Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, dashed around the battlefield, avoiding trouble and navigating around heated engagements. The martial artist sought an excellent spot to catch his breath and try to regain his stamina to the point where he could at the very least defend himself against other combatants. Just when he thought he found a neat little corner with the bonus of a minor, lively, green tree for some shade against the desert sun, he stopped and tucked his head.
"You can come out. There's no use in trying to sneak up on me," he said, just loud enough to overpower the noises of the surrounding chaos so that his assailant could hear. A woman in a red coat whose face looked like it was stitched together from stripped pieces crept out like a spider with elongated limbs that had signs of artificial lengthening procedures. She was armed with gauntlets that had wristbands of syringes surrounding them, with the needles sticking out in front. The tips of the needles dripped with a glowing mixture of unclear origins or effects.
"No one had ever seen me coming before. I am not a powerful combatant so I rarely represent enough danger to set off anyone's sixth senses…" Aizuru, the Trial Killer, slit her mouth open, tearing through stitched parts of flesh and leaving her jaw with artificially sewn, dead, and rotten teeth dangling beneath the upper jaw and her tongue slipping out from its containment and dangling with slimy drool. This little facial malfunction required manual fixing, but Aizuru was still equipped with her injection gauntlets and didn't have the free hands to spare.
"The dharma senses that I've awakened fighting the Salvari have tipped me off. You have a dark dharma to you, without a doubt. However, it is the murky, melancholic type of gloom. You are not putting people through your trials because of some sadistic tendencies. There is a method to your madness, isn't there?" Jet turned around to face his stalker with a strict look on his face, ready to strike her down if she gave him a reason to.
"There's a method to all madness. Many people who have had their lives taken away from them experience a schism in the way they see themselves. They understand their lives as before and after. I suppose I too see it that way. However, I do admire not the beautiful, naïve klutz I was before. I admire the woman that I've become after pulling myself through my trials. I merely want to help other people understand that. To become the versions of themselves free of deceit to themselves, free of paradoxes, true to themselves. The versions they too can be proud of," Aizuru pointed out, sitting down on her rear and bending her right leg to use her foot to push her lower jaw back into place. A crunchy thud around the drying tongue that laid slipped out pushed a few teeth out of place but allowed Aizuru to slurp the tongue back into her mouth like a mouthful of noodles.
"You believe I live my life in a way that prevents me from being proud of myself? That I am trapped in a paradox?" Jet wondered. "Interesting. Very well, I will allow you to put me through your trial willingly. You needn't knock me out, I will comply."
"Huh? That's a first, I must admit… Very well, let's see…" Aizuru pounced and began frantically skittering and slithering around the rugged battlefield terrain. Jet noted how fast and how strong the crawling menace actually was. She installed her little handheld mechanisms into solid stone with nothing but screws and the power of her own four limbs. While the serial killer received a few marks for her trouble, they weren't as notable as they would have been had an ordinary man attempted to hammer a nail into stone with their own hand or screw a bolt in with their teeth.
"Impressive. You clearly have an image of your trap before you put yourself to work. You did not summon this trap but built it on the spot. That's some impressive inventiveness and innovation, though it would be much more admirable if you directed it toward something other than killing people," Jet noted while Aizuru's vision for something resembling a crucifix mechanism installed onto grinds of solid stone she polished with her own two hands was slowly coming together.
"If a person cannot overcome their trial and their flaws, they are better off dead rather than living in a big lie, don't you think?" Aizuru replied after a brief pause. Her eyes looked dead and blank as they stared off into an undetermined moment in time and space. Despite Aizuru's mind having gone blank and spaced out, her body worked toward the completion of the trial as if it were possessed by the creative vision that weaved the idea of the trial into being.
"I believe people are to live their lives however they want. I admire people who seek self-improvement. It's only natural for me as a martial artist to be this way. However, I do not believe that people owe to nature, the gods or themselves becoming anything whatsoever. To kill or let people die because they cannot evolve in a snap instant is to waste the potential of what they can become in time," Jet sat down and crossed his legs, observing Aizuru working like a spider matriarch weaving her web of gears, metallic restraints, and stone hard platforms together.
"So you believe that despite being unable to evolve under the pressure of imminent death, one being put through the trial may still evolve further in life and become a version of themselves they can die being proud of? Interesting…" Aizuru pondered out loud. "My belief is that if the threat of death cannot change a man, they cannot change and their life, their potential is wasted on them."
"Humans are more than survival instinct. A man is more than their death. Neither I nor you know the fate of any person. In time, perhaps they too would see the error of their ways and change for the better. Do you believe that, if put through one of your trials, the young and beautiful version of you that you loathe would have been able to overcome her trial, or died trying? If it is the latter, then do you think it is right that she was not given the chance to strengthen and grow like you have? If someone put that woman through her trial back then by forcing the hand of fate ahead of time, you would not be standing here and changing people's fates today. You would not be the person you are today. You'd be dead and buried," Jet replied.
"Hmm…" Aizuru wrapped her pale legs with popped-out purple veins, overcome by corruption and infection around the headpiece of what would have been her magnum opus as she pondered to herself. "I hadn't thought of it that way. It is true that the naïve and cheerful young woman that I once was would have collapsed under the pressure of one of my trials."
"You seem to have completed your mechanical machination. How does it work, what do you want me to do to end up trapped in it?" Jet approached the strange contraption that looked like a humanoid frame built out of stone and equipped with handcuffs, screws, bolts, and gears where the joints should have been. "Looks an awful lot like a rack… These parts don't move, whereas these do. I see… So you intend to snap and dislocate my arms and legs with it. I'm looking forward to my trial."
"Forget it," Aizuru slapped her face with an open hand, running it down her face while her bulged and bloodshot eyes quivered and stared at her creation with disgust. "There's no use in putting you through your trial. I was wrong with what I thought to be your mortal flaw and I was wrong with my trials too. I see that now. I surrender."
"Huh…" Jet blinked in confusion a pair of times before Aizuru extended her gaunt and pale arm up and grabbed hold of the lower claw of a bypassing Cursed Warrior, gliding all the way to the eastern edge of the arena before swinging herself out of bounds and seeing the Cursed Warrior flying off. "Wait, what was the lie that I was living in!?" he yelled out at Aizuru. The strange man looked genuinely broken and he wasn't allowed to challenge his mettle and go through Aizuru's trial.
"I told you to forget it! It's rubbish, all of it is!" Aizuru yelled back at him while being surrounded by healers who looked worried about the bone fractures, scrapes, burns, and bruises all over the woman's body. She was no world-breaking superhuman and yet she tangled with Cursed Warriors and martial artists alike, suffering more than anyone else whenever she took her licks in. "Whatever the lies you live in are, it's up to you to find them and to break them down, become the person you can be proud of. It's up to you to decide if you want to do any of that in the first place! I'm done!"
"Eh!? What an unbelievable declaration made by Aizuru the Trial Killer!" the announcer grabbed his head and shook it in disbelief. "It seems that Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, has settled his conflict without having to resort to a single punch being thrown!? Perhaps that indeed was the mortal flaw that Aizuru had found in Jet's philosophy, but was proven wrong when the Messiah broke her down without having to throw a single punch!? Whatever the answers are, it's up to Jet to find them and decide what to do about it!"
A man in a baggy white magician's robe with long eggplant-colored hair that spiked upward in two large prongs was lifting two chunks of debris impaled on a sanguine rod of hardened blood. A sticky band-aid stuck on the front of his face, just large enough to patch the two halves of his head if they ever decided to split apart.
Given the highly unorthodox method that the magician chose to pass the time, one would have assumed him to be skilled at such a workout. However, something that came as a surprise to the magician himself, his right leg slipped and slammed into the left one, fumbling him over. The magician's head slammed against one of the twin boulders down low while the one of the right elevated into the air after the fall and subjected itself to gravity, beginning to drift downward bit by bit.
Just when it seemed like an accident of two boulders smashing the magician's head in between one another was unavoidable, the upper boulder that would deliver the gruesome end to the magician halted. It stayed suspended in mid-air while the spiky-haired magician pulled his head out from the collision zone and scratched the tiny bump where he fell while looking around.
"Interesting, I was wondering where you went after pulling all that crazy shit," he smiled with a turn of lips that had something sinister lurking behind him. "The tenth, invisible serial killer, Death itself, wasn't it?" the magician sneered with a manic smile, cracking up and chuckling to himself. Whether it was because he was opposing the spirit of death itself and knew the hopelessness of his situation, or because he thought such an engagement to be an elementary matter was still to be determined.
"It was a nice trick you tried pulling on me. It's a neat gimmick in general–manipulating reality to your whims to claim your victims in your cruel, staged mystical accidents. They say Death has a twisted sense of humor. While I can't see you, I agree!" the magician bawled out before teasing Death itself with a crude gesture. "However, much like you manipulate reality by causing your little accidents, and ignore the natural rules of strength and toughness by having the death you bring about reign supreme and claim lives you have no right to take, you'll find us magicians playing dice with the rules of reality too. Literally!"
Just as the magician struck a flashy pose before his invisible opponent, streaks of fire extended in all directions, forming a field of a table game with massive, flaming ivory dice dangling suspended in the air. The magician revealed himself standing above a field of the table game while the dice swung and rolled in the air, revealing a pair of numbers on their six-sided surface.
"Welcome to my Game of Life! I'm afraid if you wish to attack me, you will need to roll the dice and determine our initiative first. Also, it is this game that will determine what happens to each of us and not your reality-warping death scenarios. Unless, of course, we step onto a field that determines that the player on top of it must die," the magician explained while a deck of ancient, leather-bound, and steel-framed cards stacked together from a blazing portal to another dimension above the burning table game field. "Because you didn't roll initiative and we have not yet determined who goes first in this game of ours, your attempt to kill me in your little accident is an invalid move!"
"Umm… I'm sorry that I cannot do my job and accurately report the progression of the battle royale but… Just who exactly is competitor Bogemu Uneyotsu talking to!?" the announcer wondered out loud after seeing the flashy light show of reality itself bending and shifting into a board game field and the very laws of physics becoming subservient to the rules of Bogemu's board game.
"Because of how chaotic this Game of Life is, I tend to avoid playing it on purpose. It's a powerful reality-warping ability, sure, but my fate is at stake here and it's placed on the same roll of a die as yours is. Cheating and influencing the rolls of the dice or the draw of our Wild Cards is not something that I will do, so I would much rather play by the rules. That being said, it doesn't mean that I can't nudge the rules in my favor just a bit…" the magician Bogemu struck a widespread pose, laughing it up while looking at the sky where the dice determining both his and his opponent's fate rolled in mid-air, waiting for an action to stop their eternal rolling with a result.
"Because you lack a physical form and do not occupy the space on the board, you declare yourself above the rules of the game. It's the same as a competitor refusing to step on the board by flying. It's outrageous, and it's deserving of a penalty. In addition, you've attempted to kill me before rolling initiative and my fate being determined by the Game of Life. That means that you must now draw a Wild Card from the Penalty Deck, I'm afraid…" Bogemu snickered with a manic smirk flashing through his spread fingers of the hand covering his face.
"In addition, because you broke the rules, you get a Penalty Mark! One of three…" Bogemu added, snapping his fingers and pointing over his head, where a burning, crossed-out skull appeared like a bleeding gash in the fabric of reality itself. From a blazing firestorm, a shuffling deck of massive, obsidian, steel-tipped cards appeared, with a random card being drawn from the deck and twirling above the game board. "Penalty - advance to the next stage of your life!" Bogemu read from the card. "I'm afraid that's quite impossible because Death itself doesn't have stages of its life. That which isn't born, but simply exists, doesn't have a childhood, youth, middle age, or old age, nor can it die. You know what that means, Death! Because you cannot fulfill the conditions of your penalty–you get another Penalty!"
A powerful gust of wind picked up while a second Penalty Mark lit up above the playing board. The Penalty Deck shuffled, and another card drew itself and navigated above the board. "Go to the nearest prison and spend fifty years there!?" Bogemu acted out his shock with an over-the-top expression before cracking up laughing, straightening his back and pointing toward the sky. "I'm afraid that too is impossible, for you lack a physical body to be imprisoned! Moreover, Death itself cannot be absent for fifty years! People would stop dying! We all know what that means–another Penalty!"
The skies turned cloudy. The audience that has spent their lives living in the deepest corners of the continent's desert stared at the accumulating storm clouds with disbelief. Rain was a rare sight in these parts, and so were gloom and clouds. It was much easier to believe that Death itself truly came to compete in the battle royal and was raging because of tricks that some mortal magician was playing on it.
"It's simply unfortunate. I know that you've simply loved your time playing the Game of Life but… When a player accumulates three whole Penalty Marks, the game is over! Needless to say, the player with three Penalty Marks loses!" Bogemu was having a blast, bawling at the wrathful weather, the down-pouring rain and lashing lightning, the turbulent and howling wind, and Death's caprices at being tricked. "I must say, Death. I've had some lucky games but never have I won a game in one turn, before even initiative is rolled. You're one lousy player of the Game of Life! Then again, I suppose that only makes sense, for you are Death after all!"
Then, in a snap, all of Death's caprices were over. The wind died down; the clouds began parting away and skipped beams of sunshine through. The lightning quieted down as if it was never there, to begin with. Bogemu stared ahead at a blank point through his hand that shook placed over his face, laughing it up. "Who would have thought that Death not only exists but that it's a serial killer!? Hilarious! Then again, lacking the arms and legs necessary to roll the dice and walk the board makes for some serious drawbacks! Death is dead, and I have killed it!" Bogemu kept laughing it up as if the magician had gone mad.
"Umm… Well, it seems that contestant Death, who was revealed to have been the killer of the Salvari Anjaman in the accident he suffered earlier, has been eliminated by the magician Bogemu! Em… I think… I'm not sure how to confirm or deny that information… Damn it! Death-san, if you aren't eliminated, please kill someone from the competitors and let us know then… Yes, that will do…" The announcer nodded frantically to himself, wondering how to deal with the abysmal knowledge that not only the concept of death exists, but that it considers itself a serial killer and tried winning the martial arts tournament and claiming Agbarah Sheikhate as the Land of Death.
It was difficult to say what was harder to deal with, that Death existed and took part in martial arts tournaments, or that there were men and women in this world capable of defeating and eliminating it, possibly even killing it.
"Hm… I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen… I'm just… So worked up…" the announcer babbled while removing his colorful bandana and wiping sweat off his face. "I mean… Is death truly dead? How will people die now? Will people stop dying or will they merely… Stop existing when they are dead? Do people still die when they are killed? Damn it… I'm not cut out for this commentary and these high, philosophical concepts! I am merely a fan of martial arts! Let's just keep going, keep moving, close our eyes, and pretend everything's fine, isn't that skill the best thing about humanity, anyway? This commentator certainly thinks so!"