By the time the main event arrived, the Tokyo Dome already felt exhausted in the best possible way. The crowd had been dragged through violence, title changes, betrayals, and supernatural dread for hours, and yet when the lights finally dropped for the last match of the night, a fresh wave of energy rolled through the building like a storm front. This was different. Everyone in the Dome knew they were about to witness something important. They just did not understand how important. To the fans, this was the ultimate dream match of Season 3. AAPW’s sacred icon against Ultimate Wrestling’s looming monster. Champion against Ronin Rumble winner. Promotion against promotion. Pride against pride. Only two men in the building understood the truth sitting quietly beneath all of it. Only Saikō Sasori and Drake Nygma knew that the gold being carried to the ring held something far more dangerous than prestige.
The match graphic flashed across the giant screens one final time. The AAPW banner. The UW logo. Sasori’s image on one side. Nygma’s on the other. In between them, the Ultimate Wrestling Championship gleamed beneath the lights, the red Orb mounted in its center like the eye of some ancient god pretending to be a belt plate along side the emerald plated AAPW championship belt.
Scott Slade: THIS IS IT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
Then the Dome went black.
“The Devil Within” by Digital Daggers crept into the arena on a low, poisonous pulse. It did not explode out of the speakers. It slithered. Red lines of light carved through the darkness across the stage and ramp in strange, angular patterns, giving the whole entranceway the feel of an ancient puzzle box being opened by unseen hands. Smoke curled low over the metal. No fire burst. No dramatic flourish came with it. The atmosphere did the work for him.
Then Drake Nygma emerged.
The Sphinx stepped through the haze with that same unnerving stillness he always carried, but tonight it felt heavier, more complete, more predatory. At six-foot-five he already seemed to rise above the stage itself, all narrow menace and unnatural composure. His red and blue mask glinted beneath the lights, and his long, broad shoulders filled the frame as the camera cut in tight on his face. He did not lift his arms. He did not play to the crowd. He did not give the Dome anything. He simply stared down the long aisle toward the ring with the cold patience of something that believed time itself would eventually kneel to it.
The crowd answered him with a mix of boos, unease, and fascinated noise. Nygma ignored all of it. He began his walk with slow, measured steps, each one deliberate. He looked every bit like a man heading to an execution, only it was impossible to tell whether he expected to perform it or survive it.
When he reached ringside, he paused.
Not for the fans.
Not for the cameras.
For the belt.
For the faintest moment his head tilted, and the lens caught it. The Orb reflected back at him in red. It was tiny. Easy to miss. But the hunger in his body sharpened all at once, like some hidden thing inside him had smelled blood.Then he climbed the steps, ducked through the ropes, and went to his corner without another wasted motion.
The Dome breathed again only when his music died.
Then “Rising Sun” by L’Arc-en-Ciel hit, and the place came unglued.
Gold and white light flooded the stage first, then crimson behind it, painting the arena in the colors of dawn and blood. The giant screen filled with sacred imagery. Scorpions. Temple silhouettes. Burning skies. Old kanji-like symbols blooming and fading across the tron in time with the music. The tone shifted instantly. Nygma’s entrance had felt like a curse entering the building. This felt like the answer.
Saikō Sasori stepped onto the stage, and the reaction from the crowd became almost overwhelming.
He did not merely look like a champion. He looked like a figure who belonged to something bigger than wrestling. His yellow-and-black gear caught the light with ceremonial sharpness. The iconic mask made him feel less like a performer than a living emblem. Around his waist sat the Ultimate Wrestling Championship. In his hands, resting against one shoulder, was the AAPW Heavyweight Championship. Two promotions. Two histories. Two worlds meeting on one man’s body.
Unlike Nygma, Sasori did let the moment breathe, but even then there was restraint in it. He did not posture for long. He stood at the top of the ramp and took in the sea of people for one measured second, then lowered his chin and started walking. The music swelled around him. The crowd kept roaring. AAPW fans saw their immortal king. Ultimate Wrestling fans saw the final boss invading their world again. Sasori looked at none of them. His focus remained fixed ahead.
Because unlike the crowd, he understood what was actually at stake.
He reached ringside and stopped at the apron, the camera catching the exact moment his eyes rose to meet Drake Nygma’s across the ring. That stare held longer than most men would have been comfortable with. There was no taunting in it. No barking. No trash talk. Just recognition. A warrior’s recognition. A monster’s recognition. Two men silently confirming that the other one knew.
Sasori entered the ring.
The referee called both men inward for the title presentation. First the AAPW Heavyweight Championship was raised. Then the Ultimate Wrestling Championship. The red Orb in its center caught the overhead light and sent it back in a hard gleam that seemed to split the space between them. Nygma’s eyes followed it again. Sasori noticed. His jaw tightened beneath the mask.
The referee handed both titles off.
The bell rang.
The building erupted.
Sasori was the first to move.
He came out light on his feet, circling hard to his left, not letting Drake Nygma plant himself in the center for long. The Sphinx turned with him in slow, measured increments, shoulders square, hands low, giving away nothing except patience. Sasori flicked a probing kick into the lead thigh. Nygma barely reacted. A second one came in harder, lower, sharper. Then a fast palm strike toward the chest and a quick angle out before the larger man could answer.
Scott Slade: Sasori’s smart, but he’s playing with fire already. You do not stay in front of Drake Nygma any longer than you absolutely have to.
Chris Rodgers: He’s dancing because he has to, Scott. One clean grab from Nygma and this whole noble samurai act gets folded into a suitcase.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Look at Sasori’s movement! This is discipline! This is control!
Takeshi Suzuki: Good. Make the giant think. Make the brute solve something before he can start breaking bones.
Nygma reached once, just once, with that long right arm, and the speed of it drew a hard noise from the Dome. Sasori slipped it cleanly and reset, but the message landed. The reach difference was real. The strength difference was worse. If Drake caught him early, all of the speed in the world would not matter.
Sasori tested him again. Quick step in. Low kick. Palm strike toward the shoulder. Out. Nygma refused to bite on the feints, simply turning with him, refusing to give the crowd a reckless monster. He was composed tonight. That made him more dangerous.
Scott Slade: See that? No panic at all from Nygma.
Chris Rodgers: Because he knows this is temporary. Sasori can touch him. Drake can end him.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori is reading him beautifully!
Takeshi Suzuki: Read faster. The first man to misread distance in this match is going to regret it.
They finally locked up in the center, and the visual alone brought the people to their feet. Sasori dug in immediately, fighting for head position, wrist control, leverage. For a heartbeat it looked like the technician might steal the exchange, but then Drake’s size crashed over the top of it. He shoved Sasori backward a half-step, then another. Sasori twisted at the last instant, slipped into a side control on the wrist, and briefly bent the arm across the angle he wanted. The crowd applauded the escape. Nygma simply ripped free on raw power alone.
Scott Slade: That’s it! That’s the power difference right there!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori won the position and Drake erased it like it was a typo.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Even so, Sasori escaped the worst of it!
Takeshi Suzuki: Escape is not enough. Against a man like this, escape is only permission to suffer later.
Sasori answered with speed. A kick to the ribs. Another to the same spot. A spinning backfist clipped the side of the head and finally made Drake give ground. The Dome rose with the shot. Sasori hit the ropes, flew back in, and smashed a jumping knee into the temple. This time Nygma stumbled into the ropes, and Sasori did not hesitate. He unloaded with Scorpion’s Sting, a rapid series of precise strikes that cracked against chest, jaw, ribs, then finished with a vicious spinning back kick that sent Drake spilling through the ropes to the floor.
The Dome exploded.
Scott Slade: Stay down, Drake! Don’t give him free momentum here!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori’s quick, I’ll give him that. Annoyingly quick.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Yes! Yes! That is Saikō Sasori!
Takeshi Suzuki: Now punish him. Do not admire your work. Build on it.
Sasori stood in the center of the ring for only a heartbeat before making a decision. He hit the far ropes, built speed, and launched himself through the middle strands in a violent tope suicida that drove shoulder-first into Nygma and blasted both men backward into the barricade. Fans in the front rows jumped to their feet, hands on heads, screaming as the impact rattled the rail and sent both men crashing down in a tangle of limbs.
Scott Slade: Oh no! Come on!
Chris Rodgers: He turned the whole building into his weapon there.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Incredible! Incredible from Sasori!
Takeshi Suzuki: That was not style. That was necessity. He knows Drake Nygma cannot be allowed to settle.
Sasori rose first, though not gracefully. He was already breathing harder than he wanted to be, one hand briefly touching his ribs before he masked it. Still, he grabbed Nygma by the head, rolled him back inside, and slid in after him. A quick inside cradle caught the Sphinx before he could fully reset.
One.
Nygma powered out so violently Sasori had to roll through just to avoid being thrown halfway across the canvas.
That was the first real reminder. The match was moving at Sasori’s pace, yes. Drake Nygma had not yet truly been hurt.
Scott Slade: There we go! That’s the strength! That’s the explosiveness!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori is burning fuel. Nygma is just getting irritated.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori still controls the match!
Takeshi Suzuki: Controls the pace, yes. Controls the damage, no. That is the dangerous part.
Sasori was up first again and went right back to work before that truth could settle. He hammered the leg with another kick, then another. A palm strike snapped Nygma’s head to the side. Sasori seized the wrist, twisted it, and dropped into a fast arm drag that kept the larger man grounded for a moment. He followed with a knee across the shoulder blades, then drove a sharp kick into the spine. Nygma rolled away and tried to rise at the ropes. Sasori met him there with a hard corner strike combination, body-body-head, then a rising knee under the jaw that popped the crowd again.
Every shot landed bigger because everyone could feel the strategy. Sasori was trying to dismantle something before it fully stood up.
Scott Slade: He’s picking at him like a surgeon.
Chris Rodgers: Sure, but surgeons don’t usually operate on bears.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori is making him uncomfortable!
Takeshi Suzuki: Good. Dissect the leg. Dissect the ribs. Make the giant fight in pieces.
And then it happened.
Sasori whipped Nygma across the ring and charged in behind him, looking to keep the pressure on, but Drake hit the brakes halfway. Sasori ran straight into a palm strike that cracked across the side of the face and stopped him cold.
The sound of it sucked the air out of the Dome.
Sasori staggered backward on instinct, and Nygma followed with two long steps and a brutal shoulder block that turned him inside out. The crowd gasped as the AAPW icon flipped through the hit and crashed awkwardly to the mat. He tried to rise quickly, but Drake was already on him, hauling him up by the arm and ripping him into a short-arm uppercut that snapped his head back and dropped him to one knee.
For the first time all match, Drake Nygma stood over him.
Scott Slade: There! There it is! That’s what one opening looks like against Drake Nygma!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori made one mistake and immediately remembered he’s not in there with a normal man.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori must recover now!
Takeshi Suzuki: This is the price. One bad entry. One bad read. Against this man, that is all it takes.
Nygma did not rush the follow-up. He looked down at Sasori, then past him, almost absently, toward the side of the ring where the Ultimate Wrestling Championship rested with the timekeeper. The Orb flashed red again under the overhead lights. Nobody in the Dome reacted to that tiny detail except the two men in the match.
Then Nygma grabbed Sasori with both hands.
And squeezed.
He wrapped the Bear Hug in tight near center ring, lifting Sasori just enough to ruin his base and crush the air out of him at the same time. Sasori’s face twisted instantly. His hands fired to the arms, then the wrists, then the side of the head. His boots kicked uselessly against the mat as Nygma compressed him with awful patience, each second draining more life out of the smaller champion.
The crowd started clapping for Sasori, trying to will him out of it.
Scott Slade: Yes! Keep it locked in! Squeeze him, Drake!
Chris Rodgers: That’s it. Smother him. Crush the lungs. Take the movement away and the rest of Sasori’s little magic disappears.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori, fight the grip! Fight the hands!
Takeshi Suzuki: Do not panic! Panic feeds men like Nygma! Find the weakness and tear yourself free!
Nygma leaned back and tightened the hold further. Sasori’s eyes shut from the pain. His arms trembled as he tried to pry space between those crushing forearms and his ribs, but the Sphinx only kept squeezing, expression nearly unchanged, like this was not offense at all, just an inevitable function of his body.
Scott Slade: He’s got him right where he wants him now!
Chris Rodgers: And you can feel the building changing. Sasori’s speed isn’t saving him in there anymore.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori has escaped worse than this before!
Takeshi Suzuki: Then he must do it again. Right now. Because if this goes on much longer, the champion’s body will fail before his spirit does.
Sasori’s eyes snapped back open.
Whatever pain was ripping through his ribs, whatever crushing pressure Drake Nygma was pouring into that Bear Hug, the Scorpion King refused to let it be the end. He stopped wasting strength clawing blindly at the lock and instead planted both palms against Drake’s forearms, feeling for weakness, testing the grip, reading the hold the same way he would read a limb or a joint. Then, all at once, he drove the crown of his head upward into the underside of Nygma’s jaw.
The impact made Drake’s head jolt back.
Not enough.
Sasori did it again.
Then again.
On the third one, the hold loosened just a fraction. Sasori’s right boot came crashing down across Nygma’s instep, then his knee shot up into the ribs, and then he twisted violently to the side, ripping one shoulder free and smashing a short elbow across the side of Drake’s mask before stumbling backward toward the ropes.
Scott Slade: No! Stay on him, Drake! Don’t let him out!
Chris Rodgers: He almost had him folded in half! Sasori is stealing air any way he can right now!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Yes! That is it! He found the opening!
Takeshi Suzuki: Good! Stop fighting the whole hold and break one side of it! That is how warriors survive monsters!
Sasori hit the ropes, trying to build momentum while his lungs still burned, but Drake turned in perfect time and swung that long right leg like a guillotine. The Big Boot smashed across the side of Sasori’s face and sent him flipping sideways to the mat, sweat flying through the air in a silver arc under the lights. The Dome groaned as one.
Drake did not admire the damage. He walked through it.
He dragged Sasori up by the wrist and buried a brutal uppercut under the jaw. Sasori rose onto his toes from the shot before collapsing back into the corner. Drake followed him in with a crushing shoulder thrust to the stomach, then backed off and charged again, driving his shoulder into Sasori’s midsection so hard the turnbuckles shook on impact. Sasori slumped there, arms hanging over the top ropes, chest heaving.
Scott Slade: That’s it! Break him down! Break the body down!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori wanted speed, angles, finesse. Drake’s giving him trauma instead.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori cannot stay trapped there!
Takeshi Suzuki: Then he must bite back now, because another thirty seconds of this and he will start losing pieces of himself.
Drake ripped Sasori out of the corner and hurled him across the ring with a savage Irish whip. Sasori hit the opposite buckles chest-first, stumbled backward, and got nearly cut in half by a running shoulder block that planted him flat on the canvas. Drake dropped into the cover with all his weight behind it.
One.
Two.
Sasori kicked out.
It was forceful enough to keep the match alive, but not forceful enough to hide the damage building up underneath the surface.
Drake rose slowly, breathing heavier now, but still looking far fresher than the man on the mat. His head turned, almost lazily, toward the floor outside the ring where the Ultimate Wrestling Championship still rested near the timekeeper’s area. The red Orb flashed from the center plate again. Sasori saw the look from the mat and instantly rolled toward the opposite side of the ring, not to retreat, but to put his own body between Drake and the belt the moment he got back up.
Drake noticed.
And for the first time all match, a faint, cold smile touched the Sphinx’s face.
Scott Slade: What is that look on Nygma’s face?
Chris Rodgers: I don’t know, but I don’t like it.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori is still thinking! Even hurt, he is still thinking!
Takeshi Suzuki: Of course he is. That is why he is Saikō Sasori. Lesser men would already be unconscious.
Drake stormed forward again, but Sasori exploded out of the corner at the last possible second and drove both boots into Nygma’s face. The big man reeled back, and Sasori sprang up to the second rope in one seamless motion, launching himself backward with a missile dropkick that struck Drake flush in the chest and finally knocked the Sphinx flat to the mat.
The Dome came alive again.
Sasori kipped up on instinct, but there was pain in it now. He landed, stiffened, and had to grit through the fire tearing through his ribs before forcing himself onward. He fired a low kick to Drake’s thigh. Another to the ribs as he rose. Then he ducked behind, trapped the arm, and snapped off a tight dragon suplex bridge that sent Nygma crashing down high on his shoulders.
One.
Two.
Drake powered out.
Scott Slade: There you go! There you go!
Chris Rodgers: That’s the problem! Sasori keeps hitting things that would finish most men, and Drake Nygma keeps refusing to be most men!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: What a suplex! What precision from Sasori!
Takeshi Suzuki: And still not enough. That is the nightmare. You can fight brilliantly and still feel the mountain standing there in front of you.
Both men rose at the same time and the match stopped being beautiful for a moment. It became violent in a simpler way.
Sasori fired first with a forearm. Drake answered with a palm strike to the chest. Sasori came back with a kick to the body. Drake answered with a clubbing blow across the shoulders. Sasori spun and cracked him with a spinning backfist that finally snapped Drake’s head to the side. The crowd roared. Sasori followed with Scorpion’s Sting, a blistering chain of jabs, palm strikes, and body shots that forced Drake to keep turning with him. The last strike landed as a spinning back kick to the ribs that visibly bent the taller man sideways.
For the first time, Drake Nygma looked hurt.
Sasori saw it and went right for Kyoto Crusher.
He hooked the arms. Turned his hips. Tried to lift.
Drake dead-weighted him.
Sasori dug deeper and tried again, face twisting with effort, but the Sphinx surged upright on raw power, tore one arm loose, clubbed Sasori across the back, then yanked him forward with a short-arm lariat so violent it nearly spun him inside out. Sasori stumbled backward into the ropes by accident and came running back on dead legs.
Drake lowered himself and exploded.
The spear hit like a car wreck.
He drove through Sasori with such force that both men skidded halfway across the ring before crashing down. Sasori bounced off the mat and Drake hooked both legs deep.
One.
Two.
No!
Sasori got a shoulder up at the last possible instant, and the Tokyo Dome erupted into one of the loudest reactions of the night.
Scott Slade: I THOUGHT THAT WAS IT!
Chris Rodgers: So did I! He drove through him like he was trying to cut him in half!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori survives! Sasori survives!
Takeshi Suzuki: Barely. Barely! But barely is still alive!
Drake sat back on his heels for a moment, chest rising and falling, then slowly turned his head again toward ringside. Toward the belt. Toward the Orb. The referee, thinking only as an official, stepped between Drake and the floor to check on Sasori, and the change in Nygma’s expression was instant. Not confusion. Not frustration. Irritation. As if the official had stood between a starving thing and its food.
That tiny distraction saved the match.
Sasori lunged up from behind and chop blocked the left knee. Drake’s leg buckled under him. Sasori dropped immediately into a grounded leg entanglement, trying to pull him over into the Scorpion Death Lock before the larger man could re-center his weight. He nearly had it. Nearly.
Drake kicked wildly with the free leg and blasted Sasori backward under the bottom rope to the apron.
Scott Slade: Yes! Kick him off! Don’t let him tie you up!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori almost stole it there. Almost.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: He had it! He had the leg trapped!
Takeshi Suzuki: Almost is a graveyard in championship matches, Fujimoto-san.
Drake shoved himself up to one knee and then charged toward the ropes, looking to knock Sasori off the apron, but Sasori met him with a shoulder through the middle rope that stunned him in place. Then, in one fluid motion, Sasori slingshotted over the top rope into the ring and tried for a sunset flip. Drake refused to go over. Sasori rolled through immediately, sprang back to his feet, and blasted him in the temple with Serpent’s Bite.
Drake staggered.
The crowd rose.
Sasori looked up.
Then he climbed.
The Tokyo Dome was on its feet as he reached the top rope, chest heaving, body battered, but eyes locked onto the target below. Drake was still trying to gather himself when Sasori launched into the air with Venom Strike, the diving elbow drop crashing flush into the center of Nygma’s chest. Sasori hooked the leg instantly.
One.
Two.
Drake kicked out again.
This time both men stayed down.
The referee started his count as the noise in the Dome became a living thing. AAPW chants. UW chants. Sasori chants. Nygma chants. Roaring all at once in a frenzy that made the entire building feel like it was swaying. Sasori rolled toward one set of ropes, clutching at his ribs. Drake rolled the other way, dragging one arm beneath him as if each breath had suddenly become more expensive than before.
They reached their feet at nine.
Then they walked into the center of the ring and started hitting each other like kings with nothing left to protect except pride.
Sasori fired a forearm.
Drake answered with a palm strike.
Sasori blasted him with a roundhouse kick to the body.
Drake hammered him with a right hand to the chest.
Sasori came back with a sharp uppercut.
Drake answered with a knee to the stomach.
The rhythm got uglier with each shot, slower but heavier, less technique and more will. Sasori tried to circle away. Drake cut him off. Sasori slipped one swing, then another, and finally spun all the way through into Scorpion Tail Whip.
The kick cracked across the side of Drake’s head.
The Sphinx stumbled.
Sasori moved instantly, getting behind him, hooking the head, planting his feet, and drilling him clean into the canvas with the Scorpion Death Drop.
The Dome detonated.
Scott Slade: NO!
Chris Rodgers: Drake got caught! Drake got caught!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: SCORPION DEATH DROP! SCORPION DEATH DROP!
Takeshi Suzuki: Now! Turn him! Turn him immediately!
Sasori did exactly that. He rolled through on instinct, reached for the legs, and started to spin Drake over into the Scorpion Death Lock.
That was when Drake’s hand shot out and clamped around the bottom rope.
Not to survive the hold.
To stop himself from being turned toward the center of the ring.
Sasori saw it instantly.
Even half-stunned, even seconds removed from being dropped on his skull, Drake Nygma was still orienting himself toward the side of the ring where the Ultimate Wrestling Championship rested. Toward the Orb.
A flicker of something crossed Sasori’s face then. Not fear exactly. Recognition sharpened into urgency.
He stomped on Drake’s hand once.
Then again.
Then he dragged the larger man bodily away from the ropes with everything his damaged body had left.
But the Sphinx was already twisting beneath him.
Already fighting the turn.
Already trying to angle himself back toward the belt.
And the war was only getting worse.
Drake twisted beneath him with violent, ugly force.
Sasori had done everything right. He had stomped the hand, dragged the larger man away from the ropes, and fought like hell to keep Drake Nygma from turning himself back toward the side of the ring where the Ultimate Wrestling Championship rested. But the Sphinx’s body kept moving with grim purpose, hips rolling, shoulders shifting, one long leg kicking through to create space. Sasori tried to sit deeper and force the turn anyway, but Drake blasted him in the side of the head with a wild back elbow from underneath and then mule-kicked him loose hard enough to send the Scorpion King stumbling backward toward the corner.
Scott Slade: There you go! Tear out of it, Drake!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori almost had the whole thing chained together again, but Nygma is too damn strong to stay trapped for long.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori must keep the pressure on! He cannot let Drake rise cleanly!
Takeshi Suzuki: And yet that is exactly what is happening. Look at him. He is already rebuilding himself.
Drake pushed up to one knee, then one foot, then all the way upright, chest heaving and shoulders rolling as if he were shaking damage off in pieces. Sasori came charging across the ring before the monster could fully reset, but Nygma met him with a brutal palm strike to the chest that cracked like a gunshot through the Dome. Sasori staggered but fired right back with a forearm to the jaw. Drake answered with an uppercut that snapped Sasori’s head up. Sasori came back with a kick to the body. Drake stepped through it and clubbed him across the back so hard the smaller champion nearly went to all fours.
They were past feeling each other out now.
This had become a war.
Scott Slade: Now this is Drake’s kind of fight!
Chris Rodgers: Forget the finesse. Forget the elegance. This is about who can take more punishment and still keep walking forward.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori, stay moving!
Takeshi Suzuki: No. Hit him back. Men like Nygma only respect force.
Sasori did.
He exploded up from the crouch and cracked Drake with a rising palm strike under the jaw, then another, then a spinning elbow that finally turned the Sphinx’s head. The crowd surged. Sasori hit the ropes and came back with a running knee, but Drake caught him in mid-step, one arm hooking around the waist, the other clamping behind the shoulders, and for one terrifying moment it looked as though he might fold Sasori in half with another Bear Hug right there. Instead, Drake spun through and tried to drop him across the shoulder into the Rolling Cutter, looking for Sphinx’s Judgment out of nowhere.
Sasori kicked wildly in mid-rotation, planted one boot on the mat before the spin completed, and shoved himself free at the last instant. Drake stumbled through the motion without the full connection. Sasori rebounded off the ropes again and blasted him with a low dropkick to the damaged knee. Nygma’s leg buckled. Sasori rose instantly and cracked him with Scorpion Tail Whip to the side of the head.
The Dome erupted.
Drake dropped to one knee.
Scott Slade: No, no! Keep your base, Drake!
Chris Rodgers: That kick landed clean! Sasori is hanging on this match with his fingernails right now!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: He got him! He got him again!
Takeshi Suzuki: Do not stop! A wounded giant is still a giant!
Sasori didn’t stop. He swarmed him with strikes, quick jabs to the face, a knee to the ribs, a thrust kick to the chest, and then a whipping roundhouse that forced Drake backward into the corner. Sasori followed with a running knee that smashed into the jaw, then another to the body, then climbed the ropes and began raining down punches as the crowd counted along, each shot rocking Drake’s head back just a little farther.
One! Two! Three! Four!
By seven, Drake had enough.
He surged upright with both hands on Sasori’s hips and carried him off the ropes like he weighed nothing. For a heartbeat the whole Dome saw the danger before it happened. Sasori started throwing elbows from above, but Drake powered through them and hurled him overhead with a savage release throw that sent him crashing flat across the ring.
The crowd gasped in horror.
Scott Slade: YES! That’s power! That’s raw, insane power!
Chris Rodgers: He just plucked Sasori off the ropes and launched him like debris!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori!
Takeshi Suzuki: Get up. Get up immediately, champion.
Sasori tried. He got to one knee and then to both feet, but his back was screaming now, his ribs worse than ever, his chest rising in shorter breaths. Drake came out of the corner stalking him with that same terrible steadiness, and suddenly every step felt meaningful. The Sphinx lunged for another collar grip, another chance to lock hands around the body, but Sasori slipped outside and both men tumbled through the ropes onto the apron.
Now the building went from loud to frantic.
The title belts were only a few feet away at ringside.
Drake knew it.
Sasori knew he knew it.
They stood on the narrow apron trading strikes above the floor, one mistake away from disaster. Sasori fired first with a forearm. Drake answered with a palm strike. Sasori kicked the leg. Drake answered with a straight right to the chest that almost knocked Sasori off the apron entirely. Sasori clung to the top rope with one hand, swung back with a roundhouse, and clipped Drake behind the ear. The Sphinx staggered but did not fall. Instead his eyes flicked, just for a second, toward the nearby timekeeper’s table where the Ultimate Wrestling Championship sat gleaming under the lights.
That one glance changed Sasori’s whole face.
No hesitation remained. No performance. No ceremony. Just urgency.
He drove forward with a burst of violence, hammering Drake with three straight forearms, then a headbutt, then a knee to the ribs that made the bigger man bend at the waist. Sasori hooked the head, trying to spike him on the apron with a variation of the Scorpion Death Drop, but Drake blocked it, shifted his weight, and countered with a murderous uppercut that snapped Sasori straight upward.
The Scorpion King reeled.
Drake hit the ropes and came charging along the apron with a shoulder block that would have sent Sasori crashing straight into the belts and the floor if the champion had not somehow dropped flat at the last instant. Nygma hit the ring post shoulder-first instead.
The clang of metal echoed through the Dome.
Scott Slade: No! Drake just crushed that shoulder into the post!
Chris Rodgers: He was going for total destruction there!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori moved! Sasori moved!
Takeshi Suzuki: Good. Let the brute injure himself. Use his violence against him.
Sasori rose first on the apron, though barely. Drake was still half-turned from the collision, one arm hanging for a split second lower than before. Sasori saw the opening and fired a vicious kick into the shoulder, then another into the ribs, then grabbed the back of Drake’s head and slung him through the ropes into the ring. The crowd rose again as Sasori climbed the turnbuckle from the apron, dragging his battered body upward one rope at a time.
Inside, Drake was already moving.
He turned just as Sasori launched.
Venom Strike came down like a spear from the sky, Sasori’s elbow aimed straight for the heart, but at the final second Drake rolled. Sasori crashed elbow-first into the mat.
The scream that left his body was not theatrical.
It was pain.
Scott Slade: He missed! He missed!
Chris Rodgers: That might be the turning point! He put everything into that!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: No... no…
Takeshi Suzuki: Get up, Sasori. Get up now or die there.
Drake did not give him long. He seized Sasori by the wrist, yanked him violently to his feet, and this time the Rolling Cutter connected. Sphinx’s Judgment spun through clean and brutal, snapping Sasori down to the mat with a force that made the entire building believe the match was over.
Drake rolled through into the cover.
One.
Two.
Thr–
Sasori got a shoulder up.
The Tokyo Dome exploded so loudly it almost drowned out the announcers.
Scott Slade: WHAT?!
Chris Rodgers: I thought that was over! I thought he had him dead to rights!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: SASORI SURVIVES! SASORI SURVIVES!
Takeshi Suzuki: Of course he does! Of course he does! You do not erase a king with one blow!
Drake sat back on his knees and for the first time all match, true fury seemed to flash through him. Not showmanship. Not crowd-playing frustration. Something colder. More dangerous. He turned again toward ringside, toward the belt, toward the Orb hidden in plain sight like fate disguised as gold. The referee moved in to warn him back and check on Sasori, and that half-second was enough.
Sasori, half-conscious and running on something deeper than strength now, lunged from the mat and trapped Drake’s left leg again.
He twisted.
Drake dropped to one knee.
Sasori kept turning, dragging with everything he had, pulling the Sphinx inch by inch away from the ropes, away from the belts, away from the Orb, trying desperately to cinch the Scorpion Death Lock one more time.
The Dome was on its feet.
Drake was clawing forward.
Sasori was screaming through clenched teeth as he fought the turn.
And neither man was anywhere close to breaking.
Sasori kept dragging with everything he had left.
His arms were shaking. His ribs felt like they were splitting apart. Sweat poured down the inside of his mask and into his eyes. But he would not let go of the leg. He would not let Drake Nygma turn himself back toward the side of the ring where the Ultimate Wrestling Championship sat waiting with that red Orb glinting from its center like an open wound in the night. Sasori dug his heels into the canvas, leaned back, and tried to sit into the Scorpion Death Lock one more time.
Drake answered by clawing forward with both hands and then violently rolling his hips.
The motion was ugly, desperate, powerful. Sasori nearly had the hold locked, but Nygma twisted just enough to throw the angle off. Then the Sphinx reached out, grabbed the bottom rope with one hand and the apron skirt with the other, and instead of simply holding on for dear life, he used that leverage to yank both of them bodily under the bottom rope and crashing out to the floor.
The Tokyo Dome erupted.
Both men hit the outside hard, Sasori shoulder-first against the ringside mats and Drake landing in a half-sprawl near the steel steps, one leg still tangled with Sasori for a moment before they kicked apart and scrambled free.
Scott Slade: There you go! Take it outside! Blow this thing apart!
Chris Rodgers: Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. If Sasori wants a war, Drake Nygma just dragged him into the rubble.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori cannot let this become chaos out here!
Takeshi Suzuki: Too late. It already has. Now he must survive it better.
The referee leaned through the ropes and started his count, but the count felt tiny compared to the violence building at ringside. Sasori got up first on instinct, one arm wrapped around his ribs, and the second he turned, Drake smashed into him with a running shoulder block that drove both men through a row of folded chairs near the timekeeper’s area. Steel clattered everywhere. A camera operator nearly jumped out of the way. Sasori hit the floor hard and rolled, but Drake was on him again immediately, dragging him up by the wrist and whipping him spine-first into the guard railing.
The metal bent inward with the impact.
The fans in the front row exploded, recoiling with their hands over their mouths as Sasori slumped against the barrier, chest heaving, body jolted from the collision. Drake stalked forward and crushed him there with another huge body shot, then a clubbing forearm across the back, then grabbed him by the back of the head and bounced his skull off the top of the guard rail.
Scott Slade: That’s it! Break him down out there!
Chris Rodgers: Drake doesn’t want a match anymore. He wants wreckage.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori is in terrible trouble now!
Takeshi Suzuki: Then become terrible yourself.
Drake bent down, seized one of the fallen ringside chairs, and unfolded it with a snap. The Dome buzzed with that dangerous, anticipatory sound wrestling crowds make when they know something awful is coming. Nygma raised the chair high over his head and swung for Sasori’s spine.
Sasori dropped at the last possible second.
The chair smashed against the guard railing instead, exploding with a metallic crash that echoed through the building. Before Drake could recover, Sasori fired a thrust kick into the wounded shoulder, then snatched the chair from his hands and cracked it across the ribs. Once. Twice. The second shot bent the chair and finally made the Sphinx stagger backward.
Scott Slade: Referee! Come on! Do something!
Chris Rodgers: Do what, Scott? Throw the whole building out?
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Yes! Fight back, Sasori! Fight back!
Takeshi Suzuki: Again! Hit him again! If the giant wants barbarism, teach him what disciplined barbarism looks like!
Sasori flung the broken chair aside, grabbed Drake by the mask, and drove him face-first into the steel ring post.
The clang shot through the Tokyo Dome like a church bell ringing for the dead.
Drake staggered sideways, one hand shooting instinctively to the post, and Sasori did not hesitate. He came flying in with a running knee that smashed Nygma’s head against the metal a second time before both men crashed together against the apron. The crowd was on fire now, screaming at every blow, every collision, every shifting ounce of momentum as the two champions stopped looking like wrestlers and started looking like mythic enemies trying to break one another in public.
Sasori grabbed Drake by the arm and whipped him toward the steel steps.
Nygma reversed it.
Sasori got sent running shoulder-first into the stairs so hard the top half of the steps shifted sideways with a scrape of metal across concrete. Sasori collapsed to both knees instantly, clutching the shoulder, and Drake came in behind him like a closing gate. He hooked both hands around Sasori’s waist and launched him backward with a release belly-to-back suplex that dropped him spine-first across the edge of the dislodged steel steps.
The crowd let out a horrified roar.
Scott Slade: YES! GOOD LORD!
Chris Rodgers: That’s not a wrestling move anymore! That’s attempted demolition!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: SASORI!
Takeshi Suzuki: Get up! Get up now! Do not let him smell the finish!
Drake stood over him breathing hard, chest rolling, that eerie patience finally stripped away and replaced by something more savage. He looked toward the timekeeper’s area again. Toward the championship belt. Toward the Orb.
He started moving that direction.
Sasori saw it even through the pain.
That was enough.
He lunged from the floor and wrapped both arms around Drake’s leg, stopping him cold. Nygma turned and clubbed down across the back. Sasori held on. Another clubbing blow landed. Sasori still held on. Then Sasori drove his shoulder into the knee, rose with a shout, and rammed Drake forward into the apron. Once. Twice. Then he hooked the head and dropped him throat-first across the edge of the ring.
Now it was Drake coughing, stumbling, trying to breathe.
Sasori snatched up the smaller top half of the steel steps with both hands, staggered under the weight, then roared and shoved them forward into Drake’s side. The impact blasted the Sphinx into the barricade and sent the loose steps tumbling away in a violent clatter that whipped the crowd into absolute frenzy.
Scott Slade: This has gone completely off the rails!
Chris Rodgers: And somehow Drake still looks like the more dangerous one!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori is refusing to die!
Takeshi Suzuki: Good. Death can wait. Hurt him more.
Sasori staggered forward and grabbed another chair from ringside, this one still intact. He swung for Drake’s ribs, but the Sphinx caught the chair with both hands before it landed flush. For one second they stood there locked in a brutal test of strength over cold steel, neither willing to release it. Sasori’s body shook from exhaustion. Drake’s eyes narrowed behind the mask. Then Nygma ripped the chair free, yanked Sasori forward, and drove the edge of it straight into his stomach.
Sasori folded.
Drake snapped the chair across his back.
Then again.
Then threw it aside and hurled Sasori over the guard railing into the front-row walkway.
Fans scattered in every direction as the Scorpion King crashed among the aisle barriers and camera cables, rolling to a stop on hands and knees. The image was chaos. Security shouting. Fans screaming. Both companies’ biggest warriors fighting in the bones of the Tokyo Dome itself.
Drake stepped over the railing after him.
Sasori met him with a right hand.
Drake answered with a palm strike.
Sasori fired a kick into the leg.
Drake answered with a headbutt.
The fight continued there in the aisle like an old grudge surfacing from some deeper age, two proud violent men throwing everything left in their bodies at one another while the referee’s count climbed higher and higher back at ringside, almost ignored by everyone in the building.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Sasori smashed Drake with a forearm and sent him stumbling back against the barricade separating the aisle from the seats. Drake came off it with a wild lariat that Sasori ducked, and the Scorpion King answered by grabbing him from behind and driving him skull-first into a mounted production case. Drake reeled. Sasori seized his chance, grabbed a loose camera cable, and yanked it free from the floor, using it for a brief instant to whip Drake across the back before tossing it aside and hammering him with another knee to the ribs.
Scott Slade: He’s gone feral out there!
Chris Rodgers: Good! Finally! Stop pretending this is honor and admit it’s survival!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori will do anything to protect that championship!
Takeshi Suzuki: Not the championship, Fujimoto-san. Something far more important than that.
Nine.
Ten.
The referee reached the count, but both men were already scrambling back over the guard railing and toward the ring in a desperate dead sprint, refusing to let the match die that way. Sasori slid under the bottom rope first. Drake rolled in a split second later.
The building exploded in relief and disbelief.
Both men pushed up from the mat at the same time, wrecked, breathing like bellows, covered in sweat and bruises, their bodies showing every second of the war they had just dragged into the crowd.
And neither one looked remotely interested in stopping.
Both men rose at the same time, and the sight of it sent another jolt through the Tokyo Dome.
They did not look like champions anymore. They looked like survivors of some older, crueler ritual. Sasori’s chest was heaving, one arm hanging a little lower than it should have, the lower half of his yellow-and-black gear smeared with grime from the floor outside. Drake Nygma looked scarcely more human, his shoulder reddened from the ring post, his ribs welted from chair shots, his breathing heavier now, but his eyes still fixed and hungry beneath that eerie mask. The ring around them looked wrecked too. The ropes were still shaking from their return. The referee kept barking warnings neither man was hearing. Every fan in the building was on their feet.
Then they met in the center and started throwing again.
Sasori struck first, a forearm to the jaw. Nygma answered with a palm strike to the chest that sounded like a board snapping. Sasori came right back with a thrust kick to the body. Nygma fired a short uppercut under the chin. Sasori staggered, steadied, and cracked him with a spinning elbow. The crowd roared. Drake answered by stepping straight through the pain and burying a brutal headbutt into Sasori’s brow that made the Scorpion King fall backward into the ropes.
Scott Slade: That’s it! Don’t let him breathe, Drake!
Chris Rodgers: We’re way past wrestling now, Scott. This is just two men trying to erase each other.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori, stay with him! Stay with him!
Takeshi Suzuki: No retreat now. If you step backward against a beast like this, you become food.
Sasori hit the ropes and bounced forward with a flash of speed, ducking under a lariat and firing a rapid body-head-body combination that backed Drake up half a step. Then came Scorpion’s Sting again, jabs and palms and snapping strikes flying in tight bursts until Nygma’s head finally turned from the barrage. Sasori spun and drove a vicious back kick into the ribs, then hit the far ropes looking for a running finish to the sequence.
Drake cut him in half with a spear.
The impact was somehow uglier than the first one.
Because this one came after everything else.
Sasori bounced off Drake’s shoulder and landed in a twisted heap, clutching at his midsection as the air shot out of the building in one collective gasp.
Scott Slade: YES! AGAIN! AGAIN!
Chris Rodgers: He just folded him! He absolutely folded him!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: No!
Takeshi Suzuki: Get up, champion. Get up now.
Drake rolled through the tackle and pushed back to his knees, grimacing now, the damage finally visible in the way he moved. He reached for Sasori’s leg for the cover.
Then he stopped.
His head turned.
Toward ringside.
Toward the Ultimate Wrestling Championship.
Toward the Orb.
The red jewel flashed under the overhead lights again, tiny and terrible.
That hesitation saved Sasori.
He lashed out from the mat with a kick to the side of Drake’s knee, then another, and lunged upward into a clinch before the Sphinx could re-center himself. Sasori hammered him with short elbows to the head, then trapped the wrist and ripped him forward into a sudden snap DDT that spiked Drake down. The Dome exploded at the reversal.
Sasori didn’t cover.
He rolled to the ropes instead, using them to drag himself up, then darted across the ring and blasted Drake with a low sliding kick to the shoulder before the bigger man could stand. Nygma rose anyway. Sasori fired a roundhouse into the ribs. Drake ate it. Sasori hit him again. Drake kept coming. Then Sasori changed levels and planted a lightning-fast dropkick into the damaged knee, finally sending the Sphinx stumbling backward into the corner.
Scott Slade: Stay on your feet, Drake! Stay on your feet!
Chris Rodgers: Sasori’s targeting the damage now. He knows he can’t win a strength fight.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Of course he knows! He is dissecting him piece by piece!
Takeshi Suzuki: Then cut deeper. Because the giant is still walking.
Sasori rushed in with a corner knee to the jaw. Then another to the body. Then he hooked both arms and tried again for Kyoto Crusher, straining with everything left in his battered frame. Drake blocked it the first time. Sasori screamed and tried again, digging lower, using the ropes for leverage, nearly getting him up.
Nygma answered by lifting Sasori instead.
He muscled him up off the mat in a grotesque show of strength, turned, and hurled him backward with a release power throw that sent Sasori crashing spine-first into the buckles on the opposite side of the ring. Sasori bounced out of the corner in a daze.
Drake was waiting.
He snatched him up in both arms and this time cinched the Bear Hug again, not for the slow squeeze now, but as a setup. He charged forward and rammed Sasori back-first into the turnbuckles, then again, then a third time, until the top pad finally tore loose and dropped onto the canvas.
The exposed metal bracket gleamed in the lights.
The crowd erupted in alarm.
Scott Slade: Oh, this is turning nasty now!
Chris Rodgers: Good. Let it. The pretty version of this match died ten minutes ago.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Referee! Fix that corner!
Takeshi Suzuki: There is no time to fix anything! Only fight!
The referee rushed toward the loose turnbuckle pad, trying to move it aside and warn both men away from the exposed steel, but neither man cared. Sasori drove his forehead into Drake’s face again and again until the grip loosened, then twisted free and hammered a spinning heel kick into the side of the head. Drake staggered sideways.
Sasori hit the ropes, came flying back, and drilled him with Serpent’s Bite right to the temple.
Drake reeled backward.
Straight into the exposed corner.
His shoulder and upper back smashed into the steel bracket with a sickening clang, and the Sphinx let out the first truly uncontrolled sound of pain all match. Sasori saw it and pounced, firing forearms, knees, and body shots in a blur while Drake was trapped there. The crowd counted the strikes with each blow, the arena pulsing with noise.
Scott Slade: Get out of there, Drake! Move!
Chris Rodgers: He’s trapped! He is trapped in the worst place in the ring right now!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori has him! Sasori has him!
Takeshi Suzuki: Break him here! This is your opening!
Sasori backed to mid-ring, took one breath, and sprinted in for the kill.
Drake moved at the last possible second.
Sasori crashed shoulder-first into the exposed steel.
The scream that tore out of him was swallowed by the roar of the crowd, but the damage was obvious instantly. He spun away clutching the shoulder, and Drake, half-broken himself, pounced like an executioner. He hoisted Sasori up onto the top turnbuckle, climbed after him, and started hammering him with short punches to the body and face while the people came unglued beneath them.
A superplex looked inevitable.
But Sasori would not die cleanly.
He fought back from the top, forearms crashing against Drake’s head, then a headbutt, then another. Nygma wavered on the ropes. Sasori stood on the second turnbuckle, shoulder burning, ribs screaming, and for one impossible second both men were balanced on disaster. Sasori hooked the head and jumped, twisting them both off the corner in a violent avalanche Scorpion Death Drop variation that sent Drake crashing down almost vertically.
The Tokyo Dome detonated.
Both men lay motionless.
The referee started counting.
One.
Two.
Three.
Sasori rolled first, dragging himself with one arm.
Four.
Drake turned onto his side, clutching at the back of his neck.
Five.
Sasori got to his knees.
Six.
Drake grabbed the ropes and started pulling himself up.
Seven.
Sasori was on his feet, but barely.
Eight.
Drake stood too.
And then, because apparently neither man had any interest in mortality, they walked toward each other again.
Scott Slade: How are they both standing?!
Chris Rodgers: I genuinely do not know anymore.
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: The spirit of Saikō Sasori is unbreakable!
Takeshi Suzuki: Spirit is not enough. Finish him before your body remembers what pain is.
Sasori fired first with a forearm.
Drake answered with one of his own.
Sasori hit him again.
Drake answered.
Back and forth they went, each shot heavier, slower, nastier than the last, until Sasori finally ducked one and ripped Drake down into a kneebar takedown, instantly trying to grapevine the leg and turn him over.
Drake kicked him away.
Sasori sprang up again and charged.
Drake grabbed him by the throat with one hand.
The entire crowd gasped.
Not because the move was illegal. Not because it was theatrical.
Because of what it looked like.
What it implied.
For a heartbeat it felt like the Sphinx himself had surfaced all the way through the mask.
Drake shoved Sasori backward by the throat, then rushed him, looking to decapitate him with another massive boot. Sasori dropped flat, caught the leg, and turned with all his remaining strength, finally twisting Drake completely over into the Scorpion Death Lock in the dead center of the ring.
This time it was in.
This time it was deep.
Sasori sat back screaming, his whole body trembling with the effort as he bent the larger man’s legs and lower back into agony. Drake roared and clawed at the mat, trying to drag himself forward, trying to drag both of them, trying to turn even now toward the side of the ring where the belt waited. Sasori saw it, understood it, and shifted his hips even deeper, pulling the hold tighter with everything he had left in this world.
The Dome had gone insane.
Scott Slade: No! No! Get to the ropes! Drake, get to the ropes!
Chris Rodgers: He’s got it locked in! He’s got it locked in bad!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: YES! YES! SCORPION DEATH LOCK!
Takeshi Suzuki: Sit down on it! Sit down and break him!
Drake dragged himself forward an inch.
Then another.
Then another.
His fingers stretched toward the ropes.
Toward escape.
Toward survival.
Toward the side of the ring where the Orb still waited, shining like fate.
And Sasori pulled back harder than ever.
Drake dragged himself another inch.
Then another.
Then he stopped.
It was not the stop of a man running out of strength. It was the stop of something inside him making a decision. Sasori felt it before he fully understood it. The body beneath him went unnaturally still for one heartbeat, then two. Drake’s clawing hand flattened against the mat. His other arm stopped reaching for the ropes. His spine arched. Every muscle in his back and shoulders seemed to tighten at once, and a low, horrible sound began to rise out of him, not a cry of pain, not a grunt of effort, but something older and uglier that did not belong in a wrestling ring. The lights over the Tokyo Dome flickered once, just enough for the crowd to notice and scream louder.
Scott Slade: What the hell is happening to him?!
Chris Rodgers: I don’t know, Scott, but something just changed!
Yasuhiro Fujimoto: Sasori, hold on! Hold on!
Takeshi Suzuki: No... no, look at Nygma’s body. That is not desperation anymore.
Drake pushed up.
Not toward the ropes.
Up.
Somehow, impossibly, he got one knee under himself with the Scorpion Death Lock still bent into him. Sasori’s eyes widened. He screamed through clenched teeth and sat down even harder on the hold, trying to fold the giant in half before the moment could complete itself. But Drake kept rising. One knee became both feet. Both feet became a towering, trembling stand. Sasori was practically hanging off him by the legs, the hold still technically locked, but the leverage was dying by the second as the Sphinx forced his battered body upright through sheer monstrous will.
Then Drake roared and threw himself backward.
Sasori let go one second too late.
To Be Continued In Part - 16