"Speed is weight, you know."
"Have you ever been kicked at the speed of light?"
The moment Yagami's voice fell, his body burst apart into countless photons.
He passed straight through the storm of shattered stone, crossing the distance in an instant. In less than a blink, the golden particles reassembled beside the Iwa shinobi below, his human form condensing as though light itself had taken shape.
[Light-Speed Kick]
The instant he materialized, Yagami lifted his glowing leg and drove it straight into the side of one of the Iwa shinobi.
The four Iwa shinobi were still staring upward, their eyes fixed on the sky where Yagami had been just a moment ago.
None of them had even realized that he had already crossed the gap between them and appeared at their side.
Boom!
A violent impact erupted.
The shinobi who took the kick was sent flying on the spot, blasted away so hard that the air itself screamed. His body tore through the battlefield like a cannon shell, smashing straight into the distant ranks of the observing Iwa forces.
Boom!!!
An even louder explosion rang out from the rear of the Iwa formation.
Not only did the man's body kill two shinobi on impact, it also blasted a massive crater into the ground. His skull had caved in completely from Yagami's kick.
There was no need to wonder whether he had survived.
He was dead.
"!!"
Only then did the remaining three react and whip their heads around.
What they saw was Yagami standing calmly beside them, one leg still faintly shining.
Cold sweat poured down their backs.
Every hair on their bodies stood on end.
Shock. Fear. Disbelief.
In an instant, those emotions flooded their minds.
"Oh my, this really is troublesome."
"I can't keep wearing samurai clothes anymore, can I?"
"This outfit is too loose. Maybe my legs just aren't long enough, you know."
Yagami's lazy, mildly troubled voice drifted into their ears.
That light, almost casual tone only made the terror worse.
It snapped the three Iwa shinobi out of their panic.
"Run!!!"
Shōhei roared in horror.
The three of them instantly fled in different directions.
At that moment, they finally understood.
There was no hope of winning.
If they stayed, it would be nothing but suicide.
"Oh?"
"You want to run now?"
"That's a little late, isn't it?"
Yagami did not chase after them immediately. Instead, he spoke with faint regret, as though mildly disappointed by their decision.
At his thought, photons began to gather along his calf.
In an instant, a brilliant cross-shaped gleam formed beneath his foot.
[Light-Speed Kick]
Yagami gave a quiet murmur in his heart.
The light clustered around his leg was released in one kick, firing out like a blazing laser.
The beam, thick as a bowl's mouth, instantly struck the path where Shōhei was escaping.
Rumble—!!!
A golden mushroom cloud rose into the sky.
The violent explosion of photons engulfed everything within dozens of meters.
Shōhei, who had been trying to flee, was swallowed whole by the blast.
He did not even have time to scream before he was erased on the spot.
"Shōhei!!"
Kagerō roared, his eyes splitting with fury.
Hearing the deafening blast behind him, he hurriedly glanced back.
What he saw was Shōhei disappearing beneath a sea of golden fire.
"Ara ara… are you enjoying the fireworks?"
That joking voice sounded right beside Hunter's ear, making his scalp go numb.
He jerked his head back in horror—
—and saw only a dazzling flash of golden light.
Pfft.
His head separated cleanly from his neck and rose into the air.
In the final moments before his consciousness faded, Hunter saw a headless body still sprinting forward across the ground.
His own body.
At the last instant, his heart filled with unwillingness.
He was an elite jōnin, an inheritor of the Explosion Release.
His greatest strength had always been close combat.
And yet from the moment this battle started, after the first clash, he had been completely overwhelmed.
Through the entire fight, the only things he had managed were a single punch and one half-finished slash.
Neither of them had even touched a single hair on the enemy's head.
How could he accept that?
"Earth Style: Hiding Like a Mole Technique!"
Kagerō, who had also been shaken by the explosion, felt his heart seize with fear. Without hesitation, he plunged underground and fled into the earth.
At this point, staying above ground no longer felt safe to him at all.
"Ara… how troublesome."
"I really should have dealt with you first."
After cutting down Hunter with a sword of light, Yagami moved at once, appearing there in a flash.
But he was still a step too late.
Kagerō had already slipped underground.
That made Yagami narrow his eyes slightly in regret.
Among the three Iwa jōnin who had remained at the end, the other two had injured arms and could not form seals properly. Kagerō had been the only one whose hands were still fully intact.
Yagami had not thought too deeply about it and left him for last.
Now that oversight had allowed him to escape.
"Lord Shōhei!!"
"Lord Kagerō!!"
"Lord Hunter!!"
Cries of alarm rang out one after another from the watching Iwa shinobi.
Everything had happened far too quickly.
Only now did the watching forces fully understand what had just taken place.
With their eyesight, most of them had not been able to clearly follow the battle at all.
When the first shinobi was kicked into their ranks, they had still been stunned, unable to process it.
Then all they saw were flashes of golden light on the battlefield.
After that came the explosion that swallowed Shōhei whole, and then Hunter's body falling apart where he stood.
Six jōnin and elite jōnin had surrounded one man.
And in return, that one man had cut down five of them, leaving only one survivor who escaped by burrowing underground.
To the watching Iwa shinobi, it all felt unreal, like a nightmare they had not yet awakened from.
"Hahaha! That's incredible!"
"As expected of Yagami-sama!"
"He really is absurdly strong!"
On Konoha's side, the trenches erupted with cheers.
Unlike the shaken silence of the Iwa forces, the Konoha shinobi could no longer contain their excitement.
Yagami's strength had stunned them as well.
Their view of the battle had been slightly better than Iwa's, enough for them to roughly follow how Yagami slaughtered the enemy.
That man was simply too powerful.
So powerful it barely made sense.
Throughout the entire battle, the only moment they had lost track of him was when Yagami was briefly dragged into the swamp.
Aside from that, they had seen enough.
From beginning to end, Yagami had held the advantage.
And in the end, he had overwhelmingly killed several of Iwagakure's jōnin in succession.
Even the last one had only escaped by diving underground at the last possible moment.
The result of that battle sent a wave of exhilaration through every Konoha shinobi present.
For days, they had been weighed down by pressure and anxiety.
It had been a long time since they had felt anything like this.
"Captain Hamaki, there's no need for us to move in now, right?"
"That guy… even if he really can't beat a jinchūriki head-on, if he wants to leave, no one here can stop him."
Several Konoha jōnin had gathered together, laughing in relief.
Earlier, they had all been worried about Yagami.
But now that worry felt almost ridiculous.
The man was far stronger than any of them had imagined.
"Yeah… he's ridiculously strong."
Hearing his comrades, Mimura Hamaki could only stare blankly at the battlefield.
He had experienced the Second Great Ninja War.
He had seen many Kage-level fighters with his own eyes.
He had even seen Kage-level shinobi take on multiple jōnin before.
But someone like Yagami—
someone who could overwhelm and kill jōnin this quickly, this easily—
this was the first time in his life he had ever seen such a thing.
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