My other fanfic This Uchiha just wants to lay low is there you can check it out.
"You still hiding something? Come on, show me what makes the Seven Ninja Swordsmen so formidable," Yoruha said calmly.
Raiga's brows furrowed tightly upon hearing those words.
"You brat, who do you think you're insulting?"
"Thunder Blade Art: Falling Thunder!"
Enraged by Yoruha's taunt, Raiga instantly summoned all his remaining chakra, releasing his most powerful offensive jutsu.
In an instant, two lightning arcs, each as thick as a man's arm, coiled like serpents as they surged toward Yoruha.
"This is much stronger than his earlier Lightning Banquet attack," Yoruha noted.
"But if this is all he's got, it's not enough to kill me."
The two lightning serpents charged at Yoruha from both sides.
Yoruha clapped his hands together.
"Let's see how my Lightning Release compares."
"Lightning Release: Meteor Strike!"
Golden lightning erupted violently from Yoruha's body, crackling with ferocious energy.
The lightning quickly coalesced into dozens of golden projectiles that shot toward Raiga.
The golden lightning bolts instantly shattered Raiga's lightning serpents, reducing them to mere specks of light without any resistance.
Before Raiga could even react, countless golden bolts rained down upon him.
In an instant, a violent explosion erupted where Raiga stood.
Dust and debris filled the air as shockwaves rippled outward, turning night into day with the brilliance of the golden lightning.
The immense power shook the surrounding earth, causing a minor earthquake.
The apocalyptic scene was overwhelming, as though the world itself was ending.
Even hundreds of meters away, Sakura and her group struggled to stay on their feet.
Sakura was left in stunned silence.
"This… this is Yoruha's power?"
"It's terrifying. How is he really just twelve years old?"
Sakura couldn't believe that such destructive power belonged to a twelve-year-old boy.
In her mind, Yoruha's strength had far surpassed Kakashi's.
After all, she had never seen Kakashi unleash such a wide-scale, devastating jutsu before.
Eventually, the dust settled.
Before Yoruha lay a massive crater, over a hundred meters wide and more than ten meters deep.
The soil within had been scorched black by lightning, still emitting wisps of smoke.
Walking to the edge of the crater, Yoruha looked down at Raiga's charred and shattered body, as well as the two Thunder Blades lying nearby.
From the edge of the crater, he slowly stepped toward its center.
"No way… Was that really Raiga?"
Yoruha couldn't comprehend it. This was supposed to be one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
And yet, Raiga had been killed by just one of his jutsu.
His body was completely reduced to charcoal.
"Could this Raiga have been a fake?"
Yoruha refused to believe that Raiga's abilities were so limited.
He had been waiting for Raiga to unleash his ultimate move.
Who would've thought that a casually released Lightning Release jutsu would kill him?
Picking up the two Thunder Blades lying on the ground, Yoruha examined them.
"These swords… they're so ugly."
Yoruha had originally thought that the Seven Ninja Swordsmen's strength was largely due to the unique abilities of their blades.
But now that he held them in his hands, he realized the swords didn't live up to their reputation.
It didn't suit his aesthetic.
The strange, awkward shape of the blades made him lose any desire to keep them as collectibles.
"Let's hold onto them for now. Perhaps one day, when we reestablish relations with Kirigakure, I can return these and earn some goodwill."
For now, however, Kirigakure remained closed off to outsiders, so there was no way to return the swords even if he wanted to.
With Yoruha's current strength, the Thunder Blades held no value for him.
Besides, their design didn't appeal to him. If it were Sasuke's Kusanagi Sword, now that was something he'd appreciate.
"Let's just seal them away for now."
Taking a sealing scroll from his ninja tool pouch, Yoruha prepared to store the blades.
This was a basic sealing scroll he'd recently learned to use while training with Kakashi. It worked just like the scrolls Tenten used to store her ninja tools.
After securing the Thunder Blades, Yoruha turned his attention back to Raiga's charred remains, which had broken into pieces and were scattered around the crater.
"One of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen… a once-renowned jōnin, and this is how it ends? What a pity."
"It's just so undignified."
"Considering he often conducted funerals for others, I suppose I'll be the one to send him off on his final journey."
Raiga was the first jōnin, and an elite one at that, Yoruha had ever killed.
Yet, Yoruha didn't feel any joy.
Instead, he felt a tinge of disappointment. In his mind, Raiga must've had a trump card he never got the chance to use.
Yoruha had expected Raiga to withstand his jutsu or at least have the ability to dodge it.
But not only did Raiga fail to block the attack, he couldn't even react in time.
Lightning Release: Meteor Strike was an A-rank jutsu Yoruha had personally developed.
This was the first time he had used it in actual combat, and he hadn't expected it to kill Raiga outright.
Even Yoruha was surprised that the jutsu was capable of taking down an elite jōnin.
While it was true that Naruto eventually defeated Raiga in the original story, that was partly due to his protagonist status. If Naruto hadn't tapped into the Nine-Tails' power, defeating Raiga would've been nearly impossible.
And in that scenario, Raiga's mental state had been compromised due to Ranmaru's influence.
But the Raiga Yoruha faced now was unaffected by such distractions—a fully competent elite jōnin.
Yoruha himself couldn't believe he had reached a level where he could kill an elite jōnin.
Looking at Raiga's remains, Yoruha shook his head, feeling regretful.
He lamented that Raiga hadn't unleashed his full potential.
"Earth Release: Sand Burial."
Yoruha formed hand seals and pressed his hands to the ground.
Immediately, the earth shifted as large amounts of soil transformed into sand. The sand gradually engulfed Raiga's remains, forming a grave mound.
In front of the grave, a stone marker rose from the ground.
Yoruha walked up to it and engraved Raiga's name onto the stone with his hand.
Despite having defeated an elite jōnin, Yoruha felt no joy.
Instead, he questioned his own strength.
Why had Raiga fallen so easily?
He doubted whether the man he killed was truly Raiga.
Until now, Yoruha had believed his strength was comparable to an average jōnin, far from the level of an elite jōnin.
So when he managed to kill Raiga with a single jutsu, and with less than a tenth of his chakra depleted, he was left stunned.
It felt surreal, almost like a dream.
Regardless, the fact that Raiga was dead confirmed that Yoruha's strength had already reached the level of an elite jōnin.
This was a significant milestone.
After all, in theory, every elite jōnin from a village was qualified to become a Kage.
Every Kage was chosen from the ranks of elite jōnin.
Even Naruto had to spend time advancing to the rank of jōnin before he could succeed Kakashi as the Seventh Hokage.
Of course, for now, Yoruha was still officially a genin.
In a few months, the Chūnin Exams would be held, and that might be Yoruha's chance to advance to chūnin.
Read Advanced Chapters at:
[email protected]/ChakraMaster