The three figures lined up on two opposite sides vanished. The blur signifying the movements of the high-ranking Konoha ninja in a white blazing cape lit up in flames while dancing alongside violet blurs and violent sparks as well as a golden gleam accompanied by a tunnel of howling gales. At a crucial moment of the battle, time appeared to freeze up with the Konoha ninja wound up for a strong blow right in front of the exposed chest of the invulnerable Vizeriman.
The browless eyes of the short man widened in surprise at how fast and potent this shinobi was in battle, easily surpassing the oppressive speed and might of a lower-ranking ninja with the Third Gate unlocked and racking up a terrifying mass of advantage on top of that assessment. A metallic clang awakened the stumped mercenary from his awe-struck stupor as the armored trunk of his female mercenary companion locked around the forearm of the Konoha jounin before he could deliver the flaming blow.
With a flick of her head, the woman sent the high-ranking ninja crashing down into the shaken floor tiles with the two mercenaries looming overhead. The mercenary woman positioned herself for a head-first plunge, pointing the steel tusks of her helmet at the Konoha ninja. The jounin evaded the plunge, leaving his opponent to crash into the ground with an impressive boom of force and debris flung up into the air because of the crash.
Just as the forearms and calves of the Konoha ninja lit up in a blaze of Fire Release chakra coating, reminding more of actual, live fire rather than an ethereal aura of energy surrounding the limbs, an armored trunk expanded from the cloud of dust and wrapped around the waist of the jounin, pulling him in for an aerial spin kick that floored him. The jounin only allowed himself to be downed for a second, quickly whirling his legs in mid-air and kicking himself up with a highly flashy move.
The moment that the shinobi's feet touched the ground, the cloth flaps enhanced with chakra with knives attached to the end wrapped around his arms by the center point with the blades digging into the flesh and cutting through the dark blue bodysuit. Wincing in pain, but having little to no ability to deal with the two mercenaries working together and prancing all over him, the Konoha ninja felt a tripping sweep from the mercenary woman in front of him tripping him up while she prepared to head-dive on top of him and impale him on the tusks of her helmet.
Taking to the sky, the woman rolled and finished her mid-air motion in a head-down position, placing her arms beside her while stretching her alluring body out straight like an arrow and shooting down. There should have been no way that a human could've fallen that fast. She moved like a bullet, faster than any blade launched from a dispenser or any arrow. A tunneling gale turned around the woman's slick body, assisting her in the shot down that should've left the Konoha ninja gutless. The grisly scene of impalement was concealed by the immense amount of dust and dirt flying off into the air, though, when the rubble cleared up, the semi-armored merc only stood up with a spare tile stuck on her tusks that shattered to a crude punch from her gauntlet.
"The ninja replacement technique. Did our friend perhaps learn the lesson meant for his student and fled with his life?" Vizeriman asked himself a rhetorical question, knowing full well that he was being delusional in his belief that a Konoha ninja would've admitted defeat and fled, especially with a personal stake being involved.
"No way in hell…" the mercenary woman shook her helmet which seemed to be something halfway in between a wild boar and a mammoth in its inspiration, sending dust and spare pebbles of debris in all directions from having etched into its impressive craftsmanship. "He may be a cowardly ninja, but there's not a chance that his macho ego would allow that. I know his type. They feel entitled to victory…"
"Not all men are like the monsters you fought off," Vizeriman quickly slipped a remark in while the pair waited for their opponent to resurface with a new plan. While the jounin's insistence on using a combination of ninjutsu and taijutsu besides his incredible strength and peerless speed would've put pressure on either of his opponents, their combo didn't let the ninja get started with his rampage and quickly shut him down, which helped them establish an early lead in this battle.
A loud pop directed the attention of both mercenaries toward a figure blitzing in from their left in a fiery zig-zag pattern. With each switch in direction, the charging shinobi burst into a high-speed firestorm that propelled his entire body onward. The white flaming cloak on top of the charging Konoha jounin burnt up to cinders halfway to his opponents.
Vizeriman twirled around his axis, slashing all around him in a radius as long as the decorative cloth wings comprising his outfit allowed him. Each strike of the knives attached to the cloth flaps cut with an additional gusto of Wind Release chakra, leaving cut-up mincemeat of the charging opponent. Instead of collapsing into filleted cubes, however, the charging jounin burst into a firestorm that caught both mercenaries unaware and made them stagger on the back foot.
"Fire Release Shadow Clone?" Vizeriman coughed up as the proximity of the flaming clone burnt up the oxygen in the area and left both mercs wheezing and short of air. A fiery wisp came from above. The Konoha ninja plummeted from the air with a black spiraling chakra ball in his hand, surrounded by a ring of lively flames.
"Fire Release: Great Flame Rasengan!" the Konoha ninja chanted out before thrusting the pitch-black, blazing sphere forward. Before the fiery chakra ball could contact the immortal mercenary under Fennec's employ, a tight metallic chink locked the armored trunk in place around his elbow and flung him away. Something that the Konoha ninja hit on his way must've triggered the detonation, as the supercharged hellfire Rasengan exploded in a vicious maelstrom of fire that consumed an entire handful of combatants.
"That was dangerous. A blast like that could've ripped the Heart of the Desert clean out from my chest cavity and burnt it away…" the invulnerable mercenary noted with a stoic tone as if he did not just admit he was close to his demise just now. "It appears our friend learned all the wrong lessons from my bout against his student."
"You cannot teach men anything," the mammoth-boar-helmed mercenary woman with selective preferences over which limbs and areas of her body to coat in armor crossed her arms. "All they do is take, yet all they feel is wrath over not being able to have taken more. Such is the curse of being entitled to the entire world."
"It's actually a little hurtful to hear you talk like that while I'm around," Vizeriman scratched his cheek. "Did I not take you into my group, dress you and arm you, help you earn the money needed to find the sheltered women under your protection safety?"
"You've done plenty of good deeds for the poor women I've taken under my protection. Though until they can live their own lives on land they can call their own, they'll never be safe," the mercenary woman nodded with a softened tone.
"All the more reason to wrap this up. Don't stand out too much and eliminate too many names, our main target right now is Konoha ninja, the Allied Ninja are already dealt with. Don't attract needless attention, the rest can brawl it out amongst themselves," Vizeriman instructed his partner.
"Don't take me for a savage of some kind. I've no problem with letting those useless dullards beating each other up to determine whose stick's the longest and whose stone's the heaviest," the mercenary woman picked up the aggression in her tone when feeling like her friend was talking down to her.
"Huh?" Vizeriman blinked a couple of times in reaction to a pair of torn-up and singed-up doppelgangers of the Konoha jounin they were both fighting stepping up to them, having fended off the mass of warriors that the tag team of mercs sent him crashing into and aggravating. "Persistent…" he noted.
"You eliminated his boy toy. He feels entitled to his retribution," the armored mercenary woman pointed out.
Both clones went through a collection of hand seals, though, by the time the two mercenaries noticed these clones were going through a different bunch of hand seals, it was already too late. The one on the left breathed in deep, bloating his belly and chest like a balloon while the other was still working.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" the jounin yelled out. Upon exhaling, the bruised Konoha ninja spat out a volley of smaller fireballs into the air that covered a vast amount of space and covered a range that was unavailable to either of the mercenaries that were peerless in covering up for each other at close-to-mid range.
The armored mercenary woman turned her head, unreeling her segmented trunk like a chain of armor pieces in her hand and turning it around. The speedy twirl made a whirling shield that deflected the meek fireballs to the sides while Vizeriman dashed and took it to the air while smacking the oncoming fireballs away with his cloth flaps. Much to the chagrin of the invincible mercenary, his clothes, the parts of which he used as his main weapon, caught the flames and began burning up, damaging them and Vizeriman's offensive potential.
"Wind Release: Great Wind Spiral!" the jounin barked out, emitting a large amount of Wind Release chakra from the core of his body as a horizontal twister. Meanwhile, the first clone replaced himself with the third, original version that had its right arm brought back and behind his back with a red spiraling chakra ball burning up in the jounin's hand.
"Fire Release: Rasengan!" the Konoha ninja called out, thrusting the compact firestorm within the heart of the twister and setting it alight in a destructive combination that howled and clamored with a vicious capacity for utter carnage on the stage. Too fast to avoid while still locked in their effort to deal with the smaller fireballs, too widespread and calamitous to think up of a plan on the spot. Both mercenaries found themselves engulfed and taken aback by the blaze.
The bruised Konoha ninja ripped and flung aside the ruined remains of his flak jacket and widened his legs, bringing his arms up. A brilliant flash of sparkling aura burst from around him while his skin began glistening and his spiky and wild brown hair stood up, busting out from the ponytail hold and floating up in a rowdy hover. "Gate of Healing. Open!" the ninja yelled out, re-energizing his body as well as unlocking more of his body's latent potential and removing more of its mental blocks.
Disappearing in a fiery halo blink, the Konoha jounin appeared in front of the armored mercenary woman instead of focusing on the person he wanted to eliminate. Every time that he had applied pressure and was just about to eliminate the merc, this partner of his shut him down, so the best chance at being permitted to cut loose in this fight was to throw her out as quickly as possible.
A kick followed by a fiery trail dug into the side of the woman's helmet, bending it inward and forcing a mouthful of blood to spray out while flipping her kneeling and injured body into mid-air. Turning around, the Konoha ninja slammed a roundhouse that was burning up but not only because of the coating of Fire Release chakra but also due to the air itself setting alight from friction. After completing the roundhouse, the airborne ninja rolled into a downward slam of his foot that expelled a wicked flaming blast and flung Vizeriman, who was just about to assist his ally away.
The brown-haired Konoha ninja vanished in a fiery blink and pop again, appearing behind Vizeriman and shooting his foot up to punt the invincible mercenary straight into the sky. Just high enough for the mercenary woman to struggle to reach them. Soaring through the air with a flying kick, the jounin collided with the airborne mercenary, though, despite expelling a forceful shockwave burst from his back, it didn't invite any sort of reaction from Vizeriman. Turning his entire body around in a horizontal position, the Konoha ninja kicked Vizeriman diagonally down, headed toward a ring out.
A clank of armored segments signified the lock of his companion's chain around Vizeriman's waist. With a steel reeling sound, the segmented trunk-like construct dragged Vizeriman back into the confines of the ring while the two overwhelmed mercenaries struggled to contain and deal with the rampaging nin-taijutsu specialist.
"His Gate of Healing must only be a temporary revitalization. He should fall under the same strain from our earlier battle soon enough," Vizeriman noted, to comfort his very vulnerable and mortal partner. Chunks of the woman's flesh had nasty burns and bruises while plenty of her armor pieces had fallen off or dented and torn enough to be good only for scrapping.
"No…" the armored mercenary woman stepped out in front of her invulnerable partner, confusing him enough to tilt his head sideways and show surprise on his usually emotionless face. "You don't get to comfort me. I'm dealing with him and I don't care if his beef is with you."
"I've got no issue with that. You're one of the Fennec's crew, so it won't break my heart one bit to eliminate you," the Konoha ninja claimed while spreading his legs out and hunching his back, struggling through severe physical stress accumulating in his body. The focus in Vizeriman's eyes tightened–the Konoha ninja was planning to amp this up further.
"Third Gate. Gate of Life. Open!" the Konoha shinobi growled out while the aura around his body blew up in a booming pillar of fire. Unlike the emerald green energy burst from his pupil, the nin-taijutsu fighting style of this high-ranking ninja worked alongside the Eight Gates and amped up correspondingly.
"I would advise you to step aside and let me deal with it," Vizeriman said while pressing his hands together and beginning to work on another Desert Heart sphere to fling at the powering-up threat to their participation in this battle royale.
"Not a chance," the mercenary with a busted helmet shook her head, stressing the armor enough to have jagged steel scales and needles fall off and expose bits and pieces of a scarred face underneath. The wearer of the mammoth-themed helmet would've appeared gorgeous under the more classical definition of the word once, with brilliant amethyst-colored eyes, tanned skin, and a shaved head of spiky black hair. Though this particular desert flower bulked up her appearance, gaining a more chiseled jawline and fighting countless battles while spilling her blood on the sand for what she believed in. The many pale scars decorating the exposed patches of her face signified that much.
"He singled me out because he sees me as a tool in your hands. Even when I'm the one opposing him as an equal, he still sees me as an object. Just like those villagers, Sheikhate soldiers and ninja saw those poor tribeswomen living in the desert as objects. I've spent my entire life protecting them and fighting their battles, I've devoted everything and the only thing that changed is that this asshole no longer sees me as a pretty flower, he sees me as a knife. I can't even begin to tell you how much it pisses me off!" the mercenary woman, with collapsing armor, snarled, pulling her trunk piece apart from the helmet and stretching it out in her hands like a chain with ax-shaped segments. Swinging it in a style reminiscing somewhat of how one wielded nunchaku, the mercenary took a fighting position.
"Fourth Gate. Gate of Pain. Open!" the Konoha jounin clamored out. His skin became swollen and purple while his hair stood straight up as if he was underwater. Unlike with his student earlier, the opening of the more stressful and damaging gates caused a fire to erupt around the jounin's eyes like a flaming domino mask. Upon releasing this pressure and venting some of the body heat this way, the ninja exhaled easier.
Just as the brown-haired ninja brought his body down in a position similar to a sprint runner, ready to obliterate the stubborn amazon in front of him, a totem-pole statue with massive mace arms jumped out in between the two, hopping on switching legs while he posed around in a ritualistic dance.
"Oh!" the announcer shouted out. "Poru from the mysterious Chaos Factor faction unexpectedly interrupted this fight before its untimely conclusion! As those of you who kept close attention to that frontline may recall, Sarutobi Hiko, the Konoha jounin, was fighting Poru from Chaos Factor before splitting to take on Vizeriman and his companion. What could his motivations be? Will he join the Fennec's mercenary band and fight his earlier opponent alongside them!?"
"Yo, man, what the heck, dude?" Poru stopped his goofy dance after realizing he got pretty much everyone's attention with it, as per his intention. Based on how the totem statue awkwardly began scratching his head immediately after standing on both feet firmly on the ground, it became apparent that he didn't intend to draw quite this much attention from this many fighters. "You just up and bolted on me! If everyone just runs around before fights can conclude, this battle royale will never end, and some of us are on a time limit here."
Straightening his back and relaxing, Hiko let the flaming boom around him subside while his skin returned to normal, with occasional stains of char and bruises all over it. In a blink, the fiery mask around Hiko's eyes vanished without as much as a trace, and his irises and pupils returned to normal.
"I'm sorry, but this mercenary here eliminated my student. While I am proud of his performance and I didn't expect him to win this tournament by any means, he is an enemy of my village. He mocked and abused Yuken far more than he had any reason to. My business with this mercenary is personal," Hiko pointed to Vizeriman. "And since this woman appears obsessed with standing in my way, projecting some sort of personal issues on me, it seems like I'll have to deal with her too."
"It doesn't look like you're doing too good. Kind of looks like you're having your ass handed to you," Poro pointed with a decorated stony hammer arm.
"I assure you, I would've thrown this woman out of the ring and busted every bone in her body if you hadn't stepped in," Hiko appeared irritated by this observation even though he stood in tatters of his bodysuit, bruised, beaten and bloodied.
"Hmm… There's two of them and one of you. That must be it. Let me help out, then we can resume our fight," Poru shifted his stone head across from one side to the other before slamming both of his hammer arms together and stumbling with a slow and hefty strut to Hiko's side.
"I assure you, that won't be necessary…" the Konoha jounin smacked his face and shook his head, trying to talk his way out of this awkward partnership.
"Nonsense, I can see how close to passing out you got. You may have crushed that lady into bone dust, but you'd have also fallen flat on your face. Then you would've left me hanging there, buddy…" Poru replied while slamming his massive arms at his face with blaring and threatening thuds.
The battle royale grounds became home to some unexpected team-ups, it seemed.