Some of my readers may wonder why I use my pen name as my main character's name. The reality is that it is the other way around. Ever since I created this story I have fallen in love with the character and use his name every chance I get. I own nothing except my own characters.

All the freshmen were here now. It had only taken them about fifteen minutes after the academic school's dismissal. At least they were all eager to learn, but they wouldn't be actually taught anything until they were put in teams, and that was going to be the fun part.

They had all brought their ninja tools as instructed as well. The kid who'd worn brown the day before carried a giant gourd on his back. The blond girl brought a dog. The girl with the sarashi wrap had worn a black jumpsuit with yellow at all the seems. Yet another had several scrolls strapped to her leg. There were also a few with carrying belts. The only one who didn't seem to have changed his appearance was Onimaru.

Mina felt a grin appear on her face as she thought about how they were going to team them up. Ki-Sho, Motoko, and Torishima were already getting the sophomores. Mina felt her smirk grow into a smile and keep getting bigger as she thought more about what was going to happen today. Watching these freshmen get put in their place would be entertaining. Some of them were a bit to cocky for their own good. At least that was the way she recalled it from when she was in high school.

She noticed that Onimaru, who seemed to be the most alert out of the new freshmen, was beginning to figure out that she was the only "teacher" there at the moment.

He began to slip away from the group and made his way to her without being noticed by anyone except the girl with the ponytail and dark hair. Mina thought her name was Shinya, but seeing as how she'd only heard the girl's name once and she hadn't done anything to be memorable, she wasn't sure.

--------------------------------

Onimaru was within casual speaking range with Mina. "Where're the other three?" he asked. She was the only one of the "teachers" there. He was going to have a hard time listening to her as a teacher though. She only looked like she had just gotten out of high school, she looked around his older brother Hijema's age, who was nineteen.

"You'll find out soon enough. It has to do with setting up the teams." They had something planned that would only be fun for them. Onimaru could tell just by looking at her, even though he'd just met her the day before. The smile on her face was more of an excited smile of anticipation, rather than actual happiness.

Onimaru remembered the previous day and how she'd somehow been able to control other objects. "How do you manipulate things the way you did?" Hearing the word manipulate out-loud, even if he had been the one who said it, set off a spark in his mind. Before Mina could answer his question, he interrupted her with another one. "You're a puppet user, aren't you?"

She seemed pleased that he found that out himself. "Yup" was all she said.

"How come you haven't used your actual puppets yet?"

She seemed slightly surprised, then became serious. "Trust me, you don't want to see me use them, since I only use them when I have to."

Before Onimaru had a chance to ask her what that meant, Mina yelled to the group. "Okay people! Hurry up and come here."

As everyone approached Mina she said "Line up from left to right." Onimaru fell in line with the others as they all heeded Mina's instructions. "As you learned yesterday, you are about to be put into teams."

"Wait." Shinya said, "Don't we get to choose our teams?!"

"No." Mina continued. "We are going to have you fight and we will evaluate your skills and be placed into teams accordingly. Any training exercise and most missions you participate in will be with your team, though you probably won't be participating in missions for a while. Any objections?" No one spoke. "Good. The exercise you will participate in today is..." She paused and her face lit up. Onimaru feared that they would have to fight the "teachers." By the look on her face she was really anticipating what was about to happen. She finished her sentence "Each of you will fight a sophomore one-on-one, and I'd be surprised if any of you won your fights. This year's sophomores are quite good."

As if on cue eighteen people entered the room, twelve of them sophomores, three of them "teachers," and three of them upper class-men, most likely Juniors. Because Onimaru used to be in their grade, he knew most of the sophomores, but there were three he didn't recognize.

"The first one to fight will be..." Mina, still beaming, pointed at Tira, "you. Everyone else line up against the wall and wait your turn. The fight will start when the sophomore you're fighting says so."

They all began to walk toward the wall. As Onimaru passed Tira, he said the only thing that he could to encourage her, seeing as how he barely knew her. "Good luck."

She smirked and grabbed one of the four scrolls strapped to the side of her leg. As he walked away he heard her say "I'll show ya' luck." She was ready to fight. Onimaru smiled and said nothing more as he headed for the wall.

I appologise for the short chapter, but I wanted the entire fight to be in one chapter and its a tad long, so i stopped here. Reviews would be appreciated.