Shogunate

The Endurance Test of Hell

The 21 remaining contestants all stood in front of their banners, people cheered and cheered as the usual Taiko drums were cut as Sukuna once again approached the microphone.

"Welcome to the second day of the Gladiator Games! Today we are going to be moving quick as the challenge today is one that takes a lot of time. Our clue yesterday for the champions was 'I do not expect you to come unscathed, but I do expect you to survive. What am I?'"

"Now 2 of you have guessed it today. Megumi Fushiguro, special grade, and Jin Sakura, district 17, and third grade, please step forward."

The two stepped forward, and both received a card, "Now that card holds the name of the weak point of what you will be fighting today, so use that to your advantage." Sukuna smiled at the rest of the champions. "Now in your invitation to join the games you were all required to pay for cursed reversal patches. As the games go on, I prefer to test the strength and endurance of my potential generals, so for every challenge except for the first and the last challenge, you all are required to wear cursed reversal patches that block you from healing yourself with any cursed technique."

Soldiers came around and put the a patch on everybody's wrist, just like the one Toji and Megumi had used on Gojo when they captured him in the Middle East.

"The challenge today is simple. We want to see who can survive without curse reversal technique and make a substantial impact in the rest of the games so we will be having an endurance test. I do not expect any of you to come out okay, I just expect you all to pass. Now this test I had entertained the idea of having it as a standard in the military to be able to pass it, but it was so difficult for a first grade to pass, I had to scrap it. Now, most of you are first grades, three of you are third grades, and five of you are special grades. I expect only half of you to pass."

The dirt in the middle of the arena began morphing into 21 skinny glass tubes. "The challenge works as such, every contestant has their own glass pipe that leads to an underground hell scape. It has a trap door however at ground level that keeps the contestants up. The pipes are designed to put the subjects through things such as dust storms, tornadoes, fire, snow, lack of oxygen, cursed energy overload, and many other things. As the champions test their endurance on the surface, every once in a while a contestant will be randomly dropped down to the hell scape below them where they will fight a blood thirsty curse that is designed to be their weakness. The challenge will end once every body has been in the hell scape twice.  In order to pass you must either kill your beast, or simply survive all of endurance tests, including the beast. If you pass out or are eaten by the beast, rest assured you will not die. I have safety measures to prevent that. Now could my soldiers please place everybody in their assigned pipe?"

Soldiers began to walk around, leading each champion to their own glass pipe. Gojo was placed in the 19th pipe to reflect his rank in the games so far. As soon as they were in their pipes, the pipes moved around to form a circle, each contestant facing the crowd. Gojo could see Megumi in his pipe, only two pipes away.

"Let the endurance test, commence!" Sukuna sat back in his throne in the luxury box, and you were sitting beside him, a veil still over your face. On your lap sat the young boy, Touma.

Gojo kept his eyes on you as the pipe began to get hotter. Sukuna noticed Gojo looking at you and narrowed his eyes before leaning over and lifting you veil the tiniest bit just to kiss you. Gojo glared and went to touch the glass but found it burnt his finger. Sukuna noticed that and laughed.

The heat in the pipe got increasingly hotter. He began to literally steam as he struggled to not touch the walls of the glass. Meanwhile Megumi looked stoic, and stood up straight despite steaming as well. Next to Gojo however, Fumiko was already being taken out of her pipe. As soon as she was taken out of her pipe, the pipe disappeared and the circle got smaller. The heat finally went away, as it began to cool off. Gojo sighed, but it wasn't long before his sweat began to literally freeze on his face. His fingers and nose were turning purple as he struggled to keep them warm. Megumi still stood stoically in his pipe. The rest of the contestants were shivering like crazy. Jin, the third grade who always solved the riddles, was literally spinning around to try and keep himself warm.

After a little bit of the freezing temperatures, it went back to normal, room temperature. After a little bit of nothing happening, and single blade shot through the center of the tube. One person had been stabbed through the brain. The blade for Gojo did not even go down all the way due to his infinity.

The circle got smaller once again, and it began to get harder to breathe. Everybody was spiraling into delirium-even Megumi. They were all laughing, and talking to each other and themselves. One girl, due to her delirium, tried to pole dance on the blade running through the middle of the pipe, and found her leg being cut clean off. She passed out due to blood loss and was taken out of the pipe.

The circle got smaller.

There was still a lack of oxygen, when all of a sudden one of the pipe, trapdoors opened. Somebody screamed as the trap door underneath them opened and they wouldn't come back up.

The circle got smaller.

They had lost four champions which meant there were 17 left.

The blade retracted from the middle of the pipe and the oxygen levels were rising. Next smoke filled the pipes, and several people began to cough up blood.

After the smoke cleared, the excessive heat returned, and two more contestants were let down into the hell scape. Only one returned.

The circle got smaller.