Sunny-Lee moved her hands around, thin, white weaves of silk-like material formed a layer of cotton around her hands that soon became the dreaded fluff-ball that Meiko was beginning to get sick of already. The Kumogakure ninja raised her leg for a better wind up, spinning her body around its axis to pitch the two spheres up.
Despite the significant effort being put into accelerating them, the balls of cotton didn't fly at speeds all that impressive. Even if charging up static electricity was building up inside them, they didn't pack enough mass to fly all that fast and even the elementary wind resistance was able to hamper their movements.
Meiko didn't wait for Sunny-Lee to complete whatever impressive show of cotton use she had in mind, the blacksmith raised up her right fist, letting her greave slip off a compartment which exposed a glowing sealing glyph. The glyph lit up with an intense chakra flare, comparable to the flares that Meiko used sealed inside her boots to jet around. This time she had her powerful arms to compensate for the weighty push before she completed her armament.
The flare of chakra lengthened and thinned, forming a shape of a wrist blade. With an energetic shout, Meiko dyed the chakra flowing from her seal in the color of blaze red before spiraling at her opponent from up in the air, aiming to slash at her with a sword made out of nothing but base chakra she sealed inside a containment seal and transformed with every bit of the tips of the trade she's picked up along the way of her ninja journey.
Slash here, slash there, the cotton spheres offered no resistance and burnt up with a mere touch of Meiko's blade. Sunny-Lee had released a jolt, discharging Lightning Release chakra from her hands. She aimed it at her own cotton balls. It didn't take a genius to understand her goal, only someone with elementary experience on the field and Meiko's had plenty of that. Her cotton balls could transfer the static electricity they've built up from one to another, no doubt the kunoichi had planned to form a complex electrical chain, a web of lightning to trap and confuse her opponent and wear her down.
Meiko was both made of sterner stuff than that as well as being smart enough to figure that plan out. Having gained a quicker step in this marathon, it would have been foolish not to explore this opportunity. With a vigorous growl, Meiko slashed with her infernal gladius constructed of pure chakra, releasing a crescent, flaming projectile aimed right at her opponent.
This time Sunny-Lee had no time to put together a shield of cotton to burn up in protection of her. She just put her arms up and braced for impact, letting the blast knock her over and rolling a fair distance back while watching her arms that took the brunt of the blast. Judging by the light burns on her forearms, Sunny-Lee wasn't the sternest of Kumogakure genins but she was able to control the lasting few specks of flame on her arms while rolling.
"Examinee Sunny-Lee appears to be on fire!" Konohamaru noted on commentary.
"Now, from what we've seen so far, it appears that examinee Meiko is using nothing but chakra shape transformation to shape her leaking chakra into the shape of a sword, as well as nature transformation to imbue it with her elemental affinity of Fire Release," Udon added.
"In that case, those flames will be tough to put out without a Water Release technique and it is not a nature common amongst Kumogakure ninja," Moegi, being a relatively experienced and sharp-witted kunoichi in her own right, flawlessly picked up the pieces left dangling by her colleagues and close friends.
"That's right, examinee Sunny-Lee is in a tough spot now, she'll have to just tough it out and wait until the chakra inside those flames burns out. That's gonna take some chakra augmentation to do and you do not want to concentrate on augmenting the endurance of some random body part in a tough battle!" Konohamaru concluded.
The blazing sword on Meiko's forearm died out with a pulse of flames when the blacksmith shut off the chakra input needed to sustain the blade's shape and nature. She was never the sharpest with finer methods of chakra manipulation so it was for the better if she only relied on such means that taxed her body and her mind more than the actual battle when they were necessary.
Now was the time to throw some hands, conserve her chakra while her opponent worried about keeping herself from having burns too severe from the lingering flames on her forearms. Meiko tightened her arms beside her as she nosedived right at her opponent, ready to inflict some close-range punishment, as she intended.
Something soft swallowed up Meiko's hand, she raced so fast that vision got blurry there for a moment, she couldn't have punched a hole right through her opponent, no, the softness was stringy and sent painful needles stabbing through every contacting pore of the skin. It was a cocoon of cotton that Sunny surrounded herself with.
Meiko grunted in pain and yanked on her arm, forcing it out of the trap but the static electricity building up inside the cotton was too great, more so, she could have sworn that the total voltage in the area demanded far too much of her chakra to stay conscious. The intensity far surpassed the voltage of an actual lightning bolt, that was not force that a mere genin should have been capable of putting out on such short notice…
"Static…" Meiko's attention fleeted to the electrified terrain around her, minuscule sparks and pops of sparks emitted seemingly out of the blue all around her. With every ball of cotton dissolving and releasing featherweight strands into the air, with every electrical discharge from Sunny-Lee, the concentration of Lightning Release intensified bit by bit, resulting in airborne charge that served to further amp up the static building up inside the cotton.
Sunny-Lee was not looking to let Meiko fall back, with her fists encased in cotton, she leaped onward, throwing fists. It didn't hurt much, the chakra conductive layers of armor position over the flexible Ryuchi weave already served as decent nullification for blunt force, that was in addition to the fact that Sunny most likely only encased her fists in cotton to soften the hi-power recoil on her own body from her empowered fists.
Seeing how none of the attempts to ring the bell registered, Meiko reached out for her opponent, grabbing her by Sunny's collar and pulling her in closer. All of the blacksmith's focus went into her jet boots, sending her soaring into the air in velocity that send cracking shockwaves, shattering the glasses of whatever beverages the audience cooled themselves off with. The redhead changed her direction in a sudden 180 turn, seeing how she was inside the fanciest suit of armor she's ever built while her opponent was not, Meiko could withstand the sudden shifts in gravitational forces and the cruel polka of momentum snapping at bones and the joints from such a sudden turn. And that was just the starter before the main course…
She couldn't release her opponent at any point. If she did, Meiko risked letting Sunny-Lee wrap herself in cotton and softening the hit again and Meiko needed to make every hit count. No. She didn't release Sunny-Lee, she drove the kunoichi into the ground head-first after a dive as intense and sudden as the rise, rumbling the ground of the arena and shaking the very limestone foundations of the entire fortification. Meiko stumbled out of the impact zone, she felt shaken up even inside this thing on her absorbing the force of the blows.
It was tough to say just from the look of a dangling pair of legs and an upper body submerged in the rubble just how much damage she inflicted. The visor on Meiko's helmet was shaken beyond the point where it accurately showed heat signatures, the display was bugging out all the time, aggravating the blacksmith and tempting to rip the helmet off. When the first signs of life came from Sunny's side, Meiko tossed her bent up and erring helmet rolling, feeling the brush of fresh spring air against her cheeks.
Sunny groaned and whined but she did pull herself out of her predicament, writhing on the ground for a few moments before slowly rising back on her feet. Meiko should have just kept the pressure up, went after her opponent while she tried regaining her composure but she just didn't feel like it. It wasn't like she couldn't use the brief breather and her opponent had already proven resourceful enough for close-range defensive shocks that were now, without a doubt, even further amped up.
The Kumogakure ninja was resourceful, that much Meiko had to give her, she didn't waste any time returning back to the heat of the battle, waving her arms while she pulled on detached strands of cotton and rolling them up into one, larger blob that surpassed any construct which Sunny had formed up to then. Meiko kept the boots sending out faint flares, just in case she would need to take off with some additional gusto.
A roaring shockwave sent Meiko clutching and sliding back a few steps, the blacksmith didn't expect a Wind Release attack after seeing just how well Lightning Release synced up with the natural Cotton Release ability of Sunny-Lee. The Wind Release proved itself to be formidable and useful in its own right as it scattered the large blob of cotton all over the place, filling the arena with smaller, floating chunks.
"That chain combo again, huh?" Meiko braced herself, feeling powerless to try and burn up the cotton again as the spheres were too spread out now. That Wind Release shockwave was just what Sunny needed to avoid the scenario from the last time.
It wasn't the chain combo though. Meiko's body reacted by itself and did so just in time, moving out of the way of her opponent's flying shoulder tackle. Sunny didn't just miss, she released more strands of cotton to connect with the nearest airborne chunk and pull her like a zip line toward it. The airborne cotton spheres worked as a prime surface to bounce off of and snowball in velocity and force. If she was to stand a chance at combatting this close-range combo, Meiko had to intercept it fast. This time the blacksmith took a staunch stand and raised her wrist for a block.
With the opponent's fist secured in place, the redhead spun Sunny-Lee around her to waste some of the built-up momentum while lowering the speed of Sunny's aerial movement. After a few laps around Meiko's axis, the Kumogakure ninja attempted a kick to the neck but her head might have still been woozy from all the zipping around as well as crash-landing head-first earlier as the kicks slipped off of Meiko's plating around her neck.
With a backbreaking attempt, Meiko thrust her knee into the back of her opponent before throwing a wicked cross right at her jaw and sending Sunny-Lee sliding back on the ground. After the weighty head-ringer, the Kumogakure kunoichi struggled to push her body off the ground. Just the fact that she still tried as well as the detail of staff not flooding the ring to stop the match fueled the thought that her match still wasn't over.
Meiko cupped her greaves by her sides, letting the Reactor Gauntlets module shut over her arms again, replacing the default gauntlets. The blacksmith wasted no time heating up the atmosphere by coating her Reactor Gauntlets with a coating of Fire Release chakra which only served to double the size of Reactor Shot that it formed as it drew from the Fire Release chakra in the coating in addition to the chakra generated inside a normal Reactor Shot.
"Nova Shot!" Meiko grunted out, thrusting her arms out and letting the supersized blast take off toward her recovering opponent. The heat enveloped the fallen kunoichi whole, expanding in a rampant firestorm as all of the compressed inferno of Meiko's chakra burst forth, racing with each contained heatwave to reach the highest of highs it could reach first.
A pile of ashes fell out from the cloud of smoke left behind, the redhead was at least 80 percent certain that she didn't reduce her opponent to a pile of ash with that last blast. If she staff didn't pull her out, it meant that she could still fight and take a few blows, accidents happened but Meiko thought more about her skill than to overwhelm her opponent needlessly like that.
"Cotton Release: Static Beam!" a voice reached Meiko from up above, while Meiko had decimated all of the lower-floating cotton constructs with her last attack, there may have still been some that floated up way higher as the Wind Release blast that spread them out was more than capable of launching them over the building itself.
"Substitution!" Meiko realized, placing the source for ashes that she'd incinerated with the Nova Shot being a cotton ball which Sunny-Lee replaced herself with while avoiding both the brunt of the blast as well as the resulting firestorm devastation, both of which would have knocked her out cold.
If felt as if the sweltering beam had pierced Meiko's chest and burnt up all of the insides, though it had only channeled through it without inflicting any actual external wounds. There was a taste of blood in Meiko's mouth as she felt the coarse and heated dirt underneath her head, making her hair all rough as they brushed against Meiko's face.
The blacksmith could see the white ball of cotton being rolled in between her opponent's arms as she turned in mid-air and placed it underneath her feet, throwing her feet out to kick off of the ball while using her chakra to manipulate the cotton's bounciness. It felt as if a genuine trampoline propelled her opponent. If she connected with a diving fist from that height, Meiko felt like there was a genuine chance for grievous injury and she wasn't about to take those chances.
Exposing the sealing glyphs on her palms, Meiko let the blazes of base chakra blast out while she performed the grueling process to manipulate the blast's shape into a round-shield like a plate. She'd have lied if she boasted about not feeling the diving punch of her opponent but it seemed like nothing compared to what she'd have taken otherwise.
"Weapon Transformation!" Meiko yelled out, shifting the shape of her ethereal chakra shield by having the shield form a ring of static chakra around her. The Reactor Gauntlets popped back onto Meiko's gloves and secured in place while the chakra coating lit up around each separate piece of the module and molded together before the construction was complete.
"Nova Shot!" Meiko yelled out, unleashing a point-blank hit at her airborne opponent, still shaken from her hit being absorbed and reflected by a shield of solid chakra. While there were still airborne cotton balls to substitute with, there was no way that another Substitution Jutsu could have been possible so soon after another.
There wasn't nearly enough time to generate anywhere near the average potential of a Nova Shot, though Meiko knew she didn't need to. Hell, she didn't even want to, even if she could have generated enough force for a complete blast. She'd have truly incinerated Sunny that way, all she needed was a little push to tip her over the edge of her consciousness and judging by the storming reaction of the crowd after the Kumogakure ninja landed on her back, legs and arms sprawled out to the sides and not showing any signs of consciousness – Meiko realized she had succeeded.
She won!
"What a match!" Konohamaru yelled out, shaking his friend Udon by his side on the shoulder. "If both examinees aren't promoted after this, I swear I'll eat these data sheets right here!"
"Ummm…" Udon took a short break, filling the airwaves with bland noise of his own filling voice as he fixed his clothes, "Indeed, it would appear that both examinees showed some impressive, lightning-quick thinking on their feet, adapted to each other's moves despite never facing off against one another before. Though examinee Meiko might have had a brief edge, those datasheets you're itching to eat do record a brief encounter between the two some years ago during a Chuunin Exams when Meiko's teammate collided with this young lady…"
"Either way, I can only congratulate these two young ladies on an amazing show!" Moegi clapped. "I must say that this last half of the matches has been incredible. Every single match has been worthy of the honored spot of the final match of the day and we still have two more matches left to go."
"I agree, this match has more than made up for that Gurker Gliesse VS Toroi embarrassment…" Konohamaru hummed with a reserved growl.
"Heh, we're next…" Temari glared at a rather quiet and shy-looking girl with an Amegakure headband. Half of the girl's face was obstructed by her dark hair and she didn't interact with the rest of the waiting room much before this. "Aren't you all fired up after that last match? Let's wipe those other guys' noses, huh?"
"If you say so…" Fuyo replied, standing up and picking up a large umbrella from her side, positioning it over her shoulder like a lance.
"Huh? What's that lack of energy you've got? If you don't take this seriously, I'll wipe you out in three seconds flat!" Temari leaned over the shorter girl, gesturing with her hand like a brush that was wiping away mere dust.
"You seem confident," Fuyo replied while evening out the wrinkles in her violet, long-sleeved dress. It was once she was done making sure she was presentable to represent her village in battle that she faced her opponent with a one-eyed glare of her purple eyes. "However, Lady Angel has placed her faith in me and I shall not fail her."
"Your goal… It's already complete though, isn't it? You've got all the data you need already…" Kiyomi sent a wayward glance in Fuyo's direction which prompted the almost lazy-like expression of Fuyo to break in a lively opening of her eyes just for a moment.
"Perhaps so, though there are plenty of ninja here who are or will become powerful enough ninja in their own right. Just because I shall return to Lady Angel with all the data on Tailed Beasts and their hosts she will even want or need, it does not mean that all the other data I can still collect is worthless…" Fuyo replied. "It is for that reason that I shall face your seriously and extract as much of your potential from you as possible, Temari-san."
"No spunk at all, honestly…" Temari rubbed the back of her head, feeling awry about her opponent. The blonde that had enough spunk for the two of them herself shrugged it off and followed her opponent into the bright opening inside the arena where the staff was working to remove the airborne cotton particles that would have empowered Lightning Release techniques with the pent up static electricity still.