Makai-Ichi Budōkai – Chapter 9: Strength and Power! Enekai vs Daigen

The medical attendants came for Bakuga with a little black funeral stretcher and no jokes.

That, more than the blood, told the arena what had happened. Demons could laugh at torn arms, burst skulls, gut-spills, headless men walking three steps in search of revenge. They knew what to do with ordinary violence. They leaned into it. They paid for it. But the small body in the orange tunic, the still firefly on the crooked goggled hat, and Mukhahīna Śveta walking away with his arms behind his back had scraped a quiet place into the noise.

Then the noise returned, because shame never lasted long in Makai.

Mali announced a short clearing of the ring while two broom-armed oni swept blood out of the cracks and a minor turtle monk repainted three broken trigram lines with a brush held in his mouth. The black-jade wheel spun slowly above them. 

Six names still burned.

Temujin. Enekai. Daigen. Ryūei. Dokkan. Mukhahīna.

Two more matches, and the wheel would become four.

Yulaan gave him a thumbs-up from the rail.

Then she reached over and rubbed his hair so hard his neck bent under it.

“Hey—”

She released him with a rough shove of affection. His scalp stung.

Sesame was already fussing at his sleeve, his throat, his wrist-wrap, the places Masha’s silk had bitten and the skin around his knuckles where the Heaven’s Vengeance Fist had charred the bandage. 

Enekai leaned over the barricade with both hands and her whole face, bright-eyed and untroubled, asking how it felt to make a succubus explode from the inside. Temujin answered something, maybe a joke, maybe only a sound with teeth in it. His heartbeat had not quite settled.

The sage bean trick had worked.

That was the part bothering him. No more miracle beans— and plenty more demons.

Sesame teased Temujin with tender finger-touches sweetly pressed to the wounds, and the boy imagined his skin tasting her as bubblegum marshmallows. 

“Sooo, Eni-kun, I know Daigen. Apparently he’s got invincible skin and he can stretch his limbs.”

Yulaan turned to her with, “Like a Namekian?”

Temujin and Enekai both looked at her.

Sesame chirped back, “Yuparoo! Not like this though—” and she lifted one arm and let her hand reach to the ceiling, skitter her thrumming fingers along for a fathom like a marshmallow spider Temujin wouldn’t mind on his back, and pulled everything back into a reasonable shape. “More like one of those classic demon techniques, the old long-arm freak stuff.”

Temujin rested his fist in his other hand in front of his mouth.

“Alright, well you know how to avoid that, Eni.” Sweat had gathered at his upper lip, then along the side of his face, then under his jaw, not entirely from injury. Masha had drained him a little, scraped him at the edges, but the Toad Sage’s training had left deeper reserves than he had once believed possible. He had sparred for years with a bolloi. He had endured Naga Kedua, strange masters, sore ribs, laughter, humiliation, and the kind of lessons delivered by people who believed kindness and bruising could occupy the same hand.

The Master had told him he could win if he believed the win fully enough to move before doubt.

He believed he had become strong.

That was no longer the question. Just look at the brackets. Why doubt the results?

The four left in the path ahead could kill him with a punch.

A punch. One slip, one missed breath, one hand he failed to see. 

Daigen, comic and huge and polite, had turned a kappa into a wall-stain with manners. 

Enekai said something bright to him. He caught the shape of it more than the words, and he chose to hear: “We’ll totally win the Sun Emerald. We’ve got this!”

He smiled because she expected one. 

Then he smiled because he wanted to.

“Daigen’s tough,” he said, scratching his chin. “But he’s not stronger than Enekai.”

“Of course, habibi, I’m not worried about her. It’s who you hafta beat so we can get a match where we can’t lose! Once Enekai whomps Mr. Fatso, you’re gonna be stuck with either the evil yogi or Spooky. Man, I really hope you’re not paired with that dude, though. Maybe if we’re lucky, they can take each other out like the fiddler guy and—” 

Her words faded behind the bloody anxiety pulsing every second in his ears. He didn’t have time to feel offended by her doubting his ability to survive. Why be disingenuous?

“Alright…” He sighed. “Yuanjia’s gonna kick my ass if I give up next match and let Enekai sweep. Like hell if I’m giving him the chance.”

The jade wheel rang.

Ral Enekai of Earth

versus

Daidarabō Gen’emon

“That’s me!”

“Alright, do good work, Eni, don’t let me hafta clean up after you. Go easy on Temujin later, too!”

“Kay!”

Daigen entered from the south gate with a formal stamp that made dust leap from the ring. He had been oiled again. His tattoos shone. The ceremonial mawashi around his waist was now tied with black rope and two little bronze bells. He bowed to the Daimaō, bowed to Mali, bowed to Enekai, and when he lifted his head his round eyes widened.

“A Saiyan,” he said.

Enekai looked down at herself.

“But I’m not hungry.”

From ringside, Sesame cupped both hands around her mouth and shouted, “No! Saiyan! That’s what you are!”

Enekai’s brows lifted. She turned half back toward them. 

“Wasn’t I a Yaban? And I’m an Earthling anyway, so…”

Yulaan facepalmed with her tail.

Mali skipped between them with the flag held high. “We have Daigen of the Mountain Sumo Lineage! We have Ral Enekai, little Lady Wukong! Fighters ready?”

Daigen settled into a sumo crouch, huge palms forward. His smile was pleasant and grave.

Enekai set the Ruyi Jingu Bang upright beside her, then seemed to reconsider and left it standing there. She cracked her knuckles.

The flag fell.

Enekai crossed the ring in one burst and punched him square in the chest.

The blow sounded like a temple door being struck by a battering ram. Daigen’s feet left the stone. His body flew backward, belly first, heels up, bells chiming wildly. 

Enekai’s grin opened, sure she had him. Then Daigen turned in the air, slapped one vast palm against the barricade, rebounded with the stone bending under his hand, and landed on both feet at the ring’s edge.

His chest smoked.

He knelt and dug his fingers into the stone, and further kinetic motion opened cracks in the ground beneath him.

He bowed and panted. 

Enekai stared. “Wow. You really do have high defense.”

Daigen looked at the four corners and inhaled.

His belly expanded, back broadened. The ring seemed to shrink under him.

“DOSUKOI!”

One stomp cracked the nearest trigram. A second stomp broke the crack into five forks. The stone under his feet sank half an inch, and the bronze lines around him rang like temple bells struck underwater.

He was locked in now.

Daigen’s arms shot forward.

Both arms lengthened across the ring, palms open, fingers spread, the flesh stretching in thick ropes of muscle and demon-sumo will. Enekai ducked the first slap. The second came from above. She bounced off her tail, flipped over it, landed on Daigen’s left wrist, and ran along his forearm as if sprinting up a bridge.

The crowd howled.

Daigen’s other hand swept in. Enekai jumped from palm to palm, then to the back of one hand, then onto two fingers, light as insult. She slapped her own backside, grinned, and stood balanced on her tail for one impossible heartbeat while Daigen’s hands slapped empty stone around her.

Mali spun beside the barricade, tracking the motion with the microphone. “Enekai is dancing all over those hands! Daigen is swinging! Daigen is missing! Somebody oil the air, this girl is slippery!”

Daigen smiled through his exertion.

Fast, that smile said. He looked down at the stage, then back towards her.

Then his chest swelled again.

He exhaled.

The breath hit like a warm wall. Enekai twisted aside, laughing, but the breath was not meant to strike. It changed the timing. One palm came through the gust, flat and huge, and slapped her down before her feet found the stone.

The impact bounced her off the ring.

Once.

Twice.

The third bounce cracked a lotus panel near the edge.

Daigen’s fingers closed around her waist.

For a moment Enekai vanished inside his grip up to the shoulders and knees. Her tail lashed free, furious and comic. She squirmed, shoved, planted both palms against his thumb, then bit him.

Daigen’s eyes watered.

He did not let go.

She bit harder.

He released her with a startled grunt, and she shot upward out of his hand, hair lifting as voltage sparked through it. The monkey crown flashed gold. Her fist drew back beside her ribs. The air coiled around the knuckles into the rough shape of scales, horns, and an open dragon jaw.

“Super Dragon Fist!”

She drove down.

Daigen crossed both arms over his chest. His skin darkened from oiled bronze to old iron. The tattoos on his belly and shoulders swelled, guardian kings grinning wider, rope knots tightening across his flesh. He met her fist with his whole body, sinking into the cracked stone as if the mountain had agreed to lend him weight.

The ring blew apart under them.

Dust swallowed the center. Bronze trigram lines curled upward in broken strips. Prayer chains snapped on the nearest pillar and whipped against the barricade. Temujin threw an arm over his face. Sesame cursed. Yulaan leaned forward, grin gone, watching through the dust.

Something hit the ground.

Then something else.

When the dust thinned, Enekai lay on her side, blinking, cheek pressed to stone. Daigen lay on his back near the center, arms spread, belly rising and falling. His eyes were shut.

The arena began counting without waiting for Mali.

“One! Two! Three!”

Enekai pushed herself up on one elbow. Her hair had frizzed with residual voltage. She looked dizzy, then pleased, then confused.

“Four! Five!”

Daigen did not rise.

“SIX!”

Temujin grabbed the railing. “She got him.”

“Seven!”

Sesame’s hands tightened on the stone. “Come on, Eni, stand up, stand up, stand up—”

“Eight!”

Enekai stood.

Mali raised the flag. “Ring-out! Winner: Daidarabō Gen’emon!” 

The Saiyan tail froze mid swish. Mali stood closer than usual, with a difficult little smile, flag tucked under one arm, one pink finger pointing politely downward between the cracked stone.

Enekai followed the finger.

Her boots were planted in a patch of pulverized dust beyond the broken line where the ring had been.

The ring itself, or what remained of it, ended behind her heels.

“Oh,” Enekai said.

The crowd exploded in delight and argument. Half had missed the boundary in the dust. The other half claimed they had seen it perfectly and began lying about how early.

Daigen sat up with effort. He rubbed his bitten hand, then bowed from where he sat.

He had known he could not overpower her, he said, at least not cleanly. So he had trusted the rule. He hoped that did not dishonor her.

Enekai stared at him.

Then she grinned and flashed him a peace sign. No dishonor. 

“That’s fine! I wanted to fight again anyway!”

Daigen laughed, deep and relieved, and bowed lower.

Sesame descended on Enekai the moment she returned, arms, hair, bracelets, and outrage all at once. She smothered her against her chest and shouted into her hair that she had blown half their chance, absolute dolt, impossible weak-ass, monkey-faced lawsuit, words and more words.

Enekai’s voice emerged muffled and calm. 

“Temujin still has this.”

Temujin wished she sounded less certain. The worst time for a person to be talking so certain is right after the shock and anger. 

He sat back. All around him, for a moment that may have been half an hour or half a minute, stuff happened. 

Someone slapped his cheek, and the tactile motion riled him from his daze.

“Hey, uh, Temujin, the next match’s starting. You might wanna watch in case you need to learn anything about the opponent you’ll face.”

The opponent you’ll face! The worst words he’d ever heard, from Yulaan even, who had a habit of saying horrible words.