Standing in the middle of a coliseum in front of over a thousand others. Well it was a little nerve racking, expressially for Ryu. He was a ninja not a showman who perform for others amusement. The soon to be nine year old stared at his opponent who wanted to kill him.

“You will pay for what you did to my brother, tree hugger.”

The muscular teen said laced with hatred, confusing Ryu more. He doesn’t have any memories of facing anyone looking like him. Maybe it was one of the two that Hana shredded beyond recogization. If so, how can he be so sure it was a Konoha ninja that did it.

“Really who is your brother?” Ryu asked sounding and appearing unconcerned.

“Don’t you act like your high and mighty. If it wasn’t for your blank masked anbu with Root symbol, I would fight you. Sadly, I can’t let them kill my brother, so you must die.” The teen growled out making Ryu confused. The anbu used painted masked, not blanks and what is root?

Confused, Ryu replaced himself with a log, as the teen threw five poison kunai at his vitals. His mind was racing a mile a second, trying to figure out why this was happening. Why would this root organization want him dead. He hasn’t done anything to them, much less heard of them before now. There isn’t a chance for a past enemy either as he simple didn’t have one as all his enemy he made are dead. Killed by him or his teammates, as he saw them do it.

“The teen not lying, but I believe that his root organization belongs to our village. Mainly the name and those emotionless drone we seen had the kanji root on them.” Hikari spoke shedding a little light on his thoughts.

Still, even if that was the case why would they want him dead. “Why would they want me dead?” he asked as he parried a few incoming kunai. “He certainly trying his best to keep me from getting in close quarters with him. It as if he knows most of my strength for now comes from taijutsu.”

“This root, must have gave him your file. Which means they are most likely high in the village ranking.” Hikari commented as she watched Ryu coat his kunai in wind chakra and threw it through a tree.

He yanked the thin wire be attached to the kunai and changed the direction towards the teen. Unlike the ninjas before, the teen just smirked before dodging the kunai effortlessly and throwing his own kunai.

“He is doing better than the ones before, then again both aren’t blinded by fog or overconfidence in his abilities. Also, he is fighting to protect and get his brother back.” Ryu reasoned in his head as his opponent is more dangerous.

A desperate ninja is a dangerous enemy as they are willing to do anything to achieve their goal and survive. The danger only increases if the enemy has intel on your abilities or most of them, as Ryu assumed the information is a month old.

Channeling a small bit of chakra to his feet, he kicked off hoping to get in close. He was greeted with a large fire wall and few more kunais. Hoping out of the way, he saw that the teen vanished. In hope to find him, Ryu attempted to sense only to jump as the ground broke apart underneath him.

Throwing a couple kunais with explosive tags. A loud bang as dirt flew from the explosions.

“Nice attempted but it time you die.” The teen appeared behind Ryu and attempted to slit his throat.

Stomping on his toes, Ryu grabbed his arms, and threw him to the ground, before dropping his knee towards the throat. Missing his intended target, Ryu watched as the teen rolled before jumping to his feet. However, he was still within range so, Ryu went on the offense, throwing punches and kick quickly.

“Stop twisting.” A frustrated scream came from the teen. Every attempted to had a hit or grab the nine year old boy failed or weakened.

Quickly flipping himself when he grabbed the teen overstretched arm, he brought his heels down on the teen head. A loud bang sounded as the teen grinned not at bothered by the kick or that his feet sunk a foot into the ground. Twisting his wrist at an unreasonable degree, the teen grabbed Ryu sweatshirt and slammed him into the ground.

Coughing as he felt his insides shook, Ryu made a seal in one of his hands and made a shadow clone.

“Your file did mention you can make physical clones.” The teen said as he let go and jumped out of the clone range.

“What about turning up the heat?” Ryu smiled as he ignited the air around him as the clone controlled the wind.

A large fire cyclone appeared with him at the center of it as the wind blades inside shredded everything. Panting as he stopped the flames and the clone dispersed. Ryu watchdase the teen climb out of the ground covered in hundreds of cuts and badly burned.

“I don’t care how strong you are, I must save my brother.” The teen shouted as a flame lit in his eyes. Which brought another round of fighting using nothing more than taijutsu. As both either tired or lacking chakra.

===

Up in the kage stands, they stared down at the arena with frowns as someone had the nerves to turn the finals into an assasination attempt. While killing is allowed, it frowned upon if it delbriate. Expressially on two promising contestants for a promotion.

It seems that it is time to deal with Danzo as he causing more problems than fixing them. Now he is trying to kill the newest generation of the village before they had time to bloom. Hiruzen boiled with fury at his old rival schemes. It just will take time to remove the man influence and catch him off handed.

“So what do you think of them?” Raikage asked.

“Both of them have potential, but I would hold off on Ryu promotion. It appears he needs some more experience.” The Mizukage Yagura said. He was a short man with short grey hair and pink pupils with vertical stitches below his left eye.

“I have to agree, as much as it pains me.” The Third Tsuchikage, grumbled at the thought of another village is getting stronger.

Nodding at their suggestions Hiruzen had an idea in mind. He needed to remove Ryu from view to protect him from Danzo. Well, his mission and files from his old rival who will continued to throw ninja at the boy. Maybe I will nominate him for Anbu, as it would help his training and give him somewhere private to train. Not that he doesn’t have a place already.

They watched as the match draw to a close as Ryu managed to knock the teen out before sitting down panting heavily. It was a hard fought battle, as he faced someone who was his better in experience, years, and desperate to win by any means.

“Winner, Ryu Fumetsu.”

===

Walking to the waiting area, Ryu was welcomed by his teammates and Yugito who sent him a thumbs up. He gave a slight nod towards her, before looking towards the arena floor. The next two already were down with both being from the same team from Kirigakure.

“Well this should be interesting?”