章節 17: Chapter XVII: Good Riddance
Sasuke jumped out the window, remembering what Edgeshot said about always being aware. 'No one sees me. Good. Damn it! I didn't tell them about it! Why the hell are those bastards trying to get her involved?!' He gritted his teeth as the memories of his father having a breakdown, throwing things around appeared in his mind. 'Backstabbing pieces of trash... It's just like what happened to my parents. Well, you're not getting away with it this time, I'll remove you from this world tonight!'
In a cafe, Ashido was scrolling through posts leaning on a table, 'Sasuke should be asleep by now.' She checked the app with the tracker connected and saw it gliding through the city down south. She straightened up, "He's going to the most dangerous area, and he's moving fast! Is he doing what I think he's doing?! I gotta get there!' She shot up and ran out of the Cafe. 'Who should I call? Cops? No... Should I just post my location saying it's an emergency? Agh! I'll find out on the way there!'
Sasuke traveled at maximum speed to the address he was given and landed in an alleyway. He looked for an entrance, and his eyes wandered towards the ground, where he saw a manhole. He lifted it before entering. He landed softly and scanned the tunnels that oddly lacked a stench of any kind. 'Cleanest sewer I've ever seen. This must be it.' Sasuke felt a buzz in his pocket and took out his phone; Midoriya's location was posted. 'Midoriya? That's unusual, but nevermind that. He's in a different city.'
He traveled through the sewer searching for cameras. Examining the wall, there was a brick that looked odd amongst the others. He examined and pressed against the brick The sound of stone rubbing against stone and gears turning can be heard throughout the sewer. He backed up, and the wall slid out of the way, revealing a staircase going down. He jumped down and ran through the hall. 'They know I'm coming already, so stealth is pointless. Although, they don't know about all the improvements I've made over the past three days. They'll be in for a surprise.'
He ran into a huge open room that was dimly lit with a caged ring in the middle. If he squinted his eyes, he could also see a throne on the opposite side of the red and black room. He cautiously walked into the ring, and beams of light shone upon his eyes. He squinted and saw that floodlights were shining upon him. A man suddenly announced, "Welcome, Uchiha Sasuke! So happy you could finally come by. It took you forever considering how much we hinted at it in that train, but maybe it's not so bad that you took so long. It gave us more time to set this place up."
"The train?... That was you and Sasori on the train?" His eyes widened.
Deidara smiled, "Yup, but nevermind that. You're always so stuck in the past, Sasuke, especially when it comes to your parents, hm."
Deidara chuckled and Sasuke braced to dash at him, but was interrupted by someone on his right throwing a punch that he naturally dodged.
"Don't get too ahead of yourself now. We aren't gonna fight you, not yet at least. We'll fight you, if you can get past all these guys!"
Sasuke could feel vibrations in the ground as dozens of people flooded into the arena charging him. "Stop!"
"Sorry kid!"
"We don't wanna do this!"
Sasuke gawked at them, but then transitioned to dodging the punches and kicks that were thrown. "I'm not here to play games!"
He weaved a punch and upper-cutted one, then jumped over another's kick and landed it right on his dome. Both attacks knocked them out, but somehow they kept attacking. Sasuke jumped back, narrowly avoiding a pile-up. "How are they still fighting while unconscious? Are they being controlled somehow?"
"Ding ding ding! Correct! You figured it out, but what can you do now? You'll have to kill them if you want their control to end. However, can you really bring yourself to do that? These poor people aren't here of their own volition, they were kidnapped..." Deidara faked a frown and looked down; it was quickly replaced by another smile. Well too bad! Time to add some art to this!"
Sasuke braced himself, looking around to see if anything else would come; then a sudden bright flicker below his feet caused him to instinctively bolt out of the way of an explosion. Sasuke gritted his teeth, but stayed on guard as the next spot he landed on also blew up; he spun on his feet and side-stepped out of the way. 'This is starting to get troublesome. I don't wanna kill these people that aren't involved, and now there are random traps everywhere,' he huffed. 'Not to mention I've been training all day. Is there a way to tell where these explosions are?'
He went back to dealing with the punches and kicks of the controlled people. None made any results as he ducked and weaved out of all of them with ease, even when multiple threw them at once. It was like he was seeing the hits in slow motion.
Two tried to tackle him from his sides, but he jumped up and split-kicked both of them. He then back-stepped out of a roundhouse kick and felt an unnatural squish under the floor. 'Now!' He side-kicked away the guy that kicked and palmed the ground with a Susanoo hand. The explosion caused cracks in it, but no more damage. 'It feels different wherever the explosives are compared to the normal parts. It's like I'm stepping on mud... Or clay. Either way, I should end this soon before it gets worse.'
He remembered what Edgeshot said about taking people down with a sword non-lethally and he drew his blade. 'Didn't think I'd end up using it this soon.'
"How do you like my art? I know it must have you speechless, and soon enough you'll be literally speechless since you'll be d—"
"Shut the hell up already. Where's the art at? You're blowing stuff up. No one besides you thinks of that as art. Although, I'll definitely enjoy seeing life flee from your eyes once I kill you."
Deidara frowned and Sasuke held the blade up to his face as he got into his speed-mode. In the blink of an eye, he cleaved through the crowd like a gust of wind, cutting at the tendons of each person's legs and arms before they could move an inch. When he made it to the other side of the crowd, he sheathed his blade and they all hit the floor.
Sasori flinched and thought, 'Damn. Did he figure out that they're controlled by strings? I could still try to control a couple of bodies, but I'll have to use all my fingers just for one since they can't even support their limbs on their own anymore... Nah it isn't worth it, time to bring out the ultimate puppet.'
"Don't think you've won! How about this!?" Deidara made a hand-sign and Sasuke's eyes widened. He jolted back towards all the people, and tried to lay a mat under all of them while tossing them out of the arena. Although, he couldn't save them all.
One of the ex-puppets looked up at Sasuke and outstretched a hand, "Help m—"
Most of the people were engulfed in explosions and the ring was littered with holes. Sasuke's eyes lingered on the gory scene as the smell of copper filled his nostrils. He felt blood running down his chin and wiped some of the red liquid off. He gritted his teeth and glared daggers back at Deidara. "Congratulations. I'm gonna make your death even slower now, bastard."
Deidara chuckled, "You got better, but as soon as you walked in here... You never stood a chance, hm.
Sasuke thought, 'Most of this blood isn't mine… but I can feel pain in my right leg. It might have got hit by some explosive.'
He heard a huge stomp behind him and he quickly turned around to see a black Nomu. His jaw dropped and Deidara laughed, "Ha! You didn't think the one at USJ was the only one, did you? We have a dozen of these!" He thought, 'This one isn't nearly as strong as the one he saw before, but he doesn't need to know that. Nomu is still Nomu,' he shouted, "Now grovel in despair as you're struck down!"
Sasuke stood there with his hair covering his eyes as the Nomu charged at him awkwardly. Deidara jumped down to the arena and giggled, 'Has he really given up already? So much for his vengeance.'
The Nomu went for a haymaker, but last second Sasuke's eyes shot up and he narrowly avoided the punch; he countered by drawing his blade and slicing through the Nomu's arm, leaving a purple streak behind.
Deidara recoiled, 'What the hell? Has he improved that much? What has he been doing the past three days!?'
The Nomu regrew its arm and Sasuke backed out of a ground slam and turned around, throwing kunai below Deidara's feet. He smirked, "What kind of aim is that? Maybe you should stick to—"
The kunai deflected off the other and shot up, grazing against his face and leaving a cut. Deidara's eyes widened and he felt the blood sliding down his cheek before smacking his teeth. 'Alright Sasori, you were right, my man. I'll stop underestimating him. Even if he's no match for our art.'
Back at the Edgeshot agency, Tenten strolled towards Sasuke's room and placed her hand on the doorknob. 'He should be sleeping now. Just gotta make sure.' She cracked the door open and peeked in, only to see an open window and an open room. Her eyes became saucers and she made a mad-dash to her room, grabbing her scrolls.
"Where has that idiot gone off to?! I gotta find him!" She left the agency through a window and made her way to the south-side.
Back underground, Sasuke stayed in his speed mode to dodge the clay bombs that Deidara tossed at him. 'I can't let this fight last much longer. My leg is starting to feel numb, but I can still do this! I'm competing with Nomu. It looks like Deidara's ability is making clay and detonating it. As for Sasori, I still haven't seen him, but it must have something to do with controlling things. Something just seems off about the way this Nomu moves, like it's on puppet strings or something. With how much Sasori relies on controlling things, I doubt he'll be hard to kill up close. Maybe I could...'
Sasuke side-stepped a slam and cut its arm off, which it quickly regrew again. It threw a straight punch he naturally weaved; he followed up with a Susanoo arm uppercut, sending it flipping in the air. He then threw shurikens at more incoming bombs. 'If I crush its exposed brain, I'm sure it'll die, but I'm sure he'd see that coming. It'll be easier to just find Sasori. I'd rather not deal with him pulling out more puppets.'
He jumped above an attempted grab by the Nomu, then bounced off its arm over its head. He slashed at the air above it and the Nomu went limp for a moment.
Sasuke smiled, 'He's up there somewhere!' Sasuke looked up and briefly saw a head of red hair before being forced to veer out of the way of more explosions.
"You found out where he's at, so what? Not like you'll ever get up there!" Deidara held out both his arms and little clay spiders came out, crawling towards Sasuke as they slowly covered more and more of the arena.
Sasuke gritted his teeth and tried to slash at the Nomu's head; It backed away and forced Sasuke to limbo under a punch; he then had to cartwheel away from the spiders that nearly touched his hand. He manifested a Susanoo hand to crush the spiders; Which worked, but it also blew off one of the Susanoo fingers.
Deidara immediately made more spiders and Sasuke wheezed as he dodged and thought, 'This Nomu's regeneration never ends! And staying on the ground is getting harder with all these spiders. I gotta get to one of them to relieve some of this pressure as soon as possible! All this nonstop moving is getting too tiring to keep up much longer.'
He pushed the Nomu across the ring with a Susanoo hand and jumped at Deidara, but a swarm of clay spiders covered the spot he was about to land on. He thought, 'The number of all these spiders is annoying, but their explosions are also weaker than his normal clay bombs. I can handle this!'
He threw shurikens at a cluster of spiders below him; the explosion they caused made another hole in the arena, and Sasuke manifested a long sword, stabbing it into the ground below the ring and bouncing off it right toward Deidara.
"Clever, but do you think I'm just gonna let you hit me now that you're up close?!" Deidara back-stepped and released a flock of explosive birds. Sasuke threw shurikens at them and moved through the blinding black smoke of the explosion.
Deidara smiled, "Getting hasty like that will get you killed, now become a piece of art!"
Deidara prepared a large clay bomb to throw at Sasuke, but the thing that emerged from the smoke was just a kunai on a floating purple cloth. Deidara frowned and his eyes shot up to see Sasuke had jumped up above to where Sasori was.
It was Sasuke's turn to smile as he saw Sasori's entire body, 'This is my chance!' He blitzed Sasori and stabbed the blade straight through his heart, and twisted it. "Good riddance." In the back of Sasuke's head, as soon as it stabbed through him he felt like something was off as he death-glared Sasori. 'Something isn't right.'
In the Cafe Mina left, her glass cracked.
"Yes, good riddance." Sasori's face was unresponsive and Sasuke's eyes went wide as he noticed that what he thought was Sasori was just a realistic puppet. He tried to dash away, but the puppet grabbed him. He pulled the blade out and sliced the arms off, but when he dismembered it, the arms blew up in his face, splitting his blade in half.
The rest of the puppet blew up as Sasuke attempted to shield himself with a rib cage; although, the attempt was in vain as the puppet and Sasuke were both completely enveloped in the explosion.
Deidara stared up and started laughing maniacally, "Hahahahaha! Art is an explosion!"
In another city, Todoroki looked down at his phone. 'Both Mina and Midoriya have their locations posted? Mina makes sense, but Midoriya wouldn't do something like that. I should check it out.'
"Do you think that you can take on all those people who wronged you on your own? Remember what happened with the Nomu?" Mina said.
Sasuke felt weightless. His vision was blurry and he saw what he thought were his hands as the ceiling got further and further away.
"You showed good planning on the spot and adaptability. You're strong, but you still have a long way to go. Don't get hasty and throw your life away." All Might stated.
Sasuke's vision became less blurry and he felt the wind brush past him, 'I'm... falling?'
"You're gonna be running straight to your death. I bet they can guess you're coming anyway with how impulsive you are! You're gonna run straight into a trap and regret it when you end up on the verge of death!"
His ears rang and he couldn't find the strength to rotate himself in the air. 'She's right… I can't move... Did I... Lose?'
"If it comes at the cost of your own life, then it's not worth it. Please don't make your friends have to bury you."
'Come to think of it, why am I hearing Tenten's voice? Am I hallucinating?'
"Becoming tunnel-visioned in a fight is a sure way to lead to your death."
'Sensei... I got too focused... Am I going to...'
He fell hard against the floor with all his limbs spread out. He tried to move his arms to crawl away, but at most his fingers only twitched. His head fell to the side and he saw a puddle of blood pouring out of him. He coughed up blood as his broken sword landed next to him. He wheezed and had a hard time breathing. All he could smell was copper and iron and his ears rang incessantly. He saw everything up until now: his training as a kid, meeting Mina for the first time, his parents' deaths, joining UA, building connections, and all of his battles up until now. 'Am I going to... Die? I can't! All For One is still out there... Deidara and Sasori are right here! After all of this, how could I...'
Sasuke's eyes went dull and Deidara walked up to him. "You're still alive after that explosion? I thought I was sure that would kill you."
Sasori jumped down, unscathed. "A shame, having him as a puppet would have been nice, but he won't live for another five minutes with all that blood loss."
"Life is fleeting, isn't that beautiful? Hm. Oh well, I'll just finish you now. Any last words?" Deidara's mouth curled up at that question.
"I don't think he can speak anymore. There's too much blood in his respiratory system."
"I know, idiot. I was mocking him."
"Well, I doubt he can hear you either because of that explosion."
Sasori looked at Deidara plainly while Deidara squinted. He turned back to Sasuke, and made a decent-sized clay bomb, "Well whatever. Goodbye, Sasuke."
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