Boom!
A dark figure tore through the air, trailing a suffocatingly violent blast of wind.
Like a solid meteorite, it slammed into the plain in front of the Third Raikage.
The hard, dry ground exploded.
Chunks of earth and stone the size of washbasins shot wildly in every direction.
The shock wave swept the air aside, forcing the Raikage back three or four steps.
He planted his right foot firmly, plowing a half-meter-long trench in the dirt before he barely managed to steady his massive body.
The autumn wind swept away the dust filling the sky.
A man stood in the center of the crater.
Shu Shiraishi.
He wore no coat, only a black tank top that clung tightly to the solid muscles of his upper body.
A square black iron box was tied to his lower back with a rough canvas strap.
It was a high-density Chakra battery weighing forty jin.
Shu Shiraishi held an unsharpened black blade in one hand.
A thick insulated cable ran from the end of the hilt to the iron box.
Standing at the bottom of the crater, he raised his head slightly.
His cold eyes looked without a ripple of emotion at the disheveled Raikage a dozen meters away.
In the distance, in a jeep beside the windbreak forest,
Orochimaru held up a metal megaphone, his white lab coat covered in splatters of mud.
"Lord Shu!" Harsh static crackled through the megaphone. "Why did you come down yourself?"
Shu Shiraishi frowned and turned his head.
He rubbed his right ear, which ached from the blast of the megaphone.
"Too slow."
He jerked his chin toward the steel mecha in the distance.
"That stupid thing can smash people to death just fine."
Shu Shiraishi spat out a mouthful of saliva that tasted of dirt.
"But how long would it take to catch one alive?"
His voice wasn't loud, but the battlefield was unusually quiet.
Carried by the wind, his words reached the Raikage's ears loud and clear.
The Raikage froze.
He looked at the young man in the ratty tank top down in the crater.
Catch him alive?
The Third Raikage of Kumogakure, a man who could tear a Tailed Beast apart with his bare hands.
In this brat's mouth, he had become prey that would take time to "catch."
A surge of rage shot straight to the top of the Raikage's head, making his scalp prickle.
The heavy flesh of his face bunched up, and his teeth ground together.
Bloody foam ran from the corners of his mouth and dripped onto his black chest.
"Arrogant bastard!"
A beastlike roar of fury erupted from the Raikage's throat.
His left arm was broken and hung limply at his side.
But his right leg drove hard into the ground, blasting the dirt apart.
Blue lightning surged around him once more.
He pushed Lightning Release Chakra Mode to its limit, even drawing on his life force.
Electric arcs as thick as a child's arm leaped wildly through the air, instantly setting the dead grass around him alight.
A strong stench of ozone choked the air.
He raised his thick right hand.
Four fingers pressed together as Lightning Release Chakra compressed madly toward their tips.
The blue light converged, becoming a blinding, incandescent sphere.
Strongest Spear. One-Finger Nukite.
"I'll run you straight through!"
The Raikage became a bolt of violent blue lightning.
With devastating momentum, he charged straight at Shu Shiraishi in the center of the crater.
He moved so fast that even his afterimages stretched into a straight line.
Shu Shiraishi stood where he was.
The military boots on his feet didn't shift half an inch. He showed no intention of forming Hand Seals or dodging.
He merely raised his right hand.
His thumb found the red plastic button on the inside of the black blade's hilt.
He pressed it down hard.
Click.
The button locked into its slot.
Bzzzz-!!!
A piercing buzz a hundred times shriller than the megaphone erupted over the plain.
It was like ten thousand hornets beating their wings against eardrums at once.
Several Konoha Genin in a nearby trench clutched their ears in pain and rolled in the muddy water.
The black blade changed.
The air along its edge twisted violently, and transparent ripples spread wildly outward in circles.
The blade began vibrating tens of thousands of times per second.
The iron battery box at his lower back gave a low hum, steadily supplying high-voltage Chakra.
The Raikage's fingertips arrived.
The incandescent lightning was less than half a foot from Shu Shiraishi's heart.
Even the fabric of his tank top had been scorched yellow and curled by the electric light.
Shu Shiraishi turned his wrist.
He held the black blade across his chest, facing the blinding mass of Lightning Release Chakra.
Then he slashed straight down at an angle.
There was nothing fancy about the swordwork. It was a hard chop relying on the weapon's weight.
There was no earth-shaking explosion.
No clash of sparks in a deadlock.
The instant the black High-Frequency Vibration Blade touched the Lightning Release Armor,
it was like a red-hot cleaver slicing into a soft lump of butter.
Ssssh-
A piercing cutting sound set everyone's teeth on edge.
The absolute defense the Raikage took such pride in, the blue mantle that even the steel mecha couldn't smash through,
was torn open.
The high-frequency vibrations shattered the structure of the Chakra itself, and the lightning instantly scattered on either side of the blade.
The Raikage's bull-like eyes went wide, their corners nearly splitting.
He felt a chill at his fingertips.
A chill that met no resistance.
Then it passed through his palm, his wrist, his forearm, and his upper arm.
Squelch.
A muffled sound of flesh being cut.
A thick black right arm, along with half the flesh of the shoulder,
flew into the air.
The severed surface was as smooth as a mirror.
Pale white marrow and severed blood vessels were clearly visible.
The flesh at the cut was instantly cooked by the heat of the high-frequency vibrations, giving off a strong, pungent stench of burnt meat.
But the Raikage's heart was beating too fast, and his blood pressure was too high.
The cauterized blood vessels stayed sealed for only half a second.
Splat!
A thick jet of blood gushed from the smooth stump of his shoulder like a burst fire hose.
Scalding blood sprayed over half of Shu Shiraishi's body.
His black tank top was instantly drenched dark red, and blood dripped down his muscular arms.
Before the Raikage's scream could escape his throat,
Shu Shiraishi kept moving.
He snapped his right leg up, his military boot trailing a heavy blast of wind.
It slammed into the Raikage's left knee.
Crack!
The sharp sound of breaking bone drowned out the wind in the distance.
The Raikage's left knee joint broke backward on the spot.
Jagged white bone pierced his black skin and jutted into the air, strands of torn flesh clinging to it.
The tremendous impact drove the Raikage's whole body downward.
Following through, Shu Shiraishi planted his foot firmly on his chest.
Boom.
With one stomp, he drove the black iron tower solidly into the mud at the bottom of the crater.
Muddy water splashed everywhere.
The Raikage's back smashed a deep, human-shaped depression into the crater floor.
His mouth hung open, all the air squeezed from his lungs.
Dark blood mixed with mud kept welling from his mouth, and bloody foam covered his chin.
Blood still gushed from his right shoulder, staining half the puddle beneath him red.
His left leg twisted backward at a strange angle, and his whole body convulsed painfully in the mud.
The mighty king of Kumogakure, a brawny man who had once possessed the strength to uproot mountains and rivers,
was now like a skinned dead dog, a blood- and mud-covered military boot planted firmly on his chest.
He couldn't move.
Shu Shiraishi flicked his thumb.
Click.
He turned off the vibration blade's red switch.
The piercing buzz vanished instantly, and the air stopped twisting.
The black blade fell silent, becoming an unremarkable piece of pig iron.
Not a drop of blood remained on the edge; the heat had evaporated it all.
He casually stuck the black blade into the mud beside his foot.
Half the blade sank into the earth.
Not far away,
the thick severed arm finally fell from the air.
Thud.
It landed on the dry grass a dozen meters away, snapping several dead stalks.
The Konoha Ninja in the trenches were dumbstruck.
No one fired. Hundreds of heavy machine guns fell completely silent.
They swallowed as they watched the man standing on the Raikage at the bottom of the crater.
This was their new Hokage. He had taken the Raikage apart one-on-one without so much as a hair on his own body being harmed.
In the distance, the remaining Kumogakure soldiers watched the scene, their mental defenses collapsing completely.
Some dropped their blades and fell to their knees, wailing.
They didn't even have the strength to run.
In the jeep, Orochimaru threw down his megaphone.
He scrambled off the hood, tearing a large piece of his white lab coat on the rearview mirror, but he paid it no mind.
He ran across the muddy plain toward the crater like a madman.
Orochimaru reached the edge of the crater and stopped.
Panting heavily, he fixed his snake-like eyes on the Raikage, who was still twitching and gushing blood at the bottom.
That was excellent experimental material, a physical specimen of the very highest quality.
Orochimaru stuck out his tongue and licked his mud-smeared lips, his eyes shining.
Shu Shiraishi stood at the bottom of the crater.
He looked down at his blood-soaked black tank top and frowned in distaste.
He looked up at Orochimaru, who was watching fervently from the edge of the crater.
"Medical Team, get over here. Stop the bleeding."
Shu Shiraishi pulled the black blade from the ground and rested it on his shoulder.
His voice was ice-cold.
"Don't let him die. Drag him back."
With the bloodied toe of his boot, he nudged the Raikage's intact left leg, which was still twitching.
"The No. 1 reactor has just been installed. It needs a high-voltage battery."
Shu Shiraishi looked at Orochimaru.
"That Lightning Release physique is perfect for generating electricity."