Diego knew he had lost.
Frustration burned inside him, but he couldn't deny it—Kujo Ishiki, this man, was even more troublesome than he'd imagined.
He had calculated everything before the battle had even begun.
Now, Diego's thoughts were hazy, vision blurring as Ishiki steadily approached. Diego threw back his head and let out a roar that shook the heavens.
He couldn't accept this!
Victory had been within reach—Ishiki's skin had already begun to crack and scale, early signs of dinosaurization.
Even the Saint's Corpse couldn't fully prevent the transformation. It only slowed it.
But it was that delay alone that sealed Diego's fate as the loser.
A sharp sound echoed above—wind slicing high in the sky.
Diego looked toward the approaching Ishiki and shouted, "Kujo Ishiki! Next time we meet, I'll carve the meat off your bones, line your organs up across the earth in perfect order! I'll make you the greatest fossil art piece of all time! You won this round—but don't get cocky. Next time, I will be the one who wins!"
"Don't even think of running, Diego!" Ishiki shouted back. He too could feel the wrongness spreading in his body. His skin, his eyes, even the whispers in his thoughts—it was all changing.
He was undergoing dinosaurization.
And once it reached a certain threshold, he'd be compelled to obey Diego.
The sound overhead confirmed Diego had prepared an escape plan from the very start.
Ishiki couldn't let him go.
Diego was too dangerous. If he escaped now, their next meeting would likely be another death match—with uncertain outcome.
A spark of flame ignited above Ishiki. A signal flare.
He had no choice but to reveal Matatabi.
Once fired, the hidden Two-Tails would be unleashed—his final ace.
But before Matatabi could appear, the sky was already filled with flapping wings.
Dozens—hundreds—of pterosaurs the size of human arms dove toward Ishiki in a wave of screeching death.
Behind them loomed a massive leader, over three meters long.
It didn't attack.
It dived straight for Diego.
This was Diego's contingency. His way out.
Ishiki's body stiffened. The transformation was accelerating. Even Weather Report's precision was affected.
Still, the Right Eye of the Saint had shown no signs of reversing the process. It was as if no such effect existed.
Even so, clouds formed around him, shielding him from the swarming pterosaurs.
Ishiki's hand dipped into his ninja pouch and came out with a fistful of shuriken.
Uchiha Shurikenjutsu exploded from his hands—a storm of steel arcing unpredictably, with deflection trajectories and hidden paths.
Diego, mid-regression into human form and close to losing consciousness, still tracked every motion.
His dinosaurized visual acuity remained pristine.
Even as the shuriken collided mid-air, shifting their paths to create chaos, Diego's body weaved through the rain of steel—dodging by the narrowest of margins.
And then—the massive pterosaur reached him.
Its talons clamped onto Diego's shoulders, wings spreading wide to block incoming blades, ready to lift him skyward.
But—it didn't lift.
Diego didn't move.
His legs had sunken deep into the earth. Below his feet, the ground had turned to sand, shifting like liquid.
A strange figure had appeared nearby—The Fool.
The desert churned, an immense suction spiraling beneath him, dragging Diego down, inch by inch.
Diego's face twisted. "Was this… part of your plan too, Kujo Ishiki?!"
Ishiki floated above, body trembling with the strain of transformation, mind clouded.
But he still smiled—wide, unbroken. "Of course! Every piece… was exactly as I predicted!"
"Don't think this means you've won!" Diego's claws clapped together.
No jutsu activated near him, but outside the arena—two bodies suddenly began to swell.
Inflating grotesquely.
Within seconds, they had ballooned to over ten meters tall—far faster than Ishiki expected.
But before they could detonate—
A shadow streaked through the sky.
Matatabi. Fully manifested. The complete form of the Two-Tails.
The swelling enemies didn't matter—Matatabi didn't hesitate.
Two blazing fireballs launched from her jaws, crashing into them.
BOOM!
The explosions were drowned in Matatabi's shadow as she landed before Ishiki, snarling at Diego, baring fangs of blue flame.
Flames curled around her body, forming mouse-shaped chakra bolts.
They tore through the air, piercing the great pterosaur again and again until it dropped, riddled like a sieve, crashing to the ground in its true form—a giant, smoldering parrot.
Diego's eyes locked on the burning wreckage as despair finally overtook him.
"Matatabi…" he whispered—just before the sand devoured him whole.
Ishiki dropped to his knees, panting, trembling.
Behind him… a tail.
Long. Reptilian.
He fought to remain conscious, mind fraying under the dinosaurization.
If he lost control now, this perfect victory would collapse in an instant.
Diego had been, without question, the most dangerous foe Ishiki had faced since crossing into this world.
In the distance, another howling wind.
More Iwa-nin, pushing through the Rainbow zone—jutsu flaring as they neared.
Clearly, others had been waiting outside the storm to extract Diego.
Ishiki didn't care.
With Matatabi here, none of them would survive.
Diego plummeted deeper into the earth.
He didn't know how far he was sinking.
His mind slowed. His body—spent. Darkness closed in.
Death could come any moment.
But strangely… the despair had faded.
In its place, a warmth.
He was happy he'd transformed.
He accepted he'd been outmatched.
And he felt… peace.
Perhaps, years from now, his fossilized body would be discovered.
A perfect, dinosaurian relic.
The thought brought him joy.
The world would remember.
They would cherish his fossil.
With that final hope, Diego… stopped thinking.