The massive palm made of nothing but cross-bred Aburame Parasitic Insects slammed into Erumo, enveloping the kunoichi with swarms upon swarms of insects before the concentrated construct of insects pushed her out of the palm and sent the trapster flying back.

Erumo recovered very near to the edge of the arena, pulling out one paper tag from her ninja kit and catching it in her mouth while she pulled a kunai knife with the other hand and drove it into the arena surface she was sliding over to slow down her momentum as much as she could. Once the Konoha kunoichi weaved a hand seal and set off the "Art of Tree Climbing" sealing tag her feet stuck more firmly to the sides of the edge of the half-busted arena.

Breathing heavily and bleeding from the numerous bruises she has accumulated, Erumo climbed back onto the edge of the arena, just barely managing to save herself from getting ringed out. Mana could not help but tap into her sensory abilities to see just how much fighting spirit was still blazing inside the young kunoichi.

"I'm not sure why Erumo worked so hard to stay in the match", Mana sighed, "She's got about half of her usable chakra remaining and her body isn't in the greatest of shapes. She's got virtually no capability of setting new traps with her opponent constantly on her feet. It would've been much better for her to surrender and let Stea take care of the rest".

"No, Erumo is really smart. Knowing that she's just a trap-setting support ninja who doesn't like active combat made everyone look down on her but she's pretty amazing", Kiyomi grinned with her right side of the lips.

"She's stalling, Mana", Hanasaku butt in, "You see, it's obvious now that Erumo had lost, that being said, she's trying to see just how much more she can tire out her opponent before passing the baton to her teammate. That's pretty smart"!

Erumo dashed to the right corner of what still remained of the arena, diving on her knees and focusing her chakra onto her palms, something that was required of her when she wanted to set seals with more of her traps sealed inside. She had tremendously limited time to set any traps, she was covered with those pesky bugs that were too numerous and troublesome to remove entirely at this point. It was not too difficult to see that Erumo's movements had become number and slower, as her chakra pool lowered from its peak, her body displayed more and more physical signs of exhaustion.

"Parasitic Insect: Pillar"! Juhi yelled out as a towering pillar of insects crawled on top of one another, surrounding Erumo and closing her inside the improvised structure of insects.

Mana was beginning to feel a little worried for the well-being of Kouta's friend before a powerful blast helped the girl free herself through the weaker structural side of the pillar of insects. Armed with kunai in her hands and in her teeth, Erumo decided to stop gunning for setting traps in the middle of a battle and decided to double down on her berserker strategy. The trapster leaped straight at her opponent, aiming to test her capabilities for close range combat.

A little string of Juhi's hair scattered across the arena as the Aburame narrowly evaded the barrage of swipes and thrusts aimed at her before preparing to launch a counterattack herself.

"Parasitic Insect: Gloves"! she yelled out forming two much smaller than before fist constructs that fit right around her own fists and could've been used at a closer distance. Juhi certainly was merely moderate at close distance combat but at least she had tools to dabble in it if forced to.

While the added insect formation gloves added some oomph to the genin's physical blows, it also slowed them down somewhat as Juhi's physical strength struggled a little to adapt to the increased weight around her wrists. When one punched as fast as most ninja did and as often, in as varied ways, even the slightest weight imbalance could've tipped the scales more to one's opponent's advantage.

Both of these two kunoichi were absolutely amazing. Erumo with her throw-all-caution away type self-sacrificial strategy aimed merely at wearing her opponent down and more skill at close range than she had any right at possessing. A significant amount of training must've been put into honing these skills as support ninja usually lacked the capability of doing anything more than withdraw from the front lines quickly and efficiently.

On the other hand, Juhi managed to perfectly command and control her insects like they were an extension of her own body. The bond between the socially awkward Aburame and her insects surpassed the Summoning Jutsu or the bond between any Inuzuka that Mana had met and their canine. She also managed to keep her insects in check from feasting on her own chakra when they were all over her own skin in full combat mode. That could not have been easy to accomplish and required fundamental trust in one's partner, discipline, and control from both sides of the partnership.

Erumo slashed a couple of more daring combinations of kunai swipes. This was just the moment for a counter attack that Juhi had been waiting for. The Aburame leaned under the chest-aimed swipe and smacked both of her "gloved" fists into the arena floor with enough restraint to barely even shake its foundation but waking up her insects to scatter in a mad crawling formation that scattered across the greatly diminished arena grounds.

Forced into a hasty retreat, Erumo dashed back before rubbing and shaking off as many of the ants as she possibly could. Mana could feel the trapster's chakra signature dwindling, whereas just so recently it was still halfway full, now it was already approaching critical zone. On top of that, Erumo's rush caused her body to take more damage. The trapster collapsed on her knees, clutching at her chest and ribs. The magician focused so hard on observing Erumo's chakra signature that she had not considered that Erumo's body might have caved in first.

As noble as Erumo's sacrificial strategy was, Mana wasn't impressed with Juhi's decrease in chakra or the lack of any significant damage on her body. Was all the pain and chakra loss really worth such a miniscule decrease, it was quite clear that Juhi may have at least noticed the more reckless approach of her opponent and paced herself a little better in the face of it.

"Parasitic Insect: Trap Pit"! Juhi yelled out as she smacked her hands together, forcing the parasitic ants to band up from their scattered formation right from under Erumo, there was only one possible move that'd have postponed the inevitable end of the match a skip further – to leap backwards and use her improvised grappling hook to stick to the ceiling. She'd have dangled helplessly straight above the ring out territory, leaving her wide open for finishing blows, but at least it'd have been something else than just giving in. That was just what Erumo tried to do but her tired body was simply too slow. The black swarm of parasitic chakra devourers crawled all over her feet and up to her knees, trapping her lower body completely in place as they worked their magic.

A strong gust of wind blasted the gathered insects away as the overseer of the exam caught the collapsing and unconscious Erumo, the ninja interfered right after he received a faint gesture from the bunch of ninja protecting Lord Sixth. One of them must have been a sensor and relayed the important information that Erumo's chakra crossed far over the critical zone. At this point, she needed medical pills to accelerate her natural chakra restoration processes or she risked losing the ability of chakra manipulation.

"That was dangerous", Kiyomi sighed in relief, Erumo's noble strategy got the Yamanaka heiress quite invested in the fight and made the trapster a clear favorite in the blonde's mind.

"Yeah, she's lucky to have passed out and gotten rescued before that line was crossed", Mana looked down as resisting to the painful stream of memories from when she lost her own chakra manipulation was beginning to seem quite impossible.

The overseer then rushed to the tag scroll and unsealed Stea back onto the battlefield. While both combatants had seen combat previously, Juhi was slightly more worn out chakra-wise, not to mention the amount of damage that the Getsugakure genin had already managed to store in her damage seals.

"Not to sound too mean, but I kind of hope that Stea is pushed to reveal all of the hidden cards she still has. Opponents like that are too dangerous to have any cards still concealed", Kiyomi noted.

"Erumo's strategy was reckless", Mana grunted, still feeling a bit uneasy after seeing the extents to which Team Fir was willing to go to advance to the next stage, "She should've just tagged out and shared intel on her opponent's abilities, now Stea is entering onto a completely mysterious to her battlefield".

"You, of all people, should be the last one to point fingers and call people reckless", Kiyomi quite accurately and in a verily low-blowing manner cheeker her friend.

Still, judging from Stea's composure, it did not appear like the Getsugakure kunoichi cared very much about what kind of abilities her opponent may have possessed. Her eyes merely traced Juhi's relatively tamely injured body being carried off through the door, Stea was smart, she should've figured out that it was loss of chakra that did her tag partner in by just that one glance alone. Anyone who had seen Meiko's match would have known what a ninja beaten into unconsciousness looked like…

Stea darted off, heading straight for the left corner of the arena, launching a pair of kunai at her opponent as a distraction. This was a textbook scoping approach, it would've been instantly been clear to any ninja that has worked at least one day in the field what the purpose of such an elementary behavior was. The Getsugakure kunoichi went straight for that priceless information.

The kunai bounced off of the piling parasitic ants that erected themselves in an extended horizontally hand position, using its "fingers" to deflect the kunai whereas the clutching of the insect fist would've served as a makeshift tomb for the young Getsugakure ninja.

"It's tough to see what's going on inside that squirming thing", Kiyomi squinted her eyes, trying to see something inside the messy mass of insects.

"Yeah, I wonder how Stea will adapt to this fighting style", Mana wondered finally finding enough will inside herself to keep her eyes fixed firmly onto the battle instead of getting distracted occasionally by her own inner turmoil.

"Yeah, it's interesting to see how will her damage seals deal with attacks that devour one's chakra as well", Kiyomi grinned.

"It's not just that. I believe that the amount of damage Stea seals away matters to her, meaning that the more damaging the attack she stores inside the seal, the more potent her own long-term strategies become. Aburame insects are not overly dangerous in terms of the physical damage they deal, they're more of a chakra draining hazard. The Aburame are not favorable opponents for damage seal users, it seems", Mana replied.

With a thunderous roar, Stea punched her way through the insects using the Chakra Enhanced Strength technique that most medical ninja were able to use to a certain extent. To be able to overpower even the swarming tactics of the Aburame insects and punch through and outside their enclosing construct must have required significant force, it was an alarming sign as far as judging Stea's growth of potential strength was concerned.

"Parasitic Insect: Mace"! Juhi shouted out, appearing from the other side of the closed and now busted insect hand. As commanded, the Aburame insects quickly reshaped themselves into a giant mace before slamming from above straight at Stea, who had very little space to move in, given the amount of arena that kept crumbling to the floor every passing moment. A powerful shockwave emanated from the clashing forces when Stea raised her hands to block the smashing construct with her hands. It was less than the cleverest of strategies…

Open skin contact with the insects meant that they were free to keep draining the Getsugakure kunoichi of chakra continuously. Whereas firstly, Stea could match the strength of the tremendously large construct and even overpower it somewhat, as moments went on, she found herself quickly getting drained of her Enhanced Strength as the constant chakra drainage made it impossible for her to sustain the jutsu.

With a decisive and cracking thud, the mace smashed on top of Stea, making her completely disappear in the ocean of parasitic ants as the construct dissolved. A mighty blast from below signaled that Stea wasn't quite at the point of giving up as the bugs got blasted out of her way as if the kunoichi had detonated an explosive from underneath, as she dived up in the air, jumping all the way to the ceiling and sticking to it, using the Art of Tree Climbing jutsu.

"So she's come to the same conclusions as Erumo had", Kiyomi crossed her arms over her chest. "It's weird. I previously thought that Stea would have this easily in the bag but… Juhi may just pull it through. I always thought she was a bit creepy, what with all the insects but… You know what, she's kinda cool".

Once again, Stea's hand lit up with the emerald-indigo glow as she ran her hands over the aching areas of her body, using the Mystical Palm jutsu to heal herself quickly, at least giving herself what was supposed to be the elementary battlefield treatment.

"Look at that, she's completely healed herself, not a single scratch or speck on dirt on her body"! Someone from the genin watching the battle exclaimed in complete shock. Mana had to hand it to the person – they were quite right with that assessment. Stea went from moderately banged up and numerous inner injuries, evidenced by black blunt force traumas all over her body, to looking completely refreshed and even cleaning her skin pristinely clean.

"But her chakra dipped below Juhi's for the first time", Mana noticed measuring the signatures of the two combatants. Seeing how she, a moderately amateur sensor could tell such a detail, the difference must have been considerable enough to tell the two apart.

"I can't reach you up there, it'll take too long for my insects to stack that high, could you please kindly come down, or at least swing a bit lower than the actual ceiling, like Erumo"? Juhi asked making the audience glare at her in confusion. This must've been one of the cases where Juhi's lack of social interactions kicked her in the shin – she just validated all of Stea's theories about her ability for a question that had an invisible chance of a positive answer.

The parasitic ants were highly intelligent and minuscule crawlers, capable of lightning quick coordination and amazing swarming strategies as well as a great variety of shapes they could collectively take with enough training. Their main weakness was gravity – they needed to stack on top of each other to reach taller places.

"No", Stea firmly denied the request of her opponent.

"I see, that is unfortunate", Juhi nodded.

Mana noticed a pair of boys peeking up Stea's dress as her tight silk struggled itself to keep providing the cover that clothes were supposed to provide. For some reason their reaction in the middle of battle greatly amused her, whereas normally it'd have been a cause for a bit of outrage. To tempt their dirty thoughts even more, Stea moved the hanging part of her dress aside for a brief moment just to reach inside her ninja pouch and pull out a handful of kunai and explosive tags, making a handful of explosive kunai on the spot.

"Parasitic Insect: Spikes"! Juhi chanted as she slammed her hands together, extending them at her opponent right afterward. Mana noticed a significant dip in the girl's chakra, evening their signatures up somewhat, which meant that the jutsu she used was quite a powerful one. However, once the swarms of insects shaped elongated spikes that shot out at the high-hanging opponent at a moderate pace, Mana realized, that it must have been one of few jutsu that simply permitted the insects of reaching that high within an acceptable timeframe.

Stea remained in her place, throwing her quickly combined kunai with explosive tags right at her opponent before she weaved a bunch of hand seals.

"Multi-Kunai Jutsu"! She declared after the hand seals were complete, in a loud banging noise and a large cloud of smoke, the thrown explosive kunai multiplied several times over. Clashing with the spikes of the Aburame girl. Juhi braced for impact as she realized that her insect spikes got blasted away and that a part of the explosive barrage was coming to her.

Mana had realized the point of Stea's attack too late, as the barrage of explosions decimated the arena completely, leaving it just a handful of intact stones, whereas the other tiles got turned into dirt and dust afterward. It looked like Juhi took a while to realize she was slipping down as well, but the insects formed a large landing pad for her to fall onto.

"Hey, overseer! This has to count as a ring out, has it not? I mean she's practically touching the ground, by extension"! Doma, the more in-your-face and hotheaded patriot of Getsugakure and a teammate of Stea's, objected.

"We've permitted a substitution with an audience member earlier, didn't we? As long as no part of the genin touches the actual floor, or the side walls, it does not count as a ring out", the overseer ruled, raising his hand to shut down the boy's objection.

"I give up"! Juhi vibrantly declared with a raised right hand.

"Are you sure"? The overseer glared at her confused.

"Yes, I may have a protection from a ring out currently, however, I'll need a constant input of chakra to keep myself on my insects. Needless to say, I have no way of effectively attacking my opponent up there so it's just a race against time. I do not wish to waste the audience's time or needlessly kill any more of my partners", Juhi bowed gracefully before jumping off of the insectoid platform. Stea landed on the floor with a quick dive from up above, softening her landing with a pulse of chakra from her feet that made it look like time itself slowed down upon her landing while the pulse merely cushioned the fall.

"It's a commendable decision", Stea bowed her head at her opponent before dusting off her dress and rejoining her team.

"Very well, let's determine the next pair of examinees to battle it out, before we leave for a short break and we can fix the arena", the overseer sighed before turning at the screen that began scrolling through random letters and names before settling on the two tag teams to fight it out in the next match:

"Jean-D (Team Nimbus/Kumogakure) & Gorm Cleiti (Team Scuti/Hoshigakure) VS Buhakim (Team Pahlavi/Sunagakure) & Kres-T (Team Alto/Kumogakure)"