Chapter 29 — Win / Lose Part I

At once, the platform the three competitors were standing on began to shake. It was not a violent movement; rather, it was quite subtle. In Yomotsu's imagination, it was lighting up at the same time, reacting likely at the will of Deus. As the other competitors remained silent, however, he was left unsure beyond what he could feel in his feet.

"The role of the judges is largely observatory," Deus explained, loud and authoritative. "Our four rounds of competition will not require evaluation directly from the judges. However, for validity, the judges exist as witness to all that transpires."

Yomotsu felt a nervousness in his gut—if the fate of this competition was solely in the hands of Mercy, Olivia, and Meilag, then the situation would certainly end up alright. He trusted them, but he did not trust fair chance. Four competitions were in place to decide who would become god, and if he and Yuri both would be outperformed by Light, Kira would become god.

Of course, Light would not recall being Kira, but that did not relieve Yomotsu much at all. Light still had Kira in him, and with the power that godhood is defined by, Kira would reemerge, possibly even more ruthless. If the three judges simply chose the next god, that would be fine—but now he learned they were there more to make the actual competition official or, perhaps—and this thought troubled him greatly—they were there only to witness Yomotsu and Yuri's defeat personally.

What if Deus, in setting this up, was mocking them? It would be as though the god were saying, "Not only will you lose to Kira, but those you care about will watch your humiliating defeat before their very eyes. They will watch as Light beats you fairly and squarely. They will see you for what you are—false prophets of justice."

They had to win. Rather, one of them had to win—either Yuri or Yomotsu. They could not, unfortunately, both become god. At best they could each win two rounds and force a tie, but knowing Light as well as they did, they knew he hated to lose. There was no chance Light would let them secure all of the victories.

"The first round is an Endurance Round."

Yomotsu became aware that he, and presumably the others, was now standing on a narrow pole. His feet, together, were almost half-off the pole.

"Positioned on these poles, the one among you who can remain standing the longest will secure victory. If you fall off, you will be returned to the former platform. After the first one of you drops, I will make matters more difficult for the remaining two competitors. Now—be the one not to fall, and you will show the perseverance of a god."

The voice of Deus ex Machina fell silent, and now all Yomotsu could hear was the sound of the gentle breeze. From what he could prove with the senses, Deus, Muru Muru, and the judges were possibly not even present, although he knew that they had to be watching. It felt, however, as though he was totally alone. Each of them were alone on their pole, and yet, they were connected.

A curiosity rose within Yomotsu. He wondered how far they each were from each other. Hypothetically, if they were close enough, he could reach over and push—

"I can't believe Deus ex Machina really believes this is the best way to decide who should be god."

Yomotsu heard Light across from him, possibly six feet away. "Not that it would have been right to try cheating," Yomotsu consoled himself. It was easy to take that approach when there was no way of sabotaging Light's game. Yomotsu did not even have his bombs. He was not the 12th, but just Yomotsu, a blind man in a faded tie-dye t-shirt and big aviators.

"A god can work in mysterious ways," Yuri replied coolly.

"Heh. I guess so… But even still, how is standing on a pole anything like being god?"

Yomotsu rolled his shoulders. "Standing forever elevated over the world, knowing that the slightest wrong move can cause disastrous consequences and lead to your fall… That is precisely what being god must be like."

"Almost makes it sound like a bad thing, when you put it that way," Light said.

"It is not a position I would ever want," Yuri admitted.

"Then why not jump off your pole? Why compete?"

Light's question hung in the air. Neither Yuri nor Yomotsu wanted to answer it, and he respected the silence. They could not let Light win, but if they told Light that… Without his memories, how would Light react? Would that insult him? Would that drive him over the edge and make him fight harder, knowing how much his coworkers wanted him to lose?

Yomotsu wrestled with whether he would consider being god. They had no choice; they had to beat Light. However, if it were not Light they were against, he was still trying to conclude whether he would participate. Other than simply to prevent the position from falling into the wrong hands—did Yomotsu have the motivation to become god?

Did he want to reign over a just world? Did he want to, finally, be the in the position to make a difference beyond Graceville? What would he do? He normally would have told himself to shrug away those concerns until after Light's defeat, but they were standing on poles.

A long time passed, it was impossible to say how much, and no further conversation was struck. Each of them was likely dealing with similar conflicts and concerns over their situation. To become god would mean to live forever, detached from the human world, except by proxies. Muru Muru would be the new god's servant and could carry out tasks on earth. In fact, the god could do anything he wanted to the world—but he could not be in it.

Standing on the pole was not necessarily difficult. The wind occasionally picked up, but that more or less only made Yomotsu shiver a bit. The wind was not able to throw off his balance in the slightest. He had to remain focused enough to keep his weight supported on the pole. If, in his fatigue, he would lean too much in any direction, he could lose his balance. There was little room for recovery, once that happened. Their feet were already half-over the edge.

"Yomotsu, you must be at an advantage. You don't have to worry about looking down."

He did not like the sound of Luke pronouncing his name, but he replied, "You think so?"

"I'm just glad I can breathe at this altitude."

Yomotsu frowned. He said "I" instead of "we," but did that mean anything? Did that mean that Light knew they were his enemies, or was it just a slip of the tongue, just an ignorant self-perseverance peeking through?

"But, I think I might like to see the view," Yomotsu said after what might have been five minutes.

Yomotsu had barely finished speaking when something that, after Light's last remark, had slipped past him. He had to calm himself, lest he somehow throw off his balance in reacting strongly. Light had called him "Yomotsu."

Something was wrong, and now he had reason to believe it was not just him overthinking the situation. However, he still did not know the extent of Light's knowledge. Prying too deep, however, might cause more problems.

"It is more terrifying than beautiful, although it is both," Yuri said.

Did Yuri catch how Light referred to Yomotsu by name? Yuri spoke so unaffectedly, but Yomotsu knew that Yuri had to be in turmoil inside.

"I would have to second that, Yuri. But it would be hard to pick a better sky for this competition."

There he went again! Yomotsu swallowed.

"Describe it for me," Yomotsu suggested.

"An orange sky," Light answered, slowly and reverently. "The sun rising over thick clouds. The rising of a new god and a new era."

Yomotsu thought that seemed a little funny. It had been relatively early in the day when they were whisked away from Olivia's house, and now there was a sun rising? If the Sun was setting, perhaps eight hours had passed somehow with them on the poles. Eight hours of almost total silence, in which conversation was even more painful… But that was more believable than it already being a new day already, that night had come and gone.

"And don't worry," Light said, his voice pulling away from the soft adoration he expressed while talking about the clouds. "Don't worry… I won't hold it against either of you, for what happened before. I will only give you what you deserve."

There was a rustling sound, and then a deep quiet.

"Yuri has fallen and has been eliminated from the Endurance Round," Deus announced.

Yomotsu could feel Light's eyes on him. Yomotsu clung for an answer as to what happened. The wind had seemed to pick up, but was that really enough to cause Yuri to lose his imbalance? Or had the shock of Light's words done him in?

"For as long as you both remain standing, I will now increase the odds against you."

Yomotsu swallowed.

After some time of no effects on the competition, Yomotsu was about ready to consider Deus' words a bluff. Then he began to hear a howling faint in the distance, and as seconds went by, the howling grew louder.

"Yomotsu, there's this huge, dark cloud going toward you!"

Mercy's voice rose just over the roar. If she had kept speaking even a couple of seconds longer, he might not have been able to hear it over her. Wherever she was, she was able to still send that warning.

"It's true, Yomotsu," Light said. "A violent storm is approaching, and you know, in the end, only one of us can remain standing…"

Light either stopped speaking, or the roar overtook him. Yomotsu could feel the cloud's approach. It had not yet enveloped him, but there was a sharp change in the air around him. Everything was being sucked in, and everything was cold. So close was the cloud that he could scarcely bear the roaring. Yomotsu wanted to cover his ears, but he kept his hands resolutely at his side, to better ensure his balance.

Then the cloud overtook him. It wrapped around him and threatened to take him along its journey. In the cloud, he felt an immense pressure against his body, like walls closing in. His arms and legs were squeezed, and he soon felt a lightheadedness accompany the other alarming sensations. Then came the unexpected psychological effects.

"Your father… a Moldovan spy… Masayoshi Hirasaka—Your mother, Miyu, met your father at an izakaya after a stressful day at work. She had a low class job and never did aim to do much in her life… snuck away and wanted to find some fun for the night—a release from all the stress from their lives—neither intended… pregnancy…"

A screech pierced the air and reverberated through the cloud. The pole began to shake, or maybe he was beginning to shake, but whatever was happening, it was beginning to concern Yomotsu less than the shaking voice in the cloud. It was not Olivia's voice. It was a raspy, masculine voice, familiar yet distant.

"—Intended on not having the child survive—some way dispose of the child… was willing to kill a child… It was dangerous."

Yomotsu's breaths were rapid, and his face was quivering. His eyes were moist and his head was dizzy. Everything was shaking, but his voice was clear to his own ears. "Father!" He found himself screaming at the cloud, within the cloud. "Father!" He did not intend to say anything at all, but the cloud drew it out.

"… was going to attempt something… kicked your mother and beat her until—haunted by the last thoughts—In the last month of her life, she heard the thoughts of a hundred people all at once—she committed suicide by shooting herself in the head. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Father—!"

"But now, I am where you cannot find me, where you cannot find me unless you look for me... Lost in the storm, in the darkness—but would you know what that is like?"

He felt the cloud tug on him, harder, and he wanted to go with it.

"Here I am, son... Or are you going to run, scared that I might, I might finish what I started? Are you going to run away?"

Yomotsu took a deep breath. "No—!" He had to keep breathing. "I'm going to… stay right here."

"You'll never catch me, that way."

"I'm not going to go running after you," Yomotsu said over the dissipating roar. "I run toward my future, not my past… And even then, you didn't deserve to be part of my past."

The weight lifted, and Yomotsu felt the air return to its normal feel. The lingering cloud either had passed him by or dissolved around him. Either way, its influence was no longer felt.

"Light has fallen. Yomotsu, you are the victor of the Endurance Round! I will return you to the platform to recuperate before the next round."

Yomotsu rubbed his face, hard. "Maybe Light did not fall," he thought. "Maybe he dropped on purpose, so he could get a better view of me suffering in the cloud…"

He clenched his fists. "Or maybe Light has father issues, just like Yuri and me… Maybe, we all just had bad fathers, and that is why we have turned out this way, trying to bring justice to this world, to compensate for the lack of justice in our childhoods… Maybe…"

He felt himself returned to the platform. He stretched out his sore legs and was thankful to be able to walk around again. Yuri placed his hand on his shoulder.

"There were more clouds approaching in the distance," Yuri said. "You were lucky."

Yomotsu managed a smile. "Funny, I do not particularly feel lucky after that…"

After an ample time was given to the participants to recuperate, which Yomotsu spent joking with Yuri and Light spent stretching away from the others, Deus announced the next phase of the competition.

"The second round is a Speed Round."

Yuri looked up at the god. His massive head faced straight ahead, neither toward the participants or the judges to his right and left.

"Making your way through the course prepared for you, the one among you who can outrace the others will secure victory. On my count, you will each navigate an obstacle course, swim across an expanse of water, scale a great wall, and hit a target that, once struck, will create for you the final path to the end. Be the one to reach the finish line first, and you will show the alacrity of a god."

Yuri frowned at how much more complicated this round was when compared to the previous. He looked toward Light, and he saw that Light was looking toward the course with a stoic confidence. Yuri's eyes darted the same direction; the course had materialized in front of Deus, perfectly within view of the three judges.

Olivia's seat was a rocking chair. She had her eyes closed and was gently rocking back and forth, muttering something to herself—possibly some sort of mantra—as she twiddled her thumbs.

Meilag's seat was a chair made out of bones. He shuffled in it uncomfortably, constantly stealing glances toward Deus and Muru Muru. He was saying things to Mercy, but that could only be determined by her glances at him. He hardly made eye contact with her, so whatever he was saying might have been at least as much for his own benefit as for hers.

Mercy's seat was a soft, red arm chair. It was a tall seat; her legs dangled and her military boots did not touch the platform. She was nervously pulling her skirt down, but not out of worries of indecency, but out of far greater concerns. Those were plain on her face. She held her attention the best she could on Meilag, but Yuri noticed how often she glanced toward the competitors' platform.

Was she checking to see how Yomotsu was holding up?

Was she seeing if Yuri was still enthusiastic after his fall in the previous round?

Was she looking at Light, and if so, what did she think about him now? What did she feel about him now?

There was so much tension and silence throughout this whole arrangement. Yomotsu told Yuri about what had transpired after he fell down. Deus ex Machina's competition had certain psychological implications that, Yuri suspected, had more to do with their fitness as new gods than any physical challenge he might throw their way. The sky was an even brighter orange now. There were signs of purple dashed through the giant clouds, those around them and even some beneath them.

Yuri took a deep breath. They were on the course now. He not even realized they had been teleported there. He looked ahead:

The course was divided into three clear sections, although there were no true borders separating the sections. Rather, there were just lines running through the entirety of the course; each of the contestants was facing down one of the three divides. The lines turned into nets in the water, and then the lines even went up the wall ahead.

The obstacle course involved a series of objects to crawl under and crawl over. The objects were all barbed with dark thorns that could catch on clothing and skin. There were hoops of fire for them to jump through and then a thin bridge they had to carefully advance on, suspended over burning coals. After that stretch, the water appeared.

The swimming would probably be the easiest part of the challenge. There appeared to be no gimmicks here. The distance was not even that long.

But the real challenge would be that, right after the swim, they had no means of drying themselves off before scaling the wall. Yuri knew he could fly under normal conditions, but being submerged in water would disable even the smallest rendering of his NEXT powers. Deus would have known his weakness, how it doused not only his fires but prevented his flight also, and likely had this set up as a challenge for him.

The wall itself was only slightly larger than an average rock climbing wall. However, because of how wet they would still be, their grip would be compromised. The wall itself was a peculiarity. There were the usual projects from the wall that could provide footing, but there were also containers jutting out that appeared to be full of tennis balls.

Those were the ammunition for the final part of the Speed Round—they had to throw the tennis ball at a target beyond Yuri's current vision. The closest vase to the spot to the top was still about halfway down; if the competitor failed to hit the target, going back for ammunition would be a serious obstacle.

"Doubtless you have had time to take in the challenges ahead," Deus said. "Then, on the count of 3:"

Yuri looked over at Yomotsu.

"3."

Yomotsu nodded at him.

"2."

He snuck a quick glance at Light.

"1."

Light was looking ahead.

"Go!"

Yuri was startled to see Deus rise from his seat; when he turned back, Yomotsu and Light were already off running. Yuri wasted no time taking off his shirt and pants. He heard a howl from the judges panel; Olivia was whooping. Yuri did not care about how it looked; he needed to ditch the weight, and better to do it now than to wait until they were at the water. He flipped off his shoes and pulled off his socks, until he was just in his little devil ducky shorts. This morning, he had been too rushed to actually fully change and just put his pants over them. Now he was glad.

He slid himself under the barbed object ahead, crawling forward and thankfully not feeling any sharp traces along his back. He hurled himself over a series of progressively taller barbed blocks. He had to crawl under an even narrower space, and then he reached the flaming hoops. Yuri stole a glance to his left. Yomotsu was just leaping through the last hoop of fire and, after landing quite theatrically, began his careful advance across the plank. Light was just a little over the blazing coals himself.

Yuri had no difficulty with the hoops. He was used to flying, and it was not as though fire scared him in the slightest. As no rules expressively forbade it, Yuri considered simply flying over the coals, but then the realization rushed through him—the judges were watching. Unless they all knew already, revealing his powers might be dangerous.

Then again, he did consider that they already were witnessing the ascension of one of them to godhood—presuming they ever actually would return to their normal lives on earth, it was not as though they already did not have plenty to talk about concerning Yuri and Yomotsu.

Yuri's stubbornness, or perhaps something else related to it inside of him, won out. He made his was, one foot in front of the other, across the plank just as the other two did. When he reached the end, he was hot and nervous about the lead Light had on him. Light was excelled at swimming, it appeared. He was racing forward, shirtless, with the fully-clothed Yomotsu close behind on his right.

Light on the furthest left with the lead, Yomotsu in the middle with a close second, and then Yuri behind on the right—but the three competitors in the Speed Round were holding up well.

When Yuri emerged from the water, he immediately went to go observe Light's progress. His opponent had reached his container of tennis balls—each division on the wall had only one—and, while holding a ball between his teeth, was tugging on the container itself. Yuri cautiously proceeded toward the wall and began climbing, but he shot another glance toward Light as soon as he could afford to.

Light managed to rip the vase out from the wall, and when it came crashing down, the contents spilled out at the foot of the wall. Yuri's eyes were still on the broken pieces of the vase when he saw Yomotsu drop to the bottom. Yomotsu, who had a moment ago been edging past Light, had descended to pick up the tennis balls in a fervor.

"Hiro—! Yomotsu, you idiot!"

Yuri would have smiled at Meilag's shouting, but the moment was far too grave for that. Light, with the tennis ball in his mouth, was creeping up the wall. Yuri, wet still like the others, made the cautious but accelerated climb. Light reached the top before Yuri, as was expected, but Yuri pulled himself up just ten seconds later, three tennis balls crammed in his armpit.

He was surprised he had managed to make it up there without dropping a ball, but now he had three chances, whereas Light had one. Despite the time advantage, Light had yet to make his shot, likely due to his awareness that he could attempt only once. If he missed, he would have to drop all the way down, to where Yomotsu was collecting the tennis balls.

Light looked at him. Yuri saw this out of the corner of his eye, but he remained focused on the target. It was elevated above them slightly, suspended in the air above a deep chasm. It was a simple wooden bulls eye, maybe 20 feet away. The major difficulty was its size. It was not the largest target, especially with only three chances and an immense amount of pressure going into this.

Yuri placed two balls on the ground, next to his feet, and wound up his first shot—

"You can aim, but that's a rather wimpy throw—"

Yuri released the ball, and it soared over the target. He blinked. That voice—He shook it away and, after looking toward Light, wound up his second throw.

"Didn't your father teach you to throw harder than that?"

The ball narrowly missed the target, flying just a little too much to the right. Yuri reached down for the other ball, and he squeezed it so tightly when he picked it up, that he felt like he nearly crushed it.

He looked at the ball.

"Come on, I know your old man taught you better than that."

He looked toward Light. Light was winding up his swing.

"Yuri! Keep your eyes on your own target! If you don't win this, how are you going to become god?"

Yuri threw the ball back to the ground. A piercing sound rang in his ear, and he clasped his hands to his ears. He stumbled forward, stopping at the edge that dropped off into the chasm, and hissed under his breath, "Father, father! I don't want to become god!"

A crashing sound woke Yuri up. He lowered his hands and saw that the leftmost target had been shattered.

"Light has proven he has the speed necessary to win this competition," Deus announced. "The present score is one point for Yomotsu, one point for Light, and zero points for Yuri. With two rounds remaining, Yuri will have to win both to secure victory. We will pause for a fifteen minute break. The judges can speak with the competitors, if they wish."

Yuri was looking at his hands. They were shaking. If something like this happened again, he would most certainly lose the next round as well.

"Father… Your son—he's not crazy. Deus… What are you up to?"