King Make Believe

Chapter 8 (prt 1)

Hirokazu

I watched all the crowds as they gathered in their seats, talking amongst themselves, laughing and eating the food they bought at the local stalls on their way here.

I hadn't talked or even looked at any of my contestants. All I had to do was win, make Father proud, my existence and humility known, and earn that sword. Besides, whenever I ever glanced at them, they were huddled in a group, all staring at me with disgusted looks. I decided to just leave the invisible, and completely irrational hatred be.

I had been doing that my whole life, after all.

"Contestants—Gather 'round! Gather 'round!" The trainer of the others called out our names and listed us all a colour, I was blue. We were handed our masks and sashes. Once we were dismissed, my personal trainer came up to me.

"Hirokazu, you must remember to stretch your awareness, like when you sit down in a library and open your eyes to words on the page but keep your ears keen to the other noises around you." He grinned and clapped me on the back, his laugh lines crinkled and I nodded. Hoping not to be late or anything that would embarrass myself before the first trial even began.

"Yes, sir." I said, turning around and heading off with the others. All of them taller and broader shouldered than myself. All of them strong and powerful, like dogs trained and born for war.

I grinned. But sometimes that occasional black cat crept over the fence and took those doggies' bones.

We grabbed out colour assigned swords and slipped our ceremonial masks over our heads. The fangs on each of our masks were yellow, the eyelashes on the mask of the boy next to me were curved and perfect, like a neat row of crescent moons.

"Contestants line up!" The trainer's voice rung over the wired speakers, the microphone a new creation, imported recently from a lonesome town square in Nippon.

Once we'd lined up, our swords in our sheaths and our masks tightly clinging to our heads, the trainer continued. "Thank you all for coming to witness this memorable time of the year when our strongest prove themselves worthy of the Moon Spirit Sword." There's not one hesitation to clap after he pauses.

"We have only five contestants today because one of them has been called into duty on the front lines, his father was ill and could not join the recent battle mission." This time there was a momentary pause, in consideration for the nobleness of the youth who went in his father's place to war.

"But enough talk, let us start the trials start!" The screams and cheers for the others were loud and captivating, making me realise that I had no one but Mother and Jae watching me. And all the Councillors, but they didn't care, just that I should—would—win.

Everyone prepared themselves for the past two and a half months for this. And I couldn't help but feel the smallest of something writhe in my gut, something telling me that this might not end on the best of terms.

I shook my head, racing forwards like everyone else was doing, skipping nimbly across the poles sticking out of the grass splotched ground. There was one in the lead, but, before I could notice, two of them had come up behind me. They unsheathed their swords and a boy comes in between them. The middle boy runs forwards and jumps over me, kicking me lightly in the back, almost making it seem like an accident, like the others had cornered him. I fell forwards and grabbed out at the pole standing in front of me. The other two behind me struck my knuckles hard tempting me to let go of my hold and fall, being disqualified.

I gritted my teeth and pulled myself up, the anger I'd buried deep down had risen again. And this time I couldn't exactly fight it back. Then it hit me, something that I should've realised and delved into long before the race started. I should embrace that anger, let it fuel me so that I can compete equally and fight back. They must've been fuelled with heaps of hatred as well. It might be better if I responded with the same fire. Fight fire with fire.

I stood up, something else taking control, and before I knew it, the others were staring at me—fully focused on my hands. I looked down, past the gleam of my sheath and at the deep cuts on the upside of me hands. A mist had enveloped my hands, my fists, and had embedded strands into my skin. It was sewing up the cuts. And when the mist died down, all that remained was a silver line on each of my hands. The mist healed my wounds. I looked up and they were now staring at my face, terrified looks casted across their faces.

"He healed himself." One of them muttered, the others shook their heads and kept going. Not wanting to seem suspicious to the crowds of hundreds.

Everyone continued cheering and we all made our way across the rest of the poles, and once I saw what we had complete next, I grinned. This was exactly what I had been trained for.

The next course was made up of vines wrapped and tangled together, overhead there were hundreds of hanging spikes, and if we made the wrong move—stepped on the wrong vine—then one of those spikes would come falling down onto us. But we obviously would move out of the way, it was the fact that the spike would cut through at least five vines underneath us...

A loud crack and snapping noise erupting from behind me as I leapt forwards across the halfway mark of the lines. I flung my head back to gaze the at the first disqualified contestant.

He fell into the river below and the last I heard was his muffled cries and he dragged himself out. I ignored this and continued to skip forwards, I noticed the pattern and difference of the rigged vines, they had the faintest discolouring. Something I feel the others might pick up before too long.

I leapt out of the last entanglement and headed across the platform, making my way to the second last trial. The second last test.