On the battlefield.
Ōnoki hovered silently in the air, watching his subordinates fight ahead of him.
While traveling along a mountain road with his Shadow Guard, he had unexpectedly encountered Hiruko, who had lost control. Without exchanging a single word, Hiruko had attacked them indiscriminately.
The Shadow Guard had quickly moved to engage him, and Ōnoki's restless apprentice, Deidara, had declared that he would demonstrate the art of explosions as well.
Knowing Deidara's temperament, Ōnoki had not stopped him.
His unruly apprentice spent all day wreaking havoc in the village. It was time he learned how treacherous people outside a shinobi village could be. Not every ninja would tolerate his wayward behavior.
If the village had not been so desperately short of talented young people, why would he have taken this boy as his apprentice?
With his arms folded across his chest, Ōnoki studied the battle before him while discreetly surveying the surroundings. Ninja as powerful as this attacker were rare in the shinobi world.
And not long ago, Konoha in the Land of Fire had held a conference concerning a missing-nin organization called the Akatsuki.
He was no stranger to the Akatsuki's existence. He had even used its strength to extend his reach into other small countries.
But according to the intelligence Kitsuchi had brought back, the Akatsuki was powerful enough to threaten shinobi villages. It had even attacked both Konoha and Sunagakure.
As the Tsuchikage who ruled Iwagakure, he would not simply trust the words of formerly hostile shinobi villages, but he could not afford to leave the Akatsuki unguarded against either.
"Art is an explosion! Katsu!"
At Deidara's sharp cry, the Clay Spiders around Hiruko exploded one after another, filling the surrounding ground with clouds of smoke and dust that obscured everyone's vision.
Within the smoke, Hiruko's