Divine SUN

Chika woke up to the sensation and smell of sweat on the her bed, one of the disadvantages of her long journeys to the astral realm is the hygiene of the room after she returns back to earth. Sometimes she wished she could just wave her hands and the room will clean itself like in the astrals.
Before she began forgetting the memories that she brought from the astral realm because of the difference in frequency and density in both realms, she grabbed her journal and began writing everything that they told her. Including the fact that she would have to choose between her heart and the key, they basically told her she would destroy the world because of love.
When she was done journaling everything that she could remember she started cleaning her room.
When Chika was done cleaning up her room, she appeared behind Fisayo in the living room with a smug look on her face.
He did not need a seer to tell him that she was going to try something from behind, so he adjusted his position so he was facing her directly.
“What do you want?” He asked her squinting his eyebrows.
“It’s still my birthday,” Chika answered. “You promised me dinner,” Fisayo scoffed. “You’re annoying, you dont deserve a birthday dinner,”
Chika responded by folding her fists and lifting them up, “You know that I can take you a concussion right?”
Fisayo shook his head and said, “Ever so violent,” Then he closed the distance between them and pulled her into a hug.
“You’re everything,” He said. “Happy Birthday. I know your dad would have loved to be here, but today I am your daddy,”
The mention of her dad triggered the memories of their last encounter in the astral realm, the feelings of nostalgia and heightened paranoia from missing them and hearing his warning respectively made her not process the fact that Fisayo had called her his child.
“I feel like doing curry and chicken. We could go to Arun’s, its the most fancy Indian place around.” Chika said as they separated from the hug.
“Yeah sure.”
…………………………..
The warm fragrance of turmeric, garlic, and sizzling tandoori chicken wrapped around Chika the moment she and Fisayo stepped into Arun’s, a cozy Indian restaurant tucked between two shops with fading signs. Golden lamps threw soft light over polished wooden tables, and a slow sitar melody hummed under the chatter of evening diners.
Fisayo, as usual, was already in his element.
“Reservation for Fisayo,” He told the host with a grin that suggested he owned the place. The host led them to a corner booth where a single candle flickered between two menus.
“You went all out,” Chika murmured, sliding into her seat. The atmosphere made her feel oddly exposed, like the candlelight could reveal more than she wanted to show.
“You didnt give me a lot of time to plan, but I think i did good,” His warm smile lit up the room
“You only turn twenty-six once,” Fisayo added, leaning back with a satisfied sigh. “And besides, if I don’t feed you properly, you’ll keep pretending those instant noodles are a food group.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Noodles kept me alive. They are not ever  getting any disrespect from anyone, in front of me at least.”
“Yes Ma.”
The waiter came by, and they ordered—samosas to start, butter chicken for Chika, lamb rogan josh for Fisayo, and garlic naan “Because life without naan is tragedy,” according to him.
As they waited, silence pressed in. Chika traced the rim of her water glass, her thoughts drifting to the weight of the ancestors’ ban, the keys, the enemies watching even when she smiled.
Fisayo noticed. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. He was not used to Chika beign so absent minded.
“You’re not here with me,” He said quietly. “You’re somewhere else again.”
He had known Chika her whole life and he was aware that she got into some spiritual stuff, like talking to spirits and entities after her father died and that it made her great at fighting, and from what he had observed from movies and tv, the people who talked to spirits usually did not have stable moods and their moods determined the kind of spirits they attracted.
For that reason he tried his best to make always cheer her up because a single bad mood can be a slippery slope to depression, especially if she just let her subconscious determine her moods.
“Whats going on?” He asked. “I know you don’t talk to me about it. But is your witchy stuff getting out of hands? Should I be worried?”
Her throat tightened. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
“Fair enough,” He answered calmly. “There is something that we should talk about. Alot happened when you were taking your alone time.”
Chika’s eyes peeked with curiosity. “What happened?”
“Are you really done fighting?”
The samosas arrived before she had to answer the plate releasing a puff of spiced steam. Her whole decision to quit fighting because she was bored was fueled by the fact that she thought she would always have her ancestors backing and protection, she had no way of knowing if she still had the same fighting skills that made her a transcendent fighter were there, there was no need to risk her perfect fighting record.
“Yes, I am,” She responded as she put a piece of samosa in her mouth.
“Then, there is no need to tell you the thing,”
Chika was still curious, but she decided not to push it, “Yeah, shelve it,”
“To surviving twenty-four years of Earth,” Fisayo responded sending another airplane of samosa into her mouth before she could barely swallow what she was chewing.
“And to not setting the smoke alarm off in my kitchen again,” She countered.
They clinked samosas together, laughing, and for a moment the heaviness in her chest loosened.
When the main dishes came, Fisayo tore off a piece of naan and held it out to her. “Taste this and tell me it’s not better than noodles.”
Chika rolled her eyes but leaned forward, taking the bite from his hand. The buttery, garlicky warmth melted across her tongue, and against her will she smiled.
“Fine. You win. But only tonight.”
Fisayo grinned, victorious.  And for now, Chika had no thoughts or worries about her ancestors, the magical key that appeared in her arm or her fighting career. She was just a woman on her birthday, with a friend who refused to let her slip away.
After dinner and a couple of glasses, they both took an uber back home.
The night drive was quiet, almost peaceful. The hum of the engine and the occasional flicker of passing streetlights wrapped Chika and Fisayo in a fragile calm. After the chaos of the fight, the silence almost felt like relief.
Then it happened. A sudden screech of tires, a flash of headlights in the mirror, before Fisayo could even register it, another vehicle cut across their lane. The collision wasn’t brutal, but enough to send their car spinning to the shoulder, the airbags bursting in white clouds.
Dazed, they barely had time to catch their breath when the doors opened. Figures in black stepped out of the shadows, organized, efficient, not a word spoken. Their movements were rehearsed, precise.
Chika and Fisayo glanced at each other, both too stunned to resist. The strangers guided them gently but firmly out of the wreck, almost courteous in their handling, as if violence wasn’t necessary.
No shouting, the weapons glared a quiet inevitability.
As they were escorted into the waiting van, Fisayo squeezed Chika’s hand once. She squeezed back. Neither spoke, but both understood: this was bigger than them.
The van doors shut, sealing the night outside. The highway was silent again, as if nothing had ever happened.
………………………
The van rolled to a stop after what felt like hours. Chika and Fisayo were led through narrow halls, the air heavy with the smell of incense and expensive cigars. The walls were lined with strange masks and weapons from across the world, relics of forgotten wars and hidden arenas.
Finally, they were ushered into a grand chamber. At its center sat a man in a tailored white suit, face half-hidden in the glow of a single golden lamp. His voice was smooth, calm, but carried the weight of command.
“You two are exceptional,” he said, fingers drumming lightly on the armrest of his chair. “The world may cheer for its champions in octagons and stadiums… but the true spectacle happens here.”
He gestured, and the curtains behind him parted. Beyond the glass wall stretched a colossal underground arena, lit by fire and neon. Hundreds of seats circled it, already filling with the glittering elite, celebrities, tycoons, politicians, their laughter echoing like a tide.
“You will fight here,” the man continued. “Not for medals, not for belts. But for the pleasure of those who can pay for glory itself.”
He leaned forward, smiling with unsettling calm.
“You belong to us now. As gladiators. As legends. As entertainment.”
The crowd roared beyond the glass, as if on cue. And for the first time, Chika realized the scale of the world they had just been dragged into, but Fisayo knew exactly what was going on.
When Chika announced her retirement out of boredom, he recieved a letter inviting the both of them to join the Dark trinity tournament and at the end of the letter it specifically said that there would be consequences if they refused as they were not an organisation that anyone told no to
He tried to tell Chika about it but he hadn’t gotten a chance to, even when he tried to during dinner she had said that she wasn’t interested in fighting anymore.
“Don’t worry we would find a way to get out of this,” Chika said, interrupting his train of thought.
“Yes we would,” He found himself blurting out when he really wanted to tell her that he had gotten a warning that this might happen. Somehow that information had lost its importance when she said she didnt want to fight, because would only lead to him receiving blame, and blame would create a bridge between them, one that would not be beneficial to them escaping this place in the long run.

…………….
The mystery man stood in front of Chika and Fisayo a few moments later with a smile on his face.
“Now you fight!” He said, pointing at Fisayo. Who nodded  in response, knowing there was nothing he could do but oblige.
“You can’t just kidnap us, throw us into your circus and expect us to just fight for you,” Chika said defiantly.
“Young lady you should watch your tone when you talk to me. I have what the youths these days call anger issues.”
Chika wanted to jump and say more but, Fisayo quickly grabbed her hands and pulled her to the corner of the room.
“Don’t do anything that would get us killed,”  He said sternly, flashing Chika a serious look that he had never shown her since they had known. “Let us do what they want for now, at least there is a real opening to get out of this place.”
Chika exhaled deeply. He knew that Fisayo was right but she would have preferred if she the one who was fighting and not him.
“One of these days you’ll have to admit I am as good a fighter as you,” Fisayo said to Chika searching her eyes for approval, which she gave to him with a smile.
“Stay loose, and don’t respond to his feints,”
Fisayo nodded back with a huge smile. “Yes mom,”
Security parted the velvet of bodies. The arena opened ike a mouth—circular pit, matte-black canvas rimmed with LED strips that pulse like a slow heartbeat. Above, glass skyboxes brimed with couture and cold smiles: actors, moguls, athletes whose public charities would implode if anyone saw them here. Tablets glow in their laps, live odds, private chats, buy-ins.
Chika’s palm hits the glass of a viewing box. “He’s not warmed up.”
The man in the white suit doesn’t look at her. “Good fighters don’t need warm-ups. They need moments.”
A gate unlatches. Two handlers in black shoved Fisayo forward. No walkout music, no lights. Just the sound of leather on concrete and a tide of hush.
Chika stood behind the glass helpless, she  hated that they didnt even allow her to be his corner man.
From the opposite tunnel: a heavyweight framed in sodium lights. Thick neck, shaved head, shoulders like a door frame. Old elbows, scarred shins. His nickname flickers on the ring’s edge in clean typography: BOROS.
Boros was five inches taller than Fisayo, had the physique of a Greek God and moved like one, Fisayo’s first impression was he was definitely taking Chika’s advice of not trading.
He rolls his wrists, checked the spacing of his feet, to make sure it was in Muay Thai stance, then he began to verbally coach himself, “We are the same weight even if he taller, all I need to do is keep my distance, feight and go for the choke the moment I can.
The fight started.
A single chime. Not a bell—something more expensive.
Fisayo circled orthodox, hands high, feet light. He kept reading and stayed conservative, think Creed footwork in a John Wick nightclub: slick, economical, aware of every angle. He made sure his head did not stay in one place for more than a second.
Boros bored of all the running around rugby tackled him to the ground, causing Fisayo to wince in pain, Boros managed to get off three punches before Fisayo sprawled away, ignoring in pain in his stomach as he kept his hands up and his feet light.
Boros feinted low, then slung  a right low kick. Fisayo checks, but the impact still thuds through his calf. The crowd reacts in murmurs, not roars; this audience consumes violence like wine tasting.
Fisayo continued using his Jab, he jabbed outside, stepped  to right and threw a clean cross that landed on Boros’s right temple.
Boros ate it and kept walking like a tide. The rest of the exchanges were slow with Fisayo only trading for a couple of seconds before finding safe ground.
Three minutes into the first round, they  Clinched against the fence. Boros dug a short elbow over Fisayo’s ear. Fisayo pummeled for inside control, and slipped free.
At the end of Round  Fisayo tries to steal it with a late three piece jab a right, left hook that snaps Boros’s head. The skyboxes flashed as the chime that signified the round had ended echoed in the room, the odds were shifting and money was moving.
Back on the stool, a Fisayo kneeled with water and vaseline. No coach. No advice. Just his consciousness waiting to be separated from his brain.
Round two began a few moments later, the chime dropped them in again.
Boros adjusts as the round began. He began aiming at Fisayo’s body. He threw a left hook downstairs. Fisayo exhaled with the shot, takeing it well.
Boros sends a teep to the solar plexus which folds Fisayo two steps back. The pain did not allow Chika see that Boros hid a right roundhouse behind a shoulder feint and he  buried his shin into Fisayo’s right side. There was a wet crack which was suubtle but unmistakable. Pain flooded in like ice water. Breathing turned into an impossible task.
Chika body went still. She doesn’t pound the glass anymore; she counts his breaths.
Fisayo turtles  to the fence, high guard, his elbows stapled to ribs that threaten mutiny. Boros went hunting sending knees, elbows, a carnival of blunt instruments Fisayo’s way, he wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible.
Fisayo tried, he attempts a collar tie and then a  short knee to break rhythm which allows him to pivot off. He jabbed  from southpaw now, disguising the hurt side behind his lead shoulder as the chime of the bell saves him.
He survives, but he’s hunched when he walks to the stool.
As the pain of getting his body pummeled washed through his body, he thought about quitting, but then he remembered that this was not an exhibition match. His life and Chika’s life depended on the match that he was fighting and he no interest in dying anytime soon.

Fisayo decides his best chance is to keep it simple, he started taking Shallow breaths and he was going to hide his right side by switching stances, make Boros kick again and this time, catch it and make him pay. Fisayo already standing in the middle of the ring before the bell started.
He didnt bother sitting down during the second round rest before the chime, because standing hurts less than sitting up.
The chime for the third round fight began and Fisayo took the Southpaw stance, right hand pawing like a metronome. He showed the body, left open an invitation wrapped in pain.
A few seconds later, Boros took the bait. He turned his hip and sent the kick. Time slows ss Fisayo dropprd weight, scooped the leg under his left arm, teeth clenched against the rib’s scream. He ran Boros backward and pinned  him to the fence, summoning adrenaline from the pits of hell.
Fisayo tripped Boros down and began  to deliver nasty elbows to his face, but Boros rolls away to safety.
Boros frames to stand, but Fisayo floats past his knees and glued his chest to Boro’s back, no squeeze on the broken side, all hook with the legs. A grim, technical migration to control.
As Fisayo’s arms snaked under Boros’ chin. Boros began to fight the top hand as a reslt Fisayo switched to short strikes, nothing pretty, just tasks,  peel, pry, soften.
Fisayo slid the forearm under again, this time palm to bicep, his hand to back of Boros’s head. Rear naked choke. The rib grinds, a white flare behind his eyes. He adjusts the angle so the pressure lives in his forearm, not his torso as he began to squeeze with every ounce of strenght he could muscle.
Chika could not believe her eyes as she kept on cheering and banging on the glass door.
Boros began to buck, his hands became flail.
The referee crouched down to get a good look at Boros as the muscles in his neck threatened to pop. Three seconds later, there it was, A Tap. The referee jumped to push Fisayo away from Boros, saving the predator rom the preys clutches.
The chime was louder this time as the arena exploded.
Fisayo stayyed kneeling, one glove on the mat, the other pressed to his right side. Every breath he took was paid with pain in intrest, at one point he considered not breathing but the pain was worth beign alive.

Chika doesn’t wait for permission. She had already began moving, already at the tunnel gate when they open it. She dropped to him, one hand on his neck, the other hovering over his rib.
“Looks like all the training i have given you paid off,” She said with a smirk on her face. Fisayo could only wince back a response.
“You’ll be fine dont worry,”
Chika was suprised to see two Medtechs in black one with a handheld scanner appear, she did not think this place would look after a wounded fighter. The taller one knelt down to examine Fisayo, “Non-displaced fracture. He needs rest.” He declared a moment later.

The man in white arrives to the ring last, immaculate, as if nothing in the room can touch him. He regarded Fisayo like a curator studied a painting.
“Third round,” He says, pleased. “Audiences love a third round finish,
Chika stood  between them. For a second the handlers hesitate—because the room shifts when she decides it will.
“We’re not your pets,” She says.
He smiles as if that were adorable. “Of course not. You’re headliners.”
“Acquiring you is the smartest business decison I have made and I am going to make you rich in return,”
A contract appeared on a tablet and he placed it in front of Chika. “Since you’re the one wearing the trousers in the relationship read the terms and conditions of the contract before you. Mind you, the choices are you sign or you’re shot in the head. I hope that aids you in making your decision, “
“Who are you?” Chika asked, hoping to get a clue as to what was going on. Was the the darkness that she was supposed to defeat?”
“I am mr nobody, your handler,” He responded with a sinister smile.

Chika and Fisayo went to their apartment immediately after the fight was over. He tried his best to cheer her up, but she was not interested one bit. They went inside the apartment, and apart from the sound of the keys hitting the cabinet and the sound of her room door locking, Fisayo did not hear anything from Chika for the next two days.

During that time, Chika lay on her bed, but she was not there. She had traveled to the astral realm to see her parents as she always did whenever she shut her eyes to take a nap.

Locations weren’t fixed in the astral realm, but you could build houses whenever, whatever, or however you wanted.

Her parents welcomed her with open arms, and they smoked and drank together, telling Chika stories that triggered her childhood memories. In the spirit realm, a single piece of information could act as a thread that helped unlock memories from even lifetimes that were not at the surface, and Chika appreciated having those back.

Part of the perks of having no parents in the real world meant that no one was available to scold her, so she had an innate sense of freedom and did not need to ask permission from anyone before doing anything. She was about to use her freedom to explore other realms to vanish from their presence when her mom said,

“Chika, there is no need to run. No one is going to flog you, we just want to talk,” she explained. Chika chuckled.

“I was not going anywhere. I am right here,” she answered as she was stopped dead in her tracks, metaphorically speaking.

“It is time for you to meet some people. You might feel their energy, but you have no idea who they actually are,” her father declared.

As soon as the words came from his mouth, the clouds opened, and at least a thousand balls of light began to fall from the sky.

Chika could recognize what the balls of light were the moment she saw them, and from the way information was shared in the astral realm she could already tell that the balls of light that were on the way to her were related to her.

The remaining balls continued to hover around while one of them descended in front of her, and as it landed, it turned into an old man that she somehow recognized as her great-grandfather.

He had long white beards and a bald head, and even if he had a walking stick, he walked around like he did not need it.

“Hello, my child,” he said with a sheepish smile as he scratched his head. “This is a bit awkward for me as I am used to talking to the version of you that has all your memories.”

The confused look on Chika’s face reinforced exactly what he had just said. He conjured up three chairs and a table for everyone to sit down while he sat like a monk in the air, which Chika found a little bit dramatic.

“I don’t remember you,” Chika stated plainly.

“I know, and that is by design,” he responded.

“Whose design?”

“Yours.”

“So I chose not to remember everyone else but my parents?” Chika asked back.

“You remembered our parents because you knew them in the physical realm. When you got here, they were also the only ones that you felt comfortable enough to call on help from,” he said.

Naturally, Chika had a very arrogant personality and anytime someone was being coy with her, she had no issues bringing it out, but something about the man standing in front of her let her know that she was a child and any tantrum that she threw would be addressed with the same level of importance that you would give a two-year-old that broke their toy, and it made any urge that she had to be sparky towards him a waste of time. So she settled for asking him questions instead.

“What is going on?” she asked. “Why do I get the pleasure of meeting the rest of you today?”

“An old enemy returns,” the old man with grey hair she had identified as her grandfather explained.

Chika did not understand what he meant but she could tell by the ominous atmosphere in the air that it was something that bothered everyone, because usually when there is a negative feeling in the air it is immediately transmuted into something beautiful but the feeling lasted more than a minute in the air before it dissipated.

“What enemy?” she asked, clearing the silence.

“It might be hard for you to understand, but as above so below. The way we have enemies on earth, it is the same way in the spirit realm and sometimes those battles slip down into the human realm,” he explained.

Chika’s interest immediately peaked to the highest that it ever has in all her existence. “You were fighting spirits in the human realm?”

“Yes, but not the way that you think. Even the most powerful spirits can’t interfere with the earth directly. There are rules that stop us from doing just that. The only way that we can interfere with human activities is to incarnate on earth directly,”

“I see,” responded Chika.

“And knowing who you are in the spirit realm, they have decided to come mess with you in the physical.” The old man explained sincerely, causing a spike of anxiety from Chika. She had no idea what was going on in the physical realm that had been orchestrated in the spiritual to mess with her.

“Is that why my father died?” Chika found herself asking.

“Yes and no.” The old man explained. “Yes, because that is why he died. And no, because we let it happen because the pain you felt from being alone is part of the reason that you were able to activate your ability to experience the spiritual world.” He paused to let his words sink in more properly. “The longing you felt for family literally broke a barrier in the cosmos that gave you a door to the spirit realm. A door that only you have the keys to, a key that they want now.”

The first impression that Chika got in the spirit realm was that every answer was paradoxical, in the sense that they made multiple meanings, and they were meant to inspire thinking and self-realization. But everything that the old man was saying was beginning to confuse her.

When she first got to the spirit realm, the person who she had spent time with apart from her biological parents on earth was her uncle Oc, he was her mother’s younger brother and very much like her in character, they even had the same big bulging eyes that seemed like they could see into anyone’s soul.

“Don’t worry, I promise to always explain everything to you with simple English. None of that riddle nonsense,” he had promised and kept his word to her. They had trained together, learning ancient Muay Thai stances and working on ways to make her the great fighter that she was.

Chika felt like she needed clarity in this time, so she did what he taught her, she sent out a thought bubble that vanished into thin air, soon another bubble appeared and her uncle stepped through it.

He had the same quizzical look that he always did plastered on his face. “Hey, sweetie,” he said to Chika as she pulled him into a hug.

“Everyone came to tell me about some great destiny that I am supposed to achieve, but you did not come with them,” Chika queried him with daggering looks of rage.

“Yeah, sweetie. I was trying to avoid facing that look.” He responded, pointing at her face.

She responded by folding her hands and looking away in disgust.

“They are saying that I chose to live a life of pain and misery,”

“Your life hasn’t been that way. All you have experienced is loss, which helps us grow,” her uncle explained calmly.

Something about her uncle made her less defensive, so she kept quiet.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked. But no one said anything. They kept looking at her like she was supposed to know the plan already. “If you guys have forgotten, I am not the same person who made those plans with you all, I would need a reminder of what I am supposed to do.”

“You will not like it,” her father responded.

Chika responded with a quizzical look and then he said,

“A time will come when you will be forced to choose between your heart and your purpose. If you choose wrong, you will lose the key forever,” her grandfather said.

“My heart?” she wondered aloud, interrupting her grandfather’s words, but she was ignored.

“We trust that you will make the right decision.” With that, her grandfather and the rest of the ancestors with him vanished, leaving Chika with her parents. Evelyn was the first person to close the distance between them and hold Chika’s hands.

Evelyn and Chika did not have the typical mother-daughter relationship because they did not spend a lot of time as mother and daughter in the physical realm.

They met in the astral realm after Chika lost her father. The first time that they met was kind of weird. They instantly recognized each other, and Chika was greeted with memories of their past lives together.

In the life before this they were also mother and daughter, but in those lifetimes they fought a lot because Chika felt that Evelyn was being overbearing and did not give her any chance to grow on her own, so in this life they decided to remedy that and see if Evelyn being absent would allow Chika to be a more independent soul.

The moment that Chika had set eyes on Evelyn, she was greeted with a wave of emotions and she started crying profusely. This is not uncommon as emotions are information and the moment Evelyn recognized Chika she was greeted with all the information from different past lives they had lived together in a jolt and the tears were a byproduct of processing a large amount of information in an instant.

This situation was a lot like the time that Evelyn and Chika had reunited, Chika needed emotional regulation so she would accept everything that was going on. So she did the best a mother could do in those circumstances.

While alive, Evelyn loved sunflowers, and because of that, anytime she wanted to create a scenery that calmed her, she would create a sunflower garden with petals as soft as pillows, and that she did.

Before anyone could blink they were all lying on a sunflower field in a space that had a pink sun.

“That will never not be amazing,” her father said with a sheepish smile on his face making Evelyn blush.

“Thank you,” she responded.

“While it is nice that I get to see you guys all flirty, even if it’s not in the physical realm it’s still kind of irking me out, so can you stop?” Chika asked.

“Physical pleasures happen only in the physical realm,” her father explained.

“So this enemy you’re trying to warn me about, how would they come and what do I not do?” Chika asked.

“We can’t tell you.” Her mom replied. “We can only give you guidance, and your grandfather couldn’t have summed it up better. You will have to make a choice between your heart and the keys and that’s basically the sum of your journey.”

Seeing that they were not going to be any spoilers, Chika decided that it was the perfect time for her to do her yoga stretches. She first transitioned into a warrior pose, stretching her hands outwards and then arching her hips to help with the stretch.

“There is something that you should know that might help you understand why you have to face these evil spirits that you are going to face.” Evelyn said stopping Chika mid-stretch.

“And what’s that?” Chika responded with her eyes shining with curiosity.

“This isn’t the first lifetime that you have had to fight this evil. In fact it was the reason that you weren’t able to be happy in your previous lifetimes, in others it has even made you end your life a lot early,” Evelyn explained calmly.

Maybe it was because of the other things that her grandfather had said, but hearing this did not surprise her. She had already felt it her whole life, a dark presence that hunted her, that made sure she was never happy for too long, that planted a seed of doubt in her heart whenever it was set on something. A voice that made her hate herself.

“Why always me?” Chika found herself asking.

“To answer that question I would have to go to the beginning, when we first came to the first version of earth to lay the energetic seeds that would become the plants and animals that we see now all around us.” Evelyn paused to see if Chika was still paying attention.

“I’m listening,” Chika said.

“You were amongst the first 9 souls that seeded the earth and you brought in the vibration of Hope. The moment the vibration of hope was born on earth, its opposite was also created, the vibration of despair, and you guys have been at loggerheads since then. You have taken up different vessels and so has it,”

“So this our last dance?” Chika asked.

“Yes,” her mom responded. “This is the lifetime in which you will finally destroy it.” She added with a proud smile on her face.

“But you won’t tell me how this entity would attack this time?”

“No,” they responded in unison making her laugh. Somehow hearing this part of the story made her smile. In her experience there is always a higher story within a story and she was grateful that her parents shared it with her. Now it was obvious to her the amount of sacrifice that the souls who acted as her parents on earth had made in order for her to awaken to this truth.

If they hadn’t been okay being taken off the board by the entity that she was fighting then, Chika would not be awakened.

“There is another reason that you were okay going through all that pain.” Evelyn said, reading Chika’s mind. One of the first lessons that Chika was taught in the astral realm was to always form a barrier to protect her thoughts and anytime she forgot to do it, everyone assumed that her mind was free to access. Luckily for Chika, the only thought that the person reading your mind could access was the exact one that you were thinking, to access all other memories would require consent from the individual who wanted their memories viewed.

“What’s the reason?” Chika asked.

“You have superpowers.” Evelyn responded. “Superpowers that you could not use if you do not integrate your light body. Usually trauma is the best tool to awaken any dormant spiritual gifts or as Gen Z would refer to it, superpowers.”

Chika felt like her mother was joking, so she turned her neck to see what her father’s face would tell her but her father was busy smelling a giant rose, he was floating in the air and paid no mind to the conversation his daughter and wife were having.

“Dad. Mom said I have superpowers,” Chika screamed from startling her father, he squinted his eyes annoyingly.

“Yes, you do.” Then, he returned back to his flowers, making Chika chuckle. Sometimes, she forgot that she was not the only stubborn person in her lineage, she even forgot where she had inherited it from.

“You had to confirm?” her mother said chuckling. “How do you think you were able to win all those fights? Get a sense of what your enemy is going to do before they do it?”

“Is that my superpower? Knowing what’s going to happen before it does?” Chika asked with her eyes bulging out of her eye sockets.

Her mother shook her head in response. “Premonition is a gift everyone has, yours is just heightened because you are in tune with your spirit.”

“You have a unique superpower that no one on the planet has been able to manifest yet, and when you find out what it is, you’ll know why you had to discover it yourself,” Evelyn explained.

Chika chuckled, her mother forgot to put up a mental block and the reason everyone wanted her to discover her powers herself was that they thought it would take away the fun from it. Before Chika could gloat that she had read her mother’s thoughts, she had woken up back on her bed.

Chika loved fighting since she was a kid. Her father would make her go to bed early because he did not want an eight-year-old watching a mixed martial arts fight, but Chika would crawl her way back on her tummy to avoid making any noise and peek out of the bottom corner of the chair to be able to watch the matches with him. Her favorite fighter was Rampage Jackson—she loved that he used to slam his opponents on the floor and dismantle them until their will broke and they had no more doubts they were anywhere near his level.

Chika successfully got away with sneaking to watch MMA fights until she was ten. For some reason, her father’s strides were quicker than she could anticipate, and she was still on the floor before she could dash towards her room. Her father, Mr. Smith, caught up with her and said calmly:

“The ground is very cold. Come and sit down on the chair before you catch a cold.”

Chika sighed in relief. She had dreaded this moment for years, and the fact that he wasn’t pulling on her ears or giving her a scolding meant that she had been bruising her ribs on the floor for years for no reason.

As they sat down and kept on watching the match, Mr. Smith turned and watched as his daughter observed the fighters destroy each other’s noses without a single flinch in her eyes.

“Do you want to try wrestling?” he found himself blurting out, making Chika turn with excitement.

“Can I try boxing too?” she asked. “It looks fun.”

Mr. Smith found himself chuckling. He had accidentally shared his love for fighting with his daughter and didn’t know how to feel about it. On one hand, he was proud. When he found out that his wife died while giving birth to her, he had felt a pang of regret, as he would have rather the only offspring from his dear Anne be a boy. That way, his family line would continue through the child, and by extension, Anne would forever be a part of his family.

Now, Chika was displaying traits that even a boy would not. He had seen grown men run from getting hit, and a ten-year-old was eager to get hit. On the other hand, he didn’t want the best reminder he had of Anne to risk herself in any way.

Regardless of his feelings, Chika was seated beside him with her seatbelt buckled as they drove to the only mixed martial arts gym in the small town of Igodomigodo.

As they drove into the gym parking lot, the first thing she noticed was a skinny boy around her age with long curly hair that covered his forehead, but she didn’t get to say anything to him. Before her dad was done parking, he had gone inside with who she could only assume were his parents.

Mr. Smith walked in with his daughter hand-in-hand and marched to the receptionist with a smile on his face.

“My daughter would like to learn MMA,” he said to the golden-haired boy with a dumb look at the receptionist’s desk.

“And how old is she?” the receptionist wondered aloud.

“Ten,” Mr. Smith responded.

“And would she be okay training with boys? It’s a mixed class. The teacher can’t teach separate classes, as there is only one other girl in her age class,” he explained, locking eyes with Mr. Smith the whole time.

Mr. Smith broke eye contact with the receptionist and crouched. “Would you be okay training with boys?” he asked with a small smile on his face. Mr. Smith was okay with her saying no. He realized at that point that he was pushing it, and MMA could be something that he just watched with his daughter—a way for them to bond in a world where they were the only thing that they had.

But Chika responded with a huge grin and a small jump of excitement, “Yes! Would the boys let me?”

The receptionist jumped in before Mr. Smith could respond. “Of course they would. There is another girl in your class already, and we are expecting more.”

“Then sign her up,” Mr. Smith said, standing up to pick up the sign-in sheet to write down her details and his as well.

Mr. Smith watched another young boy walk past in his gi. That was when he realized that he hadn’t brought one for Chika.

“Do you have any gi on sale?” he asked the receptionist.

“We usually do, but today, we do not. The ones we ordered are getting in tomorrow.”

Chika sat on the edge of the mat, legs bouncing with anticipation. She wore a borrowed white gi that was too big for her, the sleeves hanging past her hands. Her father watched from the small seating area, his eyes soft but alert.

The boy she recognized with his parents in the parking lot sat down beside her. That was when she saw his face properly for the first time—he had big, bright, vibrant eyes and dimples that made him look pretty whenever he smiled.

“I’m Fisayo,” he said with outstretched hands and a warm smile.

“Nice to meet you,” Chika responded.

“How are you finding the gym?” he asked.

“It looks nice,” Chika answered.

“Yeah, I’ve been training MMA since I was five, and this gym’s coach is the best that has trained me. He allows us to go all out in sparring, unlike the other coaches who wouldn’t ever let me fight for real,” Fisayo found himself saying as his eyes shone with excitement. He loved fighting with all his heart and spent his whole kindergarten at home because he was always in fights—and by extension, he was always suspended.

Chika loved that she would get to fight like the men on TV. Her dream was nearly complete—the same dream she repeated to herself since she was a kid watching Rampage Jackson fight on TV. In that dream, she won an international MMA competition and Mr. Rampage was the one who put the belt around her, and her father could not stop smiling.

Her daydreaming felt so real that a smile formed on her lips, but the smile was soon interrupted by Fisayo tapping her on the shoulder and jumping up.

“Coach Stark is here,” he said excitedly. Everyone else seemed to know that the natural response to seeing the coach was to jump up and press both arms firmly at their sides, and Chika simply followed suit.

Coach Stark, a tall man with broad shoulders and a gentle smile, clapped his hands. “Alright, kids! Let’s get started! We’ll warm up first—jumping jacks, let’s go!”

Chika threw herself into the movements, trying to match the older kids who were clearly used to the routine. She counted softly under her breath, her breath coming in excited little gasps. Around her, the boys didn’t seem to care much that she was there—some glanced over with mild curiosity, but no one said a word except Fisayo, who ran over with his usual smile and demeanor.

“When coach asks us to pick partners, remember that you’re mine. Don’t pick anyone else,” he said with a small smile. Before she could respond, he had jumped away. Chika, who had not yet acquainted her laps to the rigor of the task, could not keep up enough to meet up with him.

“Good!” the coach said. “Now let’s stretch out—touch your toes!”

Chika leaned forward, wincing as her muscles protested. She didn’t mind. She was here, on the mat. That was all that mattered.

After stretches, the coach led them through basic grappling drills. Fisayo immediately rushed over and grabbed Chika’s hand and said, “She is my sparring partner.”

His urgency made Coach Stark laugh.

“Okay, we’re going to learn the double leg takedown today,” the coach announced. “I’ll demonstrate.”

He called up two older kids to show the move. Chika watched intently: one kid dropped low, grabbed the other’s legs, and drove forward. The takedown was clean and powerful. She felt her heart race. That was what she wanted to do.

“Alright, partners! One minute—take turns.”

Chika crouched low like she’d seen. Fisayo had a rocky smile on his face. Her partner looked nervous. She lunged forward, but he shifted, and they both stumbled in a clumsy tangle. They hit the mat hard. She felt her ribs thump, but she laughed instead of crying.

“Good effort,” the coach said as he walked by. “Try again, but keep your head up next time. Don’t look down, or you’ll lose your balance.”

She nodded. Again. Again. Each time, she felt her confidence grow. Each time she hit the mat, she got up faster.

When they swapped roles, Fisayo hesitated. “You sure?” he asked.

“Come on!” Chika grinned. “I want to feel what it’s like to fall too!”

He shot in, and she let herself go down, feeling the mat slap against her back. It was a new kind of thrill—being in control of how she fell, how she got back up.

At the end of class, sweat dripped down her face, and her gi was rumpled and dirty. Mr. Smith was waiting with a towel, eyes crinkling in a small smile. She had exceeded all his imagination, and he couldn’t be more proud.

“How was it?” Mr. Smith asked.

Chika wiped her face and beamed. “I want to come back tomorrow.”

That was eight years ago. In that time, Fisayo was Chika’s only training partner and vice versa. Training with Fisayo made Chika more physically dominant than every other girl she came across in the MMA cage, while training with Chika made Fisayo more technically sound than anyone he ever came across. Together they planned their fights and the best strategies to beat each other’s opponents.

One day after training, Coach called Fisayo and Chika into his office for a meeting. His white kimono reflected off the image of him winning a jiujitsu national championship in London.

Fisayo and Chika sat down opposite him calmly. This was the only time that they were ever on their best behaviour—usually they’d be giggling or finding ways to pinch the other’s shoulder or anything else that would bring amusement to them.

“You guys are a far cry from the skinny kids that walked into this gym eight years ago,” Coach Stark said, as if he were responsible for conceiving them.

“Thanks, Coach,” Fisayo responded.

“Now that you’re both 18, I’ve sent your film to the Mixed Martial Arts National Agency in London, to put both of you up for the next competition that’s coming up in three months,” Coach Stark explained with a huge smile on his face. “And you both got in.”

Fisayo had never been someone who was able to contain his excitement—he jumped up and shook Chika. “We are going to London!”

Chika did not like the idea of leaving her father, so she said, “I’m going to turn 18 in two days’ time. Wouldn’t that be a problem?”

“Of course not,” Coach responded. “If you both win this competition, then you’d be able to qualify for the Global Talent Visa in the UK. You’d become citizens and be able to travel the world, fighting in different organisations.”

Chika loved fighting. The idea of her fighting all over the world sent a pulse of excitement through her body. “Would my dad be able to come with me?” she wondered aloud.

“Unfortunately not. You’re over eighteen and so don’t need parental supervision,” Coach Stark responded. “I would be travelling with you guys as a coach though.”

Fisayo, still excited by the prospect, had already begun swinging his arms and jumping around the room. “We are going to have so much fun—travelling the world and destroying everyone’s nose!”

Chika found herself chuckling. Fisayo’s energy had always been contagious to her. They both strolled outside with Fisayo still grinning.

“Now we have to make your birthday party extra special,” Fisayo said. “It’s basically going to be the last birthday that he does with you for a while.”

“We don’t know that. He might not let me go, and even if he does, there’s no guarantee that we will win,” Chika responded.

“Don’t talk like that. You know there’s no one in our weight class that can handle us. They don’t call me the Nose Destroyer for no reason.”

Chika chuckled. She knew he was right. They were going to maul anyone they came across.

“Let me go home and find out my fate,” Chika said as she picked up her gym bag and slung it across her shoulders.

“Before you go, I have something special planned for your birthday. So, on August 19 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.” Fisayo said with a huge grin on his face.
“I will be there,”

Chika was dropped off at the bus station by Fisayo’s mom, then she took a bus and went home. During the bus ride, she wondered the best way to let her dad know that she was going to leave him without breaking his heartand after alot of contemplating she decided that she was going to let Coach Stark tell him.

She got home and opened the door expecting to hear the tv and see him in the living room with his feet hanging on the table, but she was greeted with total silence.
Instead, she noticed that the kitchen window was broken, in her bid to find out what happened she tripped over her fathers limp body.

As she crashed on the floor to wake him up, she felt a cold red liquid on the floor. Chika threw herself on him trying frantically to beat his chest back to life, but to avail. Her fathers body was not moving and no amount of screaming or hitting was making him move.
Drawn to her hyperventilating and screams, her neighbours soon showed up and in no time had shown up as well.
“It looks like a robbery gone wrong,” She overhead one of the police officers saying to his colleague, but she was in a sunken place, nothing anyone was saying or doing around her made was making sense to her. Her dad was gone.
Chika sat down in her assigned room at the O2 arena where she was fighting at the finals of the Iron Teen Mma competition in london at 130pounds, with her legs crossed and her eyes closed as she visualised the spirit of her late parents. She had been initiated into the tradition of Ifá a month after his passing.

After her father died, something switched on in Chika’s brain that she did not know was there. It was almost like she could sense that there was something outerwodly going on around her. She would see light flickers around her and hear clear voices telling her things that came.
Then, she started to have dreams of her parents  giving her instructions on how to talk to them from behind the veil, the instructions included her building an altar to talk to them and feeding them their favorite food to show them love and build up the connection.
After she followed their instructions, she began to see feel their presence more and open up communication channels whenever she wanted to ask any questions. But that was not all she did, before she went into any fighting arena, she would set up a makeshift altar and channel her ancestors who were amazing fighters.
Chika had done this in all her fights and the result was that she demolished her opponents in  the first round. It was like her body went into auto pilot, she would read her opponents feints, leg kicks and measly attempts at a takedown and finish them however she liked.

Now, surrounded by flickering candles and the scent of camphor and palm oil, she prepared to speak across the veil.
She reached into the calabash beside her and drew out opele, her divination chain. With steady breath, she cast it on the white cloth laid out before her. The signs danced into position, and she read them with quiet reverence.
Then she began her incantation:
“Orunmila, hear my voice.
My late father, my father in the spirit world, come and speak.
My ancestors, those who came before me, come and support me.
Strengthen my hands, remove fear from my heart.
Your bones lie in the earth, but your spirits soar above.
Let no sword harm me; let no deceit touch me.
Chukwu the Creator, my personal Chi, align my path and soul.
My father, I honor you. My mother, my heart is in your hands.
Do not abandon your child in the time of battle. Stand with me as I fight in sacred purpose.”
Chika then reached into the calabash beside her and drew out opele, her divination chain. With steady breath, she cast it on the white cloth laid out before her. The signs danced into position, and she read them with quiet reverence.
Then she began her incantation:
“Orunmila mo pe o, Baba mi, mo be o, wa ba mi soro.
Spirits of my blood, ancestors whose bones sleep in the earth,
Stand with me now, as I step into battle.
Let no blade cut deeper than my purpose.
Let no fist carry more weight than my destiny.”

……………………..
Fisayo was waiting for her outside with his back rested on the wall and a hood over his head. He was used to the new Chika as he would label her in his head, the chika who talked to herself and burst out laughing like someone had made the funniest and wittiest joke of all time. The chika who seemed to develop a sudden inner glow even in the most traumatic periods of her life. The weird Chika who even if they lived together barely saw each other because Chika was always in her room meditating.
He was glad that thing that brought them together as friends did not change about her after her father died, Chika still loved fighting.
When the news of her father’s murder had gotten to him, his first worry had been she wouldn’t want to go to London with him for the competition, that her grief would paralyse her and she wouldn’t want to fight anymore.

But, that was the total opposite,  if anything it transformed her into a more vicious fighter and she was knocking everyone out in the first around. And as usual as she got better, so did he.
“What are you thinking about?” Chika asked, interrupting Fisayo’s train of thought.
“You.” He responded as he stood up from the wall. “Your walk in is in ten minutes,” Fisayo added as they both strolled to the front of the tunnel.
“I’m ready,” Chika answered stretching out her hands for him to begin wrapping. Fisayo took her outstretched hands and went to work.
“Aren’t you going to tell me how you’re going to knock her out?” Fisayo probed with a sheepish look on his face making Chika chuckle.
“I feel really happy that i was able to get you to giggle. You’re too serious.” He added. “
Chika felt her heart flutter as held her gaze with the same loving look that he always had, ever since they were kids. He had always made her feel weak in the knees but she had gotten better at hiding it over time. She somehow felt like she was supposed to be alone because everyone around her crossed over.

“Five minutes!” An official came to notify them as Fisayo was almost done wrapping her hands. He nodded back and gave the official a thumbs up at the same time before he said to Chika.
“Your birthday is in three days. You owe me a date and ita time I get it.” Fisayo said with his shoulders relaxed and his chest upright.
“Perfect timing,” She responded, but he wouldn’t back down. “We both know that you’re going to destroy Mariana or whoever it is that you’re fighting. Stop pretending that you’re nervous.”
“Her name is Maurine. And you’re supposed to be my coach. How do you not know the name of the opponent you’ve been training me for the past two months?”
Fisayo chuckled. “Your attempt at changing the topic is pitiful. We both know that I am terrible at names. So, tell me, what’s your answer?”
“It’s wrong for coaches and their fighters to be in relationships,” She responded with a smile.
“But you’re my coach as well.” He responded with a quizical look on his face.
“Exactly,” Chika answered as touched her toe to enable her get a full body stretch. Before Fisayo could muster a response, loud rock music, signifying her entrance music blared through the speakers and then the announcement rang.
………………………….
As Chika walked through the tunnel, the deep bass of her entrance music pulsed through the walls. Every step echoed the rhythm of her heartbeat. She wore a red wrapper around her waist — a sacred cloth tied during her invocation — beneath her standard fight shorts, and tucked into her sports bra was a small piece of kola nut from her altar.

Maurine Rivera stood across the cage, bouncing on her heels with the calm of a snake before a strike. A Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Muay Thai champion, and undefeated in her career like Chika, she was known as The Butcher for the surgical way she dismantled opponents.
Chika stepped into the cage, bowed to each corner, and tapped her chest twice — once for her mother, once for her father.
The bell rang and round one began.

Maurine came forward fast, testing Chika with stiff jabs and a snapping leg kick that echoed like a whip crack across the canvas. Chika absorbed it, but it rattled her bones.
Maurine pressed — clinch, elbows, knees to the ribs. Chika gritted her teeth, trying to feel her ancestors, but her body screamed from the onslaught.
A right hook slipped past her guard and grazed her temple — the first time in the tournament she’d been touched clean.
She stumbled back.
The crowd roared.

Fisayo’s voice cracked through the cage-side noise: “Chika! Breathe! Find the rhythm!”
The first round ended with Maurine having a slight bruise on her cheeks but that was all. Chika strolled to her corner and crashed into the chair provided for her. This was the first time she had to fight a second round in her career, so as she saw the crowd of bodies surround Maurine giving her advice and comfort, it  was the first time she noticed that it looked weird that she only had one person in her corner.
Fisayo poured water over her shoulders. “She’s timing your stance switches. Set a trap. Bait her in,”
Chika responded with a wry smile. “Fighting is getting boring. I think I would retire after this fight. It’s too easy.”
Fisayo didn’t know how to react, from his lens, she was on her way to losing her first fight since her professional debut, but to her the right was too boring that she was considering retiring.

“Let’s finish this fight. We can go for dinner and talk about it,” Fisayo ended up suggesting in a bid to return her focus back to the fight, and it seemed to work because Chika responded by jumping up with a stern look in her eyes.
“You’re right.” She responded. “A spinning back kick to the liver.”
“Let’s go!” Fisayo found himself screaming as he jumped in excitement. His faith in her winning the fight had been restored, one of the reasons he was scared that she was going to lose was that she didn’t make a prediction of how she was going to finish the fight.
His reaction had inadvertently also sent fear down the spine of their opponent and her team as they did not understand why Fisayo was celebrating when Majrrinehad an amazing first round against Chika even after the mistakes that she made.
“I’m still retiring. Don’t be surprised when the speech starts.”
The second round began like a loaded gun—silent, tense, ready to explode.
Chika moved with the grace of a panther now, her feet kissing the canvas like whispers. .
It happened in the first fourty seconds, an opening no wider than a breath.
Tasha’s elbow flared out after a failed cross. Her ribs shimmered like a target drawn in chalk.
Time slowed.
Chika pivoted hard on her front foot, spine coiling like a spring wound by fate. Her heel blurred into motion—a crescent of vengeance. The spinning back kick tore through the air with the sound of slicing silk.
THUD.

Heel met liver.
Tasha’s face collapsed like a building hit from within. Her breath fled. Her knees buckled like old wood under stormwater. She dropped with no scream, no protest—only that universal silence that says: the body has shut down to protect what little fire is left.
The referee dove in.
The crowd didn’t erupt. It gasped.
And Chika stood there, chest rising, not in celebration—but in ritual. She bowed slightly, whispering under her breath in her father’s tongue.
The war was over.
And it ended in a circle drawn by her heel.

Fisayo jumped into the cage screaming like a girl with his hands flapping around, making Chika chuckle. He always found a new way to embarass her especially on days she wanted to be serious. She had decided to retire from fighting two fights ago when she realised that it was too easy, she was no longer getting the same amount of stimulation that she did while she was a kid.

Soon, the area was cleared and it was time for Chika to be announced as the winner of the fight.
She stepped up to the middle of the ring with a small smile on her face. “Ever since my father died i have not really loved fighting as much, its become boring. I could have won today in the first round but I wanted to see if she would be able to challenge me further so I didn’t go for the knock out early, but like everyone else she is a disappointment.”

Chika struggled to hide his laughter, Fisayo was beign crazy and he loved it. He was low-key tired of her always acting like she was the best behaved person on the planet.
“Basically, im retiring.” She announced dropping the mic on the floor and walking away. Fisayo strolled behind her smirking and waving at the crowd.  Chika was the baddest woman in the world and he was her only friend, he felt special.