Post by Vanga on Jun 22, 2008 4:07:15 GMT -5
The scorching sand was sent lazily skittering across the desert grounds by a warm breeze. The sun placed high overhead beat down heavily on the expanse of barren wasteland. Few beings seemed interested in the prospect of attempting to colonize or traverse the length of this particular burning landscape, life forms were certainly in short supply if one were searching for them. However, there was one person traversing the empty sands and in the process seeming to shrug off the heat as if it were nothing. Tall and imposing, he wore dark red pants with flame designs around the ankles. His muscular chest and arms were bare, save for a sleeveless brown leather vest seeming to struggle simply to stay pulled over his shoulders and without chance of closing in the front. Goggles were resting on top of his head, nestled in dark brown locks being played with softly by the desert winds.
Boots grinding into the grains of the wasteland under his feet, he trudged on diligently but without a particular traveling goal set in mind. For the umpteenth time, he wondered how he had gotten here and why he’d have started walking this barren landscape without a clue as to where he was, grumbling in his mind but not letting any of it leak out onto his rigid and disciplined exterior. It was a rhetorical question, anyways, as he knew precisely how he had gotten here. It started with that voice on his cell phone and ending with that talking train dumping his ass onto a platform in the middle of this whole mess. As he walked, events from earlier that day began to play through his mind as he irritably considered what would have led him to listen to that stupid voice in the first place.
~~~~~
~Earlier That Day~
“He’s the goliath of the modern age! Over the last few months he’s been tearing through the competition and no one whose stepped into the ring with him has stepped out alive, lets hear it for Kyojin!”
The announcer stepped aside for the colossus of a human being as he strutted around the arena grounds, roaring into the stands. He had to be standing over nine feet in height, a towering monster in human form. Muscles bulged and long, stringy black hair half concealed the brutish features of his face. He lived it up for the audience as his fans cheered him on and his dissenters voiced their distaste with harassments. He seemed to almost crave the attention, seemed to love the fact that people wanted him to draw blood from another person. He’d probably be living the same life, minus the cheering, if he hadn’t made it into this underground Yakuza fighting circuit, but fortunately for him someone recognized his thuggish potential. Now he was able to live the life of a hero rather than a criminal.
“And now the one you’ve all been waiting for! He’s the demon of the ring, the undefeated champion of the underground fighting circuit, welcome in Akuma Tsuyosa!”
If the noise had been thunderous before, it was beyond deafening at this point. Everyone in the audience and wherever else this was being broadcast to through backwater channels knew the name of the man who’d never lost a single match since his earliest rookie-year fights. The man who, despite the dangers of the ring, had never killed a single opponent, but always left them down for the count. He was applauded by some who enjoyed his dominating strength and the excitement and shock it often brought to the mention, others hated him for not sinking to the level of the other competitors and giving them the blood and pain they thirsted for. The man who never seemed to give a damn about the fans in the first place as he started to approach the ring.
Akuma Tsuyosa’s advance was much more subdued then his opponent’s. He had never been interested in giving a show for the crowd, to please the ring’s spectators and operators, he just wanted to fight. As he strolled forward, he considered his opponent. He pitied Kyojin for his amateurish ways. The man was obviously a lucky fool who had made it all this way on his raw power alone. It wasn’t often that Akuma could say he had to look up at someone, being a towering and imposing figure himself, but this just happened to be one of those times as he stepped into the arena. It didn’t intimidate him in the slightest, though, because all the man had was his size. The outcome of this match was already assured.
The announcer quickly escorted himself out of the ring, because it wasn’t looking like the muscle-brained Kyojin was going to be able to wait any longer. Restraint didn’t seem to be in the dim-witted beast’s vocabulary. As soon as he was clear, the announcer gave the clear for the fight to commence. Akuma’s opponent wasted no time in getting to the main attraction, as with a wide, savage grin he came in charging, his hands outstretched, preparing to tackle his opponent with all of his weight before tearing him to shreds. Akuma stared him down the whole way with intense, piercing eyes, never budging from the position he’d taken since before the start of the fight. He waited for his opponent to come to him, all the while feeling that he’d be ashamed if this took even one second longer then it had to.
Rearing back a fist at the last second, Akuma leaned in, ducking through the outstretched arms in one fluid motion, and thrust out a powerful punch to the man’s lower abdomen at the last possible moment before he would have been trampled. It stopped the giant man dead in his tracks, the overwhelming strength of his smaller opponent not only knocking the wind out of him but likely breaking multiple ribs in the process, practically confirmed by the loud cracking sounds that flooded the arena. The audience which had been cheering during the whole moment of Kyojin’s charge now fell deathly silent. Stepping out from under the colossus, Akuma let him fall flat to the stage floor, completely knocked out. Without waiting for any form of response, the fighting champion began to walk off stage, only after reaching the exit to the far wall did he hear the voice of the recovering announcer follow him and officially announce his victory.
_____
When he returned to his apartment in the well-to-do sector of Shibuya, Japan, there were already dozens of messages on his recording machine, all from management staff involved with the fighting circuit. A couple were congratulations, but most were messages of anger that he would end the fight so immediately. What they had spent weeks publicizing he had ended in seconds. He turned on his cell phone which had been off since he began preparing for his fight that day and found that it was filled with a number of similar messages. He tossed it to the bed without a second glance. It was their own damn faults that the match had had such a quick outcome. The fight had been a disgusting excuse for competition in Akuma’s eyes and he didn’t care if it made them look bad to throw him into a ring with such a weakling. If they wanted good matches out of him then they should find him good challengers to face.
Lately, he had been growing tired of the fighting ring. His thirst for the fight and the adrenaline spike that came with it hadn’t diminished at all, but the quality of the arena contestants was starting to drop. That or else he was becoming too strong to get any real challenge out of that world anymore. But if he couldn’t find a decent fight there he wondered if he could find it anywhere. The Yakuza-run underground fighting circuit was the most intense and dangerous fighting scene in the entire nation of Japan, if he couldn’t satisfy his desire for combating against strong opponents there, where could he?
The cell phone on his bed gave off a loud ring to cut through his brooding thoughts. As he snatched up the phone, expecting another complaint call, he noticed that it was actually a text message without a name for the sender. Everyone involved with running the fighting circuit would want to tell him off in conversation, not letter, he wondered what this could be. Deciding to accept the message, he almost dropped it when an audio file seemingly attached to the message went off at a volume the phone couldn’t normally reach, so that he didn’t even have to bring it to his ear to listen.
“Akuma Tsuyosa,” the female voice announced, “It’s time to decide your future.”
“Hmm?” the fighter listened, not amused, “What kind of crock is this?”
“This is not a fraud, Akuma.” The voice continued, “Your destiny is calling.”
“Destiny,” Akuma scoffed, “Yeah, right.” His thumb moved for the end button.
“You have a lion’s spirit buried deep inside your heart.” the voice went on, speeding up as if knowing he was about to cut off the transmission and wanting to get out what she had to say before he could, “You’ll never unlock your true potential with what you’re doing now. Listen and you will learn to fight for more than just the thrill of the fight.”
Akuma had his thumb over the end button as she finished speaking, but after a moment he reluctantly removed it. He didn’t understand what she was talking about, blithering on about lion’s souls and true potential, but he did catch her mentioning of fighting. He was fine with fighting for himself and the excitement he got from battling a good opponent, but the way the voice had spoken seemed to imply that listening to her would bring fights his way. He didn’t say anything, but waited with the decision of listening to what she had to say.
He was immediately voiced instructions over the phone, directions on where he was supposed to go. He was supposed to catch a train in under ten minutes according to the message. She certainly wasn’t planning on making this easy, was she? Sighing with irritation and already feeling like he was going to regret listening to this strange lady, he pocketed the phone and dashed out the door of his apartment.
~~~~~
In the end, he decided it was a stupid thing for him to do, listening to a random stranger. After taking that train, as well as a few connecting trains afterwards to get where he needed to go, he was ordered onto an elevator that seemed to send him miles underground, hundreds of floors below the lowest level of the train station. There he found a new terminal that he felt had no affiliation with the station above him, flocked with people of all ages, but the vast majority being kids of age twelve or younger and the second largest gathering being teenagers. By then, he had already been kicking himself over listening to the strange woman, but decided to continue after going on this far.
Told to choose a train, he wandered through the terminal, towering over everyone else there. Deciding any train was as good as the next, he finally just picked the one he was standing next to at his decisive moment and got on. He was the only one there as it began to take off but a moment later. Pacing the compartments, he was constantly glancing at his cell phone at the time for new instructions. It was during one of those cursory glances that the phone had begun to glow. It was the second time that day that he nearly dropped it as it began changing into the strangest looking of devices he’d ever seen, like some gold and black futuristic pager. Soon afterwards, he found himself dumped out by the train and on a platform in the middle of the desert. He hadn’t stopped scolding himself over his decision to listen to the woman on his phone since then.
As he trudged through the desert sands, something caught his sight in the distance. Balmy leaves blew in the soft, sandy breeze, the only plant-life for miles that was more impressive then a withered old shrub. It had to be an oasis of some sort and with no better place to go, Akuma decided that the least he could do was find some fresh water so he wouldn’t eventually die out here from dehydration. Taking the best option that he could, the towering fighter changed his course to that of a straight line towards the desert haven.
Boots grinding into the grains of the wasteland under his feet, he trudged on diligently but without a particular traveling goal set in mind. For the umpteenth time, he wondered how he had gotten here and why he’d have started walking this barren landscape without a clue as to where he was, grumbling in his mind but not letting any of it leak out onto his rigid and disciplined exterior. It was a rhetorical question, anyways, as he knew precisely how he had gotten here. It started with that voice on his cell phone and ending with that talking train dumping his ass onto a platform in the middle of this whole mess. As he walked, events from earlier that day began to play through his mind as he irritably considered what would have led him to listen to that stupid voice in the first place.
~~~~~
~Earlier That Day~
“He’s the goliath of the modern age! Over the last few months he’s been tearing through the competition and no one whose stepped into the ring with him has stepped out alive, lets hear it for Kyojin!”
The announcer stepped aside for the colossus of a human being as he strutted around the arena grounds, roaring into the stands. He had to be standing over nine feet in height, a towering monster in human form. Muscles bulged and long, stringy black hair half concealed the brutish features of his face. He lived it up for the audience as his fans cheered him on and his dissenters voiced their distaste with harassments. He seemed to almost crave the attention, seemed to love the fact that people wanted him to draw blood from another person. He’d probably be living the same life, minus the cheering, if he hadn’t made it into this underground Yakuza fighting circuit, but fortunately for him someone recognized his thuggish potential. Now he was able to live the life of a hero rather than a criminal.
“And now the one you’ve all been waiting for! He’s the demon of the ring, the undefeated champion of the underground fighting circuit, welcome in Akuma Tsuyosa!”
If the noise had been thunderous before, it was beyond deafening at this point. Everyone in the audience and wherever else this was being broadcast to through backwater channels knew the name of the man who’d never lost a single match since his earliest rookie-year fights. The man who, despite the dangers of the ring, had never killed a single opponent, but always left them down for the count. He was applauded by some who enjoyed his dominating strength and the excitement and shock it often brought to the mention, others hated him for not sinking to the level of the other competitors and giving them the blood and pain they thirsted for. The man who never seemed to give a damn about the fans in the first place as he started to approach the ring.
Akuma Tsuyosa’s advance was much more subdued then his opponent’s. He had never been interested in giving a show for the crowd, to please the ring’s spectators and operators, he just wanted to fight. As he strolled forward, he considered his opponent. He pitied Kyojin for his amateurish ways. The man was obviously a lucky fool who had made it all this way on his raw power alone. It wasn’t often that Akuma could say he had to look up at someone, being a towering and imposing figure himself, but this just happened to be one of those times as he stepped into the arena. It didn’t intimidate him in the slightest, though, because all the man had was his size. The outcome of this match was already assured.
The announcer quickly escorted himself out of the ring, because it wasn’t looking like the muscle-brained Kyojin was going to be able to wait any longer. Restraint didn’t seem to be in the dim-witted beast’s vocabulary. As soon as he was clear, the announcer gave the clear for the fight to commence. Akuma’s opponent wasted no time in getting to the main attraction, as with a wide, savage grin he came in charging, his hands outstretched, preparing to tackle his opponent with all of his weight before tearing him to shreds. Akuma stared him down the whole way with intense, piercing eyes, never budging from the position he’d taken since before the start of the fight. He waited for his opponent to come to him, all the while feeling that he’d be ashamed if this took even one second longer then it had to.
Rearing back a fist at the last second, Akuma leaned in, ducking through the outstretched arms in one fluid motion, and thrust out a powerful punch to the man’s lower abdomen at the last possible moment before he would have been trampled. It stopped the giant man dead in his tracks, the overwhelming strength of his smaller opponent not only knocking the wind out of him but likely breaking multiple ribs in the process, practically confirmed by the loud cracking sounds that flooded the arena. The audience which had been cheering during the whole moment of Kyojin’s charge now fell deathly silent. Stepping out from under the colossus, Akuma let him fall flat to the stage floor, completely knocked out. Without waiting for any form of response, the fighting champion began to walk off stage, only after reaching the exit to the far wall did he hear the voice of the recovering announcer follow him and officially announce his victory.
_____
When he returned to his apartment in the well-to-do sector of Shibuya, Japan, there were already dozens of messages on his recording machine, all from management staff involved with the fighting circuit. A couple were congratulations, but most were messages of anger that he would end the fight so immediately. What they had spent weeks publicizing he had ended in seconds. He turned on his cell phone which had been off since he began preparing for his fight that day and found that it was filled with a number of similar messages. He tossed it to the bed without a second glance. It was their own damn faults that the match had had such a quick outcome. The fight had been a disgusting excuse for competition in Akuma’s eyes and he didn’t care if it made them look bad to throw him into a ring with such a weakling. If they wanted good matches out of him then they should find him good challengers to face.
Lately, he had been growing tired of the fighting ring. His thirst for the fight and the adrenaline spike that came with it hadn’t diminished at all, but the quality of the arena contestants was starting to drop. That or else he was becoming too strong to get any real challenge out of that world anymore. But if he couldn’t find a decent fight there he wondered if he could find it anywhere. The Yakuza-run underground fighting circuit was the most intense and dangerous fighting scene in the entire nation of Japan, if he couldn’t satisfy his desire for combating against strong opponents there, where could he?
The cell phone on his bed gave off a loud ring to cut through his brooding thoughts. As he snatched up the phone, expecting another complaint call, he noticed that it was actually a text message without a name for the sender. Everyone involved with running the fighting circuit would want to tell him off in conversation, not letter, he wondered what this could be. Deciding to accept the message, he almost dropped it when an audio file seemingly attached to the message went off at a volume the phone couldn’t normally reach, so that he didn’t even have to bring it to his ear to listen.
“Akuma Tsuyosa,” the female voice announced, “It’s time to decide your future.”
“Hmm?” the fighter listened, not amused, “What kind of crock is this?”
“This is not a fraud, Akuma.” The voice continued, “Your destiny is calling.”
“Destiny,” Akuma scoffed, “Yeah, right.” His thumb moved for the end button.
“You have a lion’s spirit buried deep inside your heart.” the voice went on, speeding up as if knowing he was about to cut off the transmission and wanting to get out what she had to say before he could, “You’ll never unlock your true potential with what you’re doing now. Listen and you will learn to fight for more than just the thrill of the fight.”
Akuma had his thumb over the end button as she finished speaking, but after a moment he reluctantly removed it. He didn’t understand what she was talking about, blithering on about lion’s souls and true potential, but he did catch her mentioning of fighting. He was fine with fighting for himself and the excitement he got from battling a good opponent, but the way the voice had spoken seemed to imply that listening to her would bring fights his way. He didn’t say anything, but waited with the decision of listening to what she had to say.
He was immediately voiced instructions over the phone, directions on where he was supposed to go. He was supposed to catch a train in under ten minutes according to the message. She certainly wasn’t planning on making this easy, was she? Sighing with irritation and already feeling like he was going to regret listening to this strange lady, he pocketed the phone and dashed out the door of his apartment.
~~~~~
In the end, he decided it was a stupid thing for him to do, listening to a random stranger. After taking that train, as well as a few connecting trains afterwards to get where he needed to go, he was ordered onto an elevator that seemed to send him miles underground, hundreds of floors below the lowest level of the train station. There he found a new terminal that he felt had no affiliation with the station above him, flocked with people of all ages, but the vast majority being kids of age twelve or younger and the second largest gathering being teenagers. By then, he had already been kicking himself over listening to the strange woman, but decided to continue after going on this far.
Told to choose a train, he wandered through the terminal, towering over everyone else there. Deciding any train was as good as the next, he finally just picked the one he was standing next to at his decisive moment and got on. He was the only one there as it began to take off but a moment later. Pacing the compartments, he was constantly glancing at his cell phone at the time for new instructions. It was during one of those cursory glances that the phone had begun to glow. It was the second time that day that he nearly dropped it as it began changing into the strangest looking of devices he’d ever seen, like some gold and black futuristic pager. Soon afterwards, he found himself dumped out by the train and on a platform in the middle of the desert. He hadn’t stopped scolding himself over his decision to listen to the woman on his phone since then.
As he trudged through the desert sands, something caught his sight in the distance. Balmy leaves blew in the soft, sandy breeze, the only plant-life for miles that was more impressive then a withered old shrub. It had to be an oasis of some sort and with no better place to go, Akuma decided that the least he could do was find some fresh water so he wouldn’t eventually die out here from dehydration. Taking the best option that he could, the towering fighter changed his course to that of a straight line towards the desert haven.