Doodle Champion Island Journeys!

5.

Munching on the dangos, Lucky made her way back to the main road. The Tengu had sent her back in front of the Table Tennis Torii, saying she had no reason to stay while there were still more Champions she hadn't challenged. And as much as she wanted to watch the husky's match and Kitsune's rematch, the bird man was right.

One sport down, six more to win! Now the question is...

Where should I go next..?

Lucky took out the compass that the mascot Inari had given her. It was a pocket-sized bronze one, looking as normal as any other compasses except having a black zircon as the pivot instead of the usual bronze.

However, there's more to what the small thing let on: as Lucky pressed on its glass face, the surface slightly sank with a soft 'click', and the zircon lit up like an illuminated button switch. The gem turned from black to glowing white, then projected a hologram of the island map, hovering right in front of Lucky's eye level. The main roads were lined out, and the seven areas of the island were depicted separately that there was no need to draw boundaries. A space was visibly seen between each town and the center square. Seven different-colored emblems marked the location of the sports Torii's, and a cat face symbol pinned Lucky's current location.

If anything, this map/compass was like a GPS, minus the teleportation.

Tanooki City... The southwestern metropolis. Lucky recalled the Ushi she met on the way to the bamboo hill saying that all the people there had moved to the big city. Guess I should check there next. To see how's the city different from the abandoned town.

The pathway to Tanooki City lay opposite that to the bamboo forest so Lucky had to take a semicircle around the Central Hill. At the start of the path to the city, just like any others, there was a statue of the Legendary Champion of the local sport, all covered in mold and so close to falling apart. On the base written "Tanooki: Grand Champion of Skateboarding". It depicted a tanuki holding an umbrella, standing on a leaf-shaped skateboard with a mischievous grin.

Out of the seven Legendary Champions, Tanooki happens to be the youngest deity. The advertising scroll had described him. He took on skateboarding out of interest and ended up being a Champion for his fun-loving and mischief nature, which excites the crowd.

Not too far from the statue was an arrow-shaped street sign printed "←Skateboarding" pointed down a rather straight, clean, and wide road - it's leading to a city, after all. It took a good while until Lucky reached the first crossroad, where an Ushi with his loud voice guided competitors and visitors:

"This way to Tanooki City, metropolis of Champion Island and home to our skateboarding champion!" he said pointing to the road heading south, "But good luck finding him, he's always changing shape and hiding around in the city."

"Changing shape?" Lucky stopped in her track and asked the blue bull.

"Looks like you've never been to Champion Island before, nor heard much about it, am I right?" the Ushi replied with a question, but continued on before Lucky could have a chance to respond as if he knew well what it would be, "Besides being our Skateboarding Champion, Tanooki is also famous as a master trickster. He's agile and can disguise as many different objects to fool others around in a fun way, like a levelled-up game of hide and seek. It's hard to find Tanooki himself in the city named after him. Heh, if you try skateboarding, you might be fast enough to find him."

"Really? Then I have to go find and challenge him right now. Thanks for letting me know!" Lucky said and went down the south road.

It was at least twice the width of any of the eight main paths, the sides lined with concrete tiles. The pine trees and wild plants grew more sparsely the closer she got to Tanooki City.