Outside the Red Hemp Forest in the Land of Wind.
After Zhengye and Pakura left, Deidara flew through the air for half the day before finally finding Kitsuchi.
Kitsuchi was covered in dust, with abrasions all over his arms and legs.
He had gotten them while dodging Zhengye's slashes and scraping against the ground.
Over a hundred Hidden Stone shinobi surrounded him. Their faces were either filled with terror or utterly blank.
Clearly, Zhengye's Susanoo had completely shattered their courage.
Deidara found the Susanoo shocking too, but as someone who played with bombs, he had a strong heart and had already accepted the reality of it.
"Uncle Kitsuchi, Uchiha Zhengye and Pakura have already gone far away."
"You should gather the men first. Hmm!"
Kitsuchi steadied himself. "Are you sure they've both left?"
"I circled around in the sky several times. They should be gone."
Kitsuchi gave a Hidden Stone shinobi beside him a look. The man blanked for a moment before coming to his senses, immediately taking out a signal flare and firing it into the sky.
"Deidara, keep scouting Hidden Sand Village's movements from the air. When their main force arrives, come down and tell me."
"Leave it to me." Deidara mounted his Clay Bird again and shot into the sky.
His original assignment had been reconnaissance, so he was merely doing his job.
Looking down at the countless corpses below, Deidara muttered, "Looks like we can head back early."
Over the following stretch of time, signal flares rose into the sky one after another.
They linked up the shell-shocked Hidden Stone shinobi, one by one.
Starting with Kitsuchi, they found Han, the severely wounded Five-Tails Jinchūriki, and Wenya, who had hidden underground.
As time passed, they found more and more people.
All of them voluntarily searched