The stadium was a wide building with a curved, gray roof. A few wisps of cloud drifted laconically through a flat blue sky.
The Bosatsu dueling team's bus bulled into the parking lot, reached the duelists' entrance, hissed to a stop. The doors slid open and, one by one, the Bosatsu duelists emerged.
First was captain Ryoichi Kei. His golden hair tumbled about his face. He had a confident smile, his paper fan was folded and resting on his shoulder. He wore designer jeans and a white dress shirt, and a throng of excited fans followed him down the stairs of the bus.
Next came Yukimura Hisoka. She was reading from a book that sat folded open in one palm, only glancing up at the stadium once when she reached the ground. She adjusted her glasses. Her straight brown hair framed her face with straight lines and at right angles, and she wore an ankle-length skirt.
Jihara Akatsuki descended the stairs like a spirit, his skin and hair pale as death, his wide-sleeved and wide-legged garments floating about him, his hands folded, his eyes nearly shut.
Mizumigawa Shin took all the stairs in a single leap. She looked ready for battle. Her sleeves were short, but her wrists were wrapped in long strips of cloth. With her spiked hair, her trademark dark sunglasses, and her teeth bared in an enthusiastic grin, she cut an intimidating figure.
Last of the five, Kotei Jin exited the bus. He wore a Bosatsu school uniform, clean and sharply defined. He pushed the fringe of his hair out of his eyes, examining the stadium with a distant expression.
He was quiet.
The junior members of the team followed, each moving to the side and waiting for the rest. Once they had all disembarked and the bus's doors had slid shut, at a signal from Ryoichi they moved as one for the duelists' entrance.
There was a boy standing beside it, looking impatient. He was somewhat short, but extremely neat, with a perfect part in his hair, immaculate dress shirt and dark blue tie. He glanced back and forth between the parking lot and his phone's display.
As they passed by him, without looking, he said "Bosatsu."
They stopped.
"You're with Chikaku, aren't you?" asked Ryoichi.
The boy still didn't look at them. His voice was high, but his enunciation was exact and dispassionate. "Technically, yes." He sighed, to communicate how patient he was being with them. "More precisely, I am the captain of Chikaku Academy's dueling team. Yosai Akio."
"Pleased to meet you, Yosai-san." Ryoichi glanced back into the parking lot. "Is there something wrong?"
Yosai massaged his forehead with one hand. "One of my duelists is late. Though," he mused, "really this is all just a formality."
Ryoichi tilted his head to the side, slightly.
"I mean, of course, that you should just give up and go home now." He looked at them, finally. "You're not prepared."
Mizumigawa stepped forward, suddenly, but Ryoichi raised one hand slightly, and she stopped, frowning.
Yosai looked at her, abstractly, as though he wasn't quite sure what she was. "I don't mean that as a threat. It's a simple fact. You're not going to be able to defeat 'Chikaku's Demon'."
A squeal of tires broke the silence. A sleek, black car screeched into the parking lot, stopped diagonally across two or three parking spaces. The door opened, and Kumoru Yuji stepped out, a cruel grin visible under his long hair.
Yosai glared at him. "You're late. Get inside."
"Of course, boss," Kumoru replied flippantly, "Didn't mean to keep you waiting."
The two of them swept through the doorway and out of sight. As he went, Kumoru looked at Mizumigawa. He licked his lips, still smiling, winked, and was gone.
She stood watching him, frozen. "Chikaku's... Demon?"
~
The murmur of the crowd quieted as the lights went up on the dueling arena. The door from the Bosatsu team's room led to a brief path, then a few stairs up to one of the two dueling platforms. A short distance across from it was the other dueling platform, matching stairs, a path, and the Chikaku team's door.
On the sidelines, by their entrances, the Bosatsu and Chikaku duelists waited. Ryoichi, Yukimura, Jihara, and Jin sat on one side. Yukimura and Jihara were watching the duelists' entrances, but Ryoichi, true to form, was watching the crowds, savoring the atmosphere. Jin, meanwhile, was looking over at Chikaku's sidelines.
There, Yosai Akio sat with his arms folded, his eyes drifting around the stadium but focusing on nothing. Nanafushi Kazue, the girl who had been with Kumoru the other night, sat next to the captain. She appeared to be doodling in a small notebook. She looked incongruous there - she was wearing a bright floral-patterned dress in reds and pinks, while her teammates were dressed mostly in dark, somber colors.
Beyond them, there were two others Jin had not seen before. One seemed to be napping, a skinny boy with a wide-brimmed hat over his eyes. The other was intimidatingly huge - a broad, muscled boy with short-cropped blond hair. They each wore dress shirts, looking like Yosai, though not quite as neat.
The announcer's voice boomed out over the speakers as he proceeded to describe the structure of the tournament. Each round of the championship consisted of a series of five matches between the duelists of two opposing teams. Each match was played to three points, and the first team to win three of the five matches could move on to the next round.
Mizumigawa stepped out from the Bosatsu entrance. She adjusted her arm wraps as she walked up to the platform and took her position for the opening match. She looked around at the crowd, smiling slightly, as the noise in the arena grew to a roaring cheer.
"In this round, Bosatsu Academy faces Chikaku Academy! Match one - Bosatsu's Mizumigawa Shin versus Chikaku's Kumoru Yuji!"
Kumoru casually emerged from Chikaku's entrance, sauntering along, deliberately ignoring the crowd and spectacle. He made his way to the platform opposite Mizumigawa's. He was also wearing a dress shirt and a tie, but the top few buttons were undone, the shirt rumpled and half-untucked, the tie hanging loosely around his neck, draped rather than knotted. It looked like it must have taken him quite some time to make it clear precisely how little he cared about his appearance.
"Hey there, Mizu-chan."
Her lip curled into a sneer, reflexively.
"Are you ready, little girl?"
