HIATUS

"Clang""Clang""Clang""Clang""Clang""Clang"

The quick clashes of bone and sword can be heard on the battlefield. For a couple of dozen minutes, it was just me and Ward, one on one, bone and metal collide, the fight that they were having is extremely intense.  The bones that Grant Ward was able to make were no ordinary bones, every single bone was as strong as steel, he can even make it tougher if he channels more chakra in it. Most importantly, Grant Ward knows that the bone sword was only an extension of the strongest weapon he has, himself. Without fear, Grant would use the bones that were acting as armor as a weapon as well. From kicks, elbow strikes to headbutts, Grant would use his body in every way possible.

"Damn, I like what you did with your powers", I said to Grant as I parried multiple slashes to my midsection.

"I'm not done yet", Grant said as he quickly did a spinning roundhouse kick. I immediately maneuver my blade to block the kick, but it was a trap. On the other side came a phasing Ava, she used the bone terrain the Grant has set up to prevent me from seeing her coming. With Grant's kick and Ava's punch, they were able to pin me in one spot.

I block the kick but Ava's punch came straight to my face. With a huge smile on her face, Ava said, "Finally a clean hit".

But their joy was soon replaced with shock, literal shock. The Ethan that they were fighting was a lighting clone, they had been fighting a clone since the beginning of the fight.

"AH!!!", Ava screams as she took most of the electricity.

"AH!", Grant also felt the pain of being electrocuted but the pain he felt was not as much as what Ava felt.

The two of them were soon on their knees, due to the pain they just received. Suddenly, two huge blocks of earth were quickly rising from their surroundings, the two huge blocks with insane speed met with one another, both Grant and Ava where sandwich in the middle of blocks.

"BANG!"

The two blocks became one, the resulting technique clouded the battlefield with dirt and smoke.

"That was impressive", Bucky commented. After seeing the technique of Grant that resulted in the changing of the battlefield, he was in shock from it all.  In Bucky's mind right now is the idea that the 3 disciples of Ethan, who are not even in their 20's were powerful to beat his ass. An ass who was more than 80 years old, as a matter of a fact.

"There individual mastery of their techniques, on top of their excellent close-quarters capabilities makes them excellent combatants. All the masters of the Mystic Arts, except me will lose to them for sure", the Ancient One commented.

On the battlefield, Ava who was sandwiched in the middle of the huge block used her powers, she phases through the attack, which resulted in it not having an effect on her. Suddenly creaking noises could be heard, then not even a few moments later cracks started to form on the surface of the huge block. With a loud bang, the huge block of earth was destroyed by Grant Ward. He transformed his bone armor into a cocoon-like defense, and after tanking the attack he made multiple gigantic bone spikes that resulted in the huge block being destroyed, which enables him to be free from the entrapment.

The moment Grant had escaped the block, his footing became unbalance which resulted in him taking a knee to steady himself. The armor that had defended him a few moments ago was now gone, beads of sweat can be seen on his forehead. It seems Grant Wards chakra storage had been depleting at a rapid pace.

"What did I teach you? Always be careful in how you use your chakra", I said to Grant. Fighting my disciples had been exhilarating. It was always good to know that all the hard work I spent on training them did not go to waste. As a matter of fact, in the entire fight, I was composed on the outside but on the inside, I was like, 'wow, who taught you that'. I always told them in the beginning that they should be proactive in their training, it's nice to see that they took this advice to heart.

My 2 disciples immediately tried to find where my voice was coming from, Ava acted the quickest and she calculated the direction of where my voice was coming from and she took a kunai and threw it in the direction of my voice.

"Clank".

"Nicely done", I said as I showed myself to my 2 disciples. While saying this I could see Ava slightly glancing at her back, it was like she was waiting for something to arrive.

'She must be waiting for Erik. Most of the time I had been fighting Grant, throughout this entire exam Erik and I only had one chance to fight, and that was when he took me on to dispelled my genjutsu', I thought to myself.

"Now tell me, what could Erik be doing there, huh", I said to them. Both Grant and Ava had immediate reactions, they both steadied themselves, Grant did another bone armor and Ava sprinted in my direction to engage me first.

I dodge Ava's attack and quickly parried Grant's sword strike, now their reaction made me even more interested. It seems that the two of them were buying time for Erik, whatever Erik was doing, they believe that it could make them win.

For a while I indulge them, I fought with my two disciples in close combat, but every minute that goes by I was extremely getting eager at the prospect of Erik having a trump card to wind against me. On occasion, my two disciples would throw some jutsu at me but I easily block or evaded them.

Then as the fight went on, for who knows how long at this point, probably more than an hour now, I heard a roar.

"ROAR!!"

The roar resulted in me and my disciples to take a few meters of distance between each other. The roar was coming from the back of the huge bone pillar that Grant made previously.

Then out of nowhere something attack the pillar causing it to explode. Slowly something came out of the bone pillar, it was Erik. He walked in all four limbs, yin chakra was surrounding his entire body. Erik had a predatory look in his eyes, then he roared again.

"ROAR!!!"

"What the fuck", I said out loud. Suddenly I saw it, the chakra that was surrounding Erik began to take form, it slowly transformed into a Panther, well mostly a panther. Instead of having the eyes of the said cat, its eyes were that of a snake, and its tail wasn't a tail, its tail was a snake.

Seeing this, both Ava and Grant nodded among themselves and immediately fled to the outskirts of the battlefield. They did this due to the crazed look that Erik was currently having, I believe whatever justsu he did it is not something he can currently control.

"Well, that's interesting. You know what, you are hereby now my most proactive student", I said to Erik. After saying that Erik sprinted in my direction using all four of his limbs. He was incredibly fast, he uses his right hand like that of a cat to try and scratch me, I was able to barely parry it with my sword.

"Damn his strong", I said to myself. Whatever this jutsu was, it increased all of Erik stats. Be it strength, agility, endurance, reaction time, everything was raise to insane levels. I did not notice it but I was receiving scratch-like wounds, I found this odd cause I was pretty sure that I blocked all his attacks.