Aozora Yushijin clashed with an airborne Sky Warrior wearing segmented bronze armor with a cowl of gold and silver colors decked with a spiky crown of chakra-imbued eagle feathers. The two exchanged their best blows with Yushijin heaving his claymore around with impressive speed for someone wielding such an unwieldy weapon, though the Sky Warrior proved himself much faster by deflecting Yushijin's cuts with his wings and kicking the Konohagakure ninja away.
Yushijin gritted his teeth, wincing with the right side of his face, and looked to where his opponent drove his boot that imitated the talons of a bald eagle. The spot had Yushijin's soft lavender color sleeveless cowl turtleneck crudely torn and the young man's chest gifted with a nasty graze that seemed to bleed inside more than it trickled outside.
In a peculiar manner, the Sky Warrior didn't appear to be capable of actual bird-suit-sustained flight. This came as a natural result of the materials he put the suit together from. This Sky Warrior chose armor and heavyweight, crushing aerial dominance over the elegance and subtlety of his peers, though he had mastered a different method of flight. With the wings of his bird-suit spread wide, the Sky Warrior glided expelling colorful rays from the core of each of the mechanical feathers of his wing, granting him supersonic, jet-like flight that was immensely difficult to deal with in mid-air.
A deafening sonic roar prompted Yushijin to turn around and face his swooping foe. The Konoha ninja placed the wide and flat side of his claymore out in front of him to block the supersonic dropkick of feet equipped with segmented golden talons easily capable of impaling him. The young man couldn't help but grunt from the resulting force of a collision that sent him rolling and whirling off to the side. Imbuing his claymore with enough chakra to form a visible coating, Yushijin sent crescent projectile slashes behind him to force the aftershock of these swings to correct his course from falling out of bounds.
Once again, he grunted from the concussive shock of a wild airwave, catching him whole and twisting him around, thrashing the Konoha ninja in mid-air. A green bubble-shaped windstorm had engulfed the defenseless ninja stuck in the air and facing off against an opponent who was second to none in aerial combat and didn't plan on letting Yushijin's sandals touch the tiles of the arena for one more second.
"Maverick Lariat!" the Sky Warrior chanted just before crashing into Yushijin's gut with an extended right arm. It was as if being run over in the sky and hit by a wing of a supersonic fighter jet. Yushijin coughed up and blanked out for a second while the bronze, gold, and silver Sky Warrior shot about with colorful rays emitted from the tips of his feathers, making it look as if though he flew across a rainbow road.
"What a spectacular light show, ladies and gents!" the announcer turned around on one foot in excitement. "Atsabola, the ace Sky Warrior had attacked Aozora Yushijin, a Konohagakure ninja, from behind and took him to the air where the Sky Warriors reign supreme and he just proceeds to pound and wail upon the defenseless Konoha ninja, mounting up the pressure! Things are looking grim for Aozora Yushijin unless he can ground this fight!"
After letting Yushijin slip off his wing, Atsabola looped around and repositioned, canceling his jet-like glide into a knee crash straight to the exposed back of his opponent that made Yushijin wail out in pain and bend backward to an uncomfortable to see degree. Crossing his wings and shooting off colorful rays of chakra from the tips of his bronze feathers, Atsabola shot off into the air while slamming his crossed wings into the back of Yushijin's head. After taking him even higher into the air for a painful ride, the Sky Warrior spread his arms to the sides and performed a second "Maverick Lariat", this time hitting Yushijin's back.
Instead of letting his opponent split his spine into two by accelerating to hypersonic speed with Yushijin still stuck on the wing, the nimble Konoha ninja vaulted back with the aid of his hand and stood atop the spread wing before kicking off into a series of backflips before repositioning himself in mid-air. Yushijin wasted no time lamenting the awe-inspiring heights that the Sky Warrior carried him off to, but kept his attention focused on the opponent.
"Genjutsu: Come Around!" Yushijin chanted while weaving a single hand seal with one hand while his opponent looped around and rushed in for another series of brutal aerial raids. A pulse of inverted colors spread from the Konoha ninja, catching his opponent in this supernatural ripple.
"Cuban Sixty-Four!" Atsabola chanted while shattering the sound barrier and rushing toward Yushijin with the golden beak of his cowl pointing straight at the free-falling ninja.
Blink.
"Incredible! Simply astounding!" the announcer pumped his fight hand with horizontal thrusts while singing out into the microphone. "Aozora Yushijin grounded Atsabola with an incredible series of attacks!"
"Wh-What!? What is the meaning of this? When did this happen!?" Atsabola reflected to himself, hearing his own voice resonating with an unusual reverb as if he was vocalizing his thoughts. Just as the announcer said–Atsabola lay flattened on the ground with Yushijin standing over him with the tip of his claymore positioned right over the nape of Atsabola's neck. There couldn't have been a doubt that a chakra-coated sword of such mass and a swordsman of such uncharacteristic skill with a weapon such as this would've cleaved clean through the armored bird suit and either paralyzed or beheaded Atsabola straight up unless Atsabola surrendered.
Blink.
Pain. Immense, searing pain that resonated with a myriad of different colors. Everything went white, noises of someone screaming inside Atsabola's mind followed by much more grounded clanking of his dislodged and scattered bronze and silver feathers. Howling of air and the taste of blood in his mouth. What was the meaning of this? Were they back in the air? How was that possible? With a hearty battle cry, Yushijin placed his index and middle fingers pointing up to his face and vanished. With a little help from the signature Shadow of the Dancing Leaf technique taught to Konohagakure taijutsu users, Yushijin mirrored Atsabola's movements, moving directly behind his stunned opponent.
Atsabola swung his left wing, intercepting the claymore smash from the side. Riding the kinetic energy from this swing, the Sky Warrior let the force turn him around and leave him and Yushijin face-to-face with one another. Scowling, Yushijin thrust the handle of his sword at Atsabola's face, but the Sky Warrior turned his golden beak down to block it. Blood splattered from Yushijin's right hand where it met the toughest part of the Sky Warrior's cowl. Bellowing from the bottom of his heart, Yushijin swung his claymore with a reverse grip, overcoming the lack of distance which should've been a massive disadvantage for a longsword user such as himself, while wasting no time at all for spare thoughts.
Atsabola answered the reverse grip swings with stiff hammering swings of his whole arms, becoming a fighter jet that was sword-fighting with wings. The audience pumped their fists into the sky and raged with cheers, turning their attention away even from the hopeless stomps of the Salvari warriors who were their favorite to witness this flashy absolutely unbelievable exchange of blows between a man who dressed like an eagle and flew like a fighter jet and a swordsman with a sword easily his size and nearly the girth of his whole back, swinging with thunderous collisions as if this was the thousandth time they've met each other.
It was as if they saw each other as a poem they knew from the heart as if they were each other's trusted bandmates. Their swings were a gorgeous symphony. Both of them swung at the beat of their own drums, but because of the close match of their skills in handling a weapon, their swings looked more like a carefully choreographed aerial dance. Both fighters identified the same weak spots and openings, and each of them rushed to exploit them while seeing through the feints and identifying the true targets their opponent would lunge for. This was no longer a thought-out affair of two geniuses of violence. This was an instinctual battle.
If the audience hadn't known any better, they'd have thought that a claymore and a jet were born to sword-fight each other 6000 meters into the sky.
Atsabola connected with the first kick, sending Yushijin hurling to the side. "Chandelle Headbutt!" Atsabola yelled out, looping backward overhead and shooting off. The armored Sky Warrior turned in a full 180 turn while shooting like a bullet toward Yushijin with his head. A crack that made a thunderbolt sound like a soft mother's hit made the audience wince as Atsabola's cowl banged against Yushijin's forehead, splitting it open and splattering red paste all over the young shinobi's face while Yushijin's eyes rolled back and he began plummeting out of control like a shot down plane.
Not feeling like letting his opponent get away this easily, Atsabola whirled around his axis in mid-air while spiraling down himself until he met Yushijin and grabbed him out from his spinning fall.
"It was an impressive illusion, to fool your opponent with an imaginary jump cut to an illusionary future before swiftly turning them back to reality. It's a simple concept, but in reality, it requires the ability for your genjutsu to fool your opponent's perception of time. Not to mention the temporal shock of skipping forward and back through time in your mind, my movements still feel sluggish even now!" Atsabola commended his opponent before pulling him in for a headbutt, coloring his own gold and silver cowl with splashing red. Again and again, Atsabola hammered his opponent with headbutts while shooting down with one gliding wing in a diagonal downward trajectory, imitating a human missile.
"It's because of how impressive your performance was that I won't let you just fall down and die, Konohagakure ninja, that being said, I can't hold back for a second and give you a chance to beat me!" Atsabola proclaimed, stopping suddenly while releasing his opponent and spreading his arms out to the side. A draft of rushing inertia caught Yushijin, sending him to a straight tunneling glide while Atsabola shot out after his opponent and swept his leg to make Yushijin's tunneling flight more hectic and nauseating.
"Tomahawk Kick!" Atsabola chanted out with oozing confidence, rolling in the air with an overhead kick that knocked Yushijin shooting down to the sandy dunes just outside the Agbarmahal palace complex. Ground was closing in quickly for the white-eyed and bloodied Konoha ninja.
Yushijin split his eyelids far apart, spreading his arms out. The merciless sunlight bounced off of strands of steel wire attached to a handful of individual bronze and silver feather blades comprising Atsabola's wings. The Konoha ninja turned his arms around, tensing up the steel wire and vaulting over his front, then catching a handful of the strands in his teeth.
"Ninja Art: String Reeling!" Yushijin muffled out with a half-full mouth and teeth clenched over steel wire strands, turning his body in a complex series of positions that helped him manipulate the wire to lock his opponent in place while reeling himself back after Atsabola so quickly that the reeling wire spat out hot sparks from Yushijin's grinding trip up.
Rolling himself up and over Atsabola, Yushijin turned around several times, building up momentum before throwing a spinning kick up front and aiming at the front of the Sky Warrior's cowl. Switching his fingers around and forming more and more loops of steel wire, Yushijin restrained his opponent to a much direr degree by flipping loops of steel wire over various armor pieces and points of articulation in Atsabola's limbs. Yanking on individual steel wire strands opened up his opponent and tripped him for a clean shot.
By navigating around Atsabola's defenses, Yushijin threw stiff wayward kicks. With a resounding battle cry, Atsabola swatted his bladed wings, imbuing them with a much more intense coating of chakra that allowed Atsabola to sever the steel wire. He may have thought that with this show of force, he liberated himself and defended himself against Yushijin's attack, but Atsabola merely opened himself up to Yushijin's ace technique.
"Genjutsu: Last Resort!" Yushijin weaved a hand seal with one hand while positioning his claymore behind his back in mid-air. A colorless pulse resonated throughout the skies, turning them murky and grey. Because of their close distance and the fact that Atsabola had his eyes fixed on his opponent while devoting his momentum to a wrathful swipe of his wings, he got caught by Yushijin's genjutsu in an instant.
Atsabola's eyes widened in surprise. He must've been just as confused by this enforced belief that all of time had stopped as far as he was concerned as he was back when Yushijin skipped to an illusionary future before returning Atsabola to the present in a blink, disorienting him. With the Sky Warrior's movements frozen and his body twitching with stiff yet fruitless motion, Yushijin slashed with an overhead swing of his claymore, then turned around with a wide horizontal slash, then began speeding up faster and faster with each swing as he built up momentum.
Yushijin finished his combination, which Atsabola showed no inclination to guard against with an aerial front roll and a slam of his claymore straight to the top of Atsabola's head. It was as if Yushijin wasn't swinging a sword to slice his opponent cleanly into two. No. Yushijin was cleaving, he was smashing through Atsabola's armor and he had profound success with that much as evidenced by feathers sprinkling in all directions. With a masculine battle cry, Yushijin pressed his hand to the other side of his claymore and drove the hammering sword back into the ground, crash-landing alongside his opponent trapped underneath the longsword's edge.
"What an awful landing!" the announcer smacked his face, covering his eyes and nearly mangling his glasses. He lightly tilted the lower part of his hand, as if to peek at the battlefield to get just a mere glimpse of what was going on, before forcing his hand aside and smacking his fists into the railing. "It looks like these two are now fighting on mother ground–Yushijin's turf!"
The audience hollered with a passing wave of cheers while Yushijin staggered out of the smoke as if a bit tipsy, heavy on his feet as he had to put his entire body to swing his titanic sword at this point of wear and tear. Atsabola had been thoroughly humbled, meanwhile, his cowl was ruined, and bent and his armored feather blades scattered. The lights that glowed from their cores snuffed out. There was no more pizzazz in the performance of these two, just all-around bad decisions that would shorten each of their lifespans for a few more seconds of boundless glory.
The two warriors bellowed, rushing at one another with Yushijin dragging his claymore with both hands as his battered body could hardly support lifting it over his head anymore and Atsabola dashing at Yushijin with clipped wings. It all happened in a blink, Yushijin swung his titanic sword while crossing through his opponent. Atsabola froze in mid-air, spitting up alarming quantities of blood before his entire upper half split off from the lower half with the Sky Warrior's legs still running in place.
"I've already seen this trick before," Atsabola muttered, this time being fully prepared for Come Around to rewind. With instincts comparable to those of an actual bird of prey, the ace Sky Warrior rolled over Yushijin's back, outpacing the cleaving claymore while locking his hooked feet claws on Yushijin's shoulders and flipping the Konoha ninja over his head too.
Yushijin slammed against the tiles with a dull thud, coughing up a mouthful of blood yet refusing to move anymore. With ruined wings and unable to sustain any sort of flight, Atsabola locked his claws around Yushijin's side and turned with the added weight of his entire body, flapping his busted wings to gain just a few steps worth of gliding while he threw the captured and unconscious Konoha ninja out of bounds into the pool of water outside.
"Oh, what a bummer! Konoha ninja Aozora Yushijin just couldn't seal the deal and defeat the strongest member of the Sky Warriors–Atsabola! With this elimination, there are now 111 warriors left in the arena, but one has to question just how much fighting does Atsabola have in him!? Given the precarious position that the Sky Warriors are in already, if they lose any more members, we might see the familiar tactic of multiple factions focusing on a weaker link just to score a series of quick eliminations!"
"Yushijin!" another Konohagakure ninja belonging to Team Fir flipped out, witnessing his teammate's elimination. While he noticed Yushijin having a tough time before, the outcome of this bout was dire enough for Konoha that Hitokawa Jishi turned his back on his opponent and took off after the one responsible for Yushijin's elimination.
Jishi wore a cape that covered most of his body underneath the helmet. With Jishi's sudden dash forward, the cape rustled and pulled back, revealing the young man's fit build underneath and the inner side of the cape being filled with paper tags with sealing glyphs drawn on them. Weaving a hand seal, Jishi released what he had sealed inside–heaps and heaps of scrap, enough to fill a whole factory with it. With a vocal battle cry, the Konoha ninja punched one of the scrap parts, causing an electrical field that connected his knuckle to the scrap part and a whole network of a dozen other lumps of junk.
"Magnet Ninja Art: Scrap Fist!" Jishi chanted out, connecting the airborne junkyard together into a formation resembling a titanic hand and slamming it down where Atsabola last was. "Magnet Ninja Art: Scavenge!"
Instead of merely flattening the Sky Warrior, the slapping scrap hand made an electric discharge that spread throughout the surrounding area. Instead of shocking those coming to contact with it, the discharging electric field pulled anything iron or metallic toward the scrap hand. With a light tilt of his hand, Jishi saw most of Atsabola's ruined bird suit stuck to the hand with no sight of the strongest Sky Warrior.
"Damn it, stripped his suit and gave me the slip…!" Jishi cursed before turning around to respond to his opponent, who surely was going to attack him, given the chance. Against Jishi's judgment, his opponent also appeared nowhere to be seen, frustrating the Konohagakure chuunin.
Fleeing wasn't something Sky Warriors did, but Yushijin's admirable performance while fighting the strongest Sky Warrior in the skies, where Sky Warriors had a home-field advantage, made even Atsabola ditch his pride in order to survive. Meanwhile, healers fished Yushijin's face-down body out of the artificial lake and carried him off to the infirmary. Given his exhaustion and tear, Atsabola fostered a few thoughts that he might have preferred having been eliminated just so he could get patched up, but he abandoned them immediately after catching himself with such disgraceful ideas.