"Do you still have any tricks you haven't shown yet? Come on then—let me see how powerful one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen truly is," Yoruha said calmly.
Hearing that, Kurosuki Raiga's brows furrowed deeply.
"You brat—who do you think you're insulting?"
"Thunderswords Technique: Thunderbolt!"
Crackle!
Zzzzt!
Enraged by Yoruha's taunting, Raiga instantly gathered the chakra within his body and unleashed his most lethal jutsu.
In a flash, two arcs of lightning—each half a meter thick—snaked through the air like serpents and struck toward Yoruha.
"The power is much greater than that previous 'Banquet of Lightning,'" Yoruha noted coolly. "But if this is all you've got, it won't be enough to kill me."
The twin lightning serpents roared toward him from both sides.
Clap!
Yoruha brought his hands together.
"Let's see how my Lightning Release compares."
"Lightning Release: Meteor Strike!" (This one is a fan made technique)
Zzzzt!
Instantly, violent golden lightning burst from Yoruha's body.
The arcs condensed into dozens of golden bolts, streaking toward Raiga like meteors.
Two of the bolts shattered the approaching lightning serpents on impact, dispersing them into glowing fragments without resistance.
Before Raiga could even react, countless golden bolts slammed into his body.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In an instant, the area where Raiga stood erupted in a series of violent explosions.
Dust and sand filled the air; even though it was night, the golden lightning illuminated the surroundings as bright as day.
The ground trembled under the immense force—
it was strong enough to trigger a small earthquake.
The terrifying sight was like the end of the world itself.
Even several hundred meters away, Sakura and her teammates struggled to stay on their feet. Sakura's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Th-this… this is Yoruha's power?"
"It's terrifying… Is he really only twelve years old?"
She couldn't believe that such strength belonged to a twelve-year-old boy.
In fact, Sakura thought Yoruha's power had already surpassed Kakashi's.
After all, she had never seen Kakashi unleash such a wide-range, devastating jutsu.
When the smoke finally cleared, a massive crater—hundreds of meters wide and several meters deep—had formed before Yoruha.
The scorched earth within was still smoldering with residual heat and smoke.
Walking to the edge, Yoruha looked down at Kurosuki Raiga's charred, shattered corpse and the two fallen Thunderswords beside him.
He was stunned.
He stepped into the center of the crater.
"No way… That was really Kurosuki Raiga?"
"He's… dead?"
Yoruha couldn't comprehend it. This was one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist!
Yet Raiga had been killed by a single jutsu. His entire body burned to cinders.
"Could he have been an impostor?" Yoruha muttered, still refusing to believe Raiga was that weak.
He had been waiting for Raiga to reveal his ultimate technique—
but instead, his casual Lightning Release had ended the fight.
He picked up the two fallen swords.
"These blades… are ugly."
At first, Yoruha had assumed that the Seven Swordsmen's strength came largely from their legendary weapons.
But holding them now, he realized they didn't suit him at all—their designs were bizarre, almost grotesque.
He'd thought about keeping them as trophies, but now even that urge was gone.
"I'll just store them for now. Maybe someday, when we restore relations with the Hidden Mist, I can return them as a goodwill gesture."
The Mist Village was still closed off, so there was no way to return them yet.
With his current power, the Thunderswords were useless to him anyway.
And besides, they didn't match his taste.
If it were Sasuke's Kusanagi Sword, that'd be different.
"Let's seal them for now."
He took a sealing scroll from his pouch—one of the basic techniques he'd learned from Kakashi—and sealed the blades inside, just like Tenten's weapon scrolls.
When he was done, Yoruha glanced at Raiga's remains—
the body now nothing but fragments of charred flesh scattered across the crater.
"A jōnin of his generation, one of the Seven Swordsmen… to die like this is truly a shame," he murmured.
"So undignified."
"You used to give others their final rites… I'll see you off on your last journey."
Raiga was the first jōnin Yoruha had ever killed—and not just any jōnin, but an elite one.
Yet there was little joy in his heart.
Only disappointment—he had expected Raiga to have one last ace up his sleeve.
He'd believed Raiga could at least withstand his attack.
But Raiga hadn't even had time to dodge.
"Lightning Release: Meteor Strike" was an A-rank jutsu—
one Yoruha himself had developed, though he'd never used it in real combat.
He hadn't expected that its first use would kill an elite jōnin outright.
Even Yoruha was shocked by the result.
Though, to be fair, in the original tale, it was Naruto who killed Raiga—
but that was thanks to his protagonist's luck and the Nine-Tails' power.
Without that, even Naruto would've struggled to defeat Raiga.
And at that time, Raiga's mind had been clouded by Ranmaru's genjutsu influence.
This version of Raiga, untainted and in full control, had been a genuine elite jōnin.
That Yoruha could now kill such an opponent meant his power had reached the elite jōnin level.
He looked down at Raiga's remains and shook his head in quiet regret—
regret that the man hadn't even managed to use his final technique.
"Earth Release: Prison Sand Burial."
Yoruha formed a hand seal and pressed his palms to the ground.
Instantly, the earth beneath surged, turning to soft sand that slowly enveloped Raiga's body, forming a small burial mound.
Before it, a stone marker rose.
Yoruha stepped forward and carved Raiga's name into it by hand.
Though he had slain an elite jōnin, there was no pride in his heart—
only questions.
What is my true strength now?
Why was Kurosuki Raiga killed so easily?
Yoruha doubted his own power.
When he'd won, his first thought hadn't been victory—
but disbelief.
Was that really Kurosuki Raiga?
Until now, Yoruha had believed himself to be on par with an ordinary jōnin, still far from the elite rank.
But this battle proved otherwise—
one jutsu, and he hadn't even used a tenth of his chakra.
It felt unreal, like a dream.
Regardless, Raiga was dead—
which meant Yoruha's strength now stood at elite jōnin level.
That was an incredible achievement.
After all, in theory, any elite jōnin had the qualifications to be chosen as a Kage.
Every Kage, in essence, was once an elite jōnin.
Even Naruto had to reach jōnin rank before succeeding Kakashi as the Seventh Hokage.
Of course, for now, Yoruha was still officially a genin.
In a few months, the Chūnin Exams would begin.
Perhaps then, he would take his first step toward the rank he already far surpassed.