Chapter: 91

Wow, he thinks he stands a chance," Deidara pointed out mockingly.

"He does," Confirmed Sasori with a nod of the puppet's head. Eiji could hear and feel the curiosity coming from the latter. As if the man couldn't understand how he thought he could take them.

Keeping an eye on everything with Senjutsu, Eiji took a look inside, checking on his only companions for the moment. Kage and Hachi might not be able to do much, but they could help him process information faster, maybe notice something that he didn't. Tsuchigumo, for her part, would be invaluable in the coming fight.

"We are ready, Eiji," Hachi said, easily taking over the smallest bit so that they could share his senses.

"Let's do this," Kage agreed.

The Chakra Beast, for her part, barked loudly, almost enthusiastically. The chakra she was already feeding him increased and he felt his strength increase. Fortunately, it wasn't enough to leak outside. He wouldn't want to tip his opponents on that just yet.

"Or maybe not," Deidara corrected with a tilt of his head and a slight widening of his smirk. "What happened, little-?"

Before he could finish that question though, Eiji Flickered to the side. Instantly, he created a clone that dispelled just as fast. 'Ok, the team knows what's up now,' He thought, analyzing the situation.

"That was rude, you-" Deidara continued, demonstrating that he could easily follow his movement. Both him and his partner were already facing him.

'Yeah, because sending explosive creations that the other person can't see is polite,' Eiji thought to himself. He didn't say it though, better to leave them thinking that he didn't know about that.

Once more, before the man could finish speaking, he sent Electromagnetic Murder towards both of them. It wouldn't do anything, he knew… to them at least, since they easily dodged the technique. However, the Lightning Release technique did fry Deidara's clay creations. 'Senjutsu is bullshit,' He thought then. He either had forgotten or didn't initially even know that the explosive constructs were made of mainly Earth Release, which, as it happened, was weak to Lightning. However, his Senjutsu sensing had told him that, just as it told him that Deidara had Earth and Lightning affinity, which was probably the combination for Explosion, and Sasori had a Wind one.

"You are a little shit, aren't you?" Deidara asked then, clearly growing annoyed, especially by Eiji's ruining of his creations. 'Too bad.'

"Thank you," Eiji said, using the same mocking tone the blonde had used. Then he twisted his body to dodge a senbon coated in poison. Sasori had grown tired of their little game, it seemed.

"Start taking this seriously," The puppet master told his partner. "That clone was to tell his team that we are here," He added. 'Well, there goes that,' Eiji thought with a grimace. It had been too much to ask that they would play around until the team arrived, but one could dream.

"Aw, fine," Deidara all but whined, guiding his bigger clay sculptures to attack him. Eiji noticed, however, that the ones that were invisible to the eye were kept where they were. 'Oh, he doesn't want them getting caught in the fire if I use more Lightning.'

'I could use that though…' He considered.

"It'd be better to save it for its main target," Kage pointed out and Eiji had to reluctantly agree with that. It'd make things so much easier though, that he was very tempted.

Sending another Electromagnetic murder at the coming constructs, the boy continued dodging senbon. It seemed that Sasori would make those things rain on him. Fortunately, they were… not easy, but he could dodge them just fine. Especially without the clay creations to get in the way.

"You are an annoying little shit," Deidara growled, frustrated as another of his vaguely humanoid creations lost life after being hit by Lightning. "You are ruining my art! Katsu!"

Eiji's eyes widened. 'There's none close to me, what-? Fuck!' The explosion hadn't been intended for him. A random clay creature that had been behind the closest ones blew up, sending those straight at Eiji, making him Flicker away. 'That was close.'

There was no rest for him though, because Sasori had easily followed his trajectory, contrary to Deidara's creations. Evidently, the clay constructs were much slower than their master, that was for sure. Not that it mattered much, since they were practically everywhere. 'Oh, that fucker is making more,' He noticed with growing annoyance. Looking down, he groaned. 'There's a construct that gathers the clay I disabled, of course there is…'

"Focus and dodge, will you?" Hachi hissed when a senbon came a little too close for comfort, making Eiji grimace. She was right though, so far it seemed easy enough to just keep evading attacks until-

An explosion happened behind him.

'Fuck, jinxed it,' He thought, Flickering away from the flying clay construct. Apparently, Deidara liked that strategy, because explosions started going off everywhere, sending his creation everywhere but mostly at Eiji wherever his Flickers took him. 'I have to keep this up, just a little.'

"Your team won't arrive in time at this rate, you know that right?" Deidara mocked then, his annoyance apparently having been washed away by all the explosions he'd caused. He was right, of course. The team had gone in a completely different direction. Even with the clone message, it would take them a while to get there. "You plan to keep dodging for that-?"

He didn't finish his question though, because a wire wrapped around his ankle and electrocuted him. 'Nobody expects that,' Eiji thought with a grin as he flickered towards the twitching man. 'Fuck!' He cursed to himself when he saw the blonde Substitute himself with a clay clone. He Flickered away again, disappointed. 'That would have been too easy, I guess.'

"Oh, you are gonna pay for that," Deidara growled from the side. Interestingly, both him and his partner ceased their attacks. Eiji had to double-check with his Senjutsu sense to see if there was something he was missing, but no, the only thing he noticed was that Sasori's puppet had run out of senbo. From its mouth piece, at least.

'Speaking of…'

[Natural Energy Points: 831/1375]

'We are good, we are good,' He thought, taking a deep breath to calm himself down a little as he faced the pair. 'This is going better than I thought.'

"Turned out to be quite problematic," Sasori said then, drawing an annoyed look from Deidara.

"I know, no need to rub it in," The blonde shot back. "Let's get this over with," He added, before sticking his hand on the clay pouch on his side.

'I don't like the sound of that,' Eiji thought taking a step back. He liked it even less when a puff of smoke appeared next to Sasori and a new puppet appeared. 'Is that… it is,' He growled internally.

"Eiji," Hachi started but he was already at it.

"How are you holding up, girl?" The boy asked as he finished activating World Ender. Power coursed through him as his stats raised. 'Keep the cards hidden,' He reminded himself as Tsuchigumo barked confidently. He still had a lot of tricks to use, but he didn't want to pull everything out and get smacked into the ground when both Akatsuki members decided to go all out.

'How do I win though,' He asked himself. He had plans to hold them back, but going on the offensive? How did he do that? Deidara would just replace himself with clay and Sasori would do the same with a puppet, which worked both as defensive and offensive. 'It's not like I can… Can I?'

"Worth a try," Kage commented and Eiji smirked, cracking his neck just as Deidara unleashed his clay dragon.

"So kind of you to wait patiently," The blonde told him. "Now, kindly just die." And with that, his partner's puppet started moving, or, more specifically, opened its mouth. 'Iron Sand,' Eiji recognized instantly.

"Well, I gotta give you guys a chance, right?" He said, trying to look as confident as he sounded. 'I can do this,'He told himself. He knew he could beat them. He had the information, the techniques, the stats and the skills for it. He knew it, but… He just couldn't help but fear them. Akatsuki just sounded like so much more than it probably was, in his mind at least. They were no Madara or Kaguya, however, they were beatable.

'And still…'

"You can do it, Eiji," Hachi reassured. Somehow, those words coming from someone else other than himself were much more effective, even if that someone was a mind construct he'd made.

"They don't know what they are in for," Kage said and he could almost hear the conviction there.

Tsuchigumo flooded him with her faith in him.

'Let's do this,' He thought as the Iron Sand started taking shape in the air and the clay dragon opened its mouth. As the dragon spat out a smaller one at him and the sand-made projectiles flew, Eiji started Flickering around to dodge. He also started planning. He had an idea, but he needed to use it well, because it was quite possibly a one time use thing. 'That dragon is annoying though,' He thought, looking as the construct started flying with the Akatsuki members on top of it.

"That has to go," Kage said, to which all of them agreed.

"And I have just the thing," Eiji shot back. The Jutsu that had inspired Sacred Flock. Less chakra intensive and less focus dependent.

[Lightning Release: Hou-ou - Lvl 1 Max

A-rank technique with which the user creates a lightning bird to attack for him.

Consumption - 100 Chakra Points.

+Creator Bonus:

Increases speed by 25%.

Increases damage by 25%.]

The bird immediately came to life, lightning cackling as it took shape. It illuminated the surrounding area as its wings spread wide open before taking flight towards the clay construct. Eiji could see it in Deidara's face. He'd just screwed him over majorly.

Sadly, he couldn't quite admire that expression, since he still had Iron Sand to dodge. Evidently, Sasori had much better control of his emotions. And Eiji had to give him credit, he wasn't even disturbed by Deidara's desperate attempts to keep his dragon away from the Lightning bird. To the blonde's credit, his other clay constructs on ground still moved towards Eiji too.

Thus, his Flickering continued.

"God bless you, Tsuchigumo," He thought, receiving a pleased bark in response. "And God bless Anko for giving me this technique," He added. He'd be sure to give his teacher a big thank you. Maybe he'd cook a hell of a lot of dango for her or something. 'I certainly owe her that much.'

"Think of your thank you gifts later, Eiji," Kage told him, unimpressed.

"I'm just wai-Finally," He thought as the Hou-ou hit one of the dragon's wings, which rendered the limb useless. Therein why the creature started falling from the sky. Setting his plan in motion, Eiji Flickered on top of one clay construct, then to an Iron Sand one, and so on, moving up towards the dragon.

'Just a bit more- There!' Once he was close enough and had a clear path, he threw Nuibari as hard as he could. The Legendary Sword flew true towards Sasori, the one that he didn't have any advantages over.

"Think it'll be that easy, do you?" Deidara mocked as his partner supplanted himself with a clay construct too. 'Not the puppet I expected,' Eiji thought calmly as he pulled his arm back. "Maybe you should look back," The blonde mocked then, but the boy knew exactly what he was talking about already.

Twisting his body mid-air, he dodged the bladed tail of Sasori's armor. The puppet master had apparently decided to use Substitution behind him. Eiji, for his part, would have Flickered away from him instantly, but Nuibari was still flying and moving so suddenly could screw that up. 'Besides, just a little and-'

"Wha-" Deidara choked out. Then he screamed as electricity started coursing through him. It wasn't so much that than the fact that it was doing so through a wire that went through his chest. His hands clasped over where Nuibari had flown straight through him.

"Yes," Eiji said as Sasori looked at his partner. "I do think it'll be that easy."

Dodging an Iron Sand construct and then the tail thing of Sasori's armor, he moved away. His focus was mostly on Nuibari and its wire though, as he moved the sword back towards himself and the thread to wrap around Deidara. He needed to truly leave him out of the fight, no unexpected comebacks or anything.

He needed the Legendary sword though, and that meant having access to its wire too. Thus, as he continued dodging the remaining Akatsuki's attacks, he was already working on moving some of his normal wire towards Deidara. He doubted the guy would recover from the wound he'd inflicted, but he couldn't risk it.

Then, all of a sudden, the attacks from Sasori stopped.

"I haven't done this since I joined Akatsuki," The puppet master said and Eiji had a very good idea of what was coming as he warily looked at the man.

[Natural Energy Points: 312/1375]

'I'm about to lose Senjutsu,' He realized with a grimace. However, he'd taken out one of them, which was the complicated part. 'Thank God for these guys never going all out from the start,' He thought then. It wasn't very fair though, he supposed. After all, he probably would have underestimated someone like himself too.

"No time to dwell on that, Eiji," Hachi reminded him.

"Tch, wish I hadn't had to dedicate so much time to the other technique," He thought as he looked at Sasori's armor being taken off. The Kazekage puppet stood next to its master too, while the man showed that he'd made himself a puppet. "A powerful fire jutsu would be nice right about now," He lamented as he took on his 'three' opponents.

His eyes focused mostly on Sasori's 'heart' or whatever that thing in his chest was supposed to be. He didn't remember much about the man but he was fairly sure that was his weakness. It was nice to have it be so obvious, but there was a slight problem with that.

'No way it'll be easy to get to that,' He thought as he tried to plan for a way to pierce through the thing. Now that he'd used his Nuibari control to take out Deidara, he'd have a harder time to reach that little target. Especially since there was no way Sasori didn't have a plan to cover that, or a thousand.

Sasori wasn't done though, because pulling out a scroll and using it, he summoned what seemed to be around a hundred more puppets. Eiji wasn't worried about that though. He was fairly sure that he could dodge everything the puppeteer threw his way. Even if he couldn't, World Ender should take care of any damage.

He was safe.

No, the problem was attacking the man. Because if he couldn't take Sasori out, then he'd lose the battle of attrition. Senjutsu would run out, his Energy Points would follow once he used his skills and from there he'd have to rely even more on Tsuchigumo. A Chakra Beast she might be, but she couldn't battle forever… yet, at least. A wave of defiance told Eiji that she clearly disagreed with that, but both of them knew he was right.

"I hope you are ready-" Sasori started, but Eiji Flickered midway through his sentence. The man had tried to distract him with a little speech as an Iron Sand spike sprung from behind him. Fortunately, he still had Senjutsu active and sensing everything. He'd known for a while of that little scheme. "Eiji Satou," He finished, almost sounding surprised. "It seems that our intel was wrong. You are much more than we were led to believe."

"I have a way of surprising like that, yeah," Eiji commented, his mind still racing as he started spreading wires around. He'd need them once Senjutsu went down and he couldn't sense stuff as easily.

"Not anymore," Sasori said then, not menacingly though, but in that flat tone that someone uses to explain something that just is. It grated on Eiji's nerves, even if he knew that the man was wrong and that he shouldn't care. Then he felt Tsuchigumo apologize.

"Don't worry, girl," He reassured before focusing back on the battle as the small army of puppets rushed at him. 'Rude,' He thought as he started dodging, even if Sasori had no way of knowing he was interrupting. Tsuchigumo agreed with him on that front completely. The crack of wood breaking apart filled his ears as he kicked one of the puppets straight in the chest in annoyance.

As he started fighting them, he couldn't, unfortunately, break them all. After all, the Iron Sand always seemed to get in the way when he tried. Fortunately though, Sasori seemed to have overestimated himself a little, because the sand isn't working quite as well as it had before. Evidently, the army of puppets on top of a Bloodline Limit like that was a bit much even for him.

He was distracted by the sound of a puppet being destroyed by someone that wasn't him. So much so that another one stabbed his thigh. Punching the offending thing away, he took out the dagger. 'Thank God for World Ender,' He thought as he saw the poison on the weapon. Flickering, he put himself away from the army to be able to focus and see what was up.

A smile formed on his face.

"Took you long enough," He said then as he Flickered next to Tayuya, watching as her eye twitched but she continued playing her flute. Looking around, he saw Temari give her fan a swipe, hitting the majority of the puppets with a strong gust of wind. In the middle of the fray, he saw Jirobo and Yugito fighting like he imagined he'd just been doing. Kabuto was slightly behind those two, likely ready to heal Jirobo in case he needed it.

[Natural Energy Points: 34/1375]

'Just in time too,' Eiji thought as he looked at the screen for a split second.

"Man, am I glad to see you, guys. Remind me to do something nice for you," He told Tayuya then as he took a moment to compose himself. They really had arrived just in time. He'd been spiraling out of control a little. Unable to breath or think. For a moment, he emptied his mind, simply listening to Tayuya's music and using his wire to assist his team.

Then he kicked his brain into gear once more.

Mainly because Sasori wouldn't let him just stand there, sadly. The team could deal well enough with the puppet army, that much Eiji could see. However, the main three ones were another thing entirely. They could probably defeat Sasori's armor. He was fairly sure that Yugito could stand a chance against Sasori himself. The Kazekage was a different thing entirely.

The second time the Iron Sand came a little too close to someone from his group, Jirobo to be exact, Eiji decided he'd rested enough.

[Natural Energy Points: 0/1375]

'Shame, that,' He thought as he activated all his Energy skills. It wasn't the same, not even close, but it would do for the moment. "Be ready, yeah, girl?" He asked Tsuchigumo, who replied instantly, eager and determined to do a good job in the fight. 'She's fucking adorable even in this situation, my God.'

"You are telling me," Kage grumbled.

[Poison Resistance has gone up a level.]

Eiji considered that screen for a moment. Was he feeling the poison's effects at all? Was there anything strange going on? Was World Ender dealing with it or not? Because he really couldn't afford to drop in the middle of this battle. That would be bad.

"You are fine," Hachi reassured and he nodded slightly before Flickering into the battle. He moved with one objective in mine and one only. Taking out the Kazekage's puppet. That would cripple Sasori, he was sure.

Dodging his way through the battlefield of artificial people and his team, Eiji kept an eye on everything with his Web Sense. While not nearly as precise as his Senjutsu, it was enough at the moment. At least Sasori didn't have anything too small to feel with it, like Deidara did.

However, Nuibari was stopped by the claw-like blades on the thing's right arm. Then, a buzzsaw appeared on its left, which it used to try and cut Eiji in half. Two Flickers saw the Konoha nin standing behind the Kazekage puppet. 'Not gonna be that-' His thought was interrupted though, when a beam of water was shot in his direction and he barely had enough time to dodge it.

Sasori himself had joined that fight.

Iron Sand constructs were immediately shot in his direction from the Kazekage, but that was an approach that wasn't possible anymore. Instead, Eiji Flickered towards the puppet master, Nuibari piercing through his chest. 'Knew it,' He thought bitterly as he looked at the empty socket where the remnants of Sasori's humanity should be. Evidently, he had a way to move them around.

Still, that wouldn't stop him from doing some damage to the puppet that was the man's body now. With a twist and a slash, he broke apart his chest. Or tried to, since the Iron Sand had already reached him. 'This is really annoying,' Eiji grumbled to himself. There was no opening he could use, and he was barely doing any damage. 'At least the team is cleaning out his other puppets.'

Deciding to try something else, he Flickered towards back to the Kazekage and immediately did so back to Sasori. Seeing that the weak point wasn't there again yet, Eiji decided for a different target. A kick saw one of his arms destroyed. 'One beam less,' He thought as he twisted around the water shooting from the remaining arm. 'Slow and steady, Eiji, slow and steady.'

Grimacing, he dodged again. This time it was the buzzsaw of the Kazekage, that apparently had charged at him. Iron Sand was gathering around them as he dodged everything that was thrown his way. The claw blades, the buzzsaw, Sasori's cable, the water beam. There were a lot of things to keep track of.

Despite that, Eiji almost paused when he felt something strange appear in his Web Sense. A bird. 'The fuck is a bird doing so close to this shitshow?' He thought, baffled. Parrying away the Kazekage, he chanced a look at the creature and froze.

It was a bird alright, but it wasn't alive at all. It was a metal bird.

"Katsu!" Eiji heard someone shout and the bird he'd just been looking up exploded, sending him, the Kazekage and Sasori flying in different directions. 'No, no, that can't be, he was-' He thought, just then realizing that the wires he'd been keeping on him were not how he'd left them. "Thought you would take me out that easy, huh?" The voice said this time and Eiji turned.

There stood Deidara, with a hand over his chest where Nuibari had pierced.

"You," The blonde growled. "Those eyes," He continued, almost deliriously. "I'll blow you up," He spat out with a wide grin.

Eiji grew more and more worried, not only because of the deranged look of the man, but also because his skin was cracking at some points. 'No no, that… No!' He could only watch as the clay constructs that previously remained inert came to live once more all around them.

"Katsu," Deidara repeated, his face grinning and his voice mocking.

Then everything exploded.