After leaving the Land of Rivers, Houka spent two days before finding Deidara and Kaede in a city near the border of the Land of Fire.
Neither of them was injured, but both were in rather poor spirits.
Kaede aside, as the Seven-Tails' Jinchuriki, she had known from the start that she was Akatsuki's target. Her leaving Takigakure to follow Houka had in fact been approved by Shibuki, the leader of Takigakure. After all, Takigakure simply lacked the ability to protect Kaede.
And Houka's battle with Zetsu had made her fully realize just how powerful and terrifying those people coveting the Seven-Tails inside her were.
If Zetsu had attacked her, even if Kaede released the Seven-Tails within her, she would have had no chance of escaping!
It filled her with despair.
But then she thought of One's Own Life Reincarnation, and the despair in her eyes instantly faded by seventy or eighty percent.
Even if she were captured, had the Tailed Beast extracted from her, and died, she would be brought back to life, right?
Kaede's eyes gleamed as she secretly made up her mind. Once they returned, she would treat Hidan well and never let him suffer any grievances, because he... really was a good person!
As for Deidara, ever since his battle with Zetsu, he had been constantly reflecting on his art. He had hurled so many bombs at Zetsu, even throwing down C18, which could wipe out an entire ninja village, yet he had failed to harm even a single hair on Zetsu!
Therefore, Deidara wanted to create an even more horrifying bomb—one with a wider blast radius, one so monstrous that even Zetsu could not escape it!
When Houka learned what he was thinking, he was startled. Was this guy going to develop C0 Self-Destruction, just