Before Arata's Lightning Armor had fully activated, Madara's Tailed Beast Bomb had already finished charging. Seizing the moment while Arata's Lightning Armor had yet to completely take shape, Uchiha Madara immediately hurled it forward!
Watching from the sidelines, White Zetsu wore a look of fear as he muttered,
"Whoa, whoa… this isn't a fight I can get involved in. Time to bail~"
As he spoke, White Zetsu's body sank straight into the soil, swiftly fleeing toward the distance.
Fortunately for him, his Earth Style was exceptionally strong. Even when the Tailed Beast Bomb detonated, it wouldn't be able to harm him—after all, his jutsu allowed him to burrow hundreds of meters underground. For ordinary people, reaching even a hundred meters would already be the absolute limit of their bodies.
The instant White Zetsu disappeared beneath the ground, that terrifying Tailed Beast Bomb detonated!
At the moment of explosion, space itself seemed to fall silent for a split second—then came a thunderous blast so violent it instantly deafened anyone nearby.
In just an instant, the horrific shockwave engulfed an area spanning dozens of kilometers.
An explosion of this magnitude could be seen clearly even from over a hundred kilometers away!
The Uzumaki clansmen who had retreated earlier still hadn't fully escaped the blast radius. Though they were more than ten kilometers from the epicenter, they were still caught up in the aftermath.
Fortunately, Arata and Madara had exchanged words before truly clashing; otherwise, the Uzumaki would have been right at the center of the explosion.
At this level, the shockwave shouldn't be enough to completely wipe out the Uzumaki clan—but those who survived would likely all be chūnin-level or above.
That said, the Uzumaki clan's average strength was never low to begin with. Even many of the elderly members still maintained chūnin-level combat ability.
...
Hundreds of kilometers away, in Konoha, deep within the Land of Fire, Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had fled earlier, had already returned to the village.
Upon arriving, he was utterly shaken.
His greatest pillar of support—the Monkey Sage—had died in battle. That was a sage, after all, someone with late–super-Kage-level strength!
Even setting that aside, the reckoning from the Monkey clan alone was more than he could bear.
The Monkey clan was second only to the Three Great Sage Nations. Within it were at least four Kage-level Monkey Sages, not to mention countless elite jōnin.
Now that their ancestral patriarch had perished, that hatred would inevitably be placed squarely on Hiruzen Sarutobi's shoulders.
Thus, the moment he returned to Konoha, he began scheming—thinking of how to shift the blame so that the Monkey clan would instead target Arata.
At this point, he had no energy left to compete with Arata over the Hokage position. If he failed to give the Monkey clan a reasonable explanation, the Sarutobi clan might be wiped out without Arata even lifting a finger!
Just as panic gripped him, the ground suddenly began to quake.
Judging by the intensity, it was a super-earthquake—something he had only witnessed once in his entire life.
As the terrifying tremors spread, many of Konoha's more simply constructed buildings collapsed instantly. Some civilians didn't even have time to react before being crushed to death.
Thankfully, Konoha hadn't yet reached its peak of development. There weren't many tall buildings; most structures were only one or two stories high.
So although the quake caused massive structural damage—and even tore open cracks along the main roads—the casualties were still within a controllable range.
Yet this violent shaking instantly dredged up memories for Hiruzen Sarutobi—memories from decades ago, of a certain night.
The same level of catastrophic earthquake.
The same chaos consuming Konoha.
All caused by two men battling far outside the village.
That night was etched into the annals of shinobi history: the Battle of the Valley of the End.
The two men who fought then—Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama—were titans who stood at the absolute pinnacle of the shinobi world. As Hokage, Hiruzen knew all too well that their strength had reached the very peak of the super-Kage tier.
Now that tremors of this magnitude were occurring again… could it be that another super-Kage apex monster was fighting?
With that thought, Hiruzen hurried to the window. Using the height advantage of the Hokage Tower, he barely managed to glimpse, at the very edge of his vision, a horrifying explosion aftershock.
The orange-red shockwave, like an inverted bowl slamming down upon the land—it wasn't the first time he had seen something like this.
Back then, it had been caused by Madara controlling the Nine-Tails.
At that realization, Hiruzen whispered in disbelief,
"Could it be… that man was never truly dead…?"
As shock seized him, ANBU arrived outside his office, clearly waiting for instructions on how to deploy personnel next.
Hiruzen quickly forced himself to calm down. He knew full well that an explosion of this scale could only be a Nine-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb—but he didn't dare go and see it himself. If he were even slightly caught in the edge of it, he wouldn't even know how he died.
All he could do now was protect Konoha and reinforce his image as a great Hokage in the eyes of the villagers.
Yet in his heart, he silently prayed:
"Please… let Uchiha Madara still be alive. Kill Arata for me."
He knew that direction well—it was the direction of the Land of Whirlpools. The only super-Kage-level existence there was Arata, and the Nine-Tails had been sealed within Mito.
Moreover, after Madara's supposed death, there had always been rumors that his body had gone missing. Even as Hokage, Hiruzen had never been fully convinced Madara was truly dead.
So more than anything, he wished Madara were alive—alive, and capable of eliminating his two greatest threats in one stroke.
...
It wasn't just Hiruzen.
Throughout Konoha, every elderly villager who had lived through that era was reminded of the great battles of the past.
At this moment, Konoha was truly engulfed by fear.
Even the Second Great Shinobi War had never frightened them like this. Only the shockwaves of battles between beings at the very peak of the shinobi world could cast such a shadow over a colossal village like Konoha.
Inside the Senju estate, Shizune had already been led outside to take shelter by the household attendants.
Beside her stood Kushina Uzumaki, two years her senior. Kushina held Shizune's hand and asked with concern,
"Shizune, are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Kushina had only been staying at Arata's home for a short time, but she had already grown close to Shizune.
She liked the adorable little girl a great deal—and Shizune, in turn, seemed to adore Kushina's red hair—so the two got along quite well.
There were plenty of Arata's subordinates guarding this estate, so they were in no real danger. Those civilian shinobi Arata had taken in earlier were finally proving their worth.
The captain personally overseeing their protection was Shiyan, the man whose life Arata had once saved.
Seeing that neither Kushina nor Shizune was injured, he finally let out a breath of relief. Then he quickly ushered them forward, saying,
"Please hurry, you two. The earthquake may worsen from here on out."