Nagato finally saw it clearly.
It was a clay bird, pure white with its wings spread wide. Its surface gleamed like porcelain beneath the sunlight.
A man stood on its back.
Long blond hair streamed in the wind. His lips were stretched into an exaggerated grin, and his blue eyes burned with fanatic excitement.
"Deidara..."
Nagato practically ground the name out through clenched teeth.
His voice seethed with rage and killing intent.
He had never shown mercy to traitors.
Right now, he wanted nothing more than to crush this coward who had switched sides at the last moment with his own hands.
"Hahahahaha!"
Deidara's wild laughter resounded across the sky.
"At last, it's time for my art to take the stage! I've been waiting forever for this moment!"
He spread his arms atop the clay bird as though embracing the entire world.
As though welcoming the greatest moment of his life.
"Cut the crap and hurry up!" Teizawa cursed from below.
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't interrupt my opening speech!" Deidara complained. "How can a moment this important not have an introduction? Art requires a proper sense of ceremony..."
"If you keep wasting time, I'll insult your art until it's worth less than dirt!"
"You..."
Deidara choked on his words.
Not daring to waste any more time, he began forming hand seals.
Snake, Boar, Ram, Rabbit, Dog, Rat, Bird, Horse, Snake...
Every seal was formed with speed and precision.
Chakra surged through his fingertips and flowed along the runes into the clay bird beneath him.
The bird's belly split open, revealing an enormous hollow cavity.
Hidden inside was a massive clay bomb.
It resembled a bird spreading its wings, yet also looked like a flower bud on the verge of blooming.
This was the ultimate art Deidara had created with Teizawa's help and their latest research findings...
C3 No. 18.
It contained the concentrated essence of countless clay bombs.
Its power was sufficient to flatten an entire village.
"Art is..."
Deidara took a deep breath, ready to shout his classic declaration.
"Art is Patrick Star!"
Teizawa beat him to it.
His voice was even louder than Deidara's and exploded across the rain-soaked battlefield.
"No! Art is an explosion!"
Deidara's face turned bright red with fury. He nearly leaped off the bird to argue with Teizawa in person.
"Art is an explosion! Not Patrick Star! What the hell is a Patrick Star?!"
The clay bomb had already begun to fall.
It traced a graceful arc through the air as it flew toward the Gedo Statue.
It was not particularly large, standing only slightly taller than a person.
Compared to the colossal statue, it looked like a sesame seed.
Yet its descending trajectory...
The chakra fluctuations radiating from it...
The spine-chilling pressure it inspired...
Nagato's pupils abruptly contracted.
He sensed it.
The amount of chakra contained within that object was absurd.
There was so much that even he felt a chill run down his spine.
Deidara, that bastard...
This bomb would destroy all of Amegakure.
"Stop it!"
Nagato's voice was sharp and frantic.
The Gedo Statue raised a colossal hand and reached for the clay bomb.
Tendrils extended from its palm and twisted toward the bomb like snakes.
Deidara had prepared for that.
The bomb suddenly accelerated in midair, swerving around the tendrils before slipping between the colossal hand's fingers.
It flew straight toward the Gedo Statue's chest.
Nagato tried to stop it again.
He was already too late.
"Art is... Patrick Star!"
Teizawa's voice echoed through the rain.
"I already told you, it isn't Patrick Star! It's an explosion!"
Deidara's furious roar followed immediately afterward.
Rumble...
Rumble...
The clay bomb struck the Gedo Statue directly in the chest.
First came a blinding flash of white light.
It was as bright as though the sun itself had fallen to earth.
Everyone instinctively shut their eyes.
Then came the shock wave.
It swept across the village like an unstoppable tidal wave, pulverizing everything in its path and hurling everything else away.
Kakashi and the others had already fled far into the distance.
Even so, the shock wave caught them. They were knocked to the ground and rolled several times before finally stopping.
Mei was also sent flying.
Her body tumbled through the air before slamming into a wall. She coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Then came the sound.
It did not resemble an ordinary explosion.
It was a sharper, higher-pitched noise.
Like fingernails scraping across glass.
Like metal grinding against metal.
The noise pierced their eardrums, their minds, and their very souls.
Everyone clutched their ears and opened their mouths.
Yet none of them could hear a thing.
Finally came the smoke and dust.
A mushroom cloud surged into the sky and swallowed the heavens.
It was no ordinary cloud of debris. It was saturated with chakra and carried the presence of death and destruction.
Buildings collapsed wherever it passed.
The ground split open.
Even the air itself seemed to be torn apart.
At the final moment, Teizawa used the Body Flicker Technique to appear beside Mei.
Without the slightest hesitation, he swept her into his arms and launched himself into the air.
There was no way to withstand an explosion of this magnitude head-on.
Their only chance was to fly above it.
Fortunately, Teizawa could fly using Magnet Release.
As for everyone else...
...
When the dust finally settled, the rain had stopped.
There were no clouds in the sky.
No sun.
Only a vast gray emptiness, as still and lifeless as stagnant water.
Sunlight should have poured down from above, but the dust still suspended in the air blocked it.
Only a few dim rays slipped through, illuminating the devastated earth below.
Amegakure was gone.
Literally gone.
Its towering buildings had vanished.
Its labyrinth of densely woven pipes had disappeared.
Even its slums, constructed from sheets of metal, were no more.
In their place was a colossal crater.
It was thousands of meters across and so deep that the bottom could barely be seen.
Its edges were jagged and uneven.
It looked as though a colossal beast had bitten a chunk out of the earth.
Or as if the earth itself had split open, leaving behind a wound that would never heal.
Water had collected at the bottom.
Rainwater and groundwater mixed into a muddy pool that reflected the gray sky overhead.
Broken stones, wooden planks, sheets of metal, and unrecognizable fragments of wreckage drifted across its surface.
There were no corpses.
No bloodstains.
Not even fragments of bone remained.
The people, the buildings, and everything that had once existed here...
All of it had been completely vaporized in the explosion.
Not even a trace remained.
The Gedo Statue had also disappeared.
Deidara's C3 No. 18 had destroyed most of its body.
Its shattered remains lay scattered across the bottom of the crater.
Severed tendrils sprawled in the muddy water like dead snakes.
Cracks covered its gray shell, exposing the blackened, decaying structure beneath.
Its eyes were closed.
Completely closed.
Even the final glimmer of light within them had vanished.
Nagato lay in Konan's arms, his face as pale as paper.
His lips were cracked, and his breathing was faint.
He looked like a corpse whose organs had been hollowed out.
His chest was still rising and falling.
But each breath was so weak that it was almost imperceptible.
His Rinnegan were half-open, their light dim and lifeless.
They reflected the gray sky above.
They also reflected Konan's tear-streaked face.
Konan said nothing.
She simply held him.
Sheets of paper fluttered around her and formed a soft cocoon that enclosed them both.
The rain had stopped.
So had the wind.
Even the air seemed to have frozen.
She lowered her head and looked at Nagato's pallid face.
At last, her composure completely shattered.
Their village...
Was gone?
(End of Chapter)
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