Noticing that the relative distance between the two was continuously decreasing, Suijin's face sank, he suddenly stopped, and jumped on a tree.

Seeing that Suijin stopped, Sasori too stopped and said with a chiseled grin, "Heh heh, I'll kill you here and no one will know!" ​​

Sasori didn't care about Pain's order to capture the target alive, this is because Sasori didn't believe that the 'Amatsukami Organization' that Suijin was talking about could threaten the Akatsuki.

In his opinion, it is obviously better to kill them directly and use their corpse to make puppets instead of wasting a lot of time capturing them.

Suijin focused on his surroundings and after confirming that there was really no one chasing him other than Sasori, he breathed a sigh of relief while simultaneously thinking of the countermeasures.

However, Sasori didn't give Suijin any breathing period and immediately flicked his fingers manipulating the chakra line, and said softly,

"Ice Release Secret Technique: Thousand Flying Ice Needles of Death!"

Instantly, the moisture in the air condensed into thousands of ice needles, hovering in the air all pointing straight towards Suijin.

Suijin's face stiffened, and with his insight, he could see that the suspended ice needles were cutting off all his retreat routes leaving him with no choice but to fight Sasori.

'Damn, it seems that I wouldn't be able to escape so easily!'

Initially thought that provoking internal conflict would give the best chance to retreat, but didn't think that Sasori's mobility would be so high with the Ice puppet.

"It seems that from my previous feats, I started to underestimate the Akatsuki!" – muttered Suijin with a sigh.

Now focusing his mind, Suijin devised a strategy on how to effectively deal with Sasori.

Seeing the other person just standing on the opposite tree, Sasori said, "Already lost the fighting spirit? Heh, it's a pity that I still won't capture you alive, so you will only be becoming a part of my collection!" – leaving that sentence, Sasori waved his hand fiercely.

Swish… Swish… Swish… Swish… Swish…

Thousands of ice needles suspended in the air rushed straight towards Suijin standing on the tree.

"Water Release: Water Severing Slash!"

Almost at the same time, Suijin used the Water Severing Slash to cut the tree next to him, then reverse kicked the broken half of the tree trunk towards Sasori.

At the same instant, he jumped on the tree trunk that was rushing towards Sasori.

Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk… Tuk…

Thousands of ice needles hit the spot where Suijin was standing with a piercing momentum causing the tree to break and sawdust to fly off.

Even Suijin wasn't spared as several of the needles pierced his back causing blood to leak out of the wounds.

Be that as it may, Suijin just gritted his teeth while focusing his attention on Sasori.

Boom…

With a booming sound, the tree trunk slammed into the position where Sasori just stood a moment ago.

Hidden behind the tree trunk, Suijin stomped on the tree and leaped up using the reaction force, and again made a reverse kick at Sasori who was still in mid-air.

At this time, Sasori had a playful look while still in mid-air but his fingers kept flickering.

"Ice Release: Ice Lock!"

The Ice puppet that was on the left side of Suijin immediately turned around and fired a stream of freezing water that entangled Suijin's left arm.

Suijin didn't even turn his head to look and waved the Kunai in his other hand to cut off his left-hand bound by the Ice ninjutsu, then again rushed towards Sasori.

The sudden action of abandoning the arm; left Sasori a little dazed and before he could react, Suijin was already in front of Sasori with his Kunai piercing Sasori's chest.

Although Sasori couldn't block the Kunai, he managed to barely avoid the core area then kicked Suijin violently sending him flying and himself too flew back using the reaction force.

Both flew out on the opposite side but neither was idle while in mid-air.

Suijin bit his finger and slowly made several hand seals from his only hand and spoke,

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Bang…

With a loud burst of white smoke, a sturdy large wild boar suddenly appeared in the forest.

Suijin steadily landed on OkinaButa's back and shouted, "Run!"

OkinaButa with a large tiger in its mouth was a little confused as to how come he suddenly appeared here, obviously, he wasn't used to being summoned, however when he received Suijin's order, he stood up on its hooves and ran wildly with loud thumping sounds.

On the other side, Sasori looked at the Kunai piercing through his chest with a few detonation charms (that made a burning sound), tied to the kunai.

Immediately, removing the Kunai off his chest, Sasori threw them away while he unfolded a scroll with the other hand.

Bang…

A salamander-type puppet named Sanshouo appeared out of the scroll and the moment Sasori landed on the ground, he rolled sideways and hid inside Sanshouo, which is a defensive puppet created by him.

Booom… Booom… Booom…

Not even a second passed when Sasori hid inside the puppet and the detonation charms caused a loud explosion.

After a while, when silence covered the field, Sasori got out of the damaged puppet with a gloomy expression with a burning anger in his eyes.

Even his defensive puppet couldn't withstand the explosion and was damaged to a certain extent and this greatly angered Sasori.

After coming out of the puppet Sasori looked around for a while but there was no longer any sign of Suijin around, only the cut-off arm that was frozen in ice lied nearby a broken tree.

Disappointed that even he let the enemy get away, sullenly walked towards the arm, Sasori controlled the Ice puppet to release the Ice Jutsu and picked up the arm.

However, the moment he picked up the arm, he suddenly heard the familiar 'hissing' sound and he subconsciously lifted up the sleeve and found that there were several detonation charms stuck on the inner sleeve or the hand.

"This…!"

…

On Suijin's side.

While tiredly lying on the back of OkinaButa, Suijin took out a bandage roll to wrap it around the arm and simply treated the wounds around the back of his shoulder.

With all that done, he sat up and looked back with the Byakugan to confirm that there was no follow-up.

Seeing that Sasori didn't catch up, Suijin breathed a sigh of relief.

At this time, he noticed the large tiger that was still held by OkinaButa in its mouth, and Kuroto was annoyed while trying to calm himself down Suijin shook his head helplessly and said, "Just throw that tiger, you can eat so much later, this is an escape, you can't keep that tiger in your mouth!"

OkinaButa groaned, seemed to be complaining to Suijin that it had spent quite a bit of effort to catch the big one this time, small ones no longer fill the belly.

Suijin patiently spoke again, "Throw it away it's important to escape now!"

OkinaButa was again groaning, as if thinking whether to throw it away or not, but then it opened its mouth wide and swallowed the whole tiger in one bite and continued running.

Suijin was left speechless, "You idiot pig, you are still thinking about eating when the enemy might chase after us any time and you'll definitely be the first one to die if he comes after us!"

Booom… Booom… Booom… Booom… Booom…

As soon as Suijin's voice fell a series of explosions came from behind.

Suijin finally nodded at this moment as he knew the trap he had left behind has activated.

This is the advantage of fighting using Clones, as long as the user wants, he can deploy more cunning and deceptive tactics to fool even the strongest of the Shinobi…

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Read up to Chapter - 348 on P.a.t.r.e.o.n. Page: p-atreon.com/Milta_translations