I rolled my shoulders, cracking my knuckles as I stepped onto the arena floor, the moment the fixing and cleaning crew were off, even before Sakumo had a chance to call out my name. I wasn't just doing it for show, actually, my fingers were twitching, and after watching four fights without getting to move, I had enough energy bottled up inside me that I almost wanted to start breathing fire before the fight was even on.
Across from me, Shibi Aburame only entered after being called. While I was looking at him, ignoring the noise of the crowd, barely even hearing them, I began examining him at once. He looked and felt calm, and his hands were tucked into his sleeves. Hmm... confident... I guess you have to be, if you want to become a Chūnin.
"RENJI!" Kushina's voice cut through the noise just then, reaching me. "DON'T LET THE BUGS TOUCH YOU, DATTEBANE! SAYURI SAYS SHE WON'T KISS YOU IF THEY DO!"
"THANK YOU!" I yelled back without looking. "I HADN'T CONSIDERED THAT!"
A wave of laughter rolled through the nearby stands, and I was sure that I heard Sayuri screaming at Kushina... or at me. Couldn't really understand what she was saying, though. Seeing me grin, Sakumo naturally looked at me, and I stopped myself from shouting out something else, while Shibi said nothing, just kept facing me. Moving my eyes away just before the match would start, I glanced at the ground, already scanning for any cracks where bugs could be crawling into from under his sole, hiding... but saw none. Which didn't mean there wasn't any.
"Before we begin," Shibi said suddenly, surprising me as my head snapped back up, looking at him at once. Can he talk? Since when?
"Yes?"
"You are aware that your elemental affinity counters my clan's techniques."
"Yes."
"Then I request that you do not end the match immediately."
That caught me off guard... I did not expect such a... request.
"…What?" I blurted it out, actually shocked.
"I would like to demonstrate sufficient capability for promotion consideration." He said with the same monotone voice as any Aburame, and for a moment, I had no answer... Then I started laughing.
I tried not to do it mockingly, but I couldn't help but laugh loudly. Damn! It was so straightforward, so blunt... I couldn't help but respect it.
"You know," I said, grinning, "I did not expect this." I quickly shot a glance at Sakumo, but apparently it wasn't against the rules, because he didn't say anything or stop us from speaking. Shibi also tilted his head a fraction, probably glancing at Sakumo just the same. At the same time, I could feel the crowd growing confused because we were talking, then I laughed... rather than immediately going at each other. Naturally, they couldn't hear what we were saying.
"I want a proper match." He said, thinking I wasn't sold on the idea yet.
"Fine," I said, interrupting him. "It will be my loss if this is a clever ploy to throw me off guard and crush me," I added, still grinning.
And just then, as if sealing the agreement, Sakumo raised his hand, yelling:
"Begin!"
The moment his hand dropped, Shibi's sleeves came alive with a nasty buzz, prompting me to jump backward, gaining some distance between us. A black stream spilled from both his arms, as his insects spread out before him, breaking apart into small clusters that brought up a premieter. To my surprise, they didn't rush straight at me; instead, they kept fanning out, dividing the arena into lanes.
As a response, my Sharingan activated, and I watched as each insect carried a tiny pulse of chakra... Looking at them too closely was a mistake, because it was like trying to count grains of sand in a flowing hourglass. Tsk! Forcing my eye to stop trying to do that, I was searching for patterns instead... However, he wasn't attacking me yet.
"Fine," I muttered. "Let's start small, and if you ain't coming, I will!"
I flicked my hands, formed the seals, and raised the tiger to my mouth, exhaling fire. A line of flame roared out, as I controlled it to strike barely at knee-high level, hot enough to char the dirt and force the nearest insects to scatter away from it. Some died, caught in the attack, but I watched as most retreated before they came into contact with the orange flames. As for Shibi, he adjusted instantly, and his insects split around the flame line, spreading to both sides, testing the edges. But I wasn't done; while still exhaling, I sent two more, smaller bursts, pushing them back even further.
Shibi raised one hand from his sleeve at that, and the swarm changed formation. A portion thickened directly ahead of me, while the others continued circling... Hm, what are you trying to do? Put a bait in front of me while doing some real work on the sides? I altered my attack in response, and the next moment, I was sending sparks to the left and right, forcing the flanking clusters back before they got too close or could entrap me.
However, just as I expected, I saw the earth crack a little, and a new swarm bubbled up from underground, only a few meters away from me. Without hesitation, I lifted my foot and stomped. My hands moved in a new series of seals, and by the time my sole touched the earth, a circular pulse of fire burst outward from beneath my sandal, hot enough to turn the first layer of insects into ash. The ring itself had expanded about three meters before fading away, thwarting whatever he was originally planning.
Or not, because the next attack came from below again. Luckily, I was aware of the possibility and sensed it a fraction of a second before it reached me. With no hesitation, I jumped, somersaulting backward while a cluster of insects erupted from the ground where I had stood, forming a hand-like shape, missing the chance to grab at me.
"EW!"
I didn't mean to yell it that loud... oh well. I twisted my body while still in mid-air, inhaled, and raised my hand again as I spat a stream of flame downward. The insect-made hand caught on fire before it could retreat, scattering into ash and smoke. Don't even think about touching me!
"I hate this clan," I muttered while landing. "I hate this clan so much..."
When I looked up what he was doing... Deciding I would put a bit of genjutsu on him, the moment I wanted to do so, his body dissolved. Bug clone... Hmph! Well, he had used the underground attack and the smoke from my flame to swap positions... Then let's turn up the heat! I inhaled and fired a massive flame arc in all directions, but what I hit were only its bugs, causing the swarm to thicken and for three Shibis to form at different points. If it were someone without my eyes, they could be confused, but sorry... not me. I didn't hesitate. I knew none of those were him, and so, I kicked backward, releasing a small burst of flame from my heel. The insects trying to climb up me from behind scattered at once. Then I snapped my fingers twice, igniting two sparks I had left in the dirt from the earlier attacks.
It was like explosions were set off underground, columns of fire exploding upwards from below, consuming two of the clones. It was then that my instincts nudged me to look up just as a thin swarm dropped on me right from the air. He was sure I was so preoccupied in finding him, focusing on bugs coming from the underground, so much so, that I wouldn't look up. Too bad for you that my Sharingan is sensitive to changes, and the sudden yet minuscule darkening coming from the shadows of the bugs was enough for me to realize something had appeared above me.
However...
Are you trying to run me out of chakra? I clicked my tongue and made new seals, adopting the Hyūga's concept of a jutsu to counter the airdropped cloud of bugs. I wasn't doing their Kaiten technique, of course not, I wouldn't be able to... But I could spin around real fast and spit fire, so I made a flaming variant that was perfectly good enough to burn up the air and cause the insects to die before they could touch me. The crowd made a strange sound then, and I heard it clearly, because that was not a normal Fire Release movement.
By the time I stopped spinning and acting like a fire sprinkler, the insects that he initially released had spread everywhere, but away from me. They were laid across the ground, along the wall, through cracks in the dirt, I mean, EVERYWHERE. Hm... A living net, just for me, huh?
"Are you trying to box me in?" I asked softly.
"Correct." He answered from somewhere.
"Don't sound so proud."
I had already guessed where he may be, because the swarm thickened at three points: the front, the rear-left, and at a diagonal-right from me. One of them was hiding him... I could use another big fire technique to spook him, but it would use up more chakra than necessary and might harm him if he didn't retreat fast enough. Counting on me keeping my word... huh? Tsk. Good thing I am not an asshole...
"Oh well..." I inhaled a bit annoyingly because I was being forced to use up more chakra than I wanted. The bugs began scattering when I did so, waiting for a fireball, but instead of aiming at them, I spat towards the sky at the last moment.
The fireball soared up a few meters, then, at my new seal's order, it exploded, becoming a massive fire-made net that fell from above onto the arena. All that chakra training with Fugaku was paying off now. The insects caught between the threads scattered, but the gaps they fled toward were already heating up. All his clusters broke apart almost at once, having nowhere to go, trapped inside the lattices of my net.
Naturally, I could hear how much the public loved it, as from the stands, it probably looked like I had drawn a glowing spiderweb of fire across the arena, which was exactly the kind of flashy nonsense people loved.
"There you are." I smiled, finally signaling him out from the previous three positions. He reacted a bit too much, trying to protect himself from the fire, using more chakra than the two decoy spots.
I don't know how, but he also noticed I caught him. Not wanting to give me a chance to attack, he reappeared at once, along with a dense black mass, much larger than anything he released before. Where do you keep all these bastards?! I watched as the swarm gathered around his body, wrapping him in a rotating shell, preparing a massive shield, a moving cocoon. Looking at it, the outer layer crawled and swirled constantly, like a bug-made saw blade. Both a defensive shielding and an offensive one, huh?
Just as I thought about it, the whole thing lunged at me, ignoring the still burning net of fire, willing to cross through it. Nice! Also... Not nice... EW! It didn't look fast at first, but then the outer layer exploded outward with black tendrils, shooting toward me from multiple angles while Shibi's main body stayed within the sphere of bugs. I jumped back again, sending fire from both hands forward to burn its attacks. One got obliterated, but the second tendril lost only its outer layer and kept coming, making me see his insects crawling over the dead ones to close the gap.
Brrr, I hated that!
Seeing it still coming at me, I flicked my wrist, cutting it apart with a flame-made arc, then ducked under a third tendril that snapped past my head, coming at me out of nowhere. It struck the dirt behind me, extinguishing part of the flaming net, and then scattered into a spreading patch that tried to put out the fire the same way. Tsk! No, you don't! With another snapping stomp, I ignited the ground beneath me and jumped, but Shibi, with his cocoon, kept chasing after me.
The crowd roared at that, probably thinking Shibi had turned the match around. From their view, maybe he had. My flames were burning insects, yes, but not fast enough to stop the whole mass. Every time I cleared one section, another replaced it from his body. The swarm was sacrificing itself efficiently, using its own dead as insulation. Smart... and that was a sentence I never wanted to repeat, thank you very much.
Well... I think I gave Shibi enough time and opportunity to showcase his skills. While I kept dodging and burning away his tendrils that he kept sending after me, I was already thinking about how to end this. I could do it with Minor Supernova.
Eh... Absolutely not. Not a real one, at least. Too dangerous, and I don't want to kill him like that, Cloud Village shinobi. Should I use a bigger fireball? Wasteful. I need my chakra against Minato. Haaah... Fine... Fine! I will make it flashy.
After deciding on how to end it, my chakra gathered around my body, then spread outward in a thin layer under my skin while I finished my hand signs. When I finished, the air around me shimmered, and with a flash of blinding light, flames erupted across my body, and the crowd went silent.
In the next moment, my dark-orange fire had completely wrapped around my arms, crawling from my wrists up to my shoulders, sometimes flashing golden. Then it spread across my chest, down my legs, up around my neck, forming a tight cloak of flame that clung to me without touching my skin or burning my clothes away. Good thing I learned ample control over it, because getting naked before so many people would be... Probably punishable by law.
As for Shibi? His nearest insects recoiled instantly when it appeared, and as I flexed my fingers, the flames lashed out, burning the closest bunch without much effort.
"That is... bad." I heard Shibi say suddenly.
"It is. So? Surrender?" I asked, grinning.
"No."
I laughed because that was all I needed, and shot myself towards his cocoon. The tendrils hacked toward me at once, but this time I didn't dodge all of them. I let one strike my forearm and listen to how the insects burned away on contact, but the force behind the tendril still pushed my arm aside. A chunk of the Ember Mantle was also torn away, scattering sparks into the air, but it reformed almost instantly. Another tendril struck my shoulder next, creating the same result. Okay, okay... It can hold, which was good. Shibi also realized that, and the main cocoon tried to retreat, but I had already reached it. My fist drew back, flames gathering around my knuckles, just as I punched into the outer layer.
I did not hit Shibi, and my fire detonated outward in a controlled burst, as I began peeling the bugs away, layer by layer. Naturally, the cocoon recoiled, and another tendril struck my ribs. As an answer, I grabbed the bastard with my left hand and sent flames down on it, burning it.
"Sorry," I said, grinning, keep tearing it apart, looking pretty savage. "I want to end it by now."
With that, I pushed my right palm forward, and the flames around my hand compressed into a bright, controlled point, forming a Rasengan-shaped fireball that created a miniature sun. But it was only the shape, not the technique. Naturally, I wasn't going to make it explode and vaporize Shibi. Still, the concentrated heat and the blinding light it created were enough to make everyone squint and miss the trajectory of my attack... even Shibi, and even if he had sunglasses. This close to the sun, it won't help, buddy!
It worked perfectly, popping its cocoon like a water balloon, and all the bugs scattered in utter panic. I caught myself in time, scattering the jutsu as my advancing palm stopped a hair's breadth away from his chest. The dispersed jutsu's fire burst outward around us in a ring, hot enough to burn away the remaining insects between us both.
For a moment, I just stood before him, the fire armor still flickering around me, my palm still raised, ready to touch him. It was then that Sakumo had appeared behind him.
"Enough," He said, and I lowered my hand at once, dispersing my armor in the blink of an eye. "Winner: Renjiro Uchiha."
The arena exploded, of course, and before I could grin and enjoy people shouting my name, the medical staff approached us, though neither of us needed much treatment. Despite Shibi losing a horrifying number of insects, which I did not think counted as an injury, I don't think he was injured at all. As we walked out of the arena, the applause followed us, and I couldn't help but run back out, throwing kisses towards the crowd, making some people laugh, before I was dragged away by Minato, who somehow appeared next to me, getting a hold of my hand.
"Jealous?" I asked, grinning, making him shrug.
"Embarrassed." He answered, but I could see his lips curling, trying to hold it back.
"Sure, sure." I chortled, "Well... Go, finish your fight quick! I had my warmup battle, so I'm ready for the main course."
"Even if I finish, count the participants," He told me, making my brain slowly catch up, "We will have three people. Someone will get a lucky draw, advancing into the finals."
"Ah... Oh..." I looked around, doing the math... He was right. "Fuck..."