GURARARARARARARA hey
...foxxy do you know a guy named Sasuke?
Arch watched the snake-fox tilt its head, the confusion on its face so clear it practically had a question mark floating over it.
"GURARARARARARARARA! You don't know him? Well, let me tell you about a guy named Sasuke," Arch said, his eyes gleaming with a mischievous spark. "He had these red eyes—kind of like mine, but with patterns—and when they awakened, he could summon a real giant. First, it starts as a skeleton..."
Arch stood tall, and instead of a tremor, he pulled on the deep, biting chill of the Okuchi no Makami.
He didn't just freeze the air; he sculpted it.
Behind his shoulders, the mist began to thicken and harden into translucent, pale-blue ice. With a series of sharp, crystalline cracks, a massive skeletal arm began to grow. It started from the shoulder blade, forming a thick humerus, then the elbow, the radius and ulna, and finally a massive, clawed hand with elongated fingers.
The ice wasn't brittle—it was dense and reinforced by Arch's sheer willpower.
The ten-foot-tall skeletal arm reached down. With a heavy clank, the frozen fingers wrapped perfectly around the shaft of the Murakumogiri.
"Look at that," Arch grinned, his own arms crossed over his chest. "It's like having an extra pair of hands, but much bigger."
He flexed his mind, and the skeletal arm responded instantly. It lifted the 21-foot naginata as if it weighed no more than a toothpick. Arch felt the connection; he could feel the weight of the weapon through the ice. He knew he could keep going—he could add ribs, a second arm, a skull, and layers of "armor" made of vibrating frost.
With a sharp flick of his thoughts, Arch commanded the ice-arm to swing
WHUUMPH!
The naginata whistled through the air in a massive horizontal arc, the sheer force of the skeletal swing sending a localized blizzard across the cavern.
"Gurararararara! With this, I can make my own Susanoo—the homemade version!" Arch's laughter boomed, the sound vibrating through the ice-skeleton's ribs. "I can't wait to see how far this goes!"
But the temple wasn't going to wait for a full transformation.
The battle with Kyukon, the tilting of the island, and Arch's new freezing pressure had finally pushed the ancient structure past its limit. A deep, tectonic groan echoed through the chamber, and massive orange slabs of stone began to rain from the ceiling. The pillars that held up the weight of the mountain were snapping like toothpicks
"Hey, Foxxy! We're getting out of here!"
Arch didn't waste a second. He snapped his fingers, and the blue sphere of his ROOM expanded instantly, cutting through the falling debris and the thick stone walls. He searched for a signature—anything on the surface. He caught the heat signature of a lone twisted tree near the entrance.
"SHAMBLES!"
In a flicker of blue light, Arch and the snake-fox vanished.
They reappeared on a high ridge overlooking the temple entrance. Arch stood tall, the 21-foot Murakumogiri planted firmly in the earth, as he and the creature watched the scene below
The ground where the temple stood began to groan and buckle. Slowly, the massive orange structure—the history, the murals, and the place where Kyukon had kept his vigil—began to sink into the earth. The abyss was swallowing itself, burying the secret of the Guardian Deity deep beneath the crust of Wano. A massive cloud of dust and snow billowed up, settling over the new crater.
Arch watched in silence for a moment, the cold wind whipping his white hair.
"Well," he said, the ice-skeleton on his back slowly melting back into mist as he relaxed. "There goes the neighborhood."
Arch watched the last of the ice-mist evaporate into the mountain air. With a casual flick of his wrist, he spun the massive weapon.
"Fall back, Murakumogiri."
A swirling dark orb manifested in mid-air and swallowed the 21-foot naginata whole. The orb shrank and flattened, solidifying into a sleek playing card that drifted down into Arch's palm. The card shimmered with a faint, appreciativ glow, as if the weapon itself was satisfied with the day's work.
"Thanks for today," Arch muttered with a smirk, tucking the card back into his System inventory.
He looked down at the massive crater where the temple once stood. The dust was finally settling, burying the history of the old Guardian forever. "That was some real fight. Not gonna lie... that made me feel alive."
He stood there for a moment, the silence of the mountain top only broken by the wind. He clapped his hands together, bowing his head in one final, solemn prayer for Kyukon and for the temple.
"Gurararara... alright, Foxxy. Let's find some shelter. The sun's about to go down."
The snake-fox nodded, its 18-foot tail coiling loosely behind it as it fell into step beside him. As they walked along the jagged ridge, the orange light of the setting sun catching Arch's white hair, he looked at his strange companion.
"Hey, Foxxy... what should I name you? I can't keep calling you 'Snake-Fox' forever...what should i name you?
-------- to be continued------