A loud sound of cracking wood reached Kouta's ears as he continued his freefall below. After fixing his position in the air to one more suitable to protecting himself the young man noticed a humongous chunk of wood flying at his face. Nothing a quick but focused strike at the centre couldn't fix.
Right as the boy's fist connected to the large wood structure he felt an intense shock from the other side – the goth must've snuck up stuck to it. A more inventive use of Art of Tree Climbing technique. Kouta's arm had only fractions of a second before the immense earthquake causing pressure would've completely obliterated his arm into bloody mush of flesh and bone.
"Chakra Shotgun!" he shouted out as cannons split from his forearm unleashed a quick close range burst of chakra that both tossed him backwards and not only compensated for the force of Earth Release earthquake technique that the goth girl tried hitting him with but also blasted her back.
Down below and a bit to the south Yushijin continued striking at the greasy haired young man. He wielded kunai blades, curved and modified for nasty stabs and bypassing blocks and shields. Luckily, Yushijin still had a confident range advantage, still, the grease was surprisingly quick.
"Genjutsu: Last Resort!" Yushijin chanted out.
Blood burst from the side of the blood of his opponent as the entire right part of his body nearly split off. Just a little bit more strength in Yushijin's cut and it would've been lethal, splitting the young Iwagakure gent in two like nothing. Such was the strategy of the swordsman. He didn't mean to kill his opponent in this friendly competition, just injure him so much that he had to be removed from further competition.
"Genjutsu, huh?" the dark haired Iwagakure genin laughed out as his cut down body burnt up in flames and disappeared without sparking even the slightest fire on any of the leaves, moss or grass beside him.
"A subject I see you also are familiar with…" Yushijin grunted feeling a bit annoyed by his opponent's survival. The first slash he landed up there was limited in potency, his body was hardened in its entirety allowing only the tip of the sword to pierce the flesh. This time he protected with genjutsu.
"I assume that's the secret behind your incredible speed, no?" the sly Iwagakure fox smiled with all the subtlety of a viper crossed with a weasel. "No genin can be moving that fast, you're using genjutsu to affect my comprehension of time, that's my educated guess as a genjutsu user. You make anyone affected perceive your movements as instantaneous, time perception is difficult to mess around with, I must commend you!"
"You're here to talk or are you here to fight?" Yushijin grunted before playfully swinging his large sword around just so his muscles stayed in their peak preparedness.
"Ah, before I defeat you, I, Zircon Trot of Iwagakure must commend a skilled colleague… That and the fact that I must stall you before I reach my true target. Girls always had the softest backs to stab!" Trot smiled with his wicked smile once more.
Finally understanding that he was being played Yushijin weaved the genjutsu dispelling hand seal. Just like the corpse before, this Zircon Trot standing in front of his immolated in seconds. Without wasting any time the swordsman charged for Budoki, the girl was a more hands-off combatant, combat heat was something that may have greatly troubled her.
Meanwhile Budoki herself was being a bit occupied by taking on the silent giant wearing a ponytail – Horein Ptet from Iwagakure.
The brutish man pounced in gigantic leaps, swiping left and right at Budoki who just gracefully flipped back and sideways, cutting and pulling strings that triggered more and more of her traps. One kunai dispenser firing upon a wire trigger was pulled on launched a stream of kunai that riddled Ptet's right side, one even etched into the poor brute's ear.
The man stumbled and bashed into a tree as his sense of balance began to fade. The brutish mute pulled out the blades from his side and his ear and quickly began patching them up. Even when he used medical ninjutsu he did not speak. Using ninjutsu without speaking the name of the technique required much greater unity of mind and body, both spiritual aspects and physicals. Not to mention amazing concentration.
Budoki couldn't let her opponent recover. With a bountiful leap she reached for a tree branch above and tossed an explosive kunai. This time Ptet was a bit more careful and stepped to the side and right into a trap she had prepared for him – a falling pit. Using her free from hanging on the branch arm, young Budoki used a wire string loop to catch her opponent by his foot and keep him hanging in the air. She didn't have enough time for anything but a little trap hole so just having him fall down would've meant jack squat.
"Boy you're making me use a lot of resources!" she playfully teased her mute opponent before demonstratively triggering a wire trap she had placed and connected to a previously set up trap when the mute giant was still brawling it out with Kouta above.
A pair of giant tree logs were released from their hold and fell like chopping blocks right on top of the medical ninja throwing him into the hole and smashing into him as well as covering the hole up with debris.
"Hmph… It's eerily quiet, this can't be it…" she wondered out loud while scratching her soft chin and looking around. The forest around her, despite supposedly being a battlefield of genin fighting it out all around, was silent as a nightly graveyard.
"Wonder if that jounin lady is anywhere nearby, I'd ask her for directions, she looks like she's more on our side…" the young lady joked to herself before swinging her trident kunai hook on steel wire and pulling herself onto a tree farther back to get a better look.
Kouta, meanwhile, was still quite busy with the goth genin kunoichi. Despite him apparently outclassing her in physical department and mastery of martial arts, she continuously kept charging in close distance and trying to use her slow earthquake ninjutsu on him. Granted, they were powerful, a single one would've shocked the medical ninja's lower body and broken bones as well as opened fissures that swallowed him up. Still, they didn't matter as long as a quick jab or a cross to her abdomen broke her concentration.
"I wonder if Mana would be this easy to fight, she relies on hand seals as well…" the boy wondered before evading another pair of displacement kicks and using his knee to lift the girl's leg in an uncomfortable position where she'd lose balance. Oddly enough she mastered her balance and simply vaulted back using his own force to regain balance.
Utilizing all opportunities the young Juugo charged in with an elbow crack to her skull. After it connected the girl just staggered, flying back like a ragdoll. It was strange how badly she took hits and how recklessly she charged in close quarters, almost like she craved being beaten…
Kouta's legs burst up with chakra propelling him in the air with a kick to the gothic girl's abdomen. Once again her body got propelled upwards like a rocket, obviously she used chakra augmentations not to die, but this was nothing like a skilled close range combatant. When one hit a person skilled at augmenting their endurance the hits simply bounced off like off of a brick wall, this girl, however, just took it all and used chakra just to not die.
At this point Kouta kind of felt bad for her. Hitting her and hearing those painful and gut wrenching screams started feeling as painful as getting hit himself. After a couple of more of juggling slams the taijutsu user finally crashed the kunoichi into the ground and landed farther away. He suspected that she had wasted a significant part of her chakra but he couldn't have been certain it wasn't a substitution or a clone technique.
A bad feeling in his gut… Almost instinctively Kouta grabbed at his throat only to feel sharp pain in his arms, had he not moved as fast as he did his throat would've been cut open in a mere microsecond.
The medical ninja tried throwing elbow strikes and wide roundhouse kicks with some of his chakra jets mixed in to the combination but no one was there. This felt so weird, was this all just an illusion? The wound on his palm suggested differently. The greasy knife wielding boy – Trot from before, leaped in with kunai in both hands aiming to stab them at Kouta's eyes.
The young Juugo's arm moved much faster, he simply lifted it up and giving his assailant nothing more than a cruel and cold look blasted from his arm which malformed into a chakra cannon halfway before his assailant reached him.
"Chakra Pistol!" the young boy uttered as a fist sized sphere of pure chakra fired out and blew a hole in the kunai wielding genin's chest. How could he have taken this much damage!?
Kouta leaped in to check up on his opponent, feeling regret and inner anguish for having just possibly blown a hole where his opponent's chest was. Did he purposefully not block it? His chakra augments couldn't have been this diminished, he only had a pair of mean scratches as well as a giant slice all over his body, lengthy yet shallow, where Yushijin had cut him earlier.
A liquid tapping, almost leaking, sound alerted Kouta and woke him up from almost a dream-like state. A blade of a knife was sticking out from his chest, the handle of which was behind him, the clone of Trot he had just blasted burnt up to a crisp.
"The kind ones are always the easiest to fool…" the sly weasel's voice hissed from behind before kicking the medical genin in the back and off of his knife.
Kouta stumbled forward before hitting the ground. He reached for his heart, his natural chakra augmentations working in sync with his honest attempts to use his Mystical Palm jutsu and heal up at least part of his heart injury. Whatever didn't kill him immediately could've been survived. Now Kouta only begged that his chakra didn't plummet so low that he was treated as eliminated from the exam. He wanted to survive this, not to keep on living, not just the elementary prolongation of his existence. He wanted to keep competing, to show off his skill as a medical ninja to his own team and to Mana.
Trot just snickered into his fist. "Hey, Jord-chan, don't you feel glad about this plan to sucker this loser in? The moment I saw his affinity for medical ninjutsu, even early after the Academy, I knew this guy's gonna lose his stomach hitting a poor defenceless girl!"
Wiping the blood off of her nose Jord Kvasir, the goth genin kunoichi from Team Pyrite stood up. "Everyone's just in it to use us. You're using me for your own gain, this loser's using my pain to feel like a big kind hero!" she growled before kicking at Kouta's bleeding body angrily. She reached in and grabbed the boy's hair before pulling his pale face closer to hers and licking his lips.
"I feel so fucking jealous… I wish I was dying in your place. After all, our lives are so useless. Dying beats being used anytime…" she whispered into the young man's ear before licking it.
"Hey, Jord! Don't you go starting that shit again, sensei's believing your redemption. No ending the world! Bad Jord!" Trot teased his teammate by smacking her in the back of her head.
A flesh freezing cutting sound made the greasy knife wielding genin freeze in his stance. Agonizing pain took him over and freeze-framed his muscles in a state of shock. Again and again Yushijin's blade carved its name into the kunai user's back diminishing more and more of his chakra augmentations. The unwilling and instinctual chakra augmentations were the most costly, after a couple of good hits the entire arsenal could've been emptied.
"Genjutsu: Last Resort!" Yushijin roared out as his own body was beginning to feel taxed by the sheer number of ruthless slashes he performed from behind. The world around the two young men froze solid, Yushijin cut again and again and again and again. Even he felt the strain of his own illusion, usually fitting for a handful of moments, freezing a sweet moment in time for some willing extension. Now he just wanted more chances to punish the lying Iwagakure genin.
As the coup de grace, Yushijin delivered a jumping sideways kick right to the genin's neck sending him down. This time he wouldn't mess up, he extended the timer for his own illusion so long past the recommended limit that he was absolutely certain had the illusion been a clone, it would've already long since immolated.
"You lied to me, you bastard…" Yushijin kept on hyperventilating, using his longsword by stabbing it at the ground to keep standing after the immense stress he willingly went through to punish his opponent. "You didn't go after Budoki, you went after Kouta… At least now I know who your target is."
"So he used you too? Feels so exquisitely painful, doesn't it?" Jord moaned out madly stroking her own hair and rudely pulling them between her fingers. Some of her pink strings or the dominant tar black darkness stayed on her fingers, so deep was her sickness.
"So, you got caught off-guard again, huh? Heal yourself, Kouta. I'll take care of them for you." Yushijin closed his eyes awaiting his opponent's attack. He found that sometimes he could lure a less composed enemy into charging right at him just by closing his eyes.
Kiyomi leaped up with a pair of quick leaps and landed right beside Mana, taking a careless seat by her side and sighing.
"How is she?" Mana asked curiously.
"Better. Her nose is kinda already under control, the gut wound still troubles me. Do you maybe have some food pills?" Kiyomi wondered.
"Sorry…" Mana shook her head.
"I think you should know… That wound isn't slowing down bleeding. I think she wasted too much chakra and the ninja metabolism won't kick in until her chakra levels return to normal. I'm not a medical ninja, Mana… The fuck do I know what to do?" Kiyomi whimpered out.
The fact that Kiyomi, of all people, was breaking down scared Mana to no end. The Yamanaka was always like an older sister to her. She always could've been counted on to do something or make calls. The two didn't always see eye to eye but the Yamanaka was somewhat of an authority figure whom Mana held in high regard. Her breakdown scared the magician all by itself.
"I… I picked up a new skill. I can summon ninja rabbits."
"Sorry, Mana. I never really found the long-eared suckers be that charming to begin with. I'm not a child, a fluffy bunny won't calm me down…"
"No, you don't get it… Maybe… Maybe one of them knows a rabbit, or a rabbit that knows a rabbit…" Mana shrugged. Slowly, she was beginning to realize that her own voice was shaking. Her own older sister was slipping into despair, how could Mana not?
"It better… If not… We may need to call it quits. This exam means everything to me but… This is Meiko's life. Don't tell her I told you this, as far as she knows she has a cold. She's so goddamn gullible, like an honest to God child!" tears began running down Kiyomi's cheeks.
Mana lifted her palm trying to comfort Kiyomi before she felt a quick and strong embrace almost crush her ribcage. The Yamanaka's weeping was getting uncontrollable, she was really worried over Meiko's life and not in a way that the magician had ever seen anyone being worried.
After the hug had become too prolonged and almost awkward the magician slipped out of it and leaped down. Remembering the Summoning Jutsu from one of her elementary ninjutsu techniques textbooks she made a bunch of hand seals after biting her thumb hard enough to draw blood from it.
"Boar-Dog-Bird-Monkey-Ram… Summoning Jutsu!" the magician listed the hand seals by mumbling them to herself under her own nose before placing her hand deep into the bottom of her top hat that erupted in darker shades of indigo as intense light began emanating from it. Moments later a cute yet very deadly and verily familiar rabbit pulled his head out of Mana's hat before leaping out in his entirety.
"Well… Not 'verly pleasant trip, if ye kno' what Ah mean!" Usuzoku yelled out before looking around frantically and noticing desperate Mana standing behind him and uneasily considering how this conversation needs to go.
"Atcha! Ye stupid hatchlin', still rottin' in dis damn 'ere Forest 'a Death!? Are ye so dead in ye brainbox that ye can't find yer way out!?" the sword packing mammal shouted at her.
Pressing her hand against her chest, as a sign of honesty and a request for help, Mana finally gathered the courage and strength to speak up.
"Zoku-chan… I know you don't like me very much and promised me you'd never work with me but… My friend, my very best friend, Meiko is dying. I was wondering if you maybe knew, or maybe knew a rabbit that knew, some medical ninjutsu?" she pleaded.
"Eh!? Nah, I dunno no healin', we rabbits are really tough in de head, when we get smacked around we get back up, ye see? If you maybe showed me yer stupid hatchlin' friend, maybe I could help…" Usuzoku shrugged but judging merely from his expression he wasn't overly willing to help her.
"I… We don't want to expose her to the possibility it's anything more than a common cold."
"Cold? Is she fucking stupid?" Usuzoku scratched his back as the silliness of Meiko's usual character made him so dumbfounded he unwillingly started wanting to socialize to Mana.
"Something like that…" Mana shrugged. "Look, I'd do anything for her life. You are literally my last lifeline, the next step is ending the Chuunin Exam…"
"Chuunin Exams? You mean our own Stupid Hatchlin' is growin' and makin' us less ashamed of being affiliated with 'er?" Usuzoku teased the magician.
"Not anymore, I guess…" Mana rubbed her elbow as her own eyes began to water.
This was it. Maybe the examiner will allow them to continue without Meiko, likely not though. They are calling for outside assistance, even more, they'll be open for attack during their trip back. All that was left for her now was to depend on the mercy of Hozuki Shibari and permission to continue, or else this exam and Mana's own presence in Team Hokage was over…
"Sorry, kid, yer friend is good as dead, is what she is…" Usuzoku rubbed some more salt into the wound before taking Mana's hat and trying to stuff it onto his nose to fit himself back into the seal. Even the cuteness of the sight in question was not noticed over the distress and potential loss of a friend and an important part of each ninja's growth…