After taking a few bold steps into the makeshift cave put together from some conveniently fallen debris, Codename: Bird Watcher moved one hand away from his kunai dispenser to pull out a thin metallic rod that comfortably bent over his nose and had dents around the spy's eyes. Upon being secured in place, the gadget clicked and slid out a pair of panels while letting out a high-pitched metallic ring. Having bolstered himself with the ability of night vision, Bird Watcher ventured further into the underbelly of stacked debris.
A frantic scream made Bird Watcher turn around and face its source. Kita Esatoko was surprisingly swift. It was as if his body knew neither restraint nor had any fear for his own life charging at an armed and dangerous spy who's managed to get the better of the serial killer once already. Codename: Bird Watcher fired a few instinctive kunai shots, but they merely grazed the rushing madman. Realizing that the conditions for engaging his foe with a ranged weapon were less than ideal, Bird Watcher made the dispenser vanish from his hands like a magician with a remarkable sleight of hand.
The chilling steel wire reeling noise filled the air and met against the blade of a massive knife with a flat blade. It appeared that Kita Esatoko had settled on taking Bird Watcher out using something as crude as a kitchen knife used in filleting meat and fish rather than a kunai meant for combat. Bird Watcher grunted from the strenuous exercise of wrestling against the maniac after having tangled him in a steel wire that the spy weaved from his sleeves like a spider. Despite the steel wires wrapping around both Kita Esatoko's arm and his knife and causing both squirts of blood from the cuts where the wire dug into his arm and sparks from where it dulled the blade of the knife, the serial killer severed the steel wire with sheer physical force alone.
Shocked by this display of force and fearsome pain tolerance, Bird Watcher dashed back while pulling the sleeve of his shirt back. The spy exposed a watch worn around his right wrist and pressed a button on its side with his left. The button caused the panel of the watch to pop open, exposing a concealed minuscule metallic head that immediately upon surfacing let something loose with an audible hiss. Undaunted by the spraying tear gas, Kita Esatoko charged through the cloud and rammed Bird Watcher, sending him hurling across the cave and slamming his back against the debris.
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about wearing a dress, dear chap," Bird Watcher grumbled while his stalker picked up a stray stone off the ground and launched himself through the air with a hammering motion full of madness and vitriol. "That being said, you won't score any sympathy points from me by dressing up as a woman. I am not daunted by setting a dame straight with a good smack in the face when her behavior calls for it…"
Despite his taunts, Bird Watcher knew all too well that seeing his opponent appear out of nowhere wearing a flowery dress and a wig made him flinch for a millisecond. The confusion of the sudden shift in personality and appearance in Kita Esatoko cost him some valuable reaction time and nearly made the madman's surprise attack result in injury or death.
Putting his foot out in front of him, Bird Watcher caught Kita Esatoko in mid-air and tossed him over his head and back against the debris while rolling forward and producing another kunai dispenser from seemingly out of nowhere. Having settled on a favorable position for discharging his tool, the spy fired a few kunai blades, but Kita Esatoko moved like some beast. Crawling, writhing, and pouncing around. No restraints, no thoughts of which movements would've looked silly, or fears about dislocating something with an unnatural method of evasion.
This time Kita Esatoko's unorthodox evasive maneuvers resulted in success as Bird Watcher's kunai bounced off of the rock debris and scattered in the dark. Based on the noise of fingers sifting through the dirt and fallen kunai blades scraping over the tiles, the serial killer grabbed hold of the fallen knives and charged at Bird Watcher once more.
"You would hurt my husband, take him away from me… I won't let you!" Kita screamed out in a tone that was clearly higher in pitch. The suddenness of this proclamation and admission of the fact that Kita Esatoko believed himself to be his allegedly dead wife caught Bird Watcher unprepared. Once again, he found himself on the back foot, scrambling and shifting through gadgets he still had available to him after his blazer had burnt away in battle.
Rolling away from a mashing of knives, the spy Codename: Bird Watcher found himself back on his feet and aiming his watch at his opponent. With the turn of a small rolling switch on the other side of the watch, the face of the watch popped off, revealing a wrist-mounted laser cannon. A concentrated crimson beam flashed in the dark, making Bird Watcher grunt from the strain it put on his eyes that still employed night vision to make something out of the darkness.
Despite hitting Kita somewhere and burning a hole in him, the maniac still charged at Bird Watcher, flailing his armed hands around like a madman. The shock of the sudden laser flash still left Bird Watcher hazy. A backhand smack knocked his night vision goggles off and before Bird Watcher could scramble himself back on his feet and return them, a sharp painful sensation stunned him and made him tune his consciousness away. It was only by losing himself in his fighting instinct that Bird Watcher abandoned his rational thought and surrendered to the berserker state that let him kick his opponent away and slip away to a darker corner to lick his wounds.
"You can't hide from me!" Kita Esatoko screamed out like a banshee. "I can smell your blood! I won't let anyone get between me and my beloved! All the whores throughout the years, all the ninja and mercenaries after him, you'll join all of them in hell!"
The warm feeling of blood soaking him from the wound in his shoulder nearly made Bird Watcher belch. Without his night vision shades, he couldn't make out the precise location of his opponent to aim and fire at him. By now, the spy has figured out that unless he would take him out with one shot or completely cripple his opponent, there was no use in attacking him, since physical damage didn't seem to reach his brain. With broken ribs and rattled spinal cords, a hole in his body where the laser went through, slashed up by steel wire, none of this registered to the serial killer's twisted mind, and all that he thought about was the smell of his opponent's blood.
This was a troublesome situation, without his blazer and with most of his gadgets used out or compromised, Bird Watcher's options of taking his opponent out were extremely limited. He could still employ his kunai dispenser or industrial laser to put a knife through Kita's brain or blast a hole through his head. That would put him down for good, but he either needed light or to make the shot at a close distance. Given how manic and unpredictable the killer was in close range, how the spy's injured shoulder and busted ribs made it difficult for him to move as efficiently as he would being fresh, this was a tough spot to get out from.
All he needed was just a second of illumination. Just a little light.
Tearing the sleeve of his shirt up and revealing his location more precisely to his foe, Bird Watcher exposed his gadget watch on the right arm once again, this time turning a rolling screw on the other left side of the watch and pulling on it. A lick of flames shot out into the air, revealing the cross-dressing serial killer who fell over on his back with make-up smeared all over his face from the tear gas that Bird Watcher sprayed previously. This fiery light was his chance!
Or it would have been… Something was wrong, and it took Bird Watcher a few seconds to realize what it was. The cave was too bright, and Kita Esatoko didn't rush him the moment the fire took to the cave's ceiling. Why was everything so bright? It was only when every pain receptor in his body went up popping like fireworks. The flailing and screaming spy collapsed to the ground while Kita Esatoko crawled back from the raging fireball. Even while the serial killer couldn't quite make out why any of this had happened, he knew enough to flee for the exit.
"Bird Watcher, Bird Watcher, respond…!" a call from his assistant from the headquarters having gathered the information that the spy on the field had requested fell on deaf ears as Bird Watcher screamed and thrashed about, deafened by his own howls to hear the call from his assistant. It wasn't just his blood vessels that Kita Esatoko severed, but a tiny strong, and inflammable cord supplying a handful of his gadgets with flammable liquid too. It wasn't just blood that Bird Watcher felt pouring all over his body, but the flammable liquid too. It wasn't blood that Kita Esatoko smelled, but that cursed bile that made Bird Watcher catch his own flame and burn up.
After fleeing the cave in a tattered flowery dress, Kita rammed the side of the debris cave with his whole body, afraid that the raging firestorm would leak out into the arena. Unknowingly, he showed great mercy to the spy that was scratching and clawing at the cave's walls from inside by causing the shifting rubble to collapse on top of him and put him out of his misery. With a shaking hand still clutching a knife in hand and his more aggressive and murderous personality liberated and unleashed upon the ranks of the contestants of the battle royale, Kita Esatoko's "wife" had truly joined the battle royale for the first time since it started.
Hathmonpachi, the Artist of the Salvari, leaned to examine a pristine tile on the floor. The Salvari warrior flapped his unnaturally large ears as if to ventilate himself and ease the soreness around the bruises he took competing against Captain Tarbeard, the self-appointed Pirate Lord Black. A sudden and loud snap made the artistic Salvari warrior lose focus and jump up, startled.
A metallic mechanism similar to a mouse trap snapped and pulled his nose braid down to the tile that Hathmonpachi felt certain he saw something odd about. This peculiar phenomenon that Hathmonpachi witnessed revealed incredible camouflage, as the invisible Exterminator warrior with a wooden mask for a face and white leaf curly hair revealed itself. Still holding the nose braid of the Salvari artist entrapped on the back of his hand, with each board hand of the Exterminator resembling a large mousetrap contraption, the Exterminator stood up.
"Got you!" it boldly proclaimed. "I'm not sure what sort of monster you are, but you resemble a lot of a bipedal elephant to me."
"Monster? I'm no monster…" Hathmonpachi declared.
"Hmm? What do you mean? But I've just caught you by your trunk…" the Exterminator pointed out, slowly moving the mousetrap hand left and right just for the captured Salvari to wince in pain and follow the moving mousetrap hand that held his nose braid captive and caused pain when it tugged it to either side.
"It's not a trunk, it's my mustache!" Hathmonpachi pointed out. This misunderstanding appeared to be a cause for cheers and laughs in the audience, which was exactly the type of fight Hathmonpachi loved the most. "Please, release it at once!"
"Emm… Well, you see… The thing about that is…" the Exterminator waved its second mousetrap board hand in front of the Salvari while tucking its wooden head in. "I kind of can't… I can set the trap off when something I believe to be a monster approaches it, but I cannot release it on my own."
As a shock to the Exterminator, the slammed mousetrap clicked and the metallic segment that caught Hathmonpachi's mustache braid twitched to the other side once, just before shooting off in the opposite direction. The metallic trap clapped against the back side of the board hand with enough force to break it and crush the board hand of the Exterminator into trashed wooden splinters.
"Well, well… Your trap appears to have malfunctioned, how unfortunate for you," Hathmonpachi stroked his released nose braid while waving his head left and right, teasing his opponent with overacted pity. "Now that you have picked one of the Salvari as your opponent, why don't we give this audience a beautiful and entertaining show?"
"W-Wait a sec…" the Exterminator was about to object when Hathmonpachi's nose braid came to life, stiffening up and acting like a serpent as a green aura of vivid dharma washed over it and emitted a strong glow from the Salvari's eyes as well. The stiffened facial hair thrust forward like a spear, punching through the Exterminator's artificial body, and lifting them off the ground. With a rowdy slam, Hathmonpachi rocked the Exterminator in the front and back, treating him like a busted rag doll.
After planting the injured Exterminator on its back, Hathmonpachi approached them and settled down in a cross-legged, meditative pose. The emerald dharma aura of good fortune coated the whole body of the flappy-eared Salvari, elevating him off the ground. Meanwhile, the fallen Exterminator exclaimed and began writhing on the ground as sharp and split branches began bursting forth from their wooden body. Before the very eyes of the Salvari and the adoring audience, a plum tree sprung forth from the body of the fallen Exterminator with a thick and plentiful harvest of instantly ripe fruit.
"Ah, what great fortune! What are the odds that your wooden body would bear such splendid fruit!?" the Salvari laughed out with a masculine whoop while pulling the fruit off the branches of the suddenly sprung tree and digging into them.
"What an artist, what an entertainer!" the announcer cheered, inspiring a similarly cheerful reaction in the audience as well. "Here we see the incredible technique of Hathmonpachi, Turn of Fortune! By aligning the vibrations of his good-natured dharma with that of his immediate surroundings, Hathmonpachi can influence the very tide of battle with outlandishly incredible feats of good luck, such as his opponent having a sudden heart attack or a plum tree growing out from their body! While all the Salvari are masters of wielding their dharma, not even the Supreme Being Bishiyari can replicate this ability!"
"Come, my friends, why don't we all enjoy ourselves some fruit of our hard labor?" Hathmonpachi turned around, inviting both the other Salvari and anyone willing to accept his offer alike to join him in eating the plums grown out from the wooden frame of the Exterminator's body. Meanwhile, his opponent laid before Hathmonpachi with a significant portion of its body having grown into the plum tree and showing no more signs of life than the fruit tree itself.
The noise of wood being pulled apart made Hathmonpachi look down with a curious expression. By forcing its mousetrap hand through the roots and the bark of the tree grown from its body alike, the Exterminator still sought to entrap his opponent by snapping the mousetrap hand over his leg and pulling him down to the Exterminator's ground level.
"Sorry," Hathmonpachi hopped backward, still holding plenty of the bountiful harvest of plums in his hands and helping himself to a handful once in a while. "I can't let you have any. It just feels an awful lot like cannibalism for you to eat fruit grown from your own body, you know?"
The roots covering the fallen Exterminator began digging deeper and deeper into the tile set while the plum tree grew bigger and wider. In almost no time at all, it became a marvelous landmark of the battlefield scenery, utterly consuming the Exterminator whole and leaving no sign of such an artificial entity ever having existed. Clapping to himself, the artistic Salvari flopped on his plump rear and began pulling some more plums to stuff himself full of.
"W-Well… I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this conclusion of a battle but… It appears that Hathmonpachi's opponent has turned into a plum tree. That's just… Very unfortunate for him. In any case, the Exterminator Model: Rodent Traps has been eliminated! This leaves it at only 62 competitors fighting to determine the strongest or the luckiest 16 of them all to make it to the next round of the competition!"
A pale and covered with tattoos woman with loose hanging dreadlocks growled after picking up a familiar stench to her. Her filed, sharp teeth grazed against one another in a growl while a malicious black dharma surrounded her and formed two additional pairs of shadowy arms around Shakali, the Dark Mother of War of the Salvari. The rampant Salvari amazon pounced forward, smacking aside a gently young man with jasmine-colored hair and holding a net in his hands while knocking over both the young Taser Baller and Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts whom she finally found and now loomed over.
"Got you, you motherfucker! I told you what would happen when next our paths cross!" Shakali cursed and leaned down, spitting black, venomous ooze from her mouth with every vitriolic word leaving her mouth. The violent dharma boiling inside her body released not as light, like with the rest of the Salvari, but by frothing and dripping from her eyes like tears smearing ink across her face while her actual eyes rolled back and turned white.
"It seems to me like you played loose with our arrangement. Nevertheless, a martial artist never turns down a challenge!" Jet swept his legs and rolled back on his legs, dragging his thumb across the tip of his nose, and adopting a loose-foot martial arts pose.
Before the two could take off and kill each other, a hi-tech ball slammed into Shakali's back, releasing a powerful electric discharge that reduced the Salvari amazon to her knees. The fallen Salvari was left coughing up the bile leaking from her every orifice and radiating sheer vitriol while the very jasmine-haired boy she had just pushed aside to get to Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, attacked her in response.
"Boy!" Jet exclaimed with a shocked look on his face.
"You're an awfully mean lady! You shouldn't go around just shoving and trampling people like that. You may overlook us pro athletes, but to someone to whom Taser Ball is his entire life, I won't let you mock it! Jet-san, let us defeat this rude woman together!" the young and gentle Taser Baller extended his hand for a shake to the cornered, worn-out, and exhausted martial artist.
"I could certainly use the help, but you're getting yourself into quite the brawl, boy," Jet snickered, answering the call for a handshake from Kaefer Farfaello, a Taser Ball ace.
"Fine…" Shakali hissed, rising off the floor while wiping the black bile indicative of the hateful and malicious dharma she was producing. So violent and spiteful, in fact, that it didn't merely produce ethereal light or an aura, but translated into filthy and physical sap frothing from every orifice in her body and sizzling like corrosive vitriol when it touches the ground. "I'll eviscerate both of you!" she clamored, calling for war.