The dense forest of sharpened bones, born from a surge of chakra, drew the attention of every Edo Tensei on the battlefield.
Even Madara Uchiha, sitting idly outside the fray, lifted his gaze toward the bone forest. A technique of this scale was enough to make him take notice.
Inside the bone forest, Guy frowned. Though he had shattered the bones erupting beneath him, he was still trapped in a narrow space, surrounded by hard bone pillars stretching far and wide. Escaping would take effort.
Shhk!
A faint sound pricked his ear. Guy tensed instantly.
From the side of a massive bone pillar, the cursed-seal-transformed Kimimaro emerged. His right arm had become a spiraled bone lance, which he thrust toward Guy's back.
The whistle of the bone spear cutting the air gave Guy just enough warning. He sidestepped to the right, avoiding the strike, then twisted at the waist and lashed out with a kick.
Boom!
Kimimaro's body shattered into fragments of bone.
"Bones?"
Seeing his opponent reduced to pieces of skeleton, Guy grew wary.
That sneak attack revealed Kimimaro's ability, to freely control the surrounding bones, or even move through them as if they were extensions of his own body. It left Guy with two choices: fight Kimimaro head-on inside the forest, or find a way to escape it.
Though often single-minded outside of combat, once in battle Guy was anything but dull.
He considered briefly, then chose to stay and face him head-on. A jutsu of this scale must have consumed tremendous chakra, and Guy could sense the unwavering will in Kimimaro: the pure, untainted resolve to defeat his enemy.
After trading blows, Guy could feel it clearly. And so he decided to meet it directly.
Kimimaro's first ambush foiled, he appeared again, this time on a bone pillar before Guy, spiraled bone spear lunging forward.
"Useless!"
Guy roared, easily dodging the thrust and countering with a punch. The blow exploded in a gale of force, shattering both Kimimaro and the pillar into dust.
Barely escaping death once again thanks to the Shikotsumyaku, Kimimaro hid within another bone pillar, face grim.
Twice now, he had been a split second away from being killed outright. In his current state, one clean hit from Guy would end him.
Yet even under such risk, he did not relent. Emerging from pillar after pillar, he launched attack after attack, only for Guy to shatter each attempt.
Every fallen pillar marked another failed strike.
The more pillars collapsed, the larger Guy's arena became, and the weaker Kimimaro's offense grew.
This all-or-nothing gamble had yielded nothing. Against overwhelming strength, perhaps no amount of effort could prevail.
Though Guy had deflected every assault, his own breathing had grown heavier. The battle was no small drain on him either.
Within a hundred-meter circle, the ground was littered with bone dust. Not a single pillar remained standing.
Guy stood at the center, voice steady as he called out: "Hiding now is meaningless. Come out."
At his words, Kimimaro emerged slowly from a pillar before him, as though stepping from the bone itself. His face was weary, exhaustion plain.
Though he had seized the terrain, he still hadn't landed a blow. Helplessness gnawed at him.
He was unwilling.
He had risked everything, just to clear one obstacle for Ye Zi, but reality had shown him only cruelty.
His chest heaved, breath ragged. Fixing Guy with cold eyes, he inhaled deeply, forcing his breath under control.
No matter how unwilling he was, he would not despair.No matter how powerless, he would not give up.Even knowing it was futile, he would fight to the end.
"…My final move." A look of grim resolve spread across Kimimaro's face.
Sensing the change, Guy stiffened. He didn't rush to strike, for he felt Kimimaro's death-wish.
"You…"
"At the very least… this is what I can do."
Kimimaro pressed both hands to the ground. What little chakra he had left surged forth like a floodgate opened, pouring into the earth. As his reserves drained dry, the cursed seal drew directly from his life force, burning it into chakra and driving it down through his arms.
Guy's expression hardened. The chakra radiating from Kimimaro was immense, enough to make him hesitate.
"The final… Dance of the Seedling Fern."
Kimimaro's body began to liquefy into white essence, seeping into the ground.
"Lord Ye Zi… I'll only disappoint you again…"
His eyes dimmed with sorrow, then flared again with light, resolve blazing bright.
The black markings of the curse seal ignited like flame, its power ruthlessly devouring his life.
Moments later, Kimimaro's form had completely melted into the ground, gone from sight.
He had poured the most precious spark of life into one final strike.
Guy, watching him sink away, suddenly felt every bone pillar around him bristle with danger.
"What technique is this?" The oppressive sense of peril was suffocating. He steeled himself, wary on all sides.
Then, all at once, every pillar within a hundred meters trembled. A massive tide of chakra erupted silently.
"Hm?"
From outside the battlefield, Madara glanced again at the forest of bones. His eyes sharpened. The chakra reminded him of something familiar, akin to Hashirama's Deep Forest Emergence at its peak.
"Not bad," he muttered.
At the heart of it, Guy bore the full weight of the storm.
He stared as nearly a thousand bone pillars surged together, converging like two colossal palms closing around him. In their grasp, he was as insignificant as a mosquito.
The forest closed in, every sharp pillar aimed at him, pressing from all directions like a crushing tidal wave, leaving no room to flee.
Guy gritted his teeth.
"The Seventh Gate, open!"
The green aura surrounding him blazed into blue steam, roaring around his body.
In that instant, Kimimaro had succeeded. He had forced Guy to stop holding back. And that meant one fewer overwhelming foe for Ye Zi.
The tide of bone pillars surged like a thousand hands of the Buddha, crashing in on Guy from every side.
Boom! Boom! Boom…!
The thunderous detonations drowned out every other sound of battle, becoming the sole rhythm of the field.
White bone shadows engulfed Guy completely, their impact raising choking clouds of dust, laced with bone fragments.
Each shattered pillar was Kimimaro's bone, each one broken, each one destroyed, dragging him closer to death.
Thick yellow-white smoke smothered the area. From within, one blast after another echoed outward, like thunder rolling through storm clouds.
A life laid down, for one purpose only: to take one powerful enemy away from Lord Ye Zi's path.
Far ahead, having left the First Division behind, Ye Zi suddenly heard the rumble from the rear. He turned, and his eyes caught the drifting white haze in the sky, like bone ash scattered by the wind.
For a moment he watched, and a strange emptiness tugged at him, as though something had been lost.
He didn't linger on it. Facing forward again, his eyes fell on the battle ahead, where the clash of clones and the Allied Forces raged on.
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