Chapter 435: Making Yomi Human Again
Sakura, herself a medical-nin of considerable skill, took a closer look. Faced with the team's strange glances, Taruho appeared remarkably composed, showing no hesitation about his dramatic transformation.
His voice remained that of a man. "This is the duty of a guard. Our lives, our entire existence, is for the sole purpose of protecting Lady Priestess."
Through a secret jutsu, Taruho had transformed into Shion's likeness. The change was total, from the inside out, and it was a one-time, irreversible process.
Ino raised her hand, conjuring a water curtain that would block both scent and most forms of sensory perception, enveloping Shion within it.
Taruho dashed over two hundred meters to the left. The stone soldiers' targeting ability wavered for a moment before they slowly turned to face his position.
The secret jutsu was indeed effective.
With these troublesome soldiers out of the way, Ino felt much more confident about taking Shion to the sealing shrine.
Ino inquired, "So, I'll take Shion to the sealing shrine, and you'll lead the stone soldiers away?"
Taruho, likely fearing his voice would give him away, simply nodded silently.
His combat abilities were average at best, and after transforming into a woman, he had lost a significant amount of his strength. To now be tasked with luring away the stone army, which even Ino found daunting, was essentially a suicide mission.
Shion was unwilling to see him sacrifice himself so readily.
Ino immediately instructed the three members of Team 7 to follow and protect him, telling them to run as far as they could. She herself would take Shion to the sealing location.
Ino called out to Sakura, handing her one of her custom-made kunai.
"If you run into the enemy, just shout, and I'll come save you," she said.
It was Sakura's first time seeing a Flying Thunder God Kunai. She carefully examined the "亥" (Boar) character on the hilt. "So, what should I shout?"
Even though every second counted, Ino couldn't resist teasing the increasingly dazed Sakura. "Just shout 'Ahhh'."
Sakura held the kunai and tried to get into character. "Ah? Ahh—ah, ah!"
Ino covered her mouth, unable to hold back her laughter.
Sakura realized how indecent her shouting sounded, almost like she was moaning.
She shot Ino a furious glare.
"No more nonsense, hurry up and run! The farther the better!" Ino's face turned serious, as if the person who had just been joking was someone else entirely.
Sakura rolled her eyes but still placed the kunai carefully into her ninja pouch.
"A good plan, but you're a step too late!"
Suddenly, an aged voice sounded from behind Ino. Having seen their group through the eyes of the stone soldiers, Yomi descended abruptly from the sky, reaching for Shion.
The moment he attacked, he clearly hesitated. Why were there two Shions here? What was going on? Mōryō's power was of the same origin as the priestess's and should have been easy to distinguish, but Shion's priestess powers had been sealed by her mother, making her seem no different from an ordinary person.
Two ordinary people? Which one should he grab? Yomi's consciousness was already largely consumed by Mōryō, his mind a chaotic mess. Too impatient to think carefully, he made a decision: he would take them both!
"You've been skulking around and spying on us. Did you think I hadn't noticed you?" Ino thrust out her hand, a Rasengan already formed. The chakra vortex slammed squarely into Yomi's chest. The supposedly invincible jutsu was like hitting a pile of foul-smelling mud. Flesh and black energy flew like shrapnel, but Yomi remained completely unharmed.
He stretched out both hands to grab the two Shions. Naruto leaped out first, carrying a composed Shion on his back, and bolted.
Taruho had been acting very calm, and Ino, along with the others, had assumed he was the real one. So, she went to grab the panicked-looking Shion.
Her movements were more than a step faster than Yomi's. She grabbed the priestess, pulled her behind her, and then quickly formed hand seals.
"Water Release: Water Severing Wave!" A line of water shot from left to right, slicing horizontally across Yomi's face at the bridge of his nose. The top half of his head flew high into the air, yet not a single drop of blood spilled. Instead, the severed part was pulled back by countless twisting black threads, which seemed to possess a life of their own. They swiftly stitched the wound back together, leaving it as if it had never been damaged.
Realizing he was outmatched, Yomi retreated into the ranks of the stone soldiers. He cast a venomous glance at Ino before dissolving into black gas and vanishing into thin air.
"You think you can run?" Ino took a deep breath and blew a cloud of pollen in the direction of the black gas.
The colorful pollen drifted into the gas. Before Ino could even infuse it with life energy, a large portion of the pollen was disintegrated by Mōryō's power. However, as Ino formed a hand seal, the remaining pollen began to grow rapidly.
This delay forced Yomi to reappear from the black gas, his eyes filled with malice as he stared at Ino.
The next moment, countless vines erupted and bound him tightly. Mōryō's power quickly began to dissolve her Wood Release, but the plants were growing just as frantically, attempting to annihilate the madman who sought to destroy the world.
"I am immortal! You have no understanding of my power!" Yomi's voice grew muffled and enraged as he struggled with increasing strength.
"Hmph, you just replaced your internal organs with that Mōryō's power, didn't you? Your four subordinates provided me with plenty of experimental material."
Ino continuously increased her chakra output.
A dense network of plant roots pierced his body, and dozens of branches brutally tore open his chest. The area where his organs should have been was completely empty, containing only a dark, black mass of twisted energy that resembled a cluster of roundworms.
Ino looked on with an expression of understanding. "Damn, you really have abandoned your humanity. Don't worry, the Dharma King of the Ten Directions is here to help. You'll become human again today."
Kimimaro's bone growth was a biological miracle. With the infusion of Sharingan energy and the nourishment of spirit water, Kimimaro's bones grew at an astonishing rate.
Whenever she had time, Ino would take a large saw and "crunch, crunch" away at him, sawing off two legs one day and an arm the next.
She had been using Earth Release to grind the bones into a powder without a clear purpose for it. Today, she had finally found one.
Every talent has its purpose.
She tossed two vials of bone powder into Yomi's chest cavity. This was the good stuff.
The plants intertwined, their roots twisting together into thick ropes. After fusing with the bone powder, they transformed into stark white bones. The flowers and leaves became bloody membranes and lymph nodes, while the fruits haphazardly formed into various organs.
The bones, membranes, and internal organs were all connected to his nervous system through the plants. As Mōryō's power began to reject these foreign entities, Yomi's body became a battlefield where the two forces fought for dominance.
A heart had barely half-formed before it was erased by Mōryō's power. Moments later, two kidney-like objects the size of persimmons appeared in his abdominal cavity. The bone growth was even more exaggerated.
The bones continuously pierced through his skin. Infused with Kimimaro's Kekkei Genkai, they grew so rapidly that Mōryō's power couldn't dissolve them fast enough. Soon, Yomi was turned into a human hedgehog by the stark white bones growing from within his own body.
The quills of this hedgehog grew from the inside out.
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