"Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between and beyond, welcome back to our live coverage of the xxth Demon World Unification Tournament, exclusively on IMN. I'm your lovely, daring, experienced and eternal host, Koto from 3ccult. Don't forget, our new single 3ever 3ccult is out on your streaming service of choice right now! Less than three 3ccult! But we're not here for that, we're here for something even bigger. Much bigger. We're live at the stadium in Territory 3, and only minutes away from the official lottery drawing for the preliminaries. I know all you viewers out there are waiting with bated breath to see the results. Oh, there's the man I'm looking for! Mister Contestant Number One himself, the founder of the Tournament, His Royal Majesty and administrator of Territory 1, King Urameshi. Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

"Hey! Congrats on the new single!"

"Oh! Thank you so much, Your Majesty! How are you doing today?"

"Fantastic."

"That's wonderful to hear! You look terrific, if I may say so myself."

"Thanks! You look great too. Is that a new haircut?"

"Why yes it is! How kind of you to notice, Your Majesty! As our avid viewers - and devoted 3ccult fans, of course - may know, His Majesty and I go waaaay back in terms of following each others' careers. Now onto the business at hand and the reason I'm harassing you, Your Majesty. What's your verdict going into this year's lottery?"

"It's awesome! We've got a huge turnout this year, the best ever. I feel bad for all the guys processing the entrants. It's gonna be one hell of a bleeping party!"

"Your Majesty, we're live."

"Oh bleep, sorry."

"Oh well, you lasted 30 seconds this time, so that's probably some sort of personal record. On behalf of all the staff at IMN, we're very proud of you."

"Hah, thanks. They're probably bleeping at me themselves. Well, I'm sure we pay our live bleepers well."

"We sure do whenever you're expected to hit the air, Your Majesty! And predictive bleeping technology has made great advances thanks to you. Anyways, moving on- spill the beans, Your Majesty: what're the numbers like?"

"Well, this year we've got, ah, twenty nine thousand- No, wait, eight ... Eh, twenty eight thousand and four? Six ...?"

"Your Majesty, are you trying to read smudged notes on your hand?"

"... Yeah, Hokushin was briefing me earlier. You know I hate details and bleep. I mean stuff. Basically this year we've got buttloads of entrants, whoo hoo!"

"Uh huh, and that thunking noise is probably the sound of your industrious Chief of Staff smacking against the stadium pillars right now. So to save his handsome forehead and our precious airtime, lemme check in with the control centre. ... So we have twenty eight thousand, one hundred and sixty entrants into the lottery this year. Wow! What an impressive turnout, Your Majesty! Is that correct?"

"Beats me. Thanks, control centre, let's do cue cards or something next time, 'kay? My handwriting's pretty bad. See?"

"Your Majesty!"

"Right, right. Twenty eight thousand and something. 'Course, we always get a ton of dropouts after the lottery results are actually announced, but it's still huge."

"No kidding! I understand the withdrawal rate over the course of the Tournament's history has generally ranged from fifty to seventy percent. So even if we lose the high end of that, it's still around 8,448 participants in the preliminaries!"

"Yeah, and that'd still be, what ... 128 packed blocks of 66 fighters each. Plenty of good times to go around!"

"..."

"What?"

"Your Majesty, that wasn't in your briefing notes. Did you just do that calculation in your head?!"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, like probably everyone in the Unified Territories and the three Worlds, I wasn't even aware you could do arithmetic in general, much less in your head."

"What the bleep, I ran a ramen stand for over fifty years! It wasn't like the register worked perfectly every bleeping day!"

"Incredible! Well, you heard it here first, folks! While we're on the subject of math, Your Majesty, we know you've never made it past the semis, but you're always a fan favourite. As of right now MKBookie has you pegged as an odds-on-favourite for the finals at 4/1-"

"Whoa! Really!"

"-What do you think of that? Is what I was going to ask, but I guess you answered my question already."

"I'm flattered! Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys! Hope I make a few people a few bucks! And if not, sucks to be them. And me. Except I didn't bet anything. Then again, I'd be wiping the floor with my face, so I guess we'd be even."

"I guess we would be a little more than even. So what do you think of your own odds this year, Your Majesty?"

"Ahhhh, I feel pretty good every Tournament, but you know how it is. There's so many factors. It only takes one matchup or one little thing to throw even the best fighter off."

"Mm-hm, mm-hm. As our viewers well know, the Tournament is a drawn-out and risky affair. It's not just about strength, stamina and skill for our contenders! Strategy is certainly a big part of it - and luck, too. For example, you're not particularly known for considering your rounds strategically, Your Majesty."

"Where's the fun in that? The best fights are the ones that just take it all out of you."

"You know I'm with you on that, Your Majesty. Why have a Tournament if it's going to be ho-hum?"

"Yeah, exactly! You gotta live a little! Like, you remember that time with Hiei and the dragon?"

"Oh gosh yes! Folks, I believe His Majesty is referring to the xxth Unification Tournament quarterfinals with Territory 2's Chief of Staff-"

"That's what I'm talking about! That was an epic one!"

"Dear viewers, let me tell you, you had to be there. That was definitely a once-in-a-century pair up, a real earth-shattering, heaven-shaking scorcher of a match! Jagan Master versus Battle God! Black Dragon Wave versus Spirit Wave! IMN ratings were through the roof! All our live streams were completely overloaded! I wish we could show a few seconds of highlights on that, but we're running out of time. You can check out the complete footage - or at least, what the 3D cameras were able to capture before everything in the energy radius vapourized or disintegrated into absolute nothingness - on our Tournament archives online. Hoo boy, I still remember the cleanup on that. In any case, too bad you ended up wiping out, Your Majesty."

"Oh well, kinda expected. But bleep if it wasn't bleeping awesome! I'm looking forward to more bleep like that. -I see you giving me the finger over there, Hiei! I'll bleeping whup your ass again!"

"And with that, the Tournament trash-talking officially begins, just as our censors have probably expired. Well, that's all the time we have - thank you very much for speaking with us and giving our team a good workout, Your Majesty!"

"My pleasure. And thanks to everyone at IMN for their hard work! And your hard work hosting this thing!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty! Best of luck this year!"

"Thanks! Good luck to all the contestants! However many there are of them."

"And before we part, Your Majesty, let me just take a quick moment to say that I'm awed and delighted to see your math skills have greatly improved since the first Unification Tournament."

"Give me a bleeping break. It's been almost two hundred years!"

"Hahaha, take care, Your Majesty. And now, a brief message from our sponsors. When we return, the live lottery takes place, right here on IMN!"

Author's Notes: I love dialogue and banter, and this was a lot of fun to write in my head while walking and exercising, and letting the imagined voices go back and forth. Hope I was able to capture what I was envisioning!

(I hate numbers though, so please let me know if I messed anything up there before I embarrass myself further.)