MMW Chapter 303

“Explosion is art, hahaha! I’ll make sure you all appreciate my art!”

Deidara stood atop his white clay bird, gleefully tossing clay spiders to the ground below. These clay spiders would scurry toward nearby ninjas or civilians, exploding on contact and sending them flying.

Most of the chunin, genin, and a large number of civilians in the southern part of Konoha had already fallen victim to Deidara’s aerial clay bombs.

“You know, randomly throwing ninjutsu in other villages is quite an irresponsible thing to do. At such a young age, shouldn’t you be learning better?”

Just as Deidara was fully immersed in his chaotic art, an unfamiliar voice suddenly spoke from behind him. When he turned around, he saw a young man standing on his clay bird without him even noticing.

“It’s you, the prince who defeated Itachi!”

Instead of being alarmed, Deidara was excited upon recognizing Leo. Without hesitation, he spat out several small birds made of white clay from the mouths on his palms.

“Today, I’ll kill you and show the world that my art, Deidara’s art, is the ultimate art!”

In the past, Deidara had been defeated by Itachi, who he begrudgingly admitted had superior art. This was the reason he had agreed to join Akatsuki. Since then, he had been honing his explosive techniques, all in the hopes of surpassing Itachi and proving his artistic vision.

Now, standing before Leo, the man who had defeated both Kakuzu and Hidan, as well as Itachi, Deidara felt that if he could kill him, it would be the ultimate proof that his explosive art had surpassed Itachi’s.

“C2 Explosive Clay: Twin-Winged Birds!”

Several white birds darted from Deidara’s hands, one flying directly toward Leo’s face while three others curved in from the left, right, and above, closing in fast.

But before the clay birds could even get halfway to their target, they were swiftly cut to pieces, disintegrating into hundreds of fragments.

“What just happened?”

Deidara blinked in confusion, watching as dozens of tiny swords shot from the wings behind Leo, reducing his explosive clay creations to dust in the blink of an eye. Normally, when his clay birds were hit by kunai or swords, they would immediately explode, damaging the attacker—unless, of course, the weapon was infused with lightning-style chakra to counter the explosions.

But Deidara hadn’t sensed any lightning-style chakra on those flying swords.

The way Leo controlled so many weapons simultaneously reminded him of his fellow Akatsuki member Sasori’s magnetic puppetry.

“Using flying swords is a bit unfair to you. So, how about I let you enjoy some of my explosive art instead?”

With that, Leo retracted the floating swords back into his wings. He then pointed at Deidara and cast a spell.

“Thunder Explosion!”

A powerful blast rang out, and the clay bird beneath Deidara’s feet shattered into pieces. Deidara himself was engulfed in the magical explosion and sent hurtling down from the sky.

Thanks to his strong spirit and the research he had done on magic with his shadow clones, Leo’s proficiency in magic had skyrocketed. Destructive spells like the Thunder Explosion had become second nature to him, no different from the top-tier wizards of other worlds.

In fact, Leo could have simply used his flying swords to attack Deidara, and with their speed, he would have likely killed Deidara instantly.

Deidara’s clay explosions were devastating, especially his C0 self-destruction technique, which could decimate a ten-kilometer radius. But aside from that, he had no particular strengths.

Back in the day, Itachi had defeated him with a single genjutsu.

Leo’s flying swords weren’t just some magnetic manipulation—they were actual magical artifacts, each one empowered with the ability to cut through nearly any defense.

If Leo had wanted to, he could have unleashed his swords and killed Deidara before he had the chance to launch a single attack.

But that wouldn’t achieve his objective. He needed Deidara alive, at least for now, to create the chaos he required. So instead of ending the fight quickly, Leo decided to entertain Deidara a bit longer with his own version of explosive “art.”

“One does not become Hokage to gain recognition; it is only those who are already recognized that can become Hokage.”

That was what Itachi had told Naruto after being revived by Edo Tensei.

Leo’s current body wasn’t born in Konoha, and he wasn’t a pure Konoha ninja. This made it difficult for Konoha’s leadership to fully accept him.

During the “Konoha Crush” incident, he had saved the Third Hokage and healed many wounded ninjas and villagers, earning him some recognition and being named the Fourth Disciple of the Third Hokage.

But that alone wasn’t enough to make him Hokage. To claim that title, he needed to prove himself indispensable to Konoha. He needed more than 80% of the village’s ninjas and citizens to believe that the position of Hokage could belong to no one else.

To achieve that, he had to make significant contributions, ones that would highlight his importance. His previous actions weren’t enough. Even without him, Konoha would have eventually won the battle, albeit at a higher cost.

This time, he intended to let Akatsuki bring enough despair to Konoha to make his value irrefutable.

Of course, people would die—many people, in fact.

But that wasn’t a problem. After all, Nagato still had the Rinnegan’s Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique, a jutsu that could truly bring the dead back to life—not like Edo Tensei, but full revival.

Only someone with the Rinnegan could use this jutsu.

If the bodies were still intact, many could be revived at once.

If the person had been dead for a long time, it would be much more difficult, likely only reviving one person at a time.

Regardless of how many were revived, the user of this jutsu would die upon casting it.

Madara’s original plan was to wait for Nagato to grow strong enough to use the Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique, at which point Zetsu would possess Nagato and force him to revive Madara in his prime.

Instead, Nagato ended up using the technique to revive all the Konoha ninjas he had killed after being convinced by Naruto’s talk-no-jutsu.

“Lord Yuan truly is remarkable!”

Seeing the airborne ninja being blasted out of the sky by Leo, and watching the injured and civilians being rescued by his shadow clones, the ninjas and civilians in the southern part of the village couldn’t help but gasp in admiration.

For a moment, even the Third Hokage thought that if Jiraiya couldn’t convince Tsunade to return, then maybe Leo wouldn’t be a bad choice for the Fifth Hokage.

Especially seeing Leo using a space-time ninjutsu to save people—it reminded him of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, who had died so young and had made the Third Hokage so proud.

“Everyone, follow me! Let’s eliminate the invaders with everything we’ve got!”

The Third Hokage led the majority of the jōnin and chunin from the northern part of the village across the small river that divided Konoha.

But before they could reach the southern part of the village, they were stopped by six figures, each possessing the Rinnegan.

“You ignorant mortals, the true instigators of war! Today, you will be judged by a god!

I will make you feel pain!”

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