Natalia. He prayed silently to Christ that she was still alive.

He opened the door to the warehouse and there they were, crouched in ink black uniforms amongst the shadows, the steel crests and mouthpieces of their masks glinting in the moonlight. Without word or warning, the nearest of the ninjas ran silently across the floor, seeming to float rather than jump into the air and melting into a kick aimed at KnightMask's head. KnightMask exploded off the ground, the power of his steel-corded muscles carrying him higher than his attacker. He twisted over the ninja mid-air and locked his steely arms about the black clothed warrior's waist, smashing him to the ground with a savage crunch as he landed.

Two rushed forward, one lagging slightly. KnightMask blasted into the first ninja. Powerful brown arms ripped the black clothed warrior's legs out from beneath him. Briefly KnightMask held him aloft before bringing him down with sledgehammer force. Letting the momentum of slam carry him, he brought his legs forward like a released catapult into the next attacker, his legs smashing him in the face and sending him sprawling across the floor.

Then one was coming at him with a flying knee. KnightMask fell back with the attack as a shadow from the light, so that the blow just missed. As he fell, he threw up his powerful legs to snake around his assailant's thigh and knee while he caught the man's foot with his hands. A swift torque yielded a cry of agonized pain that echoed through the building, the first sound to come from the ninjas. In the time it takes to describe, the whole sequence could have repeated itself several times over.

A dozen more seemed to pour from the shadows, swarming over KnightMask in a black wave. They were many to his one, but his iron sinews and cobra speed were coordinated by instincts honed over a lifetime. And so the many gave way to a whirlwind of slams, throws and locks until the masked wrestler finally stood alone over a pile of motionless bodies.

There was nothing triumphant in his aspect, however, even though his enemies lay beaten. There was no catharsis, no satisfaction for the man who normally found solace in combat. He had but a single thought, repeating over and over. A mallet pounding in his brain.

Natalia.

A name wrapped up in an image of black, silken hair swirling like mist about a soft, golden hued face and thin almond slits from which brown, crystalline eyes looking out at him.

He moved toward the staircase across the room, when a shocking tableau burst upon his vision. Two figures awaited him. One was Jorge Rodrigo, the man he'd defeated and injured in the finals of the submission-wrestling world championships. And in Jorge's arms, held fast with a choke-hold, was his daughter, Natalia.

Jorge, an esteemed Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioner, had become a pariah after being defeated by KnightMask, himself trained in Japanese catch-as-catch-can and seen by many as a clown unworthy of respect due to the mask he wore. Some speculated that the injury he endured in the contest also made him unable to continue competing. Others speculated, wrongly, that Jorge had been in collusion with KnightMask to throw the fight. Things got bad enough that Jorge and Natalia's life became endangered.

KnightMask, feeling guilt over the ruination of Jorge's once promising career, entered the XWF in order to provide for Jorge and Natalia, the latter whom he'd known most of his life. And yet now he saw it was Jorge who held Natalia hostage. He was the one who'd brought him hear and sent the ninjas after him.

"Alright...alright...I wanted to make sure."

"Make sure of what, Jorge...? You said you'd let her go if I came. Here I am. She's your daughter, man, for God's sake. Let her go."

"I wanted to make sure that my little motivational spur had worked...so that I know I was going to get the KnightMask I wanted...not the softy I saw get knocked around by World 1-International, Arnaud Chevailler, Agony...and most recently, the Iron Valkyries. I don't want to fight the self-righteous wannabe superhero who plays nice and tries to be everyone's friend."

"What are you talking about, Jorge...?"

"They say some knights never really show what they're made of unless they've got the right fair lady watching the joust. But I like what I saw."

Jorge pushed Natalia to the ground, where KnightMask saw that her hands and legs were bound up with wire.

"We're having a rematch, right now masked man. You want her to live? Take me down. Because if you don't, if you fail to defeat me...I'm going to kill her."

Suddenly Jorge's eyes were ablaze, raging with the burning fires of battle rage. It was a fire well familiar to KnightMask, so that when he saw it he knew that he could no longer talk to Jorge anymore than he might reason with a rabid wolf.

And yet, KnightMask was stoked by his own fires as well and the flames were now burning fiercest of all at the sight of Natalia prone and helpless upon the floor. And so the masked wrestler shot through the air, aiming for a leg-scissors on Jorge but succeeding only partially, so that as they fell to the ground KnightMask was still groping to secure a leg-submission while Jorge fought to impose his weight on him. Thus began what KnightMask realized instantly was a life and death struggle.

They wrestled for what seemed an eternity, the two men with nerves and sinews of fire and steel. It was age against youth, experience against tenacity. One style defined by patient positioning and opportunism, the other by sudden, dynamic seizures of holds and continuous chains of attacks. The approaches, had they existed in a single man, would have made for perhaps the most complete submission grappler ever seen.

KnightMask was a whirlwind of submission attempts, Jorge an impenetrable defender. Each attack by KnightMask lead to another either by virtue of skill and strategy and when that failed his strength, speed and agility created a bridge between assaults that otherwise could not have been connected together, twining seemingly disparate holds together in an awesome chain of unceasing attack.

And yet, bit by bit, KnightMask's attacks began to slow even as Jorge's counter-attacks grew more difficult to escape until finally KnightMask fell back for a leg-lock too slow and sloppily, so that Jorge was able to fend off his legs as they attempted to wrap serpent-like about his own leg and instead pin himself atop the masked man. KnightMask fought to escape, only for Jorge to slip behind him, locking his legs about his torso while seeking to seize his throat in a rear naked choke.

KnightMask glanced over to Natalia, the one whose life was held at stake by the outcome of his contest. The red light of dawn had slipped in through the cracks of the warehouse, touching the walls with crimson fire and illuminating the horror in her thin eyes. Somehow, her hair seemed to fall over shoulders and back like the black hood that in medieval times was thrust over the face of those about to be executed.

Jorge had finally sunk in the choke. His execution was perfect and KnightMask's immediately felt his consciousness ebb away. A desperate gamble played out in KnightMask's fading mind. Releasing his hands from Jorge's arms, he allowed him free rein to pressure in his choke, while he reached down for one of the Brazilian's legs, gripping his toes in his hands while digging into the inside of his knee with his elbow. Desperately, he torqued the the foot up towards his chest, putting all his fast-fading might into one violent wrench.

He heard a loud snap.

Jorge's leg was broken, and yet he still didn't relinquish the hold. And yet, with one leg out of play, KnightMask was no longer helpless before it. He rolled backward, over Jorge's body, relieving the pressure of the choke and spinning to a short-arm scissor.

"Come on kid, break it. Finish the move! Don't you have it in you? You're going to have to keep breaking my bones, one after the other...! And after that...I still won't stop....you're going to have to kill me...! You've already taken everything else from me! So kill me!"

KnightMask suddenly let his grip go slack and stood up. His adrenaline had left him and once again he could feel the pain in his injured knee stabbing into him.

"Come on, damn you! You think I want to live in the shadow of my defeat to you forever? You think I want to live off of your charity while you fight in the XWF like some pathetic invalid....?"

"So that's what this was all about....? You wanted me to kill you...? So that you'd die in combat....?"

"I'm already dying, idiot. I injected myself with a poison that would run its course in exactly 24 hours. My name has been destroyed, the way you left my ankle...it wouldn't have stood up to the abuse of grappling competition for even another year. Without competition, without honor, what life is there?"

"I don't get it...Sakuraba, Tamura, Ad Santel...Pequeno Nogueira...Euclides Hatem...Funaki...Suzuki....Rumina Sato...plenty of jiu jitsu guys have been beaten by catch-wrestlers...heck, Sanae Kikuta won the whole ADCC long before me and more impressively than me...they didn't end their lives! They absorbed the techniques that defeated, incorporated into what they did, learned counters and came back stronger...physically, mentally and spiritually!"

"You think this is merely about catch-wrestling versus Brazilian jiu jitsu? You think this is about a mere sport...? Yukio Koga didn't merely pass his knowledge of jujutsu on to my grandfather...but assassin's art of ninjitsu...! For decades my family carried on both aspects of the Koga lineage...both publicly, as a respected Brazilian jiu jitsu institution, and privately, as practitioners of the shadow art. Our lineage cannot suffer such a stain..."

"Jorge...even now, with a busted up ankle…I can barely beat you…!"

"Not the defeat! The stain is me! Or rather, it would be me, should have chosen to accept your charity and go on living dishonored and emasculated…and ascenting to living underneath the shadow of my defeat to you...such a life is unacceptable! And once my ankle finally gives way…I would have no hope of regaining the honor I lost…"

“Funaki said that fighting wasn’t about winning…it was about being stronger than you were. The honor that can’t tolerate defeat is the wrong one, man...there’s no shame in losing...learning to endure defeat is part of what makes us strong, isn’t it?”

“Living in the shadow of failure…when your entire clan and familial honor rides on your success…is cowardice! There is no strength to be gained from such a craven existence!”

“Your life is worth more than that…it was infused with more value than we can Jorge…you’re a grappling encyclopedia…a lot of people…me included, could learn so much from you…”

“You’ve already taken enough from me, KnightMask. There’s only one thing you can give me now…!”

Jorge managed to stand, his broken leg training his body like a beast’s tail as he hopped towards KnightMask. Then, KnightMask saw that Natalia was also standing, freed from her bonds. Bonds that, the masked wrestler realized, were never truly binding her in the first place. A grim realization dawned on him then, that she had been a willing prop in all this. She was simply there to ensure that he gave her father the best fight possible.

Jorge lunged for him, his hands groping desperately for KnightMask’s throat. All his skill was now submerged as he came at his enemy with a demonic, berserk rage. KnightMask, somehow sensing that it would be the greater compassion to answer his assault, gave back at him, meeting his charge and bowling him over. This time, as they twisted and rolled on the ground, it was not as two master grapplers, but rather as two wolves, one older and injured, the other young and vital. What sense alerted him that Jorge was now entering his death throes as they struggled savage against one another, KnightMask did not seek to know or understand. He simply accepted it and struggled ever more earnestly, to give the dying man his final wish. Then Jorge’s body became limp in his arms, as life finally went out from him.

“You did not kill him, KnightMask. He injected the poison into himself so that it would run its course while he fought with you, so as to ensure that, win or lose, he died in combat.”

“And what about you, Natalia?”

“You can no longer use my father and I as an excuse for your participation in the XWF. Perhaps you will finally have to face the fact that this superhero ideal you have attempted to realize belongs to a child's comic-book...you fight because you lust for combat. It was never for any other reason. Next time we meet, KnightMask…it will be as enemies. You have been warned. You gave my father a proper death and I thank you for that…but now the honor of the Nadashinkage lies on my shoulders. And their honor lies in your death!”