takeda sadako
I'LL STOP WHEN THEY FIND A WAY TO MAKE ME
groupRain Shinobi
age 16 years old
birthday february 18
rank genin
occupation genin
Stupid. They stepped onto the scales, everything lit up, and the puzzle was solved. They would've been done a month ages ago if they hadn't been so stupid.
Sadako moved into the next room along with the group, careful to not let that psycho Taki genin too close at her back--she didn't doubt that he would stab her in it if he had half the chance--and took a quick look around. They were the last group in, obviously, all of the rest of the groups having finished long before they did. And they were barely there longer than a minute before the next stage started, and names started getting called.
A one-on-one elimination round. Two genin were chosen at a time to go into the next room to duke it out; a couple of minutes passed, and then the next pair were called. Sadako took the opportunity to stretch, breathe, try to vent some of the winding tension and frustration that wound up her shoulders and locked her muscles up tight. But as the minutes slipped by and more and more of the remaining genin were called forward, she ground her teeth harder.
Eventually, the Taki genin got called--vice one of the guys from Kusa. Good riddance. If she never had to see that asshole again it'd be too soon.
(The fight was a nightmare. Atagi didn't stand a chance; barely more than a few minutes blitzed by before Sadako was standing in the observation area with a dismembered arm in her hands. Her front was bloody. Her hands were bloody. At some point, the arm was taken from her, but who took it or where it went, she didn't really know. )
A few more minutes, then:
"Yuie Junichi!"
Sadako, mechanical, obligatory, stepped over to clap him on the shoulder. She left a bloody handprint on his shirt, but didn't seem to realize. "Knock 'em dead, kid," she started to say, before--
"versus Takeda Sadako!"
she froze in place.
Sadako yanked her hand back, teeth gritted, and slunk into the ring.
She was tired, sore; it had been a long race. Mentally, she was exhausted, still reeling from getting screamed down by an eight hundred pound stone teenager in a locked room with no escape route; the image of an arm in her hands seared into her eyes. Her head hurt. Her jaw hurt. Her blood had been jackrabbiting through her veins since that boy's arm had first shapeshifted and never quite got back to normal.
Now she had to beat down Junichi, or fail.
Again.
(Flash-frozen in her memory: the subway, Junichi slinging his staff around, the sound of crumpling flesh and cracking bone as the kid killed a man to save her life.)
Moonlight shone from the opening above the arena, cascading softly over dirt and stone as Sadako took up her position on the far side of the chalked-in lines. She didn't say anything; her expression was flat, falling into its natural resting scowl. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, rolled her head, shook out her arms.
She couldn't quit. Not now, when she was so close to the end.
(But he--Hotarubi--was moving on to the next round. If she won, what if she had to face him?)
(What if Junichi won, and had to face him?)
Her training weights stayed on, same as they had all day.
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last edit by takeda sadako on Feb 27, 2023 21:57:54 GMT -5
tactician
has written 151 posts
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