With one more unique howl from the beast-man, the blue spirits turned yellow and sank inside the dohyō. Smash!!!
“No way!”
Uta came tearing out of the ground—the work of the yellow spirits, perhaps. Barkus’s incredibly fast charge sent Uta tumbling out of the ring. She almost fell off the train, but Kukuri shot web from her wrists like a certain hero from American comics and caught her by the ankles.
A few seconds of silence.
“W-Winner, Barkus!”
“RUFF, RUFF, RUFF, RUFF!!!”
The beast-man raised both his arms and pumped his fists. You can’t pose like that on the dohyō, Barkus. He looked happy as he left the ring.
“Great work, Barkus. You did well,” I praised him.
“Thank you, we really needed that win,” said Prince Richie.
“I’ve revised my opinion of you, Barkus,” added Adela.
“RUFF, RUFF, RUFF!”
I patted his head. With that, we had secured one victory. As long as the prince and I both won our bouts, we would be in the clear!
“By the way, Barkus, go back to how you were.”
“Go back.”
“Ruuuff...”
Barkus performed a somersault, causing smoke to appear. Once it cleared, the old adorable pup was back. Thank goodness. I was worried he would stay in that muscular form forever.
“Who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy. Well done, Barkus.”
“Good, boy, good boy!”
“Bark, bark!”
Together with Adela, we patted him to our hearts’ content. Dosukoi dosukoi!
Chugga chugga, chugga chugga...
The two Magic Trains were passing over a long canyon bridge. Looking ahead, I saw we would soon be entering a mountainous region. Any bends would affect the bout through centrifugal force.
Prince Richie took off his mantle.
“I should get going, Floortje. Have to secure that advantage.”
“Be careful. Kukuri is very knowledgeable in Aryakan Sumo.”
“Yes, I’ve seen her bouts. She was a good wrestler with a spring in her step even in human form. I’m sure she’s even stronger now, in monster form,” said the prince with a smile.
I had met Kukuri a year prior, having directed her to Clifton’s stable. I had known she was a monster from the moment I met her, but I thought it would make things interesting if demons and monsters discovered sumo and we could have bouts together. Not that I’d ever expected them to get this serious about it. Aikio, Givun, Gogontes, Uta, Kukuri, Arima... They were all splendid rikishi. So what if they served the Demon Lord? They were all proper sumo wrestlers who entered the ring, performed shiko, and won or lost. I really wanted to visit the demonic realm on a sumo tour. Maybe I needed to talk to the Demon Lord about it once all this nonsense was behind us. It would be far preferable to going to war.
“On the east, Richie, Richie... On the west, Kukuri, Kukuri...”
Called up by Adela, the two climbed the dohyō. Arachne truly were at an advantage in sumo, with the weight of that spider abdomen and the stability provided by six legs. I was very jealous.
“Kukuri, you don’t plan on returning to Aryaka?”
“Y-You have me confused with someone else, Prince. And besides, neither of us will have time for sumo once war breaks out.”
“Clifton was greatly saddened by your departure.”
“I...see...” Kukuri was visibly shaken up by this.
I hated the idea of two people who obviously had feelings for each other being torn apart by a war. And to prevent that, I needed to hurry back to Aryaka, gather troops, and wipe out the elven revolutionaries.
“Face each other.”
Kukuri shook her head as if to cast her hesitation away, and entered the starting position. The two wrestlers’ breathing gradually synchronized, and once it did, they loudly crashed and grabbed each other’s mawashi. The prince had his right arm in an underarm grip and his left in an overarm one, and the same applied to Kukuri. They were locked up, trying to utilize the vibration of the train to make the other lose balance. It was quite a sight, as both of them were highly skilled wrestlers. One shouldn’t jump around in the ring regardless of one’s strength, I thought as I patted Barkus’s back. He was asleep, as he was probably tired from the bout.
Still locked up, Prince Richie and Kukuri tried various techniques on each other, to no avail. I once again realized how powerful Kukuri was in her monster form. But if we secured a win here, we’d be fine even if we had to lose the fourth bout by default.
The prince made a move, spreading himself out as if pulling on the right side of Kukuri’s mawashi. She resisted it through complex movements of her six legs. Was the prince going for a kakenage—a hooking inner-thigh throw—or a hip throw? Kukuri didn’t wait around to find out, instead using her front left and middle left legs to perform a throw of her own. It was really amazing how arachne could use six legs. Things like that were what made me so excited about Demonic Sumo.
Kukuri tried to throw the prince off-balance. He leaned on her legs to avoid it and pulled on her mawashi. Was it nichōnage—a body-drop throw? But he would have to sweep all six of her legs to pull it off. At that point, the technique would, in fact, have to be called rokuchōnage to account for that many legs. Could he even reach all of them?
“Hang in there, Your Highness!”
“Don’t lose to her, Your Highness!”
The prince smiled in response to my and Adela’s cheering. Behind him, his spirit of sumo in the form of turning gears appeared.
“I won’t lose to you!” shouted Kukuri.
Behind her appeared her own spirit of sumo, taking the form of a thread-spinning wheel. The spirit of sumo seemed to take all sorts of forms—I wondered if there was any corresponding difference in their power. It felt like gears lent their strength to their user faster than any other form, but I could be biased, since they were the form that mine took.
As the trains entered a mountainous region, the tracks began bending left and right. This altered the direction of the force applied by the wrestlers. Skillfully utilizing centrifugal force, the prince performed a trip.
“Zoom Body Drop Throw!”
As he went for a rokuchōnage, his right leg grew longer—or at least, it felt that way. The spiritual extension of his leg was translucent. He had discovered a new magic-imbued technique, one that allowed him to make his leg longer!
“Kgh!”
“Ngh!”
The train passed through a rough patch.
“Got you!”
As Kukuri pulled her right hand back through what appeared to be empty air, the part of the prince’s leg extension that would have been the ankle was pulled along unnaturally with it.
“Kgh! Is this because of your threads?!”
“I’m not holding back!”
Blocking the prince’s body drop throw with her threads, she used her front left and middle left legs to sweep her opponent’s left leg from behind. The two of them went tumbling down, with Prince Richie underneath. As I wondered who would land first, the prince’s hand touched the ground. Kukuri, who had folded her six legs, landed on top of him. So...?
“Winner, Kukuri!”
Not showing us any sympathy, the gray referee raised his hand to the west. Ahh...
As the prince got up, shaking his head, demons and monsters came running to Kukuri’s side.
“He would’ve landed that rokuchōnage if not for your threads! He’s really good,” said Uta.
“Good mino-work.”
“You did it! This one’s pretty much in the bag now!” rejoiced the Demon Lord.
“Well done...” spoke Arima.
The prince made his way back to us.
“I’m sorry, Floortje. I lost.”
“You can’t win them all in sumo. And Kukuri was really strong.”
“I completely forgot she had threads. They’re so dangerous because you can’t see them.”
“You should’ve used the Air Sumo Form.”
“Oh, right, I forgot.”
She’d probably kept her thread-based skills under wraps specifically to make us forget she had them at all. That strategy of hers got her this win.
“But that Zoom Body Drop Throw was amazing. It looked very effective against many-legged opponents.”
“Thank you. I need some more practice with it, I guess.”
That’s right—my Prince Richie was no weakling who would be daunted by a loss or two. Still, we were now in trouble. What were we supposed to do?
“Hah hah hah, since you’ve got nobody to field next, it’s a walkover for us, Lady Floortje. You’ve lost,” crowed the Demon Lord.
Indeed, even were I to win the fifth bout, we would be down two to three—in other words, in dire straits.
“Referee, do we lose if our wrestler doesn’t show up right away? Or can we wait?”
“We can wait for a while... Why, is someone coming?”
I looked to the western sky—the direction of Aryaka. Our wrestler was coming...or so it kind of felt like. Sort of.