After the tremendously destructive after effects settled down, initially, it became difficult to tell just what had happened. Sugemi was kneeling and breathing heavily as sweat profusely sprayed onto the cracked and a bit wrecked arena floor, it took a natural progression of sight to the right before Mana noticed Daidao being slammed into the wall, right beside the team she stood to the left to. Slowly, the Jinchuuriki weighed down from the crack he had made only to be caught by Jean-D, the ruthless Kumogakure ninja Mana had met in the Forest of Death, who stood to the right to the team nearby which Daidao slammed into the wall to.

It didn't appear like the Kumogakure kunoichi had much fondness for the Jinchuuriki as she just gently dropped him to the floor from a bit shorter height, feeling a tad bit lazy to bend all the way to the floor. Shaking in strain and exhaustion, Sugemi straightened out and struggled to keep an upright fighting stance, his eyes wandered back to the tag scroll before he looked back at the exam overseer who was making his way to unseal Meiko. The Nara chose to take a fighting stance and wait for the blacksmith to hit the field.

"Contestant Deiji Daidao - ring out"! the overseer ruled before enveloping the tag scroll where Meiko was sealed.

It all happened in a flash of dark brownish light, the blacksmith appeared right in front of the scroll before looking back and noticing Daidao sprawled out and calmly passed out outside the arena. Mana wondered just how her friend would feel realizing that so much pressure was on her shoulders. Would she despair, rush things and burn through her chakra or push past her limits and work herself to passing out? Or would she rise to the occasion and…

"Who's that"? Meiko pointed at the injured and almost completely unarmored comrade of hers, "Where did Daidao go, I thought I was supposed to have his assistance in a team attack for three whole seconds"? The blacksmith pondered loudly making everyone around her laugh out.

"That young man right there is your teammate, you have never seen him without his armor, I assume"? The overseer smiled while politely explaining.

"Oh…" Meiko noted, processing the news for a moment before her face exploded in a horrified expression, "Whaaaa! You mean I'm the last one left"!? She yelled out in shock.

"That is correct, competitor Daidao failed to eliminate any other genin, even with a remarkable performance and control over his… Ability", the overseer nodded before leaving through the barrier.

Meiko looked at Sugemi curiously as the fight was resumed. She pointed her finger at him rudely, "Hey, what's wrong with you, don't you wanna tag"? she wondered.

"Figured you'd be running your mouth, during the yapping time I got plenty of breathers", Sugemi grunted, lying through his teeth, before leaping in at Meiko with a rush of fists and kicks. Meiko gently pushed Sugemi's blows away before responding with a painfully looking punch right back, in both of the boy's jaws, his forehead, his lower abdomen, an elbow to both of his sides and a jumping knee strike to blow him completely flying away.

"Wow, you've really worn yourself out. Might wanna pull out your gates just about now", Meiko taunted her opponent as her movements were rather casual and it didn't appear like defending and replying demanded much effort from her side. Even if Daidao was eliminated, her plan appeared to have been set into motion and possibly have worked.

"You know what? Nah, I'm good, come on, pull out your weapons again, let's go at it like I always wanted us to", Sugemi suggested as he wiped the trickling blood off of his forehead and nose. The crack on his forehead looked especially nasty.

"Sorry, my sword and shield were the only weapons I've brought with me, well, except for the ninja kit. I figured since I had all of my arsenal in any weapon, I only needed my default pair", Meiko grinned, guiltily rubbing the back of her head in apology to both herself and Daidao.

"Well, I suppose expecting Meiko to completely change over a week was a bit naïve", Kiyomi squinted at her friend while whispering to Mana who just narrowly pushed the ends of her lips upwards in a minuscule smile. Leave it to Meiko's shenanigans to brighten her mood…

"Whatever, I left your chain, which is to say - your sword, in another dimension. That means that you're empty. Even better that way", Sugemi nodded before resuming his fighting stance. Mana wondered just what could he have had in mind, now that Daidao was knocked out, the magician tapped into her sensory which she previously purposefully left muted just to realize something shocking.

"He had wasted at least half of his usable chakra", she muttered horrified, recalling the state of her friend's stellar chakra signature representation before, compared to his current one.

"Well, not that tough to believe… He used like… Three jutsu in a combination before", Kiyomi nodded in confirmation, as if just to herself. "This means he'll be using augmentations more sparingly, worried to do it wrong. He'll take more damage, he'll hit slower and weaker, Meiko can do this"!

"Not necessarily", Mana noted, "Sugemi always had an amazing amount of natural strength, he may not have very much to spare for augmentations but he may not need that much in the first place".

Sugemi kicked off the ground, rushing at Meiko, before leaping up and spinning his body around in a triple spinning kick combination.

"Leaf Whirlwind" he yelled out, attacking Meiko with a common Konohagakure taijutsu technique. The blacksmith leaned back to avoid both of the first two kicks before grabbing Sugemi's leg with her own trapping lock and slamming the young man over her head and into the ground. Rushing chain punches, Meiko relentlessly kept up her counter offense, initially, Sugemi managed to deflect a pair of punches but then he had to dive down with a sweeping kick to disrupt Meiko's combo before it overwhelmed him.

"Leaf Gale", the Nara shouted out as knocked Meiko off her feet with a rotating kick, before switching the kicking side and throwing another spinning kick to send the blacksmith rolling aside as she was beginning to apply some pressure and push him towards the edge of the arena.

Sugemi was hyperventilating and had significant trouble to regain his composure, compared to Meiko's rather cheerful and relaxed straightening out and getting back up. The redhead grinned once more as her hand moved inside her ninja pouch and pulled out a kunai knife, wielding it in her right like a common combat knife in a reverse grip.

Mana leaned her head to the left, had she been in Sugemi's shoes she'd have been very suspicious of such a textbook reverse grip. While it betrayed none of Meiko's knife-fighting style as it could've been used both for slashes and thrusts meant to stab, it also was a textbook Ninja Academy knife fighting style and therefore it was too simple for this level of competition by its very nature. There was more in this than the blacksmith let on to.

Meiko darted off at her opponent, swiping and slashing wildly but rather slowly. Just as expected, Sugemi easily saw through such a primitive style and trapped her wrist, making it near impossible for her to damage him without either switching her knife hand or…

As the Nara threw a rapid combination of blows of his own, Meiko forced through her own collection of hand seals. "Weapon Transformation Jutsu", she grunted through pain and sweat as the kunai in her hand transformed into a long polearm, a combination of naginata and a simple spear as it had a straightened out double blade tip as long as a shorter wakizashi blade.

"Take this"! Meiko roared out triumphantly as her siege of bladework relentlessly blurred in silver flashes at Sugemi's direction, while Mana's hear stopped in worry over her friend's life and health, the Nara quickly leaned down before throwing a strong bear-grip strike diagonally up and breaking the weapon easily and kicking Meiko aside with a strong roundhouse kick.

"Nice try, I'm smart enough to figure out that your transformation technique doesn't mystically grant stronger properties to your weapon. Your lacking quality generic store shelf weapons will only have the endurance of that same category of tools, no matter what shape they take". Sugemi firmly declared tightly pressing his lips together as he extended his fist at Meiko, as if challenging her to try out his new cool stance and see what fighting style and moves he'd pull out next.

Meiko snickered like a little brat, enjoying a flashy balloon show. "This is fun, too bad I'll be kicking your ass, unless you bring out your gates", she threatened the Nara with what Mana perceived to be a truthful, yet a little goofy, tone.

"She's become quite a bit like Galateia, hasn't she", Mana muttered to herself bitterly. She had to hand it to the blond nukenin, the magician was jealous of the blonde's ability to tap into Meiko's interests and completely affect and alter the blacksmith's entire personality in just a week of sparring together. Meiko was really precious to Mana and something the magician kind of wanted to have a similar effect on Meiko, then again, the blacksmith did declare a certain distaste for killing of her own, something Mana undoubtedly had an influence in.

"Yeah, except tighter muscles and messier hairdo", Kiyomi cringed out, realizing what Mana was saying, "Seeing Meiko like this after training will make it really bitter to kill Galateia when I next meet her. It's easy to see that the broad's mood had a cheerful influence on Meiko."

"Kill her"? Mana turned at her friend with a bit of horror in her eyes.

"Yeah, I mean, did you forget? My Aku-Soku-Zan?" Kiyomi raised an eyebrow back at Mana.

"No, I just… I guess I thought you lightened up a bit about that conviction", Mana turned away a bit saddened by the realization that, while she considered Kiyomi a close friend, there were gapping differences in ideology between the two that may just end up needing to be settled one day. Some of Mana's most horrible experiences were similar settlements of ideology and the thought of ever fighting with Kiyomi over one matter or another made her anxious.

Meiko continued to stand there with a cheerful, if not a little cocky expression. Sugemi tried to take her stares for longer than a moment but he found himself unable to do so for too long. The more the two stared each other down with Sugemi trying to visualize every different approach and technique he had, the more of those options got shot down as, compared with what he had seen Meiko do so far, the Nara found his opponent capable of shooting any of his options down.

As seconds went and gone in complete silence, Sugemi darted off at Meiko, jumping off the ground right before her face and preparing to throw a simple jumping punch, using his hind leg for some extra momentum to make the punch stronger as he kicked it back in the air. This was some kind of a trick, it had to be. By now the Nara had seen that Meiko was in much better condition compared to him and quite able to match and return what was thrown her way…

"First Gate: Gate of Opening, OPEN"! Sugemi yelled out as transparent shimmer erupted from his body, his natural chakra circulation system was working overtime to keep up with his body's strength and speed increasing five times over, which meant that all of the servicing processes had to intensify five times as well.

As Sugemi's fist shot much faster than the blacksmith had predicted it to go initially, having not predicted the gates coming at all, Meiko received a full brunt of the punch and got slammed into the ground quite strongly. She should have felt quite grateful that most of the force was focused on her face, causing only her upper body to slam down while her lower body just arced awkwardly causing the redhead's body to bend in an uncomfortable and painful looking manner but remain at a relatively same position inside the arena.

Sugemi jumped up in the air, throwing his feet at Meiko rapidly and using them for quick, stomping kicks while he used the force of gravity itself to his advantage. The intensity of the First Gate being open only multiplied his speed and power further as large holes were crushed open where the young Nara's kicks grinded through the stone.

Meiko lifted her hands up and over her head as she pushed her body up and activated the chakra jets on her boots, which she usually used for jetpacking purposes. Her improvised chakra jet kick was blocked by Sugemi but the force of it threw the genin spiraling away, not with enough velocity to throw him out, unfortunately.

The blacksmith grinned as she wiped the blood off her cracked lip, only to be replaced relatively soon by a new drop, and then another one. A punch like that was lucky not to have pummeled all of her teeth out even if Meiko's mouth was bleeding at a rather alarming rate. It betrayed to the audience, as well as her opponent, that her chakra augmentations were either withheld or staggering due to troublesome chakra resources remaining but Mana knew that Meiko was doing leaps and bounds better chakra-wise compared to Sugemi.

She had all the reason in the world to feel good about this recent exchange – she's survived the initial explosion of speed and power of Sugemi's First Gate. That meant that she could have continued to do her best and just outlast her opponent since now that Sugemi had crossed the threshold there were only two options – burn out using the First Gate or walk the risky path further and up the ante.

"Shadow Push Jutsu"! Sugemi slammed his palms together before extending one forward as a massive shadow blob materialized behind him before rushing at Meiko, shaped as a large palm.

The blacksmith screamed out in pain, Mana could make out red droplets flying in the air, as the redhead got smacked backwards and blasted off, heading towards the other end of the arena. Her chakra may have still been in a relatively good standing but her physical state was already approaching critical, any further damage could have knocked Meiko out for good.

It was no longer healthy for her friend to continue this fight. Yet the blacksmith persevered, bending her legs and clutching her body for a massive inertia force flow as she activated her jet boots to help her dash back at her opponent. Sugemi's eyes jarred wide, he had all the reason in the world to be surprised, even as her armor fell apart from her own body, even as new and new bruises opened up and his blows finally cracked all the way to the bloody flesh of the kunoichi she kept coming. Surviving him was her job…

Sugemi kicked vertically upwards making Meiko fly up in the air after her body bent uncomfortably back. Mana couldn't keep herself from jumping and gasping out in horror, Meiko soared upwards all the way to the ceiling before once again changing her position and flying back at her opponent.

This was no longer about winning, Meiko must've understood this. Somewhere, deep inside she must've been smart enough to know there was no way she could win this at this point. This was just all about her pride, her wish to upstage the youth who had dismissed her before, do what was her role in this battle, even if her teammate was no longer conscious enough to acknowledge Meiko serving her part.

Sugemi slammed his hands together before extending his palm upwards. "Shadow Push Jutsu"! he grunted as his chakra was slowly beginning to approach critical levels. He was in an exactly reverse situation to Meiko – his physicals were relatively alright but his chakra was beginning to cross into the red zone, soon he'll risk either using his life reserves that were required to sustain one's life, or he'll have to stop using ninjutsu techniques in general.

Meiko thrusted her fist forward, skydiving straight at the massive blob of shadows hand coming at her and overwhelming her eyes in its size, her jet boots blazed on, helping her direct her crashing fist-dive. A deafening thud followed by a particularly odd slurping sound followed as Sugemi's large shadowy palm begun to quiver and shift mass and balance erratically, like an air balloon on top of which an unwanted skydiver had just landed before bursting to pieces letting Meiko punch her way through.

"Sugemi's body, it's no longer shining", Kiyomi pointed at the Nara letting Mana realize how Meiko could bust through and hit her opponent successfully instead of getting completely overwhelmed. It was Sugemi's muscle control again, he wasn't utilizing all of his 100% potential increase in order to reserve chakra which he must've realized he was running out of. Mana looked around, seeing all of the higher ranking mentors and instructors ready to interfere at any moment and stop the two youths as both of them were long past the reasonable limits of how long they should keep struggling.

Meiko rolled erratically, as gracefully as a bag of potatoes, getting back on her feet. Sugemi got up on his knees, as Meiko stumbled at him, she used the momentum of her stumble to try and clock him a good one.

"Second Gate: Gate of Healing! OPEN"! Sugemi shouted out overflowing with the transparent shine of chakra firing off from his pores as he leaped at Meiko with a tackle. Meiko screamed out in pain as the shoulder of her opponent dug in deep at her abdomen, carrying her back like a bull trying to skewer a nasty visitor of his quarters.

Screaming pain, Meiko slammed her feet at the stone floor, getting past multiple layers of rock and damaging her legs to the point where she exposed several bones before fracturing them. The gruesome gesture managed to stop Sugemi in his tracks, however and the duo got stuck in a standstill. As the two genin stumbled over one another, falling onto their knees, still embracing their opponent, Meiko kneed Sugemi in the stomach a couple of times making the Nara throw up a fair amount of blood as her own open fracture was leaking quite some of her own.

"Third Gate: Gate of Life! OPEN"! Sugemi screamed out in desperation as his muscles tensed up so tremendously that the increased blood flow turned the youth's skin crimson red.

"Nara Hijutsu Secret Technique: Shadow Yggdrasil"! Sugemi pressed on as he pushed Meiko on her back before shadowy fist constructs appeared from all over of his shadow, branching out from one massive fist into a tree-like shape where instead of branches there were fist shaped at the end tendrils, all coiling and branching at Meiko to finish her off.

Meiko clutched in and placed blocks in front of her face, feeling shadowy fists overwhelming her and breaking her shoulders, her ribs and churning her organs inside. The adrenaline and the wish to push through made her do so, tumble over and crawl through a storm of shadowy fists that weakened with each passing second before falling apart, her efforts were unsuccessful as the fists kept throwing and pushing her backwards. Sugemi's chakra finally hit the danger zone. Mana saw the eyes of the Nara white out as he just weightlessly slammed his face into the busted rock of the arena, his chakra shortage forced him to pass out and end his hidden technique prematurely before it could do most of its damage.

"Contestant Sugemi, unable to battle"! The overseer ruled before raising his other hand, "Contestant Meiko, ring out. The team of Gentib de Vitt and Sugemi Nara wins the match"!

Meiko laughed out with blood as she could no longer open her eyes and turn her head to check if she was really sprawled out on the ring out floor or still in the arena. Not that she had any strength left to argue any further. As the adrenaline in her body slowly began to settle down and her heart stopped trying to crawl out of its busted ribcage, the redhead blacksmith passed out due to injuries.

"I pushed through…" these were her last laughing through pain whimpers, right before a peaceful slumber and getting carried off into the Konoha High infirmary by Chestnut Hanasaku and another jounin mentoring one of the Kumogakure teams.