Chapter 10: Rain of Blood

The newly formed Team Musakui inched their way through the quickly growing crowd. Now that the Opening Ceremony was just minutes away, the stadium was finally filling to the brim with demons. For the first time, the four girls on the team were holding hands in an attempt not to lose one another, while Gaou led the way, his massive form clearing the aisles in front of them. Flein tried to ignore Rei's gaudy ring digging into her hand and tried to focus on not tripping or bumping into anyone.

As they made their way down the stadium steps, Flein started to notice that the front row seats were still mostly empty. "That's weird." she thought. "I thought people would have wanted to grab those first."

"The front section is roped off." Gaou said, noticing it too. Flein squinted at the lettered sign that was hanging upon the aforementioned ropes. Before she could make it out, Gaou looked back at her and said, "Looks like that's where we'll be sitting." She looked back to the sign and squinted again. The sign did indeed say "RESERVED FOR COMPETITORS".

Flein looked back behind Rei and at Anji, who seemed focused on looking down at the steps in front of her. "Anji! Maybe you'll find your friend here!" she tried to yell over the crowd.

Anji looked up, almost stumbled over the steps in front of her, then said, "Oh yeah!"

They stepped over the rope in front of the front row and sat down, Kirda almost knocking the barricade down in the process. As soon as Flein's butt hit the seat, the stadium dimmed and a bright spotlight lit the center of the fighting platform. Not that it made much of a difference, considering the stadium was still lit by the light of the low afternoon sun.

A female demon in oversized pink shorts climbed up onto the fighting platform and bounced to the center of the spotlight, microphone in hand. Her brown hair matched her tall, brown ears that were distinctly canine in appearance. Flein turned to ask Anji if she was a wolf demon as well, but found her distracted and searching the front row seats in earnest. Even though this area should specifically hold all of the tournament's teams, sixteen teams made up of 5 or 6 people each would equal to about 80-96 fighters. Finding a specific person among that crowd would be tough, and that's assuming the team even knew to sit down in this reserved area. It didn't help that Gaou's massive figure blocked most of their vision of the other fighters.

"Hello everyone, are you ready to see some gory action?!" the canine announcer yelled into the microphone, causing a ripple effect of yelling and screaming from the audience. Flein knew her ears would be ringing by the end of the night. "This is your friendly announcer Koto here, and I will be guiding you through the spectacular and bloody fights of the Dark Tournament! I hope you all are as excited as I am!"

Another round of screaming later, Koto turned to address the other side of the stadium. A fox demon. That's what she had to be. Her round and full brown tail glistened in the spotlight.

"I know all of you are waiting in anticipation for tomorrow's first fight, so first I'm going to go over the rules of the tournament for our fighters, and also for the benefit of our wonderful audience!" she grinned in excitement, while a wave of groans swept over the spectators. Without even looking at a book or piece of paper, Koto cheerily began going over the rules from memory.

"Each team is allowed up to five fighters plus one substitute fighter, in the case that one of your fighters dies a bloody and gruesome death!" The audience cheered loudly at the thought, and Koto waited patiently for them to calm down before continuing. "In the likely case that another one of your team members suffers bloody and gruesome death, leaving your team with only four or less members, so long as your team has enough wins in a match to continue in the tournament, you may find more members to add to your team to make five! It could be a spectator, a fighter from a former team, even your grandma- if blood can be shed, the opportunities are endless!"

While the crowd erupted with cheering once again, the description of possible fighters tempted Flein to look over the front row at her opponents. A lot of them looked like easy kills, but some of them piqued her interest. There were a few teams with females in them as well, one with pink hair sticking out to her the most. Otherwise, her opponents seemed male-dominated. One team was completely disguised with black cloaks. "Well that's no fun." Flein thought. She spotted the boy-like Rinku among the crowd and waved, but quickly put her hand down when she noticed Zeru and Roto sitting next to him as well. Chu was nowhere to be found, of course.

"In order for a fighter to lose a match," Koto was still talking. "they must be down for a total of ten counts- counted by yours truly! Another way for you to lose is if you are out of the arena for a total of ten counts as well! But that's boring, so don't dawdle around, okay?!" Koto stopped to catch her breath before continuing. "As for the rules for fighting . . there are none! The fighters get to choose whether they will battle one-on-one, three-on-one, even a bloody battle royale! The teams can even decide their own terms for winning or losing, so make them exciting, people! Otherwise . ." Koto gestured to a room with a large glass window toward the top of the stadium. Flein could see vague shadows of men sitting within. ". . anything and everything is ultimately decided by our lovely Committee! They will get the last say on everything!"

Koto stopped suddenly, as if she had just remembered something. "Oh, one more very important rule for our fighters! No hitting the referee, okay?! I'm talking about me here! Don't even think about it!" Flein thought it almost seemed like Koto had experienced this before in order to be so adamant about it now. "With the fighting rules out of the way, let's discuss the rules for our lovely audience!" Another series of groans traveled their way through the stadium again. "First of all, no spectator is allowed within the arena-"

Flein tuned out and turned to Anji. "I can't find him . ." the wolf demon explained.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you will eventually." Flein assured her. She didn't actually know this for sure, but she figured it had to be only a matter of time. Flein briefly wondered if Anji would stick around if she did find him.

She turned to check on how the rest of her team was doing. Gaou was sitting with his arms crossed, either in deep thought or dozing off. Kirda was looking off into the distance, possibly spacing out. Rei was staring intently at her long, painted nails, attempting to file them in a perfect shape with her other pointer nail. Flein could see Rinku with Team Rokuyukai in the distance, looking bored. Flein herself was wondering how it was possible for the spectators to sit in these seats without their butt going numb.

"-and with that out of the way, have fun, shed blood, and welcome to the Dark Tournament!" Koto finished with a grand bow. As the audience gave a deafening roar, the huge ball above her started to shake. It shook once, twice, then opened up from the top to reveal several gun-looking objects pointing in all directions of the stadium.

"What is that? Are they going to shoot us now?" Flein thought. She didn't want to rule out how possibly cruel and gory this tournament could be, not to mention just plain stupid for the sake of seeing a head roll or two. Before she could say a word to her teammates, a liquidy red substance sprayed forcefully from the guns in a high arc across the stadium and into the audience. Flein shut her eyes tight as she was suddenly sprayed with the warm, dark red liquid. In just seconds she was covered from head to toe in this sticky juice, along with most of the other audience members. "Is this . . . blood?!" she thought, looking down at her hands and her clothes which were covered in red. "Who's blood is this?" She turned to look at the audience members, who were wooping and hollering in delight, standing up to receive the spray head on. Some demons were lapping up the blood from their arms, cupping their hands together to gather the sticky red liquid. Others were laughing and splashing each other, jumping in the puddles and kicking the blood at others.

Flein heard a high-pitched siren coming from somewhere nearby, before realizing it was someone's frantic screaming. She turned to look at its source, only to find Rei jammed in the small space underneath the stadium seats, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"MY DRESS! MY DRESS! STOP!" she was screaming over and over again, trying to cram herself deeper underneath the seats to shield her now red dress. It was too late however; she and everyone else were already covered within the first few seconds, before they could even tell what was happening. She turned to look at Kirda, who was looking at herself with a very confused and slightly disgusted expression. Gaou, on the other hand, was looking up at the blood spraying down from above with a smile on his face, as if the opening ceremony finally hit its stride. Flein heard heavy breathing on the other side of her, and turned around to see Anji, who was frantically scrubbing her red arms with her knuckles, taking deep breaths, her eyes closed tightly. She was rocking back and forth at a fast pace.

"Um . . it's okay." Flein tried to comfort her awkwardly. "It's just blood." She didn't know what to do in a situation like this. Hug her? Leave her alone? Call for help?

Anji continued to rock back and forth without stopping, and at first Flein thought she wasn't going to respond. "I can . . . smell it . . it's everywhere . . ." she whispered between heavy breaths. "It's overwhelming . . "

"Yes, all of this blood does have a really strong iron smell . ." Flein agreed, wrinkling her nose. She tried to brush her bangs aside, and noticed her blonde hair was hard and thick with blood.

Without moving from her slightly slouched position, Anji shakily asked, "How . . . can you be so calm? It's everywhere . ."

"I'm used to being covered in blood when I fight." Flein explained. She wondered if maybe her calm voice and attitude would help her friend calm down. "What kind of team did I choose?" Flein couldn't help but thinking. "First Rei is panicking because her dress is stained, and now Anji is apparently scared of blood too? How will these people fight?" Flein felt like having a panic attack too, but for different reasons.

"What's wrong with her?" Kirda asked, standing up and leaning down to Anji with a look of concern.

"I don't know." Flein honestly said. "I think all the blood is bothering her."

"Hey, it's okay." Kirda said in a comforting tone, rubbing her hand lightly on Anji's back. "You're fine. It won't hurt you. You'll be fine." Anji's breathing seemed to slow down considerably and her persistent rocking came to a slow stop.

Rei was still screaming. Flein thought she could even hear her sobbing as well. "Maybe we should go." Flein suggested. It seemed like they were in their own little bubble, separate from the hollering and cheering from the demons around them.

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea." Kirda said.