10
When Tomoyo wakes me up the next morning, the first thing I notice is that Sakura is already gone. I probably won't see her until we're in the arena. Then I remember the strange dreams I had the night before, but as the Magic Games is now looming upon me, I push them out my head.
Tomoyo gives me a shift to wear and then guides me to the roof. It's windy and a little cold, but that doesn't concern me. A hovercraft appears out of thin air and drops a ladder drops down. As soon as I place my hands and feet on it, some kind of electric current freezes me into place. The Capitol wouldn't want their tributes to die before the games even began. Once I'm inside, I'm not released until after a woman in a white coat comes to me with large syringe and says while putting it into my arm, "This is your tracker."
I feel a sharp stab of pain as the tracker is put in my forearm, but I don't even flinch. Finally, the ladder releases me and then Tomoyo is brought up on the same ladder. We're taken to a room where breakfast is laid out for us and at first, I only drink the coffee. But Tomoyo insist that I eat as much as I can before going into the arena. As I eat, I stare out the window.
It's a silly desire, but I've always wanted to be able to fly. Somehow, I feel like I belong in the sky, like I'm supposed to spend a lot of my time up here. I spend the entire ride staring out the window and periodically eating something from the large breakfast we've been given. I don't even know how long we've been flying when the windows go dark, signaling we're approaching the arena.
When the hovercraft lands, Tomoyo and I go back to the ladder and it takes us underground, into the catacombs beneath the arena. Then we follow the directions to my preparation chamber. In the Capitol, they call it the Launch Room. In the districts, it's referred to as the Stockyard, the place animals go before slaughter.
I'll be the first and only tribute to use this Launch room. After the games, the arenas become historic sites. The people of the Capitol are allowed to tour it and they are popular vacation destinations where they can rewatch the games, visit the sites where deaths took place and even reenact them.
I have to push these thoughts out of my head as I shower and prepare to go into the arena, less I make myself angry and a generally unpleasant person to be around. There will be enough to worry about in the arena without my temper getting in the way.
While we wait for my clothes to arrive, Tomoyo pulls my hair back into a ponytail and then braids the bottom end of it and secures it with a short piece of string. There are rules regarding what tribute uses to tie their hair in the games. Nothing that can potentially be used as a weapon, so I imagine Tomoyo's been thinking about how she would tie my hair back and out of the way since I got here.
The clothes arrive. They are the same for every tribute and even Tomoyo doesn't know what will be in the package as she has no say in the outfit, but she helps me dress anyway. The outfit consists of tawny pants, a light green shirt, sturdy brown belt, and thin, hooded black jacket that falls to my thighs.
"The material in the jacket's designed to reflect body heat. Expect some cool nights," Tomoyo says quietly. It's odd, because even though Tomoyo has a soft voice, she's never said anything quietly. She's about as somber as I am right now.
She hand me my boots and I put them on over knee high skintight socks. When I'm done, she makes sure my earring, my district token, is secure.
"Does everything fit?" she asks. "Are you comfortable?"
Everything fits, but I'm not comfortable. I don't feel like myself. I felt more like myself when I was wearing her elaborate costumes. They were flashy and drew attention, but she designed them with me in mind.
"Everything's fine," I say finally.
All that's left to do after that is wait. We don't say anything for a long time. Then Tomoyo says, "Are you okay, Yue?"
I resist the urge to say something sarcastic in reply. Tomoyo has been nothing except helpful these last few days. Thus, I don't say anything.
Tomoyo reaches over to grab my hand. Normally, I'd move my hand out of reach, but this time I allow her. Though I'll never admit it aloud, her silent support calms me. It's only a few minutes later that a female voice announces that it's almost time to launch.
Tomoyo and I stand and walk over to a circular metal plate. I stand on it and let Tomoyo's hand go.
"Good luck Yue," she whispers. "It was nice meeting you. If things were different and I could bet, I'd put my money on you coming back."
I manage to give a small smile, a farewell token. She smiles back and then a glass cylinder lowers around me. Then, I begin to rise. For a while, I'm encased in darkness, and momentarily, my heart starts to thud in my chest at how confined I am. Then, I'm being lifted out the cylinder and outside. My eyes have to adjust to the bright light of the sun and I shield my eyes to give them a chance to adjust before putting my hand down again. Then I hear it, the announcement I've been waiting for since I was reaped.
"Ladies and Gentlemen! Let the seventy-fourth annual Magic Games begin!"
In the sixty seconds that we're required to wait for the gong to go off, I assess my surroundings. The first thing I do is find Sakura who is about five tributes down from me. She meets my eyes and shakes her head just slightly, but I ignore her and turn to look at the Cornucopia. I'm pretty sure Clow has already factored in my hardheadedness and knows I have no intention of taking his advice and running away from the blood bath, at least not immediately. While I could probably survive a few days with no supplies, Sakura is more fragile than that and if I'm going to keep her alive, I at least need to get one of the large backpacks filled with supplies.
The best stuff is at the mouth of the Cornucopia, but it's too risky for me to go in there, especially when I have no alliances. So I start to divert my attention to the outer perimeter of the Cornucopia, but before I can, my eyes catch something gleaming at the mouth of the Cornucopia. There, resting on a mound of blanket rolls, is a silver sheath of arrows and a bow, already strung. It's a straight shot from here. I could sprint there, grab it and be far away from the Cornucopia before anyone could attack me.
Somehow I meet Sakura's eyes again and she is shaking her head slightly. I simply nod my head back slightly, toward the woods.
I can sense she's annoyed at my stubbornness, even from this far away, but I can also sense that she plans to do what I say.
The gong sounds.
Even though I want to make a run for the bow and arrows, instinctively I glance over to where Sakura was to make sure she's running as far away as she can. She is, but in the few seconds I've taken to make sure of this I've lost any chance that I might have had to get my weapon of choice, but I can still get something.
I grab a sheet of plastic and some type of rations first and then sprint forward and grab a large backpack. I just grab it before another tribute gets to it. Satisfied with this bounty for now, I start to make my way in the opposite direction. I hear something cut the wind and look back to see the tribute I managed to snatch the backpack from, falling forward, coughing up blood as he does so. When he falls, Ruby comes into view.
"Damn it," I mutter and run faster.
I'm not prepared to deal with Ruby right now. Even if I wanted to, I'm not stupid enough to try with the rest of the careers so close by to help her. I sense that a knife is being thrown at me before I ever hear the whistle of the blade coming toward me. I change the direction of my run and the knife just misses me. It lands just outside the woods and I run towards it, pick it up and keep running towards the woods. Ruby's not going to follow me. She's not going to miss the blood bath to come after me. Right now, my most primary concern is finding Sakura.
She couldn't have gotten far, but I've learned from experience that Sakura is good at concealing herself in small spaces when she doesn't want to be found. It would be stupid to call her name in the midst of all this. It would attract people right to us.
As I slow to a stop to come up with a way to find her, I mentally berate myself. I should have talked with her about a way to find each other in the case that we were separated.
Then, I remember something I said in my interview. I called her a beacon, a light shining in the darkness or something like that. I've never tried it before because I've never had to, but maybe I can find her with more ease than I thought, particularly if she's not far, if I can sense her magical aura. Undoubtedly, she's doing the same to find me. She said herself that my magic attracts her to me. Maybe not in as many words, but it's not a stretch.
Sakura's no doubt better at this than I am now that I think about it. I've always wondered how she's been able to find me so easily when I'm in the woods back home. If I stay in one spot, she'll probably find me before I find her.
It doesn't take long. Slowly but surely, I sense her vibrant presence coming towards me and decide to move towards it.
When she sees me, her eyes light up with relief. She runs toward me and throws her arms around me.
"Yue!" she says.
"Be quiet," I say, not bothering to try to get her off me. She doesn't seem to want to let me go. "Someone will hear us."
When she finally lets go, I look her over once and say, "You okay?"
She nods and then asks, "Are you?"
"Peachy," I reply dryly, already feeling frustration begin to bubble inside me. I brush it off and say, "Come on."
She follows without protest and we continue to walk, putting as much distance between us and the Cornucopia as possible. Sakura practically has to jog to keep up with my longer strides, so every now and then I slow down so she can get a rest before speeding up again.
Somewhere along the way we hear the canons that signal the death of a tribute. Because there are so many deaths in the first part of the games, they usually wait until after the fighting has stopped to shoot off the cannons in the first day. I don't bother to stop, but I do count the number of cannons that go off.
Ten. That means fourteen left to play. Twelve for me to ensure die, thirteen if I include myself, but that will be at the end.
As we continue to walk, I'm aware of the need to find water as soon as we can. While I can go much longer than most people without it, Sakura probably won't last more than a few days without it and I can tell the exertion without water is already starting to take its toll on her. I decide after a few hours to stop. It's not likely anyone is following us right now.
Sakura slumps down against a tree in relief, and I sit next to her to. I sit the knife I picked up earlier down next to me and open the backpack to see what's inside. There's a thin black sleeping bag that reflects body heat, crackers, a pack of dried beef strips, a bottle of iodine, matches, small wire, a pair of sunglasses, and an empty half-gallon plastic bottle with a cap. I'm so concerned about the fact that this last item is empty that I forget to check to see if there's anything else. Sakura takes the bag from me and peeks inside it. Then she gasps and reaches inside to take something out of it.
"What's that?" I ask.
She holds them out to me and I raise an eyebrow, unsure of why she's so excited about it. It doesn't look like anything to me except three marbles.
"Weapons that were developed way before the Magea existed. They disrupt the flow of a person's magic," Sakura replies.
"How?" I asks.
"It damages a person's connection to magic. Kind of like damaging a bridge. Oddly enough, it's activated by magic and affects anyone in a certain radius to it."
Which mean it disrupts the user's magic too.
"How long does it last?"
Sakura shrugs. "Depends on the person."
"When did you learn about those?"
"After you got kicked out of training the first day," she says.
The Capitol probably liked that comment and are now abuzz with how I got kicked out of training if they don't already know. I take the marbles from her and inspect them before giving her two of them and keeping one for myself. They'll come in handy if I run into Ruby, but only if I'm desperate and only if I have another weapon because they'll disturb my magic too.
As I pack everything back into the bag, I ask Sakura something I should have asked before we got in here.
"What else did you learn about magic?"
"Um… I'm good at all types of magic. Ying and yang that is," she admits.
"That's more than me," I say. "I'm only good at yin magic."
"That's more than everyone else," Sakura says. "But that only matters when trying to control forces of nature. Anyone can do basic spells if they have enough magic to do so."
"Really?" I say as we begin walking again. I know Sakura's still tired, but the careers undoubtedly have all the supplies they need, which means they'll probably be going through the night looking for tributes and I want to be as far away from them as I can before night falls.
Sakura nods. "And I learned all the basic spells for survival that Clow told me to learn, like how to conjure fire, water. I can even make a basic shield."
I stop and look at her. "You can conjure water?" I ask.
She nods.
"How much of it?" I ask.
"I can fill up that bottle in that bag," she says.
"Does it take a lot of energy?" I ask, remembering what Clow said about magic being a tiring thing for people not used to using it.
"Not if I get it out of a tree or something," Sakura says.
I can't help scowling at her. "Is there anything else you want to tell me that you can do with magic to make all this easier on us."
Sakura blushes and then shrugs. "I thought you knew."
It only takes me a second to rework my plan for the games. I've been so focused on protecting Sakura that I hadn't really given much thought to what she could contribute to make my task easier besides not making any friends, which she has failed at spectacularly.
"Then all that survival stuff Clow was talking about we can do with magic is your job. That way I can save my energy for dealing with any tributes we might come across," I say.
Sakura nods and we continue to walk. Soon though, night is upon us and though I'd like to go farther, I can only hope that we've walked far enough so that the careers won't find us.
"Where are we going to sleep?"
I shrug. "Probably in a tree or something."
Sakura frowns. "You know I can't climb trees."
"You will if you don't want the careers to see us," I deadpan.
She's silent after that, but only because she doesn't have a response. Somehow, I know she's not offended or hurt by my comment. Before we settle down, I give her the empty jug from the back pack and she touches a few random trees, shaking her head sometimes, before finally settling on one.
Sakura puts her hand on it and her hand glows pink for a moment before she draws her hand back and a bluish glowing orb follows. She directs it toward the opening of the jug until the jug is filled with blue glowing magic. Then the glow disappears and left in its place is water. Sakura turns to me, very pleased with herself if her grin is an indication.
"Is it safe to drink?" I ask.
"I don't know," she admits.
I reach into the backpack and take out the iodine. Then I drop a couple of drops into the water, cap the jug and we continue on our way to find a tree for Sakura to sleep in, because I know I probably won't be getting any sleep tonight.
"Does up there work?" I ask Sakura.
"You're the tree climber. You tell me," she says.
"I am not a tree climber," I reply.
"Then why are you always in one?" she asks.
"I like heights," I say, although that's only partially the truth. The full truth is that being high up in trees is the closest thing I can get to being in the sky on my own. But that's not something I want to share on national television. I've already got to act like I'm in love with Sakura and don't know it or something along those lines. My secret desire to fly is something I'm keeping to myself.
Although I'm more comfortable higher, I settle us not too far off the ground for Sakura's sake. Not only do I have to help her climb up, I'll undoubtedly have to help her climb back down so the closer to the ground we can be, the better.
I give Sakura the sleeping bag and once she's settled inside, I toss her the water and some of the rations I managed to get earlier. Then I hang the backpack on a short but sturdy branch above us and settle on the other side of the tree.
"What about you?" Sakura asks.
"What about me?" I reply.
"Aren't you thirsty? Or hungry?"
"Not really," I say and that's a bit of a lie. I'm already starting to feel a twinge of thirst, although it's probably nowhere near as bad as Sakura was feeling. But I'll be fine in the morning since we aren't walking anymore.
"Liar," Sakura says and the next thing I know, the water jug is being tossed in my lap. I turn to look back at her, but she's already settling into her sleeping bag. As she does so, she says, "I'm done. Besides, you're already going to be up all night, in the cold."
Sakura forgets I have a higher tolerance for the cold weather. It's the heat that gets to me, but I don't remind her. Instead I keep the water, but only to sip on it.
Soon enough the anthem plays and I look up to the sky to see find out who has died today. One of the tributes from three, both from 5 and 6, one from 8, 9, and 10, and both from eleven.
That leaves all the careers and a couple of others, including Kero and Chiharu, which Sakura doesn't neglect to remind me of. I resist the urge to snap at her that I know and that I wish they had been killed so that I don't have to deal with them later. As it is, I still might not have to. The careers are no doubt on the hunt for the rest of the tributes and it's only a matter of time.
Soon, I hear Sakura's steady breathing which signals that she has fallen asleep and I keep watch. The careers aren't the only thing to look out for. The Gamemakes are notorious for releasing dangerous magical creatures into the arena at night. I'm not disappointed. An unsettling fog settles and with it the temperature drops sharply. The fog is thin, so I can still see, but the average person would have trouble. Toya always teased me that I have eyes like a cat.
I stand up on my branch and look to the ground. Something is gliding on the ground and thankfully, it's not looking up into the trees, so I don't bother waking up Sakura just in case we have to run. But I do look at the creature. It's wearing a long black cloak, closed together with a black tie. It's also wearing a hood and when it goes around our tree to turn back the other way, I seek a white mask covering its face and I'm glad for it. Something tells me I don't want to see what's under it.
As it leaves, the fog goes with it and I sit back down, staring into the darkness after where it disappeared to. Not long after, I hear a load beastly growl and the scream of a female tribute.
"What was that?"
I glance at Sakura, trying to hide how nervous I really am as I say, "It's okay."
"But-"
"Go back to sleep," I say, trying to ignore the screams as they continue. Then there is silence, closely followed by the shooting of a canon.
I'll give Sakura an hour or two more to sleep, but obviously I was right in my assumption that there's more in these woods to worry about than just the career pack. One thing's for sure, I'm not comfortable staying in the woods longer than I have to. I determine that tomorrow, Sakura and I will explore the rest of the arena to see what else it has to offer, because I have no idea what that creature was and I have no intention to find out.
AN: Yay! The Magic Games have begun. Honestly, not much happens in this chapter, but in the next chapter things really start to get interesting.
In other news, I go back to school tomorrow for my final semester in college. While I'm glad this is the last semester, it still doesn't make me want to go back. But oh well.
At the risk of sounding like some of those review junkies I know who won't post a chapter unless they get enough reviews, just a note that reviews make me want to update faster and not just when I get around to it. So if you're reading this story and you enjoyed it (or even if it appalled you) please leave a review.