Three days later.
The howling winds swept across the horizon like ten thousand galloping warhorses.
The torrential rain became countless water bullets flying sideways, relentlessly lashing everything in their path.
Though it was noon, the sky was as dark as night.
Lead-gray storm clouds hung so low they seemed almost within reach, blanketing the entire world beneath an oppressive veil of gloom.
Rinkai City.
The Lord's Manor.
Yagura stood by the window, gazing toward the sea.
According to their meteorological observations and calculations over the past several days, the typhoon would indeed make landfall today.
However, it wouldn't strike Rinkai City or its surrounding area head-on.
Based on its projected path, this region would only be brushed by the outer edge of the storm and suffer relatively limited effects.
As for the areas expected to take the brunt of the damage, he had already ordered them evacuated in advance.
In other words, despite its terrifying momentum, the typhoon posed no real threat to them.
At worst, it would merely delay operations by a day or two.
And yet...
A vague, inexplicable unease lingered in Yagura's heart.
After pondering for a moment, he pushed open the door and headed toward the city walls.
He wanted to see for himself where this unsettling feeling was coming from.
Or rather...
What exactly had he overlooked?
Watching Yagura's departing figure, Hyakume Sōsuke fell silent for a moment before following after him.
To the east...
Across the vast, boundless sea...
The typhoon was approaching.
At first, it was nothing more than a faint black line stretching across the horizon.
Yet within moments, that line had transformed into a towering wall of darkness that seemed to connect heaven and earth.
The clouds churned, piled atop one another, and compressed as they surged forward.
With every passing second, they pressed lower than before.
The sea itself was torn into countless fragments by an unseen force.
Towering waves rolled forward like moving mountain ranges, crashing relentlessly against the shoreline.
The white spray they hurled skyward was immediately swept into the air by the gale before blending seamlessly with the torrential rain, until sea and sky became impossible to distinguish.
Standing directly before nature's fury...
Suspended between sea and sky...
Was a lone figure.
Higashino Shinichi.
With his hands clasped behind his back, his robes snapped violently in the wind, yet his body remained as immovable as a mountain.
Two cyan swords slowly rose beside him.
Their blades trembled faintly as they began circling around him.
Faster...
And faster...
Within only a few breaths, they had become two intertwined cyan rings of light, accompanied by an unbroken chorus of shrieking wind.
The next instant...
Brilliant cyan light erupted around Shinichi.
His body shot skyward, transforming into a straight emerald streak that dragged an enormous vortex of storm winds behind it.
Like a spear hurled by a god, he tore through the endless rain and rolling storm clouds, surging toward the southeastern coastline of the Land of Fire.
In the blink of an eye, he vanished beyond the horizon.
Yet as he continued flying...
The Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords orbiting him emitted increasingly strained buzzing sounds.
Fine cracks had already begun spreading across their surfaces.
Even Shinichi himself was suffering greatly.
His complexion gradually turned pale.
How could anyone hope to wield the power of nature so easily?
The energy contained within a full-scale typhoon exceeded that of the nuclear weapons from his previous world by an unimaginable margin.
Even Shinichi, wielding the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords—a treasure that could rightly be called a divine weapon of Wind Release—could only barely control an utterly insignificant fraction of the storm's power.
Just enough...
To alter its course ever so slightly.
Just enough...
To redirect an infinitesimal sliver of its overwhelming destructive force for his own use.
Yet even that tiny fraction...
Contained astonishing power.
A short while later...
The Land of Waves.
The winds still howled.
The rain still poured.
Thunder still rumbled endlessly.
Yet every one of those sounds filling heaven and earth was drowned out by a cyan streak that suddenly burst across the eastern horizon.
The vast cyan arc swept forward with unstoppable momentum, as though determined to pierce the sun itself.
For a time, the only sound remaining in the world was its earth-shattering roar as it ripped through the sky.
Even the relentless peals of thunder were completely overwhelmed.
Wherever the cyan streak passed...
It seemed as though heaven and earth themselves were cowed by its might.
The surging storm clouds on both sides were split apart like fabric cleaved by an invisible blade, rolling backward in opposite directions and leaving behind a massive corridor of empty sky stretching across the heavens.
It lingered for a long time without closing.
Descending from the sky was an invisible pressure as immense as mountains.
Everyone in the Land of Waves who witnessed it trembled uncontrollably.
Some even fell to their knees instinctively, unable to summon the courage to raise their heads.
Deep within a forest...
Minato looked up as the cyan streak raced overhead.
Taking a deep breath, he turned toward the equally solemn Hiashi beside him.
"Shinichi has begun."
"Hiashi... let's move."
"Mm."
Hiashi withdrew his Byakugan's gaze.
His expression was grave as he gave a firm nod.
...
At the same time...
High above the Rinkai City region, deep within storm clouds at an unimaginable altitude...
Isshin floated amid boundless thunder.
Countless blue-white bolts of lightning danced wildly around him, illuminating his face in flickering flashes.
Innumerable Sword of the Thunder God shadow clones surrounded him.
Each one frantically devoured the lightning surging through the storm clouds, condensing layer upon layer of dazzling golden lightning plasma across their blades.
From time to time, a sword hilt would fail under the relentless torrent of energy, dissolving into smoke.
Gritting his teeth, Isshin immediately recreated it, restoring the gap in the sword formation.
Compared to Shinichi's original body...
Controlling this lightning was vastly more difficult for him.
After all, he possessed none of the Entries that enhanced ninjutsu or chakra.
Nor did he have Piercing Insight, with its extraordinary capacity for meticulous analysis and calculation.
Just reaching the heart of those thunderclouds had taken him an enormous amount of effort.
The only reason this clone could barely hold things together was because Shinichi's original body had spent the past several days repeatedly experimenting, refining, and accumulating experience and muscle memory.
Otherwise, he probably would have been struck out of the sky by the surrounding lightning before he even reached the clouds.
...
Rinkai City.
Atop the city walls.
Yagura stood on the ramparts, allowing the howling wind to whip his robes wildly as rain streamed down his face.
His eyes remained fixed on the increasingly violent storm clouds churning above the distant sea, his brow furrowing tighter and tighter.
Sōsuke stood silently behind him, also staring into the indistinguishable chaos where sea and sky had become one.
"Yagura... have you sensed something?"
Yagura pondered for a moment and was just about to answer when a messenger shinobi rushed to his side.
"Yagura-sama! The reconnaissance unit has detected unusual movements from Konoha! They appear to be gathering their forces on a large scale and are preparing to launch a general offensive against us!"
A general offensive?
Outnumbered as they were, where had Konoha found the courage?
Yagura's heart tightened.
The unease within him suddenly intensified.
Just as he was about to question the messenger further, another shinobi sprinted over, interrupting him for a second time.
"Yagura-sama! Konoha has launched simultaneous attacks on multiple outer outposts! Another large force is advancing rapidly toward Rinkai City—approximately two thousand strong!"
Two thousand?
Three thousand Kirigakure shinobi were stationed here, and the surrounding outposts could reinforce them at any moment.
Had Konoha gone mad?
Yagura opened his mouth to speak—
Only to be interrupted a third time.
This time...
By Sōsuke.
"Yagura!"
His voice rang out with unprecedented gravity.
Yagura spun around.
The elderly man's expression had never looked so serious.
His eyes were locked on the sea.
Across the darkened horizon...
The weather was changing.
In the distance, towering waves piled upon one another like mountain ranges, surging relentlessly forward.
Farther still, colossal wind columns stretched from sea to sky, churning seawater and storm clouds into enormous whirlwinds that were visibly shifting toward Rinkai City.
Yagura's expression changed dramatically.
"Impossible!"
"According to our calculations, the typhoon wasn't supposed to pass through here!"
No one had time to answer him.
Because at that very instant...
A streak of cyan light appeared in the eastern sky.
At first, it was nothing more than the faintest glimmer.
The next instant...
It exploded into a magnificent cyan arc that swept across heaven and earth, racing toward them with breathtaking speed.
The gloomy heavens were instantly illuminated by dazzling cyan light.
Even the roiling storm clouds turned an eerie shade of blue-green, as though the entire sky itself had been dyed by that radiance.
Bathed in its light, the world took on the terrifying aura of the apocalypse.
The earth trembled faintly, as though cowering beneath an unimaginable force descending from the heavens.
Though the cyan radiance was still more than a dozen kilometers away...
The roar generated by its passage through the atmosphere already surpassed the loudest thunder by a hundredfold.
Anyone who witnessed that scene understood instinctively—
If that attack struck...
Destroying an entire city and leveling mountains would be no exaggeration.
"It's not a natural disaster!"
Sōsuke declared grimly.
"It's man-made!"
Before the final word had even left his mouth, his pupils had already transformed into the vertical slits of a beast.
An immense torrent of crimson chakra erupted from his body like blazing fire, shooting toward the heavens.
Three scarlet chakra tails burst forth behind him.
Partial Tailed Beast Transformation!
"Defensive positions! Immediately!"
Opening his mouth, Sōsuke unleashed volley after volley of crimson chakra beams.
Each one carved a dark-red trail through the sky as it slammed directly toward the rapidly approaching cyan storm.
False Tailed Beast Ball!
As Kirigakure's temporary headquarters, Rinkai City's defenders naturally had no intention of waiting helplessly for death.
Under Yagura's swift command, countless ninjutsu shot skyward from every section of the city walls.
They followed behind Sōsuke's barrage like a spectacular fireworks display, exploding chaotically across the surface of the incoming cyan light.
Yet every attack accomplished the same thing.
Nothing.
They produced only tiny ripples along the outer edge of the cyan storm.
Not one of them could shake that cyan arc in the slightest.
Nor could they delay it...
Even for a second.
Not good!
Sōsuke's pupils contracted sharply.
With a thunderous roar, he abandoned all restraint.
An ocean-like torrent of chakra erupted from his body.
His form rapidly expanded and distorted beneath the overwhelming surge.
In the blink of an eye...
He had transformed into a colossal beast as massive as a mountain.
The Three-Tails—
Complete Tailed Beast Transformation!
For Sōsuke, every use of his complete Tailed Beast form consumed what little lifespan he had left.
But at this point...
He no longer cared.
If that city-destroying force were allowed to crash down upon them...
Of the three thousand Kirigakure shinobi inside the city...
Perhaps not even one in ten would survive.
The instant he completed his transformation...
The cyan arc arrived above Rinkai City.
The howling winds ripped every roof tile from the city.
The torrential rain glowed an eerie blue-green beneath the cyan light.
Countless trees snapped in half under the crushing air pressure, their splintering trunks crying out in shrill agony.
With an earth-shaking roar...
Sōsuke charged forward.
His mountain-like body became a living shield as he slammed head-on into the descending cyan light.
BOOM!!!
The immense cyan arc struck the fully transformed Three-Tails head-on.
Sōsuke managed only a single shout.
"Get out of the way!"
The next instant—
A deafening crack echoed through the air.
His mountain-sized body was blasted backward.
He carved an enormous trench straight through the city.
Every building in his path collapsed into rubble.
Bricks and timber were hurled through the air like scraps of paper.
Only after crashing into a distant mountain range did he finally come to a stop.
A massive cloud of dust instantly swallowed him from sight.
And then...
With the horrified gazes of every Kirigakure shinobi fixed upon it...
The enormous cyan arc, dragging with it the surrounding typhoon and torrential rain...
Crashed straight down onto Rinkai City.
BOOM—!!!
With a cataclysmic roar that shook heaven and earth and seemed to tear the sky itself apart...
The ground convulsed violently.
Centered on the point of impact, the earth was smashed open, countless cracks racing outward in every direction like a giant spiderweb.
Wave after wave of shockwaves rippled across the land, causing the ground to heave so violently that it resembled a raging sea.
Countless tons of earth, shattered rock, and broken concrete erupted skyward like a tidal wave, soaring hundreds of meters into the air before exploding outward like deadly blossoms.
Rinkai City—
The largest coastal city along the southeastern shores of the Land of Fire—
Was collapsing completely beneath this single blow.
The city walls crumbled.
Buildings disintegrated.
Streets were ripped apart into chaotic ruins.
The once-thriving harbor and orderly districts were being reduced, with unstoppable force, into an endless sea of shattered stone and broken tiles.
Farther away, Kirigakure reinforcements that had heard the commotion and were racing toward Rinkai City came to an involuntary halt.
They stared blankly at the scene before them, their eyes filled with utter disbelief.
A single strike...
Enough to destroy a city and level mountains.
The terrifying destructive power of the natural forces that Higashino Shinichi had harnessed spoke for itself.
The Daimyō of the Land of Fire could never have imagined that Rinkai City—one of his nation's great cities—would not ultimately be destroyed by enemy occupation or sabotage...
But by one of his own.
One could only wonder what kind of expression he would wear when he eventually learned the truth.
...
Above the ruins of Rinkai City...
Amid the dust-filled sky...
Shinichi took several heavy breaths.
Lowering his head, he looked with obvious regret at the pair of Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords in his hands.
The blades had already shattered into fragments.
Even these swords, worthy of being called divine treasures of Wind Release, had ultimately failed to withstand the overwhelming power of nature—far beyond anything they had ever been meant to bear.
"The old must make way for the new."
Taking a deep breath, Shinichi carefully gathered every fragment before raising his head once more.
On the other side...
Yagura shoved aside half of a collapsed roof that had pinned him beneath it and climbed back to his feet through the gaps between broken stone and shattered beams.
After coughing several times, he slowly swept his gaze across what had once been a thriving coastal city.
Now...
Nothing remained but endless fields of broken masonry and collapsed buildings, with black smoke rising from countless cracks in the earth.
As he stood up...
More and more people slowly crawled out from the ruins scattered throughout the devastated city.
However...
There weren't many.
One here.
Another there.
They emerged from the rubble like ants whose nest had been washed away by a torrential downpour.
A rough estimate placed their number at only a little over a thousand.
Meanwhile...
Within the central impact zone and the surrounding area...
No one else rose.
Which meant...
From that single strike alone...
Of the three thousand Kirigakure shinobi stationed inside the city...
Nearly two thousand were dead or missing.
"Yagura-sama!"
The surviving Kirigakure shinobi quickly converged on his position, their faces still filled with the dazed disbelief of those who had narrowly escaped death.
Yagura's expression turned grim.
He slowly swept his gaze across the surviving subordinates, preparing to issue orders.
Then...
A commotion erupted from the distant forest.
Countless dark figures burst from the treeline, advancing toward the ruins of Rinkai City like an overwhelming tide.
Konoha had arrived.
Yagura's face darkened even further.
He opened his mouth to give commands once more.
But...
Another disturbance erupted from the very center of the impact crater.
Interrupting him yet again.
A cyan glow suddenly blossomed from the deepest part of the ruins.
Moments later...
A lone figure slowly rose from within that radiance.
Higher...
And higher...
Faster...
His robes snapped violently in the wind, yet his body remained as immovable as a mountain.
Before the rain could even touch the hem of his clothes, it was deflected away by invisible currents surrounding him.
Higashino Shinichi.
Under the uncertain, astonished gazes of everyone present, he continued ascending until he stood nearly level with the storm clouds themselves.
Only then did he stop.
Behind him...
Within the towering storm clouds...
Countless blue-white bolts of lightning writhed and lashed through the sky like frenzied silver whips, colliding and intertwining as they illuminated half the heavens in flickering brilliance.
Thunder rolled without end, each peal louder than the last, like countless armies beating war drums high above the clouds.
And there, suspended before that vast storm of thunder and lightning, stood the young man.
The endless flashes behind him spread outward like a pair of enormous wings woven from lightning itself...
Or like a colossal curtain of thunder slowly drawing open.
Yagura stared upward, his eyes locked on the figure standing amid boundless lightning.
He took a deep breath and, for the third time, tried to issue an order.
He intended to have his subordinates deal with the approaching Konoha forces while he personally kept watch over Higashino Shinichi, who was clearly preparing something abnormal high above them.
But...
Watching was all he could do.
He couldn't fly.
None of his ninjutsu could reach that altitude.
There was nothing he could do except watch.
Then—
At that very moment—
A clear youthful voice descended from the heavens, piercing through the endless wind and thunder as it echoed across heaven and earth.
"Endless Sky!"
Instinctively, everyone looked up toward the heavens, now bathed in blue-white lightning.
The lone figure in the sky slowly spread his arms.
His black hair whipped wildly in the gale.
His posture was calm...
Proud...
As though he were a lone celestial standing at the pinnacle of the heavens, gazing down upon the world below.
As his arms opened...
The endless thunderclouds behind him seemed to receive a silent command.
Countless bolts of lightning burst forth from deep within the clouds.
One after another.
Layer upon layer.
Until they spread into an endless sea of thunder behind his back.
Its brilliance illuminated every inch of the ruined city below with crystal clarity.
The spectacle resembled the gates of heaven bursting open behind him.
Ten thousand bolts of lightning paved his path, while the thunder of the highest heavens became his wings.
With both arms spread wide...
It looked as though he were welcoming the homage of all the lightning in existence.
Seeing this—
An overwhelming sense of danger exploded within Yagura's heart.
"Watch out!!!"
The instant his warning rang out...
The young man in the sky lowered his arms.
His hands shifted smoothly into position, one before the other.
His index and middle fingers came together, forming a sword seal with effortless grace.
Then—
He thrust those fingers downward.
Straight at Yagura.
"Sweep the Realm!"
The moment those words fell...
A miracle unfolded.
CLANG—!!!
A thunderous sword cry, so clear and piercing it seemed capable of cutting straight through the soul, exploded from the very center of the heavens.
Then came a second.
A third.
A tenth.
A hundredth.
The clouds roared with countless metallic peals, as though an army of warriors atop the heavens had drawn their swords in unison.
The humming chorus swept across the entire world.
Within the boundless thunderclouds behind the young man...
Countless golden swords of lightning burst forth.
They shot down from the depths of the clouds, each trailing dazzling streams of golden electricity.
Every blade was forged entirely from condensed lightning.
Their edges hummed.
Wild arcs of electricity danced frantically along their blades.
From afar...
It looked as though the heavens themselves had split open with countless golden fissures.
Lightning transformed into endless swords.
Like divine judgment descending from heaven.
Like an overturned river of stars pouring down upon the earth.
The countless golden lightning swords carved brilliant trails across the sky.
They covered heaven and earth.
So dense that not even the smallest gap remained.
Like a rain of judgment falling from the heavens...
They descended toward the already ruined Rinkai City.
Toward Yagura.
In that instant...
Before the eyes of both Konoha and Kirigakure...
Golden swords of lightning poured from the heavens like the Milky Way itself cascading down.
The young man remained suspended amid them.
His robes billowed in the wind.
His fingers held the sword seal.
Endless golden lightning coiled around his body.
Bathed in the shifting brilliance of light and thunder...
He appeared like a celestial being gazing down upon the mortal world from the highest heavens—
Sacred beyond mortal comprehension.
Yet...
No one knew...
That behind this overwhelming display of heavenly might...
Deep within the storm clouds where no one could see...
The clouds churned ceaselessly.
The true "hero behind the scenes" was gritting his teeth, his ten fingers flying in a blur as he frantically forged one new golden lightning sword after another.
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