Bruce kept his concentration on avoiding losing consciousness, remembering the last time Vale got a taste of blood not his own. The ground moved again, and the wrist of his hand holding his sword twisted until the blade came full circle down toward Vale's own hands. 
Consciousness slipped further and further from him, but he refused to die here. The ground reformed again into a giant spike that shot out toward Vale, but it began crumbling almost as soon as it came into being. 
The scene of the painting, Jenso's shoulders slumped in front of it, the other four bodies on the ground that it depicted. He saw one of them as his own, the other three people he hadn't even known yet. 
His pulse pounded in his ears. Aching at first, making him hyperaware of all sources of pain he was in- then it became deeper, stronger, louder and resonating with his very being. The earth under him pulsated, trembling, sliding, cracking, eroding and rising all at once. He could hear everything that touched the ground within the temple and for miles outside of it.
[color=0072bc][i]'The planet,'[/i][/color] he realized. [color=0072bc][i]'I'm feeling its heartbeat.'[/i][/color]

Bruce's drooping eyelids snapped up- the ki in his blade spiked anew, even as he was still moving it to cut Vale. The skin where Vale's blade had sunk into changed, hardening into rock that closed itself around the blade and simultaneously clotted the bleeding. Bruce's one free hand also changed, as if becoming the hardest materials of the natural world, closing around the Vale's sword, yet not getting cut. Words that were at once Bruce's and not his fell from his mouth, in a deep, reverberating voice that nearly whispered.

[b][color=0072bc]"Earth Sage-"[/color][/b]

Bruce's feet shifted, aiming to heave Vale up over his back with his next motion.

[b][color=0072bc]"Resonance"[/color][/b]