At the bleachers, Kalon sat crying on a corner. Every fight he had fought, he lost. Some had not even been due to his opponent being good: he had simply tripped and foiled his own chances at victory.
Jagger was loitering around behind the seats, saying his heartfelt goodbyes to the locals.
“Hey Fat Fuck, I am going on a journey that may kill me.”
Fat Fuck, the local obese Shiba Inu, glanced at him with a smile. “Ba.”
“Yup, moving up in life. Towards heaven, with some luck.”
“Baaaaaa.”
“Yeah, I will miss you too. We need to drink ditch water together again someday, your taste in it is exquisite. I admire it. And I will miss that thing where you perfectly recreate the sound of rolling thunder.”
“Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk,” he thundered.
“The chant of an angelic whale, if I ever heard one.”
The patriarch fidgeted with his newly written papers. In print, he had written them in print. None of that arcane shit five years old liked to learn. The only fight of the Antitournament of Absolute Losers remained: the biggest disgraces of the village would face each other and one of them would be exiled.
Of course, and to kill any pretense of tension that may have survived until now, I must say that Kalon will be exiled. Him getting exiled is fun. For us. Not him.
Anyway, Kalon’s mind was running at full speed, which was still geological, but, like, continental-drift geological instead of cooling-down-of-the-molten-iron-core-and-consequent-loss-of-the-magnetic-field-that-protects-us-from-getting-our-atmosphere-blown-away-by-stellar-farts geological. He couldn’t believe it. He was a disaster, a dishonor to his family and clan.
“I have failed you, sensei,” he lamented, thinking of Brunhilda.
Then, the beautiful, cracking-chocolate voice of the patriarch slid into his ears like molten chocolate. Black, because, remember, I am a racist against white chocolate. “The last fight is Kalon vs Lime.”
Caressing his revolver, the patriarch considered shooting Lime’s mother for calling her daughter after such a boring fruit. Melons were better. Graprfruits were better. Limes were green, obnoxious, and a synonym of small tits. All the things that were wrong with the world, limes were.
Kalon stared at the clouds high above, and begged. “Heavens, please, aid me to win this battle.”
And the heavens did answer, making their voice heard inside Kalon’s skull, “We have a boyfriend. To share.”
“Guh, the heavens are gay,” he let out, lowering his head in defeat.
The Patriarch hurried him to the arena, spouting curses we may no reproduce in the written medium, lest the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, the AFIP, The CONMEBOL, the KGB, Putin himself, the Japanese government, the Loli Manga Enjoyers Association, Autochthonous Twitter Fauna displaced from its natural environment by the Muskdusk, the post-mass-extinction fern spikes, the author, his immune system, and God itself engage in despicable censorship and lowly cancellatory practices.
Kalon didn’t hurry to the arena, but rather approached it like a man damned to the gallows. He took the shortest path there, which implied going around each bleacher several times, following some arrows that had been painted on the floor.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Brunhilda watched from above a nearby roof and giggled. She gave a grateful lick to the can of white paint.
After about a league of walking, Kalon arrived to the arena steps. HE trembled before them.
“We are here since an hour ago, Kalon, step into the damn thing!” The patriarch urged. He was facing his worst nightmare: he had run out of slurs.
Lime, pale as only she knew how to be, and frail as Argentinian economy, slept upon the wood planks. Seeing her, Kalon felt an unfamiliar warmth grow and spread inside him. She did beauty like few in the village, and she was only a cousin, so there wasn’t any trouble with trying… things. The first image his cultivation-enhanced mind conjured was… a shovel. He then picturing himself holding the shovel. After I reach immortality, I shall become an undertaker. This thought shows that one can lead a lobotomized horse to the waters of love, but it will fall to the simple temptations of grave robbing.
She sneezed cutely and opened her big, watery eyes that looked like lotus flowers, akining (new word, cry me a river and then move on with your pathetic, dictionary-entryless life.) reproductive organs to complex dark chambers other sort of reproductive organs use to see danger coming. Danger than, in turn, supports other reproductive organs. Fuck biology, man.
Kalon called for Jagger, making the pup fly to his hand despite the bleachers acting as a barrier between them. Covered in splinters and remains of a bucket full of caramelized chicken, Jagger forwent a sigh and accepted his reality as the weapon of the moron.
Lime yawned, smiled in origami with her lips of paper, and then spoke:
“I anti-surrender.”
Everyone was shocked. What did this mean? Was this even valid? The Patriarch pulled the rulenotebook from his pocked dimension (which he kept on his pocket, because he was a very pragmatic man) and swallowed loudly. He began poring over pages and pages of ancient scripture.
“Well, it seems…there are no rules against it. The truth is, there are no rules at all. We make them on a whim. This is just full of names of prostitutes and their addresses.”
“What?” Kalon asked as the girl giggled across the arena.
“She antisurrendered in the antitournament, thus winning the match.” The Patriarch explained swiftly, pulling out his gun and pointing and the child. “Now grab your things and say your goodbyes, Kalon Surname: you are exiled.”
Kalon fell on his knees, which hurt a lot and made him cry like a little bitch. The public pulled out their free tomato bags that they had been given for free when paying the entry to the tournament: some of the bags even had tomatoes inside them!
The casted a rain of red and pulp and green over the loser, the exiled, our protagonist, Kalon. Jagger deftly dodged tomatoes by rolling from side to side: the salad wouldn’t catch him alive.
----------------------------------------
Kalon the tomato-colored abstract painting dragged his feed towards the end of the Roadlike Road. His mother hadn’t said goodbye, as she was too busy going through the paperwork to make another son. Jagger marched by his side, happy with the prospect of dying out in the cold, cruel world beyond the Vale. Blades of grass turned away and the wind whispered between them when Kalon got close. Everything in the vale despised the exiled boy. As he was about to leave the last stretch of road, he heard a familiar voice calling for him. It was big Jay, that was riding Brunhilda to reach his side.
“That ought to break Auntie’s back,” commented Jagger.
“Kalon, Jagger, I am happy I reached in time. I wanted to give you something to aid you on your journey.”
“Money?” Kalon asked, the words tasting liker pennies as they came out of his mouth. Pennies. He had a craving for them, for their copper. Money would be good.
The man descended from his loyal steed. “Pfft, no, local currency is not wanted in any of the surrounding settlements. I am giving you Brunhilda.”
Brunhilda opened her eyes wide and started foaming at the mouth and out her ears. Big Jay used a single slap to snap her out of such trauma-induced trance. “She is very loyal, and should help you walk your road. Take good care of her, Jagger.”
“Why me? I am a puppy.”
“And your owner is Kalon.” Big Jay answered, which made Jagger scratch the dirt in shame and talk no more.
“Anywya, I gotta go. Place to be, weeds to smoke.”
Big jay inhaled deeply and wind started to blow. His body turning slowly to columns of colored smoke that were carried away, leaving the Exiled, Brunhilda, and Jagger to their own devices. “Goodbye Kalon, Brunhilda, Jagger. Be good.” The smoke said, and then flew back into the village, blessed with the grace of a cloud of mosquitoes.
“He didn’t die, right?” Jagger asked, and nobody present knew the answer to his question.