Sweat and Blood

For Artemio it had never been about winning, it had always been about surviving. He didn't know if he could beat Mudiwa Kachote in a fair fight, in fact, he doubted he could, but it didn't matter because he could survive a fight with Mudiwa. It was hard-wired into him. For Chichi it had always been about winning, and Chichi always won. Chichi knew she would win against Artemio, he was just a fighter, she was Multan itself. It didn't matter if Mudiwa was or wasn't a better fighter than Artemio, by the time Artemio got into the cage, he would be in no condition to fight Mudiwa.

Yousaf's perspective was different, he hadn't been a winner in more than a decade. He had a good gig and made a lot of money working for Chichi, but those weren't his wins, they were losses. Chichi had once been a competitor and had screwed him over when he proposed they jointly form a fighting league in Multan. He was from Multan and knew the revolutionaries would ban the fighting leagues if they won the war. Every win she had was ashes in his mouth.