The fog thickened like smoke poured from the heavens.
The two Mist-nin had combined their chakra, their Hidden Mist Technique covering hundreds of meters in every direction — denser, darker, and heavier than before.
Raiya grinned through the haze.
"You know," he said, voice echoing faintly, "for a Mist shinobi, moving unseen through fog is second nature."
He chuckled, lightning flickering faintly across his twin blades.
But just as he took a step forward, a cold voice whispered beside his ear —
"What a coincidence," Arata's voice cut through the mist. "This technique doesn't affect me either."
Zzzzt!
Thud!
Two screams split the silence — short, sharp, and final.
Raiya's eyes widened as a flash of gold tore through the fog like lightning incarnate.
He turned instinctively, but it was already over.
The bodies of his two subordinates hit the ground with a dull, heavy sound.
Blood pooled beneath them, sizzling faintly from residual current.
They hadn't even had time to cry out properly.
Instant kill.
Raiya's pulse spiked.
He took a sharp step back, creating distance.
"Damn it… he's too fast."
Through the mist, Arata stood motionless, golden lightning still dancing around his body — calm, focused, deadly.
The two Mist-nin had died before they even realized they'd been attacked.
A kunai charged with golden lightning had pierced straight through their hearts, the current frying every nerve and muscle in their bodies in an instant.
Their deaths were clean — terrifyingly clean.
Raiya's jaw clenched.
He'd known the boy was strong, but this—
"That distance… that speed!" he muttered.
"He covered tens of meters in an instant. Even I couldn't react."
And then, a chilling realization hit him.
"That speed… it's almost like his."
He remembered a legend from the Third Great Ninja War —
The Yellow Flash of the Leaf.
The man whose speed alone had earned him the title of "Kage Killer."
Raiya's heart skipped.
"Could he be… one of the Yellow Flash's disciples?"
It made too much sense.
The golden light. The instantaneous movement. The impossibility of reaction.
Even as a veteran jōnin, Raiya himself specialized in Lightning Release and speed — yet he couldn't even see Arata move.
If this boy had truly inherited the techniques of that man…
He swallowed hard, forcing his panic down.
Then, anger took its place.
"Don't get cocky, brat!" he snarled, raising his blades.
"Killing two chūnin doesn't make you untouchable. The gap between a chūnin and a jōnin is as wide as heaven and earth!"
Lightning erupted from his weapons, thick arcs tearing into the mist.
"Lightning Release — Banquet of Thunder!"
CRACK! BOOM!
Dozens of serpentine bolts exploded outward, crawling across the ground like living creatures, striking toward Arata from every direction.
The air filled with the roar of thunder.
But Arata didn't flinch.
He pressed his palms together.
"Lightning Release — Lightning Web!"
Zzzzzzzzzz—!
Golden lightning burst from his body, wrapping around him like a living storm, forming a radiant sphere of interwoven lightning.
Blue bolts met gold — and the world exploded.
The collision unleashed a blinding flash that turned night into day.
The ground split apart. Trees disintegrated into ash. Rocks vaporized into dust.
The shockwave rippled out for hundreds of meters, tearing up the earth.
Far away, Sakura shielded Tsunami and Inari with her body as debris and sand whipped past them.
"This… this is insane," she shouted over the howling wind.
"Is this the power of a jōnin-level battle?!"
Her hair whipped across her face. Even from this distance, she could barely stand.
Inari clutched his mother's arm, eyes wide in fear and awe.
"They're like gods fighting each other…"
Tsunami could only nod, trembling.
"So this is the world of ninja… it's terrifying."
To her, it didn't even feel human anymore.
The power both men wielded was something divine — or demonic.
Back within the storm, Raiya's lightning crashed again and again into Arata's golden barrier.
Each bolt carried the force to shatter stone, yet the Lightning Web held firm, rippling like liquid sunlight.
The ground around Arata had collapsed into a deep crater.
Every surface nearby was cracked and burned black.
But the barrier remained — unbroken.
Inside, Arata stood with calm eyes, his chakra surging like a living thunderstorm.
The Lightning Web — his own original technique.
A defensive Lightning Release so advanced that even Kakashi, after analyzing its structure, had shaken his head in disbelief.
"That's not a normal jutsu," Kakashi had said once.
"That's S-rank — and it's suicidal. A single mistake, and it'll fry the user from the inside out."
The Lightning Web required immense chakra control and total mastery of the lightning element.
If even one current misfired, the barrier would collapse — detonating on the caster instead.
It was more dangerous than Chidori, more unstable than Raikiri.
A technique fit for the forbidden scrolls.
Yet in Arata's hands, it was perfect.
When the explosion finally died down, smoke filled the air once more.
Raiya lowered his blades, panting, a cruel smile spreading across his face.
"Hah… that's what you get, brat."
"You should've died the first time. Now you've been turned to dust."
He stepped forward, lightning still sparking from his armor.
But as the smoke cleared—
The grin froze on his face.
There was no blood.
No body.
No victory.
Only a sphere of gold, glowing faintly amidst the ruin.
The earth around it was shattered like glass, cracked and burned.
The air shimmered from the heat.
But the golden barrier still stood — untouched.
Raiya's hands trembled slightly.
"That jutsu again… you used that same thing to survive the explosion, didn't you?"
"What the hell is it?!"
He gritted his teeth, his confidence faltering.
"How can a genin block my Lightning Release?!"
His voice cracked, disbelief lacing every word.
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