Tadaima.

HEEEEEY GUYS! I did it! I finally did it! I finally found the time to finish writing down this chapter.
Word count reached over 1800 words! I'll aim for a higher word count for the next chapter (in fact, I will try to write more words every chapter, my goal for now).

Also, I am sorry for letting you wait for so long. School took its tolls and I had to spend some time with my girlfriend and my other hobbies (I also had to train for a triathlon).
But finally I'm done! So here it is:


Chapter 3

He had not thought about what would be the test, but now he got a bad feeling.

After he had exited, he had found himself in a huge room the four meter high walls building a circle. These walls though didn't reach the ceiling, there was still two meters left and within the two meters now stood two people. The first one was Rinji, who was observing the lower half of the room. Next to him stood the one he had seen first here, the girl called Tayuya. Her face showed her curiosity. Over what, he didn't need to wonder about.

At the same time he had entered, 4 others had entered through similar doors. He looked up to Rinji who was casually chatting with Tayuya, not bothering to pay attention to what was going on below.

"Rinji, what is the meaning of this?" He shouted upwards, and murmured "I don't like this..."

Rinji glanced at him for a short moment, then turned back to the young girl to go on talking. After he had finished he viewed the arena. Yes, it was clearly an arena, the stone ground covered by hay at some spots. The spots not covered had different shades, some darker than the rest probably by blood of former participants of this 'test'.

"You all are here because you wanted to serve Orochimaru-sama. But he will only take on of you as his underling. The last one standing." He sat down and let his feet dangle down the wall. "You will fight each other until you are the only one alive. It will be a fight to death."

Nanashi took a deep breath and swallowed. He didn't think he would have to kill in order to live, but if there was no other way he'd do it.

"You are allowed to gang up on your enemies, but in that case you will have to disband later and fight your teammates. You will have four hours, if then there are more than one alive, you fail. That's about it. Now, start!"

Inspecting his opponents Nanashi picked out the one he didn't want to fight. It was a boy around his age, maybe a bit older (though he still didn't know how old he was), he would say the boy was 12 or 13 years old. He hadn't seen himself in a mirror yet, but he and Rinji had passed a shelves with doors of glass in which his face had been reflected, and he had guessed that he would be around between 11 and 13 years old, so he said to himself that he was 12. Now the boy he wanted to avoid fighting was his age then, but his body was different in every way. He was one head taller than him, and one could see he had trained his body a lot. Over his muscles he wore a black sleeveless shirt and black pants, his feet were in black boots and his head was bald. Which gave him an even more intimidating appearance.

Taking in his other opponents' appearances he saw their horrified expressions. They probably thought the same as him. One of the three was a girl around 8 years and looked very fragile. She wore a white t-shirt, long blue pants and her long red hair was tied up in two ponytails. Right next to her, holding her hand tightly was a boy clad in the same clothes, but had short black hair. He was the same age as her as well as the last boy in the arena. This boy wore short dark green pants and a dark red shirt which were in full contrast to his short bright blond hair. He was slowly trotting towards the other two his age, stopping whenever the big one faced his direction.

Nanashi thought this a good idea and turned to also group up with them in order to defeat the one they all were afraid of. No good idea.

Baldie seemed to have decided which one to attack first and it was him. Great. He started running towards his only hope, the other kids. But after the first two meters Baldie was next to him, throwing a punch towards his face. Twisting away he avoided it only to fall on the ground because he had lost his balance. His attacker laughed and kicked him into the stomach. Nanashi's sight blurred.

"I'll leave you for later" he said, kneeling down to fiddle something out of his boots. Then he walked towards the group of scared kids, his right arm hanging down. In his hand a knife.

When he was only three meters away from them, the blond boy made an advance and tried hitting him in the stomach. Baldie, surprised by his courage, or maybe just his stupidity, simply took a stepp to the side and in one fluid movement let his elbow go down on his head. First one down. He then turned just to promptly avoid a punch thrown by the black-haired kid, aimed a kick to his head, hit and within a moment he stood behind the girl, not caring about his former target, and stabbed her in the back. Nanashi could only watch as the girl gasped and fell forward onto the ground with a loud thud. The one responsible just stood there and looked around coldly.

Meanwhile the first boy had managed to get up, his blond hair hanging down in his face blood-stained, found an opening jumped on Baldie's back and used his finger nails to scratch his opponent's face. Blood came to surface but instead of really wounding the one being attacked, it only made him angry. In an attempt to get a clear hit on his attacker he tried for his head but only hit air. He tried once more, with the same result, it was no use, the much smaller boy avoided every single punch.

By now, Baldie's head was dark read, not only because of the countless scratches but also because he himself was boiling with anger. Whilst the crimson blood was dripping on his black shirt making unnoticeable dark spots, Baldie then tried grabbing his attacker's arms or legs in order to pull him off and throw him onto the ground. Fruitless. As his last resort he dragged himself to the wall and slammed his back against it. Success. Crushing sounds could be heard throughout the arena, again and again and again. When the sounds finally stopped, Baldie stepped away and left behind a boy with several broken bones, his right arm was twisted in an weird ankle. At first it looked like would remain standing, but the look in his eyes was making it obvious: He was unconscious. Slowly falling forward, he produced a low "thud"-sound as he met the ground. That was the last time anyone ever would have heard of this boy.

And now, the only one left was Nanashi. Fortunately he had had some time to recover while the others were fighting. His breathing was normal again, he had felt no broken bones when inspecting his body, but still, he would need to have quite some luck in order to win. Yes, his opponent was exhausted by his previous fight, yes, he had been injured, but he had just taken out two boys without great effort, apart from having had problems only because he hadn't been on alert after he knocked out the second boy, and he had killed a girl coldheartedly. So, his chances to win seemed small, if not non-existent with skills which were unknown, even to him himself.

Nanashi got up. And felt dizzy right away. If he'd been attacked right now while he was struggling with just standing straight, he would die. But he wasn't attacked.

"You seem to have got some skill, evading my hits earlier, and I think I might know you. Just remind me, have we met before? Where are you from?"

Silence.

"I asked where you are from! If you tell me now, I will make your death quick and painless just like that of the girl, if not, look at this pipsqueak. Or do you just like to be beaten until you are begging for death?"

Unable to hold his accumulated anger, Baldie started his attack and left Nanashi no time to answer. When he had finished speaking he appeared beside Nanashi and aimed his fist for Nanashi's head. Evading the punch in the last moment, the younger boy stumbled forward, turned and ducked immediately after seeing another punch incoming and connecting to nothing. His body then moved on its own. Shifting his weight on his left arm he kicked for the other's legs and sweeped them away causing his bigger opponent to fall. But instead of landing of his butt, the bigger boy rolled backwards and stood up in one motion in order to launch his next attack. Only to defend right away because Nanashi had jumped after him and now punched and kicked in uncoordinated combinations.

Left straight punch, right punch, right kick to the knee, left hook, right kick, left straight, right kick, left kick, left straight, left straight, right straight, left straight, left kick, left kick. It went on like this for several minutes, the older boy only defending and both starting to sweat, Baldie compared to Nanashi's light sweating had streams of sweat coming down his face. It was then that Baldie decided to attack again. He avoided the next punch thrown at him and countered by throwing himself on the victim of his surprise attack. He grabbed Nanashi by one leg and his shirt and threw him towards the already defeated children. The white-haired boy crushed on the floor, the air escaped his lungs and his sight blurred once more.

Again, his opponent walked slowly towards him, the same opponent but in much worse a state. He also seemed to walk more slowly, probably because of exhaustion but maybe there was a bit of respect mixed in as well. In order to win some time, Nanashi crawled backwards. He couldn't put up a real fight anymore.

"Who are you? Where are you from?"

His opponent still wasn't able to remember. When Nanashi had crawled near the first boy, Baldie had closed up, grabbed Nanashi again and threw him one more time.

Then he started running towards the wasted boy who had fallen right next to the dead girl, willing to kick and punch him to death now. Just when he was about to punch him in the face, Nanashi shot up and stabbed him right in his heart.

Baldie's reaction was to look to the knife in his chest, look to Nanashi, slowly look back down on his chest where blood was flowing. After several seconds of silent disbelief he slumped down on Nanashi. Dead.


Hope you liked it.

It's my first time writing a fighting scene, so if there are any ideas to how to "refine" my fighting scenes, just tell me. PLEASE tell me.
Also, if you liked the way I wrote the fighting scene, please tell me that and/or what you liked about it.

Another point: In the description I wrote about it being gender bender. I thought about skipping a year or two in the timeline, but recently I am thinking that the story of Nanashi becoming Oroshimaru's underling is promising. So there are two ways I see right now:

YOU DECIDE:

1. I will write on the way I was originally thinking. Gender bender coming in this story.

2. I will continue the Nanashi=Oroshimaru's underling part. Gender bender in a sequel.

Tell me what you think, what you would like better. Changes are taking part after I think 2 more chapters earliest.

Itterasshai.