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Chapter 453: White Bones Grow Flesh, Dead Wife and Son Crawl Out of the Grave
Zephyr suddenly fell silent. His broad chest heaved violently, his breathing growing abnormally ragged.
He slowly reached his left hand into his inner breast pocket. His movements were painstakingly careful, terrified of shattering some fragile dream.
He pulled out an ancient, weathered scroll. Written across it in a language he couldn't read were characters that meant: Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Jutsu.
Cradling the scroll, Zephyr's thick, calloused hands trembled uncontrollably. Even his heavy mechanical arm rattled, the gears grinding with a harsh, metallic clatter.
"Marie. Son." Zephyr pressed the scroll against his cheek. Two streams of cloudy tears finally broke the dam, tracking down his deeply carved wrinkles and dripping onto the grass below.
"I used to think that once you lose something, it's gone forever. That the dead cannot return to life—that was the iron rule of this world. But that tavern owner told me... in that 'Ninja World,' there truly is a forbidden jutsu that can bring the dead back to life."
Zephyr fell to his knees before the graves. He buried his head low, his massive shoulders convulsing with overwhelming emotion.
He hadn't even opened the scroll yet, but he knew exactly what was inside. It was the miracle he had traded his blood, sweat, and very life to earn in that alien slaughterhouse. It was a supreme jutsu that defied the very laws of life and death.
"The moment this batch of recruits graduates, I'm resigning all my commissions," Zephyr declared, wiping his tears and looking up at the photograph with a smile more agonizing than a sob.
"I'll take you both far away from here. We'll find a small island with no pirates and no wars. I'll build us a big house. I won't be some 'Marine Hero' ever again. I'll just be a normal husband. A normal father."
Zephyr tucked the scroll safely back against his chest. He stood up, dusting the dirt from his pants. The last slivers of the sunset caught his purple hair. His eyes, which had been dead and hollow for decades, now blazed with a roaring fire of life. It was a light far more dazzling than any Haki.
He turned around and strode down the mountain, his steps impossibly firm. Even his bulky mechanical arm felt lighter.
The sea breeze continued to sweep through the cemetery, rustling the white daisies. The two solid gravestones stood silently in place, as if waiting for a reunion that transcended death itself.
But Zephyr didn't go all the way down. Halfway down the mountain path, he stopped. The heavy Seastone arm ached against his shoulder. He looked back up toward the cemetery at the peak. The night wind wildly thrashed the white flowers.
He pressed a hand against his chest, feeling the hard shape of the scroll.
Why wait? Why should I wait to finish training those recruits? He had bled enough for the Marines for one lifetime. It cost him his wife and his son; was he supposed to throw the rest of his broken life into that bottomless pit too?
Zephyr spun around and marched back up. His strides grew faster and faster until he broke into a dead sprint, his purple hair whipping wildly in the wind. Panting heavily, he arrived back before the two graves.
"I'm not waiting anymore." Zephyr dropped onto the grass. Using his only hand, he pulled the ancient scroll back out.
The parchment felt like animal skin, carrying a stale stench of old blood. Blake had told him that this Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Jutsu was the most unreasonable, reality-breaking miracle in the entire ninja world.
The price? The caster's own life force.
He bared his teeth in a savage grin. Life force? If there was one thing his old, battered body had plenty of, it was a worthless, lingering life. He would gladly trade his life for theirs without a second thought.
Biting down hard on his left thumb, he smeared the blood across the scroll's sealing mark. The crimson blood rapidly spread along the eerie black patterns.
A faint glow emanated from the parchment. Immediately, Zephyr felt his Haki—and the strange new energy called Chakra—being violently ripped from his body. It felt as if an industrial pump had been jammed directly into his heart.
The agonizing pain forced a grunt from his throat, but his expression didn't so much as twitch. Compared to the decades of torture, of hearing his wife and child scream in his nightmares every single night, this pain was absolutely nothing.
The light from the scroll surged into blinding brilliance. The very air around him warped and distorted. Behind Zephyr, a colossal, phantom-like silhouette slowly materialized.
It was an enormous, terrifying visage with massive fangs—the King of Hell. The entity that ruled over the dead, just as Blake had described.
Zephyr tilted his head back, staring up at the phantom that loomed larger than the Marine Headquarters fortress.
"GIVE THEM BACK TO ME!" Zephyr roared like a cornered beast. He slammed his left hand onto the ground, pouring every last drop of his energy into the jutsu without holding back.
The healthy color drained from his face at a visible rate, turning ashen and gray. Large patches of his purple hair bleached completely white.
The King of Hell parted its abyssal maw. Two spheres of pure white light drifted out from its jaws, floating gently down to sink into the soil directly in front of the gravestones.
The earth trembled. It was as if invisible hands were parting the soil of the overgrown graves.
Zephyr's breathing completely stopped. His eyes were wide with a frantic, desperate intensity as he watched the white light vanish into the dirt.
A miracle was unfolding in this desolate graveyard.
White bones rapidly knitted with fresh crimson flesh. Withered, decayed hair regained its silken luster. Under the absolute authority of the jutsu, even the clothes they wore the day they died were perfectly reconstructed.
Five minutes passed. Perhaps less. To Zephyr, those few minutes felt infinitely longer than the last several decades of his life combined.
From within the parted earth, a faint, fragile coughing sound emerged.
"It's so dark… Honey, where are you?"
It was a woman's weak, fragile voice.
Zephyr froze, struck as if by lightning. His heavy mechanical arm hit the dirt with a dull thud. He practically crawled to the edge of the freshly opened pit.
Sitting in the dirt was a pale-faced woman. Clutched tightly in her arms was a five- or six-year-old boy, his face streaked with tears and absolute terror.
"Daddy!" The boy wailed, throwing his arms out toward the man peering into the pit.
Zephyr's iron will finally shattered. Using his left arm, he pulled the mother and son into a desperate, crushing embrace.
"I'm here. I'm right here."
Zephyr buried his face in his wife's hair, sobbing uncontrollably, clinging to them like a drowning man.
The woman was clearly disoriented. Her final memory was of that bloody afternoon—the sneering pirate walking toward them with a drawn blade, her throwing her body over her son in a desperate bid to protect him, and then… endless darkness.
"Where is that pirate?"
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