By tradition, the first match of the Dark Tournament put the guest team on stage first, giving them no time to rest at all.
It was a best-of-five, one-on-one format, and the first to step up for Team Urameshi wasn't Hiei, whom Charles had been waiting for, but Kuwabara.
After sleeping all the way there, Kuwabara's stamina was fully restored, and he woke right as the match began.
You could say Team Urameshi was truly playing away; they hadn't even made it to the ring before the entire crowd started jeering.
Hands in his pockets and cursing under his breath, Kuwabara was about to get on stage when he felt a familiar gaze. He instinctively turned and saw Charles behind the VIP room window.
His eyes went wide, and he leapt up. "Master Charles! What are you doing here?"
Kuwabara had slept through seeing Charles yesterday; only now did he realize Charles was on the island too.
Then his opponent, Rinku, suddenly noticed Kuwabara's fighting spirit explode.
Kuwabara knew full well that if he didn't perform here, he'd be in for it later. He looked over with eyes that practically shot sparks, startling Rinku before they'd even started.
At the cat-girl referee's signal, the first match of the Dark Tournament officially began.
Rinku looked like a child not yet ten, but as a yokai, you couldn't judge his age by appearance.
And the first lesson Charles taught Kuwabara was not to gauge an opponent's strength by looks, so from the start Kuwabara focused with all he had.
Spiritual power condensed into a longsword in his hand. Compared to before, the outline of Kuwabara's Spirit Sword was sharper, with even a pattern showing along the blade.
Charles didn't truly understand spirit power training, but spirit and mana are both forms of energy; techniques of magic and spirit are fundamentally connected.
Kuwabara's ability reminded Charles of a type of magic—Maker Magic.
When you think of Maker Magic, the most memorable is naturally Gray's Ice-Make Magic.
Shaping different forms to release different effects—that's the essence of Maker Magic, and it maps perfectly onto Kuwabara's ability.
Though not a master of Maker Magic, Charles could still coach Kuwabara.
Two things matter most in Maker Magic. First, imagination. As one of the freest classes of magic, a mage's imagination sets the boundaries of what can be shaped.
Second is stability; only a stable form can bring out a spell's full power.
Imagination is a talent that can't be trained up in a short time, so Charles's special training focused on Kuwabara's spirit reserves and control, to strengthen the stability of his condensing.
Rinku was still young and failed to see the level Kuwabara had just displayed, charging in recklessly.
To be fair, it was also because before the match, Rinku had gone with Team Rokuyukai's captain, Zeru, to scout Team Urameshi. But Yusuke and Kuwabara had been asleep, so Rinku hadn't sensed anything.
Small in stature, Rinku was visibly an agility-type fighter. In truth, he was—he bounced across the ring, moving lightning-fast.
Even Kurama at ringside grew worried; with his current strength he could hardly track Rinku's movements.
But as Kuwabara's teacher, Charles merely yawned. Rinku was nimble, but in Charles's eyes his moves were overly flashy.
If Kuwabara couldn't handle such circus tricks, he'd be letting down Charles's guidance.
And Rinku still hadn't shown his full power—he was toying around.
Sure enough, Kuwabara turned his head to stare at one spot, and Rinku appeared there at the exact same moment.
The instant their eyes met, Rinku dodged on instinct. A sword mark split the spot where he'd just stood, and the cap on his head fell to the floor in two halves.
Rinku patted his chest as if to calm his pounding heart.
He had been approaching Kuwabara with a mind to tease him, and nearly pushed it too far. He'd almost been cleaved in two.
Even so, he put on an impish air. "Scared me to death. If I'd been unlucky, I could've been killed!"
Kuwabara said, "Cut the jokes. You weren't serious from the start, were you? Looking down on me?"
Hiei snorted coldly from below the stage. He didn't approve of Kuwabara's approach. In his view, using an enemy's carelessness to finish him with one strike was the most reasonable tactic; insisting on a full-power duel like Kuwabara was foolish.
You could only say that Hiei's experiences were completely different from Kuwabara's, producing different personal styles—there's no absolute right or wrong.
Onstage, Rinku steadied himself and reached into his satchel.
Looking closely, he had eight mini yo-yos gripped between his fingers.
"Devil Yo-Yo!"
Rinku snapped his wrists and flung the yo-yos. The eight yo-yos shot at Kuwabara like bullets.
The worst part was that all eight turned midair, each tracing a different flight path.
Kuwabara drew a deep breath, gripped his Spirit Sword in both hands, and unleashed a lattice of slashes.
Ting! Ting! Ting! …
After a rapid series of nearly simultaneous chimes, the eight yo-yos were knocked away at once—Kuwabara had cut all eight incoming yo-yos from every angle in the same instant.
At the same time, memories of training flooded Kuwabara's mind.
…
Boom!
Kuwabara gaped at the mushroom cloud rising in the distance—spawned by a single small fireball exploding. A dozen more of the same kind hovered before Charles.
"If I don't dodge that, I'll die, won't I?" Kuwabara muttered to himself.
Charles smiled. "Dodge? Who told you to dodge—cut them with your Spirit Sword!"
Kuwabara shook his head furiously. "No way! There's no way I can do that!"
"Of course you're not relying on reflexes," Charles said. "Use your sixth sense properly.
"Your future opponents will all wield spirit power. Using your sensitivity to track their attacks—or them—is the absolute basics."
Enlightenment dawned. Kuwabara condensed his Spirit Sword. "I get it. Fire away, Master Charles—I'll get it down."
…
Back in the moment, Kuwabara said, "This is nowhere near enough! My record is ten!"
Rinku had no idea what "ten" meant, but he knew he was in trouble.
The match ended quickly. Rinku's Devil Yo-Yos couldn't break Kuwabara's defense, and Kuwabara's Spirit Sword ended up at Rinku's neck, forcing him to surrender.
The next two bouts went just as Charles remembered from the original story.
A yokai whose name Charles couldn't be bothered to remember threatened Kurama with his adoptive parents; he did gain the upper hand at first, but then Kurama planted a Demon World seed in him by accident and he died horribly in the ring.
Zeru likewise turned to a black silhouette after Hiei summoned the black flames of the Demon World and unleashed the Dragon of the Darkness Flame.
It was a best-of-five; the winners were already decided. But the spectators weren't about to let Team Urameshi advance so easily, and their roars rose up.
So the newly awake Yusuke went up and fought the last Rokuyukai member, Chu.
As for the other two on Team Rokuyukai… terrified by Hiei and trying to flee, they'd already been taken out by Chu.
Charles noticed that people here had a strong impression of Drunken Fist from Eastern martial arts—he'd seen it in multiple worlds.
Chu used Drunken Fist, but his "drunkenness" was really just boosting his yokai power by getting drunk—like chugging a potion to amp up your stats, except his potion was booze.
In Charles's view, it was nothing like the Drunken Fist he knew.
Still, aside from that mishmash, Chu was a decent warrior. His "blade-to-blade" showdown with Yusuke at the end showed real guts.
Unfortunately, the protagonist's halo prevailed in the end, and he lost to Yusuke.
Team Urameshi returned to rest after their win, and the tournament continued.
After watching the first match, Stella's impression of the Dark Tournament improved a bit; at least both sides showed their skills.
But the matches after that soured her mood completely.
The rest of the matches revolved around one theme: bloodshed!
The yokai in the ring weren't looking to temper themselves or put on a display; they wanted to vent their lust for killing. The strong tortured the weak in all sorts of ways, and the weak used every dirty trick to ambush their foes.
Each time bones snapped, limbs scattered, and blood splashed, the crowd roared with joy.
Charles pulled Stella up, displeasure on his face. "There's nothing worth seeing in this. Let's go."
He regretted it as well. He hadn't expected the parts the original never showed to be like this. It was beyond his worst expectations.
As a warrior—or even just as a normal human—Stella loathed this place, so she took Charles's hand and left the VIP seats.
As they went, Charles caught sight, out of the corner of his eye, of the largest VIP room to one side.
With his sharp vision he saw Sakyo inside through the window, along with a number of other underworld bigwigs.
Sakyo's expression was as impassive as ever, but the others chatted and laughed with eyes tinged crimson.
It seemed the bloody battles below truly delighted them!
No wonder Shinobu Sensui had his psyche shattered. So those who held vast wealth and power were this kind of people—who'd tossed even basic human decency aside.
In that light, Sakyo wiping them all out was… practically heaven's will!
In any case, Charles decided that from here on out, he'd only watch Team Urameshi's matches.
Afterward he'd take a tour of the Demon World, and then head on to another world.
______
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