"There is just one last thing," the woman continued, "Your journey will take you to many lands, and you will visit many worlds. In each place there will be some task you must perform, or someone you must help. There will be a task for each of you to complete in order to get their mark. None of these tasks will be easy."

The old woman's lips curled into a smile as she finished speaking. It was a smile that made both Tyi and Gotin uncomfortable, as though she knew very well the dangers that awaited them.

Suddenly there was a great flash of light that blinded them as it surrounded them. When they opened their eyes they were standing outside a town entirely surrounded by a wall that rose nearly twenty feet above them. They turned in circles, taking in as much of this place as they could, knowing as they had before that this world was not their home. As Gotin stared off at the barren horizon Tyi settled on a poster nailed near the entrance to the town advertising a tournament.

"Gotin, do you know what this is? What's a tournament?" asked Tyi, looking at the poster.

"No," he answered, giving staring at her as if to ask how he was supposed to know about anything on this world, and joined her in staring at the poster.

"It looks like it's something you have to sign up for. Whatever it is, we might not be able to enter it," he said.

There came a girl's voice from behind them, "You two can enter, there are many contestants from different worlds who compete."

Gotin and Tyi spun around shocked that someone was able to come up behind them without them noticing. The girl had moved to within only a few feet of them, but she showed no sign that she had intentionally snuck up behind them. Instead she stood with her hands folded in front of her, her expression calm, helpful, punctuated by a sweet, childish smile, as though she was used to answering strangers' questions.

"Well that's good, I guess," said Tyi hesitantly, "But what is a tournament?"

"It's a competition. Those who enter the tournament fight to see who is stronger," she said slowly.

"It sounds like our final exams," said Tyi, "to see who stays and who leaves to choose what they want to master without having a teacher on them all the time. Where do we sign up?"

"When you go through the entranceway here, you go straight down this street until you come to the square. It's on your left," replied the girl.

"Thank you. My name is Gotin, and this is Tyi. What's your name?" asked Gotin, who liked to know other people's names.

"My name is Blue Jay. You'll have to choose an animal name on this world, everyone does, even those from other worlds," she replied and promptly turned and walked through the entranceway into the town.

"That's odd isn't it? That they have animal names, don't you think, Gotin?" asked Tyi as they started to walk towards the entrance.

"Not really. Maybe it's like how we do a ritual when someone turns nine, when they reach a certain age they chose an animal name," replied Gotin, his voice unsure.

They walked down the street, following the directions Blue Jay had given them. The street they were on was empty, as were those that intersected it. The few shops they passed were closed up and they couldn't hear anything coming from inside any of the buildings.

"Do you think everyone's at the tournament already?" Gotin asked, becoming uncomfortable with the silence around them.

"Maybe, or they could be hiding. Maybe they're all scared of us," Tyi said, watching Gotin out of the corner of her eye, holding back her smile until he laughed.

They stopped as they came into the town square, and looked around them.

"Is this it? She called it the square, but … it's really a circle isn't it?" Tyi asked.

"Yeah, it is, but if they call it a square let them. Look, there's the sign up table," said Gotin, pointing to their left at the table behind which sat a single man, his head down, eyes pouring over the registration forms he was shuffling. When they were a few feet away his head popped up, his eyes shifting quickly back and forth from Gotin to Tyi.

"You here to sign up or watch?" he asked rapidly.

"To sign up," replied Tyi, trying to decide on the name she would give.

"OK. To sign up. OK. What name are you going to use?" he asked as he pulled out two blank forms and began to check boxes on them.

"I'm Dragon and this is Tiger," said Gotin, picking two names he hoped would intimidate their opponents.

"OK. Dragon. OK. Tiger, it is. OK. What world?"

"What?" asked Tyi.

"World. What world are you from? Have to have the world. What world are you from? Then you can go in."

"Chronos," Tyi blurted out, not knowing exactly where the name had come from, as it was not the name of their home world.

"OK. Chronos. OK. OK, go right into the building behind me there. OK, go in there, and then go right, OK, until you find the stairs. Go down the stairs there, OK, you go down and there you are, that's it, OK. OK?"

They both nodded cautiously and moved slowly at first to the side to edge around the table, as if afraid that moving too quickly would scare the strange man who had just finished checking boxes on their registration forms and was now shuffling them into the piles of forms on the table in front of him. As they approached the building they could make out the sounds of a large number of people, their voices and shouts all blending into one muffled clamor. When Gotin opened the door for Tyi to enter first, the sound rose to greet them, but was still too low and indistinct. They turned right and followed the hallway past five doors and two staircases that led only up until they finally came to the stairs that would take them down. At the bottom of the stairs they found themselves in a large room filled with people, whom they could only assume were the other competitors. Gotin and Tyi stopped just inside the door, surprised to be faced with the other contestants.

"Ha, look at this guys, we have to fight a couple of kids this time around," came a mocking voice from somewhere in the back of the room.

"Does it matter if they are children or our age?" asked a man standing near to the door Gotin and Tyi had come through, "They both look as though they have fought before. They look as though they have trained for a long time, don't they?"

The man seemed to direct his comments more to Gotin and Tyi, out of respect, rather than the disembodied voice that had derided them.

"Thank you, sir," Gotin said, making eye contact with the man, before leading Tyi off away from the contestants. "He's right, Tyi, age is nothing without experience."

She nodded in agreement, but before she could offer her own sentiments a voice echoed through the room from the speakers positioned in each corner of the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the voice crackled, "our group for today's events has finally assembled and we are ready to begin! Let's bring out our fighters!"

The room at once began to shift and turn, heading for the door at the opposite end of the room. Gotin and Tyi waited as the others filed through, choosing to be last into the arena rather than be pushed through the narrow corridor by their competition. As the neared the end of the tunnel the sounds from inside the arena grew louder and louder; the shouts and cheers as the contestants emerged, the stomping, booing and clapping became clearer and more thunderous. The sounds of the crowd grew almost silent as Gotin and Tyi came out, except for the whispers that circulated the arena filled with the surprise at their age. The other contestants were surprised at the sudden silence that surrounded them and those who were not searching the spectators and focused their attention on Gotin and Tyi.

"OK, let's get our first match underway!" came the announcer's excited voice, ignoring the reaction of the crowd, "Can we have Lizard," and here he paused as the crowd erupted into a mangled explosion of cheers and boos, "and Tiger of Chronos, whose first time ever in our tournament! For those of you who are new to our tournament, here are the rules: there are no weapons allowed at all, it is strictly hand to hand combat. There are no ring-outs and no safe zones, no area is out of bounds, so that means you can fight anywhere inside the stadium! But let's try and not kill anyone this year, you know who you are… Snake. All right, then without further ado, can we have our first two contestants please!"

Lizard walked into the center of the ring, his eyes focused on Gotin as he did. He assumed Gotin was Tiger and ignored Tyi completely. Lizard, like the rest of the contestants in the tournament, was big, looking more like a bodybuilder than anything else. Like the other contestants Lizard looked as though he had been competing in tournaments such as this for a long time.

Tyi hesitated to get into the ring, suddenly shy at having to fight in front of the huge crowd. She took a step forward but stopped and may not have entered the ring at all had Gotin not shoved her in at that moment. Her head whipped around to glare at him as she toppled into the ring, but quickly regained her footing and straightened up to face Lizard across the ring.

"Hey, hey I can't fight a girl. What are you thinking? I want that one," said Lizard waving off Tyi as she walked towards him and pointed at Gotin.

"Well I'm your opponent, not him dumphead," yelled Tyi. She hated when people dismissed or put her down simply because she was a girl.

"I'm sorry, the contestants have been chosen. I'm afraid you're only recourse is to forfeit this match and withdraw from the tournament."

Lizard looked carefully at Tyi, sizing her up and weighing his options. His eyes drifted to the other competitors, standing together just outside the ring, and to Gotin, before looking back at Tyi. He said nothing, only nodded in agreement.

"Tyi, you can win this. You can beat this guy. He wouldn't last a day in Chronos," called Gotin, remembering to use the false name they had given for their home world.

"Yes, I can win Gotin. I will win," she called back, turning towards him as she did.

Lizard took her momentary distraction as an opportunity to charge at her, but she anticipated this cheap move and spun back around to face him, stopping him cold while he was still too far from her to attack. She smiled to herself as this feigning distraction to throw off her opponent was something her and Gotin did intentionally.

Lizard started shouting, unable to control his anger, and only infuriated more by the smile on Tyi's face. Lizard was prone to the same habit as most anyone that when faced with some maddening aggravation he tended to say things he shouldn't. Gotin was well known amongst his friends for this tendency even though he knew from experience it would get him nowhere.

"Your hair looks like an old lady's hair!" Lizard screamed, gesturing wildly.

Tyi bowed her head and brought her hands to her face. The crowd was silent, thinking she was crying. She wasn't. She hated when anyone criticized her hair. She had tried several times to dye it a normal color but each time the following day she would wake up and it had returned to its natural silver.

Along the sidelines Gotin stared in disbelief.

"Did he just say what I think he said?" he asked the man who had spoken up for them earlier.

"About her hair? Yes," he replied, "My name is Wolf, by the way, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself earlier. Why shouldn't he say that?"

"The first and last person to say that is six feet under. She knows I joke about it, but I've never said anything like that before," replied Gotin, glancing at Wolf to see the shock on his face at the revelation about the young girl standing stone still in the center of the ring. "That was when we were eight though. It was before we started our training though, so she should be able to control herself better now. I hope."

"You hope? Look at her! She's so tense she'll probably kill everyone here," said Wolf.

"Tyi, calm down!" Gotin yelled, seeing what Wolf meant.

Tyi had begun to shake as the anger swelled inside her, fighting against every control she had learned throughout her training. Her anger broke through the barriers she had tried so hard to maintain. She didn't hear what Gotin had said, she couldn't. The only thing she heard was Lizard's insult, repeating over and over. Her head jerked up, her eyes boring down on Lizard across the ring. Lizard saw death in her eyes, and had he the chance he may have been very afraid. At that moment though Tyi took off running straight at him with such fury and determination that Lizard could never have reacted in time. Three feet away from him Tyi leapt into the air and with a violent spin-kick caught Lizard on the side of his head and knocked him to the ground. He fell hard on his side and rolled onto his back, but before he could work his way back to his feet she was on top of him, punching at any exposed spot she could get at.

"Tyi, stop!" Gotin screamed from the sidelines, but she couldn't hear him. He took a step towards the ring but the other fighters moved to block him so he couldn't enter the ring but with their backs to him so they wouldn't miss the fight.

"Get out of my way!" he yelled, "I'm the only one who can stop her when she's like this, you have to let me through!"

Ignorant of her history they would have continued to bar his path for the sake of a fight had Wolf not turned on them, forcing them out of Gotin's way with a look. Gotin ran to the ring trying to think of something to say. Only one thing came to mind, but he would use it only as a last resort. He was about to climb into the ring when the announcer stepped towards him, opening his mouth to speak. The announcer's eyes caught Wolf's though, and he stepped back without uttering a word. Gotin stepped into the ring, taking a deep breath as he resolved to say the only thing he could, the only thing that would stop her from killing Lizard, even though it meant she would turn on him instead.

"Tyi, he's right about your hair!" yelled Gotin.

Tyi froze in midswing, her arm frozen back. Her head jerked towards Gotin and she stared murderously at him, her breathing ragged like a wild animals'.

She stood and faced him, but Gotin was not afraid. They had grown up together, trained together. He knew what she was going to do. She ran towards him, and leapt to kick him to the ground as she had Lizard, but Gotin caught her foot in one hand, and with the other knocked her from the air. She hit the ground hard, but Gotin held her as she did to avoid her head banging off the packed earth of the ring. She tried to break free of his hold but couldn't.

"Tyi calm down!"

She could hear him but his words had no meaning to her. Still she struggled against him, fighting to get away and finish what she had started. Gotin raised himself up, not wanting to take the next step but knowing he had no choice. While holding strong with his left hand he let go with his right and slapped her hard across the face. Instantly the fight went out of Tyi and her body slumped back against the ground. As she registered Gotin staring down at her tears came to her eyes.

"No… Gotin… I didn't kill him did I?"

"I don't know," he said quietly, hoping his voice would calm her, "I don't know. You did beat him a lot though. I'll go and see."

He stood up and pulled Tyi to her feet. She stood for a moment, as if unsure her legs would support her.

"Tyi," Gotin said with a smile before he turned towards Lizard, "how many times do I have to tell you your hair is fine?"

"Stop right there, the medics will see to him" the announcer instructed Gotin before he had taken two steps, and then, turning to face the crowd, "The winner of our first match, and in her very first appearance before us, is Tiger! Oh, but it doesn't look like Lizard's partner likes the outcome very much, he hasn't moved an inch since Lizard was knocked off his feet!"

As if the announcer's mention of him set him in motion, Lizard's partner stalked toward Gotin, coming up behind him.

"I am your opponent Dragon. Our match starts now," he growled.

"That's fine with me," Gotin answered calmly, turning his head to see his opponent out of the corner of his eye, "Tyi, you should go stand by the statue of the tiger."

Gotin turned to stare at Lizard's partner as Tyi made her way quickly to the statue.

"I haven't called the next match yet Snake!" the announcer corrected, "Before the match starts Lizard must be moved to the med station."

The medics appeared with a stretcher, lifting Lizard carefully onto it, and securing him to it before returning the way they came.

The announcer waited a few moments until the crowd had forgotten the sight of the medics officially bringing to a close the first match.

"All right, and now for the second match of today's festivities! We already have Snake and Dragon, ready to go, and apparently very anxious to continue what their partners began!"

The crowd fell silent.