A loud explosion echoed through the cave as Sakura’s fist impacted the massive boulder, blocking the entrance, smashing it into thousands of pieces.
Yuna and her group walked into the cave, but Sasori and Deidara immediately blocked their path. While Sasori looked like a hunched-over monstrosity with a demon-looking giant mask on its back with a long metal tail procuring out of its mouth, Deidara was a normal-looking human with slanted eyes and long blonde hair that was covering his left eye.
“You made me wait; I hate waiting.”
Yuna scoffed at Sasori’s words and let her gaze wander over the cave.
“You didn’t have to wait for us. You could have just killed yourself immediately when you heard that I was coming here and saved all of us some time.”
Yuna’s gaze stopped on Gaara, who was currently getting Shukaku extracted from him and sighed in relief. As far as she could tell, the ritual was far from over, and they still had plenty of time to rescue him.
“What arrogance; let’s see if you can still talk like that after I’ve shown you my art.”
“Sorry, but I really don’t have that much interest in art except for por…*cough* very sophisticated stuff.”
Yuna could feel some burning gazes on her back but ignored them completely.
“Well, as we previously discussed, you can have blondy, Naruto.”
Without waiting any longer, Naruto shot towards Deidara, who smiled wildly while tossing a tiny clay bird into the air, which turned into a huge animated clay bird after a puff of smoke. He swiftly mounted the bird and moments later fley out of the cave, with Naruto following after him.
“Hahaha, it seems like today is my lucky day, and I will have the chance to capture another Jinchuuriki.”
Naruto rolled his eyes at Deidara’s provocation while covering his whole body with a wind chakra armor, significantly increasing his speed.
Honestly, there was minimal purpose in chasing down Deidara. After all, their goal was to rescue Gaara and not defeat all the enemies, but what else was Naruto supposed to do? If he tried to insert himself in the fight against Sasori as well, wouldn’t Yuna accuse him of bullying the weak?
Meanwhile, Yuna looked at the departing Deidara with a weird expression on her face. Somehow, his departing figure made her feel incredibly regretful. She felt like a huge opportunity just slipped through her fingers, but she couldn’t tell why. As far as she knew, Deidara’s primary technique was turning clay into explosives, and she simply didn’t see how that could possibly interest her.
While Yuna was pondering whether there was anything special about Deidara or not, Chiyo finished her explanation about Sasori, whose current form was only a puppet he wore as an armor and that the real him was inside of it.
Although Yuna could understand the logic behind that, there was a bit of a flaw in that strategy as well. The most dangerous aspect about puppet masters was their poison combined with their puppets’ unpredictable movements. If you were to put a human inside a puppet, its movement automatically becomes more predictable.
Anyway, the fight started with Chiyo lifting up a chakra string with about ten kunai attached to it, but Sasori blocked those by lazily moving his metal tail around. Then, he removed his face mask, revealing a grotesque puppet mouth that swiftly shot dozens of senbon needles at Karin, Sakura, and Chiyo, whole his tail pierced towards Yuna at high speed.
Sakura and Chiyo blocked the needles by simply dodging out of the way, while Karin clapped her hands together, causing a thin blue sphere to form around her, which easily blocked what remained of the attack.
Meanwhile, Yuna rolled her eyes at Sasori’s attack and made ice cover her right hand.
*Clang*
The sound of metal hitting something hard echoed through the cave as Yuna caught Sasori’s attack with her ice-covered hand.
“Oi, oi, what are you doing, Sasori? Why are you aggroing enemies that are not here to fight you?”
*Crack*
Yuna twisted her hand, tearing the top part of Sasori’s tail off, making his eyes widen in surprise.
He quickly retracted his tail to prevent Yuna from damaging it further and lifted up his left hand to shoot the cylinder that was attached to it towards his enemies.
It exploded mid-air, resulting in dozens of small containers spreading through the room, which exploded as well, resulting in thousands of poisoned needles flying everywhere, covering most of the battlefields.
However, just like during his previous attack, Sakura and Chiyo avoided the attack by ideally moving their bodies through it, while Karin’s chakra shield still stood firm. A bunch of tiny needles simply wasn’t enough to put a dent in it, no matter how many there were.
On the other hand, Yuna was a little bit further away from the blast zone, so only very few senbon needles actually reached her, and those that did, she casually fished out of mid-air and tossed them aside.
Sasori couldn’t help but be bewildered by what he just saw. Although he was a little surprised by Karin’s shield, that didn’t bother him too much, and neither did that Yuna could get out of his attack without a scratch, simply due to being further away.
However, he couldn’t comprehend how someone as young as Sakura could see through such a complex attack and get out of it scot-free.
He squinted his eyes and realized what was going on moments later.
“I see; you used your strings to help the inexperienced brat through my attacks. A solid plan, Chiyo. However…”
*Slurp*
A loud slurp echoed through the cave, confusing not only Sasori but also Sakura and Chiyo.
Sasori’s gaze wandered, and moments later, he saw the source of the slurping sound, which almost made him keel over.
Yuna had cracked open the piece of tail she previously broke and had taken out a small glass vessel that stored poison inside the tail.
She had taken a staw out of nowhere and was currently happily drinking the poison from the glass container.
Sasori was just about to ask what in the world she was doing when a frown appeared on Yuna’s face while she shook her head in dissatisfaction.
She waved her hand, resulting in two small ice cubes forming, tossed them into the glass container, and took another sip. This time, she nodded in satisfaction.
“Seriously, Sasori, your customer service is sub-par. You are not even serving your drinks at an adequate temperature. What a poor performance.”
Eerie silence covered the battlefield as Sakura, Chiyo, and Sasori looked at Yuna in absolute bewilderment.
“Wha…”
*BOOM*
Sasori was just about to regain his power of speech when four chains entirely made out of chakra crashed into his puppet body, smashing it to pieces.
“Hahaha, what a small-fry. To think that an S-Rank shinobi could be distracted by something as simple as someone voluntarily drinking deadly poison. How pathetic.”
Sakura and Chiyo’s faces deadpanned at Karin’s exclamation, while Yuna nodded in approval.
‘Indeed, I agree that a negative customer review can hit someone pretty hard, but there honestly is no point in freezing up like that.’
[Yes, that was definitely why he froze up, and it had nothing to do with you slurping the supposedly deadly poison he created like a cocktail.]
‘Yes, I agree. Besides, if he doesn’t want me to drink it like a cocktail, he shouldn’t have made it taste like one.’
[D-Did, that really taste like a cocktail?]
‘A little. Especially after I put the ice cubes in, well, we’re talking about a cocktail that is least 90% proof, so there is that.’
[WHAT KIND OF COCKTAIL IS OVER 90% PROOF!?]
‘Err, the good ones? If the first sip doesn’t feel like someone smashed a sledgehammer against your head, can it even be called a cocktail?’
[Urgh, this is another one of those cultivator things, huh?]
‘Huh? It is?’
