And even so, it still couldn't so much as brush Akira's clothes.
Seeing that Akira remained completely unharmed, and was even toying with the Nine-Tails, Kakashi and Sakura finally felt about half the weight on their hearts lift.
But then, all at once, the Nine-Tails stopped attacking physically. It threw open its enormous jaws as yin and yang chakra began gathering wildly.
A black sphere of energy rapidly formed at its mouth.
Kakashi's face went deathly pale in an instant.
"This is bad! A Tailed Beast Bomb! One shot from that thing can flatten an entire village. Akira's in real trouble now!"
Sakura didn't understand the exact mechanics, but just looking at that dense black sphere made every instinct inside her start screaming.
"Akira... why isn't he dodging? Don't tell me he's going to take it head-on?"
Even Kakashi looked stunned.
"Take it head-on? That's impossible!"
But Guy frowned and said, "Look where Akira's standing. We're directly behind him. If he dodges, we die."
Guy understood Akira too well.
That man would never turn and run at a moment like this.
The blast radius of a Tailed Beast Bomb was measured in kilometers, and it was a pure energy detonation. Even if they turned and ran right now, it would already be too late.
The thought sent a chill of despair through Kakashi.
"This is a dead end..."
Sakura bit her lip so hard it nearly bled as tears poured from her eyes.
"It's because we're too weak! We're the ones dragging him down! If I were stronger, I could fight beside him instead of standing here like useless baggage, watching him risk his life for us!"
Temari and Gaara were reminded at the same time of the terror they had once felt from Shukaku. Now, facing the Nine-Tails, which was even stronger, that crushing helplessness made it hard to breathe.
Gaara clenched the sand in his hand tightly.
"He has a way. That man is Akira Hane."
And in that moment of absolute despair, with every eye fixed on him, Akira calmly reached into his weapons pouch and pulled out two unusual-looking kunai.
They were Flying Raijin kunai.
The Nine-Tails had already finished charging. Cruelty gleamed in its eyes.
"Die, you bastard!"
Fwoooosh—!
The Tailed Beast Bomb fired out with enough force to annihilate everything in its path. The compressed air shrieked with a high, tearing boom as it crossed dozens of meters in an instant and bore straight down on Akira's face.
At that moment, every heart stopped beating.
Could a human being truly stand against a disaster like this?
Other than the God of Shinobi himself, who would dare face a Tailed Beast Bomb head-on? Even Madara Uchiha would have needed to bring out the full giant armor to block one.
And yet, in the eyes of Kakashi and Guy, Akira's back remained straight as a spear.
Then, the instant before the Tailed Beast Bomb swallowed him, he raised one of the kunai in his hand, his gaze sharp as lightning.
"Teleportation Barrier!"
As Akira poured chakra into the jutsu, the space before him suddenly split open. Dozens of mysterious black symbols appeared out of nowhere, forming a massive barrier.
The Tailed Beast Bomb slammed into those symbols headfirst, and it was as if a black hole had swallowed it whole.
It vanished without a trace.
Kakashi and Guy looked as though their jaws might hit the ground.
"That... that's the Fourth Hokage's signature jutsu! He actually learned how to redirect a Tailed Beast Bomb?!"
Akira had already marked the destination long ago.
It was a stretch of empty desert more than ten kilometers away.
A heartbeat later, a gigantic mushroom cloud rose on the distant horizon.
BOOOOM—!!!
The thunder of the explosion reached them a few seconds late, followed by another violent tremor rolling through the earth.
Even from so far away, the Suna shinobi all knew exactly what they were seeing.
That was the Tailed Beast Bomb that had vanished moments ago.
"This is a miracle... the rumors were true. He really did inherit the Yellow Flash's ultimate jutsu!"
"He can even redirect a Tailed Beast Bomb. Does this man even have a limit?"
Gaara stared at the fire blooming on the horizon, and his awe for Akira deepened again. In the span of just three years, that man had grown into someone others could only look up at.
Sakura was so excited she nearly jumped.
"He did it! Akira's amazing! Kakashi-sensei, did you see that?!"
Guy flashed his signature white grin.
"Flying Raijin is a forbidden jutsu with S-rank difficulty. Back then, I thought no one but Minato could ever learn it. But this kid didn't just learn it, he's taken it even further."
Neji, with his Byakugan active, watched Akira with open fervor in his eyes.
"No wonder Hinata-hime chose him. That is what true strength looks like."
Compared to Akira, Neji suddenly felt that his own talent hardly deserved mentioning.
Lee, meanwhile, was burning with passion.
"This is youth! I have to work even harder! Someday, I'll catch up to his back!"
But the one most stunned of all was the Nine-Tails.
Its eyes widened as it roared in disbelief.
"You brat! How do you know Minato's Flying Raijin?! Even the way you redirected my Tailed Beast Bomb was exactly the same!"
Akira calmly put away the kunai, as though he had just done something trivial.
"I only used that to save a bit of effort. Taking it head-on would've been tiring."
In truth, Flying Raijin barely cost Akira anything. Redirecting a Tailed Beast Bomb was, for him, about the same as casting an A-rank jutsu.
The reason the Fourth Hokage had been left panting after moving a single one back then wasn't because his chakra reserves were lacking. It was because the carrying limit of the Teleportation Barrier itself had been the bottleneck.
But Akira's current strength had already reached a depth no one could see through.
No one had any idea where his ceiling even was anymore.