The next stage of the competition was the agility course, an event designed, according to the glossy welcome packet, to "celebrate the feline's innate grace, dynamic power, and intuitive problem-solving abilities." Kenji, watching from the wings as the first few contestants took their turns, concluded that it was primarily designed to celebrate the owner's ability to bribe their pet with a feather wand and a series of increasingly desperate clicking sounds.
The course itself was a masterpiece of suburban craft-store absurdity. There were miniature tunnels painted with cheerful floral patterns, a seesaw no wider than a ruler, a series of brightly-colored hoops to be leaped through, and a final, triumphant climb up a small, carpeted A-frame. It was a battlefield of twee, a monument to the domestication of a once-proud predator.
Kenji watched as Le Pinceau took the stage with his champion Persian, a magnificent white creature named 'Flocon de Neige' (Snowflake). The cat moved with a liquid, silent grace that was both beautiful and deeply unsettling. Le Pinceau did not use a wand or clicking sounds. He simply stood at the edge of the course and gave a series of minute, almost imperceptible gestures with his silver comb.
Flocon de Neige executed the course with a terrifying, robotic perfection. It flowed through the tunnel without touching the sides. It navigated the seesaw with the perfect balance of a brain surgeon. It leaped through the hoops in a single, elegant arc. Its movements were flawless, efficient, and utterly devoid of any joy or spontaneity. It was not a cat playing; it was an organic machine executing a program. The crowd, particularly the judges, were in raptures, awarding it a perfect score for its "breathtaking technical precision."
Le Pinceau gave a stiff, almost contemptuous bow, scooped up his perfect, soulless cat, and glided off the stage. As he passed Kenji, he shot him a look of pure, unadulterated disdain, a silent challenge that said, "Follow that, you chaotic fraud."
Kenji felt a fresh wave of nausea. His "cat" did not do agility. His "cat"'s primary form of agility was moving from a horizontal sleeping position to a slightly different horizontal sleeping position.
"And now," the announcer's cheerful voice boomed, "let's welcome back to the stage the breakout star of our temperament trials, the magnificent Caesar, with his handler, Takahashi-san!"
A polite, intrigued applause rippled through the audience. It was time. Kenji, his face a mask of what he hoped looked like profound, artistic focus, walked onto the stage, the leash in his hand feeling as heavy as a battleship anchor. Reika led Caesar to the starting line. The lion, who had been enjoying a nap backstage, looked at the series of brightly-colored obstacles with an expression of profound, almost regal boredom.
Okay, big guy, Kenji thought, his internal monologue a frantic, desperate prayer. Just… just walk. Don't eat the tunnel. Don't treat the seesaw as a chew toy. And please, for the love of all that is holy, do not decide that the nice lady judge in the front row looks like a gazelle. Just a simple, dignified, majestic walk. We can spin that. We can work with a walk.
The starting bell chimed. Kenji gave the leash a gentle, symbolic tug, a gesture he knew was utterly meaningless. "Okay, Caesar," he whispered. "Agility time."
Caesar lifted his massive head, blinked slowly, and looked at the first obstacle: the cheerful, floral-patterned tunnel. It was, perhaps, three feet in diameter. Caesar was, conservatively, four feet high at the shoulder. He looked at the tunnel. He looked back at Kenji. He then looked at Reika, who gave a quiet, almost imperceptible shake of her head. The message was clear: Going around is not an option. You must engage with the art form.
With a sigh that seemed to emanate from the very core of the earth, Caesar stood up. He did not, however, try to crawl through the tunnel. That would have been absurd. Instead, he simply walked over it. His first massive paw descended on the flimsy fabric-and-wire structure, which collapsed with a sad, crunching sound, becoming a flattened, floral-patterned speed bump under his majestic tread. He continued forward, not with the zippy energy of an agile cat, but with the slow, inexorable momentum of a glacier.
The crowd was silent, utterly bewildered. This was not in the rulebook.
The next obstacle was the seesaw. Caesar paused before it, sniffing the narrow plank with deep suspicion. He placed one paw on the end. The other end shot up into the air with a violent clatter, nearly decapitating a nearby camera operator. Deciding this strange, moving plank was unworthy of his attention, he simply stepped over it, his back foot clipping the high end and sending the entire apparatus spinning off the platform.
"A fascinating strategy from Caesar!" Sato's voice cut through the stunned silence, her tone one of intense, scholarly excitement. "He is not engaging with the obstacles on their own terms! He is questioning their very validity! The tunnel, he says, is a false passage, a limitation on an animal of his stature! The seesaw, a symbol of manufactured and meaningless balance! This isn't a failure to run the course, ladies and gentlemen; this is a powerful, deconstructionist critique of the course itself!"
The judges, who had been staring with open mouths, began to nod slowly, as if Sato's explanation had unlocked a new, higher level of understanding. They started scribbling notes, their expressions shifting from confusion to profound admiration.
Caesar reached the series of brightly-colored hoops. He did not leap through them. He walked through the first one, taking the entire flimsy plastic stand with him. It hung around his thick neck for a moment like a ridiculous, oversized necklace before shattering. He ignored the others, choosing instead to detour around them in a wide, deliberate arc.
He's off-roading, Kenji thought, a wave of hysterical laughter bubbling in his chest. The most majestic creature I've ever seen, and he's treating their sacred agility course like a mild inconvenience on his way to a nap.
"He rejects the arbitrary path!" Sato's voice narrated, her commentary now a full-blown piece of art criticism. "He is forging his own path, telling us that true agility is not about following the prescribed route, but about having the courage to find your own! This is a lesson in independence, in the untamable spirit of the true feline!"
Le Pinceau, watching from the wings, looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. His face was a thunderous shade of crimson, and his hands were gripping his silver comb so tightly Kenji was surprised it didn't snap in two.
The final obstacle was the A-frame, a small, carpeted mountain that was meant to be the triumphant summit of the course. Caesar approached it, gave it a disdainful sniff, and then, instead of climbing it, he simply walked around to the far side of the platform and lay down in a patch of warm light from one of the spotlights, effectively using the A-frame's shadow as a sunshade. He closed his eyes and, with another ground-shaking snore, promptly fell asleep. The course was not completed. It was conquered. It had been so thoroughly disregarded that it ceased to have any meaning.
The arena was silent for a beat, and then it erupted. The applause was thunderous, not just from the crowd, but from the judges themselves, who were on their feet, clapping with the fervent energy of new converts.
"I've never seen anything like it!" the lead judge exclaimed to her colleague, her voice picked up by a nearby microphone. "He has completely redefined the very concept of agility! It's not about speed! It's about purpose! His purpose was to find a comfortable place to nap! An absolute triumph of self-actualization!"
"He gets a perfect score from me!" another judge declared. "For what? I don't know! For authenticity! For courage! For being so profoundly, unapologetically himself!"
As Kenji and Reika gently coaxed the massive, sleepy lion off the stage, a new set of scores flashed on the giant screen. Le Pinceau's cat had received a perfect 10 for technical skill. Caesar had received a perfect 10 for "Artistic Interpretation and Philosophical Courage." In the strange, beautiful, and utterly insane world of competitive cat grooming, they had tied.
The B-Team, filming from the sidelines, captured the entire glorious disaster. Haruto was laughing so hard he was crying. Miyuki had a small, serene smile on her face, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. And Ricco, watching Kenji on the stage, saw not a fraud, but a man who could command a lion and an entire arena through sheer, unpredictable force of will. He saw a different kind of master, and it was giving him a new kind of courage.
As Kenji exited the stage, he came face-to-face with Le Pinceau, who was standing there, his face pale, his knuckles white around his silver comb. The two men just stared at each other for a long moment, a silent, tense exchange. They were enemies, rivals, but in that moment, they were the only two people on the planet who understood the profound, earth-shattering absurdity of what had just happened.
Le Pinceau opened his mouth as if to speak, to scream, to finally unleash the torrent of rational fury that was boiling inside him. But no words came out. He just shook his head, a single, sharp, defeated gesture, and stalked away, a lone soldier of sanity in a world that had joyfully embraced the madness. Kenji watched him go, feeling a strange, unfamiliar pang of pity. It was lonely being the only other person who knew the truth.