Ultimate Wrestling Season 3 - Ch.11: Saturday Night Showdown 004: PART - 6

Bold’s legs say no. He hooks the top rope with two fingers, exactly the way Drake did earlier, and kills the sit-out midair—Daichi lands ugly, tailbone barking. Bold lurches forward and Mongolian Slams him out of pure spite and habit.

Cover—one… two…

Sasori spikes the forearm with a surgical shin and ghosts out on the ref’s four. Clean. Infuriating.

Yushiro Fujimoto: The captain preserves the match; the Sentinel preserves the message.

Bold’s chest is heaving now. Sweat streaks his back in bright lines. He drags Daichi up, tries a Gorilla Press—the Dome rises—

—and his arms tremble. Half-lift. The engine coughs. He drops Daichi into a clumsy fireman’s carry and stumbles two steps, vision tunneling—

Scott Slade: He’s running on fumes—

Daichi hammers the ribs and slips off the shoulders, shoves Bold chest-first into red buckles, and sprints—Crimson Guillotine knee—BAM—he misses by a thumb, catching cheek instead of jaw as Bold sways. It’s enough. Daichi hooks—third try—Sentinel’s Judgment coils—

Drake shouts “ROPE!” and Bold hears him like a lighthouse. He kicks the legs out behind him, deadweights a second time, won’t go up. Daichi grits, heaves—

—and Bold bites down on a reserve the size of a miracle. He twists, reverses leverage, and elevates Daichi straight up into a ragged Gorilla Press after all, knees shaking like a bridge in a storm. The Dome goes animal.

Chris Rodgers: He found a quarter tank in the trunk!

Bold can’t hold him. He lets him fall and catches into another Mongolian Slam on the way down—BOOM—center ring.

Cover—one… two—

Daichi kicks, but it’s not the same snap. The lights inside dim for a half-second he can’t hide. His hand jumps to his sternum on reflex and recoils—that black flower throbs.

Takeshi Suzuki: Not now. Not here.

Bold staggers to a corner. He slaps his own cheeks, inhales fire, then charges and misses a corner splash by inches. Daichi spins him—Vanguard’s Wrath forearms—one to jaw, one to jaw, one more to the left chest like writing a name. Bold roars through it and answers with a headbutt that leaves both men blinking like they lost the room.

They collide again—Daichi shoots Death’s Embrace—Bold sprawls, spinebusters him to a roar—and stays on the waist, fighting his own lungs, hauling Daichi upright for a second Mongolian Slam—THUD—but his arms give out halfway and it’s messy, more collapse than throw.

Scott Slade: That’s a tired slam—but gravity doesn’t care.

Cover—one… two—Sasori slides to save—Drake shoots the gap and hip-checks him off with all the innocence money can buy. Hands up. Legal at four. The ref’s face is crimson; the Dome’s face is joy.

Daichi coughs like his body forgot the order of operations. He rolls, stubborn as math, and starts to stand. Bold’s crawling up the ropes, every breath a saw. They reach each other at the same awful moment—Daichi loads Crimson Guillotine with murder, Bold swings a Mongolian chop from the floor—

They both land. Daichi buckles and drops to a knee; Bold falls to his hip and still rises. The giant swings again—CHOP—Daichi staggers to feet, glass in his eyes—and throws the last he has left: he grabs a head-and-arm, jerks, loads Sentinel’s Judgment out of rage alone—

Bold turns in mid-lift and invents offense: he laces a forearm across Daichi’s face, yanks him forward into a short spinebuster, doesn’t release, rolls his hips, and stacks the Sentinel folded—knees near ears, shoulders buried, hamstrings pinned under sixty mountains of man and will.

Scott Slade: HE’S GOT HIM STACKED—DEAD CENTER!

One—

Sasori launches—Drake meets him chest-to-chest, they collide and carom, the ref already dropping the second hand—

Two—

Daichi bridges on rage for a blinking heartbeat—Bold’s legs shake, almost give—

Three.

DING!

Miyu Kojima: Daichi Sasaki… has been ELIMINATED!

The Dome detonates and then inhales in shock. Bold rolls off like a felled tree, both arms spread, chest piston-pumping. He stares at the lights and laughs once because he’s too tired to do anything else. The ref kneels by Daichi, who’s on his side, palm over that black flower of a bruise. He blinks, the world swims, and he sits up on the second try with the stubborn dignity of a man who’ll never give the floor a second win.

Yushiro Fujimoto: Iron bent. It broke only because the hammer did not stop striking.

Takeshi Suzuki (thin, angry): One debt paid; another accrues.

Drake is already waving oxygen at Bold—hands at his own chest, mouthing “breathe, breathe.” The Great Khan rolls to the apron and stays there, one hand on the cable, legs trembling. He’s alive, he’s dangerous, he’s gassed.

Scott Slade: UW back in front—2 to 1—but look at Bold. The big man left everything in that stack.

Chris Rodgers: He’s a skyscraper with the lights flickering. One good shove and the elevators stop between floors.

Across the ring, Sasori is halfway between rage and reverence. He crouches to Daichi, palm on shoulder, a single nod passed between warriors. Daichi rises under his own power, steps through the ropes without looking back, and walks the hardest aisle in wrestling—straight, slow, proud.

The captain turns and faces blue alone.

He taps the top rope once, steady, and points to Bold—no cruelty, just a statement—then points to Drake—you next. The ref resets the little universe. Bold’s hand still trembles on the tag rope; Drake looks like a man who knows the riddle and enjoys keeping the answer.

UW 2. AAPW 1.

Heartbeats loud. Gas tanks low. Violence still in the room.

The temperature inside the Tokyo Dome flipped like a coin—then landed on its edge and started to hum. A thousand chant-starters ignited at once:

“Sah–KOH–ree! Sah–KOH–ree!”

Scott Slade: I… I think the Tokyo Dome just picked a side, Chris.

Chris Rodgers: Feels like the whole island did. UW’s the away team now, partner.

Yushiro Fujimoto: The people call for their champion. It is not betrayal; it is belonging.

Takeshi Suzuki: At last… proper taste.

Sasori stood alone, sweat shining under the lights, mask tilted toward the roar. Across from him, Drake Nygma cut a quick hand sign to Bold—box him in. The Great Khan nodded, chest heaving, legs quivering just enough to tell the careful eye the tank was running on fumes.

They cinched the ring down to a choke point. Drake stepped first, herding with palm strikes like cattle prods while Bold closed the back door with wall-sized footwork. A clean quick tag—Drake in, Bold out by a step—UW cycling like a machine built to crush hope within the ref’s five.

Drake slammed Sasori into the blue buckle; Bold’s ham-hock forearm thudded legal over the top rope, then Drake big-booted him back toward center. Cover—one… two—Sasori rolled the near shoulder and threaded out under Drake’s armpit like smoke, coming up on a knee with a Scorpion’s Sting—jab, jab, low shin to the calf—to steal a breath. The Sphinx answered with a kneeling Spear that folded the champion and left him coughing canvas.

Chris Rodgers: They’re doing it by the book and the clock. If there’s blood in that mask, it’s gonna be by five-count.

Drake dragged Sasori halfway to a corner and slapped the only man who weighed more than momentum. Tag—Bold. The building rumbled—love and dread braided.

Bold stepped over the top rope like a siege tower. One Mongolian chop and Sasori’s legs remembered gravity. A second and he puddled to a knee. Bold hauled him into a choke-lift, walked two heavy steps and spinebustered the canvas into a begged confession.

Cover—one… two… Sasori kicked at 2.7 and vanished an inch to his left, enough to scramble Bold’s follow-up and force him to stand on legs that shook. The Great Khan snorted a breath, shook the arms loose, and reached down for the Gorilla Press—

—nothing. The crowd saw it: the tremble. The half-lift. The fatigue staining the edges of the frame.

Scott Slade: Lights are on, but the battery’s in the red.

Yushiro Fujimoto: Even mountains feel winter.

Bold adjusted on instinct, slinging Sasori across the shoulders for the Mongolian Slam (Samoan Drop). Sasori’s elbow pecked the ear—one, two—just enough to knock the gyroscope off, then he slid down the back, caught Bold’s wrist, and pushed him chest-first into the blue pad—THUNK. Drake had climbed the buckle for a shot—Bold’s bulk caromed the post, jarring the Sphinx’s footing. A heartbeat of chaos. Sasori’s luck that he earns.

Takeshi Suzuki (delighted): Fortune favors the footwork.

Sasori didn’t wind up. He pounced. Right leg snaked across Bold’s shoulder; both arms laced the far arm; body rolled down and across—

CRUCIFIX CRADLE.

The Dome went feral.

One—

Drake leaped—his foot slipped off the rattled buckle, fingertips grazing air—

Two—

Sasori bridged his hips and hooked Bold’s trapped arm deeper, deadweighting the giant’s shoulder blades to the mat—

THREE.

DING!

Miyu Kojima: Chuluun Bold… has been ELIMINATED!

Scott Slade: He stole him! He flat-out stole him!

Chris Rodgers: That’s not theft, Slade—that’s grand larceny and ring IQ!

The Tokyo Dome erupted—streamers stayed in pockets, but the sound hit like confetti. Bold rolled to his side and pounded the canvas once, not rage so much as the body saying enough. Drake was on him immediately, one hand on the shoulder, one on the back of the neck, muttering a calculus only monsters understand. The Great Khan slid out under the bottom rope, sat on the edge of the apron with his feet on the floor for two breaths, then stood under his own power, chest saw-toothing. A warrior’s exit, drained and upright.

Yushiro Fujimoto: Even in defeat, the giant walks.

Takeshi Suzuki (knife-sweet): The giant falls. The blade remains.

Inside the ropes, Sasori stayed on one knee, both palms on the canvas, letting the chant wash through him like heat.

“Sah–KOH–ree! Sah–KOH–ree!”

He rose slow—measured, ritual—and turned to face the only man left in UW blue.

Drake Nygma stepped through the ropes like a closing door. No banter now. No smirk. Just a long shadow and the ghost of a smile that promised violence.

Scott Slade: Empires End comes early, folks.

Chris Rodgers: And it’s got four corners and a count of three.

The ref flicked his hands—one man in, one man out. Both were already there. The Dome dimmed to a single line of voltage strung between them.

Drake broke the distance with a palm strike that sounded like a bat on wet leather. Sasori’s Serpent’s Bite snapped back, knee kissing jaw. Drake’s head turned; his feet didn’t move. He shoved the champion into ropes and nearly cut him in half with a Spear—Sasori sprawled, shoulders scraped nylon, and he bounced into a short Scorpion Death Drop counter that made half the crowd faint on purpose.

Cover—one… two—Drake launched a shoulder, rolled to a knee, and smoothed his hair back with fingers that didn’t shake. The Sphinx stood; the Scorpion circled. The chant folded into a low, electric purr.

Yushiro Fujimoto: One sword. One riddle.

Takeshi Suzuki (hungry): Let it be cruel.

They drifted to center like magnets finally obeying. Fingers brushed. The last act began with no music at all—only breath, and the throb of a building that had chosen its hero and found its villain equal to the story. The Dome’s chant tightens to a hammer: “Sa–i–kō! Sa–i–kō!” A ricochet wave answers—“NYG–MA!”—thin at first, then stubborn.

Production catches Sato on the steps, trainers hovering; he taps his chest twice—I’m here. Up the aisle, Daichi pauses without turning and gives the smallest nod. Miyu Kojima is a statue at ringside, ready if fate calls her again.

They meet center with hands high—test of range, not ego. Drake’s first touch is a parry to the knuckles that snaps into a wrist drag; Sasori rolls with it, plants a palm on Drake’s jawline and pushes him just off-square. They reset with no sound but breath and the ref’s shoes.

Scott Slade (hushed): This is where careers get measured in millimeters.

Drake feints the shoulder block; Sasori doesn’t bite. A second feint, then a flash inside—Drake snags the neck and razor-saws a short European uppercut under the ear. Sasori shells tight, breath hitching at the ribs (the spear tax still due), and answers with a low-line calf kick—tap—then another—thwack—until Drake has to widen his base. Sasori times the weight shift and spears a right hand to the liver—clean, cruel, legal.

Yushiro Fujimoto: Precision is a weapon; the ribs remember.

Drake accepts the body shot and takes ground anyway—palms to chest, bully footwork—then big boot. Sasori slips inside by a postcard and snaps the ankles out—ride the hips—stack for one… two—Drake bridges on a spring and is up fast, shaking out the neck the Death Drop rattled ten minutes ago.

Takeshi Suzuki (purring): Good. Hurt each other honestly.

Rope run—Drake’s shoulder block glances; Sasori back-steps and pours in Scorpion’s Sting—jab, jab, elbow to the jaw—then stops instead of sprinting, forcing the Sphinx to initiate. Drake knives a palm thrust; Sasori’s head turns, his feet don’t. Two beats of stillness—then they switch gears like a gearbox kicked.

Drake whips him to the corner—Spear!—Sasori sees it late, gets one forearm across his ribs and folds enough to blunt the kill. The breath leaves him in a whoof; he slides along the rope, turns the buckles into a hinge and Scorpion Death Drops Drake half-step out of the corner—neck-first whiplash. Cover—one… two—shoulder up, jaw set.

Chris Rodgers: He’s not giving a three, he’s giving a message to C5 and C6.

Ref is right there—“One in, one out, keep it legal!”—even though there are no outs left. It sounds like church in a thunderstorm.

Sasori floats the arm, considers the legs—Death Lock tease—and Drake scrapes canvas with his boots to spin half a turn and threaten pin danger. Sasori abandons the lattice early; no gifts. They stand, polite murder in their eyes.

Drake breaks the truce—palms to collarbone, short headbutt that snaps leather, then a jackknife roll-up born of spite—one… two—Sasori curls free, sits out, shoulder kissing canvas by choice, and smiles behind the mask because he made the Sphinx blink first.

Crowd texture shifts: a rolling “Eeeeeeh!” intake as they square again, then a chant crackling to life: “Let’s—go—SASO-RI!” / “NYG—MA!”

Scott Slade: Quiet minute’s over. Turn the voltage.

Sasori quick-steps to the second rope, spring—Venom Strike—Drake doesn’t move, eats it, grabs the waist on impact and German-suplex whiplashes him to the buckle. The Dome groans. Drake doesn’t cover; he clamps the skull and starts turning the head like he’s setting a clock, elbow digging the mastoid. Ref counts—one, two, three—Drake releases and smirks without joy.

Drake loads Sphinx’s Judgement—the spin catches—Sasori throws his legs dead and chops the knee mid-rotation, spilling Nygma face-first, then thread-pivots to a front headlock and walks him three steps, making the neck remember every page they’ve torn out of it tonight.

Tag-ropes hang lonely. The ring is now a box of knives.

They blow past polite. Drake bullies Sasori to the apron—guillotine feint; Sasori counters with forearm to jaw—Drake fires a palm like a piston. Sasori drops to the floor on purpose, drags Drake’s ankles and dragon-screws the knee across the apron edge (the hardest part cliché reborn in bone). The crowd yelps as one. Sasori slides in at three; Drake, at four, slaps the mat once, furious and alive.

Yushiro Fujimoto: The neck is a story; the knee is punctuation.

Sasori resurrects the Death Lock—this time catches the legs—turns… Drake claws the canvas and reaches the bottom rope with fingertips. Ref’s voice climbs: “Break! One—two—three—four—” and Sasori gives the cleanest five-minus-a-breath in the business. The Dome cheers the manners.

Takeshi Suzuki (irritated and thrilled): Honor is lovely. Pain is persuasive. Choose both.

Drake stands and limps one step, hiding it by daring Sasori to look. The Scorpion looks anyway—then kicks the calf lightly, insultingly. Drake swings an open-hand chop that lands like a sin; Sasori answers with Serpent’s Bite knee, clean on the jaw. Cover—one… two… Nygma presses a palm under the far shoulder and shows the camera the half-smile of a man who has at least two bad answers left.

Scott Slade: And one of them is a spear from a dead stop.

Right on cue, Drake explodes—Spear from his knees, saws Sasori in half, rolls through, deadlifts him by the waist and powerbombs him into the buckles—whiplash murder. He keeps the grip, staggers two steps—Sphinx’s Judgement from a standstill, whirling decapitation—

HITS.

Cover—one… two…

KICKOUT! The pop is not a sound; it’s a weather event. Drake stays on his knees a full half-second longer than he wants to. The camera catches the pulse in his neck beating like a timpani.

Chris Rodgers (howling): He just spent a month off his career and it bought him two-point-nine!

Ref is in their faces again—“Watch the closed fists!”—credibility maintained, ignition sustained.

Drake breathes through his teeth, stands, and shows the Dome the one thing he hasn’t used: Bear Hug, ribs to ribs, squeezing Sasori’s breath down to whispers. The chant tries to drown it—“Sa-i-kō! Sa-i-kō!”—and the lens catches the micro: Sasori’s right hand bracing his own rib, the left hand searching for a pry point at the wrist. He finds it, wedges a forearm under the chin and turns his head to steal an artery. Ref checks the arm—no drop—Sasori kicks his own feet into the mat twice like jump-starting a heart and headbutts Drake’s brow, ugly and legal.

Break. Air. Violence resumes.

Sasori hits ropes—Scorpion Tail Whip—Drake ducks a hair and clotheslines the soul out of the air—no cover, he drags the champion up for one more cutter—Sasori shifts weight, wraps an arm under Drake’s and falls back—Scorpion Death Drop flush in center ring.

The Dome goes to its knees. Sasori keeps the wrists, swings the legs—Scorpion’s Wrath complete—Death Lock on, middle of Tokyo.

Scott Slade (standing): HE’S GOT THE KING’S SEAL—CENTER RING!

Drake’s eyes flare wide then narrow. He doesn’t crawl—he rolls to bleed the torque, turns his own hips against the knot and inches his forearm forward like a man climbing ice. A fingertip. Another. The rope is there… not there… there.

The ref taps Sasori’s shoulder—“Break!”—and the Dome boos the rope with love because that’s the rule and the rule saved a villain who deserves the next page.

Yushiro Fujimoto: He chooses survival with intelligence. Hate him honestly.

Sasori stands first, hand on rib for a quarter second, then presents center. Drake accepts with a slap to the hands and a knife to the body. They trade a flurry that frays physics—palm, elbow, knee, chop—until both men are on the same square again and the crowd finds that dangerous silence right before thunder.

Drake windmills a boot—Sasori catches, roundhouse to the temple off the plant—Drake reels, hits the rope and rebounds laughing without humor—Spear again—Sasori throws his body sideways and turns it into a roll-through cradle—one… two—Drake kicks, pops to a knee, and palms the throat to shovel Sasori backward a step.

Ref warns—open hands only. Drake spreads fingers like a sermon.

The chant becomes drumline. “Sa–i–kō!” hammering; a stubborn “NYG–MA!” answering like a siren.

They reset their feet. The hard cam finds Sato standing now, one hand over his heart, jaw clenched. Up the ramp, Daichi stops moving just long enough to watch this single exchange.

Sasori twitches the hip; Drake blinks. Sasori goes high—feint—then low, slicing the near knee again; Drake stumbles forward, and Sasori hooks the head and sits—Scorpion Death Drop no. Drake posts a palm on the canvas, floats his hips and flips to his knees, turning it into a front chancery. He cinches. The neck control is nasty. He twists—hangman rolling cutter setup from the mat—

Sasori bridges his spine and the whole move wobbles; Drake improvises, spikes the jaw with a short knee instead, then drags Sasori up the last inch he needs and SNAPS the Sphinx’s Judgement at half-rotation.

Cover—one… two…

SHOULDER! A last-millisecond spasm that sends streamers of disbelief into the ceiling that exist only as sound.

Chris Rodgers (spent): We’re not calling moves anymore—we’re calling survival.

Ref backs them from the ropes mid-brawl, both men nearly over the five—“I will DQ you!”—and that threat is oxygen; they listen, and the crowd loves the law more for being enforced.

Final beat of the movement: they stagger to center, both chests clicking like metronomes, both faces lit from the floor.

Drake: palm to jaw. Sasori: elbow to temple. Drake: a desperate, magnificent Spear— Sasori: meets it with a sprawled hip and snatches a guillotine tease before popping up into a Venom Strike that paints the heart. Both men collapse to opposite corners, eyes open, arguments unresolved.

Scott Slade (breathless whisper): The clock has four corners… and two ghosts refusing to leave.

Takeshi Suzuki (soft, delighted): Let it be cruel, and let it be long.

The referee hovers between them, hands out, on the edge of a double-count that neither man will allow. The Dome vibrates. “Sa–i–kō!” crashes against “NYG–MA!” in perfect, hateful harmony.

They look up at the same time, see each other, and rise.

The Dome didn’t buzz anymore—it vibrated, a living drum. Two breaths, two men, one last page.

They met center, hands high. Drake’s palm snapped the jaw; Sasori’s elbow stitched the temple. Drake bullied him to the rope, tried to Spear him through the world—Sasori sprawled, turned the ribs, and bled the impact into string instead of stone. He bounced Drake’s chin off the canvas with a quick front headlock sit-out, then floated to the wrist without chasing a cover. The Sphinx shoved him off, laughing without humor.

Scott Slade (low): Deep water… and neither man can swim slow.

Drake surged: big boot—Sasori shaved paint, took the ankle, dumped him. Drake dolphin-kicked free, popped to a knee and palmed the body, going back to the ribs. Sasori ate it, checked his breath, and Serpent’s Bite kneeed the jaw. Cover—one… two—shoulder up like a gunshot.

Yushiro Fujimoto: Precision. Patience. The blade dulls; the hand does not.

They rose together. Drake slung Sasori high into the corner—short spear to the gut, enough to make the champion’s spine say please. He hooked the head—

Sphinx’s Judgement coiling.

Sasori killed his own weight, turned with the rotation, and spilled out the far side. He struck the calf like a metronome—tap—thwack—thwack—forcing the base to widen, then ripped a liver shot so clean the hard cam flinched. Drake backed up a half-step on autopilot, then decided to hate the pain and stepped through it.

Chris Rodgers: He’s choosing violence over biology—

Drake SPEARED FROM A DEAD STOP, cutting Sasori in two and stacking him mid-ring. Cover—one… two… KICKOUT! The pop cracked like lightning.

Drake didn’t cover again. He made the mistake champions rarely make—he wanted the punctuation, not the sentence. He hauled Sasori up, leaned him to the ropes, turned for speed—

Sasori cut the angle with a snap elbow under the ear, used Drake’s momentum, and rolled to the outside on purpose. The ref’s count started; Sasori slid back in at three, the Dome hissing air like a kettle: “Eeeeh!”

Takeshi Suzuki (purring): Good. Hurt him the right way.

Drake advanced, heavy and fast, and Sasori finally showed the rib—just a breath—and Venom Striked the breastbone to make it matter. He snared the legs—

Scorpion Death Lock threat.

Drake flailed boot-leather and found rope with hungry fingertips at four; Sasori broke clean at five-minus-a-heartbeat and the Dome cheered the manners like a sin.

They reset. Drake’s right knee whispered the story of a dragon screw from two minutes ago. Sasori looked at it with his whole body; Drake showed him the jaw instead.

Scott Slade (hoarse): The clock’s got four corners and no time left.

Drake fired—big boot—Sasori rolled under, sprung to second rope—Venom Strike—Drake caught him on impact, ripped him off the strand and powerbombed him into buckles. The ring barked. He kept the grip and rotated—Sphinx’s Judgement wound tight—

Sasori slapped both palms to the mat mid-spin and stilled the world.

The Dome inhaled. Drake’s arms were still around his neck like a question he couldn’t finish. Sasori answered with movement: he threaded an arm under Drake’s, turned the hip, and slid—not backwards—across the body.

La Magistral.

The most beautiful theft in wrestling. Wrist trapped. Far leg hooked. Shoulders flat.

One.

Drake kicked—Sasori bridged deeper, toes carving canvas, ribs screaming.

Two.

Drake’s hand searched for air, for rope, for math—

THREE.

DING!

Miyu Kojima: Your winner and SOLE SURVIVOR… SAIKŌ SASORI!

The Tokyo Dome detonated. It wasn’t noise—it was weather, it was confession, it was a country remembering its champion in real time. Streamers stayed pocketed by rule; emotion didn’t.

Scott Slade: HE FOLDED THE SPHINX—HE FOLDED—HE—oh my God, he got him!

Chris Rodgers (crushed): Grand larceny in broad daylight—and it counts all the same.

Yushiro Fujimoto: A master’s hand at the end of the blade.

Takeshi Suzuki (savoring every syllable): The riddle had an answer. It was written in our language.

Drake sat bolt upright, eyes huge, jaw working like a machine chewing glass. His hands went to the mat as if the three was printed there. The Sphinx’s smile never came. He stared at Sasori, at the corner, at the ropes he almost reached, and something flared behind his eyes—not rage. Realization.

The camera cut like a knife backstage: Rupert Mudcock in headset froze mid-instruction, the vein in his temple standing like bad news. Production’s red tally light went black against his cheek; he ripped the cans off and threw them sideways. UW agents on monitors—blank faces, white knuckles. The roster in blue slammed hands on tables, then just… stared.

Back at ringside, Sato stood, one hand on his taped ribs, the other tapping twice over his heart for a man who just carried the banner alone. Up the ramp, Daichi stopped walking. He didn’t turn. He just nodded once—barely—and moved on.

In the ring, Sasori didn’t climb a buckle or scream. He breathed. He set one knee down and pressed both palms to the canvas like it was sacred ground. When he stood, he looked at Drake and offered nothing theatrical—just the faintest tilt of the mask. Not mockery. A promise.

Chris Rodgers (hollow): That’s a wrecking ball to Ultimate Wrestling’s psyche. Fans. Locker room. Rupert. And Drake… especially Drake.

Scott Slade (finding his voice): Empires End was a marquee. Tonight made it a mandate. The Sphinx just found out the Scorpion can win your life with a page turn.

Drake rose like a man walking out of a wreck. He stepped into Sasori’s space until there was no space, breathing hard enough to fog the mask. The ref slid between them, hands out, reminding a universe of rules. Drake didn’t shove. He didn’t speak. He touched the back of his own neck with two fingers—the place the Death Drop keeps cold—and then he backed into ropes and let himself fall through them to the floor.

He didn’t look back. That hurt worse than if he had.

Yushiro Fujimoto: AAPW triumphs. Not by sword through heart, but needle through thread.

Takeshi Suzuki (purring): And a thread can pull an empire apart.

The scoreboard burned itself into memory: AAPW 1 — UW 0 (Final). The graphic under it: Sole Survivor: Saikō Sasori.

Fans in blue merch stood without knowing why—some booed, most didn’t. The shock was too big. A hard camera caught a child with an Ultimate Wrestling foam finger halfway to a cheer that never finished. Somewhere, a dozen group chats detonated with “HE BEAT HIM CLEAN.”

Drake, halfway up the aisle, paused at the lip of the tunnel. He turned just enough to leave a silhouette in the light. Sasori didn’t move. The chant did it for him.

“Sah–KOH–ree! Sah–KOH–ree!”

“Sa–i–kō! Sa–i–kō!”

Chris Rodgers (quiet now, honest): He pinned our best, Scott. Not with thunder. With a key. That’s a scar you feel in the shower tomorrow, and the day after, and the night before Empires End.

Scott Slade: UW’s castle just lost a stone at the foundation. Rupert, the roster, every fan—we all heard that click. The door opens in two weeks.

Sasori stepped to the hard cam, lifted one hand—not high—and drew a single line across his chest with two fingers, above a heart that beat steady again. The camera fed that image to the world: no gloat, no scream. Just certainty.

Miyu Kojima’s voice, one last clean cut: “This concludes Friday Night Clash. At Empires End… destiny continues.”

Fade on the Scorpion King beneath his singing nation, the Sphinx swallowed by shadow and thought.

And in the silence between chants, you could hear it: the sound of an empire—in shock.

The bell’s echo died into a living roar. Sasori didn’t climb; he didn’t gloat. He bowed, slow and deliberate, to each side of the Tokyo Dome, palms open, the mask drinking in a nation that had just chosen him again.

Scott Slade (soft, awed): The Scorpion King stands alone in Tokyo… and the world just got a preview of Empires End.

Chris Rodgers (voice cracking): That wasn’t thunder, Slade. That was a lock turning. Ultimate Wrestling just felt the floor shift.

Yushiro Fujimoto (measured): Victory without excess is the most cutting blade.

Takeshi Suzuki (savoring): And tonight, the blade tasted empire.

“Rising Sun” swelled beneath the chant—“Sa–i–kō! Sa–i–kō!”—rolling like surf against the scaffold. On the stage, the hard cam caught a silhouette: Drake Nygma in the tunnel, one hand at the nape of his neck where the Death Drop had made winter, the other hanging useless at his side. He didn’t look back. He didn’t have to. The image would be replayed all week.

Cut to ringside: Miyu Kojima lifted the mic with that knife-clean calm.

Miyu Kojima: Your sole survivor… Saikō Sasori.

No fireworks. No confetti. Just the weight. The lower-third burned itself into memory: AAPW defeats Ultimate Wrestling — Sole Survivor: Saikō Sasori.

Backstage slash-cut—Rupert Mudcock in the gorilla position, headset off, eyes like floodlights searching for someone to blame and finding only monitors replaying the magistral cradle on infinite loop. Agents froze. The blue locker room went quiet in that particular way athletes do when they’ve just met a truth they can’t bench-press.

At the steps, Takuma Sato stood, taped ribs rising and falling, two fingers tapping his chest—twice. Up the aisle, Daichi Sasaki paused mid-ramp, never turning, and nodded—half respect, half promise—before disappearing into the red-lit corridor. Chuluun Bold, spent and upright, shook his head once at the screen as if to argue with physics, then disappeared behind the curtain to a roar meant for a giant who’d given everything and one breath more.

Back in the ring, Sasori pointed—not high, just enough—to each corner, then to the center between his boots, where he’d done it. He drew one line across his chest, above a steady heart, and let the Dome finish the sentence for him.

Scott Slade: Empires End isn’t a hype line anymore—it’s a gravitational pull. UW fans at home… I don’t know what you’re feeling, but I know you felt that.

Chris Rodgers (finding steel): If you’re Ultimate Wrestling, you take this as a wound—or a warning. Rupert, the roster, every blue corner in the building… you answer, or you get written out.

Yushiro Fujimoto: The riddle meets the ritual. Tonight, ritual won the page; the book remains.

Takeshi Suzuki (purring): Let them bring an empire. We will bring a finish.

The camera circled once, slow, giving the shot you buy posters for: Sasori center-frame, mask gleaming, crowd a living aurora around him. The chant softened to a hum. Production dipped the house, let the music hold, and slid the final graphic under the moment:

FRIDAY NIGHT CLASH — THANK YOU, TOKYO

NEXT: EMPIRES END

Scott Slade (sign-off, steady): For Chris Rodgers, for AAPW’s Yushiro Fujimoto and Takeshi Suzuki, for Miyu Kojima and everyone in the truck… I’m Scott Slade saying good night from the Tokyo Dome. We’ll see you at Empires End.

The red tally light dropped. The last thing you heard—after the show was “over,” after the copyright sting—was the Dome, still chanting a name like a vow.

“Sa–i–kō… Sa–i–kō…”

The city spread like circuitry under a winter-black sky; expressways soldered into the bay; freighters slow as patient stars. Wind hunted the parapets and sang along the steel. Dollia Trypp shouldered the service hatch and led him up, palms raw from rails. Drake Nygma—The Sphinx when the old thing in him woke—rose after her without sound. Neon touched his face and moved on, as if light understood reverence.

They gave the cold a few breaths.

The omen arrived as a feeling first: a low thrum that sat in the bones like an unfinished thought. Then light—the aircraft beacons on the sister tower across the narrow abyss blinking a cadence maintenance crews don’t use:

2… 3… 5… 7… Dead air. Back to normal.

That “under-construction-but-somehow-finished” crown wore cosmetic cladding and sleeping cranes like bones beneath a sheet. A camera dome at their corner spun once and stopped—lens pointed at nothing—like it had remembered not to see.

Dollia Trypp: Do you hear it?

Drake Nygma: I hear you.

Softness. The kind that hurts her more than any growl—trust, and the oath she swore under a golden god. Truth, always truth. No more saving him with a lie.

Dollia Trypp: It isn’t pageantry. Aketan’s not rehearsing a coronation. He’s laying rails for something that wants to move.

Drake leaned elbows to glass and read the crown. Calm as a statue that learned to breathe.

Drake Nygma: Say it.

Dollia Trypp: I won’t name it. But the shape… feels like an alignment. Geometry that keeps trying to be a door.

A skein of golden sand skittered wrong-way across the roof, upwind, then vanished like a thought someone refused to think. Dollia didn’t look down.

A mosquito-sized drone murmured out of the dark, red eye steady. Drake’s hand found Dollia’s sleeve and pulled them low behind a bank of fake louvers. A green laser washed the parapet, crawled over their boots, moved on. The drone hesitated—as if listening to something older than its code—then drifted off the ledge into the night.

Drake Nygma: He thinks I’m the key.

Dollia Trypp: He thinks you’re the weight. The thing that tips the scales. When you beat Saikō Sasori and your hands touch the Franchise Title—when the Orb wakes in your grip—whatever his crown lacks will find a way to take. He’s planning for the hour after the fireworks.

Her palm sparked like a live wire. The faint sigil there—her price—heated, went numb, heated again. She flexed her fingers until feeling returned.

Drake Nygma: What did you trade for my name?

Dollia Trypp: Enough. And I can’t lie to you anymore. He didn’t ask you to kneel. He’s building pretext. Infrastructure. So when you give him the sun back, it already has tracks.

Across the gulf a crane woke like a predator stretching. No engine noise, only a mute glide. It lifted a tarp-swaddled curve and slid it beneath false louvers where lenses never land. A rib from a giant wheel. Not vent. Not antenna. A segment of something that wants to be round.

Drake Nygma: If it’s a door, who walks through?

Dollia Trypp: That’s what scares me.

She fished a chrome compact—cheap, scratched—and angled the mirror. In the warped reflection the lies separated: louvers that didn’t vent, antennae with no line of sight, ribs laid by pattern instead of need. On a lower catwalk, a worker turned. His lanyard flipped. Pinned flat under plastic, a charm—no logo. A feather. They didn’t see it. The night did.

Dollia Trypp: I pulled a manifest. Half the crates never touched customs. Buyer is a water-chiller company with a katakana spelling that breaks its own name. The freight codes loop to an Egyptian foundation that exists.

Drake Nygma: Aketan’s.

Dollia Trypp: Quietly. He’s not hiding from us. He’s hiding us from ourselves.

The thrum deepened—one note somebody decided not to hit again—and bled out. Far below, the Yamanote crossing chimed and came back flat. A police helicopter wrote its buzz across the river and stole attention. As its searchlight spoored lazy circles over rooftops, a rooftop crow opened its beak to caw—no sound came—and a thin dust shook loose from its wings like ash. It watched them with one eye, then forgot to be curious.

Drake Nygma: You brought me here to talk me out of winning.

Dollia Trypp: Never. I brought you to ask for a promise.

He didn’t move. Didn’t have to.

Dollia Trypp: If you take the title—when you take it—and the Orb breathes in your hands… don’t hand it to him in the ring. Don’t hand it to anyone. Give me one hour first. No cameras. No priests. One hour to learn whether it sings or screams.

Drake Nygma: And if it screams?

Dollia Trypp: Then I’ll be the one who hears it first.

Wind fell out of the world. Tokyo got louder—sirens a block away, laughter boiling out of a rooftop bar twenty floors down, the bay grinding soft at concrete. Drake watched like a judge listening to a familiar case.

Drake Nygma: He’s building a shape. I’ve fought shapes. Ropes. Cages. A man can choose not to step inside.

Dollia Trypp: This one doesn’t wait for your foot. It finds it.

He took her wrist with the gentleness he spent only on her and turned the palm. The sigil flared hot, then cooled—as if his touch stole heat intended to brand her. On Drake’s wrist, his analog watch twitched backward two seconds, defended the lie, and carried on. In his pocket, his phone’s compass spun once and played dead.

Drake Nygma: You’re afraid of what he’ll make of me.

Dollia Trypp: I’m afraid he’ll convince you it was always your idea.

Something inside the crown exhaled. A service lift sighed up the spine. Through a slatted screen, ribs slid past—edges drinking light instead of throwing it back. A maintenance patrol loped along their own roofline: two silhouettes, one IR monocular, one bored cigarette. The thin beam of a rangefinder ticked across the parapet and walked toward Drake’s knee. He shifted a half-step, let the HVAC shadow eat the line. The beam blinked twice—1… 1…—then thought better of itself and wandered off.

Drake Nygma: If he wants a grateful weapon, he chose poorly.

Dollia Trypp: He didn’t choose poorly. He chose inevitability. Deny him the satisfaction.

Silence tied them together. Not empty—heavy with decisions.

Drake Nygma: What do you need from me?

Dollia Trypp: Guardrails. Yours—not his. Walk into Saikō knowing where you stop. Your body’s already screaming from camp; let it remind you you’re still human. And after… if the sand comes, if his voice rides the PA, if everything goes gold—walk out with me. Not toward him. Not toward the thing he’s hiding in plain sight.

Drake Nygma: And if he asks nicely?

Dollia Trypp: Then let me be the rude one.

A hot-stone smell pushed through the cold as if a kiln exhaled behind the stars. Their breath fogged—not plumes, shapes—her glyphs almost forming, his dissolving like a reprimand. A single grain of gold kissed Drake’s cheekbone and vanished, an eyelash that refused to grant itself. He closed his eyes, opened them, and looked again at the false crown.

Drake Nygma: If a door opens, it opens both ways.

She didn’t ask what he planned to push back through.

The beacons blinked an apology of numbers—1… 1… 2… 3… 5… 8…—then played dumb when the helicopter swung around for its second pass. The drone returned, hesitated at the edge of the louver bank, and dropped—dead as a gnat—onto the gravel with a soft click. Dollia laid her palm on the hatch. Paused.

Dollia Trypp: One hour. Promise me.

He didn’t touch her. Didn’t smile. Gave the thing that weighs more.

Drake Nygma: One hour.

They went below. The city kept breathing.

Across the way, inside the cladding no human eye was invited to, curved segments waited on rails, each etched with a lattice like hieroglyphs taught to solve. A gloved finger hovered above a black panel that refused to reflect its owner. Somewhere, something whispered like prayer—or memory—in a language the wind remembered. The panel pulsed once. Deciding.

No alarms. No light show.

Only that thrum again—for anyone who still remembers thunder in their bones.

*The End