It was dark, past ten in the evening. The sounds of owls were heard in the distance beyond the sparring fields. Instructor Song slapped his thighs and stood up from the benches. He had been watching Sous and Faye throw one another for the past four hours after practice had originally finished. The two girls simply wanted to stay longer and practice especially since the match was tomorrow.
"Girls," he called out gently. The grass crunched underneath his shoes. Faye and Sous let go of one another and turned to look at their instructor. "Let's call it a night, k?" Sous and Faye exchanged looks and nodded their head to their instructor.
They walked over to their belongings, picking up their bags. Instructor Song watched the girls. They seemed so sad...for the last couple of days. Their minds weren't present, somewhere else. He didn't say anything about it. Sometimes it was best for instructors to not get involved with student lives.
The two girls went their separate ways, Sous made her way to the library to her house department. When she got to the hall, she knocked on Tany's door. A roommate opened it.
The roommate stepped to the side and allowed Sous to enter. Many of the girls were in bed or about ready for bed. Tany was sitting on her bed brushing her hair with Little Poop sitting in the shoe box.
"I wanna come," Sous said to Tany.
Tany stopped brushing her hair and Little Poop stopped eating the cracker she was chomping on.
"My match is in the morning. We should be back by one or two." Sous sat down next to Tany. "I don't want you going alone."
"We're going by train." Tany said.
"Train?" Tany nodded her head at Sous' statement. "A train ride both to and from will take the whole weekend."
"Hey, we wanna go to bed. Can y'all leave or something?"
Both girls turned to the roommate. Sous held her tongue especially since it was late, almost midnight now.
Sous stood up and bowed at the roommate, a slight bow of the head. She turned to Tany and wished her goodnight. She then went to Little Poop and poked Little Poop in the stomach. Before she left, she turned back to say something to Tany. She didn't though. This wouldn't be her first time she held back from saying something. The first time was when she wrote that letter to Kara. She had been planing to ask her out since so many people seemed to be becoming couples or planning to. Like Jacob and Derrick, Makala asking Faye out. Sous thought she would ask Kara...but she didn't.
Apparently Hacate had a teleportation, transportation room for teleportation spells and seals. As they walked into Hacate University's sparring arena, Sous looked around to see if there was anyone she recognized. She hadn't really told anyone outside of school about her competiton. She didn't have anyone to tell. At first she thought about asking Shadow, Clarence, and the three sisters because as time went on, they began to feel like family. But even though she thought they were family, did they consider her family?
There were dozens of teams in the arena from numerous schools all over Nadia. The first to compete at nine in the morning would be the second years then the other grades would follow.
The Hacate sparring team went to their area in the arena. Makala was in the crowd with some of her friends from school. Friends Sous wasn't familiar with. She waved at Faye who waved back but by the look on Faye's face, the priestess seemed cautious.
Sous began to unpack her belongings along with the team. They changed into their judo uniforms and waited for the other teams to get situated. She nudged Faye, jumping on her toes, hyped to go out there and win. Faye didn't have the same energy.
"Dude, what's the problem?"
"Makala is here."
"So?" Sous shrugged.
Faye just looked at Sous, annoyed of her lack of projection. She turned to the audience and Sous could tell was looking for something or in this case someone.
Sous placed her hand on Faye's shoulder. "Listen," Sous said. "I got your back. Okay, if he comes, I got your back."
Sous wasn't completely niave even if she wanted to light up the situation. Sous knew Faye was looking for Pixie Boy and Sous wasn't against her doing so. The last time she had seen Pixie Boy was in the alchemy club classroom, and the interaction they had with one another wasn't the best.
"Sous!"
Sous was fixing her uniform and stretching when Mara walked up to her. Her robes were elegant and she was holding a bag of cookies.
"You brought cookies for us?" Sous asked.
Mara hugged the cookies to her. "Nnnoo."
"Oh..."
Instructor Song walked over to Mara and instructed Sous to go to her teammates. Frederick gave Faye a hug and she looked at Makala and waved once more. It was time for the match to begin.
The first match was against the school from Vania. All the students were vampires who had been cloaked to with stand the sun. Sous stepped onto the mat and stood before the vampire. Unlike humans, there was no weight class. It was simply by grade.
The whistle blew once and both of the students placed their hands on one another's jacket. They positioned themselves against one another. Sous' right leg went in between her opponent's leg and she felt his right leg go in between her. They each twisted their hip to try and throw the other, and it was Sous who threw him on his back.
"YEAAAH!" Sous jumped in the air, the crowd applauding and standing for this young Alpha. And it was just the beginning, Faye went out and threw her opponent, one after another, Hacate's school was in the number one spot for each grade.
It was when the seventh years were up when Sous turned to the entrance because of a sense she had. And when she turned her head, Faye was also looking in the same direction. Pixie Boy walked in and walked toward the section where Makala was. Faye kept his eyes on him along with Sous. Instructor Song snapped his fingers to have Sous and Faye keep their focus on supporting their teammates.
"Sous! Faye!"
Both girls snapped their necks to their instructor. He pointed for them to watch their teammates. Faye was getting agitated and her agitation was causing Sous to get anxious.
Frederick took his opponent's uniform and threw him to the back and when the opponent landed on the ground, a scream was heard that instantly had Sous go into a panic attack, and took her to a place she hadn't been to in several months.