"It's coming!"
Naruto's heart raced as the golden light intensified, filled with both excitement and apprehension. He dared not let his guard down.
The power of Number 18 was unpredictable, and through his Observation Haki, Naruto could only perceive the immense and terrifying energy contained within the golden glow.
Whoosh!
Naruto used the Flying Thunder God Technique to enter the interior of Susanoo.
"Naruto-kun..."
Itachi was fully focused on controlling Susanoo to flee, and it was Kisame who answered.
Naruto pondered and said, "This explosion isn't something to mess with. If Susanoo collapses under the blast, I'll teleport you both to safety. Of course, this also means that you lose this match."
He didn't ask for their consent, he simply stated the facts.
If Susanoo couldn't withstand the explosion, even Kisame's resilience wouldn't save him from instant annihilation. There would be no time to help them.
"Understood!"
Itachi and Kisame replied in unison.
Kisame looked unhappy. He hadn't expected things to go so wrong. Despite being among the first to follow Naruto, he and Itachi had been overshadowed by the newcomers, Deidara and Sasori.
Still, Kisame blamed no one but himself. If he had anticipated the Weapon Blessing and all their implications earlier, an hour would've been enough to devise a more meticulous plan.
While Deidara's explosions were indeed formidable, their most glaring weakness was the time required to prepare them. As long as they targeted this point, the cooperation between Deidara and Sasori could be broken, leaving Deidara with no chance to detonate the C3.
Kisame's lack of foresight had put them on the defensive from the start.
Yet, instead of harboring resentment toward Deidara's sudden rise to power, Kisame used the failure as a lesson. True to a Shinobi's nature, only by learning from one's defeats could one achieve greater heights.
Boom!
Just after Susanoo flew two kilometers away, the golden oval light emerging from the ground finally erupted.
The golden light transformed into a blinding white radiance, accompanied by scalding heat waves. Even inside Susanoo, Naruto could feel the intensity, with his skin tingling painfully from the heat.
The light surged forward at astonishing speed, consuming everything in its path.
Susanoo, though mighty, couldn't keep pace with the speed of light and was engulfed almost instantly.
The crimson Susanoo lasted less than two seconds before cracks spread across its structure, and its once-solid form turned ethereal.
"Retreat!"
Without hesitation, Naruto grabbed Kisame and Itachi, teleporting them away with the Flying Thunder God Technique.
After several teleports, Naruto reappeared twenty kilometers from the blast.
Just now, through his Observation Haki, Naruto realized that while the explosion's energy wasn't as concentrated as the fusion explosions he had unleashed before, but the sheer volume of explosive clay used in C3 made its destructive radius much larger.
Only after retreating twenty kilometers did Naruto feel secure.
In the end, he still underestimated Deidara's madness.
The degree of the explosion was even greater than that of his C0.
In the final analysis, it was because Deidara detonated not only C3, but every bit of explosive clay Deidara had.
Simply put, Deidara emptied his family's 'fortune' to create the explosion, and the overlapping detonations created a cascade of energy, far beyond what Susanoo could endure.
This was a classic case of quantity transforming into quality.
"Naruto-kun, Susanoo hadn't completely collapsed..."
Kisame tried to argue.
Naruto interrupted coldly, " In another second, Susanoo would have shattered entirely. The result would be the same. Worse, if Susanoo had been destroyed, Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan might have gone completely blind, and not even the Weapon Blessing could restore it. Survival is what matters. You lost this round!"
As Naruto finished speaking, the explosion reached its final climax.
Boom!
The entire area within a ten-kilometer radius was consumed by light. Accompanied by an earth-shaking roar, the ground trembled violently, as if crying out in agony.
Immediately afterwards, a colossal mushroom cloud rose into the sky.
Even from twenty kilometers away, Naruto and his companions could see it clearly.
A mushroom cloud towering as high as a mountain rose into the sky.
The fierce winds howled, and sand and dust swirled everywhere, resembling the end of the world.
Who would have thought such destruction was caused by just Deidara alone?
Deidara, single-handedly, was comparable to an entire war… He's a true war-grade battle machine!
Whoosh!
Using the Flying Thunder God's marks placed on Sasori and Deidara earlier, Naruto teleported them back to the battlefield.
"Congratulations! The victors of this friendly match are you two!"
Naruto raised the hands of Deidara and Sasori, officially declaring their victory.
Kisame and Itachi exchanged glances, pondering Naruto's earlier words, especially the phrase: 'Survival is what matters'.
They soon grasped the essence of Naruto's message
Failure wasn't the problem, fear of facing failure was. By confronting their shortcomings and learning from them, failure would become the foundation of future success.
Realizing this, both Kisame and Itachi sincerely said, "We lost. Congratulations to you both!"
"Likewise!"
Sasori replied in a low tone, clearly displeased.
Yes, he had won, but he had also suffered significant losses. In this battle, his prized Hiruko was utterly destroyed, and his main puppet body had lost half its head and both arms.
For a puppet master, puppets are everything. Each one represents painstaking effort and cannot be squandered lightly.
Repairing his main body and crafting a puppet comparable to Hiruko would not only require rare materials but also an immense investment of time and energy.
The very thought of this gave Sasori a headache.
"Hahaha! I told you! What you call 'eternity' is not art at all! Nothing lasts forever! The pursuit of the ultimate moment, explosions, is true art!"
Deidara was so excited that he laughed heartily.
Although he had exhausted all his explosive clay and would need some time to replenish it, he didn't care. To have created an explosion of such magnitude, one that reshaped the world, was more than enough for him.
This was a height he had never envisioned, a realm far surpassing his previous ideals of artistic perfection.
To Deidara, this explosion even rivaled, if not exceeded, the one Naruto had unleashed in some ways.
After all, Naruto's explosion was overwhelming in energy scale, but it resulted in energy waste. With such overwhelming power, even half of it would be more than enough to annihilate anything. To maximize lethality, greater range was more effective.
In this respect, Deidara had succeeded.
In real combat, Deidara's meticulously crafted explosion would undoubtedly cause more effective devastation.
Of course, this was a thought Deidara wouldn't dare voice aloud.
If he did, Naruto would likely mock him for being a sore loser who couldn't admit defeat.
"Art is eternal."
Sasori stated solemnly.
"Pfft! Look at how we won… Explosion is the real art!" Deidara retorted smugly!
Watching the two bicker, Kisame and Itachi couldn't help but feel exasperated. Losing to these two eccentric lunatics felt, frankly, embarrassing.
Still, deep down, they recognized the core of their defeat. Despite being polar opposites in their philosophies, Sasori and Deidara had worked together seamlessly. The reason? A shared pursuit for art.
This shared passion drove them to challenge each other's views, leading them to understand each other's methods better. Unintentionally, they adapted to each other's strategies and grew stronger together.
By rejecting each other's ideals, they absorbed one another's strengths and mitigated their own weaknesses, creating a continuous cycle of growth.
This insight momentarily inspired Kisame and Itachi, but they quickly dismissed the thought.
Kisame's strength lay in Samehada, a unique weapon impossible to replicate. Itachi's power came from his Sharingan, the Kekkei Genkai which is impossible to replicate too.
Even if they wanted to learn from each other, they had no means to do so.
What could they do? Steal weapons or gouge out eyeballs?