Chapter 6: The Rules of the Pit.
The days blurred together in the prison cell.
There was no sun to mark the passage of time, no regular meals to divide the endless stretch of darkness. Just cold stone, the stench of too many bodies crammed into too small a space, and the gnawing hunger that never fully went away.
Kagemaru learned the rhythm quickly. Or rather, he learned that there was no rhythm at all.
The trials came without warning. Sometimes days would pass with nothing but silence and starvation. Other times, the wall would grind open twice in a single day, herding the prisoners into that blood-stained chamber like cattle to slaughter. There was no schedule. No pattern. No way to prepare.
That was the point, he realised. Keep them weak. Keep them desperate. Keep them off-balance.
The uncertainty was a weapon all on its own.
Between trials, the prisoners existed in a state of suspended animation. They sat in their corners, hoarding what little food they'd managed to secure, watching each other with hollow eyes. No one spoke. No one formed alliances. Trust was a currency no one could afford in a place where your neighbour might cave your skull in for half a loaf of stale bread.
Kagemaru kept to himself, his back pressed against the far wall, his eyes always moving, always watching. He'd learned to sleep in shifts, never truly unconscious, always aware of the bodies around him. The weak ones disappeared first, their places taken by new arrivals, fresh meat for the grinder never seeming to be in short supply.
It was during one of these quiet stretches, pressed into his corner with nothing but the darkness and the system pulsing softly in the back of his mind, that he remembered the skill points.
Skill points...
He'd been so focused on surviving that he'd forgotten to actually check what he could do with them.
Kagemaru closed his eyes and summoned the status screen, keeping his face carefully blank. Around him, the other prisoners dozed or stared at nothing. After all, none of them could see what he saw.
[STATUS]
Name: Kagemaru
Level: 3
EXP: 1,500 / 3,000
SKILLPOINTS: 2
[JUTSU]
Secret Technique - Black Rain Jutsu (C-Rank) - Creates a black rain of oil.
[PERKS]
CHIMERA ABILITY LV 2 — User can now hold one Kekkei Genkai permanently. Normal limitations apply.
[KEKKEI GENKAI ABSORBED]
Steel Release - Lv 1 - Strength of Kekkei Genkai at 25% of full power.
Twenty-five percent...
He stared at that number, thinking about how his Steel Release had performed in the last trial. It had been enough. Barely. He'd won his fights, secured his bread, and survived another day. But enough wasn't going to cut it forever.
Can I upgrade it?
The thought had barely formed before the system responded, text shifting in his vision.
[SKILL POINT ALLOCATION AVAILABLE]
[STEEL RELEASE LV 1 → LV 2]
Cost: 1 Skill Point
Effect: Kekkei Genkai strength increases from 25% to 30%.
Kagemaru read the notification three times.
Five percent. One skill point bought him five percent more power. It didn't sound like much. But five percent might be the difference between his steel holding against a desperate blow and shattering. Five percent might be the weight behind his punch that turned a broken rib into a ruptured organ. Five percent might be survival.
Do it.
[SKILL POINT ALLOCATED]
[STEEL RELEASE: LV 1 → LV 2]
[Kekkei Genkai strength: 30%]
[REMAINING SKILL POINTS: 1]
Heat flooded through him, familiar now but still strange. He felt something shift beneath his skin, his Steel Release settling deeper into his bones, becoming more a part of him. When he flexed his hand experimentally in the darkness, he could feel the difference. The steel came faster now. Felt denser. More responsive.
One more.
[SKILL POINT ALLOCATION AVAILABLE]
[STEEL RELEASE LV 2 → LV 3]
Cost: 1 Skill Point
Effect: Kekkei Genkai strength increases from 30% to 35%.
He didn't hesitate.
[SKILL POINT ALLOCATED]
[STEEL RELEASE: LV 2 → LV 3]
[Kekkei Genkai strength: 35%]
[REMAINING SKILL POINTS: 0]
The heat came again, deeper this time, spreading through his limbs like molten metal being poured into a mould. His muscles ached with the change, his bones thrumming with something that was no longer entirely human.
Thirty-five percent.
Still not full power. Still not what a natural user of Steel Release could achieve. But more than a third of the way there, and he'd only been in this pit for... How long? A week? Two?
Every level brings me closer, he thought. Every fight. Every trial. Every piece of bread I rip from someone else's hands will make me stronger.
He opened his eyes and stared at the darkness of the cell.
Around him, the other prisoners slept. They didn't know what he was becoming. Didn't know that every time he killed, every time blood touched his lips, he grew stronger in ways they couldn't comprehend.
The monster Orochimaru had created was learning to feed.
The wall ground open on what might have been the fourth day since the last trial.
The sound was unmistakable now, that deep rumble of stone against stone that sent prisoners scrambling to their feet with desperate energy. Kagemaru rose more slowly, conserving what strength he had, his eyes already scanning the chamber beyond.
The same scene as before. Torches flickering along the walls. The Sound shinobi lounging on their platform, their faces twisted with anticipation. The stained stone floor, dark patches marking where blood had pooled and dried, where bodies had fallen and been dragged away.
And bread. The only thing that had been keeping him alive.
The scarred shinobi was there again, basket in hand, that cruel smile playing across his features as he watched the prisoners file in. Kagemaru counted them as they gathered. Forty-three. Fewer than last time. The weak had already been culled.
"Well, well," the scarred man called out, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Looks like some of you actually learned something. Let's see if today's lesson sticks."
He reached into the basket.
The first loaf arced through the air, and the chaos erupted.
Kagemaru didn't move. Not yet. He watched the initial frenzy with cold calculation, noting who was strongest, who was fastest, who was already injured from the last trial. The smart play was to wait, to let others exhaust themselves fighting for the first few scraps, and then strike when opportunities presented themselves.
A loaf landed ten feet to his left. Two prisoners lunged for it, a wiry man with scars on his arms and a heavyset woman with wild hair. They collided in mid-air, crashed to the ground, and the woman's fingers found the man's eyeballs, digging her thumbs into them, getting a wicked scream from him.
Another loaf sailed overhead. Kagemaru tracked its arc, watched it bounce off a prisoner's reaching hands and skitter across the stone toward a cluster of fighters already tearing at each other.
There.
A third loaf landed closer, only five feet away. One other prisoner was in range, a gaunt figure with hollow cheeks and eyes that had gone feral with hunger.
They moved at the same time.
The gaunt man was fast, faster than he should have been, given how starved he looked. His fingers closed around the bread a half-second before Kagemaru reached it, and triumph flashed across his face as he started to pull away.
Kagemaru's hand shot out and caught his wrist.
Steel flowed down his arm and into his grip.
The bones broke with a wet crack that was audible even over the chaos of the chamber. The gaunt man screamed, his fingers spasming open, the bread tumbling free. Kagemaru caught it with his other hand and drove his steel-coated elbow into the man's temple in a single fluid motion.
Kagemaru didn't stop to see if he was dead. He shoved the bread into his shirt and was already moving, his eyes scanning for more food.
The steel, he thought, feeling the familiar heat in his arm. It's stronger. Faster.
The upgrade had worked. Where before his Steel Release had felt like armour being strapped on piece by piece, now it flowed like water, responding to his thoughts almost before he finished thinking them. The density was better, too and had covered more of his body than before.
Another loaf caught his attention. It had landed near the edge of the chamber, where a small man was trying to crawl away with it clutched to his chest. Two larger prisoners were already closing in, drawn by the easy prey of a cripple.
However, Kagemaru reached them first.
His steel-coated fist connected with the first attacker's jaw, the impact sending shockwaves up his arm. The man's head snapped to the side, his jaw broken in half, and he crumpled like a puppet with cut strings. The second attacker tried to turn, tried to bring up his hands in defence, but Kagemaru was already inside his guard.
Again, steel flowed across his knuckles, his hand and forearm turning into dark steel.
He drove his fist into the man's stomach, felt organs rupture beneath the blow, felt the body fold around his arm like a balloon.
Stronger, he thought again, pulling his hand free. So much stronger.
The small man with the bread was staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Kagemaru looked at the loaf clutched in his trembling hands, then at the man's face.
"Give it to me," he said.
The man threw the bread at him and scrambled away on his hands and knees, valuing his life over the bread.
Two loaves. Kagemaru shoved the second one into his ragged shirt with the first and kept moving. The hunger in his stomach had faded to background noise, replaced by something colder. Something more focused.
More, the voice in the back of his head whispered. The stronger you are when this is over, the better your chances of surviving the next one.
He found his third loaf in the hands of a woman who'd just finished strangling another prisoner. She saw him coming and bared her teeth, what was left of them anyway. Her eyes were wild with blood gushing from under her fingernails.
She lasted four seconds.
The Steel Release flowed into his forearm oncemore as he blocked her desperate lunge, the impact of her fists against black metal doing nothing but breaking her own hand. His counter-strike caught her in the throat, crushing her windpipe, and she dropped with a wet gurgle, clutching at her throat as she clawed for air.
Three loaves.
Kagemaru's hand was covered in blood that wasn't his. He could taste copper on his lips, could feel the familiar pulse of the system in the back of his mind.
[DNA SAMPLE DETECTED]
[ANALYSING...]
[NO UNIQUE TECHNIQUE IDENTIFIED]
[+100 EXP]
Not everyone had something worth taking. But even the empty kills added up. Experience was experience, and every point brought him closer to the next level.
A fourth loaf landed near his feet, almost like the Sound shinobi had thrown it directly to him. Kagemaru snatched it up without hesitation, his eyes sweeping the chamber for threats.
The chaos was dying down. Bodies littered the floor, some still moving, most not. The survivors were pulling back toward the edges, clutching their prizes, their faces slack with exhaustion and the particular emptiness that came from doing terrible things to stay alive.
"ENOUGH!"
The scarred shinobi's voice cut through the chamber, and what fighting remained stuttered to a halt.
"Back to your cells. All of you."
Kagemaru moved with the others, four loaves of bread pressed against his chest, his body humming with energy that had nothing to do with food. He stepped over bodies without looking down. Stepped through pools of blood without caring whose it was.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, something whispered that he should feel sick. Should feel horrified at what he'd become. But that voice was getting quieter with every trial, drowned out by the cold certainty that this was what survival demanded.
Fight. Kill. Consume. Grow stronger.
The system demanded it. The pit demanded it. And Kagemaru...
Kagemaru was starting to demand it of himself.
The cell was quieter when he returned.
Fewer bodies pressed against the walls. Fewer eyes were watching him from the shadows. The weak had been culled again, their places taken by the few who had learned the pit's only lesson. That strength was the only currency that mattered in this world.
Kagemaru found his corner and sank down, his back against the familiar cold stone. He pulled out the bread, four loaves, more than he'd ever secured before, and stared at them.
His hands weren't shaking anymore.
He remembered how they'd trembled after his first kill. How his stomach had twisted with guilt and horror as he bit into bread paid for with blood. Now his hands were steady, his stomach merely hungry, his mind already calculating how to ration the food to maximise his recovery.
I'm getting used to it, he thought.
The realisation should have terrified him. Instead, it settled into his bones like the cold of the stone, accepted and absorbed, becoming part of who he was.
He bit into the first loaf.
Stale. Dense. Perfect.
The bread disappeared quickly, his starved body demanding fuel with an urgency that couldn't be denied. He forced himself to stop after two loaves, saving the others for later, knowing that another trial could come at any moment and he'd need the strength.
When he'd eaten his fill, he closed his eyes and summoned the system.
[STATUS]
Name: Kagemaru
Level: 3
EXP: 2,100 / 3,000
SKILLPOINTS: 0
[JUTSU]
Secret Technique - Black Rain Jutsu (C-Rank) - Creates a black rain of oil.
[PERKS]
CHIMERA ABILITY LV 2 — User can now hold one Kekkei Genkai permanently. Normal limitations apply.
[KEKKEI GENKAI ABSORBED]
Steel Release - Lv 3 - Strength of Kekkei Genkai at 35% of full power.
Nine hundred experience to go. Maybe two more trials. Maybe three, depending on how many worthy kills he could secure.
And then level four. More skill points. More power. More steps toward becoming something that could survive this hell and maybe, eventually, escape it.
Kagemaru opened his eyes and stared at the darkness.
Around him, the other prisoners slept or pretended to. None of them looked at him anymore. None of them met his eyes. They'd seen what he could do, seen the black steel flowing across his skin, seen the bodies he left in his wake.
They were afraid of him now.
Good, he thought. Fear keeps them away. Fear keeps me alive.
He tucked the remaining bread against his chest, curled his body around it protectively, and closed his eyes.
Sleep came easier than it should have for a man who'd killed four people that day.
But then again, in the pit, that was just called Tuesday.