A kilometer away, Arata's Thunder God Sphere collided with the Tailed Beast Bomb—blue lightning grinding against a surge of red-black chakra.
Then—BOOM!
The red Tailed Beast Bomb detonated first, bursting into an explosion that swallowed several kilometers of land.
Arata's Thunder God Sphere didn't slow. In the blink of an eye it crashed straight into the unconscious Eight-Tails jinchūriki.
Even without awareness, the jinchūriki's battle instincts kicked in. Massive chakra surged and shaped itself into a crude barrier.
Arata's sphere struck the shield—
BOOOOM!
A blinding blue flash tore across the battlefield. For a moment, daylight washed over ten whole kilometers, followed by a rolling thunderclap that shook the earth.
Unlike the Tailed Beast Bomb's sharp detonation, Arata's lightning sphere exploded like a sky-splitting storm. Its shockwave swallowed the red explosion instantly, reshaping it into a massive blue energy dome pressing outward from the ground.
From above, it looked like a glowing hemisphere slammed over the terrain.
The blast radius was monstrous—nearly eight kilometers wide—completely engulfing Arata's position.
Even the Konoha support forces Arata had ordered to hold position saw everything clearly from afar.
Their defense line stretched over ten kilometers. As they worked, their vision suddenly went white, as if staring into the sun. Many couldn't even open their eyes.
The first Tailed Beast Bomb earlier had barely brushed their perimeter.
This one hurled a shockwave so strong several shinobi were blown off their feet.
If Arata hadn't ordered the line this far back—at least ten kilometers—they would have been caught in it.
Their sight barely returned before an even harsher gale hit, whipping sand and debris into the air. The weaker genin could hardly stay upright.
Then they saw it: the blue-white explosion towering in the distance, crowned with a massive mushroom cloud.
"Look! Another explosion! This one's even crazier!"
"The last one was a Tailed Beast Bomb, right? They actually sent out jinchūriki—Land of Lightning's going all in!"
"You're worried about them? Arata-sama is facing two jinchūriki and the Raikage alone—how could anyone survive this?"
"Damn it! If the Third Hokage had brought the Nine-Tails, Konoha wouldn't be forced into this!"
"Wait—Tailed Beast Bombs are red and black. Why is this one blue?"
"Arata-sama's kekkei genkai… it's blue-white lightning, isn't it?"
"Don't tell me… that blast was HIS?"
The spectators murmured, but the ten jonin leading the division exchanged only stunned looks.
If this explosion truly exceeded a Tailed Beast Bomb, and Arata generated it…
Then Arata's power surpassed a Tailed Beast itself.
A veteran jonin, roughly fifty, turned to a younger one.
"Shiyan, your eyes are the sharpest. Get closer and confirm what's happened. We can't sit blind."
Shiyan nodded heavily. He too wanted to know what Arata Itsuki had endured. This information had to reach Konoha—no matter the cost.
Even if he died retrieving it, Arata's struggle couldn't be for nothing.
No one expected Arata to return alive—but the intel he bought with his life needed to.
...
On the main battlefield, once the Thunder God Sphere finally dissipated, Arata still stood at the center—his Lightning Armor, Second Gear form intact. Not even that catastrophic shockwave had dealt meaningful harm.
But his massive form had visibly shrunk—nearly ten meters lost, leaving him around fifty meters tall.
Still, the exchange had been worth every drop of chakra: with one single technique, Arata had nearly wiped out Land of Lightning's four top-tier fighters.
As for the Thunder God Sphere itself?
Tailed Beasts had their signature bombs.
Arata—wielding divine lightning—had crafted his own.
The technique mirrored the Rasengan's compression method, but instead of using neutral chakra, Arata condensed pure lightning—an element notoriously difficult to shape. Even powerful jutsu like Chidori barely formed structure; they were more raw current than form.
Forging lightning into a stable sphere was impossible for most—something on the level of Sage Mode control.
But Arata's lightning was like an extension of his own body. He could shape it directly into a spiraling sphere.
....
The Third Raikage, who had managed to flee several kilometers before the blast, now lay unconscious on the ground.
He wasn't dead, but without a month in the hospital, he wouldn't be walking anywhere.
And with an arm severed—and no limb-regeneration medical ninjutsu available—his future strength would never recover. The days of him pressuring Hiruzen or Ōnoki were finished.
Nearby, the Elite Jōnin Doell lay mangled, barely conscious. His body was intact, but shredded—clothes ripped, blood everywhere. In truth he looked worse off than the Raikage; elite jonin simply couldn't endure that kind of impact.
The Two-Tails jinchūriki—Yugito Nii—had lost her Tailed Beast Cloak entirely, but suffered no major wounds thanks to it absorbing the blast.
But she could no longer draw on her tailed beast. At best she was early Kage-level now—utterly helpless before Arata.
Doell, shaking but upright through pure willpower, turned to her.
"Two-Tails-hime… take the Raikage and go. I'll hold Arata off… even if it kills me."
He knew he wasn't much—but the Raikage and the Two-Tails mattered far more to their village. As long as those two lived, Land of Lightning wouldn't collapse.
Yugito Nii met his eyes, nodded, and lifted the Raikage onto her shoulder.
Before fleeing, she glanced back at Arata—this towering, lightning-forged titan—a god descending to earth.
Today had shown her what true power looked like.
Perhaps this was the real peak of the shinobi world.
Softly, she muttered:
"Konoha truly is terrifying… Hashirama died, Madara vanished—and now another monster appears… Arata Itsuki."