Chapter 56: The Weight of the Heavens
The Ravine of Mists was no longer a place for men. The thick, grey fog that had defined the canyon was being incinerated, replaced by a scalding, crimson haze that smelled of burnt ozone and rotting blood. In the center of the muddy bowl, Naruto was no longer a boy. He was a low-slung, violet-red nightmare, his single tail lashing behind him with enough force to send shockwaves through the stagnant air.
Raiga Kurosuki stood thirty feet away, his breathing coming in ragged, wet gulps. His black armor was cracked, the chest plate glowing dull red where Naruto's chakra arm had grazed him. He looked at the creature before him, and for the first time in his life, the idea of a funeral didn't feel like a celebration. It felt like an ending.
"You're a monster," Raiga spat, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and manic excitement. "A beautiful, hideous monster. I'll bury you so deep the world will forget you ever breathed!"
Raiga slammed the Kiba blades together above his head. He didn't just call the lightning this time. He beckoned it.
"Lightning Style: Thunder Gate!"
He plunged the blades into the mud. Instead of a single bolt, four massive pillars of electricity erupted from the ground surrounding Naruto. They linked together, forming a square cage of white-hot energy that pulsed with the frequency of a thousand screaming cicadas. The heat was so intense that the mud inside the cage turned to glass in seconds.
Inside the cage, the one-tailed beast tilted its head. The red slit eyes tracked the movement of the lightning with predatory boredom. Naruto, buried somewhere deep under the layers of the Fox's hatred, felt the heat of the cage. It was nothing compared to the fire in his veins.
The beast lunged. It didn't look for a door. It simply threw itself against the electrified bars.
The collision sounded like a mountain splitting in half. The crimson shroud hissed as it met the lightning, the two energies grinding against each other in a shower of sparks that blinded the observers on the ridge. The cage groaned. The earth beneath Raiga's feet cracked under the strain.
With a roar that shattered the remaining supply crates in the camp, the beast tore through the lightning wall. The red chakra didn't just resist the electricity. It consumed it. It was corrosive, an ancient malice that ate through the physics of the world.
Raiga barely had time to move. He threw himself into a backflip, narrowly avoiding a massive claw of chakra that sliced the air where his head had been.
"Water Style: Great Waterfall Vortex!" Raiga screamed mid-air.
He didn't need hand signs. The Kiba blades acted as his focus. He channeled his chakra through the hilts, pulling the entire volume of the nearby river into the ravine. A massive, spiraling column of water surged forward, capturing Naruto in its center.
"Conduct!" Raiga bellowed.
He thrust both blades into the swirling water. A massive surge of blue lightning flooded the vortex, turning it into a giant, spinning electric chair. The water boiled. Steam exploded outward, obscuring everything in a white wall of heat.
On the ridge, the Root monitor Viper reached for his mask. "That's a High-Jonin combination. Even a jinchūriki shouldn't be able to....."
His words died in his throat.
The boiling vortex didn't just stop. It was torn apart from the inside. A massive, red tail whipped through the center of the water, shattering the jutsu's structure. Naruto emerged from the steam, his body glowing with a malevolent, pulsing light. He wasn't just unharmed. He looked faster.
The beast didn't give Raiga a chance to recover. It launched itself off the ground, a red projectile that blurred the very air.
Raiga crossed his blades, bracing for impact. The beast hit him like a battering ram. The force sent Raiga skidding across the ravine, his boots carving deep trenches in the mud. He slammed into the rocky wall of the canyon, the impact cracking the stone behind him.
Raiga coughed up blood, his vision swimming. He looked up to see the beast standing ten feet away, its head tilted, watching him struggle.
"I'm not... I'm not done," Raiga whispered, his grip on the Kiba blades tightening until his knuckles bled. "The funeral hasn't started yet!"
He pulled himself out of the rock. He knew he couldn't win a battle of raw strength. He had to go for the kill. He had to use the one thing the beast couldn't outrun.
Raiga began to spin. He moved his blades in a complex, rhythmic pattern, his movements becoming a blur of black and blue. The electricity around him didn't just spark. It began to hum. It was a high, whining pitch that made the ears of the observers on the ridge bleed.
"Lightning Style: Dragon's Final Breath!"
He pointed both blades at Naruto. A massive, concentrated beam of white lightning, no wider than a man's arm but infinitely more dense than anything he had fired before, tore through the air. It was a spear of pure destruction.
The beast reacted with animal instinct. It didn't dodge. It raised its hand, the red chakra condensing into a small, dense shield.
The beam hit.
The explosion was deafening. A massive cloud of dirt and red smoke filled the center of the camp. Raiga fell to his knees, his chakra reserves dangerously low, his lungs burning. He watched the smoke, waiting to see the charred remains of the child.
The smoke cleared.
Naruto was still standing. The red shroud was charred in places, his left arm hanging limp, but the eyes were still burning. The beast let out a low, vibrating growl that made the very ground shake.
The fight had shifted. The games were over.
Naruto went still. The animalistic twitching of his limbs stopped. He planted his feet wide in the mud and opened his mouth.
A tiny, pinprick of black light appeared between his fangs.
On the ridge, the monitor Eagle stood up, his voice cracking with genuine fear. "Viper, get the containment seals ready. He's doing it."
"He's only four!" Viper shouted. "He doesn't have the control!"
"The Fox has the control," Eagle replied, his hand trembling as he reached for his scroll.
In the center of the ravine, the air began to warp toward Naruto's mouth. Every scrap of loose dirt, every drop of rain, every stray spark of electricity was being sucked into a single, terrifying point. Small spheres of blue and red chakra began to manifest in the air, spinning rapidly before being crushed together into a dense, black ball.
The Tailed Beast Bomb.
The pressure in the ravine dropped so sharply that Raiga felt his lungs struggling to expand. The gravity around Naruto seemed to invert. Stones began to float, hovering in the air before being ground to dust by the sheer intensity of the chakra.
Raiga looked at the black sphere growing in the boy's mouth. He saw his death reflected in its dark surface. He saw the end of his funerals.
"So this is it," Raiga whispered, a twisted, peaceful smile spreading across his face. "The grandest funeral of them all."
He raised his Kiba blades one last time, not to attack, but to welcome the end.
Naruto's jaw unhinged further, the black ball now the size of his own head, pulsing with a frequency that threatened to shatter reality itself. The red eyes were fixed on Raiga, devoid of mercy, devoid of humanity.
The world went silent. The wind stopped. The river seemed to freeze.
Then, the black sphere began to glow with a blinding, violet light.
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----A/N----
FOR EVERY 35 POWER STONES THE STORY RECEIVES = 1 BONUS CHAPTER
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