“Ribbit, ribbit.” Givun raised his head from below the dohyō.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Why did you stop performing that scary technique earlier?”
He shook the sand off his body as he climbed back up the dohyō. It seemed he had a lot of trouble with the sand since his body was covered in mucus.
“Sorry. It was the first time I’d used that skill, so I wasn’t able to remove its magical effect.”
“That effect... What was it?”
“I didn’t want to use an effect that could kill my opponent. Don’t let it bother you, Givun.”
“You’re so nice... Ribbit.”
Givun shed a tear. Come on, it’s nothing for you to concern yourself with. As I was thinking that, he stuck out his tongue and licked my hands.
“What are you doing to Floortje?!” shouted the prince.
“That’s sexual harassment! Referee!” added Adela.
“The bout is over,” spoke the gray referee, stopping my angered companions who were about to climb the dohyō.
The numbness in my hands disappeared without a trace.
“An antidote?” I said. “You didn’t have to.”
“I want you to fight Aikio on fair terms, ribbit.”
“Mwah hah hah!” Aikio laughed merrily. “Fine by me, Givun. I wanted to fight the Aryakan yokozuna on equal footing too.”
“Thanks. That helps.”
“Yokozuna really are amazing, ribbit. I’m looking forward to your bout with Aikio, ribbit,” said Givun, before leaving the dohyō.
“All right, it’s my turn. You’re the one facing me in the decisive bout, right, yokozuna?” asked Aikio.
“Are you okay with that, Your Highness?”
“I don’t mind, Floortje. Good luck.”
“Do something about that heat of his with your sumo powers, milady!”
Adela, the power of sumo isn’t some omnipotent magic. I-It was kind of omnipotent until now, I suppose, but this time it might not go so well.
His arms pumping noisily, Aikio climbed the dohyō.
“Mwah hah hah! As I thought, you’re a good wrestler, yokozuna Floortje! Honored to fight you.”
“Thank you, Aikio. You and Givun are good wrestlers too.”
“Thanks.”
Aikio did his signature laugh again. Despite his scary face, he seemed like a good troll at heart. Trolls were giants that lived in the demonic realm. Though the adorable Moomins I’d seen in anime in my past life were also trolls, Aikio wasn’t anything like that. His was a species over two meters tall, possessing high regenerative powers. This must’ve been the reason he was able to coat himself in flame.
As he entered the ring and performed shiko, his extreme size stood out all the more. The muscles in his shoulders and arms were a sight to behold. That robust, muscular body of his had a thin layer of fat under the skin. His build was closer to that of a pro wrestler than a sumo wrestler. Magnificent. I was excited to face such a splendid rikishi.
“Face each other.”
Aikio and I synchronized our breathing, then got up and crashed into one another.
“Gah!”
As the troll shook from the impact, I firmly gripped his mawashi with my right hand.
“Damn, you really rammed into me! How’d you do that with such a frail build?!”
As Aikio grabbed my mawashi, we became locked up. My plan was to push him before he could fully regain his balance and use his flames on me. Kgh! I felt the heat building up. The arm gripping his mawashi was practically burning. It smelled like someone at a cleaner’s was doing ironing. It’s so hot! The troll had managed to stop my charge.
“Who do you think I am?! I’m the blazing Aikio!”
Flames began to roar on his body. Their force was staggering. I was worried my dress might catch fire. It wouldn’t be long before my whole body started to burn.
I couldn’t keep up the pressure, and Aikio managed to push me back, the muscles in his shoulders swelling up. Kgh! I was losing ground. But suddenly, we stopped. It appeared we were now both on the white part of the ring, and it felt like the strength of the troll’s flames had decreased. But they were flames nonetheless. Ngh... It was agonizingly hot. My only saving grace was that my dress was made of silk, so it didn’t catch fire easily. Was there anything I could do? Anything...? I couldn’t allow myself to lose to the monsters here and be captured together with the prince. The fate of Aryaka rested on my shoulders.
“I promise we won’t mistreat you or the prince if you lose.”
Kgh! Aikio’s sweet offer was tempting. But as the Aryakan yokozuna, I couldn’t let myself lose to some flames!
Aikio wasn’t the only source of flames I felt nearby. Several parts of the elven town were on fire, and flames were creeping dangerously close to Yggdrasil. But then I sensed the approach of a mighty wind—a different kind of power was on its way. It felt as though Yggdrasil was crying. And it wasn’t just Yggdrasil, but the various other trees that had protected this town over the past five thousand years: the Road Tree, the Outer Wall Tree, the Residential Tree, and even the Castle Tree, which had created that state guest house we had fled earlier. They all seemed to be linking themselves to my sumo system.
“Save this town, Floortje, envoy of the goddess Florence,” uttered a voice in my mind.
I felt the wind concentrating itself directly above the dohyō.
“Kgh! What’s this—some new trick of yours?” asked the troll, perplexed, as he pushed me with his Herculean strength.
“Speak the words: ‘Air Battle Form,’” continued the voice.
“Don’t give up, Floortje!”
“You can do it, milady!”
As the voices of Prince Richie and Adela revitalized my fighting spirit, I followed the advice of the mysterious voice.
“Air Sumo Form!!!”
In an instant, the mighty winds descended from above and wrapped themselves around me.
“What?!” exclaimed Aikio.
I could no longer feel the heat! All thanks to the wind creating a thin layer of quickly circulating air over my body. As I gripped the troll’s mawashi, it felt like my hands had a thin membrane of wind around them that carried heat away, dispersing it into our surroundings.
Sparks flew and flames swirled.
“Wh-What is this?! I’ve never seen such wind magic before!!!”
“I don’t know what it is, but it lets us have a proper bout, Aikio!”
“Shit! Did some elf give her magical wind armor?!”
The gray referee looked around but could not locate any such elf. After all, this magic had been granted to me not by some elf, but by the combined will of this town’s vegetation! I was certain of it.
While we were still locked up, I began to push Aikio. This was the sumo I knew. My sumo.
“Damn it! But all right—this is fun too, Floortje!”
“Let’s enjoy it, Aikio!”
“Agreed!”
Little by little, I pushed the troll. He halted my advances and went for a ketaguri—a pulling inside ankle sweep. Bending my legs to deflect his attempted technique, I slid my way close to him and initiated a hip throw—which Aikio thwarted by shifting his balance. He was good. The two of us were engaged in a dance on top of the yin-yang-shaped dohyō, at the very center of a vortex of wind and flame, clashing with our techniques and raw strength.
“Man, was sumo always this fun?! Can you even call what I’ve been doing up till now ‘sumo’?! This is seriously amazing, yokozuna!”
“See, Aikio?”
“Yeah! Damn it, I want to do sumo with you forever!”
I felt the same way.
What I needed right now was a water skill. I wanted to bring Aikio down with something that spawned a water current. The Air Sumo Form that I had currently engaged would no doubt force that water up and turn it into torrential rain.
Throughout my entire sumo career in Aryaka since the conclusion of Jonas’s rebellion, I hadn’t managed to discover a single new skill with a magical effect. It surely took a life-or-death situation to bring forth such a skill. No technique I was currently capable of could spawn water. Did this have something to do with the name of each skill? Sure, the pulling body slam—in Japanese, butsudan-gaeshi, or “return to a Buddhist altar” where one pays respects to deceased family members—would probably cause death if used. But the inner-thigh throw—yagura-nage, a “turret throw”—did not have anything in its name to connect it to its lightning attribute. The beltless arm throw—sukui-nage, “scooping up and throwing”—had the attribute of wind; was that because of the scooping motion you performed as part of the move?
I couldn’t figure it out. What I did know was that I needed a water skill. I needed to create one right now and save this town!
Aikio and I both continued to push and be pushed in return. The buff and debuff applied by these different zones of the ring were a much bigger deal than I’d expected. At such a high level of sumo, the smallest difference in strength had a big impact on the bout’s outcome. I juiced up my sumo powers to deal with the black dohyō’s debuff, but that extra power only ever came after a delay.
Thanks to my Air Sumo Form, Aikio’s flames had no effect on me. The coating of wind sucked them up and expelled them behind me. Perhaps after a while I began to grow used to this, because at some point that expelled air started propelling me forward.
“Grrrnnhh!!!”
With a bellow, Aikio redoubled his advances. I made use of his momentum to grab hold of his elbow and push my head under his arm. Waves came clashing against my feet, their source unknown.
“Wh-What?!” screamed the troll.
Was this going to be tasuki-zori, a reverse backwards body drop? No, I had a better idea... Using the power of wind to strengthen my sumo spirit, I lifted my enormous opponent onto my shoulder.
“Billow Bell Hammer Backwards Body Drop!!!”
With that, I threw Aikio as high as I could. Billows came surging, seemingly from out of nowhere—forming a vortex and climbing into the air, lifting Aikio along the way, and soaring higher still.
“Come forth, tempest!” I shouted, unleashing the Air Sumo Form on the illusionary billows.
Kaboom! The power of wind sent the billows high into the skies. The whole sky clouded over, and a second or two later a torrential rain came pouring down. Aikio came tumbling down too, his flames extinguished by the downpour as he smashed into the dohyō.
It was raining buckets, and I got soaked to the skin.