Welcome to Mabase, Japan.
You probably won't like it here. The Medical Mechanica building's over there. And that down there is my house, the Bakery Shop down at the left. This town really isn't anything special. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happens here.
My name is Naota Nandaba. This is my life.
And didn't you already know? It's ending one minute at a time.
F . L . C . L. : How To Start A Fight
Bad Ronald
"Why do you try to justify something like this? Your beliefs? Your goals? Why try and be something you can't possibly be?
Why try and become someone who honestly wouldn't give two shits about you? Just let go. Just fall. If you fly or if you hit the ground, you're already past caring.
That's the great thing about self-destruction. To become who you are, to truly be yourself, you have to destroy your past image. You have to destroy something beautiful."
- Takkun
One.
She says she's not Haruko. She's lying. She says she's actually Haruko's Superior and would you please call her "Superior Raharu". She's still lying. Even after all we've been through, she still lies.
This "Superior Raharu" is asking me to listen. It's not my fault I can't help staring at her. She's so beautiful. Listen, Haruko disobeyed her orders and she fell in love with some boy. This boy, he's from this pathetic little planet called Earth. Listen, Haruko broke the Eroero Laws. Look, she already knows she looks like Haruko, but really, she's not. Listen, Haruko's on the run from the Galaxy Space Police brotherhood even as we speak. Right now, she says.
No. I can't bear it anymore. Stop lying to me, Haruko. You can go ahead and lie all you want, but I'm going to tell you the truth. I love you, Haruko.
She replies back, "I am the Superior Raharu."
And she still won't admit it.
Even after all we've been through, she still lies. She smirks down at me and I finally notice that we're too close together. Her long legs in pink webbed stocking are wrapped around my torso, the same thing like a snake enshrouding a prey but a lot more sexier. Looking up at her smirk, I know that for serious, if I licked her lips right now, my tongue would be boiled.
She smirks down at me, this sexy, out of this world, steaming hot smirk, and I don't know, but I think I've already wet myself. My ribs are crushing my lungs, my trachea is tightening up, my mouth is cracked dry. My tongue feels like a sea slug poking out through a hardened shell. All she has to do is smirk down at me and I'm already quivering for her.
"And this…" Her hand lifts to touch her firmly toned breasts. "And this…" Her hand lifts to touch her dripping chin. "And this…" Her fingers brush past her short jaggedly cut pink neck-level hair. "And this…" Her hand touches steaming hot moist red lips. Her glossy gleaming lips open and her tongue isn't a sea slug, it's a red beautiful thing, sliding gently over the edges of her mouth.
"This", Haruko says, "is the superior Haruko Haruhara."
After all we've been through, finally, she tells the truth.
I don't remember closing my eyes, but when I open them, my cheeks feel doused in curry. Haruko's cheeks are scarlet red and she looks guilty. Our faces are like inches apart and when I look down, there's this small strand of saliva between our lips. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it was a kiss.
"Keep going." Haruko says. "No, really." For serious?
This great big passionate wet dirty kiss. This is how it started and this is how it ends.
Takkun is special. He's so great. Our national anthem, but if Takkun had his own way, national anthems wouldn't exist. So let's just call it an ode.
Ode to Takkun: Takkun Datsu, everyone worships him. So brave, so courageous, so uncaring. And so cool. He's everything we can't be. He's also really mad at me. Well, maybe not. It's a little hard to tell. When he's mad, he looks sad, but he's feeling 'all right'. And vice versa: All right, to sad, to mad.
"I'm not mad at you." Takkun says. Somehow, he almost always knows what I'm thinking. "Not you, Naota. I'm mad at society. The society that forged you, Naota, the society that made you, had you, spurned you. Well. All right, okay. Maybe I am a little mad at you. You little prick."
He checks his watch. He always carries a watch. The watch is a gaudy silver scratched stopwatch that he flips around sometimes.
"One minute left. Two students remaining." He says. He laughs at his little stupid Battle Royale joke. He loves that movie for some reason.
The bass guitar he's holding, a blood-red Fender Telecaster, thumps the floor. Fresh and old bruises pockmark the design with some of the metal chipped off in places. I ask him while tied up to his Vespa, shouldn't it be tweaked up to A-note? He doesn't answer and I know he doesn't really care.
He did push aside the Fender Stratocaster, king of all guitars; to get his trademark battered Telecaster, after all. What he wants, he gets. What he gets, he uses. And what he uses, he cherishes it for life, and then throws it away. The legendary pile of leftover shit dumped by Takkun. Like me.
"Don't ever think like that." Takkun says. "I'll never throw you away. You're too important to me." Somehow, Takkun always knows what I'm thinking. "I'm dragging you through this, Naota, kicking and screaming. You're going to understand totally and you're going to love me in the end."
Takkun stares out the huge window and puts his hands on the glass. He looks like a kid looking through an aquarium filled with sharks.
"Fuck you." Takkun says. "I'm not a kid."
I'm tied down to his hot-pink Vespa, feeling like those women in the old American movies that my dad used to watch, those blonde damsels in distress tied down to train tracks.
Takkun says, "Faggot." His Fender Telecaster thumps the floor. "That's not why I tied you up, you know."
I know. I know this because Takkun knows this. To get to space, I faithfully recite; you have to use a Vespa. Most of gravity weighs down on a rocket, space shuttle, even a spaceship of extraterrestrial origins. Simply, gravity doesn't like those things.
"The Vespa's a bribe." Takkun says. "It's a bribe to gravity. Think of gravity as some asshole cop and the Vespa like a shiny gold bar. It's small, compact, completely maneuverable. The Vespa, the perfect interstellar transportation vehicle. If you have the supplies, Naota, you can make a Vespa go to space. But of course, you already know this."
I know this because Takkun knows this.
Takkun smiles and moves away from the window. He looks at me and sighs. "Do you want me to deliver you now?" He asks.
Deliver us, I mockingly say. Deliver us from the depths of sorrow. Deliver us from the constant boring lives we're forced to lead. Deliver us, oh great Takkun Datsu. But please, not just yet.
Takkun says, "You still don't believe in me, but you will. I don't care much for legends, but after this, everyone will know us. They're going to love us, forever. We'll be legends. Famous across the universe."'
His Fender Telecaster, fresh and old bruises, thumps the floor. He tells me, "Legends never die. We're going to live forever. Not just for a decade or a millennium or an era. We're going to live forever."
Takkun, I say. Takkun, you're thinking of aliens. You're thinking of her. You're thinking of Haruko Haruhara.
He leans over and grabs the collar of my shirt, almost ripping it off. He says, "Don't mention that thing around me. She almost destroyed you, Naota, and she almost destroyed us."
My eyelids feel sliced open with a razor when I finally peer through the bruised cracks. My forehead still bulges, shaking with some unknown force from inside my skull. Below the great skin horn on my head, I can see the golden hand-iron shaped Medical Mechanica complex from out the window.
"You think the giant hand'll pick it up?" Takkun asks, referring to those humongous clumps of all these metal pieces that happen to shape a giant hand, resting like a junkyard dump next to the Medical Mechanica complex.
I think, maybe. I think, it did, last time.
Takkun walks over to me and taps my bulging forehead, smirking. I can tell he's really tired, he's never been this tired before in his whole life, but he still soldiers on.
He says, "I want to see this through the end."
So, for him, and for Takkun only, I think back to the time this all started. I was here at the beginning. I was here all the way, so I'm the only one who's going to tell this story all the way to the end. For him.
For you, Takkun.
And are you listening? Testing, testing… One, two, three.
Canti's face screen is always blank. That's pretty much why most fighters get unnerved before they can even stand toe-to-toe with him. His face screen is blank, an emotionless static blue, the basic concept used in the old times of gladiators. Or torturers.
Simple psychology.
The Romans used it best. The Romans, they were B.T., Before Takkun. Roman emperors, they always wanted to give their audience a wonderful little show. Like say, oh, a wonderful little battle to the death. When they had the gladiator thing going on, these emperors always pitted two particular kinds of men against each other for top audience enjoyment. And it never failed. It always worked.
The match of the century. Some guy, a skinny, small wiry man, versus a huge, muscle-bound freak of a man. This freak's hands are big enough to crush boulders; he can probably bench-press a ton. When they meet, they fight, and when they fight, one of them dies.
The huge man freak's face; forget about it, you can't see it. The face is gone, already covered under layers of armor wrapped around his face, plated armor with barely a slit to see through. Because of this helmet, he is so scary. You can't see his emotions so he's just this big mountain of a man without a face trying to kill you. Cover anyone's face with a cool looking helmet, and you already have an instant badass.
The skinny, wiry small man, this poor guy. You can't help but feel sorry for him. He absolutely can't have a cool helmet or mask. It would ruin the whole effect. Because the audience needs to see his every twinge of fear, his every moment of pain, every triumph of joy. Because the audience is screaming for blood and it's the men's job to satisfy them. Because of that, they use this.
Simple psychology, really. A case of David versus Goliath on a grand scale. Similar to Canti versus… well, anyone.
Canti gets beaten and falls to the ground. The cluster circle of men around us is roaring with so much intensity that you're hearing the roar of the downfall of a giant. Canti struggles up to his feet and with one good swing, he wins the fight. The place is so silent, you can hear a pin drop. This crowd of shirtless, shoeless men that was just cheering his destruction, now reverent with awe.
Behold, if you dare. If you dare, look into his blank impassive face screen. Look into the static television miniature box set he has for a head and behold, the new resurrected mechanical version of the muscle-bound freak gladiator.
There's one thing you have to know about Canti. He's a supposedly high performance, state-of-the-art robot from Medical Mechanica, but to most people he's just another version of the walking Honda humanoid robot. Only he's better looking. Still, he's just as useless. All he can really do is pick up stuff, pass messages, wave at people. Cute, but really, who cares?
Just a waste of taxpayer money. A heap of bolt and nuts, he's practically useless to all of society. Nobody notices because they don't care, and if you don't care, how can you even begin to use it?
Or want to, for that matter?
The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.
But for twelve minutes, Canti's a god in the ring. Canti, all clumsy useless 12 feet of his entire metallic frame is now Zeus in all his steel-sculpted prime. Nobody ever tags Canti, they all pass him on to the rest and the rest pass him on to the rest, and so on. He's the scariest fighter around. Only the insane dare to take him on. I'm one of the insane ones. I want to fight Canti.
Mamimi's Lord of the Black Flame.
Our Lord of the Fight.
Not tagging Canti for a fight is like eating Little Prince Curry when you could be chowing down on a bowl full of Habaneros. That's not everyone's thing, but it's mine now.
I've grown up. The sweet and sour stuff don't amount to anything anymore. I eat them every morning and I drink that stuff to wake myself up. Only now, it's hot jalapeno peppers. Habaneros chips. Wasabi. I can tell just by color and texture which ones are the hottest, which ones can burn my tongue down, and I swallow those without a second thought.
A 12-step system, Takkun says. To becoming your true self. To rise from the ashes. To be someone you truly can be. Just yourself.
The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club!
The man opposite Canti, stripped to the waist, no shirts, no shoes, used to be standing upright. Now he's reduced, a simpering wreck, struggling to breathe on the cardboard covered floor. Moaning and vomiting blood, crying for his mother.
And Canti, useless Honda robot v.2 Canti, scary Lord of the Fight freak gladiator Canti, he picks the man up from the floor like a kid scooping up a pile of dirt. Canti pats the man lightly in the back, his giant baseball-mitt hand of steel slapping against bruised flesh. The man hawks and vomits again. The man smiles his slopping bloody black-eyed broken tooth smile. He spits crimson with bile leaking down his mouth and nostrils.
He says, "Thanks." Thanks for beating the shit out of me. Thanks for giving me the greatest moment of my life. Thanks, Cantido-Sama.
Mamimi's Lord of the Black Flame.
Our Lord of the Fight.
Thanks for cleansing me and setting me free. Canti merely nods in response. He doesn't wave to people anymore. He just nods now. His face-screen is still the same.
Static bluish-blank.
Author's Notes: I tried to emulate Chuck Palahniuk's writing style but failed so miserably that now this story's written in a stylethat's probably everything Palahniuk stands against. So all I can say is that it has aspects of his style in here, but other than that, it's a mesh-job that I tapped out on the fly. I tried really hard to imitate his style, I really did, but I found myself not enjoying it because I was forced to focus on copying the style instead of telling the fucking story. So for now, until I can become a better writer (or style-copier as the case may be), I'll just use my own method along with some snippets of Palahniuk's. To reduce the mental migraines, just of it as a sort of sad, ridiculous homage. To write something, I have to enjoy it. And to enjoy it, I have to write as I am, not as I do. Or some shit. You know, whatever.