Makai-Ichi Budōkai – Chapter 21: Ketsu [Till Next Time, Friends!]

“Earth to Temujin!!” Pink fingers snapped in front of his face. He looked to Sesame and pulled himself back to something that felt more comfortable than nirvana. 

“Is it over?”

She hugged him so tightly the air left him. He hugged back. Finally, a lovely touch.

Yulaan came limping through the wreckage, hair ragged and down, side bleeding freely. She looked him up and down, taking in the burn marks, the dark wrist-curse, the stupid living face. Then she rushed him, wrapped one arm around his neck, and dragged him into a rough headlock that nearly put him down again.

“That was obscene!” she shouted into his hair. “That was disgusting! You tanked her! You fuckin’ tanked her!”

“Can’t breathe,” Temujin rasped.

“You wouldn’t need to breathe if you were dead, idiot…!” She shoved him away only to slap both hands onto his shoulders and shake him once with savage pride. Enekai joined the shaking because she thought it looked celebratory. Sesame shouted at both of them to stop jostling the freshly enlightened idiot because she was pinned between two strong embraces and one sweaty shirtless young man.

Somehow, he laughed.

Mali climbed onto a broken stone panel.

Her hime-tentacles were wild. Her sunglasses had lost one heart-shaped lens. Her skirt was torn at the hem, her microphone dented, and her flag had a bite taken from it. She planted one boot on a cracked trigram, raised the flag, and drew in a breath large enough to restore herself.

“Winner!”

The word shook.

She blinked, swallowed, and then found the full tournament voice again, bright and shameless and alive.

“Winner by the world’s most unlikely super transformation, winner of the Six Hundred and Fourteenth Makai-Ichi Budōkai— Temujin of Earth!”

And that was it, wasn’t it? He won.

Demons roared because he had won, because he had lived. 

The funeral-white swordsmen bowed. The boar nurse cried into his dustpan. The faceless priest clapped with wet brush-hands. Somewhere a bookie screamed that all bets involving reincarnated rage-spirits were void. Makku found his brother and said they were going to be able to buy the arcade with how much their bet paid out.

The Daimaō also cheered as he descended on his black cloud, shaking his giant fist enough to make the ring shake from air pressure alone.

His robes were rearranged. His hat marked 魔 sat straight again, though one demon babe was still clinging to the back of it and pretending she had meant to be there. In his vast hands he held a gemstone that caught the broken light and returned it richer.

The Sun Emerald.

It was larger than Temujin had expected, green-gold and faceted with old demon craft. Inside it moved a slow brilliance like sunlight through leaves at the bottom of a deep river.

He looked at it and then the Moon Marble in his hand. 

His mother’s sin, her soul, her love— no body. He thought he felt a heartbeat from within it. 

He smiled.

The Daimaō lowered himself until his shadow covered Temujin and the Senshi.

“A human of Earth!” he bellowed.

The mountain listened.

“This year’s champion has dragged the Makai by its horns through enough structural damage to make our accountants attain enlightenment through rage!”

The crowd cheered that.

The Daimaō grinned wider.

“Temujin of Earth! Your blood has shown cunning, terror, stubbornness, and a splendid refusal to become gore. Don’t fret, boy, I’ve read your mind, I know what it is you seek. For such a champion, the Six Hundred and Fourteenth Makai-Ichi Budōkai ends with your obnoxiously oft-prayed choice of an enchanted reward: the Sun Emerald!”

He lifted the gem high.

“This stone enhances spiritual energy, reverses godly curses, and restores life to the dead, provided enough spirit is offered. Use it wisely, use it stupidly, use it in a way that makes another good tournament story. I care only that you earned it!”

He placed the Sun Emerald in Temujin’s hands.

The warmth of it entered his palms.

Yuanjia, Mako, and Mydella were at the end of the road that had brought him here, once again clearer than glory’s fire over his head.

Yulaan leaned in, wiping blood from her mouth with the back of her wrist.

“Sorta like using Dragon Balls,” she said, “except it works by equivalent exchange.”

Temujin stared at her.

Enekai stared too. “I didn’t know you could do that with a dragon’s balls…”

Sesame slapped Yulaan upside the head.

“We are finally jumping the shark!” the majin cried, then caught Temujin by both bare shoulders and shook him with far more tenderness than Yulaan had managed. “Who cares! We won! We can finally get the others out of that dumb witch’s jar!”

Suddenly, a plump, thunderously-walking djinn in a floral dress walked in carrying a machine gun.

The quartet stood still as she dragged a little horned goblin along, with the thing shrieking swears and slurs and all other nasty things as it clawed against the ground.

“You! Champ— ah, Temujin, of Earth!” she snorted. “I bring an offering.” With a swing, she slammed the goblin against the floor until it saw stars. “Take this lousy thing’s life spirit and let me use one of the restoration wishes of that emerald.”

“Ah….” Temujin started to turn away, until the nozzle of the gun— M2 Browning .50 Caliber, wielded with one hand— rammed against his nose. “Okay! Who’s getting fixed?”

She lowered the gun and held the pink apron, ‘KILLKAM—’ by the burnt end.

Enekai pushed against him, both fists by her chest and said, “You gotta do it, Temujin! I never got to finish the platter because of that stupid bean making me feel like I didn’t have to eat!”

Temujin rubbed the back of his head, chuckling without knowing why anyone wore clothes or had names or took life seriously. 

The goblin burnt out from the inside, reduced to an ashen fossil, as its life-spirit wrapped and convulsed into a miasma that condensed into a sphere. 

“Oooh,” said Yulaan, leaning in girlishly in a way that disturbed Temujin for being girlish. “A literal genki-dama!”

“You’re too much for me sometimes, Yuli.” The punch he took to the gut wasn’t girlish, and he felt better.

The spirit ball lost its perfect smoothness when given the apron, and transmogrified into a bean of smokeless fire, which sprouted grew limbs and then a head, and finally the blue mohawk. Killkamesh landed on his feet, and looked about dazed for a second, then cheered for Temujin for a second until he took a frying pan to the head.

“You dolt! Getting yourself killed like that? Didn’t I raise you to be stronger? Don’t scare your Mamama like that again!”

He lifted his mother on one arm and pointed at her and said, “You did, Mamama! But even I have my limits.”

Enekai pumped both fists and nearly dropped the broken toy of herself.

Temujin watched on, slightly disturbed because of course, demons were meant to be disturbing to mortals, and closed his fingers around the Sun Emerald.

It pulsed once.

Far inside the green-gold light, three faint sparks answered.

From afar he saw Ari-apari puttering up to him.

“See? I knew you could do it!”

Temujin rubbed the back of the boy’s ears, getting him to thomp-thomp his foot. “That you did.”

Ari-apari pointed at the Moon Marble and said, “Hey, you got that too? Want me to make it a necklace for you?”

Before Temujin could answer, the boy put his hands together and materialized a jade bead necklace from the ether filled with his demon chi. Then he plorped on over and threw it over Temujin’s neck like a noose.

“Oh wow…”

And then Ari-apari went off jiggling with each step, saying, “Temu-Temu-jin-jin!” back to Utita, who had offered a second glass of the most special beverage, but to that, Temujin declined instantly.

Later, when the arena’s roar had become drunken argument and the Daimaō’s officials were already fighting with masons over whose budget included evaporated black water and Kannon reconstruction, Temujin stood beyond the tournament temple and looked over the sea below. He looked at a curled stone wall against one side of the main atrium and saw a polished plaque, shimmering with a fresh sheen that couldn’t wipe away ancient burn marks.

‘WE SETTLE THIS LIKE WARRIORS, NOT BEASTS – BRING 16 WARRIORS TO A STAGE ON MOUNT SAION’

The blackwater sea had returned in part, or perhaps another black sea had flowed in from some underworld channel. It shimmered oddly in the Makai sun, oil-dark at the troughs and green along the crests. Far ridges smoked from the final battle. Dark, expensive prayer flags torn loose from the arena drifted over the shore, triangular scraps of color snagging on black cypress branches.

Yulaan limped up beside him.

She had refused most medical help, accepted one strip of binding because Sesame threatened to bite through her tail, and now looked worse than she had any right to look while standing. Her armor was cracked under the cloak. Her bandages were red through. Her face was hidden under the usual hair, though Temujin could feel her looking out at the water.

“You’re leaving?” he asked.

“Earth-Prime.”

“Right now?”

“Soon.” She rolled her shoulder and winced in a way she tried to convert into a sneer. “Got things to do. People to annoy. Bigger idiots to hit.”

Temujin looked at the Sun Emerald in his hand.

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“I don’t think I’d have gone this far if not for you.”

She snorted.

“My advice was mostly run or don’t.”

“Well, it helped.”

“Then you’re dumber than I thought.”

He smiled.

For a while they watched the strange sea.

“Not gonna lie, Tsukiko might actually be more battle-crazed than even you.”

“Tsu— who?”

“…Oh, uh, the— the, uh, well, that was her… It’s a long story.”

“I bet. She looked crazy-obsessed with you.”

“She is. She’s my sister.”

“Pfft! What are the chances? Guess she really did have a grudge with you.”

“She actually gave me some of her genki when I transformed.”

“Whoa, really?”

“Yeah.”

She noogied him. “Heh, I get it. Big sister wanted to help her wittle brother beat the monster she became. I’ve seen that happen before.”

“No, that’s not it.”

Yulaan made a sound from curiosity. 

“I thought that’s what she was doing at first too. She literally gave me her energy just to prove she could still fight me with it.”

“That’s…”

“More Yaban than a Yaban?” 

“Well shit, now I’ve got to remember to try that sometime…”

“But, I think I understand her now. The monster wanted me dead, yeah, but the girl was fighting with herself just as much as anyone else here. She wanted vengeance, but she also wanted the thrill of battle, and she wanted it with me. And now I’ve gotta worry about some super-ghost coming after me.”

Yulaan’s tail moved slowly behind her. She whistled. 

“Lucky you. Gotta admit something,” she said at last. “Between you, your sister, even Mukhahīna, my feelings about humanity got proven wrong every step of the way today.”

Temujin glanced at her.

“That hurt to say?”

“Like swallowing broken glass.”

She raised her hand.

He took it.

Their grip met hard enough to hurt him and weakly enough, for her, to prove she was near collapse. They shook once. Her fingers released first.

“You think you can enter that weirdo form of yours again next time we fight?”

He snickered and said, “Jury’s still out on that.”

“Heh. Damn. You’d have been top dog otherwise.”

“What can I say? We gotta keep the others relevant somehow!”

Enekai called from the gate, waving the little wooden toy with its broken arm. Sesame hovered beside her, shouting that if Temujin made them miss the mortal-realm crossing window she would personally turn his enlightenment into pudding.

Temujin tucked the Sun Emerald in his pocket, felt the marble around his chest, and started toward them.

“See you around, Yulaan.”

He looked back once.

She had already turned toward her own path, limping along the black stone toward the slipstream warp that would take her away from Earth-23’s Demon World and back toward the wild mess of Earth-Prime. For a moment she paused under the Makai night, face lifted enough that the wind moved her hair aside and showed the edge of one eye.

A black condor watched her walk, and flew onwards when she passed. Yulaan could feel it faintly, far off and furious, refusing the dignity of disappearance.

The bolloi’s grin returned.

She pumped one fist, small and sharp.

To herself, she said, “Don’t get comfortable now. When I return, I’ll be the next to challenge you. And I won’t be as easy to kill as Mame.”

Yulaan looked up into the torn sky and laughed once under her breath.

“So that goofy bastard lied to us,” she said. “There really are Earthlings with potential even greater than Super Saiyans.”

Then she walked into the warp.