Book 2: Chapter 36: The Waiting Room

Book 2: Chapter 36: The Waiting Room

Scarlet

Carol and Anthony both approach me with the girl simply giving me a nod and the guy grinning from ear to ear as he asks, So did you see the annual broadcast with the Knights? I blankly stare at him, which seems to be answer enough for him since his grin widens and he continues while bringing up his terminal with a video on it, Well watch this then!

The video he shoves in my face shows four of the five Knights with my mother missing as always sitting across from a newsman as the man introduces some random dude from another university. But then the moment the screen changes to show me, Blue does something shocking.

He shoots to his feet and walks straight up to the image of me, only to stare at it.

A shiver runs down my spine at the sight.

And to make matters worse? He just turns around again after a few seconds of staring and sits back down without a word.

But its not just him. All of the Knights had a reaction to seeing me. And I cant help but notice that Blue looks a bit like the White I saw in my memory.

Coincidence? I sure hope so.

Why do you think they had that reaction? Anthony asks, sounding very interested in this turn of events. And even Carol shows some interest as she shrugs and answers, Maybe its because theyd heard something about her before? Or because she was seeded a slot in the primaries by White, who never shows her face?

I keep my face neutral as the two talk.

We all continue walking down the road until we reach the main entrance for the stadium which is packed with people already. But Anthony and Carol just go around them to enter a side entrance, and I decide to follow them, very much not wanting to get stuck in a crowd of civilians like that.

And I quickly find myself thankful that I did, because the side entrance which turns out is only open to participants as staff check our Guardian Identification Card more than once while we walk through leads us directly to one of the many waiting areas for participants. A nice large room filled with thousands of people, all Guardians, and all chatting away without noticing any new entries to the room since its just so big.

Overall I believe there should be about two hundred and ninety-one Guardians Universities in the world, with Lions Heart having three thousand students and each of the others only having around one or two thousand at most. Some going as low as not even reaching a thousand students.

But even with that, it makes a massive amount of Guardians all stuffed in waiting rooms around the stadium.

Of course, not all of the students are going to be participating, since participation is expensive in the non-primary tournaments, the Primaries being the only free ones to participate in. And not all students have the funds necessary to participate in the regular tournaments.

Most do though, strictly from the income theyve made from fighting in Fractures.

Even Ive started building up a decent chunk of credits myself at this point.

I look around the room for a bit, briefly noting the dozens of people who do look my way out of the thousands. And those dozens end up staring and seemingly sizing me up for a moment before returning to whatever conversations they were having beforehand.

The waiting rooms will be a lot more empty when the tournaments actually begin, I hear Carol mention as we go find a place to rest in the room. Its only full right now since everyone participating in the Interschool Tournaments is here for the opening ceremony. But after this, only the participants directly competing in whatever round of whatever tournament is going on will be in here at a time. In fact, most people wont even be using the waiting rooms. Youll likely just be using a private booth in the stadium instead.

Thats good to know.

Because there are way too many people here.