The kick had done more than send Naruto flying.
It had angered the beast inside him.
Deep within, the Nine-Tails stirred — its chakra thrashing like a storm.
The golden light emanating from Arata carried a faint, life-filled aura — the same essence once belonging to the First Hokage.
And that was what the Nine-Tails hated most.
Long ago, when it roamed free, it had been captured by that man — Hashirama Senju — and sealed against its will inside his wife.
Since then, it had known nothing but imprisonment, pain, and endless rage.
Even for a tailed beast, that memory was unbearable.
The chains. The stone bindings. The unending torture at the hands of humans.
Even the Nine-Tails' immortal body had suffered as though it were being flayed alive.
That pain had never faded.
And now, sensing Arata's life energy — so much like Hashirama's — the beast's fury exploded.
Arata's gaze hardened.
Naruto's crimson chakra surged wildly, the air warping from its pressure.
"The Nine-Tails' chakra is growing stronger," Arata muttered.
"If the seal breaks completely, Konoha's in for a nightmare."
There was no more time to think.
As a shinobi of the Leaf, he had to end this — now.
His hands flashed through seals.
"Lightning Release — Roar of Thunder!"
A golden flash burst from his palms.
In front of him, a colossal lightning dragon coiled into existence, its body sparking and snarling with thunder.
But Arata wasn't finished.
He pressed his hands together again — channeling both water and lightning chakra at once.
The golden dragon dove into the swirling body of his earlier water dragon, merging into one.
For a heartbeat, the sea went silent.
Then—
BOOM!
The ocean erupted with light.
The once-blue dragon turned molten gold, its body glowing like a sun beneath the night sky.
Every scale shimmered with lightning, its roar echoing across the horizon.
"What the hell is that…?" someone whispered miles away.
To the onlookers — even Kakashi and Zabuza — it looked less like a ninjutsu and more like a living god of thunder and sea.
The golden dragon's roar split the clouds.
Its body spanned hundreds of meters, a masterpiece of nature chakra and Arata's precision.
Of course, Arata didn't realize that the natural energy infused into his chakra had given the dragon something close to sentience — just like the living constructs once born from Hashirama's Wood Style.
Unaware, Arata simply focused on his target.
Naruto floated across the sea, wrapped in malice.
The crimson tails whipped furiously, the second one nearly complete.
"If he grows a third, I won't be able to contain it," Arata thought grimly.
He clenched his fists.
"This ends now."
"ROOOOAAARRR!!"
The golden thunder dragon surged forward.
The sea itself bowed beneath its weight as its massive body sliced through the night, kicking up cyclones and tidal waves in its wake.
Despite its enormous size, it moved with terrifying speed — lightning boosting every motion.
In an instant, it crossed the entire battlefield.
Naruto barely had time to react.
The dragon's jaw opened wide, its golden fangs glinting like sunlight — and it swallowed him whole.
BOOOOOOOM!!
The impact split the sea apart.
Columns of water hundreds of meters high exploded upward, blotting out the moonlight.
Even miles away, the Great Bridge shook under the force.
Waves the size of buildings raced toward the coast.
If they reached the construction site, the bridge — and everything around it — would be destroyed.
Arata winced.
"Seriously… this is why I hate fighting near infrastructure."
He pressed his palms together again.
"Water Release — Torrential Surge!"
Another wall of water rose before him, crashing head-on into the incoming waves.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The collision sent shockwaves across the ocean, but Arata's technique held.
The massive waves collapsed, reduced to harmless ripples that lapped against the bridge's edge.
He exhaled in relief.
"Good. That should hold."
Then, his focus shifted.
He spread his chakra perception outward, scanning the waters.
There — several kilometers away.
Naruto's unconscious body floated atop the sea, steam rising from his skin.
Arata appeared beside him in a flash.
He checked Naruto's pulse.
"Still alive," he murmured.
"Good. The lightning and water combo worked better than I thought."
The shock of the combined technique had done what brute force couldn't —
it had scattered the Nine-Tails' chakra, severing its link to the outside.
Without that external chakra feed, the seal inside Naruto's body had reasserted itself, locking the beast's energy back inside.
"Looks like the lightning did most of the work," Arata noted.
"Water alone couldn't have done that… but lightning paralyzed the Nine-Tails' chakra itself."
Naruto's body trembled slightly — a residual reaction to the electric shock — but the crimson cloak had vanished.
For the first time in hours, the sea was quiet.
"One strike," Arata said softly, "and the beast is back in its cage."
He hoisted Naruto over his shoulder and started back toward the bridge.
Meanwhile, back at the construction site, Zabuza had already fled.
He wasn't an idiot.
After witnessing that clash — that monster of a boy commanding a dragon of lightning and water — he'd known better than to stay.
"Fight that kid?" he had muttered. "I'm not suicidal."
Even Kakashi couldn't argue.
Arata's raw power had already crossed into elite jōnin — maybe even the lower ranks of Kage.
No assassin in his right mind would stick around after seeing that.
When Arata finally returned, Sakura was still standing in stunned silence, her mouth slightly open.
She'd seen powerful jutsu before — but nothing like that.
Not even the earlier battle with Raiya compared to the sight of a golden dragon splitting the ocean.
Arata approached calmly, as if nothing had happened.
"Sakura," he said gently, laying Naruto down, "check his injuries. Bandage what you can."
Sakura blinked herself back to reality.
"R-right!"
She hurried to Naruto's side, fumbling through her medical kit.
Arata gave a faint smile, then vanished again.
"I'll go get Sasuke."
Only after he left did Sakura exhale, finally letting herself process what she'd seen.
"Arata…" she whispered.
"If he wasn't on our side… who could possibly stop him?"
For a moment, she thought she saw the reflection of the golden dragon flicker in the waves — and felt an unfamiliar shiver of awe.
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