Chapter 28: Bone Escape
The last word had barely left Qifeng's lips when he put his full weight behind the bone spear. There was a distinctly unpleasant sound—like stepping on bubble wrap filled with gravel—as the weapon swept downward in a vicious arc.
Doishi's severed forearm hit the ground with a wet thud, rolled a few times like a dice, and came to rest at Qifeng's feet.
He stepped on it with all the ceremony of squashing a particularly offensive cockroach.
**Crunch**
With nothing left to block its path, the bone spear punched clean through Doishi's chest and pinned him to the wall like the world's most violent thumbtack.
Honestly? Qifeng was as surprised as anyone that his Dead Bone Pulse bloodline packed this much punch. He'd been operating on 'probably won't die immediately' mode for so long that he'd never really stress-tested his abilities.
It was like discovering your beat-up Honda could suddenly do zero-to-sixty in three seconds.
Of course, the element of surprise had helped. Doishi probably hadn't expected the half-dead Konoha kid to suddenly transform into a walking pincushion of death.
What Qifeng didn't notice, too busy with the whole 'not dying' thing, was the cheerful little system notification:
[Bloodline Limit Dead Bone Pulse(Shikotsumyaku): +10 Taijutsu!]
That was the bloodline limit's true value in the system's cold calculations. His original 45 points in taijutsu had just jumped to 55—practically jonin-level overnight.
The missing arm and the new chest ventilation finally got Doishi's attention.
Gritting his teeth hard enough to crack molars, he braced his remaining hand against the wall, found his center of gravity, and whipped his leg up in a kick that would have made a mule jealous.
*BANG!*
Qifeng caught it with his left arm, which immediately decided that structural integrity was overrated. Blood vessels popped like party balloons, painting his sleeve in abstract expressionist patterns as capillaries gave up en masse.
He staggered backward, his bone spear loosening just enough for Doishi to wrench himself free.
A severed arm and a chest wound that you could mail letters through were definitely not ideal combat conditions. Blood poured from Doishi's mouth like a broken faucet, but jonin were jonin for a reason—they were professionally stubborn about dying.
He sucked in a rattling breath, clenched his remaining fist, and charged.
The Sharingan locked on. Bone armor activated.
Round two: same as round one, but now with 30% more mutual suffering.
The only difference was that the gap between Qifeng—who'd finally stopped holding back—and Doishi—who was leaking vital fluids—was slowly closing.
I still haven't mastered this bloodline, Qi Feng thought, watching Doishi's violent assault through the gaps in his bone protection. If I really knew what I was doing, I could have ended this with a Dance of the Seedling Ferns and turned him into a very surprised shish kebab.
But no such luck. The detached bones could regenerate instantly, sure, but the pain remained as authentic as a tax audit.
He'd assumed that getting the Dead Bone Pulse through the system meant getting the deluxe package—full power, no assembly required. Turns out even mystical bloodlines came with a learning curve.
Figures. Even my cheat abilities need a tutorial.
If he'd actually mastered this power, he wouldn't just be approaching jonin level—he'd be leaving them in the dust.
*BANG!*
Another punch sent him skidding backward, but this time Doishi didn't follow up with his usual relentless assault. Instead, he dropped to one knee, gasping like a fish out of water.
The harder he tried to breathe, the more blood fountained from his chest. His face had gone the color of old parchment.
I bet he didn't wake up this morning thinking he'd get into a death match over corpse etiquette, Qifeng thought with grim satisfaction.
If Doishi had gone all-out from the beginning instead of playing with his food, this fight would have been over in thirty seconds. Now the adrenaline was wearing off, his limbs felt like they were made of wet sand, and his eyelids were developing an alarming twitch.
'Is this what dying feels like?', the thought drifted through Doishi's increasingly foggy mind, 'Kind of anticlimactic, honestly'.
Qifeng allowed himself a small sigh of relief. He felt like he'd been used as a punching bag by an enthusiastic gorilla, and his left hand was currently more of a 'left collection of bone fragments,' but at least he could move it again.
He glanced at his bone shield, which now resembled a spider web after a particularly aggressive spider had moved in.
These are supposed to be the hardest bones in the ninja world, he thought with some concern.
**Cough.**
Doishi's violent coughing fit sounded like a garbage disposal with hiccups.
Qifeng's expression remained about as sympathetic as a tax collector. He dragged his bone spear behind him as he approached, each step deliberate and careful.
Never count out a wounded jonin. That was like assuming a cornered rattlesnake had given up on life.
"What's your name?" Doishi asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Qifeng stopped exactly one step away, bone spear aimed at the jonin's heart like a compass pointing north.
The moment the question left Doishi's lips, he exploded into motion—one last desperate gambit.
But fast as he was, Qifeng's Sharingan had been watching for exactly this kind of bullshit. He'd been ready since the moment Doishi opened his mouth.
His right hand thrust forward, and the bone spear punched through Doishi's heart with a wet 'thunk'.
Doishi's raised fist froze mid-swing, his eyes widening in something that might have been respect or just surprise.
**Pop! Pop! Pop!**
Pale bone spikes erupted from Doishi's body like the world's most violent fireworks display, turning him into a life-sized porcupine.
"Bone Release: Bone Spike Technique!"
The name came to Qifeng in a moment of inspiration. He'd just invented his own jutsu on the spot, like some kind of violence-themed Iron Chef.
The technique was based on what he knew about the Hyuga clan's fighting styles—if they could flow chakra through their gentle fist techniques, why couldn't he do something similar with bone manipulation?
The inspiration had actually come from Wood Release techniques he'd read about. Hashirama Senju's "Cutting Technique" worked by making wood grow inside an opponent's body. Simple concept, devastating results.
If the Dead Bone Pulse is similar to Wood Release and the Sage Body, he'd reasoned, then maybe I can adapt their techniques.
Insert bone into opponent. Make bone explode. Rearrange opponent's internal architecture. Problem solved.
Doishi was built like a brick shithouse and his earth-style techniques made him even tougher on the outside, but everybody was still squishy on the inside. Attack from within, and even the strongest defense became irrelevant.
The experiment had been a rousing success, and now he had the foundation for developing his own "Bone Release" techniques.
Under Doishi's incredulous stare—the kind of look reserved for witnessing truly impossible things—his body toppled backward and hit the ground with a sound like dropping a sack of potatoes.
Qifeng finally allowed himself to collapse, every muscle in his body staging a simultaneous protest.
That was way too close.
The only reason he'd won was the element of surprise. If Doishi had taken him seriously from the start, Qifeng would currently be decorating the landscape as a very flat corpse.
Even with a missing arm and a chest wound, the jonin had still managed to beat him around like a rented mule. Without the Dead Bone Pulse's sneak attack, no amount of righteous anger about corpse desecration would have saved him.
Principles were all well and good, but they required being alive to matter.
**Hiss—**
The pain was becoming... educational.
The corpse bone vein was undeniably powerful, but it came with a user manual written entirely in the language of agony.
Looking at the various bone protrusions decorating his body like the world's most uncomfortable jewelry, he focused his chakra again. One by one, the bones detached from his flesh and clattered to the ground.
He had no intention of reabsorbing them.
He didn't know if Kimimaro's blood disease had been caused by recycling his bone weapons, but Qifeng wasn't taking any chances. Better to waste materials than end up coughing blood and dying young.
The pain somehow got worse as the bones separated, like reverse acupuncture performed by a sadist.
But pain was just pain. You could get used to anything if you were stubborn enough.
After the last bone fell away and his wounds sealed themselves, Qifeng lay on the ground in a puddle of his own sweat, looking like he'd just run a marathon through hell.
His face had gone the color of old milk.
He deactivated his Sharingan, feeling the familiar relief as the chakra drain stopped.
Just a quick rest,he told himself. Then back to work.
But he couldn't rest yet. He had to clean up this mess before Orochimaru and the others returned from their own little war.
Nobody could know about his abilities yet. Especially not Orochimaru, who collected interesting specimens the way other people collected stamps.
If this small-scale test was already this dangerous, he thought grimly, what's going to happen when the real war starts?
The outside world was turning out to be significantly more hazardous to his health than advertised.
I want to go home to Konoha, he realized with startling clarity. I want to go home and never leave again.
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