Tala growled in frustration. All of his efforts amounted to just him being able to look up and scowl at the Kumogakure ninja who looked far too aloof to be this competent. The giant titan that he had called for in the beginning still loomed over the entire battlefield, threatening to smash him into a bloody stain while he proceeded to apply that other illusion on top – one that did something to his sense of balance.
It was easy to say that illusions are stupid. That you'd never be scared by a supermassive dinosaur that reaches out into the clouds and crushes you into the ground with merely the shockwave of its roar, one that threatens to smash the entire arena to bits with a punch or a stomp. Of course, you'd know that it was an illusion, especially when you know you're facing an illusion specialist but… It's a whole different thing entirely to actually witness it.
Those that talk rough about how hardcore they are and how nothing can faze them, those are the ones that have never been toyed with by a genjutsu specialist. It didn't matter how hardcore one thought they were, illusions were like fever, they didn't just show these majestic, pants-shitting sights, they messed with the brain somehow, fried it, made it actually believe that this was real.
Illusions felt more shocking than being tied down to a tree and beaten. They told you how you must feel, stripped all thought and individuality, peeled and broke you down to the most basic of human features, and made you nothing different from a frightened caveman whining and pressing crouched to a corner. That robbery of self only drove to make Tala madder. It encouraged him to fight back and not surrender to another loop of illusion being weaved on top of him.
Hand seals didn't work, his arms just didn't connect. This beanie-wearing bastard. How was Tala supposed to dispel genjutsu, use jutsu of his own when he lacked the precision and perception to even weave hand seals together. Whose idea was it to make it necessary to weave precise hand movements to use ninjutsu anyway? Well, at least Tala could see the tyranno-titan just fine, as well as feel his nausea and dizziness, the fumbling of his legs just peachy. Those were the important parts to feel anyway…
"Still hustling, that is why from hence / I'mma spit my rhymes and / You'll be gifted with an out of body experience / Just when you thought my other tricks were grand!" Ripper threw his hands out while applying another illusion on top.
Nausea never went away, nor did the feeling of cosmic dread of seeing a massive dinosaur threatening to smash him to bits from outside the arena and staring down into its opening at the roof. Weight was the only thing that went away. Tala felt weightless, not in the sense that he could fly away or speed blitz his opponent but instead in a helpless kind of way that had him float off into the sky without his say in the matter.
The Sunagakure redhead tried burrowing back down, swimming through the air to get his grasp on his balance and grab hold onto something but the shock of seeing his body lying on the floor lifeless shook him for a second. The sight of his own ethereal existence floating off into the heavens while his body laid sprawled on its belly down on the ground blanked Tala out and the hesitation was just one second too long. By the time he got the hang of himself and decided to get himself together, he was already too far gone and was about to fly off. If the escalation of his speed and quantum loss of weight was to be trusted as reliable, he'd have gone off into the cosmos any moment now.
"It's hard to believe it, ladies and gentlemen in the audience, but Ripper Inaba is just stomping the life out of his opponent who appears to have fallen ill or passed out, should we maybe get some staff to interfere?" Konohamaru wondered scratching the back of his head.
"I don't think so. It's just the way illusions work. We've got a whole group of sensors on watch at all times and the fact that they're not interfering right now means that they're confident in the fact that the examinees are under no mortal danger," Udon assured.
"Now, what did you mean about this being just par for the course for genjutsu?" Moegi wondered, turning at Udon.
"Well, you see, the entire subject of illusionary arts is a subject of, sort of, aggressive support. A fine illusionist can achieve plenty of goals – subdue their opponent, make them intimidated or drive them to the edge of madness, depending on the user and the technique, of course. I've never seen an illusion that makes a person just pass out, this reminds me more of a genjutsu coma, but neither I nor many other ninja have studied the subject intimately," Udon shrugged.
"I see, I must admit that I dismissed genjutsu back in the Academy as something weird and meant for creepy people. I can see how a specialty like this can be seen as neglected and how such a specialist might catch someone off-guard and deal a great amount of damage," Konohamaru snapped his fingers, interested in Udon's explanation.
"You've mentioned genjutsu coma, what is that? I'm asking for the sake of the viewers, of course," Moegi looked at Udon.
"Well, once again, I'm not a specialist on the subject but, I am aware that every trace of illusion leaves some tension on one's brain. If you saw a brain as a tool, every illusion is something that makes your tool work overtime. Eventually, if you bash your kitchen knife against a rock hard and long enough, it's going to go dull. When that happens, you might need your kitchen knife repaired by a professional if you want to use it to cut bread in the future, do you guys catch my cold?" Udon sniffed his nose.
"I don't think so but it sounds like something that you've put some thought into and something that makes sense," Konohamaru nodded.
"Now what Tala should feel lucky for is that Ripper Inaba doesn't appear like a very fit guy. It doesn't appear like his relentless stomping and beatdown is achieving much in terms of physical damage, as opposed to the mental damage he's inflicted plenty of on his opponent," Udon pointed out.
Tala's eyes flickered, it was dark in the beginning and a dull, wide-reaching sensation of blunt force hitting him right in the face woke him right up. Inaba had stomped his face with his boot and he's been going at it for a while if the bruises and swelling on his face were to be believed. Even if the impact from Ripper Inaba's boot wasn't enough to take Tala right up, the warm feeling of blood trickling down from his nose and his few busted teeth did the dirty deed just fine.
The Sunagakure genin felt his chance, he threw his legs out and wrapped them around Ripper's, pulling on it with his hands and, holding Ripper's leg, spun it inwards, throwing Ripper to the ground and off-balance. With his leg twisting in mid-air, Ripper Inaba collapsed in a turning motion. Before Tala could transition into a competent leglock, the grunting voice of his opponent broke out.
"It looks like you just won't learn / The pain that will make you stomach churn / If my attention is what you're trying to earn / Bastard, I'm gonna make ya burn!" Ripper threw his fists sideways, punching the dirt underneath his feet while he chanted out the necessary rhymes for his next jutsu.
Tala's grip around Ripper's leg loosened. It didn't hurt all at once, the pain didn't feel like anything at the moment but he saw himself surrounded with an intense aura of flames and it was the realization that the agony would be soon to follow that paralyzed the Sunagakure ninja in place. The pain didn't start off as anything excruciating, it felt like a bad sunburn at the moment but Tala's body wouldn't move regardless. His field of vision continued to draw in and focus on his decaying body.
The young man had seen a body burning away in his experiences on the battlefield and this didn't quite look like anything like what had happened but he saw red all around him and couldn't just narrow his thoughts on the fact that none of this was real. His hands, the skin peeled away and blisters popped out and just flat out popped, spewing something that evaporated instantly in the heat he cooked in down on the ground.
"Examinee Tala is just lying there, staring at his hands, this was his chance to finally put some hurt on the elusive Ripper Inaba from Kumogakure but he appears to have let the moment slip," Konohamaru observed on the commentary.
Ripped jumped forward with a vertical kick from down below. It cocked Tala's head back like a football, with his senses all overwhelmed and supercharged, the most rocking sensation was hearing the loud crack of when his head hit the dirt on its journey back. Ripper stomped onto Tala's stomach and kicked him again a couple of times, switching sides to go for kidney shots before slipping out a kunai knife.
Kunai. This was something down to earth, something Tala could manage. His fingers widened to encompass the stabbing arm, letting the tip of the blade freeze just inches from his face as the two struggled for a pair of pushes and yanks. It didn't take long for the vanity of such a struggle to reveal itself – had Ripper Inaba been a capable physical specimen or focused on improving on augmenting his physical strength more with chakra, he'd have already won the match by now.
The first instinct was to roll back, wrap his legs around Ripper's throat and switch onto the top position, press Ripper's own knife to his own throat and tell him to give up, put him down if he refused. No. Tala was wiser than that, he couldn't risk another word leaving this fool's mouth. The Sunagakure ninja threw both of his legs thick at Ripper's chest, sending the Kumogakure ninja flying back and prone on the dirt.
"Man, your fighting style is so vanilla / You were meant to be the real thrillah / Yet you're fighting like some bearded guerilla," Ripper threw his hands out and bobbed around, preparing to continue his assault on Tala once the Sunagakure examinee got all riled up by his supersized, imaginary, reptilian friend.
"Sand Style: Desert Sidearm!" Tala's grunt broke through the messy cloud of dust that raised from when the two wrestled on the ground for a short while. Ripper rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding getting tagged by Tala's first attempt at meaningful engagement in this match.
"Whoa, man, what the hell? / My moves are something you've gotta sell!" Ripper shook his fist up over his head, riled up by the fact that his opponent might have figured out a way to shrug off his illusions and answer him in return.
"You noisy, burly, smelly gnat, did you really think I'd never figure out a way to channel out your pathetic attempts at lyrics?" Tala pocketed his hands and closed his eyes, this was a show of extreme dismissal toward his opponent.
"But how? / Come on, man, spit it out / Don't make the answer something I'd have to tow / Man just shrugs off illusions, it's something I won't let go!" Ripper insisted.
"That's something for you to figure out now, isn't it?" Tala smirked and pulled his hands out of his pockets. He put them together in the formation of a hand seal and threw them aside in preparation for attacking his opponent again.
"Sand Style: Desert Automaton!" Tala grunted out, having waited for Ripper Inaba's attack for a few moments but having figured out that it wouldn't come. With his time to attack being so limited, the Sunagakure ninja decided to exploit every opportunity.
Ripper wheezed and coughed when multiple compressed spheres of Wind Release chakra gathered dust and grounded dirt inside them like Tala used to gather sand and flung them at him at hi-speeds. Tala had a wicked aim too, hitting the goofy rapper in his joints, knees, and elbows, face, and his ribcage. He was looking to make it hurt and he'd succeeded. In just a few seconds Tala sent his opponent reeling on the ground in a position of a beaten dog.
"You lost your beanie, let me help you with that…" Tala growled and fired another projectile that tore the beanie to worn out shreds of detached strands. Ripper's hand reached out for his hat accessory after it had been taken off his head but then stopped in mid-air upon its destruction and faltered. For whatever reason, the destruction of his old and smelly, patch-covered hat appeared to really crush him to the point where his hand slumped down in defeat.
"Oh, you liked that hat, maybe? You had to, in no other way would anyone put something this abominable on their head. Whatever, it had loops all over it, you'll buy something better. Or, better yet, how about you stop embarrassing your village and start looking like a real ninja?" Tala mocked his opponent, feeling a little bit of levity in his chest now that he regained the upper hand. "Tell you what, you tell me why you cared so much about that piece of fetid rag and I'll tell you how I've dealt with your illusions…"
"Embarrassing my home…" Ripper Inaba repeated while rising to his feet and clenching his fist by his side. The beaten Kumogakure ninja looked at the swelling declaration of his iron resolution but his fist then dissolved into a shapeless lump of a slumped hand. "All that mean talk's just a lot of foam."
"Maybe you should listen to your peers though?" Tala crossed his arms over his chest. "A ninja is meant to represent the pride of their village. They are meant to bring honor and success to their home. Kumogakure is a mighty ninja village, a military force to be reckoned with and yet you choose to act like some pathetic bum. You can never even assimilate with the common folk of your village looking like that. People could track you from the number of handkerchiefs and wet rags being handed to you so that you could wipe that dirt off your face."
"You think I've adopted this look?" Ripper Inaba growled back at his opponent. "Is that all you think I am, a fake, a crook? / That's all everything has to say when they don't understand it / Just act high and mighty, call me a bandit!"
"Oh, I've no doubt that there is nobody in your village looking as ridiculous as you do. I put Kumogakure ninja above such mockery of the ninja status," Tala hissed. "I've no ill will toward Konoha or Kumogakure, any village really. All that I can't stand is people that mock the set of rules of the game we're all playing."
"You can talk all you want, you've still got got / I'm sure that this bout leaves you still shocked / But one thing you can be sure of, it's that I will not / Stand down when you're getting me this hot / Bastard, I'll have my kill shot!" Ripper Inaba spelled out his rhyme but Tala just stood there and took it. His complete stillness was a self-imposed challenge.
A translucent bubble popped from around Tala, a sphere of wind not unlike those that he contained slugs of grounded minerals and sand to unpack at his opponent. A chamber of vacuum from which nothing at all could have been audible but, something that the Sunagakure ninja lamented a great deal, could still be understood by reading the lips of his opponent and this joker was being very expressive.
"Sand Style: Desert Laramie!" Tala raised his finger up and concentrated mineral dust inside it, shaping it into something akin to a tip of a spear. It all transpired in the blink of a moment as the bullet took off so fast that the minerals still shaping it trailed behind it inside the bubble of Wind Release chakra like a tail to a comet.
Inaba's eyes whited out, his chest flew backward taking the entirety of the rest of his body with him. The eyes of the Kumogakure lyricist whited out and he looked almost tranquil while falling. While to the rest of the observers it seemed like the poor Kumogakure goofball got sent down in an instantaneous blast, to Ripper Inaba himself his plunge felt infinite.
Experiencing his own pain, the bitterness of his failure and the strangle of defeat for this long would have driven a person mad unless that person had faced it so many times over that it only served to shape them into who they were. It was just such a person who could grow wiser from such a prolonged fall from grace. Not that he had much grace left to fall from. Then again, the fewer the grace, the softer the fall from it was.
"Examinee Tala pulls out an impressive victory, utilizing the impressive tactic of coating himself in his own Wind Release chakra capsule to nullify the noise which served as a medium of Ripper Inaba's illusions!" Konohamaru sealed the outcome on the commentary.
"I have to say, I did see the potential for Tala from Sunagakure winning coming but I did not see this particular trick being in the book at all!" Udon slammed his fist lightly against the desk.
"Well, ladies and gents, I'm getting a message from the Ninja Council itself that we're going to have a small break between the matches. I'm not sure what this is all about but it cannot be helped. Let that short break just amp you up for the rest of this eventful day!" Moegi leaned her face a little bit too close to the microphone, a mistake coming from unexpected excitement, no doubt. Whether it was the good or the bad kind, it still remained to be seen, however.