The Celebration

I take a few steps inside, there's a nice elderly lady with long grey hair and rather short attending the front desk. Two different rooms one for the woman to undress and the other for men I walk up to the woman who is behind the counter and take a couple ryo from my pouch and she stops me. "There's no need youngster we know what you did for this village and for our new lord consider this on the house." I nod my head in confirmation and begin making my way to the male side of the bathhouse. They built this bathhouse around a natural hot spring not too shabby to be quite honest. I take off my armor and my clothes underneath that have been covered in blood and mud looking like a complete mess.

Looking down into my hands I see the scratches from battle leading up my arms and even across my torso. This body has been through so much in just one year this is something I'm use to mentally but physically this body has some adjusting its a good thing were starting early. I guess I have to get rid of this too. I start undoing my fundoshi, or some would call loincloth not that it hides much for the well endowed like myself. I start to chuckle a little bit as I remove it making my way to the bath and to my surprise there's other people I have been so used to private bathing that I forget common folk bathe together. It is quite a business though that old lady is bringing in some ryo.

I walk a few steps and unanimously everyone looks towards my direction I quickly shrug my shoulders taking my first few steps into the hot springs, making the water come up to my neck as I lean against some rocks. "ahh." The sound escapes my lips a sigh of relief not very often I get to relax like this and after a hard fought battle this is the next best thing to sleep. The steam arises over my head and I can breathe in clearly. This bath is battling my exhaustion I quickly dunk my head under the water getting my hair wet. It slicks back and is slightly more grown out over the course of time. The glow from the night sky and the way the wind blows we are definitely the fortunate in these long tides of battles. Yet there is still even more to come and this is just the first step.

A few minutes have passed and I find myself scrubbing off the grime and dirt from war that was on my skin and as I walk out the hot spring its as if I was a porcelain doll. The paleness of my skin begins to show and my black hair highlighting my red eyes. Beautiful to some and even more menacing to others I slowly walk into the dressing room. Where my armor and clothes were is now a fresh set of kimono red and gold matching the festive energy. There is a letter on top of it and I pick it up and swiftly start to read. "Dear Ishi, This is for you the outfit we want you to wear after all this festival is for you. Fumikage, Kyo and I will be waiting outside I have been chosen to be the errand runner once again and take your stuff back to the ship. Love Onnajo." Well at least they warned well alright time to get dressed I suppose.

I start to slide my arms through the kimono and tie the belt around keeping it closed, feeling loose without my fundoshi but oh well. I start to fit on my hakama next made the color purely red while the top is red and gold. I take a strip of silk and tie my hair up, pulling it back up into a bun showing my widows peak. I walk out sliding the door open looking at the elderly lady and slowly nodding my head "Thank you for the good service" I say to her as I walk out and true to the letter the three friends were waiting for me. Fumikage nodded his head he already suspected this is what I would look like. Kyo also nods along and laughs a little bit "I never expected the battle torn Ishi would be dressed in grandeur." I mimic her laugh showing my annoyance with her teasing. My eyes shift over to Onnajo who is looking like she has just been star struck and she folds her arms. "I prefer the battle attire more, this just makes you look like a doll!" She says turning her head I just laugh in response.

"Come on lets get a move on there's plenty of food that needs testing and plenty of games to be played." I say moving my right hand up waving to them to follow along and for the next few hours we walked around the whole village. Stopping every few minutes to try out food at one point we had kebab and everyone at like 4 sticks. Everyone in this group can eat a lot this would be one of the moments I would remember for a long time. We eventually found a ramen stand I had beef udon and Onnajo had the same but she burned her tongue trying to rush it. We all got a good laugh out of that. Eventually we reached a game that was calling out to Fumikage, him being a ninja and all it wasn't exactly fair. You had to pop balloons with wooden ninja stars you had four chances almost instinctively he threw the stars in one hand hitting all four balloons. Fumikage had managed to win Kyo a beautiful necklace and she blushes as he placed it on her. I want to tell him congratulations their first date is going well. I quietly chuckle to myself.

In the distance towards the edge of the village they had a stadium set up and this just so happen to be where all the soldiers were. There were benches and people were sitting while eating their food and watching some warriors fight sumo. My eyes lit up this was probably the best event out of this whole ordeal. Fumikage instinctively facepalms himself as a reaction to my reaction to the event. In the corner away from all the benches there is a sign up sheet for participants I immediately add my name to it and in reaction Fumikage does the same thing trying to show off to his date and I look over at him. "You know Fumikage I'm not gonna hold back so you better be ready to lose." I say jumping up and down with joy and stretching my legs and rotating my shoulders. "Yeah yeah, remember this time its just grapples last time it ended up with a tie but I'm gonna get you this time." Fumikage responds trying to match my arrogance and we both just start laughing and the girls just look at us with this look of disappointment. Kyo looks over to Onnajo and sighs a bit "Well lets go get our seats boys will be boys after all" They both walk away.

The worker hands us the two last remaining mawashi which we have to wear for this competition, being this naked without a hot springs is something new to me but I've always wanted to sumo wrestle. Unfortunately for me my first opponent was a large stature of a man and he wasn't muscular just fat. I quickly get into my stance waiting for the hajime. "Hajime!" The referee screams out and as I hear it I rush towards the fat man throwing multiple palm strikes. His fat making wave movements as my palms land against it the force driving him back and I quickly grab his mawashi adding more force to the way he's now wobbling forcing him to crash backwards and out of the ring. I was declared the winner and the man storms off angrily everyone is surprised that he was defeated by someone of smaller stature. A few more matches go by and finally it gets to Fumikage and his match was pretty much the same as mine against someone much larger. In the stands you can hear Kyo screaming for Fumikage to win and I peak over to see Onnajo embarrassingly facepalming herself. Nobody would have thought Kyo would get so into this sport.

Fumikage's match was getting pretty close but he managed to sneak a win in when the sumo charged at him and he swiftly grabbed the mawashi using his own momentum against him sending him outside the ring. Kyo jumped up into the air clapping her hands practically screaming "Yeah Fumikage you won!!" Fumikage starts scratching his chin smiling a bit and as he walks over by me we fist pump and I chuckle a bit. "I guess we will be seeing each other in the finals." I walk out and suddenly the announcer walks onto the middle of the stage and cups his hands together before screaming loudly for everyone to hear. "The next battle will be a tag team battle between four sumo's Fumikage and Ishi versus Sanomitsu and Jyojin!!!" The words echoed across small area and everyone burst out in cheer and roars wanting to see the next fight already. I begin making my way to the stage before he even finished his announcement and accompanying me is of course Fumikage as we prepare to fight these two. They are both a little bit bigger than us but lets use see how they fair.

Fumikage and I get into our stances as the other two begin to make their way to the stage and they are cracking their knuckles and stretching their legs. As everybody gets into their stance and are looking at each other in the eyes. The referee sends his hand down and yells "Hajime!" signaling the start of the bout. I get rushed by my opponent and he's attempting to deliver palm strikes I quickly duck and dodge around his strike counter striking with my own palm hitting the insides of his arms stopping him and locking up his joints and I grab his mawashi and start spinning him around picking up momentum. I peak over and Fumikage is getting overpowered by his opponent barely being able to slip past the blow but still managing I let go sending my sumo into Fumikage's. This causes a loud bang as the push into each other and tripping over each other to stay in the ring before knocking each other out of the ring falling on their asses. The announcer immediately grabs our hands and raises them up declaring us the winners but before he can finish saying that we won I quickly interject saying that there can only be one winner. The reason why Fumikage couldn't keep up with that fighter is because he's still recovering I had almost forgotten all about it with the fun we were having.

"No strikes closed fist or not only grapples because of your injuries alright lets keep this fair." I say to Fumikage putting my fist out for him to bump and he does and nods his head in agreement. The referee stands to the side and moves his hand down screaming "Hajime!" man that's got to be killer for the vocal cords. Fumikage and I rush at one another locking each other up into a grapple and I pull at his mawashi and he pulls at mine. As we spin around trying to throw each other mixing our legs between one another trying to get each other to fall and we end up toppling out of bound and the referee immediately declares it a tie. We just lay there laughing out loud slowly getting up to our feet bowing to each other and bowing at the crowd. However before everyone could celebrate the bell to the town started ringing sounding everyone to gather in the center, I suppose its time to be anointed as daimyo officially.