Zen Arcade | Track 01
- something i learned today
Three Months Ago.His legs really, really stung. If people wanted to know why this job got harder on the knees the bigger you got, it was only partially because of weight and stress and this and that and the other : more than anything you took a beating because, win or lose, your opponent did the best they could to cripple you
every match. And of course, Narita Daisuke, veteran that he was, wouldn't be an exception to that rule.
But Narita did something that he
didn't get from all his other opponents - the fucking
lectures.
"You were always talented, Tsuruga Kazuma," he says from the top of Kazuma's back, twisting the joint unnaturally, "but you never learned -"
Shit. Narita was pushing 45, pretty close to ancient in wrestling years, let alone puro years, and the old man was still lecturing him like he was a kid. He grunted and kicked him off of the hold. He rushed forward, hoping to knock him down, but Narita seamlessly slid out of the way and dropkicked the sore part of his knee. Above him, Narita said something that sounded like "when to exercise restraint," and was already going to the turnbuckle. Tsuruga heard the squeak of his weight against the turnbuckle and knew that he needed to make his move quickly.
He let his hatred fuel him. As Narita sprang off the bottom rope, Tsuruga put his weight onto his good knee and shot a hard kick into Narita's gut that made a satisfying sound and curled his opponent into a ball like a sleeping newborn. He rushed over, not taking anytime to gloat over the punishment, and locked him into a collar and elbow tieup. Most people who saw Tsuruga thought they would outlast him, tire him out as the fight wore on, but if anything, inflicting pain or even taking it gave him a special rush of energy. If anything, he was feeling stronger as the match wore on. It was a little easier to push Narita around the ring now - Narita's own legs were slowly but surely wearing down over the course of the fight, and there would be less and less of Narita to worry about as it went on. He gave the veteran a hard shove into the turnbuckle and gloated into his ear.
"You made one comeback too many, old man," he said, a couple of teeth sticking out from his crazed grin.
"You're finished this time. And I am going to finish you."The taunt didn't work out as much as he'd hoped. Narita had been through too many wars to waste any of his fading energy for the sake of pride. He just let out a short "We'll see," (even shorter in Japanese), and threw a couple of short kicks to the legs. Tsuruga shook his head - Narita didn't have anywhere near enough leverage to make anything of those kicks. He hocked up a thick wad of flem and spat it into the struggling man's eyes before pasting him with a back elbow. Outside of a couple of cries from the back aisles, there wasn't much reaction even from this dirty tactic - and Tsuruga liked it that way. Most of the gaijin that did shows for ASPEN - especially Jack Darling - had some kind of obsessive ego thing with getting the crowds to boo them. It wasn't a big surprise in Darling's case; you could tell by looking at him that he was used to trying to make the world bend to his every whim. But of course, as soon as Darling picked up his paycheck, he'd go back to America and lecture crowds about giving him respect. Here, they provided it naturally, and as far as he was concerned, it was best that way. Who gave any of them the right to stand in judgment of what he did inside the ring?
The blind man threw a big haymaker that even Tsuruga - who, while not
quite as slow as he looked, was not exactly renowned for his agility - managed to weave away from before snapping out a kick to Narita's thigh that echoed like rolling thunder all the way to the back and buckled his legs. A second kick, just as fast as the first and almost as brutal, hit just as he shifted his weight and sent him to his knees. He threw a big elbow across the jaw then roughly grabbed his head, driving a series of knees right between the eyes - the gash that resulted was thick, ugly, uneven.
Good. He coulda sworn that he
smelled the fresh blood flowing off of him - the thrill whipped him into a frenzy. He'd spent years listening to the advice, but finally he'd turned the corner, he was finally going to shut him up once and for all, finally
break him. He pushed him back into the corner and pasted him with palm strikes to the head at full force, and after just barely putting up token defense for the first blows, Narita drooped, his eyes went vacant, and he did little more than stare into the punishment as it came. Finally, the ref shoved Tsuruga a half step backwards and steps in, calling for the bell.
The first seconds felt great, felt just like the moment he'd been so thirsty for for so long, roaring and circling the ring with his fist raised to the sky. But things soured when he looked back to see a small crowd around the body - 5 or 6 upstarts from the ASPEN dojo, putting a wet towel over him, surrounding him like children over a wounded parent. Tsuruga put his hands on his hips and took serious note of the crowd for the first time in a while - they were on their feet, applauding politely, but warmly, proud that Narita
almost killed the giant. Proud of the effort. Just because. A small, taunting voice echoed in his head, telling him that no matter what he did inside a ring, and no matter who he beat, he'd never have a gaggle of students eager to catch him when he fell, and he would never have a crowd like this crowd : cheering for him, chanting his name even in defeat as if he'd won the match.
That may have been so. But there were other ways to satisfy that voice, weren't there? Tsuruga stomped over and shoved a student away with each arm - the rest scrambled out through the corner, not wanting to risk any further confrontation. Fine. Tsuruga pulled Narita's limp body out of the corner and lifted him into a ring shaking powerbomb that left him unnaturally bent, clearly unable to get the full range of movement in his back in the wake of a fresh injury. Good, of course. Good, but not enough. It was time to make it worse. Tsuruga pulled the dead weight to his feet and hoisted him into a Torture Rack, bending the limp body over his shoulders, and
this display of disrespect finally drew the hatred of the crowd.
Like he cared.
***
A few minutes later, of course, he was in Murasame Masake's office. He hadn't even bothered to shower or change - a little bit of Narita's blood still dotted his shirt, and the stink was so bad that even
he noticed it for once.
"So what's up, Bossman?" He leaned back, smiled, and put his feet up on Murasame's desk.
"Another successful day at the office, right?""Tsuruga. This desk has been in my family for three generations. It predates ASPEN, and it predates your existence." He leaned over the desk with a sneer. "So please
take your feet off of it."
"Fuck. You." He said it in English for emphasis. Under normal circumstances, Murasame's threats would hold water, but seeing as they both knew this conversation would probably end with him getting fired - he decided he'd go out like a fucking rebel.
"Narita... is a leader of the ASPEN Dojo, he's one of the legends of this sport, and more importantly, he's the man who trained you. This isn't America. We don't attack people after the bell to prove a point, because the points get proven between the bells. Can that idea make it through your thick skull?"
Tsuruga rubbed his hand along his chin.
"You know what else he was? He was the ASPEN World Champion. And you want to talk about America? This is the second "non title match" I've been in and the second world champ I've beat, and what do I have to show for it? Fucking nothing. Since when do we do all THOSE gimmicks around here?""Your unhappiness with your place here is no excuse to attack someone when they can't defend themselves!"
"Narita wasn't defending himself much during the match either.""He's a damaged nerve in his back now, at least. You should learn to be gracious in victory!"
"You should learn to have champions that aren't so frail. Hahaha!"Maybe the boss was pissed off that Tsuruga wasn't properly ashamed, but the laughter drew him to his feet. "The reason we don't put you in title matches is because you embarrass the damn company every time you get the opportunity! Like tonight! How many talented people are going to stay away from signing here because of your little stunt?"
Another laugh. Knowing that you're about to get fired gives you all kinds of "truth to power" courage, doesn't it?
"How many talented people are going to stay away from signing here because your kid likes fucking Super Sentai and you want to play dressup with the midcard? Look, if you wanna fire me, go right ahead. There's always somebody desperate enough to throw the money at me.""You know what you are?" He pounds the table. "Worthless! Less than worthless! A parasite on the backs of better men than you!"
For some reason, a reason he wasn't ever really sure of, something snapped inside of him. He'd spent his entire career, practically every day since he left high school, letting people higher up on the totem pole use him because that was the tradition, that was what was supposed to be done! And this promoter was going to sit in a chair after he'd almost killed himself and act like he was owed something? Owed anything? He reached over the table and grabbed Murasame by the neck.
"Parasite? PARASITE? PARASITE?" The office door flew open in mere moments, triggered by the screaming from outside (and maybe anticipated thanks Tsuruga's previous escapades). It felt like half the locker room was there, pulling the two of them apart. Of course, as soon as Murasame was free, he was yelling the usual threats about his career. A part of him thought, "eh, whatever", but something in the corner of his mind told him that it was probably going to be a
long time before he could work for ASPEN again.
Or anywhere in Japan, for that matter.
***
San Diego. There's a tight shot of a locker room door, and Kirsten Shelley walks into the shot, walking gingerly on her tip toes. Shelley makes a signal to the camera and gets ready to roll.
“Hello to all our TGW fans around the country, this is Kirsten Shelley with an exclusive report - we are less than a day removed from the events of last week's episode of Animosity - we watched a lot of thrilling action, but I can't imagine that many of our fans are pleased with what we saw in the main event, when a mystery man came out from the crowd and brutally attacked controversial superstar JAGI. We did our legwork, and we identified the assailant as Japanese performer Kazuma Tsuruga, and we also discovered that he signed a formal contract with True Glory Wrestling in the hours after the show."
"And that leads me here, that is why I'm here to catch up with Mr. Tsuruga in the aftermath of his shocking debut and ask all the questions that the public wants to know.” Kirsten raps on the door a couple of times. "Are you in there?"
Slowly, the door creaks open as Shogun Tsuruga finally pushes through it.
The recapper wasn't exaggerating in the heat of the moment - Tsuruga was a mountain, just a shade under seven feet, with greasy, unkempt hair that hung like a curtain over his eyes and made him looks like a shaggy dog. He's in full ring attire, wearing a sweat stained shirt that says "ATARI TEENAGE RIOT" on the logo, which does a decent job of minimizing his protruding gut.
Kirstin curled her nose a little - partially from the creepy, lecherous smile he gave her and partially because he smelled like he'd just had a workout - and tried to look behind him, not sure if some fast talking "agent" was going to slide in behind him. "Um... how's your English?"
Tsuruga bit his tongue. Garbage like this was why he'd thought about getting a manager for so long. He was more than willing to give up ten percent of his check to let somebody else give long winded speeches to the morons that paid to watch these shows, but Teresa was somewhere in the hairy asshole of South America, and there wasn't anybody on the west coast that he trusted to do a decent job.
If it was up to him, he'd let the beaten pile of bodies do the talking for him - but he needed to make this work. Work in Japan, let alone ASPEN, wasn't coming anytime soon. If he wanted the paycheck, he had to do the talking. It wasn't the end of the world, anyway. He was from a grueling physical hell - everything and everybody in California was soft from the looks of things. Rotten from the inside out. But that was fine, in a way. Soft things were easily exploited. For this kind of opportunity, he'd talk until his mouth got dry.
Tsuruga rolled his eyes and spoke very, very slowly with a billowing voice.
"Yeeeeees. Speak Ennnnnnglish.""OK, no need to get snappish. I guess we should start with the obvious - did AJ Donavon pay you a wad of hundred dollar bills to come out of the crowd and
chokeslam Ja Gi Kyung-Moon?"
"No.""No?"
"He paid me two wads of hundred dollar bills. One before the show, and one after I got the job done. To be honest, I would have done it for free, in fact I would have paid to do it. See, I watched the promos before I got here. JAGI spent all last week rambling about folders and management and title shots and what he thinks he deserves because he signed on with this place week one. He caused really big ripples. Like a fish farting in the Pacific. The fact is, I never went in for all those gimmicks. Because I never needed them. If something's in my way, I punch him, her, or it in the face and it falls down. I don't spend a month begging for a hall pass from management. I made a bigger mark on this company with ten seconds of action than that pussy made reading the phonebook every week and weeping about his spot. So last week, everybody got what they wanted. AJ Donovan got another contender out of his way. Franchise got a win, Cody gets sabotage himself in the name of doing the right thing, and me? I got a body to break in half, a notch in the headboard, the first of many nameless victims..."Tsuruga stops and laughs to himself.
"And if the rumors are true, then JAGI got a couple of guys in suits to wish him the best in his future endeavors. But no matter where he goes and no matter what he does, I hope he takes a little tape of that beating and replays it to remind him of what'll happen if he ever goes toe to toe with a real warrior again. And if he ever pulls himself out of the dirt and wanders back into this company? I'll be more than happy to put him back six feet deeper than he was before. See, after I rolled his beaten body under the ropes, after I took that fresh roll of money from the TGW Champion, after I left this arena, I didn't feel shame and I didn't feel remorse. I called a cab and I went to have the biggest steak of my life, and trust me, I can put away a steak. And as I sat there, I thought, this is what I should be doing every night that I'm here. I ran with the big dogs in ASPEN, I faced some of the best in the world and I beat most of them. But this is America, and it's time for the big dog to eat.""So, now that AJ Donavon has purchased your services -"
"Stop."There's a long pause as Tsuruga clears his hair from his eyes (it falls right back over again, of course)...
"I'm going to be absolutely clear about what AJ Donavon bought from me at Animosity, so I don't have to hear the filth of the planet speculate about it over the internet. What he bought wasn't a bodyguard, or a tag team partner, or even a friend. He bought a job, redeemable for one victim, and he cashed it in. From here on out, I've got my own hitlist, and everyone on this roster is on it. And if that means Wade Mason gets tired of seeing me embarrass all of his inferior talent and makes me the champion that I deserve to be? Great. And if I get there through the power of attrition? Even better. And I won't need any magic folder to do it, I won't need to win three matches in a row -""Well, there's a lot of people backstage that are after that belt -"
Tsuruga suddenly pivots and leans down into Krisin's face, casting a very long shadow over a nervous interviewer.
"I want you to take a look at me, milk duds. Take a good. Long. Look. Are there ANY three people backstage who are stupid enough to get between me and anything I want?"Shogun Tsuruga squints and gives a devious smile.
"I hope so. I doubt it, but I really, really hope so.""Uh, OK."
He straightens back up, and Shelley continues.
"Well, all that aside, you've got your first
legitimate challenger this week in David Cage."
"Legitimate? Legitimate? You're calling David Cage... legitimate? This little company must really, really need me if pathetic backbenching pissants like David Cage get to call themselves legitimate anything. Hey, Cage. You beaten anybody yet? AJ Donavon? Cody Only? The fat fuck who sells hotdogs in the aisles?"Kirsten cocks an eyebow, but Tsuruga continues.
"I didn't think so. Are you sick of being the fucking welcome mat of this promotion? It was fun watching that freakshow bitch from New Orleans destroy you over and over through the last few weeks - sent a tingle down my spine. And the only thing different you can expect from me is that when I'M finished with you, it'll be so clear, so overwhelming, and so one-sided that management won't bother asking anyone to pay to see it again. I've hospitalized plenty of tough talking wannabes just like you, so I know it won't be any problem. And you've got the nerve to talk about other people acting like cookie cuter teenagers? I swear I'm not exaggerating here, every promotion on this forsaken continent I looked into had a guy with a haircut just like yours, a big square jaw just like yours, and disgusting tattoos on his arms that looked almost exactly like the ones you've got on now. And almost all of them had some weak little chump struggling with their "dark side" - schizophrenia or split personality or some other trash like that. You keep in mind that at Animosity, the man staring a hole into you from across the ring will be a hundred percent dark side and zero percent control. You might be crazy to be in this line of work, and retarded to get in a ring with me, but when I'm done you can add a concussion to the list at least, and hopefully a little Alzheimer's disease. You'd finally have something common with Muhammad Ali, and plus? I think watching you shake around whenever you open your trap would make your promos a little more worth watching.""This country's got a long proud tradition of professional circus freaks stepping into the world of professional warriors. You aren't any different. Hearing you constantly whine about your ex-wife and your little kid and your brother - by the way, I've got it on really good authority that he's just as worthless in a fight as you are. Your soap opera stories don't carry any weight with me, Cage. Maybe your wife got tired of coddling a fucking loser, watching you cry into her skirt every week, carrying you through your career. Maybe she wanted to step up -" here, Tsuruga pauses, thumps his chest twice and smiles that sleazy, sleazy smile -
"to a real man. Either way, I don't blame her. I've had to listen to a tape of you for ten minutes and I already want to crack your teeth open with my fucking boot, you little crybaby. I can't imagine how annoying you are in person. Lucky for me, I don't get paid by the minute. Cage? If you've got any sense of self-preservation stay on the couch and pass the cheetos to your washed up brother. It's been a little since I've experienced real combat, felt real blood on my knuckles, savored the panic in the eyes of an opponent who knows there's no way out - and I'm thirsty for it. Wade Mason? It is not my job to dispose of your company's garbage, so once I've destroyed your little appetizers here, you'd better find me some competition that is worth my time.""Ladies and Gentlemen, that's Kazuma Tsuruga, taking on David Cage next week on Animosity, and -"
Tsuruga sneers and walks off, not even bothering to sit and listen to the rest of Kirsten's lame sales pitch.