Chapter 54
First round matches were held two at a time for expediency. Not that it mattered because most matches were in fact rather expedient. This was a time challenge with two purposes. Either you knockout your opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible or you outlast your opponent until the time clocks out then their will be a short vote on who wins. It was likely supposed to simulate situations where you have a very short window of time to defeat an opponent or you have to buy time for other reasons. Most people took the most literal route in this sense when the two ninja tried to take each other out.
Suigetsu's and Kiriko's matches were at the same time and a good example of the duality of the requirements of the challenge. The poor Ame Suigetsu was facing was water natured and summoned large amounts of water from the air to fight him with.
Even with her rebreather, she didn't last two minutes after that happened.
Kiriko was fighting a Suna nin who used sickle chain and wind jutsu to redirect it at odd intervals. Kiriko spent the match ducking, dodging and narrowly avoiding the sickle chain. This made the suna nin use more and more advanced techniques to try and catch her but still failing. When time was call it was revealed that Kiriko had anchored herself to one of the higher rocks early on and the entire time he was fighting a bushin whom she was controlling while still. Because most of his attacks were ranged and the winds he kicked up were deafening he never noticed that they moved through her or that the steps made no sound.
Unsurprisingly Kiriko was declared the winner of that match.
The next two matches was a Ame nin versus a Kumo nin, and Mitsuki versus a Suna nin. The Ame was also water natured and used several water clones which the Kumo swordsman broke several of to try and find. After five minutes of this the Kumo swordsman dropped, which it was then revealed that the clones were filled with contact poison, though considering the time probably a lower dosage to prevent lethality. The Suna nin was a weapon user like his teammate, unlike his teammate he relied more on ninja wire with a few earth jutsu to throw Mitsuki off balance. Mitsuki responded with lots and lots of water bullets that were so fast they could burst through several columns of stone. Eventually he managed to trip her up and she got wrapped in ninja wire with only one hand free.
Unluckily for him, she only needed one hand because she used the metal wire to shock the bejeezus out of him if a contact jutsu. Mind you, she shocked herself too.
It was a double knock out.
There was technically no winner of that round, so it was a free pass for the person they were going to fight for the next round.
After that it was Chojuro versus one of the Konoha nin, while a Kumo nin fought one of the Suna nin. It was one of the smaller Konoha nin who had been willing to cooperate in the previous round. He was fairly fast and had a high proficiency in substitution and ranged techniques. However it was quickly over once Chojuro closed the distance between the two of them. The Kumo was a taijutsu user with tonfas. He seemed to spend much of the round pounding on the Suna nin, until it was eventually revealed that he was in fact using a puppet and the puppet wrapped around him and hit him with poison smoke at point blank range knocking him out.
After that it was Gonmaru versus Kabuto. Kabuto didn't actually bow out, but he did perform poorly in that Gonmaru covered the distance and after several hits Kabuto seemed to go down and not get up. Gonmaru was rather shocked and actually tried to see if the boy was alright. He probably had forgotten what I'd told him about Kabuto throwing the match. The larger nin from Konoha who was unsurprisingly a close combat fighter lost to another close combat fighter from Kumo. Though it probably didn't help that the Kumo nin used electrified gauntlets which was either clever use of seals, jutsu, or purely technological. I couldn't tell without actually examining them myself but I doubted they'd actually let me.
Minami was in the next set of matches versus a Kumo nin. Also a female. She was a swordsman who used short sword that looked more like a cleaver. Probably very strength oriented with a swagger of sheer confidence. When the match started she started straight for Manami and I couldn't help but feel bad.
That Kumo chick didn't have a chance.
When she pulled her cleaver she thought she hit Manami but hit nothing but air. When the cleaver wedged itself into the rock Manami had traded places with. It was then that the seal on it activated.
The bang swept through the stands. Several people stood and shouted when the flash of light accompanying faded it showed the intact Kumo nin completely dazed and confused by the sudden flashbang. Manami appeared from behind her blending jutsu and started punching the living daylights out of the blind and deafened swordsman.
Manami was genjutsu specialty like Kiriko, unlike Kiriko though, she had no qualms fighting up close and personal. She never used complicated genjutsu that required time and concentration to maintain, instead she did quick and dirty ones that gave her an edge in the short term allowing her to cripple an opponent before she attacks personally. Combined with seals provided by the seven families, she was a tricky ass person to fight. She was every bit the rouge of our group, it surprised me that the Hamasaki family didn't pick her up.
The rest of the fight went like that, every time the swordsman tried to get their bearings Manami hit them with a sucker punch that would send them staggering. Eventually she wore down the swordsman with dozens of hits and was declared the winner.
Most people were so focused on her match that the other match ended more quickly that we didn't get a real bearing on it. But the short version was that the Konoha nin beat the Ame nin.
The last two matches of the first round was Hiroshi versus a Kumo nin and the last of the Ame nin versus a Kumo nin. The Kumo and the Ame were a pretty even matchup, so they lasted the full thirty minutes. At the end it was given to the Kumo because they were the least shaky out of the two of them (they were both proficient in the counters for their respective elements, it was actually fun to watch the back and forth, like a tennis match almost). Hiroshi faced off against a Kumo nin who was wearing sheet armor as well as a generator that absorbed lightning jutsu. It would have been clever, but it wasn't made out of chakra metal so other attacks worked on it. Or more specifically, fire jutsu powered up by a wind jutsu and the resulting explosions worked on it. The offense of the other ninja relied mostly on distanced attacks and the armor made him much slower than normal. So Hiroshi had plenty of time to go through trial and error while avoiding the other boys attacks.
Overall the first round took about two and a half hours to complete with an hours intermission for the next round.
During the intermission, Killer Bee took center stage to go over the highlights of round one, in the form of rap which he likely spend the last two hours writing. Me and my team had lunch during this but I was clapping along with it which got some strange looks. I shrugged my shoulders at them, it was hard to make music, even if it was off beat and some of the rhymes weren't that good I supported the effort. It's not like any of my music was actually original, the only original effort I had to put forth was adapting lyrics across the language barrier and trying to match up the music with only one or two instruments. Sure that was hard, but it still wasn't as hard as making something completely new.
The second round had Suigetsu facing the only Konoha nin not to fight today. Said Konoha nin used ninja wire and lots of fire.
That fight didn't last very long.
Fighting at the same time was a much longer match of Kiriko versus the poison water clone Ame nin, better known in my mind as, attack of the clones. The entire match was basically the entire field being covered with copies of the Ame nin and Kiriko running after each other. Though Kiriko's haze bushin couldn't break the water clones, a well aimed kunai could and Kiriko spent most the match moving around and breaking the clones a good distance away from them so to avoid the splashback. In the end it was an endurance competition and when it came down to it, genjutsu was less taxing than water clones which meant the Ame nin was the first to drop from exhaustion.
Because Mitsuki and the Suna were a double knockout there was only one match this time and that was the Suna puppet master versus Chojuro. Chojuro did do a valiant effort of attacking and trying to find where the puppet master was, and with an air bubble jutsu managed to avoid most of the poison but when the time ran out and he hadn't actually managed to find and attack the puppeteer, the Suna nin was declared the winner. It was a tough break.
Next round was Gonmaru versus the only Kumo to get a pass for the first round with Manami facing the very large Kumo with the electric gauntlets. Both matches were very similar in set-up as they ran at the same time. Gonmaru was facing a swordsman who used a long sword and speed to keep distance while they hit him with several quick cuts. There was an innate problem with this of course though.
Gonmaru was a tank.
Gonmaru while not physically the most imposing figure, was earth natured and covered head to toe in one hundred proof chakra conductive cloth which on the forearms and legs had chakra metal plates. He couldn't do it with his weapons, but he could chakra flow into his clothing, which with the already good quality of his clothing materials and the earth natured affinity meant that he was wearing a of armor that would stop normal attacks as long as his chakra held out. His knuckles also had little short pointed triangular prisms which when he punched someone would draw blood and hurt like a mofo. So when the swordsman came in close to hit him he just had to take the hit and strike him as hard as he could before he jumped away again. He was slower than the swordsman but he wasn't as much damage if any from each encounter so eventually the kumo nin folded.
Manami had to work a bit harder, flickering around, using flashes, hitting once then bouncing away from the bigger nin. Her opponent was a much more resilient fighter than last time, and expected the tactics so their was an innate problem because while she hit him several times, he only had to get her once with the lightning gauntlets, and eventually he did. It was close though, she'd almost made the thirty minute time limit when he got a clear hit to her stomach and shocked her down to the ground.
When it came time for the next round I walked over to my place to fight my first fight of the day. I had my sword out and looked at my counterpart the most quiet of the four in the Konoha party I'd fought with. I hadn't seen her fight before since Manami's had been the center of attention, and I tried to think about what I knew about them but I really didn't know anything.
I looked at them for a few moments and tried to think. Nope, no clan markings, no anything. I wish I could be more thoughtful of this person but they weren't really distinctive. Which I suppose was an advantage in of itself now that I thought about it. Well if that was.. Oh wait did they call the time.
I looked over at her and seemed to reaching for something. I closed the distance between us and jabbed the pummel of my sword into her chest. She started to double over at this and when she started to fall I grabbed her wrist with both hands and placed my fingers against a joint and pushed. It was harder to do with chakra reinforcing her, but I just pushed chakra into my own hands to increase the pressure and, pushing the wrist back, one, two, three.
She gasped out in pain and I let go, her wrist fell limp and I took a step back waiting for her reaction. She looked at me in pain but glaring, her other hand reaching for her pouch. I covered the short distance and punched her in the face before grabbing her other wrist and spinning her again. It took less time to break it this time before I let it fall limp and walked backwards. I didn't turn away from her, because that would just be stupid, but instead I held up my hands.
"Hey rep, can you call this? She can't make hand signs anymore."
The girl was glaring at me as both wrists hung limply. Killer Bee hadn't been watching our match so when he turned to face us he looked surprise.
"Dang Usa, that's harsh."
He looked to me then at the girl.
"Well Leaf, what's the word? You forfeit."
The girl looked down at her wrists in pain but bearing it as shinobi do before nodding her head.
"Alright, this match goes to Usa-san. Please head off the field but try not to get into the other match, they be throwing some serious firepower out there."
I nodded and looked at the girl gave her an incline of my head and left the field. I would have shaken her hand or something, but I don't think she'd trust me too even if she could.
