Kabuto, wary of Naruto's earth ninjutsu created space between himself and the pair.
Kimimaro created a spine whip and bone sword in response, his expression blank.
The shift happened almost simultaneously, and Naruto noticed it immediately. Kabuto hands stayed lit with a green glow, bone projections sprouted from Kimimaro's feet to lock his traction in place against any further ninjutsu.
"Don't try and engage when you don't have to Naruto, our goal is to get back to Jiraiya and Lady Tsunade!
"Relax aunty, I got this," Naruto swiped at his nose a confident smile on his face.
Kimimaro moved upon Naruto's proclamation.
Bone bullets ripped from his fingertips.
Naruto's grin disappeared, he slammed one hand against the ground, and a reinforced wall erupted between them. The projectiles buried themselves several inches into the stone rather than punching through, giving Naruto enough time to pull something large from within a storage scroll in his green overcoat.
Shizune's eyes widened.
The war fan was nearly as tall as Naruto's torso, with a long handle and the unmistakable tomoe design of the Uchiha clan stretched across its face. She had no idea where Naruto had gotten something like that and was becoming increasingly convinced that asking would only create more questions.
Kabuto's eyes narrowed in confusion. How had the Uzumaki come across the seemingly ancient relic?
Naruto's grin returned.
Then he swung.
Wind chakra exploded across the Gunbai.
Wind Release: Cyclone!
The technique had always produced violent winds, but channeling it through the fan changed everything. The Gunbai caught Naruto's chakra, stabilized it, and multiplied the force until the gust became a screaming wall of compressed air.
Kabuto's eyes widened.
"Move!"
The forest of stone Naruto had created worked against them.
Walls rose behind Kabuto and Kimimaro before they could retreat, turning Naruto's Cyclone into a funnel. The amplified wind slammed into both white-haired shinobi and filled the narrow corridor with countless invisible blades.
Kabuto screamed.
His clothing shredded first.
Then his skin.
Thin cuts became deep lacerations within seconds, carving across his arms, chest, face, and legs as he desperately shielded his eyes. Blood filled the air before the blast finally hurled him through Naruto's stone wall.
Kimimaro remained standing.
Barely.
Most of his exposed flesh had been flayed open, but bone plates had emerged beneath his skin before the worst of the attack reached anything important. White armor covered his chest, throat, forearms and face, each plate scratched but largely intact.
Naruto lowered the Gunbai.
"...This thing is awesome."
Shizune was staring at him.
She had watched Tsunade shatter cliffs with a punch and seen Jiraiya perform techniques that could annihilate squads. Somehow, watching a thirteen-year-old turn an ordinary Wind Release into something that had nearly skinned two elite shinobi alive still left her momentarily speechless.
Kabuto climbed out of the rubble.
His body looked horrific.
Then green chakra flooded across him.
Shizune's shock disappeared.
"No."
Muscle pulled itself together.
Severed blood vessels closed before Kabuto could bleed out, while the deepest cuts rapidly contracted into angry red lines. He wasn't restoring himself perfectly, but he was healing injuries that should have ended the fight in seconds.
Naruto stared.
"I definitely hit you."
"You did."
Kabuto's breathing was heavier now.
That made Naruto smile again.
Healing might repair the damage.
It didn't make the chakra free.
"Shizune," Naruto said.
She immediately understood.
"Keep making him heal."
Her cheeks inflated.
A thick cloud of purple poison rolled through the battlefield.
Kabuto retreated before it reached him, but Naruto was already moving. Three shadow clones rushed through the poison without hesitation, knowing they wouldn't live long enough for the toxin to matter.
Kabuto sliced through the first with a chakra scalpel.
The second grabbed his arm.
The third exploded from the smoke behind him.
Kabuto severed its thigh muscles with one precise strike, only for Shizune's senbon to arrive through the disappearing smoke.
Three struck him.
Kabuto's expression changed.
One needle numbed his left shoulder.
Another disrupted the muscles between two ribs.
The third carried poison.
He ripped them free and immediately flooded the wounds with medical chakra.
"Again," Naruto ordered.
Shizune smiled.
They finally had a rhythm.
Naruto created the injuries.
Shizune made them complicated.
Kabuto was better than her at medical ninjutsu—she could admit that now—but that didn't mean his chakra was infinite. If every thirty seconds brought another poison, another torn muscle, another Rail Pierce or another swarm of clones, eventually his healing would become the thing that exhausted him.
Kimimaro interrupted the strategy.
He appeared beside Naruto.
Fast.
Much faster than before.
Naruto barely got the Gunbai between them before a bone blade crashed against its surface. Sparks scattered from the impact, and Naruto's feet dug trenches through the earth as Kimimaro drove him backward.
Their eyes met over the fan.
Black markings were crawling across Kimimaro's skin.
Naruto's grin faded.
The pattern spread from Kimimaro's neck over his face and arms, twisting like living ink. Chakra surged through his weakened body, forcing failing muscles to respond with strength they shouldn't have possessed.
Shizune felt it.
"Naruto!"
Kimimaro disappeared.
Naruto activated the Flash Anklet.
His speed jumped.
Bone and Gunbai collided again.
Then again.
Then six more times in less than three seconds.
Advanced Toad Fist kept Naruto alive. Instead of retreating predictably, he dipped beneath swings, changed rhythm halfway through combinations, and used small movements of Sovereign's Grasp to alter his footing.
A stone platform rose beneath his heel.
Naruto launched sideways.
Kimimaro adjusted.
Naruto twisted around him and drove the Gunbai into his spine like a club.
BANG!
Kimimaro flew through a stone pillar.
Naruto landed.
Then Kimimaro stepped back through the rubble.
His cursed markings had spread farther.
PING!
A notification appeared.
Cursed Seal Detected!
Cursed Seal of Earth — Stage One
Physical capabilities greatly increased.
Naruto grimaced.
"Of course it's called Earth."
Kimimaro rushed him again.
Hundreds of yards away, something enormous screamed.
Naruto's entire battlefield shook.
Everyone stopped for half a second.
A massive cloud of smoke erupted beyond the cliffs, followed by a roar powerful enough to shake leaves from trees kilometers away.
Gamabunta appeared first.
The colossal toad towered over the valley with Jiraiya standing atop his head, pipe clenched between his teeth and tanto already drawn. Across from him, another explosion of smoke revealed a massive purple serpent coiling through the broken stone.
Manda.
Orochimaru stood between his horns.
Then the ground shook a third time.
Shizune turned.
Her eyes widened.
"Katsuyu."
The enormous slug appeared beside the other summons, Tsunade standing atop her head.
She was still pale.
Still shaken.
But standing.
Orochimaru's blood no longer controlled her.
Jiraiya grinned across the battlefield.
"About time."
Tsunade cracked her knuckles.
"Shut up."
Then the three summons moved.
Manda's tail ripped through half the valley.
Gamabunta jumped.
Katsuyu split apart before the tail could strike her directly, hundreds of smaller bodies spilling across the ground while Tsunade launched herself toward Orochimaru.
The impact hit like an earthquake.
Naruto's eyes widened.
"Uh oh."
The cliff beside them collapsed.
"RUN!"
Naruto slammed both hands down.
Sovereign's Grasp surged through the earth, raising a sloped wall that redirected thousands of pounds of falling stone around them. Even reinforced, the structure began cracking almost immediately beneath the avalanche.
Kabuto didn't waste the opportunity.
He darted through the collapsing terrain toward Tsunade.
Shizune intercepted him.
Their hands blurred.
Kabuto's chakra scalpel sliced toward her throat, but Shizune deflected his wrist and drove poisoned senbon toward his liver. Kabuto twisted around the attack, caught her elbow, and struck a nerve cluster that made Shizune's entire arm go numb.
Naruto saw it.
Wind Release: Rail Pierce!
The Gunbai snapped forward.
Instead of firing directly from his fingers, Naruto channeled the compressed projectile across the fan.
The difference was immediate.
The shot became narrower.
Cleaner.
Faster.
Kabuto barely turned before it struck him.
The Rail Pierce punched through his abdomen.
Blood sprayed across the forest floor, a basketball sized hole appearing in Kabuto's stomach. Not even entrails remained, obliterated and scattered by the sharply compressed win.
Kabuto slammed through a tree and disappeared into the brush beyond.
For several seconds, neither Naruto nor Shizune moved.
The forest had gone strangely quiet around the path Kabuto's body had carved through it. Trees leaned at broken angles, blood painted the ground in a long trail, and splinters still rained from the trunk he'd smashed through. Naruto kept the Gunbai raised anyway.
"Tell me he can't heal that," Naruto said.
Shizune stared toward the destruction.
There were limits to medical ninjutsu.
There had to be.
Kabuto had just lost most of his abdomen. A wound like that didn't simply involve blood vessels and muscle; organs had been destroyed outright, and there hadn't been enough left in the center of his torso for even Tsunade to casually stitch back together in the middle of combat.
Shizune swallowed.
"I don't know."
Naruto looked at her.
That was not the answer he wanted.
A bone whip snapped through the space between them.
Naruto shoved Shizune aside and raised the Gunbai just as Kimimaro's spine crashed against it. The impact tore the fan from Naruto's grip and sent it spinning into a nearby tree hard enough to bury the handle several inches into the bark.
Kimimaro didn't even glance toward Kabuto.
His attention remained completely fixed on Naruto.
"Lord Orochimaru's objective remains unchanged."
Naruto rolled back to his feet. "Your friend just got a hole blown through him."
"Then he either survives or he doesn't."
Shizune's expression hardened.
Naruto stared at Kimimaro.
"...You people are seriously messed up."
Kimimaro drew the spine whip back and tightened his grip on the bone sword in his opposite hand. Stage One markings covered nearly his entire visible body now, and the chakra rolling from him had grown harsher by the second.
Then his body spasmed.
Naruto immediately dropped lower.
Shizune raised her senbon.
Kimimaro's breath hitched as the markings across his flesh began spreading together instead of remaining separate. His pale skin darkened, his body bending forward while his shoulders widened beneath the torn remains of his clothing.
Naruto's eyes narrowed.
"Oh, that's probably not good."
PING!
A blue window flashed across his vision.
Cursed Natural Energy detected
The sage's earrings notified Naruto of the source of Kimimaro's toxic power. He dismissed the notification, it would do him no good now.
Kimimaro screamed.
The sound barely resembled the voice Naruto had heard before.
His spine arched violently as bone structures shifted beneath his flesh. A thick tail pushed from the base of his spine, his skin darkening further while his facial structure distorted into something less human. Bone plates covered his entire body, forming a kind of white knight aesthetic. With the addition of a spinal mass of tail that functioned as a tail.
Shizune took an involuntary step backward.
"What did Orochimaru do to him?"
Naruto didn't answer.
He was too busy watching Kimimaro's chakra climb.
Kimimaro slowly straightened.
The blank expression remained.
That somehow made the transformation worse.
"I will not fail Lord Orochimaru."
He vanished.
Naruto barely raised his forearms before Kimimaro's tail slammed into him.
The world blurred.
Naruto crashed through one tree, then another, before Sovereign's Grasp reacted beneath his palm. Earth surged upward behind him and formed a reinforced slope, catching his body before the third impact could send him deeper into the forest.
Naruto coughed.
"Okay."
His ribs hurt.
"That's new."
Shizune was already moving.
She filled the area around Kimimaro with another poison cloud and scattered senbon through the purple mist. Several needles bounced off of his armor, his movements still seemed sluggish however.
The poison was working, although the white knight kept advancing.
Shizune grimaced.
"His metabolism is burning through it faster."
Naruto pushed himself upright. "Can you make it stronger?"
"I can make it deadlier."
"Sounds good."
"It would also be dangerous for you."
Naruto pointed toward Kimimaro.
"More dangerous than that?"
Shizune paused.
"Fair point."
Kimimaro lunged.
Naruto's hand struck the ground.
Trees groaned.
Sovereign's Grasp spread beneath the forest floor, lifting roots and stone together. The ground beneath Kimimaro folded upward into a steep ridge, but Stage Two simply powered through the shifting terrain.
So Naruto changed tactics.
He stopped trying to knock Kimimaro over.
Instead, he moved himself.
A stone platform erupted beneath Naruto's feet and launched him upward just as Kimimaro reached him. Naruto twisted through the air, grabbed the Gunbai from the tree as he passed, and landed on another slab already rising beneath his feet.
Kimimaro followed.
Naruto grinned.
Now the forest moved with him.
Stone ramps formed beneath his steps and vanished immediately afterward. Roots were reinforced into footholds, earth columns launched him between trees, and sudden depressions changed Kimimaro's angles just enough to keep the bone user from lining up a clean strike.
Advanced Toad Fist finally had the environment it wanted.
Naruto bounced from a rising stone ledge, ducked beneath Kimimaro's sword and cracked the edge of the Gunbai across his jaw. Kimimaro's tail whipped around in response, but Naruto let himself fall backward while a stone pillar erupted beneath his back and redirected him around the strike.
His heel smashed into Kimimaro's bone helmet
The transformed shinobi barely moved.
Naruto's eye twitched.
"Could you at least pretend that hurt?"
Kimimaro answered by stabbing downward.
Naruto rolled aside.
The bone sword plunged into the earth.
Naruto slapped both palms down.
Stone instantly closed around the weapon and Kimimaro's forearm.
Sovereign's Grasp!
The earth hardened.
Kimimaro pulled.
For the first time, he didn't immediately break free.
Naruto's grin widened.
"Got you."
Shizune appeared from behind a tree.
Her hands flashed.
A dense black-purple cloud erupted directly into Kimimaro's face.
He stopped breathing immediately.
Too late.
The poison slipped through cracks in the enemy's armor forcing Kimimaro to shift his strategy and retreat briefly.
Kimimaro tore his arm free from the reinforced earth, leaving fragments of bone behind as he retreated. His movements finally became less smooth.
Shizune landed beside Naruto.
"That mixture attacks through mucous membranes and open tissue."
Naruto looked impressed, the brunette and blonde readied themselves for the next exchange.
Naruto swung the Gunbai.
Wind chakra gathered.
He stopped himself before releasing Rail Pierce.
Seven full-powered shots remained.
Kimimaro's bones had already survived one.
Kabuto had demonstrated that even catastrophic damage might not actually remove him from the fight.
Naruto couldn't waste another.
He changed the technique at the last second.
Instead of compressing everything into a single piercing round, Naruto spread the chakra across the fan.
Wind Release: Rail Scatter!
The improvised attack lacked the obscene penetration of Rail Pierce, but dozens of smaller compressed shots exploded through the forest.
Kimimaro raised both arms.
Wind rounds hammered his bone armor.
Some rounds deflected off of angles of bone, others forcing the knight skidding backwards, the sheer weight of bone not allowing Kimimaro off of the ground.
Trees behind him burst apart.
Naruto's arms shook from the recoil.
Shizune stared.
"You can do that?"
Naruto blinked.
"Apparently."
The System chimed.
Improvised Skill Application Detected!
Naruto immediately dismissed the notification.
"Later."
Kimimaro emerged from the shredded trees.
Slower.
Bleeding.
Still coming.
Naruto's grin disappeared.
The cursed seal might have been keeping Kimimaro moving, but it wasn't fixing him. Poison, wind damage and his disease were stacking on top of each other now, and Naruto could finally see the first hints of instability in his movements.
Kimimaro knew it too.
His eyes shifted past Naruto.
Toward the distant battlefield.
Toward Orochimaru.
Then something enormous crashed through the forest behind them.
Manda's body tore through dozens of trees like they were grass.
Naruto grabbed Shizune.
"DOWN!"
They hit the ground as the serpent's tail passed overhead.
Kimimaro disappeared into the exploding forest.
Trees snapped.
Stone shattered.
Dust swallowed everything.
Naruto kept one hand pressed against the ground and raised a reinforced shell around himself and Shizune before the debris could bury them.
For several seconds, there was only noise.
Then silence.
Naruto lowered the wall.
The battlefield was gone.
Where there had been dense forest moments earlier, a massive trench now stretched hundreds of feet through destroyed trees.
Shizune coughed through the dust.
"We need to get back to Lady Tsunade."
Naruto nodded.
Then stopped.
Something moved inside the ruined forest.
Kimimaro stepped from the dust.
His Stage Two form was bleeding from dozens of wounds.
The bone armor covering his body was cracked.
His breathing was ragged.
But he was still standing.
Naruto slowly lifted the Gunbai.
"You have got to be the most stubborn bastard I've ever met."
Kimimaro raised his bone sword.
"No."
His ruined eye focused on Naruto.
"I simply have something worth dying for."
Naruto's expression changed.
Haku flashed through his mind again.
For once, Naruto didn't answer with a joke.
He tightened his grip on the Gunbai.
"So do I."