Yuichi’s fist slammed into the giant’s face.
Rising diagonally out of a crouch, he planted his knuckles into the giant’s jaw and jostled his brainpan. It should have been enough to end the fight, but it also inspired a sinking feeling in Yuichi’s gut.
There was something strange about how the hit had connected. It didn’t feel like a human body. Rather, it didn’t feel like a living human body.
His fist had collided with the dead, mushy flesh of a corpse.
He was standing in a wide, circular space, a stone arena in the shape of a disc, facing off against the huge man while a huge audience looked on.
Even if they were underground, it was hard to believe you could run a facility this big without anybody finding out. But perhaps that was the secret society at work.
There was an underground martial arts tournament going on. Yuichi had advanced from the preliminaries and was now in the finals, and he’d just sent his opponent, a musclebound giant, flying.
Yuichi watched calmly as the giant slowly climbed to his feet.
Something was wrong. He couldn’t move until he knew for sure what this man really was. Yuichi was thinking over the source of the disconnect when a bizarre phenomenon began to unfold before him that made him doubt his eyes.
The giant’s already-bulging muscles had begun to swell even more. It easily far surpassed the region of a bodybuilder’s flexing, what the body could do just by focusing blood and lymph.
As he watched, the giant swelled up like a balloon. It was immediately obvious to Yuichi where this was going, and his gut feeling was soon confirmed.
The giant exploded.
His body split open from within, showering his surroundings in blood. Thankfully, Yuichi was far enough away that he wasn’t bathed in it, but he was still dumbstruck by the sight.
“Yu! When did you learn how to do that Fist of the North Star stuff? I’m stunned!” Mutsuko shouted from the stands.
“I didn’t do it!” Yuichi shouted back to his big sister.
“Sakaki! Something’s moving!” At Aiko’s cry, he turned his eyes back to the giant’s remains.
The mass of blood and flesh was moving.
As he watched, something stood up from within: a young man coated in blood.
“Whew. It was getting pretty stuffy in there!” The way the man spit out the words gave them the weight of reality.
“Um... were you... inside that thing?” Yuichi hedged.
The man was about the same height as Yuichi. Size-wise, he could have fit inside it, technically, but it was hard to imagine anyone doing anything that ridiculous.
“That’s right,” the man said.
“Um, I have a lot I could say about that, but never mind. Does this mean you’re my actual opponent?”
“Heh! That armor wasn’t for defense! It was a binding to seal in my overwhelming power!” the man declared.
“Yu! This is a common shonen manga trope! I can’t believe I’m seeing someone actually doing it!” Mutsuko squealed.
“Uh, but it wasn’t armor, it was just some muscly old guy’s body...” His sister was extremely excited, but Yuichi found himself caring less and less.
“By the way... do I look familiar to you, Yuichi Sakaki?” the man questioned.
“Well, you look a little like a character out of a Stephen King movie, but I can’t say we’ve met...” It was hard to recognize anyone with their hair and face slicked down with blood. He basically had only his voice to go on, and that didn’t ring any bells.
“Are you shocked? I’m your older brother, Yuji Sakaki!” the man declared.
“Wh-What did you say?!” Mutsuko shrieked. Despite Yuji’s smug pronouncement, she was the only one who showed a noticeable reaction.
“You’re acting pretty credulous,” Yuichi said. “Do I even have a brother, Sis?”
“Not that I know of! I’ve never heard about any other siblings!”
“Then don’t act so impressed! He could just be spinning a line!”
“Now... let’s find out which of us is the stronger brother!” Yuji hollered. “I intend to prove that no little brother can ever surpass his elder!”
“Look, whatever. I just have to beat you, right?” As stupid as Yuichi was starting to find all this, Yuji’s strength was an unknown quantity. He knew he couldn’t just charge in, but he also had no way of figuring out just how strong Yuji was.
Something tore through the ceiling and fell towards them.
The next instant, a blade-like object was protruding from Yuji’s chest.
Yuji pitched forward, coughing up blood. Standing behind him was a stone statue.
“Um, what the heck is...”
It was a gargoyle: a stone carving of a monster traditionally put on roofs and outer walls to act as rain gutters, that also had evil-warding properties. But why was such a thing moving, let alone showing up in a place like this? Yuichi had no idea.
The gargoyle had remained mute since stabbing Yuji, not moving an inch.
Yuichi had decided to stay where he was and watch carefully, but just then, someone else descended into the arena.
Wearing a black cape and pressing a hand to his forehead — a pose he clearly thought made him look very cool — was Aiko’s big brother, Kyoya Noro. “They have come at last... the vanguard of the demon world’s army!”
“What are you talking about, Kyoya?”
Kyoya had middle school syndrome, like Yuichi’s sister, and in a situation like this it was hard to tell if he was manifesting symptoms, or if he was actually telling the truth.
“You know what it is!” Mutsuko called from the stands. “It’s that familiar shonen manga trope where in the middle of a tournament or a test, someone interferes in the fight and throws everything into disarray! It adds to the element of surprise, but frustrates readers wanting to see a proper ending, which makes everything way awkward!”
“Stop comparing everything to shonen manga!” Yuichi snapped back. Just then, another two gargoyles dropped down from the hole in the ceiling. “What should I do? I can’t keep up with all this...”
Can I really fight these guys? he was thinking. But as the thought entered his mind, Yuji stood up and slowly began walking towards him.
“Yuichi... I’m sorry... I’d intended to clear them up by myself... would you call me brother... one last time?”
“No way.”
No matter what the man said, he was a total stranger as far as Yuichi was concerned. Even if he was dying, he felt no obligation to say something like that to him.
“Hey, hey, hey, come on! It’s a moving reunion between feuding brothers! How can you not get into this?” Yuji complained.
“You seem surprisingly energetic, so if you want to clear them up, go right ahead.” Yuichi found the idea of fighting statues to be kind of a pain.
“No, I’m definitely on my way out,” the man said. “I leave the rest to you!”
“Do you really? ...Wait, huh?” Yuichi said, startled.
Yuji’s body had begun to glow. The light pouring from his body enveloped Yuichi and caused him to start glowing, too. As if this had exhausted the last of his strength, Yuji then collapsed right where he was, and didn’t move again.
“Seriously, what the hell is going on here...?”
It was as if they had been waiting for the mystery power to be bestowed, because the moment the light was absorbed by Yuichi, the gargoyles started moving. But then, as if someone else had been waiting for that to happen, one of the gargoyles’ heads went flying.
It was Natsuki Takeuchi; she had made it down into the arena too, at some point.
“Sakaki, leave this to me and go.” She’d always wanted to say that. (At least, he assumed that, given her tone.)
“Um, where exactly am I supposed to go?” he asked.
“Heh! I’ll show you what a true vampire can do!” Kyoya attacked a gargoyle, too.
Even Ibaraki showed up to deliver a jump-kick to a third.
All three of them ignored Yuichi, as if high on their own sense of self-sacrificing devotion.
“I want to go home,” Yuichi muttered. But just as he thought that, he began to glow and hover. “Huh?”
“Go! Now! Do you want their sacrifice to be in vain?” Mutsuko pleaded with him, tears of emotion streaming down her face.
“But where am I supposed to go?!” he shouted.
“Like, the demon world, I guess?”
“I don’t know where that is!”
But the mysterious power seemed to know. Yuichi rose higher, sucked into the hole that had opened in the ceiling.
Before him lay a world cast in dark red, wreathed in stormclouds. Barren wastelands covered in jagged rocks, packed with warped, strange monsters. In this place worthy of the name “demon world,” Yuichi fought, alone.
Battered and broken.
But Yuichi smiled confidently.
“Who do you think I am? I’m the little brother of Mutsuko Sakaki, that big sister who lives in a fantasy world, and my name is Yuichi!” Yuichi howled as he raced toward the enemy hordes.
And so Yuichi’s endless battle goes on!
Thank you all for reading!