Naruto: Zombie Release

Arata's heart surged with a rare excitement, an emotion he hadn't felt in years. For the first time in so long, even his disease-ridden body, frail and broken, felt alive with passion.

He swept his gaze across the battlefield. 

The Sunagakure team that had broken through in a desperate charge was now encircled on all sides, swarmed by Leaf shinobi who fought with near-frenzied energy. 

This short delay had given enough time for even more Konoha ninja to converge on the scene.

Araki was clearly falling apart, and everyone could see it.

At this point, there was no doubt: this elite squad from Sunagakure was doomed to be wiped out here.

It would be a rare and glorious military achievement, one worth bragging about even decades from now.

The blow to the Sand's morale would be massive.

Everyone understood what it meant to kill a squad led by an elite Jonin. Just being involved in such an operation would be a mark of incredible prestige.

Araki tried to speak, but his throat burned like fire. 

The pain was familiar, like the kind he'd experienced as a sickly child, feverish, his underdeveloped body wracked by illness and his throat swollen with infection.

But why now? Why this feeling? What had Arata done to him? When had he cast a jutsu? And how had it worked? Could it be…

Araki gathered the last of his strength. His face twisted in fury as he launched a desperate final attack. If he couldn't capture Arata, then at the very least, he would kill him!

At this moment, only Araki realized the terrifying truth: Arata was a threat far beyond what anyone else in the shinobi world could see. 

Only now, on the brink of death, did Araki truly understand the nature of Arata's jutsu.

The so-called Dead Soul Technique? Trash.

Everyone had been fooled. Just because Arata could manipulate corpses, they'd lazily assumed it was some variant of the medical ninjutsu known as the Dead Soul Technique. What a mistake.

No, Arata's method, especially his ability to target living people, must involve the flesh and blood of the dead. Maybe even their cells!

Yes. That had to be it. Araki had only guessed as far as the cellular level. He was aware of pathogens, sure, but he didn't dare consider something as radical as bacteria.

After all, in the current shinobi world, even cutting-edge biological science had only advanced to the study of cells. 

DNA research was still years away, something that Orochimaru would eventually explore to produce Yamato and his Wood Release.

Araki's dying struggles ignited the fury of the remaining Sand shinobi. Desperate and doomed, they charged forward recklessly, each trying to take at least one Konoha ninja down with them.

Beyond the immediate chaos, the main Sand force had arrived. A clash with Konoha's troops was imminent, but there was no hope left for Sandstorm Araki.

"He figured it out…" Arata thought grimly. "My technique's too slow when used on the living, it leaks too much information. But it's also because my body's too weak… My chakra production is just abysmal."

His mind raced as he watched Araki's blood-soaked body tear through the Konoha lines, eyes wild, pain ignored, driven by one final purpose: to kill him.

Arata's face paled. His chakra was nearly gone. He saw the sandstorm erupt and scatter the Leaf shinobi in front of him. Araki's twisted, triumphant face drew closer, filled with grim satisfaction.

This was bad. Arata had burned through too much chakra trying to accelerate Araki's transformation. 

Now, to survive, he'd have to cast Kūkai no Jutsu one more time… even if it meant dying from chakra depletion.

He'd never been pushed this far before. Now he understood how truly terrifying an elite Jonin could be.

Fujisai Takuno stepped forward, trying to help, but everyone knew there was little a traditional medical ninja could do in this situation.

"Then I guess I'll just have to bet my life," Arata thought. "I've gambled so many times before, clawing my way back from the edge of death… But this time…"

It was common knowledge among ninja, dying from chakra exhaustion was very real.

Take Kakashi, for example. When Pain's Six Paths invaded the Hidden Leaf, he used the last of his chakra to cast Kamui, warping away the Asura Path's missile to save Choji. 

Afterward, he died, his soul drifted to the boundary between life and death, where he even spoke with Sakumo for quite some time.

"Chakra depletion" wasn't just a dramatic phrase. There was the false kind, where your body reached its limit and simply couldn't go on.

Then there was the true kind, when a ninja squeezed every cell in their body to the limit, overloading their mind and body to forcibly generate new chakra. 

Once that was spent, all bodily functions would cease, and death would be absolute.

Arata had just finished forming the hand seal, about to force his body to create one last burst of chakra for Jutsu.

When suddenly, someone appeared in front of him.

A silhouette blocked his view, arm raised calmly. "It's not time yet. I won't let someone Tsunade and Sakumo both care about die in front of me."

Arata's eyes widened. "You're, !"

Spirit Transformation Technique!

A brilliant white light flared around Dan as a translucent spirit surged from his body, slamming straight into Araki. 

The ghostly form passed through him in a single flash, and then vanished inside.

Araki, already weakened beyond help, had no way to resist. With his mental defenses broken, his soul shattered on the spot. Dead.

The Spirit Transformation Technique, an S-rank secret technique even more advanced than the Mind Body Switch Technique. 

It allowed its user to move at high speed in spiritual form, possess another person, control their actions, speak to their mind, or, as in this case, destroy their spirit entirely.

It also granted extraordinary long-distance soul detection.

It was such an overpowered technique that even in the Fourth Great Ninja War, it would've been considered fearsome. And yet, here it was, used in the closing days of the Second War.

Araki, elite Jonin of the Sand, became yet another soul to fall to this jutsu, further bolstering Dan's growing legend.

Fujisai's face lit up in awe. "Lord Dan! Don't tell me… Lady Tsunade sent you to support our unit?"

"That's right," Dan replied with a gentle smile. "Your unit was tasked with supporting the front lines. 

But we figured the enemy might pull something reckless to tip the balance before retreating. 

And with someone like Arata here, a genius that Sunagakure can't ignore, things were bound to get messy."

His spirit returned to his body. Dan's long hair swayed in the breeze, his tall frame both elegant and calm. 

His voice was light, full of concern for his comrades, as if taking down someone like Araki wasn't even worth mentioning.