
But the Sasuke in this video had not just obtained some new power. His mental state perfectly matched his own strength. Although he was not very smart, his battle instinct was astonishing.
And this kind of floating the moment he gained a little power was indeed very much in line with an ordinary person's mindset. Most people would go through something like that.
However, Uchiha Itachi's expectations for Uchiha Sasuke were clearly not merely for him to be an ordinary person. He had to revive the Uchiha Clan and allow the Uchiha Clan's bloodline to flourish once more.
Of course, do not ask why the Uchiha bloodline had almost been cut off.
Now, Itachi also hoped that Sasuke could become a better savior in order to face even more terrifying battles in the future.