The battle between the last remaining genin teams inside the Forest of Death raged on as each team got entangled in some sort of a bond with another participating team, making them duke it out in a large twelve people scuffle. Gentib, now in his Tankobaji persona, had a fight to pick with his target – Gurker Gliesse, meanwhile Team Shahryar wanted to beat another Hoshigakure ninja forcing them into an uneasy alliance with Gurker's team.
Seeing a chance for the offensive, Daseaut, the member of Sunagakure's Team Shahryar breathed in and out, closing his eyes to calm his body before using his technique. Just like before, when Tankobaji faked him out, the young genin winded up his extended palm as he begun molding large concentrations of chakra. Where before the surrounding ninja were completely oblivious to Daseaut's subtle chakra build-up, once the immensely powerful Wind Release technique of the genin picked up momentum and started creating powerful gusts of wind, powerful enough to blast even the battle-hardened ninja off their feet, the entire battlefield suddenly turned at the distrustful Sunagakure genin.
While the enemy alliance waited for Daseaut to reveal just what nature of jutsu this build-up of chakra was, the Sungakure genin simply gracefully focused force into his lower feet and bounced off the ground, flying head-first and winded up palm aimed at the enemy. The spiraling intense winds that very nearly pulled the surrounding ages old, birthed by powerful chakra, trees out with their entire roots began settling down in a glowing sphere in the boy's hand. The sphere's shape was uneasy, trembling and whirling, too large to suggest optimal and compact containment of the storming chakra within.
"No name"!? Relta Ginn trembled in her boots once she realized that the previously considered completely unremarkable Sunagakure genin pulled off such a technique without uttering its name – suggesting that Daseaut had made his technique so perfected and practiced inside his body and mind that it no longer needed verbal aid to prepare his body for performing the technique.
As the boy flew straight at Tankobaji, the showy and demonic persona pushed his staff against the ground at remarkable force, pushing his entire body out of the way of the rushing genin who decided to attack him with such a powerful yet straightforward technique in such a brutish way.
As Daseaut passed the location where his intended target was supposed to be, the spiraling sphere of rotating chakra faded in the boy's palm as he found himself wide open and completely without cover in the enemy lines. Tankobaji's teammate – Gorm charged at the wide-open Sunagakure genin with a rushing elbow strike. Daseaut just coughed painfully as the powerful strike dug deep in his jaw, lifting the young man's body off the ground even.
After the initial strike connected, Gorm didn't intend to stop with his offensive just there as he continued to attack the weakened young man with continuous chain strikes, with each successive strike, it appeared, the rest that followed were faster and stronger, continuing until no one could have even counted properly how much strikes had Daseaut received.
The genin's teammate, the athletic looking female blacksmith stepped forward to help her teammate before her own other teammate stopped her. After being given a death-wishing ice-cold glare, Alemyat just shook his head.
"He knew that the jutsu was incomplete and that he still needed training to use it. He placed himself in the enemy lines and if you attack like that you'll just further scatter our ranks", Alemyat explained himself.
Finally, the Wind Release ninjutsu user managed to catch one of his opponent's punches successfully. With one of his opponent's arms trapped, Daseaut stepped in to strike with his other hand and, once the other hand was shoved aside, headbutt his opponent, sending Gorm sliding back with the foreheads of both boys bleeding profusely. Granted, it was tough to say just how much of blood on Gorm's forehead was his and how much that of his properly softened up opponent.
After a brief stalemate and angry glares, with most of the genin breathing heavily and racing to regain some of their stamina and breaths, Rosanna finally rejoined the brawl, having leaped out of the trail of destruction she was sent crashing through almost unfazed, just donning some twigs in her newly messed up and flowing wildly dark brown hair.
The stint of silence was killed by Faeras' mad fit of laughter. The genin placed the turned off chainsaw sword on his shoulder as he stared down at Daseaut like the Sand Village genin was a tasty sandwich and Faeras was in danger of starving out.
"That jutsu! It was fucking amazing! My feet started shaking a little bit, show it to me again"! The chainsaw-sword wielder yelled out maniacally as he pushed the sword off his shoulder before yanking hard on a trigger that set the sword off. In a mad dash, not unlike that of Daseaut's before, the mad chainsaw genin charged at the exposed Sunagakure genin.
"Wait"! Bennow tried to stop the brutish teammate of his as he still wanted to properly analyze the opponent's technique and give Rosanna some time to regroup and stand by the line of her team. Now Faeras was just repeating the mistake of overextension, which Daseaut just paid for.
"What's the matter? I thought by now you're used to Faeras just charging out this way"? Rosanna playfully addressed her teammate with a warm glare as Faeras got blown back by Daseaut's teammate – Alemyat moving in at a very odd and seemingly impossible angle of movement, appearing to switch his position and angle mid-air. The Sunagakure genin moved as if he was using some sort of wire or rope, almost like he flowed freely around the trees and didn't lose any speed at all.
Hit by such a powerful jaw-buster, Faeras just stumbled back, swinging his massive chainsaw-sword in a wide circle but Alemyat withdrew as if he saw such an attack coming. Something that confused Bennow even more.
"That team… They're really dangerous", the more composed and calculating member of Hoshigakure's Team Cephei angrily grunted out. "Are you absolutely sure it is our business to face them right now"?
"Huh? Hell yeah! Team Scuti are our Hoshigakure allies, me and Gentib participated in the same drama clubs in the Ninja Academy"! Rosanna objected vibrantly smiling confidently at her friend and teammate.
"That Daseaut guy… The technique he used was so odd, it was powerful beyond measurement but it felt… Incomplete. Like it was used at an early stage, but why would he have used it when it was incomplete and in such a reckless way, surely he has more reliable and complete ways to fight. And then he used the jutsu without its name, how can you both be unskilled enough to use it at such an early stage and skilled enough to use it without its name"? Bennow continued to mutter to himself making Rosanna look at the deceitfully brash Sunagakure genin in completely new eyes. She was rarely the one to overthink her attacks or advances, she just tossed herself head-first at any wall, hoping the toughness of her head would break it.
"Yeah… That Alemyat guy ain't no slouch either", Faeras smiled with a maniacal giggle that sometimes really creeped Rosanna out. As the trio observed Gorm try to use some of his competent taijutsu skills against the enemy, clashing with Alemyat to almost a stalemate of blows and blocks, then Relta providing some ninja tool support, helping her teammate return back to ally lines with a barrage of shuriken for cover, they kept on discussing the oddities of Team Shahryar.
"What do you mean by that"? Rosanna wondered curiously, Faeras was quick to get fired up but this time he was almost… Aroused by the opponent's skill. That rarely happened but when it did, she saw a whole new cold side to her teammate that enjoyed fighting and carnage. The two of them were different in those exact moments of ruthless attacks – where Faeras enjoyed fighting and hurting people, Rosanna just did it because she needed to.
"Did you see that angle at which he charged at me? Almost like a puppet, don't you think"? Faeras laughed out finishing his laughter with a drawn out and immensely creepy moan. "That would mean I don't have to be a good sport, huh? That I can let loose a bit, shred and grind"!
"More so, the quickness of his retreat after the first hit. The first instinct of a successful taijutsu strike is exploiting the self-created opening with follow-up attacks, as we've seen Gorm do. Alemyat withdrew, almost like he saw through your swing, like he had an outsider's perspective from a comfortable vantage point, controlling his body with that superior information input. I second your conclusion, Alemyat is most definitely a puppet body", Bennow nodded, it was not often that he agreed so easily with his teammate which troubled the Hoshigakure strategist somewhat.
Relta's hands quickly went through a collection of hand seals once her teammate successfully withdrew from the clash with Alemyat. Even while the hand seals were still being made, large chunks of rock began rising from underground, shaking the very foundation beneath the battlefield and somewhat evening up the hill on which the teams clashed.
"Earth Style: Rising Stars" she chanted out before gracefully flailing her hands to command the rocks to move onwards, after her signal, it almost appeared like the rocks were launched from an invisible catapult, judging from the trajectory at which they were tossed at the enemy. Relta was not done, however, the girl weaved yet even more hand seals before keeping her hands in the Tiger hand seal position and breathing in deep.
"Fire Style: Star Birth"! The girl wheezed out as she breathed a jet of flames from her mouth, hot enough to set the hurling rocks on fire and scorching them so intensely that they flared up in bright white light.
The combination of the rocks rising in an powerful earthquake shock, as well as the bright light coming out from the combination technique would've provided a sufficient distraction for the enemy to be rooted in place as the falling scorching rocks devastated the battlefield in a massive explosion. Tearing the surrounding trees out and incinerating them as far as fifty meters away and bending most with a powerful shockwave as far as hundred meters away.
After the dust clouds settled down and the downfall of debris calmed up, Relta observed the remains of the enemy lines carefully, hyper-ventilating as she just pulled her most powerful combination ninjutsu out of nowhere, aiming to trick her opponents into underestimating the destructive power of her jutsu and possibly even scoring some early eliminations. Much to her shock, the enemy team continued to stand calmly and stare around. Judging from the reaction of Team Shahryar, namely the absolute loss of their shit, it must've been one of Team Kyanite who protected the six.
"It was me"! The handsome and extravagant clown-like jacket wearing blonde – Trest Bregger of Team Kyanite, Iwagakure smiled in excitement. Upon a more inspecting look the additional detail of a large yet light looking harp, worn around the body of the young man stood out.
"Judging from the awesome power of that jutsu combination, I'd assume you just threw your most powerful jutsu, right from the get-go, huh? Do you know why ninja don't do that"? Trest playfully teased the enemy alliance who just angrily stared at the young man, wondering just what the nature of his abilities was. It would have been easy to just try and attack him, shut him up, but the might of his defenses proved powerful enough to easily overcome Relta's ace jutsu combination and that was too scary of a level of skill to rush at blindly.
Relta did not honor her opponent's confident smile with an answer. The smiling blond ninja musician carelessly stroke his hand through the cords of his harp creating a mellow yet, on a barely audible side of the spectrum, screeching melody. Sharp, piercing pain took over the girl's body as she took a late step back, struggling to keep her body upright as the force of impact forced her to take a pair of steps back. Equally as gruesome as seeing her own blood splash in a wide arc on the messy grass and dirt in front of her was seeing Tankobaji grunt out as similar superhuman force tossed him aside.
A loud clang came from Bennow's side. A handful of shuriken clanged as they hit the ground, getting bounced back from an invisible force right up at the level of the eyes of the young man.
"We don't do it because during the beginning of battle our opponent is at their peak. Their body is free to use the Substitution Jutsu, it's free to use their chakra in millions of ways they have of avoiding your most powerful technique or augmenting their body to survive it – landing one's ace successfully is an art in of itself. It's as complex and beautiful as writing a verse of a song", Trest laughed out seeing the fear and confusion in the eyes of his enemy.
"Careful, his music sends air projectiles at you. Watch closely and you should be able to see them"! Bennow grunted at Relta and Tankobaji who picked themselves back up with the female member of Team Scuti clutching at the wound on her lower chest inflicted by a diagonal cut of her opponent's attack.
"Not only that, but during the beginning of the battle you are completely oblivious to your opponent's abilities. Right from the get-go is the absolute worst timing for using your ultimate jutsu, what you just did was hand me an opportunity of using mine against you". Trest played his tunes again, this time both Tankobaji and Relta managed to see bent airwaves just barely skewering the view in front of them as the airwaves sliced at them at speeds slightly lesser than the speed of sound.
"Wood Style: Birth of Trees"! Rosanna chanted out, slamming her palms together and erecting a healthy and seemingly ages old tree right in front of the injured Hoshigakure girl almost instantly. The shape and consistency was not perfect but the speed at which she needed the tree up demanded something to be sacrificed. Seeing the airwaves cutting down not the impatient and inexperienced genin, but instead a tree made of concentrated chakra with a network of chakra all of its own made Trest tsk with his tongue annoyingly.
"Watch out, you guys, those airwaves detonated those falling blazing rocks and cushioned the explosion all by themselves, didn't they? You were lucky he split the waves amongst you three before, if a concentrated set hit you – you'd really be in trouble"! Rosanna encouraged Team Scuti to be more careful.
"Don't get over-excited or careless", Alemyat spoke up after the scare of witnessing Relta's technique somewhat settled down amongst the Suna-Iwa alliance. "We're being watched".
"What"? Bukhande yelled out, breaking the illusion of composure the alliance had before the information was given.
"I'm not sure who that girl is but my puppet can see her. Her skin is darker than most locals, long raven-black hair, casual t-shirt and moderate battle damage over her body", Alemyat replied.
"Wait, his puppet"? Gurker Gliesse wondered looking at Alemyat suspiciously.
"Well… I didn't want to leak my fighting style so early but, that's right. This body is my real one, the puppet is controlling it from afar. It is conveying me a broader battlefield view, allowing me to make better decisions and see enemy attacks coming with more perspective. I won't go into details how it's done, we don't have the time", Alemyat smiled with a hint of disappointment that he had to leak out the details of the way he fought.
"It's fine, it's not like our team has no more hidden aces up their sleeves, right"? Bukhande happily comforted her teammate.
"Oh, I know her", old lady Gyllfa laughed out as she turned around and waved at the blackness of the forest. "Mana-chan! Please show yourself"!
"What's she doing"? Gorm wondered from afar, seeing his enemy turn around and wave at a random point of leafage, further away in the forest.
It appeared that Tankobaji was not about to wait for his enemy to turn back and decided to use the moment of lowered guard. The young man grunted and roared like a man possessed and gripped the ringed staff firmly in both of his hands, allowing his chakra to leak out and make the steel turn red in heat. Tankobaji placed his palm by the large ring at the top of the staff before winding it back and driving it forward again.
"Tankobaji: Asmodeus"! he roared out in a primal, animalistic voice as the Fire Release chakra stored inside the staff erupted all at one through the large ring upon being forcefully pushed out in a ring of fire that blitzed off at Gyllfa.
From the farther off corner of the forest, a bit to the west to where Gyllfa waved at Mana, a beam of almost invisible Wind Release chakra fired off. It was not a powerful technique, about as powerful as a well tossed kunai with its penetrative power however its Wind Release elemental affinity allowed it to detonate the Asmodeus jutsu halfway, before it reached the confused enemy team.
Not too long later, Mana bounced out of the cover and into the limelight. The magician was confused as to how exactly she was spotted. For her to be found out someone of these six should have been a sensor. She was sure to keep her head down and her body low and hidden. Her intentions were to wait this thing out, just sit tight until her team showed up, as it inevitably would have. After all, was Team Hokage not still short on targets? A place like this would have been a perfect place to locate any wanted people.
"Ah, the service girl? Finally changed your weird attire, I see", Trest laughed out to his palm reminding Mana that she was not too fond of that guy. Still, from her impressions of Gyllfa from meeting her before the exam, the old lady seemed like a pretty nice person.
"What's this? Your reinforcements"? Gorm grunted as Tankobaji growled like a wild animal right by his side, turning at Mana.
"I don't wish to involve myself in this, I dislike fighting, I'm just looking for my friends", Mana explained, trying to get the alliance facing off against Gyllfa's team to take their aggression down a bit.
"You're all alone? Are you sure your friends are still even here"? Bennow wondered as he found a straw to grasp for – Mana's reluctance to join into the battle on the enemy's side.
"I'm… Not", Mana looked down realizing how bad her situation was. Even if she had her target hunted down and could've just left the Forest of Death at any point, hoping that her team would eventually join her in that venture, she still wanted to regroup with her team and help them out if they needed help finishing the exam.
"You're breaking my heart, service girl, come on, help us take that creepy crow guy down and we'll help you out with finding your friends", Trest promised.
"We have reinforcements of our own coming soon, you'll regret joining their side, they're from your village too so they might know more about your team", Relta pleaded with Mana as all of the fighting temporarily stopped just to convince the chaotic factor to join their side.
Mana clenched her frail fists so hard that her hands shook from the tension. Was she truly expected to pick a side here? In a fight she didn't want to even take place in the first place? This meaningless squabble where only a set amount of people needed to take on another set of people but other people got involved needlessly just to ensure the destruction of the opposing side.
"I won't take part in your fight", Mana declared after raising her eyes back up and firmly glaring down at both sides of the conflict. "Not only that, I encourage that you settle it between the people that need to settle things according to the rules so that only the people forced to fight each other would get hurt and no one else. If you won't and will continue this stupid battle I will stop all of you".
Finally, both sides of the conflict were united in one thing – laughter as Faeras, Daseaut and Gurker all laughed their breath all out meanwhile the others either stared at Mana in disbelief or desperately tried to hide their laughter.
Only Mana's firm face testified that she was serious with her resolve to stop this fight, a moment later making those that laughed at her to join the side of people that stared at her in disbelief.
"Care to back that shit up"? Alemyat smiled
A sound of reeling string alerted Mana to an attack coming from behind, the girl dashed aside while turning to the side where she could see both the incoming attack from the back on her left and the other potential threats on the right.
A mannequin-like looking puppet smashed its hand, filled with long claws with multiple joint sections that looked sharp enough to leave deep gashes, matching those of kunai that ninja used except in greater quantities and much leaner, into the ground, missing Mana narrowly. The puppet's eyes had wide black lenses, possibly for recording, or snapping pictures, its right hand also was extended towards Alemyat. The usual glow of chakra present in puppetry strings could've been seen only with intense concentration.
It appeared that the magician now antagonized both alliances with her desire to rationalize their outburst of violence. It was just great, standing in between the unstoppable force and the immovable object was always the position Mana wanted to take in life, as long as the two were planning to destroy one another. These Chuunin Exams were a test of if a ninja was ready for their future, for the higher level and it was a fitting simulation of a life Mana wanted to lead.