Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 7: Yukie: Elimination Rounds

Yukie knew who he was, of course. Everyone in the world of masks and capes knew who Deathstroke was, just as they knew who Lady Shiva was, and if only a fraction of the stories told about him were true, he was one of the most dangerous men in the world. This was the first time she had ever seen a picture of him without the his mask. Hurrying back to the waiting room, she found the mood entirely altered from alert anticipation to a stiff-backed apprehension as those closest to the entry subtly drew back to make room.

"He was just a spectator at last year's," she heard someone mumble. "Heard it was the first time he'd ever seen a match."

"He can't have gone from knowing nothing about it to world-class in a year," someone else protested.

"Him? It probably only took him six months…"

"More like three…"

"I wouldn't have come all this way if I'd known…"

"Me neither. That's a hundred thousand I'll never see again."  

Such was the tenor of the comments as the man himself entered the room. She did not have a very good view of him—just a glimpse of a stony profile and silver-grey hair, but it seemed he was the very last entrant in the competition. That said something of him—he had waited, perhaps to make an entrance, but also perhaps because he knew his presence would deter others from entering.

The sword inspector appeared in the open doorway. "The event is about to begin. When the drums sound the challenge, please enter the combat floor via that door, one at a time. There are eighty-eight competitors this year, so after the opening remarks, the elimination rounds will begin with ten at a time. You may watch and wait from the back of the hall or return here. Remember that any improper conduct amongst yourselves will result in instant disqualification and may lead to a ban from future competitions. Thank you."

Tommy Chen started, "Should I go in? Since I'm your drummer—."

She held up a hand to forestall him. "I shan't need you until the freestyle round, which is the seventh. Don't listen too closely to the beat—I don't want you to imitate them, Just play as you normally play, and I will dance to your rhythms."

His 'drum set', such as it was, was comprised of several plastic buckets in different sizes. She had cut through Gotham's Chinatown one day on her way to the monorail, and found him playing on a street corner for whatever money people put in a jar at his feet. Stopping to listen to him for a while, she was struck by the fresh spontaneity of his beats, how he played the heartbeat of youth and city life that pulsed through the streets. When she approached him with the request that he play for her that night, he had at first refused, so she had appealed to his grandmother instead, and with her on Yukie's side, had won the argument.

"Okay. Man, I feel like a midget in here. Even the guys who aren't that tall or that big, they have this presence to them, you know?"

"I know," she replied. And none more so than Deathstroke. He was like a huge mastiff in a room full of cats made nervous by his presence. Even though he wasn't attacking, there was the sense that he might at any moment.

The drums began the call, a martial cadence with an accelerating beat. The door to the loading dock opened, and the nearest began to file in. She turned to Granny Chen. "Is anything out of place?"

It was important to create an impression upon entering the arena, and so it was for this, the parade before the spectators, that she had dressed so carefully. Her furisode had a pattern of falling snow swirling on the wind, not as tiny individual snow flakes, but fat soft clumps, all in white and shades of grey on a black background. The obi cinching her waist was scarlet with real silver and gold foil appliqués in a basket-weave pattern, and in her hair was an engraved mother-of-pearl comb and hair stick set, all of which her grandmother had given her over the years.