Sunday morning, Tokyo Budokan.
Outside the Budokan, the crowds had gathered even earlier than the day before, surging even more fiercely, the air filled with a nearly boiling heat.
Young people in Fatal Fury character T-shirts could be seen everywhere, irrepressible excitement shining on their faces.
Beside the broadcast trucks of the major media outlets, reporters had already set up their long lenses and heavy cameras, waiting with grave expressions.
Among the lines of spectators, discussion and predictions about the coming quarterfinal matchups rose and fell one after another, rolling like heat waves.
At the same time, in that seaside town in Aomori.
Daigo Umehara had, for once, gotten up at the crack of dawn, just as sunlight had barely climbed onto the window lattice.
With an almost sacred sense of mission, he went door to door, knocking on his friends' front doors.
Several children, their eyes still bleary with sleep, were forcibly dragged out of their blankets by him. Fortunately, the other people in his friends' homes had all gone out to the fields; otherwise, Daigo might well have had to go home and take the blame.
Carrying all kinds of snacks they had secretly scrounged from home—crispy noodle snacks, ramune, chocolate bars—they marched in grand procession toward the electronics shop on the corner.
The electronics shop owner seemed especially merciful today as well. He had moved the big television to the entrance early on, and had even specially adjusted the antenna's direction to make the picture a little more stable.
The heroic sight on TV yesterday of that high school big brother, Bai Ye, taking down three opponents in a row, as well as the commentator's line, "Tomorrow, Japan's strongest fighter will be decided," had been branded into their young hearts like a hot iron.
"Hey, who do