"My era... it never even started?"
The Third Raikage muttered the words to himself, his voice a hollow, distraught rasp. The unshakable certainty of being the 'Strongest Raikage'—the man who dared to believe he could claim this age as his own—was now a map of jagged, weeping cracks, mirroring the wounds on his chest.
"Whether you call yourself a king of this age or a ghost of the past, it doesn't matter," Ikki said, his voice slicing through the silence. "From the beginning, it was all just a figment of your imagination. You were dreaming, kid."
The words were the final blow. Ai's resolve snapped. He vomited a thick mist of blood, and the body that the Hidden Cloud believed would never fall slammed into the dirt with a heavy, final thud.
He didn't even have the strength to remain on his knees. As his pride and will were dismantled, the physical power supporting his massive frame simply evaporated.
"Hahaha!"
A sound began to rise from the dirt—a self-deprecating, desperate laugh that chilled the bones of everyone listening.
"It's all fake! A fantasy! Nothing but my own self-righteous delusions!" Ai's voice grew louder, bordering on insanity. "The 'Era of the Raikage'... it never existed at all!"
"Lord Raikage!"
Troy and the other Cloud shinobi watched in horror. Their faces were pale, their hearts heavy with a grief they couldn't name. This was the pride of the Land of Thunder. This was the man they looked up to as a god of war. To see him now—broken, prostrate, and laughing like a madman in the mud—was like watching their village's soul being ground into the abyss.
Tutai felt it most of all. Only hours ago, the Third Raikage had been a titan of confidence, bold enough to dismiss legends as relics. Now, the disparity between that man and this broken shell was as vast as the heaven and the mire. Tutai's eyes burned red, his mind racing with a manic, helpless fury.
"The Third Raikage... he's finished," Danzo murmured.
"And the Cloud's campaign along with him," Tsunade added.
The Konoha commanders watched the scene with a mix of relief and a strange, unexpected somberness. They had won. Or rather, Ikki had won. The hero who had been away for half an era had returned to crush a false monarchy with an absolute, terrifying grace. He had proven that while the world might change, the 'Era of the Iron Fist' was a permanent fixture of reality.
"Lord Raikage, please, don't do this..."
Tutai couldn't watch any longer. He rushed forward, reaching out to help the fallen man. But Ai, still shaking with that horrific laughter, violently shoved him away.
"Get away from me!"
The Third Raikage stood up, his movements jerky and unstable. His eyes were bloodshot, the gaze of a man who had lost everything and had nothing left but spite. Then, the Lightning Style Armor that Ikki had shattered began to reappear.
But it was different.
The roaring blue electricity rose like a jet of flame, but then it began to darken. It shifted from a brilliant white-blue to a terrifying, pitch-black hue. The sound of the thunder grew more violent, a low, guttural growl that shook the very air.
"What is that?"
"Is it a mutation of the Lightning Style?"
Danzo and the others tensed. They had thought the Raikage had suffered a mental breakdown, and they were right—but a broken Raikage was still a Raikage. Driven by the collapse of his faith, Ai was now acting with a suicidal, reckless courage.
"It's the Black Lightning," Tutai whispered, his eyes widening before he closed them in pain. He couldn't bear to look. He knew this wasn't a resurgence of strength; it was a final, desperate act of self-destruction.
"I am the strongest!" Ai roared, his voice cracking. "No one takes my era away! Not even you, Ikki Shinomiya!"
The Raikage lunged. He moved so fast he vanished into a cloud of his own displacement. He appeared in front of Ikki in an instant, his right hand extended, a single finger pointed at Ikki's heart.
"Hell Stab: One-Finger Spear!"
Even before the strike landed, the momentum—like the roar of a Tailed Beast—crushed the air between them. The sheer force of the Black Lightning made Ikki's black suit rattle violently against his frame.
But Ikki's eyes didn't even flicker.
He stood perfectly still, watching the desperate man. He had seen this look before—the frantic, doomed eyes of a man who realized he was outmatched. He had seen it in Ishikawa, the First Tsuchikage. He had seen it in the First Kazekage and Uchiha Izuna. The names changed, but the desperation was always the same.
"Finger Pistol."
As the Raikage's lethal strike neared, Ikki casually raised his hand. He extended his index finger with a movement that possessed no weight, no effort—and intercepted the 'Strongest Spear' head-on.