One after another, giant cubes, no longer resisting the pull of gravity, came crashing down to the ground.
[Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!]
The extraordinarily heavy cubes smashed most of the trees that tried to block them into powder, while the rest were batted away by Aramaki, who had taken the form of a giant treant.
Even so, the effect of the giant cubes once again disrupted Aramaki.
He could clearly feel his Observation Haki being severely interfered with.
And this time, Jigen would not give him time to clear away the surrounding cubes.
[Boom!]
In an instant, Jigen erupted again, rings of sonic booms detonating in the air.
His whole body turned into a lightning-like white afterimage, his kick slamming into the treant's abdomen.
Aramaki had no time at all to defend.
The towering treant, dozens of meters high, was sent flying nearly 300 meters.
Along the way, all the trees and land were devastated, crushed as if swept clean.
This time it wasn't a clone—Aramaki had truly taken a heavy blow, once more coughing up a mouthful of blood.
"Sage Chakra?!"
Aramaki, half-kneeling in a massive crater, clutched his splintered bark abdomen in pain.
If it had been ordinary chakra, it wouldn't have harmed his elementalized body at all.
But Jigen's kick carried the aura of natural energy.
And indeed, that was the case—Jigen was one of the earliest monks in the shinobi world to train in natural energy.
This was both good and bad for Ōtsutsuki Isshiki, who possessed him.
Good, because natural energy had evolved the 'Black Kāma'.
Bad, because Jigen's talent was too low.
Whether it was his body or the natural energy he trained in, neither was enough to bear all of Isshiki's 'data'.
[Bang! Bang! Bang!]
Jigen used the same trick again, summoning giant cubes one after another to fall all around Aramaki, continuing to seal off his Observation Haki.
This made Aramaki's face even darker.
But he could only once again conjure countless trees, attacking Jigen with one hand while pushing the cubes away with the other.
Jigen's fighting style likewise didn't change.
Relying on speed advantage, sensory advantage, and his ability to shrink at will.
He slipped easily past the dense branches, again and again pummeling Aramaki's body.
If Aramaki didn't have a decent level of Armament Haki, and on top of that abundant stamina, his giant treant would not have been able to hold out.
In fact, Jigen hadn't expected Aramaki to be so troublesome.
He had assumed the fight would be over in at most thirty minutes, but judging from the current situation, it would take more than a few hours.
Fortunately this place was near the desert center of the Land of Wind, hundreds of kilometers from Rōran and Sunagakure.
For the moment there was no need to worry about anyone interfering.
Jigen steadied himself and, with blow after blow, wore down Aramaki's Haki.
Time trickled away like sand in an hourglass.
[Boom, boom, boom, boom.]
Accompanied by thunderous detonations, their battle almost smashed the ground to pieces.
Aramaki's roars were continuous, echoing across the battlefield.
"Beast! Bastard! Die!!!"
He was in unbearable agony—his perception sealed, unable to land a hit.
Instead, the other side kept landing heavy blows that left him humiliated and in excruciating pain.
This fellow called Jigen possessed an astonishing amount of strength.
Aramaki could not see a hope of victory. He was beginning to panic.
Feeling the accumulated injuries in his body—already exceeding what photosynthesis and the Seimei Kikan could keep up with—he immediately felt the urge to retreat.
He ordered his clone to continue controlling the giant treant, while his true body silently slipped along the roots and returned underground toward Rōran.
Yet Aramaki did not notice when Jigen's pupils had turned white.
This was Ōtsutsuki Isshiki inside him using the power of the Byakugan.
Jigen could clearly see a mass of pale green energy moving downward along the roots.
"Only now thinking of running? A bit too late."
Jigen looked calm, but his response was not slow.
Sukunahikona!
"Ahhhh—!"
In the next instant, Aramaki's true body emerged from underground in human form, letting out a piercing scream.
All over his body were blood-stained black rods driven through him.
Not only that, but in his agony Aramaki was horrified to find that these rods, while draining his strength, were also disrupting the flow of energy within him.
This left him not only weak and powerless, but even unable to use his Woods-Woods Fruit ability.
At the same time, all the black rods, controlled remotely, paid no heed to Aramaki's frantic howls.
They forcibly hauled his blood-soaked body through the soil above, dragging him back to the wrecked and shattered battlefield.
Jigen stood there, coldly watching Aramaki collapse on the ground, as if inspecting prey already in his grasp.
"Didn't you notice? Ten minutes ago, your Haki was already unable to stop my chakra rods."
"D-damn it, you bastard, do you know what you're doing?!"
"Of course I know."
Jigen spread his palm, condensing a black rhomboid crystal within it, containing a complete copy of his own data.
"From this moment on, you will be my 'vessel'. This is the honor granted to you."
[Whoosh—]
As soon as the words fell, the crystal shot like a bullet into Aramaki's scarred, blood-drenched bare chest and fused into him!
"Ahhhhhh————"
"You bastard, what did you put inside my body!"
Sensing the 'Black Kama' stabbing into his chest, Aramaki grew more flustered, instinctively struggling with all his might.
But the chakra rods stuck all through his body left him unable to use the slightest bit of strength.
"Relax, you won't die, but I'm going to take you away."
Jigen was actually quite wary of the World Government.
Whether it was the large number of strong fighters, or the Dimensional Gates connecting worlds, all gave him an unfathomable feeling.
So after driving in the 'Black Kama', he prepared to keep Aramaki by his side, waiting for the data within him to completely thaw.
Otherwise, if Aramaki went to another world, or fell under the strict protection of the World Government—
Then even if the data fully thawed, it would be far too difficult for him to find Aramaki again.
[Whoosh!]
Aramaki noticed Jigen's figure vanish in an instant, not knowing where he had gone.
"What is this!"
Very soon, Aramaki discovered that the soil beneath him had somehow turned into a black, smooth surface, which seemed to be rumbling as it rose upward.
At the same time, a vast shadow fell over him. Aramaki strained to look up.
At once he saw a black dome edged with a glowing red rim breaking through the clouds and slowly descending toward him.
This drove Aramaki into utter despair. Was he about to be locked away?
Manifesting in midair, Jigen's cold eyes watched the sealing cauldron gradually close.
He prepared to seal Aramaki into the cauldron, then shrink it, store it inside the space of 'Daikokuten', and finally send it into the alternate dimension where the Ten Tails was imprisoned.
Normally, the thawing time of a 'Black Kama' was no more than half a year.
Jigen's eyes burned with fervor.
He stared greedily at the sealing cauldron, now less than a meter apart and about to fully close.
[Bang!]
No unexpected accident seemed to occur, yet Jigen's reaction was somewhat strange.
His smiling expression suddenly froze, then in the blink of an eye twisted into an angry, hideous scowl.
"Who!!!"
Because he had sensed, at the very instant when the 'lid' and the 'cauldron' were about to close together—
Aramaki's presence suddenly vanished without a trace.
This was definitely some kind of spatial ability that transferred Aramaki away!
Jigen could not help but let out a furious roar.
Those eyes, brimming with malice, swept back and forth across the surroundings, sensing every corner.
Yet after nearly a full minute, he discovered nothing.
On the other side, within a green-glowing space apart.
Imu examined Aramaki, whose body was pierced all over with black rods, blood pouring from him.
On his shoulder stood little Kaguya, and behind him was Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo.
In fact, they had followed Golden Canopy Rope here an hour earlier.
Seeing Aramaki fighting Jigen, they had slipped into this space to secretly observe.
What Imu mainly wanted was to see how far Aramaki could go against Jigen, and by the way gauge Jigen's strength.
Best of all would be if Aramaki could force Ōtsutsuki Isshiki inside Jigen to reveal himself.
Unfortunately, Aramaki had been overestimated.
"This guy is still that strong. Over a thousand years of combat experience have given him extraordinary battle skills. Even across the entire Ōtsutsuki main family, Isshiki is one of the foremost!"
Little Kaguya, peering through the faintly green-glowing surface of the space, gnashed her teeth as she watched Ōtsutsuki Isshiki outside.
By comparison, she had been nothing but a maidservant in those years.
So even though she had eaten the finest chakra fruit and awakened an unprecedented Rinne Sharingan, she still could not properly wield the energy and power within her.
It was fine enough to deal with the weak, but when facing a powerful enemy of similar level—
She could only rely on her 'immortal and indestructible' trait to cling to survival.
But that did not mean she had nothing to fear. Not to mention there were sealing methods.
With the Ōtsutsuki's overwhelming means of transforming energy—
As long as they restrained her, they could turn her into a chakra fruit at any time.
"A thousand years of battle experience and skill, huh."
Imu mused, casually drawing out the chakra rods from Aramaki's body through the air.
At the same time—
Aramaki was in a dazed state.
He dumbly looked at Imu floating in midair, and at the Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo behind him.
He had never seen Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo, but those Rinnegan eyes were familiar.
So Aramaki could roughly guess that Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo was someone from the shinobi world.
This instantly made Aramaki wary.
Had he been targeted by another bastard from the shinobi world?
But Imu's act of just now pulling out the black rods made him suspect this might be one of his own.
The key was that he sensed Haki on Imu's body—and it was an exceptionally powerful Haki!
"Hagoromo, explain to him."
Having said that, Imu vanished from the spot in an instant, leaving this separate space, though he left little Kaguya behind.
Little Kaguya also understood that following along would only be a hindrance.
She promptly hopped onto her son's shoulder.
Her pair of pale eyes settled on Aramaki, filled with intense curiosity.
"You're pretty strong. How many like you does the World Government still have?"
She felt that the strength Aramaki had displayed was already enough to participate in battles between Ōtsutsuki.
That was already remarkable!
"Uh…"
Aramaki muttered inwardly: Who the hell are you? Can you at least tell me who you people are!
He then looked toward Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo, wanting to first hear his explanation of the situation.
But before he could, little Kaguya spoke again, her gaze falling on the Black Kama in his chest, sighing softly: "Eh, he's already become a 'vessel'?"
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