"Aburame Shino and Sabaku no Temari, stay in the arena. Others, please follow the path to the viewing room for contestants through that door." The proctor announced and gestured at the doorway to his right. Quickly enough, the arena was emptied, leaving only the two combatants and the proctor.
Temari stood opposite Shino, looking disinterested in speaking with him, and Shino was Aburame. The proctor, hoping for some pre-battle banter, sighed in his mind. For the two of them, this might be a fight, but for the audience, it was supposed to be a show. Some trash talk could only spice things up.
Alas, not like he could force them to do that, and expecting an Aburame to talk was a fool's errand. In the end, the proctor just rolled his eyes and promptly started the match.
The last syllable of 'begin' had barely left his lips, and Temari already whipped out her fan, spread it out, and in one smooth motion that didn't take even one whole second, she swung it, sending a crashing wave of sharp wind straight at Shino.
The startled proctor, who still stood in between them, barely managed to evade it. Cold sweat washed over his forehead as he gulped.
'If I weren't a Jonin, I would have been sliced and diced by that technique.' He thought, giving Temari a cold glance full of discontent. 'Vicious brat.'
Shino was a bit further away from Temari, and thanks to Hinata's training, his reflexes were improved. He managed to throw himself to the side, evading the pressurized wave of futon-sharpened wind, and rolled on the ground while swarms of his bugs suddenly rose from the crowns of the trees on the edge of the arena, abruptly rising into the air from the green leaves like black, buzzing clouds.
Before Shino even stopped his short roll on the ground, the bugs did not hesitate to quickly rush through the air toward Temari, causing a chill to go down her spine. She had seen what these little murder insects were capable of. Last she heard, the Karui girl was still in the hospital. Preferably, Temari didn't want them anywhere near her!
Her quick surprise attack at the start was to end the match before her opponent could start sending his beasties at her in waves.
Still inwardly shuddering at that image, Temari scowled. She repositioned her fan and grabbed it with both hands as she jumped into the air and spun in a circle, swinging her fully unrolled fan during her spin.
Her wind-natured chakra flooded the fan, and as it was released, a ball of pressurized air formed around Temari. It was only for a second before the ball burst, sending highly pressurized, ferocious crushing wind waves crashing through the entire arena.
Shino barely got back on his feet when Temari's second technique hit. His bug swarms were blown away instantly. His clothes flapped in the wind so wildly that the edges hitting him on his calves and lower thighs felt like continuous slaps.
Shino was glad his coat was not shorter because it wouldn't be his calves but his butt that would be getting repeatedly slapped by his clothes.
But he didn't have much time to properly dwell on this train of thought. With his arms bracing in front of his face, he had to crouch lest the strong wind send him uncontrollably flying to the wall of the arena.
Small tears started appearing on his clothes, and the left lens of his sunglasses gained a small crack as the sharpness of the winds started affecting him.
A second passed, and finally, the heavy wind flow of the technique passed Shino, giving him a moment of reprieve, allowing him to flicker away under the cover of a nearby tree. He didn't hesitate to take it, knowing that another heavy wave of winds was already on its way as the Suna kunoichi he was facing was still spinning in the air with her fan, sending more and more airwaves throughout the entire arena even as she was slowly dropping down toward the ground.
The trees loudly creaked and shook, their thinner branches breaking under the pressure as the winds screamed. Not even the audience was spared from getting slightly airbrushed despite the protective measures.
Shino's back hit the tree he was using for cover as he staggered and gasped before slowly sitting down. That second, under the pressure of his opponent's winds, he felt as if the sky fell on him and he had to hold it up.
Breathing hard, he checked the connection with his hive, only to wince in pain. He had already lost twenty percent of his bugs. That made him grimace.
His bugs were much tougher to kill thanks to Hinata, and Temari's technique was not all that effective against them. But his swarms didn't make it in time to Temari and were caught head-on in her makeshift hurricane.
From the relayed information, Shino understood that quite a few of his bugs couldn't handle the pressure and died. A few were also cut by the sharpened winds, but that wasn't much of an issue. The hardened carapace stopped most of that. Some unlucky ones were even carried by the wind straight to the wall of the arena, where they ended up splattered all over it.
Looking to his left, Shino's breathing finally stabilized, and he regained some of his strength, as he noticed that the winds were still bellowing in the arena.
His eye twitched, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'I thought I was supposed to fight a genin.' He dryly thought. 'What the hell is this man-made disaster?'
...
Exactly a minute after Temari started spinning, her feet were about to reach the ground, and her technique ceased. As more and more winds were made by her, a tiny tornado formed around her over the course of her technique. One, that instantly popped out of existence with one last instant burst of cutting airwaves all around her as she stopped spinning.
Temari emerged from her technique with a huge grin, breathing hard but clearly exhilarated as her eyes beheld the devastation her winds caused.
She was slightly dizzy from all that spinning, but her training caused her to build up significant resistance to that. Her world only slightly swam in front of her eyes. The five trees in the arena, she counted them at the start, increased to only fifteen. That was still okay.
This was her Ultimate Technique!
Continuous Pressurized Kamaitachi Hell Tornado version thirty-two!
... The name was a work in progress, but still, Temari was overjoyed that she managed to do it. She trained like crazy during the past month, the fear of being munched on by bugs fuelling her determination.
Nevertheless, it ate a chunk of her chakra reserves, and she didn't let her success get into her head. She was still in the middle of a fight, and her sharp eyes quickly scanned her surroundings.
As she frowned after not finding her opponent, her foot finally landed on the ground. It was only her vigilance that saved her.
Bugs burst out of the ground underneath her foot, causing her eyes to widen in alarm as her heart almost jumped out of her throat from the scare. She quickly used her chakra to push against the surface, sending herself leaping high into the air, but it was too late, and Temari winced as she felt several bugs bite her lower legs.
Snarling, she quickly used the standard anti-bug D-rank technique, easily getting rid of the bugs that managed to reach her. Luckily, only around a dozen of them got onto her. The D-rank technique wouldn't help her if she were swarmed.
Swinging her fan, Temari dispersed the swarm of bugs ravenously rushing at her with another blast of wind. The recoil let her slow down her descent and glide through the air for a moment as more and more black tendrils made out of bugs burst from the ground underneath or around her, heading toward her.
Temari swung her fan, blasting gust of wind after gust of wind while showing some impressive mid-air acrobatics, not touching the ground for the whole two minutes, but the bugs were relentless.
The simple gusts of wind didn't manage to kill them as their hardened carapaces protected them. No matter how many of these attacks Temari sent at the bugs, Shino's hive was barely affected. The bugs simply regrouped to try again.
Temari realized that her efforts were futile and gritted her teeth. With the corner of her eye, she also noticed that forming the tendrils with the bugs was intentional. It took her attention away from the real issue!
The fact that she was now surrounded by spread-out bugs all over the aerial space in the arena, except for her immediate surroundings.
Ground was no go. Left, right, forward, backward, and up were also full of bugs. She had nowhere to go, and she couldn't stay in the air indefinitely.
Not to mention, the bugs were almost perfectly positioned around her, and if they rushed her right now, some of them would get through. Seething, Temari narrowed her eyes while doing another aerial backflip, followed by yet another swing of her fan.
Her eyes became cold but resolute.
'Fine. I thought using this would be too much, but I don't have a choice.' She reluctantly thought while biting her thumb.
With a swish, Temari swiped her bloody thumb across her fan. "Summoning Jutsu!" She shouted, and a giant, white-furred weasel with a dark green eye-patch covering his left eye appeared, carrying a large sickle almost as long as himself.
"Kamatari! Kirikiri Mai!" Temari ordered and swung her fan at her summoned weasel.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Temari's previous wind technique was a breeze compared to the massive, razor-sharp winds that swept through the arena this time. The weasel flew all around at incredible speeds, creating massive gashes in the ground, in the walls, even slicing the few trees in the arena into minced woody chunks as it passed them.
The grass on the ground got a trim. The dust flew into the air only to be instantly sliced through before it once again regathered into a dusty cloud, and was sliced through yet again.
The air pressure was unreal, and the winds didn't spare even a small part of the arena, while the stunned audience could only watch in astonishment at the sheer destruction.
Even the proctor had his work cut out for him as he couldn't leave the arena and needed to be very quick in order not to be sliced in half by Temari's technique. He was honestly starting to regret accepting the proctoring job. It was supposed to be easy!
Two minutes later, Kamatari was finally out of juice and stopped while Temari fell back to the ground, gasping for breath. 'That should have killed most of his bugs, right?' She thought with unease.
She had studied the Aburame clan, and she had found out that killing their hives was the best way to counter them. She would have honestly preferred to learn a fire technique she could pair with her wind techniques, but she didn't have enough time during the previous month to learn something like that.
Calming down, Temari relaxed, only to hear a cracking sound under her feet. Freezing like a deer in headlights, she didn't manage to leap back as Shino burst from the ground.
Victory gleamed in his eyes under his cracked sunglasses. His fist neared Temari's chin. Alarm flooded Temari's gaze as she realized she wouldn't make it in time!
Only for Shino to be confused as his fist easily passed through Temari's head, making her form shimmer for a bit before her form disappeared.
He blinked in disbelief.
And then Temari's heavy, closed, metal fan nailed Shino straight to the abdomen as the woman, who shimmered into existence not a few feet away from where her Wind Mirage disappeared, swung it like an oversized baseball bat.
Unfortunately for Shino, he was the ball in this instance.
His body shot back and flew through the air until his back impacted the wall of the arena, creating cracks underneath him.
Temari inwardly rejoiced, half expecting to hit a bug clone or something. But no. Her opponent miscalculated at the last second. He had already gotten her with the hiding-in-the-ground trick once. If she had gotten caught by it again, that would have been shameful.
Temari didn't just stand in her spot and wait after managing to hit Shino. Once she confirmed that it was his real body, she instantly rushed forward, intending to pummel him with her fan.
She had expended way more chakra in this match than she initially wanted, and because of that, she knew she would probably need to forfeit her next match if she wanted to be usable during the invasion.
She was admittedly pissed off because of that, but deep down, she begrudgingly admitted that her opponent was better than she expected.
Her fan tore through the air, about to hit Shino, who had just recovered, on the side of his head. Temari knew he would dodge that! Her eyes were already tracking his escape routes to know where to swing next...
"I surrender." Shino dryly spoke, and Temari just barely managed to stop her swing, her massive fan freezing an inch from Shino's head.
"What?" She asked, caught off guard.
"I surrender." Shino repeated, not bothered that his brains were almost smeared on the ground a moment ago. He fixed the position of his sunglasses. "Why? Because, as a friend would say, you are troublesome."
Temari's expression twisted, and her hands twitched. For a moment, Temari contemplated whether she could get away with smashing his head with her fan anyway.
Fortunately, the cooler heads prevailed, or rather, the proctor approached them and nodded, "The winner is Temari!" He exclaimed, and the audience went wild.
But Temari didn't care about that. She was wholly focused on giving Shino an unhappy glare.
She didn't miss the fact that he was fine and dandy even after eating one of her fan strikes. Her fan was no joke. It was heavy as hell. Being hit by it should at least break some bones. Yet, the boy in front of her didn't seem injured much.
"Why did you surrender?" She couldn't hold it in and asked, causing even the audience to quiet down. "You can still fight."
But Shino only shrugged. "My hive was devastated by your last wind attack." He rummaged through his pockets for a moment before pulling out a bottle and throwing it to Temari. "Here. The antidote."
Temari instinctively caught the bottle and slowly blinked as she looked at it. Her mind instantly went to the moment when she was bitten by Shino's bugs.
A vein on her forehead pulsed as anger surged in her when she understood what he implied.
'Oh, this smug little bastard.' She seethed, almost crushing the bottle as she tightened her grasp. If there was no invasion planned after this, she would have thrown the bottle in the Aburame's face!
She didn't know what poison he managed to get into her system, but his gesture and unbothered posture practically screamed, 'It could have been lethal, ya know? I let you win!'
Unable to hold her temper in, "Fuck you!" Temari screeched.
And Shino?
He just shrugged again. "Not interested."
Turning on his heel, he walked toward the door leading outside the arena, unbothered by the enraged Temari, who had to be restrained by the proctor.
A small smirk appeared on his lips underneath his coat.
He might have lost the match.
But had won the day.
---
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