"Ladies and gentlemen in the audience, also, more importantly, the examinees waiting for your turn in the waiting room, there has been a small change in the match-ups. Due to an unforeseen obstacle of examinee Blusckel Steinck failing to arrive at the exams we are forced to change the match card a little bit. The match following this one, Boruto Uzumaki VS Gennai will also include examinee Shinki, making it Boruto Uzumaki VS Gennai VS Shinki. That is the decision of the Ninja Council." Konohamaru informed on the commentary. His voice sounded quiet at first, likely so to prepare the audience for the booming noise of the event again after a lengthy period of silence.
"Huh, wait, what, I mean!?" Boruto's jaw dropped. "What the hell!? Now I have to worry about that guy too!?"
"Oh, it's odd they didn't stack that up on my match up next…" Relta Ginn stretched her arms and rushed off onto the stage.
"They must not have thought it fair to just stick a third element onto the match without warning…" Sunny-Lee shrugged.
"What's wrong, son of the Seventh? I am glad to have this chance. I can prove everything I believe in just one match…" Shinki turned to Boruto who didn't even turn back to answer the look of his opponent at first. Just when it began looking like Boruto was scared of his opponent, he turned back and stepped up closer to him. It might have been just her imagination, or so Meiko thought, but she saw Shinki's black coat rustle as if it was alive somehow.
"Prove what you believe, and what's that, I mean!?" Boruto adopted a tough-guy expression even though it was not too difficult to see through the fact that his courage was false deep down. By acting this way and trying to seem tough, he accidentally showed everyone in the locker room that he didn't think too highly of his chances to win.
"That Konohagakure has grown soft under the rule of the Seventh. Not this Konohagakure, I've not met its leader but from what I hear he is a capable commander. Your father, however, is too soft. He is a remarkable ninja, I've no reason to doubt his power or achievements but he is a failure of a leader." Shinki claimed while calmly staring back into Boruto's blue eyes.
"You bastard, our fathers are friends, I mean!" Boruto yelled out.
"So they are. Maybe that is why my father thinks I am wrong. That is why I relish the opportunity to show him the truth by crushing his son before the Ninja Council and prove him wrong. My father is a wise and powerful man but I believe that his friendship is obstructing his vision…" Shinki stated. "The two of us are quite similar, we are of similar age, we are both sons of the respective leaders of our village. The true differences in our respective Kage shall become evident when we face each other and in our match, the truth shall become clear."
"You guys…" Gennai scratched his cheek, looking sorry for himself. "I'm in the match too, you know…"
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the next match of the day! We don't doubt it for a second that you've grown tired of waiting and so we present the next match – Relta Ginn from Hoshigakure against Tasure Kaeron from Kirigakure." Moegi introduced the combatants before turning to her peers for some additional commentary.
"These two are real oddballs. What we've got here is, I believe, anyone's match. These are two individuals that have their own quirks and quirky people don't quite think the same as everyone else. It is because of that it will be impossible to tell all throughout who's got the advantage," Udon pondered on the match.
"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Konohamaru scratched his head before seeing Tasure Kaeron stepping out onto the arena, at which point he gulped and pulled the collar of his vest, "Ah, I see…" he added.
Tasure Kaeron was a taller than average individual though it was not his height or his build that made him look odd. It was instead his hairdo which looked like a mosaic art piece, shaved in various forms with what remained seeming like an elaborate net over his head while a handful of tightly-tied braids fell from his scalp down his shoulders. Tasure was too young to have facial hair yet though that did not seem to stop him from scribbling some with black ink over his chin and the lower side of his face, styling his face paint similarly to how he had done his hair.
"Whoa! Are you for real?" Relta Ginn jumped up startled. "I thought that you would fix that hair for the big event but you're really devoted to this, aren't you?"
"Who'se you'se talking 'bout?" Tasure hissed. He was a slim and quite frail-looking individual so when he moved his upper body and emoted he appeared like a moray ready to lunge at its prey. Except for the fact that no prey capable of intelligent thought would ever swim past this creature without having accepted that either they would soon die in its jaws or that they were about to have the weirdest day of their lives. "You'se couldn't possibly be talking 'bout Tasure?"
Relta Ginn shook in discomfort, looking at Tasure with disgust equitable to as if he was a walking, building-sized cockroach engaged in its insectoid face and antenna washing rituals. Tasure drew a paper-thin blade from his pouch and licked it. Upon closer camera shots, the ninja in the locker room could note that Tasure's tongue was much thicker than it should have been for someone his size, which could only have been the reason for his peculiar speech mannerisms. It was also blue, though clearly dyed this way by some candy as the color was not evenly spread out and looked as if it was half-heartedly sprayed over his mouth organ.
Tasure's opponent was an oddball herself, though her quirks of wearing her clothes in strange manners like wearing socks of different colors or lengths or wearing her top backward didn't seem nearly as odd with Tasure's larger than life personality and appearance drowning it out.
"Alright, the sooner I'm done with this, the better…" Relta took a wobbly fighting stance, looking positively thrown off and uneasy about the slithering body speech of her opponent as well as his unnatural appearance. Some ninja looked odd because of their upbringing, it was especially apparent for Kirigakure ninja that had clans like the Hoshigaki clan with clansmen that had fish-like features though Tasure's case was especially baffling since he looked quite human, just one that made heaps of wrong choices.
"Tasure's not 'fraid to cut dem girlies!" Tasure licked his knife again. The thin-edge bent ever so slightly from the touch of his oversized, tongue. "He don't prefer cutting girlies, but Tasure'll cut dem anyways…"
The unorthodox attempts of psyching his opponent out appeared unconditionally successful as within mere moments of him speaking again Relta tsked with her tongue in irritation and flushed through a handful of hand seals before driving her hand down onto the ground.
"Earth Style: Stone Shower!" she grunted, causing the area between her and her opponent to open up and spray fist-sized rocks with sharpened edges at her opponent. As a collection of both being psyched out to attack too early as well as the unnatural agility of her opponent and the light weapon he holstered, Tasure slipped away from the shower of Relta's ninjutsu and moved in to attack her up close.
Relta revealed herself to be no slouch in hand-to-hand as well though her body stiffened at a wrong moment, a disgusting flaw of execution of an evasive move resulted in a shallow gash of red opening up on her chest. It didn't look too deep as despite being open it didn't bleed with enough intensity to require attention. It was because of the thin sheet of steel that was used as the preferred weapon of the Kirigakure ninja that such a wound was made.
"What a dumb knife…" Meiko grumbled. "I don't think he'd be able to slash anyone with it even if he wanted to and they didn't resist…"
"That might be the idea…" Kiyomi sighed.
"Oh yeah… Those softies in the Ninja Council will eat this non-lethal approach up when they evaluate performance," Temari chuckled to herself, finding Tasure's performance more worthy of an award for the best-executed charade rather than an acknowledgment of his skills as a shinobi.
"Perhaps they should," Kiyomi admitted. "Facing off against a crazy-looking guy like this with blown-out eyes and a tormenting fighting style is not an experience one would forget. A ninja like this guy can frighten secrets they didn't even know they knew right out of somebody. Who cares if his knife can only cut one's skin, a wound like that will still make it harder to fight back."
Tasure pressed his offensive at a close-range which was smart – after all, his opponent had just revealed herself to be more of a mid-to-long range ninjutsu user with a careless show of her hand. However, Relta seemed to have recovered from the lock of panic gripping her throat and answered with a chakra-infused punch straight to Tasure's chest that sent the poor chap flying back and planting on the dirt face-first.
"That looked like a painful hit, if Tasure wasn't careful with his defensive augmentations, a hit like that would blast his entire ribcage to pieces!" Moegi exclaimed on commentary.
"It's an amateurish mistake to forget that Earth Style ninjutsu users commonly employ chakra augmentations to move the boulders and shifting ground that they call up. Their striking potential is much more dangerous than that of other ninjutsu users because of that reason." Konohamaru added.
"It's unclear how many Earth Style users Tasure Kaeron has faced in the past and how much experience he has on this matter. Judging from what information we have on him, his story is one of inspiration, being a youth from the slummier districts of Kirigakure, Tasure has lived a life of petty crime, eventually deciding to rise above it and crawl out of the slums by becoming a ninja. I don't believe that a man that used to be a common criminal would be too experienced with one-on-one ninja combat." Udon theorized.
"Well, one thing's for certain, his background as a hooligan is surely paying dividends as his knife-fighting skills and intimidation game is on point," Moegi nodded.
"Yer being feisty. Tasure don't like 'em feisty 'cause den Tasure have to cuts 'dem more," Tasure hissed out while rising off the ground and taking another, matching knife out of his pouch.
"Tsk, you freak!" Relta grunted, this time managing to overcome Tasure's unnatural looks and behavior and stay with a cool head as she stomped the ground beneath her feet and weaved a single hand seal. "Earth Style: Shockwave Ridge!"
A trio of rumbling shockwaves jetted out from underneath Relta's foot, the left and the right one spreading out to their respective sides while the central one rushed straight for Tasure. The fleet-footed Kirigakure bandit performed a quick bounce to the side but Relta proceeded to punch the end of the ridge on her side, forcing a blast of force to burst out from the central shockwave and throw Tasure aside.
"Earth Style: Earth Mausoleum Dumpling!" Relta grunted as she punched both of her arms, gleaming with chakra enforcement, into the ground and pulled out a giant volume of it from underneath her. Using her chakra enhanced strength, Relta flung the massive boulder, large enough to cast a shadow over the ground underneath it up into the sky, instead of throwing it right at Tasure. The purpose of her peculiar trajectory became clearer when she shuffled through a bunch of hand seals and breathed in deep, inflating her chest.
"Fire Style: Blazing Meteors!" she yelled out before breathing out a myriad of small fireballs, all directed toward the airborne mass of land. While the fireballs appeared to lack volume and explosive power somewhat, their collective barrage had little trouble of lighting the entire floating landmass ablaze and form a makeshift meteor out of it.
Tasure clutched his knife with a nervous grip while charging at his opponent was a viable tactic, the range of the falling mass of land included her location as well so he'd have completely ignored the falling meteor just to rush at her and score a cut. With just a moment's hesitation, the Kirigakure ninja decided to attempt to evade the falling doom seeing how he possessed ample evasive skill and above-average agility.
"Hmph… Let's see Tasure cut this," Relta huffed while shuffling back and out of the range of the slamming meteor. Even after putting in the effort to move well outside its range, she still had to employ chakra to her feet to stick to the ground and wrestle the resulting shockwave and the pulse of heat and flames that spread from the point of impact.
"What an absolute game-changer! Who knew that examinee Relta was capable of such an awesome technique?" Moegi whistled out before nearly swallowing the microphone to express her surprise.
"Indeed, here we see the experience playing an important role. Examinee Relta has participated in the last Chuunin Exams held in Konoha and even the one held in Sunagakure before this one and she's come up short both times. It is of no surprise that by now this impressive young lady has mastered a B-Rank ninjutsu technique in Earth Style: Earth Mausoleum Dumpling," Udon said on commentary.
Tasure laid stuck in the wall at the very edge of the arena. His clothes had been proper singed and even the impressive piece of modern art that was his hairdo was ruined when multiple lines of hair got burnt up. The slow yet relentless stream of blood down his nose and mouth suggested some internal injuries from the landing of the tremendous landmass while the heatwave and shockwave combined did the real number on him afterward. He didn't look to be in much of a condition to fight though the proctors did not interfere yet, ruling him to be capable of competition, as long as he deemed himself to be.
"You build your walls, girlie, Tasure gonna cut through 'dem all and 'den he gonna cut you too…" Tasure grumbled in pain while pushing his body off the wall and landing on his feet in a shaky stance. His injuries seemed too severe for him to be in any condition to engage in his previous showcase of knife-fighting skills.
"Tsk… Even through all that? You're really messed up, you know that!?" Relta yelled out at her opponent, looking more psyched out by the reluctance of this disturbing individual to quit the competition after she put her best hurt on him rather than his words.
A thin stream of blood ran down Relta's shoulder with a shallow cut opening up to let it out. Her backward-worn top tore open in a stringy cloth-tearing sound. Once again she was too taken aback by the weird behavior of her opponent to notice his attack. It was only when Relta crouched down in preparation for more long-ranged attacks that she noticed one of Tasure's thin and short knives lying on the ground. With that silent and irritating attack, the hooligan revealed the purpose of his knives to be solely for optimal concealment and difficulty to perceive them when thrown.
Tasure flung more of his knives at her but this time Relta was ready, rolling aside to avoid them. Her shoulder burnt with irritation when dirt and dust entered the wound but it was just the sort of pain she was used to having worked as a ninja all this time, just looking to be acknowledged at last. This whole time, looking at the grand picture of the Chuunin Exams it seemed like an insurmountable wall to climb over but here and now she finally saw the top of it and could smell the trees and the fruit on the other side. All she needed to do was to reach out for the top and pull herself over the edge!
"Earth Style: Earth Dome!" Relta yelled out, slapping her palms together and then pressing them against the ground. The dirt underneath her rumbled in a tunneling line as it extended toward her injured opponent and burst from underground in the shape of a dome. Tasure struggled to try and outrun the dome before it covered him up but his wounds were too severe to build up enough speed and move in time.
"Fire Style: Blazing Meteors!" Relta once again spread her fireballs across the arena, homing them all in on her enclosed opponent and igniting the dome of earth that Tasure was encased in. She focused her chakra into her right arm to the point where it shimmered with vibrant, blue flames and charged at the earth dome as if she was possessed. With a wicked power cross, the earth dome exploded into a storm of rocky shrapnel and incalculable force looking to erupt and finding no escape within the dome.
When the devastation cleared out, the settling dust revealed Tasure lying sprawled out on the dirt with a few smaller chunks of dirt and rock still covering him. Staff rushed onto the stage and promptly removed him. Relta sighed and stared at her clenched fist, examining the heavy price that the battlefield paid during her match. She had always thought her teammate Gentib to be the one to become chuunin first, though it seemed like she may have just earned her own promotion before him.
"Sadly, we might require another short break now, don't worry though, ladies and gentlemen in the audience, it's only for as long as it will take for the terra-formers to fix the arena and ready it for the triple threat match still to come! Look forward to it, this might just be the first and only instance of a three-ninja-match in the finals of the Chuunin Exams!" Konohamaru spoke on the commentary.
"Aw man, I worked so long to prepare myself for a match with Boruto, now I'll have a whole 'nother guy to think about… This is unfair…" Gennai sighed and mumbled to himself.
Shiki and Boruto, meanwhile, traded glares with one another. Whereas Boruto's was passionate and spite-driven, Shiki's was cold and calculated. It seemed that where Boruto looked out to step out into the arena and prove something to everybody, his opponents included, Shiki saw himself as just a servant and tool to the inevitable to happen.
