Was this some kind of joke? Satori, the Templar favored to win, stood ready, able, and fresh. What few wounds she did incur throughout the tournament were washed away by divine intervention. She was the perfect warrior. And as such, she could not help but feel insulted by the state of her opponent.
Goji stood opposite her, his right arm in a sling, his shins and forearms in casts. A massive wad of gauze bandages wrapped around his shoulder. How is he even standing?
"Are you seriously going to fight me in your condition?" Satori asked, her voice loud enough to he heard throughout the Colosseum. "There is no honor in it for me."
"Oh, are you scared?" Goji taunted, his eyes serious but his body swaying slightly.
Satori refused to take the bait. "You yip like a small dog—all bark. But your bite is gone.
"You should learn from your compatriot's example and yield now. You have made it to the finals. But you can go no further."
"My friend gave up too quickly. It should have been him on this stage, not you!"
Satori was caught off guard by this boy's apparent disconnect from reality. It took her a moment to clear her head. She turned to the Judges. "Honored Ones, this boy is clearly unfit, physically and mentally, to continue this fight. Please disqualify him, for his own safety."
The Judges deliberated in hushed tones, their voices barely audible above the crowd's din. Kyou found herself in the impossible position of attempting to argue against centuries of tournament rules and traditions while unable to reveal Goji's secret. "Look at him," she fiercely whispered. "He can barely stand. If you let her kill him, it dishonors them both."
The Head Judge, a portly elf several centuries Kyou's senior, shook his head slowly. "You make a good point, but you are overlooking the Solaran's right to worship as he sees fit. And now he is using that right to serve Shinjin by demonstrating the strength of his will to all of us."
"That's not willpower!" Kyou hissed. "It's stupidity, plain and simple."
"From the perspective of Chie, it is an unwise move. But we must honor all faiths, not just yours."
Kyou was outvoted.
The fight would have to continue.
She could have throttled the Head Judge. How could he let this poor boy die like this? Sure, Goji is a Templar of Shinjin, the God of Willpower. And honoring Goji's strength of will is precisely what a Judge is supposed to do, but did he have to be so logical as to make her seem like the irrational one?
Kyou reluctantly rang the starting bell.
Satori paced around Goji slowly. She shook her head in disbelief. She took her glaive, pointed the pommel at Goji, pressed it against his chest, and started pushing him backwards towards the line.
Goji couldn't believe it. She thought she could just ring him out just like that! The audacity! When he was two steps away from losing, he firmly gripped the pole-arm with his good hand, and with all his weight, he dropped to the ground and tried to catapult Satori out of the ring.
He looked up and saw Satori performing a perfect handstand upon her end of the pole, staring down at him. They locked eyes for a moment. Goji tried knocking Satori over, but she held fast. Instead, he rolled away from her and scrambled to his feet.
"You have heart, Solaran," Satori addressed Goji by his planet of origin as she gracefully descended like a viper. "Do you also have a death wish?"
"Absolutely not," Goji shouted. "I'm going to beat you."
He ignored the riotous laughter that erupted from the crowd.
Naroki and Sumitsu did not share in the laughter. They were united in their concern for Goji. This was dangerously reckless. The only reason he isn't already dead is that it would dishonor Satori to kill him.
"She's not playing with him," Naroki mused to himself. "At least, not the same way she played with me."
"What do you mean?"
Sumitsu's gentle question caught Naroki off guard. He hadn't realized he had spoken aloud. He cleared his throat before answering. "There was a moment during the battle between Satori and me where she was demonstrating her superiority to me with such finesse that I don't know who else noticed it. Like she was showing me a glimpse into how much further I could grow."
"Then what is she doing with Goji?"
"She's not lost, or confused. She's too cunning for that." Naroki held his chin in thought. "She could have launched Goji out of bounds. She could have already won."
"Do you think she's…" Sumitsu couldn't finish her sentence, the thought too terrible to bear.
"Provoking Goji until killing him is honorable?" Naroki finished, equally worried. "She… she might be…"
Satori had not forgotten her promise to Daraku, nor her promise to Kyou. She would send his head flying the moment it was honorable to do so. But first, every effort must be made to spare this boy's life to avoid the humiliation of killing someone so helpless. She couldn't provoke him or lead him on the way she could with Naroki. She called him a 'gremlin on the wing' and she was spot on with her assessment. Self-preservation was not in this boy's toolkit.
Goji, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly feral. He acted like a wounded, cornered animal, which kept Satori at bay for a time.
Satori looked over Goji's injuries, this time with a calculating eye. Perhaps she could leverage those. No, no, that won't work. Pain triggers adrenaline, which makes him fight more ferociously. Daraku learned that the hard way. Perhaps she could knock him out with a strike to one of his uninjured areas on his head?
While she pondered her next moves, Goji launched himself at her. With his dominant arm still in his sling, he focused his assault primarily with kicks. His flurry of kicks had him spinning in all directions; around like a top, summersaulting, he was like a gyroscope of flailing feet. And each strike was excellently parried and redirected by Satori's glaive. She continued strategizing her next move while only half-focusing on defending herself from this ball of fury.
She decided on a course of action and gripped his ankle with enough force to stop his spinning. He dangled helplessly from her grip as she held him like a trophy fish. She casually carried him to the edge of the ring, where she intended to drop him on his head out of bounds.
Goji used his free foot to kick Satori in the jaw, an action that had seemingly no effect except to aggravate her. Dangling in the air stripped him of the leverage his attack needed. His blood boiled at the sight of Satori's expression. She was annoyed by his antics. She looked down her nose at him, literally and metaphorically. He countered her attempt to throw him out of the ring by latching onto her and kicking himself away. He landed on both feet in the middle of the ring, his taunting grin plastered on his face.
Kyou rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. This boy was impossible. Her stressed response drew suspicious glances from the other judges. She returned her hands to her lap and sat up straight. Little did she know this wouldn't be the last time Goji would be the reason she lost her composure.
Just lose already, Kyou wished. It would make her job so much easier. Satori would be crowned champion, something she had been striving for. She and Satori would remain friends. The Anomaly would live. And she could study the fragments of prophecy about him across the Celestium.
Instead, he's going to get himself killed. And when he does, it'll fracture her friendship with Satori, and her future studies into the prophecies will be in vain, as their subject will cease to be. Please, Goji. Yield. And live.
Unbeknownst to either of them, Kyou and Sumitsu had the same thought at the same time. Sumitsu's heart clenched in her chest. Her fears for Goji were mounting. Naroki assumed it was because they were all friends. He didn't know what she knew, and she couldn't tell him.
She couldn't tell Naroki that Goji was the baby born in the magical peach tree at the summit above their monastery home. She couldn't tell Naroki that Goji had no spirit rings and, therefore, could not be healed by divine intervention. She couldn't tell Naroki that her betrothal to Goji was a plan of the Gods to try to bind the Unbound so their power could protect him.
If Naroki had lost his head, she had a chance to beseech her godly father, Shinjin, to resurrect him. Naroki was under the stewardship of the Celestium, so Shinjin possessed the power to grant that request.
But Goji is not.
And he's playing with his life like he is.
Satori stood tall and proud, her glaive glistened with renewed focus. The blade formed a crescent shape with a razor-sharp edge. With deliberate intimidating slowness, she began spinning her weapon around her. Spinning it slowly required more effort because it lacked momentum. Then she accelerated. Within moments, the velocity of her weapon's movements reached speeds that blurred to the naked eye.
Without slowing her weapon, Satori lunged at Goji. Every attempt to parry was avoided. Every dodge accounted for. One by one, the countless bandages adorning Goji fell to the ground in ribbons, leaving a telltale path of his retreat.
Goji's arm fell limply to the side as his sling was sliced open. He hissed in agony as his casts fell from his limbs. The bandages covering his shoulders fell, and the wounds from both the ninja's kama and the werewolf's teeth were laid bare in gory detail for all to see. But for all his injuries, not a single one was caused by Satori's blade.
Sumitsu and Naroki gasped in unison as the extent of the wounds was made manifest for them. They had only seen him after his injuries had been bandaged and treated. Sumitsu wept. Naroki gnashed his teeth. He knew Goji had endured far worse than he ever did. A pang of guilt hit him for yielding to Satori, despite reason assuring him he had no chance at victory.
Likewise, Goji has no chance.
The rest of the spectators produced a mixed cacophony of muddled emotions. Some cheered the precision Satori demonstrated. Others gasped in horror at the unhealed wounds on Goji, unbelieving that the Gods allowed a competitor to continue unhealed. Still others cheered Goji's bravery despite the obvious mismatch between these opponents.
The judges were horrified. Kyou shot the Head Judge a glance that said 'I told you so.' But still, their decision had been made. Surrender was entirely at the will of Goji. They waived their right to compel him.
Satori then began her assault in earnest. She struck at Goji with the pole of her glaive repeatedly to wear him down and knock him to the ground. Like lightning, the blade of her weapon was against Goji's throat. Its presence indented his skin but did not yet draw blood.
"Yield, Goji of Solaris." The command was short. She did not offer him the flowery praise she did to persuade Naroki. She did not list reasons. It was an order from someone who considered herself superior to Goji.
There, on his knees, Goji looked up defiantly at her. He was completely at her mercy. He could deny it no longer. But something in him bristled against the way she spoke to him. How dare she?
"Never."
One word. One single word, and the air in the Colosseum was sucked into the mouths of every person watching. Even the Avatars in their Skybox gasped. Goji's refusal was like a shot heard across the Celestium.
"Then die, fool." And Satori's blade bit into Goji's neck.