No. This was something he’d force himself to wait on. He’d collect Chikara’s body and see to her burial. Then, when the time was right, he’d slaughter that prissy fuck with his bare fuckin’ hands.
Slowly, he turned and walked back across the Pit toward the door. His foot kicked against something and he looked down. There, half buried in the sand, was the scabbard to the sword that he still held half forgotten in his hand. He dropped to one knee and picked up Chikara’s saya, dusting it off. Carefully, he slid the blade into the slot in the wood. The metal made a hissing sound as it disappeared into the sheath. With a click, the sword slid into place.
The sound made his heart twist unbearably within his chest.
As deep and painful emotions swirled within him, he fought back the rising tide of his anguish. A knot the size of a man’s fist flexed in his stomach and, for a moment, a wave of tears splashed against the inside of his eyelids.
Silently, he cursed himself.
Goddammit, he should have seen this coming!!
He should have… He should have
known
.
All of the signs were there… but he’d gotten too complacent, too full of his own bullshit.
Jesus… the hubris! The fucking
ego!!
Things had been going too well for him, for them. After all this time, all of the pain and loss they’d both endured, they’d both managed to find someone that could be let inside. Someone who could be trusted. Someone to care about.
If it wasn’t exactly Love, he felt it was pretty damn close to it.
So very fucking close!!
And now, thanks to this place and these people… she was gone.
It… was gone.
Moving slowly, he got back to his feet and stiffly continued toward the door. As he moved forward, he was left little choice but to walk past the group of Warriors still congregated on the sand. Most of them stood with their heads down, their world now shattered by the death of their leader. Chikara was someone they’d all thought was as close to invincible as humanly possible. Each of them bore their thoughts—like the Kabuki makeup they wore—on their faces and those thoughts could be traced in the wake of their tears. If Death could come calling for the best of them, what did the future hold for the least of them?
Cleese walked on and the men parted without a word to let him through. He moved past, but never looked one of them in the eye. That would have been too much to bear. They’d all lost someone dear to them today, and that loss was going to take a long time to heal. Cleese strode past them silently with his eyes cast downward and continued on up and out of the Pit.
They’d have to take care of themselves now, he thought. Chikara was gone and Cleese had no intentions of taking on her students in her memory. He had more than his share of memories of her to contend with all on his own. These men may have known her longer, but she and Cleese had shared an intimacy they would never understand. It had been a connection much deeper than simple sex. This was like a twin finding their counterpart and then having them ripped away. He knew getting over this was going to take time, time and some solitary reflection. He decided he would mourn Chikara in his own time, in a proper place.
First, he had to think some shit through.
First, he had to get those ducks of his in a row and line up that exit strategy.
However, before any of that could happen, he had a little something he needed to take care of.
Extreme Prejudice
The Training Hall echoed with an ominous sense of finality as its heavy doors slammed shut behind Cleese. The sound echoed through the place like the news of a loved one’s sudden suicide—quick, abrupt and undeniably pitiless. Inside the expanse of the large auditorium, the air was so hot that it suppressed the urge to breathe in those gathered there. The heat sweltered and twisted in the air like the body of a man long dead. Even though the Hall was proving itself to be a hellish sauna, a few fighters still stood idly around. They gathered near the free weight area, but their work-outs were halfhearted, at best. A couple of men lazily practiced grabbing and throwing combinations on the large mat but their movements looked as if it was a great discomfort to move about in the heat. For the most part, those who were in the great hall today just hung out and offered up silent prayers for a cooling breeze.
In such heat, it was difficult to do much else.
Cleese ignored all of it—the heat, the humidity, and the men—as he entered the Hall proper and walked briskly across the mats and on toward The Octagon. As he moved through the open area of the building, his eyes roamed the corners as if he were looking for something specific. His stride was direct and his gait was purposeful. A few of the fighters milling about the mats offered up whispers to one another. A few even crossed themselves as he passed, but none were confused as to the cause of this ill temper. The news of Chikara’s death had affected each of them, but they all knew by now of the special connection between Cleese and Chikara and they paid its due respect.
As he made his way across the floor, they made sure to give him a wide and silent berth. It was as if, on some subconscious level, they could sense that whatever his purpose was for being here today, the aftermath of this foul mood would surely put a stain on the walls.
Odds were that it would do the same to a few pairs of underwear.
Down deep inside the pit, a newly recruited fighter and his trainer could be heard as they went through a set of basic drills. This early in the game, the reasoning was to get the new fighter used to being around The Dead without feeling the need to piss himself. Exposure bred familiarity and familiarity bred composure. At least that was how it was in theory. Some fighters never got used to it and they’d all paid the price. The UD they had on the lead was moving about and attacking the Cherry with a murderous intent. The thing’s face was a contorted mess and its hands were a blur as they clawed at him. The fighter batted the advances away with a cautious and unsure hand.
Cleese, for a second, had another one of those uncomfortable flashes of déjà vu.
By now, he’d gotten closer to the pit and had moved up toward the bleachers. In the distance, he was able to make out the suited form of Masterson standing at the foot of the stairs over by the far end of the stands. The big man was gesturing and talking to someone seated in front of him. From this angle, Cleese couldn’t really see who it was. He could tell from Masterson’s body language that whatever they were talking about wasn’t going well. Masterson’s demeanor and the forceful way he waved his arms and pointed emphatically betrayed the topic of discussion as being both important and personal. One thing for sure, he wasn’t happy.
As Cleese got closer, he heard Masterson’s voice hiss a name: "Monroe."
Sometimes… sometimes… life could just be too sweet.
Midsentence, Masterson caught sight of Cleese coming up the stairs and waved a dismissive hand to silence the discussion. As Cleese got closer, he could see from his posture and his expression that he was pretty tense. In fact, the word infuriated might have been a better term.
And rightly so…
The League had thrown out some wild pitches as of late. Chikara’s death was a serious and unsuspected blow to Cleese and The Warriors.
Hell, the whole damn League was reeling from the shock of her loss.
But if one took some time and thought about it, a fighter's death—even a popular one—wasn’t
that
big of a surprise given how dangerous this game was. Sometimes they forgot the truth of what it was they were doing out there on the sand. The Dead had—once not so long ago—nearly eradicated the whole of Humanity. The fact that Mankind had been able to pull itself back from the brink was a minor miracle in and of itself. Time had a way of blunting the memory of how serious it had all been… and still had the potential to be. These were high stakes they dealt with on a daily basis. Death was always just a dumb mistake away, and what happened to the best of them could easily happen to the least of them.
The important thing was that, according to all reports, things seemed to be going well for The League… and what was good for The League was good for the fighters.
Masterson had seen tapes of Cleese’s matches, and even he, a non-fan, had been impressed. Revenues were up. Internet buzz was like nothing anyone had ever seen. Corporate was as happy as newlyweds, already gearing up a line of merchandise with Cleese’s face on it: shirts, hats, hell, even foam spikes—for the kids. Recent tragedies aside, business was good.
As he watched Cleese continue to approach, Masterson silently considered how God gave every man in this life one gift: some could sing, some could erect buildings, some could paint portraits, but every man had one thing that he was able to do better than anyone else. Masterson felt his gift was his ability to lead and to make the hard decisions that often meant whether men lived or died. For Cleese, his one gift was his ability to put the hurt on other living things. It was this gift that made him a perfect match for the world Weber had made for them. The man was born and bred to be in this sport, and it was that very reason which was, undoubtedly, why his life back in the real world had amounted to such a steaming shit pile.
On more than one occasion, Masterson had tried to imagine the kind of sewer that could have bred a man like Cleese. Poverty, abuse, neglect… they were all just ingredients in a lethal recipe. Spices in a naturally toxic stew.
But then again, Masterson really didn’t really give that much of a fuck about the bastard or his childhood, if he were to be completely honest. No one was more aware than he of the fact that Cleese was simply this week’s fêted warrior. He was fuckin’ Pokemon and not a damn thing more. His time would come and go with a minimum of fanfare. Masterson knew from his tenure with The League that the UDs—given enough time and opportunity—claimed every fighter. No one was exempt. Not even the pretty ladies. Fighter’s faces came and fighter’s faces went—sometimes literally. Cleese had been a doomed man since he first stepped off of the Black Hawk.
He just didn’t know it yet.
"Cleese!" Masterson called and waved. He smiled that oily smile of his and extended his hand toward the approaching fighter.
"Masterson," said Cleese in a monotone and nodded in lieu of shaking hands. His pace, however, never slowed.
"You remember Philip Monroe, don’t you, Clee…?"
"Of course, he does," interrupted Monroe as he got to his feet and brushed at the seam of his pants. Casually, he stepped forward. "I got a message you wanted to talk to me, Buddy?"
Cleese had gotten close to the two men and, as he stepped to within arm’s reach of them, he brushed past Masterson with the same ease that he’d exhibited time after time in the pit. As he did so, he took an additional step forward, raising his right hand up toward his chest as if scratching an itch; a classic misdirection. Without warning, he suddenly snapped his hand out in an open-handed back slap, its speed more like that of a viper than any human appendage. The hall reverberated with a sharp, clapping sound as he cracked Monroe soundly across the jaw.
Far off across the Training Hall, the other fighters all stopped what they were doing and turned and stared.
Monroe stumbled backward, almost skidding like a cartoon character on the back of his heels. His knees went soft and he fell, flat back onto the bleacher’s seat. A dark red imprint resembling the back of Cleese’s hand burned hotly across his cheek.
At first, Cleese was kind of amazed. The blow was meant only to get the fuck’s attention. He hadn’t even hit him that hard, but Monroe went down with surprising ease.
Whatta bitch!
Monroe scrambled across the bench, trying his damnedest to get himself as far away from Cleese as possible.
"How
dare
you!" he shouted through rapidly puffing lips. An incoherent stream of threats of suspensions and legal action followed as he nursed his rapidly swelling face. His ponytail had come undone, leaving oiled hair hanging loosely across his eyes.
Cleese wasn’t sure, but it looked as if he was crying just a little.
Cleese crossed the distance between them with frightening speed. He deftly reached out, grabbed up a handful of Monroe’s tie and shirt collar and dragged him toward the side of the pit. It was a move he’d performed a thousand times as a bouncer in bars. It surprised the drunk by throwing his balance off and it hinted at the raw power that was at his assaulter’s disposal. It also got him up on his feet, out of the bar and into an alley where the real punishment could take place. It was—as they say—a "win-win."
Monroe began, this time as expected, to scream and screech like a little girl.
"You fucking
cunt!
" Cleese spit out, his voice dripping with hatred. "Did you really think I wouldn’t figure out your fuckin’ hare-brained shit, huh?!?" Cleese shook Monroe like a rag doll and pulled his face within inches of his own. "Who do you think you fuckin’ are with this Blofeld bullshit?"
Monroe screamed out, his voice cracking like ice. "Wha…? Let me go! What are… What are you fucking
talking
about?"
"You know damn well what I’m talking about, Knucklefuck! You set it all up, you limp dick
motherfucker! Everything!
You fucking did it all!! And…" he hesitated for a heartbeat, then, "I
know
you had a hand in what happened to Chik…"
An unexpected knot as big as a fist clogged his throat and choked off his voice.
Masterson rushed up behind Cleese and wrapped his arms around him. He did his best to pull him backward, but to his complete surprise, Cleese’s position never wavered. The man barely moved. In fact, he was so intent on getting his hands on Monroe and doing what he wanted to do with him that he didn’t notice Masterson was even there, much less any of his fervent attempts at containment.
"‘Good luck on
Fight Night
next week,’" Cleese said, his voice mimicking Monroe’s arrogant demeanor.
"Fuck you!!"