Cursed Seal of Earth, State Two.
Kimimaro's bones erupted from every pore across his body at once. They did not grow out one by one—they flipped outward in sheets. His ribs completely turned out from his chest like an opened birdcage. His spine protruded from his back, each vertebra extending outward, each extension branching, every branch branching again, until at the tips they became bone spikes, and the bone spikes branched further into bone needles. He was no longer human—he was a bone tree. A tree rooted in a human body, with bones for branches and bones for leaves.
Dance of the Seedling Fern.
The bone trees spread outward from beneath Kimimaro's feet in every direction. They were not roots beneath the earth, but spikes above it. Bone spikes burst from the ground—not one, but thousands. Every spike was connected to the bones in his body, every spike one of his nerve endings. In a single second, the forest clearing became a white-bone hell. The ground was no longer ground, but an ocean of bones. The trees were no longer trees, but pillars of bone. Moonlight no longer shone upon the earth; it shone upon the bones, reflected by them into white light. White light fell upon white bones, making it impossible to tell which was light and which was bone.
Ringo darted through the bone spikes. Steam burst continuously from beneath his feet, not to propel him forward, but to bounce him away. The instant each bone spike erupted from the ground, steam exploded at its side, using the recoil to launch his body toward the gap between the next spikes. It was not speed, but rhythm. The spikes grew in a rhythm: one emerged, paused for one-tenth of a second, then the next emerged. One-tenth of a second