Starring:
Date: November 30, 2010
Summary:
Meruin and Tsukiko face off in the finals of the genin bracket.
"First World Ninja Competition - The Genin Bracket Finals: Tsukiko vs. Meruin"
World Ninja Competition Arena #3
"Today we have a bout, Okumo Meruin! VS! Tsukiko!." Reza would call as he stood in the middle of the battle arena hands shoved deep into his pockets as his stance gave off his relaxed mannerisms. cracking an eye around the audience he'd pause for a time before continuing. "Stage is set, will the participants please come down to the battle area!"
From Peach Pit Stadium Arena 1 Stands, Rise has reconnected.
Tsukiko stands just out of sight of the crowd in general> She takes a few deep breaths to calm herself, leaning against the wall for support. The chaos that has occured this week weighed on her mind.. The sight of the super-cell storm bringing back memories and fears she thought conquered now. She closes her eyes and whispers softly, "Only the fool has no fear, the brave are those who face them and prevail." She takes one last deep breath, leaving a mask of confidence and strength on her young face. She turns and walks strongly forward to take her starting spot in the arena. She looks to the crowd, smiling as she sees.. and hears.. her large, heavily armored cheering squad draws to attention and gives a single, loud call out as one before settling at ease once more. She stands firmly and drops a single kunai at her feat, a paper tag fluttering in the slight wind in the arena.. is it a challenge?.. A threat? ..A trap?
At the summons, Meruin left his side of the arena, silently stepping towards the center. He was a small boy, somewhere between the ages of 6 and 9, probably on the older side of that. His arms and legs were slim, no hint of baby fat on his body, though no sign of a bulk different from any other his age. His face held an expression of calm, visage distant as the shores of Kirigakure, and nearly as cold — an expression to grave for one his age. And he was further set apart.
Spider silk covered the whole of his form, a silvery sheen of fur flowing like undersea flora. His gaze held the mists of his homeland, the obviously inhuman orbs mere circles of darkness, dark hued purples and greens intertwined with the mists. Barely restrained by severe lips is the jutting of fangs, on both the upper and lower jaws.
More noticeable than that are the four giant spider legs that had sprouted from his back, their black chitin seeming to steal the light rather than reflect it. They were much larger than he was tall, lifting him from the earth and carrying him smoothly, eerily silently to his place opposite Tsukiko.
He settled a bit lower and waited.
Tsukiko shows little reaction to the sight of the half-spider/half-boy as he emerges. She knew from their first encounter that he had capabilities like this, but this seems to be a step beyond the power he showed at the previous meeting. There would be little room for error and no room for fear in this match. But, win or lose, there are dignitaries watching this match. She must prove herself and her village… and if Meruin sought to take the field as a beast.. she would take it as a beauty. She empties a pouch she had up her sleeve and launches a cloud of glitter around her before taking a low, defensive battle stance. Her chakra flowing through her body.. aligning and strengthening inside her, giving the young girl a faint glow, a shimmer to play off the glitter.
"The Genin Tournament Finals is about to commence, acknowledge the skill of both contenders, however only one will stand entirely above the rest. Tsukiko, Okumo Meruin…..FIGHT!" With that Reza would suddenly flicker from sight, assumedly to view the match from safety
As soon as Reza spouted the word fight, silk exploded from the young genin's form, spreading in all direction. He was at the center of it all. He rotated with a nearly superfluous speed, the sheer velocity of the spin propelling the copious amount of webbing forward so that it claws at the air on all sides and anchored itself to the ground as it flew skywards, it's voracious apetite looking to consume the world.
It was lined with a lightly corrosive acid, a hissing noise sounding as it swept across the earth, spreading an obscene 200 feet in all directions.
As the massive web flows out over the ground, the young kunoichi takes to the air, leaping straight up with an effortless grace that seems out of place for the heighth she rose to. At the apex of the leap she seems to stall, slowly drifting down as she launches three tagged kunai at the Okuma in the center of the web. She hopes, perhaps mistakenly, that the explosive tags can clear away some of the webbing in addition to damaging her opponent.
The tags fell towards Meruin, in the center of the field of silken strands. They neared it's surface, and the genin appeared, arachnid legs scuttling along, easily getting him out of reach of much of the blast, though the edges of it caught him, darkening the the webbing over the back of his body.
The eight year old, seated himself higher, spider legs stretching to bring him above them. His eyes found Tsukiko and his arms lowered, webbing shooting from his arm down to the silk below him. His long, platinum hair rose in a long, slow undulation, moving of it's own volition in defiance of gravity.
Still in the midst of her feather slow descent, Tsukiko watches Meruin's bertial responses to her attacks. There may be, she thinks, a drawback to the boys greater power. Tsukiko performs a seal and draws a large mirror from her pack. She gets atop the mirror and appears to ride it as a magic carpet of some kind, divebombing the spider. As the mirror, and the Tsukiko, strike, be it their target or the ground, they both shatter into an explosion of glass. The reflection of light glinting off a mirror gives away the real Tsukiko's position, holding the mirror that she used to steer her clone and the other mirror in the attack.
There was a brief moment of stillness as Tsukiko and her mirror put on sudden speed — and in a direction he hadn't at all expected her to go. His spider legs through him to the side with a celerity just as sudden as his opponent's had been, but he, it would seem, had been a tad too slow, and he saw it. His body curved and tiwsted, allowing the mirror to scraped across his stomach, drawing a thin line of blood before it flew past, exploding into glass fragments along with the clone.
Immediately, the spider legs caught him, moving quickly to bring him back to rights and streaking straight towards Tsukiko. Errily silent, still, and completely ignoring any damage he'd taken, he lifted his arms. The strand attached to his arm lifted two thick ropes of silk from the pile and he raised his arms high overhead. The ropes followed, falling downwards towards the mirror-equipped girl. Before they reached her, his hands blazed through a sudden series of handseals and the wind about Tsukiko stirred and moved into an abrupt disk of swiftly moving air. Abrasive enough to cut, the circle closed.
Tsukiko pushes off, meeting the building wind chakra with an offensive burst of wind of her own. A contest of strength as the two wind fronts batter against each other. Unfortunately for Tsukiko, it is hers that gives out, letting the cutting winds wash over her. Compounding her pain, the acidic and painful silk lash around her, trapping her, burning her flesh. Or does it? The silk wrapped around nthing but another mirror that falls and shatters. Tsukiko begins gathering up her own wind chakra. Not creating a simple push, this is a small stoem, a funnel cloud that gathers up the stray glass shards, sending them rotating accross the field, sharpened with wind chakra they blast accross the field. With a little luck, the storm will drive her opponent to one of the many traps she laid in this battle already. The seal breaks and the vortex vortex wind trap bursts. Will the spider fall victim?
The powerful chitinous legs sprouting from Meruin's body brought him into an abrupt aerial trip, taking him over the glass storm raging below, though only barely. He landed on more silk padding and an explosion of wind rose around him in a vortex. His arachnid legs whipped down towards the ground to try and find a little purchase to move himself to safety, but the winds were too strong and too sudden, pulling him from the ground and disorienting him as it battered him.
Tsukiko rushes in, knowing she has little time to make her move. She draws a mirror and plants herself firmly, channeling her chakra into it and releasing the recorded image attack. A large armored man wielding a sword as large as Tsukiko and her opponent combined bursts from the recorded mirror image charging through the web and attacking with a dangerous looking slash paralel to the ground. Tsukiko then draws a second mirror. The reflection within it is a storm covered sky, huge chunks of debris blowing accross it. A slab of a roof top blown free in the heavy winds comes flying at the mirror and bursts out of it, sending a 4' by 4' slate roof slab crashing into the belagured Okumo
There is absolutely nothing it seemed Meruin could do as his aerial upheaval was interrupted by a large armored man with a giant sword cut into him, drawing a little blood as the slate slab slammed him down onto the silk below, his spider legs splayed out in disarray.
As the vortex calmed, finally, the boy picked himself up, bringing himself back up to an arachnid stand, shaking himself off. He had been damaged by those series of blows, to be sure, but as his eyes found Tsukiko's again, it was obvious that things had only just started.
He inclined his head in acknowledgement.
Tsukiko takes her defensive stance, trying to catch her breath after the all out assault she unleashed on her foe, but the boy was barely phased. She takes a deep breath and draws her chakra once more, preparing herself for the rest of the battle
As Tsukiko took on a defensive stance, her breathing harder than is ideal, Meruin went on a sudden offensive, a predator out to capitalize on weakness. He vanished… and reappeared just behind Tsukiko, a spider leg raised high above him. It was brought crashing down at her, scoring the air with the speed of the strike, and he immediately set himself after it.
His chitinous legs thrust him forward towards Tsukiko and his regular hands, nails tipped with black talons, lashed out in their own assault. The flurry of blows he sent was swift enough to blur — any particular attack indistinct. So fast were his arms that the silk along them lashed out at the girl in biting strikes to cut, to lacerate, poison lining them.
Tsukiko jumps up and back, wrapped in a sheath of wind chakra. She appears to be caight by the lashing weabs, but this too is nothing but a mirror. The mirror glass falls and shatters to the ground. The real Tsukiko gathers up two small spirals of wind, sending them dancing accross the field, gathering up the glitter she used for show at the beginning of the match into two small razor sharp funnel clouds that dance quickly accross the field. Meanwhile, the tag that Tsukiko threw down at the onset of the match, forgotten until now, is triggered by the passing of one of the storms.
Not appearing to be entirely surprised by the lack of Tsukiko's presence, Meruin immediately redirects, streaking in the girl's direction. He simply passes by the glass-filled storms by sheed running speed, the edges of one clightly cutting him, bringing attention to just where his damage was as he put in speed, the explosion left too far behind simply because he'd been moving to swiftly.
He whipped his arm out, a pair of shuriken attached to a length of webbing streaking towards Tsukiko, meant to cut her as it swung past. His raised an arm and the silk under her rose up to encapture her, before pulling back, poisoned silk cutting as it pulled off of her.
Tsukiko lashes out with a blast of wind, but her timing is wrong to deflect the shuriken. The webs find only a mirror clone as the real Tsukiko leaps back away. She plants against the wall and lashes out with her own wind attack once more, hoping to trigger another of her mines
In the face of Tsukiko's attacks, Meruin simply vanishes, reappearing once more in front of her. "You're exhausted," commented the boy as he lashed out with his foot, sending it towards her head. Immediately, the spider legs leaned him away and he set himself on the ground — earth, he realized. He'd moved past the silk-layed ground. With his true body on the ground, the four spider legs on his back lashed out in a multitude of strikes towards Tsukiko, poison seeping onto their serrated tips.
The first attack hits a clone, the second catches up to Tsukiko as she leaps away. She tumbles to the ground. Her breath halting, her chakra levels dangerously low. She leans up to her hands where she fell, bbut is unable to stand. She closes her eyes, knowing she gave everything she had and lowers her head in defeat
