It took a while for the audience to stop rustling and focus down on the two contestants that were about to clash. Overseer Oke cleared his throat before presenting both combatants to the audience and the Ninja Council that must have been blown away by the last battle, if a little confused by the erratic ending, given their lack of intricate knowledge of the illusionary arts.
Almost like it was his intention to create these conditions, the drizzling snowflakes intensified their downfall, quickly sinking the sandy and grassy arena in a layer of white, creamy cover of snow.
"For the next match – Gasco Patura against Dhaogu!" Overseer Oke declared, raising his hand in the air and letting the audience pay their respects to both examinees about to clash.
"The first contestant – Gasco Patura of Team Phobos from Getsugakure is one of the fearsome trio that has decimated all competition. He actually won his tag team match in the semi-finals all by himself and is one of the most refined sensors amongst the genin", Oke gestured with his hand at the still hooded with his dark purple coat covered with silver colored smoke motifs genin. It occurred to Kiyomi, as she admired the tall and broad shouldered man, or someone who come from a poor country, Team Phobos certainly had plenty of matching hoods and cloaks to wear.
"His opponent – Dhaogu of Team Zumurrud from Sunagakure! A young man who has managed to keep his abilities and his fighting style mostly hidden throughout the entire Chuunin Exam managing to grant himself a cloak of mystery and a massive advantage in this fight!" Oke hyped the young Dhaogu up, the short, like a gothic ball of rags looking youth just carelessly flexed his feeble muscles.
Once Oke ruled the beginning of the match deadly silence took over the snowy arena that was beginning to remind of the snowy fields of Snow Country, deceitfully covered with snow, concealing grasslands and frozen lakes that spanned entire kilometers alike. Both examinees were hesitant to make the first move as neither one of them was too into aggressive attacking.
Then, in one blur it all began – Gasco just moved in a blur right behind his opponent, reaching in to wrap his hands around the little boy's throat. Kiyomi noticed Mana reaching for her own throat at that moment, subconsciously. She must have had unpleasant memories related to that move or one of a similar nature.
Sand began streaming from Dhaogu's sleeveless top and the boy's baggy pants, forming jets and whip-like tendrils that whipped at Gasco's general direction, just fast and precise enough to tear up the cloak of the Getsugakure genin and leave red whiplashes all over his chest and side. When packed together those streams of sand must have packed a significant wallop.
Yet Gasco did not relent, right after returning to a combat mentality, he snapped back into a relentless and vicious physical assault, attempting to overwhelm his physically shorter opponent with rapid-fire yet considerably powerful blows. The result of the youth's naturally impressive stature and considerable physical training, without a doubt, aimed to help him connect his "Thunderstorm Fist" from an up close and personal distance.
Gasco's assault was impressive, the sounds and the shockwaves sent from his punches blasted away the snow around him and swatted away the falling snowflakes in a visually appealing manner of devastating after effects of his blows. The style didn't appear like anything fancy, just a firm punching focused self-taught martial art aimed at strong balance using neat footwork and lightning fast punching when one punch fired off, the other one was already winded up and ready for firing.
Yet each and every one of Gasco's attacks only hit a powerful mass of sand accumulated and placed in between Dhaogu and his opponent. Sand was naturally shock absorbent, it appeared, as the awesome force behind Gasco's strikes got distributed evenly across the entire blob of chakra infused sand and gently controlled with fluid motions that allowed Dhaogu to easily block the physical attacks of his opponent with fluidity and relative ease.
"Hmmm, interesting. It looks like Gasco's improvements are not just physical. He's thinking quite differently as well", Mana declared.
"That's right, Gasco has improved a great deal over these five weeks, sometimes I wonder now who is stronger between him and Doma, whereas before there used to be no such hesitation of declaring the winner", Stea smiled. "He worked on innovating on his Thunderstorm Fist and has achieved one impressive feat that has lead him to improving his fighting style in multiple different ways. One improvement opened so many doors…"
"I don't know, to me, he seems rather boring. Why does he keep trying to punch his way through that sand? He's not making any progress?" Kiyomi turned her lips sideways in doubt of Gasco's battlefield strategizing.
"True, he's pressuring his opponent though. He, without a doubt, knows that Lightning Release nullifies Earth Release jutsu, he was the one who pointed it out during our clash in the Forest of Death. Still, he is keeping his Thunderstorm Fist back until Dhaogu tires and lowers his sand, he isn't about to waste it on just nullifying the sand when it can just be raised up again". Mana grinned, even given her blindfold, she would've heard the impressive booms and the splashes of water of snow that reached into the audience and even up to the genin platform. It was impressive that she could tell the churning sound that the pressured sand particles made and identified just what was going on though…
Dhaogu shoved his palm forward with his fingers bent up, aiming at the direction where he had predicted Gasco to come from. Streams of sand separated from the big blob that surrounded and helped the Sunagakure genin in his defensive ventures and smacked Gasco's large frame about, completely blowing away his cloak and revealing quite large blunt force injuries over Gasco's body.
Even with these quite successful blows landing where they were sent, Dhaogu was not about to stop, he commanded the separated streams of sand to circle his opponent. Smashing into Gasco's back and then pushing onward, then the remaining blob of sand in front of the young boy hardened and shaped into spikes, making the intent of the offensive streams of sand clear – to crash Gasco right into the hardened spike wall of Dhaogu's sand.
Just as it appeared that the wall of spikes impaled Gasco in a most gruesome manner, that made the entire audience shake and cheer at the same time, with a poof of smoke the Getsugakure genin substituted with a large chunk of his cloak. It was a quite unexpected turn out to see Gasco use his Substitution Jutsu first, paying with the considerable strain of stamina so early on in the battle. Then again, Substitutions were usually performed early in the battle, as the textbooks of ninja theory advised, so that the strain cooled down before the end of it and the ninja had enough stamina left to perform another substitution later on.
The mass of sand quickly swallowed up the cloak before pressing it so hard inside that nothing remained of it. A show of frustration as in this snowy and filling up with snow continuously field of battle an object such as rags of clothes were useful to be used for one's own Substitution. The snow considerably obscured the details of the surroundings and made it troublesome to focus on anything but the blinding white wherever the eye was trodden.
Gasco breathed in and out a couple of times to calm himself down before snapping his fingers a pair of times and carefully circling his opponent in preparation for the next attack. These two were staring each other down like two ronin preparing to draw their swords just when the sun disappeared in the horizon. Kiyomi found Gasco's refusal to use his signature jutsu quite interesting if a little silly. Given how much this guy and his team terrified Mana this whole time, Kiyomi would've been afraid of him just because she had no idea what Gasco's plan was. There was absolutely supposed to be some sort of a plan.
Dhaogu extended his arm forward, commanding his sand to come in low, forming multiple long tendrils that aimed to wrap around Gasco's thigh and keep him firmly in place. He was planning something of his own, without a doubt. Gasco danced gracefully, dashing back and around the endless stream of growing sand appendages but their sheer speed, unstable and unpredictable manner of movement and numbers overwhelmed him and one managed to wrap around his foot whereas a pair more tightly covered up his arms.
With another gesture command, the Sunagakure genin sent his entire sand mass reserve floating up and above Gasco, shaping into a horizontal spiked wall threateningly dangling above the genin's head.
"Give up", Dhaogu mumbled out as if it would have been just a formality he had to offer instead of a genuine concern. Despite the emotionless ness of his delivery, he still showed more care for his opponent's life than most would have. After Gasco did not offer an answer, the frail youth waved his hands down in a wavelike motion signaling to his floating mass of sand to crash into his opponent.
The crashing sound was mighty, sending waves of sand aside. Doing so easily like the snow was just chunks of paper and mixing the white and innocent puffy cotton layer of snow with the light brown hue of sand that created a muddy mush all around. A small amount of crimson trickled into the mix making the color of the dirt in the arena seem even messier. Battlefields were rarely beautiful…
The audience settled down in silence, discussing with their closest neighbor if they may have just witnessed an actual murder but with a powerful burst of chakra, blasting through the colossal layer of sand that appeared to no longer possess the bond with Dhaogu's chakra that kept it cohesive and submissive to the boy's commands their fears were thrown away. Gasco's indigo vest was torn up and the metal rings that kept the vest on the boy's chest were bent and ground into smallest pieces by the immense pressure of the sand that crashed onto Gasco.
The large Getsugakure genin wiped the blood off his nose and cracked lip before placing his fist back and preparing an attack of his own.
"Thunderstorm Fist!" He roared out as he sent his fist crashing down into the mushy ground, channeling his technique into a crescent shaped projectile, traveling through the ground and under and rushing at his opponent from farther away.
Dhaogu leaped away from the large projectile before responding with a barrage of ninja tools, even managing to mix in an explosive kunai into the mix, trying to deceive his opponent's eyes. Then, unexpectedly to everyone on the observer's platform, Gasco turned around before repurposing all of his momentum into another crushing fist.
"Thunderstorm Fist!" He repeated his technique once again with such casualty and ease that made all of the watching genin quiver uneasily. The follow-up attack blasted through all of the tools and detonated the explosive tagged kunai before nonchalantly continuing its journey to bust up the opponent of its user. Before Dhaogu could even begin to evade this second projectile, Gasco smashed the ground again with his other hand, also overflowing with the crackle of Lightning Release chakra and sending a third Thunderstorm Fist projectile.
"Water Style: Raging Wave!" Dhaogu yelled out before spitting out a mighty wave of water that gushed from his mouth downwards. Using the backward momentum of the rushing water, Dhaogu leaped up in the air, above and over the rushing twin projectiles as they smashed against each other and detonated one another in an impressive thunderous vortex crackle that provided quite a show for the audience.
"So is that what your mate did for improvement? Learn to spam his crazy-dangerous jutsu? Cause I kinda could have done something like that…" Nanaba chuckled. It was not all that surprising that she would not have made a big deal out of this as she downplayed pretty much everything she did or that transpired around her.
"Oh, he elevated that jutsu to whole new heights. He's just waiting for the right chance to show it off. The main area of his focus was extending the range of his jutsu and learning to channel it in different mid-to-long distance ways", Stea grinned.
"Let's pretend like using the same jutsu three times in a row in a combination like that isn't impressive all by itself, shall we?" Kiyomi thought to herself as she observed the two combatants staring each other down. Now it sort of became clearer to her as to why Gasco didn't use his Thunderstorm Fist before – all he would have achieved was that the sand defense of his opponent would've been destroyed.
Given how Dhaogu's sand manipulation is a jutsu of some sort all in of itself, that meant that he spent chakra with each passing moment just to maintain it and keep it active. Therefore, Gasco would've spent a whole bunch of chakra on just disabling something that was wearing his opponent out. Given how nimble and evasive Dhaogu already was, it may be a good idea to wear him out a little bit before finishing him off. Gasco was clearly thinking on his feet, this way even if he lost the battle he'd have been promoted. He was not thinking like a brash child throwing a fist tantrum in the battlefield, he was thinking like a ninja with an objective and a handful of sub-objectives that were required to fulfill that objective.
"Dhaogu is a really talented ninja if that was the roaring of water that I have heard", Mana suddenly interrupted the chatty girls' observatory platform. "Back in Sunagakure I was told that manipulating sand is an advanced ability that combines both Wind Release and Earth Release. This jutsu that Dhaogu used means he can use three elemental natures at once. That is the absolute limit that any ninja can master in a lifetime and he knows the basics of them already at his age".
"The Sand Release advanced bloodline is just a carbon copy of One Tail's ability anyway. Probably not even as strong", Nanaba squinted her eyes at the muddy arena that was slowly beginning to drown in a thin layer of white snow again. As a Jinchuuriki herself, it sort of made some sense that she'd know of all the unique abilities that other Jinchuuriki possessed.
"You're having difficulty breathing, don't you?" Gasco interrupted the moment of peaceful breathing and staring down with a loud question, he made sure that even the VIP areas would hear it. "Using your Sand Release in a middle of a snowfall with the air staying so humid is difficult, isn't it? Your chakra dips more than it should every time you order it around".
It was no accident or mistake that Gasco revealed what his sensory told him – he wanted Dhaogu to know why he was running out of breath when normally he wouldn't be. Even more importantly, he wanted the Ninja Council to hear his chain of thought, how much he perceived and noticed and how it affected his strategy. If they knew how he could analyze the battlefield and after they see his next move – they'll all be blown away. Gasco may as well cash his promotion in right after leaving this pit.
"Water Style: Paradise Oil!" Dhaogu chanted as he commanded his sand to manifest at the same time. A yellowish and transparent, oily liquid burst from the boy's mouth in the shape of bubbly orbs, enveloping his sand and covering it in an oily substance that made the sand look almost golden, as well as changing its consistency to a more sludgy one.
Without uttering another word, the boy sent the oiled up golden colored sludge rushing in jets at Gasco's direction while keeping the reserve shaped like a shield in front of him. The Getsugakure brute leaped back, quickly manifesting Thunderstorm Fists to neutralize the approaching oily sands that fell on the ground lifelessly in a shape of wet sand after being as much as touched by Gasco's jutsu.
The creepy baldy treated this exchange of blows like he'd have treated an actual clash of fists, smacking and redirecting each jet with a careful Thunderstorm Fist jab and, in that way, disabling the technique. His watchful eye noticed a certain twitchy reaction in the user of the oily jutsu, at which point he changed his approach and began heavy evasive action, attempting to evade as much of the offensive siege of oily sand as he could. His best attempt was to gain distance that not only carried a hidden possible gain of moving past the effective range of Dhaogu's sand, which there did not appear to be, as Gasco just found out, but also helped him by giving the youth more time to react to the boy's attacks.
Gasco grunted unintelligibly when he noticed something quite scary – a mass of oiled up sand resting on his back and branching out in veins of sand, wrapping around his arms and legs before enveloping the covered areas in sand completely. The Getsugakure brute could feel it – his body parts getting affected as the oily substance hardened his body wherever it managed to get to. Even at this point he could barely move his body in meaningful ways or get away too fast without breaking his spine as that was where the most of the jutsu's effect was based in – Dhaogu meant to disable him completely, just like Yushijin had done in the earlier match.
"You're caught in my jutsu. This is why I didn't want it to be revealed before it was absolutely necessary – it's an ace jutsu that can win me any match. It hardens around the parts it touches and encrusts them in its hard, rocky material. If you stress the affected areas or if I hit them hard – they will shatter alongside with your body. Surrender", Dhaogu demanded without any assertiveness at all. His eyes looked more tired than triumphant really.
"That so?" Gasco smiled "Have you noticed, I wonder?"
Given his opponent's confusion, the bald giant continued.
"The environment around you, have you noticed? The falling snowflakes? This battle was doomed for you from the very beginning, I was waiting for you to pull out your oil jutsu from the semifinals because I needed to find out something", Gasco explained before lightly lifting up his arm by the elbow, something that caused pressure and pain to the creepy baldy but didn't break off his arm completely.
"Thunderstorm Fist!" He roared out as he channeled the Thunderstorm Fist over his hand and overloaded the chakra channel, maxing the jutsu out. The cranked up chakra output made small lightning sparks crackle around, reaching up and around even to the surrounding barriers. The small lightning sparks began catching each falling snowflake, before firing off to the next, creating an intricate glowing net of Lightning Release chakra as the other branching off crackles traveled through the snow mixed with the mud.
In desperation, Dhaogu coated his body with his oiled up sand but that appeared to be a mistake. Once the intricate net of Lightning Release chakra reached him, it enveloped the young man completely, charging up his oily armor to the point where it outright exploded around his body and sent the young man unconscious and face-down on the ground. The massive injuries and lightning flowers all over the boy's body suggested that his chakra augmentations could do little to help his case.
The hardened substance over Gasco's body collapsed into yellow powder dust, the bits that made it into his flesh stayed in his bloodstream, it would likely be eventually removed from his body in one way or another.
This match was over.
