Afternoon Duel: Hellfire Food Fest!
The oni that had constantly interrupted her class before suddenly approached her. In a less than, err, normal manner.
Jumping through the desks as if it were nobody's business.
Juliann sized him up with her eyes. Yes, definitely powerful, but arrogant.
"My name is Juliann Espada," She started,
"Teacher Espada for you." With a sigh, the woman continued to answer the Oni's question.
"We've made some real progress since the times of old, that much is certain. Exorcising one such as you has become more simple. To kill an spirit, you just need a technique to damage the soul, rather than the body." The woman lifted a single hand and started gathering mana on top of it.
Afterwards, she closed her hand and the mana gathered dispersed.
"Such techniques are commong among us Pythones magicians. When one needs to strike at the spirit rather than the body, you need a technique like such to counter it."That was the basis of an exorcism of an actual spirit. It was easier with someone like Arata, though someone like Belphegor who was essentially invisible, well, that was a problem.
"We still need a ritual to exorcise an spirit out of a body, however." The woman continued explaining, but her stomach suddenly growled.
Though her face remained as stern as ever, there was a slight blush on it now.
"Perhaps we could talk about this over a meal?" She offered.
“And I’m Arata, representative of the Night Parade of One Thousand,” he replied, sticking out a hand to shake.
“Though if you hear a skinny, white-haired nekomata talk about someone named ‘Arara’, that’s probably me as well.” As Juliann began to speak, however, the oni was pleasantly surprised. So they finally replicated the effects of the cursed blade Muramasa with magic? Oh, this boded really well for him though. While he had never gotten the chance to fight its wielders himself, Arata had heard stories of an unblockable, instant-kill sword, and even now it made him excited.
Of course, on the other hand, maybe the copy was still weaker than the original. Until proven otherwise, digestion was probably still the best way to kill youkai, from his own experiences.
“Oh, and the countering technique is also based off mag-” Before he could get anything more out of that sentence, though, a low rumble sounded from Juliann’s stomach. Arata noted the small blush, considered the students nearby, wondered which option was more useful for him, and came to a decision. Patting his stomach heartily and chuckling, the oni said,
“Yeah, sorry about that. Haven’t eaten for, what, a week now? A meal would be pretty nice. Reminds me though: money. In the past, all I did was hunt and eat, but all the forests these days are midget-sized. So money is where?”As much as it was against her pride to allow for a student to help her, she nodded in response.
"You need not worry about that for the time being. Today it will be my treat." Her mouth formed the ghost of a smile and she walked forward, before heading off campus and towards teh city. Classes were already out, so getting a decent meal would be for the best. She could also get to know what kinds of restaurant were in the city.
"Guess I'll be in your debt then, Juliann," Arata replied airily, following the swordswoman out of the campus.
"Though I'll still have to ask. How do you make money here? Can't rely on charity like a travelling monk forever.""There are many ways to make money. Either get a part-time job somewhere in the city, they never seem to have enough people, or ask the director for some, err, pocket money. If you give him a good show, he'll give you more. Or so I hear."There were rumors out and about that A gave money to those that could not afford working or similars. Pocket money was just a loose term for it of course, since the numbers easily went into the thousands, if not more.
He hadn't had much of a chance to really see how things were in Liseranna's small city, what with Director A manhandling him whenever the oni slowed down to take in the sights. Now that he had a chance to properly take in the sights, it really was unlike any of the other sights he had seen around the world. Buildings were placed ontop of buildings, a hodgepodge with no symmetry that nevertheless had a charming air to it. Artificial waterfalls, carrying fresh water through the aqueducts of the city, drastically cooled the air, a fine, damp mist around the areas where they ended. Runic inscriptions were plastered on walls, signs that may have meant something to a smart man, but was turned into scribblings by Arata's untrained eyes.
Thankfully, the oni's nose wasn't quite as blind as his eyes, and after catching the scent of something exotic and spicy, Arata pointed towards a small establishment underneath one of the waterfalls. With large glass windows speckled by water droplets and colorful pictures displaying what looked like human shit splattered onto rice, it certainly was...interesting.
"Hey, what's this anyways?""Ah." Juliann said once Arata stopped to look at... some kind of stablishment inside a waterfall. Sadly, the female teacher knew little else than what Arata knew.
She pouted, trying to keep a cool face and she also started sweating cold. Now, this was troublesome.
The oni had approached her for guidance, but she was as lost as him in this island. And then again, could a teacher ACTUALLY be at a loss as she was?
"I-It is best if you taste for yourself." Mechanically, Juliann started approaching the establishment.
"L-Let's go, Arata. I am sure it is delicious. probably She also had no idea that what Arata was referring to as human shit on rice was actually curry. The first time she would eat it. She just hoped she hadn't just digged her own grave.
"Ah," he responded, mimicking her own 'ah'. Well, it didn't look like Juliann knew much of this particular place anyways, but that was fine. After all, even in the height of the Night Parade, Arata and his brothers had not dined on all the delicacies of the Nation of the Rising Sun, so he wouldn't fault her.
And hey, it was an adventure!
With a spring in his step, the oni pushed the wooden doors open, the bell chiming to alert a waitress of their presence. Dressed in standard formal wear, the restaurant had an oddly cafe-esque impression. Most of the furniture was wooden, grainy oaks creating the impression of a timeless place, and, outside of a small statue of an elephant-headed man that was placed by the cashier, it looked relatively nice. The water streaming down the windows, as well as the sounds of the waterfall, created the illusion of a heavily raining day, and the muted lighting of the room made a cool, mature atmosphere.
"Nice place," Arata commented, his eyes already scanning for alcohol that wasn't there.
When they were seated, the waitress handed off two menus. It looked like they were having some sort of special event going on with the meals, but, alas, Arata could only look at the pretty pictures of shit-on-rice.
"Any recommendations? I can't actually read and all, so if you spot anything that sounds nice, I'll take it.""A-Ah, of course!" Odd in her, the woman had followed behind the oni obidiently, perhaps thinking that he had some more insight in this kind of setting than herself.
'M-Master!" she directed a question to the spirit inside of her.
'W-What should I order? Is this place not from your home country? W-What do you mean it is not and even if it was you wouldn't know what food in the present would taste like?! Master!'Leaving her hanging, Juliann was left without the guidance of the Dragonslayer and she dropped her shoulders.
"U-Um, may I get the spiciest dish you can find? Please, i-it only has to be spicy." Juliann turned to the waitress, who quickly jotted down her order.
"What about you, Arata?" Spiciest? Not just 'spicy', but the spiciest dish in this restaurant? Oho, was this a challenge?
WAS THIS A CHALLENGE, TO ARATA, LAST SURVIVOR OF THE NIGHT PARADE?! EMBODIMENT OF THEIR APPETITES FOR FEASTS AND WARS?!??!
"Make that two!" the oni declared, fighting spirit burning in his blue-flame eyes. He didn't know what 'spiciest' implied on this foreign island, but back in the olden days, Arata was the fifth amongst the Night Parade to finish bowls of ramen that were more spice than broth. Though his tongue may have degraded, he will not be so easily cowed.
Spinning the spoon in his right hand, the oni grinned, his canines extending, and said,
"Let's do this, Juli-chan."Unsure of what the oni meant, Juliann also reached for her spoon.
"I told you, it is 'Teacher Espada' for you, and..." Still, she was not one to cower back from a challenge.
"let me show you what it means to be half Mexican, dear boy."Her eyes narrowed down as she looked at the oni, whose fangs had seemingly grown in size.
The waitress was quick to return with a
dish that truly seemed like death incarnate.
There was an ominous aura emanating from it that could only be compared to the director's.
"All right, here it is." The waitress said in a cheerful voice.
"Our Phaal curry. It is so spicy that, believe it or not, if you are able to finish it all we won't charge you a single cent! Nobody has been able to stomach this before, just to warn you." "I see... and by the way, what is the price of this?""A thousand dollars each." Juliann felt the lunge on her wallet.
"The ingredients are really hard to procure, and then they are magically enhanced for this end product. So, yes, you could call it this restaurant's especialty."Juliann could no longer allow herself to be defeated. She could pay for one with the cash she had on herself, but they hadn't given her her first paycheck yet. She could only afford one.
She gulped and turned to Arata.
"If you still want to back down, this is your opportunity, Arata.""Respect is earned, not given," Arata replied cheekily,
"So, Juli-chan, better prove yourself on this battlefield before asking to be promoted to Espada-sensei."He didn't know what she meant with 'half-Mexican', but it was probably some new, magically-potent race that popped up in the world while he was sealed. No doubt, if she was mentioning it, it was a greater existence that mere humans.
Arata could smell the dish before it arrived, the pungent, fiery hell of spices that did not exist in his homeland. He narrowed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and then steeled himself. He can do this.
No, we can do this.Of course, with all that build-up, he was surprised when the blonde teacher suddenly asked if he wanted to back down.
"Eh? ...oh, I see. Getting cold feet, are we?" Arata smiled, confidence emerging once more.
"If you want to call it quits, there's a magical three word phrase you can say to stop all this, Juli-chan~""Not cold feet. Just trying to spare you a gruesome end, in the bathroom anyway." The woman seemed a lot more confident as she said that.
She also wanted to spare her wallet, after all.
Juliann took her spoon and lifted it.
"Then, if you are ready..." "Let's go!"Bursting into a flurry of action, Arata expertly twirled his spoon through the plate, his monstrous speed and strength turn a clean separation of curry and rice into a motley mixture of the two. The beginner's mistake would be to try to use rice as a break inbetween bites of this hellfire spice, but the oni knew the true path to victory. Only by growing accustomed to it could he hope to last through the entire plate, and with a fighting spirit that burned hotter than the magically enhanced ghost peppers laced within this dish, he chowed down.
Chowed down, chewed, and tried his best to only internally scream, as the poison skewered his tongue.
Juliann, despite the oni eating violently in front of her, still did not forget her manners. Her spoon went slowly into the curry and then came back out, filled with the spicy sauce of it.
There was some rice... somewhere. Probably. Hopefully.
The woman took the bite and was surprised to see that... it wasn't ALL that spicy. In fact, it was pretty good.
He looked over at Arata. The oni seemed to be holding everything back and she could swear that there perhaps was a tear or two welling up in his eyes. Truly, it couldn't be THAT spicy, right?
Then again, Juliann was a fan of tacos, and she often dressed them in all of the salsas at hand, ending up with a bomb that would kill anyone without her stomach of steel.
Her spoon sunk again into the dish's curry and she took another bite. And another bite. And another bite.
Soon, she was catching up to Arata. She wasn't going as fast but was certainly picking up a lot more. She still could not see why they called it the 'Spiciest dish of the place'. Her tongue was perfectly all right.
Before she knew it, several of the customers at the restaurant already had their eyes set on them and their competition. The waitress was also watching the scene with curious eyes, wondering who would be the first to collapse. People had collapsed before. And after just one bite.
She was surprised that the two could even hold on for this long.
For just an instant, Arata caught a glimpse of Juliann out of the corner of his eye. As if she was merely eating plain rice, the woman moved with the precision of a machine, unaffected by the hellfire dish before her. That glimpse was a mistake.
Suddenly, a white-hot flash erupted from behind his eyes as the spiciness caught up to him, blinding him with the same effect as a military-grade stun grenade. Arata's eyes rolled behind his head for a single, deadly moment, before he came to, hands on his mouth.
A dark red fluid seeped between his fingers, and a burning pain pulsed in his stomach. The glass of ice water placed beside him suddenly looked like heaven, and involuntarily, Arata began to reach out for it.
NO.Clenching his fist and slamming it down on his leg, the oni kickstarted his adrenaline, focusing on the pain in his leg as he focused once more. If he drank that glass of water, he might as well be forfeiting now. He'll be letting down all those who stood behind him, their roars cheering him on against this monster of spices.
That brief spint of unconsciousness cost him dearly, with Juilann all but caught up now, but he hadn't lost yet.
And because he hadn't lost...HE'LL WIN!
Ignoring the pitiful pleas of his plebian stomach, Arata strove onwards, eyes red with battle rage and tears as he doubled his eating pace, pitting the tenacity of an ogre against the overwhelming might of a god-teacher. He couldn't beat her by outlasting her, that much was clear. So the answer here?
Race her and beat her.
Juliann tilted her head. Was Arata truly enjoying this food as much as her? While she wanted to tell the oni to slow down, it didn't seem like he would hear. And then he doubled his pace.
Was he... was he trying to race her?
"I won't lose in eating speed either."The woman too increased her pace. Even without magic, her hand was already leaving afterimages as she reached to the plate of curry and brought it back to her mouth. What was even more impressing was that she could eat at such a speed without choking on it.
"Don't do this to your poor stomach, Arata." And the woman could still talk.
It was obvious that she had done this before.
"And to the poor janitor either." A confident smirk appeared in her face.
"Don't think..."Arata extended his spoon-wielding hand, veins popping out as the utensil was crushed by his full strength.
"...that you..."The air around him began to distort, waves of heat emanating from his body as blue flames lit up around his horns, extending them.
"...WON!"The sound barrier shattered as his spoon swept through the plate. In that moment, reality itself bent at the face of Arata's unbreakable, unconquerable will. Pulling off a balancing and unifying act that could not be made sense of, the ogre lifted the remaining half of the plate's contents onto that small, delicate, broken spoon. It was like lifting a house of cards with a toothpick, but, regardless of impossibilities, it was done.
Opening his mouth in a silent warcry, the oni jammed the entire thing into his mouth and closed it.
Funnily enough, he looked like a chipmunk for a moment.
And then, he swallowed.
"Hm!?" The sudden change in Arata would've otherwise made her reach for her sword. But no. This was a contest about food.
And if Arata was going to make full use of his abilities, then she would as well.
"Contritio, Spoon Art."She could hear her master screaming 'SPOON ART?!' in the insides of her mind.
"Senbongiri!" The spoon moved a thousand times and seemingly, all of them at the same time.
The plate was now empty and Juliann herself was already bringing a single napkin to her mouth to clean it off.
"Thanks for the food." She simply said, before smirking victoriously. Again, she wondered why they called it the spiciest food in the restaurant.
Silence.
Arata stayed still, the remains of the metal spoon piercing into his skin. He could feel the heavenwrath in his heart, the hellfire in his stomach. It was as if thirty divine swords were thrust inbetween his ribs. But despite all the internal damage that was inflicted on him, the oni endured.
He endured, even without the ice water that stood within arm's reach of himself, and eventually, let out a long, deep sigh.
"Looks like I still require training, Espada-sensei," he admitted, a cheerful, if not slightly pained, smile on his face.
"Senbongiri though...is your other half Japanese?""Other half...?" The woman wondered what the oni was talking about, until it finally dawned on her.
"Ah, no, I've no one of the sort. My master is Japanese, however. I believe you might know who it is. Sasaki Kojiro, the 'Nameless Swordsman'." She explained.
"The Nameless Swordsman?"Arata cocked an eyebrow. How is he nameless if he has a name? Nevertheless, the name Sasaki Kojiro did ring a bell with the oni. A relatively sad one, if he recalled correctly, of the undying swordsman who could never beat the legendary mortals of the era. Of course, the same could be said for literally every oni of the Night Parade, so hearing that Juliann's master was that same man sorta made Arata feel sorry for him.
Well, at least his pupil was pretty good, all things considered.
"Never saw him before, so can't say anything, but heard he was a chill dude. Introduce me to him some time! Gotta accumulate more strength, now that I have a reasonable goal to strive for!""Well, he is more or less living inside him so, in a sense, you have already met him. He's much too weak to manifest at current, however. Perhaps it is why he chose me to pass over his knowledge. Still, it flatters me that one such as you would see me as a goal worth striving for.""Well, an attainable goal, anyways. Director A's out of my league until I can reach your level, at least."The woman's mouth arched slightly upwards. It was probably the best of an smile that Arata could get out of Juliann as of right now, but hey, it was better than nothing.
It was quick to fade at the mention of the Director.
"You mean to face against the director? It is best if you scratched that out of your 'to do list', unless you want to meet an early demise." Juliann advised Arata.
"That man is far beyond the understanding of the likes of us. A single hit from him could kill you as you are now."After that, she stood up and turned to the waitress.
"Well, this means we don't have to pay, doesn't it?" The waitress nodded. They were both monsters, and she seemed to be afraid of both of them. Or perhaps their taste buds, at least Juliann's, did not work well any longer.
"I see, then let's get you to Rollanda."She took the Oni's arm and pulled him up with a lot more of ease than the oni would expect.
"I doubt your stomach will fare well after that." A single hit, was it? Ah, man, now he really wanted to see the Director in combat. If it was enough to cow even someone like Sasaki Kojiro's finest student, it really must be worth seeing.
But, alas, he'll hold back on that curiousity for now. As the two of them headed to this Rollanda individual, Arata asked, out of the blue, "So, you're usually free around these times?"
The sudden question of Arata made Juliann lift a single eyebrow,
"Well, yes, I suppose. As long as there's no other student challenging me to food battles, I guess I am free. Why do you ask?" "Well, the best way to improve is to learn from the second best! Next time, please grace this unworthy oni with a real fight, Espada-sensei~"And, while holding in a sudden urge to flat-out throw up, Arata lowered his head in a bow. In a world of pussy-ass mages and non-existent master swordsmen, he better get all the legendary-class melee fights he can find, after all!
Juliann smirked.
"Fine by me. Just don't blame me when you have to visit Rollanda again." Then she turned to the oni and extended a single hand.
"But if you wish us to fight as equals, then cast aside your respect for me. You showed me today that you are a worthy opponent, even if it was only by swallowing down a bowl of curry. I approve of your strength, and as such allow you to stand in equal footing. I will be looking forward to our fights, Arata!"For once, she seemed excited.
"Oh? Willing to go from Espada-sensei to Espada-san then?"Arata grinned, lifting his head. With the full strength of a being capable of casually tossing around cars and pushing fully-loaded freighters, he slammed his open hand into her own, a shockwave bursting from the powerful impact. Gripping her hand with that same strength, he shook tersely twice, a southeasterly wind ruffling his cloak to reveal his heritage as an oni once more.
Juliann received the oni's strength with quite some ease. It was quite the powerful handshake, yes, but Juliann's body was meant to resist even harsher punishments.
"Same here, Juliann! With knowledge of your presence, the centuries-long sealing of me and my brothers have been worth it after all! Show me swordsmanship, and I will show you the indomintable tenacity of the children of Izanami-no-mikoto!"Juliann nodded, before
smiling at the oni. This time, her smile was wide and, if one could be as bold, beautiful. To think that the prospect of a wild fight against an oni would make her smile like this took off whatever beatiful-ness it had.
With that, the oni released his hand, and walked off, the brisk breeze still tousling his sunlight hair.
A dramatic exit, after all, was better than a lukewarm, overstayed welcome.
