"Meiko! Glad to see you're okay!" Kiyomi yelled out and embraced her friend, taking extra time to rub her face into her teammate's. It was a gesture that confused the redhead but not enough for her to resist. Naruto snickered, whether it was because he was glad to see Meiko okay again or because Kiyomi's overdone reaction amused him remained known only to him.
"Sure I am. Those puppets were the real deal, things went dark, couldn't even sense it coming… Next thing I knew everything was dark and I floated as if I was weightless. A lot like the tag team fights during the last Chuunin Exams." Meiko pulled Kiyomi off but not before the blonde allowed herself to be pulled off. By now Meiko was more mindful of her strength than to attempt to force the Yamanaka off of herself.
"What's this though?" Naruto placed his arms over his hips and glared on ahead at the fancy stand in the middle of the stage.
"Those guys, aren't they…" Meiko wondered, looking on ahead at the trio of slightly familiar faces at the other side of the room.
"Yeah, Team Kyanite." Kiyomi nodded. These three may have been a tad more obscure as Kiyomi wouldn't have known of them at all had Mana not made friends with them during the last Chuunin Exams but they were sharp enough to pass the first stage last time. Not only that, they've gotten this far in this stage too so they couldn't have been underestimated.
"You know these guys?" Naruto squinted.
"Not too well, bumped into them before the Forest of Death stage of the last exams but we haven't had the proper honors of punching anyone from their ranks yet." Meiko scratched her itchy nose with a simian grin.
"Anyone who knows a thing about wrestling knows of Gyllfa Ellidani. Ever since arriving in Cloud Wrestling Federation from the Iwagakure indie scene she's been making quite the Frog Splash if you pardon my pun." Kiyomi stated. This may have been why this random team she's set eyes on for just a little while stood out for her enough to where she could name it years after seeing these guys.
This time the screen atop of the massive, wooden stage in the northernmost part of the room did not light up. Instead, in a beam of glittery black energy pillar, Morino Ibiki took the place at the central stand of the stage while various colored energy beams teleported other copies of Morino Ibiki, all dressed and even acting differently but all of them shared that face that looked as if it had made out with a brick that had barbed wire wrapped around it.
One of the Morino Ibiki wore a fancy, pink dress with pearl-colored ribbons and a handful of blond hair that surpassed the sophistication Kiyomi dreamed of donning for herself in her wildest dreams.
"Team Hokage of Konoha, Team Kyanite of…" the main Ibiki who appeared most like the version of him which dominated its previous public appearances declared while taking a black cloak off of the massive chair beside him and flipping it over his shoulders.
"Kumogakure, sir." A young man of feminine figure and lush hair of spring mint shades stated. Kiyomi's stare sharpened as she had taken Team Kyanite to be from Iwagakure. Even their team name implied a type of mineral which was a common naming scheme for Iwagakure teams. Then again, Gyllfa was appearing in CWF way too often to not reside in Kumogakure, what with the massive coltan conflict between Iwa and Kumo involved in the equation.
"We've acquired permission from the Raikage to operate in Kumogakure after the devastation of Iwa due to Gyllfa's profound accomplishments for the country. We were even permitted to have the symbols of stone and cloud be present on our forehead protectors simultaneously." Gurker Gliesse, the third member of Team Kyanite explained to Ibiki who was donning a wool-white wig that looked almost as fabulous as the hairdo of Princess Ibiki down below, amongst the spectators.
"I see… In any case. Your next challenge will be a courtroom drama. One member of your team shall deliver their best shot at a verse in front of me, the judge, and the jury of… Well… Me. You do not need to uphold any Tribunal procedure, feel free to… Freestyle." Ibiki smirked which was so rare of him that both teams instantly took suspicion.
"So we're just meant to talk smart about absolutely nothing, you know? I pass…" Naruto shriveled his face as if he had eaten a sour prune and crossed his arms over his chest. Him passing was nothing of many surprises. He kept on hammering home how brain teasers weren't his strong suit the whole way here.
"Oh, not nothing. A random topic you will need to center your freestyle about will be provided to you, that is what the screen is for." Judge Ibiki stood up and pointed at the blank screen over his head. "There will be no interaction between the representatives of each team except for their own riff. Make sure to make your words count. Oh, and one last thing – your riffs will be delivered entirely in rap."
"Huh… What's a rap, you know?" Naruto scratched his head.
"Make stuff rhyme and heed the beat, these are the conditions you must meet. Somehow hustle through the rap and this challenge will be a wrap." Kiyomi shrugged.
"Wha? You mean somebody actually talks like that? Must be some kind of imbecile, you know…" Naruto crossed his arms over his chest. "Still pass…"
"We've met a guy from Kumogakure who only talked in rap once. Nobody seemed to treat it like that much of a big deal so it probably is a bit more common than this…" Kiyomi replied. She directed her eyes at Meiko. "You're still our go-to gal when the challenge involves music."
"Music? It's safe to say this ain't my jam. Plus, you seemed to be pretty good with that word-mashing stuff yourself." Meiko sighed so hard she deflated.
"Alright, since Naruto passes, again, and you're not into it… I'll do my best." Kiyomi nodded. She didn't feel all that confident about the assignment. The last example she showed off to Naruto was sub-par at best and it was just something she shuffled together just to explain what the genre was. Still, if Meiko thought that was any good, maybe Kiyomi was still Team Hokage's best bet.
With the first couple of steps out of her team's fold, all three cubes in Team Hokage's possession materialized and molded together into one larger cube of triangular patterns of black and white decorating it. The cube gleamed over Kiyomi with beams of black and white light and her clothes dissolved into tiny pixels of black and white while reassembling into something that seemed like a mixture between the fancy sophistication of Mana's magician's uniform and rigid conservatism of a typical suit.
"Okay…" Kiyomi mumbled while removing a pair of glasses that she did not need yet one that materialized regardless. In her right hand, she clutched a board with papers, all of which were filled with absolute rubbish combos of letters and symbols. Both the glasses and the papers dissolved into a swarm of cubes and joined into the Yamanaka's outfit's fold of pixels upon being discarded aside.
The mint-haired young man approached Kiyomi and took his place on the opposing side of the fancy, hardwood platform. An identical appearance-shifting ritual transpired to him as well though Trest Bregger of Team Kyanite was in no rush to discard his glasses or his papers. Even if he did examine them with a run-through and determined them to be absolutely useless.
"Shit… This guy's like an actual musician. Not just an aficionado like Meiko, the real deal. A ninja musician with shows and fans the like…" Kiyomi wiped the sweat off her face while trying to soothe her pre-rap-battling nerves.
"Alright. Trest Bregger of Team Kyanite, you will be first. Your topic will be…" Judge Ibiki chewed something ethereal in his mouth and then glared up at the screen above. "Cabin in the woods."
"That's not even a word! That's like a complete sentence almost!" Kiyomi made a traitorous grimace upon the revelation of the word that must have telegraphed the feeling of being way over one's head that she felt inside. Trest must have noticed it because he made a smug expression and snapped his fingers.
"A simple matter." He serenaded out in a mellow tune. He was like musical Mana if the magician was pretentious. Well… More so… And pretentious about her stage magic and not her moral rules.
"Very well, in that case, you may begin your opening statement. I will remind you that your topic doesn't need to be explored or there doesn't have to be anything core-deep said about the subject, it needs to figure in your rap, that is all." Judge Ibiki loomed over the two self-appointed lawyers while giving the jury of Ibiki an affirming glance as well.
"Très Bien," Trest hummed out, cleared his throat as if he was about to begin an awe-robbing opera solo when the pretty bland and one-tone beat hit the room, providing the sauce for the steak of Trest's supposedly mad rap skills.
"What was that, you know?" Naruto pointed at the foreign musician with a baffled look on his face, reacting to his odd manner of speech.
"Dunno," Meiko shrugged, "We've met some weird talkers while traveling the world, Mana used to call their more exotic talking mannerisms "dialicks", or something…"
"Cabin in the woods, see
That's what my topic should be.
Fuck that noise,
Not pulling that on my boys.
We ain't wearing slippers here or tees,
Gonna give you some birds and bees
Sure, I'd rather pack a violin
But now I'd rather bash your chin
My sophistication might make you spin
But not now, has-been
Now, I'm out to kill
You might say Trest's just shilled
But in music, it's about what's within
And violin has never brought me so much win
Compared to all that I feel
When I compare you to a foreskin
Though actually you're more like a conjoined twin
Of a rolled over minx, and guess what, potato skin
Mommy and Daddy thought it'd be funny
To keep the roadkill and cut you off
And hit you with a fucking pipe, honey
Blastoff!"
The one-note beat died out while Morino Ibiki stood and munched what he had just heard with a shut-in expression. Kiyomi bit the side of her lip, it was hard to believe that this guy pulled this off just off his head but it was an even madder thing to count on him having prepared for a hogwash legal rap battle.
"That was quite the performance, contestant Trest, though you barely touched the topic and went at the other contestant from the get-go. Very aggressive." Judge Ibiki shrugged.
"It is a rap battle, is it not?" Trest shrugged with an expression that attempted to fake an apology but succeeded only in proclaiming oneself innocent and portraying the young man as all too proud of himself.
"Maybe that's my chance. He's capable of rapping laps around me but if I just stay on the topic provided…" Kiyomi thought to herself. She weaved a single hand seal and opened the mental link between her and her team. "Hey, guys, I'm gonna need you to spill as many rhymes as possible. Use the topic name as the crutch to start with and then just brainstorm from there. The only way to win is if we work on this together."
It would be a madhouse, trying to think on her feet, work through the cacophony and somehow also fit into the rhythm of the beat that had not yet started. Still, this must have been the point of this entire challenge. To witness and test the improvisational skills of the contestants, how well they were able to perform under pressure and there may have been few kinds of pressure more intense than stage fright of such a lyrical battlefield.
By the time Kiyomi had snapped out, the beat already started, letting her get used to it before Ibiki stood up and gestured at the screen over his head. A screen shuffling letters and entire words before the golden letters in the black settled on the topic – Archeology Professor.
"Wh-What even?" Kiyomi's eye twitched.
"Well… There's always next year…" Meiko sent a mental mumble on the link. Even though it sounded mean, the Yamanaka heiress knew that her friend was just kidding. This meant too much for all three of them and this was her way of reminding Kiyomi of that without going off on some cheesy rant.
"Archeology professor. Doesn't take one to know that
Ditching topics, going after somebody like a brat
Doesn't do you any favors, makes you sound like a gnat
And the only good gnat is one that's left after a splat
Sounds like all you need is just a lovely chat
With your mom, though she probably hates you, how about your cat?
Now that we're done with this, where was I at?
Oh right, archeology professor is just a bureaucrat
Finding stinky, brittle bones in their final habitat
That's right, I'd rather rap all about that
Than try to demean you and sound like a copycat
Archeology professors, do they dream of a cowboy hat?
Life of adventure, a passionate night with a female aristocrat?
We'll never know because they'd rather theorize of a mole rat
That died ten thousand years ago near a place they work at
There's nothing in their jobs that warrants a caveat
And some people like it that way, it's just that
We're not like those people, we're not some diplomats
Even if rap is this challenge's format,
We'd rather do this thing and pass, get what we're getting at?"
Kiyomi stopped talking and felt an immediate pounding at her temples. She was glad to have stopped there, it turned out just fine that she finished her verse when she did and could wrap it up in a semi-competent manner because she'd have exploded into a yell of pain if she let it go on. Suggestions for words and brainstorms of both her and her team swirled on the mental link for what seemed like hours even though it was perhaps just a mere minute.
Trest didn't look like his usual, smuggish self. Now that both the attempts to fit into the rhythm of the beat and rhyme properly didn't demand most of her attention, Kiyomi could recall the mint-haired youth tapping his foot at the mat the whole time. He might have been a vain son of a bitch but at least he could appreciate someone's genuine attempt to spill their soul out. Who knows, maybe he even liked it some…
"Hmmm… That was significantly more on-topic than the verse from contestant Trest. Is the Jury of Ibiki ready for their verdict?" Judge Ibiki turned to the static jury that began rustling the moment they were addressed. Despite looking like they were frozen in time, the lot might have heard the entire thing as Princess Ibiki stood up and cleared her throat without any pauses for consideration.
"We are, honorable Judge Ibiki, even if we take the aggression and drive of contestant Trest's verse into consideration, we feel like contestant Kiyomi has managed to both riposte at his jabs some as well as explore her theme a little bit, even though it was on a very formalistic and elementary level. The Jury of Ibiki has to hand it to Yamanaka Kiyomi and Team Hokage of Konoha." Princess Ibiki ruled.
"I see…" Judge Ibiki scratched his chin. He extended his hand, manifesting a white cube that rotated around its axis and flew at the center of the stage, blasting both contestants with a stream of smaller, white pixels that swarmed over them with enough concentration to make Kiyomi clutch at the stand and cover up her face. She felt the swarm of pixels washing away the tight ponytail on the back of her head that they formed when enveloping her before.
When the white pixels settled down, Kiyomi found herself back in her original state, the way she walked out to take the stage with Team Kyanite gone and a larger white cube rotating in her open hand. Not even a sign of Morino Ibiki as well.
"Well… Just by the skin of our teeth again, you know!" Naruto smiled while patting Kiyomi's back.
"You were great out there, your rhythm game can still use some work but the way you filtered out the right words and picked the right one at each moment… That was just… Amazing." Meiko blew out the pent up tension in the form of a massive blob of air that burnt her lungs with worry just a second earlier.
Kiyomi blushed and threw a knuckle at her teammate's elbow. The trio approached the rightmost wall of the stage room and let the incomplete configuration comprised of more than half pieces necessary to complete the Mind Coupon mold with the wall and make the entire structure ripple like it was about to undo itself and never configure itself the same way again.
Team Hokage stepped through the rippling wall, every time it felt like walking through a static layer of a lukewarm lake. They had expected something extravagant and outrageous on the other side, as per the cube's standards, however, the stage on the other side turned out a lot more ordinary to see than usual. There were few marvels except for a room filled with other teams seated on unimpressive steel chairs while six armchairs rested on top of a stage decorated with symbols of various countries and Hidden Villages of the world.
"Welcome, Team Hokage, contestants of your next challenge! May the crowd please welcome one-half of today's main-eventers?!" proctor Musha, donning a superb tuxedo and wearing her usual punkish hair done and gelled up, welcomed Team Hokage having made their way onto their next challenge.
"What's the point? We're wasting our time here…" a familiar Hyuuga boy with a Konoha headband spoke up with a disgruntled expression. "We have our own cubes to collect, don't we?"
"Oh, calm down, Neji," a girl in a pink, sleeveless, Chinese blouse winked at her teammate, "Technically we aren't wasting any time at all, remember?"
"What Tenten says is indeed true for we can very much use this amazing chance for a breather!" a boy with shiny, black bowl-cut, thick lower eyelashes, and far thicker eyebrows and a green jumpsuit declared with notable vigor and gave his teammate a thumb-up.
"When I said I'd rather not challenge Orochimaru's team in a quiz show… I did not mean it literally…" Kiyomi sighed, acknowledging the uncomfortable feeling that she might have made a prophetic joke in the past.
"Let's just hope our opponents aren't Orochimaru's team then, because it sure as hell looks like we're about to participate in a quiz show," Meiko replied while Team Hokage made their way through the central passageway onto the stage.