Author's Note: Yeah I'm alive. I know it's been almost a year since I last updated and I'm really sorry about that. I've been more focused on art and scholarships and college acceptance stuff more than anything else. I ran into a bit of writer's block on this one around the middle and left it alone for a few months before getting back and continuing. I debated whether or not to write about the actual rounds at the end... but decided I might as well post this up. So anyways, enjoy. ^^

A Ninja and a Keybearer

Chapter 13: Beasts of the Coliseum

It wasn't long until the group found Leon and the others again. On the way back to report to Cid about his book, Sora had noticed that the small house beside the entrance to the second district was lit. Naruto peered into the window and quietly swallowed his fear.

"Hey, um, Sora?"

The keybearer looked at the shinobi. "Yeah? What is it? Do you see anything in there?"

Naruto looked at his friends and grinned. "It's, uh, Leon and them."

Donald quacked in delight and started walking towards the door. "Let's go in!" As Goofy followed his friend inside the small house, Sora turned to Naruto.

"We need to stick to the plan. Right now you're at the hotel with the rest of your shinobi friends and Leon doesn't know you're with us. It would be better to stay here or disappear." The genin nodded in agreement before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. The Keyblade Master simply smirked before walking in behind his friends.

Yuffie was the first to see them and jumped up with joy to greet them. "Hey, guys! Do you like our new headquarters?"

Aerith smiled. "We just cleaned it up. It's much nicer than the hotel."

Cid and Leon looked up then from their quiet conversation. The enthusiastic greeting on Sora's lips died at the sight of their grim expressions.

"Say, uh, what's goin' on?" Goofy asked, slightly worried.

Leon looked at Cid, questioningly. Cid sighed and addressed the group. "Y'all ever hear of Maleficent? I hear she's in town."

The atmosphere immediately changed as Aerith gasped and Yuffie yelled, "What?" in surprise. The air became thick with the uncomfortable silence.

"Who is she?" Sora asked quietly.

"A witch! She's a witch man!" Cid said, a level below yelling.

Leon, his back to the wall, without breaking his constant glare at the floor, said in his normal monotone voice, "She's the reason this town is full of heartless. She's not to be taken lightly."

Aerith held her hands to chest, as if to comfort herself. She took a side long looked at Leon. "She's been using the heartless for years."

"We lost our world thanks to her," the gunblader added, a slight bit of anger hinted in his voice. "That was nine years ago."

Cid flicked his nose with his thumb. "I got outta that mess and came here with these guys."

"That's awful!" Donald crossed his arms and tapped his foot. Hearing an actual account of what damage the heartless could actually do was starting to make him want to clean up the mess and he was pretty sure the others felt the same way.

"Our ruler was a wise man named Ansem," Yuffie said, adding in her two bit. "He dedicated his life to studying the heartless. It's said that he wrote a report on his findings."

"It should tell us how to get rid of the heartless," Cid said with confidence.

"Well, where is it?" the Keyblade Master asked, prepared to defeat his new foes. Cid coughed, all confidence gone.

"We don't know," Leon bluntly stated. "It got scattered when our world was destroyed."

Cid huffed and scowled at nothing in particular. "I betcha anythin' Maleficent's got most of 'em."

Sora crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back. "Then we'll find the report and bring it back!" he declared so boldly that the entire mood of the room lifted immediately. He was sure Naruto would have been proud.

"So," Cid said suddenly, determined to keep the mood happy with another conversation. "Did you deliver the book?" The group nodded. It was then that Donald noticed something odd.

Cid flicked his nose. "That navigation gummi's installed and ready to go. You find another one and you bring it to me."

Donald counted on his fingers. There was only three of their little group. "Hey, wait a second," he started to say. "Where's-!" His sentenced was immediately cut short by Sora dragging him out of the small house with a hand over his beak.

He waved goodbye as he said, "Thanks, Cid! See you later! We'll find as many of those reports as we can! Bye!"

Goofy chuckled and followed his friends. They did such strange things.


The gang had quickly hopped on the gummi ship, Donald unable to speak, or yell, the entire way. Once the doors were closed though and the ship took flight, the magician exploded into an angry storm. What he said was not at all understandable, but it is probably for the best that it wasn't.

At that precise moment, who but the Number One Most Unpredictable Shinobi walked of the dorm room rubbing sleep from his eyes? "What's all the yelling about?"

Goofy looked at the clueless Naruto to the grinning Sora and smiled widely. "I knew you had a plan!" he exclaimed happily. Donald, however, was anything but happy. It is here that we shall skip over Donald's temper tantrum and focus on more important things, like Sora's explanation of how Naruto was asleep on the ship in the first place.

"Naruto made clones of himself and sent them everywhere to fool Leon." Sora shrugged as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Naruto, fully awake now, grinned widely. "So he fell for it?"

"Everyone did," Sora informed him while they all laughed, with the exception of Donald. "So. Where to now?"

"How 'bout that world right there?" Goofy asked, pointing to it. Sand covered the bottom of the world, and giant Roman pillars stood up around a large building in the center. Two brass statues stood locked in a frozen battle above the door. Naruto's spirits began to lift a little higher. This was a fighting place, he could tell.

As the group walked through the giant double doors, awe filled their faces. "Look at this place!" Naruto exclaimed. "It's gotta be a fighting arena or something!"

Jiminy Cricket jumped out and took a look at their surroundings, whistling at the size of the place. "I believe the proper term is coliseum. The Greek Olympians would hold games here to determine who was the best of the best."

"Then let's go join the games," Naruto said excitedly. And before they could stop him, he had bolted off to through the opposite doors.


Inside the room, the walls were lined with trophies. Pedestals and a large block also lined the sides. Naruto stood by the door, waiting for his friends. With a confused look on his face, he pointed to a figure standing on one such pedestal and writing Greek letters on a board. "What is it?" he whispered.

'It' was a short, fat little man with the remnants of red hair. However, he was anything but normal. Horns stood out of his head and from his waist down, he was completely goat. Jiminy jumped out from Sora's pocket, with his large journal. He leafed through the pages until he found one particular one. "He's a satyr," he whispered. "Part man, part goat."

Sora walked up cautiously. "Um," he started to say uncertainly.

"Good timing!" The goat-man said without turning around, continuing with his little scrawls. "Give me a hand, will yah? Move that pedestal for me? I gotta spruce this place up for the games." He pointed to the large block beside the wall. Their faces fell.

"That thing?" Donald asked quietly. Sora took a deep breath and walked over to the pedestal. With every bit of strength he had he pushed against the block. He tried for quite a few minutes. It didn't even shift.

The keyblade master wiped the sweat off his brow. "It weighs a ton!" he said through ragged breaths.

Naruto marched over to the goat-man. "That things too big to move!" he almost yelled. The goat man stopped writing.

"Yeah, it's way too heavy!" Sora added.

The little man started to yell. Loudly. "What? Too heavy!" He turned around then, face slightly red. "Since when have you been such a little-" He paused when he saw just who he was talking to was actually shorter than who he had expected. He looked down and saw Sora, Naruto, Donald, and Goofy grinning at him. "Oh… Wrong guy. Call me Phil. What are you doing here?"

He jumped off the pedestal he had been standing on and started swaggering towards the group, who inched back as he did, saying, and "This here's the world-famous coliseum. Heroes only. And I got my hands full preparing for the games," he said, stressing the word 'games'. He waved his hand as if shooing them off. "So run along, pip-squeaks."

Sora's face scrunched into a scowl, but he said nothing. Naruto, on the other hand, had to be restrained by Goofy. "Pip-squeak? I'll show you pip-squeak! Why I oughta-" The knight clamped a gloved hand over the boy's mouth before he could say anything out of place.

Phil sighed and placed his hands on his hips. "Look. It's like this," he in a much softer, almost apologetic tone, as he paced in front of the group. "Heroes are coming from all over to fight ferocious monsters right here in the Coliseum."

Donald scowled and crossed his arms, replying angrily, "You got heroes standing right in front of you!"

Goofy placed his hands on Sora's shoulders, shaking him a little. "Yup. He's a real hero chosen by the keyblade!"

"And we're heroes, too!" Donald exclaimed, pointed to himself as he did.

Naruto, not wanting to be left out, proclaimed his two-bit. "And I'm gonna be the best Hokage there ever was!"

The satyr's eyebrows went up. "Well I don't know what a Hokage is, but it can't too important if you're going to be the best," he said, the laughter evident in his voice. Once again, Naruto had to be held back. Phil then pointed to Sora. "And a hero? That runt?" He laughed coarsely, holding his sides as his belly jiggled.

Sora's hands balled into fists as he took a step forward defensively. "What's so funny? I've fought lots of monsters!" Naruto mumbled something from under Goofy's hand that sounded like an agreement.

The satyr finished his bout of laughter and swiftly pointed an accusing finger. "Hey, if you can't even move this…" he said, trying to push the large pedestal. The group deadpanned as they watched him. Phil then attempted to push it with his back, "then you can't call yourselves…"Donald and Goofy exchanged glances, Sora crossed his arms and looked away, and Naruto snickered. "HEROES!" he yelled, voice strained from the effort of pushing the large rock. Phil gave up then, sliding down into a sitting position and panting from the exertion. After a moment, voice still ragged from winded breaths, he spoke. "Okay. So it takes more than brawn. Well…" he took a deep breath," well, let's see what you can do." He scowled at them, daring them to take his challenge.

Naruto stepped forward, flicking his nose. "Sure thing. We'll show you just what we're made of."


After many practice rounds of destroying barrels, everyone began getting tired and bored. Naruto, being himself, started grumbling, his temper slowly rising with each barrel. Donald, however, was getting red in the face, and not just from the exertion of energy. Even Goofy's good humor was running thin. Each and every one of them sighed with relief when Phil finally deemed them worthy of moving on from training. There was just one slight problem.

"WHAT DO YA MEAN WE CAN'T ENTER THE GAMES?" Naruto screamed.

Phil held up two fingers agitatedly. "Two words: You guys ain't heros." Goofy counted slowly on his fingers.

"Come on!" Sora begged.

"Aw phoey," Donald muttered.

Suddenly a voice cried out, heading towards the group. "Sensei! I am ready for my next training exercise!" A boy with black, bowl cut and the most enormous eye brows anyone had ever seen came running up to Phil. He was dressed in green spandex and bright orange leg warmers, which were almost as obnoxious as Naruto's jump suit. His bandaged hands formed into fists as he exclaimed, "And if cannot finish this one, then I will run around the entire coliseum- on my thumbs!"

Naruto turned around suddenly. "No way. Bushy-Brow?" The boy, just noticing the group, cried out with joy when he saw Naruto.

"Uzumaki Naruto! You cannot begin to understand the feelings of joy I feel now by seeing your worthy face! I have longed for someone to spar with, but no one in this fighting arena seems to be any good!" Naruto smiled grimly.

"They're plenty good… just can't match that endurance and energy," Phil said out of the corner of his mouth to Donald.

"I have, however, heard of the most worthy opponent ever, but alas this man they call Hercules is away." The boy suddenly turned to the rest of the group. "A thousand pardons. Had I not been so overjoyed by seeing Naruto's youthful face, I would have introduced myself. For that, I will do a thousand pushups as a punishment!"

Donald quickly raised his hands up in protest. "No, no! That's fine!"

He nodded gratefully then struck a pose. "I am Rock Lee, the Youthful Green Beast of Konoha!"

Naruto nodded. "Busy-Brow and I are friends back in Konoha. This is Sora, Donald, and Goofy. We're traveling together."

Phil spoke up then. "Seems Lee somehow found his way into the coliseum and wouldn't leave me alone until I let him into training."

Lee turned back to Naruto. "Have you have come to train as well?"

The blonde shinobi looked pointedly at Phil and said, "We were, but we're not allowed in the games."

Almost immediately, Lee got on his knees before Phil and proclaimed boldly, "Sensei, I will do anything if you would let my new friends join in the tournament!"

Phil rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you would, but I have three words for you: they ain't getting in."

Sora, fed up with the rejection, stomped out of the room and the group followed him, Naruto a bit reluctantly at first. When the door shut behind them, Sora scowled out the ground. "Come on guys, let's go." They began to make their way to gummi ship when a voiced stopped them.


"Huuuuh. Rather a stubborn old goat, wouldn't you say?" The voiced belonged to a man dressed in a black and grey toga. He was tall with a striking face, but what everyone noticed at first was the blue flames where his hair should have been. He was entirely blue and his eyes a contrasting yellow. He smirked at them.

"Who are you?" Donald asked, pointing an accusing finger.

The man waved his hands and walked towards them. "Whoa, hey, hold on there, fuzz boy."

"What do you want?" Naruto asked crossly. The blonde was in a foul mood and he scowled menacingly.

The man chuckled. "Wait, let me guess. You want to enter the games, right?" He stopped walking once he was behind Sora. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and held out his hand. "Well, then take a look at this." In a ball of blue flame, a gold card appeared between his fingers. In bold gold print, it read, 'Official Entry Pass for the Olympian Games'.

"A pass?" the keyblader asked in wonderment as he took it in his hand.

As the man began to walk away, Naruto called out after him. "What's the catch? Huh?"

He chuckled and didn't even bother turning around. "No catch. It's all yours." He held up a hand in farewell. "Good luck, kids. I'm pullin' for ya little shorty." In a moment, he was gone, completely vanished into thin air.

The group stared at the spot he had just been in. Goofy scratched his head. "Say, just who do ya think that feller was?"

A smiled slowly started growing on the blonde shinobi's face. "Who cares? We get to enter the games!" Sora and Naruto immediately started running to the lobby entrance, laughing all the way.

Goofy looked at Donald and frowned. "Y'know somethin', I have a bad feelin' about this." Donald looked back up at his old friend and nodded in agreement; worry lines showing on his face.


"Phil! Phil!" Sora and Naruto ran in, screaming in unison. "We got a pass!"

The satyr snatched the golden piece of paper from them and looked at it incredulously. "Hey, how'd you get this?"

"We can enter the games now right?" Sora pressed, ignoring his question on purpose.

Phil bit his lip and rolled his eyes. "Fine! I guess. We start with the preliminaries!"

At that moment, Rock Lee burst through the doors, tears streaming down his face. "Thank you, sensei! We will all make you proud!"

The old trainer raised an eyebrow. "'We'?"

"Yes! I plan to enter the games with my new friends!" Everyone grinned widely. What a great team they'd make! They'd be sure to win.

"HOLD IT!" The goat walked in between them all, staring them down, daring anyone to be happy. "Rule Number 156; No more than three contestants in a team." Everyone's faces fell.

Phil sighed and spoke up again. "However, you can all split up into smaller teams."

No one wanted to split up, but finally Naruto spoke first. "I'll team up with Bushy-Brows. We know how the other fights, so it'll be easier for us."

Sora nodded at him and turned back to Phil. "Let's get this thing started."


Getting into the games was easy.. a little too easy. Nothing is completely free, you know, not even special passes. What's the catch? How will Sora and the gang fair in their rounds? Who is that mysterious blonde man awaiting his turn to fight in the corners? And just why was that man with the flaming hair so generous? Meanwhile, back in Traverse Town, will Sakura be able to get to her friends in time to protect them? Will Ansem finally realize that she can be trusted? NEXT TIME: Finding the Light