"I'm truly sorry," Ikki said, his grin widening as he idly tossed the pebble in his right hand. "I searched, but I really couldn't find a stone any smaller than this one."
"You dare humiliate me?!" the Third Raikage roared, his voice trembling with a mixture of fury and disbelief.
He was the Third Raikage—the man history would call the strongest to ever lead the Hidden Cloud. Since the legendary era of the Warring States ended and the White Fang had taken his own life, the world had come to view this as his era. To be faced with a common roadside pebble was a slight he couldn't ignore.
"You think this is meant to insult you?" Ikki asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
"Is it not?" the Raikage spat through gritted teeth. The Lightning Style Chakra coiling around his body grew more violent, the white-blue sparks snapping like whip-cracks. "A pebble? You think a toy like that could even scratch my skin, let alone pierce the Strongest Shield? If that isn't a humiliation, what is?!"
Behind him, the Cloud shinobi, who had been paralyzed by fear only moments ago, felt their own tempers flare. To see their leader—their god of war—mocked so casually by a man they viewed as a ghost was unbearable.
"Look, I'm not like those shameless ninjas who go all-out against children," Ikki said, his tone shifting to something remarkably earnest. "You might be a famous Raikage to some, but in my eyes, you're just a kid who hasn't finished growing. This stone is more than enough. If I used anything larger, I'd be afraid of overdoing it."
"Ikki Shinomiya!" The Raikage's eyes went wide with a murderous fire. He slammed his foot into the earth, shattering the ground beneath him, and launched forward. He moved like a bolt of jagged lightning, a sonic boom trailing in his wake. "On the name of the Third Raikage, I will break you!"
"Fist Bone Meteorite."
Ikki's fingers closed around the pebble. Streams of ebony-and-purple energy suddenly erupted from his hand, coiling around the stone like hungry serpents. With a sharp, metallic ping, the brownish pebble was instantly stained a deep, obsidian black, reflecting the light like polished tempered steel.
The Raikage's instincts screamed. The moment that stone turned black, an ominous, suffocating aura flooded the battlefield, making his very soul feel restless and exposed.
Fwoosh—!
Before the Raikage could even process a change in direction, Ikki flicked his wrist. The black stone vanished. A high-pitched, piercing whistle tore through the air, so sharp that every ninja on the field instinctively clutched their ears in agony.
The Raikage saw the blur. He tried to flicker away, but he was already committed to his charge. A force as absolute as the tide slammed into his chest, instantly arresting his momentum.
BOOM.
With the Raikage as the epicenter, a shockwave erupted that rivaled the detonation of a Tailed Beast Bomb. The air itself rippled for miles, an overwhelming wall of pressure that flattened the landscape. Cloud shinobi a thousand meters away were blown off their feet like autumn leaves; those further back were forced to bury their weapons into the ground just to keep from being swept away.
As the dust settled and the howling wind died down, a horrific sight greeted the survivors.
The Third Raikage's "Strongest Armor" was still active, but a jagged hole the size of two palms had been punched through the center of it. Behind the crackling lightning, his massive chest was covered in a network of hairline fractures that made the onlookers' skin crawl. He looked like a piece of fine porcelain that had been struck by a hammer—one touch, one breath, and he would shatter into a thousand bloody pieces.
"It... it can't be..."
"Someone release the genjutsu! This has to be an illusion!"
The Cloud ninja collapsed. Some fell to their knees; others simply stared with hollow eyes. They had watched their leader tank Tailed Beast Bombs from the Eight-Tails without a scratch. How could he be dismantled by a pebble found by the side of the road?
Puff—
A mist of blood sprayed from the Raikage's mouth. The titan of the Hidden Cloud, the man who had never known defeat, slowly sank to his knees.
The pride of the Land of Thunder, the myth of the "Raikage's Era," and the legend of the Strongest Shield... all of it withered in that single spray of scarlet. A wave of absolute despair washed over the Cloud forces, drowning their will to fight.
The Raikage looked up with agonizing effort. He stared at the man in the black suit—the man he had called a "remnant" only minutes before. As he felt his strength failing, the truth of Ikki's words finally settled in his mind like a tombstone.
He truly is a titan... and this world is far too small to hold him.