Chapter 2: 765
"We're just moments away from the start of the Grand Magic Games folks. I'm Chapati Lola and I'll be handling the play by play while former council member Yajima provides commentary. Mr. Yajima, glad to have you with us sir." A strange black-haired looking man wearing a brown suit with a white shirt and a blue tie said over the loudspeakers in the arena.
"Glad to be here." The person now identified as Yajima responded. He was wearing a white coat with two yellow buttons on it with a red tie dividing the buttons into different sides of his chest. He had a grey moustache no wider than his nose and two bushy grey eyebrows the size of his hands hovering over his eyes like UFOs in an alien scifi movie.
"And lets not forget our special guest, a member of Blue Pegasus and the current holder of the title Miss Fiore, the ravishing Jenny Realight!" Chapati announces to the crowd earning cheers and stares from most of the males in the crowd. The girl sitting on Yajima's right responded with something along the lines of 'this is the year blue pegasus is going to win'.
"Now the time has come to meet our competitors!" Chapati announced before continuing, "First up in eighth place, a bunch of wild wizards from Magnolia! They had luck in the prelims and now they're raring to take back first place by force, it's Fairy Tail!" The response from the crowd was a loud wave of booing which left the members from Fairy Tail confused.
"Who would've thought they would've made it this far after coming in last every single year! Securing a spot in the prelims was no small feat for them. Will the Tenrou Island team's sensational return help Fairy Tail become Fiore's greatest guild?" The Commentator continued earning some confused looks from most people in the stadium who didn't know who the Tenrou Island team was.
"I'm proud of them! Way to go kiddos, now get out there and show them what you can do." Yajima spoke which earned a roaring cheer from the Fairy Tail stand.
"Next up the team that came seventh in the prelims, the rowdy army of hellhounds, Quatro Cerberus!" Chapati shouted as the Quatro Cerberus team came on. Quatro Cerberus received a lot more cheers than the previous guild that entered, not that that was much of an accomplishment anyway.
"And coming in sixth is a guild filled to the brim with members of the fairer sex, the dancers of the great blue sea, Mermaid Heel!" The announcer declared earning an arena full of men staring at them with hearts in their eyes.
"In fifth place, the azure wings that glimmer in the darkness, it's Blue Pegasus!" Chapati shouted and Jenny continued by saying, "Hey guys, do your best!"
"Next in fourth place, the goddess of love, the sacred destroyer, Lamia Scale!" Chapati shouted, earning the most amount of cheers yet from the crowd.
"This brand new guild was only created a few weeks ago and has already secured a third place position in the prelims, The Akatsuki!" Chapati shouted, earning confused looks from the crowd as five people walked into the arena all wearing matching black cloaks with red clouds. The first man that walked through was a fair skinned man with a mop of red hair named Sasori who was followed closely behind by Hidan, Deidara, Itachi and Nagato. Sasori had worked long and hard making his puppets look so realistic that you couldn't tell the difference if you tried and practiced talking through them using ventriloquism.
"Only third place Sasori my man? You must be slacking off, if I was in charge I would've made a masterpiece and surely secured us the first place position!" Sasori's Deidara puppet yelled. How? Sasori didn't know, he wasn't intentionally making him do that. He wasn't sure if Deidara's soul had possessed his own body or if he had a small part of his consciousness doing it without him realising. In response Sasori just sighed and kept walking towards the center.
"Wow those guys seem ominous." Gray stated the obvious to his teammates. His teammates sat in silence observing them while nodding .
"They look strong, I wanna fight them!" Natsu shouted, ignoring Gray's statement. Most of Fairy Tail just sighed and Sasori chuckled. Sasori suddenly felt some very malevolent chakra in the Fairy Tail stands and looked directly at the source. The potency and malevolency of the aura made Sasori make the assumption that it was a curse. The thing that Sasori found strange was that he couldn't physically see the source of the malevolency. He concentrated his chakra into a chakra thread and shot it where he felt the aura and watched as the chakra thread ran into something and fell to the ground. 'So they aren't impossible to hit, it just takes some chakra to do it.' Sasori thought.
Meanwhile in the Fairy Tail stands Mavis was mortified. She looked like she had just seen a ghost. 'How did this man manage to hit me with something, I'm an illusion! How did he know I was here in the first place! I better tell Makarov.' Mavis turned to the current guild master and said "Makarov" while trembling. Makarov turned to his right and saw one of the most cheerful people he had ever met look scared.
"What is it?" Makarov shouted, causing everyone in Fairy Tail to stare including the members down in the arena.
"That red-headed man can see me! He hit me with something! That shouldn't be possible! I'm an illusion!" Mavis shouted, causing everyone in Fairy Tail to stare at Sasori in shock. Sasori just shrugged and sent a chakra thread at Mavis and pulled her into the stadium. All of the members of Fairy Tail had their jaws hanging wide open in shock. At first they all thought Mavis was delusional but after seeing that they realised how powerful Sasori must be.
"Did you see that guys? We better watch out for that Sasori guy." Erza stated after noticing how powerful he was. Her teammates nodded, however Natsu was even more eager to fight him after seeing that.
"Our first place runner up is." Chapati started as he looked down at his piece of paper and continued. "Oh wow, what a surprise! This year's competition just got a whole lot more interesting folks. It's Fairy Tail team B!" Sasori remembered seeing something about two teams being allowed to enter but he didn't think he would bother entering a second team. One would do the job just fine. But he was still surprised that another guild had managed to get two teams through.
The response from the crowd was just another roar of booing and people saying how unfair it was. One person even said, "Was Fairy Tail that bad that they got a handicap?" Which made Sasori laugh.
"I think the newly implemented rules may have left our audience a bit complex, Mr. Yajima. Care to explain?" The announcer asked the short man sitting on his right.
"Sure thing, the committee in charge of the Grand Magic Games permitted each guild to enter two teams which they felt would make the preliminaries more exciting." Yajima responded in a very monotone voice.
"And last but certainly not least is the team that came in first place in the preliminaries. That's right, you know them, you love them, now get on your feet and scream for the most powerful guild in all of Fiore. The one and only Sabertooth!" Yajima shouted and Sasori was thankful that all of the teams had been announced because he had gotten sick of the commentator's voice and he felt that if he wasn't a puppet he would be receiving a headache.
When the commentator had finished continuing the long 'oo' sound in Sabertooth five people walked out, Sasori could tell that all of them had an ego so big that they are probably all distant relatives of the Uchiha clan from one glance at them. The cheers that Sabertooth received was by far the most out of any guild so far. Then the moment Sasori dreaded most came, the commentator started talking again.
"All in all, I'd say we have an impressive group of wizards here, any comments on our line up Mr. Yajima?"
"Yeah, Mermaid heel makes me pine for my youth."
"Uh, that's not quite what i meant. Anyway, we've kept everyone waiting long enough, it's about time we unveil the official schedule for this year's tournament!" The announcer continued awkwardly as a stone tablet rose from the ground.
"Each one of the rounds will begin with a contest, participants will then be ranked from first to eighth place, the teams will be awarded points based on how they ranked in the contest." Chapati continued in his happy-go-lucky voice as some writing appeared on the tablet
1st - 10 pt
2nd - 8 pt
3rd - 6pt
4th - 4pt
5th - 3pt
6th - 2pt
7th - 1pt
8th - 0pt
"Additionally, the teams will be allowed to select which of their members they want to compete. After that we have battles, these bouts should come as quite a treat to all of you loyal fans. Since it was your suggestions that created these matchups. The battle rules are simple, each team will square off as shown here, the winning teams will be awarded ten points while the losing teams get jack squat. In the case of a draw both teams will be awarded five points." The commentator shouted.
A Team VS B Team
C Team VS D Team
E Team VS F Team
G Team VS H Team
Win - 10pt
Lose - 0pt
Draw - 5pt
"Ready for action? Let's get things started with the first contest of the Grand Magic Games, one that we call hidden! At this time we would like each time to select one member to compete, once selections are complete we will explain the rules in the entirety." Chapati continued. After some time to let the teams think every team had chosen a member and the announcer continued.
"Representing Quatro Cerberus it's Jaeger! From Mermaid Heel, the adorable Beth Vanderwood! Blue Pegasus' Eve Tilm. Keep your eyes on this one folks, from Sabertooth, the man who sings to the moon, Rufus Lore! From Lamia Scale, Lyon Vastia! From Fairy Tail team A, icy Gray Fullbuster! From Fairy Tail team B, Juvia Lockser! And finally from Akatsuki is Itachi Uchiha!" Sasori chose Itachi for two reasons. The first was because the event is called 'hidden' and Itachi is the best at genjutsu which could be useful to help hide himself and because of his good looks. Clearly, judging by the looks in all of the girls in the stands' eyes, Itachi was suddenly the most popular man on the stage.
"The competitors have been chosen and the long wait is finally over, grab a refreshment and get glued to your seat, because you're not going to want to miss a single nail biting moment of hidden!"
"Now will each team's participants in the hidden game kindly step forward." A very short man in a clown costume and a pumpkin on his head ordered.
"Open the Field!" The pumpkin man shouted as everyone watched in awe as a city appeared from nothing. All of the participants also noticed that they were each teleported to different parts of the city.
"Here are the rules of the game, all of the players are hiding and seeking at the same time! The main objective in hidden is to locate the other players, once you have done that, you will have to land an attack on them, the player that successfully connects their attack whether or not it does any damage, will then be awarded one point. There will be hundreds of lookalikes of each player and if you attack one of the lookalikes it'll cost you one point. It's time to disappear like a balck cat in an alleyway, fade into your surroundings and hide in plain sight! Let's play hidden! The game will last for thirty minutes and the team with the most points at the end will win!"
Sasori only had one string still attached to Itachi after the teleport and he didn't know where Itachi was so that he could attach more chakras threads so he had to look at the screens and make Itachi leap inside a building and hide. Since there was a possibility of going lower than zero he probably wouldn't come in last place.
After what felt like forever for Sasori as he could do nothing but watch the other competitors fight the thirty minutes was up. Sasori looked at the scoreboard for hidden and saw the results and thankfully Itachi hadn't come in last despite doing nothing the entire round.
Rufus - 6 pt
Eve - 5 pt
Lyon - 3 pt
Beth - 1 pt
Itachi - 0 pt
Jager - -1 pt
Juvia - -2 pt
Gray - -3 pt
Sabertooth - 10P
Blue Pegasus - 8P
Lamia Scale - 6P
Mermaid Heel - 4P
Akatsuki - 3P
Quatro Cerberus - 2P
Fairy Tail B - 1P
Fairy Tail A - 0P
"Mr Yajima, overall this is the result that most people were expecting. Although Mr. Yajima, did you see Itachi at any point during that game?" Chapati asked the chef on his right hand side.
"No, I think he decided to stay hidden and not risk coming in last. If I was in the arena I would have done the same thing." Yajima responded.
"Coming up next is the battle part of the contest, one member of each team will participate in a match but this isn't a tournament setup. I just received the lineup so we'll see just how fantastic the organized matches will be. The first match of the tournament will be Fairy Tail's Mystogan against Sabertooth's Orga Nanagear!" The commentator announced but Sasori didn't really care all that much. He had no intention of paying attention to the matches, instead he was practicing his reading and writing. Sasori found out that the writing used in this world was different to his old one so he had to learn it from scratch. So far he only knew the numbers and the names of his puppets so that he could tell how many points he was on. Sasori received a lot of confused stares as to why he was reading a book titled 'reading and writing for beginners' but he didn't care all that much.
Sasori heard two more matches be announced but he was too busy practicing his reading and writing to care much because his name wasn't called yet. Finally after what seemed like forever Sasori heard the commentator announce the matchup for the final match.
"The final battle of the day will be Lamia Scale's Jura against Akatsuki's Sasori!"
Sasori was happy that he got called up because it meant that he wouldn't have as much work to do. Sasori jumped down into the stadium and threw his reading and writing book on the floor behind him as he discretely picked up a scroll from his pocket. He walked towards the man named Jura and noticed that he looked like a priest with a potato for a head which he found amusing.
"That man Jura is strong but I can tell that Sasori is stronger." Mavis said sadly, she was still upset that she was able to be seen and touched. It came as an insult to her pride that one of her illusions was so faulty that it didn't work as an illusion.
"I doubt he can be that strong. I mean Jura is one of the Ten Wizard Saints, making him one of the strongest mages on the continent." Makarov responded, hoping that Jura would win. Most people in the crowd were pretty confident that Jura was going to win. The only people that were cheering for Sasori were Deidara and all of the people who felt bad for Sasori being paired against the strongest mage in the tournament.
"I wish you the best of luck." Jura said as he bowed with his hands still up his sleeves.
"Likewise." Sasori responded in a childish voice, he wanted to give off the impression that he was just a kid so that Jura might let his guard down if he was as strong as people say he was.
"Let's get this final match underway right now!" Chapati shouted as the bell rang signalling the start of the match. Sasori rushed forward at Jura with fire chakra coating his fists and engaged Jura in a close combat battle. Sasori thought that he wouldn't have to put much effort into the fight until Jura got the upperhand and was on the offensive. Jura was definitely strong but Sasori thought that he was much stronger.
The crowd cheered as Jura chopped Sasori's back and watched as Sasori fell to the ground, but what they weren't expecting was for Sasori to break into small pieces of wood. As Sasori broke, the real Sasori appeared after hiding in a genjutsu which surprised the crowd.
"Wow, you are strong, to think that I would have to use more than one puppet against you." Sasori praised the wizard saint who stood there in confusion.
"How do you have two types of magic? The fire magic that was attacking me and puppet magic? A mage is usually limited to one type of magic?" The now intrigued Jura asked.
"I only have one type of magic which is my puppet magic, the fire magic belonged to that puppet you just destroyed." Sasori responded, causing many jaws to drop.
"Your puppets can use magic?" Jura asked.
"Yep!" Sasori responded childishly.
Sasori pulled out a scroll from inside his robe and opened it. Out of the scroll appeared hundreds of puppets surrounding the arena. There were 765 to be exact and not all of them were human puppets but Sasori needed to make people think that they all could.
"Now, I think it is in your best interest to concede the match because by my count there are 765 puppets that can all use magic and that I can control simultaneously." Sasori bragged as he got all 765 puppets to fly around the sides of the arena. There was a deadly silence permeating the arena as Sasori revealed his magic.
Mavis was expecting the man to be strong but this was just a whole other level, top tier puppet mages could control two puppets at a time that couldn't use magic but this man is controlling almost a thousand of them and they can all use magic! He had to be the strongest mage on the continent, he was literally a one man army and she doubted anyone could defeat him except Zeref himself.
Sabertooth's master Jiemma looked at Sasori and decided then and there that Sasori was going to become a part of his guild. Makarov didn't know what to think, how could one man be this strong? He made the four gods of Ishgar look like Twilight Ogre mages.
Suddenly the silence was broken by Deidara cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling as loud as he could, "Good job Sasori my man!"
Deidara's yell unfroze Jura and caused him to make a decision. He knew that he stood little chance but he wasn't going to give up in front of an entire stadium and in front of his guild. He was going to try to best Sasori using all the strength he had.
Jura charged at Sasori and sent three stone pillars at his opponent. Sasori sent the third Kazekage puppet to sneak up behind Jura. He used the iron sand to block all three pillars and crush them and to capture Jura. Everyone in the crowd cheered as the battle continued, although everyone had lost any confidence they had that Jura could win after seeing Sasori easily defend against and capture Jura using only one puppet.
"Iron sand magic is quite powerful don't you think? I've dipped all of the iron sand in a poison that will put you to sleep, so I reckon you have about a couple minutes of consciousness left." Sasori exclaimed proudly. Just as Sasori was about to continue speaking to stone pillars shot out of the ground on either side of him separating both of his arms from his body. Jura wasn't expecting his arms to come right off after being hit by his attack once. Everyone in the crowd watched as the wizard that they thought was unbeatable got crippled in the arena.
"Ouch that hurt. Just kidding!" Sasori smiled as he pulled in both of his arms using chakra threads and reattached them to his puppet body. Once his arms were back he unbuttoned his Akatsuki robe and let it drop to the floor which caused Sasori's puppet body to be on display for everyone.
"Unfortunately, breaking off my limbs isn't going to work because my body is that of a puppet." Sasori informed Jura, shocking everyone. "A while ago my actual body was injured beyond repair which resulted in my death, however before I died I transfered my spirit into a puppet and have lived like this ever since. So I'm not sure if I can be classified as dead or alive." Jura's eyes would've been wide open if it weren't for the poison which was causing his eyes to close. Everyone was shocked that a forbidden spell could do something like that. Jura's consciousness finally gave in and he fell asleep due to the effects of the poison so Sasori let go of him.
"And the winner of the final match of the day is Akatsuki's Sasori!" Chapati announced causing a mixed reaction from the crowd, most people were upset that Jura lost but they were also happy that there was a mage stronger than him in the games. The scoreboard for the end of the day appeared in the arena.
Sabertooth - 20P
Blue Pegasus - 18P
Akatsuki - 13P
Fairy Tail B - 11P
Lamia Scale - 6P
Mermaid Heel - 4P
Quatro Cerberus - 2P
Fairy Tail A - 0P
I finally did a chapter longer than 1.5k words which is surprising. Did you guys like how I wrote the first day of the games? Let me know what you would have done differently and any suggestions for future battles. I will have more of Sasori's Akatsuki puppets in the next days of the GMG. Thanks for reading :)