The announcement for the next match boomed through the coliseum. "And now, for a special treat! One of the last two Uzumaki left in the world, a priceless gem wearing the ID tag of Lady Kaguya-hime, Karin Uzumaki!"
Karin flinched as her name echoed across the stone tiers. A wave of gasps and murmurs rippled through the crowd. Even the most jaded noble paid attention at the mention of a living Uzumaki, a clan famed for its vitality and sealing jutsu.
"And the person who will face her," he continued, "wearing the ID tag of Lord Masaru, the 'Blazing Comet,' Rikuto!"
Karin stood up, her movements stiff. She gave me one last, wide-eyed look, and then followed the attendant down towards the arena floor. As she disappeared from view, I settled back into my seat, my expression perfectly serene.
Though through my Byakugan I could clearly see the panic in Kanna as she heard the announcement, I had sent her out to get us some snacks, making the opening for me to send in Karin, because Kanna would never allow her daughter to fight.
Because, while Karin didn't understand the cost of losing, how could Kanna not? To lose, to have the ID tag stolen, meant becoming the property of the other fighter's owner.
A slave.
Pure and simple.
The arena floor seemed to swallow Karin whole. The sand was soft under her sandals, a stark contrast to the packed earth of the courtyard she was used to. The stands rose up on all sides, a sheer wall of faces, some curious, some greedy, some bored. The noise was a physical force, pressing in on her, a thousand heartbeats and a thousand breaths all blending into a single, deafening roar.
Her opponent, Rikuto, was already waiting for her. He was older than her, perhaps by three or four years, and taller. His dark hair was slicked back, and he wore a smug, self-satisfied smile. The flames painted on his cheeks seemed to dance in the torchlight.
"Well, well," he said, his voice dripping with condescension as he looked her up and down. "The famous Uzumaki. I expected someone… more."
Karin said nothing. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat in the cacophony of the crowd. She remembered my words. Information is a weapon. He is a weapon. She closed her eyes for just a second, focusing not on the roar, but on the single, vibrant pulse of chakra that was Rikuto.
"Kaguya-hime!" Kanna shouted, a mix of panic and rage, as she burst into the private VIP booth we had. This was likely the very first time she took such a tone with me. But her anger was understandable; she was just a mother who thought her daughter was being harmed. "Why is Karin down there?"
I didn't even turn to face her, my gaze still locked on the arena. "She is fine, Kanna," I said, my voice calm. "This is a lesson she needs to learn. The world is not a kind place. It is better she learns this in a controlled environment, where the stakes are known, than out there where they are not."
"She is a child!" Kanna's voice rose, cracking with emotion.
"She is an Uzumaki," I countered, my tone shifting, becoming as hard as diamond. "She is the inheritor of a legacy of strength and resilience. Hiding her away in a villa, teaching her that the world is a safe place, would be the cruelest thing we could do to her. This is her birthright, in a way. To face the fire and not be burned."
Down in the arena, the referee gave the signal. "Begin!"
Rikuto immediately went on the offensive, just as I had predicted. He wanted to impress his master and the crowd. "Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" he shouted, weaving through the familiar seals.
"No! Kaguya-hime, you have to stop this! What if she loses!" Kanna's desperation was a raw, living thing in the enclosed space of the booth. She grasped my arm, her fingers digging into my skin.
A volley of small fireballs shot towards Karin. The crowd oohed and aahed at the pretty display. To them, it was a light show. To Karin, it was a predictable, telegraphed attack.
She didn't try to dodge. Instead, she did something unexpected. She held her ground, and as the fireballs neared, she sidestepped the first, then the second, her movements small, efficient, almost lazy. She was flowing through the gaps in the attack, her senses fully attuned to the ebb and flow of Rikuto's chakra. She could feel the heat building in his chest before he even exhaled the flames.
"What if she loses?" I repeated Kanna's question, finally turning to face her. My Byakugan was still active, and I could see the entire fight in perfect detail. "There isn't a chance that she won't," I said, my words as sharp and cold as a shard of ice.
I had picked her opponent carefully, and while Rikuto did fight like a fool and had some big flaws, he was still far stronger and far more skilled than the current Karin. A year of training and Karin would crush him easily, but as she was now?
No chance at all.
She would lose the fight.
But that didn't mean she would lose her freedom.
"What do you mean?" Kanna asked, her anger momentarily overridden by confusion.
"Watch," I said, turning my attention back to the fight.
Rikuto was getting frustrated. His grand attacks were being dodged with insulting ease. The crowd was starting to mutter. The "Blazing Comet" was being made a fool of by a little girl.
"Stop playing around and get me that girl!" a voice shouted at him, and Rikuto flinched at the words, likely coming from his owner.
Gritting his teeth, he decided to end this. He slammed his palms together, pouring more chakra into the technique. "Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique!" he roared.
A much larger, more concentrated stream of fire erupted from his mouth, far more powerful than the previous attack. It was a C-rank jutsu, more than enough to seriously injure, if not kill, a genin.
The crowd gasped. This was more like it. This was the spectacle they had paid for.
But Karin was still calm.
Her senses were screaming at her, telling her everything she needed to know. She could feel the chakra building in his lungs, the heat rising in his throat. She knew the exact trajectory of the fireball before it even left his lips.
And as the dragon of fire roared towards her, she did something that made no sense.
She ran towards it.
A dangerous move, a foolish one, but I understood why she did it, because she had seen me easily cut my way through fire. I had done a few demonstrations for her over the years, so she knew it was possible to deal with Fire Release.
And I saw through the Byakugan how she mobilized her chakra, how she used it, like how I had explained.
I was impressed; I hadn't expected her to pick up on this technique.
Clearly, her talents were better than I had originally expected.
Still, she made one mistake, one that cost her any chance of winning.
She forgot, or rather, she didn't know, about the fact that fire consumed oxygen, and that she needed that to breathe, to live.
A few moments without it weren't enough to kill her, but it did make her dizzy and disoriented.
She dodged the initial blast, her small frame twisting in a way that seemed impossible, but the heat was immense, and the air was thin. She gasped, her lungs burning, trying to draw in a breath that wasn't there. She stumbled, her vision swimming for a moment.
Rikuto saw his chance. He was already close, having followed up his jutsu with a charge. He lunged forward, his hand outstretched, aiming for the ID tag dangling from her neck.
The crowd roared, sensing the end of the fight.
He was going to win.
And he did.
His fingers closed around the tag, and with a sharp tug, he ripped it from her neck. He held it up, triumphant, a grin splitting his face.
The referee rushed in, blowing his whistle. "The winner is Rikuto! Lady Kaguya-hime has lost her fighter!"
The crowd erupted in a mix of cheers and boos. Some had bet on Karin, intrigued by the novelty of an Uzumaki, but most had put their money on the more established fighter.
Rikuto's owner, Lord Masaru, a corpulent man with a greasy smile, was laughing and clapping, delighted with his new acquisition.
I held up a hand to stop Kanna from saying anything; my focus was on the stage.
"That.... that's not fair! I almost had you!" Karin complained angrily, still not understanding the weight and consequence of her loss, too sheltered, and deliberately kept in the dark. I wanted her to experience a taste of reality, a taste of the consequences, but I didn't want her to break from the stress. She was still so young.
Rikuto just laughed at her. "Almost only counts in horseshoes and kunai throwing, not here, and now you belong to my master," he told her, his tone smug and arrogant as he looked down at her.
"What does that mean?" Karin asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"It means you are my property now, you will do as I say," Lord Masaru said as he waddled onto the stage, "and I say, you are to bow down to your new master!"
"No! She will do no such thing!" Kanna shouted, but her words were lost in the noise of the crowd.
Lord Masaru was clearly displeased with her defiance, more so since she dared to do so in front of everyone. In his anger, he brought his hand up to strike her. The crowd quieted, a tense silence falling over the coliseum. Even the most jaded noble knew that damaging a rare commodity like an Uzumaki was foolish, but Lord Masaru was not a wise man.
He was a fool.
And fools often do foolish things.
"I said bow!" he roared, his hand swinging down.
Yet, his hand did not land on Karin's face; instead, it landed on the ground with a heavy, wet thump. His arm, from the elbow down, was gone.
He stared at the stump in disbelief, blood spurting from the wound, spraying crimson across the sand. The crowd gasped, a collective intake of breath.
The next instant, he screamed like a slaughtered pig, too busy with the sudden loss of his arm to notice what had removed it from his body.
But the rest of the coliseum knew.
Then, they saw me.
I was standing on the stage, a bone blade in my hand, still dripping blood, my expression cold as ice. The air around me crackled with a palpable killing intent, so thick and heavy that it felt almost physical. "Be silent, worm!" I said, and swung the bone again, this time separating his head from his shoulders. He died with a look of shock and disbelief on his face.
A single drop of his blood landed on my cheek, and I didn't even flinch. "Anyone else want to try and claim what is mine?" I asked, my voice a low growl that silenced the entire coliseum.
The crowd was frozen, a sea of pale faces staring up at me, the silence of a thousand people was a heavy blanket over the coliseum.
Rikuto, the victor, stood trembling, the ID tag still clutched in his hand. He looked from the headless corpse of his master to me, and his face went white. He dropped the tag as if it were burning him.
The announcer didn't have his level of awareness, nor his sharpened senses to pick up on the deadliness of my bloodlust. He was not a shinobi, but a performer, a showman. "That... That's against the rules!" he screamed in protest, as if the rules were some sacred law that couldn't be overturned. "You can't just kill the owner of a winning fighter!"
I turned my gaze to him. "Do not presume to tell me what I can't or can do, nor that your rules can bind someone as noble as me! He was filth, trying to touch his better, someone of true noble blood, that is what he gets."
(End of chapter)
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