The evening air carried the scent of blood and anticipation.
Sekitanki stood in the preparation area, watching his hands shake. Not from fear—he'd burned through fear weeks ago—but from simple physical exhaustion. His body had been pushed past every reasonable limit and was now operating on spite and biochemical processes that didn't understand they should have stopped days ago.
Enjō approached with tea and an expression that suggested he was attending a funeral. "Your opponent awaits. Hayashi Jin—The Iron Wall. Thirty-seven consecutive fights without taking a single wound. His defense is legendary. His patience is infinite."
"Everyone has weaknesses."
"His weakness is that he has no weaknesses. That's what makes him dangerous." Enjō set down the tea. "He will let you exhaust yourself against his defense. Will read every attack, deflect every strike, until your body simply gives out. Then he will finish you with clinical efficiency."
"So I need to outlast someone whose entire strategy is outlasting his opponents. While I'm already falling apart." "Yes." "Great. No pressure."
Kanemoto arrived carrying Sekitanki's blade, now wrapped in fresh cloth. "I added something," the old smith said quietly. "A modification based on watching your previous fights. You drop your sword frequently—it's become part of your technique. So I wrapped the handle with a cord that connects to your wrist. A tether. Now even when you release the blade, it remains attached."
Sekitanki examined the modification—elegant, simple, exactly the kind of innovation that made Kanemoto exceptional. "This changes everything."
"Or nothing. Depends on whether you survive long enough to use it." The old gramps's weathered face creased with worry. "You understand this is madness? Even by your standards?"
"My standards include fighting giant prehistoric scorpions with sharpened bones. This is perfectly reasonable by comparison." "Perspective is a terrible thing."
Takeda entered, his expression grave. "I watched Hayashi's warm-up. He moves like stone. Unshakable. Every stance is perfect. Every defensive position is mathematically sound. And he knows you're wounded—he'll exploit that without mercy."
"Yes."
"Great. No pressure."
Kanemoto arrived carrying Sekitanki's blade, now wrapped in fresh cloth. "I added something," the old smith said quietly. "A modification based on watching your previous fights. You drop your sword frequently—it's become part of your technique. So I wrapped the handle with a cord that connects to your wrist. A tether. Now even when you release the blade, it remains attached."
Sekitanki examined the modification—elegant, simple, exactly the kind of innovation that made Kanemoto exceptional. "This changes everything."
"Or nothing. Depends on whether you survive long enough to use it." The old man's weathered face creased with worry. "You understand this is madness? Even by your standards?"
"My standards include fighting giant prehistoric scorpions with sharpened bones. This is perfectly reasonable by comparison."
"Perspective is a terrible thing."
Takeda entered, his expression grave. "I watched Hayashi's warm-up. He moves like stone. Unshakable. Every stance is perfect. Every defensive position is mathematically sound. And he knows you're wounded—he'll exploit that without mercy."
"How encouraging."
"I'm not trying to encourage you. I'm trying to prepare you for what comes next." Takeda's hand rested on his own sword handle. "If you die out there, I will ensure your blade finds a worthy successor."
"Could you all stop planning my funeral? I haven't died yet." "Yet," they said in unison. The thirty-minute drum sounded. Final preparations.
Sekitanki unwrapped his torso to allow the physician one last assessment. The wounds looked catastrophic—the gash in his side had reopened completely, held together by stitches that were more hope than medicine. His ribs showed purple bruising that suggested internal bleeding. His right arm hung nearly useless, supported by makeshift slings.
"You are medically dead," the physician said flatly. "Only stubbornness animates your corpse. When that stubbornness fails, you will collapse mid-fight and die on arena sand. I will not be surprised. I will not mourn. I will simply record that the foreign demon finally accepted reality."
"You are not in bed. You are marching toward non preventable death. There is no manner appropriate for that."
Fresh bandages. Fresh pain. The physician's hands were efficient but not gentle—perhaps punishment for ignoring medical advice, perhaps simple practicality when working with tissue that had no business still functioning.
The ten-minute drum sounded.
Sekitanki stood, testing weight distribution. His left leg was stable. His right protested but held. His left arm—his only truly functional limb—still gripped the blade with sufficient strength.
Enough. It has to be enough.
Yuki appeared at the entrance, backlit by torches that made her look like an ink painting brought to life. "The Iron Wall is in the arena. He has taken his stance. He will not move until you arrive. He can maintain that stance for hours without tiring."
"Of course he can."
"I have fought him before. Three years ago, during my fifth tournament. He defeated me without breaking stance even once. I exhausted myself against his defense and lost consciousness. It was... humbling."
"Any advice?" "Yes. Don't fight his defense. You cannot break it. You lack the strength, the technique, and the time. So don't try." "Then what do I do?" "Something he doesn't expect. Something no trained warrior would attempt." Her expression was unreadable. "Be the demon they named you. Be the impossible thing that survives when survival is impossible."
"That's not advice. That's philosophy." "Sometimes they're the same thing." The final drum sounded. Sekitanki walked into the arena one more time.
TOURNAMENT - ROUND THREE
Hayashi Jin stood in the arena's center like a monument to martial perfection.
He was massive—not in height, but in presence. Broad shoulders. Thick arms. His stance was low, rooted, suggesting immovability. His blade was held in the classic defensive position—angled to deflect strikes from any direction, positioned to transition instantly to counter-offense.
But it was his stillness that was most unnerving. He didn't shift weight. Didn't adjust grip. Didn't blink. Just stood there, breathing slowly, waiting with the patience of stone.
The crowd had swelled to capacity. They'd come to see the foreign demon finally fall. Come to watch perfected defense triumph over desperate offense. Come to witness mortality reassert itself over stubbornness.
Sekitanki approached slowly, conserving energy, studying his opponent.
No openings. His stance covers every angle. His blade position can intercept strikes from high, low, or center. His weight distribution suggests explosive counter-attacks the moment I commit to an offense.
Fighting this is suicide. So. Same as always. They stood ten meters apart. The referee—a senior monk—spoke the formal words that began third-round combat. Sekitanki attacked.
Not immediately. Not frantically. But with measured strikes that tested Hayashi's defense from different angles. High strikes that forced blade elevation. Low strikes that required stance adjustment. Feints that promised one angle and delivered another.
Every strike was deflected with minimal movement. Hayashi's blade moved in economical arcs, redirecting force rather than blocking it. His stance remained perfect. His breathing remained steady.
He's not even trying. This is effortless for him.
Sekitanki pressed harder. Committed more fully to each strike. Began mixing in the unorthodox techniques that had defined his fighting style—sudden reversals, dropped weapons, attacks from unexpected angles.
Hayashi adapted. Read each innovation, calculated the optimal defense, executed it perfectly. Five minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. Sekitanki's breathing became heavier. His wounds reopened, blood soaking through bandages. His left arm—his only functional arm—trembled with exhaustion.
And Hayashi hadn't moved his feet once. Hadn't taken a single step. Just rotated in place, deflecting everything, waiting for inevitable collapse. I can't break through. He's too perfect. Too patient. I'm killing myself against his defense and he's doing nothing. The crowd began to murmur. This wasn't the exciting combat they'd expected. This was slow execution disguised as duel.
Sekitanki stepped back, gasping. His vision blurred at the edges. His body was shutting down—not metaphorically, but actually beginning organ failure from accumulated damage.
I'm going to lose. Going to collapse. Going to die on this sand while he watches with professional detachment. Hayashi's voice emerged for the first time—deep, calm, matter-of-fact: "You fought well. Longer than most. But this is concluded. When you fall, I will ensure your death is quick. It is the least honor demands." "Not... done..." "You are. Your body has failed. Only will remains. And will cannot deflect steel." Sekitanki looked at his shaking hands. At the blood pooling around his feet. At the blade still gripped in fingers that barely responded to mental commands.
Will can't deflect steel. But will can do something else. Yuki's words echoed: Don't fight his defense. And suddenly, clarity. Hayashi's defense was perfect because it was defensive. He didn't attack. Didn't initiate. Just responded to everything with optimal counters. His perfection was also his limitation—he only reacted. So give him nothing to react to.
Sekitanki dropped his blade. Not as a feint. Not as setup for another technique. Just released it completely, letting it fall to arena sand still tethered to his wrist by Kanemoto's cord. Then he walked forward. Unarmed. Hands at his sides. No aggression. No threat. Just slow, limping steps toward The Iron Wall.
The crowd gasped. This violated every rule of samurai codes. You didn't approach armed opponents without weapons. It was suicide. Hayashi's perfect stance faltered fractionally. This wasn't in his calculations. How did you defend against someone who wasn't attacking?
"What are you doing?" he demanded. "Walking." "Draw your blade. Fight properly." "No." Sekitanki kept walking. Five meters away. Four. His body screamed to stop, to collapse, to surrender to physics and mortality.
He kept walking.
Three meters. Hayashi's blade rose, positioning for a killing strike. But he hesitated—to strike an unarmed opponent who made no aggressive moves would dishonor him. The Iron Wall's perfection included ethical perfection.
Two meters. "Stop," Hayashi commanded. "This is not combat." "You're right." One meter. Sekitanki looked up at The Iron Wall and smiled—broken, bloody, victorious.
"This is surrender. Yours, not mine."
Then he moved.
His left hand shot forward—not toward Hayashi's blade, but toward his face. Fingers found the eyes. Hayashi recoiled instinctively, his perfect stance breaking to protect his vision. And in that moment of broken perfection, Sekitanki's right hand—the damaged hand that should have been useless—pulled the tethered cord.
The blade flew up from the sand, momentum carrying it in an arc too fast to follow. Sekitanki caught it in his left hand, reversed grip, and drove it into the only target now available: Hayashi's foot.
Not deep. Just enough to pierce through sandal and skin. First blood.
The Iron Wall screamed—not from pain, but from shock. In thirty-seven consecutive fights, he'd never been wounded. Never bled. And this foreign demon had broken his perfect record by walking at him unarmed then using a child's trick with a tethered blade.
The referee's drum sounded. Third round: concluded.
Sekitanki stumbled backward, his body finally giving out. He collapsed to his knees, then onto his side, consciousness fading. The last thing he heard was Hayashi's voice, confused and almost betrayed:
"That wasn't... that wasn't proper technique..."
No, Sekitanki thought as darkness claimed him. It was survival. And survival doesn't care about technique. Three rounds down. One to go. If he lived long enough to fight it. He woke in the medical area, and the physician's expression told him everything.
"You are dying," the person said bluntly. "Not soon. Not eventually. Now. Your internal injuries are catastrophic. Blood loss is severe. Infection has set in. You have perhaps twelve hours before organ failure becomes irreversible."
"When's the... final round?" "Tomorrow at dawn. In eight hours. Which you will not survive to see." "We'll... see..." "No. We won't. Because you will be dead." The physician's voice carried genuine anger now. "You have family? Ancestors? They deserve better than watching you die for entertainment in a foreign land."
Sekitanki thought of his mother's kitchen. His father's newspaper. The life he'd thrown away chasing empty genius. "They deserve... me coming home... telling them... I understand now..."
"Then surrender. Forfeit the final match. Return to them alive." "Can't. Yuki dies... if I don't... finish..." "Then let her die. She accepted that fate. Why must you share it?"
"Because..." Sekitanki's vision swam. "Because I'm tired... of watching... people die... for concepts... that don't matter..." "And you would rather die for stubbornness? That is not more noble."
"Not nobility... just... can't quit... don't know how..." The physician was silent for a long moment. Then: "You are the most frustrating patient I have ever treated. Also the most admirable. I hate both of these truths equally."
"Thanks... I think..." "Rest. I will wake you before dawn. And I will pray to every god I know that you survive long enough to fight your final match. After which, you will die, and I will finally be free of you."
"Looking forward... to disappointing you..." But consciousness was already fading again, pulling him down into darkness where giant insects waited and his mother's voice called him home across impossible distances. One round remained.
One final fight between the demon who refused to die and whatever opponent the universe had prepared for him. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow I finish this. Or tomorrow I finally stop.
Either way... tomorrow it ends.
TO BE CONTINUED... [NEXT EPISODE: "The Final Demon"]