To Be A Scrapper (Suzuya Juuzou)

Chapter 4

The lights hit me like a bus coming at 100mph. It was so bright my head started to ache. I kept walking forward though, more like being pulled forward. Rei held my sweaty hand and was walking in front of me, unconsciously calming my erratic heartbeat.

"We'll do great Emi. I promise" he turned his head and gave me a smile which I returned. I could hear the screams all around me, but not like The screams I'd heard this past month; they were cheers. I forced myself to look up, finding myself inside what resembled a huge arena or something. There were like a gazillion people on the bleachers, all cheering and clapping.

"Rei, who are they cheering for?" I whispered.

"Us silly" he laughed and my eyes went wide.

They were cheering for me?

It was then when I noticed a few figures appear in the arena. They came in pairs, each one from their own gate. We kept walking forward until we were facing each other in a circle. All five pairs, including us, stared at each other.

They were about the same age as us, some even bigger.

"Rei, it's good to see you again" a small voice said. I turned my head to the frail looking girl a few feet in front of us.

"Ah, it really is" he smiled at me. I gave him a confused look.

"Who's that?" this time it was a male that spoke. He looked older than us, maybe eleven years old.

"This is Emi" he answered.

"What happened to the other one?" he asked.

Other one?

"Oh yeah...dead now" he answered with a shrug and I tensed.

"Dead? How?" I asked with wide eyes.
"During this same competition" Rei said and burst out laughing.

"It was really funny to see. Let's just hope you don't end up the same." he sighed.

"U-Uh.."

"Are the contestants ready?" I heard a voice ring throughout the arena. The cheers got louder as everybody in the circle nodded, everybody but me.

"Then let us begin!"

Everybody turned around and I followed their actions, walking besides Rei towards one corner of the arena.

"First off, we've got the Kasamatsu brothers!" the voice screamed even louder this time. The pair we had been talking to just seconds ago stepped to the front.

With some sort of crane, a tightrope two times bigger than the one Mama used was lowered into the middle of the arena. The ground under it opened up, revealing huge spikes.

When I say huge I mean huge! They were even taller than me!

"Rei," I gasped. "H-How did your last partner die?"

"A spike right through the chest. It was a real pity" he laughed lightly.

How can he seriously laugh at that?

The sound of a gun interrupted my thoughts and my first reaction was to crouch down and cover my ears. After about a few seconds, I felt someone poke me.

"What are you doing?" Rei asked looking down at me. I slowly stood up and shook my head.

"Just got scared" I whispered. I watched in front of me as the two brothers started on opposite sides of the tight rope. Immediately a wave of sharp knives flew towards them, which they dodged easily.

I watched through wide eyes as they managed to dodge everything, from knives and swords, to arrows on fire.

"R-Rei-"