Present day.
Arthur stood frozen as his body was still trapped by whatever technique was on him. Despite his predicament, he remained calm.
If he understood Alice, she was part of the Yamanaka clan. That meant that she was likely using the Mind Destruction jutsu, a technique that allows her to remotely control a target's body by infiltrating their nervous system.
This was impressive, to say the least, since she wasn't using any hand signs. But at the same time, he wasn't foreign to its mechanisms; he had learned how to break techniques like these after learning about them from her clan.
As the others were bickering about something irrelevant, Arthur used this opportunity to try and release the binding by concentrating his chakra and channeling it into his entire central nervous system.
'There…' he thought, spotting the strange fluctuations within his neurons.
All he had to do was restore them to their normal state. Had he not also learned medical ninjutsu and had advanced chakra control, this would have been difficult.
'Sage art: cell activation jutsu…'
In less than a second and with a sudden burst of chakra, he pushed against the binding and broke free!
"Argh!" Alice cried.
Jasper immediately beamed in Arthur's direction and whispered, "Tool creation…"
The moment Arthur had moved a muscle, a rod pierced his side and caused a sharp pain to course through his body. His Sage Mode then quickly began to falter. No amount of healing techniques could stop this jolt of pain as he was forced to take a knee.
Now he was sweating profusely.
"You okay, babe?" asked Jasper.
"No… he actually broke my jutsu somehow."
Jasper looked at Arthur and slowly began walking in his direction with a smug grin. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he brought forth a cyan-coloured ethereal scythe, the likes of which had never been seen by anyone.
Arthur narrowed his eyes because of the pain trying to cloud his judgement.
Undoubtedly, he could tell based on the strange fluctuation of energy—and lack of chakra—that both the rod in his side and that scythe were from the Tool Creation technique. But something was off about them: Tool Creation didn't have the ability to absorb or disrupt Sage Chakra.
That's when something registered in his thoughts: Jasper had given everyone a demonstration of this technique once. When he showcased it in the past, it was glowing red. This time, it was cyan.
Now there was no doubt: Jasper had modified his technique to a degree that Arthur hadn't known about.
"Ya almost got away with a fast one there," Jasper commented.
"That's on me," Alice added. "I should've stayed focused."
Arthur gritted his teeth. He had to find a way to counter this new technique. But when he tried to focus on what was left of his remaining Sage Chakra, he failed.
Swoosh!
He reverted to normal; his Sage Mode had finally depleted!
Now his body felt like lead, his mind was fogging, and his vision was getting hazier. The world around him seemed to slow down as each movement became a Herculean effort. Just twitching caused blood to trickle down from his lips to the grass.
Attempting to activate anything, like the Seven Heavenly Breaths technique, was impossible in this state; it required too much concentration.
He was trapped, his body was paralyzed, and his chakra was still depleting at a constant rate.
When he tried to scan the grassland for a way out, he couldn't find anywhere. But where could he even hide? Where could he even run to in this terrible condition?
After Margaret healed Jada, all of them surrounded Arthur in a semicircle. He could barely make out their faces anymore, let alone tell who was even in front of him.
"It's over, Arthur," Jada said against the cool of the night.
Was it really? It sure did look like it.
Arthur remained quiet for a moment as the wind brushed the grassland. He had fought hard, coming farther than anyone could have expected. Many were slain for what he believed to be a right cause.
The life he had lived, both in this world and on earth, was a fulfilling one, a life in Christ with adventure and excitement while on earth.
He had made mistakes, sure, but he had also repented from his sins and learned how to be a better man, a perfect and holy one like his Father in heaven. What more could he ask for in his last dying moments?
So he finally closed his eyes as his body went still and his consciousness began to fade.
"His chakra's almost at zero," Alice said. "He's as good as dead…"
"Guess we won't have to worry about him anymore," commented Margaret.
"Yeah," William agreed. "Might as well go home now."
Jada stared at Arthur's unmoving body. There was no possible way he could escape this one.
So they all turned from him and began walking away. When suddenly, a chill ran down their spines as they heard his weak voice.
"Wait…"
They all quickly turned around in surprise.
"It's funny," he said in a weak voice. "Even after everything I'd been through…" He then slowly lifted his head to heaven as his voice echoed with conviction in the stillness: "I forgive you all…"
At those words, a giant white puff of cloud erupted from beneath him and enveloped his whole body. Jada quickly ran inside with an outstretched hand as if trying to catch him. But it was too late.
Arthur had disappeared!
Her heart pounded in her chest, and her instincts screamed at her, knowing that something was off from the start.
She screamed at the top of her lungs as the smoke fully dissipated.
When the others saw her and Arthur missing, they were bewildered. How could they have let this happen? One moment he was there, unable to do a single thing, and then the next he vanished as if he were a clone.
Alice closed her eyes to sense the surrounding area. But when she opened them, her eyebrows knitted together. "He... he's actually not here anymore!"
"How?!" Margaret incredulously asked. Her eyes darted around as if expecting Arthur to reappear at any moment. "He shouldn't have been able to use any jutsus! Not with that low of chakra!"
Just as the tension threatened to consume most of them, Jasper released his scythe, allowing it to disappear. He then folded his arm with a smirk across his face.
"Relax, plebs," he said nonchalantly. "I can still feel that rod I stuck him with in effect." Jasper then paused, letting that sink in. "And from what I'm sensing, his chakra just hit zero."
Jada, however, didn't believe him. So much guilt was inside her that she couldn't believe him. How did she let her one moment slip by like that?
"It's okay, Jada," William softly assured her. "We'll figure this out."
Jasper's irritation became palpable as he shouted, "What are you blunderheads talking about?! Didn't ya hear what I just said? Arthur's. Chakra. Is. At. Zero!"
Zap!
Before anyone could rebut, a sudden shift in the atmosphere caught their attention. It was subtle but undeniable—a change that made the hairs on the back of their necks stand up.
They all looked up, and what they saw was remarkable: blue-coloured grid lines manifesting across the sky. They crisscrossed like an intricate web overhead and glowed quite brightly.
"What is that?!" gasped Alice.
Once the gridlines finally passed, Jada let out a sigh of relief. Her eyes then fixed on the spot where Arthur was at. "He's dead…"
"Of course he's dead!" Jasper yelled. "I killed him myself!"
"Then what were those lines in the sky?" Margaret wondered.
Jada hesitated, unsure of how to explain. Alice looked at her, sensing that Jada was hiding something.
"Got something you wanna share with us, Jada?"
"You mean you guys don't know?" she asked.
"Know what?" William wondered.
"It's the rule Dr. Kapoor said: if one of us dies, we'll all know by that sign we just saw."
A collective silence fell over the group until Alice asked, "I wasn't told a thing about that, so what're you talking about?"
Jada gave her a confused look; she had assumed that everyone knew about that one rule added in this world. So she explained, "I'm not making this up. She told me specifically that's what happens if one of us were to die."
"When did she tell you that?" Margaret asked.
"Just before I entered the pod. I thought she might have told all of you guys the same thing."
"That's not what I was told," William tried correcting. "All Dr. Kapoor told me was that we'd all look like ourselves when we were younger."
Jasper snickered. "Weird… I was told that medical personnel would be monitoring our vital signs outside."
"Did she also tell you this just moments after you entered the pod?" Alice asked him.
"Ugh… yeah, actually."
The group exchanged glances. It was evident that this was their first conversation about unspoken rules given to them at the last second. The main thing that concerned them was why they were each told something different than the other.
So Alice looked at Margaret to confirm things. "What did she tell you?"
"She told me that we would all be here until we reached a conclusion—whatever that meant."
"So, does that mean Arthur might not be dead?" William wondered, still confused.
Jada shook her head and replied, "No, he's dead. I'm sure of it. The rules were clear, and that sign in the sky was all the proof we needed."
Jasper laughed, delighted that he had been the one to kill Arthur off. "We're all straight then…"
"I don't think so," Alice said.
"What do ya mean, babe? The only person who would have caused us problems is now dead."
"That might be true, but try and look at the bigger picture."
"What bigger picture?" he asked, feeling annoyed.
"We need to find out what all those individual rules were and piece them together."
While yes, Arthur was now out of the hairs, it was a little disconcerting that secrets had been kept from them until the last moment. For instance, Alice implied that she was not told anything.
"I got a slight hunch that Alex was told something, too," she finished.
"I can ask him when I get back," William said. "Though it might take us a few hours to return to the village."
"What about you two?" Jada asked Jasper and Alice.
They revealed that they weren't that far from the Fire Country. Perhaps a few hours at best.
After everyone agreed to regroup at home for a much-needed debriefing, Jada released her technique, allowing them to return to where they previously were. Her right eye then finally opened as she stood there for a few minutes.
Then she looked at the empty spot Arthur had been in.
The others didn't know what she had been through. The entire fight was overwhelming, to say the least.
Perhaps she had lost, and she hadn't been the one to deliver the finishing blow; she was relieved at the results. Arthur, the only one who'd been on her mind, was finally gone. And she didn't need to see a body; that condition they left him in was more than enough to convince her he was dead.
"In the end, you had this coming. Arthur…"