Mana couldn't keep on looking long after the next fight started. She wasn't even sure about what she should've done next. The person she was trying to become would've busted in and stopped all the fighting, right now out there in the arena there were people trying to kill each other. But was Mana that person really? She was never anyone special and now she'd lost even what little special that she had. What was her plan actually? Maybe Bult was right about everything, she spoke a lot of things about peace and saving everyone but she didn't even know the further course of action.
"Come on, let's go..." A guard rudely grabbed Mana from behind and dragged her down from the small stand where she could almost see the people bashing their faces in inside the arena.
"Go? Go where?" She mumbled out, her voice was still muffled and ridden with confusion and stress.
"You've had your chance to earn a nice place to spend your nights in. You've squandered that so you're being moved to the basement. We're moving some new folks, Damij's crew into your cell. After today it'll clean up..." The guard replied caring little that Mana dared to speak.
"Clean up?" Mana spoke but the guard slammed her against the wall warning her without a word that his brief explanation was as good as she would get without pushing it too far.
What could that have meant? Why would her and Bult's cell clean up after that day, she was alive and so was Bult until the fight concluded. Something must've been wrong, something shady must've been going on. Bult's hand was busted up and his entire body was riddled with scars of various sizes but he was a long time veteran and normally shouldn't be counted out unless...
"He's being slaughterfest'ed..." Mana realized. She turned back after the realization hit her but the guard started pushing her even more violently. Whatever little decency she had before was now gone after she lost to an underdog of the roster. Mana's body and mind were taken over by a new sensation – fear and not knowing what to do. Her normal human body was working so slowly, thinking so slowly and shaking like a leaf. A ninja thought fast, acted fast, everything in their bodies, even the signals in their brains were supercharged. Being how she was made Mana feel like she had a mental condition or something.
"What are you, having a panic attack or something? Don't worry, the fighting is over for today, you get to live another day... Not that you tried too hard to earn it, though." The grumpy guard replied laughing half-assedly after that last remark. "Those moves were pretty sick, what were you a dancer maybe?" The man asked but Mana didn't reply, she knew better than to speak in her current standing with the guards and the roster.
The new cell she was shut in was pitch dark, moist and rather cold. If one was troubled too much by the desert heat there was some solace in this dark cube of containment but it did its best to completely limit all the other senses. Mana didn't even doubt that she'd go blind after a spending some time in that pitch blackness surrounded by a silence so quiet that after some time her own mind started imagining screeching noises just to make sense of it all. Finally, something above started leaking, drops of cold but smelly water from above entertained her fleeing mind at least for several moments.
Mana wrapped into a ball grabbing hold of her head, trying to keep her mind intact. There was a conflict once again between what had to be done and what Mana wanted to do. Just like every time she did anything, Mana was forced to choose between her mission objective and what she had to do to become the person she wanted to end up being. Mana's mission was clear – help her team confirm the Box's location, even while she was separated from the team. If they were OK – they'd find her eventually, all she had to do was sit tight.
That being said, she didn't have the luxury to sit tight, even if the magician could've used her newly learned defensive taijutsu styles to survive as long as she had to, beat any martial artist that the arena threw her way she couldn't do that. Bult was a kind man, a warrior soul who may have been very different from her: rude, combat-loving and primitive but he was a kind person as well.
He helped her and looked out for her in every way he could. He'd get murdered out there today, Mana didn't know when or how but he was being set up for a slaughterfest. Could she really sit tight and just do everything she could to survive? Beat up a bunch of people and gain respect? If she was anything like these men she could've even made a living here, be respected and gain fame and trust... No, Mana couldn't do that.
Even if she decided to do something stupid, something she'd likely regret, what exactly could she have done to help her friend? She was locked in a cube of solid steel, bound by chains and located underground in a catacomb below meters of sand. Mana stood up and slowly tumbled up to one side of the cube she was locked up in slamming her heavy hands against the hard steel wall.
"I really miss my magic shows..." She thought to herself.
*****
"And now, finally, the event of the day – our beloved veteran Bult, the Bare-Hand Axeman faces off against the Asura Berserker, Basher of Faces, the Bare-Chested Rampager – Almash!" the announcer was having a field day presenting the main event of the day to the public.
"Raising the stakes even more, just to make it that more interesting our beloved Sheikh-sama has decided that the two would be facing off in a Fatal Warfare match so if the engineers below would be so kind as to set up the arena..." The man yelled out loud pointing his finger at the artificially grown grass below that already had some teeth and blood scattered loosely over it.
Loud screeching followed and grinding noises announced that the needed levers were being turned as the ground plates with grass were set on flames singing everything off leaving just bare steel plates. After several moments bloodied and rusty spikes shot out through holes surrounding the arena in a deadly field, each spike at least as large as a short person.
"Introducing the first contestant who needs no introduction or tales to be spun about his feats as they would not serve him justice, the legendary icon of the Sun Disc arena and the Agbarah Hero we all grew up with – Bult!" The announcer yelled out as the platform slowly moved from the circular structure of the arena up to the small quarters were the waiting contestants were housed forming a sort of bridge for the contestants to enter through.
Slowly, Bult made his way over the bridge, he didn't even bother to look at the sides, his stature was slightly hunched as his entire body ached, he hasn't completely recovered from his previous wounds and he also managed to gather an impressive collection of scars over the years. The man pressed his busted up hand tightly against his chest. Bult survived many matches like this, countless more lethal matches, if he was to die that day he would've left this world seeing it some sort of repentance for the sins and lives he had claimed over the years in this arena.
"And now, the newest addition to Damij's crew, the man with one of the most impressive winning streaks – the bare-chested berserker who was found surrounded by desert raiders with the flesh, skin, and guts of his captors in his nails and his teeth, the Tearing Scorn of the Desert – Almash!" The announcer spat out squirts of slobber in his impressive immersion into his tale of the man's abilities, on the other side of the arena, another platform extended to the other side of the arena's living quarters, another, much more luxurious living quarters. After the sandstone gate rumbled and open only loud foot taps to the stone bridge could've been heard for a moment and then... He appeared.
Almash was a rather short man, certainly entire head shorter than the bulking yet hunched Bult. His skin was white as young cheese implying he may not have been from around the place. The man certainly fit his label of a "bare-chested berserker" as he didn't choose to wear absolutely anything, usually, the fighters were allowed to keep their clothes and once they killed someone they had the right to claim them from the corpses of their opponents. If even half of the tales describing the man were correct he should've had at least a shirt to cover his scarred iron-hard chest.
The man's eyes were as wild as a raging storm, they scurried around the arena looking at the observers, then moving onto the Sheikh's corners and freezing by the women surrounding the Sheikh. The man's nose moved slightly, just enough to remind of a brief twitch of his nose but not yet distinctly enough to be seen by the observers in the crew. "Almonds... Bitches reek of almonds..." He mumbled under his own nose proceeding to slowly move forward.
He did not just walk, he moved in a fashion that reminded a deadman being brought back to life, dragging his feet, twitching and turning a full three-sixty before resuming his ghoulish proceedings to the arena. His hands and legs were cuffed but the chains were torn so the man now wore his cuffs and the torn chains like an accessory. His wild red hair moved wherever the wind took them, long enough to reach his knees but looking so natural. The man's rugged facial hair implied that he tore the excess out with his own fingernails, his whole face was covered with nail scratches that further proved such theories.
Upon walking out in the center of the stage Almash simply roared into the air tensing up all of his body letting his wild yet not yet pretentious level muscles intimidate the people in the crowd, this was not the battle cry of a man, it was the roar of a wild beast who probably still ate dead people for breakfast. Then Almash cracked his knuckles and locked his hands on his chest and stretched his neck around. In an instant, he switched from reminding a wild animal to almost looking human-like and well civilized. He must've been an individual who switched from civil to a crush-your-head-with-bare-hands mode in the blink of an eye. Must've been the trait that Damij liked in this brute.
"I really don't envy Bult... That Almash guy is pretty wild, remember how he killed four people in the Battle Royale last week? I can handle good fisticuffs but it always looks like Almash just doesn't understand what's going on and murders everyone on a whim." Someone in the public spoke to his neighbor to the left.
"Don't forget who you're talking about, this is Bult, he's been beating people up and killing them for years. He's a living legend, a survivor, if nothing else. He's got experience on his side and it is something I am willing to bet for." A man with a Kirigakure headband replied, it appeared like the Sun Disc arena attracted even ninja to look at the skill of martial artists who barely were even acquaintances of the chakra augmentation arts.
"Remember that this match is a lethal match! You win by killing your opponent be it inside the arena or impaling them on the spikes outside, just falling on the spikes does not constitute a loss, don't repeat Wenid's mistake... Heh, heh... Begin!" The announcer declared before cringing into his own fist, remembering an event when a Fatal Warfare contestant was thrown outside the ring and impaled on the spikes but climbed back into the ring and snapped the neck of his opponent as the man was too engaged in prideful boasting to the public.
Both contestants lunged at each other, Bult knew that this youngling was faster, more ferocious and possibly, all his injuries in mind and all, just as strong so he decided to go on the offensive and not let his opponent press his advantages on. He remembered how the young kunoichi he met fought and just barely resisted the temptation to curse. In this situation a defensive approach would've suited him ill, he needed to clash with all he had and not let his enemy dictate the terms because he could afford no more scars or broken bones.
The two clashed, exchanging fists, the single working arm of Bult's functioned almost like an automated rifle pounding a couple of times per single second. Each of these blows carried enough force to shatter rocks and yet Almash just caught them in his own palm slowly letting Bult drive the red-haired brute back almost to the edge of the arena. It was then that Almash's body blurred and disappeared, the dark-skinned veteran's eyes opened wide as his body quickly tried to turn around – this was chakra augmentation!
A powerful blow to his back made Bult scream out in pain, the blow was so strong that his entire back area where Almash elbowed him felt numb, it was like heated needles pierced his entire back channeling electricity – his spine must've been hit pretty bad as some nerves were acting weird. Bult's weightless frame disappeared as it fell down to the spikes below. Almash raised his hands in the air and roared with pride once again before turning at the spot where he saw his opponent weightlessly drop down like a sack of potatoes.
A collection of fingers still clutched to the arena. A deafening roar of pain and a man doing all he could do to survive made the entire audience cheer and deafen the entire settlement as the public went wild – Bult pulled his entire hulking frame up to the edge and got back onto the arena.
"You're treading dangerous ground, Almash..." Bult huffed out, "If the Sheikh decides that your augmentation is cheating he'll Slaughterfest you..."
Almash did not reply, he merely smiled with a sadistic grin, Bult could not understand why would his opponent risk it. He probably could've evaded that blow without using chakra augmentation, the veteran wasn't even aware that the man even knew chakra augmentation to begin with.
"Damn that Damij... He must be teaching his crew. Soon he may start dictating all the terms, do a total takeover of the arena" Bult continued to huff, his back pain made him twist and bend it to a very uncomfortable extent. As a former mercenary he knew that strategy – at some point in the future, Damij is planning to take over using his crowd of trained fighters, assembling only those he deemed elite and tutoring them in chakra augmentation. The old and idiotic Sheikh would not see it coming and his army would have trouble keeping up, the Kazekage would definitely approve of it as well...
Bult couldn't believe that his opponent was letting him get a breather, suddenly the man remembered that his plan was to press his offensive on and now he took a hit that almost killed him and just barely was too weak to completely paralyze him. This plan was not working, holding back and defending would not work either. Slowly the veteran was running out of options.
"Come now, you were trying to press your advantage. Show me your famed "Bare-Fist Axe Handle" slam that you're known for... Oh wait, Damij broke your arm, didn't he?" Almash kept on speaking, Bult roared into the air and dashed wildly at his opponent, the hulking brute spun around a full three-sixty driving his functional arm into a backhand slam at his opponent.
"Bare-Fist Axe, One-Handed Variant!" Bult chanted out the name of his attack as the public started to get off their feet to cheer for their favorite. After all, while Bult may have been on a losing streak lately he was still quite legendary and many fans of the arena have seen him perform his moves since they were young.
Before the crowd could even jump up and cheer Almash slammed his hands at the middle section of Bult's functional arm and drove his knee at Bult's elbow snapping the man's arm and forcing the bone to shoot out and fire off a wild squirt of blood all over his face. The aged veteran's eyes whited out – it was his natural instinct to just lose control and awareness of his body when overcome by impossible pain, to skip the pain and the threatening realization that his life may have ended in a couple of seconds. Bult just collapsed on his knees, giving in to instinct but having little way to respond.
"Hmph, if you were in your prime it would have been a pretty neat fight, I just wish Damij wouldn't have told me all about your moves. There's a bad side to being a legend, it's called "being washed up"..." Almash explained as he stepped back on Bult's arm messing it up, even more, driving the bone back into the wound. "Déjá Vu, isn't it? Just like the time you faced Damij..." Almash taunted the whited out opponent who was trying to not be completely taken over by instinct, to maintain at least some more control but the warrior inside him was leaking out. The veteran was unleashed and he kicked the man out of Bult's psyche...
The tall man leaped up with a knee strike driving it right into Almash's gut, turning around and delivering a straight kick into the man's chest and then jumping up with a kick to Almash's nose making it burst with blood. The red-haired brute staggered back and his body leaned backward almost forming a bridge shape, just one more shove could've done it but Bult barely had any strength left.
"That bastard didn't even move, I broke my hand punching him, you had to actively take me on. You're a lot of things, pup, but Damij you are not..." Bult angrily roughed out with his eyes still being snow-white and his teeth still grinding against themselves. Blood dripped from the newly formed wound on his arm but the man was determined to finish the fight with his knees and his legs if his hands were broken. Even if the Bare-Hand Axeman was no more, the veteran survivor of the arena was still doing the dirty work and ready to kick, knee and stomp.