"This is absurd, Sir, grant us passage"! Daidao exclaimed in annoyance, "Team Hawthorn has nothing to do with your hunt for Yamanaka Kiyomi".

Spyder-Wolf laughed out sincerely, even occupying two of his arms to wrap them around his aching belly to alleviate the pressure from inside.

"How dumb do you think I am"? The six-armed genin wondered, "You're just gonna pull a Substitution switch once I let one of you through. No, I'll body all of you right here, or as many as I can before one of you weaklings lands a good hit in that keeps me down".

What Spyder-Wolf referenced was indeed possible, with two willing cooperators, Substitution switch trick would have allowed one ninja to switch positions with another, as long as both of them were in on it and neither one of them resisted the switch, complicating the Substitution.

"Are you OK, Mana"? Meiko looked at Mana's broken arm that had a gruesome looking bump sticking out, yet not yet through the skin, somehow managing to contain the fracture.

"I'll manage, I doubt I'll be of much help though", she lamented. "That six-armed fighting style is really tough to keep up with. With so much of my evasive moves being pure muscle memory, having none of his moves recorded and a right profile drawn – I'd stand no chance against him anyways".

Meiko nodded before raising her hand up, like she was answering in class and stepping up in front of the duo of teams. She raised her fist up confidently with a grin at Wolf's general direction. "Fine then, I'll take you on", she declared confidently.

"Didn't you want a piece of him, Nana-chan"? Daidao wondered curiously looking at his teammate.

"Are you crazy? Without my arms? Such a battle would be ridiculous, the only condition I agree to fight with is that it's a six on six armed bout"! The airheaded blonde firmly stated.

"This is my responsibility too", Kiyomi sighed before stepping up besides Meiko.

"No, you're still tired and hurt after fighting Othello, sit this one out and let me handle it", Meiko objected.

"You're also not at your strongest, those wounds from the underground battle are still holding you back, your arsenal is almost emptied and your chakra can't be too high up", Kiyomi snapped back at her teammate.

"Just play Rock-Paper-Scissors or something", Spyder scratched his head, slightly tipping the fur that he wore on top of his massive well-trained body.

"Stay out of this"! Kiyomi and Meiko both yelled at the Team Nimbus member.

"Fine, fine… Just trying to help, I've got no problem taking all of you on, honestly", Spyder-Wolf shook his palms defensively in front of his chest, trying to pacify the heating up situation.

"I must say that the redhead is right", Sugemi concluded as he stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. "You're a different style of combatant, you can't take much of a beating and you've already taken more of it than anyone would bet on you taking. Sit this one out", the Nara advised.

"Awww yeah, let's do this"! Meiko's fist shot up in the sky as the blacksmith cheered on the Nara, feeling excited to measure her strength against Mana's previous taijutsu using teammate. Showing this guy up meant a great deal to Meiko and validating her own inner worth on the team.

"So are you guys finished fighting"? Spyder shrugged in confusion.

"Yeah, me and Meiko will be your opponents", Sugemi nodded before taking an offensive and quite open taijutsu stance. The time she spent studying defence against taijutsu suggested to Mana that Sugemi was using a very aggressive and offensive style, focusing on overwhelming the opponent with strikes and giving them no chance to attack instead of returning his hands for blocking after his attack concluded.

Mana wanted to tell her friend it was madness to attack Spyder-Wolf with such a style. There was no way that Sugemi would've overwhelmed someone with three times the number of arms, all of which moved precisely and lightning fast, striking with mountain shattering strength. The hit that broke Mana's arm was a desperation strike, it was not a planned strike or one with significant force behind it and yet it still broke her arm. The magician feared to even thing about how powerful a focused and intentional strike would be…

Sugemi's body fired off the ground like a kunai launched from a dispenser, bouncing off of it like he was using a spring, and winding up for a straight forward strike. As expected, Sugemi's straightforward elbow strike to Spyder-Wolf's blindspot, right on the nose where fur covered up part of the genin's vision was still blocked with a single arm, where Sugemi's other arm was pushed away while the third one threw a wicked strike to the Nara's own face, sending the genin flying back and sliding on the ground.

Meiko's body blurred and moved in behind Spyder-Wolf at that moment. Spyder's arm shot up in a right angle block to stop a predicted strike from behind, it appeared like his arms covered all blindspots and that he always had spares to use. However, Meiko didn't fall for the block, instead using her leg to hook and wrap around the right angled block, pushing her body around with a straight push kick right at Spyder-Wolf's face.

Spyder-Wolf appeared to flinch for a moment but then his face colored in a sadistic grin as all six of his arms prepared to grab Meiko in a lethal hold and tear limb from limb off her body. A metallic reeling sound signaled Meiko's plan to escape, Wolf's eyes wandered upwards seeing a feint metallic piece of string attached to a branch above.

"String Reeling Jutsu"! Meiko yelled out as she used the piece of string to zip out of the dangerous situation. As her body moved away in a blink of an eye, Sugemi was revealed to have moved in right behind her, using her body as a cover for his movements, coordinating his attack with Meiko so that once the girl's body moved away he could immediately throw in his hit without giving the enemy time to deal with it.

"Shadow Tendril Jutsu"! Sugemi yelled out as he smacked his palms together, a long black tendril moved out from his pocket, striking Wolf straight in his face, but dissolving upon impact.

"You fool, how powerful do you think your shadows will be in this limited lighting"!? Wolf taunted his enemy before Sugemi's punch right to his nose silenced him. The staggering brute slid back a good fifty meters before settling down on his knee and then picking himself back up on his feet. "So your ninjutsu was just a smokescreen to flinch me and cover up my eyes…" he commended his opponent.

"He's right though", Sugemi gritted through his teeth, "My shadows won't be too effective in this gloom, hey, Daidao"!

The mechanical genin pulled out his green glowing lantern and flung it at Sugemi, who quickly caught it and flung it at Meiko. The redhead quickly wrapped a couple of loops of string around the object of illumination and left it hanging there.

"Wait, didn't you beat a giant snake before in the Forest of Death, back when Tanshu-sensei brought us here"? Mana wondered loudly.

"Back then I was too stupid to realize that gloom weakened my shadows and that they were completely inefficient in total darkness", Sugemi grinned. "I beat it without realizing that my jutsu were being weakened".

Sugemi's face looked strangely troubled, it did not look like he was that excited to continue his battle further after this first exchange of blows. It must have been how inefficient his strikes were, his full force blows were casually being caught and shrugged aside, meanwhile every blow that Spyder-Wolf threw his way greatly affected the young Nara. He realized it by the time the first exchange finished.

Pulling two of her kunai out of her ninja pouch, Meiko prepared to coordinate her movements with Sugemi. The two have not worked together in this way, their combined attacks were slower than they could have been, they were still two separate well-trained ninja trying to work together, not one combined unit. Both she and Sugemi still observed each other's movements and took some time to adapt and coordinate a response.

With a diving kick Meiko leaped into battle, bravely, having in mind how she clearly saw Sugemi being overpowered by their opponent relatively easily. Wolf stepped aside allowing Meiko's foot to smash into the ground, sending a powerful quake throughout the surrounding area even while the blacksmith did her best to contain the force of impact. Wolf's fists quickly countered, a hook to the chin made Meiko flip in mid-air and drop her two kunai blades, before a double axe handle strike smashed her back into the ground.

Sugemi's rushing strike got caught by the free arms of Spyder, right before the Nara leaned down to sweep at Wolf's legs, causing him a great deal of pain as his sweep hit the side of his knee caps. With a powerful combination of chain strikes from his two middle arms, Sugemi got sent flying backwards. Once Wolf recovered from the pain and tried stomping and pummeling Meiko, he realized that she no longer laid by his feet and had used the small window of opportunity to escape.

"This isn't working", Meiko huffed out after the two genin picked themselves up and grouped together.

"No, it isn't. Those darned hands of his, the upper pair covers up any aerial attacks or attempts to vault over him, his central arms are covering his front while the lower two cover his lower body, rolling around him is also impossible. We're not fast enough to dash behind him without him intercepting us… Not yet", Sugemi grinned placing his arms beside him and tensing up his entire body.

"First Gate: Gate of Opening, OPEN"! He chanted out, focusing his chakra into removing the restraints on his body, allowing him to utilize the entire inner physical prowess that his body can potentially muster up. He did not necessarily need to telegraph opening the First Gate that clearly, he could have done it much faster, almost instantly in battle. However, he wanted to do it right, he could not afford make any mistakes right by northern gate.

Confidently, Sugemi leaned forward, preparing for an attack. Spyder stumbled back, hesitant to believe that after two whole fruitless exchanges his opponent would still attempt a close range attack. He was not prepared for Sugemi's awakening, however. The Nara's body darted forward in a single flash, like an arrow of light with a powerful blow that completely blinded the man and made his face bend uncomfortably inwards, tearing apart the head piece of the white fur that Wolf wore, also donning it crimson with the genin's own blood from his busted nose, lips and a cracked eyebrow.

"Amazing"! Kiyomi shouted out, she may have seen Sugemi under this technique's effect during her "wedding", however at that time the Nara didn't bother himself with correctly performing the opening of his gates so she may not have been aware of just what exactly it was that the Yamanaka saw.

"Right"? Nanaba freaked out with an excited smile.

Only Daidao and Mana were more composed about seeing Sugemi pull out the First Gate. It was tough to say exactly what Daidao was thinking as his face was concealed completely by the gas mask-like mask that covered his face but his gestures were more reminiscent of those of a troubled young man than those of an excited one.

"The First Gate", Mana muttered catching Kiyomi's attention, right when Sugemi's mad chain barrage of punches caught Wolf completely unprotected and continued to bombard the genin's face and his well-trained body with crushing power strikes that came off like speed strikes as well. From the sight and sound of the attacks it seemed like every one of hundreds and thousands of strikes delivered crushed and grinded Wolf's bones to dust and gore.

"It's said that at any given time a person is only capable of utilizing their muscles to 20% efficiency and the First Gate removes this natural limitation. It isn't a difficult technique to learn either but… It takes a special kind of person to use it", Mana spoke with a hint of worry in her voice, not only did this technique leave a sour taste in her mouth, knowing what it was like exactly, but the memories it brought with it weren't pleasant either.

"So just using the First Gate multiplies your power and speed five times"?! Kiyomi wondered, surprised by the fact that such a technique existed, but also that it was not taught more commonly. One would have thought that a relatively easy technique to learn like this with such mighty effects would have been taught in the Academy.

"That's right. But the human body isn't built to function at 100% for a long period of time. 100% can be willed into, without using the First Gate for a momentary boost of strength and speed, like when a person is enraged or using their will to empower their body to its limits. But the body imposes such limits on itself for a reason, just reaching 100% by itself fully exhausts the body, using it for more than a heartbeat approaches the territory of burning more energy than the body has. Muscles and tissue begin to break down and tear apart. It's not a technique that should be used for long", Mana looked away from the sight of Sugemi trying to hit his opponent with an overhead kick, focused and empowered with so much strength it may have pretty much served as a guillotine and broke his opponent's neck.

"That's not what worries me", Daidao rubbed the rubber-like material of his mask, still keeping his eyes at Sugemi's failed effort to finish the battle quick as Wolf managed to maneuver around the kick and with three powerful double axe handle strikes send Sugemi flying. The Nara groaned out in inhuman screams of pain as his tired and beginning to tear muscles were hit by the powerful strikes he'd have only barely withstood in his unopened state. By easing the tension of the gates, Sugemi eased his tension and used a thick branch as a vault pole so he could land by Meiko's side.

"I never really encouraged for Sugemi to use the First Gate, not in this stage. The problem is the damage it can potentially do to Sugemi's body so early on. No team wants traumas this early in the exam. We don't know when or how the next exam will take place, if he used this technique to break his body he'd be useless in the next exam in case it takes place right after this one". As Daidao explained his worries, Sugemi, brimming with a glowing, transparent glow of chakra breathed out easier and reduced the shining aura brimming from him even more.

"So that's the mastery over the First Gate he had acquired", Mana smiled seeing Sugemi restrain the explosive power of the First Gate.

"Huh? What did he do"? Kiyomi scratched her head in confusion, "Is the awakening already over"?

"No, when we were kids, Sugemi constantly strained his body past his breaking point with this technique, just with the First Gate. I can see now that he obtained perfect control over his First Gate, right now he isn't using 100% of his muscle control, he's using 75%, reducing the output to 25% whenever he draws back from his opponent for catching his breath". Mana admired the clever use of such a brutish technique, seeing it for the first time she had an impression that such a jutsu should've been labeled as a forbidden technique – a kinjutsu, however seeing her friend using it without losing his cool made her reconsider.

Just like she once reconsidered on the thought that martial arts being nothing more than the arts for suffering and murder.

"Did you see my moves, ready to join in"? Sugemi spoke to Meiko who just nodded before taking a different offensive fighting stance, one favoring her left side of the body instead of her usual right.

"That's a pretty neat jutsu", Spyder-Wolf laughed out before cracking three of his knuckles in the other three palms and taking an offensive stance himself, "I'd say I'm just about done getting assaulted by you two, I've had just about enough of this warm up fight, I've got four more people to beat up after you two, after all"! Spyder-Wolf laughed out before rushing at Meiko and Sugemi.

"Six-Armed Assault"! Spyder shouted out as the muscles on his six arms tensed up and his powerful legs launched his body horizontally right at the two opponents. In his charging position, with his six arms extended, Spyder-Wolf looked almost like a star shooting right at them.

Wolf's arms began slowing down their movements momentarily, right before shooting off in a powerful focused cross strike, all six of his arms, repeating the same rhythm again and again. Meiko covered her body up with her hands, lifting them up in the air, before placing them in a position where her palms reminded of wings of a butterfly and pushing them at Wolf's wrists, whenever his arms tried to strike Meiko down with focused power strikes. Sugemi's body lit up with First Gate chakra once more as he bumped up the speed of his body again, using all of First Gate's added bonuses to avoid his opponent's strikes. Wolf's chosen taijutsu attack was relatively slow, but Sugemi could already see it would've been immensely powerful and crushing had it connected.

Sugemi's knee pushed one of Wolf's arms upwards with a quick knee strike to the brute's elbow whereas Meiko followed the attack up with a combined strike with her knee and her elbow aimed to scissor at the weak spot of Wolf's arm, aimed right at the middle part of Spyder's arm and the back of his elbow. The brute shouted out in pain as his mad offensive ended abruptly allowing Sugemi and Meiko to counterattack.

Sugemi threw a powerful cross at the armpit under Wolf's injured arm. His fist dug in deep into the softer part of his opponent's flesh and emitted a painfully sounding churning noise from the place of impact, utilizing the upper left arm clutching at the broken middle left arm Meiko dashed up and behind her opponent with a spinning kick to the back of his head. The impact sent the genin down on his knees and confused.

"Shadow Tendril Barrage"! Sugemi yelled out, focusing the maximum output of force as he fired off his innovated Nara hijutsu at his opponent, using the light from Daidao's lantern to minimize the weakening effect of Forest of Death gloom on his shadows. The powerful blows ran rampant on Wolf's body as the Team Nimbus powerhouse struggled to block his opponent's attacks right. Wolf managed only to shrug off or block a percentage of the barrage of shadow tendrils smacking him around before one of the tendrils wrapped into a spherical shape and smacked Spyder-Wolf back, smashing him into the gate, denting the massive structure and nearly toppling it down.

The shining glow of Sugemi's First Gate faded down to just the minimal 25% muscle control glow as the strain on the young genin's body eased up. Stumbling forward the Nara nearly fell on his face, having to shove his arm in the way from falling down as the strain on his body began building up, despite using out maybe just a quarter of his actual chakra pool.

"Holy shit", a confident and masculine voice exclaimed in excitement. Meiko's and Sugemi's eyes widened in shock as they saw Spyder-Wolf's large muscular frame shake strongly and bounce off of the massive crater he left in the northern gate and back on his feet. "Okay, now we're getting somewhere…" he declared as he wiped the blood trickling down his nose and his cracked forehead, coloring his light brown spiky hair a shade of bright blood red.