Chopsticks

Chapter 5: Tickle War

 We walked into a large area which could have fit at least twenty of my and Katsu's houses. Lining the circumference of the area were 20 teams, all looking just as scary as the next. Each one seemed to have a different theme like piercings, tattoos, muscles, or all three. My team didn't have a theme. Unless you counted that they were pretty good looking.

The floor of the arena was red dirt which stuck to our clothes like cat hair. The walls were about ten feet high, made of steel, and held together with screws and faith. Along the walls were red buttons which were calmly glowing red, but would be slowly blinking during an actual match. Between every other button there was an open arched entry, every team stood in front of the entry with their team's name above it. At the very top of the steel walls was a rusted green railing, which indicated the start of the bleachers which went up about fifty rows, with the first two rows being white for VIP only. One side of the arena had comfortable looking chairs and the green railing looked like it was painted yesterday, the other side sported dirty wooden planks with paint peeling off of the railing. This was because one side of the arena was built on the poorer part, and the other on the richer part of Samurodate. The rich paid for comfort, while the poor couldn't afford it. In the middle of the arena was a table stacked with different colored packets.

"Teams! Attention please!" A woman's voice echoed throughout the stadium. I'll admit, I jumped and almost knocked over Jae.

"Sorry." I muttered, walking a bit more forward than necessary to avoid falling back on someone again.

"Today you will pick the uniform color of your team and adjust to your new living spaces! The uniforms have been set out for you and you will come and pick up the packet of your choosing. Please do so respectfully." The voice concluded. Suddenly the buttons turned green and teams started making their way to the middle. They weren't running like I thought they would. In fact, they seemed calm and collected- not at all what I was expecting. We were halfway to the middle when Satoshi stopped us.

"Stay here, I'll get them. Jae, watch the new kid." He instructed. The team nodded and we stood our ground awkwardly in the middle of the path to the uniforms. Groups stood around the tables, eyeing each other. Shi was the first of them to grab the uniforms and walk back.

"Aye! Leader of team Eye Candy!" One of the leaders with an eye-patch and body tattoos called after him. Satoshi kept walking, clutching the bags in his right hand. His face was serious and brooding, even scary in the lighting.

"I called your name, you disrespectful punk!" the man yelled, this time his voice was followed by a rock flying to Satoshi's head. I tried to scream out to him but one of the members quietly covered my mouth. It was Jae, his eyes silently told me to shut up. I turned and watched in horror as the rock made it's course to Shi's head almost in slow motion.

But then something unexpected happened. Shi jumped up and did a tornado kick, sending the rock straight back at the tattooed leader. It hit him square in the face, knocking him backward and causing him to THUD on the dirt floor, sending up a puff of red dust. After getting over the initial shock, his team members growled like a wolf pack intimidating it's prey before guiltlessly killing it. Then they ran at us.

Shi had made it to our group right as the tattoo team started to chase us. My first reflex when I saw those bear like humans haul toward us was to skedaddle my way out of there, but no one else in our team moved a muscle.

"Walk fast." Shi muttered to us as he walked past us. We all turned and followed Shi, walking faster than we had probably ever walked in our lives. Although the situation was scary, it was also kind of funny. I imagined we looked like grandmas who speed walked in the parks.