Boom—Boom—Boom!!!
The deafening explosions tore across the battlefield, each blast followed by a hurricane-like shockwave that swept outward.
The shinobi who had just escaped from the island instinctively turned back, unable to resist looking.
A pillar of blinding lightning engulfed the colossal body of the Three-Tails. The searing thunder stretched upward like a divine column, as though it were connecting heaven and earth itself.
"What kind of Lightning Style is this?!"
The Mist shinobi who had once followed Yagura trembled, their fear especially clear among the Ghost Lantern clan.
If that attack had been directed at them instead of the beast… they would have been vaporized on the spot, bodies shattered before they could even scream.
Fortunate… it didn't target us… the Ghost Lantern shinobi thought with a collective shiver.
But where Mist felt only terror, the Sand shinobi reacted with elation. Their eyes gleamed, fists clenched, hearts swelling with pride.
"As expected of Lord Aizen! Even a tailed beast is no cause for fear!"
Their voices rose in a fervent cheer—
Whoosh!!!
The celebration died instantly.
Three enormous tails, their armored scales glimmering like silver steel, lashed through the lightning column. With a single swing, they shattered the thunder pillar into fragments that split apart the sky itself.
The beast's body, charred and blackened from the strike, only seemed to grow more furious. Its bellow shook the heavens, and with no hesitation it began spitting out a barrage of high-level Water Style techniques, each wave crashing toward Aizen in midair.
"Kidō Number Sixty-Three, abandoned chant… and still it barely injured him?" Aizen murmured, dodging with effortless Shunpo, his figure flickering between the torrents. "Even without my full power, that spell should have done more. As expected of a tailed beast… he can endure it."
The Three-Tails roared, each failed strike only stoking its rage. Its chakra surged wildly, spilling into the air like a rising storm.
The ocean itself responded.
The waters around the island began to swell, surging higher and higher until the waves rushed inland, threatening to swallow everything whole.
"What—what is it doing now?!"
"He's altering the battlefield! He's changing the terrain to maximize his strength!"
Panic spread quickly. The shinobi felt the cold sea flood around their legs and hurriedly pushed chakra to their feet, leaping onto the rising surface before they were swept away.
Whoosh!
Without warning, the Three-Tails dove beneath the surface, its massive frame vanishing into the depths.
A tense silence fell. Every shinobi present felt their hearts lurch—each imagining the monster erupting from beneath them at any second.
Behind Aizen's mask, his Sharingan spun calmly. Though the beast was hidden, chakra was not—it blazed beneath the surface, a massive presence rushing straight toward him.
The tailed beast's true weapon.
So far in shinobi history, only the Third Raikage had ever survived meeting such an attack head-on—and even that was due to his unmatched physical body and taijutsu.
Aizen was not that kind of fighter. He had no natural defense to rely on. And here, in the air above the sea, evasion was impossible.
The Tailed Beast Bomb…
From deep below, a flash of power surged.
The Three-Tails' maw opened wide, its throat glowing with spiraling black and violet energy. The sphere condensed, compressing raw destruction into a perfect form—before firing upward like a blazing comet.
A single Tailed Beast Bomb, carrying the force to obliterate mountains, tore through the sea and air alike, aimed directly at Aizen.
"Lord Aizen!!!"
Pakura's cry cut through the battlefield, echoed by the voices of Sand and even Mist shinobi alike, their fear ringing as one.
But in the face of a strike that transcended even Kage-level might, Aizen did not falter.
His right hand lifted, raising Kyōka Suigetsu high into the heavens. The blade's tip pointed at the endless sky, its edge gleaming with unfathomable light.
At the very instant the Tailed Beast Bomb closed in, Reiatsu flared—bursting from his body in a tidal wave of crushing power.
And Kyōka Suigetsu fell.