Moonlit Deathmatch: Bone and Poison Vines

The bone sword pierced through the tree trunk first, its serrated edge grazing past Chiba's throat. Before the severed collar could hit the ground, the Kaguya boy had already crushed the broken wood beneath his feet, driving his second sword straight at Chiba's chest.

Chiba twisted aside from the blade. The vine spear in his palm slid forward along the bone sword, but its hardened wooden body could not withstand the serrated cutting edge. The short spear snapped in two.

"Weak."

"Your wood is weaker."

The boy flicked his wrist, guiding the bone sword along the broken end of the vine spear toward Chiba's fingers. At the same time, short spikes thrust from his shoulder, sealing off the angle for a close-range counterattack.

Chiba released the broken spear. His right fist slipped between the bone spikes and drove toward the puncture wound beneath the other boy's ribs.

Before his fist could touch the cloth, a fresh layer of bone rose beneath the skin, blocking the blow.

"You saw the wound."

The boy drove his knee into Chiba's abdomen, a row of bone blades springing from the front of it.

"But you can't touch it."

The earth split open beneath them, and Paralysis Vine coiled around his ankle. Purple markings raced along the vine toward his skin.

The boy did not look down. His knee bone extended outward and spun half a turn along his calf, slicing the freshly tightened Poison Vine into several pieces.

The severed vines still writhed as they fell.

New roots had already burrowed out beneath the cuts, locking around that foot again.

"Regeneration?"

The boy stepped on the vine roots. A curved bone grew from the top of his foot and hooked out the main root hidden underground.

"Then I'll cut it again."

The bone blade fell, severing the second wave of Poison Vine.

Chiba closed in while he was looking down. His elbow struck the side of the bone sword, his left hand clamped onto the boy's shoulder, and Scorch Vine crawled from his sleeve toward the boy's neck.

"Got you."

"You caught bone."

The boy's shoulder bulged outward. Several bone spikes punched through his short shirt, forcing Chiba to release him and retreat.

Scorch Vine had already wrapped around one of the bone spikes, but its poison could only remain on the pale surface, unable to find a gap through which it could enter flesh.

[Target bone density continues to increase.]

[Toxin has not contacted skin.]

The boy swung his bone sword and cut away the Scorch Vine on his shoulder.

"Your poison needs to touch flesh."

"Bone grows from flesh too."

"Then find it."

The boy crossed his arms. A series of soft cracks came from beneath his back as his bones shifted.

New bone extended from his shoulders to his elbows, then spread across his chest and abdomen against his skin. Plates of bone interlocked, sealing the wounds along his ribs within the armor.

The coverage reached his legs last, leaving only narrow gaps at the joints for movement.

[Target has entered Bone Armor Mode.]

Chiba controlled Sleep Vine to rise from all sides. The thin vines avoided the surface of the bone armor and specifically curled toward the backs of his knees and elbows.

The boy stepped forward.

The bone plates at his knees shifted apart with the movement. Short blades hidden in the gaps sliced through the vines. More than ten Sleep Vines lasted only a breath before they were all left behind.

"Still looking for gaps?"

"You said that too soon."

A severed piece of Sleep Vine stuck to the inside of a bone plate, tiny spores rolling through the gap toward his skin.

The boy's right leg paused for half a step.

Chiba had already gripped a regrown vine spear, its tip pressing against that section of bone armor.

The wooden spearhead struck the bone plate. Its mineralized outer layer cracked, while the vine core inside bent with it.

The boy kicked the shaft.

The vine spear flew from Chiba's hand and embedded itself in a nearby tree root.

"So what if you found one?"

His right leg resumed moving, and the skin beneath the bone armor showed no signs of paralysis.

The boy pulled a bone spike from his shoulder and casually scraped away the remnants of Sleep Vine from the gap in his armor.

"My bones absorb the chakra that seeps in. Poison can't enter my blood."

Chiba glanced at the fallen spores.

Their purple color was fading. The poison within had indeed been blocked by the bone armor.

Since Poison Vine had taken shape, this was the first time it had failed to even touch the opponent's skin.

"Without poison, what do you have left?"

The boy held his bone sword across his body. His armor plates scraped as they expanded outward, long blades growing from his elbows and knees.

"Fists."

"Then come on."

The two of them vaulted over the fallen log at the same time.

The bone sword swung toward Chiba's shoulder. Hardening Vine grew over his arm, blocking the first round of cuts.

Wood chips were carried away by the serrations, and the vine body regenerated from the opening.

The second sword cut chased into the gap.

The fresh vines had not yet hardened before they were severed again by the bone blade.

"Can you cut them all?"

Chiba wrapped vine roots around the bone sword. His fist passed over the blade and smashed into the bone plate on the boy's chest.

The bone armor dented inward slightly, while the skin on Chiba's fist split from the recoil.

"Your hand will break first."

The bone spike on the boy's shoulder extended forward, slicing down along Chiba's arm.

Hardening Vine covered the wound in time. The bone spike cut into the wooden layer and became lodged in the vine core before it could close.

Chiba clamped the bone spike and twisted sideways.

The spike snapped from the boy's shoulder.

"Got it."

"Keep it."

The boy did not fight for it. A second bone spike immediately grew from his shoulder.

Thin branches suddenly sprouted from inside the broken old bone, piercing through the Hardening Vine wrapped around it and stabbing toward Chiba's palm.

Chiba threw away the broken bone. Several bloody punctures had already appeared on the back of his hand.

"Even after leaving my body, bone can keep growing."

"Residual chakra."

"You know quite a lot."

The boy stepped over the broken bone on the ground. With every step, bone nails grew from the soles of his feet and pierced the hidden root systems.

The Poison Vines Chiba had buried lost their connection one after another.

"Did the laboratory teach you that?"

"They only taught me how to lie down."

The bone sword swept upward from below. Chiba retreated to avoid the strike to his abdomen, but the earth beside his foot was pushed up by another bone spike.

The boy had planted the broken bone underground beforehand, allowing the bone matter to continue growing along the chakra.

"And how to kill."

Chiba stomped on the underground bone spike, breaking it. Paralysis Vine seized the boy's sword-wielding wrist in the opening.

Short blades extended from the outer layer of the bone armor, cutting through the vine again.

Cut.

Regrow.

The bone blade fell with it.

New vines burst from beside the old roots, more numerous than before, wrapping separately around the bone sword and elbow.

A row of thin blades unfolded across the boy's entire bone armor. He spun forward, severing every vine that came near from its roots.

Chiba did not withdraw his chakra. After the severed vines fell, they continued crawling toward the bone armor.

"You're wasting your strength."

"You're growing bones too."

"My bones won't run out."

"Your blood will."

Blood was already seeping from beneath the armor plates along the boy's ribs.

Repeatedly externalizing his bones was tearing open wounds that had not yet healed. The thicker the bone armor became, the greater the drain on his body.

He wiped a hand across an armor plate. Seeing the blood on his fingers, he instead extended the bone sword another length.

"Planning to wait until I bleed dry?"

"I'm not interested in waiting."

Chiba pressed both hands to the ground. The broken vines scattered around them plunged into the soil at the same time.

Every segment of vine regrew its roots. Poison could not penetrate the bone armor, but the wood itself could restrict his joints.

Layers of tangled vines quickly piled up around the boy's feet.

The bone blades fell again and again, and the vine tangles replenished themselves again and again.

"How much longer can you keep this up?"

"Longer than you."

The boy's sword swings continued to accelerate, while more and more blood seeped from between the joints of his bone armor.

The root network beneath Chiba's palms was breaking apart in sheets as well. Chakra was being drained through every regrown vine, and a stabbing ache of depletion began to run through his chakra pathways.

[Remaining chakra is below the stable combat threshold.]

"Shut up."

"Who are you talking to?"

The boy cut through the final ring of tangled vines. His bone sword descended from the upper right toward Chiba's neck.

Chiba raised Hardening Vine to block it. The vine held for only a moment before being sliced apart. The bone blade grazed past his shoulder, leaving a downward-slanting wound.

Blood fell into the mud, and the fine roots around it immediately absorbed it.

The boy saw this and turned his bone sword toward the ground.

"So you're feeding on your own blood too."

The blade plunged into the earth, severing the root network hidden below one section after another.

Chiba raised his hand. Only a few Poison Vines remained beside his palm.

The boy pulled out his bone sword. Blood from his bone armor had already run down to his ankles.

"No more wood."

Chiba stepped on a piece of broken bone that was still growing.

"But there's still bone."

On the system panel, the dark white branch finally lit up with its first tangible node.

[Highly active Shikotsumyaku sample has been contacted.]

[Combat evolution collection initiated.]

The boy stopped attacking for the first time.

"What are you doing with my bones?"

Chiba had Hardening Vine wrap around the broken bone beneath his foot. Wooden conduits began drawing out the residual chakra within it.

"Kaguya Shuo Ya, that name is fake, isn't it?"

A brief laugh came from inside the bone armor.

"Shuo Ya was the name the laboratory wrote on the tank."

The boy raised his bone sword again. At the same time, the broken bone beneath Chiba's foot released chakra into his body.

"Kaguya Byakuya is the man you can't kill."

As the vines in Chiba's palm began to turn white, Kaguya Byakuya had already transformed the entire forest clearing into a hunting ground of bone blades.