Chapter 62: The Great Swordsman's Slash
FWOOSH—
Ryuzen launched himself forward, closing the distance as his hand settled into the drawing stance. "Armament—"
Kimimaro, now fully transformed into his second form, spun abruptly. Bones wrapped around his right arm, coalescing into a massive spear—the strongest spear, forged from his own skeletal structure. As he turned, he thrust it directly at Ryuzen's approaching form.
Tch. These Shikotsumyaku bones are troublesome.
His killing strike interrupted, Ryuzen halted his charge. Impatience flickered across his features as he drew his blade and unleashed a silver flash.
BOOM!
Sword energy nearly ten meters high erupted from his blade—a tsunami of blood-red light roaring toward Kimimaro. The ground tore beneath it. The sheer force of its passing crushed surrounding grass and flowers to powder.
This time, Kimimaro didn't dodge.
His transformed right arm—the strongest spear—met the sword energy head-on. A man barely over a meter tall challenged a slash three or four stories high. An ant trying to stop an elephant.
The impact drove Kimimaro backward. His feet carved deep trenches in the earth as irresistible force pushed him across the grassland, dragging a long scar behind him.
CRACK—
Hairline fractures spiderwebbed across the bone spear's surface. Small fragments spalled off, glittering in the morning light.
But the spear held.
Kimimaro slid back more than ten meters, the sword energy's power gradually diminishing. After long seconds, it dissipated completely.
The strongest spear had done what Zabuza couldn't. What Uchiha Itachi had chosen to avoid rather than face. It had met Ryuzen's sword energy head-on and survived.
SWISH—THUNK!
Before the dissipating sword energy had fully cleared, before Kimimaro could feel relief, agony exploded from his waist.
He looked down.
His lower body was gone.
Behind him, Ryuzen had already sheathed his sword. He stood with his back to the dying boy, already walking away along his original path. Only a whisper of praise drifted back on the wind:
"You're an impressive warrior. Travel well."
Kimimaro lay on the ground, staring at the blue sky through dimming eyes. White clouds drifted overhead, and in their shifting shapes, he imagined he saw a flower.
The flower reminded him of memories. Of meeting Orochimaru. Of being needed. Of having purpose.
Orochimaru-sama...
The man he worshipped was suffering, waiting for Sasuke's body, waiting for the next vessel to continue his existence.
I have to... I have to...
His fading consciousness suddenly crystallized.
The severed upper body moved. Eyelids, already closing, snapped open.
"Dance... the final dance... Dance of the Seedling Fern."
The whisper was too soft to hear, lost in the wind.
CRACK CRACK CRACK—
The sound reached Ryuzen from far behind him. He turned.
His eyes widened.
A massive forest of bones was erupting from Kimimaro's body—spreading in all directions at terrifying speed. White spikes thicker than trees punched through the earth, racing toward him like a tidal wave.
Damn it! What kind of will is this?!
Ryuzen ran. Toward the forest. Toward any escape. His Body Flicker carried him fast—but the bone forest spread faster.
A shadow rose behind him. Overtook him.
I can't escape.
He stopped running. Turned to face the approaching death. His expression, ugly with frustration moments before, gradually calmed.
His right hand settled on his sword hilt. His eyes closed.
No one was coming to save him. Only he could save himself.
If will can make a dying man use his final strength... then death can force me to use my potential.
Calm. He had to be calm.
The Breath of All Things. The perception that once covered most of Konoha. I need it now.
I will grasp it now.
CRACK CRACK CRACK—
Bones erupted all around him. The sound was deafening.
THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.
His heartbeat drowned out the bone forest. Racing. Pounding. Feeling like it would burst from his chest.
HUFF... HUFF...
His breathing—rapid, desperate, heavy.
No. Not just mine.
The breathing of the grass beneath his feet. The trees in the distance. The air itself. The bones rushing toward him.
Everything breathes.
And I can hear it all.
"Quiet..."
The whisper escaped him unbidden.
The ground still shook. The bone forest still advanced. His heart still thundered. But inside—inside, he had found silence.
Something expanded from him. Like Kenbunshoku Haki, but different. Deeper. A spider weaving its web, with Ryuzen at the center, spreading outward in all directions.
One meter. Ten meters. A hundred meters. Two hundred. Three hundred. Four hundred...
A thousand meters.
The image formed in his mind—crystal clear, more vivid than sight. Flowers and trees. Birds taking flight. Animals frozen in fear. A river flowing undisturbed.
He could perceive it all.
Ryuzen opened his eyes. The bone forest was almost upon him.
His hand drew the sword. Swept it forward.
SHING—
Silver-white light flashed like a comet. Gone in an instant.
BOOM!
No sword energy erupted. No massive slash crossed the sky. But the bone forest directly before him—two to three hundred meters of it—simply collapsed. Sharp spikes sheared off at their bases. Rows of bones fell like harvested wheat, each cut impossibly smooth.
From above, the entire bone forest looked like freshly fallen snow.
RUMBLE—
The ground-shaking didn't stop.
Across the grassland, the forest on the opposite side—three to four hundred meters of dense jungle—suddenly convulsed. Towering trees toppled in rows.
A crescent-shaped arc of sword energy had already passed through them, reaching far beyond.
It continued. Through the forest. Through everything in its path.
Until it met a mountain.
BOOM!
The explosion was colossal. Dust rose in a massive cloud. The ground shook so violently that ninja far away—the retrieval team, the Sand siblings, others—felt it clearly.
When the dust settled, the mountain had changed.
A massive crack split its face—visible from any angle, obvious as a missing slice of fruit. The cut was impossibly smooth, impossibly precise.
And between the mountain and the battlefield, a vast forest lay in ruins, trees felled in perfect rows like harvested grain.
Ryuzen stood amid the devastation, sword still extended from the slash.
Slowly, he sheathed it.
He looked at his hands. At the destruction around him. At the mountain in the distance, now marked forever by his blade.
That was...
The slash of a Great Swordsman.
He had found it. In the moment between life and death, he had grasped what had always been just beyond his reach.
The Breath of All Things, expanded to cover more than a kilometer.
The slash that could cut anything—because he could hear everything's breathing.
He looked down at Kimimaro's remains, now buried beneath his own bone forest.
You pushed me to this. In your final moment, you forced me to surpass myself.
Rest well, warrior.
He turned and walked toward the forest. Toward Naruto and Sasuke. Toward the final battle that awaited.
Behind him, the mountain's new scar gleamed in the morning light—a monument to the moment a genius became something more.<｜end▁of▁thinking｜>
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