Chapter 1033

"Uzumaki Young Yuanzi! Our last battle isn't over yet!" Ōnoki's tone carried anger, especially since he had clearly issued an explicit challenge just moments ago.

Yet Young Yuanzi had chosen to attack Deidara, a junior, the moment she could. After all these years, Young Yuanzi was still no different from back then—not only had her appearance barely changed, but even that infuriating fighting style of hers remained the same!

"Dodging and weaving like this—have the guts to face me head-on!" Light flared once more in Ōnoki's hands. Under normal circumstances, one would absolutely never see the Tsuchikage unleash the 【Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique】 twice on the same enemy—but it was taking shape once again.

Although he was in the air, with a broad view and vast space, Deidara still heard a soft feminine sigh. He couldn't see where the other person was, yet it felt as if she were right beside him. That prickling sensation on his back made him 17 unable to stop a flicker of irritation rising in his heart. In an instant, several small clay birds circled around him, as if doing so could bring him a sense of security!

Hmm!

A sound impossible to describe in words. Immediately after, Deidara saw three slash marks appear at the spot where Ōnoki, the Tsuchikage, had been—as if the very air had been sliced apart—and the faint purple energy residue was still slowly dissipating!

"I have to say, high-level Earth Clone Techniques are quite handy. Ōnoki, why don't you stay put in your little nest? What did you bring a bomb maniac all the way out here for?" Finally getting a clear look at the woman fighting the Third Tsuchikage, Deidara clearly wasn't fond of the nickname she'd given him. What bomb maniac—this is the art of explosion!

"Casually disparaging an artist's work is unacceptable, even if you are a beauty." His peculiar mouth chewed for a moment, then spat out a flock of clay doves, which Deidara hurled toward Young Yuanzi.

In any case, his position was already exposed. Deidara, who had been inexplicably on the back foot the whole time, finally decided to do things his own way.

So without hesitation, he created a commotion even more eye-catching than the previous Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!

But before he could even preen and boast about his art, a blade wreathed in purple lightning appeared right before him. Only now did Deidara get a clear look at Uzumaki Young Yuanzi—she was completely unscathed!

"Your opponent is me!" Ōnoki roared as he gave chase. Young Yuanzi's behavior of refusing to fight him from the start and instead constantly targeting Deidara once again reminded him of the destruction Young Yuanzi and the Konoha shinobi under her command had inflicted on Iwagakure during the great Shinobi World War!

But at this very moment, in Young Yuanzi's eyes, there was only one target—the one who remained relatively vivid in her distant, hazy memories: the bomb maniac, Deidara!

As the timeline gradually entered the era of the Twelve Young Warriors, Young Yuanzi grew increasingly aware of the irresistible force of inertia. No matter what changes she made, certain critical turning points would always be fulfilled through other means. That sense of powerlessness left Young Yuanzi deeply frustrated, yet it also stirred up the emotions she had long suppressed inside!

And with Mizuki's disappearance, the thought of 'resisting predetermined fate' sprouted up like bamboo shoots after rain. She would tear the original order apart. If everything became unrecognizable, would fate still have the strength to correct such chaos?

Deidara—a man who would rather defect from Iwagakure in pursuit of art, who should have been a member of the 【Akatsuki】, and who attacked Sunagakure, capturing Gaara alive right in front of the entire village—yet the Deidara who now appeared before Young Yuanzi had not walked this path!

Though the timing was wrong, the place was wrong, and even their respective identities were wrong… he was preparing to abduct the One-Tails jinchūriki.

In Young Yuanzi's pupils, already dyed emerald green by senjutsu, a flash of purple light from the dragon vein swept through like the north wind. The next instant, between her and Deidara—

"I advise you to open your eyes wide…" Though there was nothing in midair to push off from, Young Yuanzi—her entire body ablaze with senjutsu, her chakra all transformed into the purple dragon-vein energy—made a drawing-sword motion without even leaping.

Alarm bells screaming in his heart, Deidara abruptly raised both hands. The mouths in his palms opened at the same time, and clay bombs of various sizes rushed toward Young Yuanzi in a frenzy!

"That's because…" A gap barely two fingers wide was drawn. Accompanied by a faint yet chilling dragon's roar—Long Yin—Young Yuanzi's slender hand had already fully gripped the hilt of North Wind!

Ōnoki, the Tsuchikage, who could only 'float' to fly, also aimed the transparent cube of 【Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique】 at Young Yuanzi!

The dragon blade, ready to be unsheathed!

"Don't be ridiculous… how could I be defeated by you so easily!" Even so, facing the deadly chill of the blade already grazing his cheek, Deidara's devotion to his art overcame his fear of death—in the nick of time.

Courage surging from who-knows-where shattered the demonic barrier that had frozen him under Young Yuanzi's killing intent. With a desperate stomp, he kicked off his great bird beneath him, which meant Young Yuanzi's lethal draw-cut missed him by a hair's breadth and instead cleaved into the poor creature!.