Ah, the holidays. The perfect time to relax, hang out with your family and of course… Getting back from my long forgotten hiatus! I'm so sorry guys, but here's the new episode.
Chapter twelve: First round- RACE!
After getting back together and cleaning their messy clothes, Randy, Howard, Julian, Mr. Smith and the speed ninjas went up the mountain, going through a secret cave entrance into what seemed like a hidden Japanese kingdom "Whoa…" said the four in unison "Welcome to Kazenagi, an ancient ninja village and the last one to remain active. We of the Norisu Hishiro clan live here together with the ninja elders of the nine clans. We capture and bring Yokai here in order to prevent them from going rampant and killing people" said Nishina with clear joy as the four admired here "What are Yokai? I heard that name a couple of times before, but I never understood what it means" said Randy "You don't know? Yokai are-"
"Yokai are ancient Japanese folklore monsters that lived in ancient times. Some of the most famous Yokai are: The Tengu, the Yuuki onna, the Kyuubi and the Ryuu, an ancient Japanese dragon" said Julian, interrupting Nishina, who seemed to be actually impressed of his knowledge "Looks like someone has done their homework" said Nishina to Julian "What can I say, when I'm not looking for bike selling posts, I tend to get pretty deep into mythology" replied a smug Julian "Well, well, look what we have here: it's the Fake-o and The speedy girl!" said a green ninja in an insulting matter while a bunch of other green ninjas laughed behind him "And who's that jerk?" asked Howard "That's Nicholas Rodriguez, descendant of Norisu Ren, the green ninja of agility" Nick pulled off his mask, revealing a Hispanic face with a thin moustache and beard, even his jet black wavy hair seemed to mock Randy, much to his charging "So you're another one of the participants, huh? I'm SO going to enjoy kicking your butt" said Randy poking his chest, which really pissed him off "You know, we don't have to wait for the tournament, we can fight right here, right now!" he said with dangerous eyes. Suddenly, all the other ninja sub-clans began to surround them, enticing them to fight.
"Randy, this isn't worth it" said Nishina while looking at Nick with disgust, but Randy was way gone into the mood, his last few months were way too much of a load and he needed to take it out on something. Putting his mask on and taking his Ninjatos out, Randy charged quickly, ready to teach Nick a lesson, but found himself cutting through the air. It took Randy less than a millisecond to look down and see Nick bent backwards on the ground, dodging his attack like Neo would dodge bullets in "Matrix", unfortunately for Randy, he didn't have time to react, as Nick bounced back like a spring instantly and head-butted him so hard, he sent him flying a couple of feet away "There is a reason they call me the master of agility" said Nick with a wild look on his face as he took out a pair of Kopis blades and entering battle stance, but before he could do something, a loud and powerful stomping hit the ground and made everyone except for the crimson ninjas, brown ninjas and Howard to trip and fall to the ground. From the crowd emerged the leader of the crimson ninjas, an Australian redhead, teenage girl who had a serious look on his face "Enough with this nonsense!" said the girl as her blood red hair seemed to be moving from her anger "You! Lower your weapons!" she said while pointing at Nick "And you Don't shame yourself by dropping to his level!" she said pointing at Randy, who shot himself in the air and saluted like a frightened soldier "Yes, Sir! I mean, Ma'am, umm…"
"My name is Lucy Norisu, direct descendant of Norisu Shinichi, the crimson ninja of strength" she said while helping him up "You all better not fight before the tournament starts" she said while she and her group were leaving "I wanna defeat every single one of you at full strength".
All the ninjas gathered before an old guy at the balcony of what seemed like a Japanese castle "Welcome, brave warriors from all parts of the globe. My name is Norisu Hiyakashi, one of the elders of the Norisu clan. Today we'll begin the two part tournament to decide which of the heads of the nine Norisu clans is fit to become the leader of the clans, but that's not the only reason we're organizing this tournament. In order to keep secrecy, we didn't mention it in the flyers you received, but the winner of the tournament will also be granted a special powerful artifact, holding a power so strong, that only the strongest of ninjas can possibly control it" everyone began to chat with each other "Oh, please! I'm clearly the most powerful of ninjas here" said Nick "Am I right babe?" he said in a flirty matter to Lucy, which in respond gave him a kick so loud down there, that it was enough to shut everyone up. Randy and the rest of the males in the city paled while holding their crotches in horror. A single tear ran down Nick's right cheek as he fainted and fell to the floor, twitching. "(Someone get the young man a healer…)" whispered the elder in his assistant's ears before clearing his throat and proceeding "Anyway, the tournament will be divided in two parts: the first will be a Triathlon across Japan with nine different segments made to match the specialties of the nine clan, at the end of which the last ninja to arrive gets disqualified. The second part of the tournament will be a more traditional part: The remaining eight ninjas will be divided into pairs, at random and fight in pairs until only two will be left in the finals, after which the winner will be declared leader of all clans!" finished the elder with his hands up. Everyone was cheering in the crowd besides Randy. He knew it's going to be one of his toughest fights.
Demons haunted Howard's dreams. Nightmares about a creature falling down on him and enveloping him into a cocoon. Silence, until all of a sudden, a hand broke through the cocoon. Howard fought the regenerating black matter, scratching, punching and screaming with invisible strength, breaking through and into the light. He woke up. He was sitting in one of the four beds on the room he and his friends were given. 'That was one heck of a dream', he thought with a smile. Suddenly, he heard a cry that was everything but human. He didn't know if he was being too curios, or if the voice somehow attracted him, but he couldn't stop his body from marching in the direction of the voice. Passing through all sorts of monuments, paintings and artifacts in the amazing underground ninja city, Howard eventually reached what seemed like a cave. While his relatively decent sense of logic told him to back the juice up, a weird mixture of excitement, attraction and sleepiness drove him into the cave. There, locked in chains, was a coffin. Howard went straight towards it, not noticing the knocked out guards and slowly reached his hand towards the coffin. Now in his mind echoed the screams of his consciousness 'Stop! Don't do that! Have you not seen any one of the 'Mummy' movies!?' but at the same time, another voice echoed in his head, saying that he got too far to back out now. Just as the tip of his middle finger touched the coffin, all of the chains sprung out like frightened snakes and the coffin opened with a bang. A cloud of red smoke burst out like a geyser, and then it enveloped Howard. The next thing he knew, Julian spilled a bucket of water on his face, telling him to hurry up and get dressed for the big ninja race.
It was a stressful morning, alright. Randy and the other eight ninjas were standing near the starting line outside the mountain with the entire village watching the show from different positions across Japan. Randy was eager to get on his motorcycle 'Good thing we're using these' said Randy while looking at his red and black motorcycle 'I'm scared to see just how fast Nishina really is…'.
On a seat near the starting line, the elder watched as one of his servants appeared in a smoke bomb and whispered in his ear something that gave him a decent shock "(What!? Find it and subdue it as quickly as possible!)" He whispered back and the servant disappeared as he appeared. In front of the starting line a ninja looking like a show host wearing an orange suit appeared in an orange smoke cloud "Welcome, one and all, to the event of the year! The first phase of the two part tournament to decide who's going to become the clan leader of the Norisu ninja family! Allow me to present the contestants: Here we have from the turquoise root clan, Nishina norisu, from the crimson root clan is Lucy Norisu, from the green root clan, it's Nick Rodriguez, from the black root clan we have Alexander Drakos…" and so on. Every sub clan cheered for its respectful contestant "And of course, the boy and the legend, the one who defeated the sorcerer, the serpentine god of thunder, Quetzalcoatl, the ninja who spent his last two years training alone without a drop of ninja blood, Randy Cunningham!" Immense shame overcame Randy when he saw that his friends were the only ones cheering him in the silent, serious looking crowd. As he looked around for a distraction he only found the face of the Mexican orange ninja, Pedro Rivera, who looked at Randy with hatred (for obvious reasons).
"Here are the obstacles: first, in the black obstacle, we have the inescapable infinite track. Then, on the green obstacle, there's the three dimensional interdimensional track through the rundown-downtown of the big city. The participants will then go through the turquoise blocker, which will be the lightning tunnel through the country's main generator. After that there's the crimson obstacle, a personal road blocked with Yvetamantium, one of the toughest materials on earth. Following that you'll have to equip your wings, because in the white obstacle you'll meet with the biggest canyon in the whole world. On the orange side of the track we have a race through the scorching sands of a nuclear bombarded ghost town. Then prepare for the unforgiving death mountain on the brown obstacle and last but not least in the blue obstacle a race through the frozen sea, a snowy desert filled with unstable ice tacks and deadly frozen icicles. Those who'll get stuck on a track for up to five hours will be allowed to skip it, but will be punished severely with a fifteen minute penalty. This is indeed a cruel race, and only the eight best of the nine Norisu descendants will be able to move on. So get on your positions!" everyone hoped on their bike. Randy's hands were sweaty. He held the handle bar so tightly, that he could feel his hands getting white from the pressure "This is going to be fun" said Nick with a devious smile. Randy remembered what prime ninja told him "Don't trust any of the ninjas". Remembering that, he wore a more serious face and put his ninja mask as well as his bike helmet on. While everyone else did the same, the ninja in the orange suits raised his finger "On your marks, get set…" everyone turned their engines on. The tension was incredibly high and was followed by the roar of the nine motorcycle engines, as well as the ninjas' determination "GO!" the second the orange ninja lowered his hand, every single one of the ninjas flew forwards on their bikes 'Let's do this' was Randy's last clear thoughts before entering competitive mode.
That's it for now. Hope you liked it. Happy holidays!
