High above the Land of Fire, Sasori was sitting steadily on the clay bird controlled by Deidara, speeding together toward Konohagakure.
"I'm telling you, you really didn't have to come along with me on this trip."
Sasori spoke with a hint of helplessness to Deidara beside him.
However, Deidara just laughed carelessly and replied, "Hehe! I'm not going to Konoha just for you this time, Sasori-nii. I've got someone I want to see myself, so you don't need to worry about me."
Hearing this, Sasori nodded slightly to show he understood, and did not continue asking.
After all, ever since the last time on the battlefield, when Deidara had risked his life to save Sasori, the relationship between the two of them had taken a leap in quality.
It was the kind of bond forged by surviving life and death together.
Sasori had also acknowledged Deidara's art.
For the past six months, the two of them had been carrying out missions together.
It was worth mentioning that in the previous fierce battle, nearly all of the puppets Sasori used for his proud "Performance of a Hundred Puppets" had been destroyed.
Fortunately, Konan stepped in and compensated Sasori with a considerable sum of money.
This gave Sasori sufficient funds to completely upgrade and replace those puppets, further strengthening his own power.
Judging by the time, if he were still making the same kind of ordinary puppets as before, half a year would have been more than enough.
However, that intense battle had completely overturned Sasori's fixed understanding of combat methods.
Although the "Performance of a Hundred Puppets" technique he excelled at allowed him to control a large number of puppets at the same time, in real combat, when facing truly powerful shinobi, having too many puppets instead became a burden, making it hard for him to fully and precisely control the situation.
While these puppets could play a huge role when slaughtering ordinary people, when fighting well trained and powerful shinobi, at best they could only serve as slight interference and harassment.
After careful thought, the current Sasori decided to adjust his strategy and step onto a path that pursued top quality.
He planned to greatly reduce the total number of puppets in his "Performance of a Hundred Puppets," and focus more of his energy on improving the performance and combat power of each individual puppet.
Because of that, at this stage, Sasori was still in the process of exploring and gradually perfecting this new direction.
Just then, something unexpected happened. The Fourth Hokage suddenly reappeared without warning and resumed his position as Hokage.
This news quickly caused a huge shock throughout the entire shinobi world.
Even Sasori, who was usually calm and steady, could not help but feel curious.
What exactly was going on? After all, Minato had been dead for many years.
Within the Akatsuki, Konan soon gave Sasori a mission.
Konoha intended to carry out cooperation and exchanges with Sasori, and hoped that he would personally make a trip there.
Coincidentally, Deidara had been quite concerned about Rengoku's recent situation and had long wanted to go take a look.
So the two of them hit it off immediately and set out on this journey together.
———
[Naruto's Timeline]
This was the timeline where Rengoku had fed Naruto a bead.
In the end, he did not stop Minato from erasing Naruto's memory.
Although before Naruto's memory was about to be wiped, Rengoku had personally told him the truth that Minato was his biological father.
However, after Naruto was sent back to the original timeline he belonged to, the memory of that information, as well as the mysterious bead Rengoku had stuffed into his abdomen, completely disappeared from Naruto's mind.
Time passed like a fleeting white horse, and in the blink of an eye, it arrived at the battlefield of the Fourth Shinobi World War.
At this moment, this thrilling war had already entered its most intense stage, the fiercest peak it had ever reached.
Because Kurama had been releasing chakra at high intensity for a long time, his energy was severely overdrawn, and he could no longer continue supplying Naruto with the powerful Nine Tails cloak for defense and offense.
In this difficult situation, the Allied Shinobi Forces knew the crisis was severe. United as one, they did everything they could to buy Kurama precious breathing time, so he could recover as soon as possible and rejoin the battle.
At the same time, the Ten Tails before them, after a series of shocking changes, had transformed into a strange form with long arms and long legs.
Even more terrifying, it was madly pouring out powerful Tailed Beast Balls in all directions.
Tragically, the Allied Forces' command center happened to be within the Ten Tails' attack range. Caught completely off guard, it was instantly reduced to rubble by the terrifying explosion.
The grief stricken people had no time to sink into sorrow over the loss of their comrades and headquarters, because the Ten Tails' even more lethal move followed right after.
They only heard Obito standing above it and shouting angrily:
"Wood Release: Cutting Sprigs Technique!"
In an instant, countless small protrusions suddenly appeared on each of the Ten Tails' fingers.
Immediately after, these tiny points shot out dense, overwhelming sharp wooden spikes like machine guns, pouring down like a torrential rainstorm.
Faced with such dense and swift attacks, the Allied shinobi used all their abilities to dodge, yet many were still struck.
The shinobi hit by the wooden spikes suffered devastating injuries in an instant.
The spikes actually exploded violently inside their bodies!
The scene was horrifying and unbearable to look at.
In just a short moment, the once vast shinobi army fell in大片, like wheat being harvested, with only a few exceptionally powerful elite shinobi managing to survive.
Naruto had successfully entered Sage Mode.
But after throwing four powerful Rasenshuriken in a row, the senjutsu chakra within his body was completely exhausted.
At that moment, the ferocious Ten Tails seized the opportunity and launched its terrifying attack once again.
The rain like Cutting Sprigs Technique covered the sky as it rushed toward Naruto.
Naruto's own chakra was already depleted, and Kurama inside him was still in the process of recovering.
Seeing that the fatal wooden spikes were about to pierce through his body, at the brink of life and death,
Hinata did not hesitate for even a second. She rushed in front of Naruto without caring for her own safety, using her small and slender body to try to block this horrifying strike for him.
At the same time, Neji, who had always silently protected Hinata, also stepped forward without hesitation and stood in front of her.
Just at the critical moment when those razor sharp wooden spikes were about to stab into Neji's body, a miracle happened!
A tremendously powerful Nine Tails force suddenly erupted from Naruto's body, like a surging and roaring flood.
It burst out in an instant and quickly wrapped tightly around Hinata and Neji in front of him.
The wooden spikes of the Cutting Sprigs Technique that fell like rain were all knocked away the moment they touched this shield formed by the Nine Tails' power, unable to pierce through even a bit.
Just like that, Hinata and Neji narrowly escaped disaster and kept their lives.
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