After the swift Dance of the Tulip tore through Qarsufly's four beetles forcing them to flee the Sunagakure summoner took a wary step back. It was just a momentary tremble of confidence but it was not missed even by the two kunoichi observing the battle from above the hall where the battle took place.
"Those bone moves are amazing"! Meiko cheered out in excitement overloading Kiyomi's mind with loud shrieks of joy, "They're so fast and powerful, they'd tear any shield I have like wet paper"!
"Hey! Just whose side are you on? You may just end up fighting guys like this in the next rounds", Kiyomi complained so that her friend lightened up her overwhelming excitement. "Better start looking for weaknesses while you have a chance" the Yamanaka tried to direct her teammate's energy to something more productive than vain obsession.
"You're just jealous he's cooler than you!" Meiko joked, her thoughts were more collected this time but somehow they managed to sound even more insufferable. In a way, Kiyomi didn't really feel too fond about Jekleifer, maybe it was just his clan in general. Maybe there was a hint of jealousy in that hatred, similar to how Kiyomi hated Uchiha.
That being said, the jealousy and hatred for Uchiha felt more warranted somehow. Those were people praised for being the total ninja elite, the highest and the most amazing bloodline one could've been born into. Uchiha were destined for greatness, they had every tool handed down to them to be Hokage, to be the most powerful and amazing ninja. To be strong, smart and handsome. Whenever Kiyomi felt proud to be Yamanaka somehow Uchiha always were brought up as if somehow Kiyomi's own blood was less worth than that of theirs.
It wouldn't have been that bad if those guys used their blood right. Rose above the occasion, lived up to their potential and sacrificed their lives working for their village and doing their best. Instead they lived their lives in vanity and arrogance, thinking that their natural prowess and talent was all they needed. That was how most of them died off or got retired early – they got careless and cocky. That was likely the bottom of Kiyomi's beef with those people. The fact that they were naturally superior to everyone else, constantly shoved in her face about how that was the truth, and yet they wasted everyone's time with all that potential.
Then what was the problem with this guy? He clearly was fit and well trained, he used his abilities properly and even innovated on them. He was cocky but he could back up every word of it. He wasn't like the Uchiha Kiyomi knew or heard of at all.
Qarsufly's hands danced gracefully in a combination of hand seals after his teeth drew more blood from his thumb and he summoned another beetle. This one however was the size of a rhinoceros. Its side horns extended halfway throughout the entire hall and the central nose horn was as tall as the entire floor and looked like it could've crushed every bone in someone's body with a single ram.
With a whooshing sound the side horns snapped shut, trying to cut through Jekleifer like scissors. The golden haired Kaguya spread his hands to the sides catching the horns right before they pierced him. Blood squirt from his hands as he struggled to keep the horns away from impaling him. As the beetle intensified its pressure Jekleifer's hands should've caved in from the ceaseless intense pain but the young man held the horns firmly. Instead of squirting blood only a bone cracking and grinding sounds followed every attempt to press the horns together and impale the Iwagakure youth. Jekleifer managed to form cartilage tissue on top of his hand injury which provided him with enough protection and toughness to his grip to hold the horns away.
With a mad dash forward the beetle tried to force Jekleifer back and crush him against the armored centipede shell wall to loosen his grip and crush him with the large central horn. Another barrage of crystal pillars tried to derail the beetle's forceful advances but they were toppled halfway by Faqsadid's shoulder ram. Upon hitting the crystal the pillars shattered into smallest pieces together with Faqsadid's shoulder. Despite that the strange inhuman giant kept on standing with the same look on his face, that dumb smile.
"I'm your opponent", a cybernetic sounding voice came from somewhere deep in Faqsadid's chest.
Shortly Jekleifer's body gave in to the pressure, his feet lifted off the ground and his body got slammed against the wall with the oversized horn of the beetle crushing the young man between the armored centipede shell and its horn. The wall that Jekleifer got smashed into collapsed outwards but the Kaguya youth managed to avoid being flung outside.
Jekleifer's female teammate attempted to move him further away from the cornered position he was in but a speedy whizzing circular blade buzzed right past her face stopping her. By leaning left and right the young Aburame avoided multiple more attacks from the circular blades before leaping up and sticking to the ceiling of the floor.
"Outside"! She yelled out turning at the messy and dusty corner that her team leader was cornered into.
Much to Qarsufly's surprise, Jekleifer stood back on his feet. The flesh on his chest appeared to be completely stripped off and only a hardened bone tissue that was generated on his actual skeleton protected that part of his body before it changed into a softer but more flexible cartilage tissue.
"That should've grinded your bones to dust"! Qarsufly's mouth opened up in disbelief from what he had seen his enemy survive. The beetle he was standing on and whom he was controlling was the most powerful member of the ninja beetles he could use in combat. The combination attack that the Sunagakure genin had used must've been his most powerful hit and yet it didn't appear that it fazed his enemy at all, except numerous flesh wounds.
"That guy can take a punch too!" Meiko once again emanated overloaded with excitement thoughts onto the link.
"Yeah. But by now you should've noticed it. His weakness", Kiyomi smiled. Somehow it gave her joy now that she saw a way to defeat this genin if she ever had to fight him head-on.
"Weakness? Nothing he's hit by hurts him too much, what are you talking about? He's next to invulnerable. That white stuff completely covers up all the fleshy wounds and his bones are harder than anything in my arsenal", the blacksmith continued to remain in total awe at the Iwagakure genin's strength and endurance.
"That's right, physically he's next to invulnerable but not mentally. Every time he uses his ability he creates new bones under his flesh as well as stabs himself from inside to create weapons and counterattack it hurts him. That sort of agonizing pain wears on you and eventually the fatigue will just keep you down even if your body is still alright. Technically speaking, he damages his own body every time he both attacks and defends, his ability is a curse as much as it is a gift", the Yamanaka explained.
Without even weaving any hand seals Jekleifer placed his hands onto the ground. The skin on his flesh started twitching and shifting like large objects were moving through his flesh and his teeth grinded in pain.
"Dance of the Seedling Fern"! Jekleifer almost screamed out in crippling pain. It was clear that momentarily his enemy wondered if he should've tried and attacked the youth again as the start-up for his jutsu was incredibly sluggish and he took several seconds just standing there and letting his body shift and twitch before the technique initiated. That being said, once it did – it transpired instantaneously.
The entire structure built by Team Maruf was completely annihilated and blown away by a rising forest of colossal bones totally tearing anything in its way to shreds. Kiyomi couldn't even fathom what had happened for entire seconds after the tremendous forest of bones erected and completely ravaged the landscape for a good fifty meters in radius. She even wondered if she was still alive before realizing that she was mostly unhurt and in Meiko's hands.
"Thanks", the blonde expressed her gratitude to the quick thinking of her teammate. Meiko just nodded before sighing more easily. They were sitting on top of a strong branch inside the forest and not holed up in some room in a tight and armored structure. This was a much more comfortable location to launch the intended stealth attack from.
From a single look at Qarsufly's eyes it became clear that the genin didn't expect the manner of widespread and total destruction of the building he helped Faqsadid build. Had his beetle not taken off and avoided every bone spike protruding from the ground in its mad flight to the air he'd have been completely overwhelmed and impaled, without a doubt.
His team however were not as fortunate. Faqsadid laid on the ground with his strange body completely torn and lacerated. He looked like he got gutted by a rampaging boar as he laid outside the forest's range, without a doubt being tossed there after the spikes erected shooting out from the ground so suddenly. Squlra also carried massive battle damage from the suddenly emerged forest as her highly concealing outfit got almost completely torn apart to shreds and her exposed skin revealed endless streaks of cuts and shallow stabbing wounds she received. The young woman was hanging on a circular blade attached to a steel wire that she lodged onto a tree branch, using it to pull herself away after taking massive damage to both her body and her chakra reserves.
"Still want to try your luck against that Kaguya guy"? Meiko mumbled with a cheerful smile as the overwhelming attack against the entire battlefield caused Kiyomi to break the mental link.
Without answering anything Kiyomi just pointed her finger at the Kaguya who stood in right outside of the forest of bones surrounded by his teammates. Jekleifer was breathing heavily and sweating profusely, trickling drops of blood forced their way through the cartilage tissue and somehow found its way outside his body. It was evident that the Team Corundum leader took a great toll using this technique.
"Whaaa!", the blacksmith shouted out loud enough for Kiyomi to temporarily feel worried that they may have given their position out.
"I mean… Yeah, I know I was right but I didn't expect you to be that excited. Jutsu like that have their cost, you know", Kiyomi shrugged as she started getting drawn into her own lecture before Meiko grabbed the Yamanaka's soft and squishy cheeks and turned her head against a pink pillar of crystal laying on the ground a good twenty meters behind Team Corundum.
"Mana", Kiyomi uttered finally realizing what caught her friend's attention before. While finding her friend did feel a little clarifying, at the same time it sort of kicked Kiyomi straight in the groin. As if her face was dragged in the dirt of her failure. Her own immobilized teammate frozen in a chunk of crystal just laid out besides an active battlefield.
Before the blonde could figure out if she wanted to risk being seen while moving the magician's crystalline prison away from the battlefield, the squabble was resumed.
"Ninja Style: Chakram Whirligig"! Squlra yelled out taken over by rage of being cut up and damaged. She saw the weakened state of the Kaguya and went for it. Ten chakram blades flew right at the worn out and self-injured Kaguya who clenched at his own wounds. Right as the blades would've hit her teammate, Aburame Maurlon placed her hand against the ground. Powerful jaws emerged from underground deflecting the blades aside before submerging again.
Angered by the lack of success in injuring her opponent Squlra grit her teeth before pulling on all the strings attached to all of the chakram and driving all of them to their intended location. Despite her repeated attempt to hit the enemy the entire team was protected by a crystalline dome surrounding them.
"You actually helped this time", Maurlon noted in genuine surprise of the very uncharacteristic behavior for her Guren clansman teammate.
"Tsk, don't get any wrong ideas, if those blades actually hit Jekleifer I'd have gotten dirt and blood into my eyes, that's too annoying to allow to happen", Tolkre replied sarcastically.
"Go. I'll watch both your backs"! Maurlon asked for her teammate who just nodded and weaved a pair of hand seals before charging alone at his enemy.
"Crystal Style: Crystal Lance!" Tolkre yelled out as his hand hardened with an outer layer of crystal which kept growing thicker and longer until it began resembling a large lance made entirely of pink crystal material sharper and harder than titanium.
Momentarily Tolkre's eyes wavered as he saw little to no support from the Aburame coming but soon his feeling of ground beneath his feet wavered. The Guren clansman realized that he was mounting an immensely sized insect causing movements underground that forced the ground beneath his feet to shift, moving him at his opponent's direction like a surfboard.
"The beetle, Tolkre"! Maurlon commanded to prioritize the insectoid partner of Qarsufly.
"Forget it, let's just get Jekleifer his stupid target and be done with it!" Tolkre smiled as he thrust his spear at the laying giant.
Before the crystalline spear could pierce Faqsadid, however, Qarsufly's beetle swooped down and rammed Tolkre from the side tossing him aside and off of his surfboard of shifting dirt. It appeared that the impact shook the young man up and injured him pretty badly as he didn't move or attempt to get up after being tossed aside.
"Fine, I'll finish him off myself", Maurlon grunted as she slammed her hands against the ground setting off her ace technique which she was waiting to use this whole time.
The dirt beneath Faqsadid's massive frame exploded like a gazer of stone and soil before beginning to sink down. The sinkhole grew in size and depth with an alarming rate.
"Lightning Style: Lightning Teetotum!" Squlra yelled out sending a bunch of chakram blades attached to steel wire through which she channeled Lightning Release chakra to grant her blades more cutting power and completely imbue them with chakra. With cutting power like that the young Sunagakure kunoichi could've cut through most of any weapons found in genin's arsenal and even through elementary chakra augmentation using genin like nothing. As the blades got swallowed up by the rotating and shifting blackness of the sinkhole in which Faqsadid was getting absorbed in a strong lightning pulse came out from Squlra's chakram before the tools got completely swallowed up.
"What!?" The injured Sunagakure kunoichi yelled out in surprise, "My Lightning Release chakra should've broken your Earth Release ninjutsu apart"
"Earth Release ninjutsu?" Maurlon smiled confidently as she confidently straightened out her back and rubbed her nose triumphantly, "Who told I was using something like that?"
"But", Squlra hesitated before observing the shifting dirt inside the ever deepening and widening sinkhole more clearly. It looked like every smallest grain of the soil was a living, moving and squirming organism struggling for its life which caused the sinkhole effect.
"That's right. Those are all insects, burrowing through the ground, desperately fleeing from something larger that lurks in the center of my technique", Maurlon grinned before Faqsadid's massive frame got grabbed by two pincer-like gigantic jaws and dragged completely underground before the insects all settled down and burrowed underground. After one more violent quake of the earth the sinkhole got completely covered up and collapsed in on itself, the doing of all the miniscule insects who didn't sink below to the absolute giant lurking below.
"Don't worry, we'll give your teammate up to the staff. We'll claim him as our target, of course", Maurlon laughed out in triumph. Her technique utilizing two entirely new species of the Aburame chakra devouring insects required open space or a more suitable floor than the armored shell of a giant Forest of Death centipede which covered Team Maruf's camp before. All the burrowing little insects attacked the enemy eating away at their chakra resources and making it difficult to escape the sinkhole while the large predator awaited in the deep center of the sinkhole waiting to lock its tight jaws around the sinking and weakened prey and either hold them captive or just crush them in its grip.
Squlra's cocky feminine laugh pierced the silence. Not too long later Qarsufly's laughter followed.
"Our teammate? We tried to save his puppet, not his body. Replacing the big one will be a big pain in his ass, that's all", Squlra mocked the Aburame who lingered for a moment before a light tremble gave away her suddenly rising fear.
Dirty little hands burst from underground grabbing firmly on the Aburame's heels and holding her in place.
"I… I can't contact Arijikochu. What have you done to her"!? Maurlon tried to still maintain an image of being threatening despite being firmly restrained and all of her attempts to call for her underground swarms ending up in vain.
As Qarsufly's buzzing beetle prepared to ram the enemy of its summoner and break her body Squlra could've help herself from bragging.
"It's Faqsadid's giant puppet, the gooey red secretion that spreads from its wounds is poisonous" she giggled, "If I had to guess, your buggers are all probably all knocked out or dead for trying to eat his chakra up from up close".
After lowering its massive ramming horn the beetle swooped down. Maurlon closed her eyes, she could probably have used some more of her chakra to form an insect clone using the parasitic insects already inside her body but it wouldn't have stopped the incoming horn, nor would it have allowed her to somehow get loose from the real Faqsadid holding her from underground.
"Konoha Secret Taijutsu: One Thousand Years of Death!" Kiyomi's voice echoed out of the blue as she and Meiko blitzed behind Qarsufly in his moment of lowered guard. The Yamanaka pressed her hands together inserting her index and middle fingers into Qarsufly's rear end forcefully. Meiko had definitely not expected Kiyomi's secret anti-augmentation method to be this embarrassing but she appeared to follow up her attack flawlessly, if cringing ever so slightly.
The blacksmith's hand chopped Qarsufly in the back of his neck subtly, knowing that Kiyomi's technique neutralized her opponent's ability to augment his body using chakra. In his moment of constipating embarrassing agony the chop hit Qarsufly where it was sent knocking him out instantly and slamming him against his summoned beetle so strongly that it derailed the insect and slammed it to the ground shaking it up greatly. After the beetle dispelled with a loud poof followed by a cloud of smoke in its location being left behind Qarsufly's unconscious body rolled out from the smoke cloud.
Initially the two girls intended to hit and run but now the two just stared both weakened and feuding teams down angrily. Kiyomi had previously thought that the magician was knocked out from behind or cut down. Seeing her covered up in crystal and locked inside that crystal pillar it inspired hope that maybe there was still hope to rescue her and have her maintain consciousness.
They'd convince Team Corundum let Mana go and bring her back even if it took giving Tolkre a thousand kancho pokes to do it.