The physician wrapped fresh bandages around Sekitanki's torso with practiced efficiency and visible disapproval.
"You tore three stitches during the first round," he said in classical Japanese, his tone suggesting he was addressing a particularly stubborn child. "The wound in your side has reopened. Your ribs, which were beginning to heal, have re-fractured. You should be in bed for weeks, not fighting in tournaments."
"How long until the second round?" Sekitanki asked, ignoring the lecture. "Two hours. Barely enough time for your body to stop bleeding, let alone recover." The physician tied off the bandage with more force than strictly necessary. "You are aware that dying is permanent? That even demon-touched foreigners cannot resurrect themselves?" "Noted."
"He won't listen," Enjō said from the doorway, speaking in modern Japanese. "I've tried. He has decided that surviving the impossible is his defining characteristic. Logic cannot penetrate that kind of stubbornness."
"Then he will die stubbornly." The physician gathered his supplies. "Which will be entertaining for the crowd, at least. They do enjoy watching foreigners bleed." After he left, Enjō settled beside Sekitanki with tea that smelled medicinal. "Your next opponent is interesting."
"They're all interesting. That's why they're in the tournament." "This one more than others. His name is Fujiwara Takeshi. Noble lineage. Classical education. They call him 'The Scholar' because he approaches combat like mathematics—every strike calculated, every movement measured. He studies opponents beforehand, identifies patterns, exploits them with surgical precision." "So he'll have studied my first fight."
"Exhaustively. He's probably already identified seventeen weaknesses in your technique." Enjō poured tea with steady hands. "He's also never lost a tournament match. Ever. In eight years of competition."
"Everyone has a first loss." "Or you have a first death. The outcomes are not equivalent." Sekitanki sipped the tea—bitter herbs that made his stomach protest but promised pain relief. "You know what I learned in the Carboniferous? Every creature I fought had evolved perfect strategies for their environment. Dragonflies optimized for aerial hunting. Scorpions optimized for ground assault. All of them were perfectly adapted killing machines."
"And yet you killed them anyway."
"Because perfection is brittle. It works perfectly in expected circumstances and fails catastrophically when circumstances change. This Fujiwara—if he's studied me, he's built a strategy assuming I'll fight like I fought before. But I can't. My body won't allow it. So I'll have to fight completely differently."
"And if you cannot find a different way?" "Then I'll discover whether the afterlife has giant prehistoric insects. Would be ironic if it did." The crowd had grown larger for the second round.
Word had spread of the foreign demon's unorthodox victory in round one. People wanted to see if it was skill or luck. Wanted to see the Scholar—favorite to win the entire tournament—dismantle the upstart who'd dared defeat the shrine's champion. Sekitanki stood in the preparation area, testing his mobility. His right arm hung nearly useless. The wound in his side pulled with every movement. His ribs felt like broken glass grinding together.
I'm falling apart. Literally falling apart. Maybe four rounds was overly optimistic. But Yuki was in the stands again, watching with an intensity that suggested she was cataloguing his every movement. If he died here, she'd watch carefully to ensure his death meant something. That was the kind of person she was—even the deaths of others had to serve purpose.
Can't disappoint her by dying meaninglessly.
Takeda approached with dark expression. "I watched Fujiwara's practice session this morning. He is terrifyingly precise. Every strike lands exactly where intended. Every movement conserves maximum energy. He fights like a machine." "Machines can be broken." "Not by someone who can barely stand." "Then it's good I spent three weeks learning to fight while barely standing."
Kanemoto appeared with Sekitanki's blade, freshly sharpened. "I noticed something during your first fight. When you dropped the sword and caught it reversed—that was pure instinct, yes?"
"Pure desperation masquerading as instinct." "No. Instinct. Your body knows how to move even when your mind doesn't guide it. This is what separates warriors who survive from warriors who simply know technique. You have survival written into your muscles." The old smith pressed the blade into Sekitanki's left hand. "Trust that. Trust what your body learned when thought would have been too slow." The drum sounded. Time for round two.
Sekitanki walked into the arena as sunset painted everything in colors that reminded him of the Carboniferous—red and gold and the promise of violence.
TOURNAMENT - ROUND TWO
Fujiwara Takeshi looked exactly like his name suggested: scholarly.
He was maybe thirty years old, wearing traditional hakama in dark blue, his topknot precisely tied. Glasses—rare and expensive in this era—perched on his nose. He held his sword with casual confidence, like a pen rather than a weapon.
When he spoke, his classical Japanese was perfect—the kind of perfect that came from expensive tutors and aristocratic upbringing:
"Sekitanki-san. I have studied your previous fight with great interest. Your technique, such as it is, relies heavily on unorthodox responses to orthodox attacks. You create advantage through unpredictability rather than superior skill. Fascinating from a tactical perspective."
"Thank you?"
"It was not a compliment. Merely observation. I have calculated seventeen primary weaknesses in your approach and twenty-three secondary vulnerabilities. For today's match, I will exploit weaknesses three, seven, and fourteen in combination. This should end the fight within forty seconds."
"You can't be serious."
"I am always serious about combat. It is, after all, applied mathematics. One simply must solve the equation correctly." Fujiwara adjusted his glasses with his sword hand—a gesture so casual it was almost insulting. "I confess curiosity about one thing: why did you volunteer for this tournament? You cannot possibly win in your condition. Did you truly believe you could defeat four consecutive opponents while wounded? You stupid moron."
"No."
The honest answer seemed to surprise him. "Then why?" "Because believing I could win was less important than knowing someone would die if I didn't try. So I'm trying. The rest is just physics and stubbornness." "How very... stupid. I had expected better logic from someone who claims to come from the future."
"The future has different priorities." "Apparently." Fujiwara settled into a stance that was textbook perfect—weight distribution ideal, blade angle precise, every element optimized. "Shall we begin? I have calculations to verify."
The drum sounded. Fujiwara didn't charge. Didn't rush. He simply advanced—smooth, measured steps that closed distance at calculated rate.
When he struck, it was exactly as promised: weakness three. His blade came at the angle that Sekitanki's damaged right side couldn't properly defend. The strike was perfectly timed, perfectly positioned, perfectly executed.
Sekitanki barely deflected it, and the deflection cost him—fresh pain exploded through his ribs as damaged bone ground against damaged bone. Fujiwara's second strike followed immediately: weakness seven.
This one targeted Sekitanki's left leg, forcing weight onto his right side where the injuries were worst. Again, perfectly calculated. Again, barely defended. He's right. He's actually right. He calculated exactly how I'd have to defend and I'm doing exactly that. The third strike came: weakness fourteen. An overhead blow that forced Sekitanki to raise his blade high, exposing his wounded torso. The perfect finishing move. The logical conclusion to the equation. Except Sekitanki didn't raise his blade.
He dropped it. The same move that had worked in round one—but Fujiwara had studied that fight. He wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
Fujiwara's overhead strike came down where Sekitanki's blade should have been, found empty air, and the Scholar's perfect balance was suddenly too perfect—committed too fully to the calculated strike to easily abort.
But instead of catching his falling blade, Sekitanki threw himself forward. Not at Fujiwara's body. At his legs. He crashed into the Scholar's knees like someone tackling in a sport that wouldn't be invented for centuries. They went down together in a tangle of limbs and broken perfection.
Sekitanki's hand found his blade where it had fallen. Brought it up to Fujiwara's throat before the Scholar could recover. "Forty seconds," Sekitanki gasped. "Did your calculations account for me fighting like a brawling peasant instead of a sumarai?"
Fujiwara stared up at him, glasses askew, expression shocked. "No. That was... that was completely irrational. Tactically unsound. You sacrificed all defensive positioning for a low-percentage offensive gamble."
"Did it work?" "Obviously. But it shouldn't have worked. The mathematics suggested—" "Mathematics doesn't account for someone who learned combat from prehistoric monsters. They didn't care about proper technique either." Sekitanki stood carefully, every movement agony. Extended his hand to help Fujiwara up. "Good fight though. Your calculations were perfect. I just refused to be part of the equation."
The Scholar took his hand, stood, dusted himself off with meticulous care. "You are either brilliant or insane." "Can't it be both?" "Apparently it can." Fujiwara bowed formally. "I acknowledge defeat. And I will be revising my calculations extensively."
The drum sounded. Round two: concluded. Sekitanki stood in the arena center, bleeding through bandages again, barely able to breathe through broken ribs. Two rounds down.
Two to go. The crowd's roar felt distant. Underwater. Everything hurt in ways that had stopped making sense days ago. Pain had become just another form of sensation—interesting but not important. I can't do two more rounds. Physically impossible. My body is shutting down. But he was still standing. Still breathing.
Still refusing to let physics and mortality dictate his story. They carried him back to the preparation area—not because he couldn't walk, but because walking would have wasted energy he needed for surviving. The physician looked at his reopened wounds with something between professional concern and morbid fascination. "You are going to die. Not metaphorically. Actually die. Your body cannot sustain this level of damage."
"How long until round three?" "Four hours. The tournament's third and fourth rounds occur tomorrow. They want to give fighters time to recover." "Perfect. Wake me in three hours and fifty-nine minutes."
"You need proper rest. Days of rest. Not an hour nap." "Wake me in three hours and fifty-nine minutes or I'll crawl to the arena myself." The physician threw up his hands in surrender and left muttering about stubborn foreigners and divine punishment.
Sekitanki closed his eyes and let unconsciousness claim him—not sleep, exactly, but the body's desperate attempt to perform emergency repairs on damage that exceeded its ability to heal.
He dreamed of the Carboniferous. Of fighting the centipede. Of the moment his blade had punched through chitin into soft flesh beneath. Of victory that felt like defeat wearing a different mask.
When he woke, Yuki was sitting beside him. "You fight well for someone dying," she said quietly. "Thanks. It's my signature style."
"The next opponent is named Hayashi Jin. They call him 'The Iron Wall' because his defense is supposedly impenetrable. He has never been wounded in combat. Never bled. He simply outlasts opponents until they exhaust themselves, then finishes them efficiently."
"Sounds boring." "Sounds effective. Especially against someone already exhausted." She paused. "Why are you doing this? Truly? You could surrender now. Let me fulfill my duty. Your honor would remain intact—you tried, you fought valiantly, no shame in defeat." "Because I'm tired of watching people die for honor I don't understand. Because the universe has tried to kill me a hundred different ways and I keep refusing. Because stubbornness is all I have left and I'm too stupid to quit."
"Those are terrible reasons." "They're my reasons. They'll have to be enough."
Yuki was silent for a long moment. "If you survive this tournament—which you will not—I would like to hear about the Carboniferous Period. About fighting creatures before humanity existed. It sounds... liberating. Fighting without the weight of tradition and honor and expectation."
"It was terrifying. But yes, also liberating. No one judged my technique because technique didn't exist yet. Just survival." "Perhaps that is a purer form of combat." "Or maybe it's what combat becomes when you strip away everything civilized. Not sure that's something to aspire to."
"And yet it kept you alive when civilization would have failed you." "Fair point." The drum sounded—thirty minute warning for round three.
Sekitanki forced himself upright, testing mobility that felt increasingly theoretical. His body was a collection of systems shutting down in sequence. Soon critical functions would fail and stubbornness wouldn't be enough.
But not yet. Not yet. He walked toward the arena one more time, and Yuki's voice followed him: "If you die out there, I will ensure your death means something."
"If I die out there, feel free to laugh at how stupid I was. That would mean more to me than solemn honor." "Then I will laugh while honoring you. Compromise." "Perfect."
TO BE CONTINUED... [NEXT EPISODE: "Blood and Iron"]