(Author's note: Speech written in italics is actually spoken or written in another language by the indicated character. It has been translated and noted this way for the reader's benefit.)
Chapter 10
I step up. My opponent quakes; you can tell he's not a fighter.
"Begin." The referee speaks. I launch forward and put Akahana's blade around his neck before the kid can draw his blade. He shivers, but I don't intend to kill him.
"End!" The referee calls, obviously surprised. The kid must be a healer, because he touches his blade to the back of his neck, where I might have slightly nicked him. A few people clap, but it wasn't a great win.
I take my seat again to wait out the rest of the matches for this round. There is a short break between rounds, to confirm the pairs for this round, and the next set of matches is announced. I'm first this time.
"Begin." The referee calls when my opponent and I are in place.
The girl takes the first move this time, not wanting to end up like the last guy. I wait until she approaches, and I can see her confusion, trying to figure out why I haven't responded. Just before her strike, I step aside and swing my leg out, striking the back of her knee with my heel. Her leg gives out and I swing Akahana's blade around to catch her around the middle. She tosses her sword away in time to catch herself on the ground and avoid being sliced in half.
"End!" The referee calls, and I carefully pull Akahana away. Again, just a few people applaud. There hasn't been anything terribly exciting so far.
I return to my seat again, and watch for Elizabeth's second round. She fights well and wins, but it was another short match.
As this round ends, the few wounded are escorted away as the next round is announced. I have the third match, of eight. Elizabeth has the first round, which goes by too quickly. She loses to a guy with a mohawk who fights like he has no regard for honor. He receives no applause, even his friends reluctant to cheer him on. Another regular match runs through, a little longer than the others. I leave my seat at the end and reenter the arena.
My opponent struts forward confidently as the referee announces the start of the match. The guy in front of me immediately uses a shun-pô and I spring up, narrowly missing the sweep of his blade where my ankles would have been. So he plays for blood.
"Strangle, Akahana." I command, and she springs forward, whipping toward our opponent. He responds more slowly, surprised, and lifts his blade against us. Akahana rips it from his hands, throwing it off behind us by several meters. The guy takes another flash step to escape and try to reach his blade. I turn around and copy the movement, reaching his blade a half second earlier.
"He was just too cocky." Akahana comments, grinning as she wraps around our opponent's arm. He yelps and slaps at her, only succeeding in slicing himself more than necessary.
"Hey!" Akahana yells inside my head, and throws her blade around his neck.
"End!" The referee calls, trying to prevent a death. Akahana reluctantly pulls back, and our opponent gapes at his wounds, some deeper than others. Some more people clap for this one, happy to see a little more display. I return to my seat while they applaud, and while the defeated young man is taken off for healing. The rest of the competitors go up, pulling out a few more tricks, as my match had gone. The next four matches are announced. I'm up fourth, against the mohawk guy that beat Elizabeth.
Before I know it, the referee is announcing the beginning of my next match. Mohawk guy smirks and approaches steadily, sword raised in position to strike.
"Let's trash him right now!" Akahana suggests, eager to defeat the guy that took Elizabeth down. I shake my head slightly at her.
"They're looking for skill and precision, not cowardly killing. We'll work our way up to it." I respond in a mumble, parrying the mohawk's first attack.
"C'mon, you're barely trying!" Akahana whines. I dodge another strike from the mohawk and sweep at him with the outer curve of Akahana's blade. The guy steps away easily.
"It's not a big deal here." I respond quietly. "He's just fast, but he's not that good." The mohawk guy mumbles something to his sword, activating his Shikai, and suddenly has flames shooting from his hilt. The audience gasps as I roll away, sustaining only minor burns. A move like that will be hard to counter with our Shikai, because I have to physically approach him. It's better to use that, though, than try to reach with just the couple of feet in her resting shape.
"Strangle, Akahana." I command again, and take a running leap over mohawk guy, Akahana spirals toward his head in the air, but he ducks out of her reach. She does manage to cut a chunk out of his mohawk, though, and now he's really angry.
"I've got him." Akahana tells me, turning for mohawk's ankle as I hit the ground. He yells and points his flame-thrower at me, and I flatten to the ground. Akahana climbs his leg toward his chest quickly, and the referee calls for the end of the match.
"No!" The mohawk guy yells back, turning his flames to the referee who jumps away in surprise.
"I'll kill him." Akahana tells me, but I shake my head, breathing hard against the ground.
"No. Wait." I murmur, and mohawk guy turns back to me, weapon following. I throw my arm over my head, though it won't save me from the burns. I can see the grin on his face, but it quickly changes into something painful. The flames stop. I look up fully, and the referee stands behind him, his face hidden behind the chopped mohawk, and the rest of his head covered by a hood.
"You can let go now." He says in Japanese, indicating Akahana, who has constricted to draw blood rather severely.
"O-oh!" I reply, pulling a reluctant Akahana off of the guy. The referee withdraws a dagger from mohawk guy's back and steps away, face now obscured by a mask. A couple of medics restrain the mohawk guy and take him away.
"You alright?" The referee asks in a strange accent, stooping down over me. "They'll clean up any injuries you sustained after the referee called the match."
"No. Ah, no, I'm fine." I respond, still a little dazed from the sudden change in events.
"Alright then." He answers, and offers me a hand as he stands. I take it gratefully, and pull myself up.
"The tournament may continue!" The referee announces, then steps back off to the sidelines of the arena. I return to my seat as well, catching my breath.
I space out during the first match, thinking back to my family. I know that they must be out in the Rukongai somewhere. Most likely, they aren't even together, where ever they are. They could be in danger, in one of the lower ranked areas. My mother wouldn't handle that well.
"Second match!" The referee calls at me, and I jerk out of my thoughts, rising from my seat. I've lost the interest to fight, though.
"Begin!" The referee calls, once I've reached position.
"Strangle, Akahana." I grumble, and she springs forward, spiraling down the length of the girl's sword, up her arm, and around her neck. The girl chokes in surprise. I don't know how she made it this far if she couldn't even react to that in time. The referee calls the end of the match, and Akahana unwinds, relaxing back into her regular state.
"What was up with that?" Hana asks me as I walk back to my seat.
"I just wasn't in the mood for a good fight. Besides, I need to conserve my strength for this last match." I explain, half-lying, though I don't think she would believe it anyway.
The referee calls for a ten minute period before the start of the final match. I lean back in my seat, staring out at the stands across the arena. I can't really make out the people over there. Yoruichi is obvious, in a chair set apart from the others. The white robes give away the captains behind her, but I can't tell the individual faces.
"Hey, Emiko." A voice speaks up beside me. I jump slightly and look over, recognizing Aidrian's face.
"Uh, hey. What... what are you doing over here?" I ask, confused. He lifts his hand in response, showing me a plastic-wrapped item
"Thought you might need a little pick-me-up, after all that fighting. And I know how bad you are about skipping meals." He chuckles, tossing a protein bar into my lap as he takes the seat beside me. I smile a bit awkwardly, remembering our uncomfortable and memorable venture for frozen yogurt, and unwrap the snack. Really, I hadn't even thought that I was hungry. I hadn't noticed being hungry much at all, recently. I didn't know if that meant anything, so I didn't mention it, but I guess he noticed.
"Oh, and I got this as well." He adds casually, producing a bottle of juice. I chuckle a bit at him, raising an eyebrow.
"Are you a walking convenience store or something, now?" I ask jokingly. He laughs.
"Not exactly. I just planned ahead." He says it casually again, like it's not anything to be surprised about. But he wouldn't know ahead of time that I would make it this far. I shake my head a little, to myself, and take a bite from the bar. Chocolate, and not a bad kind.
"Thanks." I tell him after a moment, and he just nods, nice smile on his lips. I glance away, having my meal slowly, then look back to him. He glances over as well, giving me a mildly curious look.
"So..." I begin, pausing awkwardly. Aidrian starts to say something, but I pick up talking again. "If you don't mind my asking... Why did you... ah..." I glance down to the arm he had showed me upon our first meeting. I don't think we'd ever discussed it, after he was so blatant about it. He gives me an odd look, then glances down at his arm.
"Oh!" He laughs, strangely enough. Now I give him the odd look. "No, it's not really a huge deal to ask. I mean, I guess I was in a dark place at the time. It's not really the same now." He chuckles a little awkwardly, and pushes his bangs from his face. "It was really stupid, looking back. See, my parents were divorced, to start with. I was always shuttling back and forth between their places, which just made me feel like a torn person to start with. Then, at school, I was one of those kids that always got made fun of and whatever for having a dark attitude and dark clothes. Even the goths and whatever had no interest in me. So, I eventually decided that it would be better to be lost in oblivion than lost in a world of other people. And so, I did this." He gestures with his scarred inner arm. "I thought that'd get me out of it. But I guess it didn't exactly work out that way." He chuckles again.
"Oh." I respond awkwardly, not sure how to talk to someone about that.
"So, what about you?" Aidrian asks, easily changing topics. I pause, chewing the inside of my lip. I haven't talked about it since I arrived in the Soul Society...
"Nothing spectacular, I guess. It was... a plane crash. I was on the way to Japan with my mother." I tell him quietly, staring away into stands. If I don't say it loudly, maybe it won't hurt as much. "I just wish I could have prepared for it... Like, you knew what was coming. You were ready for it, in a way. I was just on my laptop, and suddenly a huge chunk of plane was burying itself into my chest and..." I stop abruptly, trying to take a breath beneath the pressure on my chest.
"I think I would've liked to go like that." Aidrian responds, relieving some of the tension in the situation. I smile at him gratefully. "Like, I probably would've lived longer, that way. Maybe it would've turned out that I was just making all that crap up, about how royally effed up the world is. But, y'know, the grass is always greener on the other side." He smiles, a little ruefully.
"The final round is about to begin!" The referee calls from the center of the arena. I stand, and Aidrian does as well.
"Hey." He says beside me, and I look over at him. "Break a leg." He squeezes my shoulder encouragingly, then hurries back off to his spot in the stands. I take a breath, assuring that the rest of my meal is left in the chair, then step out to my place for the start of the match. I recognize my opponent immediately. He's the top of the outgoing class. He's never lost a battle against anybody.
"We've got this." Akahana says reassuringly. I shake my head. There's no way.
"Begin."
I leap forward and clash blades with my opponent. He's been watching me this whole time, and he knows what I can do. Meanwhile, I was just staring at the clouds, barely paying a lick of attention. He flicks his wrist in an attempt to disarm me, but his blade just hooks itself inside of Akahana's. I flick my wrist down and my opponent, surprised for the moment, drops his blade. I toss it off behind me, as I had done earlier, and advance.
"I don't think so." Growls the boy, and he takes a flash step around me to grab his blade. I spin and narrowly manage to block his next blow, catching the edge of his blade in the dimple of Akahana's. I push forward, forcing his blade backward to point at him. I can't push it into his face without losing grip, and I can't switch to Shikai for the same reason. I drop one hand to grab the hilt of his sword, but he squats to the ground, letting Akahana slide off the tip of his sword. I jump aside, but he still manages a shallow cut on my left thigh. His blade is dirty and it stings, but I have to continue. I hit the ground and roll over, coming up in the momentum of the turn and swinging Akahana around like a scythe. Yoshi – I think his name is – jerks away just a little too slowly, and I notch his knee. Blood pours down instantly, and he hops back on the other leg.
"C'mon, let's do Shikai." Akahana goads in the back of my mind. "I'll move slow, make him think we're worn out. Then I'll strike, when he thinks it's in the bag." I clash swords with Yoshi again.
"Strangle, Akahana." I whisper, just over her blade. If I can't win, I might as well put on a show. I move quickly out of the path of my opponent's blade as Akahana sluggishly curves toward him.
"That all you got?" Yoshi remarks, laughing as he swings again. I jump away and shun-pô to the other side of the arena. It would be more interesting to the audience that way.
"Great." Akahana encourages. "Now when he comes back, disarm him, then you can drop me, and he won't see it coming when I grab him."
"I don't think that's going to happen." I respond, as Yoshi comes barreling toward us. I prepare to defend against his blade, but suddenly his elbow crashes into my gut, and I fly backwards into the wall I'd been standing too close to. The audience makes an appropriate sympathetic noise.
"Shit!" I curse, grabbing my head where it hit the wall. I'd forgotten to pull it forward in my surprise. Yoshi takes the opportunity to stab at me, and I lurch to the side, but he's pinned my sleeve. I yank my arm back, ripping the fabric up to my shoulder.
"Aww, I liked that uniform." Akahana comments facetiously. I groan at her jokes. There's no time for that. Yoshi mumbles something over his sword, activating his Shikai.
I jump into the air when I see his blade disappear, and look down to see it sprout up from the dirt exactly where I was standing. If that's his Shikai, I can't imagine what his Bankai would look like. I take another swing at him when I hit the ground and manage to rip the front of his uniform, but not his skin. I leap over him again to avoid the underground sword. With a move like this, he's at a disadvantage in close combat, but I can't stay in one place for too long.
I jump up and stick to the wall, using a kidô move I'd recently learned. Yoshi looks up and just smirks at me. Before I can realize why, a stabbing pain shoots up into my foot.
"What the...?!" Akahana exclaims at the same time as my shriek pierces the air. The pain shoots up through my leg and into the rest of my body as the blade hits bone. I fall off the wall and hit the ground, huffing and moaning painfully.
"Tough luck." Yoshi says over me. I see Akahana shoot up toward him, spiraling around to his heart through the tears in my eyes. Yoshi looks at me, shocked.
"End!" The referee calls, almost in sync with my screams as Yoshi's blade launches up from the ground and through my chest.
(Author's Note: Yes, more review spam. I appreciate it.)