Chapter 4 – Graduation Test

Blood.

Blood spilt on the windows, spilt across the courtyard. The air reeked of the victims' crimson liquid.

Sesu looked in horror around the place that had been his home. So many were dead. All those he could call family.

"Taki!" Sesu rushed into the main house, tracking blood and flesh that ripped off the bodies he stepped over to reach the upstairs. He rested, his heart pounding in his ears. "Taki!" he cried once more, pounding on the door. The door opened easily, swinging wide to his frantic hits.

The room was stained crimson. Worse than the rest of the house, blood covered every wall, very window so that all you saw was that horrific color. The smell of it was nauseating.

"Sesu…"

"Taki!" Sesu rushed to the side of his friend and brother, crumpled, hidden beside the blood-soaked bed. His breath came in short gasps. His eyes stared blankly in the direction of Sesu's face. "You can't die…" Sesu encouraged, in barely a whisper. He didn't believe it himself.

"Forgive… me…"

"For what?" Tears began to stream down his cheeks. He had cried so often in his childhood, but they were nothing like this. Sesu had never felt it like this. "You didn't do anything."

"I couldn't… protect you…"

"You can't die!" Sesu buried his head in Taki's shoulder. "You can't." He stood up, carrying his friend delicately in his arms. "I won't let you."

Sesu rushed from the building, across the grounds, blood staining his body, his clothes. Bodies crunched beneath his feet. He paid no attention.

The hospital building looked so far away. It looked so far away and didn't seem to get any closer. He ran for what seemed like hours. Taki's breath was getting shorter and shorter.

"You're killing him!" Sesu screamed at the ghastly building. "You're killing him!"

The door refused to give way to his frequent pounding. He shoved his shoulder into it, threw weapons at it, pounded at it some more.

"You're… killing… him…" Sesu slumped to the ground. They weren't opening. They were going to let Taki die. They would let the only person Sesu really cared for die.

Anger pulsed through him. Roaring filled his ears. He stood up slowly.

"I won't… let you… KILL HIM!!!"

The door flew open to his strength, falling into the dark abyss behind it.

"Interesting," Hagane noted, wrapping his arm carefully.

"It is," Jie agreed. He looked at the arm that Hagane had decided to wrap. "He did that?"

Hagane nodded slowly. He looked down at the wound. Clean puncture wounds, almost as if he had been bitten by a wild animal, but animals didn't burn the arm when they bit it too.

"Have you finished already, Jie?"

"It was too easy. I have no fears."

"You have fear. I just picked the wrong one." Hagane looked his new student up and down, appraising him. The boy obviously was confident, he wore no padding at all; a fishnet shirt and short-sleeved vest worn with basic pants was all he seemed to feel he needed.

"Will he be graduating too, then?" Jie nodded mildly in the unconscious Sesu's direction.

"Yeah. He moved beyond fear into action. He couldn't see through the genjutsu though, and that worries me."

"And him?"

The third boy lay in a crumpled ball, hugging his knees as he lived through his nightmare.

"No. He will not graduate. He needs a little more training before he will ever be able to face the life we are forced to lead."

"A two-man cell?"

"If we have to. I want to see who the other jounin have passed, and who they considered promising first." He knelt down by Sesu and held his hand, only inches from the child's face. Chakra swirled for a moment, and calm swept over the boy's terrified and angry face. He walked over to the other boy, Nobuhito, he had introduced himself, and dispelled the dream.

"Take Sesu," Hagane said to Jie. "Wait for him to wake up and tell him. I've heard about him, and I think he needs to hear it from a peer."

"You don't want him to think he hurt you."

Hagane smiled. "I've heard about you, Jie. You and I are in for a good time."

"Good," Jie grinned widely as he lifted the dark-haired boy's bulk with mock ease, and promptly disappeared.

Hagane sighed, watching how slow the boy moved. He would die quickly if he kept this attitude. He would have to be broken of that.

One more sigh escaped his lips as he turned to wake Nobuhito and tell him the news.