Out For Blood

Kies and Iris went to the edge of the ring along with all the other contestants. They formed a circle around the area and waited for the announcer to give them the signal to start. Luckily, since they numbered right after each other, they were put together at the edge of the ring, meaning that they could help each other.

The fight hadn't even started yet and Kies saw that the fighters around them were all looking at them with evil smirks. It was safe to say that their first course of action was to make a run for it and avoid fighting people until a good amount of the competition is eliminated. If they tried to fight right off the bat, they were bound to get eliminated by all the people targeting them.

"The fight starts in ten seconds. Get ready!" the announcer shouted.

Before the countdown started, the contestant on the right of Kies turned to him and said, "Good luck kid." Kies looked at the man. He smiled and gestured at the other contestants around them. "Sorry, but this is how things work here. Try to stay alive if you can." With this many people looking at them, it was a miracle if they got out without getting a broken bone.

Kies shrugged his shoulders, responding with a cold, "Good luck," back. The man raised one of his eyebrows in amusement, surprised that Kies had the galls to say that. He didn't get a chance to say anything back as the countdown started.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five-" The announcer didn't get the chance to get to zero. The moment he reached five, someone in the ring swung his sword and caught another contestant in the head.

"Gah!" The person that got hit by the sword crumpled to the rough sandy floor. At this cue, everyone raised their weapons and started wildly swinging in the direction of the closest target.

The entire arena erupted with chaos. People fell left and right and the sound of yelling and screaming was all that could be heard. Kies looked to his right and saw the man who had been talking to him just a moment ago, had been eliminated already. The person next to him surprised him with a blow to the back of his head, knocking him unconscious, and likely injuring his neck or skull with the sneak attack.

The man charged at Kies with his sword held up high as he was the next closest person. But before the man had the chance to swing down, Kies took a long stride towards the man and punched him as hard as he could in the face. The man toppled backward and fell onto the floor, kicking up a cloud of sand as he did so. Kies stared at the man for a couple of seconds and when it was clear that he wouldn't be getting back up, he turned and checked on Iris.

Kies found her trying to evade a couple of contestants not too far away from her. They were all going for her with no intention of fighting each other from the looks of things. She was being forced further into the circle where most of the fighting was happening. Kies needed to save her before she got too close to the center and ended up getting battered by all the barbarians.

Kies bent down and snatched up a fist-full of sand and ran towards Iris. Some of the sand leaked through the cracks in his hand but he still had enough by the time he reached Iris to throw it at the man who was right behind her, showering him in the face with a bunch of sand.

"Ugh, you rascal!" The man cursed and swung randomly at his surroundings in an attempt to hit them but he missed and ended up smashing his sword into another contestant's face, knocking him out cold in an instant.

"Get them!" The other contestants were closing in on Iris and Kies. They weren't going to let the two off for teaming in the competition. Kies grabbed Iris' arm and pulled her along as he ran towards the edge of the ring where it was safer. Well, technically, it wasn't safer since one wrong step outside of the ring would end in disqualification, but since there were less people fighting here because of that rule, it was safer in the sense that they can avoid people.

As they ran around, more and more of the contestants stopped them and dropped their fights to chase after the two.

"What!? They're still in? Get them!"

"Hey, temporary truce until we get those two!"

They really didn't like how Kies and Iris were teaming and everyone began to form their own team against them two.

"D*mn..." This was going to suck. Kies looked around and saw that only around a quarter of the contestants were eliminated. They still have a lot to go, and the rate of eliminations was gradually decreasing as more people stopped fighting each other and joined the band in getting rid of the cat mask pair first.

This left Kies and Iris with no other choice but to have to fight if they wanted to pass the first round.

"This will teach ya to show up in a team!" A huge bulky man appeared in front of them, blocking off their running path. If Kies tried changing directions then the other people behind them would catch up. The only option they have is to go through him. The giant raised his axe when he saw that Kies and Iris weren't stopping and swung it down.

"Hoodie!" Iris screamed, warning Kies that they were going to get smashed into smithereens. She tried to get him to stop by pulling him back but Kies just yanked her and the two charged at the giant. "We're going to die!"

Just as the axe came down, Kies slid to a stop to avoid getting crushed by the thing. The weapon barely missed him by a centimeter, sending a shower of sand into the air as it collided with the ground. Kies let go of Iris's arm and quickly jumped up onto the handle of the axe before the giant of a man could lift it back up.

"Huh?"

The last thing that the man saw was Kies right on top of him as he slammed the hilt of his sword into his face. The man fell backward and hit the ground, motionless. Kies landed on his feet and turned to take Iris' hand again.

She stared at him through her mask in awe and shock at the same time, impressed but also surprised at what he just did. "How-"

"No questions! We need to run!"

"Oh, right- Woah!" Kies pulled Iris out of the way just in time as a sword came flying down on her. *Cling!* The sword bounced away after hitting the ground and almost caught Kies in the face. He bent his head back and dodged the sword as it flew by. "Thanks!" If Kies hadn't pulled her out of the way in time then she would've suffered a pretty big bruise or even a concussion.

"D*mn..." Kies looked around for the person who threw that weapon and found them right behind him. He was charging at them with his bare hands but still somehow looked intimidating while being weaponless. Behind them, the rest of the mob was also coming, looking for blood, particularly, their blood.

There were too many of them for Kies to count. Kies tugged on Iri's arm and two bolted in the other direction. A couple more fighters tried to cut off their escape route but Kies easily outmaneuvered them by doing the same exact tactic he did to the previous fighter. He dodged their initial strike and used the opportunity to deliver a heavy blow to the fighter's head in order to take them out in a single hit.

This method of taking the fighters out worked for a while, but the remaining fighters eventually caught onto his fighting style and fought around it, rendering his tactic useless. They avoided making heavy attacks or wide swings that would leave them exposed and started fighting safer.

"This isn't good..." Kies mumbled to himself. The fighters were beginning to group together, making it even more difficult for him to take them down. And since they all made a treaty to take him and Iris out first, they weren't going to fight each other, making it the entire arena against them. This was an impossible fight to win.

"S-sorry..." Iris apologized to Kies for holding him back. She knew that she was dragging him down since Kies couldn't fight or run properly as he had to take care of her. Furthermore, all the running had drained most of her energy and she was very out of breath. It was only a matter of time before the fighters caught up to them.

Kies felt something pull him back and almost fell over. He quickly turned around to see what happened and saw that Iris stopped moving. "What are you doing!?" he demanded. The other contestants were right behind them and they needed to constantly be on the move or else they were done for.

"L-leave me. I can't- I can't go on," she told Kies. She was completely out of breath and couldn't run anymore. At the very least, if she forfeited now, Kies would still have the chance to win, since he could just evade everyone until they gave up on chasing him. They were also on the edge of the ring so all Iris needed to do was put her foot outside the circle and she was out. She didn't have to get her head bashed in by the angry men behind her, which was great.

Iris lifted her foot and hovered it outside the ring and was about to put it down, but Kies pulled her back. "What? Why?" She didn't understand Kies' reason. Why was he stopping her from forfeiting when it was clear that she couldn't do anything?

"It's no use. Do you see how bloodthirsty they are? Even if you leave, they will make sure to get me out as well. If we're going to lose, we should at least put up a show." Kies pointed at the spectators up on the platform who were all cheering for the angry mob as they closed in on them. They were also chanting for them to clobber the two.

"Then we should both forfeit! That way, we won't get hurt," Iris reasoned. The other contestants had them surrounded now and there was no way out anymore. They would have to fight through them if they wanted to break out of the line.

"Nowhere left to run." The fighters closing in on them laughed.

"Why don't you surrender and walk out yourself? It'll save you a lot of pain," one of the contestants suggested the same thing that Iris told Kies.

"No," Kies replied coldly. It was a one-word answer that carried a lot of weight. They could've given up peacefully and came out of the fight unharmed, but they weren't going to.

"What?" The fighters all lost their smirks and looked at one another, and then back at Kies to see if he was being serious here.

"Look here kid, there are more than forty of us, and there's only two-" The man never had the chance to finish his sentence as a wave of sand shot up from the ground, and the man suddenly got sent flying across the arena, from one end of the ring to the other.

For a moment, the entire colosseum became stunned with silence. What just happened? A second ago, the man had been standing on the other side talking to Kies and Wompa, and the next second, he was on the opposite side, lying on the floor and unconscious. Everyone then looked back at the wall of sand which was falling back down to the floor, revealing Kies on the other side of it.

"..."

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