“After the Valhalla Sumo Association taught us all sorts of things, we started doing proper sumo as you know it, including sumo performances. By now, the entire demonic realm is obsessed with sumo.” The Demon Lord smiled. “I’m glad I got to discover sumo. Monsters come in various shapes and sizes, each have their own customs, and it’s difficult for them to come to understand each other. Even among demons, there’s a bunch of different races, and we would disagree and fight all the time.”
Anyone could see the wide variety of monster species and sizes by looking at the Demon Lord’s sumo lineup.
“With the appearance of a common standard that is sumo, however, everyone had to look up who they were going against and their favored attacks, and come up with countermeasures for those. It deepened the mutual understanding between monsters. They became better men and better women under the influence of sumo’s character. And following rules became common sense, as well as the idea that only idiots selfishly go against them. Nothing but upsides.”
“That is simply wonderful.”
“And so, I’m grateful to you, yokozuna Floortje.”
“This isn’t something I did. That is how wonderful sumo is.”
The Demon Lord replied with a deep nod.
“I’ve gotta thank you anyway. So thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
A menacing smile appeared on the Demon Lord’s face.
“And I’m gonna bring you down here today, with gratitude!”
“Let’s see you try, yokozuna Demon Lord!”
I stared at him with a ferocious smile of my own. The mood between us was truculent enough to distort the air. We’ve spent long enough talking—let’s do this!
“Face each other.”
The Demon Lord and I squatted face-to-face across the lines in the ground, fighting spirit aplenty. It felt like we could end up dragging this all the way to the time limit. The threat emanating from our stares distorted the air between us.
I thought not about when to pull myself up for the initial charge. Your body would rise on its own when the time came. It felt automatic. At last, we touched the ground with our fists and got up.
“Hakkeyoi!” exclaimed the referee.
So-called explosive power is an important factor for a sumo wrestler. It’s the ability to reach one’s top speed in the very short initial charge in order to smash into your opponent. You don’t feel pain—only a mighty impact moving towards the back of your body.
Smash!!! Both of us reached out with our hands in order to grab the opponent’s mawashi, ending up landing simple hits instead. The sound of them was quite different, as I wore a dress and the Demon Lord was nearly naked. At last, I grabbed the right side of his mawashi, and he grabbed the left side of mine. With both our right hands in an underarm grip and left hands in an overarm one, we became locked up.
Not bad, Demon Lord. I could tell how serious he had been about his past bouts and how much he had trained. He had gotten better since our bout on the Magic Train. Incredible.
“Still in, still in!” repeated the gray referee.
Outside the ring, everyone felt distant. It felt like this world had only the Demon Lord and myself. Tranquility reigned.
We both put strength into our arms to try and throw the opponent off-balance. Our strength was equal. I felt power coming from a distant place. Enormous gears appeared behind me, feeding me great power from an unfathomable source. For a moment the Demon Lord started to lose ground, but his spirit of sumo in the shape of goat skulls appeared behind his back and began rotating rapidly. Now show me that third form of yours!
I pulled on the Demon Lord’s mawashi, trying to sway him left and right. He resisted, juicing up his sumo spirit. Whose sumo spirit was more powerful? I felt that it was mine. Demons and monsters were strong from the beginning, and some of them had special abilities, so their sumo spirits didn’t seem to give them as much as mine gave me.
I pressed my forehead against my opponent’s shoulder and pushed with all I had. The Demon Lord was ever so slowly losing ground.
“Ghh!”
As he did, his muscles began twisting around and expanding. If only those thorns of his didn’t snag on my dress... Regardless, the Demon Lord had entered his second form, taking on the shape of a tall, scaly demon with the commanding presence of a gorilla.
“This is my...second form...”
“Good—now show me the next one.”
Though I smiled at him, I was slowly losing ground. In this form, my opponent’s strength doubled, while his speed suffered slightly. When facing physically stronger opponents, it was easier to deal with them if you deflected their attacks, as I had learned by fighting Phalaris. With grace in his movements, the Demon Lord attempted various techniques on me, but this was easy for me to handle due to how slow he was. I read what he was going for and went for a hip throw at the same time. It didn’t work—of course, a yokozuna would be able to read and avoid such a simple technique. He really was extremely strong—the strongest rikishi I had ever fought, and well balanced in various aspects of his skill too.
The Demon Lord stopped going for halfhearted techniques and focused instead on pushing. It was simple but effective, given the difference in our frames and weight; a reliable strategy that, unlike throws and twists, didn’t leave him open to counterattacks. At the core of my opponent’s fighting style was simple and honest pushing sumo.
He managed to push me far enough into the white side of the ring that we were both standing in it. In spite of that, the power of his push remained the same. I made my sumo spirit spin as fast as it could, but it wasn’t enough. In sumo, pushing was such a simple strategy that the only way to deal with it was to push back or sidestep, but my opponent’s slow movements made the latter difficult. I considered going for a beltless arm throw, but my senses warned me against this. It felt like magic-imbued techniques would be a pitfall in this bout—so whispered my sumo senses.