The Geode Maw was neither a canyon nor a piercing in the planet. Crystalline spires jutted jaggedly out of the earth, vibrating with uncivilized Prana which was pulled up through the ley line far beneath the earth. Even air was acute, smelt of ozone and rock-flakes. Here, at the foot of the greatest spire, the guardian was waiting.
And Kurotsuki Shin was as motionless as the geology with which he was impregnated, his man-like face, of porcelain, taking a contrast to the dark, changing skeletal forms that wound about his arms and a body. His feathered mantle of a hard Pranic thread made no movement in the electric air. He was eyeing the two approaching warriors, and his crimson eyes with their golden rims kept the arrival without any dismay.
Raizo Hayate snapped his neck, and a wrathful smile came to his face. "He doesn't look so tough."
Be not thou a fool, Don't be a fool, Raizen Sarutobi said, My hand on the hilt of my Temporal Spirit Katana. His own lavender and red hair appeared to drink in the weird light. "His Prana is perfectly still. That's not a lack of power. It's concentration."
Words were unnecessary to them. The task was straight forward: destroy the protector and destroy the ley line.
Raizo leaped and a green comet of pure motion flew. A sudden, short burst had just come out of his knuckles, his Prana Fist Cannon, and was designed to smash the crystalline spire at the rear of Kurotsuki. The Bone Tyrant didn't dodge. He simply raised a hand. A net of semi-transparent bone, glittering with Prana sprang out of the earth, crossing the blast. The crash was so thunderbolt that the bone shield was able to withstand it only with a webwork of delicate cracks.
It is my turn, Kurotsuki, said in his low, deep voice.
He didn't step; he unleashed. A Bone Prana Barrage of spear projectiles flew out of his body not only of his hands, but of his shoulders, his back, and fell about the two warriors. Raizo turned into a whirlwind, his Eight Inner Gates opened, his fists and feet flew so quickly that they broke the bones as they flew. Raizen was, however, yet another type of fighter. He did not charge the wave; he just sled through it. In his Temporal Prana Step, he was able to step through the deadliest volleys and his emerald eyes followed the paths with an intensity of prism.
His armor heals, cried Raizen, and his sword came out of his sheath. It must be flooded with its adaptive capacity.
"ON IT!" Raizo roared, charging again. this time he put into his blows Lightning Prana, and his fists were like smears of green and white lightning. He was a fighter, a tank, pushing Kurotsuki to his limits with sheer, also rude power.
Kurotsuki met him head-on. His own arms stretched, and wrapped themselves in bone blades like razors. The confrontation was the battle of the squealing metal and snapping power. On each stroke which Raizo delivered, breaking a bone shield, or drawing blood on the armor, it was reformed nearly at once, hardened, modifying its density.
Raizo bred him at the moment, but Raizen passed. He directed Flare Prana burst, and his own body was burning in a blaze of aura like Rengoku. His katana flashed into the sky and as a meteor hit the ground, his sword was not pointed at Kurotsuki, but at the foot of the crystalline spire the heart of the ley line.
A meshwork of Prana filaments, the finer than spider-silk, the sharper than monomolecular wire, flew out of the free hand of Kurotsuki, and tried to entangle Raizen in the middle of his blow. It was a brutality play, right out of the Doflamingo game.
No, no, no, said Raizen. "Genesis Reversal Slash!"
His sword never passed through the fibres. it distorted the environment around them. The threads rewound a moment and the deadly progress reversed sufficiently that his katana made a passage through them. He thrust the blade in the bottom of the spire.
There was a cracking noise so deafening I heard it in the Maw. The drone of the ley line diminished, the brightness in the crystals glaring madly.
Kurotsuki stumbled, the interrupting of the flow of Prana influencing his contact with the source. This is when Raizo realized his opportunity. He gave all the strength of his heart to a last, point-blank Prana Fist Cannon.
The impact was colossal. Skeletal armor of Kurotsuki broke in pieces and flew as shrapnel do. He was hurled aside, and he hit the broken spire.
There was a silence, interrupted only by the hoarse breathing of Raizo and the hiss of the still burning katana of Raizen. They were in position waiting a last desperate retaliation.
It didn't come.
Kurotsuki Shin strained himself to his feet, and his armor was slowly growing back, but slowly. He stared at the broken spire, and then again at the two youthful warriors as they stood one beside the other, he the pillar of destructive power, the other the conqueror of time.
perfection: said Akatsura, and the voice of Kurotsuki remained even, but now a trace of something different--contempt--was in it. A world refurbished into a perfect and perfect garden. No struggle. No growth." He gazed on his own renewing bones. And there is no power in that kind of state. Only... stasis."
He had turned his back on them, which was either an act of sheer arrogance or an unfeigned honour. You have demonstrated that you are not just blind fury. You struggle towards something out of his sterile ideal.
He waved a dismissive hand. "The path is clear. Disrupt the line. Play your part in this... interesting struggle.
He had started to stride away, not towards the shadows, but towards the farther side of the Maw, out of the ley line. He was granting them passage. Not to carry their cause, but the contempt of a warrior at what Cell Akatsura was promising.
The green aura faded round Raizo as he lowered his fists. "What was that about?"
Raizen sheathing his sword, His eyes meditated. Even his guards, it appears, are critical of the vision of perfection which the Architect has.
When they turned to complete the task they were doing on the crumbing ley line, there was no mocking voice of Cell Akatsura in the air. The grinding of earth and of crystal, and the dumb recognition of the fact that the first stroke of an insane plan had, against all probability, been struck.