rakuen | [Round Zero: part 1]

At noon on the rest day, every screen in the campus lights up. It's the girl from the introduction again! She's grinning fit to burst, and her voice is bright and excited.

"Good morning, everyone! Round Minus-One is now officially over, so we'd like you to all report to the lobby for a special announcement, immediately! It starts in ten minutes, so don't be late."

The screens all go blank, before simply displaying the flashing text ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO THE LOBBY FOR 12:10.

Reaching the lobby, you find it empty of the usual staff. However, the doors to the tramstation are blocked by a large stage, spanning the entire south wall. In the centre stands the girl, in the flesh and just as sickeningly cheerful as her broadcast.

"Hi, everyone!" She waves, tilting sideways as she does so, and then clasps her hands together. "Wow, it's really great to see you all in person at last! You've all tried a lot harder this week, and it shows! We're really, really impressed with everyone. Ah, even though there was a bit of cheating..." she pouts, and shakes her head lightly, "But that's okay. We forgive you! You all know better now.

"But what we've called you here to say is this! We've been working extra hard too, and we've gotten a lot done with your help. So much that we're nearly ready for Round One!

"However..."

She's still smiling. It's a little unnerving, "We have to do some maintenance first, okay? And I'm afraid it would be a problem if you were all alive for that... you could cause us a lot of problems. So we're going to get rid of you for a little while. Think of this as a final test!"

She snaps her fingers, and your shadows disappear. No, not disappear. That's the wrong word. It's more like... they're abandoning you. Nearly forty pools of darkness flow up onto the stage, and suddenly explode upwards in tendrils and globs of black. The girl laughs as they finish changing, as they take on your shapes. As they reach into themselves and pull out inky replicas of your own weapons. They all laugh with her, in the emotionless tones of the Voice from your dreams.

"You can all draw your own weapons now, okay? Fight hard!"

[mod notice: NOW EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS OOC POST BEFORE THEY REPLY.]

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Kotarou now behind and between the two females, Huashi twirled the staff in one hand much like her shadow had done earlier.

"Anyone gets close here, and they'll go splat!" This is good. They have a wall at their back, and, Huashi looked up, yeah, there were things she could use to get up on the wall and launch herself from there if needed! They were ready for these things now.

Daddy hadn't raised her to be reckless in battle, but he'd taught her well.

The raven haired genin had put up a great battle with his own Shadow - it brought him terrible feelings to his gut whenever he had to see the face of his darker self, with the familiar dark purple markings across his skin and the familiar purple aura. Obsidian eyes were trained on the shadow as it rushed towards him. The speed was the same as his own, if not faster, though Sasuke was able to keep up with it, just barely.

"Agh - !" the boy was hit by a powerful kick to the chest from the shadow, sending him flying backward with his feet skidding against the ground. He felt himself hit a hard surface, and he landed on the ground with a thump. "Tch..." he growled, eyes narrowing as he staggered to stand up. His arm instinctively reached out to balance himself as he stood up, but he didn't realize that he had reached for someone else's arm.

And while he was beginning to stand, a large ninja star came flying towards him and whoever this person was that he had grabbed.

"Oops!" Huashi didn't so much make them duck, as she crouched down (dragging Sasuke with her, when he'd just gotten up, too!) and lunged forward, blocking the huge star from embedding itself in either of them, or, more importantly, anyone behind.

"You don't look much alike," Huashi said as she squinted at Sasuke's shadow, then did another lunge, swiping the staff in an overhand grip that would have resulted in crushed bones had the reciever been anything near human.

Ichi is holding her own against her shadow self; the thing slashes, she spins out of the way, separating the pieces of her naginata and spinning again. The blades slice the shadow with enough force that it finally disappears with a wisp of smoke and a strangled scream.

She steps back until she's closer to Huashi and the new boy, and more importantly Kotarou. Oichi stands ready to sweep in with her weapon if she's needed.

He fell back down in his former position, taken aback for a second as his eyes watched Huashi fend off the large ninja star. He stood up again, hair falling into his face as he got back into a stance, which his shadow imitated.

"Don't worry too much about it," Sasuke muttered, eyes glancing to Huashi for a second and then to Oichi, whom he had just noticed, and gazed back at his own shadow. "I'll take care of it from here." The boy was stubborn - he didn't need helping defeating his own shadow. The fight was just getting started.

"If you get in my way and get hurt," he started, and then gave a small smirk. "It's not my fault." The shadow came running towards the group of three (or four? Sasuke hadn't noticed Kotarou yet) and threw the ninja star, and ran forward to kick the feet of Oichi.

This time, Huashi didn't go under the star, but jumped, and slammed down, not just her staff, but her whole self. When the star clattered to the ground though, Huashi was standing on it, and pain shot up her feet. Swearing (that for once, actually wasn't translated) in (what some would recognize as very old) Chinese, Huashi jumped off, using the momentum to aim her staff at dark!Sasuke's back.

Oichi recognizes the Chinese for what it is, but more importantly she's hopping over the kick, bringing down her naginata to swipe headlong into the shadow.

Kotarou blinked at the stream of profanities that came from Huashi. Even he didn't know what some of those meant. He wasn't too alarmed by it; after all, she still had his pendant around her neck, but they were all fighting so hard and he... wasn't. He settled for staying out of the way, and watching for anyone who got too close to their small enclave.

Sasuke spotted the naginata aiming for his disheveled dark form, and he immediately rushed forward to move his leg in a kick to remove the weapon from the older female's hands. No, he would not let anyone else take away his privilege of defeating his own shadow self. Never, never, never - !

He growled and watched his dark counterpart retreat back several steps. "He's mine," he glared over his shoulder to the three of them, stubbornly declaring that this was his battle and only his.

"Stay out of my way!" he yelled out, and his feet took off as he ran over to attack the shadow. The dark figure moved with a seemingly graceful step as he moved forward and knocked down Sasuke.

"A fool," shadow Sasuke murmured, red eyes gazing down at the befallen twelve year old and grinned. "You've disgraced your - our - clan." And then with a knife the shadow had handy from elsewhere, and before Sasuke could roll away (as if he could), the shadow struck down with the weapon into the heart of the boy -

Sasuke was dead. The ruby eyes of the shadow looked back to the group of three and smirked mockingly.

Huashi felt for Sasuke. In a way. Really. He was annoying, but he didn't deserve to die. (On the other hand, she wondered if this was how it would end, really, because while gods like hurting their toys, they seldom killed them) But she gave in to the urge to facepalm and leveled her staff at the shadow.

"You're silly, you know that? A silly, silly failure who could never be real!" Huashi mocked right back and took a jump, almost too fast to register, spinning fast. He'd either have to retreat, or be hit.

[Round Zero: part 1]

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