Koto almost crowed with delight throughout the preliminaries at the spectacular violence, rejoicing at "bones flying everywhere like a busted piñata!"
Group 5. Hiei had beheaded everybody in his bracket with almost embarrassing ease.
Group 7. Shippo cast an illusion on himself so that no one would see him, and waited until there was only one fighter left, then revealed himself as he used Kurama's trade mark whip, rather than using one of his own tricks.
Group 8. Rinku efficiently multi-tasked his way to a win, knocking out all of his competition with yo-yos that none of them were ready for.
Group 11. Tetsuzan. Raizen's friend in the helmet. It proved rather good for skull-bashing.
Group 13. Shigure, who Kurama had already killed once at Mukuro's behest, sent his circular blade through the middle of all his opponents.
Group 23. Kirin. Mukuro's old second-in-command. He proved himself to be rather handy with an axe. Kagome speculated about Kirin's possible relation to Tetsuzan, since they had similar builds and were both wearing similar armour over their heads.
Group 26. Den Hou, the largest of Raizen's old friends. Really, he just stepped on everybody, and didn't need to do anything else.
Group 29. Saizou. A friend of Raizen's with very impressive wings. A bit of a flap and everyone went over the side.
Group 31. Touya had frozen the other competitors solid, and at a full ten minutes of being the only one able to move, was declared the winner.
Group 33. Shishiwakamaru won after shrinking into his imp form and attacking his last opponent from inside. Suzuka intended to have a serious talk with his friend about never frightening him like that again.
Group 34. Yomi. He had used the fight to teach his son, and had gone easy on him. He outclassed his son easily, though the boy was very stubborn about not giving up for quite a large amount of the fight.
Group 46. Jin blew away his competition, literally.
Group 47. Raizen passed through without much of a fight. A demon who had come back from practically dead, particularly as it was him, was very intimidating to the demon masses. All of one demon showed up, thinking maybe Raizen was weak from being nearly dead recently. Raizen didn't even shift his stance, just beheading the fool with a flick of his claws. From a distance of fifteen feet.
Group 48. Natsume. The only other girl Raizen seemed to know apart from Koku. She let another in her group do most of the fighting, only dealing with the demons that specifically came to her, and then took out the other serious fighter when he was the only other one left.
Group 54. The beautiful Suzuka stunned everybody with his killer colours – which were more successful this time than when he had attacked Kagome with them.
Group 59. Enki had made himself king of the hill, and made the hill out of his competition.
Group 63. Kurama disassembled bodies with his rose whip.
Group 64. Shuu. It was like his skin was made of metal, both by it's look and the way nothing seemed to hurt him. Other demons ran away from him when their own fists broke as they tried to hit him.
Group 74. No one but Mukuro showed up, and she was declared the winner by default.
Group 77. Koku kicked male-demon butt and looked great in skin-tight clothing while she did it.
Group 85. Souketsu, despite the rather ridiculous purple beret, made quick work of his foes.
Group 90. Haukushin, though how he secured his victory no one was quite sure – though he did defeat all the other shaven-headed demons who had come from Raizen's territory, all of whom had wound up in the same group as him.
Group 97. Chu destroyed his competition one by one, bashing in their skulls with his harder head.
Group 106. Yusuke won with a series of tough punches, sending every one of his opponents flying off the okaninju stalk they had been designated to fight on.
Group 128. Kujou. Natsume's brother and another of Raizen's friends. He just ploughed through everybody in much the same was as Yusuke.
~oOo~
Raizen went looking for Kagome after his rather pathetic preliminary match. When he found her, she was already surrounded by Hiei, Shippo, Kurama and a few other figures that he hadn't met before.
"Come on Koenma, don't worry so much," Kagome was saying. "From what I hear, Yomi's not smart enough about how he fights and Mukuro has been softening up a bit since Kurama's been playing at being her therapist. You don't need to worry," she insisted to a man in a black and white suit with brown hair, a red bandanna, and a blue pacifier in his mouth.
Raizen was so surprised to see a grown man sucking a binky that he didn't realised he had been noticed.
"You must be Raizen," Kagome said, smiling and stepping over to him. "I'm honoured to meet you, and glad to see you looking so healthy."
Raizen smiled. "Thanks to your planning, I understand," he complimented. "The honour is mine."
"Well, I had a little help with finding the recipes that actually got your strength back up," Kagome said, indicating Kurama and Hiei. "These two helped by discussing the chemical elements required, as well as flavours demons preferred. Keiko, Yusuke's girlfriend, helped me find the recipes, as well as making up a couple."
"I didn't realise my thanks was to be so widely spread. They have all been giving you the total of the credit," Raizen said with a laugh. "Nevertheless, I owe you much thanks. In the mean time, will someone introduce me to the people here who I do not know?"
"Certainly," Hiei offered, stepping forward. "Raizen, these are Koenma, Botan, and my sister Yukina."
"Ah," Raizen said, stroking his chin with one clawed hand as he turned to look at Koenma. "You're Enma's boy. You seem to have been fortunate enough to not inherit his face," he joked before turning to Yukina and taking her hand. "It is an honour to meet you. I hope you are very proud of your brother."
Yukina nodded, a smile on her face. "I am sir," she answered. "It is an honour to meet you as well."
Raizen smiled and nodded.
"Did you want something specifically Raizen?" Hiei asked.
"Just to thank Miss Kagome," he said, shaking his head. "Is that not acceptable?"
Shippo laughed. "Of course it's acceptable!" he answered. "But if you hang around long enough for Koenma to remember how to use his voice box, he's going to start asking about what you intend to do if you win this Tournament."
Raizen laughed and everyone returned to their seats, Raizen sitting among them in a friendly atmosphere. "That's alright," he said with a smile. "I have come to like conversation."
Before Raizen had to leave them again for his first real fight of the Tournament, he had managed to convince Koenma into looking for the soul of the woman he had fallen in love with all those thousand or so years ago.
~oOo~
Raizen watched every fight with joyful envy once the real Tournament fights began. His son was completely right in his little speech, he hoped that none of them died, because he would really like the chance to throw down with a lot of these demons. Several times if he could. As long as this Tournament continued then he would continue to to have good fights with interesting opponents.
"Even if I were to win it every time, I would still hold this Tournament every three years, just for the fun of it," he said to himself with a smile. "And maybe one day, I would face someone who would actually get the better of me."
"Talkin' to yourself old man?" Yusuke asked, smirking as he walked up to Raizen.
"Hello son," he said with a chuckle. "Just enjoying the fights," he added, answering the question rather than ignoring it. "You're fighting Yomi next."
"Yeah, I know, I'm looking forward to it, but..." Yusuke said, scratching the back of his neck. "Do you think I can do it? Beat him, I mean."
Raizen lay a hand on Yusuke's shoulder and looked his boy in the eye. "Don't forget what you're fighting for, don't let him get free punches, and use every trick you can think of. Make up a few if you have to. If you can do that, I think you'll win. So, do you think you can do that?"
"What I'm fighting for..." Yusuke said quietly, looking down. "To keep Keiko safe," he answered, and a greater ease settled into his muscles. "Thanks, Dad."
Raizen smiled at his boy, touched for a moment by Yusuke calling him by such a title for the first time since they had met.
"Oh, and one more thing," Raizen said, pulling something out of his pocket. "You'll probably fight better without quite so much of your hair in your face like that," he joked, tying the bandanna, just like his own, around Yusuke's hair, pushing the masses of brown hair back from hanging in the boy's face.
Yusuke chuckled. "Yeah, that is a bit better. Actually, I'd have cut the whole lot off, but Kagome said carrying it around would be good for my neck muscles."
Raizen laughed. "It's also something of a sign of prestige," Raizen said. "A sort of royal mane, if you will."
Yusuke laughed as well. "If she'd said that I would probably have chopped it off at the first opportunity. I think Kagome knows too much for my own good."
Raizen patted his boy on the head, pushing down and messing his mass of hair fondly. "You've got a fight to get to. Get out of here."
"Yeah yeah!" Yusuke said, ducking out from under the hand and heading off. "Just make sure that when I get back there's lunch waiting, alright? I want a burger!"
Raizen watched Yusuke run off to his fight, cocky and confident and looking forward to his fight like only a boy who didn't lose often could.
Souketsu walked up to Raizen. Jin, who he had just defeated, was hanging from his shoulders as they were on their way to see Kagome and get Jin fixed up. "Are you proud of your son Raizen?"
"Yes," Raizen admitted. "Yes, I am." He looked at the unconscious figure draped over Souketsu's back. "Yusuke has as many friends determined to defeat him as I do. How can I not be proud of him?"
Souketsu chuckled. "That he saved you from dying and set up this bit of fun has nothing to do with it then?" the lizard-like demon asked.
"Well, that too," Raizen agreed, chuckling himself. "I saw your fight. He almost had you once or twice," he said with a nod to the wind shinobi.
"Yes, I was surprised. By the next Tournament, he's likely to be even stronger as well. Might almost get me more than just once or twice," Souketsu joked.
Kujou walked up then, carrying the other shinobi of Yusuke's friends. "We got to stop takin' out your kid's pals," he said. "He won't be too impressed."
"You didn't get frostbite in your brain did you Kujou?" Raizen asked with a laugh. "It's just going to motivate them to get better for the next Tournament."
"You want to keep these going?" Kujou asked, surprised. "I thought you wanted to be the big man in charge."
Raizen shook his head. "I began the old fight with Mukuro for the sake of fighting, then other demons started getting behind us, we both began caring about what was best for Demon World in general, and then Yomi gathered a collection of followers and muscled his way into the fight and opinion-throwing as well. With fights like this every few years, then we'll all get our bit of fun, and demon world will probably be alright."
His two friends chuckled, shifting their loads slightly higher on their backs.
"Sounds good t' me," Kujou said. "This really is a good idea your boy had."
"Wasn't actually his idea," Raizen said. "And don't look at me, it certainly wasn't mine."
"Then, who?" Kujou asked, confused. "Everyone knows it was your boy made the proposition to Yomi, and Mukuro backed him."
Raizen smirked and nodded to the shinobi his friends were carrying. "When you take them to get fixed up by Miss Higurashi, ask her. She's one smart human."
Souketsu and Kujou turned to stare at each other for a moment before taking off to get their answers and their young friends treated.
~oOo~