"I bet you're wondering what's so funny, eh"? Kres-T finally spoke up, interrupting the awkward yet brief standstill between him and his opponent.

"Not really, more like admiring the degree to which you're taking your refusal to cooperate with your tag partner", Jean-D replied before lunging at her opponent. For the Kumogakure kunoichi this was it – she saw her opponent getting tricked with her hidden technique. She smelled blood, both figuratively and literally.

The kunoichi danced with her knives without stopping, inserting quick kicks into the equation to both disorient and fill the rhythm of her attacks with new notes and beats so that it didn't become too stale and predictable. Mana curiously turned her head aside and looked at Jean's brother, wondering if he employed a similar fighting style. Something stroke her as immensely odd about Jean-D, namely her affinity for useless moves.

Then again, oddly enough, Kres-T was playing along, employing seemingly pointless parries and dodges into his own routine, as if he was fighting both the Kumogakure kunoichi and an invisible ghost of some kind. Both contestants utilized so many unnecessary moves in their arsenal that one was left to wonder if they were lacking the very fundamentals of close range combat or if the observer was not quite on their level and simply oblivious to what was going on.

Kres-T's hand shot forward, locking firmly onto Jean-D's scarf and pulling her in for a strong elbow strike. The kunoichi grunted as she forced herself out of her neck accessory and desperately worked on moving backwards, she then was gifted with a strong jumping knee strike, which, while blocked with her arms, was strong enough to throw her off balance and force the kunoichi to stagger back instead of gracefully sliding back into a gracious fighting position.

"See? I figured out your trick, you're done for now"! Kres-T grinned with a full-teeth smile which kind of made Mana feel bad about staying oblivious to what was happening, given that Kres-T didn't appear to be the most perceptive and intelligent of combatants.

"What's he talking about"? Mana wondered, finally giving in to the pressure and realizing that outing herself as unable to fully perceive everything that transpired between the two genin in the arena was worth learning something new.

"I'm not quite sure…" Kiyomi shrugged.

"He's talking about her Dimensional Blade technique", Hanasaku enlightened both girls, something that surprised both of them as their sensei wasn't really the kind to overthink any battle. Usually her complete excess of power, speed and endurance warranted an automatic advantage in any battle, enough so that she had survived to this day, even though not all of her battles may have been victorious.

Given that both of the girls just stared at the woman in confusion, Hanasaku sighed and elaborated. "I once fought a man in Kumogakure who possessed a similar technique, he stood in the way of my objective as both of our villages had issued us conflicting mission objectives. After a long fight and tiring out of hitting me with his dimensional techniques he withdrew".

"Yeah but… How does it work"? Mana wondered.

"It's fairly simple, the user just opens up one seal, then opens up another. They attack the first seal, the hit comes out through the other hole", Hanasaku explained, oversimplifying things, as always. She looked pretty content explaining it that way too…

"There's nothing simple about it", Kiyomi angrily squinted at her sensei, "You're talking about Space-Time Ninjutsu here, Hanasaku-sensei. One of the most elaborated and complicated jutsu to pull off".

"Not if one is transporting a very simple projectile through a very limited space and in a very short time", Mana pouted her lips as she often did when deep in thought. "If someone was skilled enough in Ninja Arts ninjutsu, and with grueling training, one could, in theory, pull it off on something as short as a kunai or a shuriken, all the previous limitations in mind".

"As I said, push the stabby end on one end, it comes out through the other", Hanasaku grinned with a goofy smile.

Jean-D quickly vaulted back to her tag scroll, aiming to pull on it hard to pull out her teammate, before she could do it, however, Kres-T was already holding her chest plate, having blitzed to the young woman and read her intent perfectly. With his opponent in hand, Kres-T leaped into the air as he began punching her face repeatedly, trying to force his way through her augmentations and draw blood.

Before Jean-D's face could have been turned to a mushy sludge of smashed bone, blood and brain matter, however, the young woman disappeared in a cloud of smoke with only her scarf remaining in the brute's hand, she meanwhile proceeded with her previous plan to unseal her tag partner.

Gorm appeared in a maroon flash and the two once again attempted to exchange information, despite Kres-T's explosive attempts at disrupting their communication with a pair of explosives from his pouch, the two successfully avoided the blasts and appeared to exchange some info before Jean-D got sealed in again.

"It appears I have no choice then…" Gorm closed his eyes and flexed his body out before tensing up all of his muscles at once. Just in time for Kres-T's landing and a bloodthirsty charge for his head. "Mysterious Peacock Method"! The young ninja shouted out as a purple glowing mass began leaking out of his body. It was no simple shine or shimmer, it was no aura, it was an actual material manifestation of some peculiar form of energy and, from the look on Kiyomi's face, even the non-sensors could perceive it clear as day.

Kres-T froze in mid charge and took a pair of reserved leaps backwards, blowing up a pair of smoke bombs in his way so that his opponent wouldn't speed-blitz him right after setting off his strange purple glow technique.

The purple shimmering mass coming out from, and enveloping, Gorm's entire body formed numerous tail-like endings behind him that spread widely like feathers of a peacock – something that must have given the jutsu its name. The consistency of the glowing mass must have been really intense as it was ruffling the boy's clothes and slowly burning them up.

"It's like… Radiation", Mana muttered to herself.

"Radiation"? Kiyomi wondered, feeling equally as confused as the magician was, without a doubt, therefore grasping at weird sounding straws that may have helped her better understand the technique.

"It's a strange phenomenon, a particular way in which energy moves through space or bodies. I've read about it in a book in the archives when I was researching more about Hanasaku-sensei's quantum branch of her abilities", Mana explained.

"That's not very nice", Hanasaku playfully winked at the magician.

"What kind of chakra is it"? Kiyomi wondered.

"It's not… Technically chakra. It can be chakra, but essentially, anything that moves in a specific kind of way can be radioactive, even chakra. It is possible but… Most of the times I've read about it, radiation is observed in space and space bodies like stars, meteors and the like", Mana still struggled to believe what she was seeing in front of her own very eyes.

She was not the only one who was confused about this. The shape that this strange chakra molding method took was oddly similar to the appearance that a Tailed Beast took when they took on Tailed Beast Chakra Cloak and started manifesting tails – when they completely lost control over their Tailed Beasts. If the number of Gorm's "tails" formed behind him had not surpassed the number of most tails a Tailed Beast, namely, the Nine Tails, was known to have by a good handful, the outrage would have been significantly greater.

"Peacock Method: Beast"! Gorm yelled out as if he was combatting excruciating pain in every cell of his body each passing second he manifested this odd technique. The odd purple glowing chakra around the boy's body took shape of a bestial entity and rushed at the Kumogakure genin.

"Don't make me laugh"! The young man grunted out and took it into the air, moving his axe hands behind his back and reaching for his pouch. With a single careless movement of his hand the Kumogakure bombardier had unleashed a massive dark purple cloud all over the arena, one that the barrier didn't fail to shield the audience from, using the murky cover to escape the projectile of radioactive chakra coming his way.

"Is that… Poison"? Gorm's voice thundered through the murky depths of a cloud, which took the color with the universally acknowledged color of all poisons. "I give up a little bit of my life every time I use this technique, do I look like I'm afraid of a little bit of poison"!?

Following that bold declaration, loud bangs, shockwaves and rumbles, clangs and cracking sounds echoed throughout the arena. Once in a while, the loud roars of pain or forceful grunts could've been heard from inside.

"So his chakra is radioactive then", Mana uttered in disbelief of the extents to which Gorm was willing to go to become strong.

"Is that bad"? Kiyomi wondered. "Can he really kill himself using that, how much worse than the Eight Gates can it get"?

"You've no idea. Radiation literally attacks our bodies on a cellular level. We may be able to protect ourselves from it using chakra manipulation of greater intensity but Gorm himself would not be able to do so. He'd be constantly exposed to whatever intensity of radioactive chakra he's putting out, completely tearing apart the chemical bonds in his body and destroying every single system bit by bit", Mana explained horrified by the boy's resolve.

After a short wild of wild clashing and the two highly physical fighters rampaging all over the arena, the dark purple smoke cleared out somewhat. Shockingly, Gorm was trading blows with his opponent completely hairless, his head and the exposed parts of his skin were glowing with purple shimmering lacerations as if his entire body was tearing apart and his own flesh was slipping off the boy's bones. The radiation appeared to singe the user's flesh, but instead of turning it to charcoal, it turned it into whatever glowing radioactive rock remained of the rotten parts of Gorm's flesh.

With a wild laughter, due to the enjoyment of the destruction of his opponent's body, Kres-T tossed a handful more of his explosives at Gorm, who just powered through them as the radiation, while quickly killing his own body while active, did appear to provide the boy with some degree of protection against strong attacks.

"Peacock Method: Destroy"! Gorm shouted out, throwing a strong cross fist forward as the feathers behind his back stiffened up and rounded out their ends before launching themselves at the boy's opponent before unifying into a single large feather that knocked Kres-T back. Most of the blunt force got absorbed by Kres' block by crossing his arms together in front of where Gorm's technique hit him. The axes of the Kumogakure genin shattered to smallest steel chunks upon impact as the force they had absorbed through the block was so great that it caused them to simply blow up. The chunks scattered all over the arena, some of them ripping into Gorm's flesh.

Kres-T breathed in wildly, clawing at his chest, as it appeared he had significant trouble doing so, before laughing out wildly once more. The brute moves his hands towards his hip, reaching in for his ninja pouch but it did not look like Gorm was going to let his opponent do anything of the sort.

Gorm's glowing body blitzed in a single flash, right up to his opponent, throwing a strong cross at his left cheek. Kres-T flew backward, bouncing off the ground like a flat little pebble skillfully thrown to bounce across the lake surface. Weightlessly, like a sack of vegetables, the broken and injured Kres-T fell out of the ring, raising a large chunk of dust as he did so. Before the overseer could rule out the brute's elimination, however, the Kumogakure ninja revealed himself to have substituted with a bunch of his broken axe chunks that scattered after being broken off his bracelets.

Gorm turned his face at his opponent, who was kneeling and wheezing by his side before preparing to charge at him again, aiming to use all of his Peacock Method time optimally, for pummeling his opponent into the ground. The boy could feel it – he could feel his every single cell being torn apart and popped inside of him but he could also see his opponent caving in already. Kres-T has already used his Substitution Jutsu, he had very few defensive options as he was so used to being the most powerful ninja on the field that he did not bother dabbling too much in those.

"Turn that off and switch out"! Mana shouted out as she jumped towards the arena. She felt a firm grip of her sensei wrapping around her waist and pulling her back. "Stop poisoning yourself, you're going to die"! She shouted again wondering if the young man could not feel just how quickly his own life was being consumed.

"He can't switch out. Not until he wins", Hanasaku whispered in Mana's ear as she carefully placed the magician down and kept her hands on the girl's shoulders just in case she tried something again. "The jutsu may be killing him but if he turns it off – his body will collapse. He won't be able to activate it again, probably. He means to use it as long as he can, while his body is rushing with adrenaline and he can still move".

Kres-T laughed off again, getting back on his feet and making a dirty gesture at his opponent's expense. "Hey, asshole, I left you a little present", he chuckled out before pointing at the floor under Gorm's feet. A little green orb was rolling about, like a little marble that children played with sometimes. Right when Gorm looked down, the orb burst, releasing a cloud of dark purple gas across the battlefield again – another dosage of the poison Kres-T used.

Stumbling and tripping over himself, Gorm crawled out from the cloud, scratching his nose, throat and eyes as the poison burned through them, together with the radiation treatment he appointed himself. Gorm's left hand was twitching and hanging stiffly by his side, his jaw got completely paralyzed and was snapping open and shut like that of a cartoon skeleton in cereal commercials. There weren't enough studies being done about the effects of radiation on the human body, Mana couldn't be sure if this was Kres-T's poison, or Gorm's own Peacock Method causing these effects.

"I can't afford… Can't afford to lose"! Gorm roared out as he quickly picked himself up and rushed at his opponent like a madman. Now it became apparent that he was racing with time, racing with death, even, possibly. "Peacock Method: Wrap"! the youth shouted out as his radioactive coat extended into tendril-like ropes that shot forward, aiming to subdue and gift his opponent with some of the inhuman pain and radiation sickness that Gorm was going through.

Kres coughed up as the ropes lifted him in the air, tying around his neck and slowly beginning to choke him out as they burned into his flesh with intense heat and something else. Something sinister, that didn't hurt but penetrated deep inside his body… Something the Kumogakure brute, crazy as he was, had enough reason to focus all of his chakra augmentations to protect from.

"Peacock Method: Destroy"! Gorm roared out, as profuse amounts of blood trickled down from deep inside his own body out from his mouth. The purple glow, the searing marks of the radiation killing him from inside began creeping farther across his body, his clothes were beginning to fall apart string by string as the marks on his flesh became wider and more intense.

The glowing concentrated mass of chakra feathers punched straight into Kres-T's chest, throwing the man flying wildly back, as the previously cast technique kept him hanging by his neck in place. Kres-T's neck extended in a very disturbing manner as he continued to struggle to breathe or efficiently fight back the constricting radioactive chakra binds that restrained him and hung him. Mana took a horrified step back, realizing that Gorm was willing to literally hang his opponent if it meant winning before his time ran out. At that moment, Hanasaku's grip on her shoulders slightly tightened before loosening up again, once the woman realized that Mana wasn't about to do anything stupid and was just shaken by the battle she was seeing.

Suddenly, the grip around Kres-T's neck loosened, letting the brute go to fall on his face and his knees to cough up and try to wheeze some air in. It did not look like Gorm was in any condition to utilize this moment of his opponent's weakness, however. He was going through something extremely grotesque and horrifying, something that multiple members of the audience turned away from and chose rather not to witness.

The boy's neck area swelled up, massively increasing its size, to the point where it appeared like it was balloon being blown up. The glow around Gorm's body began to weaken before completely disappearing. The boy's fighting pose disappeared with his stature changing into a hunched and weighed down pose of weakness and fatigue. His right hand began twitching just like his left one while the boy's eyes rolled back and whited out. Blood began spilling in profuse quantities through every orifice of the boy's body before the bald and pathetic shape of what looked like a healthy young man before the battle collapsed on the floor.

It did not appear that the young man was going to be let go of his part of the bargain, which he had to pay up due to overusing this peculiar and exotic technique. His entire body began seizing up, shaking and twitching as he continued throwing up blood while on the ground. At that point every single medical ninja in the audience rushed out to the boy's aid, without caring much of the ongoing match. The more aggressive and younger medical ninja withdrew to let the higher ranking and more mature ninja examine the boy. It did not take them long to awkwardly back up, shaking their heads and wiping sweat off their faces.

Gorm Cleiti was dead.