52.ii Wondrous and True

~ Sun Ritsu ~

Even though Ham Song told Bodhi right away about what he found in Seven’s room, Bodhi decided to hold on to the information until the day before the Wondrous and True trial. They would go with the pig to confront the sun clone while Ritsu was busy enjoying his day off.

At first, Ritsu found it perplexing when Bodhi insisted that he take the day to rest or do something fun.

“Just don’t do anything that’s going to draw on your qi,” Bodhi reminded the Sun.

Ritsu, who was half-dressed, sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at the lemon lime jacket folded on his lap. “Shouldn’t I be using this last day to train? The trial starts first thing in the morning.”

Bodhi was brushing their teeth in the sink and yet still managed to speak clearly out through the side of their mouth. “Your body actually has a higher chance of performing better when it’s been given a chance to rest. Rest is important, Sun Ritsu. Remember that.” They spat the toothpaste down the drain. “Only idiots train up to the very last moment without a break.”

Ritsu looked up from the jacket and at the outdated wallpaper, wondering how he was going to spend all of his free time.

In the end, our handsome monkey king decided to take a brooding walk through the same theme park where his date with Anari went totally sour.

He had a good reason for this, Dear Traveler. Over the past two weeks, Ritsu had stored up quite a bit of qi, but to be honest, he still didn’t know how he was going to use it.

He had once told Bodhi that his prowess in the kitchen was rooted in his feelings for Anari. Bodhi hadn’t brought up the subject again since, which made Ritsu wonder if they were just trying to protect him.

But if it works in the kitchen, maybe it can work in the arena, Ritsu thought. Bodhi was already doing enough. Even if this sort of thing made Ritsu uncomfortable in the moment, he needed to step up and bear it if he wanted to win this competition.

The trick now was figuring out how to channel all of those feelings towards Anari into something that would impress the judges. Ritsu wouldn’t have access to the grill or any of the other things he used to prepare food. All he could rely on was his staff.

As our hero passed under the guts of a tangled rollercoaster, he heard a large group of spirits touring through the theme park.

“Single file, children. We’ll all walk there together. Ah-ah! No pushing. That’s not cute.”

The school field trip went their way. Not long after they passed, two more spirits walked by. They were older than the class of bunny spirits, but not by much.

“It’s the curse of the home turf, Ki. You got to go easy on yourself. Lots of champions go through it.”

The encouragement came from a youthful rat spirit who was holding a recording device on a handheld tripod.

“But what’s that got to do with the fact that no one outside of Gamers’ Paradise takes my real nickname seriously? The Little Genius sounds eleven times better than the Rookie!” The second spirit threw his hands up to the sky.

Sun Ritsu instantly recognized his bowl haircut and crayon red tail swinging lazily by his ankles.

“Sun Yong Kid,” Ritsu said the moment he remembered the challenger’s name.

“Huhhh?” The rookie’s inky black hair rippled over his brow as he turned his attention to Ritsu. It seemed that he recognized our hero too, but he was not impressed by the cheap make of his tracksuit.

“Ohhh, you’re that champion without a nickname,” the accompanying rat spirit said brightly, turning his camera so that both Suns were in the shot. “Sun Riku or something.”

Before Ritsu could correct him, Yong Kid stepped up and asked, “Hey! What’s your spiritual rank?”

Oh no. This wasn’t something Bodhi had talked to Ritsu about prior.

“I…I don’t know.”

Yong Kid rolled his eyes and waved the rat over. “Scan him.”

Excited to try out a new toy, the rat spirit hopped right on up to Ritsu and pulled out another device from his pocket.

“Hi there. I’m Ki’s manager, Kevin, and this will only take a second.”

Sun Ritsu didn’t feel anything as Kevin turned on his device and scanned him from a distance.

“He’s at a 12, Ki,” he shouted to Yong Kid, who was showing interest in one of the attractions. “And it says here that it shot up 10 just recently. Probably from barely winning the last trial. Which means… two weeks ago, he was at a 2.”

“Ha!” Sun Yong Kid spun around and pointed a triumphant finger at Ritsu. “I rank way higher than you, old man. So don’t you forget it. Just because you were born first doesn’t mean you can disrespect me. You better remember that.”

Ritsu suddenly recalled what Bodhi had told him about Sun Yong Kid. Apparently he was very sensitive to taunts regarding his age and experience.

Still, Ritsu wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. “Um… okay? I didn’t plan on disrespecting you.”

As if struck, Yong Kid snatched his hand back and turned to Kevin. “Can you believe this guy?”

Kevin laughed. “You gotta lighten up, Ki.” Then the rat waved at Ritsu, beckoning him to tag along. Ritsu didn’t have anything else to do and Yong Kid didn’t seem to care either way, so he walked with the two of them.

“So what brings you out here, Riku? We’re filming a documentary. For when my client here starts building his legacy. It’s good to remember the early days when things were still rough, you know?”

From up ahead, Yong Kid interjected, “Look at that guy’s face. He doesn’t know anything. You know he made it to the next round on a fluke, right?”

“My name’s actually not Riku. It’s–”

“But, but, but, but? BUT! BUT?!? B U T .”

All three spirits’ heads turned at the sound of a child revving up for a total meltdown. It seemed that the voice was coming from the field trip party.

“I. Am. Hun-gReeeeeeeeee!”

More bunny children joined their comrade in the delirious chorus.

“Wahhhhhhhh!”

“I’m starvinnnnnnnggggg!”

“It’s so hot, and I am sweating and hun-greeeeeee!”

The bunny teachers looked completely out of their depth. No matter how much they tried to console the children and remind them that starving and crying in public would get them all in big, big trouble, it only made the little bunnies’ wailing and wheezing all the more deranged.

Amidst the commotion, Ritsu’s ears picked up on the source of the problem. The chaperone in charge of the lunch cooler had left it at the school by accident.

“Hey Ki, this is great,” Kevin held his recording device up higher and nudged Yong Kid’s shoulder. “You want to be a real hero? Go help those kids. It’ll be good for your rank too.”

Yong Kid scoffed. “Like I can do anything. Those brats are on their own.”

It should come as no surprise that while Sun Yong Kid was rejecting the call of the hero, our handsome and charitable monkey king knew what he must do.

There was a fat lump of qi sleeping in his belly.

There were hungry children screaming for sustenance.

This was in fact a perfect storm for our hero. He could not say no. He need not drink holy peaches for this. A simple call for help was enough to compel him to forget everything Bodhi had told him.

Sun Ritsu’s staff went from his ear to his hand. He activated light mode until it was just the right size. Then he dashed forward and drove it into the nearest crack in the pavement.

“Change.”

Webs of matter reverse-paint-splattered off the surface of the staff. When they snapped back into place, something new vibrated in Ritsu’s grasp.

From just a few feet back, Kevin and Yong Kid craned their heads in confusion.

“Is that a spatula?”

The answer was yes, Dear Traveler. A spatula that Sun Ritsu used to help connect with the earth beneath the rides. His staff in this form worked as a conduit for all of the ancient theme park trash that had built up over the seasons.

Dragging up the fossils of old lunches while pumping in the vitality of his own qi, Ritsu was determined to make a miracle happen in this place…. These grounds where his dreams of sungazing with a spidery companion had all been crushed.

Ritsu ripped the spatula out of the ground, tearing up the concrete with it. All the spirits watching gasped at how he unlocked the new size through his wicked fast light mode.

Spontaneous pops of zesty golden smoke clouds gave way to a gigantic spatula that Ritsu wielded like a reaper’s scythe. The weapon was so immense, the backs of Ritsu’s shoulders became a shelf upon which it could rest when he wasn’t flexing it.

The concrete unearthed itself, levitated with an eerie quickness, and hovered like a geometric mist before breaking apart into divine symmetrical cubes.

“One Thousand and One…”

Like cells splitting under a microscope, the thousands upon thousands of cubic blocks morphed and divided themselves again, changing to the swing of Ritsu’s transformed staff.

The monkey leapt.

“Extraordinary Lunch Heroes.”

Swinging his spatula again, he slapped those suspended cubes into their final form. Another round of mini explosions happened midair, popping clouds of orange, yellow and green smoke like fireworks. Double-stuffed cheeseburgers with every amendment possible were born in each explosion.

The gravity imposed by the monkey king in the air was strong enough to drag the tears from the bunnies upward. The stunned spirit children watched with mouths agape as their tears climbed towards the feats of wonder and truth overhead.

“Did he say a thousand?” Yong Kid gasped. “There’s not even that many kids!”

The bunnies and their teachers cheered. After plucking a floating burger from overhead and taking their first bite, some even cried tears anew.

When Ritsu sagged back down to the earth, all of the lunch heroes lost their sense of zero gravity. The army of burgers collapsed with their maker.

The sun clone did not land with any sort of grace or badassery that he demonstrated before. Tall plumes of steam were rolling off of his body, ruining the fabric of his lemon lime tracksuit. Though the rabbit spirits were all grateful for what Ritsu had done, no one was willing to turn away from their food.

Kevin would have gotten Ritsu up off the ground if not for his client trying to make him delete everything that his recorder had just witnessed. Sun Yong Kid was still so immature, Dear Traveler. He didn’t know anything about organic storytelling!

Kevin protected his files by sending them out into the universe – specifically onto the servers for Gamer’s Paradise and Shonen Playground – before his client could abuse his high rank and wrestle the device out of his manager’s hands. Then together they too abandoned our hero, bickering and chasing each other back to the hotel.

So there our hero lay. On the ground and covered in lots of hot burger meat and dripping amendments. He felt like he had run ten thousand marathons. It seemed that no matter how hard he closed his eyes and wheezed against the rough concrete, he simply could not catch his breath.

Would he even have enough energy to drag himself back to the hotel by sundown?

But you know what, Dear Traveler? That isn’t even the least of our hero’s worries.

I messed up. I messed everything up.

Ritsu made a fist and punched a helpless cheeseburger.

Bodhi’s going to kill me!

Even though Sun Ritsu was feeling many things in that moment, like totally exhausted but also very badass for having pulled off something so wondrous and true, there was one thing he could no longer feel.

Remember all of the qi he had spent the last two weeks building up?

Every single drop of it was gone!