Chapter Eleven: Chasing Battle:

“It evaded me,” the general said.

“Huh?” his second-in-commanded. The other young man looked up.

“It evades me,” he said again.

“What are you talking about? What is evading you?” He saw the general’s face in deep thought.

“Victory,” he said. “Why can’t we catch it?” He looked down at the map in front of him. The other guy, Katsuya, backed up. Best to let him talk this process out.

“Hey, Seita!” a voice shouted. The other solider looked up to see a three guy with his head poking out. The first one shushed him.

“What?” the second one asked. The first boy pointed to the general. He put his finger to his lips.

“Oh…” the boy said. Katsuya nodded. He walked over to the third boy.

“How long has he been like this?” said boy asked. Katsuya looked over his shoulder. Seita was still lost in thought.

“Not here,” Katsuya whispered. He joined the other boy in the hall. He quietly closed the door behind him. The other boy looked at him.

“How long has he been like that?” he asked. Katsuya counted up in his head.

“I don’t know. A few minutes… maybe?” he said. The other boy frowned.

“How long do you think it’s going to last?”

Katsuya threw up his hands. “I have no idea.”

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.”

The boy stood there, silent. Katsuya turned and looked at the door. When Seita got like this, there was no way that they could get him back out. He would be the one to get himself out. The other boy looked at the door.

“You think we could help him along?” he asked.

“How?” Katsuya asked. The other boy tried to think of something but ended up coming with nothing.

“Exactly,” the older boy said. The second one frowned.

“Now what?”

“Come with me?” Katsuya turned him around and took him with him down the hall.

“Oh. Oh, okay.”

---------

Everything had been quiet around both bases. Too quiet. Was either side attacking? If they were, they were taking their sweet time with it. One of the soldiers jumped to their feet.

“I’m bored!” he complained. “When do we get to attack?!” All eyes fell on him. He threw his hands up into the air.

“What?” he asked. “That’s why we’re here! We need to go out there and attack!” The boy pumped his fist in the air.

“We should go out there and fight!” he shouted. Another boy stood up.

“Yeah!” he shouted.

“You will do no such thing!” a third voice shouted. The troops looked up to see Katsuya and the other boy walking into the main room. The loud soldier folded his arms across his chest.

“And why should we?” he asked. Katsuya marched up to the hot-headed punk. They stared each other down for a long second. The older boy wasn’t going to back down. Neither was the boy looking for some violent action.

“The general is still planning,” Katsuya said as calmly as he could. Groans filled the room. He threw his hands up in the air.

“What?!” Katsuya shouted. A boy with glasses stood up.

“Did the general got lost at this thoughts?” he asked. The older boy sighed.

“Yes,” he said. The boy with the glasses narrowed his eyes.

“And how long is that going to take?” the brash boy asked. Katsuya struggled to give him an answer.

“We’re still waiting for that,” the boy with him replied. That was all it took. The ruffian boy shoved Katsuya out of his way.

“This is some bullshit!” he shouted. “We shouldn’t be standing around waiting! We should be out there taking out the Frosty bastards!”

“Yeah!” the other boy shouted around him.

“We can’t sit around and do nothing!”

“Yeah!”

The ruffian boy climbed on top of a table and pumped his fist in the air. The boy in the doorway looked behind him at the hallway and started to panic. He and Katsuya feared where this was going. He quietly took a step back. Meanwhile, the ruffian soldier threw his fist up in the air.

“Enough with the waiting! Let’s go out there and attack!” he shouted.

“Yeah!” the boys yelled. Katsuya’s head kept darting around in a panic. His voice was drowned out by the cheering and yelling. This was dangerously close to getting out of head.

He needed to calm down the situation and fast.

---------

Meanwhile, Seita was still deep in thought. What was he missing here? He kept staring at the chart in front of him. The plan of attack was almost perfect. There was just something missing. Seita sat back, frowning.

There was a knock on his door.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Senpai! We have a problem! The troops are getting restless! You have to get out here and stop this!” the boy shouted in the hall. Seita shook his head.

“Come in!” he shouted. He turned as he heard the door slid open. The younger boy poked his head into the room. He stood there panting. Once he got his breath back, he pointed over his shoulder.

“Please! Do something about this! They’re about to go crazy,” he said. The general rose to his feet. This was it. This was what he was looking for.

“Take me out to troops!” he said. The younger boy stood to attention.

“Sir, yes, sir!” he shouted. He stared as the general turned and walked by him. The boy followed behind.

Meanwhile, Katsuya stood there as it started to fall out of control. The troops were so close to trashing up the place. Their yelling could be heard from outside. Seita and the other boy made it to the main room. Katsuya turned to him with a desperate look on his face. The general took one look around and smirked to himself. He took a step into the room and rang the gong. The sound was so loud that everyone went quiet. All eyes fell onto their general. Seita walked over to the table. The ruffian stared at the general with big eyes.

Seita broke into a little smirk.

“I know how you all feel,” he said. “I feel it too.” The troops stared at him mesmerized as he spoke. This was why he was in control. Seita held up his hands.

“Come! Follow me! Let us go out there for blood!” he shouted.

“Yeah!” the troops shouted. Even Katsuya and the other boy shouted along with them. Everyone fell in around their leader. Setia marched them out of their fort. He smirked to himself with each step. The battle plans all started to come together in his head. He didn’t know what he was looking for. It just took his troops being restless for him to get that last piece for everything to come together. Now, he just had to see it through.

---------

By noon, the snow wasn’t letting up. It looked like it was going to be another all-day snow storms. If you were one of the smart ones, you would stay in and find something else to do. Not our two snow armies. Both sides were gearing up for war. It’s never a good idea to have several bored, hot-blooded young men looking for action. The TZA campus might end having the snow painted red before the day was over.

But what was everyone else doing? Not everyone wanted to be apart of this rather silly snow war about to take place outside. No, there was quite a large majority who still had some good sense running through their skulls. What were they doing? How were they fairing in the snow?

Polly shook her head and closed the curtains. It was too cold to be outside. Her husband, Tony, went back to bed. There was no point to being up anyway. The campus was closed and it looked like it was going to be closed for the next couple of days. Polly didn’t mind it. She had just made herself a fresh cup of tea. The woman was going to just stay in the kitchen and enjoy it in the quiet. Heck, she might go back to bed and join her husband. Nothing spicy was going to happen, though. She wasn’t in the mood for that. She doubted the Tony was in the mood either.

Fine by her.

It looked like she wasn’t the only one with the same idea of just taking it easy for the day. Most of the people were either sleeping, playing video games, doing homework, or just not really doing anything at all. But that’s not really interesting to hear about, is it? No, the goofy war about to unfold sounded way more exciting. Fine, we can all come back to that. But first, there are still some people who were taking it easy while there were others trying to stop the chaos outside before it got out of hand. The question was: which one was going to get there first?