“Wait wait wait… I’m doing what now?”

It had been a day or so since Kisei had completed the second trial, with flying colors I may add, effortlessly really, before he was summoned to meet his next proctors for this bloody chuunin exam.They paired just outside the entrance to his hotel, and Kisei may or may not have subtly, not so subtly, hit on them. Sure he was like twenty but that was only four years ahead of him! They were really cute too! Too bad they weren’t at all interested in me, I would’ve been all over him, damn he was hot. Which brought him to his current situation.

There they were. High up the romantic mountains of the Kumogakure, lightning striking around them at random. He lead me to one of the formations shaped like a dome. The walls were thick and isolated, unfazed by the roar of lightning pounding against their hard surfaces. Inside of the walls they stood in front of a massive arena with a open air ceiling. Nothing but metal steel bars caging them in. It was then that he explained I was going to be fighting some of Kumogakure’s native wildlife.

“Wait wait wait…. I’m doing what now?” I protested, still dazed from his journey into the deep blues of his proctor’s eyes. A cough from the older man reminded Kisei of his last warning. “Fine fine, so I’m fighting something, easy. Who?” I asked dismissively, taking a step forward.Suddenly I was shoved into the caged arena and down onto the sandy floor. “Oof.” He huffed. Quickly he shoved himself back to his feet. Dusting off his clothes and both his weapons.

“So as I was telling you, before you glazed off to dreamland.” The proctor spoke tiredly over the intercom. “For this exam you’ll be tested against your ability to survive against a vastly superior opponent. In this case, a tiger.”

Kisei tilted his head in confusion. A tiger? On the opposite side of the arena a dark hallway drew into existence as the wall slid open. It appeared empty for the moment. He readied his umbrella in his left hand and armed his right with the pinwheel, flicking the switch on the bottom and bringing the contraption to life. “Well whatever this beast it I can take it on.”

Apparently they must have receivers in here because his proctor’s voice came back on, “Oh, I think you’ll find this one to be be much more dangerous than your typical animal.”

Just then a flash of blue and yellow briefly lit the dark hallway. Kisei squinted his working eye. Another flash. Then another. They are getting quicker. He thought to himself. He braced for battle. Twisting his body to hold the umbrella directly facing his would be opponent. The flashes were going off near constantly. Kisei blinked, briefly catching sight of the creature. No freaking way.

“Meet our resident Storm Tiger. Stronger than most chuunin and just as fast too, I’d wish you luck but it wouldn’t really do much to save ya right now. This one hasn’t eaten in a few days, they’ll be hungry.”

The tiger poked its head out into the light of the arena. A lightning strike over head inspired a massive, bone shaking roar from the storm tiger. The Ushinatta shivered at the sheer force of the sound. He could swear he felt his weapons vibrating. A timer on the wall slid out from the rocky surface. Displaying a one with two zeros after it. “You have one minute to survive. One misstep will lead to certain death, oh, and if you get any ideas about trying to escape-” Lightning struck the cage head on, shaking the entire framework once more, but Kisei saw what they were talking about. “-Exactly, these bars conduct electricity extremely well. I suggesting you don’t touch them. You have one minute, the time will start when the tiger completely enters the arena.”

That meant more time to figure out the plan- ROAR!

Kisei cringed, resisting the urge to cover his eyes. His eyes widened at the sight happening in front of him. The tiger, halfway out of the doorway, was sparking with actual electricity. Not only that, they were massive. They roared again, shaking the entire arena. The electric markings all along their body sharply pulsed with electricity as power arced off of their bodies, collecting into small spear around their body! “It can cast jutsu!?” I exclaimed. It immediately roared, firing the javelin directly above their head at Kisei. He quickly spun to his right, dodging the shot of lightning. Mid-spin he heard another roar and caught sight of the other two javelins flying towards him. He flipped, jumping backwards and landing on the wires. Oh no. I panicked, forgetting that these bars were metal, in the land of lightning.

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, immediately striking the cage and causing his entire body to fry. “AH!” The teen screamed as he fell to the ground with a hard thud. His ears were ringing from the impact of the lightning and he could tell that he landed wrong, his shoulder protesting vehemently against this fight. Throbbing painfully as Kisei tried to push himself back to his feet. Although his sight was still blurry and his hearing was ringing from the lightning strike he could still feel the pounding of the tiger as he charged out from its hiding place. He flicked a glance to the timer on the wall. ‘0:58’

Well, they did say it would start once the tiger manned up and entered the arena. Just his luck that he was already injured. He weakly got to his feet. The tiger already halfway to him. Just his luck indeed. Kisei grinned. A lightning aligned tiger fighting him? Perfect.

He readied himself. Tightening his calves. 1… 2… now! Just as the tiger lunged for the kill Kisei spun on his heel counter clockwise while he pulsed his chakra system. A massive wind picked up around him, swirling in violent currents as it repelled the tiger in full force; knocking it to the ground. The massive beast rolling even after leaving the jutsu’s range. Now facing the beast head on he charged his weapons with wind chakra, first swinging his pinwheel, then his umbrella, then his pinwheel again. Gusts of wind bursting from them with each swing. As they made contact with the sparking tiger they exploded in bursts of light and electricity. The animal roared in pain with each strike.

As expected, just as wind will defeat a bolt of lightning, so too will wind destroy those affiliated with lightning as well. After the fifth swing his jutsu ended, leaving him panting with sudden exhaustion. “Seems that I haven’t recovered yet.” Well, I did just get hit with lightning, no way I can shrug that off so easily. The tiger continued to roar weakly as it pawed its nose. For a moment he almost felt sorry for the poor thing. Screw that. Looking at the time he still had ‘40 seconds’. To his amazement the tiger was already starting to get back up. There was no way he could fight this thing for that long. I was hoping to save this for the final exams but it seems like I don’t really have a choice here.

His pinwheel, still buzzing with life, was aching for some action. Letting his umbrella drop to the hard ground. “Not exactly sure that this will work, so for both our sakes lets hope this works, and hold still!” He screamed. The Ushinatta prodigy flew off with a burst of wind at his feet. Simultaneously swinging his pinwheel. Though now it was arcing with electricity, his own this time, as it flew forward, striking both of the tigers legs as the weapon arced back to his left before ultimately being drawn back to the main rod for the pinwheel.

It gave a curious look as it fell forward. The hind legs still holding its lower half up, before falling too. He ran forward and stabbed forward, just grazing the tiger’s chest. It opened its maw, about to roar, before slowly closing it again. He glanced back to the timer. ‘35 seconds.’ He huffed an appreciative sigh. This match was as good as over. He could keep this tiger paralyzed for an hour if he wanted to, thirty five more seconds was nothing.

He powered down his pinwheel, keeping the electric charge flowing, no need to throw away his only chance at victory. So he sat down at eye level with the tiger. Staring into its deep inhuman eyes, as they stared back at him.

He just needed to occasionally poke the tiger three times in a row and he was safe, so he took this rare occasion to vent. “Since we probably won’t ever see each other again, I want to share something with you. Something that has been weighing on me for a while now. Something I had almost forgotten.” He whispered, sighing calmly. Softly petting the tigers head, poking them in the chest three times again. It was a rather paradoxical situation they had going here. “I didn’t come from this world, though, your world is much smaller than mine. You probably never get to leave these mountain eh? So I’ll try to explain it to you.” Three more pokes, and gentle touches that never left the restrained beast.

“There are-” He sighed, “-were a lot of walls, like the ones around us. But they were white, and gray, and broken. The pieces scattered all around, no one tried to fix it, no one could. That was my home. Where everyone killed or was killed. Kindness shouldn’t have existed, and for a while I hadn’t known what it was. Sure my brother protected me, there were people who fed me, but I never knew what kindness was. My mother…. She was too devastated to properly care for me, and I didn’t even know how to care for others. But one day….” Tears built up behind his eyes. “I met this one boy you see, he came in with a simple, “How do you do?”, and smile. Oh god that smile.” Kisei sniffed, openly crying. “He was so beautiful, I nearly died just from being near him. We would talk, and cheer each other up, distracting ourselves from the nightmare of a reality around us. His whole existence contradicted that world, he was everything good in that world, my broken home. I wanted him so badly! I didn’t know what my feelings were at the time, but I could see it so clearly now, feel it.” He patted the head of the tiger, softly poking the creature with his crackling pinwheel, checking the beast to make he sure hadn’t killed it accidently. When he felt a soft breathe against his hand he continued. Stroking its mane as he spoke.

“He was my beautiful angel, and… I would’ve down everything for him, but… in the end… I couldn’t save them.” He was opening crying now, not even bothering to hold back his pain. “I can, so clearly, remember his face as everything was burning, so pained, and betrayed.. I wanted to do nothing more than die. If I couldn’t have my angel I would rather die, but apparently I didn’t love him as much as I thought.” He laughed deprecatingly. “In my world there was a story about a man who lost his wife and traveled to the underworld to rescue her. He managed to convince the gatekeeper to let him through, and persuaded the keeper of souls to free the spirit of his wife. On the condition that he must not look at her before he reached the surface. Long story short just as he was about to escape the underworld with his wife he turned around, and she disappeared.” He curled up against the tiger, stroking its soft tingling fur. “But if he loved her so much, he should’ve died to be with her. They say that he never loved her that deeply because of that. Such a weak thing as human curiosity overpowering his love? No. He did no love her as much as he wanted everyone to believe.”

Kisei was vaguely aware of the timer going off a while ago, but he couldn’t bring himself to separate from the suddenly complacent tiger. It almost holding him sympathetically in their arms. “Why couldn’t I just have died there.” Kisei cried. “Why can’t I be with my angel?”


2135/2000 MISSION COMPLETE
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