A sad-sounding siren squawked out a minor chord. However dinged and rusty the housings, the spotlights shone as brightly as the noonday sun. The three white beams focused on the base of the Coliseum bowl.
Two figures stood in the sixty-foot ring.
This was no ordinary bout. It was accompanied by none of the usual audience participation. No applause. No cheering. No stamping of feet. The usual air of excitement that attended athletic meets was nowhere to be found.
One look at the spectators explained why.
Some wore black suits and ties. Some had on shirts and slacks in bold, primary colors. Others traditional haori and hakama. But every last one of them had an air about him that was markedly different from the typical sports aficionado.
Those unusually sharp eyes, to start with, and the unusually cold vibe surrounding them. These were the representatives of the yakuza jousting for hegemony of Demon City. Light up a nuclear warhead over their heads and Shinjuku would become a Garden of Eden until the next band of wise guys stepped in to replace their fallen comrades.
The princes of the city had the ringside seats, the size of the criminal organization diminishing the further back they sat. Power was the only ticket that mattered here.
“That’s where I’m going to be next year,” the men in the cheap seats all said to themselves, looking down at their superiors with eager eyes.
The announcer declared in a loud monotone, “Tonight’s lineup!” There were no opening ceremonies. No stir of anticipation ran through the audience. Only the sound of rough fingers turning through the thick program guides.
“Listed first on tonight’s card is One, Yanase and Two, Devil.”
That was all. Nothing about where they hailed from, how old they were, their height and weight. It was all irrelevant. Winning was all that mattered. Two hundred pounds of strapping youth was worth nothing without a victory.
Bathed in the silence, the attention of the arena concentrated on them, the two figures advanced. Ten feet apart, they stopped. There was no telling whether this was the distance agreed to beforehand, or simply where the two of them decided to stop.
They were empty-handed. “One” was drawn with red paint—or blood—on the back of the man naked to the waist. The other man had “Two” stenciled on the back of his black T-shirt.
They had equal statures, about five-eleven, a hundred eighty pounds.
“One” charged, his hair flying out behind him.
“Two” didn’t move.
One shook his head as he ran. His hair reached out like spider’s threads.
Two jumped back.
Seemingly drawn along by the wind aroused by his movements, a black breeze chased after him.
Two staggered.
Strands of hair slipped out of the breeze and attached themselves to his legs. He didn’t fall. As he slumped toward the ground, the numerous strands of hair righted him again.
From somewhere on One’s body came the whirling spin of a motor. Now it was Two’s hair standing on end. Purple smoke wafted up, followed by the smell of scorched flesh.
He must have treated his hair to conduct and transmit electricity, and planted a generator on his person delivering tens of thousands of volts.
Two bellowed. Smoldering and burning, he swung his upper body like a bat. One’s hair stretched to the limits, and stretched again. The spectators heard the hair being torn out by the roots.
Now One was the one doing the shouting. White smoke and fluid burst from the torn hair follicles. With the electrical conduits ruptured, the power had no place to go but back into his body. The white smoke turned black.
He fell forward with a howl, like a toppled statue.
At the same time, Two sank to his knees. His massive chest throbbed. More than his literal powers of resistance, this was a man who was just plain tough. An assassin who couldn’t readily draw on a variety of techniques would easily fall to the likes of him.
“Please note that Two, Devil, is declared the winner.”
The announcer’s mechanical voice repeated this twice. In the stands, the spectators scribbled in their programs, like baseball fans keeping box scores.
The motions soon stilled. The announcer’s voice shifted their attention to the two new contestants.
“Next is Three, Zapf, and Four, Koshichi Tamenaga.”
Three was a giant of a man dressed in the long black robes of a Catholic priest. Four was a middle-aged man wearing a long black coat.
The giant held a long lance in his right hand. A sickle-shaped blade was affixed to the five-foot-long staff. A strong man like this giant could take a man’s head off his shoulders with a single swipe.
His opponent was empty handed.
As was to be expected, Three churned the air over his head, then aimed the weapon squarely at the chest of Four. The smoothness and speed of the motion spoke to his expertise.
Without sparing a second glance, as if letting it ride on the gust of wind like a feather, he turned the momentum into a sweeping circle and brought the gleaming blade down on Four’s head.
A flash of white motion jumped up from below. With a slick sound like the snapping of a wet towel, the lance stopped dead in its trajectory.
At first, it appeared that Three had halted of his own accord. It soon became apparent that was not the case.
The blade should have sliced Four in two from the crown of his head to his waist. Instead, Four caught it between his palms above his head. This was the shinken shirahadori technique for seizing a sword with the bare hands.
But Four’s great strength meant that Three could neither advance nor retreat from this position. They were six feet apart, just far enough to render footwork ineffective.
No less equally strange was that, witnessing such a remarkable exhibition of offense and defense, no one in the stands said a word or uttered even a gasp of admiration.
Perhaps before any of them could draw the next breath, their eyes had caught sight of a line of silver light drawn between the two men. A two-foot-long sword—more a knife with a long blade and a longer hilt—buried itself into Three’s gut.
Four’s hand was gripping the shaft.
But his two hands still held the lance immobile above his head. This hand belonged to a third arm that sprang out from beneath his coat.
The giant’s eyes opened wide before filling with the certain knowledge of death. He swayed.
Four released the hands above his head. The freed blade again continued on its downward trajectory, now cutting through the wind, slanting sideways at Four’s neck.
Again the air stirred. The dead face froze in surprise.
Four spun around, turning his back before the rushing blade could reach. Two more arms jutted out from the sides of his coat, twisting in a way that would again intercept Three’s attack.
Four grinned. Another hand appeared at his collar and flung the coat into the air.
From his neck down to his waist, the torso of this otherwise ordinary-looking, middle-aged man sported dozens of writhing, waving appendages.
Hairy muscular arms, slender limbs like those of a woman, small, cute and chubby ones like a child—the fingers on all their hands opening and closing, seeking and grasping, endowed with split-second reflexes that could meet a flying lance and launch a counterattack.
Not just knives and swords, but in a battle involving guns, lasers, or any kind of deadly projectile, this middle-aged man could equal the effectiveness of ten.
Four turned to face Three. As many arms covered his front as his back. The malicious smile on his face deepened. And then vanished without a trace.
The sword sticking out of Three’s back drew a vertical line up his body, severing the long black robes and traveling straight through his head. In a flash, the giant was divided neatly in two.
An unexpected whooshing sound reached the stands. A black, filmy curtain leapt from the severed torso, coursed toward Four and engulfed him, turning him into a misty, dark lump.
The black net slowly pulsed and contracted. Screams burst forth from within, stifled to muffled groans, a sound like the beating of grasshopper wings inside a paper bag, and the gnawing and smacking of lips.
A woman’s white arm pushed out of the thick, cloudy mass, calling for help like a drowning swimmer sinking beneath the surface. The black curtain surrounded it once again, stripping away the skin and muscles and tendons, until only the white bones remained. And then they too crumbled away.
Literally eaten away.
A swarm of black moths with translucent wings had burst forth from Three’s body. These moths had limbs and human-like fingers and claws and fangs that greedily devoured Four’s body.
Three had not sustained them for himself. Three was little more than a vessel, a cocoon, his body and soul controlled by the insects to their own ends.
Split in half by the sword, the body lay there lifeless. The humming swarm ignored it, soared into the air, and disappeared into the moonlit sky.
Their appearance here had only been in search of another meal. Left behind in the coliseum was the severed “cocoon” and the coat and shoes of Four. The not uncommon results of a battle of demons in Demon City, that could be witnessed nowhere else.
“Zapf is declared the—” The announcer stopped, and continued a moment later. “A correction. The bout is declared a draw. Both numbers are stricken from the results.”
All those scribbling hands in the stands made the proper notations in the programs.
But what precisely were they looking at? What were these expressions on their faces that showed no fear or surprise, or these eyes that witnessed such otherworldly combat as if they were seeing nothing at all?