Izu cursed when Akio dodged his technique and leaped high into the air. The leaf shinobi was extremely mobile, which made his ranged Savage Slime attacks less effective since Akio seemed capable of dodging them. This meant that Izu would have to get more up close with his opponent and then go on the attack. When the jonin dropped back down at high speeds Izu noticed that he was trying to hit the ground hard enough to disbalence them. He recognized this since it was a common trait among earth technique users. He jumped back as quickly as possible to avoid being unbalanced by the attack and prepared him himself for another attack.

Izu chuckled when Akio talked about communication, he had just met these leaf ninja and only fools expected instant harmony between teammates who were rivals. But he did have a point, this senju shinobi was no push over and of a higher rank than all of them, which is why teamwork may be their only hope at winning. Izu laughed when Seth proclaimed that he didn't care about communicating with his comrades, was this boy really that idiotic? he thought himself as he watched the hot-headed shinobi go the attack and didn't see that Seth was trying to make himself a distraction for them to attack.

He did however figure it how when Arashi Uchiha used some sort of disappearing technique to get Seth out of the strike zone of Akio and leave an explosive tag in his place. Izu saw that there would be an opening once the tag went off and he made his move once it did. The explosive appeared to have made Akio lose focus and falter with his sage mode. Izu made the hand sign for his next technique and spoke the words of it.

"Earth Release: Earth Spear!" he said and his right arm became as hard as diamonds thanks to the supplementary ninjutsu technique. He leaped high into the air and as Akio was off guard thanks to the explosion, Izu came down on the leaf shinobi and was less than a second away from slamming his insanely hard fist into the jonin's chest and breaking ribs if the ninja didn't take any defensive measures.