Chapter 61 (Patreon)

A sharp rush of wind tore across the grassland.

Mihawk appeared before Kimimaro in an instant, lowering his body into a sword-drawing stance as his hand closed around the hilt.

Before he could complete the draw, Kimimaro—now in the second state of his Cursed Seal—suddenly twisted around.

Bones erupted from his right arm, rapidly layering over one another until they formed an enormous spiraling spear. With the momentum of his turn, he thrust it directly toward Mihawk.

Mihawk’s eyes narrowed.

“The bones of the Shikotsumyaku really are troublesome.”

The strike he had timed to end the battle was intercepted by Kimimaro’s bone spear.

Mihawk halted his advance, irritation briefly crossing his face. He drew his sword and swept it forward, releasing a vast silver-white Ranged Slash.

Boom!

The slash expanded into a wave nearly ten meters high and surged across the grassland like a roaring tsunami.

The earth split apart beneath it. The violent pressure pulverized the surrounding flowers and grass, scattering them into the air as fine dust.

This time, Kimimaro did not attempt to evade.

He planted his feet and raised the bone spear formed by the Dance of the Clematis: Flower, meeting Mihawk’s Ranged Slash head-on.

Compared to the towering wave of sword energy, Kimimaro’s body appeared impossibly small—like an ant attempting to stop an elephant.

The instant the two forces collided, Kimimaro was driven backward.

His feet dug into the ground, carving two long trenches through the earth as the overwhelming force pushed him more than ten meters across the grassland.

Crack!

Fractures spread across the surface of the bone spear.

Fragments of white bone splintered away and scattered through the air.

Even Rock Lee’s Reverse Lotus had failed to shatter Kimimaro’s bones, yet Mihawk’s slash had cracked the weapon Kimimaro considered his strongest spear.

Still, the spear held.

Kimimaro continued resisting as the silver-white wave gradually weakened. After more than ten seconds, the remaining sword energy finally dispersed into the wind.

It was the same kind of attack that Zabuza Momochi had been unable to withstand and that even Itachi Uchiha had chosen to evade.

Kimimaro had become the first person to receive it directly and remain standing.

However, before even the slightest relief could appear on his face, a sharp pain tore through his waist.

Kimimaro lowered his gaze.

His lower body was gone.

Behind him, Mihawk calmly slid his sword back into its sheath. Without turning around, he began retracing his steps.

Only his quiet voice remained behind, carried gently by the breeze.

“You were a formidable shinobi. Rest now.”

Kimimaro’s upper body fell onto the grass.

His eyes stared silently into the endless blue sky. As his vision gradually blurred, one of the white clouds drifting overhead seemed to take the shape of a flower.

The sight pulled him back into a distant memory—the day he had first met Orochimaru.

Orochimaru had given purpose to a child who had believed his existence was meaningless.

And now, the person Kimimaro worshipped above all else was suffering, waiting for Sasuke Uchiha to arrive so that he could obtain a new body and begin his rebirth.

Kimimaro’s fading consciousness suddenly became clear again.

His eyes, which had already begun to close, opened once more.

His severed upper body trembled as he forced out the last remnants of his chakra.

“Let us dance…”

His voice was so faint that it was nearly swallowed by the wind.

“One final time…”

“Dance of the Seedling Fern.”

Poof!

The sound of something sharp piercing flesh reached Mihawk’s ears.

He stopped and turned his head.

Kimimaro’s upper body was sinking into an enormous white bone that had erupted from beneath him.

At the same moment, countless sharpened bones burst from the earth in every direction, spreading across the grassland toward Mihawk at a terrifying speed.

Mihawk’s pupils contracted.

For the first time during the battle, genuine surprise disturbed his composure.

“Even after receiving a fatal wound…”

His gaze hardened as the advancing forest of bones swallowed the land between them.

“What kind of will keeps him moving?”

Mihawk turned and raced toward the distant forest.

He had deliberately limited himself throughout the battle, using only enough strength to test Kimimaro and sharpen his own technique. He could have ended everything with overwhelming force from the beginning, but doing so would have offered him nothing.

Kimimaro’s final technique, however, covered a far greater area than he had anticipated.

Mihawk’s Body Flicker Technique carried him across the grassland at tremendous speed, but the forest of bones spread even faster.

Behind him, countless white shadows rose higher and higher.

The distance rapidly disappeared.

“At this rate, I won’t outrun it.”

Mihawk stopped.

He turned to face the approaching bone forest, and the brief tension in his expression slowly vanished.

Running would gain him nothing.

Rather than abandon the restraint he had imposed upon himself and destroy everything through brute force, he would use Kimimaro’s final attack to push his perception beyond its current limit.

Mihawk slowly closed his eyes and placed his right hand upon the hilt of his sword.

No one was coming to save him.

He had no need for anyone to do so.

If Kimimaro’s will could draw one final technique from a body already standing at death’s door, then this pressure could also force Mihawk to break through the boundary obstructing him.

Calm down.

He needed to become completely calm.

The more dangerous the moment appeared, the quieter his mind had to become.

He had already heard the Breath of All Things before. Once, his perception had expanded far enough to encompass a large portion of Konoha.

He only needed to capture that sensation again.

Poof! Poof! Poof!

Bones continuously tore through the earth around him.

The tremors grew closer.

The roar of the advancing bone forest filled the grassland, but little by little, those sounds began to fade from Mihawk’s awareness.

Instead, the beating of his own heart became deafening.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

His heartbeat accelerated until it seemed ready to burst from his chest.

“Haa… Haa…”

Each breath felt unusually heavy.

At first, he could hear only his own breathing.

Then other sounds emerged.

The breathing of flowers and trees.

The breathing of the air.

Even the breathing of the bones surging toward him.

“So quiet…”

A soft murmur escaped Mihawk’s lips.

The earth was shaking.

The bone forest was roaring.

His heart was pounding, and his breathing remained rapid.

Yet his thoughts and emotions had become perfectly still.

An invisible field of perception spread outward from Mihawk like an enormous spiderweb.

One meter.

Ten meters.

One hundred meters.

Two hundred.

Three hundred.

Four hundred…

One thousand meters.

Everything within that range appeared inside his mind with extraordinary clarity.

The flowers bending beneath the pressure.

The trees trembling at the edge of the forest.

The birds and animals fleeing from the disturbance.

The river flowing through the distant woods.

Even the countless bones beneath the earth had become visible to his senses before they emerged.

It was an awareness similar to Observation Haki, born from the Breath of All Things yet extending far beyond what Mihawk had previously achieved.

Mihawk slowly opened his eyes.

His gaze settled upon the bone forest now only moments away.

With a perfectly calm expression, he tightened his grip upon his sword, drew the blade, and swept it horizontally.

Swoosh!

An unprecedented silver-white light crossed the grassland like a passing comet.

It flashed only once before disappearing.

Boom!

The approaching bone forest collapsed.

Countless sharpened bones shattered simultaneously, their upper halves severed by a single perfectly level cut.

Across an area nearly three hundred meters wide, the towering white forest fell like a field of wheat harvested in one stroke.

Viewed from above, the entire grassland appeared to have been buried beneath white snow.

Yet the rumbling did not stop.

Boom!

On the opposite side of the grassland, the surrounding forest suddenly shook.

From left to right, an area spanning nearly four hundred meters was severed at once. Rows of towering trees toppled in unison, each trunk bearing the same smooth, perfectly straight cut.

A crescent-shaped Ranged Slash had already entered the forest.

Every tree in its path was split apart without slowing its advance.

The slash continued until a mountain finally stood before it.

Boom!!

A deafening explosion shook the entire region.

A massive cloud of dust rose into the sky, completely concealing the mountainside.

The violent tremor travelled across the surrounding land. Even Naruto, who had already gone far ahead, and Gaara’s group could hear the distant impact.

When the dust finally dispersed, an enormous gash had appeared across the mountain.

Nearly one-fifth of its side had been carved away as cleanly as a slice cut from an apple.

Between the grassland and the mountain, a vast section of forest had been flattened. Hundreds of severed trees lay scattered across the ground, leaving behind a scene that resembled the aftermath of an enormous logging operation.