But this was a good thing, Kaminari thought with a smile in his heart. He then began to attempt using his mental energy to trol the eleagic force surrounding his body and direct it downward.

  Sure enough, uhe influence of the eleagic force, the iron particles in the soil began to tremble. As Kaminari's excitement grew, the frequency of the tremors increased.

  "Rise!" Kaminari shouted in his mind.

  The moment, with the bamboo pole he stood on as the ter, a radius of five meters erupted with iron sand from the soil. The particles surged upward and gathered into ten bck clouds, floating in a circur formation around him.

  "It... worked?!"

  Kaminari sed his surroundings with his radar. When he saw the bck iron clouds encirg him, he felt a surge of joy and even an urge to cry.

  "Finally... finally, my ability has e into its own! These iron sands represent a level of fine trol that rivals Misaka Mikoto herself!"

  He was so excited that he overlooked one small detail: Misaka Mikoto could directly manipute eleic devices. In parison, Kaminari was only managiromagic force, and the precisioweewo was vastly different.

  As for raw power, the gap was eveer. Misaka Mikoto could summon thunderclouds to call down real lightning, capable of delivering over a billion volts.

  But that was something Kaminari could refle ter, once he'd calmed down.

  "What's going ohere?"

  At that moment, Edgeshot, who had just finished breakfast and was tidying up the dishes, stepped outside and saw Kaminari's dispy. He automatically became an observer, watg from a distance.

  "This kid's always ing up with something new," Edgeshot muttered to himself. Though he had only been staying with Kaminari for less than a week, he admired the boy's creativity and drive.

  "Ah, youth. Full of surprises."

  Just as Edgeshot was refleg on this, the hairs on his body suddenly stood on end. His instincts kicked iing off arms in his mind.

  "Swish!"

  In the blink of an eye, dozens of slender beedles shot out from the iron clouds and pierced the ground where Edgeshot had just been standing. His figure blurred into an afterimage as he dodged to a safer position.

  "Not bad, kid."

  But the assault wasn't over. Wave after wave of needle-like iron shards unched from the bck clouds, targeting Edgeshot relentlessly. Each time the needles hit the ground, they returo the bck clouds, merging bato the swirling formation.

  "This brat…"

  Edgeshot's expression shifted as he entered a bat-ready stance. From this point onward, he was no longer just Edgeshot—he was the Ninja Hero: Edgeshot, Japan's No. 5 Pro Hero.

  "So, you want to challenge me, huh?"

  Edgeshot's lips curled into a faint smile. "Alright, let's see what you've got, Kaminari."

  Without hesitation, Edgeshot transformed into a long, thin blur and fearlessly dashed toward Kaminari, who remaiop the bamboo pole.

  "Swish!"

  The beedles fired again, but this time Edgeshot weaved through them effortlessly. His agility allowed him to dodge every needle in the barrage as he tio close the distance.

  "Incredible!" Kaminari thought, his radar trag every move. "He dodged all the beedles in an instant. Is this the teique Master talked about before?"

  Edgeshot's movements were so refihat he no longer needed his usual acceleration teiques to enhance his speed.

  Still, Kaminari ched his fists. "But I won't go down that easily!"

  In the moment, the bck clouds stopped firing needles and instead released dereams of iron sand, flooding the area with sheer volume.

  "Let's see how you get out of this one, Master!" Kaminari thought to himself.

  However, Edgeshot wasn't fazed. As the iron sand swarmed toward him, his body twisted in mid-air with incredible precision, abruptly ging his trajectory. With a motion, he soared upward, avoiding the attatirely.

  Then, drawing a graceful arc through the sky, Edgeshot dived straight for Kaminari once more.

  "It's useless," Kaminari muttered under his breath. "My radar pinpoint your exact location, even through all this iron sand."

  "Bang!"

  The first soni from Edgeshot's paper-thin arm attack was blocked by the bck cloud shielding Kaminari.

  "Swish!"

  "Bang!"

  For the several mihe fight became a bad-forth of offense and defense. Kaminari used his bck clouds to shield himself from tless high-speed attacks while trying to unch terattacks with the iron sand.

  Edgeshot's unparalleled speed created the illusion of multiple afterimages surrounding Kaminari. These phantom es utacks from every angle, vanishing only to be repced by new ones seds ter.

  If someone else had been watg this spectacle—like Kosuke Abe earlier—they would've witnessed a dazzling se: dozens of Edgeshot-like figures besieging Kaminari, who stood in the middle of it all, protected by swirling bck clouds.

  "This method of trolling iron sand doesn't take much physical energy," Kaminari thought, sweat f on his brow, "and the electricity ption is minimal. But it's mentally exhausting. stant tration is required, especially against Master's relentless, high-speed attacks."

  Indeed, his forehead was visibly drenched, and the fight had only sted ten minutes.

  "No wonder Misaka Mikoto trol iron sand whenever she wants but rarely uses it as often as someone like Gaara. The mental strain must be the issue," Kaminari realized.

  "After all, Gaara's sand has a will of its own, but my iron sand requires stant manipution."

  Edgeshot, meanwhile, had also picked up on a ge in the bck clouds.

  "Their rea speed is slowing," he noted, narrowing his eyes. "This teique must have its limitations. Is it a matter of time, or something else?"

  P this, Edgeshot suddenly accelerated, breaking past the speed of sound.

  "It's over."

  A loud soni followed, but Kaminari heard Edgeshot's words before the sound reached him.

  "Crash!"

  The moment, the iron sand proteg Kaminari colpsed. All the particles fell to the ground like raindrops, leaving the previously green patch of nd coated in bck.