The two weapons shed, butting their chakra reinforcements against each other, and the arena became a maelstrom of strong winds and chakra once again. The surroundings reverberated with a loud ng as the katana met the war fan as a cloud of dust rose into the air and was instantly sent spinning on top of the two women due to the generated winds, restricting the visibility.


    It barelysted three seconds and the dust made at most one spin, when another burst of chakra passed through the arena, scattering the dust and revealing the result of the sh.


    Temari stood above Karin''s unmoving body, breathing hard as her expression showed a slightly bewildered discontent.


    "To think you would run out of chakra so fast." Temari amusedly jeered towards the unconscious girl, "That''s kinda hard to believe. I guess your ability was greatly over-exaggerated if you can''t even regte your chakra exertion to not be knocked out by your own technique." Her tone appeared to be mocking and condescending but in reality, she was hinting at something.


    "But you know..." She continued in a more serious manner but extremely slowly, drawing out every word, "You should have never-"


    She didn''t manage to finish her sentence as the ''body'' in front of her poofed out of existence in a puff of smoke, causing Temari''s eyes to widen in surprise. At that same moment, Karin burst from the ground directly in front of Temari, revealing that she used the previous sh to dig a tunnel in the ground for this surprise attack.


    But despite the situation, for some reason, Temari''s face did not lose its knowing smirk.


    Karin saw her opponent was surprised, which only made her determination grow as her fist neared Temari''s chin in an attempt for a one-hit knock-out.


    When she nned this ambush, she knew Temari would not have enough time to dodge this as long as she caught her off guard. The hard part was catching the Suna harlot off guard but she did it!


    tion filled Karin and made her pump a bit more chakra into her fist than strictly necessary for a simple knock-out... or house demolition.


    That tion didn''tst long though. Karin''s fist indeed found purchase on Temari''s chin, and for a split of a second, Karin thought she had won.


    Except...


    Temari''s head, instead of snapping back as it should be after receiving an uppercut to the chin, burst into the sand, making Karin''s eyes widen in disbelieving shock.


    The redhead didn''t have much time to contemte where her n went wrong. Temari''s headless body showed it was not just an ordinary sand clone when it morphed into the sand after losing its head... and instantly reformed into Temari once again, in the best position for an attack. Before Karin even registered what was happening, Temari was already mid-swing at Karin whose body was mid-air.


    To give Karin credit, she did try to send a chain from her back towards the ground in order to give herself an ability to maneuver out of this trap but...


    It was just a panicked rash instinctual attempt.


    Despite the chains'' speed, before it could even reach the ground, Temari''s fist smashed into Karin''s chin, causing her head to slightly snap to the side and her eyes to be like saucers from mute astonishment... before she fainted just as gravity started to work on her body again, making her unconscious body flop into a heap on the ground.


    Temari stayed vignt even after Karin''s body hit the ground. After all, she did just bait the redhead so there was no reason why the redhead could not try to bait her into a false sense of safety while pretending to be defeated too.


    But after there was no follow-up attack iing and her senses did not register anything out of ordinary, Temari partially rxed.


    She looked at the unconscious Karin and chuckled, "Heh. You should have let me finish my advice, kid." She condescendingly grinned, "I wanted to say you should have never tried to ambush me from the underground. I can feel everything there due to my sand, ya dolt."


    And when Hayate showed up in the arena and Karin''s follow-up attack was still noting, Temari seemingly rxedpletely, now really assured of her victory.


    But only after she did that and no attack still arrived, did she finally ept that her opponent was out cold for real.


    Hayate quickly checked Karin, noting she was alive and just knocked out... which in his humble opinion was a miracle after this kind of fight. The girl did not even have a proper bruise on her body if he discounted the nasty one forming on her chin!


    His eyes couldn''t help but to briefly roam the ruined interior of the arena. The previously t grassy ground was now a deep crater full of a ck jagged ss-like material, grains of sand were everywhere, in the air, on the ground… just everywhere, and no semnce of nature survived the ferocious fight. There was not even a hint of thepletely obliterated trees that were previously on the side of the arena.


    His eyes came back towards Karin and he inwardly eximed in astonishment, ''And yet, she has only one bruise after all of that!? What kind of monster... no.'' He suddenly realized an important fact and his gaze snapped towards Temari who was patiently waiting for him to finally proim her the winner.


    Noticing that Hayate looked at her, she raised her eyebrow at him.


    Honestly, she was quite fed up with the proctor. He seemed as if he just saw Kyuubi ring at him. She so wanted to yell at him ''Less gaping, more proctoring!'' but she was a guest in a foreign vige. It wouldn''t do, to be impolite in front of such a massive crowd...


    ''I wonder if the monster is the girl who has only one bruise after this kind of fight or the girl who managed to knock her out while reallynding only one hit.'' Hayate gave Temari a sheepish look.


    Inside of this look, however, was hidden much deeper and searching once-over. The kind every experienced ninja could use. He quickly assessed Temari''s injuries... and came to a shocking discovery. The Suna kunoichi''s wounds were barely surface scratches. She outwardly looked like a mess but she was totally fine!


    ''Did she purposefully make herself look this way to lower the Uzumaki''s guard?'' Hayate wondered as he proimed Temari the winner of this match.


    Either way... he decided the second he would see one of these girls on the opposite side during a mission, he would hightail it back to Konoha, saying screw the mission. He was sure many of hisrades felt the same after witnessing the spectacle of their fight.


    In the audience, Rei was shaking his head at Karin''s hotheaded stupidity.


    ''Well, this was expected.'' Rei thought in deadpan. ''Digging underground tunnels towards the victory seems like an Uzumaki thing. Did she really think such a thing would work against someone like Temari? When she knew that for the Sand Release, Temari would have needed to be extremely proficient in Earth Release since she did not have Shukaku?'' He wryly smiled and peeked to the side at Konan whose eyes held stoic cold fury.


    ''I almost pity the girl. To make such a rookie mistake.'' Rei''s lips twitched into an amused smirk. ''Not that I can admonish her. I did advise Temari to never use her Earth Jutsus in order to not be known for them since they were such a great hidden ace.''


    Temari''s gravity control was especially incredible. s, there was no way she would have used it in front of so many ninjas even if it meant losing against Karin. Showing it here would ruin the entire purpose of keeping it hidden for when she was in a pinch.


    But back to the silently seething blute next to him…


    Frankly, Karin losing the match didn''t matter. The problem was the dumb manner in which she lost. That made Konan''s vindictive side really activate, considering she was here as a representative of Uzushio.


    Karin was in for some seriously painful session of remedial training if Konan''s look was any indication.