Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Pest Control

The massive palm made of nothing but cross-bred Aburame Parasitic Insects slammed into Erumo, enveloping the kunoichi with swarms upon swarms of insects before the concentrated construct of insects pushed her out of the palm and sent the trapster flying back.

Erumo recovered very near to the edge of the arena, pulling out one paper tag from her ninja kit and catching it in her mouth while she pulled a kunai knife with the other hand and drove it into the arena surface she was sliding over to slow down her momentum as much as she could. Once the Konoha kunoichi weaved a hand seal and set off the "Art of Tree Climbing" sealing tag her feet stuck more firmly to the sides of the edge of the half-busted arena.

Breathing heavily and bleeding from the numerous bruises she has accumulated, Erumo climbed back onto the edge of the arena, just barely managing to save herself from getting ringed out. Mana could not help but tap into her sensory abilities to see just how much fighting spirit was still blazing inside the young kunoichi.

"I'm not sure why Erumo worked so hard to stay in the match", Mana sighed, "She's got about half of her usable chakra remaining and her body isn't in the greatest of shapes. She's got virtually no capability of setting new traps with her opponent constantly on her feet. It would've been much better for her to surrender and let Stea take care of the rest".

"No, Erumo is really smart. Knowing that she's just a trap-setting support ninja who doesn't like active combat made everyone look down on her but she's pretty amazing", Kiyomi grinned with her right side of the lips.

"She's stalling, Mana", Hanasaku butt in, "You see, it's obvious now that Erumo had lost, that being said, she's trying to see just how much more she can tire out her opponent before passing the baton to her teammate. That's pretty smart"!

Erumo dashed to the right corner of what still remained of the arena, diving on her knees and focusing her chakra onto her palms, something that was required of her when she wanted to set seals with more of her traps sealed inside. She had tremendously limited time to set any traps, she was covered with those pesky bugs that were too numerous and troublesome to remove entirely at this point. It was not too difficult to see that Erumo's movements had become number and slower, as her chakra pool lowered from its peak, her body displayed more and more physical signs of exhaustion.

"Parasitic Insect: Pillar"! Juhi yelled out as a towering pillar of insects crawled on top of one another, surrounding Erumo and closing her inside the improvised structure of insects.

Mana was beginning to feel a little worried for the well-being of Kouta's friend before a powerful blast helped the girl free herself through the weaker structural side of the pillar of insects. Armed with kunai in her hands and in her teeth, Erumo decided to stop gunning for setting traps in the middle of a battle and decided to double down on her berserker strategy. The trapster leaped straight at her opponent, aiming to test her capabilities for close range combat.

A little string of Juhi's hair scattered across the arena as the Aburame narrowly evaded the barrage of swipes and thrusts aimed at her before preparing to launch a counterattack herself.

"Parasitic Insect: Gloves"! she yelled out forming two much smaller than before fist constructs that fit right around her own fists and could've been used at a closer distance. Juhi certainly was merely moderate at close distance combat but at least she had tools to dabble in it if forced to.

While the added insect formation gloves added some oomph to the genin's physical blows, it also slowed them down somewhat as Juhi's physical strength struggled a little to adapt to the increased weight around her wrists. When one punched as fast as most ninja did and as often, in as varied ways, even the slightest weight imbalance could've tipped the scales more to one's opponent's advantage.