"Hey, you guys! I hope you have noticed by now, that I'm not with the Akatsuki...so how about a temporary alliance?" - Eiji shouted towards the Konoha group (plus Chiyo).

Naruto was furiously staring at Deidara and didn't care about Eiji, while Chiyo looked towards Kakashi for his decision since he was de facto the leader.

Kakashi thought for a time, before making his mind up: "Alright."

Then he signaled for Eiji to come to them so that they can include him in their plan discussion. If not, he would have to shout his plan across the battlefield with Deidara hearing it as well.

"Hmm...this seems a bit problematic now...I shouldn't waste my tone unnecessarily and play around with my flight advantage...yeah." - Deidara started to think of a plan on how to deal best with the "Eiji - Konoha alliance".

"Great, now buy some time for me!" - instead of getting near them, Eiji just ran off.

"..."

'Hmm...isn't that bad? If he gets away and exposes a bunch of Akatsuki secrets, boss would get mad at me...but the Jinchuriki has priority...also who knows if he actually knows secrets about us...yeah.' - Deidara watched Eiji running away while preparing for battle.

Unlike in the original timeline, Deidara wasn't flying above a cliff, where Naruto could jump from a cliffside with a Rasengan at him when Kakashi used Kamui on Deidara. Instead, he was now flying above the crater-exforest battlefield, and other than having a way to fly themselves, it was impossible to reach him. That's why he was cocky and didn't try to separate his opponents. He only needed to keep his distance and attack from long-range.

"DAMN, GET DOWN HERE!!!" - Naruto

"Kakashi...I don't have any way to attack this far, and I suspect that's the case for every one of us. I advise we retreat and let Naruto lure him somewhere where we can reach him..." - Chiyo

"No, time is of the essence, we can't waste time here when the Kazekage still might be alive...I have a way, but I will need some time to prepare it." - Kakashi used a hand sign in front of his Sharingan and started to prepare his Kamui.

"I underst-" - Chiyo was interrupted, by Naruto's shouting. Not only did he kept shouting, but now he wanted to charge alone at Deidara with no plan.

"NARUTO!! Calm down...you can't reach him. Let's trust Kakashi-Sensei's plan!" - Sakura held him back.

"BUT!!!..." - Naruto gritted his teeth but managed to calm down.

He then got into a formation with Sakura and Chiyo, defending Kakashi.

'Hmm...looks like they have something planned...but sticking together like that makes it easier for me to hit them all at once...yeah.' - Deidara was now straight above them and opened his arms where a handful of tone C1 figures appeared. He then started dropped them all.

"!" - the group got ready: Naruto used a shadow clone army as human shields, Chiyo summoned her strongest puppets - The Chikamatsu Collection of Ten Puppets to cut and destroyed the bombs before they reached them. And Sakura...she stood there and waited in case someone gets injured.

Eiji who was searching nearby for his sword kept his eyes on the battle: 'Looks like Kakashi wants to use Kamui, eh? If they manage to hold on a bit, this fight will be concluded.'

Deidara kept using his small C1 since C3 used way more chakra, but the more important reason was that he needed Naruto alive.

But this was enough, while he only used his weakest arsenal, Naruto's group below were struggling and it was only a matter of time before one bomb would manage to slip through.

"KAKASHI, HOW LONG DO YOU STILL NEED?" - Chiyo was asking him worryingly.

"Don't worry, I'm ready now...Kamui!"- Kakashi looked at Deidara with his Mangekyo Sharingan.

'?! What's this? Doujutus...DAMN!' - Deidara noticed the distortion and tried to fly away.

"What the...this jutsu is amazing..." - Naruto blurted his thoughts out.

But it didn't go as expected.

Eiji who was watching from afar couldn't believe his eyes: 'Are you fucking serious? Kakashi missed completely?'

"Sorry...I missed...I still can't properly control the location and size of the barrier limiting the area..." - Kakashi was panting from the aftereffects of using his Mangekyo Sharingan.

Now the situation was really bad - at that's putting it mildly.

Deidara started to laugh loudly, his laughter seemingly mocking everyone.