HTP: Ch. 52

Boom!

The first explosion erupted at the highest watchtower of Kumo, sending flames soaring into the sky. High above, Deidara stood atop a giant clay bird. His long blond hair danced wildly in the wind, and his lips curled into the smile of a true artist.

"Art is an explosion!"

He thrust his hands into the clay pouches at his waist. Countless white clay spiders slipped through his fingers, raining down like droplets onto the streets of Kumo.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of explosions blossomed across the village. Smoke billowed. Buildings crumbled. The entire Kumo erupted in alarms, their piercing wails mingling with the panicked screams of villagers.

The surviving Kumo ninjas quickly regrouped and launched a counterattack. Wild bolts of lightning surged skyward, aiming to strike down the enemy.

"Too slow!" Deidara laughed as he deftly maneuvered his clay bird into a steep climb, easily dodging the lightning.

Just as the Kumo ninjas were preparing a second wave of attacks, a strange mechanical sound echoed suddenly.

The next moment, countless black shadows emerged from the darkness.

A red-haired youth with an emotionless face stood on the ruins in the south. Behind him, a dense crowd of human puppets simultaneously lifted their heads. His fingers moved slightly, and chakra threads extended outward to issue commands.

Over a hundred red-clad puppets suddenly surged forward, armed with blades, poison needles, and hidden mechanisms, crashing toward the Kumo forces.

"That's Sasori of the Red Sand!" a terrified Kumo chunin with dark skin cried out.

"Don't panic! Destroy their joints!" the Kumo squad captain roared as he formed seals.

With a leader rallying them, the nearby comrades immediately turned their focus to deal with the puppets.

Several taijutsu users burst into flashes of lightning, attempting to close in on Sasori's true body, but it was in vain.

The Third Kazekage puppet floated up slowly from behind Sasori, and black iron sand gushed out from within it, instantly transforming into countless fine sand needles.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

The iron sand rain poured down like a dark storm, ripping through the Kumo formation. Screams echoed one after another.

"Damn you!" The last Kumo jonin slashed apart a red puppet in front of him, gritted his teeth, and charged again, determined to die together with this demon. But a puppet pierced through his chest from behind. His body went limp, the sword fell with a clear clang.

"Tch, is Sasori more famous than me?" Deidara looked down from his clay bird at the brutal melee below and commented with some annoyance. "Hmm, his art is... average."

Suddenly, dozens of poisoned senbon shot toward him in the sky.

He scoffed, rolling his clay bird to the side and climbing higher again, tossing another wave of spider bombs downward.

The iron sand intercepted the spiders midair, detonating them before they could fall.

Sasori looked up and shouted, "Get lost. I don't need you here. Don't get in the way!"

Without waiting for a response, he ignored Deidara and led the Third Kazekage puppet and his hundred puppets deeper into the southern part of Kumo.

---

In the northern parts of Kumo, the scorched streets were littered with corpses. Not far away, Hidan was locked in battle with over a dozen Kumo ninjas, an elite ninja and his squad assigned to escort civilians to safety.

Though his scythe was drenched in blood, his robes were scorched with several blackened holes from lightning attacks.

He blocked the jonin's blade, dodged a lightning bolt, and shouted angrily at Kakuzu. "You bastard, are you still counting money!?"

Kakuzu paid no attention to Hidan's situation. In one hand he held a stack of bounty posters, while the other operated an abacus with practiced ease, counting the bodies on the ground.

This one, 200,000.

That one, 300,000.

The one nearby, only worth 100,000. Disappointing.

Then he glanced at the still-living Kumo ninjas Hidan was fighting.

All weaklings. No big targets. He sighed slightly in disappointment.

After finishing his count, Kakuhezu stepped forward slowly. From his back, five grotesque Earth Grudge Fear mask-beasts wriggled up.

"You're wasting too much time," he snorted coldly and suddenly formed hand signs.

Murky water surged out of the mouth of the first mask-beast, instantly turning the battlefield into a swamp. Hidan and the Kumo ninjas tangled in battle sank into the water up to their knees.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!"

Hidan's furious shouting wasn't even finished when the second mask-beast erupted in a blinding flash of lightning.

A dazzling bolt of lightning snake lashed into the water, spreading across the surface in a lethal electric web. The leading Kumo jonin reacted instantly, roared "Take cover!", then grabbed the distracted Hidan by the collar and used him as a human shield.

The rest of the Kumo ninjas scattered. But it wasn't that simple, in the explosion of blinding light and electricity, Hidan's cursing and the agonized screams of Kumo ninjas swirled together into chaos.

Expressionless, Kakuzu continued forming seals.

A hurricane mixed with a wall of flames erupted from the mouths of the third and fourth mask-beasts. The wind and fire fused into a colossal fire tornado. Steam mixed with the stench of scorched flesh and blood filled the air. The surviving Kumo ninjas who had taken cover behind debris didn't even have time to scream before they were vaporized.

"Cough... it hurts like hell!" Hidan crawled out of the scorched ruins, his once-pale skin now covered in soot and grime. He furiously tore off his charred black cloak with red clouds and shouted, "That was brand new!"

Kakuzu's gaze swept across the field of burnt corpses, seemingly searching for something. Then, he formed hand seals.

Dozens of rock spears suddenly shot up from the ground.

A Kumo jonin, who had just leapt behind Hidan with a blade raised to sever his head, was impaled mid-air. Blood flowed down the jagged stone.

The jonin managed to gasp out his final words: "Damn it..."

"Eight million." Kakuzu finally looked satisfied. His black Earth Grudge Fear threads slithered toward the dying man like venomous snakes.

Then, he turned to Hidan and said in a deep voice, "Hurry up. There aren't many valuable targets here."

Hidan clicked his tongue and complained, "I don't even care about money."

Suddenly, a rain of spider bombs fell from the sky.

Kakuzu and Hidan immediately sensed it and dodged swiftly.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The street was reduced to complete rubble.

A voice echoed from high above in the distance, "Hahaha, no need to thank me! I came just to lend a hand!"

At the front gates of Kumo, a massive explosion shattered the entrance. Smoke billowed high as six figures stepped slowly out of the wreckage.

Tendō raised his hand. A pitch-black chakra rod shot out, piercing the chest of the last remaining guard still putting up resistance, pinning him to the broken wall.

The guard convulsed, coughing up blood. Before he could die, Tendō casually waved his hand, hurling both the man and the wall into a distant building.

The Human Path, Ningendō, silently appeared behind another severely wounded Kumo ninjas, pressing a pale palm to the crown of his head.

The shinobi's pupils rolled back and turned white as his memories were forcibly extracted like a crashing tide. Moments later, Ningendō let go, letting the empty husk of a body fall limp to the ground.

"The Eight-Tails isn't in the village right now. Then we'll destroy everything until he shows himself. Some Kumo ninjas must know where he is."

The Animal Path, Chikushōdō, quickly formed hand signs.

With a series of loud pops of white smoke, a legion of giant summoned beasts appeared on the battlefield.

Three-headed hellhounds, a colossal centipede, and the monstrous bird charged into the village.

Akatsuki's full-scale invasion of Kumo had begun!