Makai-Ichi Budōkai – Chapter 14 – The Finals Begin: Temujin vs Ryūei Part 1

The yōkai repair crew had stopped pretending the arena could be saved.

Still they patched it. That was tournament law, or temple habit, or the stubborn pride of little contractors who had seen six hundred and fourteen tournaments of idiots ruin stone and still considered every crater a personal insult. The broom-armed oni swept the last of Mame into a lacquered tray while two turtle-masons dragged trigram strips back into the floor with their teeth. A faceless priest in a saffron raincoat stood over the place where Daigen had vanished and dabbed a brush through the air as if painting invisible sutras for a man who had left almost nothing to bless. The actual stone was put back together within minutes, and only the dirt and blackwater moat held any memory of damage.

The Daimaō watched from his cloud, listening to his oni girls speak numbers and threats of litigation. 

He cared about the damage in the manner of a landlord who owned both the building and the cemetery. Demon life had value here, provided one knew where to invoice it. A dead clan-lord mattered. A dead sponsor mattered. A dead betting official could halt the afternoon. The five hundred roasted in the stands by Mame’s first blast had already been converted into complaints, wagers, funeral boasts, and several lawsuits folded into prayer strips. The Daimaō flicked one of those strips from his knee. It drifted down into the emptying smoke and burned before touching the floor. 

“I should have signed those waivers. I should have signed those goddamn waivers.” Running one hand over his eyes, he rolled the other and said, “Get on with it. Finish the tournament.”

The final gong-struck syllable thu-thumped into Temujin’s ears.

The mountain took the command into its ribs. Drums answered. Somewhere behind the broken stands, an injured demon screamed that his brother’s head had been lost under row thirteen, then found it and the head laughed at him for yelling like a girl. 

Mali, floating above the ring with a cracked microphone and a fresh blue ribbon tied around one tentacle-lock, said, “An exciting interruption! But like all nasty things, it’s come to an end. Let’s just hope for our human-who-could’s sake that his opponent’s surprise exhibition match wasn’t a better grand finale than we’re about to get!”

Temujin didn’t bother to ignore her words or the surviving demons’ wild anticipation cheers.

His body felt returned from a bad loan with the paperwork forged.

Clouds approached overhead.

The arena had a broken roof, an oval wound cut into the mountain, and through it Makai weather dragged its colored belly across the day. Red-black cloudbanks glided over the opening, their rims lit green by fires elsewhere in that world. 

For a breath the tournament darkened. The emerald lamps along the tiers shone inside the shadow. The clouds passed.

Light came back ugly and gold.

Temujin bounced once more and hated the bounce.

He thought of leaving.

The thought arrived with a clean face. Leaving would be intelligent. Leaving would be a sign of excellent mental health. Leaving would show growth. Leaving would also abandon Yuanjia, Mako, and Mydella in the glass container. It would make Sesame’s spent magic a waste. It would make Enekai’s loss a joke. It would make every bruise and trick and gasp and cowardly little prayer into a road that ended at his own back.

She was still looking at him. And he didn’t care anymore. 

He turned toward Yulaan before the question formed. She walked over to him and pressed her fist against his chest, and said, “Don’t ask me to talk you into it.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, and you were still loud.”

Sesame hovered behind them, arms crossed, pink ears drooping a little from fatigue. Enekai sat on the edge of the rail with the wooden toy of herself in one hand and her crown pressed flat with the other, watching Temujin as though optimism might become medicine if she stared hard enough.

Temujin swallowed. “So?”

“So if you’re gonna run, do it while running still belongs to you.” Yulaan finally looked at him through the fall of hair. “Once you’re in front of her, she owns that too.”

His mouth went dry.

“Not gonna lie, Yulaan.” He could see the teases of gold pupils behind the bangs. “She already does.”

He almost laughed. It came out through his nose and died there.

Yulaan’s hand came down on his shoulder. This one held steady. No squeeze.

“I’m not sure about that.”

He flicked his eyes back to the ring, then to Yulaan. 

“I can’t know what she’s thinking, obviously, but I don’t get that intent from her.”

“You think she won’t kill me?”

Yulaan nudged her head towards the pavilion. 

There Ryūei stood by the bronze champion, its chest blown out entirely, leaving a jagged scatter of bronze shrapnel shimmering across the stone floor within the girl’s shadow. The exit was closed, but that didn’t mean the door was locked. It was fifty steps to the door, half of those towards the glinting shards and debris, and the fatal half towards freedom. 

Temujin felt his head bob an inch, bob and bob again, and said, “Figured as much.”

Enekai leaned in. “Temujin.”

He looked at her.

“You can still win.”

The certainty in her face was so clean it nearly hurt to see. She had watched Mame kill Daigen. She had watched Ryūei kill Mame. She had watched Mukhahīna cut Bakuga’s throat with a toenail and Temujin crawl back from one count away from oblivion. Her belief had survived all that and came out with scraped knees, smiling.

Sesame muttered that Enekai’s faith was going to get all of them eaten someday.

Yulaan clicked her tongue. “Maybe after he wins.”

The drums stopped.

The Daimaō raised one hand.

Mali sprang onto a slab at the arena’s center, boots together, one knee bent, red flag high, microphone at her glossy mouth. Dust and ash streaked her blue unitard. Her tentacle-hime cut had been combed back into place so thoroughly that every blunt bang looked personally offended by chaos.

“Final bout!” she sang.

The two words struck Temujin in the solar plexus.

The floating scoreboards ignited.

“Of the Six Hundred and Fourteenth Makai-Ichi Budōkai!”

A thousand demons leaned forward. The survivors in the blasted eastern stands did it too, some wrapped in bandages, some holding detached pieces of themselves, all suddenly more interested in the future than their injuries.

“Temujin of Earth!”

His name cracked through the arena. He felt it enter his ribs and rattle there.

Sesame made a little sound and caught it between her teeth. Enekai cheered. Yulaan gave him a rough little shove between the shoulders, the kind a boy gives another boy before a stupid dare, and the force almost made him stumble.

From afar, Ari-apari continued chanting, “Temu-JIN! Temu-JIN!” and had gotten a small chorus of demon boys to join in. Makku shook his fist and shouted, “We’re all betting on you!”

The hyena mother watched with lidded eyes and a mouth shrug, so much like Sesame whenever she knew he could do something but also knew he was trying to find every way out of doing it. Zeru kept taunting him with the inside-fold of his eye far too nervously, while little Temu had his hands clasped together in a half-prayer. Temujin didn’t like the feeling of being prayed to, and he cast a quick glance towards the black cloud above. 

No one up there was going to save him. He sighed and stepped away from the rail. Heel-flat, step, heel-flat, step, towards the stairs to the stone platform. He looked down and pressed his foot against the first step, lifted, and pushed himself towards the second. Lift, push-forth to the third step. Lift, step, patter-step onto the stone tiles. 

“Go on, habibi,” Sesame said. “At least scare her once.”

Mali’s voice dipped.

“And Ryūei, Dragon Shadow from the Ghost Country!”

Ryūei left the far arch. The rest of the bronze champion imploded in one crash, and vanished in a dust cloud.

Heel-flat, step, heel-flat step— the tiers quieted enough for him to hear the footsteps. They sounded so normal now. She walked with fists balled tight.

Many demons cheered for her, and Temujin didn’t bother himself too much to guess why. As profane as it sounded, they owed her their lives and honor. Irony, he thought to himself, that one so horrible could have, for at least a moment, been a great savior.

Mali’s voice was sweet without sugar. “Today’s been a day of intense violence and amazing wit, so now it’s down to you two to give the audience a grand finale worth dying for! Now then… Bring it all home! Ready? Set?” 

Temujin took his stance. Lead hand forward. Rear hand near the chin. Knees alive. Breath low. 

Ryūei let her hair fall over her face. He saw the eye looking right at him through slits in the black mass. The Moon Marble glinted like a silent cry of horror. 

“Fight!” 

The flag fell.

Temujin considered himself ready for whatever ghostly witchery she would pull. He watched the same movies everyone did. Televisions, wells, hair, mist, curses, hands through chests, blackened faces, eating flesh, drinking souls, bleeding faces—

Ryūei punched him in the mouth.