Episode 20 - Stuck

Jihara Akatsuki shook his head. "I am afraid the ceiling panel is locked. We will have to wait until power is restored."

They sat, leaning against the walls of the elevator. They had come to a stop somewhere above the hundredth floor of the building, and the doors, when forced, opened only on a blank wall - the elevator was only supposed to run to the 300th floor.

"I guess we're stuck, then," concluded Ryoichi, looking cheerful even in the dim emergency lighting.

"This sucks!" Mizumigawa sat upside down, her back resting on the floor, her legs stretched up the wall. "How long is this going to take? What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, um," said Chiyoko softly, as everyone turned towards her, "I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Chiyoko Shizu."

Ryoichi grinned. "Of the Kohitsuji Academy dueling team? Pleased to meet you. I am Captain Ryoichi Kei, of Bosatsu."

The other Bosatsu duelists introduced themselves in turn. Chiyoko studied them carefully. She'd read the data on each of them, but there wasn't much information on what they were like as people. For some reason, nobody thought that was important enough to track.

There was a short silence before Chiyoko spoke up again. "So, um, how did you all end up on the dueling team?"

Mizumigawa perked up. "Oh man. You gonna tell her about how you joined, Ryo-kun?"

"Well..."

"Don't do this whole thing where you pretend you don't want to!" She smirked. "You love talking about yourself."

"Fine! If it'll make you happy, I'll grudgingly tell you." He cleared his throat, as though for punctuation. "Well, it was three years ago, my first year at the academy. At the beginning of the year I showed up to the offices to meet with the captain at the time, Umari Toshio. You see, the Bosatsu team was ranked very poorly, and most people didn't really pay it much attention then. But I had been watching their matches, and there were a few duelists there who I thought had a lot of promise. With proper guidance and strategy, they could have been quite formidable. So I went to Captain Umari, and I made my case."

Ryoichi shrugged.

"He didn't like it. Thought I was just some cocky upstart, fresh from the junior leagues. Which I was, I guess. But still, he threw me out of there."

Mizumigawa spun around to sit upright, grinning.

"So, before the first tryouts of the year, the team does an exhibition for the school. The arena's packed, and the team's best duelists are showing off their most impressive throws and techniques. Finally, Umari enters the ring to demonstrate a new technique he developed, the 'Stride of Hermes'. But before he can begin, a murmur passes through the crowd. It's me, walking out of the stands. It takes longer than I expected - the whole way down, there's this uncomfortable quiet, and Umari's giving me this look like he wishes I'd burn to ash right then and there. But I keep going, until I'm standing in front of the whole team, and I flick out my wrist" - he demonstrates the gesture - "in Scissors, a duel challenge. I tell the whole school, not only is the team not strong enough to take us to the championship, they're not even strong enough to beat a single first-year student. I said I wanted to try out, immediately, by dueling each of them in turn. If one of them could beat me, I'd leave. But if I beat them all, I wanted a spot on their team, and a chance to compete in any tournament they entered."

"Hah!" Mizumigawa punched Ryoichi lightly on the shoulder. "I wish I could have seen that!"

Yukimura nodded. "I am certain it was almost as impressive as Ryoichi-san is making it out to be."

Ryoichi clutched his heart in mock-sorrow. "Yuki-chan! You wound me. I would never embellish a tale."

Chiyoko smiled quietly to herself before Ryoichi continued.

"I had challenged the dueling team's honor, and Umari's most of all. He had to accept. So, in the middle of the exhibition, one after another, I faced Bosatsu's five strongest duelists. I had studied each of them, and I knew their weaknesses. They had potential, but it was uncultivated. So, I defeated each of them in turn, until only Captain Umari remained." Ryoichi looked especially pleased. "He was furious."

"Which, of course, was the plan. Umari Toshio was a useless captain, but a very powerful duelist. He was an analytical type, able to develop elaborate strategies to trap any opponent. The team never progressed very far under his leadership, but he personally almost never lost a match. So I had to arrange the match to be as favorable as possible - I had studied his dueling history, but he knew almost nothing about me. I was calm and, if I'm being honest, exuding confidence and skill, while he had just witnessed me insult his team and his ability, then defeat every one of his teammates, before the entire school.

"Still, it was a hard-fought duel. He had been formulating plans to defeat me over the course of the four previous duels, watching my patterns and movements. I used esoteric techniques to cloud my intentions, eventually bringing the duel to a tie, with the next point determining the victor. He drew one foot back, preparing his dreaded Stride of Hermes. He wanted to finish it with a flashy, decisive throw. The arena had gone utterly silent. I knew that he had noticed I'd been avoiding Paper during this duel, trying to make him think that I'd use it at the last moment for a surprise finish. So, he was expecting me to use Rock to counter his Scissors. But this would make Paper a "safe" throw - it wouldn't lose whether my gambit was real, and I used Paper, or a feint, and I used Rock. He was learning quickly, and he didn't trust this. So, when it came to the throw - Rock! Paper! Scissors! Shoot! - he had fallen right into my trap, throwing Rock to counter the double-gambit and losing to my throw of Paper.

"And that was that. The audience went crazy, shouting and cheering and booing as I left the dueling platform. I was on the team. I wasn't very popular with the other members, but everyone knew who I was."

Yukimura smiled sardonically. "Of course, what else were you supposed to do after your bad first impression? You had no choice but to challenge them all in front of the entire school."

He shrugged. "Hey, it worked."

"Eventually. The team was a complete mess my first year."

Mizumigawa raised an eyebrow. "Hey, yeah, you joined up the year after that, didn't you? How did that go?"

"It was pretty uneventful."

Ryoichi gave her a skeptical glance. "Come on, Yuki-chan. It's your turn."

Mizumigawa leaned towards her. "Yeah, please?"

She sighed. "Fine, fine, no need to prostrate yourselves. I'll tell you how it happened."