Part 2: Let the Fighting Begin!
“WHAT!?” Leilani shrieked, “That’s not right! A feat like that would cause a contestant to disqualify.”
“Leilani…” Bob urged, trying to calm her down.
“Well it does in Dragon Balls!” she pointed out.
“This isn’t Dragon Balls!”
“It’s anime, they’re all the same.”
“No they're not!”
Lelani's rising voice caused the nearby heads to turn. Yusuke and Kuwabara looked over at her quizzically as she carried on the conversation with the silver, floating circle. Hiei glared at the disturbance she was causing.
She continued, “Sure, they all have wonderful deep, complex plotlines that they stretch out into hundreds of episodes with all the pointless fight scenes!”
“Hey! What’s this little do-hickie?” intercepted Kuwabara pointing to Bob.
The robotic arms attached to the circle tried to push Kuwabara's finger away as he poked it. Leilani reached and grabbed the flying disc with both hands and hid him on her opposing side.
“My portable assistant secretary” stated Leilani.
“If you don’t mind, some of us are trying to watch the fight,” Hiei expressed, extremely annoyed.
Everyone’s attention returned to on stage where Karasu seemed to have the upper hand in the battle. Leilani was sickened by how graphic the fighters wounds were, she had never been in a cartoon where violence was accented so much. Still, Leilani kept her eyes intent on the bats and bombs that the vampire-like opponent was creating.
Kuwabara mumbled a threat to some guy named Suzuka about if some potion he gave Kurama didn’t work. Apparently Kurama had taken some potion before the fight that was suppose to help him utilize his energy for the fight.
Karasu threw another materialized bomb that caused a giant explosion. Karasu flew out of the smoke and was seen with the stem of a rose protruding from his palm that he promptly crushed. He peered into the smoke that did not settle down, but swirled with blue electric streaks. Black lighting shot across the stadium as energy released and centered back into the center of the previous strike. The smoke parted to reveal Kurama as a silver haired fox demon. For the audience, Koto commented about her foxy dream returning. The rest of the crowd murmured about the legendary bandit Yoko Kurama.
“Oh look, he has a fox tail. Don’t tell me that he turns into a gigantic fox bent on destroying the world when he sees a full moon” Leilani expressed sarcastically.
“For crying out loud,” contended Bob, “This is not Dragonballs!”
“Yeah it is, he just changed into a new form that holds more energy.”
“He doesn’t turn into a giant world destroying fox like a saiyan!”
“Fine, but you know I’m allergic to fox tails. So I can’t continue this mission.”
“Allergic? Since when?”
“Everyone in my family is allergic to something and my allergy is fox tails.”
“I thought you were allergic to onions.”
“Oh, yeah,” Leilani chuckled sheepishly, “It’s my sister who has the fox tail allergy…drat!”
“Nice try to escape the gore,” Bob said dryly.
“Anyway,” Leilani regained focus, “he’s actually cuter like that…although I’m more of a feline person. I’m not sure I like his demonic attitude though.”
“Well, you know what you have to do.”
Yoko Kurama fought on while everyone watched closely. Leilani, even closer still. In his demon form, he turned the tables on his opponent. Gracefully he dodged the bomber bats that Karasu put out. He talked smooth and kept a sinister smile on his face. Suddenly a plant sprouted up from the ring that sliced the pursuing bombs. Each branch of the plant had a narrow mouth at the end with pointy teeth and surrounded by leaves.
The thorny branches flexibly squirmed around the ring, chasing Karasu. He threw a bomb after bomb, but even though it would incinerate a branch each time, the plant as a whole survived and was angrier than before. One branch latched onto him and squeezed as it ascended. Karasu's mask flew off his face then mouth upon mouth, the branches feasted upon the demon catch.
Yoko turned to walk away as Juri sat in a daze from the trauma of being so close to such danger. Koto shouted at her to announce the winner so Juri got up to decide the round. No sooner than she mentioned Team Urameshi winning the first round that Yoko stopped short as he sensed the round was indeed not over. The plant exploded in a flash of green light and Karasu was left standing in its place. Karasu took a long, deep breath in, increasing his power. His black hair turned golden blond.
“Look, see,” Leilani pointed, “he just turned super saiyan! Just like DBZ!”
“For the last time, this is not DBZ!” Bob screamed.
“You better keep the DBZ stuff down, people are starting to stare.”
Karasu internalized his explosive energy which caused half the ring and most of the stadium to be wiped out. Karasu stood and laughed after the attack with Yoko Kurama no where to be seen. Then a pile of debris shifted and Kurama emerged, back in his human form. He seemed significantly weakened, but the fight continued.
Everyone was attentive while it looked like Karasu would win. Just as it seemed Karasu was going to make the final attack, Kurama summoned a plant that honed in a cut near Karasu'sheart that he had created. A giant flower sprouted on top of the plant as it drained the rest of Karasu's life away from him. Kurama had annihilated his foe.
Kuwabara rejoiced while Hiei noticed that Team Tuguro didn’t look as disappointed as they should. Yusuke went to help Kurama and Leilani prepared to make her move.
Juri announced the winner of the match to be Karasu, which shocked everyone. Yusuke yelled at Jury, but Kurama just sat in defeat.
“Duh he lost,” Leilani stated towards Team Urameshi’s flabbergasted response, “I told you that you get disqualified for killing your opponent.”
"Leilani..." Bob warned her as that was not the case for the official decision.
To justify the outcome, Koto received a tape and played it. It showed the end of the fight with Juri commenting in the ring how Karasuremained alive until after the 10 second count. Karasu had died a fraction of a second after the 10 count started. Enraged, Leilani jumped onto stage and requested the tape to be played again. This time she stopped it at 6 seconds.
She grabbed Juri's microphone and narrated, “Now in my experience, when the knocked down contestant starts moving, the judge stops counting. Note that here at 6 seconds Kurama is on his hands and knees, he is obviously not knocked out, therefore the count should have discontinued. Furthermore, the purpose of a count is to keep the action going. Since at 6 seconds Kurama is clearly preparing an attack, any further counting is annulled. Kurama is the victor of this round, I rest my case.”
“That doesn’t make sense…I made my final call, and I’ll stand by it!” exclaimed Jury, grabbing the microphone back.
“Fine…but if Team Urameshi scores two more wins, they better be the winners or I’ll report your biases to my superiors,” vindicated Leilani coolly as she started to strut offstage, “plus you will be held accountable for any deaths that occur from this tournament after two points for Urameshi.”
Baffled, Koto stuttered, “Well there you have it. For the first time ever we have a winner who is dead and a loser…that is not!”
While passing Yusuke as she left, Leilani whispered, “Leave Kurama with me when you get him off the stage…I’ll tend to his wounds.”
