The last song of the ancestors

The Neo Axis team was going to fight. Their presence caused annoyance and booing from the crowd. It was an 'exotic' group.

The Greco-Roman wrestler César VXII wore a knitted jumpsuit in the colors of the Roman Empire. On the chest of the jumpsuit, there was the print VIXI in gold letters in a flashy font, which in Roman means 'I have lived'. It was an anagram of the Roman numeral. It was used as an epitaph on many tombstones.

The number seventeen in Italy became an unlucky number, so the Italian wrestler adopted it to intimidate his opponents. It was a poetic way of saying that he would be the tombstone that would bury their dreams. It reinforced his violent character, a fighter who cared more about promoting violence against his opponent than fighting. He had been excluded from the Olympics for killing an opponent.

His face was coarse, with an angular chin and hollow eyes. His red hair covered his face like a mane of curly strands. His thick eyebrows seemed to swallow up part of his forehead. As a reference to the Roman Empire, he wore a laurel wreath.

He was selected to take the stage in the Great Arena. The opposing team's manager had selected Ethiopian Tsehai Habtamu, a Donga expert. The slender woman, with curly, dark and full hair, was tied up in a brown bandana with jewels and seed necklaces.

She was wearing the traditional dress of the women of the Omo Valley. On her arms and legs, she wore a shield of interwoven threads. With both hands, she wielded the Donga stick. The weapon, carved out of wood, is a flexible stick measuring around one meter eighty.

Seeing his opponent, César rotated his right arm as if preparing to attack. Tsehai kept his guard up.

"I was expecting a real fighter, not a savage with a wand in her hand. What are you going to do, rustle cattle? Huohuohuohuo."

"I'm going to tangle him back into the old boot he should never have left. The history of fighting between Italians and Ethiopians is bad for you. It's going to be three-nil today."

"You bitch!"

The fighter advanced against the Ethiopian. She didn't panic, she waited until the last minute and dodged his grip. To brake her body, he spread both hands and slammed them into the wall.

Plash! She gave him a hard backhand. The sound of the slap echoed through the air. A second blow was delivered, this time aimed at his head. César turned around. He managed to catch the end of the stick with one hand and tried to lift it upwards with the other. However, the stick was flexible. He dragged it towards himself, but Tsehai held the tug-of-war.

"Let go! You don't know how to use it."

She turned the stick. Caesar VXII's hands trembled. He was forced to drop the staff. Tsehai backed away. She knew how disadvantageous it was for her to fight a fighter who specialized in immobilizations.

César XVII felt the ropes burn to the point of tears coming to his eyes. He hit his chest with his fists closed. He ran towards the Ethiopian fighter. The attack was in vain. The woman was much faster and more agile than the big man. She slammed her staff into both of his knees. The fighter felt the damage to his joints. He tumbled across the ring and hit his head on the opposite wall. He struggled like an animal.

The fighter didn't let his guard down. She kept her stick up. She was an experienced fighter. Tsehai had been a fighting instructor in the Ethiopian Armed Forces. She had deserted after one of the many civil wars that had devastated her country. She refused to teach Donga so that her compatriots could kill each other. In the tournament, she was looking for enough money to start her life again.

Her mastery of the martial art was legendary. For many, it had ceased to exist in the country when it was banned by law in 1994. But Donga's disputes continued among the Surma people in the Omo Valley.

The Ethiopian government, unable to put an end to the practice, ended up allowing traditional fighting, as long as the Surma shared their knowledge with the state. Martial arts scholars systematized Donga and included it in the training of the Ethiopian military.

The Donga aimed to hit the opponent's sides with successive, quick and powerful blows with a stick. Those aimed at the head could be lethal.

Tsehai had a tactic: to tire out the enemy by hitting him in the joints and back, and then strike a blow with all his might to the opponent's head. The more fiddling he did, the more painful the fight would be.

"Huohuohuo, I didn't expect a filth like you to waste so much of my time."

"Come on, I haven't got all day."

The fighter got up from the ground. He wiped the blood dripping from his forehead. He broke into a wild, clumsy run. He leaned forward and tucked his head under both hands. Like a projectile, she sprinted towards her opponent.

The Ethiopian threw a flurry of blows at the big man. That didn't stop him from attacking. Tsehai had no time to retreat. César charged in with a single-leg takedown. He rested his left knee on the ground, the thigh muscles of his right leg straight. The instep of his right foot rested on the floor of the ring. Her left arm went behind her opponent's leg, and her right hand locked her knee like a wrench.

The woman hit him several times with the stick, but he no longer felt the pain. He was too excited by the success of his attack. Tsehai jumped with her leg free, but was knocked to the ground. The big man jumped on top of her. The Ethiopian tried to get away, but couldn't. With her back pressed to the ground, she was immobilized by his weight.

He locked her neck with an armlock. Her opponent began to suffocate, she wouldn't let go of the stick. She raised it in the air and tried to strike, but she didn't have the strength. Her breathing became choppy. Her cheeks inflated to fill with air, but her airways remained compressed.

Tsehai struggled. As life left her, she saw her former pupils killed in battle around her. Tears flowed from her eyes. Each of them carried their Donga staff. They sang the battle hymns and waved them in the air. When they banged their sticks on the floor, a 'cracking' sound echoed through the air. She joined them in the afterlife.

Victory was declared for the Greco-Roman wrestler. Caesar XVII raised the corpse in the air as if it were a trophy. He noticed that the crowd was booing him. This wounded him to the core of his vanity.

"Ah! Savages, you don't know what real martial arts is. Take your trash back."

Threw Tsehai towards the stands. Before her body hit anyone, Ali Omar Khalid caught her in mid-air. César XVII turned around and made a gesture of contempt. The man set Tsehai's corpse down near the medical team. He walked without any hurry. He climbed into the ring, it was his turn to fight Tora-Tora.