Clash!

Sore that an Uchiha was the one to finish Orochimaru, Deidara scoffs that only Uchiha blood made it possible, then opens the fight with C1 clay spiders and Explosive Clay Dolls. Sasuke answers with Chidori Senbon, taijutsu, and a lightning-edged sword, yet the halved dolls knit back into smaller hunters that swarm him until a Body Replacement spares him the blast. Deidara counters by kneading a C2 Clay Dragon, spitting out landmines and rising into the sky.

Sasuke thrusts his Chidori Sharp Spear at it but falls short, giving away its five-metre reach; Deidara ribs him for aping Kakashi's lightning even as he praises the shape transformation. As Tobi litters the ground with more landmines and the dragon hurls clay missiles, Sasuke is driven to trigger his cursed seal's second stage, whose wings carry him clear. A missile then tears one wing away, stranding him in the air.

Improvising, Sasuke flings giant shuriken on wires, drives his sword into the earth as a launch point, and springs high enough to stretch his lightning spear and split the dragon apart, then hauls the threads to pin Deidara's arms as the beast blows up. He lives on a fresh clay bird, glowering at the Sharingan he has hated since Itachi forced him into the Akatsuki, and moulds his ultimate C4 into a towering likeness of himself.

Sasuke methodically dismantles each of Deidara's escalating clay constructs, betraying the five-metre limit of his lightning-charged spear along the way. He brings down the C2 Clay Dragon by planting his sword as a springboard and lashes Deidara's forearms with wire before the creature detonates. Surviving atop a clay bird, Deidara relives his forced conscription into the Akatsuki by Itachi and readies his deadliest weapon, the C4, shaped into a giant copy of himself.

Set within the Itachi Pursuit Mission arc, the episode draws on four manga chapters. Deidara's flashback anchors his loathing of both Itachi and the Sharingan, and he lets slip that the C4 was first devised to kill Itachi.