Makai-Ichi Budōkai – Chapter 13: Ultraviolent Twist! Admiral Mame Will Break Everyone’s Life

A streak of fire burned above the arena mouth, white at the core, red at the tail, falling through the carved mountain throat. For one moment, the crowd believed it was part of the show. 

Mali popped one leg behind her and made an exaggerated visor with her hand. “Ooooh? Shooting star? Should Mali make a wish, or is that—”

The star slammed outside the tournament temple.

Mali shrieked, and ducked for cover. 

The impact shook the mountain. Dust burst from the high tiers. A line of lanterns died at once. 

Demons rose. Some cheered. Some ducked. Some reached for weapons. The Daimaō leaned forward on his cloud with the expression of a landlord hearing a second explosion after already forgiving the first.

Smoke rolled through the southern gate.

A man walked out of it.

Look. At. His. Legs.

He was tall, burly and broad, and armored in green and black vitakoze plates of a cut Yulaan recognized before his face became clear. What was going on with his legs? The shoulder straps and chest guard were multicolored cream white and green straps. Why were his legs so tan and magnificently oiled? 

“Getabaru,” said Yulaan.

Enekai looked from the man to Yulaan. “Huh? Vegetable? Is he a Yaban?”

Yulaan explained, “He’s a Saiyan from Planet Vegeta. We’re Kollidorians, they’re Vegetans. We’re Yabans, they’re Getabaru.” She looked the newcomer over again and her tail curled hard. 

“Ohhh, so that’s what you meant. I guess— it’s because his tail is brown, right? That’s the difference?”

“Stay focused. I don’t like this.”

His hair stood in thick black spikes, his tail wrapped brown around his waist like a belt, and— Temujin couldn’t stop looking at the sheen on his legs, so polished that he had to shield his eyes when they reflected a shifting prism of light. Was that why he wore the speed-o instead of proper pants like Yulaan? His pride, polished on every femoral muscle ridge until the bulk-curves on his bronze legs danced in the light with every step he took.

Several demons shouted at once.

The man strode onto the edge of the broken approach-stone, pointed a thumb at himself, announced, “Demon World, I am Admiral Mame— and coincidentally that is who I’ll send weaklings crying back to.”

The joke pleased him so much that he waited for laughter.

A few demons laughed because they wanted to see what would happen if they did.

He started pointing offendedly, “Oh you better be as tough in a fight as you are for a crowd, because I’m gonna stand here and start ripping people apart. I want everyone to just start coming at me, so I can—” He suddenly freaked out in a physical miasma of tearing and crumpling motions with his hands, and then shouted, “Yeah, you like that?”

This time, the crowd responded approvingly, often with tossed drinks and swords.

Mali fluttered toward him, microphone out, smile bright but tight. “Hi there, surprise space hunk! Unfortunately, this is an official tournament, and you are not on the bracket, and also you destroyed part of the south vestibule, so—”

Mame snatched the microphone.

Her red eyes went wide.

He lifted it to his mouth, other fist on his hip.

“DEMON WORLD! You want a REAL fight? You want CARNAGE?!” boomed through the mountain. 

The masses yelled, moving in a wave that rippled unevenly as many stood to shout and spew slurs. 

“Speak up, you sound like a hundred decibels of BITCH. What do we want?” With a forward lean, Mame spiraled his arm, then his palm towards-behind his ear.

The demons exploded in jeers and cheers, in roaring bloodlust, raising ten thousand fists, uniting to scream, “CARNAGE!”

His chi popped in tall explosions with the rhythm of a heavy metal song as he walked, sending little stars and fireballs scattering off.

The Saiyan spat with every shouted word. “That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t bother sending the runts. I want to see some mountains of gore today.”

Temujin wiped his mouth with his bloody cursed arm and left a red streak across his face. “What the hell is happening right now…?”

A bony scarlet-robed jiangshi skittered across the field and hopped onto the ring, approaching Mame with pronated wrists. “Kindly gentlema—”

Mame back-hand whacked the official into a star-streak of gore that tore through the top-end sword of the Kannon. Inside a celebratory jig, he clapped and pointed, finger, finger, tail, at the distant dust cloud. 

He kept spitting, “There’s gonna be a lot of mangled bodies, a lot of blood all over the place, it’s going to get very sloppy, very messy, no one’s going to have a pretty face, everyone’s getting fucked up today, old men, young men, little boys, dogs, foxes, nurses, senators, priests, babies, you came in here today, YOU came in HERE today, you’re FUCKED! We’re going to have a good and bloody brawl here today at Saiya-jin Temple.”

Mali grabbed for the microphone. He lifted it above her reach. She hopped once, twice, tentacle hair bouncing out of its hime line, cheeks puffing in fury.

“For your information, the temple’s name is SAION-JI.”

Mame looked down at her. “It was.” He pressed his palm against the top of her head and squashed her flat.

Mali blinked, and accordioned up and out in multiple springy pulses before sticking her thumb in her mouth and reinflating her body. 

The Daimaō groaned and said, “Oh for the love of… My father’s going to kill me. My mother’s going to kill him, then me. Why didn’t I sign those revisions?” He then flicked one of the orange oni women off his cloud, and she floated, petal-ish fluttering to a tap and a knee upon the stone arena, and stood. 

She lifted her hand to the heavens and said, “I hereby declare the tournament paused until this year’s mighty crasher—”

Mame crushed the stone underfoot as he dashed forth and bitch-slapped her back to the Daimaō above. He then appeared on the cloud and began frenetically back-handing every woman he saw, reducing them to clouds of blood. 

The Daimaō screamed, “Stop it, stop it, you simian bastard, those are expensive and sexy!”

Every woman disappeared in a crack, whack, thwack; he chased one panicking maiden down, grinning and readying his backhand, and delivered a swift gory pop. 

When the Daimaō stomped off of his throne and pulled up his underwear, Mame accelerated to a jackhammer pace. Once the Daimaō approached, Mame pimp slapped him, smacking him with each set of his knuckles over and over and over, and kicked the giant back onto his behind.

“Alright!” he then shouted as he floated, arms folded, back to the arena. Those massive bronze legs shined bright in the arena light. He threw down his finger repeatedly as he ranted with over-enunciations, “There’s way too many weaklings here. This is a problem. I see too many breasts. If you got breasts, you better be ready to get popped across the face. No more face! You shouldn’t have come here. No, I see you, over there! I see you teenage bitches trying to run over there, I gotchu, I got your ass. And you, that momma holding her cubs, should’a sent your young boys here alone, they won’t have a momma in a few minutes. There should not be breasts at a warrior gathering, unless you’re the food-slave or a fat-ass, neither of which belong on a fucking BATTLEFIELD—” 

He paused when he twisted towards the resting pavilion and saw Enekai with her fists and Yulaan with her muscles. 

“Bollois. Well damn! Alright. So we got two non-weakling pairs of tits here.” He crossed his arms and swung them out, “That’s it. Everyone else is just piss on legs. Everything else dies. I want everyone else to get up and start coming at me with all your strength!”

“Boo!” 

“Who said that?”

He twisted again, lifted one eyebrow way too high, and saw a little goblin-like boy thumbing him down from afar. Temujin focused in and saw Utita pulling Ari-Apari away.

Mame’s eyes bulged. He pointed and screamed, “Gott—DAYUM that is an ugly little faggot— holy shit. Awwwww!!!”

Temujin flipped the Saiyan off, but hadn’t been seen. 

Hearing Mali finishing filling herself back in, Mame finally let the microphone drop into her hands where it plopped in her palms with a spitty splat.

Mali dangled it by the edge of her finger tips and called for a napkin, cloth, a new mic, anything.

Her mouth twisted into the shape of a small, offended rosebud.

“Referee abuse! And illegal entry,” she declared. “Unsanctioned interruption. Referee abuse! We get fight crashers every year, but you, sir, are a—”

Mame raised his hand towards one end of the arena and fired a chi blast.

It passed close enough to lift Mali’s skirt panel and blow her tentacle-bangs backward. She froze with the microphone at her mouth. The blast struck the middle eastern stands and erased three packed rows in a white-green flash. Stone, banners, bodies, drinks, flags, horned heads, seats, and souvenir towels vanished together. The sound came after the light, a flat slam that shoved hot air across the ring.

Temujin saw Killkamesh’s burnt apron fluttering away. 

For half a second even the Makai forgot itself.

Then the surviving tiers erupted.

Some demons shrank back. Others clawed to their feet and screamed for his blood. A gang of armored clan brutes began climbing over seats toward the rail. A sword school in funeral white drew blades as one body. Somewhere above, a vendor kept shouting prices in case massacre had increased demand.

Ari-apari had dropped to his feet and beat his chest, shouting a war cry as he also stomped to gather his own strength.

Utita had said, “Be careful, boy, but clock that big monkey in the throat for your old ma!”

Yulaan grinned despite the strain in her face.

“Gotta hand it to demons. Humans would be running by now.”

Then she stopped grinning.

Mame’s power had spread enough to taste. The armor was ridiculous only if one forgot what people in that armor had done to planets. Yulaan, wearing the bodysuit of the same sort, knew that fear in other’s eyes well.

Yulaan turned to Enekai. Her voice cut through the noise.

“Take off the crown.”

Enekai’s fingers went to the gold circlet.

Sesame stopped smiling. “Yuli—”

“He’s strong,” Yulaan said. “I’m not ready to defend you from him like this.”

Her wounded side pulled when she straightened. Pain flashed across her mouth and vanished.

“I’ve still got something if it goes bad.”

“Alright! Kollidor bitches.” Mame turned towards the pavilion. “Carnage time! You’re the only strong ones here. Step up and pull up your fists, we’re about to throw down.” He looked at Yulaan. “There you go. The Butcher of Gorta’s here!”

Yulaan’s smirk came back in a shape she could not quite afford.

Then he looked at Enekai, who had the crown half-loosened and an expression that had turned from confusion to real offense.

Mame laughed. “Who’s this? Star Queen?”

Daigen’s voice rolled across the ring.

“Do not interrupt the match.”

Mame turned as if remembering him.

Daigen stepped between Ryūei and the intruder. He bowed once, shorter than usual. “If you will not leave, then I will remove you. Dragon Shadow, forgive the discourtesy. I will not give him time to endanger the crowd further.”

Ryūei gave no answer.

Daigen did not wait for one.

“DOSUKOI!”

His foot hit the arena like an asteroid. Every tile broke as a crater opened under him.

He launched himself.

The first palm struck Mame’s chest. No effect. The second came from the left, stretched long across the ring. Mame let it hit his shoulder. Daigen’s arms multiplied into motion: long palms, short palms, hammering slaps, sumo thrusts, fingers hooked for grips, elbows folding and extending in demon loops. The Hundred Hand Technique swallowed the space around Mame. Stone cracked behind him. Dust leapt. Air boomed with each impact.

Mame stood inside it and looked bored.

Daigen’s skin shone. His tattoos swelled. He planted both feet and struck with every hand the eye could follow and several it could not.

Mame raised one palm.

A chi ball formed above it, compact and bright, the size of a fruit.

He threw it like a volleyball— up, beat, and away.

The ball struck Daigen in the belly.

For an instant Daigen’s eyes widened. His hands were still mid-strike, spread around Mame in a halo of skin.

He screamed.

The ball expanded around him and took him away in a hot white sphere, leaving only a scorched groove across the ring and one bronze bell from his mawashi spinning on the stone.

Enekai ceased pulling at her crown.

Her face had gone blank.

“Whoa…” She gritted her teeth. “That bastard…!” She looked to Temujin and Sesame. “I couldn’t have done that to Daigen even if I wanted to.”

Temujin didn’t doubt her. Even if she had hit with everything, and she had more than most— he had been too dense, too rooted, too stubbornly alive.

Mame had made him disappear.

“He killed him,” she said.

No one answered quickly enough.

Mame dusted his hands together, pleased by the smallness of the effort. “That was the strong one?”

His gaze moved past Ryūei and back toward the Senshi. “Come on, Kollidorians. You gonna jump in or stand there with your tails tucked?”

Yulaan’s muscles shifted.

Sesame caught the edge of her cloak.

Then Mame turned.

Ryūei stood in front of him.

He flinched.

It was quick. His eyes sharpened, his shoulders lifted.

Then pride returned with a grin.

“Spooky,” he said with a fake quiver. “Bad habit, sneaking up on people. I don’t like that one bit.”

He raised two fingers and blasted the spot where she stood.

She dashed to one side, but the chi blast curved and struck her back. 

The explosion swallowed her white robe, the infant ghost, the air behind them, and a chunk of remaining ring. The heat slapped Temujin’s face from across the arena, and the gale blew his hair out of his combed sweep.

The smoke cleared. Only a black scorched silhouette remained, burned onto the tiles.

Seeing Ryūei destroyed would have soothed Temujin five minutes ago. 

Mame bellowed a laugh fitting for the Daimaō, who himself watched on, beguiled.

Temujin pushed away from the rail. His injuries answered in red sparks. Sesame grabbed him by the arm.

“Don’t.”

“He—”

“You can barely stand.”

“I don’t friggin care! If I can still fight, I’m not going down to some joker from outer space.”

Sesame’s eyes flicked to his chest, his cursed arm, the torn leg. Her jaw set. “Then I’m using the wish.”

Temujin said, “Use it on Yulaan then. I’ll fight him my way.”

Yulaan turned sharply.

Sesame’s voice shook under the words and hated itself for shaking, “Chichin pui-pui…!”

Sun Emerald or not. If this Saiyan started killing through the bracket, if Ryūei was gone, if—

Mame’s scouter beeped. He turned.

Ryūei floated.

Whole.

Untouched.

The infant ghost hovered beside her shoulder. Its mouth hung open.

Sesame halted. Yulaan brushed her bangs away from her eyes.

Mame’s brows rose. “Of course. Ghost. Non-corporeal!”

He grinned at the floating baby and balled his fists. 

“Alright then. I’ll be the ghost-buster’s proton coathanger.”

He rolled his neck. Some strange color flashed once in his eyes and vanished. “Tell me, can ghosts feel fear?”

Ryūei watched him.

“No answer? Then answer this: can a ghost die again? Actually, let me answer that for you.”

The arena felt the charge before it saw the light.

Mame bent his elbows, fists clenched at his sides. The stone around his boots cracked outward. Pebbles lifted. Dust rose. The black water below the ring trembled, then boiled white at the edges. Lightning snapped from the prayer-pillars and crawled across the sutra chains. The broken seats in the eastern stands lifted in fragments and spun into the air. Demons in the lower tiers staggered back. The surviving banners tore loose and streamed toward him, then burned.

Yulaan’s face changed.

“No way…”

Golden flame exploded around Mame.

His legs shined so bright that they could have challenged the sun— and won.

His hair flashed bright, lifted higher, sharpened into burning spikes. His eyes turned green-blue and cruel. The aura roared up the mountain throat, hurling loose stones into orbit around him. The whole tournament was painted in gold. Mali’s tentacle-hair blew flat behind her. The Daimaō sat very still, very lonely on his cloud.

Yulaan stood intense and impressed. She spat and growled, “Just our luck. The one time I can’t fight at my full, is the time we get this goober.”

“Th-then let me finish the Shifa spell! I can get you—”

“No!” Sweat forked at her nose. “I mean my full power. Dammit! Do you feel that pressure in the ring? It’s overflowing…! Even if I was at my full strength from Gorta, he’d fold me…”

Temujin remembered a Yaban Super Saiyan in motion, remembered the speed, the uselessness of watching, the way power at that level made a spectator feel like furniture. Vegetan Saiyans weren’t any weaker. 

His mouth dried.

“So we’re fucked,” he said.

Mame cackled.

The full circle of the audience came upon him, stampeding towards or away, the doomed refusing to die without one final use of their killing hands.

“Yes!! I’ll eviscerate all of you!”

Super Saiyan Mame’s gaze swerved back upon the stands. With a swift motion of his arm, he blew a sandstorm across the arena that sent throngs of demons back, many back to their seats— dead, messy, on impact. 

Temujin struggled to stand, and caught Sesame when she went flying.

He pressed his teeth tight as he thought, ‘I’m not going down like this. I don’t care how hard I have to fight, I’m going to fight as long as my body holds out!’

And he shouted, “Guys, listen! I have an idea! He wants all of us to come at him, right? Then…” He looked at the un-animated demon masses in the rows and forced himself to see monsters. Let them rush him. Say it, boy! Just tell them to sacrifice themselves. Why was it so hard to condemn the damned? “We gotta work together with the demons.” He trusted a glance at Ryūei. All of a sudden, the loss of thirteen capable fighters became a tragedy, like a fire burning through generations of talent in only seconds.

With impotent wrath, he squeezed his cursed hand into a fist, where the fingers broke the palm’s papery skin and drew no blood. 

“Dammit! You, Ghost Girl!”

Ryūei looked at him and for once— no he did still feel the increasingly familiar cold pulse, but at least this time, he asked for it. 

“This is the only way we’re going to survive, so get your spooky ass over here!”

Mame saw him talking. “You!! Planning a bitch attack?! I’ll rip your balls off and force-feed them back to you!”

Yulaan braced herself. She watched on, mouth agape, stepping back several paces. “N-no… This can’t be…!”

“Let the bodies— hit the floor!”

He lunged.

There was a sickening crush.

Elbow.

Gut.

Mame dropped.

Dead.

Ryūei pulled her elbow back and stood unbothered.

The stones that had been floating around him fell all at once.

Mame’s golden hair dulled back toward black before his cheek finished sliding through dust. His armor cracked softly, one last little domestic sound. His eyes were empty white. 

No one spoke.

Even the Daimaō’s cloud had stopped curling, and the big man pulled his finger away from the Makai Sentai emergency call button under his desk.

Ryūei looked down at him. Then she stepped on his skull.

It broke under her bare foot.

The sound went into Temujin and stayed there.

Temujin stood less than ten paces away. They did not look at each other.

That was worse.

His skin knew she was there anyway.

Mali found her voice somewhere under the rubble.

“Illegal referee assault! Illegal interruption!” she cried, and the microphone squealed before steadying. “Admiral Mame is disqualified, banned, deceased, and Enma-daiō will charge his soul for damages! Since Daidarabō Gen’emon was killed by the illegal intruder, Ryūei advances by default!”

The words rang thin against the arena.

“Tell me this isn’t happening,” Temujin said.

Yulaan’s silence lasted too long.

“It’s worse than that.”

He turned slowly.

Yulaan peered towards the place where Mame had died. “D-do you feel that? It feels like exactly the same amount of energy as before. She was putting all that out by herself!”

Temujin didn’t speak for several minutes— or he thought it had been several minutes.

Yulaan spoke as though her tongue swept up her thoughts: “That was Makyōka Makaiōken.”

“Makai-o-what?” asked Sesame.

“Demonic Reinforcement Demon World King Fist.”

Temujin waited for the part where that became better.

It did not.

“I barely manage Kyōka Kaiōken,” Yulaan said. “For a moment, right before she hit him, I sensed her full strength. She was holding back the entire time.”

Sesame had gone very still.

Enekai held her crown against her chest and looked from Yulaan to the broken skull.

Temujin tried to swallow. His throat clicked.

“Then use the wish,” he said. “You’re the only one who can fight her at that level. Or—”

The other word rose and lodged behind his teeth.

Escape.

Run.

Live.

He could not say it. He could hardly think it cleanly. But it stood there all the same, bare and ugly, clearer than any prayer. She had killed a Super Saiyan in one hit. One. He was not even certain he could beat a regular Saiyan if the Saiyan came dampened, wrapped in a power-limiting crown or gauze, and courteous. Mukhahīna had pushed him past his limit and left him standing by accident or mercy or arithmetic. Mukhahīna, he realized now, would have died in the final round without understanding the size of the thing that— no, no, he understood alright. No wonder the man was so calm. He was a death professional; he chose today to die. 

A rivulet of sweat ran down Temujin’s nose, split at the tip, and fell in two drops.

He turned away from the ring.

Ryūei stood behind him.

She was simply there.

The infant ghost hovered at her shoulder.

Temujin’s breath stopped halfway in.

She spoke like smoke rushing through his ears.

“You called me over.”

Her hand touched his chest.

Cold entered him first. Then warmth beneath it. The torn leg sealed with a pinch that made his knee buckle. The cursed heaviness in his arm lifted strand by strand. His ribs filled. His throat cleared. The cuts along his cheek, shoulder, wrist, and chest closed under the pale pressure of her fingers. Even the hollowed-out places inside his chi, scraped thin by Masha, burned empty by Mukhahīna, filled again until he stood at full strength.

Peak strength.

Better than before, maybe.

Ryūei withdrew her hand.

She wanted him whole.

For their fight.

Temujin dared not move.

Ryūei passed him and continued toward the rest chambers. The infant ghost turned its blank little face toward him for one second longer, then followed.

Behind him, no one said anything useful.

The jade wheel turned toward the final chapter.