A featherless and miserable-looking vulture, the companion of Hanmong, the Bane of Dreams, flew above the battlefield, navigating around the soaring Cursed Warriors and those that sought to challenge them in a bout for aerial supremacy. The strangely vital considering its wretched appearance avian turned its head to the side and squawked upon setting its sights on something it hadn't seen for a while. A horned mammal, a large bull, or possibly a yak roamed on all fours in the ring, just minding its own business.
With a one-track-mind, the bird of prey swooped down and locked its hooked talons straight at the exposed back of the bovine, trying to lift it off into the air and bash its skull into one of the lumbering rock wreckage scarring the arena's landscape. Something that the bird of prey did not expect, however, was that the violet-skinned yak with long and flowing black decorating its back and head would turn around and slam an elbow into its side, nearly smashing the poor bird dead.
"What's the big idea!?" it clamored, locking a hand around the vulture's head and examining the miserable bird as if to judge if he should crush its head or not.
The man that would pose as a cow was a tall and burly Salvari warrior clad in golden chains and chiseled without a flaw. It had a dark violet shade of skin and his eyes beamed with an azure dharma glow. Like many of his Salvari peers, this one had a long and thick haystack of curly hair that would've driven the ladies mad and a bushy mustache but the most curious attribute of this one were the two bovine-style horns resting on the top of the Salvari's head. This unorthodox detail allowed the man to pose as some sort of exotic bovine behemoth when standing on all fours.
A haunting howl similar to thousands of dead souls wailing for lives they've lost rang in the twitching right ear of the Salvari warrior who put his right hand out and then smacked aside a black crescent slash projectile incoming from the right side. Approaching him from that direction was Hanmong, the conqueror they called the Sandman or the Cold Dream. The bane that invaded the main continent from a faraway, dark, and desolate Dream Country and forced the Land of Earth to buy his mercy and his services and offer his people settlement in exchange for leaving them alone to deal with their own political chaos with Land of Lightning and the other Great Countries.
"Unhand Volgin," Hanmong said in a bemused tone that suggested that a violent death would befall the Salvari manhandling his bird either way, however, it would come much quicker and gentler if he did as the conqueror demanded.
"I'll have you know your pet tried taking off with me. I don't take being objectified like a piece of ham lightly!" the Salvari replied, proudly puffing his strapping chest and posing with one knuckle pressed to his waist while playfully flexing his pecks and then flashing his flawless left biceps.
"If you pretend to be a cow, you risk being attacked by a predator," Hanmong put his sword out in front of him, signaling it as a razor-sharp steel barrier between the two. The pitiful state of the curly and bent sword served both as intimidation in representing the type of chilling punishment it had to inflict upon its victims to become this way, but also as a representation of the poor and desperate state of the conqueror from the Land of Dreams. "Let go of my bird and you will only lose the arm that touched it."
"I haven't heard of any vultures that fly off with entire cows in their talons!" the Salvari warrior clapped his left cheek with his free hand before pulling Vulgin closer to examine it closer. "Then again, it does look rather pitiful. I'm split between putting it out of its misery and letting it go and showing my bottomless mercy."
"Mercy… The tool of a man posing as a cow," Hanmong grumbled, taking off toward the Salvari warrior with a growl. His previous taxing blood feud with Tetsubisu Seinoku, the monk of the Stone Temple, had left the conqueror with a caved-in left side of the head that smashed his skull to the eye. It may have been that same pain from this injury that made the vicious Hanmong shorter in temper than he would have even been under normal circumstances.
"Gopala Headbutt!" With his forehead lowered and his bull's horns put firmly out in front, the violet-skinned Salvari dashed forward. The azure light from his dharma-flooded eyes radiated out and merged with the Salvari's body, forming a vivid and flashy blue aura around him that tunneled like a living energy wave as the horned Salvari crashed with a devastating headbutt that collided straight with Hangmong's deformed head. The two combatants met forehead to forehead. Both of their expressions twisted with a cocktail of pain and physical exertion, they reared their teeth and rolled back their eyes as the resolving clash of auras resulted in a strident nova that left the area of the arena smoldering.
A beam of light stunned the audience, and a loud rumble shook the very ground underneath their feet and crumbled a protective wall on the other side of the arena. The merciless conqueror Hanmong, the Sandman, laid limp and sprawled out, resting atop the crumbled wall and drooping with thick merlot splatters leaking from his busted skull with rolled back, black and bloodshot eyes. The Salvari behemoth playfully tapped his adamantine forehead with a dashing smile.
"I don't pretend to be a bull to hide, you see. I do so to find a company of pretty milkmaids. You may not know that, being a conqueror and all, but milkmaids are some of the hardest-working and most work-oriented girls out there, they won't even give a strapping stud like me their time of day and it's only when I become a part of their day-to-day work that they'll even let me break the ice!" the horned Salvari explained. "What an unseemly bird, not even feathers to make a crown for my milkmaid queens out of—"
Released from his restraint in the behemoth's grip, Vulgin flew off to land on top of his conqueror's busted skull and peck at the top of his head to wake the broken tyrant up. The unsightly avian hissed and lashed out at any healers trying to help the conqueror so they had to fling a net over it and forcefully drag it to the Sheikh's aviary in order to vault the Bane of Dreams over the stretchers and take him off to the infirmary.
"No surprises there, ladies and gents!" the announcer put his hands up, starting a celebratory wave of cheers. "Vasupala of the Salvari easily dealt with the conqueror Hanmong and rounded up the score of remaining competitors down to 100! It's only fitting that it was one of our beloved Salvari warriors to score this important elimination! This also leaves half of the Conquerors already eliminated!"
A burly man with long, hanging, greasy hair and a sleeveless white and green bodysuit dashed across the arena front and back, tossing aside any combatants that impeded his dash while goring or tackling down anyone who intended to oppose him or challenge him. The professional athlete gripped an elongated ellipsoid ball under his armpit. Out of nowhere, a long leg slammed down at the back of his head with a sandal flooring him and pressing his head to the tiles, putting a stop to the ceaseless rush of the athlete.
"Sheesh, you just won't stop going, will you?" a young lady with jean shorts, and a cerulean-colored hoodie with yellow lightning motifs that extended into her yellow hood with a black and orange cap sticking out from underneath the hood flashed a smile to the fallen athlete while he scrambled to get back on his feet. As an added insult to injury, she twirled the fallen ellipsoid ball on her index finger with an impressive balancing act. "You look like a tough guy and I'm looking for a fight, why don't we fight?"
"Normally I would have refused. I don't need the hassle of breaking the back of some skinny, long-legged chick weighing down my consciousness, but that stomp pissed me off. One thing you need to know about us Union Ballers is that you don't touch the ball unless you're okay with getting tackled!" the risen athlete grumbled, charging at the long-legged, casually dressed martial artist.
The broad-shouldered Union Baller didn't expect a flashing kick to swipe from the left side and smack him in the left cheek, stunning him in place. Using her long legs, the female martial artist stepped in with an uppercut to the gut before shooting a high kick to the athlete's face that sent him off the ground. Taking off the ground herself with a spinning mid-air roundhouse, the female martial artist sent her opponent flying toward the edge of the ring only for him to complete the flip in mid-air and thrust his palms into the ground, scraping across the tiles to stop his flight just an inch short of elimination.
"Union Ball? That's a strange sport…" the cheerful young lady dragged her index finger under her itchy nose while cackling. "It seems similar to all those other explosive, full-contact sports, but you don't wear any of that cumbersome armor like that Fusion Ball guy. Won't you get hurt dashing at people full speed like that?"
"We don't need protective gear in Union Ball. We showcase either our agility, technical skill at the game, or the toughness of our unstoppable bodies!" the Union Baller smacked his cheeks like a sumo wrestler preparing to charge. "To forwards like me, there is only one rule: take the ball and then hold it in the zone long enough to move as many backs into the zone as possible. Because your scoring depends entirely on how many members of your team, you drag across with you to the other team's zone, Union Ball is just as much about teamwork as it is about being tougher than any other professional athlete out there."
"Eh? But you're all alone now…" the long-legged martial artist blew a pink bubble and let it pop before slipping the chewing gum back into her mouth. "Am I the villain for attacking you while you've got no team to back you up?" she gasped playfully.
"Don't be ridiculous!" the Union Baller grumbled, leaning down and putting his right arm out while drawing his left in and putting his palm up for a slam that would have knocked out even the toughest of men taking that palm smack head-on. "We're not playing Union Ball now, this is a fight for a chance to build the greatest World's Sports Games stadium instead of this martial arts arena and host yearly sports games, elevating our craft and the culture of this violent world. There's no better sport to unite the world and make them catch the sports fans' fever than Union Ball!"
Letting out a clamorous war cry, the Union Baller took off with a charging head-first tackle. His opponent, meanwhile, pranced off the ground with a jumping push kick that rocked her opponent straight in the head, however, something went wrong. Whenever a boot met someone's head, usually, the head lost. Except this time, the Union Baller's perfectly lined up charge stunned his airborne opponent and nicked her knee, transferring an insurmountable amount of force through her leg that, had the martial artist not realized this and used her opponent as a stepping stone instead of a kicking bag, would've left her leg fractured and torn to shreds.
With his opponent unbalanced and aching in the devastated kneecap, the Union Baller wrapped his arms around her back and power-slammed her on the opposite side, slipping the ball from the young woman's grasp before kicking her away like he would have a piece of rags. Based on the wincing expression of the young woman as she struggled to stand back up, forced to shift her weight entirely on her left leg, she made a critical mistake in losing that exchange and blowing her kneecap. With the slip of her yellow hood off her head, the short and spiky orange hair of the martial artist peeked out from underneath the flashy cap.
"You're still looking to take the ball?" the Union Baller wondered with a bewildered expression. "You've got a kick-oriented fighting style. You won't keep up with me with that blown-out knee of yours."
"Union Ball might just be a sport to you, but Stomping Fist was a means of survival to the people of Rice Country. Being a neighbor of the Land of Fire, Konohagakure ninja was constantly doing missions and meddling with our affairs. Being a peaceful and farm-oriented people, we needed to devise our own martial arts to compete with Konoha's Strong Fist. We didn't have a ninja village of our own, so it was up to our martial artists to show Konoha ninja that we weren't some pushover buffer state neighbor of theirs but a country whose territory and people needed to be respected!" wincing with pain, somehow, the young lady bobbed, weaved and shifted weight in between her two legs despite the excruciating injury to her right knee.
"A flashy, power-oriented fighting style emphasizing high kicks, speed, and packed kicking power. I'd have thought such a style to crumble and become toothless when struggling with an injury to one's knee," the Union Baller shook his head and dragged the back of his fist across his forehead before wiping the slobber off of his sweaty face with his wristband.
"Stomping Fist is as much about relaxation as it is about speed and power. When we achieve a state of total relaxation, there is no weight placed on any point of our bodies. That way we can fight through even a debilitating injury like a popped knee," the young woman explained, weaving like an aspen tree and suffering seemingly no torment from her busted right knee.
Taking off with a headstrong tackle once more, the Union Baller prepared to collide with his opponent. This time, the young Stomping Fist master didn't use a thrust kick but a rising vertical high kick. Had her opponent continued the charge and taken the hit head-on, smacking across his face, he'd have undoubtedly suffered vicious whiplash and would've been in heaps of trouble, but the burly athlete slipped the hit with a spinning turn, shifting all of his force onto a different leg and flattening the young woman with a shoulder charge that used the blindside of the right side, where she wouldn't be able to pack a devastating kick his way.
Rolling back and putting her feet up, the Stomping Fist master employed a barrage of bicycle kicks from the lying position that forced her opponent to cover up and stumble back. With her hands positioned behind her back and head, she pushed off the ground while shooting in the air with a diagonal rising kick but the burly pro athlete charged and grabbed her out of the air, delivering a powerbomb to soften and numb her body up before turning around with a power slam onto the other side.
Seeing his opponent lying beaten, sprawled out, and barely conscious, the Union Baller picked her up over his shoulder and brought her to the edge of the arena, where he gently planted her on the ground, like he'd placed a Union Ball ellipsoid ball once as many of his teammates as possible have gathered in the other team's zone. Just like it would in Union Ball, this meant scoring for him in this battle royale too. Though, unlike Union Ball, here score didn't matter. Only survival until the very end did.
"In an unexpected victory of sports against martial arts, the Union Baller Moenaka Hanomahal eliminated Paljang Cookiwon after a debilitating injury to Paljang's knee! Despite the elimination, Paljang showed off the spirit of a true warrior, fighting through where most would have surrendered!" the announcer said encouraging the audience to erupt into a wave of respectful clapping for the bruised martial artist who rose off the ground rubbing her ribs.
The young Paljang would have limped off to the backstage areas to have her knee checked by the local healers in disgrace with her head down, but the wave of applause for her never-give-up spirit washed a wave of warmth through the young lady's body. With genuine surprise at the respect for her martial arts and her martial artist's spirit that the locals showed to a foreign martial artist who practiced relatively lesser-known martial art compared to the juggernaut that was Konoha's Strong Fist, Paljang scanned the spectators' stand, failing to find one smug or disappointed face amongst those she could make out.
In this arena, that day, Stomping Fist was just as respected as any other martial arts. It wasn't because of the country she came from or the political support that she had behind her or the number of people betting on her, but solely because of the skill and fighting spirit she showed in the arena and this overwhelming support made young Paljang tear up. Covering her sniffling nose with the long sleeve of her hoodie, with the assistance of the healers that rushed to her aid, Paljang limped off to the cold shade of the backstage hallways shaking with tears of joy as the arena saw her out with support and cheers.
Even Hanomahal, who was the one that eliminated Paljang and had all the reasons to feel proud of himself or to downplay his opponent's skill, saw his opponent off from a seated position, nodding his head in affirmation of the good fight that the young lady gave him.