Chapter 162: Kengan Elimination Advancement Tournament (Patreon)

— Anomaly —

Executives from many of the large corporations that represent Japanese commerce had all taken sudden temporary leave at the same time, throwing the economy into serious disorder.

Reading about it in the newspaper, Yamashita Kazuo arrived at Tokyo Port with Tokita Ohma and Kaede Akiyama, Nogi Hideki's secretary. He lowered the paper and looked out over the bustling crowd, genuinely stunned by everyone in front of him.

"This is amazing," Yamashita Kazuo said, pointing ahead. "There have to be several hundred people here, right? And every one of them is dressed to the nines and carries himself like a big shot. You can tell at a glance they're all VIPs!"

"Naturally."

Hearing Yamashita Kazuo's words, Kaede Akiyama nodded calmly beside him.

"One hundred and fifty-one companies have come to take part in S.S. Kengan Annihilation Tournament. Add the spectators and everyone's entourages, and the headcount passed a thousand long ago."

"In other words, if anything unexpected happened here, Japan's entire economy would collapse outright."

The last line hadn't come from Kaede Akiyama. When Ohma and the others followed the voice to one side, Ohma raised an eyebrow and called out, "Yang? You're only getting here now?"

"Yeah."

Yang nodded. "Picked someone up on the way."

At that, Mai Shiranui gave an embarrassed smile. His home was, after all, a fair distance from Tokyo Port.

Arriving fashionably late alongside Yang was Sakura Ibuki, the de facto head of the household where Yang boarded.

"Hahaha! Long time no see, long time no see!"

The moment he walked in, Sakura Ibuki waved at Yang excitedly.

"I owe you big for this stretch! Out of nowhere, my business started going smoothly! I don't really know what S.S. Kengan Annihilation Tournament is, but I brought Hibiki along to cheer you on~!"

"Oh, oh, no need to be so polite." Seeing Sakura Ibuki, Yang kept nodding.

Sakura Ibuki wasn't a martial artist himself, but that didn't stop Yang from thinking highly of him. He knew his own abilities, found his proper place, and could say no to powerful temptations while staying true to himself.

You could say Sakura Ibuki had no great ambitions and no drive. But in Yang's view, that clear self-awareness mattered even more for an ordinary person like him.

With Yang and Sakura Ibuki's arrival, soft murmurs rose from the crowd nearby.

"So that's the president of Sakurasou Barbecue... He looks, well... quite distinctive."

Even at an occasion this formal, Sakura Ibuki was dressed differently from every other company president.

It had been a while, but Yang could tell the outfit was from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. The only difference was that Sakura Ibuki wore no mask. Instead, a goat skull hung at his chest, giving off a rather gloomy feeling.

"Is that the legendary Dahao (Great Consumption) Yang?"

"Must be him. Ever since his debut he's fought in overwhelming fashion. Most of his matches were two-on-one gauntlets, and he's beaten the likes of Ashura Tokita Ohma and the Hell's Angel Sekibayashi Jun... Looks like a formidable opponent!"

"I recall he's a fighter from Chairman Katahara's faction, isn't he? But I heard he was the one who cast the final vote himself?"

"Maybe the Chairman put him up to it. I hear quite a few companies are already itching to fight over the chairmanship."

Listening to the chatter around them, Yamashita Kazuo scratched his head, a little sour. "Looks like we got flat-out ignored."

"Can't be helped. We lost." Surprisingly, Tokita Ohma didn't mind much.

The main reason was that he'd lost to Yang. Over the past two weeks, Tokita Ohma hadn't respawned on schedule like a restaurant NPC the way Iori Yagami did, but he'd still spent ten evenings out of fourteen at the restaurant.

Partly he went to be healed by Yang. Partly he went to spar with Yang, Iori Yagami and the others, to speed up his recovery and get used to high-intensity fighting.

Rolling his shoulders a couple of times, Ohma let a flash of wildness show in his eyes.

"My strength should be back to about eighty percent of my peak. I'll claw back the other twenty one fight at a time right here."

"By then, they'll remember the name Tokita Ohma whether they want to or not!"

In the original story, memory loss left Ohma emotionally hollow and often stuck in an arrogant, unruly state, the "Great Ogre" mode. This version was different.

Having taken his beating and done his training early, Tokita Ohma was now developing toward the state of late Kengan Ashura Part One and Part Two. Or rather, this was Ohma's true personality. The arrogance and defiance of Part One had really been a traumatic stress response disorder caused by the memory loss, which made him react violently to everything.

"Yang! Long time no see!" Seeing Yang arrive, Sekibayashi Jun waved excitedly from nearby. "Our last fight was unforgettable! This time I'll give it everything I've got, too!"

"Me too," Yang said with a nod.

While everyone was still murmuring, a deep, resonant horn blast rolled across the harbor, and a huge, luxurious cruise ship slowly drew up to the pier.

"It's huge!" Yamashita Kazuo's eyes had gone wide at the sight.

"It's the largest cruise ship in the world." Kaede Akiyama nodded.

"The Kengan. It's normally closed to the public. Three hundred eighty meters long, two hundred fifty thousand tons. Literally the biggest cruise ship on the planet."

Tokita Ohma couldn't have cared less. "A ship, huh. I've never been on one..."

"Then watch out for seasickness," Yang said casually, then added, "Though for a martial artist, the odds are low."

Seasickness comes mainly from the vestibular system in the inner ear getting out of sync with the visual and sensory systems.

Sitting in a cabin, your eyes see fixed walls and tables and tell your brain, "I'm not moving." But the inner ear really does feel the ship pitching and rolling.

The brain receives two contradictory signals at once and makes a wrong judgment along the lines of, "Have I been poisoned? Am I hallucinating?" It then triggers a protective mechanism, vomiting, to expel the supposed toxin.

Especially for a Classic martial artist like Tokita Ohma, whose internal strength circulates with great stability, getting seasick would only mean his body had reached an extremely dangerous condition.

As the group chatted idly, a rather muffled voice came from nearby, along with a strange, unsettling pressure.

"Thank you all for waiting."

Following the voice, they saw a group of men in black suits, all over 1.8 meters tall, their bodies brimming with biting killing intent. The blond man at their head looked at the crowd and spoke calmly.

"We will now begin boarding procedures."

As he spoke, the man held up a card bearing the character "愿" (wish).

"First, those holding this invitation may enter ahead of everyone else."

Hearing him, most of the crowd simply traded surprised glances. Only the heavyweight presidents of S.S. Kengan Association, such as Nogi Hideki, Yoshitake Yoshiro and Shikano Gen, calmly took out the cards that had been delivered to them in advance.

"This?" A woman with long scarlet hair, a cigarette in her mouth, asked with mild curiosity.

The others paid it no mind, but Juri Han looked a little surprised.

"Oh my, the school's chairwoman is here too. I knew there was something off about that school."

Hearing Juri Han, the woman turned her head curiously and saw Juri Han, Kure Karura and the others.

When she saw the schoolgirl uniform on Kure Karura, surprise flickered in her eyes. "Oh? There are students from the school here too? ...Well. That's unexpected."

Despite her words, once Shion Soryuin saw Kure Karura's eyes, she understood.

Ohzakura Girls' Academy was a private girls' school, and many of its students came from martial arts families. Among them, the Kure clan was easily one of the heaviest hitters. As the academy's chairwoman, Shion Soryuin was naturally no stranger to them.

At first she didn't think much of it and only glanced over out of curiosity. But just as she was about to look away, she noticed a few people hiding behind Sakura Ibuki.

The others didn't matter, but one figure immediately caught Shion Soryuin's attention.

"Hm... Akemi Soryuin?!"

There was a trace of shock in Shion Soryuin's voice. Her mouth fell open, and she didn't even notice the slim cigarette drop to the ground. "What are you doing here... Never mind."

Seeing her younger sister's uneasy, sheepish grin, Shion Soryuin could only rub the bridge of her nose.

"Get over here and board with me! You're not old enough to be here yet."

Akemi Soryuin stuck out her tongue, then turned to Yang and the others. "My sister's calling, so I have to go. See you later!"

Likewise, before boarding S.S. Kengan, Sekibayashi Jun, who already knew the format of S.S. Kengan Annihilation Tournament, waved at Yang and called out heartily, "Hurry up and come aboard! There's plenty of good food on the ship, and I'm waiting to drink with you!"

"Yeah, got it. Don't worry."

Yang nodded.

Because of S.S. Kengan Annihilation Tournament, Sekibayashi Jun had been doing crash training ever since losing to Yang in their last Kengan match. He hadn't even had time to visit Yang's restaurant.

Holding back his urges and desires did prove Sekibayashi Jun's formidable self-discipline. But as a matter of fact, he would probably have gained more by going.

Either way, in Sekibayashi Jun's eyes, with Yang's strength, breaking through the qualifiers and entering the main tournament was a foregone conclusion.

While the people around them wondered why only a handful were allowed onto S.S. Kengan, the Protector didn't speak right away. He swept his gaze over the crowd, let it settle on Yang, and finally stepped forward.

"You must be President Sakura Ibuki of Sakurasou Charcoal-Grilled Barbecue and the fighter Mr. Yang. By the Chairman's wishes, if the two of you want to board S.S. Kengan, you may depart immediately."

Sakura Ibuki waved it off. "I've handed all Kengan Association matters over to Yang. No need to ask me."

Hearing him, Yang asked with some curiosity, "Is this some kind of special treatment?"

"Yes. It's an order the Chairman issued specifically." The Protector nodded. "In the Chairman's view, with your ability, Mr. Yang, reaching the main tournament is only a matter of time. There's no need for you to take part in the so-called preliminaries."

"That's what the Chairman originally said."

The Protector sighed and continued. "But then the Chairman seemed to realize something. He said that you surely wouldn't turn down a little appetizer before the meal, so he left the choice of whether to board S.S. Kengan up to you."

"Haha, that old geezer's pretty accommodating after all."

Hearing the Protector, Yang smiled.

"Since he put it that way, I'll naturally pick the latter."

The Protector nodded in understanding and turned to everyone else.

"Then the ship you will board is S.S. Annihilation!"

As he spoke, a battered old freighter came into view, covered in mottled rust and looking ready to sink to the seabed at any moment. While the crowd gaped, the Protector went on.

"The Kengan Annihilation Tournament has thirty-three seats for participants. Under S.S. Kengan Association's ancient rules, the top twenty-eight seats at the summit of the Association are set aside. The remaining five seats must be contested through a brutal free-for-all."

"Hey! You're joking!" The crowd's faces changed. "That means just getting through the qualifiers will cost our fighters dearly!"

The lead Protector plainly wasn't bothered by their reaction. He simply raised a hand.

"I understand how you feel. That is exactly why the Chairman used his authority to issue an additional new rule."

The crowd tensed instinctively, and the Protector turned his gaze to Yang before speaking quietly.

"In the Chairman's own words: whoever defeats the fighter Dahao (Great Consumption) Yang will immediately end the qualifying melee and advance to the final thirty-three."

Hearing this, Yang asked, curious.

"Thirty-three? Doesn't that mean someone gets a bye every round? Judging by the numbers, wouldn't thirty-two make it easier to arrange the order of the fights?"

*

[Author's Note: For this stretch, I'll be recovering to a guaranteed minimum of 8k per day.]