That expression of agony on your face is a sight to behold, Your Highness! Dosukoi dosukoi! Oh, wait, I shouldn’t be like this.
The attacks of the ivy whips continued raining down on Prince Richie, bypassing his wind armor. Wales formed on his skin one after another.
“I’ll be taking the win, Prince. Thousand Whips!”
Uta arched her back, releasing countless ivy whips at the prince!
“You’re selling me short,” he replied.
The spirit of sumo in the form of gears manifested behind the prince, beginning to rotate at a high speed. Moving fast enough to leave an afterimage, he dodged the incoming attacks. This was Prince Richie’s sumo: speed and technique.
“You can do it, Your Highness!”
Thunk! As the prince heard my cheer, the gears of his sumo spirit started rotating even faster. Eventually, he managed to slip through the storm of ivy, charge into Uta, and grab her mawashi.
“Kgh! So what if you’ve got a hold on me?! I’m the immovable Uta!”
“Heh. In Aryakan Sumo, we make the impossible possible.”
With a daring smile, Prince Richie performed an inside leg trip on Uta’s right leg. As I began to suspect what move he was going for, he tripped her left leg with his hand.
“Wh-What are you trying to do?!”
“Heh heh heh.”
His body began to shine, and a rail track of light formed behind Uta.
“Maglev Triple Attack Force Out!!!”
The prince pressed his head against Uta’s chest while shouting the name of the technique. With a splitting sound, the maglev propulsion uprooted Uta from the dohyō.
“Gaaah!!!”
Vwoom! Picked up by the maglev track, the alraune was sent flying off the dohyō at an unbelievable speed. She smashed into the local church, bounced off, then rolled across the ground for quite a while.
What a magnificent use of the Maglev Triple Attack Force Out it had been. Magic-imbued techniques were banned from being used in Aryakan Sumo in provincial tours due to the danger they posed, but there was no restriction on using them when facing Dark Rikishi. Fun.
The prince climbed down the dohyō and approached Uta.
“Sorry about that. Are you hurt? You’re strong, so I ended up going too far.”
“M-My prince!”
He helped the alraune to her feet. His move appeared to have been extremely effective on this maiden of a monster, as she was visibly flustered and red in the face. Mgh, stay in your lane, Uta. Prince Richie is my betrothed.
Arima began performing shiko. STOMP! STOMP! It sounded heavy, just how I liked it. Such a fine shiko with so much weight could only have been achieved through endless, exhausting training. Wonderful. Being ranked ōzeki meant he was almost a yokozuna. I couldn’t help admiring the perfection of his bearing. The way he carried himself made him look like a work of art.
I responded with a shiko of my own. STOMP!!! STOMP!!! Ah, shiko was so nice—it purified your mind. Arima smiled at the sight. Though he engaged in what was known as Dark Sumo, he was nonetheless fully deserving of respect as a fellow sumo wrestler.
“The score is 1-1. Everything will be decided with this next bout. Good luck, Floortje,” spoke the prince.
“Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Bark, bark!”
“You’re cheering for me too, Barkus? Why, thank you.”
I squatted down and petted the pup’s head. The fluffiness of it invigorated me. Thanks.
Adela climbed the dohyō, spread her white fan, and began announcing.
“On the east, Floortje, Floortje... On the west, Arima, Arima...”
Let’s do this.
I slapped my cheeks to fire myself up and entered the dohyō too. Standing across the ring from me, Arima looked enormous. He was two meters in height, with crimson skin and trained muscles covered in a thin layer of fat. The perfect slim build of a sumo wrestler. Did greater demons like him have any special powers? I hoped he wouldn’t start teleporting or anything like that. He had a scary face, but his eyes were round and cute. Large horns were growing out of his forehead. On his back were small bat wings—could he fly with them? Ah, I’m so happy to have the chance to face such a formidable opponent.
“Face each other,” spoke the gray referee, holding his palm between me and Arima.
Our breathing began to synchronize. Once it was fully in sync, we touched the ground with our fists and charged at each other. Smash!!! The sound of two trained wrestlers coming into contact resounded around the arena.
Like a halo, my spirit of sumo manifested behind me in the form of rotating gears. Behind Arima was one of his own, in the form of flaming, rotating wheels. We were completely matched in our initial charge, as should’ve been expected.
He attempted to grab my mawashi. I tried to block it while moving to grab his. Ah, how grand! I could feel the spirit, technique, and strength driving our bout.
I lowered my stance and rapidly closed the distance, grabbing—
“Blinding Head Chop Down...”
Smack! As I felt an impact on the back of my head, everything went dark. He had used a technique imbued with magic—one that debuffed you with blindness! I hadn’t seen it coming. It should’ve been obvious that he could use such skills as he had his own spirit of sumo. While I was recovering from the impact on my head, Arima grabbed my mawashi from above.
Sometimes, sumo bouts end in an instant. A technique can be executed so well it becomes unstoppable. And even as I felt my opponent pull my mawashi from the left and go for a throw, I couldn’t do anything without my eyesight. Revving up my sumo spirit, I realized what technique he was about to use.
A hip throw! I adjusted my center of mass to just barely neutralize it. Though faint and hazy, my sumo senses told me what Arima was doing. How long was this blindness effect going to last? Until it wore off, I had to rely on this hazy “vision” to ward off my opponent’s fierce attacks.
A hand reached behind me, grabbing the back of my mawashi. Kgh! It was the harimanage, a backwards belt throw! And just as the Japanese name of the technique suggested, it was imbued with water magic! Continuing to defend would spell my defeat. I needed to go on the offensive!
I shoved my right knee between the demon’s legs. Bzzzzt!
“The Lightning...Inner-Thigh Throw...?”
Arima released the back of my mawashi and retreated to avoid my technique. Haah... Haah... What an incredible bout. By now, my eyesight had returned to normal.
Arima smiled in satisfaction.
“You’re...strong...”
“So are you!”
“Let us...”
“...enjoy sumo!”
I was smiling too. The ferocious smile of a predator had naturally surfaced on my face. This was great. Doing sumo with a mighty opponent like him was amazing. Using the spirit of sumo and magic-imbued techniques while having a bout on a yin-yang-shaped ring. Pushing forward with all you had, thinking of nothing but how to win. This was a high-level bout entirely different from those that occurred in Aryakan Sumo, and we had to read each other on the go.
His head chop down technique carried the blindness debuff. His backwards belt throw was imbued with water magic. And because of our difference in height, I had to be particularly wary of the former.
We became locked up once more.
“Show him what for, Floortje!”
“Bark, ba-bark!”
“Do your best, milady!”
I heard the cheering of the prince, Barkus, and Adela.
“You can do it, sir! Bring her down!”
“Take the win, ōzeki!”
The cheering of Kukuri and Uta reached my ears too.
Arima and I pushed each other back and forth, used techniques, and blocked their magical effects time and time again as the bout went on. The magical effect of a technique could be stopped if the technique was not performed in full. Thus, you could prevent such an effect from triggering by avoiding the technique itself.
He was strong. The bout could really go either way. And I was enjoying myself oh so much.
It was fun to go against a powerful opponent. The enormous amount of training Arima had done, the feelings and effort behind his techniques, the harmony of it all... I felt these things clearly. The ritual that was sumo more than amply expressed Arima’s raw existence as he continued to use his dreadful strength and magnificent techniques on me. Terrific, truly terrific. No doubt Arima felt my existence in the same way. This connection was deeper and heavier than words, or even acts of love. It was incredibly fulfilling.
Arima held down the right side of my mawashi and went for an underarm throw. I lowered my stance and executed uchimusou, pushing his inner thigh with my hand.
We exchanged countless techniques, successfully neutralizing almost all of them. I admired the power behind my opponent’s back and legs, as well as the thickness of his trunk. My gears and his flaming wheels—the representations of our sumo spirits—picked up speed. As his wheels burned brighter by the moment and my gears gave off sparks, our techniques reached the realm of the gods, attaining ever greater refinement.
It was coming. I could sense a new magic-imbued technique on the way.
Arima approached me in a low stance.
“Blinding Head...”
I felt him stretching to perform a head chop down again. What next? As dictated by my sumo senses, I grabbed both of his knees.
“...Chop Down!”
Smack! Everything went dark as Arima’s arm struck the back of my head again. But I didn’t mind. Holding his knees in my arms, I lifted them up.
“Spinning Backwards Body Drop!!!”
Propelled off the ground by an explosive force, the two of us ended up in the air above.
“Gwoh!” groaned Arima.
I thought we would fall together, but instead we were floating in the air. In a white haze, amid the darkness that had consumed my eyesight, I could see something flapping on Arima’s back.
Wings.
Those small wings of his were more powerful than I had thought, being strong enough to suspend the two of us in the air. I sensed an air boundary manifesting above and around the ring. Arima flapped his wings with abandon, desperate to resist the spinning power of my technique.
“Faster!!!”
I added even more speed to our rotation as we descended back to the ground. Smash!
“...Winner, Floortje!”
Phew. That was close. Had I not increased the speed, I would’ve ended up on the bottom when we landed.
I got off Arima and extended a hand to him.
“Magnificent...”
“You were magnificent too. I can tell just how much you’ve trained.”
“I need to...work harder...to reach the level...of a yokozuna...”
“Let’s keep pushing forward on the path of sumo together, shall we?”
“Absolutely...”
Applause came from every direction. Friend and foe alike clapped together, all of them fellow sumo wrestlers who had exerted themselves in the ring.