A man dressed in black and white, wearing a ring-shaped elongated plastic vizor over his eyes and of slick, brown hair pulled out a decorated plastic card from his inner pocket. The card let out a noisy pop and produced a postal parcel that fell straight into his hands. Ducking and weaving out of the way of the instantly erupted chaos of his surroundings, the shady spy ripped the parcel apart and pulled out a steel frame tube with triggers and gears rolling up and down and littered with a cascade of lights.
Upon seeing a potential opening reveal itself as the Sky Warriors of the Sky Country took it above the arena, each spreading their muscular arms and revealing capes made of bird feathers that stuck together into gliding capes with the help of a chakra layer coating them, the formally dressed spy took aim at a female Sky Warrior with white feathers and a notable spiky braid sticking out the front of her head, almost like a horn.
Four rods split from the frame of the weapon, emitting discharges of neon blue energy particles as they built up toward the front. A bright blue particle beam arrowed through the sky in an instant, making those brawling around the spy tuck their heads from the noise and the destructive nature of the weapon being employed. The white-feathered female Sky Warrior swooped to the side, elegantly deflecting the brunt of the particle beam that brushed against her wing and then waving her cloak-like wings to elude it when the spy navigated his weapon to chase his target around the sky.
"Ganetta, are you alright?" a warrior with a falcon-shaped helmet and variegated brown ailerons covering most of his body and keeping him in the sky closed up to his comrade while the two eluded the sky-piercing particle beam together by rolling to the opposite sides. The woman wearing white feathers took a swooping plunge down and flipped the heavily armed spy off his feet in a blink with a pitch-point accurate aerial assault before correcting herself in mid-air and preparing for another charge.
With his heavy weaponry falling out from his arms and rolling off to the side somewhere, the spy slipped his hand inside his black coat's inner pocket to pull out a kunai dispenser that was armed with shuriken. Quickly, the spy slipped a scroll from his pocket into an opening in his handheld dispenser onto the side which burst with electrical currents and coated the shuriken that his dispenser shot with a Lightning Release coating.
The arcing lightning bolts connected into an electrical net that surged through the separate shuriken projectiles, creating an obstacle field for the swooping Sky Warrior but the daredevil woman plunged and navigated throughout it nevertheless, swooping from the side instead of plunging straight down as she intended. A surge of charka coating resonated through the woman's entire body as her blond hair appeared to come alive and form into an aerodynamic javelin spike. Once the Sky Warrior had navigated around the electrical network, she slammed straight into the ground, causing a wicked whirlwind to rise around her.
The spy coughed up blood, having found himself impaled on the hardened hair construct. Each strand as hard as the toughest steel alloys and all of them working together made a nigh impenetrable spear that'd pierce through water, stone, or steel alike. The grounded Ganetta yanked her head about, slinging the impaled spy aside while her hair rested back into its original shape. At the same time, the Sky Warrior kicked off to take flight again and grab the armed spy that targeted her first. Bleeding from the wound in his gut, the spy pulled his gloves tighter and set off the tasers present in the gloves that made Ganetta yell out in pain and release him before she could elevate him too high up.
The spy pulled out a handheld dispenser-like device from another inner pocket of his coat and shot out a hook that wrapped around Ganetta's foot as he swung and landed on the ground safely, gaining limited control over his target. Pulling out another handheld gadget from his side pocket, the spy flung it like a stone cast to bounce across the lake's surface, narrowly missing the hectic brawl around him as it landed outside the arena's borders. The gadget rooted into the ground with mechanical legs and activated a reeling mechanism that sent tasing jolts while reeling the target down to the ground which promptly made Ganetta crash into the ground and left her twitching senseless as jolts continued to signal her numbed muscles.
"Sky Warrior–Ganetta is eliminated. The number of remaining combatants is 179!" a voice declared to the audience that had significant trouble keeping up with all the action. Granted, it wasn't like they could quite follow the competition that usually took place here, what with all the high-level martial arts and all, but this was just noise and flash to them. Then again, this wasn't the major attraction. This was just a formality before the principal attraction.
While the grievously injured spy panted on his knee, hiding from the surrounding chaos, one of Fennec's goons, a towering, bare-chested and bald giant with thick and hefty blue armor covering his chest and neck loomed over the resting warrior from behind. Just as the swordsman lifted his arms to cleave the injured spy into two, a light metallic clang rang in the air, and the giant slumped on his side looking dazed and shocked. The resting spy picked up a bronze ryo coin off the ground and rolled it around his fingers until a seemingly invisible shape appeared from the cover of camouflage. The man's bodysuit appeared to perfectly blend into the environment, though he wore a peculiar mask with three, triangularly shaped pink lights that could've been made out whenever he was around.
"Don't slack off, Kai. This makes us even for the mess in the Sand Peninsula but you wouldn't want to flip the tables and owe me one for a change, would you?" the masked spy taunted his ally while Kai hesitantly returned to his feet and the duo began looking for the next easy elimination. A pool of blood began gathering at the head of the fallen swordsman from Fennec's crew, leaking from the ear of the whited-out man.
"Jundun from Fennec's Horde is eliminated. The remaining number of combatants is 178!" the lively voice recounting all the action occurring in the arena for the audience cheerfully declared. With the constant trampling and thrashing about, it didn't take long for the unconscious mercenary to fall out of bounds, with the other warriors kicking the body aside to prevent it from becoming an obstacle for them. Two warriors getting eliminated didn't make the arena any less crowded, after all.
"Monster!" a shrill yet masculine voice reached Mana from behind her. The vessel that the Conductor forced her into lazily turned around to notice a man clad in mismatched samurai armor and covered in deluxe furs, wielding a bow and multiple crisscrossed quivers of arrows on his back while spears and sabers hung on the side of his horse. This man with a Manchu-style mustache was one of the explorers and conquerors that the Sheikh introduced if Mana's memory served. "You wear the shape of the Five-Tails, what relation do you have to that accursed beast?"
Mana didn't humor the conqueror with a response. Even if she could send him a strong telepathic signal, instead, she stood in place and just looked at him. It was ironic that for someone who wanted to rid herself of this stony shell that the Conductor shoved her into, Mana was behaving just like a statue when challenged.
"If you don't speak now, you will carry your bond with that devil's horse to the underworld!" the armored conqueror pulled out an arrow and began rapidly sending those whizzers Mana's way. The five-tailed statue just did what statues do best and let the arrows bounce off of her with menial, shallow scratches and cracks on her hated prison of a body. Even if she showed no will to fight back, it impressed Mana how accurate and focused this man trying to skewer a statue with arrows was and how strong the punch of his arrows was. Had Mana just been an ordinary stone statue, he'd have embedded his arrows clean in. Armor appeared to serve little use against a punch as strong as this.
"It taunts me, just like that damned horse!" the conqueror bellowed in frustration while slipping the bow back on his collar and pulling a scimitar out while kicking at his horse's ribs to charge clean through the battlefield and bring him within a slashing distance to the statue. Mana stood there and waited for the blade to come. She allowed the attacker to come close enough for her to see the drops of sweat on his face and fully make out his vengeful face. The sword had been flaring up with chakra coating, something like that should've been able to cut even through Mana's prison of a shell.
WHAM!
The suddenness of the impact made Mana stumble in place, just like a shocked mare would have done. Her opponent lifted off the ground and took it into the air, flying right off his horse while Priskom fixed his wind-up gauntlet arm back into place. The leader of the Statumen gave Mana a chilling stare. The fact that he had no eyes to stare with, only a faceless mask wrapping around most of his face, made Mana's imagination complete the rest of his features and one's imagination was always one's most competent lasher.
"Don't think I don't know what you're doing. Cut it out. We've got no time to babysit you and keep you from committing suicide here. I know it's rough. Tough it out and walk it off. If you don't give a shit and will throw away your own life, think about the rest of us for a second. If you have an ounce of kindness in you, fight it out for the sake of the others. Whatever schemes the Conductor's got going on, they've got no part in them besides being captured and swapped out of their bodies, just like you are," Priskom scolded Mana while fending off attackers from all sides. His wind-up limbs were unraveling, and he began needing some time to wind them back up. Mana vaulted over Priskom's head and placed her body like a wall in between those rushing at the wind-up statue and the Statumen leader.
"That's better, keep at it!" Priskom nodded in gratitude.
A cascade of dull thuds and battle cries attracted Mana's attention while Priskom wound up his limbs and prepared to fend off everyone who decided that the hefty size of the Statumen made them a simple target. Mana turned toward the source of all the ruckus, noting bodies flying aside like rag dolls and the vengeful conqueror that wanted a piece of her earlier charging toward her. The horse had chakra coating its armor, which made it a living battering ram while the rider skewered anything it lifted off the ground with arrows. This one just wouldn't quit…
"I've carved my way through the entire continent, from Kusagakure to Stone, Key, and Bear Countries... Just as the edge of the continent and Hoshigakure seemed within my grasp, you had to get in the way!" the mad rider cursed, taking aim at Mana from horseback.
Mana wanted to move her tails to swat the arrows off, but that imprisoning body of her just felt too numb and sluggish. The arrows thudded straight into her forehead and entered halfway through. Cracks resonated through the front of the stone rampart, keeping Mana's mind its prisoner. The cracks gleamed with indigo-colored light from within.
"I was a fool to waste my time wondering if you had a relationship with the real deal or not. You look like the Five-Tails which is reason enough for me to reduce you to a pile of rocks nobody can make an intelligible shape out of," the conqueror posed on his horse that stood on its hind legs to let a clashing mess of fists, blades, and swords pass it by. Once the horse's front legs touched the ground, the chakra coating supercharged into a bright armor plating while the living ram shot forward.
Mana had no other choice but to lower her head and charge as well. She knew it was a bad idea long before their heads collided with each other. Whereas the horse had a solid chakra coating, which approached the potency of the first stage of armor ninjutsu, Mana was just a heavyweight statue fumbling its way with sluggish movement patterns. Their collision released a scorching firestorm in all directions while the concussive backlash littered Mana's prison of a body with cracks and sent it rolling back.
Everything went black. Because her mind's resolve faltered, Mana took a few breaths to realize that she needed to force her spirit to open the mind's eye in order to see through the statue's non-existent eyes. Even then, the vision felt blurry. Her pathetic, stony carcass laid sprawled out and battered, her right hind leg and a few tails laid chipped off while the whole statue looked like it'd shatter at any time.
Why did Priskom have to breathe conflict and self-doubt back into her life? She was perfectly content giving up on herself after being confined to this outlandish and misshapen form. Mana, how she perceived herself, died already when some cruel man yanked her mind out of her body and stuffed it into a statue, so this was all just a twisted joke. And yet… More than anything now, she wanted to help the other Statumen return to her bodies. But what could she do? How could Mana help them when she didn't even recognize herself? It was exactly because she recognized how desperate and hopeless these circumstances left her that she wanted to save the rest from this fate…
An arrow smacked into the core of the Five-Tails statue's body, right in the center. It punched through halfway and got stuck just like the rest. The horse's armored coating solidified and lit up with chakra flares that relayed the fact the ruthless conqueror of the continental lands had supercharged the armor. With a single bountiful leap, he took it to the skies and aimed to have his steed stomp onto the arrow and force it deep enough into the statue's shell to crumble it to pieces.
"Edict of Chakravartin: Dharma is Good!" an authoritative voice came from the side. An ethereal golden palm matching the size of Mana's stony cell swung through the air, smacking her would-be destroyed aside and leaving the mounted conqueror rolling and scrambling over the ground to prevent being ringed out by the surprise attack.
A metallic rumble soon followed the deafening crash, revealing a silver chariot pulled by a pair of horses that hosted a man with a simple white, orange, and maroon robe, a face of sophisticated paint and decorations, and rocking a man-bun. Mana felt warmth and kindness oozing into her broken shell of a perverse body as an invisible hand scooped her up and gently placed her back on her feet. She recognized the basic principles behind armor ninjutsu, though the chakra that this rival to her opponent conqueror used was something else. A unique form of chakra altogether, even if the source was identical.
"You have seeded enough violence and enough misery in your conquest, Gigajin. Those who walk the Earth with hatred seated in their hearts shall be immolated by its flames. I am only eternally grateful that I have seen the light of dharma and abandoned the path we walked on," the rider of the chariot proclaimed pointing at his rival who was forced to fend-off would-be attackers that sought to exploit his momentary stumble and eliminate him.
"Ashoka…" the stumbling conqueror Gigajin boiled in venomous hatred while pulling back the string of his bow and commanding his armored war horse to take charge once again. "I thought I made you crawl on all fours and beg for mercy!"
"Your hate and thirst for blood make you blind. We were rivals, stalemated in an eternal battle for more land. Yet no matter how many times we collided, it was our people that paid the price. Each time one of us conquered the other's settlement, it was the settlers that suffered and fertilized the soil we killed for. You did not defeat me, Gigajin, it was I who bested our mutual madness and discovered the dharma!" Mana's savior once again formed a golden open palm shape and thrust it to crash into the charging horse.
The two forces collided in place with equal force. Vertical halos of lightning crackled in its expanse while sending stray thunderbolts in each direction as a spontaneously formed vacuum howled and pulled everyone around toward the epicenter of the compressed singularity created in the collision of the two conquerors.
"Coat your campaign in any bullshit you want! You're just like me at the end of the day. In all ways except one–I will always be better than you!" Gigajin roared. "I am the greatest conqueror in history! There's not a single country the paths of which I hadn't walked on and do not own settlements in! Even the Daimyo pay tribute to my uncompromising might so that I do not spearhead toward their lands and take their settlements! All bows to Gigajin, pays tribute, or perishes!"
"As always, your primitive, violent nature blinds you…" Ashoka closed his eyes. When he opened them, they gleamed with bright golden light. "I do not travel and conquer to fulfill my greed or for delusions of grandeur. I do not have to prove my power to the gods. I prove the power of the gods to the people by traveling and spreading the message of their kindness and path to enlightenment. You spread bloodshed and war, I spread the message of the dharma."
Ashoka leaned his head to the sides, evading a pair of arrows that Gigajin had fired his way before extending his palm out. "Edict of Chakravartin: Animal Life is Sacred!"
A team of ethereal, golden horses hundreds of transparent energy construct avatars strong began rampaging across the arena. Most of the stunned competitors froze in place, yet felt the running animals merely phase through them like passing spirits. However, a blood-curdling scream directed the attention of many that could make it out from many others like it. The team of golden horse constructs took Gigajin off his war horse and pummeled him to submission and unconsciousness, stripping his armor away and breaking all his weapons in their holy stampede before throwing his body like a broken sack out of bounds.
"Gigajin the Great has been eliminated! The remaining number of combatants is 177!" the announcer declared after yet another toll of a bell beside the gong that'd ring the end of the raging battle royale.